The following "Rules for the Government of Common Schools" prescribed by the Board of Education for the Niagara District is taken from Gourley's "Statistical Account of Upper Canada, 1817-1822," Vol. II.; Appendix, pp. 116-119:—
"1. The Master to commence the labours of the day by a short prayer.
"2. School to commence each day at 9 o'clock and five hours at least to be given to teaching during the day, except on Saturdays.
"3. Diligence and Emulation to be cherished and encouraged among the pupils by rewards judiciously distributed, to consist of little pictures and books, according to the age of the scholar.
"4. Cleanliness and Good Order to be indispensable; and corporal punishment seldom necessary, except for bad habits learned at home—lying, disobedience, obstinacy and perverseness—these sometimes require chastisement; but gentleness even in these cases would do better with most children.
"5. All other offences, arising chiefly from liveliness and inattention, are better corrected by shame, such as gaudy caps, placing the culprits by themselves, not permitting anyone to play with them for a day or days, detaining after school hours, or during a play afternoon, or by ridicule.
"6. The Master must keep a regular catalogue of his scholars and mark every day they are absent.
"7. The forenoons of Wednesday and Saturday to be set apart for Religious Instruction; to render it agreeable the school should be furnished with at least ten copies of Barrows' 'Questions on the New Testament,' and the Teacher to have one copy of the key to these questions for his own use; the teacher should likewise have a copy of Murray's 'Power of Religion on the Mind,' Watkin's 'Scripture Biography,' and Blair's 'Class Book,' the Saturday Lessons of which are well-calculated to impress religious feeling.
"Note.—These books are confined to no religious denomination, and do not prevent the Masters from teaching such Catechism as the parents of the children may adopt.
"8. Every day to close with reading publicly a few verses from the New Testament, proceeding regularly through the Gospels.
"9. The afternoons of Wednesday and Saturday to be allowed for play.
"10. A copy of these Rules to be affixed up in some conspicuous place in the School-room, and to be read publicly to the Scholars every Monday morning by the Teacher."
No doubt much good teaching was done in schools nominally governed by similar codes of instruction. The teacher is always the real force in a school and good teachers are never slaves to mechanical rules.
These "rules," however, suggest a form of punishment that was largely used in those days even by good teachers and has not yet been wholly banished from the schoolroom—ridicule. Here we see it offered as an improvement upon corporal punishment. It may have had its advantages over the brutal punishments sometimes inflicted in the old days, but I think Dr. Johnson was right in saying that a reasonably severe corporal punishment was better for both teacher and pupil than either "nagging" or ridicule. No doubt the systems of Bell and Lancaster were responsible for the use recommended of ridicule in the Niagara District in 1820.
One important Bill, "An Act to Provide for the Advancement of Education,"[54] became law during the session of 1839. This Bill set apart 250,000 acres of waste lands for the support of District Grammar Schools, made provision for additional schools in districts where they were needed, and provided for the erection of new buildings and assistant masters. The Bill also placed the revenue and management of these schools under the Council of King's College. In this way King's College, Upper Canada College, and the District Grammar Schools—all the machinery of higher education—were brought under central authority.
From a careful reading of a despatch[55] sent by Sir George Arthur to the Colonial Office, in connection with the Act referred to above, it seems quite clear that the land grant of 250,000 acres now set apart for District Grammar Schools was the balance of the original 549,217 acres granted by the Crown in 1798 for the endowment of Free Grammar Schools and a University. Thus, after forty years, the intentions of the Crown regarding Grammar Schools were to be realized. But only in part, because the Act of 1839 did not make the Grammar Schools free.
It was confidently hoped by many of the King's College Council, and especially by the President, Rev. Dr. Strachan, that when the college charter was amended in 1837 nothing would interfere with the immediate execution of plans for building and opening King's College. Elaborate plans and models of a building were prepared and sent out from England, an architect was employed, advertisements for tenders for a building were inserted in various newspapers, and the contract was about to be awarded, when Sir George Arthur hurriedly convened the Council and ordered an investigation into the finances of the College.
His suspicions had evidently been awakened by some returns on College affairs presented in response to an Address by the Assembly. The report of the special audit committee[56] appointed by the Council revealed a startling condition of affairs and incidentally a strong argument against allowing any body or corporation to handle public funds without an annual audit by someone responsible to Parliament.
The Bursar, the Hon. Joseph Wells, a prominent member of the Legislative Council, had diverted to his own use and that of his needy friends some £6,374, and the sum of £4,312 had been loaned to the President, Dr. Strachan. There was in use a very primitive system[57] of book-keeping, and on the whole just such management as might have been expected from the close corporation which had, up to 1837, made up the King's College Council. There was also much mismanagement of the financial affairs of Upper Canada College. These revelations delayed building operations until 1842.
On December 3rd, 1839, the last session of the Legislature of Upper Canada was opened by Charles Poulett Thompson, afterwards Lord Sydenham. A Bill was passed granting a charter to the "University of Kingston." When the Bill was introduced into the Assembly, the name was to be the "University of Queen's College."[58] Why the change was made does not seem very clear, but perhaps it was because the promoters of the Bill were not certain that Her Majesty had given her consent to the use of her name in the Act. The Act placed the College largely under the control of the Presbyterian Church and wholly under control of Presbyterians, but no religious tests were to be exacted from students or graduates except in Divinity. The 15th section of the charter authorized the representative of Her Majesty in Canada to pay from the revenues of King's College a sum sufficient to establish a Chair in Divinity. This arrangement doubtless was the result of a despatch from the Colonial Office some years previous to the effect that any modification of King's College charter should provide for a Divinity Professor of the Church of Scotland. Some readers of the present day may ask, Why not also for other religious denominations—Methodists, Baptists, and Congregationalists? The answer is simple. The Churches of England and Scotland were national churches in Great Britain and Ireland. The Anglican Church in Canada in 1840 claimed to be an Established Church, and as the Clergy Reserve controversy was then unsettled, her claim had reasonable expectation of realization. Had her claim been allowed, it would have strengthened any claim the Presbyterian Church might have made also to rank as an Established Church.