"The story of my life"

by Egerton Ryerson

With a view to give a summary sketch of Dr. Ryerson's exposition of the system of Public Instruction which he desired to establish, I give the following additional extracts from his first Report. After combating the objection which then existed in some quarters to the establishment of a thorough system of primary and industrial education, commensurate with the population and wants of the country, he remarked:—

The first feature then of our Provincial System of Public Instruction, should be universality. The elementary education of the whole people must, therefore, be an essential element in the legislative and administrative policy of an enlightened and beneficent government. Nor is it less important to the efficiency of such a system that it should be practical than that it should be universal. The mere acquisition, or even the general diffusion of knowledge, without the requisite qualities to apply that knowledge in the best manner, does not merit the name of education. Much knowledge may be imparted and acquired without any addition whatever to the capacity for the business of life.... History presents us with even University Systems of Education (so called) entirely destitute of all practical character; and there are elementary systems which tend as much to prejudice and pervert, not to say corrupt, the popular mind as to improve and elevate it.

The state of society, then, no less than the wants of our country, requires that every youth of the land should be trained to industry and its practice, whether that training be extensive or limited.

Now education, thus practical, includes religion and morality; secondly, the development to a certain extent of all our faculties; thirdly, an acquaintance with several branches of elementary knowledge.

By religion and morality, I do not mean sectarianism in any form, but the general truth and morals taught in the Holy Scriptures. Sectarianism is not morality. To be zealous for a sect and to be conscientious in morals are widely different. To inculcate the peculiarities of a sect and to teach the fundamental principles of religion and morality are equally different.

I can aver, from personal experience and practice, as well as from a very extended inquiry on this subject, that a much more comprehensive course of biblical and religious instruction can be given than there is likely to be opportunity for in elementary schools, without any restraint on the one side, or any tincture of sectarianism on the other—a course embracing the entire history of the Bible, its institutions, cardinal doctrines and morals, together with the evidences of its authenticity.

With the proper cultivation of the moral feelings, and the formation of local habits, is intimately connected the corresponding development of all the other faculties, both intellectual and physical. The great object of an efficient system of instruction should be, not the communication of so much knowledge, but the development of the faculties. Much knowledge may be acquired without any increase of mental power; nay, with even an absolute diminution of it. (See Chapter li.)

In founding the System of Public Instruction, Dr. Ryerson wisely laid down certain great principles which he believed to be essential to the success of his labours. These general principles may be thus summarized: 1. That the machinery of education should be in the hands of the people themselves, and should be managed through their own agency; they should, therefore, be consulted in regard to all school legislation. 2. That the aid of the Government should only be given where it can be used most effectually to stimulate and assist local effort in this great work. 3. That the property of the country is responsible for, and should contribute towards the education of the entire youth of the country, and that as a complement to this, "compulsory education" should necessarily be enforced. 4. That a thorough and systematic inspection of the schools is essential to their vitality and efficiency. These, with other important principles, Dr. Ryerson kept steadily in view during the whole thirty-two years of his administration of the school system of Ontario. Their judicious application has contributed largely, under the Divine blessing, which he ever sought, to the wonderful success of his labours.

Notwithstanding the zeal and ability with which Dr. Ryerson had collected and arranged his facts, analyzed the various systems of education in Europe (largely in Germany) and America, and fortified himself with the opinions of the most eminent educationists in those countries, yet his projected system for this province was fiercely assailed, and was vehemently denounced as embodying in it the very essence of "Prussian despotism." Still, with indomitable courage he persevered in his plans, and at length succeeded in 1846 in inducing the legislature to pass a School Act which he had drafted. In 1849 the Provincial administration personally favourable to Dr. Ryerson's views went out of office, and one unfavourable to him came in. The Hon. Malcolm Cameron, a hostile member of the cabinet—although he afterwards became a personal friend of Dr. Ryerson—having concocted a singularly crude and cumbrous school bill, aimed to oust Dr. Ryerson from office, it was (as was afterwards explained) taken on trust, and, without examination or discussion, passed into a law. Dr. Ryerson at once called the attention of the Government (at the head of which was the late lamented Lord Elgin) to the impracticable and un-Christian character of the bill, as under its operation the Bible would be excluded from the schools. Rather than administer such an Act, Dr. Ryerson tendered the resignation of his office to the Government. The late Honourable Robert Baldwin, C.B., Attorney-General (the Nestor of Canadian politicians, and a truly Christian man), was so convinced of the justness of Dr. Ryerson's views and remonstrance, that he took the unusual course of advising His Excellency to suspend the operation of the new Act until Dr. Ryerson could prepare a draft of a bill on the basis of the repealed law, embodying in it, additional to the old bill, the result of his own experience of the working of the system up to that time. The result was that a law passed in 1850, adapted to the municipal system of the Province, so popular in its character and comprehensive in its provisions and details, that it is still (in a consolidated form) the principal statute under which the Public Schools of Ontario are maintained.

The leading features of that measure may be briefly summed up under the four following heads:—