Page images
PDF
EPUB

Editorial Notices, &c.

NOTICE TO LOCAL SUPERINTENDENTS AND SCHOOL TRUSTEES.Copies of all the Blank Reports necessary for Trustees, and all other School Officers, having been despatched from the Education Department, as intimated on the 176th page of our last number, we would earnestly solicit of local Superintendents and Boards of School Trustees for Cities and Towns, the prompt transmission to the Education Office of the Reports, accurately filled up, as early in January as possible, so as to afford sufficient time for preparing the Annual Abstract of these Reports, to be laid before the GovernorGeneral, and the Legislature at its next Session-which will probably be early in February. Extra copies of Trustees' Blank Reports have been furnished to each County Clerk, so as to enable him to supply, upon application, any deficiencies which may occur. Local Superintendents will pay especial attention to the 5th remark at the bottom of the Trustees' Reports, which states that the Superintendents are required not to give a cheque upon the Treasurer for the last instalment of the School Fund in favour of the Teacher of any School Section from which the Report for 1850 has not been received at the time of giving the cheque. No School Section is "entitled" to this last instalment, in terms of the 1st clause of the 26th section of the School Act, until the report has been received and approved by the Local Superintendent. To meet this regulation, Trustees can send in their Annual Report any time in December.

SCHOOL REGISTERS..-As intimated on the 168th page of our last number, we hope to have copies of School Registers, printed ruled, and stitched, so as to be ready for delivery early in January. Orders sent to the Education Office can be supplied almost immediately. Price, per doz., 12s.; per single copy, 1s. 3d.

We direct special attention to the Prospectus of the Journal of Education for Upper Canada for 1851-to be found on page 184.

CHAMBERS' EDUCATIONAL COURSE.

The Scientific Section. Seven Volumes. Published by A. S. BARNES & Co., New-York.

The Scientific Section of Chambers' Educational Course has long been distinguished for its uniform excellence. The edition under notice, as will be seen in the advertisement which has appeared in late numbers of the Journal, has been revised and adapted to the system of teaching in gen ral use on this continent, by D. M. Reese, M.D., LL.D., late Superintendent of the Public Schools in the city and county of New-York, and an eminent educationist and scientific gentleman.

The engravings, illustrative of "Popular Science," which appear in our present and last number, are taken from these admirable works, and have been kindly furnished by the enterprising publishers, Messrs. A. S. Barnes & Co., New-York. From the excellence of these engravings, our readers will be able to form an estimate of the valuable character and mechanical style of the works themselves.

SCOBIE'S CANADIAN ALMANAC FOR 1851.

[merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][graphic][merged small]

MA

AY be obtained from Mr. HODGINS, Education Office, Toronto, at the following remarkably low prices:

Superior Brass Mounted Orrery, (3 feet in diameter) ...... £2 10 0 Superior Brass Mounted Tellurian (for explaining change

of Season, Tides, Eclipses, &c.)
Terrestrial Globe and Stand, 5 in. diameter (Singly 6s. 3d)..
20 Geometrical Forms and Solids, including block to
illustrate the extraction of the cube root,
Numeral Frame, for teaching Arithmetic with ease.......
Lunarian (for illustrating the Phases of the Moon and centre
of gravity.)......

Beautiful 24 inch Hemisphere Globe, hinged
Explanatory Text Book, ....

.............

Box, varnished, with lock and key to contain the above....
Charge for entire set, including box, &c., &c. ........
Any of the articles may be obtained separately; also Page's
Theory and Practice of Teaching or the Motives and
Methods of good School Keeping, an admirable Teacher
and Superintendent's Manual, pp. 349. See Jour. of
Education, page 176,

Morse's Geography, with Maps and Wood Cuts,.
Davies' Grammar of Arithmetic [see Jour. of Ed. page 48]
Parker's Compendium of Nat. Phil. [see Jour. of Ed. page 1

100 050

0

3

50

CO

050 050 0 1 3 050 526

[blocks in formation]

Reading Tablet Lessons 18. 4d-Arithmetic, do. 28. 4d-Natural History and other Object Lessons at various prices-National Maps 188. each, (except Map of the World, 248. J-National Books-Johnston's Agricultural Chemistry 1s. 3d-Hind's Lectures on ditto 1s. 3d--School Registers, ruled 18. 3d-School Act, Forms, Circulars, &c. 1s. 3d-Barnard's School Architecture 7s. 6d., &c. &c. &c.

This comprehensive and valuable Statistical Manual has now reached WANTED & TEACHER for School Section No. 2, Township of

a yearly edition of 35,000 copies; and already we learn the supply is exhausted. The information extends to every department of Trade, Commerce, Government, Civil, Military, and Naval Service, Abstracts of some of the more important Acts of last Session, Municipal and other Officers and Local Divisions, &c., &c., &c., compiled evidently with the greatest care and accuracy. The Almanac extends to 84 pages. Price 71d.

[blocks in formation]

Sarnia. Salary £45. Reference as to character and ability required. JOHN WADDEL, Port Sarnia.

Apply to

Toronto: Printed and published by THOMAS H. BENTLEY. TERMS: 58. per annum in advance. No subscription received for less than one year, commencing with the January Number. Single Nos. 7d each. Back Numbers supplied to all new Subscribers. The 1st and 2nd Vols., neatly stitched, may be obtained upon application, price, 5s. each.

All Communications to be addressed to Mr. HODGINS, Education Office, Toronto.

THE

JOURNAL OF EDUCATION

FOR

Upper Canada,

EDITED BY

THE REVEREND EGERTON RYERSON, D. D.,

Chief Superintendent of Schools;

ASSISTED BY MR. J. GEORGE HODGINS,

VOLUME IV. FOR THE YEAR 1851.

STORONTO:

PRINTED AND PUBLISHED BY THOMAS HUGH BENTLEY.

TERMS FIVE SHILLINGS PER ANNUM, IN ADVANCE.

1851.

THE INDEX TO THIS VOLUME WILL BE FOUND ON PAGES 188-190.

[blocks in formation]

CONTENTS OF THIS NUMBER.

I. Third Annual Address of the Chief Superintendent of Schools....... II. History of the English Language—Edinburgh Review.... III. MISCELLANEOUS. 1. Touch us gently, Time. 2. Old Letters. 3. Free School Historical Facts. 4. The two Schools. 5. The Crusades. 6. Power of Kindness. 7. British Constitution; and various interesting items

IV. EDITORIAL. Encouraging symptoms for the Future. 2. Education in the City of Hamilton-Report of a Committee of the Board of Trustees. 3. Progress of Education in Canada. 4. Free Education by the State

......

[blocks in formation]

JANUARY,

PAGE. 1-3 3-5

5-7

8-12 12-14

14-15 15-16

16

TO THE PEOPLE OF UPPER CANADA.

BY THE

CHIEF SUPERINTENDENT OF SCHOOLS.

MY FELLOW-COUNTRYMEN :

In presenting to you my annual address at the commencement of 1851, I am not in a position to enter into statistical details in respect to past educational progress; nor is it necessary that I should do so, as my last annual School Report has just been printed by order of the Legislative Assembly, and placed in the hands of each Municipal Council and School Corporation throughout Upper Canada. I will, therefore, on the present occasion confine myself to a few general remarks and practical suggestions.

My first remark relates to the settlement of the general principles and great organic provisions of our school system. It has been a common and not unfounded complaint, that there was nothing abiding, nothing settled in the principles and provisions of our School Law. Perpetual change in a school law is perpetual infancy in a public school system. Permanence and stability are essential conditions of growth, whether in an oak of the forest, or in a system of national education. But the works of man are not like the works of God, perfect at the beginning. The history of all science teaches us, that experiments must precede the principles which they establish; and the period of experiment in any thing is likely to be a period of change as well as of infancy. In no branch of political economy have more experiments been made, and with less progress towards the definiteness and dignity of a science, than in the department of public education. The chief reason I apprehend to be, not that it is more difficult than any other, but that it has received less attention than any other in proportion to its magnitude and importance-that in very few instances has any one man, with zeal and capacity for the task, been permanently set apart to investigate the subject in all its aspects and applications, and to bring definitely and practically before the authorities, and legislators, and citizens of his country, the results of general experience and

1851.

No. 1.

careful consideration, and embody them in actual recommendations and measures, and administrative policy. In New York and other States, the succession of temporary State School officers has been accompanied with an almost corresponding succession of school laws; and every confident and adventurous theorist in the Legislature, who had perhaps never been out of the limits of his native State, or read half a dozen school laws, or never studied a school system, in his life, was ready with some new project in which he imagined and insisted was embodied the sum of all human perfection, but which was no sooner tried than abandoned. In the State of New York, after almost annual legislation for nearly forty years, the general provisions of the last amended school law of that State, are, I have been informed, a reenactment substantially and almost verbatim of the general provisions of the school law of 1811, which was adopted on the recommendation of an able Committee that had devoted a year to the examination and consideration of the subjectthus coming back to the place of beginning, after having made the whole circle in school legislation. But in Upper Canada, our abnormal state of legislative experiment and change has been less protracted and tedious. We have had the great advantage of our neighbours' experiments and experience, and have reached (and I hope have exceeded) their results in legislation, without the drawbacks of their many trials and disappointments; and some of the material changes in our school law have been required by the introduction of a new system of Municipal Councils; and other portions of our recent school legislation have consisted in the introduction of new and necessary provisions, rather than the repeal of existing The careful inquiry which has been instituted into the whole subject during the last five years, the many consultations which have been held in the several counties throughout the country, the minute and anxious attention whieh was bestowed upon it by the Government and the Legislature during the last session, all warrant the assurance in the public mind, that no future legislation on the subject of our Common Schools will take place, except as new wants may suggest, and the experience and convictions of the country shall require. I am the more convinced of the correctness of this conclusion from the fact, that every suggestion, whether friendly or hostile, which I have seen in newspapers proposing substitutes for certain provisions of our present school law, has been tried and found unsuccessful in some one of the neighbouring States a fact of which the projectors might have satisfied themselves, had they investigated the history of school legistation in those States, before undertaking to give lessons on the subject for Upper Canada. It cannot fail to be satisfactory and encouraging to every practical man and friend of education, to enter upon the school duties and interests of a new year with the conviction, that his labours will not be in vain, and that the system to which he shall endeavour to give efficiency will be an abiding agency for the educational development and elevation of his country.

ones.

My second general remark refers to the position which our school system and its administration occupy in respect to parties and party interests,

The virus of party spirit is poisonous to the interests of education in any country or neighbourhood, and the clangour and jostling of party conflicts are its funeral knell. It perishes in the social storm, but grows and blooms and bears fruit in the serenity and sunshine of social peace and harmony. It has, therefore, been the policy of the enemies of general education, in any country and of

whatever party, as if prompted by a malevolent instinct, to seek to invest the agency for its extension with a party character, and then strangle it as a party monster. And even unintentionally and incidentally, the interests of education have largely suffered from the same upas influence. Among our American neighbours, I have been assured, that party selfishness and contests have proved one of the most serious obstacles to the progress of their educational systems and interests. The working of their machinery of government involving countless elections and endless party conflicts, the local, if not higher, administration of their school systems has often been perverted and pressed into degrading service as an engine of party -to the grief of the earnest and patriotic friends of education; and it has been alleged, that to the intrigues of party aspirants may be traced the origin of no inconsiderable number of their projects of school laws and school reforms. It is highly honourable to the discernment and patriotism of our neighbours, that under a system of polity which to so high a degree lives and moves and breathes in an atmosphere of almost theatrical excitement, the interests of education have been so nobly sustained and its progress has been so rapid and extensive. I regard it as an interesting incident in our Canadian history, and a brilliant sign and certain augury of educational progress, that our system of popular instruction stands forth by common consent and suffrage, the exclusive property of no party, and the equal friend of all parties. If one party introduced legislative enactments laying the foundation and delineating the general outlines of the system in 1841 and 1843, and if another introduced a legislative measure to modify and essentially to improve it in 1846, both parties have united to mature and consolidate it in 1850. I think there was a moral sublimity in the spectacle presented by our Legislature at its last session, when the leading minds of both parties, (with only subordinate exceptions unworthy of formal notice, and reflecting just darkness enough to give stronger expression and greater majesty to the general outlines of the picture) forgetting the rivalships and alien tions of party, and uniting as one man to provide the best system they could devise for the universal education of their common country--the spirit of sect being merged in the spirit of Christianity, and the spirit of partizanship absorbed in that of patriotism. I have stated the fact to several distinguished public men, as well in the United States as in England, and in every instance the comment has been one of admiration of such a spirit in the public men of Canada, and congratulation on the educational and social prospects of the Canadian people under such circumstances. As a practical development of the same spirit in administration, which had been thus illustrated in legislation, the same persons have been reäppointed, in 1850, to perpetuate and extend the work of education under the law, who were first appointed in 1846 to devise and establish it. The example and spirit of these acts should thrill the heart of every man of every party in Canada, and tell him that in the education of youth he should forget sect and party, and only know Christianity and his country.

I have a third general remark to make, and it is this-that our system of municipalities affords unprecedented and unparalleled facilities for the education and social advancement of our country. Since I came to England, a member of the Canadian Legislature now in this country, an able political opponent of the author of our present municipal law, but deeply interested in the financial and general advancement of Upper Canada, and who has to do with matters affected by that law, has expressed to me his conviction that our Municipal Law is the grandest, the most comprehensive, and most complete measure of which he has any knowledge, for developing the resources and promoting the improvement of a country, especially a young country. But what is thus stated by an impartial and competent judge to be true of this law in respect to the general resources and interests of the country is I think, preeminently true in respect to its educational interests. Among the conditions essential to the advancement and greatness of a people, are individual development and social coöperation—to add as much as possible to the intellectual and moral value and power of each individual man, and to collect and combine individual effort and resources in what appertains to the well-being of the whole community. That system of polity is best which best provides for the widest and most judicious operation of these two principles--the individual and the social. Now, to the development of the former, self reliance is requisite; and in order to that there must be self

government. To the most potent developments of the latter, organization is essential; and such organization as combines the whole community for all public purposes, and within convenient geographical limits. In our system of municipalities, and in our school system which is engrafted upon the municipalities. these objects are carefully studied, and effectually provided for, and provided for to an extent that I have not witnessed or read of in any other country. In the neighbouring States, there are excellent town and city municipalities with ample powers, and in some States there are municipalities of townships and counties for certain objects; but these are isolated from, and independent of, each other, and are far from possessing powers commensurate with the development of the resources and meeting all the public wants of the community within their respective limits. It is in Upper Canada alone that we have a complete and uniform system of municipal organization, from the smallest incorporated village to the largest city, and from the feeblest school section and remotest township to the largest county or union of counties-the one rising above the other, but not superseding it-the one connected with the other, but not contravening it-the one merging into the other for purposes of wider expansion and more extensive combination. By their constitution, these municipal and school corporations are reflections of the sentiments and feelings of the people within their respective circles of jurisdictions, and their powers are adequate to meet all the economic exigences of each municipality, whether of schools or roads, of the diffusion of knowledge or the development of wealth. Around the fire-sides and in the primary meetings, all matters of local interest are freely examined and discussed; the people feel that these affairs are their own, and that the wise disposal and management of them depend upon their own energy and discretion. In this development of individual self-reliance, intelligence, and action in local affairs of common interest, we have one of the primary elements of a people's social advancement; whilst in the municipal organizations we have the aggregate intelligence and resources of the whole community on every material question and interest of common concern. What the individual cannot do, in respect to a school, a library, a road, or a railway, can be easily accomplished by the municipality; and the concentration of individual feeling and sentiment gives character and direction to municipal action. The laws constituting municipalities and schools are the charters of their government, and the forms and regulations for executing them are aids to strengthen their hands and charts to direct the course of those who are selected to administer them.

The application of this simple but comprehensive machinery to the interests of schools and general knowledge opens up for Upper Canada the prospect of a glorious future. One of the most formidable obstacles to the universal diffusion of education and knowledge, is class isolation and class exclusiveness-where the higher grades of society are wholly severed from the lower in responsibility, obligations, and sympathy, where sect wraps itself up in the cloak of its own pride, and sees nothing of knowledge, or virtue, or patriotism beyond its own enclosures, and where the men of liberal education regard the education of the masses as an encroachment upon their own domains, or beneath their care or notice. The feeble and most needy, as also the most numerous classes, are thus rendered still feebler by neglect, while the educated and more wealthy are rendered still stronger by monopoly. Our municipal and school system, on the contrary, is of the largest comprehension-it embraces in its provisions all classes and all sects, and places the property of all, without exception, under contribution for the education of all without respect of persons. Thus every man, whether rich or poor, is made equal before the law, and is laid under obligation, according to his moans, of educating the whole community. And our law provides, for the application of this great principle, not only for the establishment of schools and all requisites for their support and efficient operation, but also for the establishment and maintenance of libraries of general knowledge and reading; nor does it leave each munieipality, unassisted, to collect books where and how it can, and at whatever prices, but calls in the position and assistance of government to arrange for procuring, at the lowest prices, a selection of books ample in number and variety, and suitable in character, to meet the wants and wishes of every municipality in Upper Canada. The Department of Public Instruction having to do in respect to books with no private parties, but with school and municipal corporations only, the legitimate field of private trade cannot be entrenched upon,

« PreviousContinue »