Part 11 (2/2)

The report of the Grammar School inspector on the schools of Eastern Ontario, for 1860, shows that things were far from satisfactory:

”With the exception of two or three really good schools our Grammar Schools in the extreme East are in a very low state. Some of them I can only designate as infant schools. Nor do I see anything from the localities in which they are placed or the present state of the Grammar School law which gives me any hope of amelioration.

Advancing civilization and the material growth of the country in time may act upon them, but immediate remedies and those of a stringent nature are imperatively needed.... The want of a cla.s.s of specially trained Grammar School masters who have taken this as a permanent profession for life is a great drawback to the efficiency of our schools. The supposed inferior social status of the Grammar School master and the larger rewards held out for superior mental activity in the other professions turn aside most of those who are most eminently qualified for the scholastic office. Of the twenty-two schools mentioned in my report six were in the hands of persons who avowedly were making teaching the stepping-stone to the attainment of other professions, as law, medicine, or the church.

Several were evidently conducted by persons who had taken to teaching after having failed in other walks of life. Comparatively few were held by those who were fitted for their office by previous training, or were devoting themselves entirely to their work as the main business of their lives.”[105]

[105] See D. H. E., Vol. XVI., pp. 148, 149.

There seems also to have been a disposition to unduly multiply Grammar Schools because they were supported so largely by the Legislative grant.

The Rev. Dr. Paxton Young, Inspector of Grammar Schools, in his report for 1864, says: ”The too free and inconsiderate exercise by County Councils of the large power thus entrusted to them has led to a heedless and most unfortunate multiplication of the Grammar Schools, and the evil instead of showing any symptoms of abatement appears to be growing worse from year to year. In 1858 the number of the schools was seventy-five; in 1860 it was eighty-eight; in 1863 it had risen to ninety-five; and the number of recognized schools is now as high as one hundred and eight. Not a few of the schools thus hastily established are Grammar Schools in name rather than in reality, the work done in them being almost altogether Common School work, which, as a rule, would be much better performed in a well-appointed Common School. I believe that County Councils are often led to establish Grammar Schools in localities where they are not needed under the idea that if the schools should be productive of no good at any rate they can do no harm. There could not be a greater mistake. Men ought to be wise enough by this time to understand that all public inst.i.tutions, especially if forming parts of a great plan, must, where unnecessary, be positively bad. Needless and contemptible Grammar Schools are a blot upon the whole school system, the sight of which is fitted to shake the confidence of the country in the administrative wisdom or firmness of those to whom the direction of educational matters is committed. When it is considered that the apportionment from the Grammar School fund to a particular county is divided according to certain fixed principles between the different schools in that county, it will be seen that the disposition manifested by some councils to secure the largest number of schools for their county, is practically a disposition to secure quant.i.ty for quality, for as the number of schools is augmented the salaries of the masters are diminished, the tendency of which is, of course, to throw the schools into the hands of a lower grade of teachers.... About three out of every five Grammar Schools in Upper Canada have Common Schools united with them, and, in not a few instances, where unions have not yet been formed, I found a strong disposition existing to enter into such an arrangement. I made it my business to inquire particularly into the benefits supposed to result from the union of the Common with the Grammar Schools. The chief advantage was in almost every case admitted to be a pecuniary one. By the existing law Grammar School trustees have of themselves no power to raise money for Grammar School purposes, but in case of the Common and Grammar Schools becoming united the joint boards may levy money for the support of the united schools. This being so, it is easy to comprehend how strongly the trustees of a Grammar School who feel their hands tied up from doing anything to put the school in an efficient state may be tempted to make with the Common School Board a league which will give them a voice in the important matter of taxation.... But of nothing am I more convinced than that as a rule such a union is undesirable. In a large number of instances it throws upon the Grammar School master the necessity of receiving into his room, and personally instructing, Common School pupils, as well as those whom it is his more particular duty to attend to. A consequence of this is that he cannot afford the Grammar School pupils the time that is necessary for drilling them in the subjects that they are studying.”[106]

[106] See copy of Report in D. H. E., Vol. XVIII., pp. 199-205.

But Doctor Young saw much promise in the schools, as the following from the same Report will show: ”Leaving out of view schools of this sort, I do not hesitate to say that the Grammar Schools of Upper Canada are, as a cla.s.s, not only in the promise of what they may become, but in what they actually are at the present moment, an honour to the country. We must not look for too much. It would be preposterous to expect at this early period in the history of our Province, that its Grammar Schools generally should be able to bear comparison with the better cla.s.sical and mathematical schools of Great Britain and Ireland. To this Canada does not pretend, but she has begun well, and appears to be steadily, if not rapidly, progressing.”

In June, 1865, Ryerson went to Quebec to press upon the Government the necessity of a new Grammar School bill. As the Confederation scheme was approaching maturity he found the Government unwilling to embark upon any legislation that might prevent an early prorogation. Mr. John A.

Macdonald suggested that the difficulty might be met by a regulation issued under the authority of the Council of Public Instruction. This was accordingly done, and the Council immediately framed regulations as follows: First, the Legislative grant was to be apportioned on the basis of the attendance of those learning Greek and Latin, as certified by the Grammar School Inspector. Second, no school was to receive any portion of the Legislative grant unless suitable accommodations were provided, and unless there were an average of at least ten pupils learning Latin and Greek, nor were any pupils to be admitted or continued in a Grammar School unless they were learning Latin and Greek.

This absurd regulation never went into effect, as the Legislature pa.s.sed a Grammar School Bill in the latter part of 1865. The new Bill made each city a county for Grammar School purposes; it allowed County Councils to appoint half the Grammar School trustees, the other half being appointed by the village or town council where the school was situated. This latter provision was planned to give increased local control and thus create a stronger interest in the management of the schools. The distinction which had so long existed between senior and junior county Grammar Schools[107] was abolished and the Legislative grant was apportioned solely on the basis of attendance, but no school was to share the grant unless there was raised from local sources, exclusive of pupils' fees, a sum equal to half the grant. It was made more difficult to establish new schools. Only graduates of universities in British dominions were to be eligible for head masters' positions. On the suggestion of the Hon. William Macdougall, a clause was inserted providing for a grant of fifty dollars a year to those Grammar Schools giving a course of elementary military instruction.

[107] This senior Grammar School, being the one first established in each county, had drawn a larger Legislative grant than the others.

The Report of Rev. Geo. Paxton Young on the Grammar Schools in 1865 is of great interest, read in the light of nearly half a century's progress in the higher education of women. I shall quote his exact words:

”I have frequently been asked whether I considered it desirable that girls should study Latin in the Grammar Schools. It is, in my opinion, most undesirable; and I am at a loss to comprehend how any intelligent person acquainted with the state of things in our Grammar Schools can come to a different conclusion.... Since I became Inspector, I have not met with half a dozen girls in the Grammar Schools of Canada by whom the study of Latin has been pursued far enough for the taste to be in the least degree influenced by what has been read. Aesthetically, the benefits of Grammar Schools to girls are _nil_.... It may perhaps be said that although they have for the most part made but little progress in Latin up to the present time, a fair proportion of them may be expected to pursue the study to a point where its advantages can be reaped. I do not believe that three out of a hundred will. As a cla.s.s, they have dipped the soles of their feet in the water, with no intention or likelihood of wading deeper into it. They are not studying Latin with any definite object. They have taken it up under pressure at the solicitation of the teachers or trustees to enable the schools to maintain the requisite average attendance of ten cla.s.sical pupils or to increase that part of the income of the schools which is derived from public sources. In a short time they will leave school to enter on the practical work of life without having either desired or obtained more than the merest smattering of Latin, and their places will be taken by another band of girls who will go through the same routine. It may perhaps be urged that these remarks are as applicable to as large a number of the Grammar School boys as they are to the girls. I admit that they are; and I draw the conclusion that such boys, equally with the girls in the Grammar Schools, are wasting their time in keeping up the appearance of learning Latin. It would be unspeakably better to commit them to first-cla.s.s Common School teachers, under whose guidance they might have their reflective and aesthetic faculties cultivated through the study of English and of those branches which are a.s.sociated with English in good Common Schools. This would, of course, diminish the number of the Grammar Schools in the Province; but it might not be a very grievous calamity, especially if it led to the establishment of first-cla.s.s Common Schools in localities where inferior teachers are now employed.”[108]

[108] See copy of Report in D. H. E., Vol. XIX., pp. 96, 97.

It was a part of a Grammar School inspector's duty to examine the pupils who had been admitted by the Grammar School masters and reject any who were too immature or were insufficiently prepared. Dr. Young complains strongly in his Report of 1865 of the poor teaching of English grammar.

In some cases he had to reject more than half those admitted. He found pupils wholly unable to pa.r.s.e such easy sentences as: ”The mother loved her daughter dearly,” ”John ran to school very quickly,” ”She knew her lesson remarkably well.”

It is doubtful whether the Grammar School Bill of 1865 made any real improvement in the schools. Without denying that some of them were doing a good work, and that as a force in the national life they were fostering some love for higher education, it is safe to a.s.sert that they were not very closely related to the real needs of the people. Their aim was narrow. Their very name shows this. There was a crying need in the country for schools that would give an advanced English and scientific education with cla.s.sic and modern languages to those who wished to pursue university studies. But the most of the Grammar Schools aimed only at a study of Latin and Greek, and indeed the Grammar School legislation and the regulations of the Council of Public Instruction had made a certain number of Latin pupils one of the conditions upon which a Grammar School might receive a public grant.

The Act of 1865 soon showed some disastrous tendencies. It did not check the desire to form unions between Grammar Schools and Common Schools, as such unions made it easier to levy a rate in support of the union schools, and thus comply with the conditions upon which Grammar Schools received grants. The clause in the new Act making average attendance the basis of attendance, together with a regulation of the Council of Public Instruction which counted only Latin pupils in making the grant, led the head masters of union schools to draft every available pupil into the Grammar School departments[109] and put them all, boys and girls, into Latin. Often they were not prepared for such work and got no real benefit from it. They wasted their time and lost the benefits of a sound English education which a good Common School would have given them.

Hundreds of boys and girls who had no foundation for a cla.s.sical education, and who had no prospect of ever advancing far enough to receive any solid knowledge of Latin, were making a pretence of studying it in order that the school might draw a Government grant. Ignorant parents raised no objections, thinking perhaps that Latin possessed some charm which would be an ”open sesame” for the future advancement of the boys and girls.

[109] It should be remembered that while a Public School pupil drew less than one dollar per year Legislative grant, the moment this pupil was enrolled in a Grammar School he drew from $20 to $35 yearly. In 1872, the average Legislative grant to a Public School pupil was 40 cents, and to a Grammar School pupil $20. See D. H. E., Vol. XXIV., p. 302.

Dr. Ryerson was not the man to diagnose the case. But the hour brought forth the man, and that man was George Paxton Young, one of the Inspectors of Grammar Schools. In two very able Reports[110] presented in 1867 and 1868, he sets forth clearly and convincingly the defects of the system then in operation and suggests the direction that reforms should take to make the Grammar Schools serve a useful purpose. He wished to see their character wholly changed. He did not undervalue cla.s.sics, but he believed that a smattering of cla.s.sics was of no benefit, and that it caused a waste of time that might be given to subjects of real value. He wished to see High Schools that would give an advanced English training, together with natural science, mathematics, and history. He did not believe in forcing all to study Latin, nor did he believe in apportioning grants to High Schools on the basis of the number of pupils studying Latin. He wished to see better Common Schools and objected to the plan of union which robbed the Common School of its older pupils and degraded its function. Speaking of this, he says: ”The number of union schools is increasing and is likely to increase. In many of the schools of this cla.s.s all the Common School pupils, boys and girls alike, who have obtained a smattering of English grammar are systematically drafted into the Grammar School. The consequence is that in localities where such a system is followed there is no mere Common School education (observe I say mere Common School education) given to any pupils, boys or girls, which is not of the most elementary description; and not only have the Grammar Schools thus become to a great extent girls' schools as well as boys' schools, but--what is especially noteworthy--the girls admitted to these schools are in a majority of instances put into Latin as a matter of course; in other words, the study of Latin is made practically a condition of their admission into the Grammar School. Will any man say that this state of things is satisfactory, a state of things in which the Common Schools are degraded by being suspended from the exercise of all their higher functions? Unless I misunderstand the object of the Common School law, the Common Schools are designed to furnish a good English and general education to those desiring it. But how can this end be accomplished where the Common Schools are subject to arrangements under which the highest stage of advancement ever reached by the pupils is to be able to pa.r.s.e an easy English sentence? ... Children under thirteen years of age who do not mean to take a cla.s.sical course of study have no educational wants which the Common Schools, properly conducted, are not fitted to supply. For children of thirteen and upwards who have already obtained such an education as may be got in good Common Schools, it would, I think, be well to establish English High Schools--a designation which I borrow from the United States although, unfortunately, I have only a very vague idea of what the High Schools in the United States are.”

[110] See copy of Report in D. H. E., Vol. XX., pp. 98-128.

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