McDonald’s paper, “Egerton Ryerson and the School as an Agent of Political Socialization” focuses on the idea Ryerson had that political behaviour is learned.[1] Inspired by certain European monarchs, Ryerson wished to follow their lead and have the government show interest and concern for the interest of their own subjects.[2] In this system, Ryerson saw an “instrument to guarantee an orderly and stable society capable of containing any widespread acceptance of radical democratic ideas.”[3] Ryerson also believed that “social progress depended on harmonious and sympathetic relations among the various classes.”[4] All classes were to be educated through implementing property tax to allow to Universal Education.[5] Clearly, the idea behind providing education for Ryerson was an effort to exert control and pass upper class ideas onto the lower classes.
Ian Ross Robertson’s paper “Reform, Literacy, and the Lease: The Prince Edward Island Free Education Act of 1852” offered a different reasoning for free education. The idea was that the colonial treasury would pay the salaries of the teachers and children would not have any tuition charges.[6] There seems to have been two driving reasons behind this education act, the primary reason being a lack of literacy among those entering leases, the secondary being the inability to provide salaries for capable teachers.[7] Robertson states that “popular access to basic, primary-level education was a means to redress in part the imbalance in power between the landowners who controlled most of the Island, and the working settlers.”[8] Initially, I thought that the Free Education Act was going to be another means of control of the lower classes but was surprised to be shown otherwise. The Free Education Act was put in place for the working class and to allow them the opportunity to make informed decisions.
I found the third paper most interesting because it contradicted what I previously believed about urbanization. John Bullen’s “Hidden Workers: Child Labour and the Family Economy in Late Nineteenth-Century Urban Ontario” is about what was expected of children in lower class families in urban cities. Bullen states that “many working-class families, like their counterparts on the farm, depended on ‘the economy, industry, and moderate wants of every member of the household.”[9] He also states that “working class parents had more pressing concerns than truancy on their minds when they kept children and home.”[10] Every member of the house had responsibilities, even if it did not provide income it was necessary for the urban home to function. Each of the children had chores and duties around the house that were often gendered.[11] It was not solely on the husband of a working-class family to earn income, but also the wife and often the children. Formal education was not a priority when the family needed all of the children to help around the house or work.
In these three papers we are presented with three different views and ideas regarding education and the purpose of it. We see education as a way to control the lower classes, education as means of equality and fairness, and education taking lower priority when compared to the financial needs of the family. I think each of these papers provides a good history of Canadian education and how it initially formed and was treated. We can also see, particularly through Bullen’s paper, how attitude about the importance of education has shifted over time.
References
Bullen, John. “Hidden Workers: Child Labour and the Family Economy in Late Nineteenth-Century Urban Ontario.” Labour/Le Travail 18 (Fall 1986): 163-87.
McDonald, Neil. “Egerton Ryerson and the School as an Agent of Political Socialization,” in Sara Burke and Patrice Milewski (Eds.) Schooling in Transition: Readings in the Canadian History of Education, Toronto: University of Toronto press, 2012: 39-56.
Robertson, Ian Ross. “Reform, Literacy, and the Lease: The Prince Edward Island Free Education Act of 1852,” in in Sara Burke and Patrice Milewski (Eds.) Schooling in Transition: Readings in the Canadian History of Education, Toronto: University of Toronto press, 2012: 56-71.
Citations
[1] Neil McDonald, “Egerton Ryerson and the School as an Agent of Political Socialization,” in Sara Burke and Patrice Milewski (Eds.). Schooling in Transition: Readings in the Canadian History of Education, Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2012, 39.
[2] McDonald, “Egerton Ryerson,” 45.
[3] McDonald, “Egerton Ryerson,” 45.
[4] Ibid., 48.
[5] Ibid., 48.
[6] Ian Ross Robertson, “Reform, Literacy, and the Lease: The Prince Edward Island Free Education Act of 1852,” in Sara Burke and Patrice Milweski (Eds.), Schooling in Transition: Readings in the Canadian History of Education, Toronto: Univerisity of Toronto Press, 2012, 56.
[7] Robertson, “Reform, Literacy, and the Lease,” 58.
[8] Robertson, “Reform, Literacy, and the Lease,” 59.
[9] John Bullen, “Hidden Workers: Child Labour and the Family Economy in Late Nineteenth-Century Urban Ontario,” Labour/Le Travail 18 (Fall 1986): 164.
[10] Bullen, “Hidden Workers,” 170.
[11] Bullen, “Hidden Workers,” 169.