No. 5.-To the Treasurer of each Municipality in Upper Canada, dated the 1st of July, 1852, informing them of the payment of the Legislative School Grant for the year 1852, ... 157 No. 6.-To Clerks of Counties, dated the 10th of July, 1852, notifying them of the apportion- ment of the Legislative School Grant for the year 1852, .... No. 7.-To Clerks of Cities, Towns, and Incorporated Villages, dated the 10th of July, 1852, notifying them of the apportionment of the Legislative School Grant to their Munici- palities for the year 1852. (Omitted in its proper place on page 170.).................. ... 186 No. 8.-To Local Superintendents of Schools, dated the 1st of July, 182, on the mode of apportioning the Legislative School Grant to School Sections for the year 1852, and No. 9. Notice to Local Superintendents, containing additional remarks, explanatory of the law relating to the distribution of the School Fund to School Sections according to the (Accompanying Documents.) a. Blank form of Attorney, in duplicate, referred to in the preceding circular, No. 5..... 157 ... d. Blank Form of Return referred to in the preceding Circular, No. 6...... 158 168 I.-Selections from replies to letters sent to the Department. Twenty-one documents,....... 174 II.-General reply to various inquiries as to the duties of School Section authorities relating to the election of School Trustees-receiving of their annual reports and examination of their accounts throughout Upper Canada, on the second Wednesday of January, 1852.... 183 DOCUMENTS relating to the Normal and Model Schools, Toronto. 13.-Blank form of Certificate given at the close of the seventh session of the Normal School to Students then in attendance and deemed worthy of it,.... 14.-Blank form of Application for Admission to the Normal School,.. 4.-Form of notification to local Superintendents of the election of School Trustees... 5.-Form of notice of a meeting to fill up vacancies in Trustee Corporations.. 7.-Form of notification to Trustees of alteration of their School Section... 8.-Form of notification to local Superintendents of alteration in School Sections,. 9.-Form of Warrant for collection of School Fees or Rate-bill... 10.-Form of Rate-bill to be annexed to Trustees' Warrant. 11.-Form of Receipt to be given by Collectors of School Fees... 12.-Form of Agreement between Trustees and a Teacher... ABSTRACT of Descriptive Catalogue of Maps and other School Requisites for sale at the Educational Depository, in connection with the Department of Public Instruction for Upper Canada. 213 ANNUAL REPORT OF THE NORMAL, MODEL AND COMMON SCHOOLS, IN UPPER CANADA, FOR THE YEAR 1851. PART I. Report, &c. TO HIS EXCELLENCY THE RIGHT HONORABLE JAMES, EARL OF ELGIN AND KINCARDINE, K. T. GOVERNOR GENERAL OF CANADA, &c. &c. MAY IT PLEASE YOUR EXCELLENCY, As required by law, I have the honour to submit a Report of the state of the Normal, Model and Common Schools of Upper Canada for 1851; the first entire year of the operations of the present School Act, as it did not pass the Legislature until July, 1850. In this report I do not, as in that for 1850, give separately the statistics of each of the nearly four hundred townships of Upper Canada. I have thought it sufficient to give statistics so extensive and detailed but once in three or five years, and to confine the statistical part of the present report to Counties, Cities, Towns, and Incorporated Villages. Though a considerable saving of expense will thus be effected in printing this report, there is comparatively little reduction of labour in preparing it, as the Local Reports are Township and not County Reports, and as the statistics of each Township Report must be analyzed and revised in this department in order to prepare the county abstract for the tables of my general Annual Report. I. EXTRACTS FROM THE REPORTS OF LOCAL SUPERINTENDENTS OF SCHOOLS. Though the appointments of the Local Superintendents of Schools, except in Cities, Towns, and Villages, are made by County Councils; yet Township, instead of County or Circuit Superintendents are, for the most part, appointed—a system of questionable efficiency, and which adds greatly to the correspondence of this department. There is, nevertheless, in the method of reporting by townships, something peculiarly practical and interesting. The most extensive and minute analysis of the B public mind on the great problem of the age is thus presented, and the largest induction of facts is obtained. Township after township rises up before you in its own distinct features, its defects, its wants, its struggles, its failures, its successes, its progress-and then may the features common to all, or the greater number, be contemplated, and the general results inferred. I have therefore inserted in Appendix A of this report no less than one hundred and twenty-eight extracts from the explanatory. descriptive and practical remarks which have accompanied the statistical reports of Local Superintendents. These extracts cannot fail to be read with deep interest. They are a mirror in which is reflected the educational condition of the country; and while much will be seen to humble, to modify, to grieve, there will also be found in action, and often in vigorous action-the essential elements of a country's sure and rapid advancement, and an organization to the results of which limits cannot be easily assigned. In all proceedings concerted, and in all efforts made in every branch of a people's civilization, and especially when such proceedings and efforts are devised and conducted by many separate and independent communities, there will be witnessed individual instances of error, of disappointment, of failure, of defeat, even where the general results are most satisfactory. The organization of our school system, establishing independent sections as well as villages, towns and counties, furnishes a vast field for this variety of experiment and diversity of results, as may be seen by referring to the extracts in Appendix A from the reports of Local Superintendents of Schools -extracts in which are faithfully given the dark as well as the bright shades of the picture. Instances will be found of the same system followed by opposite results in different school sections, the smallest school divisions authorized by law. Take for example the system of free schools. In several sections it has been tried for a year and then abandoned; while in a multitude of other sections the success of the experiment, even under disadvantageous circumstances, has been complete. In searching for the causes of failure in the instances mentioned, they will be found, not in the system itself, but in one or more of the facts, that the free school has been brought into operation either when the school-house has been unfit or too small to accomodate all the children of the school section, or the teacher has been incompetent to teach them, or the combination of ignorance, prejudice and selfishness in the section has proved more powerful than the desire and efforts for universal knowledge. In the contests of light with darkness, of liberty with despotism, of the interests of childhood with the selfishness of manhood, of the nobleness of a coming generation with the ignobleness of a present generation, the former may often experience a temporary defeat, weep under the sorrows of disappointment, and bleed under the infliction of wrong; but the nature of the contest waged, and the many examples of splendid success, leave no doubt as to the ultimate issue of the general struggle. From the extracts of the Local Superintendents' Reports, the following general facts may be inferred :— 1. The onerous and valuable labors which Local Superintendents have performed in the various townships. No one can read these extracts without being impressed, by undesigned and incidental references, that the gratifying progress which the schools have made, is, in no small degree, owing to the exertions and counsels of Local Superintendents. 2. The very general dissatisfaction with the present state and character of the schools and school accomodations; the general conviction of the need of improvement in the schools, and a desire and determination to effect it. A consciousness of defect and a determination to remedy it, is the first step to improvement in any thing. 3. The improvement in great numbers of sections in the condition and conveniences of school-houses, the character and position of school teachers, and the subjects and mode of teaching. 4. The commotion of the social elements in a large proportion of the sections for and against sound education to the masses, for and against improved facilities for its extension to all. These discussions and conflicts are the invariable precursors and attendents, in free countries, of the progress of knowledge and every kind of public improvement, as well as of the diffusion of religious truth. 5. The rapid and wide diffusion of just views on the nature and importance of general education, and the means of its attainment. 6. The amazing progress which the principle of free schools has made in the public mind; the triumphant success of its application as a general rule, with individual instances of failure; and an increasingly strong and wide-spread desire to have the question settled by legislative enactment and not left as a subject of annual discussion and agitation in each school section. 7. The advantages resulting from the Provincial Normal School, not merely by sending out into the country more than a hundred teachers per annum,-more or less trained in an improved system of school teaching, organization, and discipline,—but by giving a higher tone and character to the qualifications and modes of teaching, to which other teachers aspire, and which the school authorities in many places require. 8. The increased advantages of an unexceptionable and excellent series of school text-books. 9. The salutary influence of County Boards of Public Instruction, (by their examinations according to the general programme prescribed by the Council of Public Instruction for Upper Canada) in elevating the character and qualifications of school teachers. 10. The important part performed by Municipal Councils in this great work of our country's mental development and growth. 11. The acceptableness and suitableness of the general principles and provisions of the school law, securing, at the same time, the indispensable necessity and entire freedom of local action, and the assistance and advantages of a Provincial organization. 12. The deplorable defects and apathy which exist in some school divisions and townships, and the vast work which yet remains to be done in order to complete and render effective the operations of the whole system of Public Elementary Instruction, and to extend its ramifications and blessings to the newest and most remote sections of the country. The foundation is laid, and I trust broadly and deeply laid, and the superstructure, in some parts, is rapidly rising in fair and beautiful proportions; but, in other parts, the materials are scarcely collected, much less moulded into form and wrought into use. I have preferred that Local Superintendents, rather than myself, should speak in this report on the state of the schools, and the working of the school law; and I shall confine my own references and remarks within the narrowest limits possible, and to a brief discussion of the question of religious instruction in connection with our system of public schools. II. SCHOOL SECTIONS AND SCHOOLS. From the statistical part of this report, table A, it will be seen, that the number of school sections reported for 1851, is 3,340-being 67 less than the number reported for 1850. This decrease may be accounted for upon two grounds:-1. That several villages have been incorporated during the year from parts of townships in which school sections heretofore existed. 2. That small sections have, in a considerable number of instances, been abolished as separate sections, and incorporated with other sections. One of the most serious impediments to the improvement of the schools, in regard both to the character of the houses and the qualifications of the teachers, has been, and still is, the establishment of small sections-sections too feeble to erect a good and commodious school-house, or employ a good teacher, or keep the school more than in a lingering existence by an inferior teacher during six months of the year. The first step, therefore, towards reducing the number and enlarging the dimensions of school sections, is a pleasing indication of progress in the right direction. |