An Historical Survey of Boarding Schools and Public School Dormitories in Canada

AN HISTORICAL SURVEY OF BOARDING SCHOOLS AND PUBLIC SCHOOL DORMITORIES IN CANADA by JOHN CALAM B.A., University of British Columbia, 1948 A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS in the Department of Education We accept this thesis as conforming to the required standard THE UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA October, 1962 ? In presenting this thesis in partial fulfilment of the requirements for an advanced degree at the University of British Columbia, I agree that the Library shall make it freely available for reference and study. I further agree that permission for extensive copying of this thesis for scholarly purposes may be granted by the Head of my Department or by his representatives. It is understood that copying or publication of this thesis for financial gain shall not be allowed without my written permission. Department of Education. The University of British Columbia, Vancouver 8, Canada. Date October 1, 1962. ABSTRACT During the first half of the fifteenth century, Vittorino da Feltre was employed by the Duke of Mantua to preside over a classical residential school for the sons of influential men of the day. This task Vittorino accomplished with singular success, standing in loco parentis and establish• ing from the start a family atmosphere that contrasted sharply with the harsh educational methods of the times. Since the/in- i ception of Vittorino's Mantua boarding school, the idea ofvan educational institution that combines school and home has re• mained very much alive in Europe. When the French settled permanently in the New World, it was natural that they should transplant their own version of the residential school to North American soil. As a means of maintaining a learned and influential Catholic clergy and of spreading a general culture, such schools have continued in French-speaking Canada down to the present day. After the cession, the English, too, introduced boarding schools, some of which were modelled on such famous "public" schools as Eton or Winchester. At first designed to serve the wealthy upper classes, these schools found the residential plan well-suited to the aims of preserving British institutions and of pro• viding leaders imbued with a sense of social purpose and responsibility. In the course of time, both French and English authorities found themselves faced with the considerable iv problem of educating the native Indian whose level of civili• zation, according to European standards, appeared extremely primitive. Though several different objectives lay at the foundation of Indian instruction, there appeared common recog• nition that isolating the Indian pupil from retarding home influences would play an important part in introducing the young savage to white man's ways. Accordingly, Indian board• ing schools were established, at first under private auspices and later with federal government assistance and direction. Although many French, English and Indian residential schools were firmly established in British North America prior to Confederation, it was not until the post-Confederation era and the emergence of provincial education systems that public boarding schools received serious consideration. An early attempt at running such a school was made at Cache Creek, British Columbia in 1874* However, mismanagement together with widespread establishment of one-room rural schools soon brought about its closure. Nevertheless, the Cache Creek ex• periment anticipated later boarding establishments that were to be devoted not to religious, national or class proselytiz• ing but to providing a day school education to geographically isolated children. As Canada pushed back its frontiers, there arose a need to satisfy the educational requirements of children located along the outer fringes of settlement. Thus, in spite of the earlier Cache Creek failure, British Columbia once again gave thought to public boarding schools, and since 1948 V has evolved a successful scheme of public school dormitories. In Alberta, depression and drought of the early nineteen- thirties caused grave concern about making high school educa• tion available to young rural people whose presence on the labour market posed a threat to more seasoned workers. As in British Columbia, the public school dormitory provided a par• tial answer to the question of bringing pupils to centrally located high schools. Unlike their earlier French, English and Indian counterparts, public school dormitories in Western Canada have been almost exclusively associated with problems of geography and communications. Because of new population patterns, better roads and more advanced vehicles, however, day school education can now be provided for the majority of Canada's rural pupils by transporting them in buses to central schools. So rapid has been the improvement of transportation and com• munication and so widespread the development of new population centres that Alberta's once extensive scheme of public school dormitories has been entirely discontinued. Further, though British Columbia continues to operate nine such establishments, three at least are now facing diminishing enrolment, whilst the public education systems of most other Canadian provinces find bus transportation adequate to the educational require• ments of their country school population. Thus it appears that public school dormitories founded for the sole purpose of equalizing educational opportunity on a regional basis are destined to remain in operation for a relatively brief period vi of time. This survey has shown, though, that boarding schools, whose basic aims have transcended mere geographic considerations, have developed quite steadily throughout Canada's educational history. Therefore it is suggested that British Columbia, whose public dormitory system appears to have reached, and perhaps just passed, its peak of usefulness, immediately seek alternative objectives for its school dormi• tories before probable disillusionment, associated with their inevitable decline in the face of economic growth, rules them out as strong and important educational forces for the future. The central contention herein put forward is that British Columbia's public school dormitories must serve the province in the years ahead as instruments of educational excellence. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Sincere thanks are due to Dr. F. Henry Johnson for his guidance and encouragement and to Dr. C. E. Smith, Dr. Leonard C. Marsh and Dr. W. J. Hartrick for their many helpful suggestions. Original documents relating to the Cache Creek Boarding School have been made available through the kind co-operation of B. C. Provincial Archivist, Dr. Willard Ireland, Assistant Archivist Miss Inez Mitchell and Mr. Basil Stuart-Stubbs and staff of the Special Collections Division of the University of British Columbia Library. TABLE OF CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE I. RESIDENTIAL SCHOOLS OF THE FRENCH IN CANADA .... 1 II. SCHOOLS FOR LEADERS - BRITISH BOARDING SCHOOLS IN UPPER AND LOWER CANADA AND THE MARITIMES .... 22 III. RESIDENTIAL SCHOOLS FOR CANADA'S NATIVE POPULATION. 48 IV. THE CACHE CREEK EXPERIMENT - AN EARLY BOARDING SCHOOL IN A PUBLIC SYSTEM 74 V. OPPORTUNITY FOR RURAL CHILDREN - THE DEVELOPMENT OF PUBLIC DORMITORY SCHOOLS IN BRITISH COLUMBIA . 95 VI. DEPRESSION TO PROSPERITY - THE FULL CYCLE OF SCHOOL DORMITORIES IN ALBERTA'S PUBLIC SCHOOL SYSTEM 119 VII. THE PRESENT STATUS OF RESIDENTIAL SCHOOLS IN CANADA'S PUBLIC EDUCATION SYSTEMS 140 VIII. CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS 159 BIBLIOGRAPHY 182 APPENDIX 194 LIST OF PLATES PLATE FOLLOWING PAGE I. CACHE CREEK, B.C., ABOUT 1870 73 II. PORTION OF PAGE ONE, CACHE CREEK BOARDING SCHOOL TRUSTEE'S MINUTES, 1876-1927 76 III. CACHE CREEK BOARDING SCHOOL 78 IV. PORTION OF PAGE EIGHTY-ONE, JOHN JESSOP'S SCHOOL INSPECTOR'S DIARY, 1877-1378 ..... 79 CHAPTER I RESIDENTIAL SCHOOLS OF THE FRENCH IN CANADA In Acadia and New France, founded and peopled by- Frenchmen and administered by French commercial, governmental and ecclesiastical officials, it was natural that an effort should be made to reproduce, as faithfully as possible, manners, customs and institutions that were dear to the colon• ists.^* In the field of education, the Catholic Church brought to a new continent all the skill, devotion and prestige that in Old France it had exercised since the Middle Ages. With it, too, came the residential school, a traditional French institution that was to become for an emerging French Canada an important instrument for the training of the clergy and for the establishing and extending of a general culture. In the 2 face of criticism and of changing times, these establishments that are both home and school for their charges continue their special work in modern Canada, largely unchanged in purpose and atmosphere. Data on early residential schools of the French Regime in Acadia is scarce, perhaps since the education of the French population was considered by religious orders as a duty 1 Gosselin, Abbe A.E., "Education in Canada Under The French,Regime", in Shortt, A., and Doughty, A.G., ed., .Canada And Its Provinces, Toronto,-T. and A. Constable, 1914, Vol.. 16, p.326. ^ See Association Des Professeurs de 1*University de Montreal, La Crise de l'Enseignement au Canada Franpais, Montreal* Editions du Jour, 1961. 2 requiring no special mention in their relations. Nevertheless, it appears probable that the Capuchins, brought to the New World by the Company of New France in 1632, provided at La Heve and later at Port Royal, boarding accommodation

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