On the active remonstrance of the citizens living in the eastern part of Toronto, the school was re-opened and secured to the city, Mr. Charles N. B. Cosens being appointed headmaster in 1836, and succeeded by Mr. Marcus C. Crombie in 1838.[23]
Early Efforts to Establish Common Schools 1816-1820.
In 1816, seven years after the establishment of District Grammar Schools, a praiseworthy effort was made to provide for the establishment and maintenance of common schools."[24] A liberal grant of $24,000 a year, for four years, was made as an experiment. Whether the experiment was a success, or not, does not appear, but in 1820, the grant was reduced to $10,000 a year.
State of Education in Upper Canada, 1784-1819.
In regard to the state of education of Upper Canada in 1817, and the fluctuating character of its progress since the settlement of the Province, in 1784, up to that time, Mr. Gourlay, a well-known Canadian politician and author, writes as follows:—
"There is no college in Upper Canada, but there are said to be several townships of land set apart for the purpose of endowing such institution, when the population and circumstances of the Province shall require it.
"No provision is made by law for free schools. The inhabitants of the severe! townships are left to a voluntary support of schools, according to their own discretion.
"An Act of the Provincial Legislature, in 1807, granted a hundred pounds a year to the teacher of one school, in each of the eight districts under the direction of trustees. In some districts the school thus provided for is made a free school; but in other districts the salary is considered as a public encouragement to a teacher of literary eminence, in addition to the compensation received for the tuition of each scholar."—Statistical Account of Upper Canada, etc., by Robert Gourlay, 2 vols., London, 1822.
The Rev. Dr. Strachan became a master of one of these schools, and Rev. George Ryerson and his brother, Egerton, master and usher of another.
As to the state of feeling in the rural parts of the oldest settled portions of Upper Canada, we make the following extracts from a letter written to Mr. Gourlay from the township of Grimsby, in 1818, by a highly respected resident there, William Crooks, Esq. Mr. Crooks remarks:—
"The state of education is at a very low ebb, not only in the township, but generally throughout the [Niagara] district; although the liberality of the legislature has been great in support of the district (Grammar) schools, (giving to the teachers of each £100 per annum), yet they have been productive of little or no good hitherto, for this obvious cause, they are looked upon as seminaries exclusively instituted for the education of the children of the more wealthy classes of society, and to which the poor man's child is considered as unfit to be admitted. From such causes, instead of their being a benefit to the Province, they are sunk into obscurity, and the heads of most of them are at this moment enjoying their situations as comfortable sinecures. Another class of schools has, within a short time, been likewise founded upon the liberality of the legislative purse, denominated common, or parish, schools, but like the preceding, the anxiety of the teacher employed, seems more alive to his stipend than the advancement of the education of those placed under his care: from the pecuniary advantages thus held out, we have been inundated with the worthless scum, under the character of school masters, not only of this, but of every other country where the knowledge has been promulgated, of the easy means our laws afford of getting a living here, by obtaining a parish school, which is done upon the recommendation of some few freeholders, getting his salary from the public, and making his employers contribute handsomely beside.
"It is true, rules are laid down for their government, and the proper books prescribed for their use; but scarcely in one case in ten are they adhered to, for in the same class you will frequently see one child with Noah Webster's spelling book in this hand, and the next with Lindley Murray's. However prone the teachers are to variety in their schools, much blame is to be attributed to the trustees, who are in many instances too careless and I might almost add too ignorant to discriminate right from wrong, in the trust they have undertaken for the public benefit. It is, therefore, not to be wondered at why the parish school system should meet with almost universal reprobation from most discerning men.
"Of these parish schools, we are burdened with a liberal share, having no less than three of them. If the establishment of this system was meant by the legislature to abbreviate the present enormous price of education, they have been miserably deceived; for I can see no alteration or reduction from the charge made before the passing of the act. The price then was 12s. 6d. [i.e. $2.50,] and is now the same, per quarter."