Part 14 (1/2)
Sir Peregrine Maitland, who probably was present, is told that he might in this manner immortalize his name:
”O Maitland blest! this proud distinction woos Thy quick acceptance, back'd by every muse; Those feelings, too, which joyful fancy knew When learning's gems first opened to thy view, Bid you to thousands smooth the th.o.r.n.y road, Which leads to glorious Science's bright abode.”
”The Anniversary of York and Montreal Colleges antic.i.p.ated” is a kind of Pindaric Ode to Grat.i.tude: especially it is therein set forth that offerings of thankfulness are due to benevolent souls in Britain:
”For often there in pensive mood They ponder deeply on the good They may on Canada bestow-- And College Halls appear, and streams of learning flow!”
The ”Epilogue” to the day's performances is a humorous dissertation in doggrel verse on United States innovations in the English Language: a pupil of the school is supposed to complain of the conduct of the master:
”Between ourselves, and just to speak my mind, In English Grammar, Master's much behind: I speak the honest truth--I hate to dash-- He bounds our task by Murray, Lowth and Ashe.
I told him once that Abercrombie, moved By genius deep had Murray's plan improved.
He frowned upon me, turning up his nose, And said the man had ta'en a maddening dose.
Once in my theme I put the word _progress_-- He sentenced twenty lines, without redress; Again for 'measure' I transcribed 'endeavour'-- And all the live-long day I lost his favour.” &c, &c.
At the examination of the District School on August 7th, 1816, a similar programme was provided.
John Claus spoke the prologue on this occasion, and the following boys had parts a.s.signed them in the proceedings. The names of some of them appear in the account for 1819, just given: John Skeldon, George Skeldon, Henry Mosley, John Doyle, Charles Heward, James Myers, John Ridout, Charles Ridout, John FitzGerald, John Mosley, Saltern Givins, James Sheehan, Henry Heward, Allan McDonell, William Allan, John Boulton, William Myers, James Bigelow, William Baldwin, St. George Baldwin, K. de Koven, John Knott, James Givins, Horace Ridout, William Lancaster, James Strachan, David McNab, John Harraway, Robert Baldwin, Henry Nelles, Warren Shaw, David Shaw, Daniel Murray.
In 1816, Governor Gore was at the head of affairs. He is advised, in the Prologue spoken by John Claus, to distinguish himself by attention to the educational interests of the country: (The collocation of names at the end will excite a smile.)--
”O think what honour pure shall bless thy name Beyond the fleeting voice of vulgar fame!
When kings and haughty victors cease to raise The secret murmur and the venal praise, Perhaps that name, when Europe's glories fade, Shall often charm this Academic shade, And bards exclaim on rough Ontario's sh.o.r.e, We found a Wellesley and Jones in Gore!”
We have ourselves a good personal recollection of the system of the school at York, and of the interest which it succeeded in awakening in the subjects taught. The custom of mutual questioning in cla.s.ses, under the eye of the master, was well adapted to induce real research, and to impress facts on the mind when discovered.
In the higher cla.s.ses each lad in turn was required to furnish a set of questions to be put by himself to his cla.s.s-fellows, on a given subject, with the understanding that he should be ready to set the answerer right should he prove wrong. And again: any lad who should be deemed competent was permitted to challenge another, or several others, to read or recite select rhetorical pieces: a memorandum of the challenge was recorded: and, at the time appointed, the contest came off, the cla.s.s or the school deciding the superiority in each case, subject to the criticism or disallowance of the master.
It will be seen from the matters embraced in the programme given above, that the object aimed at was a speedy and real preparation for actual life. The master, in this instance, was disembarra.s.sed of the traditions which, at the period referred to, often rendered the education of a young man a c.u.mbersome, unintelligent and tedious thing. The circ.u.mstances of his own youth had evidently led him to free himself from routine. He himself was an example, in addition to many another Scottish-trained man of eminence that might be named, of the early age at which a youth of good parts and sincere, enlightened purpose, may be prepared for the duties of actual life, when not caught in the constrictor-coils of custom, which, under the old English Public-School-system of sixty years since, used sometimes to torture parent and son for such a long series of years.
Dr. Strachan's methods of instruction were productive, for others, of the results realized in his own case. His distinguished Cornwall pupils, were all, we believe, usefully and successfully engaged in the real work of life in very early manhood. ”The time allowed in a new country like this,” he said to his pupils at Cornwall in 1807, ”is scarcely sufficient to sow the most necessary seed; very great progress is not therefore to be expected: if the principles are properly engrafted we have done well.”
In the same address his own mode of proceeding is thus dwelt upon: ”In conducting your education, one of my princ.i.p.al objects has always been to fit you for discharging with credit the duties of any office to which you may hereafter be called. To accomplish this, it was necessary for you to be accustomed frequently to depend upon, and think for yourselves: accordingly I have always encouraged this disposition, which when preserved within due bounds, is one of the greatest benefits that can possibly be acquired. To enable you to think with advantage, I not only regulated your tasks in such a manner as to exercise your judgment, but extended your views beyond the meagre routine of study usually adopted in schools; for, in my opinion, several branches of science may be taught with advantage at a much earlier age than is generally supposed. We made a mystery of nothing: on the contrary, we entered minutely into every particular, and patiently explained by what progressive steps certain results were obtained. It has ever been my custom, before sending a cla.s.s to their seats, to ask myself whether they had learned anything; and I was always exceedingly mortified if I had not the agreeable conviction that they had made some improvement.
Let none of you, however, suppose that what you have learned here is sufficient; on the contrary, you are to remember that we have laid only the foundation. The superstructure must be laid by yourselves.”
Here is an account of his method of teaching Arithmetic, taken from the introduction to a little work on the subject, published by himself in 1809: ”I divide my pupils,” he says, ”into separate cla.s.ses, according to their progress. Each cla.s.s has one or more sums to produce every day, neatly wrought upon their slates: the work is carefully examined; after which I command every figure to be blotted out, and the sums to be wrought under my eye. The one whom I happen to pitch upon first, gives, with an audible voice, the rules and reasons for every step; and as he proceeds the rest silently work along with him, figure for figure, but ready to correct him if he blunder, that they may get his place. As soon as this one is finished, the work is again blotted out, and another called upon to work the question aloud as before, while the rest again proceed along with him in silence, and so on round the whole cla.s.s. By this method the principles are fixed in the mind; and he must be a very dull boy indeed who does not understand every question thoroughly before he leaves it. This method of teaching Arithmetic possesses this important advantage, that it may be pursued without interrupting the pupil's progress in any other useful study. The same method of teaching Algebra has been used with equal success. Such a plan is certainly very laborious, but it will be found successful; and he that is anxious to spare labour ought not to be a public Teacher. When boys remain long enough, it has been my custom to teach them the theory, and give them a number of curious questions in Geography, Natural Philosophy and Astronomy, a specimen of which may be seen in the questions placed before the Appendix.”
The youths to be dealt with in early Canadian schools were not all of the meek, submissive species. With some of them occasionally a sharp regimen was necessary; and it was adopted without hesitation. On this point, the address just quoted, thus speaks: ”One of the greatest advantages you have derived from your education here, arises from the strictness of our discipline. Those of you who have not already perceived how much your tranquillity depends upon the proper regulation of the temper, will soon be made sensible of it as you advance in years.
You will find people who have never known what it is to be in habitual subjection to precept and just authority, breaking forth into violence and outrage on the most frivolous occasions. The pa.s.sions of such persons, when once roused, soon become ungovernable; and that impatience of restraint, which they have been allowed to indulge, embitters the greatest portion of their lives. Accustomed to despise the barriers erected by reason, they rush forward to indulgence, without regarding the consequences. Hence arises much of that wretchedness and disorder to be met with in society. Now the discipline necessary to correct the impetuosity of the pa.s.sions is often found nowhere but in well-regulated schools: for though it should be the first care of parents, they are too apt to be blinded by affection, and grant liberties to their children which reason disapproves. . . . . . That discipline therefore, which you have sometimes thought irksome will henceforth present itself in a very different light. It will appear the teacher of a habit of the greatest consequence in the regulation of your future conduct; and you will value it as the promoter of that decent and steady command of temper so very essential to happiness, and so useful in our intercourse with mankind.”
These remarks on discipline will be the more appreciated, when it is recollected that during the time of the early settlements in this country, the sons of even the most respectable families were brought into contact with semi-barbarous characters. A sporting ramble through the woods, a fis.h.i.+ng excursion on the waters, could not be undertaken without communications with Indians and half-breeds and bad specimens of the French _voyageur_. It was from such sources that a certain idea was derived which, as we remember, was in great vogue among the more fractious of the lads at the school at York. The proposition circulated about, whenever anything went counter to their notions, alway was ”to run away to the Nor'-west.” What that process really involved, or where the ”Nor'-west” precisely was, were things vaguely realized. A sort of savage ”land of c.o.c.kaigne,” a region of perfect freedom among the Indians, was imagined; and to reach it Lakes Huron and Superior were to be traversed.
At Cornwall the temptation was in another direction: there, the idea was to escape to the eastward: to reach Montreal or Quebec, and get on board of an ocean-going s.h.i.+p, either a man-of-war or merchantman. The flight of several lads with such intentions was on one occasion intercepted by the unlooked-for appearance of the head-master by the side of the stage-coach as it was just about to start for Montreal in the dusk of the early morning, with the young truants in or upon it.
As to the modes of discipline:--In the school at York--for minor indiscretions a variety of remedies prevailed. Now and then a lad would be seen standing at one of the posts above mentioned, with his jacket turned inside out: or he might be seen there in a kneeling posture for a certain number of minutes; or standing with the arm extended holding a book. An ”ally” or apple brought out inopportunely into view, during the hours of work, might entail the exhibition, article by article, slowly and reluctantly, of all the contents of a pocket. Once we remember, the furtive but too audible tw.a.n.g of a jewsharp was followed by its owner's being obliged to mount on the top of a desk and perform there an air on the offending instrument for the benefit of the whole school.
Occasionally the censors (senior boys appointed to help in keeping order) were sent to cut rods on Mr. McGill's property adjoining the play-ground on the north; but the dire implements were not often called into requisition: it would only be when some case of unusual obstinacy presented itself, or when some wanton cruelty, or some act or word exhibiting an unmistakable taint of incipient immorality, was proven.
Once a year, before the breaking-up at midsummer, a ”feast” was allowed in the school-room at York--a kind of pic-nic to which all that could, contributed in kind--pastry, and other dainties, as well as more substantial viands, of which all partook. It was sometimes a rather riotous affair.
At the south-east corner of the six-acre play-ground, about half-an-acre had been abstracted, as it were, and enclosed: here a public school had been built and put in operation: it was known as the Central School, and was what would now be called a Common School, conducted on the ”Bell and Lancaster” principle. Large numbers frequented it.