Part 7 (1/2)
Ryerson from Canada, Horace Mann from Ma.s.sachusetts, Sir Kay Shuttleworth from England, besides many others, about this time paid visits to Prussia, and went home to recommend the adoption of much that they saw. These men were acute observers. They recognized that the Germans had learned something that was not generally known by other teachers. How are we to explain it? Had the German teachers by accident blundered upon better _methods_ of teaching than were practised by other nations? Not so. The German methods were the natural result of the German philosophy. The work of Herbart, Froebel, and other thinkers, was bearing its natural fruit, and many of the improvements introduced into the Canadian schools by Ryerson and practised by Canadian teachers, perhaps in an empirical way, were far-away echoes of principles laboriously worked out by German scholars.
Ryerson's remarks on teaching Biography and Civil Government seem almost like an echo from some modern school syllabus. ”Individuals preceded nations. The picture of the former is more easily comprehended than that of the latter, and is better adapted to awaken the curiosity and interest the feeling of the child. Biography should, therefore, form the princ.i.p.al topic of elementary history; and the great periods into which it is naturally and formally divided,--and which must be distinctly marked,--should be a.s.sociated with the names of some distinguished individual or individuals. The life of an individual often forms the leading feature of the age in which he lived and will form the best nucleus around which to collect, in the youthful mind, the events of an age, or the history of a period.... Every pupil should know something of the Government and Inst.i.tutions and Laws under which he lives, and with which his rights and interests are so closely connected. Provision should be made to teach in our Common Schools an outline of the principles and const.i.tution of our Government; the nature of our inst.i.tutions; the duties which they require; the manner of fulfilling them; some notions of our Civil, and especially our Criminal Code.”
The second part of Ryerson's Report is wholly concerned with the machinery of a System of Public Elementary Instruction for Upper Canada.
The Report, after giving an outline of the various cla.s.ses of schools in France and Germany, recommends for Canada a system as follows:--Common or Primary Schools for every section of a towns.h.i.+p; District Model Schools, which would correspond with the German Real or Trade Schools; District Grammar Schools, which would correspond with the German Higher Burgher Schools and Gymnasia; and, completing all, one or more Provincial Universities. The Report also suggested that as Districts became more populous each would in time be able to support, say three Model Schools, and these might specialize, one training for agriculture, another for commercial life, and a third for mechanical or industrial life.
Normal Schools were also recommended for the training of teachers, and elaborate arguments set forth showing their benefits. The example of France, Germany, Ireland, and the United States is quoted to show how these schools would secure better teachers, and that better teachers would mean better schools. Ryerson believed that Normal Schools would elevate teaching to the rank of a profession. He believed that the people were intelligent enough to choose good teachers in preference to poor ones if the good ones were at hand. He also pointed out how a good teacher would be able to economize the child's time and advance him much faster than an indifferent teacher.
The Report then deals with the subject of textbooks. We need to remember that in Upper Canada at this time there was no control of textbooks.
Each local Board or each teacher made a selection. In the majority of cases the matter regulated itself. Pupils used what they could get. With many of the people, a book was a book, and one was as good as another.
The utmost confusion prevailed. There had been many complaints that some of the books used were American and anti-British in tone. By 1846 the enterprise of Canadian publishers had driven out many of the American texts, but in some districts they were still in common use.[69] In reference to this, Ryerson says: ”The variety of textbooks in the schools, and the objectionable character of many of them, is a subject of serious and general complaint. All cla.s.sification of the pupils is thereby prevented; the exertions of the best teacher are in a great measure paralyzed; the time of the scholars is almost wasted; and improper sentiments are often inculcated.” The Report suggests that this matter must be under central control and not left to any local board or district superintendent. To fully appreciate the importance of this matter we need to remember that books meant more sixty years ago than they do to-day in any system of instruction. The better the teacher the less he is dependent upon a book, especially in such subjects as arithmetic, grammar, geography, or history. But in 1846 the teachers were in many cases wholly helpless without books. A boy went to school to ”mind his book.” Rote learning, working problems by a rule laid down in the book, studying printed questions and answers, were largely what was meant by ”schooling.” Bad as such a system was, its evils were increased when the books were especially unsuitable. Ryerson praised very highly the series in use in the National Schools of Ireland, and later he introduced them into Canada.
[69] A Report made to the Education Office, for 1846, shows that there were in use in Upper Canada schools 13 Spelling, 107 Reading, 35 Arithmetic, 20 Geography, 21 History, and 16 Grammar texts, besides 53 different texts in various other subjects.
Public men in Upper Canada who took an interest in education had long recognized that the Common Schools were sadly in need of a stronger central control, and some system of inspection. But how to secure these safeguards and yet not destroy the principle of local control was no easy problem to solve. The towns.h.i.+p superintendents were not educators.
They often were intelligent men, but as a cla.s.s were without any knowledge of how to guide schools or inspire teachers to n.o.bler things.
They received from 10 to 20 a year for their services, which sum was as good as wasted. The Act of 1841, and that of 1843, had made provision for local superintendents of education, and had also defined their duties, but the Act had made no provision to secure the due performance of their orders. They were without power except such as the District and Towns.h.i.+p Boards voluntarily allowed them to a.s.sume. They might make suggestions and give advice, but with that their legal functions were at an end.
When M. Cousin, in 1836, visited Holland to examine into the system of primary instruction in that country, the Dutch Commissioner who had founded the system said to him: ”Be watchful in the choice of your inspectors; they are the men who ought to be sought for with a lantern in the hand.” Ryerson recognized the truth of this, and in his Report laid it down as essential to any efficient system.
His report on the control that should be exercised directly by the Government I shall quote entire.
”(1) To see that the Legislative grants are faithfully and judiciously expended according to the intentions of the Legislature; that the conditions on which the appropriations have been made are in all cases duly fulfilled.
”(2) To see that the general principles of the law as well as the objects of its appropriations are in no instance contravened.
”(3) To prepare the regulations which relate to the general character and management of the schools, and the qualifications and character of the teachers, leaving the employment of them to the people and a large discretion as to modes of teaching.
”(4) To provide or recommend books from the catalogue of which Trustees or Committees may be enabled to select suitable ones for the use of their schools.
”(5) To prepare and recommend suitable plans of school-houses and their furniture and appendages as one of the most important subsidiary means of securing good schools--a subject upon which it is intended by me, on a future occasion, to present a special report.
”(6) To employ every const.i.tutional means to excite a spirit of intellectual activity and enquiry, and to satisfy it as far as possible by aiding in the establishment and selection of school libraries and other means of diffusing useful knowledge.
”(7) Finally and especially, to see that an efficient system of inspection is exercised over all the schools. This involves the examination and licensing of teachers, visiting the schools, discovering errors and suggesting remedies as to the organization, cla.s.sification and methods of teaching in the schools, giving counsel and instruction as to their management, carefully examining the pupils, animating teachers, trustees and parents by conversations and addresses, whenever practicable, imparting vigour by every available means to the whole school system. What the Government is to the system and what the teacher is to the school, the local inspector or superintendent of schools should be within the limits of his district.”
This plan made the Local Superintendent responsible for the examination and licensing of teachers according to regulations laid down by the Department. With this important exception it will be seen that the functions of the Government as exercised through the Department of Education are substantially the same to-day as they were outlined in Ryerson's first report.
The concluding part of the report dealt with what Ryerson called ”Individual Efforts,” and under this heading he said some very sensible things. He emphasized the importance of parents taking an interest in the school, of clergymen and magistrates visiting the school, of good school libraries, of Teachers' Inst.i.tutes, of debating clubs, and of every agency that would a.s.sist in stimulating intellectual life.
CHAPTER VI.
_RYERSON'S SCHOOL BILL OF 1846._
The year 1846 will ever be memorable in the annals of school legislation in Upper Canada, because it established the main principles upon which all subsequent school legislation was founded. As already pointed out, the Act of 1843 was largely a failure because it did not provide adequate machinery for the enforcement of its provisions. No important school legislation was undertaken during 1845 in antic.i.p.ation of Ryerson's report. After making his report, Ryerson drafted a Bill which, with a few trifling emendations, became the Common School Act of 1846.