An interesting sidelight is thrown upon the nature of the instruction given in the Toronto Normal School by the Report for 1868 of George Paxton Young, Inspector of Grammar Schools. Young was trying to raise the standard of the Grammar Schools, and shows how their improvement would affect the Normal Schools. He says: "I suppose there can be no doubt that if High Schools like those which I have described were established, it would be necessary to modify the work of the Normal School considerably. Teachers who would have to perform different duties from what have hitherto been expected at their hands would need a different training from what has hitherto been given. The instructions in English in the Normal School would require to be raised to a far higher level than is now aimed at. Much of the elementary drilling which Normal School students at present receive might be dispensed with. Our institution for the training of teachers ought not to be a school for teaching English grammar. In the same way I would lighten the ship of such subjects as the bare facts of geography and history; not rejecting of course prelections on the proper method of teaching geography and history. The English master in the Normal School might thus be enabled to devote a portion of his time to lessons in the English language and literature of a superior cast—lessons which he would have a pride in giving and on which the students would feel it a privilege to wait. Such lessons would be immensely useful even to those young men and women who might only desire to qualify themselves for becoming Common School teachers. In the department of physical science, it is plain that if the views which I have expressed in regard to the way in which science should be taught in the High Schools be just, the object of the prelections in the Normal School should not be to cram the students with a mass of facts but to develop in them a philosophic habit of mind and to make them practically understand how classes in science ought to be conducted in the schools."[130]
No man in Canada was better qualified to estimate the real work of any educational establishment than Young, and although he was not closely connected with the Normal School, we may assume that his analysis was essentially correct and that the study of formal grammar and the acquisition of scientific facts bulked large in the Normal School programme. In his report for 1867,[131] in speaking of the Normal and Model Schools, Ryerson says: "They are not constituted as are most of the Normal Schools in both Europe and America to impart the preliminary education requisite for teaching. That preparatory education is supposed to have been attained in the ordinary public or private schools. The entrance examination to the Normal School requires this. The object of the Normal and Model Schools is, therefore, to do for the teacher what an apprenticeship does for the mechanic, the artist, the physician, the lawyer—to teach him theoretically and practically how to do the work of his profession."
A little consideration will show us that a school trying to realize such an aim and attempting to teach only the rudiments of the science of education, upon which the theory of teaching is based, must become empirical and rule-of-thumb in its methods. The real difficulty lay in the inadequate preparation with which the teachers in training entered upon their work. The Normal School could not improve until an improvement should be effected in the Grammar Schools.
During the first nine sessions of the Normal School no certificates were granted which entitled the holder to teach. The Normal School graduates simply received certificates of attendance and had to submit to examination by a County Board before securing a license. It almost invariably happened that Normal School graduates were able to take a high standing at these examinations, and hence Ryerson met with no serious opposition from County Boards when in 1853 he proposed to issue Provincial certificates to Normal School graduates upon the recommendation of the Normal School masters. From 1853 to 1871 a dual system of granting certificates was in operation. Normal School graduates received Provincial certificates of various grades, and County Boards issued certificates valid only in the county where issued. In 1871 a radical change was made, by which County Boards were allowed to issue only third-class certificates valid for three years in the county where given, and renewable on the recommendation of the County Inspector. Second and first-class certificates were granted only by the Department of Education and valid during good behaviour, and in any part of the Province. A first-class certificate of the highest grade (Grade "A") was made the qualification for County Inspectors. It should also be noted that the third-class certificates referred to above were granted after 1871 only upon the passing of a written examination upon papers prepared by a central committee chosen by the Council of Public Instruction. This was a radical change from the old method, which allowed each County Board to fix its own standard, a plan which necessarily led to many certificates being granted to wholly incompetent persons.
The change of 1871, which virtually established a Provincial system of licensing teachers, brought upon Ryerson's head much abuse from incompetent teachers and their friends. The Superintendent stood firmly by his guns, knowing well that his act was in the best interests of the Province. A few words from his reply to those who objected that old teachers were being set aside because of failure to pass the Provincial examination is worth mentioning. He says: "I answer, as government exists not for office-holders but for the people, so the school exists not for the teachers but for the youth and future generations of the land; and if teachers have been too slothful not to keep pace with the progressive wants and demands of the country, they must, as should all incompetent and indolent public officers, and all lazy and unenterprising citizens, give place to the more industrious, intelligent, progressive, and enterprising. The sound education of a generation of children is not to be sacrificed for the sake of an incompetent although antiquated teacher."[132]
Having secured the adoption of a system by which all licensing of teachers was under Departmental control, Ryerson next turned his attention to an extension of facilities for training teachers. His plans were comprehensive and had to wait thirty-five years for complete realization. In 1872[133] he reported to the Provincial Treasurer as follows: "I desire to state in reply that last year I thought and suggested to the Government that two additional Normal Schools were required, one in the eastern and the other in the western section of the Province, but I am now inclined to think that three additional Normal Schools will be required to extend the advantages of a Normal School training to all parts of the Province—one at London, one at Kingston, and one at Ottawa. If provision be not made to establish them all at once, I think the first established should be at Ottawa—the centre of a large region of country where the schools are in a comparatively backward state, and where the influence of the Normal School training for teachers has yet been scarcely felt except in a few towns, and which is almost entirely separated from Toronto in all branches of business and commerce, and therefore, to a great extent, in social relations and sympathies.... As the whole Province east of Belleville is less advanced and less progressive in schools than the western parts, I think a second Normal School should be established at Kingston. The whole region of country from Belleville, on the west, to Brockville, on the east, has very little more business or commercial connection with Toronto than the more eastern parts of the Province. Although London is not so remote from Toronto as Ottawa or Kingston, yet it is the centre of a populous and prosperous part of the Province from which an ample number of student teachers would be collected to fill any Normal School.... With the establishment of these three Normal Schools I am persuaded there would still be as large a number of student teachers attending the Toronto School as can advantageously be trained in one institution.... I think all the Normal Schools should be subject to the oversight of the Education Department and under the same regulations formally sanctioned by the Lieutenant-Governor-in-Council. This I think necessary on the grounds of both economy and uniformity of standard and system of instruction. As to the extent of accommodation in each Normal School, I think that provision should be made for training 150 teachers in each school."
In the meantime, while negotiations for more Normal School accommodation were in progress, an attempt was made to give some professional training through teachers' institutes. As far back as 1850 the Legislature had made a grant for such meetings, and they had been conducted by the Normal School masters. In 1872 the plan was revised and some very successful institutes held. The movement is important because out of it grew County Model Schools, and the adoption of a principle which meant some professional training for every teacher.
In 1875, a Normal School was opened at Ottawa, but the plan of having schools at Kingston and London was abandoned largely because of the apathy of the Legislature in regard to the expense. In fact it is doubtful if any Government could have forced through the Legislature a vote for such a purpose.
Ryerson found the schools in 1844 taught by teachers without certificates and without professional training; he left them in 1876 with teachers, all of whom were certificated under Government examinations, and many of whom were Normal-trained. More important still, he had, by his lectures at County Conventions and by his writings in the Journal of Education, created a sentiment throughout the Province in favour of trained teachers. He thus made easy the pathway of his successors in securing increased efficiency; but it may be doubted whether any of his immediate successors achieved results in keeping with the material advance of the Province.