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. UMI 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 @Copyright by Robin Bredin. 1000 Natbnaf Library Bibliothèque nationale I*m of Canada du Canada Acquisitions and Acquisitions et Bibliographie Services services bibliographiques 395 Wellington Street 395, rue Wellington OttawaON KIAON4 OttawaON K1AON4 Canada Canada Ywr tih Vorm ruhirsncs Our JI&Mire re~~ The author has granted a non- L'auteur a accordé une licence non exclusive licence allowùig the exclusive permettant à la National Library of Canada to Bibliothèque nationale du Canada de reproduce, loan, distribute or sell reproduire, prêter, distribuer ou copies of ths thesis in rnicroform, vendre des copies de cette thèse sous paper or electronic formats. la forme de rnicrofiche/fïh, de reproduction sur papier ou sur format électronique . The author retains ownership of the L'auteur conserve la propriété du copyright in ths thesis. Neither the droit d'auteur qui protège cette thèse. thesis nor substantial extracts from it Ni la thèse ni des extraits substantiels may be printed or otherwise de celle-ci ne doivent être imprimés reproduced without the author's ou autrement reproduits sans son permission. autorisation. Struggling with Diversity : The State Education of a Pluralistic. Upper Canadian Population. 179 1 - 184 1 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.