Egerton Ryerson and Education in Upper Canada

by J. Harold Putman

5. That the money received from these School lands from time to time ought to be paid in to the Receiver-General and disposed of only by vote of the Legislature.

Further protests were made against the exclusive nature of King's College charter, and the Assembly was assured by Sir John Colborne that some changes would be made. As a matter of fact, on the 2nd of November, 1831, Lord Goderich, the British Colonial Secretary, in a lengthy communication to Governor Colborne, showed that His Majesty's Government was fully seized of the situation in regard to the charter of King's College. Lord Goderich said,[42] "I am to convey through you to the Members of the Corporation of King's College, at the earnest recommendation and advice of His Majesty's Government, that they do forthwith surrender[43] to His Majesty the charter of King's College of Upper Canada, with any lands that may have been granted them." Lord Goderich then proceeds to intimate that a new charter will be granted by the Legislature of Upper Canada. Lord Goderich further proceeds to give some very sound advice concerning the necessity of mutual forbearance among a people of diverse religious creeds.

In the Assembly there was shown an intelligent grasp of the educational needs of the country and a determination to secure better schools. Had the Executive Council and Legislative Council been equally zealous in the cause of education, the fathers and mothers of the generation which profited from Ryerson's reforms might themselves have had the advantage of good schools.

The following extracts from an address to His Excellency, Sir John Colborne, will show the temper and wishes of the Assembly: "We, His Majesty's dutiful and loyal subjects, the Commons of Upper Canada in Provincial Parliament assembled, most respectfully beg leave to represent that there is in this Province a very general want of education; that the insufficiency of the Common School fund [the total Government grant for schools in 1831 was $11,200] to support competent, respectable, and well-educated teachers, has degraded Common School teaching from a regular business to a mere matter of convenience to transient persons, or common idlers, who often teach the school one season and leave it vacant until it accommodates some other like person to take it in hand, whereby the minds of our youth are left without cultivation, or, what is still worse, frequently with vulgar, low-bred, vicious, or intemperate examples before them in the capacity of monitors."[44] The address proceeded to state that there was urgent need of a Government fund to secure larger grants for teachers' salaries, and asked His Excellency to lay before the Colonial Secretary a plan to set aside one million acres of waste land in Upper Canada for the support of Common Schools.

In this Address the Assembly virtually said to the Crown, "Give us some fixed capital as a source of revenue and we will speedily reorganize our schools." The Assembly knew what was needed and knew how to remedy the existing conditions, but was powerless because the Crown revenue was subject only to the control of the Executive Council.

The session of 1832-33[45] was very active from an educational point of view. The Assembly was informed by His Excellency that the Crown had consented to give over to the Legislature, for the support of Grammar Schools, control of the 258,330 acres of School lands, being the balance of the original grant of half a million acres made in 1798, and from which had already been made extensive grants to endow King's College and Upper Canada College. Much of the remainder of this land, which was now vested in the Legislature, was not of a superior quality. It had also been selected in township blocks and naturally had very little value until settlements were made in surrounding townships.

The Assembly prepared an Address to His Majesty praying for a grant of one million acres of Crown lands for the establishment and support of Township Common Schools. As a measure of immediate relief for these schools, a bill was passed by the two branches of the Legislature, and assented to by His Excellency, providing for two years an additional grant of $22,000. This sum was allotted to the several Districts, approximately in proportion to population, but no Board of Trustees was to receive any of this grant unless they secured for their teacher a sum equal at least to twice the Government grant.

The most significant feature of the session, however, was a Common School Bill, introduced into the Assembly by Mr. Mahlon Burwell, and read a first time. The bill proposed to repeal all previous Common School legislation; to establish a General Board and also District Boards of Education; to grant £10,000 to Common Schools as a Legislative grant and to assess a further £10,000 on the rateable property of the Districts.

This bill, had it become law, would have anticipated Ryerson's legislation by nearly twenty years, and it is interesting to note the comments made upon it by that gentleman, who was at this time editor of the Christian Guardian. The Guardian of January 15th, 1834, expressed a general approval of the plan of taxation but was totally opposed to the appointment of Boards of Education. After showing that the principle of local taxation was borrowed from the New England States, where it was working satisfactorily, Ryerson says: "The next leading feature of the bill is the appointment of a General Board of Education and also District Boards of Education. This is proposed to be left to the Governor, or person administering the Government, a proposition, in our opinion, radically objectionable. It makes the system of education, in theory, a mere engine of the Executive, a system which is liable to all the abuse, suspicion, jealousy and opposition caused by despotism; and it withholds from the system of Common School education, in its first and prominent feature, that character of common interest and harmonious co-operation which, as we humbly conceive, are essential to its success, and even to its acceptance with the Province. Education is an object in which the Government, as an individual portion of the Province, and the people at large possess, in some respects, a common interest, consequently they should exercise a joint or common control.... And in an equitable and patriotic administration of Government, the more its agents and the people's agents are associated together in promoting the common weal, the more strongly will mutual respect and confidence and co-operation between the people and the Government be established, the less room there will be for Executive negligence, or partiality, or popular or local abuse; and the less opportunity there will be for either despotic oppression or demagogue misrepresentation."

In 1834 there was a General Election, which resulted in the return to the Assembly of a large majority in favour of reform principles, and wholly opposed to the arbitrary and aristocratic ideas of the Legislative Council. Bidwell, Rolph, and William Lyon Mackenzie were three leading spirits in the new House.