LIBRARIAN AND HISTORIOGRAPHER TO THE EDUCATION DEPARTMENT OF ONTARIO.

Education dypt,

TORONTO

WARWICK BROS. & RUTTER, PRINTERS, &c., 68 & 70 FRONT STREET WEST.

1894.

OF

EDUCATION IN UPPER CANADA

PREFATORY REMARKS.

The desire to place upon permanent record the original documents and papers relating to the early history of a country is all but universal.

Such a collection, when made, is invaluable to the historian, as furnishing him with satisfactory materials for authentic history.

This being the Jubilee Year of my official connection with Education in this Province,* I have been enabled, in the interval, to gather up and preserve a number of documents and papers relating to the "evolution," if it may be so called, of our three-fold scheme of education-primary, intermediate and superior. Many of these papers are official and Parliamentary. Some are fugitive, taken from pamphlets, while others are desultory, copied from the local press of the times. All, however, converge on the one point; and each illustrates, in various ways, the growth and development of the "Educational Idea" in Upper Canada.

It may appear singular to those of the present day, when they are informed of the large space, out of all reasonable proportion, which the Educational Centres, (as they really were,) of by-gone days filled in the estimation of the then public of Upper Canada. Such centres were few and far between, but they were noted of their kind. Even in our own times we frequently hear of the excellence and widespread influence of the late Bishop Strachan's Schools-first at Kingston, then at Cornwall, and lastly in "The Old Blue School" at York. The celebrity of the Ernestown, or Bath, Academy, may have been increased from the fact that, at it, was chiefly educated by his Father-its Master

I entered the Education Department on the Reverend Doctor Ryerson's appointment as its Head, in September, 1844-nearly fifty years ago.

a man so eminent in his profession, and so distinguished in the history of Upper Canada as was MARSHALL SPRING BIDWELL,-a gifted Member of the House of Assembly in its early days, and its Speaker for some time.

Then, the success of the Newburgh Academy was noted in our own times; and in it, as one of its latest Principals, the Reverend Doctor NELLES, first learned those lessons in the art of teaching and government, which he afterwards turned to such excellent account as the gifted President, for so many years, of Victoria University.

Again, in the London District School, in the early twenties, the FOUNDER of our educational system tried his "'prentice hand" as an instructor of youth, first as Usher, under his able brother GEORGE, and afterwards as a Teacher-in-charge. He acted in both capacities with that success which was characteristic of the distinguished Man which he became in after years.

No less noted and important, as an educational centre, was the Grantham Academy, founded in St. Catharines, in 1827, on a lot given for that purpose by one, to whom Canada owes so much,-the Honourable WILLIAM HAMILTON MERRITT,-the last President of the Academy Board; a gentleman who, in 1850, introduced into our House of Assembly and had passed into a law, an Act endowing forever the Public Schools of the then Province of Canada with the rich dowry of One Million Acres of the Crown Lands.

The educational history of Upper Canada, as narrated in this Volume, divides itself into several distinct epochs :

The first might be considered, in the expressive words of Governor-General Lord Elgin, when speaking of an educational feature of the work in his time, as the "seed-plot" of those educational institutions which sprung up as the years progressed. At all events, the munificent Royal Grant in 1797, of over half a million of acres of land, has formed the financial basis of the Toronto University, of the Royal Grammar School and Upper Canada College, and of the (Church of England National) Central School of Upper Canada.

The second period in our educational history was noted for the establishment of District (Grammar) Schools in 1807, 1808; and of the Township Common Schools in 1816-1820.

The record of the third period of educational progress includes the Establishment and Endowment of Upper Canada College in 1829, 1830, and of other local schools of note. The documents and papers relating to the establishment of these institutions, given as fully as the records would permit, are inserted in this the First Volume of the Educational History of Upper Canada.

The question naturally arises: what first awakened the desire to establish schools and promote education in this Province? In his Address, at the opening of King's College, (now the University of Toronto,) in 1843, the Right Reverend Doctor Strachan-himself a prominent and noted educationist in Upper Canada- answers the question. He He says:

--

"When the Independence of the United States of America was recognized by Great Britain in the peace of 1783, this Province became the asylum of those faithful subjects of the Crown, who had, during the Revolutionary War, adhered to their King and the Unity of the Empire.' And it is pleasing to remark, that in 1789,-a little more than five years after their first settlement, they presented a Memorial to His Excellency Lord Dorchester, (Sir Guy Carleton,) then GovernorGeneral of British North America, on the subject of Education; in which, after lamenting the state of their children growing up without any instruction, religious or secular, they requested His Lordship to establish a respectable Seminary at Kingston, which was, at that early period, the principal Town in this division of the Colony. To this representation Lord Dorchester paid immediate attention, and gave directions to the Surveyor-General to set apart eligible portions of land for the future support of Schools in all the new settlements."

Animated by the same spirit as possessed these early Colonists, the United Empire Loyalists established Schools of a superior class early in the century in the chief centres of their Settlements, such as Kingston, Cornwall, Bath, York, St. Catharines, and afterwards at Newburgh. Soon a Grammar School was established in every District, and ultimately the Common School, fashioned by the Loyalists on the New England pattern, was put into operation in every settled Township of the Province."*

It is gratifying to know that the United Empire Colonists from New England to Canada in 1783-1788, were true to their early British

*In "the Colonial Chapter in the History of American Education," in Bedford's Magazine for May 1877, (transferred to the Ryerson Memorial Volume of 1889), I have traced the origin and growth of the early Puritan movement in New England in favour of education, and have pointed out the influence of that movement on the United Empire Loyalists, in their efforts to establish schools in Upper Canada.