Egerton Ryerson and Education in Upper Canada

by J. Harold Putman

In 1828, Ryerson was appointed to the Hamilton and Ancaster Circuit, which reached from within five miles of Brantford to Stoney Creek. On September 10th, 1828, he married Hannah Aikman, of Hamilton.[4]

The Methodist Conference of 1829 determined to establish an official newspaper to be known as The Christian Guardian. Ryerson was elected as the first editor and was sent to New York to procure the plant. The paper started with a circulation of 500, which in three years was increased to some 3,000. Besides defending Methodist principles and institutions, the paper made a strong stand for civil liberty, temperance, education, and missionary work. It soon came to be looked upon as one of the leading journals of Upper Canada. Ryerson gave up the position of editor in 1832, and the following year made a trip to England to negotiate a union between the Canadian Methodist Conference and the Wesleyan Conference of England. The union was consummated. Ryerson returned to Canada and was re-elected editor of the Guardian.

While in England, he had interviews with Earl Ripon, Lord Stanley and other public men, to whom he gave valuable information concerning Canadian affairs, especially those connected with the vexed question of the status of the Anglican Church.

On his return to Canada, in 1833, Ryerson published in the Guardian "Impressions Made by My Late Visit to England." In this article he gave his estimate of Tories, Whigs, and Radicals. He saw much to admire in the moderate Tories, little to praise in the Whigs, and much to condemn in the Radicals. His strictures on the latter called down upon him the wrath and invective of William Lyon Mackenzie. To some extent Ryerson's articles led the constitutional reformers in Upper Canada to separate themselves from those reformers who were prepared to establish a republican form of government in order to secure equal political and civil rights. To many of his old friends it seemed that Ryerson had given up championing liberty and had become a Tory. Many were ready to accuse him of self-seeking in his desire to conciliate the party of privilege. One reverend brother,[5] writing to him, says: "I can only account for your strange and un-Ryersonian conduct and advice on one principle—that there is something ahead which you, through your superior political spy-glass, have discovered and thus shape your course, while we landlubbers, short-sighted as we are, have not even heard of it." Hundreds of subscribers gave up the Guardian as a protest against the views of its editor, but as the crisis approached which culminated in the Rebellion of '37 and '38, the tide of public opinion turned in Ryerson's favour.

In 1835, Ryerson gave up the Guardian and took a church at Kingston. Scarcely was he settled when he undertook a second visit to England. The Methodists had, in 1832, laid the corner-stone of the Upper Canada Academy at Cobourg. They had no charter, although an unsuccessful attempt had been made to have the Trustee Board incorporated by the Legislature of Upper Canada. Extensive buildings were under way and the trustees were in financial difficulties. Ryerson was sent to England to beg subscriptions and also to attempt to secure a Royal Charter. The work was distasteful to him, but he persevered, and after more than a year and six months spent in England he accomplished three ends. He secured enough money in subscriptions to relieve the most pressing immediate needs of the Trustee Board. He secured an order from the Colonial Secretary directed to the Governor of Upper Canada, authorizing him to pay to the Upper Canada Academy, from the unappropriated revenues of the Crown, the sum of £4,000.[6] Last, and most important, he secured a Royal Charter, although up to that time no such charter had ever been issued to any religious body except the Established Church. To Ryerson, the visit to England was of prime importance. It gave him a broadened view of British institutions and English public men. It gave him a political experience that was of great value to him in later years. It gave him an opportunity to appeal to his fellow men upon the subject of education and educational institutions.

While in England, Ryerson contributed a series of letters to the London Times on Canadian affairs. There was a prevalent feeling in England that a very large part of the Upper Canadian people was determined upon a republican form of government. Ryerson's letters did something to remove this impression.

After the Rebellion of 1837 was crushed, the constitutional reform party was apparently without any influence. It seemed that the Family Compact oligarchy would have everything in their own hands. Prospects for equality of civil and religious liberty were not bright, and it is significant of the Methodists' appreciation of Ryerson's ability that they immediately planned to make him again editor of the Guardian. His brother John, writing to him in March, 1838, said: "It is a great blessing that Mackenzie and radicalism are down, but we are in imminent danger of being brought under the domination of a military and high-church oligarchy which would be equally bad, if not infinitely worse. Under the blessing of Providence, there is one remedy and only one: that is for you to take the editorship of the Guardian again."[7]

Ryerson did take the position, and in his first editorial in the Guardian of the 11th July, 1838, says: "Notwithstanding the almost incredible calumny which has in past years been heaped upon me by antipodes-party-presses, I still adhere to the principles and views upon which I set out in 1826. I believe the endowment of the priesthood of any Church in the Province to be an evil to that church.... I believe that the appropriation of the proceeds of the Clergy Reserves to general educational purposes will be the most satisfactory and advantageous disposal of them that can be made. In nothing is this Province so defective as in the requisite available provisions for an efficient system of general education. Let the distinctive character of that system be the union of public and private effort.... To Government influence will be spontaneously added the various and combined religious influences of the country in the noble, statesmanlike and divine work of raising up an elevated, intelligent, and moral population."

Dr. Ryerson clearly saw that religion, politics, and education could not at this period be separated, and for the next two years he did his utmost, through the Guardian, to prevent the Anglican Church from securing undivided possession of the Clergy Reserves. The difficulties of his task were increased by the fact that there were in Canada several British Wesleyan missionaries who were not unwilling to see an Anglican Establishment. They were cleverly used by some of the Anglicans and their friends to cause ferment and sow discord among the Methodists in Canada. From 1838 until 1840, when he finally gave up the editorship of the Guardian, Ryerson fought strongly for equal religious privileges for all the people of Upper Canada. Nor were Ryerson's efforts in this direction confined to the columns of the Guardian. He addressed several communications to the new Colonial Secretary, Lord Normanby.

Lord Durham and his successor, Lord Sydenham, received the cordial support of Ryerson in their efforts to give a constitutional government to Canada. Largely through Ryerson's suggestion there was issued at Toronto, in 1841, the Monthly Review, which was to be a medium for disseminating the liberal views of Sydenham. Ryerson wrote the prospectus and contributed some articles. Probably as a recognition for this work, Sydenham sent him a draft for £100, which he promptly returned.