RELIGIOUS STATISTICS

Quebec, which called Mr. Ryerson into the conflict in April, 1826.

We may now turn to the other question of the time, the effort to control for denominational purposes the education of the country. The circumstances that meet us here are very different from those which we have just been considering. The early settlers in Upper Canada were generally religious people. By the end of thirty years they had largely supplied themselves with the means of grace. At that date the population of Upper Canada is estimated at 120,000, and a trustworthy contemporary document gives the following statement of the Protestant ministry in the province:

Besides these the Methodists employed 112 lay preachers. These statistics are of themselves the clearest evidence of the conditions which precluded the monopoly of religious functions or even rights and privileges by any one denomination. On the other hand there was no such preëmption of the field of education. Here was a sphere of influence at first entirely unoccupied, and one in which by the aid of public endowments the policy inaugurated by Governor Simcoe, and followed up with such marked

ability by Dr. Strachan, could find free and ample scope. The fundamental mistake in their policy and one that doomed it from the beginning to ultimate failure was its neglect of the common people.

The education of a nation naturally falls into three grand divisions: first, the primary, which should reach all the people; then, the secondary, which at best will not touch more than ten per cent., generally not more than five; and last, the university, reached by less than one-half of one per cent. It was to these two last fields of education that the policy we are considering was directed. And its method from the beginning was the building of a system of class education reserved for the rightful rulers of the people, and with no broad basis of universal instruction as its foundation. The grammar schools and university which they projected were not the higher departments of a comprehensive system of education which knows no distinction of class or rank, but opens the door of learning wide for the humblest child to whom God has given the ability to reach its very summit. They were shaped rather as an exclusive system for a caste; if they admitted the gifted child of poverty, it was an accorded privilege. They were never expected to draw their patronage from the whole body of the people. For these they did not attempt any provision. Fortunately they did not attempt to interfere with their making provision for themselves.

FIRST SCHOOL LEGISLATION

The original plan of Governor Simcoe, as carried into effect by President Russell, set apart 550,000 acres of public lands for the establishment of a university and four royal grammar schools. These were a little later proposed to be located-the university at York, and the grammar schools at Cornwall, Kingston, Newark, and Sandwich. It is evident that from the outset the character of the schools thus proposed was not to the mind of the legislative assembly, for nothing further was done till 1804, and then a motion for the establishment of these schools was negatived by a vote of seven to five. The reason for this defeat seems to have been not so much opposition to public provision for education, though there may have been both indifference and opposition, as a feeling that the scheme was not sufficiently comprehensive. A motion following, to establish a school in each of the districts was lost by the casting vote of the speaker. An act to this effect was finally passed in 1807, placing the appointment of trustees for these district schools in the hands of the lieutenant-governor, and such trustees were appointed for eight districts, viz., Eastern, Johnstown, Midland, Newcastle, Home, Niagara, London, and Western.

The legislation thus carried through both branches of the legislature and acted upon by the lieutenantgovernor, finally became effective in the establishment of district grammar schools in the eight districts, and, after repeated amendments, its opera

tion was extended to the establishment of twentyfive schools, twenty of which reported an attendance of 627 pupils, or an average of 314 for each school. Allowing the same for the five which made no returns, the whole number of children being educated under this system in 1845 was less than 800. The feeling of the great mass of the people towards the system may perhaps be judged from two petitions presented to the legislature shortly after its inauguration. One of these, from the Newcastle district, set forth, "That your petitioners find the said appropriation (£100 for the district grammar school) to be entirely useless to the inhabitants of this district in general." They therefore pray that the said acts "may be repealed, and that such other provision may be made to encourage common schools throughout this district as to you in your wisdom may seem meet." The other, from the Midland district, where one of the oldest and one of the best of these schools was established at Kingston, speaks in these terms: "Its object, it is presumed, was to promote the education of our youth in general, but a little acquaintance with the facts must convince every unbiased mind that it has contributed little or nothing to the promotion of so laudable a design. By reason of the place of instruction being established at one end of the district, and the sum demanded for tuition, in addition to the annual compensation received from the public, most of the people are unable to avail

THE SCHOOLS OF THE PEOPLE

themselves of the advantages contemplated by the institution. A few wealthy inhabitants and those of the town of Kingston reap exclusively the benefit of it in this district. The institution, instead of aiding the middle and poorer classes of His Majesty's subjects, casts money into the lap of the rich, who are sufficiently able, without public assistance, to support a school in every respect equal to the one established by law."

This want of the people also voiced itself in another and more practical form. It led to the large establishment of private and subscription schools, some of them of the more elementary character afterwards known as common schools, and others more pretentious and known as academiesa term borrowed from the United States. It is not possible for us now to obtain exact statistics of the number of the common schools in existence throughout the province prior to the triumph of popular education in the act of 1816. But in the next year, 1817, Mr. Gourlay collected statistics of no less than 259 common schools already in operation, and these were by no means the whole number in the province. From this we may safely infer that the voluntary efforts of the people to provide for the education of their own children had, even before the act of 1816, far outstripped in extent of influence the class system inaugurated in 1807.

The extension of the public schools to each of the eight districts, while seemingly in the interests