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Egerton Ryerson, The Great Educator

By Karen (Naylor) Mulhallen

"The truth shall make you free" was the basic philosophy of the founder of the educational system of Upper Canada. It was actually more than a philosophy. It was a deep and abiding faith. Even today, these words may be seen carved in stone over the doorway of Victoria College in Toronto as a tribute to the memory of the man who helped found it.

Egerton Ryerson was born on March 24th, 1803, at Charlotteville, near Vittoria, in the county of Norfolk. He was the son of Colonel Joseph Ryerson, a United Empire Loyalist, and he maintained to the end that he believed in , and was, first and foremost, a united Empire Loyalist. It is not surprising, therefore, that Ryerson believed that monarchy gave dignity to government and acted as a check on the radical excesses of the people. This is not to say that he was opposed to freedom of the individual. He advocated equality before the law, equality of political opportunity and respect for the law.

His religious training in his youth made a lasting impression on the man. Colonel Ryerson was an ardent Anglican, his wife a Methodist. Egerton Ryerson was brought up an Anglican, but left the Church of England, as we shall see later, to become a Methodist minister. Many times during his career, it seemed as though his Anglican conservatism tempered his Methodist radicalism and resulted in a balanced outlook that was in advance of the temper of his times.

His early education was at the London District Grammar School and the Gore District Grammar School. He was an avid reader Horace, Virgil, Locke, Blair, Blackstone and Paley, he devoured greedily. So great was his thirst for knowledge that he succumbed to a brain fever and was bedridden for a year.

At the age of 18, Ryerson left the church of his fathers and the house of his father and "was ordained to be the champion of the church of his espousal". He became a saddle-bag preacher, an itinerant pulpiteer, who rose each morning at four o'clock and wrote his sermon on horse-back as he jogged from charge to charge.

For several years he lived among the Indians of the Credit as a missionary. He worked in the fields with the Indians and his mode of life was ascetic in the extreme. On Easter Sunday, 1825, he achieved his ambition and became an ordained minister of the Methodist Church. His studies had made him a convinced believer in the necessity for the separation of the church and state and, despite his youth, he emerged as a champion of the unorganized and the dissenter, and he fought the battle of the Methodist, the Presbyterian and the Baptist. He soon found a foeman worthy of his steel.

The stalwart and dogmatic Strachan was demanding on behalf of the Anglican Church the Clergy Reserves set aside by the Constitutional Act of 1791. In what is known as the "Obnoxious Sermon:, Strachan reviled the Methodists as traitors and republicans. The Methodists chose Ryerson to speak for them in the controversy...a controversy carried on , as was the custom of the time, by means of pamphlets and open letters.

In May 1826, Ryerson published his 30 page Review under the title of "A Methodist Preacher". The Review had a tremendous impact, not only on public opinion, but on Ryerson's father. It is reported that when he learned of his son's Review, the old Colonel threw up his hands and cried, "My God, we are ruined".

Shortly after this exchange, the Lieutenant-Governor, Sir Peregrine Maitland, proposed the establishment of a university in close connection with the Anglican Church and suggested that the teachers be "not merely eminent for their learning, but for their attachment to the British monarchy and the Established Church". Strachan and his group supported this more vigorously. In a brilliant series of letters to the Kingston Herald, Ryerson exposed the shallowness of the claims of the Church of England and won new prominence as a fighter for reform.

The same division of opinion was in evidence in the Legislature. Annually, the Assembly passed a bill to dispose of the Clergy reserves and to devote the proceeds to education and just as regularly, the Council rejected it.

In November 1829, Ryerson was made the first editor of the Christian Guardian and secretary of the Wesleyan Missionary Society. Although Ryerson was now extremely influential in his own church, he was by no means "the Pope of Methodism" as his opponents claimed. His views were broad. Of the Church of England, Ryerson said" "I firmly believe in her doctrines, I admire her liturgy, and I heartily rejoice in the success of those principles which are therein contained". Yet, until his break with Mackenzie in 1833, he worked with Bidwell, Rolph and William Lyon Mackenzie for the secularization of the Clergy Reserves and for other reforms, basically in the overhaul and extension of the educational system.

The year 1833 was a momentous one. Ryerson had been sent to England for the London Conference. He bore with him a petition to the Colonial Secretary with 20,000 signatures asking that the Clergy Reserves be disposed of and the proceeds used for educational purposes, which he duly presented. He was successful in healing the schism that existed and re-uniting the Methodist Episcopal Church in Canada with the British Wesleyan body.

On his return he published a series of articles in the Christian Guardian. These "Impressions" of English cultural, religious and political affairs stirred up a storm. Mackenzie, in the Colonial Advocate, termed Ryerson "another deserter the Americans had their Benedict Arnold and the Canadians have their Ryerson". The Guardian lost subscribers, but Ryerson stood firm. Possibly it was his early dual religious training that enabled him to take a balanced view but he made it clear that he desired to correct the impression that the Methodists as a religious body were identified with one political party".

In 1834, the Reformers won the elections and in 1835 Ryerson went to England to seek and to obtain a Royal Charter, the first to be granted in Upper Canada for a non-Anglican educational institution, for Upper Canada Academy at Cobourg. This Academy, in 1841, was to become Victoria College and Ryerson to be its first president. But Ryerson, as usual, was busy with other matters, too.

He supported by letter from England the Selection of Sir Francis Bondhead as the new Lieutenant- Governor of Canada. He affirmed that he stood by the Constitutional Act of 1791 and believed in the supremacy of the Lieutenant-Governor, but he also believed the Lieutenant-Governor's councillors must represent the majority opinion of the Assembly. He was a liberal. He was a conservative with a faith in the wisdom of the people and in their affection for the motherland.

In a series of letters to the London "Times", he discussed the situation in the Canadas in the light of his views. The British Conference of Methodists now demanded that Ryerson's political activities be checked. The Christian Guardian was ordered to tone down its political opinions. A directive was issued to the Methodist clergy to withdraw their support of the Ryerson-edited weekly. Ryerson must be dismissed as editor, they said. Ryerson, however, had loyal supporters among the body of Methodists and they came to his support. However, he was now opposed by both the Reformers and the Church Party.

The shaky finances of the Upper Canada Academy necessitated lengthy fund-raising visits to England and may account for the fact that Ryerson and the Methodist body generally took little or no part in the Rebellion of 1837. Certainly Ryerson's name was on the list of the proscribed. The fiery little rebel, Mackenzie, vowed to hang Ryerson to the nearest tree if he crossed his path.

At the time of the "Times" controversy, Ryerson's one friend in England had been Poulett Thompson. When Thompson became Lieutenant-Governor, he asked Ryerson for help in the provinces. Since the primary object was to abate partisan bitterness, despite the protests of the London Conference, Ryerson agreed to give his help and the Christian Guardian became the organ and mouthpiece of the government. Ryerson maintained his independent status, accepting no aid from the government, but in the eyes of many appeared little better than a tool of the government.

With the death of Poulett Thompson in 1841, Ryerson supposed that his political activity was at an end and he accepted a pastorate in Toronto, and in October of the same year became the principal of Victoria College. His retirement from the political scene was not of long duration.

In 1843, the members of the Legislative Assembly asked Ryerson for a report on the situation that had arisen as a result of Sir Charles Metcalfe's refusal to accept a decision of his councillors. The councillors, thereupon, had resigned en masse. Ryerson took the view that, in this dispute, the interpretation placed upon Responsible Government by Baldwin and Lafontaine mounted to tyranny of party. In a series of brilliant articles for the British Colonist, he defended Metcalfe as a proponent and adherent of the principle of Responsible Government and, in the election that ensued, Metcalfe's supporters won.

In 1844, Ryerson finally felt that he could accept the post of Superintendent of Education for Upper Canada. This post had been offered him several times previously, both by Thompson and by Metcalfe, but he had held off accepting. Now that his opinions had been vindicated at the polls, he felt free to accept. From 1844 to 1876, he devoted himself to the new generation and to the building of the Ontario Public School System which stands as his monument.

He incorporated into the system all that he found best in the systems of the United States and Europe. He borrowed notably from the educational methods of Ireland, Prussia, Scotland, France and the state of Massachusetts. The system that he built received unstinted praise from eminent educators in the United States and Great Britain.

In 1846 he published his famous Report, which was actually the plan for the new school system. In it he quotes from Herr Dinter, a Prussian educator: "I promised God that I would look upon every peasant child as a being who could complain of me before God if I did not provide him with the best education as a man and as a Christian which it was possible for me to provide". This became Ryerson's creed.

Ryerson's skill as a mediator was soon brought into play in connection with the touchy question of separate schools. The Liberal party wished to abolish these schools, which had been authorized and established under the Act of Union of 1841. The Roman Catholic authorities wished complete control of the education of the children of their adherents. Ryerson held firm to three basic principles. He was a firm advocate of departmental control of text books and curriculum. He believed in equal public grants and common inspection. He was for the freedom for the individual Catholic to support Public Schools, if he so wished. He held firm against extremists on both sides.

Between 1846 and 1850, boards of trustees were established to raise money for schools, to supply teachers and authorized text books and to make annual reports to a district superintendent. Public libraries were placed in the hands of county councils and the county boards of education. The overall control of the system was in the hands of the Chief Superintendent to whom all district officials reported and looked for guidance. The Chief Superintendent administered the legislature's grant, prepared forms and regulations, and directed the efficient operation of the whole system, with the advice of an appointed Council of Public Instruction on matters such as prescribed examinations for teachers, establishment of Normal Schools and authorization of text books.

In 1850, Ryerson created a depository for selling books at half cost to schools. In 1852, the first Normal School was established, with an eminent Scottish educator as principal. It was not until 1864, however, with the passage of the Grammar School Act, "for the further improvement of grammar schools in Upper Canada", that real progress began to be made in the reform of grammar schools, which up to then had been largely in control of church groups or private individuals or companies. Now, provision was made for a government grant to equal local grants to assist in establishing new schools. Provision was made for the trustee boards to be composed, equally, of representatives of rural and urban areas. To improve the standard of education at these schools, the headmaster was required to have a university degree. Girls were admitted to a limited number of courses.

The goal of free education was finally reached in 1871 when a bill was passed making education compulsory until the age of 16.

In 1874 Ryerson prepared his last piece of notable legislation. Grammar schools were now to be called High Schools or Collegiates. Requisitions were henceforth to be made to municipal authorities for funds in addition to government grants. A further grant of $750 annually was made to all schools having four qualified masters and 60 males taking Latin or Greek. A system of intermediate examinations in the early high school years was established.

"The Ontario educational system now stands as a model of efficiency without superior in Canada or the world, and the basis for that superiority was the work of Egerton Ryerson", says Henderson in his monumental "Great Men of Canada". For more than 60 years, literally hundreds of articles, editorials, books, pamphlets and journals flowed from his facile pen. These played a tremendous part in shaping public opinion. Nor were his literary works confined to the field of education. He was the author of "The Loyalists of America and Their Times', "Canadian Methodism" and a biography, completed posthumously, "The Story of My Life".

Ryerson's greatest asset, apart from a nimble brain and a facile pen, was his ability to compromise, to tread the middle path and to convince others to his path. His early religious upbringing as an Anglican by a Tory father gave him an insight into one party. His reversion to the Methodism of his mother brought him to the other. There is no doubt but that the duality of his religious upbringing at a time when religion played a greater part in politics than is allowed today, gave him a more balanced and dispassionate approach, that was precisely what was required to assist in resolving the problems of the time, clerical, political or educational. That he chose to devote the major part of a great talent to the field of education is something for which every student in the Ontario educational system can be thankful.

Bibliography

Encyclopaedia Canadiana

Egerton Ryerson N. Burwash, 1903

Egerton Ryerson, Education in Upper Canada J.H. Putnam, 1912

Egerton Ryerson, His Life and Times C.S. Sissons, 2 vols., 1937, 1947

The Book of Knowledge vol. 3&4, Colonial Press, Boston, Mass.

The Makers of Canada vol. 6, Maclean's

Makers of Canada Oxford University Press

Political Leaders of Upper Canada William Smith, 1931, Nelson & Sons

Great Men of Canada Henderson, 1929, Southam Press

My Dearest Sophie C.B. Sissons, 1955, Ryerson Press

North America and the Modern World McInnis, 1955, Dent

Building the Canadian Nation Geo. W. Brown, Dent, 1955

* Karen Mulhallen teaches in the English Department of Ryerson University. This essay won her a Grade 11 History prize at Woodstock Collegiate Institute (Ontario) in 1957-8.