"In 1825, William L. Mackenzie described the road between York and Kingston as among the worst that human foot ever trod, and down to the latest day before the railroad era, the travellers in the Canadian stage coach were lucky if, when a hill had to be ascended, or a bad spot passed, they had not to alight and trudge ankle deep through the mud. The rate at which it was possible to travel in stage coaches depended on the elements. In spring, when the roads were water-choked and rut- gullied, the rate might be reduced to two miles an hour for several miles on the worst sections. The coaches were liable to be embedded in the mud, and the passengers had to dismount and assist in prying them out by means of rails obtained from the fences." [Footnote: Trout's Railways of Canada]
Such was the condition of the roads up to, and for a considerable time after, 1830, and such were the means provided for the public who were forced to use them. It can easily be conceived, that the inducements for pleasure trips were so questionable that the only people who journeyed, either by land or water, were those whose business necessities compelled them to do so. Even in 1837, the only road near Toronto on which it was possible to take a drive was Y'onge Street, which had been macadamized a distance of twelve miles. But the improvements since then, and the facilities for quick transit, have been very great. The Government has spent large sums of money in the construction of roads and bridges. A system of thorough grading and drainage has been adopted. In wet swampy land, the corduroy has given place to macadamized or gravel roads, of which there are about 4,000 miles in the Province. [Footnote: In order to ascertain the number of miles of macadamized roads in the Province, after hunting in vain in other quarters, I addressed a circular to the Clerk of the County Council in each county, and received thirty replies, out of thirty-seven. From these I gathered that there were about the number of miles, above stated. Several replied that they had no means of giving the desired information, and others thought there were about so many miles. I was forced to the conclusion that the road accounts of the Province were not very systematically kept.] Old log bridges have been superseded by stone, iron, and well-constructed wooden ones, so that in the older sections the farmer is enabled to reach his market with a well-loaded waggon during the fall and spring. The old system of tolls has been pretty much done away with, and even in the remote townships the Government has been alive to the importance of uninterrupted communication, and has opened up good central highways. The batteaux and sailing vessels, as a means of travel, with the old steamer and its cramped up cabin in the hold, and its slow pace, have decayed and rotted in the dockyard, and we have now swift boats, with stately saloons running from bow to stern, fitted in luxurious style, on either sides rows of comfortable sleeping rooms, and with a table d'hote served as well as at a first class modern hotel. Travelling by steamer now is no longer a tediously drawn out vexation, but in propitious weather a pleasure. A greater change has taken place in our land travel, but it is much more recent. The railroad has rooted out the stage, except to unimportant places, and you can now take a Pullman at Toronto at 7 p.m., go to bed at the proper time, and get up in Montreal at 10.30 a.m. the next day. The first railroad on which a locomotive was run was the Northern, opened in 1853, to Bradford. Since that time up to the present we have built, and now have in operation, 3,478 miles, in addition to 510 under construction or contract. [Footnote: This is exclusive of the C.P.R.]
Washington, in his farewell address, says: "Promote then, as an object of primary importance, institutions for the general diffusion of knowledge. In proportion as the structure of a government gives force to public opinion, it is essential that public opinion should be enlightened." Fifty years ago, education, even in the older and more enlightened countries, did not receive that attention which its importance to the well-being of society and the state demanded, and it is only during recent years, comparatively speaking, that the education of the masses has been systematically attempted. Indeed, it used to be thought by men of birth and culture that to educate the poor would lead to strife and confusion—that ignorance was their normal condition, and that any departure therefrom would increase their misery and discontent. Those notions have, happily, been exploded, and it is found that education is the best corrective to the evils that used to afflict society and disturb the general peace. It goes hand in hand with religion and good order, and so convinced have our rulers become of its importance to the general weal, that not only free but compulsory education has become the law of the land. It is not to be wondered at that half a century ago our school system—if we could be said to have one—was defective. Our situation and the circumstances in which we were placed were not favourable to the promotion of general education. The sparseness of the population and the extent of territory over which it was scattered increased the difficulty; but its importance was not overlooked, and in the early days of the Province grants of land were made for educational purposes. The first classical school—indeed the first school of any kind—was opened in Kingston, by Dr. Stuart, in 1785, and the first common school was taught by J. Clark, in Fredericksburg, 1786. In 1807 an Act was passed to establish grammar schools in the various districts, with a grant of L100 to each. But it was not until 1816 that the government took any steps towards establishing common schools. The Lieutenant-Governor, in his Speech from the Throne on opening the House, in January, 1830, said:—
"The necessity of reforming the Royal Grammar School was evident from your Report at the close of the session. By the establishing of a college at York, under the guidance of an able master, the object which we have in view will, I trust, be speedily attained. The delay that may take place in revising the charter of the university, or in framing one suitable to the Province and the intention of the endowment, must, in fact, under present circumstances, tend to the advancement of the institution; as its use depended on the actual state of education in the Province. Dispersed as the population is over an extensive territory, a general efficiency in the common schools cannot be expected, particularly whilst the salaries of the masters will not admit of their devoting their whole time to their profession."
As far as my recollection goes, the teachers were generally of a very inferior order, and rarely possessed more than a smattering of the rudiments of grammar and arithmetic. As the Governor points out, they were poorly paid, and "boarded around" the neighbourhood. But it is not improbable that they generally received all their services were worth. In those days most of the country youth who could manage to get to school in winter were content if they learned to read and write, and to wade through figures as far as the Rule of Three. Of course there were exceptions, as also with the teachers, but generally this was the extent of the aspiration of the rising generation, and it was not necessary for the teacher to be profoundly learned to lead them as far as they wished to go. I knew an old farmer of considerable wealth who would not allow his boys to go to school, because, he said, if they learned to read and write they might forge notes. He evidently considered "a little learning a dangerous thing," and must have had a very low estimate of the moral tone of his offspring, if he had any conception of morality at all. However, the safeguard of ignorance which the old man succeeded in throwing around his family did not save them, for they all turned out badly.
The books in use were Murray's Grammar, Murray's English Reader, Walker's Dictionary, Goldsmith's and Morse's Geography, Mayor's Spelling Book; Walkingame's and Adam's Arithmetic. The pupil who could master this course of study was prepared, so far as the education within reach could fit him, to undertake the responsibilities of life; and it was generally acquired at the expense of a daily walk of several miles through deep snow and intense cold, with books and dinner-basket in hand.
The school-houses where the youth were taught were in keeping with the extent of instruction received within them. They were invariably small, with low ceilings, badly lighted, and without ventilation. The floor was of rough pine boards laid loose, with cracks between them that were a standing menace to jackknives and slate pencils. [Footnote: Atlantic Monthly.] The seats and desks were of the same material, roughly planed and rudely put together. The seats were arranged around the room on three sides, without any support for the back, and all the scholars sat facing each other, the girls on one side and the boys on the other. The seats across the end were debatable ground between the two, but finally came to be monopolized by the larger boys and girls who, by some strange law of attraction, gravitated together. Between was an open space in which the stove stood, and when classes were drawn up to recite, the teacher's desk stood at the end facing the door, and so enabled the teacher to take in the school at a glance. But the order maintained was often very bad. In fact it would be safe to say the greatest disorder generally prevailed. The noise of recitations, and the buzz and drone of the scholars at their lessons, was sometimes intolerable, and one might as well try to study in the noisy caw-caw of a rookery. Occasionally strange performances were enacted in those country school-rooms. I remember a little boy between seven and eight years old getting a severe caning for misspelling a simple word of two syllables, and as I happened to be the little boy I have some reason to recollect the circumstance. The mistake certainly did not merit the castigation, the marks of which I carried on my back for many days, and it led to a revolt in the school which terminated disastrously to the teacher. Two strong young men attending the school remonstrated with the master, who was an irascible Englishman, during the progress of my punishment, and they were given to understand that if they did not hold their peace they would get a taste of the same, whereupon they immediately collared the teacher. After a brief tussle around the room, during which some of the benches were overturned, the pedagogue was thrown on the floor, and then one took him by the nape of the neck, and the other by the heels, and he was thrown out of doors in the snow. There were no more lessons heard that day. On the next an investigation followed, when the teacher was dismissed, and those guilty of the act of insubordination were admonished.
Dr. Thomas Rolph thus refers to the state of schools two years later: "It is really melancholy to traverse the Province and go into many of the common schools; you find a brood of children, instructed by some Anti-British adventurer, instilling into the young and tender mind sentiments hostile to the parent State; false accounts of the late war in which Great Britain was engaged with the United States; geography setting forth New York, Philadelphia, Boston, &c., as the largest and finest cities in the world; historical reading books describing the American population as the most free and enlightened under heaven, insisting on the superiority of their laws and institutions to those of all the world, in defiance of the agrarian outrages and mob supremacy daily witnessed and lamented; and American spelling books, dictionaries, and grammars, teaching them an Anti-British dialect and idiom, although living in a British Province and being subjects to the British Crown."
There was a Board of Education consisting of five members appointed to each district, who had the over-sight of the schools. Each school section met annually at what was called the School meeting, and appointed three trustees, who engaged teachers, and superintended the general management of the schools in their section. The law required that every teacher should be a British subject, or that he should take the oath of allegiance. He was paid a fee of fifteen shillings per quarter for each scholar, and received a further sum of $100 from the Government if there were not fewer than twenty scholars taught in the school.
Upper Canada College, the only one in the Province, began this year (1830), under the management of Dr. Harris. Grantham Academy, in the Niagara District, was incorporated, and the Methodist Conference appointed a Committee to take up subscriptions to build an academy and select a site. The last named, when built, was located at Cobourg, and the building which was begun in 1832 was completed in 1836, when the school was opened. There were 11 district and 132 common schools, with an attendance of 3,677, and an expenditure of L3,866 11s 61/2 d.