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NL-339 (f. 88/W) c Canada Public School Reform and the Halifax Middle Class 1850 - 1870 by Janet Guildford Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at Dalhousie University Halifax, Nova Scotia September, 1990 © Copyright by Janet Guildford 1990 National Library Oibliothequ^ naiionr.le of Canad.i du Canada Canadian Theses Service Service des theses canadiennes Ottawa. 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ISBN 0-315-64473-7 Canada TABLE OF CONTENTS Table of Contents iv Illustrations and Tables v Abstract vi Abbreviations used vii Acknowledgments viii Introduction 1 Chapter 1: The City 2 8 Chapter 2: Volunatry Organizations and Moral Progress in the 1850s 59 Chapter 3: Between Acts: Halifax Schools, 1850-1864 103 Chapter 4: School Reform and the Politics of Middle Class Cooperation 144 Chapter 5: New roles and new rules: Halifax Schools from 1865-1870 184 Chapter 6: Specialization and Collaboration: Organizational Developments Among the Middle Class in the 1860s 232 Conclusion 274 Appendix 1 287 Appendix 2 298 Bibliography 309 iv Illustrations and Tables Map 1-1. Halifax in 1865. 46 Table 1-1. Halifax Population by Ward, 1851-1871. 47 Table 5-1. Enrolment and Attendance at Halifax Schools, 190 1865-70. Abstract Public School Reform and the Haliiax Middle Class, 1850-1870 In mid-nineteenth century Halifax a coherent and sometimes self-conscious middle class began to emerge. The new middle class slowly forged a common identity through the changing social relations of the international industrial economy and through an increasing attachment to a cluster of ideas that can collectively be called bourgeois progress. Between 1850 and 1870 diverse groups within the middle class banded together in associations and organizations to pursue their goal of moral and material progress. The role of the pursuit of moral progress in creating a middle class identity and consolidating middle class influence is the central subject of this study. The transformation of a loosely organized collection of varied public schools into a large modern, professional and bureaucratic school system forms the central core of the discussion of the process of middle class formation in Halifax. The success of middle class institutional development in Halifax rested on newly acquired mechanisms for intra-class collaboration. The development of new strategies for middle class collaboration was an essential step in the consolidation of bourgeois power and influence. vi Abbreviations ER Report of the Superintendent of Schools for the Province of Nova Scotia, appended to the Journal of the House of Assembly (Nova Scotia) ER Report of the Superintendent of Schools for the Province of Nova Scotia J Ed Journal of Education (Nova Scotia) J HA Journal of the House of Assembly (Nova Scotia) NSHQ Nova Scotia Historical Quarterly NSHS Nova Scotia Historical Society PANS Public Archives of Nova Scotia PEA Provincial Education Association SNS Statutes of Nova Scotia YMCA Young Men's Christian Association Acknowledgements Once again I would like to thank Michael Cross for his excellent supervision. David Sutherland has been more than generous, not only sharing his unpublished research on the members of the Halifax business community, but often acting as a testing board for my ideas. My friends and office mates Michael Earlc and Suzanne Morton have for years provided me with stimulation and comfort. Judith Fingard and Ruth Bleasdale have both offered encouragement and valuable criticism throughout my years at Dalhousie. Without the miracles performed by History Department graduate secretary Mary Wyman and her colleague Tina Jones there would be no other thank yous. I have benefitted enormously from participation in the Dalhousie History Graduate Students' Seminar and the Halifax History Group. And like countless others before me I want to thank the patient staff of the Public Archives of Nova Scotia who have responded to hundreds of requests and have also brought new resources to my attention. Finally, I want to thank my family for keeping me in touch with another and more immediate reality. viii Introduction In December 1859 William Garvie, an ambitious twenty- two year old tutor at Dalhousie College, explicitly linked moral and material progress to Christianity in a speech to the Young Men's Christian Association entitled "The Light and the Shadows or Christianity the Ideal of our Race". The speech was so well received by the audience that it was printed for wider distribution.! Garvie's forum, the content of his talk and his florid and romantic style combine to make "The Light and the Shadows" a useful starting point in the pursuit of an understanding of emerging middle class values in Halifax. His forum, the Young Men's Christian Association, was one of a plethora of non-denominational Protestant organizations established in Halifax in the 1850s which manifested the faith in specialization and collaboration that were hallmarks of the middle class. An earlier gathering had prompted the Presbyterian Witness to exult that "a finer scene cannot be imagined than that of a large assemblage composed of all the evangelical denominations...united with one heart and one voice". 2 Garvie presented his audience with a highly teleological version of the history of the world, a version of history that culminated in the glories of mid- nineteenth Protestant culture.3 He told his audience Freedom and improvement are identified with its cause, art and science are its handmaids... It has asserted the divine right of manhood, and 1 I 2 proclaims freedom to the slave; it has triumphantly recogr.ized the proper social sphere of womanhood; it has given expansion to the intellect, and opposed a barrier to moral wrong; and raising man to the vantage ground of its Ideal, it points through the glorious vistas of the future to a higher existence — a happiness ennobling and immortal — and having done this can it meet a rival in any age or clime?4 In mid-nineteenth century Halifax a coherent and sometimes self-conscious middle class began to emerge. The new middle class slowly forged a common identity through the changing social relations of the international industrial economy and through an increasing attachim nt to a cluster of ideas that can collectively be called bourgeois progress. Many within this group believed that both material and moral progress could be achieved through the application of scientific knowledge and the adoption of democratic political institutions and the replacement of aristocracy with meritocracy. Together these ideas fostered faith in professionalization and state intervention. At the same time new theological enthusiasms spawned by the religious revivals of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century continued to spread a doctrine of optimism and faith in social perfectability. The combined forces of economic change and evangelical religion acted on the family to produce new social and familial roles for men and women.5 while these changes threatened to disrupt existing social relationships and alliances, many within the emerging 3 middle class were enthusiastic promoters of the new order. Their efforts to direct and control the process of change were both a pursuit of their material interest and a reflection of their faith in their ability and their right to create a better society. The process of middle class formation must, therefore, be analyzed as both an economic and an ideological or cultural phenomenon. The middle class made a close connection between material and moral progress. The identification of this relationship was central to the emergence of a common middle class identity and to the consolidation of middle class influence.