Little more than thirty years ago, much of the country, now known as the county of Wellington, was a wilderness. The territory north of Guelph was almost unsettled, beyond the townships of Nichol, and the settled portion possessed but few residents. In Wellington, the upper tier of townships had scarcely been entered upon, and names of places now "familiar as household words" were unknown. Such roads as there were had been simply cut through the bush, and had experienced little other improvement than that which the axe, the handspike, the logging chain and fire had afforded. Peel was in the early stage of settlement; Maryboro was almost unknown; Minto was really a terra incognito; Luther was, in popular estimation, a vast and irreclaimable swamp; Arthur had a mere handful of settlers; Mount Forest was a nameless and unbroken government reserve for a town plot, covered with virgin forest; Elora possessed some half-dozen houses; such places as Harriston, Palmerston and Drayton were not even a dream of the future; and the gravel roads, thrifty villages, and smiling farms which now make pleasant travel from the northern bank of the Grand River to the utmost bounds of Wellington, were covered with thick and luxuriant growth of maple, hemlock, elm and cedar. Everything was in primitive shape, and yet the mark of future progress was made, here and there, and coming events cast their shadow. Oxen were far more numerous than teams of horses, and neither could be regarded as plentiful. The axe was more busy than the plough, and regularly prepared more acres for the annual sowing. Money was scarce, produce was low in price, barter was the rule and not the exception, postal communication was defective, wages were poor, and "hard times" were as commonly talked about and as earnestly believed in as to-day, when, measured by the past, the term is comparatively meaningless. There was a feeling of despondency throughout the community, and people were divided as to the cause of the general depression. Some blamed the Rebellion of a few years before; others said that the effects of Family Compactism had not yet died away; and still others attributed all evils to the newly effected Union between Upper and Lower Canada. There is little wonder that, at such a time, schools and schoolmasters were under the weather, and reckoned as but of "small account" by many of our people.
Early School Legislation in 1841, 1843 and 1846.
Thanks to the energy, however, of a noble few, prominent amongst whom stood Egerton Ryerson, the Government of that day took steps to obtain information as to the system of public education in force in some of the states of the American Union and in Europe, and, taking Massachussetts and Prussia as a guide, enacted a sweeping amendment to School Act for Upper Canada, in the ninth year of Her Majesty's reign, and put it into operation in 1847. In 1841, the first Common School Law had been passed, and in 1843 it was amended, but the system was defective and unproductive of expected results. Under it, townships were divided into school sections, by township superintendents, who were practically uncontrolled, and therefore, in many instances, arbitrary, and these divisions were unequal in size, often unnecessarily small, and frequently unfairly made. The consequence of this state of things was unpopularity of the law, and a pretty general conviction that common schools were too often common nuisances. The report of the Superintendent of Education, for 1847, tells us that the system produced "miserable school-houses, poor and cheap teachers, interrupted and temporary instruction and heavy rate-bills." In some districts, before the passage of the amending School Act, 9 Vic. Chap. 20, the District Council had never imposed a school assessment, depending for school maintenance entirely upon the small legislative grant apportioned to each district, and an equivalent raised solely by rate-bills or voluntary contributions. No uniformity existed in the use of class books, the township superintendent or the teacher, or even the parent dictating what should be employed in each particular section. In 1846, no fewer than 13 different spelling books, 107 readers, 35 arithmetics, 20 geographies, 21 histories, and 16 grammars, were used in our Common Schools, besides varying class books on other subjects.
Inferior Qualifications of Teachers and Varied Methods of Teaching.
The methods of teaching were almost as numerous as the teachers, and followed no specified rule. Sometimes it was by classes, often by individuals, and in other cases by an extensive use of monitors, being generally a mixture of the three styles, and nearly always a higgledy-piggledy, go-as-you-please arrangement, as easy as possible to the teacher, and as unproductive of good results to the pupil as such indefinite work might be fully expected to be. And the character of the teachers, speaking in general terms, and not forgetting many bright exceptions, was not above suspicion. Certificates were granted by township superintendents, who too often relieved the charitable, and the district council, by thrusting into the school-house the ne'er-do-wells, the infirm, the crippled, the sickly and the unfortunate, who, under ordinary circumstances, would have become dependent upon the good nature and benevolence of their fellow-citizens. In one district a superintendent, after the passage of the new School Law, was compelled to give notice that he would not grant certificates to any candidates unless they were strictly sober, and that he would cancel the certificates of all teachers who suffered themselves at any time to become intoxicated. And, we are gravely informed, the result was that a majority, not all, of the hitherto intemperate teachers became thoroughly temperate men, and that the incorrigible were dismissed. The quality of the teachers may be guessed at very fairly, it is safe to say, from the salaries paid to them. In 1845, the average was £26 2s, or $104.40; in 1846, £26 4s, or $104.80; and in 1847, £28 10s, or $114, and this, too, for the most part, exclusive of board. Had the schools been kept open during the whole of the teaching months of these years, the salaries would have averaged $134 in 1845, $147 in 1846, and $148 in 1847. It must be borne in mind that, in those days, male were much more numerous than female teachers, so that the smaller amounts generally paid to those of the gentler sex had comparatively little influence in lessening the general average. The parsimony and poverty of the people had much to do, of course, with the quality of the teacher, for men who could obtain higher wages at almost any other occupation, through physical or intellectual superiority, would not waste time and opportunity to earn more than the paltry pittance paid to the pedagogue, simply through philanthropic desire to advance the interests of the rising generation.
Dr. Ryerson's Test of the Intelligence of a School Section.
Says Dr. Ryerson, in the report to which I am indebted for these facts: "This small compensation of teachers is the great source of inefficiency in the common schools. Persons of good abilities and attainments will not teach for little or nothing so long as they can obtain a more ample remuneration in other pursuits." He adds, in language as truthful, and as worthy of notice to-day, as when it was written: "People cannot obtain good teachers any more than good lawyers or physicians without paying for their services." And, as he says in the next sentence, so say we all, and so I am happy to observe are many of our school corporations saying all over the province: "The intelligence of any school section or corporation of trustees may be tested by the amount of salary they are disposed to give a good teacher." If Egerton Ryerson had said and done nothing more than this, he would have deserved the gratitude of every teacher in Ontario, simply because he had the courage to put upon record a sentiment which, at the time when he used the words, was eminently unpopular, and a direct and stinging rebuke to nearly every school-board then existent. In those days, cheap teachers were wanted, and the supply equalled the demand, while the pockets of the charitable were saved, a semblance of education was kept up, and the county poorhouses were not required so long as every other school section provided for one, at least, of those who would, in these days, be generally regarded as eligible candidates for admission thereto. The amount of interest taken in educational matters was not evidenced in small salaries alone.
The Character of the School-house also a Test.
The school-house, in its quality, too often matched the teacher. Of 2,572 school-houses in Upper Canada in 1847, 49 only were of brick, and 84 of stone, the others being frame and log. Of the 2,500, 800, or about one-third, were in good repair; 98 had more than one room; 1,125, or less than half, were properly furnished with desks and seats; only 367 were provided with a suitable play-ground; and not more than 163, out of 2,572, had necessary outbuildings. Coming nearer home, we find that the municipalities now comprised in the county of Wellington contained, in 1847, 43 school-houses, of which one was built of stone, 9 were frame, and 33 were log, and the report states that only 13 were good, 25 were middling, and the balance were inferior. When we remember the standard of "goodness" in those days, when school authorities at Toronto were thankful for small favors in rural districts, we can have some faint idea of the character of the buildings pronounced inferior. It is probable that they came up to the style of accommodation of the Mapleton school, in Manitoba, which I find described in the last report of the Superintendent of Protestant Schools for that Province, as follows: "Found that since my last visit the school-house has been floored; it still required plastering and ceiling and weather-boarding." What sort of a building it was before these improvements were effected, it doesn't require a very active brain to imagine, and when you have the picture in your mind's eye you will have some conception of the pleasures of teaching in the "good old times," of less than half a century ago, in Upper Canada.