Egerton Ryerson and Education in Upper Canada

by J. Harold Putman

The Act of 1846 defined in detail how school trustees were to be elected. In all previous Acts the whole Trustee Board was elected annually. This gave to the Board no continuity of corporate life. One Trustee Board might have certain plans and make a certain bargain with a teacher. The new Board might have different plans and repudiate the contracts of its predecessor. Ryerson's Bill solved the difficulty by having trustees elected for three years, one to retire annually. Trustees' duties were not materially different from those of trustees to-day except in one or two particulars. They had to raise by a rate bill upon parents of pupils attending school such sums as were required over and above the two school grants for payment of the teacher's salary and the incidental expenses of the school; they were required to make provision by which the children of indigent parents were exempted, wholly or in part, from school rates; and they were required to select school books from a list sanctioned by the Department of Education. In Ryerson's draft bill he proposed that the rate bill should be levied upon the property of the section. This would virtually have given free schools. The Legislature of 1846 amended this clause and made the rate bill assessable only upon parents of children in actual attendance. Ryerson says of these rate bills:[74] "The evils of the present system of school rate bills have been brought under my notice from the most populous townships and by the most experienced educationists in Canada. When it is apprehended that the rate bill in a school section will be high, many will not send their children to the school at all—then there is no school; or else a few give enough to pay the teacher for three months, including the Government grant; or even after the school has commenced, if it be found that the school is not so large as had been anticipated, and that those who send will consequently be required to pay more than they had expected, parents will begin to take their children from school in order to escape the rate bill as persons would flee from a falling house! The consequence is that the school is either broken up, or the whole burthen of paying the teacher falls upon the trustees, and often as a consequence a quarrel ensues between them and the teacher. I have been assured by the most experienced and judicious men, with whom I have conversed on the subject, that it is impossible to have good schools under the present rate bill system. I think the substitute I proposed will remedy the evil. I know of none who will object to it but the rich and the childless and the selfish. Education is a public good; ignorance is a public evil. What affects the public ought to be binding upon each individual composing it. In every good government and in every good system the interests of the whole society are obligatory upon each member of it."

This rate bill, as authorized in 1846, was, however, an improvement on the old one which was levied upon parents according to the actual time of the child's attendance, whereas the Bill of 1846 levied a tax upon the parents of children in actual attendance for at least two-thirds of the whole school term, whether the children attended regularly or irregularly.

Teachers' duties were defined by the Act much as they are to-day. District Model Schools were authorized on the same condition as in the Act of 1843. The clauses in the Act of 1843 relating to the formation of Separate Roman Catholic or Protestant schools were also embodied in the Act of 1846.

Now, what are the distinguishing features of this School Act that reflect credit upon its author? It would be idle to pretend that there were not in Upper Canada many able men who saw the weaknesses of the school system as clearly as Dr. Ryerson. Ryerson's claim to distinction rests upon the fact that he organized a system that worked. He not only co-ordinated the several parts of the system, but put life into it. This was no easy task. The people were very jealous of their power of local control, and yet unless this local control could be subjected to some central control, improvement was hopeless. It was here that Ryerson did what no other man had done. He lessened local, and strengthened central, control, and did it so gradually, so wisely, and so tactfully, that local prejudices were soothed and in many cases the people scarcely recognized what was being done until the thing was accomplished. We must not suppose that all this was completed by the legislation of 1846. It began then, but its complete evolution was the work of a quarter-century.

If we ask through what agency Ryerson was enabled to secure this gradual executive strength that makes our educational machinery so effective the answer must be—the Legislative grant. The Legislature placed the grant at the disposal of the Superintendent for him to apportion among the Districts. Here was a lever of wonderful power, and Ryerson was quick to perceive its possibilities. If Districts wished a grant they must conform to certain requirements. If school sections wished a grant from the District Superintendent, they, too, must satisfy certain requirements as to textbooks, qualified teachers, building and equipment.

No doubt the Prussian system gave Ryerson many hints on this subject, but he knew that the Canadian spirit was very different from the docile German spirit fostered by generations of benevolent paternalism. I think, too, there can be no reasonable doubt that he received many practical hints on this point from the workings of Her Majesty's Committee on Education formed by the Imperial Parliament. The history of the world presents no more significant illustration of how an outside body may come to exercise an effective control over various kinds of schools than is presented by the history of the schools of Great Britain and Ireland and their control by Her Majesty's Government through parliamentary grants.

That the leaders of Canadian public opinion in the years following 1846 saw all that was involved in Ryerson's gradual strengthening of central control of educational affairs is made abundantly clear by the leading editorials in the press of that period. The Toronto Globe, which had been established in 1844 by the Browns, was already in 1846 the leading exponent of advanced liberal ideas in Upper Canada. As the Globe had been bitterly opposed to Lord Metcalfe, and had resented Ryerson's defence of him, it was not to be expected that Ryerson's appointment as Superintendent of Education would be satisfactory to that journal, or that his educational plans would be leniently criticised. Indeed, the Globe editor's first objection to Ryerson's Bill of 1846 was to the great powers conferred upon the Superintendent and to the irresponsible nature of his Commission. The following is from a Globe editorial of April 14th, 1846;[75] "We have read a draft of the new School Bill for Upper Canada brought in by Mr. Draper. We have not been able to go over all its claims, but it contains one objectionable principle, viz.: the appointment and dismissal of the Superintendent is vested in the Governor-General personally and not in the Governor-General with the advice of his Council, as it ought to be. The whole funds from which the school system is to derive support are raised by the people of Canada, and the disposal of them should be subjected to the control of the House through the Executive Council.... The powers of the Superintendent are very great and embrace many points such as the selection of proper books, etc. A Board of seven Commissioners to assist the Superintendent is named, but the Governor may appoint them, or not, and the Superintendent may take their advice, or not, and he has also power to prevent interference at any time, for he is only to receive advice on all measures which he may 'submit to them.' The whole of this extensive institution, if the Bill passes, will be lodged in the Governor-General personally and in the Superintendent, and they may work it for any purpose that suits their views." On July 14th, 1846, the editor of the Globe again criticises the School Bill, because the Superintendent reports to the Governor and not to the Governor-General-in-Council.

These articles are interesting and important. Why was Ryerson's appointment vested in the Governor and not in the Executive Council? The answer not only throws valuable light upon the way that Ryerson himself viewed his office and its relation to the public, but it incidentally shows how imperfectly responsible government was established in Upper Canada in 1846. We should gasp with astonishment in Canada to-day if it were proposed to vest the appointment of any public officers in the Governor-General personally. We allow our Governors no personal freedom in the conduct of public affairs. But in 1846 that idea was not wholly accepted. There still lingered a feeling that the Crown had certain vaguely-defined prerogatives, which might be exercised without let or hindrance from Councillors. And many who recognized that the British Crown had little individual freedom of action in public affairs in Britain could not see that the same status ought to be established for the Crown's representative in a colony. Or, to put it in another way, the people did not see how a colony could be self-governing without being wholly independent.

Ryerson wished his appointment to be vested in the Governor, rather than in the Executive Council, because he thought that by such an arrangement he was a servant of the country and not of any political party. He thought that a Superintendent of Education ought, like a judge, to be placed beyond the accidents and turmoil of politics. No doubt that was an illogical position. Indeed, time showed it to be so, and that full recognition of the principle of responsible government required a Minister of Education responsible directly to the Legislature. We can only speculate as to what would have been the effect upon our schools had Ryerson's position been looked upon as political and had he been forced to vacate his office with every change of government. It seems doubtful whether our schools would have improved as rapidly as they did under the conservative, but truly progressive, policy of Ryerson.

There is abundant evidence that there were many in Upper Canada who wished to see the position of Superintendent closely connected with politics. A Globe editorial, Jan. 6th, 1847, commenting on Ryerson's report, says: "We expected that when our new Superintendent stepped into his ill-gotten office he would immediately take measures to make himself acquainted with the replies to such questions as the following: First, the situation, condition and number of schools and school-houses of all kinds in the Province. Second, the manner in which school trustees, town, county and district Superintendents had discharged their several duties. Third, the desire manifested by parents generally for the education of their children. Fourth, the competency and efficiency of the teachers, their salaries, etc. Fifth, the kind of school books used, the school libraries and other apparatus for teaching. Had such questions been proposed and answered, the Superintendent would have had something to base a report upon. It was but natural to suppose that an officer whose sole prospects of success are in the confidence and co-operation of the people would have taken some steps to gain that confidence and co-operation, that he would have been desirous by direct communication with superintendents, trustees, experienced teachers and influential persons in the Province of ascertaining their views and of obtaining their suggestions as to the best means of promoting the interests of the noble department over which he had been called to preside. But no, it is true he was devising a system of education for Canada, but what had the wants or wishes of the people to do with it? The serfs must receive anything I, their lord and master, may import from the cringing subjects of despotic monarchies. We are more and more convinced from the examination of this report that Mr. Ryerson is not competent for the situation which he occupies."