The Intellectual Development of the Canadian People - Sir John George Bourinot (best book recommendations TXT) 📗

ready to place a high estimate on colonial statesmanship. In the earlier days of our political history some men played so important a part in educating the people to a full comprehension of their political rights that their names must be always gratefully remembered in Canada. Papineau, Bedard, DeValliere, Stuart, Neilson, Baldwin, Lafontaine, Howe, Wilmot, Johnstone, Uniacke, were men of fine intellects--natural-born teachers of the people. Their successors in later times have ably continued the work of perfecting the political structure. All party prejudice aside, every allowance made for political errors in times of violent controversy, the result of their efforts has been not only eminently favourable to the material development of the country but also to the mental vigour of the people. The statesmen who met in council in the ancient city of Quebec during the October of 1864 gave a memorable illustration of their constitutional knowledge and their practical acumen in the famous Resolutions which form the basis of the present Constitution of Canada.

But it is not within the limits of this review to dwell on the political progress of Canada, except so far as it may influence the intellectual development of the people. It will be seen, as we proceed, that the extension of political rights had a remarkable effect in stimulating the public intelligence and especially in improving the mental outfit of the people. The press increased in influence and ability; but, more than all, with the concession of responsible government, education became the great question of the day in the legislatures of the larger provinces. But to so important and interesting a subject it will be necessary to devote a separate chapter.


CHAPTER II.


EDUCATION.

The great educational advantages that the people of Canada now enjoy, and more especially in the premier Province of Ontario--as the splendid exhibit recently made at Paris and Philadelphia has proved to the world--are the results of the legislation of a very few years. A review of the first two periods of our political history affords abundant evidence that there existed in Canada as in Europe much indifference in all matters affecting the general education of the country. Whatever was accomplished during these early times was owing, in a great measure, to the meritorious efforts of ecclesiastical bodies or private individuals. As long as France governed Canada, education was entirely in the hands of the Roman Catholic Church. The Jesuits, Franciscans, and other religious male and female Orders, at an early date, commenced the establishment of those colleges and seminaries which have always had so important a share in the education of Lower Canada. The first school in that province was opened in 1616 at Three Rivers, by Brother Pacifique Duplessis, a Franciscan. The Jesuits founded a College at Quebec in 1831, or three years before the establishment of Harvard and the Ursulines opened their convent in the same city four years later. Sister Bourgeoys, of Troyes, founded at Montreal in 1659 the Congregation de Notre Dame for the education of girls of humble rank, the commencement of an institution which has now its buildings in many parts of Canada. In the latter part of the seventeenth century Mgr. Francois Xavier de Laval-Montmorency, a member of one of the proudest families in Europe, carried out a project of providing education for Canadian priests drawn from the people of the country. Consequently, in addition to the Great Seminary at Quebec, there was the Lesser Seminary where boys were taught in the hope that they would one day take orders. In this project the Indians were included, and several attended when the school was opened in 1668, in the humble dwelling owned by Mme. Couillard, though it was not long before they showed their impatience of scholastic bondage. It is also interesting to learn that, in the inception of education, the French endeavoured in more than one of their institutions to combine industrial pursuits with the ordinary branches of an elementary education. For instance, attached to the Seminary was a sort of farm-school, established in the parish of St. Joachim, below Quebec, the object of which was to train the humbler class of pupils in agricultural as well as certain mechanical pursuits. The manual arts were also taught in the institutions under the charge of the Ursulines and Congregation. We find, for example, a French King giving a thousand francs to a sisterhood of Montreal to buy wool, and the same sum to teach young girls to knit. We also read of the same Sovereign maintaining a teacher of navigation and surveying at Quebec on the modest salary of four hundred francs a-year. But all accounts of the days of the French regime go to show that, despite the zealous efforts of the religious bodies to improve the education of the colonists, secular instruction was at a very low ebb. One writer tells us that 'even the children of officers and gentlemen scarcely knew how to read and write; they were ignorant of the first elements of geography and history.' These were, in fact, days of darkness everywhere, so far as the masses were concerned. Neither England nor France had a system of popular education. Yet it is undoubted that on the whole the inhabitants of Canada had far superior moral and educational advantages than were enjoyed during those times by the mass of people in England and France. Even in the days of Walpole and Hannah More the ignorance of the English peasantry was only equalled by their poverty and moral depravity. [Footnote: Green in his 'History of the English People' says:--Purity and fidelity to the marriage vow were sneered out of fashion; and Lord Chesterfield, in his letters to his son, instructed him in the art of seduction as part of a polite education. At the other end of the social scale lay the masses of the poor. They were ignorant and brutal to a degree which it is hard to conceive, for the vast increase of population which followed on the growth of towns and the development of manufactures had been met by no effort for religious or educational improvement. Not a new parish had been created. Hardly a single new church had been built. Schools there were none save the grammar schools of Edward and Elizabeth. The rural peasantry, who were fast being reduced to pauperism by the poor-laws, were left without moral or religious training of any sort. 'We saw but one bible in the parish of Chedda,' said Hannah More, at a far later time, 'and that was used to prop a flower pot.' p. 707, Harpers' ed. 1870. Parkman also admits that 'towards the end of the French regime the Canadian habitant was probably better taught, so far as concerned religion, than the mass of French peasants.'--_The Old Regime in Canada_.]

Sensuality was not encouraged in Canada by the leaders of society, as was notoriously the case in the best circles of England and of France. Dull and devoid of intellectual light as was the life of the Canadian, he had his places of worship, where he had a moral training which elevated him immeasurably above the peasantry of England as well as of his old home. The clergy of Lower Canada confessedly did their best to relieve the ignorance of the people, but they were naturally unable to accomplish, by themselves, a task which properly devolved on the governing class. But under the French regime in Canada, the civil authorities were as little anxious to enlighten the people by the establishment of schools as they were to give them a voice in the government of the country. In remarkable contrast with the conduct of the French Government in this particular were the efforts of the Puritan pioneers then engaged in the work of civilization among the rocks of New England. Learning, after religion and social order, was the object nearest to the hearts of the New England fathers; or rather it may be said that they were convinced that social order and a religious character could not subsist in the absence of mental culture. As early as 1647, Governor Winthrop sanctioned a measure [Footnote: This measure provided that 'every township in this jurisdiction, after the Lord has increased them to the number of 50 householders, shall then forthwith appoint one within their town, to teach all such children as shall resort to him, to write and read, whose wages shall be paid, either by the parents or masters of such children, or by the inhabitants in general, by way of supply.' And it was further ordered that 'when any town shall increase to the number of one hundred families, or householders, they shall set up a grammar school, the master thereof being able to instruct youth so far as they may be fitted for the University.'] which was the first school law ever passed in America, and outlined just such a system as we now enjoy on an extended scale in Canada. Wise men those stern Puritans of the early colonial times! It is not surprising that intellectual food, so early provided for all classes, should have nurtured at last an Emerson, an Everett, a Hawthorne, a Wendell Philips, a Longfellow, a Lowell, a Howells, and a Parkman.

After the Conquest the education of the people made but little progress in Lower Canada. Education was confined for the most part to the Quebec Seminary, and a few other institutions under the control of religious communities, permitted to remain in the country. Lord Dorchester appointed a Commission in 1787, to enquire into the whole subject, but no practical results followed the step. In 1792 the Duke de Rochefoucauld wrote that 'the Canadian who could read was regarded as a phenomenon.' The attempt of the 'Royal Institution for the Advancement of Learning' to establish schools was comparatively a failure; for after an existence of twenty years it had only 37 schools, attended by 1,048 pupils altogether. The British Government, at no time after it came into possession of the province, ever attempted anything for the promotion of general education. Indeed, the only matter in which it appeared in connection with education was one by no means creditable to it; for it applied the Jesuits' estates, which were destined for education, to a species of fund for secret service, and for a number of years maintained an obstinate struggle with the Assembly in order to continue this misappropriation. No doubt the existing antagonism of races, then so great an evil in Lower Canada, prevented anything like co-operation in this matter; but added to this was, probably, a doubt among the ruling class in Canada, as in England, as to the wisdom of educating the masses. An educational report of 1824 informs us that 'generally not above one-fourth of the entire population could read, and not above one-tenth of them could write even imperfectly.' In the presentments of the grand juries, and in the petitions on public grievances so frequently presented to Parliament, the majority of the signers were obliged to make their marks. During the year 1824, the Fabrique Act was passed with the view of relieving the public ignorance, but unhappily the political difficulties that prevailed from that time prevented any effective measures being carried out for the establishment of public schools throughout the province.

Nor was education in the western province in a much better state during the first period of Parliamentary Government, that is from 1792 to 1840. It is noteworthy, however, that high schools for the education of the wealthier classes were established at a very early date in the province. The first classical school was opened in the old town of Kingston by the Rev. Dr. Stuart. In 1807 the first Education Act was passed, establishing grammar schools in each of the eight districts in which the province was divided, and endowing them with an annual stipend of one hundred pounds