SCHOOL TEACHERS AND PREACHERS
The Loyalists were so busy in clearing the land and getting the new home into shape that little time was left for looking after such matters as educating the young. There were no laws regulating the school system, no buildings nor funds for school purposes, no officials to take the lead, and what was done was the spontaneous outcome of a desire to equip the rising generation for the duties of citizenship.[#]
[#] The first enactment of any kind respecting schools in Upper Canada was passed in 1807. This made very inadequate provision for the establishment of one public school in each district. The first legislative attempt to encourage, assist, or regulate common schools was by an Act passed in 1816. Both of these statutes were very crude and left much to be desired.
The first efforts were those of the mother and other elder members of the household. Later on a few families clubbed together and employed a man to instruct their children in the rudimentary elements of a common school education. There was no building for the purpose, so a room was set apart in one of the dwellings, probably the only room on the ground floor, and while the good housewife busied herself about her duties on one side of the room the teacher was training the young ideas how to shoot on the other side. For one or two weeks he would remain with this family, getting his board and washing and two or three dollars a week, and then he would move on to the next neighbour with his little flock, and so on until the circuit of his subscribers of five or six families was completed, when he commenced again at the first.
As late as 1818 in a contract entered into between a teacher and a few of the farmers in one of the first townships, we find the covenant to teach in the following words: "That the party of the first part engages to keep a good school according to his ability, and to teach reading, writing, and arithmetic." His hours were from eight o'clock in the morning until four in the afternoon, with one and one-half hours for noon. He was to teach every alternate Saturday. In addition to his board, lodging, and washing, he was to be paid the princely salary of twelve and one-half dollars a month, "whereof one-half in cash at the end of the quarter and the other in orders or other value monthly."
Soon the little log school-house appeared, not larger than fifteen by twenty feet, with a door in one end and a window on each side. On the inside holes were bored in the logs about two feet six inches from the floor, pegs inserted, and upon these pegs rested a plank. This was the desk, and the pupils, while working at it, necessarily sat with their faces towards the wall. A rude bench without a back was the only seat. Books were very scarce. About the only real school book that ever found its way into the hands of the pupil was Mayor's spelling book. The New Testament was the universal reader, and if any other books were in use in the school the teacher was the only one who had access to them. The three R's: "Reading, Riting, and Rithmetic" were the extent of the general curriculum. There were no authorized text-books, and such as were in use were far from perfect.[#]
[#] The Act of 1816 required the trustees of each school to report to the district Board of Education the books used in the school, and it was lawful for the Board to order and direct such books not to be used; but no one was clothed with authority to order what books should be used.
For many years the only Geography used in the schools contained the following information relating to the continent of America:
"What is America?"
"The fourth part of the world, called also the New World."