Returning to 1847, we are told that in the whole of Wellington District, composed of the territory now forming the three counties of Wellington, Waterloo and Grey, there were 102 schools, of which only 22 possessed good buildings. Let us glance for a moment at the then state of finances of the school corporations in which we feel most interested. Guelph township, including the village of Guelph, raised $507.38 by the municipal assessment, for school purposes, realized $556.75 from rate-bills, and received $416.69 from the legislative grant, or a total of $1,480.82, wherewith to pay seven teachers, maintain, more or less efficiently, ten schools, and afford instruction, good, bad or indifferent, as the case might be, to 517 scholars. The township of Puslinch was nearly abreast of Guelph, and kept up 10 schools, paid 13 teachers, and had 558 scholars on the roll, at an outlay of $1,381.86, but it must be remembered that if two or three teachers were employed, at different portions of the year, in one school, they increased the grand total of teachers for the year. It may have been that, while thirteen appear to have been engaged, there were not more, and probably less than ten employed for the full teaching year. In 1847, Erin had the highest number of scholars of any municipality in the county, having returned a total of 585, in six schools, and with eleven teachers, at an outlay of $1,039.06. Amaranth was at the foot of the list, with one school, one teacher, thirty-eight scholars, and an outlay, made up from rate-bill, assessment and legislative grant, of $68.04. Peel and Wellesley, combined, had one school, three teachers,—employed at some portion or other of the year,—and spent $80.52. Nichol (including Fergus and Elora), Eramosa and Garafraxa made returns,—the name Garafraxa being spelt with a double r, as I have found it to be in all old official documents,—but Pilkington, Arthur, Maryboro, Luther and Minto do not appear to have had school organization, not even municipal existence, while, of the whole county of Grey, Derby and Sydenham were alone mentioned in the return. It may be interesting to know—although I am aware, from painful experience, that listening to strings of figures is not the most enlivening occupation in the world,—that the whole amount paid for school purposes, in the county of Wellington, for that year, was $5,862, of which $5,763 was given to teachers, and that the average cost for each pupil taught was $2.10. One other fact may be adduced which will enable you to form a still clearer estimate of the educational status of Upper Canada at the date referred to. The Chief Superintendent had, in forms and regulations issued by him, specified the lowest general standard of qualification for teachers, but was forced to believe that a much lower standard had been acted upon by school visitors. These visitors were clergymen, magistrates and district councillors,—equivalent to our reeves,—and any two of them could examine a teacher, test his or her qualification, pretty much as they deemed best, and grant a certificate, available only for one school and one year, it is true, but nevertheless renewable, and answering every purpose of the certificate of to-day. It is not difficult to imagine a much more easy and varying examination, under such circumstances, than that which an improved system soon rendered necessary, and the quality of teachers so produced need not be further particularized.
We have thus obtained some glimpse of the Then of our educational facilities of a generation ago. The picture might be elaborated. It would be easy to fill in details from memory; to tell how the blind oft times led the blind; how the ignorant teacher insured the ignorant pupil; and how "schooling" was frequently a farce, and mere waste of time....
Great Educational Advance made by the Province of Ontario since 1847.
That the Province has made enormous strides in population, wealth, intelligence and importance, during the last thirty years, admits of no doubt. Our forests have disappeared, an improved system of agriculture has followed, manufactories have sprung up, railways have connected every county, a daily press has become an established and indispensable institution, the telegraph has economized time by practically annihilating distance, while numerous inventions and discoveries have created new wants, and supplied as rapidly as they have made them. Without losing our characteristic love of hard work—I here speak of everybody in general, and nobody in particular, and purposely avoid all personal allusions—and that industrial enterprise which springs from it, we have become a reading and much more cultured people. The scholar, endowed with physical capacity equal to that possessed by an illiterate competitor, is worth more than he in the factory, the workshop, the store, the mill, the mine, or on the sea or farm. Cultivated brain has a market value, and book learning is no longer despised, or regarded with half contempt, as the mark distinguishing the mere dreamer from the worker. To possess the "Reason Why" is no proof now-a-days of physical and practical inferiority; to know a little of everything, and everything of something, is not now the peculiar privilege of the English Gentleman. Little wonder is there, therefore, that what the school has helped to bring about, should tend to make the school more valued. That such has been its effect we have but to look around to see. Where in 1847, we, in Upper Canada, had 2,863 school houses, our last returns show that we possess more than 5,000, and while the number has so largely increased the advance in value has been in much greater proportion. In 1847 we had, in all Upper Canada, but 49 school-houses built of brick; now we boast of 1,569 built of that material, or over thirty times as many. In 1847 we had eighty-four constructed of stone; now we claim more than 500. In 1847 half of our school buildings were of logs; now not more than a seventh are of that primitive character. There are no returns of money cost of buildings or of amount expended in their erection in 1847, but we find that the expenditure for all school purposes in that year, inclusive of teachers' salaries, was $350,000, while for 1877, for erection and repairs of school-houses, fuel, etc., alone we paid $1,035,390, and a total for school purposes of $3,073,489, or, in round numbers, nine times as much as in 1847. The improved financial value of the teacher is another strong testimony, willingly borne by the people, to their increased interest in education, for, as a rule, a free people will not pay for that which they fail to appreciate. In 1847 there was paid for teachers' salaries a total sum of $310,398. In 1877 the amount was $2,038,099. In 1847 there were 3,028 teachers employed, while in 1877 there were 6,468. In 1847, board was often given in addition to the nominal salary, and was, in fact, part of the teacher's remuneration. Grant that the teachers here enumerated as serving in 1847 were employed eight months in that year—which is more than the average—and put board at $2 per week, which was higher than was the average rate in those days—the average payment to each teacher would not exceed $170, and this was fully equal to, if not greater than was actually allowed. In 1877 the average amount paid to each teacher was $315. The larger amount willingly paid in 1877 for the support of Free Schools, than was unwillingly given in 1847, for the maintenance of rate-supported schools—for payment was then made under protest, and the school law was exceedingly unpopular, while rate-bills and contributions were nearly everywhere necessary, in addition to municipal assessments, to make up the teachers' salaries—is yet another proof of the hold which the educational movement has taken upon the judgment and sympathy of the people of Ontario. In 1847, too, pupils were grudgingly taught, at a cost of $2.80 per head, while in 1877 the average was $6.20. And when we add to all these things the fact that, in 1847, only 124,829 pupils attended our common schools, out of a school population of 230,975, or scarcely one in two, while in 1877, out of a school population of 494,804, not less than 490,860 names were entered on the roll, it is needless to say anything further in illustration of the marked contrast between the two periods, of the immense superiority of the present over the past condition of our schools, and of the public opinion which is necessary to their effective maintenance.
Great Advance also in the Standard of Teaching Ability.
And the standard of teaching ability, in so far as literary acquirements go, has kept pace with the progress which has otherwise characterized the history of a scholastic generation. We have long got past the period when any two magistrates, any two reeves, or even any two clergymen, could grant permission to teach, and annually invest the teacher with legal status. We subject our examiners themselves to examinations, have uniformity in the character of our examination papers, and propound questions to candidates which fully and fairly test their educational attainments. We have gone beyond that, and instituted county Normal Schools—for such our Model Schools may be fairly termed—at which we require applicants for a certificate to still further establish their fitness for the work upon which they seek to enter. We have not reached perfection, but we have travelled a long distance in the direction in which it lies. We have made every school practically free, built up a High School system which opens up to all seekers after higher education ample opportunity to prepare for the University course, at a minimum of cost, and placed our University upon such a footing that its advantages are not the exclusive privilege of the well-to-do, but are proffered to even the poorest student who cares to submit to a period of self-denial, and lose a little extra time in early life, for the purpose of securing them. As a people we have done no more than, probably not so much as, we ought to do, with the view of placing educational facilities within the reach of every child born or brought into the Province, but we have, nevertheless, ventured and effected more than has been attempted in many older and more wealthy lands. We have the consciousness of having done our duty, according to our lights. In our long-settled sections of country the school-house bell is within the hearing, or the school-house itself is within sight of nearly every family. In newer portions of the Province, wherever half-a-dozen or so of clearances are commenced, in the wilds of Muskoka or Algoma, provision is made for the instruction of the little ones who bless those backwoods' homes. The school-master is abroad throughout the land, and is doing much to ensure a glowing future for our country, and when his work is done, and he is compelled to retire from his labors, we willingly open the public purse and give to him that which keeps him above absolute penury, and assures him that, while Ontario cares only to help those who possess the disposition to help themselves, she is neither ungrateful nor forgetful. And, seeing all these things, we cannot help feeling that our youthful Province may modestly and yet proudly lift her head amongst the nations of the earth, assured that there are none who can reproach her with neglect of the first and best interests of those little children whom God has entrusted to her keeping.
State of Education in Upper Canada in 1847-1849.
From an elaborate report prepared by the Rev. W. H. Landon, School Superintendent, to the Municipal Council of the district of Brock (county of Oxford) in 1849, I make the following extracts. The first refers to the educational supineness of the people:—
"Up to a recent period (say the last two years), the people, generally, seems to have entered upon no enquiries, and to have formed no just conclusion on the subject of education, or the proper means of imparting it. They seemed to think, if they thought at all, that all schools were equal, and that all teachers who could read, write, etc., in a better manner than their pupils were equally good.... As to books, it was supposed that any one, or any ten of the fifty different varieties of spelling books in use, with the English Reader, was all that was requisite for the reading classes, while a few treatises on arithmetic taken at random from the almost endless variety with which the country was flooded, would supply the means of imparting a knowledge of the science of numbers, and two or three grammars by as many different authors, would supply material for the grammar class and complete the stock of text books for the schools."...