The result of this conflict of opinion was that discussions in 1849-1851 were warm and frequent, both in the Public Press and between individuals. The agitation on the subject of Separate Schools added greatly to the general feeling of unrest at the time on the subject of popular education.

So many conflicting interests were involved in these desultory discussions, and so many different adverse views were held by the parties concerned, that, at length, it was resolved to hold a General Public Meeting,-to be called, on requisition, by the Mayor, so that all parties would have an opportunity to fully express their views, and thus obtain an authoritative opinion from the Ratepayers on the subject. A number of these most active in opposing "Free Schools, and Taxation" for their support, signed the following Requisition and sent it to the Mayor :

The undersigned Inhabitants of the City of Toronto, opposed to the present heavy Tax for the support of Common Schools, and the prospect of a permanent and increasing City Debt for the purchase of Land and the erection of School Houses thereon, in the several Wards, as at present contemplated by the Board of Trustees, request that you will call a Public Meeting of the Citizens in order to get an expression of public opinion on the subject.

Signed by Messieurs Angus Dallas, George Bilton, C. B. Green, S. F. Urquhart, Alexander Dixon, and ninety others.

In compliance with the above requisition, I hereby convene a Public Meeting of the Inhabitant Rate payers of the City of Toronto, to be held on Friday evening next, the Ninth instant, at Seven o'clock, in the St. Lawrence Hall.

TORONTO, January 6th, 1852.

JOHN G. BOWES, Mayor.

In accordance with the Terms of this Requisition, His Worship the Mayor, called a Public Meeting for the purpose of obtaining an expression of public opinion on the question of taxation for the support of Free Schools. The Meeting was held at St. Lawrence Hall, with the Mayor in the Chair.*

Mr. Angus Dallas, Merchant, King Street, as one of the Requisitionists objected to the present system of Common School Education on principle, as it was inefficient for good, and tended only to lay a heavy burden of taxation on one class of the community, whose children could not attend the Common Schools for the benefit of another class of the community, who paid scarcely any share of the tax. After further speaking, he moved the following Resolution:

"That the principle of what is called the Free School System, and presumed to be, 'the taxation of the property of all for the education of all," is proved, by the experience of the past year, to be erroneous, inasmuch s, while all have ad to pay for its maintenance, few children, except those of the poorer class, have attended the Schools. That, besides this practical falsification of the principle on which the Free School System is professed to be based, it is also attended with this injustice, that it presses heaviest on those who do not send their children to the Common Schools, and who consequently derive no advantage from them; while the class of persons availing itself of these Schools is almost exempted from its operations."

Alderman Samuel Thompson seconded the Resolution. In doing so, he wished it to be understood, that he was not at all desirous of interfering with the fair working of the Free School System, but he came there at the request of a number of his constituents, who were dissatisfied that they were compelled to pay taxes, nominally for the education of their children, but not so in reality, as their children were virtually driven from the Schools.

Doctor Joseph Workman stood before the Meeting as the organ of the Board of School Trustees, in answer to a Bill of Indictment. prepared by Mr. George Bilton and several other Katepayers. This Bill of Indictment charged the Board with the high offence against the political economy of the City, of proposing to purchase Building Sites and erecting School Houses. Doctor Workman said that Mr. Dallas had endeavoured to account in various ways for the difficulty experienced in Massachusetts, in carrying out the Free School System, but the fact was, that the difficulty in Toronto arose simply from the tax of two-and-a-half pence in the pound being now for the first time imposed on the inhabitants. He quoted from the Report

The Meeting was addressed by a number of Speakers, but with one exception-that of Doctor Ryerson-I have only given in a few words, the gist of what each Speaker said.

of the Secretary of the State Board of Education of Massachusetts to confute the statement that Free Schools were a failure after a trial of two hundred years. When the School Trustees were appointed a year ago, the first conviction that forced itself on their minds was, that the existing Schools were wholly unfitted, in point of accommodation, for the purpose to which they were applied. They were bad and defective in a moral and scholastic point of view. The Board endeavoured to remedy the evil; they saw that, in some instances, thirty per cent. of the children were absent from the Schools, in consequence of diseases arising from bad and unhealthy accommodation; they saw that, if better accommodation could not be procured, it would be better to close the Schools up; and having ascertained that it was impossible to procure that accommodation in the City, they came to the decision that it would be necessary to avail themselves of the ample powers which the School Law had placed at their disposal. In this they desired the co-operation of the City Council, and tried to enlist its sympathy. Alderman Thompson was the only Member of that Body, with the exception of those who were also Members of the Trustee School Board, who appeared to take any interest in the subject: Mr. Tho upson had already made his calculations, and he suggested that they should purchase Sites, erect School Houses, and showed that the interest on Debentures issued in payment would only amount to the sum already paid for annual rent. Fortunately, the City Council and the Upper Canada College had acted with very great liberality; the former had built St. Andrew's Market, and having rented the upper floor to the Board, which had thus been enabled to get two excellent School-rooms, each capable of seating one hundred and fifty children. The Upper Canada College had also placed at their disposal on very liberal terms, a Building well adapted for the purpose of a School. The object of the persons who signed that Requisition was to defeat this plan of improvement. These people forget that their sons had been educated at Upper Canada College and at the University at the expense to the public; and that the two-and-a-half pence in the pound they were now called on to contribute, as a School Rate, was only a small instalment of what they themselves had received. He remembered seeing a calculation made by one of those Gentlemen, Mr. Urquhart, that, at the time the son of another Requisitionist, Mr. Alexander Dixon, was receiving his education at the University, every Student of that Institution actually cost the Province (in the form of the expenses of the University,) Three hundred pounds, (£300), a year, and he believed that that calculation was very near the mark.

The Reverend Egerton Ryerson then addressed the Meeting. He said that he appeared there as a Rate-payer, who was compelled to pay his portion of the tax; but, at the request of the School Trustees,-for the purpose of giving some explanations on the subject of Common School Education. He argued that the extracts read by Mr. Dallas had as much reference to the people in the Moon as to the subject really before the Meeting. Those extracts had reference solely to the state of education in the rural districts of Massachusetts and not in the Towns. They, in reality, ascribed the defect in the School Sytsem of Massachusetts to the appointment of Teachers by incompetent Committees, and he alleged, that that evil had been corrected in the Canadian System of Common School Education, the standard of education, and also that of the Teachers, throughout the Province being fixed by a highly qualified Provincial Board, and the standard of education in the Counties being also fixed by a local Body of high standing. In fact, when he was at Boston a few weeks since, he was told by the Secretary of the State Board of Education that, after a careful examination of the Canadian School System, he had arrived at the conclusion, that it embodied the excellent features of the School Systems of different States. The operation of that School System in Massachusetts was not what it had been represented by Mr. Dallas, and he would give an instance: When at Boston, he visited the Free Schools in company with the Mayor, and in one, the High School, that Gentleman pointed out to him, a particular seat, occupied by two boys,-one was the son of the Honourable Abbott Lawrence, Minister to the Court of St. James,-the other, the cleverest boy in Boston, was the son of the Door-keeper of the City Hall. Both engaged in the same race, and enjoying the same advantages. Mr. Dallas might, therefore, say that the Free Schools of Massachusetts were in reality "Common Schools" and where not attended by merely one class of the community. Another proof was, that the Governor of Massachusetts declared lately in a Speech delivered at Newburyport, that if he had as many sons as old Priam, he would send every one to the "Common Schools," and thence to the University. Of course there were rich men, and purse proud men in Boston who would not do so, and these were the people who injured the Schools.

Alderman Thompson had stated that the system pursued in Brantford and London was better calculated to attain the object which they all desired, but the fact was that in those places the Free School System was fully carried out, whereas the Resolution which he had seconded was condemnatory of them. That the Free School System had worked well in Cities about the same size as Toronto could be adduced from the example of Hallowell and of Bangor, in the State of Maine, and Lowell in the State of Massachusetts. At those places that System had

Such was a true and striking picture of the miserable condition of tho Toronto City Schools-as I well rememberin the early Fifties.

formerly received a dangerous opposition from a certain portion of the community, but now it was firmly established, and they had Primary-schools, Grammar-schools, and High-schools,— three distinct classifications, but all maintained by a moderate tax on the community. If the Free School System was to work well anywhere, a similar course must be adopted, -the rich must be taught to respect the Schools as well as the poor, but; unfortunately, those who had rendered the Common Schools despicable, by degrading them, come forward here in opposition to their advancement. In Massachusetts, every effort of that kind had fortunately failed;-all classes and all circles were educated in them alike.

Some years ago a number of the European Roman Catholic Clergy, conceiving, that the mode of education in these Schools was injurious to the interests of their Religion, waited on their Bishop with a representation to that effect, for the purpose of obtaining his assistance to oppose them. He refused however; he said that he knew what the Free Schools of Boston were; for he was proud to own that to the Free Schools of Boston he owed his education, and his position in the Church and in the world, and he would never lend his assistance to pull down what had built him up.' But he, (Doctor Ryerson), would ask the opponents of these Free Schools, if they had proved so inefficient after a trial of two hundred years, would not the New Englanders, who know the value of money, as well as the value of education, abolish them? They, on the contrary, were so convinced of their benefit, that it would be as easy to drive them from the soil, as to effect there abolition. To be sure, there was objectionable points about their School System, as there were about the System pursued in Toronto, but it was on that very ground that efforts should be made to perfect that System as much as possible. So little, however, had that been attended to in Toronto, that although it possessed more Educational Institutions of different kinds than all the rest of the Province, it did not possess a single Common School! Was it to be wondered at, if there were opposition, or if it did not meet that sympathy which was to be desired? Fortunately all did not oppose it, even among the most wealthy, for the Bill, prepared in accordance with his (Doctor Ryerson's) views, had been introduced into the Legislature by the Honourable John Hillyard Cameron about five years since. Still the fact remained, that, although numerous large and expensive Educational Institutions existed in this City, the first attempt to erect a Common School was seized upon as a pretext for holding this "indignation meeting," on the subject, and an objection was raised to the principle enunciated by the School Board,—that the whole community should be taxed for the benefit of the whole community.

It was a principle that was recognized and acted on in other Countries; in Prussia, for instance, that every Parent was compelled to send his child, between the ages of six and fourteen to school; in Switzerland every child is sent to school till he is properly qualified for the trade for which he is intended, not merely by the acquirement of the ordinary rudiments of education, but by obtaining a knowledge of the principles of Chemistry and Mechanics necessary to enable him to carry on his business, as Shoemaker, Tanner, or in any species of handicraft. In those Countries, where the value of education was understood, it was looked on as the best safeguard of the people, and as the best means of enchancing the value of property. That was the general, universal, effect. Here, the old system had been tried for twenty years, and the Schools were declared by the School Board to be nests of pestilence, places that it was absolutely dangerous to enter. What he asked, and what the Board asked was, that they should now obtain a trial of a new system, which had worked well elsewhere, and which was expected to produce equal advantages here. Of course, they must expect to meet with opposition, and the opposition that he had seen reminded him of a saying of Cobbett on the proposal in the English Legislature to reduce the working time of Factory children to ten hours a day; after listenin tog the debate in silence, he rose, near its conclusion, and alluding to the opposition said have listened with great attention to the arguments on that side of the House, and they amount to this,-Mammon against mercy." That was exactly the case in the present instance. He was glad to hear the sentiments of Alderman Thompson, who did not want to abolish the School System of Toronto; but urged merely that the proposed School Houses were not large enough, and advised the construction of fewer and larger buildings, as a better means of carrying out the object, and at the same time as a saving of money.‡ A great deal might be said on both sides, and he (Doctor Ryerson) was not prepared to say which would be the best system to adopt; but he had no hesitation on one point,-that the Metropolitan City of Canada West should have at least one decent School House !

The Reverend Doctor Robert Burns rose to move the following amendment :

"I

"That, as sound and thorough Elementary Education is the birthright of every citizen, and enlightened patriotism demands that it ought to be in the largest sense of the term "uni

*Equally outspoken and hearty in his commendation of the "State School" was Archbishop Ireland, in 1890, as quoted on page 182 and page 268 of this Volume.

See pages 2 and 26-28 of the Seventh Volume of this Documentary History.

See page 274 of this Chapter.

versal," therefore, this Meeting approves of the system of Free Public Schools, subject to such wholesome Regulations as the School Trustees may see meet to adopt."

The Reverend gentlemen supported the motion at considerable length, remarking on one or two points not touched on by previous Speakers,―the benefit derivable from the system of periodical examinations, which he conceived to be an inestimable benefit; the improvement in salaries paid to Teachers, inducing many to enter now on a course of instruction fitting them for the office, who would not do so under the old system, when they were scarcely better paid than an ordinary Mechanic.

The Reverend John Jennings supported the motion in a short speech, urging the baneful effects experienced by Masters and Scholars from the insufficient and bad accommodation hitherto provided in the Schools; and that those who were acquainted with the working of Free Schools were so convinced of their benefit, that even the School Masters in Toronto advocated their establishment, although it had inflicted on them a pecuniary loss.

Doctor Russell stated that he was one of those who had signed the requistion, but so far from disapproving of the Common School System, he was one of its strongest advocates. His object was merely to obtain a fair discussion of a great principle in open meeting.

The Honourable Henry John Boulton at some length professed his adhesion to the principle of Common School Education, and also to the principle of making the whole community pay for it. In allusion to the fact mentioned, that the son of the Honourable Abbott Lawrence occupied the same seat with the son of a Door-keeper, he said he was proud to know that it was not merely in democracies that men of humble birth rose to eminence.

Mr. A. A. R ddel was formerly averse to Free Schools and he sincerely thanked Alderman Thompson who had converted him. There had been a great cry raised against building a School Houses, but no one had told of their cost. If a School Site in each of the six Wards of the City were purchased at Four hundred poumds. (£400), each-the price at which the Board had already purchased three-it would amount to Two thousand, four hundred pounds, (£2,400.) To erect School Premises to accommodate more than double the present number of scholars, would cost Eight hundred pounds more, or One thousand, two hundred pounds. (£1,200), for each Ward; making in the whole Seven thousand, two hundred pounds, (£7,200). Now, if the City property never increased in value, it would take a tax of only one penny in the pound for eight years to pay for them all, and they would be the property of the citizens for ever. After a few observations from Mr. Thompson, in support of his argument, the Mayor put the amendment to the meeting, when a very considerable majority of those present voted in

its favour.

FREE SCHOOLS ARE INCREASING IN UPPER CANADA IN 1852.

NOTE. In the current Volume of the Journal of Education for Upper Canada, page 28, it was stated that the question of Free Schools has continued to excite the greatest possible interest since the recent January School Elections. In Toronto, Niagara, Brockville, Port Hope, Chatham, Chippewa, Perth, St. Thomas, and other places the discussion has been most animated. In some of these places the benefits of Free Education, supported by a General Rate upon property has been withheld; in other places the majority of the school electors, rich and poor, have nobly resolved unitedly to sustain, according to their means, the greatest, the most humane and the most efficient system of police ever instituted by any people. Would that the spirit of the Early Pilgrims of New England were more widely diffused among the Early Settlers of Canada, not only in their affectionate solicitude to contribute "a peck of corn" and their "rent of a ferry" for the support of Harvard College, but in the correct appreciation of the true standard of excellence to which each School should be elevated! We warn the friends of Free Schools that the most effective argument which the opponents to the cause will urge against them will be that, while the cost of education has been increased and diffussed, the character of the School Houses and the efficiency of the Schools and Teachers have not been improved, or promoted, in a corresponding degree,-that the results of the Free School System, as compared with the Old School System have not equalled the expectations raised. It may be stated that the System of Free Schools is attracting some attention in Prince Edward's Island through the press, and Upper Canada is referred to as an authority on the Subject. E. R.

CHAPTER XXIV.

CEREMONY OF OPENING THE NORMAL SCHOOL BUILDINGS, 1852

The ceremony of publicly opening the new Normal and Model Schools for Upper Canada, took place on the Twenty fourth of November 1852, and was witnessed with the greatest interest. The beautiful and ample Theatre of the Institution was filled by a large assemblage. The admission was by Ticket, to prevent confusion. During the day of opening the Buildings were visited by hundreds of persons, from the lively interest they took in seeing the handsome structure and its spacious Lecture Rooms and the new Offices of the Education Department. The following account of the Opening of the Building is taken from the Journal of Education for December, 1852.

In connection with a detailed account of the proceedings at the opening of the Institution, I may state that the Perspective Views of the Buildings themselves will be found on pages 13 and 15 of the present Volume. They have been erected on the most approved plans, prepared by the late Mr. F. W. Cumberland, the distinguished Architect of St. James' Cathedral and of the Toronto University. The entire cost, including the purchase of the Site of Seven and a half acres of Land, in the heart of the city, of Toronto, was not much less than Twenty two thousand pounds, (£22,000 = $88,000). (See pages 1-16 of this Volume.)

The following is a brief description of the Buildings: The Front is of Palladian character, having for its centre four pilasters of the full height of the Building, with pediment surrounded, when erected, by an open Doric Cupola, Ninety-five feet in height. The Offices of the Department are on the ground floor of the main structure. The Theatre, or Examination Hall, is on the ground floor of this Building, and is lighted from the roof and sides.

The Boys and Girls' Model School Buildings are in the rear of the main structure, and may be reached by a Corridor from the Theatre. There is also an entrance from the East for Boys, and from the West for Girls.

The Chair, on the occasion of the Ceremony of Opening, was filled by the Honourable Samuel Bealy Harrison, County Judge and Chairman of the Council of Public Instruction. On the platform were the Honourable the Chief Justice of Upper Canada; the Honourable Inspector General Hincks; the Reverend Doctor McCaul, President of the University of Toronto; the Reverend Doctor Ryerson, Chief Superintendent of Education, and others.*

The Honourable Mr. Harrison, said it had fallen to his duty, as Chairman of the Council of Public Instruction, to preside at this Meeting, and the Council were exceedingly gratified with so large as assemblage on the occasion of the inauguration of these Buildings, which have been fitted up for the purposes of promoting Common School Education in the Province. In the order of proceeding, the first thing to be done on this occasion was to offer up to God a short and appropriate Prayer.

The Reverend Henry James Grasett, a Member of the Council, who was to have taken part in the proceedings, by offering up Prayer, but having been called away to Hamilton, he had, with the concurrence of the Council, appointed the Reverend Adam Lillie to take his place.

The Reverend Mr. Lillie having offered up a very appropriate Prayer, the Chairman called upon the Honourable John Beverley Robinson, Chief Justice of Upper Canada, to address the Meeting. He, said, Mr. Chairman,-It is an event of no ordinary interest that we are met to celebrate. It is now publicly announced that the Building, which the Province has erected for the accommodation of the Normal and Model Schools and Education Offices is completed and has been taken possession of by the Officers of the Department. The Ceremony, by which it has been thought proper to mark the occasion, occurs at a moment when my time and thoughts are unavoidably so engrossed by the judicial duties in which I am daily engaged, that I have found it difficult to

I have condensed, as far as possible, the various Speeches delivered on this occasion, omitting all that was purely local in its character, and all that might be considered irrelevant.