Part 10 (1/2)
The Act of 1850 caused some friction in Toronto, where the Roman Catholics asked for a second Separate School. The Trustee Board refused on the ground that they were not legally compelled to establish more than one Separate School in the city and the Court of Queen's Bench upheld their decision. By the old Act, under which cities were divided into school sections, there was no legal bar to the establishment of a Separate School in every city school section. Ryerson thought the Roman Catholics had a grievance and consented to recommend the Bill giving a Separate School in each city ward or a Separate School for two or more wards united for such purpose. This amendment was pa.s.sed in 1851 and caused considerable discussion. A large party in Upper Canada were opposed to Separate Schools on principle and objected to any legislation that would multiply them, make them more efficient and popular, or grant them more favourable financial support.
The att.i.tude of the out-and-out opponents to Separate Schools was very well expressed by the following Bill,[91] introduced in 1851 by William Lyon Mackenzie:--
”Whereas the establishment of sectarian or Separate Schools, upheld by periodical grants of money from a provincial treasury and placed under the control of the Executive Government through its Superintendents of Education and other civil officers, is a dangerous interference with the Common School system of Upper Canada, and if allowed to Protestants and Roman Catholics cannot reasonably be refused to Episcopalians, Presbyterians, Quakers, Tunkers, Baptists, Independents and other religious denominations; and whereas if it is just that any number of religious sects should have Separate Public Schools it is not less reasonable that they should have separate Grammar Schools, Colleges and professors.h.i.+ps in the Universities; and whereas it is unjust for the State to tax Protestants in order to provide for the instruction of children in Roman Catholic doctrines or to tax Roman Catholics for religious instruction of youth in principles adverse to those of the Church of Rome; and as the early separation of children at school on account of the creeds of their parents or guardians would rear nurseries of strife and dissension and cause thousands to grow up in comparative ignorance who might under our Common School system obtain the advantages of a moral, intellectual and scientific education, be it enacted therefore that the nineteenth section of the Act of 1850 be repealed.”
[91] See Journals of Canadian a.s.sembly for 1851.
Mackenzie's Bill was defeated by 26 to 5. It lays down broad general principles that are not easy to overthrow, and no doubt several who voted against it would have been glad to see all young Canadians educated together. But if the right to have Separate Schools be granted, and it had been granted by successive School Acts for Upper Canada, then it seems naturally to follow that the Legislature was bound to place no obstacles in the way of their formation and to make them efficient.
Separate Schools were at first grudgingly granted as a privilege, but not as a right. Naturally, every extension of the privilege was used by the supporters of these schools as a vantage-ground from which to secure further privileges and gradually convert these into rights. At first the parties seceding from the Public Schools shared only in the school fund made up of the legislative grant and an equal sum levied by the district, town or city council--the whole being available only for the payment of teachers' salaries. Supporters of Separate Schools were liable to be taxed for the building and equipment of Public Schools in addition to the support of their own. They claimed a _pro rata_ share of all moneys levied by taxation, and in some cases the law was invoked in an attempt to secure such share.
In 1853, a radical amendment was adopted by which Separate School supporters received a _pro rata_ share of the legislative grant only, and upon subscribing for school purposes a sum equivalent to the grant secured were relieved of all taxation for Common School purposes. The Act of 1853 also gave the Separate School trustees power to issue certificates to the teachers employed by them, and the same power of levying rates upon the supporters of their schools as that exercised by trustees of Common Schools.
While the Separate School Bill of 1853 was before the Legislature, there was an attempt to introduce a clause establis.h.i.+ng a general Board of Trustees for Separate or sectarian Schools in towns and cities. Ryerson went to Quebec to confer with the Attorney-General and vigorously opposed the Bill. His correspondence shows that he had no wish to place Separate Schools on an equality with Public Schools. In fact he wished to do nothing that would encourage or make easy their formation. The law as it stood allowed Separate Schools only when the teacher was of a different religious faith from those wis.h.i.+ng the Separate School. A general Board of Separate School Trustees for every town or city would have greatly increased the number of Separate Schools. Ryerson says: ”This is placing Sectarian Schools upon a totally different foundation from that on which they have always stood; it is the introduction of a system of sectarian schools without restriction and almost without conditions.... If there are city and town Boards of Sectarian School Trustees they will claim the right of appointing their own local superintendents, and thus their schools will be shut up against all inspection except that they themselves may please to require or permit.... Thus such a Board in Toronto might recognize and claim public aid for every child taught in convents and by other private teachers of the same religious persuasion.... If provision be made in each city and town to incorporate into one Board one religious persuasion, exempting it from the payment of school rates and authorizing it to tax and collect from its own members to any amount for school purposes, the application of any other religious persuasion in any such city or town cannot be consistently or fairly resisted.... The effect of all this would be to destroy the system of Public Schools in cities and towns and ultimately perhaps in villages and towns.h.i.+ps, and to leave all the poorer portion of the population and that portion of it connected with minor religious persuasions without any adequate and certain means of education. I think the safest and most defensible ground to take is a firm refusal to sanction any measure to provide by law increased facilities for the multiplication and perpetuation of sectarian schools.”[92]
[92] See D. H. E., Vol. X., pp. 172 and 173.
The att.i.tude of the extreme opponents of Separate Schools may be made clear from the editorials of George Brown in the Toronto _Globe_. On April 2nd, 1853, he says:--
”But under the new Bill the taxation of the Roman Catholic parents and the whole charge of the Separate Schools are to devolve on the Popish authorities. The schools are to become henceforth distinct, not only in their mode of tuition, but in the machinery by which they are to be conducted. They are to retain no vestige of connection with the general educational system, which is the pride and glory of the Canadian people. Any Roman Catholic has only to declare himself a supporter of a Separate School and straightway he is relieved from taxation for the maintenance of the general system.
As at present const.i.tuted, there is a kind of guarantee that Roman Catholics are educated, that they are not left entirely in ignorance, but under Mr. Richards' Bill there would be none.... The plain and obvious intention of the Bill is the still further development of the sectarian element in our Common Schools. The Roman Catholics were not satisfied with what they had already gained. They wished to obtain their share of the annual Parliamentary grant, paid out of the revenue, which is made up almost exclusively from Protestant money. They wished to have their schools altogether free from the supervision of the general trustees. Their bishops went down to Quebec, the _Mirror_ announcing their departure, and hinting at the object of their journey, and straightway we have the Bill from Mr. W. B. Richards, granting to them all they had demanded. If they had asked much more it would have been granted to them by the present Government. If this Bill pa.s.ses into law, the sectarian system will be fully and thoroughly introduced, and must be carried out to its utmost extent. The Roman Catholics say that they are not satisfied to send their children to the Common Schools, and they are free from taxation. The Episcopalians are ready to say the same, and we ask whether in fairness we can refuse to one what we grant to the other? And then the Methodists will demand separate schools, and the Presbyterians, and all hopes of the education of the people may be abandoned. Yet this Bill has been introduced by a Government raised to power upon the principle that our school system should be free from clerical control. 'No sectarian schools' was the watchword at the last election among Reformers, yet one of the first measures introduced by the Reform Government is to establish sectarian schools more thoroughly than before. We look to them to abolish, and behold! they ratify and confirm the evils of their predecessors. Where is this to stop? When is the measure of the iniquity of this Government to be filled up?... Let our school system, the source of light and intelligence, be destroyed, and what remains to us of hope for the country? They, as it were, would go gradually back to the darkness of ignorance and superst.i.tion. We shall consider no inst.i.tution safe from priestly encroachments if this Bill is carried. There is no point upon which the people of Upper Canada can be more severely wounded than their common schools. Every true patriot has fondly looked to them as the safeguards against the despotism of priestcraft, and against violence of an ignorant and, therefore, vicious populace. If they are sacrificed, if their n.o.ble endowment is scattered among the sects, frittered away on a dozen different school systems, if the priests are to take possession of all the avenues of knowledge, what will be the fate of this Province? Will it rise in the scale of nations, ever to be distinguished for the intelligence of its people, for its prosperity and advancement?”[93]
[93] See bound volumes of _Globe_ in Legislative Library, Toronto.
The following from the Toronto _Examiner_, reprinted in the _Globe_ of April 7th, 1853, shows that the _Globe_ was not alone in its opinions:--
”We are reluctantly forced to the conviction that the rupture, complete and final, of the Common School system of Canada is only a question of time. We were among those who looked anxiously to the Government for a liberal and decided policy on this momentous question. An examination of the supplementary School Bill which we give in other columns will bear us out but too fully, we fear, in p.r.o.nouncing its liberality exceedingly questionable.... How different in Canada. Reformers have been bidding for Roman Catholic votes until they are likely to bid away every distinctive principle which they hold, and when this is done will it satisfy the ends of men whose mission is to establish in the place of free inst.i.tutions the domination of priestcraft?”
The following from the Roman Catholic _Mirror_, quoted in the _Globe_, April 9th, 1853, shows that the Roman Catholics were well pleased with the Bill:
”We freely admit that we had certain misgivings respecting the amount of relief which might be expected from the measure proposed, which from the haughty and dictatorial tone a.s.sumed by the Chief Superintendent of Schools for Upper Canada, in his late perambulations, we were prepared at least to regard with suspicion.
The terms on which justice has been hitherto meted out in stinted and n.i.g.g.ard instalments, under the existing law, and the many instances in which it has been withheld or contemptuously refused, may have rendered us over-sensitive; but we must acknowledge that when we observe Dr. Ryerson publicly promulgate the conditions on which he would concede to Catholics the privilege of directing the education of their own children, we were prepared to expect a reiterated legislative insult and a gross injustice, not a measure restrictive, partial and oppressive. We have been most agreeably disappointed; the Bill of the 'Honourable Attorney-General West,'
with some slight modifications which can be readily introduced in committee, will form the basis of an educational system of sound principle, particularly calculated to do justice to all cla.s.ses of the community.”
The following resolutions of the Synod of the United Presbyterian Church, printed in the _Globe_, June 30th, 1853, shows the opinion of that body on the Common School question:--
”Resolved. I. That this Synod approve of a national system of education, placing all the members of the community upon a level, and encouraging, as that now in force in this Province does, the use of the Scriptures under certain reasonable regulations, as are also prescribed therein.
”II. Holding these views, we deeply regret to perceive the principle of sectarian schools, so distinctly recognized in the latest amendments of the Provincial School Act, and do strongly testify against such a principle as impolitic and mischievous, recognizing as it does the right of the Government to take the moneys of the public and appropriate them for the purpose of sustaining and extending religious distractions, and thereby continuing to stimulate the elements of discord throughout the community and mar greatly social interests.
”III. That this Synod recommend to those under their care the use of every proper and const.i.tutional means to secure the repeal of all such statutes as recognize the principle of sectarian schools.”
The movement for extended Separate School privileges was being championed by Bishop de Charbonnel, of Toronto. During 1852 he had a long controversy with Ryerson on the school question.[94] Ryerson's letters during this controversy make it quite clear that he thought Separate Schools a huge blunder, and that while he had honestly attempted to give Roman Catholics all the law allowed them he hoped and expected to see their schools die a natural death.
[94] See appendices to Journals of House of a.s.sembly, 1852-1853.