The Draper Government made a further attempt to settle the vexed question in 1846. John A. Macdonald (afterwards Sir John A. Macdonald) made another unsuccessful attempt in 1847. The Hon. Robert Baldwin then became Premier, and after securing the Report of a Commission on University Affairs, he introduced and passed a University Bill in 1849. This Act has been many times amended, but the final result has been to preserve for the people of Upper Canada the University Endowment, and to remove from the management every semblance of sectarian control. The University has become the property and the pride of all classes, irrespective of race, politics, or religion.
CHAPTER V.
RYERSON'S FIRST REPORT ON A SYSTEM OF ELEMENTARY INSTRUCTION.
"The true greatness of a people does not consist in borrowing nothing from others, but in borrowing from all whatever is good, and in perfecting whatever it appropriates."—M. Cousin.
This quotation from the eminent Frenchman admirably illustrates the spirit of Ryerson's first Report[68] and the draft of proposed legislation accompanying it. His Report contains comparatively little that is original, being made up of ninety per cent. of quotations from Horace Mann's Report and from reports of eminent European statesmen and educators. And yet the Report is none the less valuable because of the quotations, nor does a reading of it tend to lessen one's respect for the writer. On the contrary, the aptness of the quotations and the skilful way in which Ryerson marshals his proofs, show his statesmanship and genius for organization. He saw enough during his European and American tours of investigation to convince him that Canada could, with profit to herself, borrow many things from other peoples. His shrewd common sense and intimate first-hand knowledge of Canadian conditions told him exactly what ought to be done, and he wisely allowed others to tell in his Report their own stories. His position was that of a skilled advocate bringing forth witness after witness to give evidence to the soundness of his theories.
He sets out by defining education, and although his definition is not scientific in a psychological sense, it is essentially correct—it points to the school as an agency to promote good citizenship. "By education I mean not the mere acquisition of certain arts or of certain branches of knowledge, but that instruction and discipline which qualify and dispose the subjects of it for their appropriate duties and employments of life, as Christians, as persons of business, and also as members of the civil community in which they live."
Ryerson then points out that in Upper Canada the education of the masses has been sacrificed to the education of a select class. He wishes to see a system of universal education adapted to the needs of the country. "The branches of knowledge which it is essential that all should understand should be provided for all, and taught to all; should be brought within the reach of the most needy and forced upon the attention of the most careless. The knowledge required for the scientific pursuit of mechanics, agriculture, and commerce must needs be provided to an extent corresponding with the demand and the exigencies of the country; while to a more limited extent are needed facilities for acquiring the higher education of the learned professions." The Report sets forth a great array of proof drawn from the United States, Britain, Switzerland, Germany, and other European countries, to show that the productive capacity of the people, their morality and intelligence, are in direct proportion to their schools and institutions of learning. Ryerson lays down as fundamental that any system adopted for Upper Canada must be universal in the sense of giving elementary instruction to all and practical in the sense of fitting for the duties of life in a young country. He goes to considerable trouble to show that in his view the practical includes religion and morality, as well as a development of the merely intellectual powers.
Ryerson was no narrow ecclesiastic, but still he could conceive of no sound system of elementary instruction that did not provide for the teaching of the essential truths of Christianity. He was decidedly not in favour of secular schools or secular colleges. And yet he believed that religious instruction in mixed classes was possible, and pointed out in his Report how it might be conducted. He made a very sharp distinction between religion and dogma, between the essential truths of Christianity and sectarianism. Dogma and sectarian teaching, in his opinion, had no place in schools except in those where all the pupils were of a common religious faith. What he pleads for in his Report is the recognition of Christianity as a basis of all instruction, and the teaching of as much of the Bible as could be given without offending any sectarian prejudices. "To teach a child the dogmas and spirit of a Sect, before he is taught the essential principles of Religion and Morality, is to invert the pyramid, to reverse the order of nature,—to feed with the bones of controversy instead of with the nourishing milk of Truth and Charity.... I can aver from personal experience and practice, as well as from a very extended enquiry on this subject, that a much more comprehensive course of Biblical and Religious instruction can be given than there is likely to be opportunity for doing so in Elementary Schools, without any restraint on the one side or any tincture of sectarianism on the other,—a course embracing the entire history of the Bible, its institutions, cardinal doctrines and morals, together with the evidences of its authenticity." The Report goes on to show how from Ryerson's viewpoint the absence of religious teaching in the schools of the American Union was having a damaging effect upon the moral fibre of the national life. He further illustrated by reference to what he saw in France, Germany, and Ireland, how religious instruction might be given without causing any denominational friction or unpleasantness.