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STRUGGLING WITH DIVERSITY: The Sta[e Education nf the P!ura!Sctic. Upper Canadian Population. 179 1 - 18-11

Robin Bredin

A thesis submitted in conformity with the reguirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Department of Theory and Policy Studies in Education Ontario Institute for Studies in Education of the University of Toronto

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Robin Bredin (Mr.), Ph.D.. 7000. Department of Theroy and Policy Studies in Education. University of Toronto

This dissertation concerns the birth of the spirit of a tolerant State policy toward the education of a pluralistic population in the polity of Ontario during its Lrpper Canadian period. 179 1- 184 1. During this formative. fifty year period. a general spirit arose amongst the diverse Confessional. denominational. sectarian. and ethnocentric Croups as they fought first against the rugged environment. then against innumerable transportation difficulties that denied access into the interior (the bush or the backwoods) to a11 but the determined and the desperate. and finally against the ruling political clique. the Family Compact. Comprised largely of what E.P. Thompson called Church-and-King men in English context. the Family Compact held ail the cards in the fledgling polity - political. ecclesiastical. cultural, legal. judicial. financial. military. and educational. In its efforts to Establish the Church of England (the Anglican Church) in Upper Canada - as it had bern so established. to the extent of collecting tithes. in Ireland. for example - the archly-conservative Family Compact sowed the seeds of its own eventual demise by creating broad popular opposition to its sectarian actions and policies after 1820. especially in regard to the education of the rising penerations. for whom the Statees role in education was of rapidly increasing importance. In the 1840s and 1850s. the Anglicans having iost the struggle to create an education system in their own hase. began opening their own privatc schools and College (Trinity) under the aegis of their fearless though bigoted leader. Bishop John Strachan (Toronto). Acknowledgements

First, Z wxld zckmwledg~zhe enduring sucporc of Terznce ana Zlizabezh Ireain, respectively zf Toronzo and Pcrc Zope, Clntaris.

- n I am gracefxi x Zr. L.C. Allêyne, zhe Registrar 3; 3.I.S.E., for cnarnpioning a Icsz zause - and xinning wich qraîe. Last - and the "iast shall be first" - I would thank rny farnily: Catherine, F!ichael Joseph, Marina, ana gose Teresa, for their Icve. My gerxle wife, Yzrgârec 3aly 3redin, Fs cur lovicg Cedrock in cur smollmwn ûf ?rangeville inarned for s~ulersazd

. . - a,, praise be -3 God -

. . ~easzC1 of the .J.ssurr.p~i:~rs zhe Fêzst sf St.Teeresa ~f 3.v:-s, . . <9octsr ~f the ZPxcr.;, YLMXZIX. 3ecem~er3, A. L!. 3. G. X. &mes 3615 .~ssocia~e?ro?esscr of 3ïstûry, aüC.or zf Zdxzttiar. 3r Molasses?, ~f Du~das, %taria Table of Contents Pref ace

...... -. 3c-i1-., in -2s ~èryclassi~yinq of the "grea: mincis" appears zo

-. . have bec ezqsqi-q ir a vorv "heuqehoq--2é" acz:v::ÿ. And, 2f - -. -. zrirss, -.s-srîv =ozA ncve zo reloinder tr 3er-ic in ztis

.* . . - *. zertxy. ---,v 3- =.na2s +,ubA..%~r-~-m- 7" s: ~zeraryqreocs, :tic - . -. ~y~.t~es~z:za- Lziactely an ac: vf simpi~rxacicn- is e ver-

. . . . -c --. basx mirnari â=r:v;:ÿ. :s. zr xake inte*-:g;Le zhe mintdligible, to make knowable the unknowable, zo vrgxiize the random, ts classify =ne apparenrly chactic. Histary Fs =je -. knowinq cc xe ys;: 1: re-callecrs cne chrazter and tverxs from pasc iimes =ha= ozhers migk Kno~=hem becwr.

The one, ur-iavci5able "hedqenûq" of ine Ypper Canadian period

resembles e "fx" frcm this remove in zime. For Strûzhx. ana his

- .- homûqenecüs :an;-y Cornpacz musc Rave sensed an ineiüczable fsrcê

Ûraggir,g 2s members ûntc re-creaïe "Englanci's green and pleasant . . lands" i~.thse--' ,..en primeva- z-eorlzgs. For S'crachar; mci the skin of our ïeeth, though what occurred is now ccnsidered to have heen inevirable 511 various historians. IZ never wos Fnsvicablz.

Irelana bears wizness zî zhis fac, aay- afror-painful-day inca che twenzy-f irsi zemury. "It was placed in the centre of a large wood, more than half a mile from any house and where two roads crossed or four roads met and it accommodated the clearings or settlements on each of these roads, the children being required to travel generally from a mile to a mile and a half. It was eighteen feet square, built of dressed logs, rather neatly dovetailed at the corners, and the interstices between tne iogs cninkea ana plajtered. It was floored and ceiled, the ceiling being slightly over six feet £rom the floor. The roof, what is called a square one, was shingled. In the centre of each end and at the back was a long, low window, while the front was occupied by a similar window near one corner and a door near the other - this latter window was for tne 'master' while the others were intended to light che desks, which extended al1 the way dong the back and across the ends until they passed the windows. The larger pupils, who were writing and 'cyphering',used these àesks, sitting on boards, with their faces to the stove, which occupied the centre of the room. The teacher had a chair and a little table in the corner by the neighbours, the logs being cut in the surrounaing bush. One would furnish a few boards, another a few shingles. Just how the nails were paid for we never learned, but one old gentleman, who had lost his wife and quit housekeeping, furnished the little table which was the only piece of painted furniture in the room. In this room gathered daily, during a considerable portion of the year, twenty to thirty pupils between the ages of five and fifteen, and during the winter and spring months a few that were nearly grown men and womenJ3.)

Reminiscences, Stormont, Dundas and Glenaarrv - A Historv 1784- -1945. "Rev. and Dear Sir

"Alexander returned £rom Scnool last Thursday at noon cornplaining of being sick. Finding him very feverish, àiscovering that his shoulders were sadly bruised - both his hands greatiy swollen, and that he had also been beaten oves the head by the weapon that had rnarked his shoulders."(4.)

Zohn Strachan's letter to the Reverend Principal Harris of Upper Canada College regarding a beating received by his son, Alexander, thar left the boy in danger of dying and caused the Strachans to seek a new school, 6 June, 1831.

The Tension: i - "Beneath the shaàow of the British oak"

"...Excuse me, therefore, if 1 have dwelt too long on the atrocious spectacle of the sixth of October 1789, or have given too much scope to the reflections which have ariçen in my mind on occasion of the most important of al1 revolutions, which may be dated from that day, 1 mean a revolution in sentiments, manners, and moral opinions. As things now stand, with every thing respectable destroyed without us, and an attempt to destroy within us every principle of respect, one is almost forced to apologize for harboring the common feelings of men....

"1 beg leave to speak of our church establishment, which is the first of our prejudices, not a prejudice destitute of reason, but involving in it profound and extensive wisdom. I speak of it first. It is first, and last, and midst in our minds. For, taking grounc on that religious systen, of which we are not in possession, we continue to act on the early received, and unifomly continued sense of mankind... . "...sublime principles ought to be infused into persons of exalted situations; and religious establishments provided, thzt may continually revive ana enforce tnem. Every sort of moral, every sort of civil, every sort of politic institution, aiaino the rational and natura; ties that connect the human understanding and affections to the divine are not more than necessary, in order to build up that wonderful structure,

Man ....'O! 5.)

Ecimund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France ana or. the Proceeàinas of Certain Societies i?. London relative to tkat evex (1790).

Srirish colonists had begun to settie in North America during the early seventeenth century. Nany customs, traditions, churches and chapels, and Christian Confessions, denorninations, sects, or parishes, crossed the Atlantic - metaphysically - in the ships carrying the settlers. North Arnerican society was, in the most general terms, profoundly Christian in the English-speaking settlernent areas. There grew up, however, on the Eastern seaboazd, an "ir.siitutionalized confusion of religion", especially amonçsr the multitude of Protestant denominations and sects.(6.) This is, pernaps, unsurprising for a Confession born of recaicitrant orotest

2nd iriàividual will on an outward trajectory of dissent and queszioning :rom the Mother Church. This confusion was enhanceci by 4 the isolation of the settiers and the continued arriva1 of newcorners with strongly-heia individual views upon macters religious.

In America, the earliest British settlement was around

Chesapeake Bay, Virginia. The experience of attenpted church establishment in Virginia shares a great deal in cornmon ~iththe

later experience in Upper Canada. In the Virginiaz case, the

Charch of England was the de facto Established Churcn, an acorn in

North Amerka frorn the great British oak. Church of England parishes were established throughout the polity, with a clergy

reserve of land made in each borough ( large township) . As in Upper

Canacia, the land so reserved was of little or no monetary value, as

few settiers wanted to lease or to rent in a new world of seemingly

limkless territory. Thus, the Church of England parishes were

left, in the frontier and wilderness boroughs, very much on their

own economically and spiritually. Many could not afford a proper

clergyman or any ceremony. To serve the simple needs of the

pioneers, che churches gradually drifted toward more modest

congregationalism without ministers, or even Methoàism, wnich had

icself started as a Church of Englond revival movement, and had

brancbeti itseif in turn. Land was, however, as in Upper Canada, 5 to prove crucial. In what was to become Upper Canada, by 1784, land was being granred to arrivingLoyalists along the lines of the seigniorial systen, with a church glebe of up to five hundred acres reserved in each seignory. In the corporate survey history, The

Great Re~ubiic,American Colonial specialist Bernard Saiiyn writes of the Virginian case, as its population began to fiow ic:

"In Virginia the long-stanaing inability of the Chürch of England to serve the neeas of che cornmunity was ...compounced by Fts arbiguous relationship to the new settlers, almost ail ?on- Anglicans, who moved into the backcountry in the 1720s and '30s. When the revival struck Virginia, it found a colony whose official stote ckurch was formalistic and generally ineffective but whose nonconformist churcnes...were dynamic centres of cornmunity life. The relations between the two were likely to become embattled."(7.)

It is the basic tension created by the powerful religio - political institution of the Church of England transplanted to

North America - along with its often intellectual, pedantic, and at times, truculent ministers, its collegial azc ?eaagogical preferences and affiliations, its well-endowed and ubiquitous

Societies - especially the great Societies foundea in the 1700s like the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel (SX) and the

Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge (SPCK) - its gross hogging of reserved lands and wealth, its self-assumed de jure 6 establishment, and its corrosive sectarianism - that underscores

this dissertation. The Church of England was, it is contenàed

herein, in botanical terms, a nutrient-hungry, English potted-plant

and not really a suitable exotic for the North American frontier

experience. In Upper Canada, like Virginia before it, people came

to settle who requireà a hardier, less erudite, cornrnunity church where the minister was of the people or was an ins~irationalparish

priest who had migrated with :Ils flock. And, the Church of England

had a very limited siipply of these kincis of frorrier, North

American men. Most Anglican ministers - university-types - stayed

hard by their rectories in the more settled areas of North America,

leaving the endless woods for the comrnon-men who served faithfully

as saddle-back preachers. In Upper Canada, the diverse population

struggled against the hegernony and the presurnptuous auto- establishment of the Church of England. The orthodoxies of that

Church - especially the stiff Thirty-Nine Articles - were

increasingly and sharply a; odds witn the growing Christian

plurality of Upper Canadian society.

The paramountcy of Churc:? within greater society, especially ar, overtly Christian society, is a difficult concept to underscand in

the present, poçt-Christian context. But, the Upper Canadian 7 context must be recognized for what it was: a Christian-centred society. The chnxches were the foci of contemporary culture during the Upper Canadian period. Further, in Upper Canada, Church and

State were closely interwoven, if not one, as was the case in Lower

Canada with the Catholic Church. The last vestiges of this worla are under the final, legal assault in the Province of Quebec, the attachmerxs between Roman Catholicism and state-supported education about to be rent asander finally. This was a markedly different world. For example, today the saying of the Lorà's Prayer in an

Ontario public school would likely result in ene teacher or principal being reprimanded, suspendeci, and vilified in the media; in Upper Canada, failure to Say the Lord's Prayer in a comrnon school would have been clear and undisputed grounds for dismissal.(8.) Simply put, religion permeated al1 aspects of life, society, and education in Upper Canada, creating nearly theocratic conditions of rule; and, the primus inter Dares of Christian

Confessions, denominations, and sects, could confer upon itseif the lion's share of tne land, power, and wealth, while sinultaneously disa~lingits Christian brethren with restrictive ordinances. The

Christian-based socieries in North America, according to Professor

Bailyn, assuned as axiomatic, "..,the belief that religion was not simply a spiritual rnatter nor of concern only to the church. The agencies of the state were understood to have a major responsibility for the supervision of religion and the enforcement of orthodoxy. The church had its own powers, its own sources of economic support, and its own transcendent responsibility for nurturing religion; but in the end this role was elanorately involved in civil institutions .... (Furthermore) Church institutions established in colonial areas were expected to follow farniliar organizational patterns and fit somehow into some larger pattern of religious institutions."(9.)

The Church of England's authorities assumed a natural precedence in many parzs of North ilmerica, taking for granted that theirs was to be the church in the Church and State configuration.

However, the reality of a diverse population of Christians , broadly-speaking, in primitive clearings was the unalterable, irreducible fact for the ministers of the gentlemanly, intellectual, austere, and rather aloof, Anglican Confession in the

British North American colonies. Despite the Church of England's pronouncements, ordinsinces, and articles, religion in the backwoods developed along with the people and their communities, first in

Virginia during the UOOs, then in Upper Canada during the i800s.

The British oak would afford much shade in North America, but the acorn of its favoured religion would grow inco only a stunted sapiing in these more rugged climes. 9

Upper Canada, prior to its creation as a separate polity in

1791, had been lightly populated by Europeans. With a few, isolated French trading-posts, it had been part of the Catholic

Establishment of Quebec. Upper Canada was mainly populated by an aboriginal population estimated at between two thousand and f ive thousand people. The American War of Independence (177547E3) created a northward-rnoving, refugee population of Loyalists. Çome six thousand to ten thousand United Empire Loyalists had trekked to north of Lake Ontario by 1791. These settlers tended to cluster by religious Confession, denomination, sect, or ethnocentric group.

The first large group to arrive were the Six Nations aboriginals who eventually settled in the Grand River valley. Amongst other groups to settle were the "Catholic Highlanders, Scottish

Presbyterians, German Calvinists, German Lutherans, and

Anglicans."(lO.) Each group built its own settlement area around its churches. Schools followed naturafly within these communities as soon as some very modest measure of prosperity was achieveà.

Like the towers in the Italian city of San Gimignano, in Upper

Canaaa eacn group had its own particular spire as its focal point.

Crücially, in positive certainty of establishment, tke Anglicans put their principal spire at York, erecting the foundations of the

Catheàral Chürch of St. James early in the nineteenth century. The Church of E~glandwanted to be at the focal point of Upper Canadian state affairs, to keep a firm gri3 on Upper Canadian political power .

For Upper Canadians, one's world view depended largely on onets spire and its location. Thus, Father Macdonell began his catechetical ieachings in Gaelic under the modest Catholic spire ir. the Glengarry Highlands of Eastern Upper Canada; the missionary

Egercon Qerson began his work uncer the nurnble Xethodist spire amongst the aboriginals near Port Credit; and, Dr. John Strachan led his elite pupils tnrough the intricacies of Latin and Greek unaer the proud Church of England spire at York, having re-begun his religious life as an Anglican missionary at the Cornwall settlement. In short, there was always a variety within the population, a plurality that would have to be recognized, a diversity that would have to struggle to produce a spirii that created the possibility of Ryerson's educational state in Canada

West. For in Upper Canada, unlikz San Gimignano wnere the rivals we-te always aware of each's tower and prestige, the spires, ana the evolving staiüs of the groups they represented, were not visible from York. Or, the Churcn of England authorities eiected to turn a Dlind eye. The view from the spire of zhe Church of St. James, to II the north, was limited to the forbodinq Gallows Hill, near present day Ct. Clair Avenue and Yonge Street.

The social, political, religious, and educational importance of the plurality of spires beyond York was underestimated 2nd

frequently aiminished by the Church of England leadership - particularly By Strachan - in Upper Canada, both in termç of Chuzch and Sïate. The largely Anglican State autnority, rhe 'arnily

Compact, thougnt primarily in aristocratie and insuiar terms, re- creating a synthetic English existence at York and other provincial centres. And, where there were no Anglicans, leaders of other groups became the Family Compact's agents, factors, or clients.

The Compact wielded virtually the full political power of the

State, while simultaneously holding most of the educational, ecclesiastic~l,cultural, land and wealth cards. From inception,

until at least the rnid-1820s, Upper Canada was their oyster. Upper

Canada's plurality was only parïially apparent politically in the

emasculated Lower parliamentary-chamber, the somewhat democratic

Bouse of Asse.nbly. Learning from tne obvious lessons of Virginia

and the States' rebellions generally during the i770~,tne balance of reai power in Upoer Canada was shifced from the democratic bocy

to tne ariszocratic anc monarchical bodies - the Legislative Council, which was first proposed on a hereditary basis, and the

Lieütenant-Governor's post supportec by tne arcnly-Tory counsel of

Executive Councillors. Upper Canada's first aristocrat and the charter member of the Family Compact, Lieutenant-Governor General

Sir John Graves Simcoe - who is remembered, vaguely, the first

Monday of August in Ontario each year - had occasion to contemplate the lower chamber, the House of Assembly, with its eleczec and somewhaz representative collection of successful men in a lecter to

the Colonial Offices, London,

Vice-Regency:

''1 do myseif the honour of transmitting to you the Journais of the Legislative Council and House of Assernbly, together with such Acts as have been passed during the session.

"In my passage frorn Montreal to Kingston, 1 understood that the general Spirit of the country was against Election of half pay Officers into the Assernbly: and that the prejudice ran in favor of Nen of a Lower Order, who kept but one Table, that is who dined in Common with their Servafits ...."(11.)

Sincoe's world view was the prototype for, and the articulation of, the Family Compact's narrow acd seccarian spirit, for the policical rule that was to dominate u~tilthe civil unrest of i837 and the aavenz of "responsible goverment" ic tne 1840s. His world was conscruc~ed of demobilisec "half pay" off icers and other ünimpoverishec! Britons who would mature into safe, Tory Legislative

Counciliors and Family Compact mandarins. Simcoe's benevolently patronising attitude provides this dissertation the leitrnotif of the Upper Canadian period. The first generation British rulers of

Upper Canada, or the second generation that tried stiffly and sternly to be more-English-ïhan-the-Cnglish, wanted meals served at two different taeles, one upstairs, one downstairs. Being rnodest

Christians generally, Upper Canadians wanted to sic at one cable on the main floor. It would take almost ïhe entire fifzy years of

Upper Canada's existence, a great, "general Spirit", and an upsetting of the Family Compact's heavily-laden, oak-plank table,

Suc Upper Canadians would have their common table in the political arena at least.

This dissertation concerns a period of time in the polity of

Ontario - foreign, perhaps, to us now - when little was more important than the twe of Christian catechism used in a cornmon school. Catechetical teaching was a by-product of wnat Edmunci

Silrke, the Anglo-Irish proto-Conservative, termed the "subline principle", whereby Church ana State were inextricabiy bound together. One thinks of God extending his Hand to Xan on the . . cei~ing of che Sistine Chape1 when one reacs the Burkean 14 conceptualization of the Stace's religion. But Burke meant also the terrestrial entaiis, the terra firma of law and property, rnarriage solemnization and clergy reserves, tithe and glebe. To be the Established Church meant to be the Chosen People in matters below Heaven, to rest comfortably beneath the snade of the mighty tree. The Constitutional Ac: (Canada Act) of 1791, in creating

Upper Canada, gave the Churck of England every hope of imminent establishrnenc. The framerç' intent was constitutionally ancertain, nowever, f requently discussing che "Protestant Clergy" of tne

Established Church. Of such legal inprecision are decades of controversy wrought.

For the "Protestant Church", the Act set aside one-seventh of

Upper Canadian territory for the "support and maintenance of a

Protestant Clergy." In addition, "sorne of this land could be used to erect parsonaqes 'according to the Establishment of the Church of Englana.'"(i2.) In Virjinia, the amount of reczory land availa~le for lease a: sertlers ' prices, paid frequently in tobacco, had been hopelessly inadequate. In L'pper Canada, the amount of land, beyond the inmediate glebes, was massive, though the land was of extremely limizeci realizable value. And though the

Church of England was not leqally estabiisned, the Family Compact 15 assumed establishment, making the Church of England and its ministers, ofren, the rude and aggressive noya1 Swan among North

American wild ducks. Thus with considerable self-aggrandisement, the Family Compact - and John Strachan particularly - built Grammar

Schools in the shaàows of its churches' spires to cultivate "the rising generation" of the Anglican elite - to reproduce the Family

Compact aomeçtically and CO keep the impressionable youth corch of the border away £rom strident Republican influences and pedagogues

- while pioneering Upper Canaàians were "rougning iz in rhe bush."

Xost Upper Canadians ha9 little time to consider initially the difference between àe iure and de facto establishment. They woula corne, in time, to be keeniy aware of the dif ference if not in these legal-Latin terms.

For the State, the Act set aside one-seventh of Upper Canadian territory as "Crown Reserves" that the Lieutenant-Governor might have ü potential source of income with which to maintain both control and tne Crown's autnority, especially against the swelling tiae of republicanism. The Act made che British Vice-Regent an autocrat, with pienipotentiary powers. The Lieutenant-Governor appointed a small Executive Council of four or five as his personal

Cabinet. He made iife-time appointments to a lar~erLegislative 16

Council, the upper body of the bicameral legislature. And, he dispenseti a host of perquisites, sinecures, and posïs to members of the Family Compact to create a rigid systern of control, clientage, and patronage over the polity of Upper Canada that it might not drift into the American orbit. The political power the Family

Compact came to wield in the Upper Canadian period was about as flexible as a glacier, and caused, ultimately, nany Upper Canadians

- naturally modes; anà conservative - to rebel in the late-1830s.

Two men, a scnooi-master and his pupil, personify the implacable, interwoven authority of Church and State under Family

Compact rule during the Upper Canaàian period. John Strachan and

John Beverley Robinson wanted to build a new Albion on the northern shore of Lake Ontario. Strachan was Robinson's teacher, dominie as the Scots would have it, and mentor at the Cornwall Grammar

School, and the architect of Robinson's brilliant career. Strachan was raised in Scotlanc Sy a Presbyterian nocher and an lpiscopal

Church of Scotland father. In Upper Canada after i799, he appiied initially for a 2resbyterian vacancy. Likely, however, he saw his main chance in affiliating wïth the Chuzch of England, the mosï- favoured church here. Nen would wnisper that Strachan turneti his religious coat to advance in the world; many of those same men would barely see the dust £rom his boots in the peripnery as

Strachan set off for the capital in tne early-i8lOs, freshiy honoured as Doctor of Divinity by King's College, the University of

Aberdeen. Wiïh the taking of Holy Orders and an advantageous marriage, Strachan had an income of nearly eight hundred pounds a year by the beginning of the War of 1812, in an era when the average Upper Canadian made barely thirty pounds a year. Ana, at

York, Strachan collected pst after post - al1 unelected, most barely accountable - and sinecure after sinecure. What posts he coüld not occupy personally, he passed along to his former pupils

£rom Cornwall Grammar School, to further consolidate his political power .

His pupil of most note was John Beverley Robinson. He was the primus inter Dares of Strachan's alumni, coming to lead the North

American-born, second generation of the Family Compact. Robinson's father, Chriszopher, was frorn Virginia and haà fought in a Loyalisc regiment under Simcoe . After the war, Christopher Robinson drif ted northward, seeking appointments from his old commander. Unschoolec outside the miiitary, Christopner did quite weli, beccming an original bencher of Che Law Society of Upper Canada and Crown

Surveyor of che Wooàs. When he died of war injuries in 1798, he 18 lefr: six childrer! including John, aged seven years, and Peter, aged thirzeen years. Peter narrowly misseà being jiven the sinecure of

Crown Surveyor of the Woods as a hereditary post, regardless of his youth. At twelve, John was taken under the wing of John Strachan in Cornwall, who educated hirn sratls. In John, Reverend Strachan cultivated a very erect, aristocratie, intellectual and arrogant young patricia. alongside rne scion of the Family Compacc -

Nacaulayç, Carcwrights, Marklands, and Boultons. Robifison, therefore, çrew rip detached :rom tne mainstream, Upper Canadian pioneer existence that was levelling and democratic in irs harc practices. He came to York in 1807 as a maturing Anglo-Upper

Canaaian, a young British oak, more English than North American, his sympathies lying elsewhere.

At York, he apprenticed at law. The War of 1812 saved him :rom stultification. And, if Strachan had a good war accumuIating power , treating with the American comrnanders , ana emerging as Upper

Canaaa's unelecced and unappointeci Prime Minister, Robinson had a great war. At the outbreak, Robinson was a law clerk for Coionel

Zonn Macaonell of the Glenqarry Fenci~les,the Atzorney-General.

Together, they set out for the Niagara peninsula. Hacdonell, aide- de-cam~to Genezal Brock, the military commander of Upper Canaàa, 19 fell with Brock during the assaulc on Queenston Heights. Robinson survived the perilous ascent anc waç lionizeci. Stracnari ana

William Dummer Powell, the Chief Justice, saw Robinson iristalled imrnediarely as the acting ~ttorney-General of Upper Canada, though not yet called to the bar, though only twenty-one years of age. In

Robinson, Strachan saw a man who could keep the repu~licanthreat, witnin and without Upper Canada, at bay single-handedly, ana :O whom he could pass the inheritance of political power in che fullneçs of tirne.

John Robinson's career tnereafter was one of the most storied in Ontario's history. He spent considerable time in England, where he seems to have been even more at home than in Upper Canaca.

Robinson held most Upper Canadian posts , of ten sirnultaneously in the fashion of the Family Compact. He was wonderfully wealthy, rescuing his Drother, Peter, from fi~ancialruin in the afcermazh of the Irish plantations of the l92Os, and donating a large parcel of land to the Law Society, land which became the grounàs of

Osgoode alin downtown Toronto. In the words of Canadian historian Patrick Brodie, ne was the "bone and the sinew of the

Pamily Compacz."(13.) Strachan, keeping the metaphor aiive, was its brain and soul.

The Family Compact saw in itself Britain's and Empire's chance to hold onro a significant North American possession, against repu~lican tendencies and American interventions. But, the

Compact's plutocratic rule could be rigid, brittle, bullying, and reactionary, cuite at odds with the cown-to-earth deneanour of cne setzler population. One suspeczs chat the Family Compacc was slightly frigntened of the popular will and of the populace. Tkeir fear was that of the hearty iand-owners, and tneir sons, of che

Manchester Yeomanry cavalry who cantered out to St. Peter's Place in 1819.(14.) For the landed Tories, these were very reacziocary times in Britain and Upper Canada. John Beverley Robinson Detrayed a hint of this mease as he bemoaned the lack of a true aristocracy in Upper Canada:

"It is to ~e rernembered that there is in Canada no coun=eraczing influence of an accient Aristocracy, of a great landec inieresc or even of a wealthy agricultaral class; there is little in short but che presumed good sense, and good feeling of a- uneducated multitude (which may be too much tempted) ro stana between aimost universaf suffrage and those insïitutions, which proucly ana happily distinguish Britons ...."(15.)

The British social historian EoP- Thompson knew tne pexeived threat the multitude" posed the supporters the establisned order. Tnompson can cransport the nistorical reader back amongst the patrician officers and ruddy cavalrymen as they sip nervously from their branày flasks in 1819, watching the speakers begin preaching to the 80,000 assembled on the field of infamy that became known as Peterloo, a grotesque and blackly ironic reference to Wellington's victory over a suitably arrned and led eneny army four years Defore. Open acts of class hacred were noz uncommon throughout the British Empire in the revoiu~ionaryand turbulent years between, pernaps, 1790 and 1830.

Robinson's political attitude and thinkinq were quite representative of his class: patronising, Anglophile, haugnty, and with a slight suggestion of fear and suspicion, which coula lead to a rash action or re-action. Such a spontaneous action occurred when Strachan - cursed with unseemly hubris, a poor memory, little political acumen having never haa to struggle for power or office, and a second-rate intellect - grosslÿ exaggerated an Anglican population rninority in üpper Canada to Scottisn N.P.s, with his fantastical and controversial "Ecclesiastical Char:". Xobinson usea sümmary juscice in his legal offices. He funnelled reactionary energy - similar CO tnat of Peterloo and its 22 Magistrate- and Coroner-apologists - through legai mechanisms, savagely making examples wnere tne "presumed gooa sense" was thought in short supply.

Robinson's actions in the legal arena serve as demarcation points for the reign of the Family Compact in Upper Canada. In

1812, as acting Attorney-General, he began CO pursue the

"seditious" amongst the population, leading to the "Bioocy Assizes " of 1814. In 1837, as Chief Zustice, he began CO hear evidence against various rebels capcured after the momentary anarcny. The hangicgs Robinson imposed in 1838, against the popular will for mercy and clernency, brought the Colonial Office at Westminster into action, and doomed from the outside the Family Compact's long- standing political reign in Upper Canada, though its members continued to dominate profoundly other aspects of life in Ontario, particulariy in wealthy Toronto and bureaucratie Queen's Park, througn the 1950s.

As acting Attorney-General in 1812, Robinson was confrontes by a ?rovince under American siege, with a diverse 2opulace naving little core sense of nationality or cornmon interest. Nany Upper

Canaaians were still rezlly mericans in everything but flag; the majority were not suitably defereritial to their supposed betters in the Family Compact. In 1813, during cimes of hign tension ana drama, stresses revealea clearly the essential fault-line within the two-layered Upper Canada society . This fault-line was reburied by pitiless justice administered by members of the Family Compact until the unrest of 1837-1838 exposed it irrevocably.

By 1813, Upper Canada haa a population of 80,000 people. Of cnese, 600 resitied at York. That year, York was repeatedly occupied by the Americans. The Family Compact's àefence was hopelessly inadequate, brittle, half-hearted and self-interested.

As the civil authority broke down in the town, Strachan treated nurriedly with the American commander, General Dearborn.

Strachan's main interest was the protection of property. Upper

Canadians, as a whole, were unimpressed by the Family Compact, as the dif f icult circumstances laid bare its true character. They voted with their f eet . In the spring of i813, 1,700 Upper

Canadians beggeà parole from the American cornrnanaers at York, permanently excusizg thenselves from the Province ' s def ence, leaving tnem free CO defenc their own interests.(l6.) The Family

Compact had provided them an objecc lesson in this. As 1813 wore oc, Strachan was forceù ":O appeal to the enemy commander" for 2 4

Americar. soldiers as guards for properties throughout York sucn was the plaque of thievery.(17.) The contemporary lippe: Canadian Chief

Justice, Powell, a leading figure in the Family Compact, noted that the American soldiers served to proauce a "good effect on the turbulent minds of some wretches of (the Upper Canadian) population."(l8.)

Xobinsor moveci q~ickly thereafter to secure his permanent appointment as Attorney-General. He prepared very thorough cases against eignt "wretches" and secureà their convictions for capital offences. The eight went to the gallows in the "Bloody Assizes" of

1814. Robinson's advocacy was ruthless. He demanded severe and exemplary justice, playing on fears of lawlessness and crimes against property, bitcer themes in the living mernories of

Loyalists. Attorney-General Robinson's litigation was a premonltion of the hoofbeats of Peterloo, reacting savagely against any perceived leading-edge of generaliteti disconcent, thereby reducinq the populace to sullen antipathy and dread of the

magis *vates.L- One-quarter century later, Chief Justice Robinson ushered in the Family Compact's last rnomentous act, ending the hegemonic rule as he produced more victims for the scaffold. In the wake of the

1837 insurrection, the Family Compact was in a vengeful spirit. In

1838 captured rebels - Lount, Matthews, Montgomery, and other signatories of the rebels' manifesta, the Dedaration of Julv - languished in prison under sentence of death. The general mood of

Upper Canadians was for clemency and compassion, tne rebels having been frustrated beyond endurance by the Farnily Compac='s aristocratic and monolithic self-interest. A genteel, petition- bearing, Mrs. Lount - apparently an archetype of 'proper' Upper

Canadian womanhood - was reduced to f linging herself at the feet of

Lieutenant-Governor Arthur, a meeting portrayed in the newspapers immediately, captured memorably by artists, and well-known throughout contemporary Upper Canada.

In her scholarly book entitled Public Men and Virtuous Wornen

The Gendered Lanquaqes of Relision and Poiitics in Uwer Canada,

1791-1850, Canadian historian Cecilia Morgan suggests this contact between Mrs. Lount ana the Family Compact was pivotal in Upper

CanadaBsrnovement away from elitist and oligarchie rule. Morgan maintains that Zlizabeth Lount departed the then-typical domestic 26 sequestration of Upper Canadian wives and mothers, and entered the political arena - a rare feat for a woman in Upper Canaca. Mrs.

Lount first pleaded for her husband's life; then, she begged for his corpse; finally, she appealed to Save her husband's property - the family's homestead. Mrs. Lount lost or! aii three counts; but, in losing, sne invoked the most powerful Upper Canadian shibboleth: nome. In her appeal to the aloof and remote Chief Justice,

Robinson, she inay well have captured ;ne emocional support of every red-blooded Upper Canadian male. Further, in Upper CanaOa, she helped shatter the brittle, bullying, and somewhat arbirrary rzle of the Famiiy Compact. She wrote to Robinson - and the letter was made public by zhe Reformers - that by her husband's death her

family would experience a loss "'of home and al1 that could make that nome pleasant."'(l9.) She carried her famiiy through an unrivalled sequence of misfortune. Her letter is Upper Canada's version of the great Zola's J'Accuse. Mrs. Lount wrote to the

shameless Robinson that the "'series of hordships brought upon me

and rny orphan chilaren by you, and others of the tory parcy in

Canada ...xould cal1 the full grown tear to marily eyes."'(20.)

Accordinç CO Cecilia Horjan, no more poteni criticisin was possible

in Upper Canada cnan such stinging vords as these, a woman, shorn of her proteccor, defending her home, her hearth, and her family 2 7

against unmatchable, unfeeling political forces. Upper Canadian manhood woulà never allow a repexiiion of cnis rnerciless ar.d snahby

treatment of a virtuous wornan. Yorgan hammers this point home,

great as ir is in any psychological understanding of the genàer

relations in Upper Canada:

"Their (Lount's and Natthew's) Dodies symbolized virtuous Upper Canadian nanhooà betrayed by che cyranny, despotism, anà imorality of the authorities. The government's treatrnenc of reformers' families (particularly the widowed wives, che mothers stripped of their propercy) aemonstrated unequivocaily its lack of manliness and invalidated its right to rüle. The state's ciaim to authority was based on nothing more chan military might and bullying of defenceless women and chiidren."(21.)

The injustice of the illegitirnate and unmanly administration could

not stand, for it had transgressed against a virtuous woman in the

public arena where a qentlewoman's virtue was infrancrible.

Lount and Matthews went to the gallows in a remorseless display

by Robinson aüring April, 1838. The popular will aria general

s~iri: were oüzraged; Upper Canacians would stand for no more

exemplary justice or, by extession, arbitrary, bullying, and

ur-manly rule Dy the autocracic 'gentlemen' of the Family Compact.

The Colonial Office sensed an explosion coming in Upper Canada of 2 8 similar gravity to Lexington and Concord, and senc word to commute

Montgomery's sentence. He was reprieved the day before his execucion. Setting sail irom England almost simultaneously with

Montgomery's commutation was an Englishman, a Northerner, John

George Lambton, who had been a driving force behind the British

Reform Biil of 1832.

Lambton, the FFrst Earl of Durham, had been a solaier acring the Napoieonic Wars, a Whig parlianentctrian, a Reform crusacier, and an ambassacior. Lord Durham arrived in the Canadas during Nsy,

1838. As Captain-General, Governor-General of the Canadas, and

High Commissioner to look into the troubles, he brought the Family

Compact's political power to an end, ushering in an era of

"Responsible Government". In an act of great and humane

statesrnanship, Durham decreed an Ordinance for the general amnesty of rebels - in Upper Canada, tne Lieutenant-Governor, Sir George

Arthur, discomfited by his dealings vith Elizabetn Lount, haa been vorking îo that end as we11 afcer the hangings of Lount and

Matthews - zo coincide with great occasion of Queen Victoria's

Coronaïion in June, 1838. His action was greeted DY great popular acclaim. Durham nad realized that the conviction of rebels was

impossi~lein jury trials in Lower Canada, ana thaï harsh justice in Upper Canada was fome~tingfurther popular discontent. Durham's plenisotentiary powers easily overmatched the Farnily Compati's, and his political acumen was nearly faultless in this case. His natural and restrained - unlike the sornewhat forced and self- assumed aristocratic disdain of members of the Family Compact, which would have made many of tnem complete caricatures of nobility in England - gentility fused with his reforming symptnies, and his unrivalied work ethic was harnessed to a cornrnodious intellect, to make him Canada's finest British-born governor. With nis ordinance, Durham overruled the Family Compact, who had been baying

"lustily for severe punishment" of scores of imprisoned re~els.(22.) With his Report, Durnarn rendered the Farnily Compact an obsolescence politically, though they remained active, vocal, wealthy, and influential in their, essentially self-irnposed, political wilderness. At Westminster, after prevarications and perfidities, the British Prime Minister, Lord Melbourne, announced in the House of Cornons his Government's support for Durham's reforming work, stating:

II I ...that if the province of Upper Canada is preserved to rtis country - that if, the insurrection Seing suppressed, the punisiment of death can be altogether avoided in practice and that, if we shall be able to restore to that province the enjoyment of a free constitation (a noble result would have beec achieved). "'(23.)

"Radical Jack" Durham was to have his way in Upper Canaaa. The

Family Compact's authority was chopped down as allegedly

"Responsible Government" and a Union of Canadas were introduced by

Lord Durnam. The roots of the mighty British oak had corne, however, to run deeply in Oncario - the language, che Common Law, respecc for che Crown and Constitution, the traditions - ïnough few obvious manifestations remain to this day from the plutocratic rule in Upper Canada. The Family Compact's church, the Cathedra1 Church of St. James, still stands in downtown Toronto, now largely forgotten. The Family Compact's school, Upper Canada College, still performs an extravagantly exclusive, preparatory function, although not along catechetical or Classical lines, in the posn neighbourhoods of North Toronto. A rather homogeneous life continues sub rosa in Rosedale and parts of Forest Iiill, where

Torontonians from "old-money" families congregate poolsicie, at the skating-clubs, and at the tennis-courzs to discuss the exorbitant cost of private education. And, the Family Compact is caprured in pririts of paintings, wnich illns:raïe duscy pages of long-ignored books. In one such painting, stout, grey-haired, rec-faced,

English-styled patriarchs, foregather at the banquet table - with 3 1 servants hovering about nervously - in the rectory of St. Peter's

Anglican cnurch, Erincale, just prior to the insurrection of 1837.

As the gentlemen Councillors and Magistrates sip their port after supper, they listen as Strachan and Robinson present the plan for suppressing imminent rebeilion, their faces masked astonishment, outrage, and determination. From this vantage point in time, i appears syrnbolically as the last supper of their political regime, an ancien reqime that forgot more than it ever learned during its fifty years as the ruling class in Upper Canada, a plutocracy that had it al1 - like Louis XVI's in France - and badly misplayed a hand crammed with aces, and which was swept aside in the 1840s by both Lord Durham and the spirit of the cornrnon Upper

Canadians who were become more suitable masters and mistresses

their own

"Our iiouse of Assenbly for the mosz part have violen: levelling principles which are totally different from the ideas I have been educated with - The neighbouring States are too often brought in as patterns & moceis ...(by) designinq Men."(24.) In a letter of Surveyor-Generai D.W. Smith to a friend, John Askin, Colonel of Militia, Upper Canada, October 2, 1792.

"Along the Paris streets, the death-carts rumble, hollow and harsh. Six tumbrils carry the day's wine to La Guillotine .... Changeless and hopeless, the tumbrils roll along."

Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities (1854)

Dernocratic pioneer societies were being fashioned in the primevai forests of North Arnerica in the seventeenth, eighteench, and ninereenth centuries. The eighteenth-century was, as well, a revolutionary era. The Protestant sects that came to North America

from Britain brought with them "levelling principles." As settlernents began in British North America, beyond the grasp of

Irnperial autnority and the Established Church, a natural, organic, pragmatic democracy was quite cornmonplace in matters of faith and governance. The great Neapolitan-English, Catholic, and aristocratic historian, John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton, later the Liberal peer Lord Acton and Regius Professor of Nocern History at Cambridge, noted in his final Lecture, given in 1901, chat:

The revolutionary spirir nad been handed down :rom tne seventeenth century sects, through the colonial charzers. As early as 1638 a Connecticut preacner said: 'The choice of pu~lic magistrates belongs unto the people, by God's own allowance. They who have the power to appoint officers and magistrates, it is in their power, also, to set tne bounds and limitations of the power and place unto which they cal1 them'"(25.)

The Divine Right of Kings encountered, in the Thirteen Colonies, a renascent Athenian governing principle - Democracy - and a renewed

Roman republican notion of the individual male of means - the

Citizen. To an English aristocrat, raiseci in and benefitting irnmeasurably :rom a society riven witn rigid social scratifications and economic class divisions, al1 men were properly sub jeccs of the

Crown. The English patrician class watched with dismay as the

"designing Men" came to resort to violence, first in the Thirteen

Colonies in 1775, then in France in 1789, ana finally in Ireland in

1798. By 1790, before the revolutionary terrors in France, the

Anglo-Irish M.P. Edmund Burke was raising the alarm. He perceived a fundamental threat to law, order, property, and religion, in

France from the jacobin leadership, many of whom were intoxicated by the liberties gained in America. The American Revolution had unshackled the new Republic's citizens from unaccountable . authorities in matters fiduciary, ecclesiastxa~,. military, and commercial. In America, a man - unless he was black - was free to pursue his own happiness, and to have his views strongly 34 represented in the legislatures; in Britain, a man was still sub ject to nigner auïhority, aristocratie or monarchical, with very limited redress or representation available through parliament.

Lord Acton commented:

"It had been setcled (in England) thar the legislature coule, without breach of any ethical or constitutional law, without forfeiting its autnority or exposing itself to just revoit, make laws injurious to che subjecr for Che benefit of English religion or English trade. If chat principle was abanàoneà in America it coula not well be maintained in Ireland, and the green flag might fly on Dublin Câstle."(Z6.)

America emerged as a land of free men questioning al1 authority. The Rmericans broke into open rebellion againsi taxation without representation on December 16, 1773, when they boarded the Dartmouth in Boston Harbor and durnped the cargo of tea over the side. Acton intoned that that was the "mild beginning of the greatest Revolution that had ever broken out amongst civilized men."(27. ) Acts of insurrection anà rebellion became a revoiution: the Thirteen Colonies became the loosely feàerated United States of

Iimerica. The Bricish administration Kas amazed by the "Tea Parcy", having imposed the lighcest of possible ducies on imports to the

Thirceen Coionies; was amazed by the Declaration of Indeoendence; and, was amazed by its ultimaze defeat in 1783. It was the British 3 5 world and rule turned violently upside-down. And while the

Americans manage io bring their revolution to a halt, the French - greatly influenced by events in North America - would lose control of their revolution after enthusiastic, initial steps.

The American rebuff and humiliation of the British would cause to be created in Upper Canada a much more concentrated power-base, and a much rr,ore autocratic administration, than was warranted in the conservative and loyal political aimospnere that came to exisi north of Lake Ontario. The quasi-aristocracy, the Family Compact, came to place a vise-like grip on all matters in Upper Canada, from jurisprudence to schools texts, from control of land to Church of

England preferment. Americans and republicanism were constant threats, real and perceived, to the administration in Upper

Canada. In the District Schools Act of 1807, the Family Compact sought to make a Classical education, delivered by Anglican ministers or laymen, narrowly available to reproduce an educated ruiing-elite. The Common School Act of 1816 - a legislative achievement of Dr. Strachan that served co underpin so much of

Ryerson's work in Cacada West - aid not reflect a sincere interesc on the part of the Family Compact to educate the poorer, pioneering; elements of the population; rather, in the wake of American 3 6

incursions and with the reality of a prevalence of republican texts

in Upper Canadian elementary schools, it was a deeply àetermineà

effort to "defend and expand British institutions" in the

colony. ( 2 8. ) The initial grant to the common schools was six

thousand pounds in 1816; as the spectre of American invasion

diminished, the Family Compact lost interest in secular elementary

education CO produce or reproduce loyalty, and the grar-t was

reducea CO cwenty-:ive hundred pounds in 1820. Through the 1820~~ common school masters struggled CO sübsist on average state support of five pounds each year, in an age when a skilled craftsrnan coula expect to make seventy-£ive poundç annually.

It was, however, the catechism of liberty that caused, perhaps,

the greatest anxieties to the British ruling elite, both at home

and in Upper Canada, during the revolutionary times. Men, like

Burke in England and, in Upper Canada, Robinson, were deeply

croüblea by wnat they read. In the iate eighteenth-century, an aristocrat or neo-aristocrat would have been worried by ;ne

inflamiiatory words of radical poiemiciscs like Tom Paine and his

Sishts of Yaz, the words that füelleà the American Revolution, or the Frencn lawyer Joseph Saige, who fxelied the French Revolution with his Catechism of the Citizen. To British Tories, these 3 7 wrizers suggested the decline of civilization, a disruprrion of links to the pst, an end 20 religion, and the death of Kings. The disintegration of order in France stood as solemn testimony to Tory fears. Such ruptures would lead inexorably to mob rule or anarcny.

Therefore, the "wretches" who attacked order and property ln Upper

Canada were savagely punished, and made examples of, CO warn off others wno rnight upset the escablished order. Occurrences like zhe

Upper Canaàian "Bloody Assites" in 1814 or the "Peterloo" massacre at Nancheszer in 1819, or the post-Upper Canadian-insurrection hangings of Lount and Mat'ihews in 1838, are the most obvious eviàence of violent, conservative reactions to actual and perceived threats. Everywhere, àuring these times, there were manifestos and polemics, with variations on the theme that "al1 men are equal.''

Burke read, and could read the writing on the wall in France. He was fearful for his own society. Burke read Rousseau; he read the

Jacobins; and he had read Paine, Jefferson, and Çaige. Joseph

Saige wrote:

18 -~ibercy - ... is an inalienable right of al1 citizens of the commonwealth. No power on earth much less any power derivea truly frcm the people ... can challenge or o~structthe enjoymect of this liberty when it is so desired .... (And) the sovezeign is none other than the vote of tne people ...."(29.) 3 8

Words were aangerous in tnese times. This was an era of busy

printing presses and political pamphlets. In Upper Canaàa, cwo

fiery Scotsrner! ran afoul of the Famiiy Compact's reactionary

impulses with their - for the historical context - provocative,

pubilsned, and public Language. These men were Robert Gourlay and

William Lyon Mackenzie.

Ir. U~oerCanaàa The Formacive Years 1784-184 1, Gerald ,cl. Craig

capcures the Gourlay episocie in Upper Canada, an episocie that

uernonstrates the Family Compact's fearful reaction to a perceived

revolutionary threat of Little actual consequence. But chen, the

Tories, in revolutionary times, were quite willing to swat flies with sledgehammers for the power of public exam~le-makinq. Robert

Gourlay was a Scotsman who migrated with his long-suffering family

to Upper Canada shortly after the War of 1812. He was, in Craig's

characterization, "a congenital dissident, an inveterate

scribbler . " ( 30. ) Gourlay envisioned himself as a potential land

agex of consequence in Upper Canada. He piotted to bring group

migrations to a parc of the British Empire that was, in his

estimation, languishing for wax of settlers. Gourlay printed and

broadcast a probing letter anci questionnaire - "Address to the

resident lanàowners of Upper Ca~aaa"- into the province's modest prosperity - relative to the evident prosperity of neighboilring New

York State. After reading ~heresponses, in 1O17, Gourlay concluded that tne adminiscration of Upper Canaàa not only inhibited settlement and development, but also was guilty of

"vicious misrnanagemenr."(3?.) This type of inflammatory language was likeiy to bring a strong reaccion £rom the adminiscration so- la~elled and active hazreà frorn leading menbers of rhe Family

Compacz. Gourlay cieepened ihe wound by recommending a 5ll inquiry into Jpper Canada's management Dy a band of "sycopnancç."(32.) In

M!8, Gourlay crossed the threshold into the role of apparenr Upper

Canaaian revolutionary when he proposed the holding of conventions anà township meetings in the principal towns. There, Upper

Canadians were to air concerns and grievances over the Family

Compact's political administration. Craig captures lucidly the

Earnily Compact's discomfort at the notion of conventions and meetings, the ratsbane of Tory England, soon to come under the hooves of the heavy brigade at Manchester ana the legal proscriptions of the Six Acts:

"3y (1818) the provincial goverment was exceedingly alarmed by GourLay's activities.. .. (The) lack of firm leadership was most galling to the Attorney General, John Beverley Robinson. ml.---is...ri~idly - conservative young man (believed) chat Gourlay's activities must be stopped. Ee coxld ~ctfinb thac either the township meetings or the conventions were unconstitutional, but he did regard them as a most dangerous type of popular movement. While recently completing his legal studies in England, Robinson had been horrified by the popular tumults led by such demagogues as Cobbett and Hunt. Gourlay not only knew these men, but appeared to be imitating their activities in Upper Canada. In England, however, the troops could be called out to restore order; except for a few small garrisons, Upper Canada had been almost entirely denuded of soldiers after 1815. Moreover, the word 'convention' had unfortunate overtones of tne American and French Revolutions."(33.)

Robinson had Gourlay arrested for two criminal libels -

"sympathetic juries acquitted him on both charges."(31.) A convention occurred at York, July 6, 1818. It was a useful and

loyal meeting of ninds. Nonetheless, çensing a revolutionary rival

to legitimate government and airaid of heady Tennis Court type- oaths in the heat of the moment, the Upper Canaàian administration outlawed "the assembling of conventions" in October, 1818.(35.)

The act that pdssed was "Upper Canada's rather mild equivalent of

the Six Acts passed a year later in England" that, too, pronibited conventions and mass public assemblies like that at Sc. Peter's

Fields, ,cianchester.(36.) In a quasi-leqal farce auring 1819,

Xobinson had Gourlay evicted from Upper Canada unaer a Custy anti-

sedition provision. Gourlay, thus, became kriown popularly ir, üpper

Canada as the "Banisned Bri:on."(37.) His arbitrary expulsion would haunt the Family Compact, as public resistance grew to the 4 1 administration's high-hanàedness in the Goürlay episode, resistance that woula corne to shielc an evec more potent Scocsman-critic -

Mackenzie - until he did actually revolt against the Family Compact .

In the 1820s, the unsta~leScotsman, Mackenzie, began to rail against the Family Compacï in print. It was not an accident that a reactionary, Family Compact crowa, many of whom were Strachan's well-nurtured forrner-pupils, stormed the office of the Colonial

Advocate at York, in the "Types Riot" of June 8, 1826. >lackenzie's paper naa ~eenconstantly insolen: toward the Family Compact's authority. Irnmediately before his presses were broken and thrown into Lake Ontario, Mackenzie had traduced Upper Canada's Priae

Minister, John Strachan, calling him a tutncoat to the Presbyterian church, and had defamed Stracnan's wife's virtue. From the Family

Compact's perspective, Nackenzie's words haa to be stopped for law and otder to prevail, and for vircuous women to live unmolested, in

Upper Canada. As it türned out, law and order wouici prevail mite of tne Family Compact. The 'rno8' in üpper Canaca during the

1820s was counter-revolutiocary in political ouclook, and it deferred to tne penalties later imposed by the Courts, though the damages were paid out of the deep pockets of the riotezs' parents' elegant trousers.

Law and order would not prevail in France. The revolutionary spirit, so glorious and triumphant upon its return from America with heroes like Gilbert de Lafayette, and rnany others who would

Storm the Bastxle on that hot 2x1~day in 1789, unleashed monstrous, unstoppable, ar.imal impulses Fr! Frarxe. There, the resultant consequences of lawlessness and disorder were terrifyingly eviàent to al1 wno considered thenselves civilized.

The Terror would unieash a reactionary movement amongst Tories in the English-speaking world beginning in the 1790s anà not encing until the French had stormed their final barricade during the

1840s. Upper Canada, though a back-water of Empire, was fully part of this world. The Family Compact, conditioned to political rule, expected defererice, not attack or criticisrn. It, like the nobility of the blood in France, held enough of the levers of power and justice, thac deference - to a degree - could be exacted.

In France, from its modest beginnings, perhaps in the neo-

Platonic and romancic vritings of Rousseau or in rhe abject poverty of the peasants, in the lettres de cachet of tne aristocrats to their enemies or in the dearth of bread, the Revolution was a 4 3 social cataclysm and an imploding of traditions. From the firsc insürrections - the Day of Tiles in Grenoble, June 7, i788, when the people took to the roofs to peit the authorities, or the storming of the Sastille, July 14, 1789 - the French Revolution was an event that shocked - and shockç - the imagination of mankind.

It began as words; it ended in the çtreets, with the rurnbie of tumbrils over cobblestones, the thud of the guillotines, and the mob's cry for vengeance and bloodshed. The extirpations and exterminations of ciasses of men and women - the aristocrats, the clergy, the nuns, the wealthy, the faint-hearted, and, finally, the original revolutionaries thernselves - assumed nightmarish proportions. And, the revolution went on for a decade, before

Napoleon began airning his cannons at the mob, before enmeshing the

British in fifteen years of war. At the beginning of the French

Revolution, before it had bathed in blood, the Jacobins' rule was welcomed by many people in Britain. There was much sympathy felt for the initial o~jectives,tne reform of arbitrary government anà the f eeding of starving people. In Britain, Corresponding

Societies were founded to express solidariry anc fraternity wirh the cause in France, though these were repressed brutaliy by Tory politicians, premiers, magistrates, and administrators. In 1790,

Burke was one of the few voices of dissent publicly cryinq in a 44 wilderness of popular enthusiasm for revolution and radical change.

But then, in France, the King and his noiorious Queen still lived.

In France, Burke correctly and prophetically recognized the evil to be loosed with the eradication of civil, social, legal, and moral constraints on man's behaviour, the fundamental anchors of any civilization. France's glorious revolution - a blood-ticgec shadow of the Glorious Revolution of 1688 that brought about constitutional monarchy in Britain - would soon be corrupted, as anarchical tendencies consumed the fathers of the revolution, and the guillotines set into motion rivers of blood. The tyranny of the Reign of Terror must have shaken aristocrats throughout the world to their very bones and sinews. Any emerging polity's constitution and prospective government - like Upper Canada's in

1791 - could not have ignored what British historian Simon Schama calls ?he " forest of guillotines" in France. ( 38. ) Thomas Jefferson had noted that the "Tree of Liberty" needed the suicabie nourishment of tne "blood of Tyrants:" the French took this sentimen: to ics logical extreme. The scholarly Schama wrote in his spell-binding book, Citizens, about the French Revolution:

"From the very beginning ...violence was the motor of the Revolution. '11 faut du sang pour cimenter la revolution' (There must be blood to cernent revolution), said Mme. Roland, who would herself perish by the logical applicazion of her enthusiasm .... (There can be no) distinguishing between 'verbal' violence and the real thing. The assumption seems to be that such men as Javogues and Marat, who were given to screaming at people, calling for death, gloating at the spectacle of heads on pikes or processions of men with hands tied behinû their backs climbing the steps to the rasoir national were indulging only in brutal rhetoric (in the 1790s) .... (There is) in fact a direct connection between al1 tnat orchestrated or spontaneous screaming for blood and it copious shedding ...."(39.)

Awesorne and aiv.ful passions were released in France. Authorkies in

Britain and in Upper Canada were vigilant for signs of these passions in their countries, and the reactionary impulse in Tory administrators and magistrates becarne much more savage than it rnight otherwise have been. Schama concludes authoritatively that in France, it was "the annals of Rome" which served as the "mirrors into which revolutionaries constantly gazed" narcissisticaily in a vain search for "self-recognition."(40.) The same annals were taught extensively by Strachan to his young gentlemen in Upper

Canada, for the Classical works' intrinsic Latin constructions and a~undant sïoic and manly vircues, not for their reflective capacizies. The only rnirror Strachan and the rnainly Anglican

District Grarnmar schoolmasters would allow the "rising generation" of the Farnily Compact to gaze into created the illusion of 46 patrician, Angiophile gentlernen-in-prospect, and affluent Tory ceophyces wno had a smattering of Latin verse off-DY-hear~.

And thoügh reforms came slowly in Britain and Upper Canada, so slowly in the former that Chartisrn ~ecamequite widespread during the 1E30s and 1840s, so siowly in the latter that a half-hearred rebellion becane unavoidabie àürinq the late-1830s, the average ariton and Upper Canauian remained skeptical of revolxionary woras, impulses, and acrivities . Mackenzie, with his moody and scatter-shot approach, captured this skepticism in his Colonial

Advocate. Though he admitted that there was much to admire in the

United States of America, he cautioned his readers to be wary of its "quack systems of liberty.. .which after telling us that al1 men are equal, allow their votaries to buy and sel1 justice, and mock the ear with the language of freedom in a capital polluted with negro slavery."(41.) The absence of "negro slavery" north of Lake

Ontario was a significant demarcation :rom the Americans, about which mosc Upper Canadian political parties would priàefuily boast.

What Kackenzie and most Upper Canadians came to focus on prirnarily, however, was the quality of the administration set in authority over then, an administration which allowed, or even encouraged, the chronic -buses of the Farnily Compacr, rather than in their rulers' 4 7 rignt to such arbitrary authority . It was, perhaps, the great

British insb;+LILution of tne Cornmon Law - an O&, weX anci truly transplanted, like the ageless love of Shakespeare, in Upper

Canada, ensuring civil protections and legai redress - that kept loyal Upper Canadians £rom ever revolting as a people. When

Mackenzie's presses were attackea and removed, as Canadian hisrorian Gerald M. Craig cozes, the Law upheld Nackenzie's right to recompense, despite his immociera~eand iibellous princed words:

"3lackenzie ...made use of the legal processes which he some:imes clained were rigged against the common people, and was presently awarded ciamages of six hundred and twenty-five pounds. A great victory for freedom of tne press had been won, or so the tradition has corne down, and soon was back in business. With a better press, paid for by the Farnily Compact."(42.)

ais good fortune was thanks, in no small part, to Gourlay's banishmect nearly a decade before . In aristocratie France,

Nackenzie would likely have just disappeared under a lertre de cachet, unprotecced by the legal prlnciple of habeas corous, CO be forgotten in the Bastille. In revolurionary France, even an ardent revolurionary writer like Tom Paine languished in prison incefiniïely. Upper Canaaiacs were not unaware of the greac value of many of tneir British insti:utioris: many subjects had travelled 4 8

north of Lake Ontario at great persona: cost to retain their

British connections in tne Loyalist period. aasic, conservative

Upper Canadians were prepared to endure the Farnily Compact to stay

in the shade of the mignty British oak, defended in their person

and property by the British Crown.

Upper Canadians would corne to gain a sympathecic auaience at

Westminszer, Englana, in the whig administrations of the 1830s, which brought in the essentially-Conservative, thouq?. anzi-

reactionary, British Reform Bill of 1832. The Whigs, or Liberals, were essentially as conservative as tne Family Compact in Upper

Canada, but they endorsed an uncorrupted and effective

constitutional monarchy and iacked the worst reactionary tendencies of the Upper Canadian Tory elite. The Whigs at Westminster set

about rernoving Britain's outstanding parliamentary abuses, like the

"rotten Borougns," unpopulated, pre-Industrial hamlezs that

retained their right CO an P. Ultirnately, it was zhe Whig

çovernment at Westminster that would spike the guns of the Tory

Family Compact, sending out Lor~Durham, one of their most hard- drinng men. Having been once bitten in North Ilmerican forests,

Lqestminster was, perhaps, twice shy. As the Farnily Compact grew

vehernently reactionary ar times - as during the Bloody Assites, the 4 9

Gouslay episode, the Types Riot or the 1837-38 insurrections - the

Liberal parliamentarians and peers at Westminsier came to listen to countless grievances, to read numerous petitions, and to meet with many reforrners from Upper Canada. Gerald M. Craig comrnents that, by the 1830s, the Whig Governments were "constantly hinting that

Upper Canada 'must be humoured' because it was 'delicately situated' near 'a great and enlightened republic,' 'anc that if we

80 vioience to their feelings ...they will naturaily ...throw

themselves into the Arns of their Neighbours ...lm( 43.) It was never in the basic nature of common Upper Canadians CO rebel or to revolt - that was not why most had corne here. The majority of Upper

Canadians expected religious tolerance for the pluralistic populations and groups, responsible government from any administration that would enhance their ability to feed their families, respect and security of person for their virtuous women, and cornmon schools for their children. These were not revolutionary ideals; rather, they were pioneering and pragmatic.

The blood of tyrants would not be needed here to nourish the Young,

Upper Canadian rnaple tree of progressive conservatism. iii Arcunent and Secondarv Literature

The secondary literature pertaifiing to the field of this dissertation - the spirit of Upper Canadian state policy as it emerged through the devoiution of power away from cne top-down rule of the homogeneous Family Compact, and toward the grass-roots rule by the pluralistic population, during the Upper Cmadian period,

1791-1841, with specific regard to the education of a population largeiy comprised of Se-centralized, ethnocentric groups, anci within the context of the cimes - cm be considered in four rougn categories. These are: (a) core socio-political studies, (b) race and religion in Upper Canada, (c) Irish comparisons and linkages, and (d) scholars, schools and education in Upper Canada prior to

Egerton Ryerson's educational administration.

(a) core socio-~oiiticalstudies

In his distinguished essay 'Upper Canada ana the Conservative

Tradition'(1967), S.F. Wise argues thac che polizical river of staunch conservacism in Upper Canada came from cwo distinctive streams . First, conservatisin came naturally vith the simple 5 i

Iuyaity of the Ucited Empire refugees who fled the United States.

Wise maintains =kat ioyalty in Upper Canada came to be defined as behaviour that was overtly anti-American and pro-Church of England, there being few other traditions in Upper Canada with which a resident could connect. Second, and more nuanced than the first, was a conservatism chat came from - according to Wise - Britain with the Family Compact's original quasi-aristocrats and half-pay officers. This second Stream was "a conservaïism freshly ninted into a fignting creed ~hroughCdrnund Burke's philippics against the

French Revolution."(44.) The confluence of these two streams was the Gulf of Upper Canadian Toryism.

Before relating the contributions of Upper Canadian Toryism to the Conservative tradition in Canada, Wise decides to deal with the negatives. Ana, he notes, these were manifold:

". . . . It is necessary to acknowledge at once that much of the contribution was neqative; that is, that the exarnple set by the Family Compact in its effect upon generations to corne. High Toryism fell, once for all, wlth the system of government that had nurtured it .... (Whiggish historians have ensxred that) Upper Canada's fifty years of oligarchie rüle remain standing testimony to the weaknesses and dangers of governrnent by an authoritarion and paternalistic elite."(45.)

One can use this declaration of negatives to situate this 52 dissertation's natural argument. From Wise's lucid commentary, therefore, one can maintain that tne spirit of tolerance, amidsi diversity and plurality, was born of spirited opposition to the

Family CornpacYs and the Church of England's "negatives". In short, a new, vital, authentic, and tolexant Upper Canadlan

"Generai spirit" arose after decades of the "negatives", in opposition to the truculent exclusiveness of Toryism thac was noc necessarily Anglican. This Fs the political, religious, anc educational Dattleground in the struggle witn diversity, which was lost ultirnately by the Family Compact, tnough they hurniliated and disabled their opponents frequently through five decades of political struggle. The flodgling spirit took hold in these times, rooted, and has grown to make Ontario one of the most tolerant polities on earth. And, education, with the infinite possibilities it affords, has been Ontario's centre-piece since the Methodist,

Dr. Ryerson, systematized, secularized, and broadened what Strachan began. The spirit that permeates the system still was born of the quiet àefiance of and rnodest dissent from Upper Canada's twin pillars of power, the State (the Family Compact) and the Church

(the Church of England) or wnot E.P. Thompson called the Church- and-King party in England. 5 3

Wise usefully untangles che twin notions of State and Church

Lrornc each ozher. They were not the same; they were merely closely allied. The Tory, Family Compact State, was not synonymous with the Church of England. The naturally pluralistic, group populations of Upper Canada prevented a total convergence; perhaps, as well, the distance from London and the absence of cne

British Royalty and Peerage ir the Upper Canadian-Imperia1 backwoods prevented the Irish-style Ascendancy here. The Lamily

Compacz, CO govern, had to be aware constantly that different religious spires existea and dominated local politics in the Upper

Canadian periphery. Thus, the intricate system of clientage anà patronage - the basis of the Farnily Compact's political power - was replicated in the peripheral towns, but on a pluralistic basis outside the Church of Enaland's control:

"Thüs, in the Perth area, the Presbyterian William Morris was given a leading voice in the allotment of jobs; in the eastern counties Sishop Macdonell had for many years a free hand in aispensinç patronage among the Catholic population (replicating the Farnily Compact's system of preferment within the ethnocentric gzoupings) ...."(46.)

The Canadian hiscorian, 2.K. Zonnson, has written a stunning social Estory entitled Becornino Prominent Resional Leadershi3 in 53

Uwer Canada, 1791 - 1841. It is effectively a collective and statistical biography of the 283.L'pper Canacians w30 sat in the

üpper Canadian House of Assembly. These men are of particular interest because they were elected, they were of the people - insofar as was possible in an unàemocratic era - and they were not necessarily within the clientage of the Family Compact. They are a truer measure of the plurality of the Upper Canacian population than practically any other availa~ie. Of the 283 wno were Yenbers of the Eouse of Assembly (MHAS) in Upper Canada, more than kalf were farmers; oniy forty-seven were lawyers.(47.)

As Johnson rnonitors their progress through the Upper Canadian period, he observes that they were "likely to be a bit more fortunate in life if they were or became members of the Church of

England."(48.) There was also a secondary barrier blocking advance into the Upper Canadian power structure: Latin. Admission to che

Law Society, for example, depenaed on Latin knowledge. Few eàucatec men in Upper Canada, who had Latin, had not been to either

Uyer Canado College or one of the Distzict Grarnrnar Schools, mainly

Church of England çtronghofds. Thuç, tne education of men reinforced the successive generations of the Family Compact. 55

Johnson notes that, "having been a student of tne Reverend John

Stracnan nas often been saic to have conferred a powerful advantage

in the world of Upper Canadian politics and government. A former

Strachan pupil had a ' passport to preferment. ' " ( 49. ) Fully ten per

cent of appointments in Upper Canada were held by Strachan's former

pupiis. (50. ) And the author comments that, thoügh the Church of

England was overrepresentec in e House of Assenbly - with

approximacely thirty-five per cent of seats held during the Upper

Canadian period by Anglicans - Ft wüs a totall~Acgliccz rüLe from

the real cenrre of politics ana power in Upper CanaCa ar York.

Eignt men effectively controlled the Province between 1820 and 1837

as Executive or Legislative Councillors: al1 were Anglicans.(51.)

The MRAS were a deeply conservative group in their own right.

Most were local magistrates; eighty-one per cent had served in the

armed forces or militia.(52.) If they wanted to ascend the ladder

of pwer and patronage, Johnson maintains there weze three

mecnanisms. First, they had to be born into or acquire "interest"

or connections; second, they müs: have achieved oscentatious

"respecta~ility"or deference to the administration; and tnird,

they hab to be of "undoubted loyalty" or a distinquished mernber of

the Church of England.(53.) 56

Johnson mainzains that the tiouse of Assembly was democratic by the standards of the times. Over its history, the Eouse of

Assembly became more democratic, pluralistic, representative, and

Canadianized, in stark contrast to the homogeneous elite who dominated the Executive ana Legislative Councils. However, during the Upper Canadian period, the Councils, effectively, rulec, while the Assemblymen, increasinqly, railed. And, the Family Compact reviled the House of Assembly:

"The Reverend John Strachan thought that the Assernbly of 1808-12 was 'comprised of ignorant clowns' but had hopes that the future would bring about a marked improvement. One of his former students, John Beverley Robinson, once described radicai menbers of the Assembly as 'scum1."(54.)

Despite being denied the levers of power during the Upper Canadian period, the "clowns" solidified - with their groups - their grass- roots bases, organizing and educating a population for which the

Church of England administration had little time, anc less money.

Bu= the Whig administrations at Westminster and Lord Durham would iisten carefully to representatives of the population as tine pezinitted. By the 1840s, the Levers of powers would be in the hands of the Assemblymen and leaaing figures of their çroups, as the rigid and brittle political administration of the Farnily Compact 57 was shattered finally, though its influence is scarcely ended.

William Perkins Bull, a local historian and lawyer-plutocrat, in From Strachan To Owen - How the Church of Enaland was planted and tended in British North America, dates Upper Canada's first non-Roman Catholic church to His Xajesty's Chape1 of the Mohawks,

Brantford. There, in 1785, the Loyalist, Anglica?. nissionary,

Reverend John Stuart, baptized 107 Mohawk chilaren.(jS.) Buli makes note of this, primarily, because the Anglican auxhoriries àid relatively little else in the Upper Canadian peripnery, though

Strachan himself tried to "ride the circuits". From the centres, the Church of England authorities, using their full quasi- establishment powers , set about annoying, humiliating, and aisabling their Christian brethren in matters such as the solemnization of marriages, the catechetical nature of scnools, the

Clergy Reserves, the University Charter, and the school lands. The firsc such annoyance anà humiliation Fias the legislaiion of the

Harriage Act of i793. Only Church of Englanc miniszers could legally solemnize rnarriages, and tnere were only three minisiers of

îhls Confession in Upper Canada at that time. Opposition to this preliminary sectarian ordinance was imrnediate anà furious. Bull mites that "the act was promptly petitionea againsc, and Sirncoe wrote irritably to (the Duke of) Portland: ' I have long foreseen thïs.. . Tt is obvious that the next daim of the Dissencers will be a partition of the Sevenths set apart for the national

Clergy.'"(S6.) Simcoe was quite prophetic: the Clergy Reserve campaign was waged into the 1850s.

Buil nicely captures the unpioneering nature of che few

Anglican clergymen who left their iives of reiative and beneficeà comfort in England. Pew Anglican ministers chose to give up their livings to endure cold and hardship in North America. Once migrated, the genteel clergymen largely - though not exclusively, and Strachan laboured to train a few born in North America - resided in the principal towns - Brockville, Kingston,

York/Toronto, Niagara, London - giving erudite sermons on Sundays and teaching the young gentlemen in the Classics through the week.

Many of the scholarly clergymen in Anglican orders were "out of place" in the backwoods.(5i.) The Methodists were much more active in the missions and in the periphery, witn Bibles in their saddlebags. Thus, an Anglican Pale of sorts was escablished, but its spires did not cast long shadows into the pioneering frontiers wnere the vast majotity of Upper Canadians livea and toiled. The

Church of England hierarchy was concerned mainly with the s~ruggle 5 9 for precedence, political power, and patronage. The pioneering people were mainly iefc to tne Metnodist rninisters or the Roman

Catholic priests. Bull evokes this nicely, portraying a situation very sirnilar to Virginia's the previous century, by writing:

"...(T)here was a snortage of clergymen and many Church families turned to che unlettered Dut agonizingly sincere saddle-bag preachers. These itinerants were often pooriy educated ...but tney cared for tneir people, shareu their joys and sorrows.... Thus many log churches often became union chapels ...."(59.)

tb) race and relision in Upper Canada

üpper Canadians were generally contented within the British

Empire. They were, however, discontented with the arbitrary nature of the local administration, the pompous Tories, and the tendentious Churcn of England. The primary struggle of the Members of tne sornewhat-Üemocratic House of Assernbly was against the unelected Prime Xinister, Çtrachail, and the Church of England.

This was the struasle in Upper Canada that defineè tne authentic, generai Upper Canadian spirit. Geraid M-. Craig notes ir! Discontent in Umer Canada, a collection of primary materials that he compiled 60 and edited, that on behalf of their consticuents, the Assernblymen

"kept up an unremitting struggle against ïhe pretensions of the

Church of England" in almost every phase of Upper Canadian life.(59.) Through struggle, through adversity, the levers of power in provincial matters, like education, were gained for the common Upper Canadians, who would have, generally, a toleranr spirit having suffered harshness ana intolerance for five cecades.

The Upper Canadian population was essentially a collection of groups with a wide variety of spokesmen, often their priests or ministers. Amongst these groups and their spokesmen, "there was so little mutual trust" that their "spokesmen could scarcely understand one another."(60.) While the Upper Canadian population did not look heterogeneous, the diversity was great no matter how mild it "may seem to our twentietn century eyes":

"The instinct of most of us is to soften or ignore ethnic and religious aiversities and not to be deeply concerned about the national origins of people with whorn we live or work. But nearly everybody in the early nineteenth century took these matters seriously. A Pres~yterianana an Anglican might feei greater noscility cowards each other than any kind of Christian today might feel towards the mosz 'outlandisn' non-Christian. ... we are, uncers~ancably,so obsessed with problems of colour today that we forget that other differences have deeply divided The Province came into being as a sum of its separate paris.

It was a collection of groups, of settlements, of communities - a mosaic of tiles or a patchwork quilt. A Canadian farrner, Robert

Davis, who travelled to the United States in the NMs, snif fed out the essential differences in a Gourlay-Like fashion betwee~the =wo polities :

"No man who has seen Canada and the United States cm long be at a loss as to what causes the contrast between the two countries. The curse of Canada is an unprincipled aristocracy, whose pretensions to superiority above other settlers, would disgust a doq. Many of these would-be aristocrats came out from the old country under the title of half-~ovofficers.. .. (T)nere is another curse, if possible still worse, I mean the political priesthood. The government has been sufficiently crafty, and the priests sufficiently wicked, to amalgamate in order to put down reform principles."(62.)

The Liberal (St. Thomas) newspaper, in on article uated OctoBer

i5, 1832, contenaed that Upper Canadians,

"... with paternal England ...are satisfied - not so with the Canadian Oligarchy - the haughty, monopoiizing aristocracy of the land, who take advantage of the infancy of the coünzry (and) the peaceful disposition of the inhabitants .... How often, when the people have laid their complaints at the foot of the tnrone, have the NaboDs labored by rheir subtle ernissaries to poison che Royal Zar ...."(63.)

Racialism was evident in Upper Canada's "deep south," amongst the heavy populations of transplanted Americans, who also heavily supported naturalized Americans' - like the Bidwelis - claims to full stacus in Upper Canada. Prior to 1829, blacks had corne singly or in srnall family groups into Upper Canada and, generally, blended into the pioneer society. In 1829, the Americar, State of Ohio began to enforce its "3iack Code" leading to petty discrimination toward the thousands of blacks in the industrializing Cincinnati- area where there were separate and dismally unequal educational facilities. Cash bonds were demanded to insure "good behaviour" from blacks. Land was purchased for a black "colony" in the Lucan area of southwestern Upper Canada - it became known as the

Wilberforce settlement - by Quaker philanthropists. The land was made avaiia~le by the Canada (Land) Company. These group settlenents were viewed favourably and süpported by Upper Canaia's

Tory administrators; however, they were unpopular xith many local residents, pazticularly those arrived recently from tne United

States. The latters' voices of cornplaint are heard in the House of

Assernbly's Journals, February 25, 1830, where a Cornittee reporcec 6 3 on the unsüccessful petition of the "Inhabitants of Gosfield and

Colcnester:"

"Resolved, That although this House has long observed, without uneasiness, that fugitive slaves of colour do occasionallv escape into this Province; and recognizing the law of nature which çays 'that the fugitive shall not be àelivered up to his pursuers', this House is still unwilling to shuc the door agai~stthe outcast, yet the sudden introduction of a lclass of Black Popülation, likely to continue without limitation, is z matter so aangerous to ~hepeace and comfort of the Inhabi~a~cs, that Lt now becornes necessary to prevent or check by some pruuent restrictions, this chreatened eviL"(64.)

This settlement, and several others, went ahead. The Lieutenant-

Governor, Sir Joh~Coiborne, and State officiais were most solicitous toward the blacks, sensing the effusive loyal enthusiasm of the refugees - especially initially on escaping both bondage and fear of recapture - and an opportunity to show up the illiberal institutions of the great ana modern republic to tne souch.

Nevertheless, the settlement was not a success. It was piaguea by interna1 difficulties, according to Robin winks in her autnoritative book, The alacks in Canada A Historv. Winks comrnents :

"The Kiiberforce Negroes were in no way above the mass of indigent Irish settlers who were arriving at the saine time, and contrasts between poor whites and the philanthropically aided Negro farms were not to the Negroes' credit. Indeed, once the seztlement was abandoned, Lt WZS the Irish settlers thenselves who moved onto the farm lots and successfully brought them into production."(65.)

Winks maintains thar in Upper Canada, and in British North

Arnerica in general, slavery was very tangential to commercial and agricultiiral activity, ar.d that slaves were kept for persona1 service alone. Slavery was exzant tnroughout the British Empire as

Upper Canada came into exisce?.ce in 1791, though outlawed in the

British Isles. Slavery was almosï irnmediately artackea in the polity of Upper Canada by the firsr Lieutenant-Governor, General

Sir J-C. Simcoe. Upper Canada was, as a result, the f irst province of the British Empire to act against slavery, though the enactments were gradualist in nature.(66.)

From the State's perspective, the blacks were, in the exzravagant words of Mackenzie, "extravagantly loya1."(67.)

Nuaerous blacks served in the unsegregated rnilitias in 19i2 and

1937. Evidently, their fesr of .hericans was greacer than any anclpatny toward Upper Canadians. In addition, during ~he1840s, black tzoops were set in authority over the warring Irish factions

- Protestant and Roman Catholic - canaling turnultuously in close 6 5 quarters on the Welland Canal. ~ppreciatinc,exuberant loyalty and patriotisrn above all, rne Sïate, under the Family Compact's administration, exuded tolerance of, extended legal protections for, and demonstrated encouragement toward blacks - in glowing woràs - though by the late-1820s gifts of money anc grants of land were not forthcoming. The black groups arrived largely after the fornalization of land-for-money policies axi the creacion of ihe

CarLada Land Company, bot5 neceçsary to realize any casn vaiue for the Reserves, in order ro finance tne Family Compact's favourlte eaucational projects.

For races and religions, in general, 'Jpper Canada was a popclation mosaic of mutually-alien groups, quite often sorted spacialiy. A group's vitaiity, and success of its individual members, had a great deal to do with its strength of cornrnunity here and a profouad sense of its heritage.(68.)

In a re-working of her disseztation entitled Ethnic GIOUDS in

Uooer Canada, distinguishea Canadian sociologist jean 2. Surnet, comnents that in =he Upper Canadian backwoods, amongst tne racial and religious groupings, tnere vas a "ievelling downwards of social 6 6

classes. " (69. ) Hard work, kinsnip, group life, ana cornmunity strefigth, she maintaim, lea on inexorably to prosperity in general for the inaividual and the group. However, she maintains, amongst the groups, there were two "socially dependent groups," the blacks and the Roman Catholic Irish.(70.)

About these two groups, she suggests six frindamental proposFtFons in regarà CO their Upper Canadian exjeriences:

First, that localized prejuciices asainst these two groups existed in Upper Canada where they concentrated. Second, thaï members of both groups arrived frequently in Upper Canada in a state of

"abject poverty", even to the point of being dressed in rags.(71.)

Poverty was the rüle. Many had to Labour as navvies to earn their stake before taking the first step as a more independent settler.

Third, tnat as later arrivals, generally-speaking, in tne 1830s and

1840s, members of tnese groups encountered cifficulties "in securing lots. Almost al1 the land of the province had been granted to individual proprietors, and much was being held for speculation. " ( 72. ) rourth,CI that public works projects - canal digging, for example - proviaeb many in these two groups with a 67 hard living, town-fringe slum housing, and dangerous work. Fifth, the severity of tneir previous statuses - enslaveci or landless and disenfranchised - thwarted and frustrated "social aspirations."(73.) And sixth, mernbers of the black and Roman

Catholic Irish groups in Upper Canada, suffering from local prejudices, refracted the "aggression generated in their relations with members of socially superior groups", creating an a~senceof

"solidarity within their etnnic groups."(74.)

aurnet suggests that previous groups - the Loyalists, the

Scotch, the Anabaptists - had high degreeç of "self-sufficiency," including resources with which to acquise and to improve land, prior successful experience in land clearance and rough farming, agrarian and commercial nous and experience, and strong ethno- centric, communlty intra-linkaqes with which to bear the pioneerinq hardships.(75.) Burnec concludes that the Upper Canadian population was heterogeneous, and that especiaily during the formative Upper Canadian period, al1 were foreigners, wnile a

"distinc~ivelyCanaàian culture ernerged."(76.)

Gerald M. Craig notes, in ' Religion and Education in the 1820 * s and 183O1s,' that Methodism had it al1 over the Church of England in the Upper Canadian backwooàs. In these rough places, elegant, erudite, and staid Anglican clergymen were not to Se seen frequently, if at all; rather, rugged itinerant Methodist preacners, me "circuit-riders", usually American born and trained, were in evidence. Upper Canadians, after a brutishly hard week of pioneeririg, liked a man "to preach as if he were fighting bees."(77.) As well, several iioman Catholic groups emigrated witn their own aevoted priests. Strachan, ana rhe

Anglican clergy, by way of contrast, haa moved mainly into "the inner citadel of power" at York.(78.) During tne 1820s, Strachan was the dominant figure in the Province in every facet of life.

Politically, he guided the Executive and Legislative Councils. His former student, Robinson, the Attorney General, represented the

Tory interest in the House of Assembly. Together, they held more than their own in tne centre; the periphery emerged in spite of tnem, came to defy, rather than defer to, them, and then, increasingly, to marginalize them politically.

There was, tnus, in Upper Canada a power strqgie between the narrow, sectarian Church of England party, which was cushioneci by wealth, influence, land, and status in Upper Canada, backed in 69

England by Tories in parliament and the Bishop-Peers, and the pluralistic groups that compriseà Upper Canaaa's population in the forests. These latter were generaliy progressively conservative, reform-rninded, and religiously-tolerant. Their backing in England was the Whig Party.

Stracnar was oc nis zenich in 1827, Icarus-hke, fiying too high, overreaching nirnself. While in England obtaining nis

University's Charcer, he prouuced for che Colonial Office aE

Ecciesiastical Chan ( ennumeration) , a dissembiing of the relative power of the Church of England in Upper Canada. The Chart purported ";O show the strengths of the various denominations in the province."(79.) It was an act of dissimulation on the grandest scale and a traducing of the Methodists. Strachan tried to out-

British-the-British, showing obvious disgust at Westminster's

"readiness" to listen "to the enernies of the church." (80.) His averreaching and excoriating of ?*!ethodists brought the twenty-three year old Egerton Ryerson inco Che political arena for the first time, a young, fluent champion of the colonial Metnodists. In so aoing, Ryerson - and others - offered Upper Canadians a miadle vay between the two Scoctish extremes of Strachan and Mackenzie. Craig notes that i3 1829, "...the Assembly ...received a petition bearing nearly six chousand signatures asking for an inquiry into Strachan's 'cruel charges' cgai~stE.Iethodists, and into the proposed University Charter, and calling for steps to preserve the petitioners and their children 'from ecclesiastical dornination."'(81.)

The Ryerson f amily brought an appeal of Strachan ' s statistical

charts to Westminster, with eight thousand signatures, stating that

Angiicans weze not likely more :ha?. one-quartes of the Province's

populatior,, ?ne Ryersons receivec a sympathetic hearing. From

1828, " (t)he li8eral winds blowing in Britain were henceforth to

have a powerf~leffect on the course of poiiticai controversy in

the Canadas."(SZ.) Due to Strachan's constant and sectarian high-

handeaness in Upper Canadian affairs, tne Methodists began to

demand - by the late 1820s - "a complete separation between church

and state," setting Ontario on its educational trajectory by the

late-1840s.(63.) The family Compact had a card or two up its

sleeve to play, to sow dissension within the Methodist

however .

A "separateneçs provision" for Roman Catholic education was

unavoiàable in Canada West, as the Uyer Canadian perioc egded, even thoujh Egerzon Ryerson despaireà of iris necessity. Roman 7 1

Catholics had always had their education provided in a priest- supported environment, as a subsidiary of their Faitn, and witn directed, catechetical instruction. Protestants taught The Bible as one of their principal texts; Protestant teachers read from The

Bible - including the Gospels - to their classes universally in

Upper Canada, and then comrnenteà on the chosen passages. To Roman

Cathoiics, this was tozally unacceptable: only a priest coula deliver the Church's Magisterium.

Franklin A. Walker, in Çatholic Eaucation & Politics in ümer

Canada, links the emergence of Roman Catholic education in Upper

Canada direcrly to the tireless efforts of Father Macdonell, wno became the Bishop of Regiopolis(Kingston). Macdonell, arriving with the Glengarry Highland settlers, built churcnes, erected schools, and paid priests - from his own salary in many cases - to teach as many of the desperately poor children as possible. His parish scnool at St. Raphael's, estabLished in 1804, east of

Cornwall, was the first English-speaking Roman Catnolic school in

Upper Canada. Be was overtly loyal and enthusiasïically Tory, having served as a military chaplain while his Glengarry

Bighienaers helped put down the Irish insurrections of 598. For tnis and other loyal military services, the Roman Catholic Highlanders received extensive land grants in Upper Canada and high

colonial status with their incorporation as "Fenci~les" (a

permanent regiment, with nurnerous supernumerary political- colonelcies, raised solely for the inexpensive defence of

territory). In al1 things, Father F!acdonell was a pragmatist, even

to the point of drinking ori Silturday nights with Reverend John

Stachan, and telling humorous seccarian anecdotes, wkile 'ooth

toilea as missionaries amongst the Loyalists in the eastern üpper

Canadian backwoods early in tne nineteenth century. Macconell's

overt loyalty and zeal for life under the British Crown was

rewaraed, in 1830, with a seot on the Legislative Council. Se was

the local distributor of patronage and clientage for the Family

Compact in the area east of Cornwall. His constant flow of letters

and peticions was rewarded with increasing State funding of his

Roman Catholic educational ventures, his parish schools growing up

alongside the common schools. Macdonell was religiousiy faithful

and politically savvy. In 1828, he wrote to a Coloniai officiai,

"horse-trading" loyalty for educacional-funding in a winning

fornula :

"'Our settlernents are comparacively new and poor ana unabie to support their ciergy or pay for the education of tneir childzen, the greater part, I may say al1 the teacners arnonçst us are from the United States or £rom Ireland, tne former to a man irnbued with rank republican principles and the Satcer with che wrongs of tneir country still rankling in cheir hexts and their minds alienated £rom the British Government render them al1 unfit and even dangerous directors of the youth of this province. "'(84.)

oolitically, Macdo~ell aespised the widespread republican tendencies, noisily championed by Slackenzie, even more chan the

Family Compact's Church of Ençland's communicants in the York

"?ale." He recognized thac serving the Family Compact's ~olitical interesïs was the way anead in Upper Canada for his group.

>!acdonell consiciered the British Crown a stable umbrella for his priests, müch less threatening than the Arnerican-styleà democracy, even to the point of accepting government salaries and perquisites, most of which he channelled to those in need. For this practice, he was calurnnied by his dissident, Irish-born vicar-general,

Reverend W.% O'Grady, in the 1935 Grievances proceedings.

Walker concludes his Upper Canadian work with a useful conneczion - for the purposes of ihis dissertation - to Ireland.

Irelacc and the Irisn are always present in an social history of

Upper Canada, especially with regard to the thorny issue of eaucation. He writes: "In 1833 one of Macdonell's most zeafous priests, Rev. W.J. O'Grady... broke with zhe bishop over a question of aiscipline and allied hirnself wicn the Wackenzie party. A number of the more radical Catholic Irish in York joined O'Grady .... The Irish had learned their politics at (Daniel) OIConnell's feet and fought here the old battle against 'Protestant Ascendancy', seen in Upper Canada as the Church of England 'family compact' group. ... Although Bishop Nacdonell was the subject of rnuch Irish Catholic venom he understood and sympathized with their position. Both the conservative bishop and the liberal Catholic looked for the same thing: freedom from a dominant Protestant church, (its) extension of educational facilities ....(anc) oid- fashioned Churcn of England intolerance."(85.)

(c) Irish cornparison and linkaues

Prior to the Anglo-Norman invasions of the cwelftn-century,

Ireland had a proud heritage as a seat of Christianity and learning. The Irish had a fine tradition of mythology and poetry, mucn of wnich was transmitted orally. There were in freland fine monasteries with schools and libraries. The Anglo-Norrnans began a racial a~artheidthat was entrenched by the the revolution of the

Protestant Reformation, Oliver Cromwell's regime, and the

"Ascendancy" (or "Pale") of tne Anglo-Irish on the eastern sesboard, where direct rule and control was possible, focused on

Sritish administration from DuDlin Castie. After the Refornation, the Anglican Confession was made the Established Church of Ireland, despite a vast Roman Catholic population majority. Through Church 75

Establishment and catechetical schools, the British endeavoured to anglicize the Irish; the tithe was paia by al1 to tne Church of

Ireland to finance its endeavours, its proselytizing, and its schools. Roman Catholics, however, continued to send their children to the Roman priests for their education. By 1537, the

Irish monasteries had been dissolved, destroying Ireland's native educational roots. In the reign of William III (of Orange), ali

Catholic teaching was proscribed and priests caugnï zeaching were liable to receive the death penalty. Thereaf cer, under the disabling "Penal Laws", the priests conducteu their schools surreptitiously, hidden by the hedgerows. Wealthy Xornan Catholics nad their children educated in France.

'An Act for the Uniforrnity of Public Prayers and Administration of Sacraments' was passed ln 1665, during the reign of Charles II; this legislation stated that every schoolmaster woulc 50th "conform to the liturgy of the Churcn of Ireland" and take "the oath of allegiance or supremacy" to the King or Queen of England. (66.)

2oyal and Charter Schools were established in the Protestant Pale to "propagate the Protestant faith" and to extinguish "Romish süperstition" during the seventeenth century.(87.) One such 76

"charitable" school was "The Hospital and Free School of King

Charles the Secona" (King's Hospicai School), founaed in 1670 near

Dublin.(88.)

The Penal Laws haa begun to be abolished during the 1780~~ including zhose against Roman Catholic teachers. Into the educational voia, prior to 1931, witn most of the Roman Cathoiic population living in greac poverty and served by very few scnoois, came a great host of Charitable Societies, most of whicn had anci-

Roman, pro-Anglican proselytizing impulses. Their number increased with the Act of Union in 1801, which tied Irelana even closer to

Westminster by abolishing the puppet Irish Parliament. The Act of

Union made al1 Irish into tithe-paying members of distinctive,

Church of Ireland parishes. Educational societies, such as the

Churcn of England's National Society and the religiously neutral

Sociecy for Promoting the Education of the Poor of ireland (Kilàare

Place Society), Erought rnonitorial schools, under the Bell and/or

Lancaster rnethod, aesigned to eaucate vasc numbers of poor children at iiccle expense, by àeputizing oider pupils to instrucz younger pupils. John Strachan woula bring a National (Society) School to

York to educate the Anglican children of the Family Compact; 77 indeed, in fact, being slightly lazy in his pedagogical approach, he used the catechetical or monitorial approacn himself at

Cornwall, stirring himself to cane the worst-performing scholar once his amanuensis, Robinson, had quizzed the class on their rote- learning . The Roman Catholics, still legzlly "disabled," repressed, and severely impoverished tnrougn the 1820s, availed themsehes of the Ckazitable Societies ' schools, but were always suspicious of proselytizing.

Roman Cathoiics found Protestant, especially Anglican, proselytism in the schools both ubiquitous and çalling by the late

1820s. They began to demand, with growing political liberty,

"authoritative interpretation of scripture" for Roman Catholic pupils : in other words, priests in the classroom for catechism.(89.) As well, the iloman Catholic prelatry produced evidence of widespread Protestant proselytism, rejecting the

"channelling of public funds through voluntary societies" as unsatisfactory before Pariiamentary cornmittees at Westminster.(90.)

Then, in 183 1, under Lorc Stanley, the Chief tecrecary for Ireland, who was the prime rninister of the local British administration, tne voluntary ana charirable societies were repiaced Sy National

(Education Board) Schools. Stanley's executive fiat czeated an 78 unpaid Board of seven Commissioners to adminiscer tnese schools.

The mandate of the National Education Board was to aeliver a non-sectarian education to elementary school children. At the outset, there were seven Commissioners: three Anglicans, two

Presbyterians, anci two Roman Catholics. The Church of Ireland refuseà CO recognize che Boaru - everi thougk its members were the strongest inflxexe on the Board - and founded its own sckool system, the Churcn Education Sociecy Schools. The Anglicans considered the Board a Whig measure to subvert the Ascendancy's hegemony, to weaken the "Established Church's position iri Irish society" and to revivify "popery." ( 9 1. ) The Presbyterians were vehement in their criticism of the Board, and did not fully support it until it was reformed to suit their religious stringencies in

1840. The Roman Catholics "tolerated the national school system;" the Pope was neutral on the subject, encouraging Irish families to use the free schools for what benefit was to be gainec ecucationaily anc to oppose ail proseiytisin. ( 92. ) Eciucation ir,

Ireîana, however, remained a religious football antil tne creûtion of the Irish Free Stace in 1922.

The Narional (Educacion Board) Schools were cesigneà =O remove the speccre of "proselytism."(93.) Their funding came from tne

Lord Lieutenant of Ireland's School Fund, aciministereci £rom the

Governor's residency in Dublin Castle, the Ascendancy's focal point. The schools were founded on the Christian notion of unblemished love of neighbour, but the three Anglicans on the Board of seven commissioners were active in their anti-Roman Catholicism.

One, a Dr. Whately, "qüierly tried to use the Board as 'an instrumenz of conversion' and he is quoted as having said privarely that the schools were 'tne only means of weaning the Irisn people from popery.Iw(94.)

Thomas J. Durcan notes, in Eiistorv of Irish Education From

1000, that by 1845, for an Irish population of 8,276,627, there were 3,12 6 schools under the National Education Board, educating

432,844 students - of whom seventy-five per cent were Roman

Catholics - under an annual grant of eighty-£ive thousand pounds.(95.) Costs were held dom by locating the schools on the grounds of Protestant churches or chapels. The laquage of instruction was English and the Irisn culture was largely ignored.

The great majority of Irish Xornan Catholics remaineci uneducatea under this system; the Roman Catholic leadership was always suspicious of its motives. When the "Famine Irish" arrivec in 8 0

North America during the 1840~~they lacked "education or skills of any kind," becoming tne "social outcasts" of the cowns and cities.(96.)

A iasting triumph of the National (Education Board) School system waç its textbooks and readers. These were exported

~hroughout the British Empire. Egerton Ryerson founaec his educatlona? system on their intrinsic pedagogical strexj~hs in

Canada Hesz. In addition, and as a great benefit to tneir uïility for Ontario, they were scrupulously nonsectarian in their Christian approach. They provided "reading exercises, poetry, grammar, arithmetic, book-keepinq, geography, mensuration, natural philosophy," Scriptural passages, and material on the special subjects for cjirls - needlework - and for boys - farrning. (97.)

A= the secondary school level, Roman Catholic scnools received no szate srioport until the 1870s. Many Roman Catholic chilcisen were eàucated ciassically on che continent, at centres of leaxing liite Douai. At tne U~iversity level, the University of Dublin

(Trinity Coiiege) barred Roman Catholics from taking degrees until

1794 by cesCs and oaths. However: "Following the spread of revolutionary thought and fervour on the continent in the last quarter of the eighteenth century, political and eccleçiastical authorities became apprehensive of allowing Irish students to be exposed to the 'contagion of sedition and infidelity'. In the year of the French Revolution, 1789, there were 478 Irish students abroad, 348 of them in France. In 1795 the government agreed to direct funding for the establishment of a Catholic colleoe at Maynooth."(98.!

By 1817, this Coliege had becorne Ireland's national seminary for the domestic preparation of Roman Carnoiic priests.

Ireland remained a constant reminder of sectarian strife to those in Upper Canada. The Family Compact bore many resernblances to the Protestant Ascendancy - both represented approximately one- quarter of rapidly growing populations and both coula be harshly intolerant to most outside the Church of England/Ireland

Confession. For Upper Canada, the 1840s were the Irish decade, not the least in educationaf matters. Ryerson, as the Chief

Superintendent of Education, dealt with the large influx of Irish

Romar! Catholics - who came then in their tens-of-tiiousar,cs - and . . ,nex children by setting the objective of "creating a universal schooi systern.. . which (woüld) insrill the valües of a British

Norzh Aierican cukure."(99.) For Ryerson, the professional reacher was the "key element" in obviating the anti-Sritish senzimenc of many Irish newcomers.(100.) Ryerson brought a Nr. 82

Rintoul £rom the Dublin Mode1 School to help introduce National

(Education Board) Schools into Canada West, " including organizations, textbooks, and normal schools. In correspondence with Irish officials he had cited as his reason, his admiration for the 'benevolent patriotism' of the system administerea by the commissioners of national eaucation."(lOl.) The Irish textç were of legendary quality and gave a solid fondation :O Ryerson's grandiose drearns and designs. Nost of al:, though, the common

Upper Canaaian did not want to re-live the Irish ex~erienceon rhe northern shore of Lake Ontario. Ireland was, and is, a cautionary tale to the average Ontarian.

(d) ?mils, schools and education in Upper Canada

"the limitations of too broadly conceived explanations are increasingly obvious. Virtually any social policy, afrer all, has diverse purposes that are rarely so coherent as to lend themselves to treatment as a single force. In tne specific instance of public schooling, themes of social aiscipline and moral regulation, while of undoubted importance, forn s~rands in a fabric tightly woven of multiple intentions anà effeczs. Thus in 1988 it appears time to begin the historical analysis of public schooling with an invesiigation of schoolinq izself - a phenornenon of both private and public life long predaring che legislative enactments of tne mid-Victorian decaaes that have so preoccupieu historians of education in the past."(l02.) 8 3

For much of the Upper Canadian period, children existed primarily as a labour pool, who could contribute to the pioneer family's economy - "children generally rose at five in the rnorning and worked until eight every evening."(l03.) Susan E. Houston and

Alison Prentice note, in Schoolina and Scholars in Nineteenth-

Centurv Ontario, that in a pioneering family witn six cnildren:

"The daüghters were taught to read, write, and 'casz accountst...but the boy was not. By the time he was six, the child was able to drive a team, and soon afterwarc he iearned 'to plant and harvest, to fodder the cattle, clean the stables and harness.' Whon, at the age of seventeen, he 'expressed a wish to learn to read', he was promised a year at school, but in fact was not allowed to go until he was twenty ...."(104.)

There was a vast variance in individual educational experiences, as most elementary schooling was left to the families. Sunday schools played a tremendously important role for most pioneering families.

Houston and Prentice conclude that most Upper Canadian children were in and out of school depending on their families' immediate la~ourrequirements.

m.&ne authors note înat the separaie school 1egisla:ion of cne

1840s was designed as the State's guard againsc iocalized prejuaices. The legislation, acnieved by Fatner Hacdoneli over his 84 entire life in Upper Canada, was framed by an ambitious parliamentarian, Francis Hincks, during the 1840s. Hincks wished to give legitimate rignts and privileges to the Roman Catholic populations and, effectively, to collapse the "Church of England's claim" to any fürther special status by lumping ir in with al1 the other Protestant denominations and sects withoct meference or oreferment.(lO5.) Eincks realized thar a Church of England group would seldom gain local supporc for a Chürcn of Englanc catechetical schoo1 unaez the separateness provision. As in

Ireland, Anglicans eventually simply opted out of Scace-settlernents in ecumenical-education, and established exclusive, iee-paying, private schools. And, while the provision was intended for

"dissentient" groups confronted with either a Protestant or a Roman

Catholic common school as their only local school, the 1850 version of the legislation was extended to allow for "coloured" separate schools. Houston and Prentice comment on this aevelopment:

"To counterbalance tne injustice it could not stop, tne government included in the 1850 school act provision for any group of :ive black families to request a separate 'colouredl school. The iaw thus provided national protection against prejudice, in that, since only blacks could apply for iî, segregated schooling could not be imposed by the white cornmunity."(l06.) 8 5

In Prescott County's French-language schools, "historians have found significant local initiative ...during the formative Cecades of the school system" with regard to the education of children.(l07.) Chad Gaffield's micro-historical research rebuffs the notion of ubiquitous "white, Anglo-Saxons" using their "social controIsU to acnieve "assimilation" or "cultural standardizacion."(i08.) In Lana~aqe. Schoolinc, and Cultural

Conflict, Gaffiela, in contrast to the "assimilationist" perspective, finds an active State policy, during the Ryerson era,

"of tolerance" coward the swelling Francopnone population. (109.)

The author finds it likely that any perceived lack of Francophone educational opportuni~yor attainment had, in the greatest part, to do with the parents' preferring a sturdy agrarian apprenticeship for their "rising generation." Gaf field notes : "Official responses to the questions of local cornmunities indicate consistent toleration of not only Frerich- but also German-language schools."(llO.)

Ironicaily, the Anglican stranglehold on ecucation in Upper

Canada - where they achieved control - ied onto the tolerant, non- denominational nature of the legislation in the 1940s. What was created ana systematited then was, broadly-speakinç, a "Protestant 8 6 common school system" that allowed separateness where it was unavoidable.(?ll.) This was done to eliminate the predominance of

the Church of England's "strict sectarian dogma. " ( 112. ) The legislation of the 1840s was drafted by men suspicious of Ireland's

National (Euucation 3oard) Schools. Selieving the system had been foisted on tne Irish. The legislators, in many cases, saw chat the

Irish "syscen was deiiberately planned to subordinate Irisn nationol cclttire to British nationaiisrn;" in Upper Canaaa, the

Roman Catholic separateness provision was, in part, a response to the unsatisfactory Irish situation.(ll3.)

Houston and Prentice present a letter written from an Irish

Catholic father of seven, a James Mahony, resident in the French dominated School Section No.7 in the Township of Sandwich

(Windsor), to Dr. Egerton Ryerson in 1859. It affords a glimpse into the true condicion of the diverse üpper Canadian educational experience arnonqst =he pluralistic population groups:

'"That since the first day (1946) there has never been a schooi master in the seccion who even could speak a word of English ....'

"'Rev'd Sir Sou may suppose what an izjury this is to me and my poor Children, not having tfle rneans of sending them to a boarding school.'

"'My wife and rnyself manage to teach them, but they make but little Progress, as their time and ours is pretty well filled up in procuring the physical necessaries of life. For a long time 1 put off making this repreçentation, hoping to be able tg di~pspctf my Firm here and rmovinq where 1 could have an English School, Dut now al1 hope is vanished ....'"(114.)

First, it is evident the quality of the early

administrators from the British Isles was not of the

consistently highest standards, in the stamps of

intellect, ability or family connection. Upper Canada, in

the Imperia1 schema, was a backwater and an annoying,

unrecoverable expense, full of complaints, petitions, and

grievances. The second-rate men ,sent (it is widely-

believed the wrong Bond Head was sent out in the chaotic

mid-1830s, leaving üpper Canada commanded by a patriotic

fool) to rule and to conduct affairs were, however, decent

gentlemen in the main, tolerant and civil, raised in the

best traditions of "Fair Playw as assimilated on the playing-fields of the magnificen t British public and grammar schools. Fair Play, within the broader, conservative context of the British Empire, was a prevailing spirit from the pinnacle of power in Upper

Canada, the pst of Lieutenant-Governor. Unfortunately its Cain-like brother, the school-masterly vice of Playing

Favourites, emigrated along with the virtuous sense of Fair

Play. Upper Canada waç fortunate, as well, to have setting the tone for its future Lieutenant-Governors a man like J.G. Simcoe. He was a Liberal-minded M. P. in the

British House of Cornons who had been blessed with a natural sense of justice. Into this position followed

British soldier after British soldier, from less-than- spectacular families who did not bring al1 the deadening rigidities of the Peerage. Upper Canada was, çsnerally- speaking, well served by the playing fields of Eton and Harrow, Wellington and Rugby, et al. , that produced men like Simcoe, Hun ter, Brock (mili tary commander),

Colborne, Arthur, Durham (Governor-General). Fair play, decency, and toleration, amonqst its leaders gave Upper

Canada good soi1 for the roots of its society, from which emerced naturally its schools and, later, its education 8 9 system. This good soi1 was to be especially important to buffer against the acidic nature of the 'political-prince- priests' like Strachan, for whom power was absolutely corrupting in the Actonian sense.

Second, the great fear of al1 things republican, American teachers and texts, revolutionary fires along the border, ubiquitous ' Yankee Methodists ' , provided the Upper

Canadian educated and educational elite with their "Great

Satan" within and without that channelled the bulk of the negative energy unfortunately available to mankind away from more obvious questions of immense variations and diversity. Thus, in 1818, one could easily have found state-subsidized schools, though the state subsidy remained slender at best, being conducted in French,

Gaelic, and German, not to mention schools being operated at missions and or reserves in the various indigenous tongues, and fully integrated schools in York as the slaves began their long run to freedom in the north. In many places, as the Upper Canadian period wore on, it was the parents who set about closing the schools conducted in foreign languages that their children might not be grossly disadvan taged in a primarily Engl içh-speaking milieu and where English was the lingua franca of commerce.

Third, the ability of the centre - York - to control the periphery was extremely limited during the Upper Canaàian period due to the rugged transportation available contemporaneously and the limited travel season. Much or most was perforce given over to local trusteeship, from the employing to housing of inexpensive teachers, from providing the furniture to finding texts, from squaring the timbers to setting the secular and spiritual curricula, from the setting of fees to the laquage of instruction. One cannot imagine a cornfortable, anglicized, Church of England minister, in his miadle aqe and running to gout, wanting to leave his rectory or his few Greek scholars for a kidney-jolting journey into Upper

Canada's interior. He would, en route, be either frozen or baked, drenched or eaten alive by insects. Usually, the result was that York, and to lesçer extents Kingston,

Cornwall and London, became a çinkhole for the bulk of educational funds and funding, much of which was spiri ted away by unholy clerics for 'pet projectç. ' The assumption by the Church of England ministers, particularly the episcopalian 'Pope, ' John Strachan, was that if one were to build it in York they would corne. The "it" was a modest replica of an English grammar school or national school that offered srnatterings of Latin and Greek for a price that most familieç could not afford, and a Liberal,

Classical education for a chosen and extremely privileged few. The "they' were likely the scion of the well-to-do landowners, profeçsionals, or yeomen farmers who lived in or near to town in the first instance, or the rare autodidact come down from the obscure backwoods.

What occurred in market towns like Berlin was likely somewhat of a rnystery to John Strachan and of little concern; he was not about to forward a due share of educational monieç in the first place. What occurred at the mouth of the Credit River with the Methodiçt mission and the young Reverend Ryerson was likely problematic for Strachan's splenetic health if contemplated, so out-of- sight, out-of-mind waç likely the modus operandi. York became increasingly the demesne and everything else was, generally-speaking, beyond the Pale.

Fourth, and finally, North America was not easily controlled, unlike the Pale of Ireland. The "New World" was acroçs a broad ocean, was vast and forboding, and most of the independent-minded settlers belonqed ta various

Protestant denominations or sects. Settlers and colonists, pourinq into the forests of the Eastern North

American seaboard, were to encounter a wide variety of new experiences for which their old lives in Europe were poor preparation. Extended families melted away both through the miçration process and during the survival stage in

North America. Only efficient, close-knit, nuclear families, with few non-productive members, as small parts of çpatially-segregated ethno-centric groups, would survive the early stages of land clearance and settlement.

In many ways, education was revolutionized by the pioneering experience. Traditional life and ancient society were disrupted in the Thirteen Colonies and in

Upper Canada. The homogeneous elites who had ruled in

Europe, who expected to rule in North America after migration, and vho in fact did corne very close to ruling here with their almost unconscious hauteur, would not or could not adapt themselves to the prevailing egalitarian and rudiinentory conditions of life in the backwoods. It was theirs to snatch elegantly defeat from the jaws of victory. A life of luxury, leisure, and servants was not to be easily replicated in the primeval northeastern forests. Pioneering families had to make radical adjustments or perish. "Parental prestige was humbled by involvement in menial labor necessary for survival. " (115. )

Initially, there was virtually no margin for error - starvation, brutal cold, and death visited the inflexible, the idle, the improvident, and the foolhardy. The crucible of survival re-made the family unit and its core processes. Hierarchies and patriarchies were re- coniigured as the young of the "rising generations" made the adjustments with ease, while the older generationç struqqled aqainst unequal tasks.(Il6.) Education, thus, had to emerge from the domestic hearth, as staving off

starvation was the dawn-to-dusk activity for al1 parents

in the early phase of settlement or colonization. There

were simply no dependent-adults within the new, tiqht,

family groupings who had time to spend teaching the small

children. And, the parents' rnortal energies could not Se

stretched tao much in the way of education for their

children. Therefore, in North America, beginning with

Virginia 's educational statute in 1642, county officiais

were ordered to "'take up"' children whose parents " 'are

disabled to maintane and educate them. ' "(Il 7. ) This was

the first major adjustment that North American life

exacted, a beginning tnat finds its logical conclusion in

Ontario with Ryerson's construction of an educational state by the 1870s. (118.) The radical change in educational

focus - from family to disinterested state - occurred in

North America regardless of contemporary politics,

commerce, Creed, Revolution or Insurrection. Education,

in North America, was "cast as a matter for deliberation

into the forefront of consciousness," becoming the primary engine and "instrument of deliberate social purpose. " (119. ) By the time Revolution came to the Thirteen Colonies, the radical societal-structural

movement of family and education had already occurred. ~t

was so fundamental in nature, that even a Revolution could

not alter its glacier-like progress.(lZU.) The needs of

the heterogeneous, denominationally "variegated, semi-

autonomous communi ties that comprised the new nation "

(America) required simple, pragmatic institutions that had

coinmon and practical means and ends. (121. ) However, not

even the pioneering experience or republican impulses

could disengage the profound attachment of Religion to

State in nineteenth century North America.(lZZ.) Bernard

Bailyn wri tes of post-Revolution Virginia:

'Tt took Jefferson forty years to create the University of Virginia, and when it opened in 1825 it had acquired religious attributes he had struggled to eliminate. Xis famous pian for an elaborate system of public schools in Virginia was wrecked on the shoals of apathy and sectarian opposition and cever enacted."(l23.)

Ontario has, even now, Darely cast off the inflüence of religion on State-supporteà education. Anc, tne Separate 9 6

"fastness" of tne Roman Catholics remains to the present, at least in Ontario. The f act non-denornin~ïionalismand common-ism emerged at al1 in Ontario's education policies and practices, meant that the Church of England's sectarian hegernony had first to be struggled with, and, then, rooted out. And, politically, the young oak of the Family Compact nad to be sawn down by the yeomanry of the Upper Canadian backwoods . This àissertation's riricierlying narrative is ine pluralistic population's engaging f~llyin zhe formative and decisive struggle for tolerance agoinst =nese ixin forces of establishment. Notes

Preface & Introduction

1. Rosemary Righter, 'A singular man in al1 his diversky',

The Times, 7 November , 1997.

2. >!ichael Ignatieff, Isaiah aerlin A Life (Toronto:

Viking, l998), p. 173.

3. John G. Harkness, Stormont, Dundas and Glenaarrv A

Fliszorv 1784-1945 (Oshawa: Mundy-Goodfellow, 1946),

p. i07.

4. The Strachan Papers (PAO), MS 35 - Reel 10 (June 6 1831).

S. Zdmund Buxke, Reflections or! the Revolu~ionin France Ana

or the Proceedinqs in Certaiz Societies in London relative

ro thaz event (orig. 1790) (London: Penguin, 1986),

* -- pp. LI~,181, 188, 189. Edited by Conor Cruise O'Brien.

6. Senara Bailyn et al., The Great Re~ubiic (Toronto: D.C. Heath and Co., 1977), p.183.

7. Baiiyn, The Great Re~ublic,p.182.

8. In a letter to the editor, National Post, Friday, July 30,

1999, a correspondent, a Nr. Doug Dare of Victoria, wriies

of the end of civilization as he knew it:

II ' Ln their wisdom tne Saskatchewan Human Rignts Boara orders the end of the Lord's Prayer and Bible reacing in public schools clairning discrimination and the violation of hunan rights (Saskatoon Board Ordered to Kiii Lord's Prayer, July 28). The secular humanists and atheists have succeeded in rernoving al1 vestiges of Canada's Juaaeo- Christian customs and traditions in our society."

9. Bailyn, The Great Reoublic, pp.108-9.

10. Randal1 White, Ontario 1610 - 1985 - A ~oliticalacc

economic historv (Toronto: Dundurn Press, 1985), p.56.

Il. E.A. Cruikshank (ed.), The Corres~ondenceof Lieut.

Covernor John Graves Simcoe Vol.1 17894793

(Toronto: O.H.S., 1923), p.249. i2. White, Ontario, p.65.

Patrick Brodie, Sir John Beverlev Robinson Bone and Sinew

of the Compact (Toronto: Lof T. Press, 1984).

4. White, Ontario, p.60.

15. At St. Peter's Fields, Manchester, Augusc 6, 1819,

squadrons of the Manchester Yeomanry cavalry rode into the

crowds assembled to listen to "radical" speakers, killing

at least eieven and wounding at least three hundrea

spectators. They were determined, under warrant, to

arrest the day's speakers. In Enslish Radicalism

1786-1832, S. MacCoby records:

"...the united magistracies of Lancashire ...thought fit to praise 'Che excreme forebearance exercised by the yeomanry' ...Lord Sidmouth sent, 'with great satisfaction', the Regent's 'high approbation' of the military; and Coroners ana Coroners' juries arranged proceedings and verdicts on victims which cissipateà al1 hope of bringing even the most delinquent Yeornanryman to justice." The Times reporz on zhe cay's action was that the cavalrymen had cut "'most indiscriminately to the rignt and to the left"', and haà cisgracefully los: "'al1 commanu of temper."'(2.358) 16. George Sheppard, Plunder, Profit. and Poroles A Social

History of the Wor of El2 in U~oerCanada (2Iontreal-

Kingston: McGill-Queen's U.P., 1994), p.81.

. LI.- Sheppard, ?lunaer, p. 150.

18. Sheppard, Piunaer, p.i5O.

19. Cecilia Morgan, Public Nen and Virtuous Women The

Gendered Lanmaae of Reliqion and Politics in Unoer

Canada. 1791-1850 (Toronto: U. of T. Press, 1996), p.91.

2 0. Morgan, Men anà Women, p. 9 1.

21. Morgan, Men ana Women, p. 9 1.

22. Leonard Cooper, Xacical Jack - The Life of ;oh Georoe

Lambron (London: The Cresset Press, 1959), 9.243.

23. Cooper, Radical Sack, p.260. 24. Cruikshank, Sirncoe Correspondence, p.232.

25. John E.E. Dalberg-Acton, Renaissance to Revolution

Lectures on Modern Historv (1899-1901) (New York:

Shocken, l96l), p.311.

26. Acton, Lectures, pp.308-309.

27. Accon, Lectures, p.311.

28. Susan E. Houston and Ahson Prentice, Schoolinq and

Scholars in Nineteenth-Centurv Ontario (Toronto: U. of

T. Press, 1988), p.27.

29. Simon Schama, Citizens - A chronicle of the French

Revolution (Toronto: Vintage, 1989), pp.

248-249.

30. Gerald M. Craig, Umer Canada The Formative Years

17844851 (Toronto: N&Ç, 1963), p.93. 31. Craig, Formative, p.95.

32. Craig, Formative, p. 96.

33. Craig, Formative, p. 96.

34. Craig, Formative, pp.96-97.

35. Craig, Formative, p. 97.

36. Craig, Formative, p.97.

37. Craig, Formative, p.99.

38. Schama, Citizens, p.859.

39. Scnama, Citizens, pp.859-860.

40. Schama, Citizens, p.861.

4. Craig, Formative, p.il3. 42. Craig, Fornative, pp.113-114.

43. Craig, Formative, p.189.

44. The Ontario Historical Society, Profiles of a Province

(A collection of commissioned essays) (Toronto: O.E.S.,

1967). Sgecifically, S.F. Wise, 'Upper Canada ana the

Conservative Tradition', p.20.

45. Wise, 'Conservative Tradition', p.21.

46. Wise, 'Conservative Tradition', p.28.

47. %K. Johnson, Becornina Prominent Regional leaders hi^ in

Up~erCanada, 1791 - 1841 (Kingston and Montreal:

HcGill-Queen's U.P., 1989), p.10. 50. Johnson, Prominent, p.94.

51. Johnson, Prorninent, pp.97, 103.

52. Zohnson, Prorninent, p.75.

53. Johnson, Prominent, pp.87-88.

54. Johnson, Prominent, p.120.

55. William Perkins Bull, From Stracnan To Owen - How the

Church of Zndand was ~lantedand tended in British North

America (Toronto: Geo. J. McLeod, 1937), p.41.

56. Bull, From Strachan, p.45.

57. Bull, From Stracnan, p.48.

58. Bull, From Strachan, p.46.

59. Gerald M. CraFg (ed.), Disconrem iz boer Canada

(Toronto: Copp Clark, 1974), p.17. 60. Craig, Discontent, p.20.

61. Craig, Discontent, p.20.

62. Craig, Discontent, pp.35-36.

63. Craig, Discontent, p.l.6.

64. Craig, Discontent, p.38.

65. Robin Winks, The Blacks in Canada A Historv (2nd)

(Montreal 6 Kingston: McGill-Queen's U.P., 1971),

66. Winks argues convincingly that individual black fugitives were quite well-received in Upper Canada. Group settlements, however, caused rises in localized prejudices throughout southwestern Upper Canada. Their cornpetition with the indigent Irish during the 1840s for labouring jobs made economic survival for blacks in Upper Canaàa tenuous at best.

67. Winks, Blacks, p.149. 68. Winks, Blacks: "...most Canadians retained 2 juszifiable pride in their own ethnic and past national neritages, they assumed that the Canadian Negro should do so too; it was natural that he shoula be left alone, a foreigner self-segregated to his own communities, a black tiie iz tne mosaic of Canada. But while the white British North A~~aricsnsnouia cake priae in nis nacionai neritage ...the Canadian Negro had no national heritage to £211 back on for self-identification. Ee was alone." (p.477)

69. jean 3. Burnet, Ethnic G~OUDSin UDD~~Canaau (Toronto:

O.H.S., 1972), p.29.

70. Burnet, Ethnic Grou~s,p.28.

71. Burnet, Ethnic Grou~s,p.28.

72. Burnet, EthnicGrou~s,p.24.

73. Burnet, Ethnic G~OUDS,p.118.

74. Buxnet, Ethnic Grou~s,p.29.

75. Burnet, Ethnic Grou~s,p.8. 76. Burnet, Ethnic Grouos, p.120.

77. Craig, Formative, p.169.

78. Craig, Formative, p.169.

79. Craig, Formative, p.173.

80. Craig, Formative, p.lu.---l

1 . Craig, Formative, p. 175.

82. Craig, Formative, p.175.

83. Craig, Formative, p.177.

84. Franklin A. Walker, Catholic Education & Politics in UDD~~

Canaaa Vol. I (Toronto: The Catholic Education

Foundation of Ontario, 19551, 0.32.

85. Walker, Catholic, pp.34-35. 108

86. Aine Hyland and Kenneth >!ilne (eds.), Irish Educational

Documents (Vo1.I) A selection of extracts from documents

relatinq to the historv of Irish education from the

earliest times to 1922 (Dublin: The Church of Ireland

College of Education, 1987), p.46.

es. Eyland and Nilne, Irish Documents, p.44.

88. 1 had the great good forune to attend this school in 1975-1976 during my father's teaching sabbatical. It was, then, still decidedly Anglican under the administration of a Chürch of Ireland headmaster. Our prayers were from che Book of Common Prauer. And while we learned the Irish language ana the misty legends of Brian Boru, Roman Catholics were quite foreign to us in our school lives and our home lives. The only time I was aware of them as a wholly separate entity was after Our church service on Sunday - just inside the gates of the Guinness estate, Castletown House. We would see them going to Mass in the market town of Celbridge just beyond the gates. They struck me as much more formally dressed than we were - my father wore his customary shorts, long socks, and sandals. I was also aware of large battalions of children in their families. Everyone at my church service, where few attended, seerned olu, grey, and withered with zhe exception of my family. At least one parishioner passeà :rom this life during Our morning services.

99. John Coolahan, Irish Education: Its Historv and Structure

(Dublin: Institute of Public Administration, 1991), p.11. 90. Coolahan, Irish Education, p.12.

91. Coolanan, Irish Education, p.16.

92. Coolahan, Irish Education, p.17.

93. Thomas J. Durcan, Zistorv of Irish Education from 1800

(9ala, Waies: Dragon, 1972), p.14.

94. Durcan, Historv, p. 18.

95. Durcan, Historv, p.21.

96. Durcan, -, p.39.

97. Durcan, Historv, p.217.

98. Coolahan, Irish Education, p.113.

99. Neil McDonald and Alf Chaiton (Eds.), Eqerton Rverson and

His Times (Toronto: Nacmillan, 1978). Specifically,

James Love, 'The Professionalization of Teachers in the rnid-Nineteenth Century Upper Canada', p.125.

100. Love, '?rofesçionalization', p. 125.

101. Love, 'Professionalization', p. 115.

i02. Susan E. Kouston and Alison Prentice, Scnoolinq and

scholars in Nineceenth-Centurv Ontariq (Toronto: Lof T.

Press, 1988), pxi.

103. Houston and Prentice, Schoolinq, p.16.

104. Houston and Prentice, Schoolinq, p.16.

105. Houston and Prentice, Schooling, p.277.

106. Houston and ?rentice, Schoolinq, p.300.

107. Chad Gaffielc, Lansuase, Schoolinq, and Cultural Conflict

- The Orisins of the French-Lanquaqe Controversv in

Ontario (Kingston: McGi11-Queen's U.P., 1987), p.6. 108. Gaffield, Lanauase, pp.6.22.

109. Gaffield, Lanauaqe, p.101.

110. Gaffield, Lansuase, p.7.

111. Howara Aaams, The Education of Ca3adians 1500-1867

(Noxreol: Harvest House, 1968), p.55.

112. Adams, Education, p.55.

113. Adams, Education, p.58.

114. Alison L. Prentice and Susan E. Houston, Familv School &

Societv in Nineteenth-Centurv Canada (Eds.) (Toronto:

Oxford U.P., 1975), p.209.

ils. Sernard Bailyn, Education in the Formins of merican

Society (New York: Random Iiouse, 1960), p.23.

116. An analogy can be mace to cnildren and computers today. One reads of tne Jamaican government appointing a twelve- year old as its policy advisor with respect to computers. In Canada, one watches his own children in their awesome facility on chese rather intimidating and unforgiving machines.

117. Bailyn, Education, p.26.

118. The first Act concerning the education and welfare of children in Upper Canada, too, concerned orphans. In the -JLC for June 29, i799, an Act was passed to "Provide for the Education and Suppori of Orphan Children", and signed inco Law by General Perer Hunter. Boys were bound to apprenciceships to aqe twenty-one, girls io age eighteen.

119. Baiiyn, Education, pp.21,22.

120. Baiiyn, Education, p.45.

121. Bailyn, Education, p.46.

123. Bailyn, Education, p.46. "...(Teach me) to keep off envy's stinging, And find What wind Serves to advance an honest mind."

John Donne, "Song" (1633)

"Was I very gleeful, settled, content, during the hours 1 passed in yonder bare, humble school-room this morning and afternoon? Not to deceive myself, I must reply - No: 1 felt desolate to a degree. i felt - yes, idiot that 1 am - 1 felt degradea. I àoubted 1 had taken a szep which sank instead of raising me in the scale of social existence. 1 was weakly dismayed at the ignorance, the poverty, tne coarseness of al1 I heard and saw round me. But let me not hate and despise myself too much for these feelings: I know chem to Se wrong - that is a grear step gained; I snali strive to overcome them. To-morrow, I trust, 1 shall get the betier of them partiaily; and in a few weeks, perhaps, they will Se qcite subdued. In a few months, Ft Fs possible, the happiness of seeing progress, and a change for the better in my scholars, may substitute gratification for disgust. "

Charlotte Bronte, Jane Evre

"... you get to appreciate what's so amazing about a place like Toronto. What are the forces that make people that way? What are the things that make people want to work together? What holds American aggression in check ...."

American cellist YO-YO Na, Nacional Fost, March 6, i999. Chapter One: StruggLFng witn Diversity - The Settinq

"Stern was the face of nature ...."

William Wordsworth, 'The 2echse'.

"On a perfect early fali aftecnoon, Zion's (Baptist Church, Sc. Catharines) Pastor Carvin Washington led 60 worshippers in tribute to the black pioneers wbo fled slavery on the Uncierground Railroad and founded the church in 1838 ....

"(One of the church's early ministers, a runaway slave named Anthony Burns was seited in Boston) 'Anthony's trial in Boston attracted 40,000 to 50,000 protesters. Public officiais fearea the multitude would try to rescue him ....'

"Burns was iuentified by his'owner' and was escorted to the wharf by a battalion of U.S. artillery and four platoons of marines; 22 companies of state rnilitia guarded streets lined with hissing and groaning spectators ....

"(Once freed Burns decided to leave the United States permanently) 'He decided enough was enough and he wanted to go on to the land of freedom. He decided our glorious city (St. Catharines) would be his final destination."'(l.)

Kate Barries, "Church Renews pride in its black nistory"

The Toronto Star, Monday

"'There were Christians and Beathens, Menonists and Dunkards, Quakers and Universalists, Presbyterians and Baptists, Roman Catholics anà Arnerican Methodisis; tnere were Frenchmen and Yankees, Irishmen and Muiattoes, Scotchen and Indians, Englishmen, Canadians, Americans and Negroes, Dutchmen and Germans, Welshmen and Swedes, Fighlanders and Lowlanders ... 1..7 n short, Europe, Asia, Africa, and America had there eacn its representative among the loyal subjects of our good King George, the fourth of the name."*(2.)

William Lyon Mackenzie, an immoderate Scotsman of mercurial moodiness, made these observations contemplating an elecïion crowa at Niagara in Upper Canada during 1824. Flackenzie was then an outspoken newspaper editor and social reformer prone CO hyperbole. He noted the obvious heterogeneity of the popclace surrounding him, which, in truth, he likely heard in various accents and languages rather than saw with his eyes.

Were Mackenzie to ride the subway in Toronto during the

1990s, his eyes would behold what his words describe fittingly, as his 'Muddy York' has becorne one of the most diverse places on the face of the earth. Mackenzie, however, was aware of the great diversity that, in the context of Ontario, existed and continues to exist. The challenge has always been to edücate tnat diverse population ana to overcome the obstacles in the struggle wich that diversity in a tolerant and honorable fashion.

The diversity has always exisced; now, it is more apparent visually. But, education here cannot be anything other than it Il6 ever has been, accepting and tolerant of diversity but preparing al1 students for the mainstream of life in Ontario, once agrarian, then industrial, now knowledge-based.

Migrants once knew intuitively that coming to a new land meant a hard and different life with no room or allowances for seconà thoughts or melancnolic moments, but with a better life in view for the "rising generations." This tacit ünaerstanci~g-

the way things must be in an immigrant country - has been

supplanted, not at al1 unexpectedly in an era of unbridlea

individual freedoms and unlimited rights disconnected from duties and responsibilities, by a more immediate demand for educacion to

serve narrowly special interests, that individual fulfilment be paramount. The shift from society or group to the indiviaual has been so pronounced that a Young, West Indian male, Clifton

Joseph, arriving here and attending a state high school during

the 1970s, might comment: '"One of the ... problems I facec was

chat the school system did no: relate to me at all... I had to

conform."'(3.) In Upper Canada, tne demanding conditions of

pioneer life for the vast majority enforced an unspoken

conformicy. There was litzle tirne or leisure for concernplazion. Needless to Say the principles of conformity to classroom discipline (lax here compared to the Kest Indies), majorirarian structures, and societal noms, will have never been too fzr from a teacher's heart in Ontario prior to the failed experirnent in educational Rousseauisn of the past thirty years. Stuaents, once scholars, were content generally to conform as education at any level was an untold and treasured privilege, thougn with che pocential dark side of verbal and physical beatiqs. Since the

1960~~however, a stuuent mignt register surprise wnen ecucation

àia not mold itself exactly to meet his or her individual needs.

Thus, the jaundiced and prejudicial fingers can pick ac the system's time-honoured seams as individuals receive preferment.

This constant picking at the seams of society - education is just one seam amongst several - would be enougn to weaken the strongest fabric of any cioth, or the intrinsic rigour of any systern. As the American President Abraham Lincoln, who was a contemporary to the period under study in this dissenation, once mused, in his lapidary fashion, that a constant, intense picking away will "sometimes wear the sweetest idea thread-bare, and turn it to the bitterness of deatL"(4.) Education, free md universal thanks to the unspeakable toils and travails of the pioneering souls in üpper Canaaa, is Ontario's "sweetest idea." 118

Al1 may advance themselves through education, striving and hard work. In those thread-bare settlement days, the seed of tolerance of diversity was planted in the stubblo of the backwoods' clearings with the earliest crops. By the end of the

Upper Canadian period, that general spirit guided the State's educationai policy; it has remained constant to this day.

"'The President has great satisfaction in being authorizeà to comrnunicate to the Legislative Council and the House of Assembly, that His Majesty has been graciousiy pleased to take into His Royal consideration their petition, 'humbly imploring His Majesty that he would be graciously pleased to direct His Government in this Province (Upper Canada) to appropriate a certain portion of the waste lands of the Crown as a funà for the establishment and support of a respectable Grammar school in each District thereof, and also of a College or University for the instruction of youth in the different branches of liberal knowledge', and being always ready to show his parental regard for the welfare of his subjects in the furtherance of so important an object as the instruction of youth, and to assist and encourage the exertions of his Province in laying the foundation for promoting sound learning and a religious education .... (First) by the estabiishment of free Grammar SC~OO~Sin those Districts in wnich they are cailea for.. . ."(5.)

Pecer Russell, Presicent, Upper Canada's Legislacive Council, 1798 at York (Toronto). 119

History must be encountered and entered as it was lived. To

do otherwise is CO impose an agendurn, a deconstruction, or a

teleological fallacy. Social history cannoc be fairly

recollected otherwise.

As the early legislators in the bicamera: government - the

slightly more pop~listEiouse of Assernbly, the deciaedly more

patrician Legislative Council - in the Province of Upper Canadei

met in the dead of wincer, away from the intense zgrarian demands

of the growing season, consideration of educatior. was not tne most pressing concern. Most Upper Canadian parents had little

time for the education of their young - beyond the initiation

into the laborious pioneering existence - until tne 1810s or

1820s. The average family had settled recently in a harsh wilderness. The relatively few patrician families might look to

their own interests in the towns, but the outlying lands wanted

clearing. In the most general terms, "(t)he ernigrants

experienced an encounter without sentimenta?ity, for making a

living was the issue, survival the objective, an9 a cieareà farm

the final outcome."(6.) Even to arrive aï one's land was a

daunting task, îransporzation being, at besz in many cases,

across corcxoy roacs of felled Crees. There were no frills. One can readily sense the hardships and privations faced by settlers in üpper Canada. The winters here have always been long and intense. The land required a great deal of clearing in an age when back-breaking, if not soul-destroying, labour was the rule. The first few years for many early settlers like the

United Empire Loyalisz must have been challenging to the very core. Some reflection of chis harsh reality can be found in the pariiarnenrary aiscourse, as those bodies consxucted a polity ana its supporting rudimentary infrastructure in :he rugged wilderness. The Journals of the Leaislative Assembiy of Uo~er

Canada (IILA) for 5 November, 1818, record a petition £rom Eastern

Upper Canada on the Rideau River, Canadian Shield-frontier country near Perth:

"'Humbly showeth: That a part of Your Petitioners came to this settlement about two and a half years ago. That notwithscanding the Liberality of Government which they have hitherto experienced they have since endured numerous privations, partly owing to the failure of crops the first seasons, their entire ignorance of farming in a new country, and the severity of the climate, more sensi~lyfeit from the want of sufficient means to guard againsr :hem whicn still unfortunately in a great measure exist. "'(7.)

The one hundzed-and-six peti~ionerssigning this petition were representative of tens of thousanas enduring in the Upper Canadian wilderness. Though the tone is polite, formal, and

Georgian, the desperation of these proud people is palpable.

Many of the petitioners were hungry or starving, unable to feed their children through the long winter months. Theirs was a vecy typical demand or request, as similar petititions bear muce witness across the generations. The hackers and the he~cers of che wilderness needed cleared land for subsistence farminq in zhe

1780s, 1790s, 1800s, and 1810s. Ana, with chose clearea lands, often quite scattered and separated by the vast tracts of Crowz or Clergy Reserves, the need for passable roads grew, Dotn ro import settlers and supplies and to export produce. With roaas then bridges, then ports, then markets, then canals CO allow cne commercial iife-blood to flow in the nascent province. From the outset, the governors needed to create boundaries, build court houses and gaols, establish currency, tax liquor for revenues, build forts, beqin mail-delivery and sundry other tasks as a state's infrastructure was constructed from, literally, ~hetree stumps up. As a result, £rom the perspectives of both the governed and the governors, education took some tirne to ernerge and to move centre-stage in Upper Canada. Schooling for tne young was always iikely, however, to emerge from the intensely busy nuclear family unit. 122

The wealthy, patrician families were able to address tneir educational requirernents earlier in Upper Canada than the vas? pioneering majority, as the former nad resources with which to provide their scions with a suitable education privately, firsc with tutors, then at grammar schools, and finally at foreign finishing schools or universities. And, further, their scions haà the greac gift of leisüre in whicn to iearn. For tne pioneering classes, even the five-year olds were set io work.

Thar the quasi-English patricians procuced the COUD-de-main of creating an exclusive and elitist network of British-style, publicly-funded, Classics-oriented, largely sectarian District

Gramrnar Schools, was a reflection of their hegemonic control over zhe State in Upper Canada. This elitist phenomenon, tnough fully reflective of the age, the British uppercrust - that 'crust' which seemea to reproduce itself at will throughout the British

Empire - and the Church of England's presumptuous authority, woula noc last as the egalitarian and naturally dernocratic personality of the Province and its population groups emerged.

For :ne pioneering populations, Sereift of a real political voice, in those arduous years around the beginning of the nineteenzh century, survival was, for the labouring majoriry, Che only real issue. Under impoxed ari=isn laws and transplantec

British custorns, mercifully renote to most but providinç blessed stability and protection of person and property during

Revolutionary and Counter-Revolutionary times, the pioneers of

Upper Canaàa lived, coiled screnuously, and died having cleared sirLaLi. . 2arcels of the land, tneir lanc:

"The new men, nacking, girdlinç and burning away the fores:, nere as renote from the ideals of government as they were sec in their own ways. They had brought their faiths and preachers, and their views of parliaments and politics and of rulers' place in the scheme. Growth came of itself, made its own rules, sprawied anti spread under edicts, defeating them at every turn."(8.)

Universal education would take considerable tinte to achieve because education, for the pioneers, was a refinement over ana above survival. Yet, learning was never held at bay - reaaing was taught constantly in the churches regardless of sec: or denomination, with The Bible as the text. Education of sorts also rook place by the hearth, when the parents had sufficienz energy after a gruelling day's work. Anc, for the children learning, thzougn rich, new, wiàe-open experiences was ongoing.

Rooms for ~ook-learninghad to De hacked unsentimentally from zhe woods, after churcnes, t+verns and çaols, amidst slowly Fmproving 124 homesceads and rugged farmland dotted with gnarled treescumps.

Nany were like the cwo "Pennsylvaria Deutsch" who arrivec a: the

Grand River in Waterloo County during 1500, wno saw ample land freely or cheaply available, but amidst "an almost irnpenetrable wilderness."(9.)

Thaz wilderness posed great challenges to the incomi-g settlers; iz also afforded greac opportunities zo a diverse pop~kziocas the polity gained its shape and form in the wake of the Ainericm War of Independence:

"The Upper Canadian Loyalists were of many racial stocks, Sut of much the same social and economic ievel - a humble one....

"As for the ordinary man, whether his name was Van der Voort or Macdonnell or just plain Smith, al1 his ambition was to get some good land and settle down where the wicked world wouid cease from troubling. 'Me, I'm the eighth on my father's farm', said one modern representative of the species. 'Rightly we're Dutch, you know. Yes', he added, 'we corne up here from New York State' - and then, reminiscently - 'after the war."'(lO.)

The wilderness has been, in Ontario's history - like cne nazion's innense distances, and its long and severe !v-inters - a leveller of sorts. ?rior to the Kar of 1812, the LanC was open and avaiiabie to al1 loyal sübjecZs without prejudice. Where immigrants came with little or no noney, land was usually nace available in return for loyalty, demonstrated previously and

conïinüing. In this coccext a nan was judgea by his cenacity in

clearing acreage and building barns; a woman was judged by her

domestic virtues and her neatly turned-out, surviving children,

parade9 each Sunday at ch~rch. There was an egalitarian spirit

in the Upper Canadian bush. Xany settlers were hezvily

interàepenàent on their inimediaie neighbours regazcless of race or creea.

In Upper Canada at the àawn of che nineteenth cencury, there were always solid, reliable, handy people close by. The

gentiewoman-diarist Mrs. Catharine 2arr Traill, arrived frorn

England in 1832 with her husband - a half-pay officer - to settle

in the Peterborough-Rice Lake-Lakefield area, amidst the poor of

the Peter Robinson Irish-plantation, reflected on the levelling rniiieu of pioneering life:

"November the 20th, 1832.

"We began to get reconcileà to our RoDinson Crusoe sorz of life, anc the considerations that the present evils are buc zernporary qoes s great was towards reconciling us to them.

"One of our greatest inconveniences arises from the badness of ou= roaas, anà the discance at which we are placed from any village or town where provisions are to be procured .... These (provisions) have to be brought up at considerable expense and loss of time, through our beautiful bush-roads; wnicn, to use the words of a poor Irish woman, 'can't be no worser.' 'Och, darlint,' she said, 'but they are just bad enough and can't be no worser."' (II.)

Upper Canadian pioneering circumstances thrust al1 together at a common level in the Upper Canadian backwoods. Ali were equal outside the remote towns: F~dustryalone differe~tiatedthe successful from the failures. Mrs. Traiil's genceel education and classist upbringing brought her no advantage ic wnat was, essentially, a natural and democratic meritocracy. Thus, a new spirit, insofar as these intangibles can be generalized, was born of these fiercely modest beginnings. This generai, Upper

Canadian spirit was tolerant, indulgent of others' shortcomings, unconcerned with airs, plain-spoken, virtue-mindea, and rigorously Christian. It could not be otherwise, for the enemy, the real enemy, as the French Army had discoverea in its ragged retreat £rom Moscow, was to be found writ large in Nature.

The mytho-poetic green and pastoral landscapes of Wordsworih hab been exchanged for a cruel wilderness that required a concerted effort to Se endured and overcome. And, ultimately, as

Carharine Par: Traill acknouiedged, Upper Canada woulc be a hope- filled land for al1 people coming with litSe or noching:

"Canada is the land of hope; here everything is new; everythino is going forward ...."(12.) Soon the peoples' petitions would be more forward-looking, the brutish initial settlemezt phase having been survived. And, the future then, as it is now for the immigrant classes still arriving, was the eaucation of the

"rising generations."

"Petition of the Innabitants of the District of Xewcastle

"To tne Eionourable Legislative Council and House of Assembly of the Province of Upper Canada in their Legislative capacity assembled.

"The Petition of the Undersigned, Inhabitants of zhe District of Newcastie,

"That by an Act, passed the forty-seventh (1807) year of His Najesty's (GEOJII) reign, the sum of One Hundrea Pounas was granted to establish a Public School (a District Grammar Scnool), to be opened in the Township of 3amilton:

"That Your Pezitioners finà tne said appropriazio~to be entirely üseless to the innabitanis of the District in generai.

"Wherefore Your Petitioners pray that the said Acts of the forcy- seventn anà forty-eighth years of Ris Majesty's reign may be repeaied, and that such other provision may be maàe to encourage Common Scnools throügnout tnis District as to yoc in your wisaom may see rneet.... (signed) Richard Lovekin, Asa Burnham, Leonard Soper, Alexr. Fletcher, and forty-eignt otners at Hamilton, August,l811." (13.)

By the 1810~~average Upper Canadians began turning part of their attention away from day-to-day, season-to-season survival, to a more formai way of educating their young rather than merely having tnem roll up their sleeves or relying on Sunday Schools for sorne srudy of The Bible . Parents as pioneers had generally neither the time nor the energy to conduct their children's forma1 education. But once the roots of westernized agriculture had been established in the Upper Canadian bush, education became an important concern. And, there were the beginnings of revenues with which the State might support rudimentary schools for the young .

In Upper Canada, the first French schools had been established near Detroit in the 1600s; English schools followed in the eighteenth century amidst the Loyalist settlements. At first, only the wealthy in the Loyalist towns had the resources for educating their children. The Scotsman, John Strachan, prior to his apotheosis in the 18lOs, was engaged initially as a private tutor upon his arrivai in Upper Canada, became an Anglican minister and, subsequently, taught at and ran the

(District) Grammar School in Cornwall:

"After serving for a few years as the tutor to the sons of Mr. Richard Cartwriqht of Kingston, a leading rnerchant and member of the colonial government, Strachan took orders in the Church of England and waç posted to Cornwall. Finding time on his hands he opened a school for boys of the local area. Owing to his ability as a teacher and to the breadth of his curriculum, he attracted the attention of the leading families of the colony's capital, York. Soon these people were sending their sons down to Mr. Strachan to be educated... and so when the rectory of York became vacant in 1811, the position was offered to Strachan."(l4.)

At Cornwall, Strachan groomed the young gentlemen of the nascent colony, educating classically the few brilliant minds he encountered, educating fundamentally to reproduce the ruling

elite al1 the rest. Strachan and other contemporary Anglican clergymen, as well as many Britons since, sought to transplant

England's metaphysical "green and pleasant land" north of Lake

Ontario. Çuch education was, and has been since, necessarily exclusive and elitist. That was, after ail, the world view of men like Strachan, and Upper Canada's first Vice-Regent, Sohn

Graves Simcoe: a liberal education was the preserve of the wealthy; the rest might be suitably apprenticed for a life of manual work or accustomed to commercial practices. 13 0

Major General Simcoe concerned himself with transplanting a

British culture and, especially, what he considered to be a proper education for young men of leading families. He was a distinguished "Old Etonian," a veteran of the American War of

Independence, a devout monarchist, and a staunch proponent of the

Church of England. Simcoe, who arrived at Quebec in 1791, sought to recreate, in the Canadian bush, British education. Simcoe attemptea to achieve this objective £rom rhe politicol level down, while Strachan worked his way up from the chalk board.

Simcoe, the "Imperia1 Proconsul" of the Upper Canadian backwoods, had a straight-forward agenda; but, it was ahead of its time:

"High up on (Simcoe's) agenda was the appointment of an Anglican bishop who would oversee the erecting of schools and seminaries and an endowrnent for two preparatory schools at Kingston and Newark. As well, he pressed for a university at York, to be staffed by Church of England clergymen. In these requests, the Lieutenant-governor was not so much concerned about education for the 'lower classes' as for those of tne 'higher classe who would otherwiçe send their children to the United States."(lS.)

Lieutenant Governor Simcoe was fearful that the impressionable young Canadian men wouid be exposed to republican ideas and tracts of the day if they studied in America. 2evohtionary fervour had, after all, poured into France from Axnerica during 131 the 1770s and 1780s, and trickled into Ireland during the 1790s, with young men as tney returned home with republican idealism.

The very modern Major Generaf was, however, too modern for his polity's very modest circumstances during the 1790s. During his Vice-Regency, money was the principal obstacle - Upper Canada as it then existed was costing British taxpayers twenty-thousand pounds per annum for defence and basic roads. Educational costs simply coulu not be sustained with Britain engaged in near- constant warfare or until the Province began to generate its own substantial revenues. Simcoe departed Upper Canada in frustration by 1796, most of his envisioned improvements unfulfilled. But the seeds of his educational dreaming had been planted and his exotic gardens - especially the immensely- privileged, semi-official garden of the Church of England - in the wilderness were tended assiduously by men like Strachan.

And so, Britain came to these shores in many forms in the esrly 1800s. But, just as the sea water passes into the Gulf of the St. Lawrence and down into the throat of a nascent nation, hinting of older cultures and more highly stratified order in

Europe, the fresn water of this immense land has always submerged 132 the denser mass from the seo with its fresh, unstopping outwash.

The land was to be re-civilizea along western iines, though in a uniquely-and-naturally-democratic North American and prototypically-quiet Canadian fashion. Thus, the Petitioners of

Newcastle, who were intimately aware of their situation, realized the uselessness, or rather unpracticality, of the education dropped down to them from above, £rom the oligarchic, British

Imperia1 heights, just as their forefathers had realized the uselessness of the salt water for slaking thirst as tney dangled buckets down, off their ships into the still-salty waters in the

St. Lawrence. The water here was fresh and abundant; land there was for the landless European poor; and education, a refinement beyond the hornesteads, would corne, in time, and in its prominent place.

A simple analysis of the two educational philosophies extant in Upper Canada at its beginnings is offerea by Loris Russell, a former curator of the Royal Ontario Museum, in Evervdav Life In

Colonial Canada:

"The Loyalists who emigrated from the former American colonies to British territory in 1783, and later, were accustomed to comrnunity schools, open to al1 children. Those who wished to continue in this tradition met some opposition £rom the authorities, who held the European ideas of the time that education was for the children of the 'elite' as determined by social rank or financial means."(l6.)

The strugqle between the two educations, each with its ardent political backers - the former the common Upper Canadian, the latter the Family Compact - would corne to define Ontario's education system £rom the level of the State's authority, as subsequent administrations set about the difficult task of eàucating the young of a pluralistic population.

"The Latin scholars are divided into four classes as follows: 1st class NO.2, are finishing their reading in Ovid and Sallust; having read in the former 2747 lines of the Metamorphoses - including the 'contest between Ajax and Ulysses for the arms of Achiiles'; and in the latter the whole of Catilines conspiracy 'and about 14 Chap. of the Jugurthian Wars'. After Christmas holidays this class will be ready to commence Virgil and Cicero."(l7.)

These classical particularizations and specifics were offered to Strachan, for his approbation and commendation, as he began to supervise Upper Canadian education from York. No doubt he wouid have approved of his colleague's curriculum. The aim of this rnanner of education, whose timeless value and rigour are

undisputed, seems to have been elitist and quite remarkably

esoteric in the context of the prevailing Upper Canadian

conditions of life. In America the contemporary situtation was

no different, as one past-President - Jefferson - in Virginia,

recomrnended Greek and Latin to the socially acceptable young men

of his circle, another future-President, Lincoln, partook of bis

education, axe in hand, splitting fence rails. However, as in

England, a Classical-education was affordable for and afforded to

- both in money and lost labour time on the farm - very, very

few. This fact had become apparent by the 1810s in Upper Canada,

when it became a point of notice and soreness in the elected

Legislative Assembly. The struggle for a broadly-based education

system began with the advent of the District Grammar schools,

which, though receiving al1 the State's educational monies by

1807, still charged fees and were Anglican preserves. This

situation was clearly unpalatable and useless for the majority of

the growing and, increasingly, diverse population.

One cannot analyze education in Upper Canada without

cornprehending Strachan, his incredible influence, and his leading part in, what is known as the "Family Compact." This was an oligarchie and plutocratic arrangement, mostly comprised by High

Anglican Tories. This small group's control - through the

Executive, the Legislative Council, the judiciary, the bank(s), the bar, the ecclesiastical and the educational posts - was quite complete and hegemonic for the two decades on either side of

1800. From United Empire Loyalist- or British-stock, with patrician and insufferably superior bearing - though the Upper

Canadian neo-aristocracy would have been, in its turn, viewed with considerable disdain by the senuine English aristocracy, where the public virtue of selfless concern for always doing the right thing no matter the cost has always been the guiding principle, ernbodied by the aristocratie-conservatism of men like

Durham in the 1800s and Churchill in the 1900s - a few score men gathered power, wealth, land, and position unto themselves in a rapacious and greedy manner. Reverend Strachan was their unelected leader and, as such, was effectively the "Prime

Minister" of Upper Canada until at least the end of the 1820s.

He ruled the Anglican Pale at York/Toronto from his home, known as the Palace, the most luxurious mansion in the settlernent, affordable to Strachan after he married the rich widow McGilf. John Strachan, an Anglophile, arrived in Upper Canada in

1799. He became the schoolmaster of the Cornwall Grammar School.

After receiving Holy Orders as an Anglican Priest, Reverend

Strachan had a meteoric ascent in the life of the Upper Canadian polity. In 1823, he became ~residentof the General Board of

Education, which post made him the Executive Council's Secretary.

In 1825, he becarne the undispuïed leaaer of the Legislative

Council. During the l820s, more than any man, Strachan determined the State's policies in Upper Canada. With so mnch authority concentrated in his hands, and few others to rival him initially, Strachan began to exercise his will in accordance with the unwritten codes of the Family Compact. Granted an honorary

Doctor of Divinity degree, Dr. Strachan set about making for the

Province of Upper Canada a Church of England-centred education system with special concentration on the Anglican catechism, the

Classical languages, and the sons of the wealthy. His plenipotentiary power and his obscure financial arrangements accounted for the "aristocratie nature of early educational legislation in the colony." (18.) Strachan's educational authority, at its height in Upper Canada, buttressed by the

Family Compact, cornes close to that of Egerton Ryerson's in

Canada West later in the century. Though while the latter was part of a just, equitable non-sectarian, and representative reairne, the former was not. Strachan's work was important nonetheless.

The legislation of 1807 indicates the early educational wishes of the Family Compact. What was desired was a series of

Church-administered, proto-English Public/Grammar schools that would serve oniy the specific academic needs of a tiny minority of the population, perhaps no more than five per cent of tne whole.

The Scots publisher and polemicist, William Lyon Mackenzie, who arrived in 1820 and became politically active imrnediately, introduced the term "Family Compact" into Upper Canadian usage.

Mackenzie used it as a "sneerinq reference to the Bourbon League of the eighteenth century."(l9.) Mackenzie wrote the following while serving as an assernblyman during the 1820s, putting new verses to the 'music' his fellow countryman and agitator, Robert

Gourlay, had composed in the 1810s:

"1 have long seen the country in the hands of a few, snrewd, crafty, covetous men, under whose management one of the most lovely and desirable sections of America remained a comparative desert. The most obvious public improvements were stayed ... the Church of England monopolized as much of the land of the colony as... the Roman Catholic chuxch had control of in Scotland in the era of the Reformation; a sordid band of land-jobbers grasped the soi1 as their patrimony and with a few leading officials, who divided the public revenue amonq themselves, formed the 'family compact' and were the avowed enemies of common schools, of civil and religious liberty, of al1 legislative or other checks to their own will....

"This family connection includes half the executive counci1,the speaker, and eight mernbers of the legislative council. It included the persons who have control of the Canada Land Company's monopoly. It includes the president and solicitor of the Bank, and about half the bank directors. The whole of the revenues of Upper Canada are in reality at their mercy."(20.)

The Family Compact, as Mackenzie detailed, had a nearly suzerain grasp on both the Province's institutions and its purse-strings.

The advent of the Cornmon Schools was greatly delayed by the

Family Compact's vision for Upper Canadian education. The Family

Compact's elitist and exotic seed of education did not find a naturally suitable soi1 amidst the diverse populations of Upper

Canada, however. The Family Compact wanted simply, it seems, to be "Little Englanaers" in the Upper Canadian woods, with social stratification and expensive education for the select few. The mass of people, and their groups' spokesmen, began to articulate a demand for something sharply different during the 1810s. The petitions from the public, such as the petition of the

"Inhabitants of Newcastle" in 1812 and the following from the

"Yeomen of Midland District" in 1814 resonate with the cornmon will:

II I ...(The District Grammar School Act's) object, it is presumed, was to promote the education of Our youth in general, but a little acquaintance with facts must convince every unbiased mind that it has contributed little or nothing to the promotion of so laudable a design. By reason of the place of instruction Deing established at one end of the District, and the sum being demanded for tuition in addition to the annuai compensation received from the public, most of the people are unable to avail themselves of the advantages contemplated by the Institution. A few wealthy inhabitants, and those of the Town of Kingston reap exclusively the benefit of it in this District. The institution, instead of aiding the middling and poorer class of His Majesty's subjects, casts money into the lap of the rich, who are sufficiently able, without public assistance, to support a school in every respect equal to the one established by law. "'(21. )

The vox ~opulias expressed by the self-proclaimed "Yeomen of

Midland District" or the male "Inhabitants of Newcastle" would be heard in the democratically-elected Legislative Assembly, the lower house of the then-bicameral Legislature.

In the first half of the IalOs, apart from the war with the

Americans, education is one of the most frequently mentioned topics in the Legislative Journals and the plurality of 140 petitions read directly into the record pertain to frustrations with the status auo in education. The cornmon and heterogeneous voices came to be heard in the corridors of power, though the self-interest of the homogeneous Family Compact was always close at hand. In the wake of the peace of 1815, the Lieutenant-

Governor Francis Gore gave the following Throne Speech to the combined Houses:

"'The District Schools instituted by law, and admirably fitted as a stop between elementary schools and seminary for the nigher branches of education, will not without further aid produce sufficient advantages to the youth of this Province.'

"'The dissemination of letters is of the first importance to every class; and to aid in so desirable an object 1 wish to cal1 your attention to some provision for an establishment of schools in each Township, which shall afford the first principles to the cnildren of the inhabitants, and prepare such of them as may require further instruction to receive it in the District Schools.. . . "'(22.)

The Lieutenant Governor was thanked graciously and at length in the rather obsequious, formalistic fashion of the times. A

Committee was immediately formed, in a very English manner, under the güiding hand of an Assembiyman, Mr. James Durand. His mandate was to act on the spirit of the Throne Speech, to broaden the base of education in Upper Canada. His report was delivered 141 during the parliamentary session of 1816. The biases even within the less-patrician House of Assembly are immediately o~viouein the eleven-point plan that led directly to the first Common

School Bill during the second decade of the nineteentn century:

"Mr. Durand's Committee on Education reported:

"Firstly: - That the education of youth is a subject worthy of the most serious attention of the Legislature.

"Secondly: - That the necessity of sending young men out of the Province to finish their education which hath heretofore existed, hath been found extremely inconvenient.

"Thirdly: - That sound policy dictates that our youth should be educated within the Province or in England, if we wish them to imbibe predilections friendly to our Parent State.

"Fourthly: - That but few of the inhabitants of this Province can support the expense of sending their children to be educated in Great Britain, and parental anxiety would reluctantly trust them at such an immense distance from its care, o~servationand control.

"Fifthly: - That there is at present no Seminary at which they can obtain a liberal and finished education. "Sixth1y:- That in order to diffuse liberal knowledge generally throughout the community, it appears expedient that an University should hereafter be established, where the Arts and Sciences may be taught to the youth of al1 denominations, in aid of which establishment may embrace the funds which are anticipated £rom His Majesty's munificent donation of lands for its support.

"Seventhly: - That nothing has yet been done to promote education among the poorer inhabitants.

"Eighthly: - That it is expeaient to extend the benefits of a common education throughout the whole Province.

"Ninethly: - That the People have shown among themselves a laudable zeal in this particular, which ought to be fostered and encouraged.

"Tenthly: - That with respect to the present District School institutions Your Cornmittee feel it their incumbent duty to state as their opinion the advantages which were expected to be derived from this source having fallen short of the abject.

"Lastly: - Your Committee, for these considerations, request that they may be permitted to submit to Your Honorable House a Bill which they have framed for the establishment of Cornmon Schools throughout this Province."(23.)

It is telling that the first six points reported or recornmended 143 deal with the more esoterically-evolved interest in education - an Anglican seminary or a Church of England University, with

Upper Canada and England referred to virtually as one and the sarne in educational outlook. Perhaps, these first six points wexe the necessary 'sops thrown to the Cerberus' which guarded the Legislative Council - Strachan - where bill after bill from the House of Assembiy died from opposition or dusty inattention.

More likely, the Legislative Assernbly - at this tirne - shared, in a less rigid style, its worid-view with the Legislative Council, and was similarly dominated by Anglicans.

However, the elected and somewhat accountable committee men, startinq at point seven, use remarkably blunt speech to highlight the crisis extant in education for the population as a whole. In the Colony, until the close of the War of 1812, the educational outlook for the average Upper Canadian family was very poor indeed as far as state involvement or intervention was concerned: the majority was not intended to be served by the academically elite District Grammars. Nothing had been done "to promote education among the poorer inhabitants" - the vast bulk of the

Upper Canadian population. By the tenth point, the cziticisrn had become oblique to avoid suspicion of a direct attack, any 144 offence, any taint of disloyalty, that the important legislation might gain its passage, that the purse strings might rnagically be loosened. The object of the legislation was to provide a common education to the pluralistic populations who could not manage education for the "rising generations" by themselves, unlike many of the homogeneous Family Compact wno could manage the education of their young with some ease. The War of 1812 served - as war so often does - to shake the firmament of education in Upper

Canada.(24.) The legislation that came in 1817 was the most obvious result. It would not have been achieved, however, against the will of the Family Compact, no matter the growing political voice and power of the people at the tirne. The Family

Compact had no serious political rival prior to the 1820s, but it was frightened by the behaviour of many Upper Canadians during the War and by the shadow of Republicanism. The administration wanted to lay the foundations of both overt loyalty and their much sought after Anglican-State.

Canadian historian, J. Donald Wilson, in 'Education in üpper

Canada: Sixty Years of Change,' reflects on the state of Upper

Canada in 1816 at the war's close; "...an merican traveller in Upper Canada could estimate that four-fifths of the population were post-Loyalist Americans. A more recent authority suggests that in four of the eight Districts into which the Province was administratively divided, American immigrants outnumbered al1 other inhabitants two to one."(25.)

There were, in the clamour of the war years, concerns about the ubiquitous, dilapidated, decrepit, journeymen American teachers in Upper Canada. Few but these would labour for the pittance available then to teachers as salaries at comrnon schools. Some taugnt for a warm bed and regular meals. This led, doubtless, to considerable concern over the educational dissemination of republican ideals as part of war-time paranoia.

There is little doubt, though, that war led onto the real beginnings - albeit hesitant for decades afterwaras - of cornmon education for all. Furthermore, it is clear, that "the legacy of the war (of 1812) was a powerfully renewed anti-Americanism among

Upper Canada's rulers and an even deeper determination to defend and expand British institutions in the colony."(26.) Canadian social historians Prentice and Houston note that "for three long years, Arnerican ideas were more than a minor presence on the periphery of Upper Canadian society."(27.) Similarly, common education was to begin its move £rom the political periphery to the forefront of politics in Upper Canada, a movement that would culminate toward the end of the nineteenth century under the

Ryersonian aegis. The general spirit, however, would ernerge as early as 1816, when the will of the diverse Upper Canadian population was felt for practically the first time in Upper tanaaa, çhougn i~ ~areiyciouaea cne ~riiiiantiysunht afternoon of the Family Compact's political reign.

Notes

1. Kate Harries, "Church Renews Pride in its Black History"

The Toronto Star, Monday 14 ieptember, 1998.

2. Jean R. Burnet with Howard Palmer,

"Coming Canadians" - An Introduction to a Historv- of

Canada's Peo~les (Ottawa: M&S, 1988), p.19.

3. James Walker et al., Identitv - The Black Ex~eriencein Canada (Toronto: Gage, 1979), p.57.

4. Car1 Sandburq, Abraham Lincoln (Toronto: HBJ, 1954), p.71.

5. JLC, 18 June, 1798, p.63.

6. Cecil J. Houston and William J. Smyth, Irish Inmimation and

Canadian Settlement: Patterns, Links and Letters (Toronto:

U. of T. Press, 1990), p.121.

7. JLA, 5 November, 1818, pp. 53-4.

8. Joseph Schull, Ontario Since 1867 (Toronto: M&S, 1978), p.18.

9. G.E. Reaman, The Traif of the Black Walnut (Toronto: M&S,

10. Schull, Ontario, p. 156.

11. Catnarine Parr Traiil, The Backwoods of Canada (1836)

(Toronto: M&S, l966), pp. 53-4. 12. Traill, Backwoods, p.94.

13. JLA, 12 August, 1811, p.16.

14. Nick and Helma Mika, The Sha~inqof Ontario: From Exploration

to Confederation (Belleville, Ontario: Mika, 1985), p.122.

16. Loris Russell, Evervdav Life in Colonial Canada (London: B.T.

Batsford, 1973, p-186.

17. JLA, 1829, appended.

18. Howard Adams, The Education of Canadians 1800-1867

(Montreai: Harvest House, 1968), pl.

19. C.W. Robinson, Life of Sir John Beverfev Robinson: Chief

Justice of UDD~~Canada (Toronto: Morang and Co., 1904),

p. 184.

20. fat Bird, Of Dust and Time and Dreams and Auonies: A Short 149

Historv of Canadian Peo~le (Willowdale, Ontario: Deyell,

l975), p.207.

21. JLA, petition, 1812, p.16.

22. JLA, Throne Speech (Lieucenant Governor Francis Gore), 6

February 1816, pp.169-70.

23. JLA, 6 February 1816, pp. 207-8.

24. One sees war historically disrupting extant social orders in France (The American War of Independence) and Russia (The First world War); in Canada, the cataclysm of the First World War resulted in, indirectly, women's political suffrage.

25. J. Donald Wilson et al., Canadian Education: A Historv

(Scarborough: Prentice-Hall, 1970), p.192.

26. Susan E. Houston and Alison Prentice, Schoolins and Scholars

in Nineteenth-Centurv Ontario (Toronto, U. of T. Press,

27. Houston and Prentice, Schoolinq, p.27. Chapter Two Struggling Diversity Comon School

"Discerning to fulfill This labour, by slow prudence to make mild A rugged people, and through soft degrees Subdue them to the useful and the good. Most blameless is he, centreà in the sphere Of comrnon duties.,.."

"Ulysses", Alfred, Lord Tennyson.

"'Annual parliamentary grants were made in aid of Common Schools ... but expended without system, and with little advantage to the country. "'(1. )

Egerton Ryerson, 1850, reflecting on the earliest stage of comrnon schooling in Upper Canada, Umer Canada Cornmon Schools Annual

Report (1850).

The Common Schools Act of 1816 was the great step forward, occasioned in large part by the cataclysm of war and the perennial threat of Americanization. In real terms, with ever- dwindling and mysterious finances, appreciabie systematization and centralized structuring did not occur until the Ryersonian period beginning in the 1840s. But what is so crucial about the legislation, passing in that April dourness of 1816, was that the spirit of education for the Province was contingent upon it. Rather than the spirit being the exclusive, sectarian, and partisan support of elitist District Grammar Schools, the spirit began to shift toward the 'comrnon man' arnongst an increasingly diverse population of much more modest resources than was reflected in the District Grammar Schools' intrinsic nature. The

1816 Act is the seedling, planting the state's cornitment into

LegisLation and beginning to nurture the 'living tree' of public education in the Province, which has grown, branched and flourished. Tolerance of diversity is at its root.

J. Donald Wilson argues that the Common School Act of 1816

"marked the first evidence of recognition of the state's responsibility to ensure facilities for the education of the comrnon peopleqU(2.) This was the crucial principle that was to become the foundation for the educational edifice. This legislation allowed Upper Canadians in communities to appoint, for each group or settlement, three trustees. These trustees were empowered to find, to hire, and to dismiss teachers for schools the trustees hab had built. The initial, annual

Provincial grant was 6,000 pounds. Each Common Scnool was entitled to a maximum grant of twenty-five pounds 'per annum.'

Houston and Prentice acknowledge that even with these quite 152 generous funds, the reality was still harsh by today's standards:

".. .prior to the 1840s the schoolhouses were 'generally wretched, ill-vented hovels, with rude and uncomfortable furnishings'.... (T)he majority of ordinary families (still) required their children's labour to keep the family economically afloat. The very poorest would have trouble sending their children to school not only because nearly al1 schools charged some fees, however minimal, but because adequate clothing or shoes rnight be in short supply."(3.)

However, the Cornmon Schools Act of 1816 was a beginning.

The Opper Canadian population's character was, by the close of the War of 1812, denominationally-diverse and quite pluralistic. The social distance then between an Irish-Catholic

"navvy" digging the canals around Bytown, and a High Anglican,

Tory banker was enormous. The Christian sects (smaller, introverted and Protestant) and denominations (larger, extroverted and Protestant - Anglicans, like the Church of

England's adherents, for example) had rigidly demarcated boundaries amongst themselves . And, the gulf between the

Confessional Faiths of the Protestants and the Roman Catholics was of tribal-like proportions. Roman Catholics in Ontario, for example, were not allowed to rnarry non-Roman Catholics until the The battleground for education in Upper Canada really came down to the struggle between the Family Compact's Anglicanism and the numerically largest denomination, the denomination of the

'comrnon man,' Methodism, while the Roman Catholics maintained a separate fastness under Papal authority, the Nagisterium, and their devoted parish priests £rom the earliest days. Jean

Cochrane reflects on the religious tensions abroad in Upper

Canada in her book, The One-Room School in Canada:

"Religious feeling ran high and was a vigorous factor in politics and society. There were passionate factional disputes in which secular power, class structure, control of education and government money were inextricably entangled. It was one of these disputes that brought Canada's patron saint of education riding out of southwest Ontario to challenge an establishment giant.

"This was the heyday of Methodism. Its preachers were riding their circuits in England, in the United States and in Canada's backwoods, gaining hundreds of converts. The establishment didn't aiways find it convenient to tend these scattered flocks, but that didn't mean they were willing to let them go easily into the fold of those so-called non-conformist churches, Those churches were not allowed to own land ... and, in Upper Canada, they were not allowed to benefit from the Clergy Reserves, land set aside to provide income for Protestant clergy. "In Toronto, a powerful, prominent Family Compact figure, Anglican Bishop John Strachan, unleashed a salvo against Methodists in a published sermon. It was answered in print by a 23-year-old Methodist preacher, Egerton Ryerson, a piece of impertinence that set the province buzzing."(4.)

This was the opening shot in a lifelong war of words between

Strachan and Ryerson, and open enmity between Anglicans and

Methodists in Upper Canada.

Methodism and parish Catholicism offered Upper Canadians, especially those in rugged, pioneer settings, great solace and comfort. Itinerant Methodist rninisters and Roman Catholic priests lived and worked amongst their people in the group settlernents. The early community schools emerged as almost missionary concerns, requiring more down-to-earth men than the

Church of England Confession could generally muster. Many

Anglican ministers were "University men," more suited to cornfortable tom-living and regular stipends. The schools needed by the pioneering Upper Canadians were to be complementary to the living conditions: modestly Christian and common. As J. Donald

Wilson notes, the 1816 Common Schools Act in Upper Canada, the first of rnany variations on the same theme, was important because it began a "system of state-supported common schools. This act mark(ed) the beginning of state acceptance of responsibility for the education for the rnasses."(5.) Nothing beyond the meeting of life's basic necessities could have been more important to the people (as opposed to the elite) than common schools. This was a defining moment for the Province of Upper Canada, and for

Ontario. It could very well have been so different, as the original oligarchs from Simcoe and Strachan to the Robinsons were al1 products and enthusiastic disciples of sornething quite uncornmon. Strachan's elitist and Anglican experience at Cornwall

Grammar School was so very nearly writ Province-wide as part of his "Grand Design" for the Church of England in Upper Canada.

Given the unorganized state of the early polity, it really was the Church of England's to lose by truculent sectarianism.

The Common Schools Act of 1816 was enabling and empowering legislation for the variegated populations in the fledgling polity. It allowed, with some small financial support, local communities or small groups of parents to begin to educate formally their children according to their religious Creed or language. In the periphery, the local schools would corne into existence in isolation with considerable autonomy; Anglican control was maintained firmly, however, at the centre by the

District Boards of Education, within the "Pale" of the Family

Compact's politicâl power. Strachan would reach his educational apotheosis as the Chairman of the General Board of Education in

1823, that body being a pillar of "exclusive Anglicanism and

Family Compact elitism."(6.) The new General Board of Education received 190,000 acres of arable land with a view to solidifying a denominational school system with decided Church of England tendencies. This was in addition to the "Clergy Reserves" of 2.5 million acres set aside in Upper Canada for Protestant Clergy with the passage of the Constitutional Act of 1791 that chartered

Upper Canada. A further 500,000 acres had been gained for education in 1797-8, half to be used for Grammar Schools and hali for a proposed- and controversial-Church of England

University.(7) It woula take until 1854, with three decades of bitter, rancorous struggle, to secularize the Clergy Reserves for general education purposes, to wrest from the stranglehold of the

Church of England the Province's abundant resources for the comrnon people, for the common good.(8.)

With the enabling legislation in place and the promise of some srnall sum of money, common schools began to emerge in the clearings of Upper Canada, as the gramrnar schools had in the towns during the 1790s. That they came into existence at al1 owes largely to the work ethic of the local people, pioneers and

çettlers. Local initiative was the order of the day, and it would remain so for the bulk of the nineteenth century. The cornmunity of parents had to construct the school on land it had cleared, hire an appropriate teacher, house and feed him or her, and release their valuable children from chores and agricultural duties. The average annual provincial grant, provided on the basis that a minimum of twenty students appeared on the rolls, was twenty-five pounds in 1817 for each comrnon school; it was thirteen pounds in 1820; and, it was five pounds in 1833 - in an era when a decent craftsman could earn seventy-£ive pounds per annum.(9.) Through the 1820s, the Famiiy Compact bias saw an average salary of one hundred pounds per annum frorn public funds paid to a District Gramrnar school master.(lO.)

Throughout the 1810s, the 1820s, and the 1830s, a fiscal imbalance in education funding reveals a tremendous and persistent class bias. In the schedule of "Appropriations" for the year 1821 in Upper Canada, the nine District Grammar Schools then operating shared nine hundred pounds while hundreds of

Common Schools received only twenty-seven hundrea .pounds.(ll.)

Much of the difference reflects the cost of attracting a university-educated (c1ergy)man £rom Britain to operate a

District Grammar School, and the subsistence amount made available to someone already in Upper Canada, perhaps an indigent

American drifter, unsuited for the laborious wor~of the era, to instruct at a very modest Cormon School. The amount of money per common school dwindled to almost nothing as the number of common schools increased rapidly during the 1820s and 1830s. Not unsurprisingly, during the 1820s, the purse strings were manipulated by Dr. John Strachan, and funds were allocated, in general, as he saw fit. Strachan had near-plenipotentiary powers at this time in Upper Canadian education. The exchequer powers he held as well led to highly charged and divisive sectarian conflicts.

The comrnon schools were, thus, left essentially on their own.

The local communities had to provide the resources for and the denominational direction to the school. The Family Compact had little interest in the education provided by common schools - provided it was loyal and patriotic. Even the language of 159 instruction did not concern them. The few common schools that the Family Compact did concern themselves with were those in the principal towns. These were of interest as their own children might attend them. Such comrnon schools could be used as preparatory academies for a child's subsequent, rigorous grammar school education, if the Family Compact was able to control them.

And, where the Family Compact imposed its will, both Anglican sectarianism and a lavishing of funds were certain results.

In general, the common schools reflected fully the groups they served. R.D. Gidney and D.A. Lawr recount that, until the

1850s, Upper Canadian parents forged education largely in their own image:

"As in much of the rest of North America, the education of children in early Upper Canada was a very persona1 affair. ... (C)ommonly, parents banded together to provide and sustain an elementary school close to home - schools which were simply extensions of the voluntarist, persona1 traditions of early educational provision. From 1816 to 1841, government grants were available to local school supporters, but what went on in schools remained the concern only of the subscribers to that school and the trustees they elected. Such schools, in other words, were not the schools of the comxnunity at large but the parents who supported thernoM(l2.)

Therefore, the education that occurred beyond the Family Compact 160

"Pale" was almost entirely localized, based on the pluralistic,

ethno-centric groups that populated Upper Canada during its

formative years. The pioneering parents were able to set up

schools which catered to their faith, their denomination, tbeir

sect, their language, or their race, without comment £rom the

Lieutenant-Governors or the Family Compact, the de facto

political rulers. These parents could not, however, rely on the

State for significant or consistent financial support. And, at

the educational level of the District Grammar Schools and the

proposed University - situated in the toms where the Church of England dominated - Anglican sectarianism was the rule.

Thus, during the Upper Canadian period, elementary school children - served by their local comrnon schools - were instructed

in the Gaelic language by novice Roman Catholic priests north of

Cornwall amongst the Macdonell Scots and the Glengarry

Highlanders. They were instructed in French amongst the original voyageur outposts and settlernents in the vicinity of Lake St.

Clair. They were instructed in German (known as "Pennsylvania

Deutsch") along the Grand River. They were instructed in predominantly black schools on the Missions established for

"runaway slaves." They were instructed in Roman Catholic 161

catechetical schools arnongst the labouring Irish of the Ottawa

Valley. Or, they were cultivated in the common schools

dominated formally or inforrnally by the - mainly Anglican -

Family Compact in the larger towns.

Harry Smaller describes this Upper Canadian educational world:

"It is important to emphasize that schooling in the early days was a local and cooperative effort especially in the rural farming areas of the province. Often, parents would group together, and if a teacher wasn't readily available they would advertise for one. In some cases, wrltten contracts were drawn up, such as this one drafted by a group of Norfolk County parents in 1826:

"'We the undersigned being deeply impressed with the necessity and utility of giving our children an education, by which they will be enabled to read the word of God and transact their own business - And being desirous and anxious of having a school taught for that desirable purpose - Therefore we mutually agree to engage C.D. Shiemerhorn to teach said school... Said Shiemerhorn is to teach the different branches of reading, writing, Arithmetic, and (E)nglish gramrnar if al1 are required. "' ( 13. )

Reverend John Strachan's power over education at York in the

1820s was almost absolute. Under the spire of the Anglican

proto-Cathedral, Strachan sought to impose the Church of 162

England's dogma on every level of education, from common school to University, in practice and in theory. Such unlimited, unelected power - political and otherwise - however, made

Strachan increasingly harsh and intolerant, truculent and abusive. By the 18205, any opposition came to incense him, to stimulate his scathing and embittered words. Anglican sectarianism in Upper Canada dates, perhaps, to a caustic sermon by Bishop Mountain deriding non-Anglicans as disloyal or, perhaps, the desecration of Strachan's church by intruders in

1820. However, even prior to the War of 1812, Strachan was musing over the acquisition of power: "By an bye, my pupils will be getting forward, some of them perhaps into the House h then I shall have more in my power."(14.) As the 1820s progressed,

Strachan's opponents and enemies became numerous and vocal. In what should have been his crowning achievement - obtaining the

Royal Charter for the proposed University of King's College, delivered into his hand in 1827 - Strachan suffered hls first serious setback in education. He was opposed so firmly by the cornmon will and public protest that the Lieutenant-Governor,

General Sir John Colborne, acted against Strachan's desires.

Colborne was a man to be reckoned with, a shrewd evaluator of 163 conditions. He had fought through the Peninsular Wars and had been at Waterloo, suffering a severe wound. To a man like that,

Strachan was quite resistable and could be stared down despite the latter's formidable ternper and acid tongue. Sir John

Colborne read the public mood perfectly and sensed the Family

Compact had been over-reaching. He determined quickly that

Strachan's drive for a Church of England University had been overly egotistical and premature in the extreme for the

Province's backward conditions and dubious finances. In

Colborne's previous post on Guernsey, he had restored the decrepit preparatory college from the Elizabethan reign,

Elizabeth College, to full academic vitality. He decided on a similar course in Upper Canada.

In 1829, Lieutenant-Governor Colborne chartered a preparatory college in lieu of a University. The preparatory college began that year in the Home District Grammar School's building - known locally as the "Blue School" for its exterior colour. The college was known - in 1829 and 1830 - variously as Colborne

Colleqe, the Royal Grammar School, or the Minor College. The name finally settled upon was Upper Canada College. The Lieutenant-Governor staffed this institution with expensive, polished, and Anglican "Cambridge men," to prepare the sons of the Province's leading families for university in England, articling for the Bar at York, or usefui, polite, Family Compact clientage-positions in the colony.(lS.) Strachan's great prize - the University - was, thus, put on hold by the Lieutenant-

Governor. Upper Canada College was, for Strachan, both a consolation prize and a stepping-stone to the ultimate attainment of a university. It was, however, the struggle for control of the modest common school at York that would be Strachan's great educational denouement, creating a Dreyfus Affair-like incident for Upper Canada that would ignite the long, slow-burning fuse leading to the explosive Insurrections of 1837-1838. Ultimately, these Insurrections helped to topple the Famiiy Compact's regime in Upper Canada: Strachan's flawed and increasingly harsh character, corrupted in the standard Actonian assessrnent by absolute power, became his ruling elite's destiny. The Stone tne builders - Strachan and the Family Compact - rejected became the educational cornerstone of dissent againsc authoritarian and intolerant rule.

The common school at York, under the shadow of the spire of St. James's Church, had grown up almost unnoticed by Strachan and the Family Compact. They had bigger fish to fry in the afterrnath of the War of 1812 - Church Establishment, the defence of the

Province, wealth and property acquisition, the Reserved Lands, issues of loyalty, the University and Anglican seminary, counter- revolutionary activities like the suppression of Robert Gourlay.

Perhaps, to Strachan and the Family Compact's surprise and chagrin, the common school at York was a decided süccess. In his life of Jesse Ketchum, historian E.J. Hathaway comments:

"The Legislative grant in 1819 for Cornmon Schools had been six thousand pounds (twenty-four thousand dollars), but by an amendment passed in 1820 this amount was reduced to twenty-£ive hundred pounds (ten thousand dollars), owing to the fact, as explained to the House at the time, that large amounts which had been set apart for various districts had remained unexpended. On the passing of this amendment the ~istrictBoard of Education, of which Doctor Strachan was Chairman, prornptly stopped the grant to the (cornmon) school at York, without notifying either the teacher or the Trustees, although, obviously, when the Legislative grant for the lesser arnount had been voted no such action had been anticipated. The reduced appropriation, however, furnished an excuse, and the purpose beyond question was to force the issue between Mr. Appleton (the incumbent school-master) and the Trustees and the District Board. If the Trustees were determined to remain fîrm on the question of possession the alternative would be to starve the teacher out.

"The real trouble with the school was that it had been unexpectedly successful. Its name and its fame had been extolled on every hand. The attendance had increased to such an extent that an assistant - John Fenton, afterwards Clerk of St. James' Church - had been engaged to help with the teaching, and parents and Trustees seemed thoroughly satisfied with the progress and attainments of the scholars. It was evident that the authorities, owing to a lack of foresight, had allowed the Cornmon School system in York to slip out of their hands. It would not do for anything of an educational character to be successful unless it were controlled by those in authority of things educational and things spiritual. Thus every effort must be made to get it out of the hands of the people and under the case of those in the confidence of the administration.

"The starvation process proved effective ....

Strachan was, during his life in York, a man of almost unlimited ambition and activity. Had ordained ministers been allowed generalships, he would have been gazetted to Major General comrnanding defensive forces during the War of 1812. Strachan appears, in retrospect, more as politician and aeneralissimo than priest. His idea of justice appears to have been, at this remove, to give only to one's friends and to deprive one's enemies in a covetous fashion, and then to scold one's enernies for any subsequent complaint regarding an unjust or impolitic deprivation. In 1819-1820, Strachan wanted to deprive his rivals of the common school at York. It had prospered so that Strachan wished to bring it within the Anglican fold. And, he had a scheme to bring the Church of England catechism to the "rising generations" of Upper Canadians.

The York Common School had slipped into existence without fanfare in 1818. It was granted a small piece of the College

Square, at Jarvis and Adelaide Streets, a property dominated by the "Blue School" (now the site of Jarvis Collegiate) and not far from the Anglican proto-Cathedral. Mr. Jesse Ketchum, the first

Trustee, saw to the construction of the Comrnon School in a low key fashion. Strachan and the Famiiy Compact were uninterested initially. A Mr.Thomas Appleton arrived in Upper Canada and began teaching in 1819. He was a singular Yorkshireman. A former student remembered him as "... a fierce English pedagogue, who never learned to place his aspirates aright ...."(17.) Appleton was a good teacher by the standards of the Upper Canadian period

- and popular. He claimed his pay - twice - in the regular six- monthly installments from the governrnent's grant. The third installrnent - for the first six months of 1820 - was stopped, however, by Reverend Çtrachan in his capacity as the Choirman of the District Board of Education. Reverend Strachan claimed the stoppage as a necessary economy. Ketchum, Appleton, Mackenzie, and many others, came to know this daim as a blatant dissimulation. Nonetheless, Appleton's pay was withheld once 16 8 and, then, a second time, effectively "starving him out" of his common school by 1821. Thus, Reverend Strachan won the first round, but it was to prove a very hollow victory to accompaniment of tinkling brass.

Strachan attempted to Fnstitute an educational experiment in

Upper Canada which, if successful £rom tne neo-aristocratie perspective, wouid have supplanted the Corrunon Schools. These schools were too often, in the Farnily Compact's view, nurseries for Methodism and republicanism. At York, in 1820, there were only two common schools qualifying for grants. In the more successful and central of the two - the York Cornmon School -

Strachan wanted to re-found something solidly Anglican and, theoretically, inexpensive. A monitorial system had been

àeveloped in England during the late 1700s and, one thinks, rather foisted upon the poorer, labouring districts in the over- populated, industrialized cities and poorer parts of Empire, like

India and Ireland. The English ruling class had been quite content to leave the poor uneducated beyond what their families,

Anglican priests, and cottages could provide. In England, with the Industrial Revolution, there was a need for a more disciplined and regimented work force than could ordinarily be found in the urban slums. Two voluntary societies - the

Lancastrian System for the Education of the Poor (the British and

Foreign School Society) and the National Society for Promoting the Education of the Poor in the Principles of the Established

(Anglican) Church (the National Society) - carried the monitorial system throughout the British Empire. Wherever the British flag was hoisted, in an Empire on which the Sun was reputed to never set, school rooms had brass studs driven into the floor in a serni-circle, indicating that a monitor had instructed his numerous, neatly-arrayed, youthful and unpaid assistants, who would gather in an organized fashion to hear his daily instructions. The systern was schooling whereby the teacher would instruct older students who would, in turn, instruct their own classes of still younger students. It appears quite like the

Christ-Apostles-disciples relationship, for it hinged on a profound imbuing of unquestioning obedience, dogrnatic religious tenets, a sectarian catechism, and strict, irnmediate obedience.

The disciplinary relarionship was crucial in an education system premised upon a fourteen year-old semi-scholar's ability to manage a boisterous class of eight year-olds and to instruct

Latin conjugations in a meaningful and coherent fashion.

Appleton's former student recalls the inherent problem at the "National (National Society) School" that supplanted the Comrnon

School in 1821, under the indirect tutelage of a Mr. Spragg(e):

"... 1 never could 'get the hang' of the Lancastrian system, ernployed by (the "National School"). Drill and parade seldom do much for children; there must be more personal contact with the teacher's mind ...."(18.) Sir Peregrine Maitland, the contemporary Lieutenant-Governor, who preferred his peregrinations in scenic Niagara and his pastoral idyll to his task of leadership in the Province, stood by Strachan and the

Famiiy Compact over this educational initiative.

Thus, Strachan's growing hatred of Methodism was allowed, in a genteel guise, to hold sway at York but at the expense of much political capital. The National - an equal misnomer in plusalistic Upper Canada to the National (Education Board)

Schools in Roman Catholic Ireland - School at York was to be the first of hundreds in Strachan's grand, Church of Enqland scheme.

The method of instruction was pioneered independently by Joseph

Lancaster (Non-conformist) in the poorer , industrial parts of

London, and Andrew Bell (Church of England). Dr. Bell had invented his system along Anglican lines while living in Virginia and in India. Bell had been a superintendent of an orphan1s boys' school in Madras, India. He waxed eloquent about the virtues of his systern for education: "'The system rests on the simple principle of tuition bv the scholars themselves ....(g iving a solitary schoolmaster infinite) powers."'(l9.) Bell's version allowed for an imposing Anglican (quite often a Minister) to

'instruct' 120 to 200 students. Thomas Hardy, in his grim, thanatological novel, Jude the Obscure (1896), notes that the

"National Schools" in England were supported by several Church of

England Societies. In Upper Canada, the National School was quite likely supported financially by the Society for the

Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts, Strachan's favourite

Established Church Society. The provided education was, plain, simple, and catechetical, with The Book of Common Praver taking precedence over The Bible. In Upper Canada, Strachan dreamt of replacing each Common School with a National School, that would have been impervious to Americans, Republicans, Methodists,

Dissenters and Atheists. Such a school system would have led inexorably on, the Family Compact intended, to Church

Establishment in Upper Canada, creating in the Province another unfortunate Ireland. It was, for Strachan, a beguiling and all- consuming illusion. And, by holding too tightly to this and other Establishment and Tory illusions, and by being harshly 172

intolerant of any resistance, opposition, or criticism, Strachan

and the Family Compact would lose a most marvellous Province that

was certainly theirs for the taking until the second half of the

1820s when, for the first the, the Family Compact found itself

publicly against the common will and "in a minority."(20.)

The archival material on the first National School master

sent out from Engiand is certainly revealing. In The Town of

York 1815 - 1834, archivist Edith G. Firth has assembied

illuminating documents. Amongst these is a letter from the great

English abolitionist, William Wilberforce, to the young man

hurrying to Upper Canada, Joseph Spragg. Wilberforce's postscript

appears below:

"'1 ought to have mentioned to you that in order to executing the office of Schoolmaster in Canada, it will be necessary for you to have learnt the National System, which 1 presume any one of tolerable capacity would do in 6 or 7 weeks. 1 have perhaps improperly taken for granted that you are either a member of the Church of England or that you have no such objections to its formularies as to prevent your being a teacher in a National School. "'(21.)

In a further letter, Wilberforce wrote to the Secretary for the

Colonies, Lord Bathurst. In an aside, Wilberforce commented, "'1 cannot Say that He (Spragg) has particularly fascinated me. "'(22. )

It appears the introduction of a National School at York had little to do with educational merit. Strachan was driving for

Church Establishment and this was a fundamental issue. In a cavalier, post facto justification of the administration's actions, hinting at the potential for producing Young, Church of

England seminarians to work in the Upper Canadian Dackwoods, the

Lieutenant-Governor, Sir Peregrine Maitland, wrote officially to

Lord Bathurst in the most simperingly patriotic and cloyinqly loyal - loyalty being the political currency of Upper Canada - of terrns :

" ' It was to oppose. . . intrusion (American Methodist infiltration)... that (we) had lately established a Central School upon the British National plan in this Town.. .. (P)ersons educated at the Central School under the eye of the Government and selected by it, as well qualified, and of sound principles, would become the only instructors of youth in this Province, to the exclusion not only of American Masters, but of their Republican apparatus of Grammars and lesson-books ; al1 of which, are studiously composed with a view to installing principles into the pupil's mind unfriendly to our form of Government . "' ( 2 3. )

When painted into a corner politically, reported on unfavourably by their opponents, and asked to give an accounting by the remote 174 Colonial overlords, the Family Compact was usually quite willing to raise the issue of loyalty. This was a sensitive issue to

Methodists like Egerton Ryerson. Thouqh he was as loyal to the

British Crown as Strachan, albeit in a much less overt fashion,

Ryerson's church - the Methodist Episcopal Church - was, ultimately, under American ecclesiastical jurisdiction up until

1828. And, it was an American i~stitutionthat granted Ryerson's honorary Doctor of Divinity degree much later, and which oràained many Methoàist ministers preaching in the Upper Canadian wilderness. When Strachan overreached or dissembled - as he did with increasing frequency throughout his political career - the

Farnily Compact would close ranks behind and question the loyalty of opposing groups, as the Methodists of Upper Canada would learn to their chagrin.

Through the 1820s, Appleton protested quietly and wrote letters regarding his ill-treatment. Ketchum spoke out diplomatically. Mackenzie agitated in print. The Family Compact instalied its most prominent rnembers as the Board of Governors for the new National School. In 1828, with the election of

Mackenzie and Ketchum ta the House of Assembly, the Legislature 175

began to probe the affair. The Legislative Assembly established

a "Select Cornmittee" to attend to the petition of Thomas

Appleton, Esq., of the Town of York. The Cornmittee reported on

its extensive hearings in the ~ppendicesof the 1828 Journal of

the Legislative Assernblv.

It transpired, the Committee discovered, that >Ir. Spragg had been imported on Strachan's persona1 authority and had been

remunerated at a rate of two hundred-and-fifty pounds annually compared to twenty pounds annually denied to Mr. Appleton.(24.)

Mr. Spragg had been directed to cultivate the faith of the Church of England and instruct through the method of "experiential

emulation."(25.) The Committee members, Legislative Assemblymen,

found much to their displeasure as their hearings proceeded more deeply into the Appleton matter. They found widely disproportionate support by Strachan, then President of the

Generai Board of Education, for the Church of England National

School. The Reverend Strachan was never shy about his faith,

however. He wrote: "'The Church of England exhibits in her

Frayer Book a clearness, and deepness of religious feeling, no where to be equalled except in the Bible itself.'"(26.) Clearly,

in his view, Strachan considered Anglicanism the purest Christian specimen - for him there were likely only two kinds of men, Anglicans and those who wished they were. .

The Select Cornmittee set to work gathering evidence and hearing from witnesses. The Legislative Assernblymen were annoyed to discover that Appleton had been deprived of his school after a period of fine teaching in the common interest. And they were outraged at the discrepancies in financing between Common School and National School (as a National School the York Commofi School took name of the Central School):

"If the sum appropriated to the Central School were distributed as an encouragement to schools in the interior of the country, where money is scarce, and the patronage both needed and deserved, it would be most beneficially felt in every township of the Home DistrictOM(27.)

Appleton gave the following evidence in his petition to the

Legis lative Assernbly :

lt 1 ... the Board of Education instead of dispensing the public money agreeably to the express provisions of the School Act, have determined that a certain number of schools only, in this district, shall, as your petitioner is informed, participate therein; the said schools so participating, being of course arbitrarily selected contrary to the intention of the legislature in passing the said act (The Comrnon Schools Act of 1817), which expressly provides, that a certain sum shall be equally apportioned to the teachers' comrnon schools in each district, without limitation of number.'"(28.)

Appleton's only sin was his occupation, with his thirty-seven charges, of something Strachan coveted for Mr. Spragg and his sixty-three charges. Dr. Strachan appears to have had a curious elision regarding the Comrnandment pertaining to covetousness.

The Cornrnittee next examined the evidence of a Mr. William P.

Patrick, a former Trustee of the York Comrnon School. The record states:

"... that while he was a trustee for the York common school house, he (Mr. Patrick) remembers being requested by Dr. Strachan to attend an Anglican Sunday school meeting at his (Strachan's) church; and that while attending at that place according to his request, Dr. Strachan informed him that his Exceilency the Lieutenant Governor had sent to England for a schoolmaster for the purpose of teaching a common school in York.. . .

"Further states, that after Mr. Spragg (the approved teacner) arrived from England, and sometime after Mr. Appleton had commenced teaching, at a scnool meeting of some description, of the trustees and stock holders, &c. of said school, Dr. Strachan came there and wished the trustees still to give the preference to Mr. Spragg, as a teacher, but the trustees being at the time well satisfied with the conduct and abilities of Mr. Appleton, and having passed for more than a year, they came to a resolution, that they could not with propriety accede to the Doctor's requesL"(29.)

Mr. Spragg was then called by the Select Committee to give evidence. Strachan had introduced Spraqo €rom Dr. Bell's centrql

National School in London, Englsnd, using his mighty but ill- defined authority. Mr. Spragg's evidence was succinct. After acknowledging that students' families paid two shillings six pence per month per student, and that he had receiveà one hundred-and-fifty pounds in public grants the previous year

(1827), Spragg said:

"Dr. Bell's system is in accordance with the established church (the Church of England); and, in my school, 1 use the church catechism, and a collect at morning and evening prayer. But the children are not taught the church catechism, when their parents object to iteN(30.)

Modern parents will have heard the same disclaimer given over

"sex education;" few children can avoid it easily regardless of the parents' best intentions. And, few children, one surmises, avoided the Anglican catechism at the National School.

Mr. Jesse Ketchumts evidence was telling. Ketchum had been 3- a trio h CCdUE

a 3 tr 4 al c ,x -2 g mOaJC-4 3 cl -4.ri k3.4tr . aiocx3 U tr aJ k cdfiar aarh C c, WOG a, a .. -4 Qi tn Q, iI C 4 - a O k4aJ ara .cJ QI TY O aaa 04dU d 4J aJ d ac,-4 Q) rd T3uaJvtn ci a 0 GulG G rtl uax-4 =f III aJ 4Jac Odkd 4J ci a, c a O vik os0 - E a Q) auoa; Vl al k 24 (dcm Q,k 304- Id 3 c, & 0.4 dk U O fdoga W r: a k O rd aJ a -,"Eo acu +,a0 ffl vl-ldhk tdtl=1-4 d w U 6'4 rd c39Eu-l Oaikrd'u bkrd "1 was between four and five years a scholar and had learned to read and write before I went to the school called the Central School taught by Mr. Spragg.

"The best scholar in each class is appointed a teacher of such class. Some of them pay attention to their classes and others R9t.

"1 think the scholars in the Central School do not progress £aster in the different branches of learning taught in that school, than in the common school in York."(32.)

This, and other similar evidence, appears particularly damning to the National School venture. Mr. Spragg never enrolled more than twice the number of scholars that Mr. Appleton had, but he was remunerated constantly by the State by at least tenfold

Appleton's allotment. An irate chairrnan Wilson delivered a stinging rebuke to the Famiiy Compact and Strachan:

"This national school, it appears, has been supported out of the revenues of the province, without the knowledge and consent of parliament; and your committee regret, that it should have been further supported by an injury to the other common schools, which, notwithstanding the injustice, have, £rom their usefulness and merit, met with public supportDM(33.)

In such a public pronouncement, the general spirit - quiet,

Christian, progreççively conservative, just and tolerant - of the common people was given its first voice in the matter of education, in opposition to the elitisrn and chicanery of the

Family Compact. Mr. Wilson continued, gathering the wind of righteous public indignation into his sails, and denounced

Strachan's actions. His voice echoed the common disquiet at the perpetrated injustices:

"Upon examining the progress made by some of the children in the national school, and comparing it with the progress made by others in the comrnon school, in a far shorter time, your committee find the latter have made a far greater proficiency."(34.)

Mr. Wilson reached his peroration with a sharpness of speech unusual for an era of classically-trained, rhetorical speakers.

The Chairman condemned the arbitrariness of the General Board - the educational wing of the sectarian Family Conpact's regime of clientage and patronage - which undoubtedly aided in the Board's demise in the early 1830s. The chairman concluded:

"... it appears the board have exercised an arbitrary power ....

"The national school is founded upon Mr. Bell's system, and is professedly adherent to the church of England - and, therefore, ought not to supported by the revenues of a country struggling against ecclesiastical exclusion."(35.)

Strachan shared the pan-Englishness of many men of that time within Empire, especially the ruling upper-crust and the administrators, both spiritual and secular. In a recent biography of British politician William Gladstone - born in 1809 and four tirnes serving as Prime Minister - one can see much commonality with Strachan. In American journalist George F.

Will's thoughtful review of Roy Jenkins's Gladstone, Will writes:

"Gladstone began his public career an unbending Tory, convinced that a (Church of England) confessional state was both practicable and desirable. He even believed that anyone who was not a communicating member of the Church of England should be ineligible for public service jobs. Jenkins notes drily, 'The plenitude of Gladstone's extremity was underlined by his one rnoderate concession: the doctrine might be difficult to apply in fndia. "'(36.)

Or in Upper Canada, as Strachan - a man cut £rom the same cloth - was to find out. Upper Canada was neither India nor Ireland, fortunately for the cornrnon Upper Canadians.(37.) Strachan, like the Young, dogrnatic Gladstone felt his Church of England convictions deeply, was an "unbending Tory", and was not above

"disabling" other Christians and their groups. Had Strachan had his way entirely throughout Upper Canada, as he so nearly did - 183 and as he certainly did in his own bailiwick at York/Toronto - the CoLony would have resembled unhappy Ireland into this century. It was a fate Ontario was fortunate to have avoided.

In 1828, however, Strachan, as the educational Napoleon of

Upper Canada, began his long retreat, in savage bitterness, from his metaphorical Moscow. His dream, Save for an embittered, powerful rearguard action throughout the rest of his long life, was either dying or dead. The gentleman- prime monitor, Joseph

Spragg, caught a full blast from Strachan's deep well of bitterness when the former waç suspended without pay for continually oversleeping on school days. Edith G. Firth's documentary evidence notes that Spragg was removed as teacher for a time due to a "lack of punctuality": the bigger boys had frequently to teach the smaller boys entirely in Spragg's absence from the school for which he was the prime monitor.(38.)

Appleton struggled on with Yorkshire detemination for redress. His appeal was heard by the Cornmittee of the House of

Assembly in 1828. The matter was not settled there, though what the Committee heard is considered likely to have lit the fuse for the uprisings in 1837, a claim stoutly denied by the Spragg(e) 184

farnily.(39.) In 1832, the matter was considered by the Coionial

Office in Westminster, England. The matter was returned to the

House of Assembly in 1835, and re-emerged somewhat later in

Mackenzie's Grievances. Appleton, the dutiful teacher, remained unpaid. But his voice, echoed by Mr. Ketchum and Mr. Wilson, broadcast by Mr. Ryerson, amplified by Mr. Mackenzie, reverberated around the fledgling Province. In a 'Petition of the Magistrates, Clergy, Gentry, and others, Inhabitants of the

Town of Kingston,' the Trustees of the District School aï

Kingston asked for greater State support of education in the

Midland District. The gentle petitioners lamented the gross self-interest of the Farnily Compact at York, as the latter continually gave full support to Reverend Strachan's rernarkably expensive and centralized educational schemes and experiments.

Apparentiy, the headmaster of their successful District Grammar

School at Kingston had had his State salary withdrawn. The funds thus reserved by Strachan had been, in preference, "given to the

Master of the Public School (Upper Canada College) at York."(40.)

So, Thomas Appleton's thoughtful voice was joined by the voices, words, and petitions of numerous Upper Canadians in widespread and variegated opposition to the Family Compact's hegemonic and unaccountable political rule at York, and its closely allied Church of England's sectarianism. Appleton's quietly defiant spirit was blended with many others beginning teaching and pioneering in Upper Canada to create a general spirit and cornrnon will for schools and schooling. If the pluralistic populations and their "rising generations" were to be educated - and the foundations of Ontario's education system laid

- the elite, established interest had often to be opposed by the many. And, in the 1820~~Strachan began with his educational scheming, his self-indulgent profligacy, his invective - in the face of growing, fluent opposition - to dribble away the Family

Compact's awesorne and real political capital, as he clutched too tightly to his dream of Church and State in Upper Canada. His self-righteous attacks on those groups who opposed his dream - durinq the 1820s and long thereafter - would not be forgotten or

f orgiven. Notes

1. The Chief Superintendent of Schools, Egerton Ryerson,

'Introductory Sketch of the System of Public Elementary

Education in Upper Canada', Uo~erCanada Common Schools

Annual Re~ort(18501, appended (No.1).

2. J. Donald Wilson et al., Canadian Education: A Historv

(Scarborough: Prentice-Hall, 1970), p.200.

3. Susan E. Houston and Alison Prentice, Schoolina and

Scholars in Nineteenth-Centurv Ontario (Toronto: Lof T.

Press, 1988), pp. 53-6.

4. Jean Cochrane, The One-Room School in Canada (Toronto:

Fitzhenry & Whiteside,l981), pp.9-10.

5. Wilson, Canadian Education, p.190.

6. Howard Adams, The Education of Canadians 1800 - 1867

(Montreal: Harvest House, 1968), pp.6-8. 7. Adams, TheEducation, p.38.

8. Adams, The Education, p.38.

9. Wilson, Canadian Education, pp. 200-1.

10. Wilson, Canadian Education, p.201.

11. JLAI Appended No. 16, 1828, p.314.

12. %K. Johnson and Bruce G. Wilson (Eds.), Historical Essavs

on Uooer Canada (Ottawa: Carleton U.P., 1991), Number

146, p.374.

13. Harry Smaller, 'Teachers and Schools in Early Ontario',

Ontario Historv, Vol. LXXXV, No.4, Dec. 1993, p.293.

14. Gerald M. Craig, DCB, Vol. IX 1861-1870 (Toronto: U. of T.

Fress, 1976), p.751.

15. Henry Scadding and John C. Dent, Toronto - A Mernorial

Volume for the Semi-Centennial of 1884 (Toronto: Hunter, Rose and Company, 1884), p.iO8.

16. E.J. Hathaway, Jesse Ketchum and His Times - Beinq a

Chronicle of the Social Life and Public Affairç of the

Capital of the Province of Umer Canada durina- its First

Hal£ Centurv (Toronto: M&SI 1929), pp.115-6.

17. Edith G. Firth (ed.), The Town of York i815 - 1834

(Toronto: U. of T. Press, 1966), p.143.

18. Firth, York, pA43

19. JLA, Appended as the 'Report on the Petition of T.

Appleton', 1828.

20. Scadding, Toronto, p.149.

21. Firth, York, p.146.

22. Firth, York, p.146, footnote.

23. firth, York, pJ5O. 24. JLA, 'Appleton', 1828.

25. JLA, 'Appleton', 1828.

26. LN. Bethune, Memoir of Bishop Strachan (Toronto: Henry

Russell, 1870), p.374.

27. JLA, 'Appleton', 1828.

28. JLA, 'Appleton', 1828.

29. A,'Appleton', 1828.

30. JLA, 'Appleton', 1828.

31. JLA, 'Appleton', 1828.

32. JLA, 'Appleton', 1828.

33. JLA, 'Appleton', 1828.

34. JLA, 'Appleton', 1828. 35. JLA, 'Appleton', 1828.

36. George F. Will (review), "Gladstone, Bagged"

National Review, April 7, 1997, p.46.

37. In the August 3, 1999, Obituary of Indian wrirer Nirad

Chaudhuri - who succumbed at the age of 101 years - in the

National Post, it is clear even in the waning of tnis

century now pervasive was the British, tory influence in tne

English-speaking universe during the nineteenth century:

"The son of a small landowner and magistrate, Nirad Chandra Chaudhuri was born in Kishorganj in East Bengal, now Bangladesh .... Young Nixad had no contact with either Englishmen or anglicized Indians, but he was so steeped in British influence that, at the age of ten (1907), a neighbour found him walking dong a country road reciting Nelson's signal before the Battle of Trafalgar: 'England expects ....'

In the dedication to a book he had written, ML Chaudhuri waxed: "'To the memory of the British Empire in India, which conferred subjecthood on us but withheld citizenship; to wnich yet every one of us threw out the challenge: 'Civis Britannicus sum' because al1 that was good and living witnin us was made, shaped and quickened by the same British rule. " 38. Firth, York, p.143., footnote.

39. In an article, 'The Upper Canada Central School', (O.H.S. VoLXXXII 1937), by Dr. George W. Spragge, D. Paed., Joseph Spragg's descendant defends the honour of his family namo 2nd serves 3s Family C~mp=c+-=?dqigt. Dr. Spragge argues that the York Comrnon School building had been promised Reverend Strachan by an unidentified trustee prior to Mr. Appleton's employment in 1819. The controversy and confusion occurred, Spragge maintains, solely as a result of the delay in finding in England a suitable Anglican educator to be the first National School master in Upper Canada. Communications across the Atlantic Ocean with William Wilberforce in the search for a suitable candidate were greatly protracted by the slowness of the mails in those days. Joseph Spragg, aged forty-five years old, arrived in York during 1820, a full year later than Strachan had hoped or pianned. Appleton, replacing the York Common School's first master, a Baptist minister named Alexander Stewart, had gone about his teaching while the controversy and confusion grew outside the school building. Dr. Spragge places the blame for this "slight incident"(p.174) squarely on the shoulders of the Trustees of the York Common School circa 1818. Of the three Trustees, one had "apparently... agreed" privately to accede ta Strachan's wishes at some unspecified time.(p.l75) Dr. Spragge wrote: "Actually the action of the trustees in confirming Mr. Appleton's appointment after Mr. Spragge's arrival, in contravention of the promise ...was...a high-handed proceeding in itself, and little blarne can be attached to (Lieutenant-Governor)Maitland or Strachan ...."(p. 175) By September, 1820, Appleton was out, Spragg was in, and Stracnan's National School scheme was materially under way. It would be eight years before Appleton received his fair hearing, and decades before his final appeal was heard. No one ever named - or has since named - the mystery Trustee who allegedly colluded with Strachan. In 1822, Maitland received permission from the Colonial Office to use revenues derived from the University Reserves - so heavily used to finance Upper Canada College during its first decade - to support "Schools on the National plan of Ed~cation"~(p.178). In 1828, the House of Assembly's Select Committee reported that Appleton was to be paid "what was due him".(p.182) Clearly, though, the Legislative Council blocked this payment, for Appleton was forced, in 1832, to appeal in England for his payment. The National School lost its State support in 1844, with Spragg then aged seventy years old. The Upper Canada Central School was closed as the result. Spragg was left, ultimately, like Appleton, uncompensated for his final year's teaching. Dr. Spragge argued the historical consensus that has emerged is due to the Reforrn-minded historians - writing in the 1830s and 1840s - who wanted revenge on Strachan for his success with regard to the University Charter. Spragge staunchly defends the Family Compact's position and actions in this matter, nailing his colours to the mast of Anglican Church and State: "Maitland's efforts to form another England in the new continent are both understandable and laudable."(p.l82)

40. JLA, Appended, District Education Reports, 1830. 19 3 Chapter Three: Struggling With Diversity - Anti-Establishment

"For, it is evident enough, a National. ..Church can be of the highest service to the State, if properly under control. The State wishes to rnake its subjects peaceful and obedient; and there is nothing more fitted to effect this object than religion .... Decency, order, industry, patience, sobriety ...this is its list of requisites .... Useful, sensible preaching, activity in benevolent schemes, the care of schools, the superintendence of charities, good advice for the thoughtless and idle ...these are the duties of a National ... Established Church. The parochial clergy are to be a moral police; as to the Bishops, they are to be officers of a State- religion.. . ."(1.)

John Henry Cardinal Newman, Certain Difficulties Felt Bv Analicans in Catholic Teachino Considered in Twelve Lectures addressed in 1850 to the Partv of the Reliaious Movement of 1833, Lecture VI.

"The effects of establishing a minor church with exclusive privileges and resources over a dissenting rnajority of the population of a country, have been exemplified in unhappy Ireland.... Against the project, therefore, of erecting the Protestant Episcopal Church in this Province into a dominant Church (although inferior in point of numbers to several other Churches) deciaring her form of religion to be the established religion and granting them a monopoly of the Clergy Reserves, and a control of the education of youth ... we are constrained. ..to remonstrate ...."(2.)

Zournals of the Leaislative Assemblv, 1828, Appended - 'Report on the Petition of Christians of Different Denominations in Upper Canada' by a Select Committee.

"...by an Act of Parliament of Great Britain, 3ist GEO. 3rd(1791), one-seventh of the lands of this Province was set apart for the support of a Protestant Clergy.

"That under that Act appropriations have from time to time been made, and which appropriations are, in this Province, known by the name of the 'Clergy Reserves'; - that these appropriations having been generally made in lots of two hundred acres, throughout the several Townships of this Province, the value of the same has been much enhanced by the settlement of the country, and principally for the improvement of the lands in the neighbourhood of such appropriations, by the labor of inhabitants composed of various denorninations of Christians; - that these Reserves being so interspersed with the lands of actual settlers, have materially retarded the irnprovement of the country; - that by an Act passed the Reign of His late most Gracious Majesty, provision was made for the sale of a portion of the said Reserves; - that it was unjust, as well as impolitic, to appropriate the said lands to the support of any one Church exclusively, and it is extremely difficult, if not altogether impracticable, to apportion or divide the same among the Clergy of al1 denominations of protestants; - that a large majority of the inhabitants of this Province are sincerely attached to Your Majesty's Person and Government, but are adverse to the establishment of any exclusive or dominant Church... that to terminate the jealousy and dissension which have hitherto existed on the subject of the said Reserves - to remove a barrier to the Settlement of the country, and to provide a fund available for the promotion of Education, it is extremely desirable that the said lands, so reserved, be sold, and the proceeds arising from the sale of the same placed at the disposa1 of the Provincial Legislature, to be applied exclusively for that purpose .... (1)n such a manner as may be considered most expedient for the advancement of Education."(3.)

The Legislative Assembly's Speaker, Archibald McLean, on December 14, 1831, addressing the Lieutenant Governor in the House of Assembly prior to the introduction of a Bill regarding the Reserved Lands, Journal of the Leaislative Assemblv, 1831.

Dr. Strachan was in a position of double jeopardy in 1828. The young Methodist missionary, Egerton Ryerson, was like the morning star to Strachan's late-afternoon Sun. Througnout the l82Os, Strachan had been conveying to the rnetropole across the

Atlantic Ocean, in his capacity as the de facto head of the

Church of England in Upper Canada, an erroneous picture of Upper

Canada's denominational make-up. In particular, Strachan had delivered a very false sense in his reports to Lord Goderich, head of the Colonial Department in London, England. Strachan had alhded ;O a clear Anglican majority on the northern shores of

Lake Ontario, adducing precious little evidence beyond ecclesiastical anecdotes and colourful conjectures.

In the 'Report on the Petition of Christians of Different

Denorninations in Upper Canada', the Select Cornmittee empowered to investigate the petition was highly critical of Strachan. The

Select Committee's Chairman , the Legislative Assemblyman,

Marshall S. Bidwell - son of the highly controversial Barnabas

Bidwell, who was evicted £rom the House on an issue of "Loyalty" by the agents of the Farnily Compact - noted that Strachan's evidenciary basis was almost entirely "without the means of reference to sources of authentic information" other than personal opinio~(4.) Bidwell continued his denunciation of 196 Strachan's truthfulness - for which he would pay a heavy personal forfeit later when legal authorities enquired into his allegiance and lovaltv - by remarking that, in Upper Canada, the Church of

England had been the "religion of those high in office and been supported by their influence and countenanced more than any other church by the favour of the Executive Government."(S.)

Up until the late-1820s, Strachan appeared to hold al1 the cards - educational, cultural, ecclesiaçtical, political, legal and financial. Al1 power was his, as the virtual Prime Minister of Upper Canada. Kowever, by 1828, Bidwell's Select Committee was illustrative of the fact that Strachan's power was being challenged across the broad denominational front of Upper

Canadian colonial life. Bidwellts Committee concluded:

"There can be no doubt that in addition to the Methodists there are, in the Province, several denorninations of Christians who are more numerous than the members of the Church of England .... A country in which there is an established church, from which the vast majority of subjects are dissenters, must be in a lamentable state: the committee hope that this province will never present such a spectacle ...."(6.)

The "spectacle" and spectre of benighted, "unhappy Ireland" was never far from the minds of Upper Canadian legislators. To many 197 ordinary Upper Canadians, Church Establishment, let alone Church of England Establishment, would have consequences of the intractably Irish variety - including centuries-old enmity and stunted economic growth. That fate was always in the cards while

Strachan and the Family Compact held almost complete political power in Upper Canada.

It is clear that Strachan and the Family Compact were, by the late-1820~~working against the Upper Canadian grain, even as he clutched the sectarian Royal Charter for the University of King's

College. Strachan was to have been the University's first

President. The lion's share of the reserved lands, and any revenues they could generate, were required by him to ensure a suitably grand University for him to preside over. The

Petitioners of Midland District reflected on the wholly inappropriate sectarian use of Reserve revenues in a new country with a "mixed population," of whom it was likely no more than twenty per cent were practising Anglicans.(7.) By the late-

1820s, the favoured and "favourite church" - the Church of

England - was becoming increasingly unpopular in Upper

Canada.(8.) It was no doubt, in part, a consequence of the Bidwell

Cornmittee's Report and petitions like the Midland yeomen's rnusings that caused the thoughtful and politically-astute

Lieutenant-Governor, Sir John Colborne, to proceed with Solomon- like wisdom in his Throne Speech of 1829:

"The Lieutenant Governor, acquaints the House of Assembly, that His Majesty's Secretary of State for the Colonies has acknowledged the receipt of a Despatch with an Address from the House of Assembly of the last Parliament, praying that the monies arising from the sale of lands set apart in this Province for the support and maintenance of a Protestant Clergy, may be placed at the disposa1 of the Legislature of the Province for defraying the expense of certain public works for tne interna1 improvement of the country, and for the promotion of general Education; and praying that the University recently endowed, may be established on more comprehensive principles, than those on which it is placed by the present Charter."(S.)

One senses that Colborne had listened to the voices echoing £rom the Legislative Assemblymen's Committee-room as they raked through Strachan's ashes in the wake of the Appleton hearings.

Though Sir John Colborne WOU^^ deliver to Strachan a partial prize - an endowed Upper Canada College - he denied his support to a sectarian University. Colborne's role was always a fine balancing act, as he was the King's representative in Upper

Canada, and the King was the Supreme Head of the Church of 199 England. Strachan would have been very quick to remind Colborne of the King's dual authority over matters secular and spiritual.

But Strachan, who had accomplished his best achievements by lurking behind the political arras where accounting was at a minimum, must have felt himself, like the gloomy Danish prince,

"too much in the Sun," as Committee after Committee ünder the

House of Assembly's aegis evaluated his activities in the naked light of day. The baleful glare of the Clergy Reserve issue would catch him, Icarus-like, too close to the Sun.

"The natural advantages of the Province of Upper Canada are inferior to none on this side of the Atlantic; there can be no separate interests through its whole extent; the British form of government has prepared the way for its speedy colonization, and 1 trust that your fostering care will improve the favourable situation and that a nurnerous and agricultural people will speedily take possession of a soi1 anà a clirnate which under the British laws, and the munificence with which His Majesty has granted the lands of the Crown, offer such superior advantages to al1 who live under its government."(lO.)

Throne Speech of Lieutenant Governor John G. Simcoe at the First Upper Canadian parliament, Newark, September 17, 1792. "1 attribute the backwardness of Sandwich in respect of population to the unfortunate circumstance of the Township having a vast quantity of Crown and Clergy Reserves, yet

there is a prospect of their being disposed of, 1 think it will increase ...."(11.)

The evidence of the Honourable James Baby, Legislative Councillor for the Sandwich (Windsor) area, in the 'Report on Western School District'.

Initially, of course, after the Conquest of the French dominions in northern North America, al1 the land came into possession of the British Crown. After the division of the

Colony of Quebec in 1791, the land cornprising the Province of

Upper Canada was the Crown's to dispose of once having been purchased, treated, or wrested £rom its original aboriginal population. The British Crown dispensed the land through the agencies of the Upper Canadian government. In many cases land was granted to pensioned or invalided soldiers, and to the dispossessed of the former Rmerican Colonies. In the

Constitutional Act of 1791, larger areas or tracts of land were set aside, including 2.5 million acres of arable land in Upper 201

Canada, or one-seventh of the whole for the exclusive use of the

Protestant Clergy. A further one-seventh was set aside as Crown

Reserves, or what is called today, "Crown Lands." This meant, in practical terms, the Church of England had at its disposa1 what became known as the "Clergy Reserves." The wealth accrued from the disposal of these lands was clutched by the agents of the Family Compact, sucn as Peter Robinson, who settled displaced

Irish around his eponymous community, Peterborough. Peter

Robinson incurred such tremendous debts with his settlement schemes, that his brother, John Beverley Robinson, had to discharge them. John Strachan became, effectively, 'Warden of the

Clergy Reserves'. The Family Compact's stranglehold on these lands was not broken entirely until the 1850s, when they were secularized. It was during the conflicts over the reserved lands that Egerton Ryerson emerged as David to Strachan's Goliath.

Egerton Ryerson was born in 1803. He was of United Empire

Loyalist stock and Dutch heritage. Ryerson had not been educated at the Cornwall Grammar School. Ryerson's forefathers were tne

Ryerzoon, Dutchmen who came to New Amsterdam, later New York.

During the American Revolution, the Ryersons maintained theix loyalty to the British Crown and were, as a consequence, dispossessed. Ryerson converted at the age of eighteen years

from the Church of England to Methodism, having been impressed by

the fervour of the saddle-back ministers of his youth, as they

taught The Bible on their circuits through Upper Canada. His

Church of England father sent him out of his house for his conversion; but, Egerton was the fourth of £ive brothers to

become a Methodist minister nonetheless. Methodism quickly

became the most popularly-subscribed denomination in Upper

Canada, with a rugged, Norch Arnerican army of ministers and

laymen - hardy sons of the pioneers, who could usefully roll

their sleeves up and earn their keep on the final six days of the

week - that the particular Strachan could never begin to rival.

Ryerson wet his feet in the political arena over the question

of privileged land. While he was serving as missionary arnongst

the salmon-fishing Mississaugas (Ojibwa), at the mouth of the

Credit River on Lake Ontario, Ryerson came to York to testify

against the Church of England's exclusive control of reserved

lands in 1826. Methodist ministers had an especial grievance

with the theocratic rule of the Church of England. They had been excluded from owning land, amongst a number of

"disabilities", which rankled greatly as the Church of England ministers owned immense tracts of land - in addition to their rectories - of which they had had to purchase little. Ryerson wrote of his early dissent to the discriminatory practices in

Upper Canadian political, civil and religious life:

"It was during the latter part of this the first year of my itinerant ministry (April and May, 1826) that 1 was drawn and forced into the controversy on the Clergy Reserves and equal civil and religious rights and privileges among al1 religious persuasions in Upper Canada."(l2.)

However, reserved lands were deeply-entrenched in Upper Canada's colonial past and would not be easily broken up. In human history, land reform has continually proven to be one of the rnost problematic issues. It was to prove likewise in Upper Canada.

The idea for setting aside land for Clergy use in North

America had been a Roman Catholic practice prior to the Conquest.

A provision had been made in the Treaty of 1759 for the Roman

Catholic priests in the original Province of Quebec (which at the time included al1 of Southern Ontario) to derive wealth from reserved lands. This policy for the Roman Catholics, historically rnembers of Canada's only Established Church, was replicated immediately for the Protestants by the first British

Governor of Quebec, James Murray. Lillian F. Gates records:

"The intentions of the British Government in creating the Clergy Reserves later became a matter for dispute among the various Protestant denominations. The policy was adopted, in principle at any rate, long before there was any expectation that loyalists would occupy the upper province. Murray's instructions stated that 'to the end that the Church of England may be established... and that the said inhabitants may ... be induced to embrace the Protestant religion ... land would be set aside for the support of Protestant ministers and school masters'.... When loyalists began to settle in what was to be Upper Canada, the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel suggested that their religious welfare be provided for by the setting aside land for the Church of England .... Simcoe (in Upper Canada) approved of the reserves for political as well as religious motives. 'But in regard to a colony in Uppex Canada which... is peculiarly situated among a variety of republics (a reference to the individual States) ... every establishment of Church and State that upholds the distinction of ranks, and lessens the undue weight of the democratic influence, ought to be introduced'."(l3.)

These eighteenth-century Tory assumptions would prove highly vexatious in Upper Canada's case.

By 1824, the Upper Canadian Clergy Reserves amounted to

1,650,860 unleased acres. However, at the time, by cornparison, five million acres were reserved by grivate individuals for speculative purposes.(l4.) Therefore, the Clergy Reserves, though of great syrnbolic importance, were more a matter of political status and power than realizable wealth. Land was, during the Upper Canadian period, so relatively plentiful that few but the most abjectly impoverished would consider leasing, where the back-breaking irnprovernents would accrue, ultimately, to the land-owner. Up until 1830, lease payments on Ciergy Reserve

lands came to only two hundred pounds annually on average.(l5.)

This gross total was dlfficult and expensive to collect, rendering an almost negligible net total. Indeed, to John

Strachan's great chagrin, the land issue, in addition to being extremely, politically contentious, was really a money loser, unless the land was sold outright. As well, the Clergy Reserves were squatted upon where they existed amongst contiguous

settlements. Nonetheless, the Church of England held covetousiy

the reserved lanàs, relatively valueless though they quite often were, as a matter of due privilege. The Attorney-General, John

Beverley Robinson, wrote to his former schoolmaster, Strachan, in

January, 1827, and commented on the reserved lands:

"In England where the clergy are supported by tithes, which persons of al1 sects have to pay, and in Ireland, where tithes are collected from the great mass of a people detesting the Church which they support, it is no wonder that the Establishment is in some quarters the subject of cornplaint ....

"Here the people of Upper Canaci2 inhabit 2 cxntrg 3--- -- kqr-1 the blood and the treasure of England. The dominion of the soi1 was the Crown's by conquest. With a foresight most happily provident, one-seventh of that land, which was wholly at the King's disposal, was reserved to form a support for a clergy to dispense religious instruction among the people, and to minister to the holy services of Our ChurcheW(l6.)

The Clergy Reserves debate was entered upon in earnest during the late-1820s and was not exited until the early-1850s. The politicai split on the Clergy Reserve question was very obvious in 1831, when a "Bill passed the House of Assembiy that (the)

Reserves might be devoted to purposes of education (without regard to denomination), but was unanimously rejected in the

Legislative Council ...."(17.) Strachan held tight control of the

Legislative Council, which resisted, in most instances, the democratizing tendencies abroad in the North American backwoods.

Ryerson, however, hammered upon the doors of the more dernocratic

Legis lative Assembly .

The debate grew increasingly acrimonious during tne 1830s anà 1840s, as it became quite clear to all non-partisans that, combined, the Methodists and Roman Catholics, at the very least, easily outnumbered the Church of England communicants in Upper

Canada. The Clergy Reserve question caused continual friction and frustration through many years for al1 people in the

Province. The Historical Atlas of Weliinston Countv, Ontario notes, from the local, aqrarian perspective, the following:

"One-seventh of the land was Clergy Reserve. When the Imperia1 Government, under the authority of the Constitutional Act of 1791, directed the autnorities of Upper and Lower Canada to commence reserving one-seventh of the lands for the support of the Protestant clergy, they gave instructions that the lands so to be reserved were to be intermixed with those to be granted to to individuals, the intention being to have them chequered over every township in the proportion of one-seventh of the whole. It, however, was found difficult to comply with this requirement, as in some districts nearly al1 of the lots had been granted. Resetves were therefore, in many instances, made in blocks in the nearest ungranted townships. Long before any grievance was felt on religious grounds, there was a general dissatisfaction among the colonists at the obstruction to settlement presented by the reservation. For a long time there was no authority to sel1 clergy reserves, and the original idea seems to have been to create a tenantry in each township which was eventually to become a parish.

"A clergy corporation was established with powers to nake leases, but very few were so foolish as to go on and make improvernents on leased lands, while other land could be purchased so cheaply. For a long time the clergy reserve question was one of the leading issues in Canada. At first it was.a question as to whether the clergy of al1 denominations should be included in the benefits. After a while an opinion by the law officers of the Crown was given that the Church of Scotland was entitled to participate, and, finally, after much agitation, the reserves were abolished in 1854."(18.)

The issue of a common, publicly-funded education system was caught up in the Clergy Reserves question. In today's language, it was really then a question of "access." Access for most was quite sharply lirnited during the Upper Canadian period. Where the State could not or would not operate, prior to the Ryersonian era in education, in the common interest, private individuals within their families and church-based groups looked out for themselves and their small cornmunities. By the 1830s, the House of Assembly was quite an active, vocal, and conservatively representative body. With Assemblyrnen like Ketchum and

Mackenzie, it gained in its determination and political strength against the waning - though always formidable - combination of

Family Compact incerests and stake-holders.

The Legislative Council still held the balance of power, however. Ontario Public Archivists B. Speirs and R. Reynolds note: "Between 1832 and 1835 Mr. Mahlon Burwell, the noted surveyor, chaired a number of Select Cornittees on Education which submitted detailed reports and prepared draft bills, al1 of which were rejected by the Legislative Council. Dr. Charles Duncornbe, a member of the Legislature for Norfolk County, was a another advocate of popular education. He espoused the concept of a permanent public land fund as a source of revenue to cl~pportC~m.on Schoolr. In 1835, Di_lncombe, almg with Thomas D. Morrison and William Bruce, were appointed by resolution of the Assernbiy as a cornmission to inquire into foreign educational systems. After an investigation of those in operation in the United States, England, France, and Prussia, a report with a draft bill attached, was presented. This bill passed the Assembly by a vote of 35 to 10 but was defeated in the Legislative Council. " ( 19. )

The Legislative Council stood impassively in the way of the democratic and non-sectarian initiatives represented through the

House of Assembly, usually claiming financial restraint, defence expenses, or fiduciary responsibilities. In 1832, the Speaker of the Legislative Council, John Beverley Robinson - who was simultaneously Attorney-General for Upper Canada - sent the following note to the Legislative Assembly:

"Although the Legislative Council are bound to exercise their judgement in the passing or rejecting of al1 bills sent up from the Assembly, they entirely disclaim any wish or intention of interfering irregularly with the acknowledged privileges of the Assembly, in respect to the disposition of public m0nies.~(20.) 210

The House of Assembly even received the following police rebuff from the somewhat Liberal-minded, Sir John Colborne, clearly sua

Colonial Vice-Regent:

"bound no less by his persona1 feelings than by the çacred obligations of that Station to which Providence has called him, to watch over the interests of al1 the Protestant Churches within His Dominions - His Majesty could never consent to abandon those interests with a view to any objects of temporary and apparent expediency.

O... tnat the changes sought for by so large a proportion of the inhabitants of this Province, may be carried into effect without sacrificing the iust claims of the Established Churches of England and Scotland. The waste lands which have been set apart as a provision for the Ciergy of those Venerable Bodies have hitherto yielded no disposable Revenue. The period at which they might reasonably be expected to become more productive, is still remote."(21.)

For decades this issue was not resolved to anyone's satisfaction. But, in the 18305, the political trend was beginning to be away from the elitist and toward the common.

And, significantly, men were speaking out freely and forcibly.

In Upper Canada, the explosions of frustration against the continua1 patrician confounding of the popular will were relatively mild, compared to France £rom 1789 to 1799 for example. This reflected well upon the English heritage of zl aa-60 - Q)am

C, ci id -4 k k Q a, II) al C .c II) O E QI U 4J rd w

II)

II) 4 d 4J provided a bridge here, an improved highway there, public services which in the years 1854-65 the municipalities could, at a more cautious rate, have provided for themselves."(23.)

"'The Government of Upper Canada does not confine itself to maintaining one form of the Christian religion; it selects four particular denominations (Anglican, Methodist, Presbyterian, Roman Catholic); and within the last two years appears to have paid them about 35,000 pounds ....'"(24.)

Question 559, The Select Cornmittee on Grievances (Exarninations). Chairman - William Lyon Mackenzie, 1836. Put to the Honourable and Venerable Dr. John Strachan.

'"No lay advocacy and no ecclesiastical influence could have kept Our countrymen here loyal and at peace if this country were governed as Ireland has been during (her) legislative union with Great Britain. Everything Our (Irish) emigrants find in Canada is very unlike everything they left behind them in Ireland.... We are loyal because our equal civil, social amd

religious rights are respected ....lm( 25.)

Hon. Thomas D'Arcy McGee, in a letter to the Lord Secretary of Great Britain, 1868.

"May it therefore please your Honourable House, to take the subject of promoting religion and education in Upper Canada, into your most serious consideration: - to take such steps as may be within the constitutional powers of your Honourable House to leave the rninisters of al1 denominations of Christians to be supported by the people among whom they labour, and by the voluntary contribution of benevolent societies in Canada and Great Britain - to do away with al1 political distinctions on account of religious faith - to remove al1 ministers of religion £rom seats and places of political power in the Provincial Government - to grant to the Clergy of al1 donominations (sic) of Christians the enjoyment of equal rights and privileges in every thing that appertains to them as subjects of His Majesty's Government, and as mlnlsters of the Gospel, particularly the right of solemnizing Matrimony, of which many of them have long been deprived, contrary to the repeated and unanimous votes of the House of Assembly - to modify the Charter of King's College established at York in Upper Canada, so as to exclude al1 sectarian tests and preferences - and to appropriate the proceeds of the sale of lanas heretofore set apart for the support of a Protestant Clergy, to the purposes of general education and various interna1 irnprovements." (26.)

Petition of Messrs. Egerton Ryerson, Jesse Ketchum and 'The Friends of Religious Libertyt,published in the Methodist Christian Guardian, 18 December, 1830, at York, Upper Canada.

Tolerance is, perhaps, like politeness, now one of the minor virtues. But, in the nineteenth century toleration toward Roman

Catholics, toleration amongst the main Protestanc cienominations, and toleration of tne Protestant sects, was not the rule in many places. A vast number of people in England and the English- speaking world were rabidly anti-Roman Carholic, and especially anti-Irish Catnolic. This anti-Catholicism existed, rnoderately and personally, in places like Toronto - which was heavily Protestantized - until the 1960s, and exists, in varying degrees, 214

to this day amongst the Protestant tribe in Ulster. In England,

the animus of Henry VIII over hiç divorce, the excesses in the

reign of Queen Mary, the martyrdom of men like Latimer, ~idley

and Cranmer, the excommunication of Queen Elizabeth, the Church

Tithe, and the Papal "Bull" encouraging treasonous activities,

helped seed a sectarian hatred. This hatred came to Upper Canada

but found little soi1 in which to root itself deeply here, though

men like Strachan were quite antagonistic. Anglican Bishop

Stephen Neill, a missionary for most of his life this century,

comments on the anti-Roman Catholicism alive within many

Englishmen in his survey history, Analicanism:

"The story of the English martyrs haç lived on in the racial memory of the British people .... 'Englishmen never forgot their Queen's excommunication, and of the pope (Pius V) who freed men frorn their oaths (with his Papal Bull in 1570), and subjects frorn their allegiances, was a weapon that kept its edge for centuries, and effectively put a stop to every thought of toleration for the papists. Two hundred and fifty-nine years were to pass before the CO-religionists of Pius V were to be judged worthy to take a share in the government of their country. It may be doubted whether the evil effects of the Bull of 1570 have yet entirely passea away."(27.)

It was only during the nineteenth century in England that

progress was made toward fair treatment for Roman Catholics. 215

Only a great man, like the ageing Duke of Wellington, could nave carried the day to overwhelm anti-Roman Catholic sentiment. He forced passage of the Catholic "Emancipation Bill" through the

Houses of Parliment at Westminster in 1829 - against the pronounced opposition of his own, Tory Party. Thus, in the

British Isles, Roman Catholics were no longer "disabled" recusants or third-class subjects. In 1829, they achieved second-class status: Roman Catholics would no longer be disqualified from sitting in the House of Commons, though they had to swear to support royal ecclesiastical suprernacy. Under the Act:

".... a Catholic had to swear an elaborate oath before taking office; he could not aspire to be Reqent, Lord Chancellor, Lord Lieutenant of Ireland or... High Comrnissioner to the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland; he could not make church appointments; and there were provisions 'for the gradua1 suppression and final prohibition of' male religious orders. At the same time, to preserve 'the Protestant ascendancy' in Ireland, the Parliamentary franchise there was greatly restricted." (28.)

In Ireland during the eighteenth century under severe British authority, the young Edmund Burke rernembers visiting his Roman

Catholic friends at the only schools their priest could operate 216

safely: in hedgerows, behind false walls, in attics, and in the woods. Roman Catholic education was banned, though the Roman

Catholics forrned the overwhelming majority of the island's population. The social historian, Cecil Woodham-Smith described

the situation in Ireland under "The Penal Laws" that existed

until 1829:

"... (The ?enal Laws) barred Catholics from the army and the navy, the law, commerce, and from every civic acrivity. No Catholic could vote, hold any office under the Crown, or purchase land, and Catholic estates were dismembered.. .. Education was made almost impossible, since Catholics might not attend schools, nor keep schools, nor send their children to be educated abroad. The practice of the Catholic faith was proscribed .... Such were the main provisions of the Penal Code, described by Edmund Burke as 'a machine as well fitted for the oppression, impoverishment and degradation of a people, and the debasement in them of human nature itself, as ever proceeded from the perverted ingenuity of man.'"(29.)

At Oxford University, Roman Catholics suffered "disabilities" as

well. University tests kept Oxford as an almost exclusive

preserve of the Church of England and its communicants. The

"disabling Tests" came under fierce attack during the 1830s by

the Anglican Tractarians - distinguished, scholarly, lay Anglo- Catholics - men like Newman (a correspondent of Strachan's prior

to Newman's apostasy), Pusey, Keble, and Froude, several of whom later became notable converts to Roman Catholicism:

"...(t)he agitation in 1834 for the removal of university tests also put the tractarians in an unfortunate position. They too wanted to reform Oxford, but they intended the university to be the centre of a revival of the church (the Church of England) .... Oxford was a national university, (but it limited) its endowments to members of the cnurch of England ...."(30.)

British historian, Llewellyn Woodward details the religious barriers at Oxford and Cambridge, the supposed-Liberal institutions of education at the heart of Empire, during the first half of the nineteenth century:

"At Oxford no one could matriculate without subscribing to the thirty-nine articles (of the Church of England); at Cambridge nonconformists might become members of the university, but they had not access to scholarships, fellowships or university degrees. The universities were the training-places of the anglican clergy; each college had its chapel, at which attendance was compulsory, and the endowments of religion could not easily be separated £rom those of learning."(31.)

It is unsurprising, based on these dismal realities for non-

Anglicans, that agencies like the Family Compact in Upper Canada and the Protestant (Anglican) Ascendancy in the Pale (Eastern

Ireland-littoral under direct British administration) were so exclusive, sectarian, and insular, and that men like Strachan assumed the natural inevitability of Churcn Establishment. Those who did not wish to submit to episcopal authority, the

Establishment assumed, could leave as had the Plymouth "Pilgrims" during their puritanical despair, or be removed as Scottish

Catholics had been during tne ~ighlandClearances.

Strachan has a direct counterpart in the English educational experience at the primary and secondary school levels. Henry,

Lord Brougham and Vaux, a Liberal statesman, law-reformer, member of the Clapham Sect, and a founder of the Society for the

Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, as a Cabinet Minister introduced, in 1820, an education bill:

"... which required that al1 teachers snould be members of the church of England; that the clergy should control the plan of teacning in the schools, and that religious teaching should be limited to the bible, without the use of any denominational catechism. Neither churchmen nor nonconformists would accept a compromise of this kind ...."(32.)

An impasse was, thus, arrived at in Great Britain that would exist in varying degrees until 1870, mirroring much that occurred in Upper Canada.

During the Upper Canadian period, many similar issues arose, as Upper Canadians struggled against a quasi-Church of England

Ascendancy. Throughout North America, education was a central issue in the Church and State convergence, as it graduzted from the simple domestic sphere of control. Education in Upper

Canada had its anchor in Christianity. The central text for so many schools was The Bible. But, within Christianity, especially

Protestant Christianity, there was an enormous breadth of aenominations and srnaller sects. And, there was Roman Catholic

Christianity's perennial separateness and steadfastness. During the Upper Canadian period, land, wealth, education, status, political power, catechism, and even the figurative "Holy Grail" of Church Establishment, were there to be competed for, were there for the taking. Only the Church of England party alone had everything to lose.

Bishop Strachan led the Church of England's extravagant daims; Bishop Macdonell kept secure the Roman Catholics' ability to be separate at al1 times; Dr. Egerton Ryerson stood for the Methodist way, a middle way that becarne Ontario's way due 2 2 O to events, contingencies, and human endeavour, though Ryerson's brand of Protestant Christianity has fallen into disregard, disrepute, and desuetude - too - this past half-century. This is, perhaps, as a result of the profligate expenditure of

Christian capital by men like Strachan, and others of the Family

Compact's ruling elite, who alienated common Upper Canadians with so much of their public policy, particularly with regard to education .

By the 1820~~Strachan was far more than a priest. He was a potentate, who grasped greedily for further offices to add to those he had as,

"... an Executive Councillor, a Legislative Councillor, President of the College, a member of its Council, a Civil Magistrate, Rector of York, Missionary of the Society for promoting Christian Knowledge, member of the Land Council, President of the Provincial Board of Education, Senior Member of the Boards of Education in Eleven Districts, ... a very extensive land- owner... member of the Clergy Corporation, one of the principal proprietors of the Province Bank ..."( 33.)

in his varied capacities, Strachan came to represent what many saw as the worst in Upper Canada. His behaviour in many instances, like the Appleton affair, was high-handed and intolerant at the very least. But, he was not alone in this behaviour. It is clear from the massive corpus of Grievances that, although Strachan was primus inter Dases, Bishop Macdonell had to act in similar fashion, from time to tirne, as the latter's

financial resources were always very limited. And, Strachan, in his educational capacities, was never likely to furnish Roman

Catholics with money he could channel into Church of England ventures. The Grievances run to hundreds of pages and are appended the Journals of the Leqislative Assemblv, 1836.(34.)

Under examination by the Select Cornmittee, the Vicar General for the Catholic Diocese of Regiopolis (Kingston) - a man who had conspicuously broken with local Church authority - the Very

Reverend Doctor William J. O1Grady was asked Question 393:

Question: "Did one John Sayer or Siers or any other Catholic School Master teach in York since 18293"

O'Grady: "John Siers dia not until the year 1833, when he opened a school on his own account, he did not within any knowledge, receive any portion of the Government appropriation - after he left there, 1 met him in Kingston, and he told me he received none. - Previous to Siers coming to the Parish, I engaged a School- master by the name of Harvey, who had a promise £rom Bishop McDonell of twenty pounds per annum for the support of a schoolmaster but though he commenced his school on the faith of this promise, he was never paid one farthing, and after residing six months in this city, he was obliged to leave us."(35.)

Macdonell (McDonell), not unsurprisingly, placed the blarne

squarely at Strachan's feet for the necessity of having to withhold Siers's pay. Entered into the Seventh Re~ortof

Cornittee on Grievances is a letter of Macdonell's to his Vicar-

General, dated Decembex 1, 1830:

"Since the death of General Brock till the arriva1 of his present Excellency (Colborne) 1 had invariably found an incessant secret influence underrnining and counteracting my efforts and exertions to contribute moral and religious instructions to His Majesty's Catholic subjects of Upper Canada. After receiving the Prince Regent's thanks for my own conduct in defence of the Province during the late war; the Colonial Minister Earl Bathurst increased my own salary, and sent orders to the Executive Government of the Province to pay so much annually to a certain number of Catholic Clergymen and Teachers that 1 was to recornmend; but ... yet Dr. Strachan and Justice Powell who under the nominal administration of Colonel Smith, Mr. Gore, and Sir Peregrine Maitland actually governed the Province till they quarelled among themselves, resisted the payment of those salaries in defiance of His Lordship's orders for seven years ...."(36.)

It seems, from the historical materiais, quite clear that

Macdonell, too, diverted monies for his own, greater purposes: 223 buying land, erecting churches, training seminarians, organizinq travel-tours to compete for prestige with the Church of England.

He played a poor hand with winning dynamism and finesse, achieving the "separateness provision" that remains to this day in Ontario's elementary ana secondàry edüzstim; Strxhm was not interested in separateness in education for the Church of

England until it was too late even to achieve that, as Hincks legislated this eventuality toward impossibility in the backwoods. Early on, in üpper Canada, Macdonell became persona1 friends with Strachan in the Loyalist settlernents, reflecting on their shared Scottish heritage during quiet Saturday evening relaxations. Like Strachan, however, Macdonell opted for the secular and political means he felt necessary to achieve his

Faith's ends. In Upper Canada, Macdonell became a flying-buttress to the political structure of the Family Compact, while Strachan remained its central pillar, even as its political strength gave way in the 1840s. Macdonell was especially effective on the periphery of the Colony, where the Roman Catholics were grouped, preaching a gospel of quiet conservatism, hard work, sobriety, and overt loyalty to the British Crown. In tirne, he expanded his ministry from his much-loved Glenqarry Highlanders to the Roman

Catholics of Upper Canada as a whoie. Macdonell was a defender 224 of the status quo of Family Compact rule as long as the Family

Compact served and protected his community of Faith, especially from the great republican and revolutionary threats to his hierarchical Church.

In the Grievances, O'Grady cast himself as Cato to

Macdonell's Caesar with his reply to Question 225. Mackenzie put the question for the Select Cornmittee:

Question: "Referrlng to your former answer respecting an Established Church, have you any proof that the Bishop exercised a political influence over his Clergy in conjunction with the Governor of this Colony?-"

"(McDonell) got up a petition against Mr. Mackenzie, attendeci a public meeting in Mrs. Jordan's Inn, and harangued the people; and by the most inexcusable misrepresentations, obtained signatures to said petition inducing the signers to believe, £rom Altars dedicated to the service of Religion, that the document to which he invited them to affix their names was intended solely for the advancernent of the Catholic Church. Shortly after, he left here for Penetanguishene... he stopped on his way, to perform Divine Service in the Catholic Church of the Township of Toronto, and that he did on that solemn occasion, instead of preaching the morality of the Gospel, inveigh in the most violent and unbecoming manner against William Lyon Mackenzie. He went from that to Adjala ... to obtain signatures ... to a blank paper .... The Rev. Mr. Gordon told me that he was shocked and scandalized at the rnanner in which this political crusade was conducted. 1 myself have frequently heard the Bishop preach, before, and after the event here alluded to, and his sermons, invariably, as far as I have been able to judge of them, presented a strange and incoherent medley of politics and Chriçtianity." (37.)

That "strange and incoherent medley of politics and Christianity" was very much a fact of life in Upper Canada. The guif between the Protestant denominations and the Roman Catholic Church was, then, profound; amongst the multitude of Protestant denominations and sects, it was pronounced. Little regard seems to have been given, little love lost.

A letter from Bishop Macdonell to Bishop OIGrady, dated

January 23, 1831, demonstrates Macdonell could match Bishop

Strachan's antipathy toward the "Yankee Methodists" - a levelling denomination without Bishops. Macdonell wrote from his original parish, at St. Raphael's in the County of Glengarry, with regard to the French-speaking Roman Catholics settled around Sandwich,

Upper Canada. In what is now Windsor, there existed a spirit of

"discord and dissension":

"1 would advise you to take the Hon. Mr. Baby with you, when you wait upon His Excellency (Colborne) on the business above- mentioned as he is better acquainted than you or 1 with the characters and matters to be overhauled in Sandwich. From what has already corne to the knowledge of His Excellency respecting Mr. Crevier's (the parish priest who was to be removed for fomenting 'discord and dissension') electioneering transactions, 1 should trust he would have the less objection that he should be removed from Sandwich, if necessary, and placed in a situation more suitable to his peculiar talents and qualifications, being tolerably and well versed in the Indian language, and a thorough-bred 'voyageur', he would be admirably qualified to match the Yankee Methodists, and rescue the poor Indians and Penetanguishene and Lake Simcoe from the fangs of these reptiles."(38.)

"Reptiles", even across the great divide of time to the present day, is a characterisation that makes one feel a most un-

Christian competition was underway for Church members amongst the groups of unaffiliated settlers, the refugees, and the aboriginals in Upper Canada.

Doubtless, in large measure, the poisoned relations that existed amongst the leaaers and spokesmen of the Christian groups was due to Strachan's persistent efforts toward attempted-Church of England Establishment in Upper Canada. E.J. Hathaway comments on Strachan's bearing in Jesse Ketchum and His Times:

"As head of the Church of England Doctor Strachan was forever making war on those outside his Church. In a sermon which he preached in 1826 on the occasion of the death of the late Bishop of Quebec (Mountain), he outlined the story of the rise and progress of the Church of England in Canada. He told of the obstacles which impeded it in Upper Canada, and attacked the characters of those of religious denominations other than his own church. He denounced especially the Methodists, whose ministers, he said were Americans in their origin and feeling, ignorant, forsaking their proper employment to preach what they did not understand, and which £rom their pride they disdained to learn. He also charged them with spreading disaffection to the civil and religious institutions of Great Britain, and he made an appeal to the Imperia1 Government and Parliament for a grant of 300,000 pounds per annurn to enable the Church of England in Upper Canada to maintain the loyalty of the Province to England."(39.)

Against a backdrop of such sneering scorn and sctual disabling - £rom solemnizing marriages to opening schools - it is little wonder that the 1830s and 1840s saw a widespread reaction to the Church of England's Establishment-drive and over-reaching arrogance.

Appended with the Grievances in the Legislative Journals is a letter from William Lyon Mackenzie, in his role as a prominent

Assemblyman, to Lord Goderich at the Colonial Office in London.

Mackenzie wrote:

"The establishing of places of learning for the children of persons holding situations under the local government, and a few other wealthy or influential individuals, at great public cost, but placed beyond the control of public opinion, and £rom which the sons of the yeomanry derive no benefit or advantage, while tne exceedingly numerous and very reasonable petitions of that yeomanry for public support to the al1 important cause of general education throughout the colony are steadily resisted by perçons in authority .... The existing system raises up and multiplies greatly in the colony the friends and supporters of arbitrary and exclusive principles and institutions. ... It is generally believed that the Orange Lodges and the disputes engendered between the Irish immigrants of different persuasions would never have been revived in the colony but for the policy of the government to keep in pay a political priesthood of the most discordant materials, the clerqy of the rninority too - in order to regulate public opinion .... 1 know no one public individual who has been more carressed and honoured, and promoted to greater wealth, influence and distinction by the British governrnent than Dr. Strachan ...."(40.)

It was the organic Upper Canadians - as Abraham Lincoln was an organic American, a man the people, a man out of the backwoods, a man self-taught from The Bible , a man kept humble and self-effacing by repeated defeat in elections srnall and great

- men like Ketchum and Ryerson, women like Elizabeth Lount, who would create the unique Upper Canadian way, against the unaccountable and sectarian Family Compact, against Church of

England Establishment. They demanded just-dealing for the important issues in their daily Lives, with quiet, persistent voices. They were wary of the dangers of the extreme passions that could be imported from the old countries, old feuds that must be àenied root here. Seeing the constant entrenching by the Church of England and tne continual safeguarding the Roman Catholic Church, Ryerson came to determine a middle-of-the-road, tolerant, non- denominational way was better for educating the young of the piuraiistic groups settied in Upper Canada. Ryerson brought a new spirit to building education afresh in Upper Canada, based on the best he had witnessed in the wider world and avoiaing the sectarian antagonisms fostered so by Strachan.

Egerton Ryerson's educational philosophy for Upper Canada was :

"A basis of an educational structure... should be as broad as the population of the country; and its loftiest elevation should equal the highest demands of the learned professions; adapting its gradation of schools to the wants of the several classes of the cornmunity, and to their respective employments or professions .... By religion and morality, 1 do not mean sectarianism in any form, but the general truth and morals taught in the Holy Scriptures. Çectarianism is not morality. To be zealous for a sect and to be conscientious in morals are widely different. To inculcate the peculiarities of a sect and to teach the fundamental principles of religion and morality are equally different."(41.)

These were fine words, incorporating a noble, though not totally inclusive, spirit(42.) 230

It would be the battle royale over the proposed Provincial

University and its exclusive Charter that would define for posterity the general course for education in Ontario. It was the Charter, established in theory and on paper, and so nearly built into Stone and wrought-iron, that demonstrates how the old ways had crossed the Atlantic in the hearts of men like Strachan.

And, it was this much-sought-after University's defeat that broke the back of Establishment in Upper Canada for al1 tirne.

Strachan's pursuit of his ultimate dream was anticipated by

Shakespeare in the disturbing Sonnet, "129:"

"Mad in pursuit, and in possession so; Had, having, and in quest to have, extreme; A bliss in proof and, proved, a very woe...."

"The Church and State are held together by a single thread."

The Right Reverend Gilbert Heffernan, Bishop of Kingston, in the play, Racinq Demon, by Sir David Hare, performed October 1, 1998 (@ Toronto) "Downing Street, 28th June, 1827

"Sir, - You are already aware, that a Royal Charter for establishing a University in the Province of Upper Canada has passed the Great Seal, and of which Dr. Strachan is the bearer.

"As Dr. Strachan was sent Home to solicit this Charter, and has been detained on the concern of the Church and other matters of great interest to the Province, you will consider yourself authorized to make him such a remuneration from the Clergy Reserve fund, and any other fund at your disposa1 ...."(43.)

Correspondence of the Colonial Secretary, Lord Goderich, to the Lieutenant Governor, Sir Peregrine Maitland.

As 1827 began, the political universe of Upper Canada was at

Strachan's feet. In England, Strachan had a Royal Charter for the Provincial University Simcoe had drearnt of decades before, for which purpose Strachan had strained his entire adult life in

Upper Canada. It was to be the University of King's College, with an affiliated Anglican Seminary that would formalize and institutionalize Strachan's theretofore ad hoc seminary work. It was to be Strachan's maanurn opus, his crowning acnievement in the interweaving of Church and State in the Province. It became, however, the arena of his greatest defeat, as victory and laurels were snatched £rom Strachan's head by the combined forces of common Upper Canadians.

The story of the proposed University for Upper Canada is involved, complex, ana murky at this remove, full of dissimulations and dissembling. The story is that of the fabric of Church and State being sewn together, by nien like Bishop John

Çtrachan, in a manner removed from popular accountability, democratic involvement, or public scrutiny. Educationally, the only possible way to follow the story's thread is to begin with a single question. That single question was put by the examiners, elected Assemblymen, serving Mr. Mahlon Burwell's Select

Committee on Education, representing the Upper Canadian House of

Assembly. That single question was put repeatedly to various members of the Family Compact. This Cornmittee reported in the

Journals for 1832-3, with a document entitled the Second Re~ort

of the Select Committee on Education. That single question was put first to the "Honourable and Venerable John Strachan," a man omniscient in the educational affairs of Upper Canada. He was a man, however - holding more than the regulation four aces - who played with his cards close to his chest: 233

Question : "Where Fs the District School of the Home District?"

Strachan: "Xany years ago, the District School was incorporated with the Royal Grammar School, under the same Teacher, and as Ft was supposed with mutual

benefit. " (44.)

A District Grammar School had vanished - on paper. The building still stood. It had corne to be, however, another trurnp card in

Strachan's larger Establishment-education bridge-game, with another group of trustees serving as dummy. Strachan needed buildings, as has been seen, to realize his sectarian objectives.

Strachan seerned to have been able to produce funds and purveyors of the Church of England's catechism at will, but he was usually

- as was the experience generally of the neo-aristocratic class in Upper Canada - short of suitable buildings. Thus, he was covetous of what already existed, especially those built under his Church's spire in York.

The examiners of the 1833 Select Committee continued their interrogation of the ternporarily-furtive Strachan, who could neither conceal his acquisition of buildings indefinitely nor his autocratic legerdemain with the educational exchequer: Question: "By what authority was the District School (of the Home District at York) made part of Upper Canada College?

Strachan: "Both (the Royal Grammar School and the Home District School) were included in Upper Canada College, and from the best motives though perhaps in a legal point of view, somewhat irregular. 1 certainly agreed in hope of establishing a more efficient seminary, but the moment measures arose about the District School, the Salary was no longer paid to Upper Canada College, and is 1 presume at the disposa1 of the Legislature."(45.)

"Somewhat irregular", though a colossal understatement, is a better appraisal of events than Strachan ever offered the

Grievance Committee chaired by his personal demon, William Lyon

Mackenzie. To them he offered bile and abuse.

The tortuous history of the Home District School begins with its inception in 1807 as the "Blue School." As has been noted, the District Grammar School Act passed in 1807. At the District

Schools, a family would likely have had to pay twenty-five to thirty-£ive pounds each year to have its son educated. On June

1, 1807, the staunchly Anglican Reverend George O'Kill Stuart became the first teacher of the District Grammar School at York. The school, painted blue, stood on the College Square of approximately six acres, immediately north of St. James's Church

(near Adelaide and Church Streets). Strachan had succeeded

Stuart at the Blue School in 1812, but was not there long before his apotheosis to "political-pope" began during the War of 1812.

Strachan did not forget, however, the Home District School, nor was it ever far from his Church of England vision for Upper

Canada. In 1829, he metamorphosed it into the humble beginnings of Upper Canada College, as public opposition to the construction of his sectarian University grew throughout tne Colony:

"... (Sir John Colborne) did not see eye to eye with Strachan on the University question, and he failed to see any pressing need for a college representing the highest type of education so long as preliminary education was so sadly deficient. His idea was to first elevate the standard of the junior schools and thus ensure a supply of pupils qualified for advanced learning. He therefore proposed the founding of a new college in York to replace the District Grammar School, and built on lines similar to those of colleges in England. Within a year of his arriva1 Upper Canada College was established and the founding of King's College deferred indefinitely."(46.)

Coiborne's conternporaneous views of Strachan are interesting and revealing, as the Lieutenant-Governor strove to balance off heavily-conflicted interests. One imagines that Colborne must 236 have found Strachan insufferable, brandishing his Royal Charter and demanding action in Upper Canada and the United Kingdorn on constructing the University. Strachan was powerfully supported in the House of Lords by the Anglican Bishops and throughout

Engiana Dy cne poweriui Church Societies. Colborne wrote to the

Anglican bishop of Quebec in 1829:

"1 wish to treat him (Strachan) with the greatest respect and to to prove that 1 am fully aware of his good intentions, his zeal for our church, and that the British government is grateful to him for his exertions; but 1 cannot blind myself so far as not to be convinced that the political part he has taken in Upper Canada destroys his clerical influences and injures to a very great degree the interests of the episcopal (Church of England) church and, 1 am afraid, of religion also ...."(47.)

Upper Canada College became a quasi-preparatory College or

University while Strachan began the long march for the real thing. The debate over the University Charter issue became a defining issue for Upper Canadian education.

Thus it was that, during the early 183Os, the emboldened

Legislative Assembiymen began asking difficult questions of the

Family Compact and its prime spokesman. Mr. Mahlon Burwell's

Select Committee on Education appears to have become fixated with 2 3 7 the disappearance of the Home District Grarnmar School, and its re-emergence as Upper Canada College unaer an Anglican Minister.

In the questioning, the Assemblymen inquired of the Honourable

John B. Robinson, Strachan's former star pupil, then the current

Chief Justice:

Question : "By what authority was the District Scnool made part of Upper Canada College?

Robinson : "When His Excellency the Lieut. Governor (Colborne) took rneasures for increasing the Royal Grammar School, or rather for converting it into a school or College of a very superior description, the same Gentleman who had conducted the District School was made Vice-Principal, and his Scholars became Scholars in the enlarged Seminary .... Since, however, dissatisfaction has been expressed at this arrangement, the Salary of a District School Master has not been drawn. The Trustees of the Home District, at the time the change was made, concurred in it, and thought they were doing right, though perhaps some informaiity might be objected,if there was a desire to take exceptions." (48.)

The man who became the scapegoat in this inquiry, who was at best Strachan's factotum and at worst an ernbezzler, received a severe grilling over his peculiar financial methods. Coionel

Joseph Wells, a British Regular with a purchased cornrnission, performed the function of Treasurer for schools and University, real and hypothetical:

Question: "By what authority was the District School made part of Upper Canada College?

Wells : "1 cannot precisely answer this quere - as a Member of the General Board of Education, I simply understood that the former District and Royal Gramrnar School was recomended by His Zxcellency the Lieutenant Governor, to merge in the Upper Canada College, as a superior benefit, not merely to the District, but to the Frovince at large ...."(49.)

Wells was a Member of the Board of Education and the Treasurer

for Upper Canada College and the University of King's College.

His exposed accounting reveals the staggering largesse lavished on Strachan's project at the university-preparatory level. Upper

Canada College had an annual cost of operation valued at some

three thousand pounds, with the Principal salaried at six hundred

pounds, and the Classics masters at three hundred pounds each. (50.) Alrnost al1 of its masters were graduates of

Cambridge, necessarily Anglicans due to that University's

religious tests. In cornparison, the average Legislative grant

for al1 Common Schools operating in Upper Canada for each year of the 1820s was twenty-£ive hundred pounds.(51.) Upper Canada 239 College's revenues each year were barely eight hundred pounds from fees paid by 110 students, leaving an annual shortfall of, approximately, twenty-two hundred pounds to be covered, somehow, by the Family Compact's book-keeper, Wells.(52.) To finance the annual deficit and the accumulating debt, the Treasurer had been allowed, by Executive fiat, to sel1 or rent lands granted the non-existent University and the extant Upper Canada College.

Wells noted:

O... that upon the strength of the grant of Land for the endowment of Upper Canada College, whicn forrned a supposed security for the advancement of monies until those land could be sold to repay the same, the Council of King's College and the General Board of Education authorized me, as the Bursar of the former, and Treasurer of the later, to advance on loan out of the respective funds belonging to each, such sums as might be required from me, as the Treasurer of Upper Canada College, for the payment of the erection of the Buildings and the salaries of the Masters, &c., and which sums so advanced were to be re-paid out of the proceeds of the sales of its Lands, with interest."(53.)

This appears as quite extraordinary testimony, not in the least because the financing had been done so imperiously.

Much of the land Wells based his financial arrangements on was located in the unopened hinterland and had little or no value 240 on the market. Nonetheless, the financing was arranged against the potential value O£ allocated Clergy or Crown reserves. Thus, awash in debt, underwritten by granted land that did exist but which, by popular account, was valued at no more than sixpence an acre, the University and Upper Canada College became virtual, financial Siamese-twins, connected at the pocket-book.

Assemblyman Burwell concluded for the Select Cornmittee on the twin institutions:

"It appears from the answer to Colonel Wells, the Treasurer of the Minor or Upper Canada College, that some portions of the School Lands have been sold, and the proceeds given in loan to that Institution. The particular sum is not stated, but it is undoubtedly at the disposal of the Legislature. In regard to its appropriation, your Committee most respectfully recommend, that on ascertaining the exact amount, which perhaps may be about ten thousand pounds, it be invested in good securities, and the income only divided among the District Grammar Schools, agreeable to such provisions as to your Honourable House may seem meet. It further appears from evidence and documents on the Journals of your Honourable House, that Minor College is greatly indebted to the University of King's College. This fact obtruding itself on the notice of your Committee, they consider it their duty ta bring it under the notice of your Honourable House. No steps have been taken to prepare the University of King's College for receiving pupils for instructions in the Arts and Sciences, which might certainly have been done as they involve no question of religious difficulty. Nor has any progress been made in erecting the necessary buildings, that the business of instruction might begin so soon as the Charter is arnended, and yet the growing funds have been spent in supporting an Institution which, however useful it may in time become, does not appear to your Committee to have been necessary, and certainly was never contemplated by His Majesty when granting a Charter and Endowment to the University."(54.)

Thus, the vox ~opulihad begun to be heard in the corridors of power. Strachan appears to have been fiqhtinq, politically, a rearguard action during the 1830s in Upper Canada. The fine cloth of clerical civility, evident toward Mr. Burwell's

Cornmittee's questioning, was worn thin as he came to exchange barbs with Mackenzie's Grievances Committee during the mid-1830s.

Upper Canada Colleqe had become indefensibly and unconcealably expensive; Strachan and Robinson both had to surrender some ground with their comrnents "somewhat irregular" and "some informality." These were unusual comrnents for men who moved normally with such exacting, pugnacious, and self-righteous certainty, whether gathering a school-building into the fold or passing sentence of death on a "rebel" respectively. And, both were quick to point out that Upper Canada College had nobly not drawn the allowed one hundred pound stipend payable to a District

School Master, renewing the parable by drawing attention to their mote - of self-restraint - as opposed to their beam - of gross self- and class-interest. One suspects that, with their honeyed 242 tones, they were preparing Wells to be scapegoated because the financial situation was parlous, especially under public and non- sectarian scrutiny.

The financial thread that had to bind Church and State was an inferior cotton. As in so many British Colonial situations - from the Thirteen Colonies to India - the cornrnon people came to prefer homespun materials as the imported cloths were not native, of poor manufacture, and priced out-of-reach of the indigenous population. The thread, being pulled from the exotic and exorbitant fabric of Upper Canada Coflege - an Anglican establishment at its beginnings, meant to reproduce the homogeneous ruling-class of the Family Compact - in part held the quasi-Established Church of England to the State as well.

Thus began to fray the material of Strachan's Establishment- education designs for Upper Canada, the central swath of which was his University, which could train modest numbers of his

Church's priests domestically. Upper Canadian Anglican ministers would allow Strachan to erect his "New Jerusalem" north of Lake

Ontario. "... NOW KNOW YE, That we, having taken the premises into our Royal consideration, and duly weishing the qreat utility and importance of such an institution, have, of our special grace, certain knowledge, and mere motion, ordained and granted ... that there shall be established at or near Our Town of York in our said Province of Upper Canada, from this time, one College with the style and privileges of an University ... for the education and instruction of youth and students in arts and faculties, to continue for ever, to be called 'King'sCollege'

Y..And we do hereby declare, ordain, and grant, that there shall at al1 times be one President of our said College, who shall be a Clergyman in Holy Orders of tne United Church of England and Ireland.... And we do hereby grant and ordain that the Reverend John Strachan, Doctor in Divinity... be the first President of our said College, and the Archdeacon of York in our said Province, for the time being, shall, by virtue of such his office, be at al1 tirnes the President of the College.

"...And we do hereby declare, ordain, and grant that there shail be within Our said colleqe ... a council... and we do will and ordain that the said Council shall consist of the Chancellor, President for the time being, and of seven of the professors in arts and faculties... and that such seven professors shall .be rnembers of the Established... Church. .. and shall previously to their admission into the said College Council, severally sign and subscribe the thirty-nine articles of religion, as declared and set forth in the book of conunon prayer ...."(55.)

'The Royal Charter' (part.), The University of King's College (later Trinity College), 1827. Population returns for Upper Canada in 1839, as found in the

Journal of the Lesislative Assernblv, indicate that the Province had a population of 358,021.(56.) Of these people, less than one-quarter or 82,846 were potential Church of Enqland communicants.(57.) Yet, the University intended for the Province by John Strachan and the Family Compact was chartered along very sectarian lines, with a view to Church of England Establishment.

Strachan was at his most contemptuous with regard to political opposition over the issue of his University:

"The services 1 was enabled to perform were duly appreciated in England, and 1 feel justified in declaring, for now it is a matter of fact, that they have been and ever will be beneficial to the Province, nor is the time far distant when the University of King's College, the Establishment of which on a more liberal footing than any similar institution in Great Britain or America, I was the humble instrument in effecting, will shed light and glory over the Colony, and embalm the names of its promoters in the grateful affections of posterity, when its ignorant and rancorous revilers are forgotten, or deservedly consigned to contempt and execrations ...."(58.)

And, while Strachan grew bilious and contemptuous of opposition, 245 one cannot but feel he was merely a product of his environment: tne Tory administrative- and political-class of the British

Empire generally, and the Family Compact particularly. Where these Britons were not excessive in their conduct, but instead showed decorum, modest self-restraint, and concern for local concerns and people, worlds were theirs for the taking - witness

Lord Durham's triumphant coup-de-main on both sides of the

Atlantic. It could well have been so in Upper Canada, had not power corrupted Strachan so absolutely, turning him from a pleasant minister of his Church with an endearing sense-of- humour, into an intransigent, sectarian ranter, not unlike the ultra-Protestants of England and Ulster.

While Strachan was in London, receiving his Royal Charter, a

King's College waç being erected there, in the University of

London, to a great, public stirring of passions. Strachan must have been intoxicated by events at "Home" as his Royal Charter passed under the Great Seal in 1827. The Duke of Wellington, then the Prime Minister, fought duels - written and physical - over the inception of the (English) King's College. The historian Elizabeth Longford recounts: "The audience had been profoundly stirred when the Duke, as Prime Minister, took the chair at the opening of King's Colleqe on 21 June 1828. Flanked by three archbishops and seven bishops, he had reaffirmed the place in education of religious teaching. University College in 'Godless Gower Street' had decided, after much controversy, to get on without it. So King's College was the Establishment's ringing answer to the unbelievers.

"Lord Winchilsea (an Ultra-Protestant), like the Duke, had seen salvation in a new college based on the King's faith. But what if emancipation brought Roman Catholics not only into King's hitherto faithful Parliament but into his colleqe ais07 The possibility of this double infiltration suddenly struck the not very bright Winchilsea and he saw it al1 as a plot laid DY the Duke. King's College was a smokescreen behind which Wellington had advanced upon Westminster:

'... a blind to the Protestant and High Church party, tnat the noble Duke, who had for some time previous to that period determined upon breakinq in won the Constitution of 1688, might more effectually under the cloak of some outward zeal for the Protestant religion, carry on his insidious designs, for the infringement of our liberties, and the introduction of Popery into every department of the State."'(59.)

Wellington, despite his stature and his donation of thirteen hundred pounds to the (English) King's College, caused that fiedgling institution great debts by his association.(60.) Many

Tory Uitra-Protestants withdrew their subscriptions because

Wellington's name was connected to the College, so strong were the "anti-Papacy" feelings held in those times.(6l.) The Prime 247

Minister even fought a duel with Winchilsea over the issue.(62.)

Wellington, though a staunch Tory, allied himself with the

Parliamentary Whigs, dragging along the moderate Tories at

Westminster, to achieve improved tolerance for Roman Catholic subjects in the wake of his first, and last, duel with pistols. (63. )

In Upper Canada, Strachan's "duels" over his University of

King's College at the same historical moment, and thereafter, were perpetual, prolonged, acid, and verbal - particularly with

Egerton Ryerson. The gap in understanding between the political forces of the autocratic Family Compact represented in the

Legislative Council by lifetime appointees, and the rising forces of the comrnon will in the somewhat democratic and elected House of Assembly was not bridgeable in the Upper Canadian period. The

Lieutenant-Governor, Sir Francis Bond Head, Upper Canada's equivalent to the Biblical "foolish virgin", commented, in a despatch, unhappily on the University of King's College issue that, "an unfortunate difference of opinion exiscs, between the

Council and the Assenbly which each of these bodies concurs in pronouncing incurable."(64.) The House of Assembly would noc accept Strachan's Charter without much revision- It is unclear whether or not Strachan thought the political logjam over the Charter to have been inevitable; he was correct in his assertion that his Charter was marginaiiy more ii~eraiman the contemporaneous Oxbridge

Charters.(65.) The Legislative Council would not, at Strachan's insistence, allow revision of the Charter's basic nature. The

House of Assembiy wanted something on the English mode1 of

University College (London University). The Legislative Council wanted King's College (London University). The House of Assembly spent decades stopping the construction of King's College, having witnessed the seizing of the York Common School and the suborning of the Home District School, the scandalous financing of the

National School at York and Upper Canada College, and the sectarian intent of the Univerity Charter. The chronic and arbitrary abuses of the Church of England's political-wing needed to be stopped by the more-democratic House. However, the

Legislative Council spent decades protecting the text of the

Charter. The political rump of the Family Compact was still quite formidable into the 1850~~when an aged Strachan made his final public appearance in defence of the "Protestant" Clergy

Reserves . When reviewing the proposal for an amended Charter, the

Honourable Mr. Macaulay, Chairman of the Legislative Council's

Select Cornmittee on Education in 1836, decried the fact, as he saw it, that, "Christianity appears proscribed with a virulence not unworthy of Dioclesian. .. everything connected with the

Christian faith shall be excluded."(66.) He was wrong. However,

Strachan had been using Christianity much as the first

"Christian" Ernperor, Constantine, had - as a facade for his imperative of consolidating political power. Christianity was not proscribed by the House of Assembly; rather, Anglican sectarianism was. But in so vigorously opposing Anglican sectarianism, in the 1830s and 1840s, the Christian foundation of public education in Ontario had, perforce, to be permanently damaged .

In the 553 pages of the Grievances, Mackenzie dealt firmly with the University's Charter, the acceptance of which the House of Assembly had been blocking since 1829. In 1835, the House of

Assembly had passed "An Act to Arnend the Charter of King's

College," but it, along with most legislation sent to the Upper

Chamber, was rejected by the Legislative Council. Mackenzie was trying to erase the pervasive influence of the Church of England, represented in Upper Canada in 1839 by only sixteen ordained ministers, compared to the Methodists' one hundred and forty- five.(67.) Mackenzie had the majority in the House of Assembly.

He wanted the following revisions made to the University's

Charter: that the University's President need not be an ordained

Anglican rninister and definitely not Strachan; that professors need not be Anglican communicants; that the finances Se available to public scrutiny; that there should be no denominational affiliations demanded of professors, teachers, or students; and, that there should be no religious tests whatsoever. Mackenzie produced a useful precis of his views in the Legislature during the 1836 parliamentary session, a year before he led an armed insurrection against the implacable and unchanging Family

Compact.

Mackenzie stated that the University to be established in

Upper Canada needed to be suited to the population as a whole, with a spirit suitable for the comrnon people and the prevailing conditions. Mackenzie argued:

"The University of King's College was grounded on a Royal Charter, sought for and granted in 1827, upon principles so exclusive and sectarian, as to render it deservedly unacceptable to the great body of the people, for whose benefit it was professedly intended .... Nor ought this House fail to notice, that large appropriations have been made out of the University fund, not to the District and Township (Common) Schools, undeservedly neglected, but to sustain Upper Canada College in this City (Toronto), in which the sons of al1 the wealthiest families are educated, and which ought therefore to be supported without so questionable an encroachment on public funds."(68.)

In the end, Mackenzie's extremism was as unsuited to Upper

Canada as was Strachan's Church of England sectarian exclusivism.

More suited to this newly-settled land was the quiet, determined dignity of men like Jesse Ketchum and Egerton Ryerson - organic

Upper Canadians - unlike the Scotsmen Strachan and Mackenzie.

Ketchum and Ryerson made the most of what they had in Upper

Canada, rather than creating invidious cornparisons to an England or a United States, real and imagined. The down-to-earth spirit of Methodism suffused common school education toward the end of the Upper Canadian period, as Egerton Ryerson began to gather the reins of educational power in the political nexus. The thread of the University story in Upper Canada appears to intertwine with

Methodism in the person of the Reverend Egerton Ryerson.

By the 1830s, Ryerson had become a leading figure in Upper

Canada, pressing the claims of the numerous Methodists. 252

Methodism was Anglicanism's closest Protestant rival in the Upper

Canadian period. Strachan thought Methodism an merican-scourge:

"Have not the Methodists in this Province... ever shown thernselves the enemies of the Estabiished Church? Are they nct at this moment labouring to separate religion from the State, with which it ought to be firmly united? ... Has it not been the primary object of al1 enemies to regular government ... to pull down religious establishments? ... If they tell me the Ecclesiastical establishments are great evils, I bid them look at England and Scotland, each of which has a religious establishment, and to these establishments are they mainly indebted for their vast superiority to other nations. To what but her Established Church, and the Parochial Schools under her direction, does Scotiana owe her high reptation for moral improvement . " ( 6 9. )

Ryerson had long been a thorn in Strachan's side. But, having been asked to leave his home over his conversion to Methodism,

Ryerson was unafraid for himself or his Christian faith.

Ryerson came to seek an education system in Upper Canada which would be acceptable to al1 nainstream Protestant denominations without preferrnent. Ryerson fought Strachan over

Church Establishment, school funding, Clergy and Crown Reserves, and the University Charter for decades. In al1 things - except the unavoidable necessity for separate school provisions -

Ryerson, with his vision, was successful, and he is rightfully

254 considerable political-ecclesiastical acumen and poise, creating and leading a new Methodist coalition, moving tne whole political edifice centre-right, editing its journal, toning down anti-

Family Compact rhetoric, and eliminating dissidents and radicals.

Strachan had drawn the venorn from his political opponents in the

Methodist group, but, perhaps, created a greater statesman in

Egerton Ryerson. R.D. Gidney cornrnents:

"Colonial Nethodists were divided over the appropriate response(to the arriva1 of the Tory British Wesleyans) .... (T)he majority of the conference, led by John Ryerson, voted to support a union between the two churches in crder to avoid ...open conflict and to disprove continuing charges of Arnerican sympathies. Egerton vigorously supported this policy in the Guardian ...."(70.)

Ryerson, using the same missionary zeal he had brought as a very young man to the aboriginai encamprnents at the mouth of the

Credit River, and a convert's sense of special purpose, gained in political determination and sawy opposing the Family Compact at every arbitrary turn it made. Ryerson's public outspokenness began in 1826, witn a written refutation by "The Boy Preacher" to

Dr. Strachan's denunciation of Methodism, as the latter had supposedly eulogized the late Bishop Mountain of Quebec. A letter to Ryerson in 1827 from a feliow missionary, Reverend 255

Elder Case, captures the feelings of the Methodists during the

1820s and 1830s:

"... As such a spirit of intolerance is altogether averse to the mild spirit of the gospel, so it is also a most danqerous and daring assumption of power over the rights of conscience. Against this high-handed and dominating spirit, God himself has ever set his face..., The Doctor's (Strachan's)wrath is kindled against those whom he calls 'dissenters', and who refuse to submit to his Church rule. We have said, 'whom the Doctor calls- dissenters'. 1 aver that the term is not at al1 applicable to the religious denominations in this country. From what Church have they dissented? Indeed most of the first inhabitants of this country never belonged to the Church of Englard at all. They were £rom the first attached to the denominations. ... (T)hey had (no) apprehensions, while supporting the rights of the Crown, that an ecclesiastical establishment of ministers of whom they have never heard, was to be imposed upon them.. . ."(ll.)

Ryerson engaged Strachan in a series of heated correspondences that were reproduced in Upper Canadian papers, much like the

Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas debates during the Illinois

Senate race in the 1850s. Strachan, typically, in the commanding political position, stone-walled with rhetorical vapourings and sniffings.

In the 1830.~~Ryerson would have the ultimate triumph, laying the cornersrone for a Methodist College years before Strachan was 256 employed in a similar venture. Ryerson championed the cause of this College in his newspaper, the Christian Guardian. In 1837, thanks to his tireless efforts, the Methodist College was awarded some sixteen thousand dollars by the House of Assernbly, although this award was rejected by the Legislative Council as profligate.(72.) Ryerson opened Victoria College in Cobourg in

1841 without state sumort. He captured the Methoaist spirit of the Upper Canadian period in his address to the College:

"The establishment of such an institution by the members of the Wesleyan Methodist Church in Canada attests their estimate of education and science. ... (T)he Act itself will advance the paramount interests of literary education amongst Her Majesty's Canadian subjects ... For the accomplishment of this purpose, a grant must be added to the charter - a measure... honourable to the enlightened liberality of the Government and Legislature. When they are securely laying a broad foundation for popular government, and devising comprehensive schemes for the development of the latent resources of the country ...and proposing a liberal system of common school education, free from the domination of every church, and aiding colleges which rnay have been established by any church, we may rationally and confidently anticipate the arrival of a long-looked for era of civil government and civil liberty, social harmony, and public prosperity."(73.)

By the rnid-1840s, Ryerson further eclipsed Strachan with the former's arrival at Toronto as Superintendent of Education. He brought his quiet, thoughtful, tolerant views, hardened and 257 tested by his battles against the Famiiy Compact. It had been a hard run race, narrowly won. The thread of Strachan's University unspooled during the 18305, its finances laid waste to by the rapacious financial demands of Upper Canada College, its Charter bringing political deadlock between the House of Assembly and the

Legislative Council, its intended sectarian nature and exclusivity setting it in opposition to the common good and the enlightened views of Colborne at a critical juncture, and its greater, societal purpose at odds with the homespun cloth of

Ryerson's Upper Canadian and Methodist convictions. Ryerson wrote in 1844:

"1 was about entering upon the peaceful work - a work extensive and varied beyond the powers of the most untiring and vigorous intellect - a work down to this time almost entirely neglected - of devising and constructing ... a fabric of Provincial cornrnon school education.. .. (S)uch was the work 1 was resolving ... to undertake; and no heart bounds more than mine with desire, and hope, and joy, at the prospect of seeing, at no distant day, every child of my native land in the school going way... and of witnessing one cornprehensive and unique system of education, from the a,b,c of the child, up to the rnatriculation of the youth into the benignity to every sect, and every party upon the broad basis of our Common Christianity."(74.)

While the Methodists were denied funding, Upper Canada College had, by the 1837-38 fiscal year, consumed seventeen thousand pounds or sixty-eight thousand dollars £rom the public purse.(75.) Years of denials, refusals, and excuses over money -

"war losses," "no funds," "costs of putting down the insurrection" - seem very hollow compared to this actual expenditure on so narrow and so limited, in terms of the population it served, an educational purpose. In addition to two thousand pounds flowing annually to the College, John Strachan had received, during the years 1826-1835, some thirteen thousand pounds in salary, stipend, allowances, land grants, and sundries.(76.) And, he was only one of several gorging themselves at the public trough while the Appletons of Upper

Canada scrambled for their daily bread. In 1839, the House of

Assembly investigated the indebtedness of Upper Canada College to the corporation of King's College. The inquiry found a massive total debt of over thirty-two thousand pounds; King's College had raised this money by selling most of the prime land within its grant - 97,737 acres at twenty-one shillings per acre to gross some fifty-three thousand pounds.(77.)

As the Assernbiymen investigated, they discovered both sloppy accounting practices and criminal embettlement. The ubiquitous comptroller, Colonel Wells, was thrown to the wolves by the 259 Family Compact, as political losses were cut. Wells, the Bursar for Upper Canada College and the Treasurer for King's, had to make the following abject submission to the House of Assembly:

"It is with feelings of compunction and deep regret that I have now painfully to announce that the balance of 6,374 pounds fourteen shillings one pence, due from me, is not immediately forthcoming owing to myself acknowledged censurable conduct, in affording aid to various individuals out of the funds in my possession without any sanction for so doing. It is impossible for me to justify such an act of misappropriation, nor can 1 hardly expect to be credited when I assent, that from my unaccountable neglect of keeping my regular account of private expenditures ...1 had really imagined (that inasmuch as many of those advances were positively made out of the sale of my commission of Lieutenant Colonel, from which 4,000 sterling was remitted to me from England) that a greater proportion of these advances had been made from my own private funds ...."(78.)

Others of the Famiiy Compact constellation - a Ridout and a

Robinson - were caught by this financial investigation.

The thread of the proposed Church of England University was caught irrevocably in the financial workings and misdealings of the Family Compact. The House of Assembly reported in 1840.

Once more, they recommended that Upper Canada College be subsumed under the Provincial University that was beginning to take shape: "The Provinciâl Lejislature were so deeply irnpressed with the necessity of making prompt provision, under the circumstances, that, in the last session they passed an act creating Upper Canada College as the temporary University (without denominational bars) ...."(79.)

It was clear to al1 but the Family Compact that a systematization of education was overdue by 1840. The tolerant

Methodism of Egerton Ryerson had, by then, emerged to be a bezter option for Upper Canada than tne truculence of Strachan's Church of England. Ryerson realized, early on in his superintendency,

that a "separateness provision" would be unavoidable, though he despaired of its necessity. The language of 'The Cornmon School

Act1(1841) captures the tolerant, general spirit flowing £rom the

struggle of the pluralistic groups during the Upper Canadian period against Anglican Ascendancy. The Act acknowledges the need for "separateness" in schooling the "rising qenerations," that appropriate toleration might be shown to Roman Catholics - the first group stipulated - in Upper Canada with its Clause XI:

That whenever any number of Inhabitants of any Township or Parish professing a Religious Faith different from that of the majosity of the Inhabitants of such Township, or Parish, shall dissent from the regulations, arrangements, or proceedings of the Comon School Commissioners. .. (I)t shall be lawful for such dissenting Inhabitants ... to establish and maintain one or more Common Schools, and to receive £rom the District Treasurer their proportion according to their numbers, of the rnonies appropriated by Law."(80.)

Ryerson was hopeful that, in tirne, separateness miqht be eliminated as superfluous with a demonstrably successful, non- denominational and common education available within a free and universal system. He was, perhaps, in his educationai administration, overly optimistic about the ultimate sectarian fate of the Irish National Schools of the 1840s.

In terms of the politics of Upper Canadian and Canadian Roman

Catholicism, Ryerson was a naif. The Canadian parliamentarian,

John. A. Macdonald, politely upbraided Ryerson about his naivety in a private correspondence concerning the troubled passage of an educational bill iater in the nineteenth-century:

"'1 need not point out to your suggestive mind that in any article written by you on the subject it is politic to press two points on the public attention: Ist, that the Bill will not, as you Say, injuriously affect the Comrnon School System. This is for the people at large. 2nd, that the Bill is a substantial boon to the Roman Catholics. This is CO keep them in good humour. "' ( 8 1. ) 262 Bishop Macdonell proved indefatigible in representing Roman

Catholic interests in Upper Canada, taking the line of argument that Roman Catholicism had been, in fact, Upper Canada's only

Established Church, while the Province had formed part of Quebec.

Until his death in 1840, he hectored and harried, cajoled and chastised, wheedled and whined, sermonized and pontificated, to great effect. He was the battle-decorated Chaplain of the

Glengarry Fencibles. He was made an Executive Councillor. He was an important political buttress to the Family Compacz on ïhe periphery, counselling loyalty as the highest civic virtue. And, he shepherded and sheltered his parochial schools in their prelatry with assiduous care, as the Family Compact State formulated its educational policies and undertook its relatively- lavish educational experiments - usually in an effort to sew together Church and State. By obviously buttressing the Family

Compact, rather than radically attacking its foundations as

Mackenzie had, Macdonell gained the concessions so vital to the establishment of his group's Faith and ïhe protection of the

Magisterium in its schools.

A correspondence from Lieutenant-Governor Peregrine

Maitiana's private secretary, to the Bishop, suggests the fruits 263 of Macdonell's labours in the creation of tolerant educational conditions for Roman Catholic Upper Canadians over nearly four decades. The real lessons of both the revolutions of America and

Europe, and the contemporaneous conditions of Irish education, were not lost on Macdonell. He had decided early on that Roman

Catholics were better off under the umbrella of the British

Crown, but that - under the urnbrella - little effort would be lost in Anglicizing and assimilating Roman Catholics, where possible, by the agencies of the State, particulariy in schools.

Roman Catholicism could not be one and the same as "any other denomination" of the Protestant branch of the Church Catholic.

The Anglicanization tendency, conspiracy, or drift, Macdonell had to resist at al1 costs. The Lieutenant-Governor's Office wrote to St. Raphael's:

"'That as the Roman Catholic children have the same rneans of availing themselves of the education provided by the Province with those of any other denorninations, and as there is no interference with the principles of their religion at the Public Schools, His Lordship does not deem it necessary to authorize any special provision for schoolmasters of the Roman Catholic religion. There would be, however, no objection to the application of one quarter of the present appropriation for priests to the support of schoolmasters for whose character and conduct Your Lordship would be responsible.'"(82.)

To Macdonell, the greatest danger for young Roman Catholics was 264 education without a "special provision." The Magisterium of the

Roman Catholic Church could be in no way ensured in a non- denominational conunon school, that was in al1 likelihood

Protestant in outlook and teaching, if not Anglican. Macdonell did not cease - until his death - to battle for the "separateness provision" he felt so necessary. It was granted in Law, shortly after the Act of Union. The provision is a mernorial to

Macdonell's lifelonq efforts in the struggle for his Church, and his determined opposition to the Church of England's continual attempt at Establishment in Upper Canada. It was a rernarkable achievement for a man who buttressed the Family Compact so.

By 1841, Strachan had lost on al1 major political counts.

The thread of the University had been entangled irremediably in the larger, Provincial issue of Church Establishment, and in the smaller issue of Upper Canada Collegels spendthrift record, which the Assembly's investigations and Mackenzie's Crievances had brought to light. The fabric of tolerance was sewn togetner - a quilt from the common, homespun patches provided by the pluralistic groups of pioneers in Upper Canada - as a general spirit born of years of growing opposition to the Family

Compact's sectarian drive. That drive had so nearly fused the

Church of England with the State in Upper Canada. Ryerson would ernerge £rom the wars against Anglican arbitrariness as the undisputed leader of eaucation in Canada West. He set the

State's course for constructing Ontario's education system, with the guiding spirit of the common and tolerant will of average

Upper Canadians, a will that had emerged in defiance of the

Church of England's hegernony, and with the abiding compass of St.

Paul's epistle to the Romans, a Biblical passage that Ryerson quoted f requently: " ' ...in necessary things unity, in non- essentials liberty, in al1 things charitye1"(83.) Notes

J.H. Newman, Anslican Difficulties (1850)

(Fraser, Michigan: RVB, 1991), pp.124-125.

rJLA 'Report on the Petition of Christians of Different

Denorninations in Upper Canada', 1828, Appended.

JLA, Address of the Speaker, 11 December 183i, p.43.

JLA, 'Report on the Petition of Christians of Different

Denominations in Upper Canada', 1828, Appended.

JLA, 'Denominations', 1828, Appended.

JLA, 'Denominations', 1828, Appended.

?JLA 'The Petition of His Majesty's Dutiful and Loyal

Subjects, the Inhabitants of the Midland District', 1828,

Appended.

8. JLA, 'Midland District', 1828, Appended. 9. JLA, Throne Speech (Colborne), 16 January 1829, p.13.

10. JLC, Throne Speech (Simcoe), 17 September 1792, p.2.

11. JLA, 'Report on Western School District', 1830, Appended,

p.141.

12. J. George Hodgins (ed.), The Storv of MY Life - Rev.

Eserton Rverson, D.D.. LLD. (Toronto: William Briggs,

1883), p.47.

13. Lillian F. Gates, Land Policies of Umer Canada (Toronto:

U. of T. Press, 1968), p.196.

14. JLA, 'Report on the Petition of Christians of Different

Denominations in Upper Canada', 1828, Appended.

15. C.W. Robinson, Life of Sir John Beverlev Robinson: Chief

Justice of UDD~~Canada (Toronto: Morang and Co., 1903),

p. 173.

16. Robinson, Chief Justice, p.176. l 2 6 8

17. Historical Atlas of Wellinqton Countv, Ontario (Toronto:

Historical Atlas Pub. Co., 1904), p.2.

18. B. Speirs and R. Reynolds (Archivists), 'Introduction'

Inventory 2 - Records of the Ministry of Education Vol 1:

Processed Records, P.A.O. (Oct. 1970), p.2.

19. JLC, 26 January 1832, p.124.

20. JLA, Letter of the Lieutenant Governor (Colborne), 1832,

p. 119.

21. Mary B. Fryer and Charles J. Humber (Eds.), Loyal She

Remains (Toronto: The United Empire Loyalists Association of

Canada, WH), p. 377.

22. Schama writes in Citizens: "...Louis (XVI on March 6, 1785), full of silly pique, decided that the most crushing reproof he could give to an ironist would be comic humiliation. That evening, while at tne card table, he scribbled on the back of the seven of spades that Beaumarchais should be confined not in the Bastille (the usual detention for insubordinate writers) but in Saint- Lazare, the correction center for delinquent boys. In the short term, this facetious humiliation took the wind out of Beaumarchais' sails. Refusing to emerge from the prison, knowing he was the butt of jokes, he never quite regained the breezy confidence which had sustained him through many misfortunes. In the very last years of the old regime he hirnself became the wnipplng boy of radicals and reactionaries alike."(p.144.)

23. Gates, Land Policies, p.255.

24. JLC, The Select Cornmittee on Grievances (Examinations),

1836, Appended Mo. 21, p.46.

25. Josephine Phelan, The Ardent Exile (Toronto: NacMillan,

l95l), p. 168.

26. Virginia R. Robeson (eu.), Documents in Canadian Historv:

Umer Canada in the 1830s (Toronto: OISE, 1977).

27. Stephen Neill, Anslicanism (London: Mowbrays, 1977), pp.

92 iootnote, 108.

28. Derek Beales, From Castlereaqh to Glaùstone 1815-1885 (Don

Mills, Ontario: Nelson, 1969), p.26.

29. Cecil Woodham-Smith, The Great Hunaer - Ireland 1845-1839 (Toronto: Penguin, 1991), p.27.

30. Sir Llewellyn Woodward, The Aqe of Reform 1815-1870 (2nd)

(Oxford: at the Clarendon Press, 19623, p.515.

31. Woodward, Reform, p.490.

32. Woodward, Reform, p.478.

33. JLA, W.L. Mackenzie's Official Letters, 1835, Appended

No021,p.86.

34. Mackenzie began his Grievance hearings in the 1835 Parliamentary session. His principal and final report came to be known as the Seventh Re~ortbecause he made six interim reports on the Farniiy Compact's abuses - both real and imagined - to the House of Assembiy.

35. JLC, The Select Committee on Grievances (Examinations),

1836, Appended No.21, p.37.

36. GA, Letters of Bishop Macdonell, 1835, Appended No.21,

p.29. 37. JLA, The Select Committee on Grievances (Examinations),

1835, Appended No. 21, p.27.

38. JLA, Letters of Bishop Macdonell, 1835, Appended No.21,

p.28.

39. E.J. Hathaway, Jesse Ketchum and His Times (Toronto: M&SI

1929), p. 118.

40. JLC, W.L. Mackenzie's Official Letters, Appended No.21,

p. 82.

41. Hodgins, Ryerson, p.368,

42. Ryerson'ç view of girls' education was not so enlightened.

In the DCB, R.D. Gidney maintains: "He had an unsure hand

when it came to providing for the advanceci education of

young women."(Vol. XI 1881 to 1890, p.793) Ryerson thought

a classical, secondary school education would be wasted on a

girl; French was to be preferred to Latin in her syllabus,

prior to her entering fully the domestic sphere as a young

woman . 43. JLA, Official Letters, 1835, Appended No.5, p.22.

44. JLA, 'Second Report of the Select Comrnittee on Education',

1833, Appended, p.62.

45. JLA, 'Second Report', 1833, ~ppended,p.62.

46. Hathaway, Jesse Ketchum, p.278.

47. William D. Lesueur, William Lvon Mackenzie - A

Reinter~retation (Ottawa: Carleton U.P., 1979), p.131.

48. JLA, 'Second Report of the Select Committee on Education',

1833, Appended, p.60.

49. JLA, 'Second Report', 1833, Appended, p.64.

50. JLA, 'Second Report', 1833, Appended, p.65.

51. JLA, 'Second Report', 1833, Appended, p.65. 52. LA, 'Second Report', 1833, Appended, p.65.

53. JLA, 'Second Report', 1833, Appended, pp.65-6.

54. JLA, 'Second Report', 1833, Appended, p.69.

55. JLA, 'The Royal Charter' (1827), University of King's

College, 1835, Appended No. 13, pp.1-2.

56. LA 1839-40, Appended Vol. 1, Part 1, pp.137-154.

57. JLA, Part 1, pp.137-154.

58. JLA, Letters of John Strachan, 1835, Appended No.5, p.22.

59. Elizabeth Longford, Wellincrton - Pillar of State (New York:

Harper & Row, 1972), p.186.

60. Longford, Wellinqton, p.186, footnote.

61. Longford, Wellington, p.186, footnote. 62. Longford, Weliinston, p.188.

James Sir Robert Filmer and Enslish Political Thouqht:

"In these sometimes fierce debates the names of Whig and Tory were first heard in England, and from abusive epithets they became proud party names. The parliamentary debates over Exclusion (the disinheriting of James II - he kept his head as a consolation - ending the Stuart line of Kings, and allowing the Glorious, Protestant Revolution of 1688) ...revolved around the scale of the Roman Catholic threat represented by James ...."(pp.l43,144.)

64. JLC, 1836, Appended AI p.10.

65. In the Mernoir of Bishop Strachan (1870) by Strachan's

protege, A.N. Bethune, Bishop Bethune noted:

"...and to the writer of these pages Dr. Strachan affirmed, on his return from England, that he had expressed to Lord Bathurst his objection to the provision last cited (in the Charter's text), - that the Archdeacon of York should, ex-officio, be President of the University; and he stated also his doubts whether it was judicious to require from the mernbers of the College Council subscription to the Thirty-nine Articles, These, however, were arrangements that could be rnodified, without doing vioience to the religious influence by which it was intended that the University should be controlled; and without excluding the Church of England from that general government and supervision to which al1 felt she was entitled."(p.llO) Bishop Bethune did not elaborate on who comprised "all".

66. JLC, The Honourable Mr. Macaulay's Select Cornittee on tne

Charter of King's College, 1836, p.201.

67. -JLA, 1839-40, Appended, Vol. 1, Part 1, pp.137-154.

68. JLA, Response to the Throne Speech, 1836, p. 32.

69. JLC, 5 March 1828, p.241.

70. R.D. Gidney, DCB Vol. XI 1881 to 1890 (Toronto: U. of T.

Press, 1982), p.784.

7 1. Hodgins, Rverson, p. 8 1.

72. Hodgins, Rverson, p.179.

73. Hodgins, Rverson, p.300.

1827, P.A.O.

83. Clara Thomas, Rverson of Umer Canada (Toronto: Ryerson,

l969), p. 117. 278

Chapter Four: Struggling with ~iversity-TheState & The Peoole

"Sailing into the cloud land, sailinq into the Sun, Into the crimson portals ajar when life is done O! dear dead race, my spirit too Would fain sail westward unto you."

Tekahionwake (E. Pauline Johnson), "The Happy Hunting Groundsw

"DEC. 16th - 1 have this week been trying to procure for the Indians the exclusive right of their salmon fishing, which I trust will be granted by the Legislature. I have attended one of their Councils, when everything was conducted in a most orderly manner. After al1 the business was adjusted, they wished to give me an Indian name. The old chief arose, and approached the table where 1 was sitting, and in his own tongue addressed me in the following manner:

"'Brother, as we are brothers, we will give you a name. My departed brother was named Cheehock ('A bird on the wing', referring to Ryerson's energetic approach to his missionary vocation); thou shalt be called Cheehock.' 1 returned him thanks in his own tongue, and so became initiated ...."(1.)

Egerton Ryerson's diary entry in The Storv of MY Life Everyone is a migrant to this favoured land, whether having had ancestors cross a land bridge millenia ago or having landed here oneself. The aboriginals were the first migrants, if archaelogy and science are to be believed. If their elders are to be believed, they were created here. In 1937, in a persona1 conversation with the author, one Wiki elder on Manitoulin Island stood looking out over a brooding Lake Huron, resplendent, nead- to-toe in designer denim, a Rolex watch, Ray-Ban sunglasses, and stated: "We grew here like the rocks and the pine trees."(2.)

His evidence certainly corresponds with the great wealth of North

Arnerican aboriginal mythology. Traditional, Western, narrative history has European colonists arriving on the eastern coasts of

North America in sailing-ships from the 1600s on, displacing the aboriginals - the descendants of the earliest migrants - from their traditional lands.(3.)

The area of Upper Canadz, or Ontario today, was inhabited at recorded European contact, by various, major aboriginal tribes - the Hurons, the Ottawas, and the Algonkians. Across Lake Ontario to the south, in what is now up-state New York, there dweiled the Five Nations Confederacy of the Iroquois (Mohawks, Oneidas,

Onondagas, Cayugas, and Senecas). Many of these tribes or their respective groupings into smaller bands were well organized and quite settled. Their lives were based around stone-age horticulture, particularly the cultivation of maize. Inter- tribal disputes were not uncornon, though aboriginals did not share the European concept of private property. LM. Bumsted notes: "While these farming peoples often fought with one another in blood feuds ...wars were not carried on for territorial purposes."(4.) The clash in cultures between the established aboriginal populations and the arriving European populations was, metaphorically-speaking, an iron ploughshare striking the pre-

Carnbrian rock of the Canadian Shield. In Canada, European pioneers and settlers came to encroach constantly - though peaceably relative to the Americans in general - on the aboriginal lands. Bumsted terms the cultural contact "a true tragedy" for the aboriginals and their way of life. (5. ) The truth of Bumsted's assessment is undeniable: one cannot write in the era of the five hundredth anniversary of Cabot's landing on

Newfoundland without being conscious of the terrible fate visited on the Beothuks. In Upper Canada, one gains a srna11 sençe of the traqedy through 'The petition of the Chippawa Indians of Lakes Huron and

Simcoe' to the Lieutenant-Governor, Sir John Colborne, in 1835:

"Humbly Sheweth:

"That your Petitioners are thankful that the Great Spiriz has put into the hearts of our good white friends to take us from the wilderness, to lead us on to some knowledge of Christianity, the benefits of civilized life, and the blessings to be enjoyed by abstaining £rom the use of fire liquids.

"That we are sorry to Say, there are amongst the White Men, those, who fear not the Great Spirit, and try hard, by inducing us to drink whiskey, to bring us back to the miserable state in which we were when tne flesh of the muskrat was Our food, and its skin we bartered for destruction, through rneans of strong drink.

"That we see with grief, many of Our friends and relations made slave to the evil spirit by their love for this destroying medicine, and, like the leaves from a tree, they drop to the earth, never more to be remernbered.

"We would therefore beseech our Father, the Governor, to recommend to the great Law Makers who are so soon to meet at Toronto, to take our misery into consideration, and to Save us.

"That the poor Red Men of the forest have not strength to resist the tempter, nor power by their Council to control the man who draws the poison £rom his casks; consequently, we woul d beg that a law be made to prevent white men giving or selling in any manner whatever, spirituous liquors to the Indians

"And we will ever be grateful .... William Yellow Head [and sixty others)" (6.)

"Misery" was visited on many aboriginals in Ontario during the

Upper Canadian period - the delicate cultural balance of living in Nature was lost. Perhaps the Europeans were, from the aboriginal perspective, like the mythopoetic crew of Wagner's

"Flying Dutchrnan," never meant to corne ashore so accursed were they. It is clear from aboriginal mythology that the native peoples wait expectantly for the day non-aboriginals depart from these shores.

In the Upper Canadian period, on the northern shores of cold

Lake Ontario, the aboriginals' land was appropriated by the

British Crown's agents for settlernent or speculation. In general this was done peacefully with treaties and purchases. Relative to the era, in Upper Canada, land acquisition was done civilly.

Reserves were, however, inevitable for Canada's true, "distinct society." These were considered preferable by many tribes and bands to a more random fate in the United States of America.

Thayendanega (Joseph Brant) realized that the conservative

British rule in Upper Canada would prove more tolerant of aboriginals, than the fractious repubiicanism at the time of the

American Revolution. He understood that loyalty would be rnaterially rewarded by the British Crown. Thayendanega led the

Mohawks on the side of the United Empire Loyalists. He then brought them north from their ancestral lands as part of the wave of Loyalist-refugees at tne end of the eighteenth century. In

1786, he wrote to Lord Sidney, then the Secretary of State for the English Colonies:

"From the promises made by the Governor and the Commander-in- chie£ of Canada, that their losses should be made good, and that soon, when I left them, I was desired to put His Majesty's ministers in mind of their long and çincere friendship for the English nation, in whose cause their ancestors and they have so often fought and so freely bled, - of their late happy settlement before the rebellioc, and their present situation, - and to request their claims might be attended to, and that orders may be given for what they are to receive to be paid as soon as possible, in order to enable them to go on with the settlement they are now making; in some measure stock their farms, and get such articles and materials as al1 settlernents in new countries require ...."(7.)

The Mohawks were eventually settled, due in large part to their 284 leader's political acumen, on the Grand River before the Upper

Canadian period. At its inception, the "Six Nations received a reserve six miles wide on either side of the (Grand) river from its mouth to its source."(8.) The Family Compact was content to have an overtly loyal group settled - on the periphery - and was intent on the aboriginals' conversion to Church of England-

Christianity.

A soldier-artist, James Peachey, visited this reserve just before the Upper Canadian period. His description reflects accurately the educational circurnstances on the reserves during the Upper Canadian period. Education was, amongst aboriginals, then a prirnarily a missionary activity. The State, though full of good intentions for aboriginal education, would not become engaged actively until the second half of the nineteenth century.

".... (James Peachey) visited the Grand River Indians in the early days of the settlement and made an engaging sketch of the school. His picture ...shows the children at their lessons in the schoolhouse. The room is heavily beamed. ... The Indian teacher... Paulus...his blanket cast aside, sits regally in his chair .... The cnildren are barefoot and dressed in the English style, though some of the boys Wear scalp locks to show they are already young warriors. Later there would corne a white (missionary), one Moses Mount.... This man... nad sixty-six pupils who he taught English and arithmetic, was to grow old in service. He died in 1799, when Joseph (Brant) began the search for a new teacher and an effort to get the teacher a better salary."(9.)

Since 1763, when al1 of Upper Canada was termed "Indian

Reserve" as part of Quebec, aboriginal reserves have been reduced, shunted aside, or marginalized continually. Even the

"Six Nations" would have their land area reduced after their founding hero died. Desirable land was taken for farming and settlement, in the European style of private property. The aboriginals, l5sing their-ability to hunt and to trap freely across the land, became increasingly dependent on the European settlers for charity. Many aboriginals became easy prey for imported vices. Methodism came to their communities and afforded a measure of stability and comfort to them, as it did to other groups in the backwoods; but, most aboriginals suffered greatly during the adjustment phase of radical lifestyle change.(lO.)

During the Upper Canadian period many missionaries, like the young Egerton Ryerson, fulfilled their vocations amongst the aboriginals. Ryerson lived and worked amongst the Chippewas of the Mississauga Nation, in what is now Port Credit. He spent much of 1826 endeavouring to deliver the Christian message as a 2 8 6 missionary. Young Egerton Ryerson is quite representative of the hundreds of missionaries in Upper Canada - decent, inspired, sincere, caring, and effective, especiaily to those who aboriginals who remained and accepted both message and meçsenger. Arnongst the Christian traditions, Methodism quietly predominated in the backwoods of early Ontario, though the

Jesuitst- and their lay companions' - appalling martyrdoms at the hands of the Iroquois in Huronia is much better commemorated today. Ryerson was accepted fondly by his hoçt band, and welcomed as a brother, being given the name Cheehock. Ryerson worked vigorously on behalf of the secular and spiritual interests of the Chippewas.

Appended to The Journal of the House of Assemblv of U~per

Canada in 1829 is the 'Report on an Indian Petition.' Ryerson had drafted this petition for the aboriginals with whom he lived, to gain them lawful fishing rights on the Credit River at its mouth. Ryerson answerrE the questions of Select Cornmittee in person :

Question: "What schools have they?" Ryerson : "TWO schools ---- one male, one female, about fifty children in both. They are taught reading, writing and arithmetic ...."

Question: "What books usually?"

Ryerson : "Principally the hymn book ---- and some read the English Reader, Catechism and Watt's Divine Songs."

Question: "Who are their teachers?"

Ryerson : "Jonn Zones teaches the boys ---- Miss Rolph teaches the girls. I do myself also assist at the schools as well as attend to their religious instruction and divine service amongst them as a missionary."

Question: "Have you any doubt whatever of the progress of civilization amongst thern?"

Ryerson : "None in the world, 1 see their daily improvement ---- and their growing happiness with it, they are now appropriating a portion of the hunting profit to the erection of a workshop where to teach the children trades ---- and they wish to abandon hunting as soon as they cari live without it, they feel that it withdraws their children from instruction."(ll.)

Ryerson made a sincere and committed effort at the improvement of his fellow human beings, preaching a Gospel he believed to be an improving Truth. Eowever, his altruism - and that of many others

- is too easily deconstrücted these days as cultural imperialism, 288 paternalism, abuse, or the 1Fke. By the contemporary Port Credit

Chippewas, Ryerson was considered a trusted friend and brother.

He never betrayed that trust.

Ryerson did not linger amongst the aboriginals. He had political campaigns to fight. However, other missionaries did remain. Kahkewaquonaby (Peter Jones), a Methodist contemporary of Ryerson's in the missionary field, migrated from the mouth of the Credit-area reserve to the Huron Tract in the late-1820s.

"There was now a grand encampment of Chippewas upon the Flats; and pending the arriva1 or white missionaries, one of their own blood, the famous Peter Jones, from the Credit, came to preach the Gospel to them.... On the Sunday morning he met his congreqation, al1 the conununity, red and white, and gave them a most powerful and eloquent sermon, first in English and then in the native tongue. The Indians listened with tne deepest attention to a forcible setting forth of the sins of drunkeness. He told them that Christ had corne upon earth to Save the red man's sou1 as well as that of the white; he entreated them to repent of their sins and be 'saved through Him'."(lZ.)

The Çtate's interest in the education of the aboriginal population was extremely limited in the Upper Canadian period.

During this period, it was enough for the State to see the aboriginals placed suitably on reserves, there to receive the word of God and to consume finished goods, a number of which had 289 deleterious and corrupting influences. The missionaries were allowed a free-rein. Estirnates £rom the 1830s put the aboriginal population of Upper Canada at 5,500 out of nearly

300,000 in totaL(l3.) An 1838 letter, written by Dr. Strachan, concerns the conditions and education of the aboriginals.

Strachan noted that the population of Mohawks on the Grand River was about 2,000 people, making it easily the largest reserve by number in Upper Canada.(l4.) He wrote in one of his official capacities: "Several Çchoolmasters are employed in the education of their Children - and exertions are making to teach them the common arts of life by means of a School of Industry."(l5.)

Strachan is expressing the direction in which the State would move during Ryerson's regime in Canada West and Ontario - vocational training or schooling in the trades.(i6.)

During the Upper Canadian period, the education waç

Biblically-based with an emphasis on the manual arts ana crafts.

It was in the context of rugged Upper Canada, then, perfectly appropriate. Concerning the "Missasaguas" of the Credit mouth reserve, Strachan noted:

"This tribe numbers about two hundred and twenty - His Excellency Sir Peregrine Maitland built a village for them on the River Credit with a view of placing a resident Missionary of the English Church among them.... (B)ut owing to some want of arrangement a delay intervened and in the meantime the Methodists got a footing and appeared to be doing so much good, that it has not been thought expedient to disturb them - "(17.)

What Strachan likely meant was it was difficult to get a university-educated Church of England minister to give up his cornfortable living in England, to corne to Upper Canada for a harsh, pioneering existence with little or no remuneration. For

Strachan, under such circumstances, on the Upper Canadian periphery, Methodists would usually have to do. The Methodist missionaries were, after all, baptizing aboriginals as

Christians: their confirmation Anglicans could follow with the

Church of England State. Al1 missionakes, regardless of affiliation, attempted to show the aboriginals a benignant

Christianity; the various groups supporting the missions financially were happy to gain new adherents, swelling their numbers and enhancing tneir political status in Upper Canada.

Sir Peregrine Maitland was, according to Dr. Stracnan, "very anxious ...to adopt and mature a general plan for the ...aboriginals," especially with regara to their education, religion and cornmerce.(l8.) The State's plan was: "...to establish in each Village one or more resident Missionaries,

Memberç of the Church of England - one Surgeon - one Blacksmith - one Carpenter - a practical Farmer with Schools of instruction and industry with proper TeachersmW(l9.) This was almost exactly the same program that Dr. Booker T. Washington brought int.0 the effect in the "Deep Souch" of the United States of America during the 1860s, Reconstruction-era, when he founded the Tuskegee

Institute in Alabama for young black adults - a program mixing

Protestant evangelism and work ethic, in-class tuition, manual labour, self-help, trades apprenticing, and farmings skills. In

Upper Canada, it never came to pass because Strachan - at York - had more pressing demands for his severely limited educational f unds .

Contemporary correspondences afford a window into this long forgotten world of Missionary Schools. In a letter written £rom the Huron Tract during 1826, by a T.G. Anderson, Esq., resident agent for Indian Affairs at Drummond Island, to a friend serving in the Royal Engineers, Anderson notes:

"Late in the sumrner of 1824 a Missionary School was commenced at Mackinac, some encouragement was given, in 1825. They (the missionaries and the aboriginals) built a large establishment, and now have upwards of 200 Children of mixed and pure Indian Blood. ... The expense of the Establishment is defrayed by an Institution in the States called the Foreign Mission Society. The Children of Indians and of indigent whites are clothed, fed, and instructed gratis .... Our dear little Samuel...was permitted a*y, tS C'-A LL-C LL +O =n hm2te h-nnv* beccime =z? --rrr A ArrAu ctia~~ite Improvement he makes is wonderful. He is now little more than five years of Age, (and) was admitted in Sept' 1825; and can now read the Bible nearly as well as his Master, is perfect in the common Arithmetical Tables and besides a variety of Hymns and Little Stories which ne has comrnitted to Memory ...(is) Improving astonishingly ...."(20.)

It was primarily the Mississaugas who were disrupted and dispossessed during the pre-Confederation period of European

settlernent in Upper Canada. This tribe, a branch of the Ojibwa

from the north, had survived the bloody raids of the Iroquois

from the southern shores of Lake Ontario. The Mississaugas had

probably corne south from Lake Huron a century prior to European contact into the relatively uninhabited bush that became settled

Upper Canada. Upper Canada seems to have been somewhat of a no- man's land prior to Züropean contact, fought over between the

Ojibwa and the Iroquois. The Ojibwa, who became the Mississaugas of Upper Canada, were the Phyrric victors of these wars.

"According to Kabkewaquonaby, or the Rev. Peter Jones, a native Mississauga missionary, the skirmishes between the two Indian groups in the late 1690s were so bloody that a century and a half after they took place, 'there has been, and stiil is, a srnothered feeling of hatred and enmity between the two nations; so that when eitner of them cornes within the haunts of the other they are in constant fear'. Kahkewaquonaby pointed to the large mounds of human bones at the south and north ends of Burlington Beach as evidence of the intensity of the final battle."(21.)

European settlement, during the Upper Canadian period, was principally concentrated in a shallow 500 kilometre strip along the northern, Lake Ontario shoreline. Living in this strip were

- very approximately - six bands nurnbering 200 warriors or 1,000

Mississaugas in totaL(22.) To many Loyalists, the forests must have appeared uninhabited. They were not, however.

One can hardly imagine the dismay on the part of the aboriginals as their land was parcelled off and fenced in, and their way of life left a sullied and hollow imitation of what it had once been. A migrant, a Mrs. Stewart, the wife of a bankrupt from Belfast, who arrived in July, 1822, put her thoughts down on paper near the Thousand Islands. She wrote of a dismay that might be considered mutual and eternal for North Arnerican aboriginals and the relative newcomers who have dispossessed them of their land and lifestyles: "We had corne to a part of the river Sc. Lawrence called 'Mille Isles', where the scenery is most sublime and magnificent. The grandeur of the high, rocky banks, where no sound but the cry of feeling of an intense awe and a strong realization of the power and glory of Cod. After going on for some time we came to a more cultivated, at least a more cleared, part of the country, and thought we saw smoke. In this we were not disappointed, but when we came to the house we found it inhabited by an Indian family who had no furniture nor comfort of any kind, neither door nor window in the building. They could neither understand us, nor we them, so we stood in disrnay considering what we should do ...."(23.)

Even the best in Western education and the most munificent

funding cannot compensate the aboriginals for what was lost in

Upper Canada with the arriva1 of the settlers - never to be recovered. At least not until the imported "civilization" departs these shores whence it came.

"With respect to this point, your committee find...that Sandwich (Windsor) and its neighbourhood is principally inhabited by Canadians of French extraction, but the evidence will not warrant them in attributing to that portion of their fellow citizens, an indifference to the education of their cnildren: should however such indifference actually exist among them, your committee think it a strong reason for placing the District School as near their doors as possible, that such indifference,

rnay as SCY es ~csslEc!ZE cv~rcc~.e." ( 24 . )

Report of the Select Committee on Education, to whom was referred 'The Report of the Trustees of the District School of the Western District', House of Assembly, Mr. Robert Baldwin, Chairman, 1828.

The first European schools, in what was to become Upper

Canada, were established by the French-Canadians, or Canadiens, as they traded with and attempted to convert the aboriginal population. The students were Fnstructed "in French and Indian dialect by the Jesuit missionaries in Huronia (1639-1649)", near

Penetanguishene.(25.) The first, European school-building was erected at Fort Frontenac (Kingston) in 1676.(26.) By the early

1800s, education in the French language was occurring in Upper

Canadian schools in pockets of the southwestern counties of Essex and Kent. A French language school had opened at Fort Detroit around 1800. The French-speaking population in Upper Canada was fairly static during the Upper Canadian period. In the Upper

Canadian period toleration and, even, encouragement of the French language schools was the nom. 296

By various accounts, there were approximately 2,500 French- speaking people in Upper Canada by the early 1800s. Schools had been established in the market towns of the French-speaking, group settlernent areas:

"The first mention of a French-language cornmon school in the district (southwestern Ontario) is in 1824 when Francois Chenier was teaching thirty-nine pupils in Sandwich (latterly Windsor). Two years later Jean-Baptiste Mercure was teaching thirzy-six pupils at Arnhertsburg .... At this tirne we can presume that these schools were mainly French-speaking, since the population in the area was heavily French-Canadian and the names of the teachers were French. In the first half of the nineteenth century schools tended to reflect the language and religion of teachers. In 1827 three nuns arrived in Sandwich to teach both French and some English-speaking students. In 1829 a report was presented to the Legislative Assembly proposing that the Grammar school in Sandwich, a largely French-speaking town, be moved to Amherstburg, which was largely English-speaking.. . ,"(27.)

Under the chairmanship of Mr. Robert Baldwin, the Western

District's District Schoool was left on the doorstep of the

Franco-Ontarians at Sandwich. Through the government's proceedings, concern and tolerance were shown to this small, isolated, linguistic group. The evidence from the examination of a Mr. %A. Wilkinson, M.P., member of the Legislative Assembly for the Sandwich area, before a Select Committee, is found in the

House of Assembly's Journals for 1830. ft is speaks to this point:

Wilkinson: "The inhabitants of the township of Sandwich are primarily, principally French Canadians. - That circumstance alone, if I had no other reasons, would induce me to consider the District School well- situated. 1 am anxious to encourage the education

of the youth of the French-Canadians ....O

Question : "Are the French Canadians anxious to have their children educated?"

Wiikinson: "The French Canadians would send more of their children to school if the charges were not so great - Many of the French Canadians are desirous of having their children liberally educated. The service in their churches iç performed in Latin, and this circumstance alone would induce them to give their children a classical education."(28.)

This evidence was corroborated by the Honourable James Baby, a mernber of a distinguished French Canadian family and a

Legislative Councillor for the Sandwich area. When asked the same question regarding the French Canadians' desire for their children's education, Baby replied: "They would like their children to be educated if they could procure such education for a sum within their means."(29.) The District School's trustees were, however, Church of England communicants and ministers 2 9 8 residing, mainly, in and around Amherstburg. And, that is where they desired the District School to be. However, with the leadership of men like Assemblyman Wilkinson and Councillor Baby, the state kept the District School in Sandwich. When Mr.

Baldwin's Select Cornmittee reported, it found in favour of keeping the District School at Sandwich, so that any imputed

"indifference" to education on the part of the Franco-Ontarians might have been "overcome" swiftly. Much of the discourse around this matter appears liberal-minded, enlightened and exceedingly tolerant of this groupts educational needs. The State's decision to keep the District School at Sandwich was a tolerant act to accommodate diversity within the heterogeneous Upper Canadian population.

The matter of French instruction in Ontario only became a contentious issue when, in 1851, "seventeen French Canadians in

Essex County made a report to the District Board of Education for the right to have their children taught in English."(30.) The seventeen parents, settled in the Sandwich area, stated that, the

"french instruction alone availeth them (the children) next to nothing at all, being an ornamental rather than a usefull acquirement for the inhabitants of this country (Canada West)."(3i.) On the part of parents belonging to linguistic minorities, this was not an unusual request. As the century wore on, many parents felt their children's career and commercial opportunities would be greatly restricted without having had their educations conducted in English. J.D. Wilson has comrnented that the Upper Canadian State always affirmed that "a knowledge of French or German rnight be substituted for a knowledge of

EnglishV.(32.) In the Upper Canadian period, with such scattered wilderness- and peripheral-population groups, binding loyalty was much more important to the Family Compact than language.

From the 1840s on, French language schools in Canada West would gain additional recognition because they were Roman

Catholic. As such, the "separateness" legislation, beginning the 1840s, doubly protected them from the nativist and nationalistic clamour in Ontario following on from the Riel

Affair, swelling to an ugly crescendo prior to the First World

War. However, the spirit emerging from the Upper Canadian period was tolerant of French education. In the URD~~Canada Common

Schools Anmal Re~ort(1850), the School Trustees cornmefit equitably: "The expense of Common school education in Bytown (Ottawa) must always be heavier than elsewhere in Western Canada, on account of the large number of French Canadians, who are entitled to the same privilege of having teacners of their own language as their fellow-citizens of British origin."(33.)

"But 1 must beg permission to add what escaped me to notice in the proper place - that 1 have received information that there are several Townships in Upper Canada settled by Germans, in which al1 the Schools are German, and 11 of the Teachers aliens.

"Believing that it was not the intention of the Legislature... to prohibit European aliens from being ernployed as Common School Teachers, 1 have excepted them in the annexed Draft of a Bill. It is perhaps not necessarv to except any other than foreign Germans, but I have thought there might be cases of French and Italians proposing to teach schools in Upper Canada. The study of the French language especially should, I think, be encouraged to as great an extent as possible."(34.)

Dr. Egerton Ryerson, Chief Superintendent of Schools for Upper Canada, in correspondence with the Honourable D. Daly, M.P.P., Secretary of the Province (Canada West), 1846.

Among the English-speaking mainstream of Upper Canada there 301 was a minority population of German-speakers. Many of this group were tne re-ernigrated "Pennsylvania Dutch" or "Deutsch" of the

Anabaptist sect. These German-speakers left the increasingly violent United States during, and after, the Revolution.

Thousands came in the 1780s, 17905, and early 1800s, seeking peace, order, respect for private property, arable land for farrning, religious toleration, and freeaom £rom military service or entanglernent. In addition, 2,000 Mennonites came from

Pennsylvania.(35.) These Mennonites, as well as other

Anabaptists - Dunkards and Quakers - settled largely around the

Grand River, in the vicinity of Berlin (Kitchener-Waterloo):

"Gerrnan was spoken, as was Pennsylvania Dutch, a aialect, in stores and on streets in Kitchener, Waterloo and the northern half of the County until midway through the first world war.... German was the prevalent language in schools in Waterloo County until the late 1860s, although instruction was also given in English in some sch0ols.~'(36.)

This in-migration had ended effectively by the War of 1812. The

"Pennsyivania Dutch" were exemplary settlers, workers and farmers as welf. The Mennonites (or Menonists) purchased a major tract of land in 1801 in the vicinity of the Upper Grand River, taking up 60,000 acres of the Six Nations Reserve. These acres were quickly parcelled, fenced, and cleared, though the aboriginals retained, for a tirne, hunting and trapping rights where it benefitted the settlers.

The limited primary evidence in the contemporaneous

Legislative Journals indicates the State welcomed the German- speaking group to the Upper Canadian periphery. These pioneers were a much-needed and valuable population for Upper Canada's settlement. And, from the State's political perspective, any mild comfort and legal protection it could afford, with little rnonetary sacrifice, to refugees £rom American conditions of life, or strife, reflected well the secure disposition of life in the shade of the British Crown and Constitution, and made for favourable and self-congratulatory cornparisons to the great

Republic to the south. From the tirne of the first "Pennsylvania

Deutsch," their peace-seeking lifestyle was granted State toleration and acceptance. The Mennonites, and other

Anabaptists, were excused - by the State - from performing military service, even in the nation's defence during the war of

1812. In 1801, the Lieutenant Governor, General Peter Hunter, had enshrined into Law their exclusion from military conscription. The Journal of the Leoislative Assemblv (1801) records, in a very terse fashion, that a bill was enacted to grant "indulgence" £rom rnilitary service to people called

"Quakers, Menonists (Mennonites), and Tunkers (Dunkards)".(37.)

This "indulgence" was continued through the Upper Canadian period, though the Province was, at times, in very real peril.

The Anabaptist sects were taxed for their peaceable privilege.

The attitude to the education of children in the German language seems to have been, broadly-speaking, tolerant as well.

From the records of the Common Schools Annual Reports cornes considerable evidence just after the Upper Canadian period. From the Annual Report of 1851, fully under Ryerson's aegis, there are appended the 'Extracts from the Reports of Local Superintendents of Common Schools ...;' one such "report" came from a John

Finlayson, Esq., M.D., of Wilmot Township:

"A large proportion of the inhabitants of Wilmot are Gerrnans, and more than half of the schools are so exclusively, - where Gerrnan only is taught, these schools are very inferior in every respect. The books used are the German New Testament, a Roman Catholic catechism, and a Bible history. To improve these schools it would, 1 think, be necessary to give them teachers, who would be able to teach the several branches of an English education. If they could also teach the German language, so much the better and the more agreeable to the German parents. From my own observation, 1 should Say that the Germans in the townships of Waterloo, Wilmot, and Wellesley, are becorning alive to the uselessness of teaching German only, in their scnools; - so much so, that in some school sections among them, the German language is excluded, and al1 the ordinary branches of a common English education are taught. In other sections the Gerrnan language, is taught alternatively with the English."(38.)

In the Annual Re~ortfor 1852, local superintendent Alexander

Allan, Esq., for Waterloo reporteci:

"These townships are inhabited generally by the descendants of Dutcn(sic) settlers from Pennsylvania, who still preserve their own languages in their families, and by German immigrants from Europe who are ignorant of the English language .... The desire to be instructed in both languages is now becoming prevalent, and there is a demand for teachers who understand both languages; but there is a great deficiency of books in the Gerrnan language ...."(39.)

Many similar reports indicate that an essentially tolerant and accepting attitude to this linguistic grouping of Protestant sects had emerged during the Upper Canadian period. In addition,

Dr. Ryerson, the polymath, had a personal snobbery for European languages, to go with his deep understanding of the realoolitik of Upper Canadian education. Ryerson embarked on his state- supported European grand tour during the 18405, during which time he examined systems of education, thumbed through texts, and polished his language skills for practical use with the ethnocentric groups' spokesmen in Upper Canada:

"After examining the educational systems and certain institutions of Holland and Belqium, Ryerson came to Paris. Here he embarked on an amazing enterprise (in 1845). Partly impressed by the immediate need, but largely no doubt as a means to further usefulness in Canada, he laid aside his quest and directed al1 his energy to the study of the French language .... In German also he made sorne progress during the sumer, which he felt would assist him in dealing with the growing German population of the Province."(30.)

It is quite touching that Ryerson, though immensely busy with building the educational state in Canada West, used his precious time to study the rudiments of the German language. He did this sa he could work more intimately with the German-speaking groups and parents in Upper Canada, to be able to provide the rnost suitable education for the "rising generation", regardless of its heritage. His tealousness was, no doubt, enhanced by his years of suffering through the trials of the Upper Canadian period at the hands of the Family Compact. Ryerson, having endured so much during the exclusive and sectarian regime of the homogeneous, monoglot, ruling elite, provided a tolerant, polyglot, guiding- hand for the schoolinç of children from Upper Canada's pluralistic populations. "...they (the Highlanders) were being driven £rom the crofts by sheep farming and the pressure of poverty, reasons which were later improved to include the search for liberty, opportunity and political independence."(41.)

John Kenneth Galbraith, The Scotch

The Gaeiic-speaking, Roman Catholics came to Upper Canada in the late-1700s, amidst the small flood of English and United

Empire Loyalists. A large proportion came in group migrations.

As the 1800s began, Gaelic was - along with English, French,

German, and Algonkian - one of the officially recognized

languages of educational instruction in Upper Canada. Many of the Highlanders were impoverished and land-starved, having been dispossessed of Clan lands or tenancies with "Highland

Clearances" or the introduction of shaggy sheep. Many groups emigrated, or were sent forth, with their parish priests. The bulk of these migrants settled in Glengarry and Çtormont

Counties, especially around the market town and port of Cornwall.

From this region would emerge a vibrant and distinctive Upper 307 Canadian population, with many who played significant roles in the Province's development. Two men were to be of especial significance in the Upper Canadian context: John Sandfield

Macdonald and Father Alexander Macdonell. Macdo~afdwas active on the part of his constituents and Roman Catholics in general, and became the first Premier of Ontario. Macdonell's educational role was vital for the Roman Catholics of Upper Canada.

Father Alexander Macàoneli came to Upper Canada in 1804 ar the age of 42 years with his parish of beloved Macdonells, his demobilized regiment, and assorted Highlanders:

"Reverend Roderick Macdonell was joined by Reverend Alexander 'Scotus' Macdonell who led the entire parish of Knoydart in Glengarry, Scotland, to the New World. Some passengers disembarked at Ile. St. Jean but the great majority continued to the Glengarry district. Of those who came, not al1 were Catholic, but the Catholic settlers as a rule, banded together and formed groups where, later on, missions were opened or parishes were formed - thus St. Andrew's, thus St. Raphael's, thus Alexandria ...."(42.)

Since the Jacobite uprisings of 1745 in the British Isles, anti-

Clan and anti-Catholic repression had been severe in tne

Highlands. The traditional small enclosures were torn down for pasture. The surplus Roman Catholic population had to be shifted 308 so that the great landlords might rationalize their agriculture.

Groups of population were cleared en masse, into ships, and sent ont0 Upper Canada. And, in groups, in the Upper Canadian hinterland, they settled.(43.)

In Upper Canada, the Glengarry Highlanders would find both religious toierance and land. Father Macdonell found limitless opportunities for his irrepressible energy, building a political- ecclesiastical career that was only surpassed by Strachan during the Upper Canadian period. By 1831, he was the Catholic Bishop of Upper Canada and a Legislative Councillor.(44.) Macdonell's alliance with the Farnily Compact served his group's interests well. The alliance of Macdonell to the heavily Church of England

Family Compact, was an alliance that expressed "Macdonell's consistent support of the executive government and the willingness of the government, in turn, to accommodate the Bishop

in matters of patronage and financial aid to his church."(45.) with political legerdemain, Macdonell establisheu a politically conservative auid pro auo of unflinching mutual loyalty, especially in savaging incipient republicanisrn - like Mackenzie's polemical diatribes. Macdonell's accommodationist attitude and

life-long toi1 ensured the I'separateness" provision that was to corne to Upper Canadian education by the 1840s.

Education was of crucial importance to the Highlanders, as, in many cases, it had been denied them - as Roman Catholics - in

Scotland. For the Glengarry Scots group in Upper Canada, education was seen as the surest route for improvernent. In The

Journal of the House of Assemblv of 1816, one of the first petitions with regard to education (many had previously been written encouraging state support for roads) came £rom the

"yeomen" of Glengarry, Eastern District, Upper Canada, with

Macdonells to the fore:

"That the expense of erecting (the) Schoolhouse was done by our own means, for the sole purpose of encouraging education in a new country, and more especially for the benefit of such poor children whose parents or friends have not the means of defraying the expenses attending the sarne.

"The number of children now in school is about sixty but in order to pay the School master and raise a small fund to keep the schoolhouse in repair, the rate of education for each scholar is so high as to prevent several poor children obtaining the hoped for advantage of education ....

"We therefore humbly pray that a certain sum be granted, payable yearly or half-yearly, to a Cornmittee appointed by the proprietors annually, and their successors in office, as an encouragement for an able teacher and support of said Such petitions certainly helped precipitate the Common Schools

Act of 1816.

A further petition, written in a style that suggests Father

Macdonell - though siqned principally by four unspecified

Macdonells - appears in the sumarized minutes of The Journal of the House of Assemblv (1804):

"The Highlanders who form the great majority of the inhabitants in this County, and who are in generai a moral and religious people, are yet extremely backward in promoting any Public Institutions of learning.

"In their native country they were accustomed to hear the beauties of Christianity inculcated in their mother tongue, whence many of them supposed that an English education was unnecessary, and what each individual was made to contribute by public authority towards the support of a school was so very light and so imperceptibly coliected with the annual, that the means of the people actually forgot that they bore any part of the burden.

"... Your petitioners tnerefore submit it to your consideration whether the erection of schools by public authority, in the most central places in the country, under such regulations as may to your wisdorn seem meet, and with such provisions as circumstances

312

Glengarry County. The Gaelic language was comrnonly the language of instruction.

Ryerson, though he despaired of their long-term desirability and utility, wrote, in 1846, that "separate" schools might encompass, in adaition to the Roman Catholic catechism, the

"special linguistic groups (French, German, Gaelic, Algon~ian)" that were a~roadin the ?rovince.(49.) Thus, it is quite natural to find mention in the Annual Reports which concern Gaelic- language education in Upper Canada shortly after it becarne Canada

West. Such a report came £rom a James Keays, Esq., f rom the

County of Russell neighbouring the Counties of Glengarry and

Stormont in 1853, shortly after the Upper Canadian period: "1 have visited the schools in these townships twice since 1 was appointed to office. There are about two hundred children in the townships, nearly one half of who are Highland Scotch and cannot spell a word of English."(50.) In 1854, the Reverend John R.

Meade of Lochiel in the County of Glengarry reported that:

"Gaelic is the vernacular language, and hence the necessity of having tnem initiated and acquainted with the English

language. 'l ( 5 1. ) In the Upper Canadian period, groups of the Gaels' CO- religionists, the Irish Roman Catholics, similarly settled in

rugged landscapes. Some drifted into the fringes of towns, having found isolated pioneering lacking in social charms.

Thousands of Irish found work as "navvies" on the brutish task of constructing the Colony's canals. in the 1820s, many Irish

Catholics came to Upper Canada as part of "the Peter Robinson migrations".

The Peter Robinson migrations occurred in 1823 and 1825.

Peter Robinson was the younger brother of Upper Canada's Attorney

General, John Beverley Robinson. J.B. Robinson was approached

informally by friends at the Colonial Office in London, England, during the early 1820s, with regard to removing surplus Irish population to British North Arnerica. The scheme, if successful, was proposed to relocate as rnany as one million impoverisned

Irish tenant and sub-tenant farmers to available land in Upper

Canada. The British Government was prepared to underwrite a trial migration. Thus, Peter Robinson was made the

Superintendent of Emigration from the South of Ireland to Canada; he was, as well, the Comrnissioner of Crown Lands and a

Legislative Councillor. Mernbers of the British Government, 314 perhaps caught by a superficial reading of Malthus's essay, The

Princi~lesof Po~ulation,sought a quick fix to Ireland's apparent overpopulation of the first half of the nineteenth- century, a population swollen by dependence on the wondrous - but oft blighted - dietary staple, the potato.

In 1823, Peter Robinson lea 568 Irish "Munstermen" from the poverty-struck Blackwater River region of Southern Ireland to the

Ottawa Valley; in 1825, he led 2,024 to north of Rice Lake. (52.)

In the second migration, many of the great Anglo-Irish estates, owned by absentee landlords who sat in the British House of

Lords, began to try to clear their estates of the unwanted or surplus tenants with landowner evictions.(S3.) Many of the Irish were happy to leave, escaping poverty, landlessness, religious discrimination, severe educational constraints, abusive land agents, British prejudices, and the Anglican tithe. The

settlement north of Rice Lake, around the market town of

Peterborough, was considered a success. The Irish, wno fought

the elements and cleared the land, prospered in general. A high

proportion - relative to the era - clung to their land, and

improved it markedly for their children. The Irish Catholics

(Green) who settled in the Ottawa Valley encountered localized 315 discriminotion on the part of earlier settlers, Irish Protestants

(Orangemen). There were feuds, tavern brawls, and night tirne raids. Hundreds of Irish Catholics in the Ottawa Valley - uncomfortable with their immediate neighbours and overwhelmed the vicissitudes of pioneer farming - left their family homesteads and drifted into settlements around Bytown, finding menial work on the Rideau Canal beginning in 1826.

In the end the British Goverment did not continue the group migrations, as they had cost twenty-two pounds per migrant when al1 the bills were settled.(54.) However, the Upper Canadian administration was tolerant toward and supportive of the Irish

Catholics who had migrated. When Green Irish were indicted for brawling by local Orange magistrates at Perth, in the Ottawa

Valley, the ruling elite interceded in the interest of justice

and peaceful loyalty on the periphery:

"The Catholic settlers had powerful supporters in York... . (T)he Attorney General... came to their defence and declared the Perth magistrates were irresponsible in employing a posse of Orangemen who would like to see al1 Catholics 'burned at the stake'. Sir Peregrine Maitland not only declined to send troops but appointed a native of Southern Ireland to conduct a hearing.. . (who) had the advantage of speaking the Irish language."(55.) In general, the Irish Catholics just got on with the brutishly hard tasks at hand, like al1 other settlers. They made the best of their land or work, calLing on their neighbours for a drink on fâir Satürdâÿ ~vsuiucjs&:ter â long weak of ~rduous,soui- destroying toil. Few pioneers had the energy to continue feuds from the old countries; most "muddled along", prospering by the sweat of the brow or the timing of their arrivals.(56.)

Irish Catholics' schools, where tney existed, were perhaps even more modest than the Upper Canadian average. The young

Sheehans of Ennismore Township, near Peterborough, went to a school with forty-one children, taught by one "Patrick Barragy from Tipperary, who taught them reading, writing, arithmetic, grammar and catechism. The children wrote their lessons on birch bark."(57.)

The Family Compact bore rather more of the cost of tnese group migrations than they rnight have chosen. Peter Robinson amassed tremendous debts with the group migrations, some of which he had personally to discharge: "...Peter confided in (John Beverley Robinson) that a balance stood against him in his accounts as comissioner of woods and forests. Peter was sure the deficit, which stood at 6,000 pounds, was the result of accounting errors. John immediately involved himself.*.and discovered that the sum owing was more in

the ottjpt gf ll,Q?fi sc~.rye=rs ~TE-;---~--Y duu3A1, &(A= àCCOüritS for the Irish immigration had been wound up; at that time Peter had had to pay 2,000 pounds for discrepancies in the accounts.. . ."(58. )

In the Upper Canadian period, the Irish labourers were the lowest of the low. They were shunned by most. Those who came into the towns, tended to concentrate in hovels and shacks on the settled fringes.(59.) Unskilled and illiterate Irish labourers began life in Upper Canada at the very bottorn socially - in many localities and homes, they were not welcomed - and econornically:

"Many (Irish Roman Catholics) lived nomadic lives constructing canals and roads or following the agricultural harvests; others settled, permanently or seasonally, in the 'Little Dublins', 'Paddy Towns', and other disease-ridden slums .... Their labour ...was backbreaking, their living conditions highly unsanitary *... 'How often do we see such paragraphs in the paper', exclaimed one rniddle-class emigrant, 'as an Irishman drowned - an Irishman blown to atoms by a steam engine - ten, twenty Irishmen buried alive in the sinking of a bank ....'"(60.)

One cannot doubt, however, that the overwhelming majority of 318

Irish Catholics were happy to be in Upper Canada, where there existed unique opportunities to possess one's own land - something only dreamt of in Ireland - that the great and enduring benefits of one's nard work and improvements might accrue to one's family, rather than a distant landlord or his overseers. And, in Upper Canada, in return for political loyalty, the Çtate tolerated the Roman Catholic Faith, even to the point of allowing, and making slight financial provisions for, unadulterated catechetical schools - something unheard of in

Ireland - for the "rising generationsM.(61.) A letter by a military engineer, Captain James E. Alexander, employed on the

Rideau Canal in the early 1830s, comments that, despite every conceivable hardship endured by the Irish Catholic labourers,

"good spirits and corrective princi2les (were) at work ....*O( 62.)

"I'm on my way to Canada, Where coloured men are free...."

Part of a popular American Slave Song attributed to George W. Clark, "The Free Slave", an abolitionist during the 1850s.

"The Act for the gradua1 abolition of slavery in this colony, which it has been thought expedient to frame, in no respect meets £rom me a more cheerful concurrence than in that provision which repeals the power heretofore held by the Executive Branch of the Constitution, and precludes it £rom giving sanction to the importation of slaves, and 1 cannot but anticipate the singular pleasure that such persons as may be in that unhappy condition which sound policy and humanity unite to condemn addea to their persona1 protection froa al1 undue severity by the law of the land, may £rom henceforth look forward with certainty to the emancipation of their offspring."(63.)

Address of Sir John G. Simcoe, Lieutenant-Governor, Winter, 1793, Upper Cânadian parliament.

"When asked his advice by the authorities (on the proposal of separate schools for blacks in Upper Canada), John Strachan opposed the idea of separating Negro children from white, citing the happy integration of coioured children at the Upper Canada Central School (at York) and the case of 'a coloured young man (a Peter Gallego, who was) distinguishing hirnself at the highest form at Upper Canada College'. Instead of segregation he urged endorsement of tne law which 'made no distinction (ana) recognizea no preferences'."(64.)

J.D. Wilson, 'The Ryerson Years in Canada West'. 320

Slavery, in 1793 was extant in the British Empire. It had been protected in tne Constitution of the United States of

America, and was the basis of commerce in the Arnerican South. In

Upper Canada, as the polity came into existence, the institution of slavery was not wanted. One of the initial pieces of Upper

Canadian legislation, £rom the time of the very firçt Upper

Canadian parliament, was the "Suppression of slavery in the new

Province." This suppression was to be achieved gradually, as has been the case with most landmark legislation in the history of the English-speaking peoples. The first step taken in Upper

Canada was the "Act to prevent the further introduction of slaves, and to lirnit the term of contracts for servitude witnin this province." This law was enacted by the signature of Upper

Canada's hard-driving first Lieutenarit-Governor, Sir John Graves

Simcoe on July 9, 1793. Simcoe took especial pains to condernn slavery in his post-Assent address to the Act, praising the triumph of "hurnanity." This immediate, though not cornprehensive, action against slavery in the Upper Canadian polity is especially impressive in light of the fact that the "CoiossüsU of the British Empire waited until the 1830s to enact similar legislation, while the Americans endured one million casualties in their Civil War during the 1860s to emancipate slaves. the Canadian period , popular attitudes toward blacks ranged £rom highly solicitous and altruistic to dismally racialist. Localized racism toward blacks prevailed where there were both group settlements of black refugees and high concentrations of Rmerican immigrants. Upper Canada, during the first-half of the nineteenth-century, became the destination of choice for "runaway slaves", refugees with little more than the rags on their backs. Contemporary pu~licnotices and expressions of those in authority over education in Upper Canada, reflect - unfailingly - a genuine tolerance and compassion toward the refugee blacks arriving on the northern shores of Lake

Ontario. The American scholar, Robin Winks notes that Upper

Canada was the first - and only - province of the British Empire to legislate against slavery, though Britain had dealt with the institution, iegally, in its home islands during the eighteenth century. Lieutenant-Governor Simcoe - an abolitionist M.P. for

St. Mawe's, Cornwall, before accepting his Vice-Regency - acted with dispatch in the new polity of Upper Canada:

"...in March 1793 ne was able to throw the legality of slavery into quesrion, while directing attention to the dangers the practice held for the new province. At the first meeting of the Executive Council on March 21, Simcoe, Chief Justice William Osgoode, and Peter Russell, owner of inany slaves, heard one Peter Martin, a Negro employed by Colonel John Butler, Superintendent of Indian Affairs, tell how a Negro girl, Chloe Cooley - who belonged to a resiaent of Queenston, William Vrooman - had been bound and, despite violent resistance on her part, spirited across the Niagara River to be sold to Arnericans."(65.)

This grotesque incident and others like it - legally acceptable at that time because enslaved humans were considerea, in legal terms, "cimttels" - did rnuch to focus political and popuiar disfavour and opprobrium on the wretched institution as it existed in Upper Canada. Sirncoe led the way with great energy and spirit against this evil.

Slavery's contemporaneous legal authority in North America during the nineteenth-century requires some consideration. In

The Simcoe Pa~ers,the Lieutenant Governor notes in a letter to

Henry Dundas, Esq., the Principal Secretary of State for Great

Britain and a personal friend, that any elimination of slavery could very well be against commercial interests:

"The greatest resistance to the Slave Bill, many plausible Arguments of the dearness of Labour and the difficulty obtaining servants to cultivate lands were brought forward. ... Sorne possessed of Negroes knowing that it was very questionable whether any subsisting Law did Authorize Slavery, and having purchased several taken in War by the Indians at a small price wished to reject the Bill entirely, others were desirous to supply themselves by allowing the importation for two years. The matter was finally settled by undertaking to secure the property already obtained upon condition that an immediate stop should be put to the importation and that slavery should be gradually abolished."(66.)

Abolition was apparently against Upper Canada's economic self- interest. The Journals of the Lesislative Councii (1824) record: "That it has been satisfactorily ascertained that the

Tobacco of Upper Canada, from its being cultivated by a free insteaa of a slave population ...cannot be introducea into Great

Britain so as to compete with the same article from the ...

America ...."( 67.)

The gradual abolition of slavery in Upper Canada, was the only acceptable approach to nobly end an ignoble practice.

Simcoe was confronted by the fact that six of the sixteen members of the Leqislative Assembly were slave-holders who would, presumably, defend their private property.(68.) The legislation that was achieved in Upper Canada was pure compromise: imediate suppression of the trade, gradual abolition, and no immediate, forced manumission. Such enlightened legislation in such a diminutive and nascent polity made Upper Canada unique in the English-speaking world around 1800. By the time an Act of

Imperia1 Parliament abolisheà slavery throughout the British

Empire as of January lst, 1834, the number of slaves remaining in

Upper Canada waç "negligible."(69.)

During the first half of the nineteenth-century, blacks from

Arnerica crossed northwards into Upper Canada larçely as refugees.

A small trickle had preceded them into the Maritimes and Central

Canada with the United Empire Loyalist immigration. But, the significant black migration into Upper Canada was that of runaway slaves. Though the statistics are far £rom perfect, it is estimated that as rnany as 10,000 blacks fled north of the border between 1812 and 1850, with the majority settling around Niagara

(Niagara-on-the-Lake), St. Catharines, Hamilton, Windsor,

Amherstburg, Sandwich, Chatham, and London.(70.) American slave owners, slave-traders, bounty hunters, and many of the Republic's legislators, endeavoured to ensure re-capture of the runaways.

However, in the Upper Canadian administration the agents of slavery ran into strong resistance - both principled and political. mongst the political ruling-elite, there lay a vein of pnilanthropic interest toward slaves and former slaves. Educated men from the British Isles had been brought up wFtn the knowledge of the Mansfield ruling in 1772, whereby the Lord Chief Justice of England had effectively ended the legality of slavery in the metropole itself. Slavery had ceased in Scotland in 1778.

Strachan was, doubtless, aware of the legal rulings a= "Home".

Further, arnongst his colleagues, friends, correspondents, and acquaintances in London, both Whig and Tory - including the abolitionist M.P. William Wilberforce, John Shore (Lord

Teignmouth, Governor-General of Bengal, Head of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts), Lord Brougham &

Vaux - there were many members of the so-called "Clapham Sect".

Ending the evil of slavery was the forernost cause of the mernbers of the Clapham - a London neighbourhood - Sect. Paul Johnson writes, in The Birth of the Modern, that this issue most engaged these churchy-men's "strong religious fervour1'.(71.) Nenibers of the Clapham Sect instructed at the Oxbridge seminaries, senàing their graduates out into the world with high-mindea ciedication to rout slavery and bondage throughout the British Empire.(72.)

Johnson comments that, the "size, comparative wealth and social inportance, and not least the menbers' zearness to the central machinery of the government of the British Empire explains why the sect was able to exert a growing measure of influence."(73.)

Strachan was ideologically allied with this sect.

In political terms, the Family Compact had capital to gain

from tolerating black refugees in Upper Canada. Strachan guided his Church in the Colony in most aspects - £rom missionary work to pulpit proselytizing, from seminary-training of young men to parochial concerns, from domination of the "central machinery" of the State in the quasi-Church and State to high-minded encouragement of those indigents escaped from unnatüral bondage

in a despised foreign land - and in no uncertain terrns with a

"strong religious fervour". For the Family Compact, the blacks

and the refugee groups of former slaves were likely iaeal

settlers and potential Anglican converts, just as the "Famine

Irish", in America, moved into the cities, were supported by the

Democratic Party machine, and became life-long Dernocratic

supporters. Black refugees, on the run from an oppressive and

vile institution in a supposedly enlightened Republic, had crossed over into a mythical Canaan in Upper Canada - giving the 327

Family Compact an opportunity to bask in the glorious sunlight of

British freedom anew. Initially, most black "runaways" were

incredibly and overtly loyal enthusiasts about life in Upper

Canada, and the protections it afforded £rom the long arms of the enslavers. In 1819, the Attorney General for Upper Canada, John

Beverley Robinson, denied al1 American attempts at extradition of refugee slaves, stating "nere they are free - for the enjoyment of al1 civil rights."(74.) The legal shield for blacks was strengthened further in the 1820s. Upper Canada politely refused al1 requests for the return of human "chattels", backing its words with the weight of jurisprudence. However, in substantive

terms, the Family Compact offered little materially to the blacks

- beyond flowery greetings. Politically, however, the Family

Compact members made hay of the fact that citizens of the

American Republic from birth had to seek protection under the

British flag in order to secure their persons, their women, and

their children. So enormous was the scope of their land assets,

th2 Family Compact was quite prepared to welcome the former

slaves to a temporary refuge north of Lake Ontario.

A considerable movement of blacks into Upper Canada occurred

durizg the 1830s, as Upper Canada's reptation as a safe haven grew known amongst the American slave populations.(75.) An escaped slave of this era, a Mr. Josiah Henson, made his home in southwestern Ontario at Dresden. He rose to considerable attention and continental prominence as a loyalist hero by comrnanding a Company during the Rebellion of 1837, fighting against the insurgents led by William Lyon Mackenzie. His home is thought to have been used as the basis for HarrFet Beecher

Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin. Zn The Journal of the House of

Assemblt, the Lieutenant Governor, Sir Francis Bond Head, noted, at the proroguing of Parliament in 1838, that the black subjects of Upper Canada had stood resolutely and loyally by the authority of the Crown:

"When our coloured population were informed that American citizens, sympathizing with their sufferings, had taken possession of Navy Island (in the Niagara River), for the double object of liberating them from the domination of British rule, and of imparting to them al1 the blessings of republican institutions, based upon the principle that al1 men are born equal, did our coloured brethren hail their approach. No! on the contrary, they hastened as volunteers in wagon loads to the Niagara frontier to beg from me permission, that in the intended attack upon Navy Island they rnight be permitted to fom the forlorn hope - in short they supplicated, that they might be allowed to be foremost to defend the glorious institution of Great Britain."(76.) 329

During the 1830s, the term "Underground Railway" emerged in popular consciousness. This name was given to the activity of passing, from safe house to safe house, from Quaker settlement to

Quaker settlement, £rom abolitionist to abolitionist, black fugitives on their way to Canada. Harriet Tubman, a prominent

"conductor," focussed her slave-rescuing activities on St.

Catharines: there she could "count on the willingness of its citizens" as she saved 300 runaways personally.(77.)

American slaves equated Upper Canada with freedom from servitude, so much so that on August lOth, 1823, a "runaway slave" was found floating in Lake Ontario by the men and officers of the steamer "Chief Justice Robinson."(78.) The man reported that he had jumped from his first ship when he discovered it was docking in America. As he was pulled £rom the cold waters of

Lake Ontario and discovered that he was now bound for Upper

Canada, the former slave exclaimed: "Thank you, Lord, for delivering me to Canaan."(79.)

Upper Canada would be like the "promised land" for many runaway slaves. However, for most blacks Upper Canada remained a temporary refuge until the cannon blasts of the Civil War rooted 330 out the dreadful institution from the United States. Thereafter, many returned south. Of the blacks who settled permanently in

Upper Canada, the local experiences were as varied as the

individuals themselves. Blacks settled in groups and

individually throughout Upper Canada.(80.) The excitement of

reaching Upper Canada was almost universal: "When my feet first

touched the Canada shore, 1 threw myself on the ground, rolleà on

the sand, seized handfuls of it and kissed them anci danced

around, till, in the eyes of several who were present, I passed

for a madman."(81.) The reality of living, working, and

pioneering, in Upper Canada was often quite at variance with the

initial enthusiasm, such was the localized racialisrn, especially

in Upper Canada's southwest. Many, like the Reverend Josiah

Henson, discovered "an open door but a grudging host." (82.)

However, ail things were relative to former slaves: "The white

man's scorn was unpleasant, but compared with the fear of the

lash and the spike, and the loss of dear one by auction, it could

be ignored."(83.)

An Englishman, William Pope, stumbled across a black group

settlement during his travels through Upper Canado in the sumer

of 1834. He has left a first-hand account: "... (they) are runaway slaves from the Southern States. They have been here about 4 years. 1 called in at one house in which 1 found quite an 'elegant' establishment - china and glassware - fancy chairs and tables and a book case. They were extremely polite and asked me if I would be pleased to take some whiskey which 1 did not refuse. In return for their kindness 1 made them a mal1 present of powder & shot with which they appeared 'might pleased."'(84.)

In Oro Township, Simcoe County, land was granted to black families in 100-acre parcels. Black petitioners were given especial preferment to land along "Wilberforce Street." The

Lieutenant-Governor of Upper Canada, Sir Peregrine Maitland, began the settlement with orders in the Executive Council during

1819. Maitland's Civil Secretary, George Hillier, noted at the time :

"There is another point which 1 was instructed to mention - Sir Peregrine Maitland has granted land in several instances to Blacks or Persons of Colour, al1 in the same settlement, which is on a parallel to the Road running from Lake Simcoe to Gloucester Bay on Lake Huron, generally known by the name of the Penetanguishene Road. Those already settled have proved industrious and steady, and the Lt Governor proposes to himself considerable advantages £rom the measure, both in view of policy and (particularly) in that of humanity. The reason for not making this the object of an official report will 1 dare say be obvious enough to you - An application was made a short time ago by Mr. Quincy Adams to the British Charge d'Àffairs at Washington, to know if American slave owners could follow fugitive slaves in to His Majeçty's Provinces with a hope of recovering their property ...the opinion of the Attorney General (John Robinson) for Upper Canada...was decidedly negative to the proposition ...."(85.)

A Canadian pioneer, Mary O'Brien, married to a "half pay"

British officer who took up farming on the north shore of Lake

Simcoe, kept a diary between 1828 and 1838. She noted, in passing, the presence of black Upper Canadians farming in her region of the Province. In Aprii, 1832, Mrs. O'Brien wrote that

"Our own hired hands consist now of two young Yorkshire men, monthly servants, another Yorkshire of the neighbourhood hired by the day, Jackson, the negro who comes every day he can spare frorn his own farm...."( 86.) Later in the 1832 farming season, she wrote :

"One of the men we have ar work is a great friend of (my husband's). He is a runaway slave from the States where he has left a large family of children whom he expects to be able to get to him as soon as he has prepared a home for them and earned money enough to go back as near their neighbourhood as he can venture to continue their escape. He is a man of great respectability ...."(87.)

Blacks arriving in Simcoe County did not, generally, remain there for many years. They tended to drift into the towns or back to the warmer climate to be found in the Southern States during the post-Civil War "Reconstruction," when opportunities seemed limitless. One black refugee, John Y. Butler, sold his land as property values began to improve. Mr. Butler moved into town in 1825, becoming a barber at York. Mr. William Lyon

Mackenzie availeà himself of Butfer's tonsorial services and wrote :

"There is a man of colour, a barber and hairdresser in Our town of York, named Butler; he is married to a colouxed woman and they are respectable, well-behaved people in their line, and punctual in their dealings ...they keep white men and women servants from Europe to wait upon them and their black children."(88.)

In York, by 1799, there had been fifteen blacks out of a population of 400.(89.) During the War of 1812, blacks residing at York served in Captain Runchey's Coloured Corps.(SO.) By

1837, there were fifty refugee families living in Toronto. The area had become the favourite destination for runaways from the

State of Virginia.(gl.) Toronto's first mayor, William Lyon

Mackenzie, was satisfied with the blacks' living conditions. He said, in his usual hyperbolic fashion: "They speak of equality in (America) but it is in Upper Canada that it can be seen in al1 its glory."(92.) 334

The most successful black businessman at York/Toronto was a

Virginian "runaway," Wilson Ruffin Abbott. Abbott had tried to make his way in New York State, but he found "the feelings toward coloured men no better in the North" than in Virginia.(93.) In

Toronto, Mr. Abbott prospered. He served in the defence of the city against Mackenzie's rebels in 1837. Abbott and scores of other blacks served in Captain Fuller's Company of

Volunteers.(94) Abbott went on to succeed in real estate, owning over seventy-five properties in Southern Ontario; his son, Dr.

Anderson Ruffin Abbott, became Canada's first "native born Black medical doctor," later serving with the Union forces in the

American Civil War.(95.)

By 1841, there were 528 blacks in York - a survey was

conducted at the request of Bishop Strachan:

"It was carried out by a young Black, Peter Gallego, a student at Upper Canada College .... Gallego's survey found 525 Blacks in Toronto. The majority were labourers, but Gallego found there were also Black carpenters, shoernakers, grocers, tailors and masons working in the city. Gallego also provided details on a number of prominent Blacks. Mr. Ross, a carpenter, owned '200 acres in the Gore of Toronto ...with extensive buildings ....'"(96.) 335

In 1843, the Toronto City Council blocked the performance of an

Arnerican musical pantomime that belittled blacks, after receiving a petition from George Brown, publisher of tne Toronto Globe, Mr.

Ruffin Abbott, and fourteen others.(97.)

A unique settlement of blacks occurred in a territory that came to be known as the Queen's Bush. This land cornpriseci large tracts of unimproved Clergy Reserves, between the Grand River and the eastern shores of Lake Huron. Many refugee blacks elected to

"squat" on land that had no apparent owner in the Upper Canadian wilderness, rather than accepting degrading tenancies in more settled, southwestern Upper Canada. By the 1840s, the Queen's

Bush Settlement was populated by some 2,500 people, 1,500 of whom were blacks.(98.) Existence there was very harsh, even by pioneer standards. One fugitive black, a John Little, in the

Queen's Bush wrote:

"'1 feel thankful that 1 had got into a place where 1 could not see the face of a white man. For something like £ive or six years, 1 felt suspicious when 1 saw a white man, thinking he was prying round to take sorne advantage. This was because 1 had been so bedeviled and harassed by them. At length that feeling wore off through kindness that I received £rom some here, and frorn abolitionists, who came over from the States to instruct us, anc 1 felt that it was not the white man I should dislike, but the me22 spirit which is in some meE, whether white or black."'(99.)

John Little's wife, Eliza, reported on going into the market towns that the merchants gave her "'as rnuch attention as though 1 were a white woman. 1 am as politely accosted as any woman would wish to be."'(100.) A "squatter's" fate is, however, usually less than salucary. By the 1830s, the Family Compact had formed the Canada Land Company, and become very reluctant about granting land, such were its extensive debts and its unrealized land assets in the Reserves. The Littles and many others could not afford the land whose value they had helped to improve.(lOl.)

Hundreds of farms were abandoned in the Queen's Bush.

At this remove in time, it seems quite clear that there was an expectation on the part of administrators that the blacks, once freed and cultivated, would move on from North America, to predominantly black countries - constitutional monarchies and republics - like Haiti, Jamaica, countries on the West Coast of

Africa. Many British abolitionists, and even President Lincoln in America, anticipated their onward migration. Robin Winks makes it quite evident that Strachan and the Farnily Compact had an expectation that the former slaves would push on to hotter, 337 blacker locales, once suitably educated and anglicized. Winks writes :

"In 1841 a protege of Anglican Bishop John Strachan, Peter Gallego, went to (Protestant) Jamaica ... but when he returned in 1844 to publish a proselytizing pamphlet, no one would follow him. The year before, Thomas Rolph, a leading spokesman in the Canadas for Britain's North America Colonial Committee, agreed to recruit black emigrants in Canada West for the government of Trinidad and to go with them as their 'Surgeon and Protector'. With the tacit support of Lieutenant-Governor Arthur, he met with the Negroes of Colchester, Sandwich, and Arnhertsburg to discuss growing evidence of anti-Negro feeling. Neither then nor again in 1843 did Rolph win any converts."(l02.)

For blacks in Upper Canada, educational opportunities varied greatly. Strachan and the Family Compact encouraged integrated schools, but their group only held controlling influence around

York/Toronto. Many black children, eçpecially in southwestern

Upper Canada, were greeted by closed and barred doors. As far as one can generalize, the experience in southwestern Upper Canada is probably best represented by the school days of Tom Henson, the Reverend Josiah Henson's son. On first arriving in Upper

Canada penniless, Henson haa taken work as a tenant farmer. He cleared a corner of a property for a Mr. Hibbard, to accumulate 338 gradually his own "stake." His son Tom gained the opportunity to read, which his father had never had, books having been illicit and illegal in the hands of slaves, and to have some forma1 schooling:

"Tom, through the goodness of Mr. Hibbard, had been given two quarters of schooling in return for Stone gathering, herding, cutting brush and doing chores.

"An apt pupil, only Tom and the schoolmaster knew at what cost to the boy's pride this learning had been gained. For coloured children were not wanted and Tom had been received with reasonable tolerance only through the influence which Hibbard wielded among his neighbours, sorne of whom had been peasantry in other lands but now looked with scorn upon the dark refugeeseU(l03.)

Without the help of his benefactor, this school in southwestern

Upper Canada would have been closed to Tom Henson both by cost and by localized racialist prejudices.

The Family Compact was not insensible to the reality in southwestern Upper Canada. Within their almost entirely self- reproducing framework they did what they could to ameliorate tne prevaiiing conaitions on the provincial periphery for black children. In 1828, John Strachan travelled to the Talbot

Settlement of black refugees near Chatham. On Sunday, August 31,

1828, he gave the sermon at their humble church. Strachan noted in his journal:

"Preaching in a wilderness, to a Congregation collected from a great extent of country ...several persons of Colour were present and composed part of the Congregation. It was the Bishop's wish as well as my own to establish a School particularly for the Children of the Blacks."(l04.)

For this establishment, however, Strachan would offer - on behalf of the Family Compact - no more than five pounds of support.

It is ciear that, during the Upper Canadian period, many black children did not attend school. This was, however, very cornmon regardless of race, lanquage, or religion. In Egerton

Ryerson's initial Annual ReDort (1845-46) as the Chief

Superintendent of Schools for Canada West, he noted that of a population of 202,913 children between the ages of five and sixteen years in Upper Canada, only 110,002 attended school for at least part of each year. Their labour was irreplaceable in the common, pioneering existences.(l05.) As escaped slaves, 340 however, blacks were exceptionally eager for their children to receive the rudiments of education that had been proscribed - under severe physical penalty - in their home States.(l06.) In

Upper Canada, though somewhat limited, educational opportunities for blacks existed - and black families were yearning to take advantage of them. A Schools Trustee for the County of Essex wrote :

"...the negro school population, comprising 221 chiluren, aistributed into four sections, two of which have negro teachers; the remaining two are taught by white persons. These sections receive some assistance from some Abolition Society in the United States, in addition to what they receive from the local School Fund. On the whole the progress of the negro children is very creditable, and they evince generally a great desire to be educated."(l07.)

With the advent of the "separateness provision11in the early- 1840~~residents - both white and black - of southwestern

Upper Canada cnose to interpret the provision not only for Roman

Catholics, but aiso for blacks. Ryerson, in that he is representative of the emergent Upper Canadian spirit of education and the Statels educational autnority after the Act of Union, dealt with the localized discrimination in southwestern Canada

Weaz as best he could. In 1847, in his full educational authority, Ryerson wrote to tne Honourable W.H. Draper,

Legislative Councillor, regarding the use of the "separateness" provision to create black schools:

''1 beq to acknowledge the receipt of your favor of the 5th inst, with the enclosed letter from London respecting the condition of the coloured population in several Towns in Western Canada in regard to the Cornmon Schools.

"1 have deeply felt the evil which has been brought under your notice. 1 have done what I could to remedy it, but with only partial success. The caste of colour in this case is stronger than law .... But an ample remedy is provided in the draft of a bill which 1 referred to in my last, s which I suppose you have exarnined ere this time. You will observe that accordîng to the provisions of that proposed draft of bill, the Board of Trustees for each City or Town will be authorized to establish any kind or description of schools they may please. In each Town or City they can, therefore, establish one or more schools for 'Coloured' children."(l08.)

Over the separateness provision, Ryerson. had to compromise

throughout his career against his own inclinations. He despised

separate schools as a disruption of uniform and universal common

schoolîng. Politically, however, he recognized the locafized

pressures that made them inevitable in Canada West, whether to

allow Rornaz Cathoiics a priest-sapported, catechezical ecücation or to obviate colour prejudice in areas heavily under the

influence of American settlers. He had the limited satisfaction

in knowing that the parents of Roman Catholics and blacks would be enabled - to counteract localized disabling by Protestants or

colour prejudice - to have stace-supported schools of their own,

by the legislation he shepherded into Law during the 1840s. And,

in the reai historical context of the world in the nineteenth-

century, that was an achievement of which to be proud. So many

common Upper Canadians, and their groups' leaders, had made it

possible, during their years in the Upper Canadian wilderness

quietly opposing the Family Compact's political regime. Notes

J. George Hodgins (ed.), The Storv of Mv Life - Rev.

Eaerton Rverson. D.D., LLD. (Toronto: William Briggs,

1893), pp.66-67.

Persona1 conversation @ Manitoulin Island, Wiki Band Elder on Unceded Reserve, 1 May 1997.

Donald Creighton, Canada: The Heroic Beginninos (Toronto:

MacMillan, 1974), pp.110-11.

J.M. ~umsted, The Peoples of Canada (Toronto: Oxford

U.P., 1992), p.11.

JLA, 'Petition of the Chippawa Indians of Lakes Huron and

Simcoe' to the Lieutenant Governor (Coiborne), 1835, p.243. 7. Wendel1 K. Oswzlt, This Land Was Theirs (New York:

Wiley & Sons, 1966), pp.435-56.

8. Bumsted, Peo~les,p.14.

9. Isabel Thompson Kelsey, Jose~hBrant 1743-1870 - Man of

Two Worlds (Syracuse, New York: Syracuse U.P., 1984),

10. E. Reginald Good, 'Mississauga-Mennonite Relations in thet

Upper Grand River Valley' Ontario Historv, Vol. LXXXVII,

No.2, June, 1995, pp.165-66.

------11. JA, ' Report of a select Coiïmittee On an-Infxn

Petition', 1829, Appended.

12. Robina and Kathleen MacFarlane Lizars, In The Davs of the

Canada Com~anv- 11825-18501 (Toronto: William Briggs,

1896), pp.99-100.

13. Charles R. Sanderson (ed.), The Arthur Pa~ers (Toronto:

U. of T. Press, 1943) Letter of John Strachan, i838, to 345

Sir George Arthur, Upper Canada's last Lieutenant Governor

- 'Indians in Upper Canada'.

14. Sanderson, The Arthur Pa~ers,p.110.

15. Sanderson, The Arthur Papers, p.111.

Sanderson, The Arthur Pa~ers,p.112.

Sanderson, The Arthur Pa~ers,p.112.

Sanderson, The Arthur Pa~ers,- p.113.

Sanderson, The Arthur Pa~ers, p. 11 3.

20. The Strachan Papers (PAO), MS 35 - Reel 2 (Letter, November

6, 1826).

21. Donald B. Smith, 'The Dispossession of the Mississauga

Indians: a Missing Chapter in the Early History of Upper

Canada' Ontario Historv Vol. LXXIII, No.2, June, 1981,

pp. 68-69. 22. Smith, 'Dispossession',p.72.

23. E.S. Dunlop, Our Forest Home 'Extracts £rom the

correspondence of Frances Stewart' (Montreal: Gazette,

24. &A, 'Report of the Select Cornmittee (Western District

School)', 1830, Appended, p.137.

25. J. Donald Wilson, 'The Ryerson Years in Canada West', in J.

Donald Wilson et al., Canadian Education: A Historv

(Scarborough: Prentice-Hall, 1970), p.232.

26. Wilson, 'Ryerson', p.232.

27. David Welch, 'Early Franco-Ontarian Schooling as a

Reflection and Creator of Community Identity'

Ontario Historv, Vol. SXXXV, No.4, Dec., 1993, p.324.

28. JLA, 'Report of the Select Committee (Western District

Schooi) ' , 1830, Appended, p. 139. 29. JLA, 'Western District School' 1830, Appended, p.139.

30. Wilson, 'Ryerson', p.232.

31. Ontario Sessional Papers, Vol.22, Part 2, No.7.

(Toronto: Warwick and Sons, 1889), p.9.

32. Wilson, 'Ryerson', p.232.

33. UDD~~Canada Cornmon Schools Annual Report (1850),

Appended, 'Report - Town of Bytown (Ottawa)',p.194.

34. Uyer Canada Cornmon Schools Annual Re~orts(1845-491,

Appended, Dr. Egerton Ryerson's Correspondence, 1846, p.20.

35. Alfred Recht, 'The Germans in the Anglo-saxon Milieu in

Central Canada', in Karin G. Gurttler et al. (Eds.),

Annals 4 - German Canadian Studies (Montreal: Universite

de Montreal, 1972), p.116.

36. Bill Moyer, This Uniaue Heritase: The Storv of Waterloo

Countv (Kitchener, Ontario: CHYM, 1971), p.46. 338

37. JLA, 'The engrossed Bill for granting indulgences to the

people called Quakers, Menonists, and Tunkers', 1801,

p.214.

38. UDD~~Canada Common Schools Annual Reoort (1851-521,

Appended, County of Waterloo Report of Trustee Zonn

Finlayson, Esq., N.D., 1851, p.102.

39. Umer Canada Common Schools Annual Report L18521, Appended,

County of Waterloo Report of Trustee Alexander Allan, Esq.,

A.M., 1851, p.110.

40. C.B. Sissons, Eserton Rverson His Life and Letters

(Vol.11) (Toronto: Clarke, Irwin & Co., 1947), p.85.

41. John Kenneth Galbraith, The Scotcn (Toronto: MacMillan,

1964), p.4.

42. W. Stanford Reid, The Scortish Tradition in Canada

(Toronto: M&SI 1976), p.96. 43. Reid, Scottish Tradition, pp.8-9.

44. Reid, Scottish Tradition p.97.

45. J.E. Rea, Bishop Alexander Macdonell and the Politics of

Uwer Canada (Toronto: O.H.S., 1974), Research Publication

No. 4, poix.

46. JLA, 'Petition of Inhabitants of Williamstown, in the

County of Glengarry (Eastern District)', 28 February,

1816, pp.210-11.

47. JLA, 'Petition of the Undersigned Magistrates and others of

the County of Glengarry (Eastern District)', 16 February,

1804, pp.429-30.

48. Reid, Scottish Tradition, p.98.

49. Wilson, 'Ryerson', p.232.

50. Lr~~erCanada Common Schools Annual Reoort (1853-531,

Appended, County of Russell Report of Trustee James Keays, Esq., 1853, p.49.

51. UPD~~Canada Common Schools Annual Report (1853-541,

Appended, County of Glengarry Report of Trustee the

Reverend John R. Meade, 1853, p.50.

52. Donald MacKay, Flisht From Famine - The Comins of tne Irish

to Canada (Toronto: M&S, 1990), pp.63, 87.

53. MacKay, Fliqht, p.76.

54. MacKay, Fliqht, p.115.

55. MacKay, Fliqht, p.109.

56. Susan E. Houston and Alison Prentice, Schoofinq and

Scholars in Nineteenth-Centurv Ontario (Toronto: U. of T.

Press, 1988), p.281.

57. MacKay, Flioht, pp.113-14.

58. Patrick Brodie, Sir John Beverlev Robinson Bone and Sinew of the Compact (Toronto: U. of T., 1984), p.189.

59. Canadian Irish-specialist, Donald Akenson makes it

manifestly clear, with a confident handling of available

statistics - in 'Ontario: Whatever Happened to the Irish?'

- that Upper Canada did not imitate the American Irish

Catholic experience of huge urban concentrations of Irish.

Indeea, Akenson dernonstrates that, in Upper Canada, the

Irish Catholics clung to their cherished land better than

most pioneering groups, and that only, approximately,

thirty-four per cent of these migrants ended up in the

Upper Canadian cities, towns, and villages.(p.233)

60. Kerby A. Miller, Emiwants and Exiles - Ireland and the

Irish Exoaus to North Arnerica (New York: Oxford U.P.,

61. My brother-in-law, Anthony Daly, a scholar in Irish Studies at Boston College, returned recently from his exploration of family roots in Ireland. Frorn his relations in County Carlow, he discovered his ancestors and their family of nine children haa set out for Bytown during the 1825 sailing-season. In Upper Canada, they worked - and died - digging the Rideau Canal and construcring its locks. In general, they were glad for the paying work, the chance to breath air free of British oppression, and the opportunity to buy up lanà in the Ottawa Valley and the Gatineau Hills. The Dalys - arriving with nothing more than dreams of freedocn from landlords and the domination of a foreign religion - have, in succeeding generations, corne to prosper in Ontario. It has never been easy, however.

62. G.M. Craig (ed.), Earlv Travellers in the Canadas 1791-

1867 (Toronto: MacMillan, 1955), p.123.

63. JLC, 'The Act for the Gradua1 Abolition of Slavery in this

Colony', 9 Ju~Y,1793, p.33.

64. Wilson, 'Ryerson', p.232.

65. Robin Winks, The Blacks in Canada A Historv (2nd)

(Montreal & Kingston: McGill - Queen's U.P., 1971), pp.96-

97.

66. E.A. Cruikshank, The Correspondence of Lieut. Governor John

Graves Simcoe (Toronto: O.H.S., 1924), p.53.

67. JLC, 19 January, 1824, p.277. 68. Winks, Blacks, p.97.

69. Winks, Blacks, p.111.

70. The Ontario Educational Communication Authority (O.E.C.A.),

Identitv - The Black Ex~eriencein Canada (Toronto:

Gage, 1979), p.20.

71. Paul Johnson, The Birth of the Modern - World Societv

1815 - 1830 (New York: Harper Collins, 1991), p.323.

72. Johnson, Modern, p.323.

73. Johnson, Modern, p.323.

74. O.E.C.A., Identitv, p.18.

-. - O.E.C.A., Identitv, pp.17-18.

76. JLA, Lieutenant Governor's Address at Proroguing (Bond

Head), 1838, p.450. 77. Daniel G. Hill, The Freedorn - Seekers Blacks in Earlv

Canada (Agincourt, Ontario: The Book Society of Canada,

1981), p.39.

78. Hill, Freedom - Seekers, p.26.

79. Hill, Freedom - Seekers, p.2L

80. Hill, Freedom - Seekers, p.52.

81. Hill, Freedom - Seekers, p.193.

82. Jessie L. Beattie, Black Moses The Real Uncle Tom

(Toronto: Ryerson, l957), p. 127.

83. Beattie, Black Moses, p.128.

84. P.A.O. NS 35 Reel 2, 'Diary of William Pope', 1834,

85. Gary E. French, Men of Colour - An Historical Account of

the Black Settlernent on Wilberforce Street and in Oro

Township, Simcoe Countv, Ontario, 1819 - 1949 (Stroud, Ontario: Kaste Books, 1978), pp.12-13.

86. Audrey Saunders Miller (ed.), The Journals of Marv O'Srien

1828 - 1838 (Toronto: MacMillan, 1968), p.186.

87. Miller, Marv O'Brien, p.189.

88. French, Nen of Colour, pp.73-74 (Appendix B).

89. Dan Hill, 'The Blacks in Toronto', in Gatherins Place

Peo~lesand Neiahbourhoods of Toronto. 1834 - 1945, Robert

F. Harney (ed.) (Toronto: Muiticulturai History Society

of Ontario, 1985), p.76.

90. Hill, 'Blacks', p.76.

91. hill, 'Blacks', p.77.

93. Eill, 'Blacks', p.78. 94. Hill, 'Blacks', p.78.

95. Hill, 'Blacks', p.78.

96. Hill, 'Blacks', p.82.

98. Linda Brown-Kubisch, 'The Black Experience in the Queen's

Bush Settlement' Ontario Historv Vol.LXXXVIII, No.2,

June, 1996. p.104.

99. Brown-Kubisch, 'Queen's Bush', p.108.

100. Brown-Kubisch, 'Queen's Bush', p.109.

i01. Brown-Kubisch, 'Queen's Bush', p.111.

102. WFnks, Blacks, p.166.

103. Beattie, Black Moses, 0.123. 104. P.A.O. - MS 35 Reel 2, 'Strachan'sJournal of a Tour

through Upper Canada', 31 AuguSt, 1828.

105. Uo~erCanada Common Schools Annual Reports (1845-49)

'General Report (For Year Enuing Au~us~,1846)', p.1.

O jason H. Silverman and Donna 2. Gillie write in '"The

Pursuit of Knowledge Under Difficulties": Educatio~and

the Fugitive Slave Canada ' Ontario Historv

No.2, June, 1982, p.95.:

"A Virginia state representative aptly summarized Southern white sentiment when he remarked, 'We have as far as possible closed every avenue by which light may enter their minds. If we could extinguish the capacity to see the light Our work would be completed."'(p.95)

107. Umer Canada Common Schools Annual Reports 11850),

Appended, County of Essex Report of Trustee Thomas Hawkins,

Esq. , N.D., 1850, p.182.

108. Sissons, Rverson, p.135. Conclusion

"1 can't remember the last time 1 saw so many bonnets on one stage. The Bush Ladies is a splicing together of the mernoirs of four Englishwomen who emigrated to Canada in the 1830s (Anne Langton, Anna Jameson, Catherine Parr Traill, Susanna Moodie) .... (The play is) a shared trajectory, and the show alternates personal with communal experience. The observation that 'woman is a bit of a slave in this country' ...takes shape as the outcome of a backbreaking litany of chores .... (The Bush Ladies) makès a very good case for Anglo-Christian gentility, presenting it as a tradition that expands under pressure but never breaks.... (By) the end, there has been a journey from entnusiasm for the new country to resentment to surprised acceprance: the universal immigrant experience, it seems ...."(1.)

From a review of the Canadian play, The Bush Ladies. Reviewed by Robert Cushman in National Post, 31 March, 1999.

"One steaming hot day a Presbyterian, whose brotherly advances had been ignored, riding over exceedingly bad roads, with 'footing uncertain, and walking a labour', overtook (a Church of England clergyman, John) Langhorn. Being sornewhat corpulent Langhorn always travelled on foot, with surplice, Bible, Prayer Book, and other necessities in a knapsack. The Presbyterian thought this was his chance ta make friends, and dismounting offered his horse. 'Sir', said Langhorn sternly, 'you are a promoter of schism in the flock of Christ, - 1 cannot, therefore, have any intercourse with you, much less accept any favour from you; please keep at your own side of the road, and go your way."'(2.)

An inter-denominational encounter in the Loyalist settlement-area at the beginning of the Upper Canadian period. In William Perkins Bull, K.C., From Strachan to Owen - How the Church of Endand was ~lantedand tended in British North America. tioh=t i= l=rmal tt 2 ~~~iîl~m;PZ 1 ~i7r-ime i+TT ~~teider~2nd Yb-1 y------1 academics happens to be a thorny practical and political problern for both the Parti Quebecois and the Quebec Liberals (in the Province of Quebec, historically a profoundly Catholic polity).

"To date, the only way Quebec has kept its public schools Catholic has been to use the notwithstanding clause of the Constitution. Thus, it has sheltered its school system £rom the Charter of Rights.

"But in 1997, the Constitution was amended at Quebec's request to do away with obligation to have Protestant and Catholic school boards. Today, the school system is structured according to laquage rather than religion.

"With the Constitution no longer guaranteeing special religious privileges to any group, how can Quebec maintain a particular regimen for Catholics and refuse to extend the same rights to other creeds." (3.)

Chantal Hebert, 'Quebec's unholy battle between church and state', in The Toronto Star, April 10, 1999.

"The real history of mankind is that of the slow advance of resolved deed following hboriously just thought; and al1 the greatest men live in their purpose and effort more than it is possible for them to live in reality. - The things that actually happened were of srna11 consequence - the thoughts that were developed are of infinite consequence."

John Ruskin

In the heart of Toronto's busy financial district, tnere stands a monument to an earlier, aristocratic age. The Cathedral

Church of St. James, Anglican, on King Street, no longer dominates the landscape or the society as it once must have.

Now, its yellowed bricks and simulated-verdigris roof are hidden in the midst of an urban terrain built over as a tribute to

Mammon. This Cathedral Church was once at the epicentre of aristocratic life in Upper Canada, the citadel of power, wealth, and the Church of England's predominance. Now, though not through any degringolade, this Anglican bastion is practically irrelevant. At the Cathedral sub-deacons and choristers still rush in their vestments and surplices to Maundy Thursday service, after the year's first warm and humid day, but only a handful of the faithful attend. The homeless, a growing feature of modern, urban existence, settle in for the night, huddling in knots on the Cathedral grounds. City life, in generai, passes hurriedly by, oblivious to the grandeur that was, has been, and is gone. 361

The Cathedra1 and its silent mernorials bear mute witness to lost tirnes.

In the vestibule, two headstones have Deen mounted into the brick walls, cornmemorating two Ridouts, late of the High Church

Family Compact, a father and his own beloved son. The father:

"The Hon.. Thos. Ridout, of Sherborne, Dorsetshire, England, Late

Surveyor General of this Province, and Member of His Majesty's

Legislative Council, Who departed this Life ...l829."(1.) The

son: John Ridout, predeceasing his father by a decade, was

snatched prematurely during a singular "Blight."(S.) His life was ended, duelling, at age eighteen years, cut down in the

budding flower of youth. On these hallowed walls, the all-

powerful Farnily Compact gone to nothing. Oniy lines of cryptic

Ancient Greek and forgotten Latin mark their passage and their

pronounced English heritage: " ... Filius Jacobi et Georgianae ...

Rookery Hail, St. Mary Cray, Kent, England ...."(6.) Stiil. ...

To the west of the Cathearal is a Heritage Toronto Plaque,

It reads:

"In 1796 the Fis: Anglican Priest arrived from England to minister to the citizerx of York. The followFng year the province set aside this piece of land for the building of a church .... The First Bishop of Toronto, the Rignt Reverend John Strachan, along with a number of his parishioners, played an important sole in the early development of the city and province ...."(7.)

"John Toronto", as Strachan was fashioned, is entornbed within the

Cathedral's precincts. The Scottish lad died hardened, corrupted, and deadened by the autocratie power he had wieltied, increasingly, over the years, againsi the will of common üpper

Canadians. He would not have wished to live to see the continuous free-fa11 of his Confession, to see his Cathedra1 collecting dust and attracting the aispossessed, or to see the inexorable, tectonic-like drift apart of Church ana State in the

Canada he came to acknowledge as his adopted home.

Strachan, in opposition to whom tne tolerating and accommodating spirit for state-subsidized and -supported education grew up and ttiumphed - prevailing politically to this day in Ontario - was not always harsh toward diversity in the

Christian populations of Upper Canada. He must be seen within his worlu, of which only vestiges rernain. Strachan's values were 363 corporate; today's values are intensely private and individuated.

Strachan's world view was blatantly Christian, at least in theory if not practice; the contemporary world view is post-Christian.

There is a divide between now and then that cannot be bridged - almost.

In his sublime iife of the English economist, John Maynarà

Keynes, Robert Skidelsky comments philosophically about the great divide that exists:

"It is hard even now to get (his) personality and achievement into focus. My own treatment has been greatly influenced by Alastair Macintyre's fine book, After Virtue, published in 1981: a discussion of what happens to a culture when the attempt to justify ethics by religion or tradition cornes to be seen as offensive to 'reason'. In such a culture, Macintyre suggests, moral discussion becomes interminable, since unaided reason provides no basis for agreement. Values are privatised or personalised, habitua1 virtues are undermined; public discourse shifts to means, to technique - the one area in which rational agreement might still be...achieved. ... (We) are the inheritors of the collapsed Christian world-view."(8.)

Similar difficulties exist as one tries to place Strachan within his age, and to not attempt his de-construction within ours. 9e is easy to caricature; he has never been suitably biographied, though his protege, Bethune, indulged in hagiograpny. Xis 364

political world-view was Church of England/Christian-hegemûnic;

his revealed truth was that Church Establishment in üpper Canada was rnerely an automatic and natural extension of England's, much

as the currency, the Common Law, and the language of Shakespeare

and Dr. Donne were natural extensions in this new land. His

choices, as Paul Murray Kendall suggests universally, were

illuminated only by the available lignt of the entrance signs on

the portals of history as Strachan lived it. These choices

cannot be viewed fairly or justly either with the great benefit

of unerring hindsight, or based on the teleological assumptions

that what occurred, politically, to the Family Compact in the

1840s was somehow inevitable. It was not. Strachan, like

Samson, shook the political pillars too hard, such was the vanity

of his, and his Tory politcal party's, very real and very

widespread power. And, Strachan was at the epicentre of it all,

and of al1 that well might have corne to pass had Strachan

remained humane and syrnpathetic. His character was his political

party's destiny, however. Strachan had to lead his ruling

group, basing his decisions on the world around him.

Unfortunately , his decisions became increasingly harsn,

antagonistic, and intolerant towarü other groups in the

pluralistic polity, drifting away from the centrai morality of 365 the Sermon on the Mount. This much is clear and can be fairly concluded at this remove.

William Perkins Bull declared nis a priori anti-Strachan bias as a Methodist. But, Bull allowed, "In the rnost favourable light, 1 saw Strachan merely as a magnificent fighter, out- manoeuvred and out-fought by overwhelrningly superior fiumbers, but never surrendering ...."(9.) It is quite clear that througn his ascent to power, Strachan grew sharply intolerant. It Kas not always the case. From a collection of his letters, Strachan reveals himself, writing mildly to Lord Teignmouth, the head of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts, on November 1, 1812:

''In Upper Canada we have a rnotley population, but chiefly capable of speaking English. Many of them would purchase cheap (Bibles), some would read but not purchase, but there are very few indeed so poor as not to be able to buy the Çcriptures even at the dearest rate. The majority have little or no sense of religion, every congregation must be made by the zeal and abilities of the Clergyman."(lO.)

By the i830s, Strachan had acnieved notable heights of pomposity, hubris, and scathing intolerance. In a letter regarding potential Church Establishment, the millstone to which 366

Strachan clung while çwimming vainly against the sweiling tide of political opposition and pluralism, he wrote to the Right

Honourable Lord Brougham & Vaux, the Lord Chancellor of England, on April 18, 1834, over twenty years after his docile epistle to

Lord Teignrnouth. Strachan railed, in the airy, soon-to-be

Victorian fashion that:

"The Church of England is assailed on the one side by Roman Catholics and on the other by Dissenters and both parties accuse her of bigotry persecution & intolerance.

"In regard to Canada this state of things suggests the most melancholy reflexions to those who when they left the shores of G Britain did not conceive that they left their birthright behind them and who had a rignt to expect that in passing to a British Colony they were not depriving themselves of the Privileges of the British Constitution nevertheless they find that in as far as the Church is concerned they are sure to be losers The Protestant Church in Church & State which used to be the glory of our Ancestors is now considered an antiquated thing. That Establishment for which so much English blood has been spilt for which one King was expelled and a distant branch of the same called to the Succession has become the subject of animosity to many Colonists and these have been supported by many Mernbers and by a select Committee of the House of Cornons (at York/Toronto) .

"!Church & State) faults are forcibly dragged into day and exaggerated by every artifice of misrepresentation. Its Bishops & Ministers are fully calumniated and abused. Its doctrines are held up to ridicule as contradictory and intolerant ...."(11.) 367

Bull catches a true glimpse of Strachan, some iorty years on

£rom 1812. Strachan, the fatherless, wandering boy, son of the granite quarries of his native Scotland, brought up in the world by dint of his own colossal exertions, the stiff, opportunistic, convert to 'High-and-Dry', Tractarian, dogmatic-Anglo-

Catholicism, the man grasping the elusive sands of political power, the ancient potentate defending his final enclave, is seen in his final political-ecciesiastical battle during 1854.

Strachan was fighting to cling to the Protestant (Church of

England) Clergy Reserves, held exclusively by the Church of

England in Upper Canada since the Province's inception in 1791.

Bull mused: "How could he have hoped to hold on to the Clergy

Reserves with the spirit of the people against him?"(12.) That spirit was no longer with him as it may have been at his apotheosis as Family Compact-saviour of York during the War of

1812. But, ".. .hold on (Strachan) did, by counter attack, by guile, ruse, and infinite resource antil 1854, a rear-guard action recalling Napoleon's amazing get-away from Leipzig to the very gates of Paris - and with the same inevitable outcone."(l3.)

In 1854, Strachan strode out Daniel-like ont0 the floor of the Legislature, but the legislative ?ions had not been vlsited by God's angels:

"The United Parliament of Upper and Lower Canada was in full session. Word came that the Bishop of Toronto wished to address the House. (Strachan) appeared in full canonicals at the head of a body of representative clergy in their vestments. Strachan was now seventy-six, but the years had not subdued him: haughty, arrogant, indomitable as ever, he faced certain defeat without flinching .... What a warrior! ... He is superb. His stony, immobile face never changes .... Observers, mostly hostile, cannot but acknowledge that che honours lie with hirn. Nevertheless, they vote (against Strachan and for rhe common good)."(:4.)

For Strachan, as Napoleon, this battle was his political

Waterloo, and the aitermath, his persona1 Elba. Strachan was clearly, by 1854, in direct opposition to the spirit of the people; the latter's popular will had become vibrant, vital, and victorious in opposition to him. It was now of unsurpassing strength. He had tested its mettle, and was discarded.

Only a poet can suitably capture the lonely eyrie to which

Strachan had ascended as Upper Canada's sectarian prime minister.

Lord Byron's conception of Napoleon in the former's largely autobiographical poern, Childe Harold's Pilorimaae, nicely evokes

Strachan at his end: ''Hewho ascends to mountain-tops, shall find The loftiest peaks most wrapt in clouds and snow; He who surpasses or subdues hurnankind, Must look down on the hate of those below. Though high above the Sun of Glory glow, And far beneath the Earth and Ocean spread, Round him are icy rocks, and loudly blow Contending tempests on his naked head, And thus reward the toi1 which to those sumits led."

The State and its educational agency had corne, through the

Upper Canadian period, 1791-1831, to refiect the "General spirit" of the people. The State and its educational agency evolved from

Strachan's aristocratic mien to Ryerson's dernocratic nature, from

Church of England to Methodism, from financially elitist toward free and universal, from District Grarnmar School to Common

School, from religious A~artheidto toierant separateness provisions. These elitist and establishment identities - identities that exist vestigially in the corridors of private schools like Upper Canada College and on Bay Street to this day - were simply unrepresentative of at least ninety per cent of the population by 1840. The repeated lessons of the Protestant Pale of Ireland were, nowever, only avoided on the northern shores of cold Lake Ontario by the skin of our predecessors' collective teeth. 370

And so, a spirit arose that was, as the English artist, and art-writer, John Ruskin supposed, of "infinite consequence."

Now, in the post-Mcdern world of privatised values, amidst the remains of virtües uninherited in Skidelsky's "collapsed

Christian world,"among the ruins of lapsed, pan-Protestant

Christian traditions (Sunday closings, saying of the Lord's

Prayer in cornmon or elernentary schools, church attendance), across the darkened stages of disintegrating Anglican parishes - best captured by the English playwright David Hare - it is difficult to identify with Bishop Strachan's world at its tenith in 1827. That year, "trailing clouds of glory did he corne" £rom

England with a bigoted and sectarian Royal Charter for his

University of King's College at York, even more sectarian, perhaps, than Strachan thought best. He had won very many battles but, in so doing, had created an invincible enemy host and, as a result, was about to begin losing the war, being frozen out like Napoleon or Hitler and their forces retreating across the steppes. In 1828, the political tide began to turn against

Strachan, running against the ship of Church and State: in the metropolis, the Prime Minister, the legendary Duke of Wellington, fired his life's oniy duelling shot - in carefully channelled, calibrated, and staged anger - and signalied by that shot a fresh 371 and decisive turn to religious tolerance throughout the British

Empire and against ultra-Protestantism; in the Upper Canadian

Colony, a stubborn yorkshirernan, Thomas Appleton, finally received his parliamentary hearing, having fought for bare justice over a decade, his case lighting the fuse, arguably, of popular insurrection in 1837. Though unarguably magnificent in the 1810s, and always the setter of educational foundation Stones of granitic quality, Strachar! fell out of touch with the common

Upper Canadian people as a whole after 1827. His war for Church

Establishment and elitist, sectarian schools was at the beginning of its end in 1827, the shaciows encroaching on his glorious afternoon of scarcely trammelled power. He did not see ~he shadows, but they engulfed him nonetheless. The Cathedra1 Charch of St. James is his great monument; it slowly sinks out-of-rnind in the City's sea of unrelenting activity like a painting of long

390.

In education and politics, the "just thoughts" and full rneasure of devotion of men and women, teachers, and leaders like the comon school archetype Appleton - a rare man, and a rarer incident where the historical fingerprints of the Family

Compact's machinations corne into the clear light of day - the philanthropist Ketchum, the Peninsular-hero Colborne, the

Methodist missionary-corne-to-York Ryerson, the resolute and virtuous Elizabetn Lount, che great Whig Statesrnan Lord Durham, among a considerable number of others, led ont0 smaller and iarger "resolved deeds" or wnicn there LS great evmence today in the Province of Ontario, formerly Upper Canada. The countless forgotten aczs of faithful ciedication, devoted teacning, ceaseless petitioning, political manoeuvering, and, ultimately, the tolerant consideration of al1 pluralistic groups settling in the Upper Canadian backwooas are the "real history" here.

Durham's Liberal policy-making created the window of opportunity for the great, general spirit of comrnon Upper Canadians t3 ernerge

£rom its tirne in opposition to the homogeneous ruling eiite.

Joining the struggle and wiming against the political rnight of the Family Compact has made al1 the difference. By becoming tolerant in the struggle with diversity - and not intolerant, in general, like the minority rule during the Upper Canadian period, or the Protestant Ascendancy of Ireland - there has been created, in Ontario, a public and state-directed spirit for the comon good, amongst a pluralis~icpopulation, that so distinguisnes this polity among jurisdictions in the world. The old world antagonisms have no place in Ontario: that the Family Compact 373 attempted to enshrine them in Upper Canada - at such cos: and CO

such widespread opposition over time - should be sufficient warning for those who rernember their history. For those who

forget, the harsh lessons of the Balkans and Northern Ireland

lurk, waiting to be re-taught. DIArcy McGee, the scourge of

Fenianism and a father of this nation, shall have the last worc.

He talkeà of the Irish: in the Upper Canaàian period, they were

jusc one group arnongst many to be tolerated by the Sïate in its education policies:

"The Irish have no grievance in Canada. Have you any state Church here, or landed aristocracy to turn out the peasant ÿpon the highway by summary ejectment? Then if you have no complaint, is it not your duty, as it is that of al1 otner nationalities, to stand by the government and give the highest practical proof possible that an Irishman well governed becomes one of the best subjects of the law and the sovereign." (15.) 373 attempted to enshrine them in Upper Canada - at such cost and to sucn widespread opposition over time - shoulà be sufficient warning for those who remember their history. For those who forget, the harsh lessons of the Balkans and Northern Ireiand lurk, waiting to be re-taught. D'Arcy McGee, the scourge of

Fenianisrn and a father of this nation, shall have the last word.

He talkea of the Irish; in the Upper Canadian period, they were just one group amongst many to be tolerated by the State in its education policies:

"The Irish have no grievance in Canada. Have you any state Church here, or landed zristocracy to turn out the peasant upon the highway by summary ejectment? Then if you have no cornplaint, is it not your duty, as it is that of al1 other nationalities, to stand by the government and give the highest practical proof possible that an Irishman well governed becomes one of the best subjects of the law and the sovereign." (15.) NOTE TO USERS

Page(s) not included in the original manuscript are unavailable from the author or university. The manuscript was microfilmed as received.

This reproduction is the best copy available. 375

Chantal Hebert, 'Quebec's unholy battle between church and state', in The Toronto Star, April 10, 1999.

@ The Cathedral Church of St. James, Toronto, 1999.

@ The Cathedral Church of St. James, Toronto, 1999,

@ The Cathedral Church of St. James, Toronto, 1999.

Heritage Toronto Plaque, @ The Cathedral Church of St.

James, Toronto, 1999.

Robert Skidelsky, John havnard Kevnes - The Economist as

Saviour 1920-1937 (Vol.11) (London: Macmillan, 1992), p. xviii.

Bull, From Strachan to Owen, p.i6.

John Strachan, The John Strachan Letter Book: 10124834,

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