JOURNAL OF EDUCATION.

TORONTO, DECEMBER, 1849.

SECOND VOLUME OF THE JOURNAL OF EDUCATION.

The present number completes the Second Volume of this Journal; and although the amount of subscripition received leaves a considerable balance for mechanical expenses for this, as well as for the first Volume, to be paid by the Editor, we have satisfaction in believing that our voluntary sacrifice of means and labour has been a useful contribution to the interests of Education and general knowledge in Upper Canada. We are truly grateful for the cordial and very general commendation of the public press, without distinction of sect or party-a circumstance which shows how broad and important are the grounds on which persons of all persuasions and parties can earnestly unite in Christian and patriotic action for the advancement of general education. We desire also to express our hearty thanks to many Clergymen, District Superintendents, several Teachers and other individuals who have promoted the circulation of this Journal; also to the Municipal Councils of the BATHURSt, Johnstown, MIDLAND, and Prince Edward Districts, for ordering a copy for each School Section within their respective jurisdictions. Especially should we most gratefully mention the noble conduct of D. D'EVERARDO, Esquire, for ordering and assuming the responsibility of paying for à copy for each Schoo Section in the NIAGARA District, previously to any action of the Council on the subject. Several other Councils have ordered a copy for each Township represented by them.

In our Prospectus of the present volume, we said that "while the subjects which have given character to the first volume of this Journal will not be lost sight of, another leading object of the second volume will be SCHOOL ARCHITECTURE ;" and intimated that the illustrative engravings which we proposed to introduce on this subject, would "exceed in number the months of the year." The engraved illustrations (large and small) of School Architecture which have appeared in this volume are 42 in number; in addition to which we have given no less than 24 illustrative engravings under the head of PRACTICAL SCIENCE AND ARTS-embracing scientific and practical explanations of Steam-engines, the Magnetic Telegraph, Optical instruments, &c. The whole number of these engravings, therefore, which have appeared in this volume amounts to sixty-six. We believe this feature of the present volume of the Journal of Education, is a new feature in the periodical literature of Canada.

In the expository parts of the Provincial School Reports for 1847 and 1848, together with various statistics, which have appeared in this volume, a practical exposition has been given of the principles and workings of our School Law, and the spirit and success of its administration. The System of Free Schools has also been explained and illustrated; and we trust the Domestic and Foreign Educational and Literary Intelligence, the various articles respecting the relative duties of Teachers, Trustees, and Parents, on the subject of education generally, have realized the expectations and wishes of our readers and fellow labourers.

There are, however, two other objects intimated in our Prospectu of this volume, which, we regret, have not been accomplished. We stated,

"A third and prominent object of the second vol exposition of the means necessary for carrying into which we believe will shortly be made by the L establishment of COMMON SCHOOL LIBRARIES; and of the books by the Board of Education, short revi teristic notices of them will be given in this Journ the best and cheapest modes of procuring them."

Unfortunately, no such provision was made by th the year just closing; nor has any provision been able Municipal Councils to take the necessary Common School Libraries at any time; and the Bo has been denuded of the power of selecting and reco We trust, however, these things will soon be rect ed for. Had the provision anticipated been mad Libraries would have been selected in the course mer, and the Chief Superintendent would have visite tricts of Upper Canada during the Autumn, prepa tablishment of such School Libraries, besides fu been intimated in the Journal of Education. arrangements for the season's labours.

In our Prospectus of the present volume we also

"Another object of the second volume will be, modifications which may be made in the School with the present provisions."

Perceiving that the provisions of the new Sc was prepared before any Report of the operations o had been printed) would abolish several of what useful provisions of the Act under which the School successfully administered during the last two yea contained provisions which would be injurious to T some to Trustees, detrimental to the School Fund the general interests of Schools, as well as invidi isters of religion in Upper Canada and School Vi we deemed it our duty to make no public referenc to give information in the proper quarters, of the c dency of many of its provisions. It will be enco friend of popular Education to know, that the const of the Government, having made themselves acq subject, and being earnestly desirous of promoti diffusion of elementary education, free from a questions of party politics, have no wish to inflict ers, Trustees, or youth of Canada, any of the several provisions of the new Bill, nor to subvert t the progress of the work already commenced, b remedy its defects, to adapt it to the new Town tem, and to multiply its blessings as widely as po

We trust these explanations will satisfy our short-comings in regard to the two points referred fidently hope to be able to fulfill in a third volum and to witness in 1850, what we had hoped to ha the second volume, and to have witnessed in 18 these temporarily retarding circumstances will thoroughly understood principles and more p foundation of our School System, and the wider d fits, than would otherwise have taken place in a

Since the foregoing article was written, the Correspondence relative to the new School A the public papers.

CIAL CORRESPONDENCE ON THE NEW SCHOOL

ACT.

EDUCATION OFFICE,

Toronto, 7th December, 1849.

As it is provided that the new Common School Act for Canada, which passed the Legislature at its last Session, shall orce after the first day of January next ensuing, I desire most tfully to submit to the consideration of the Governor General uncil, what appear to me to be the vital interests of our on Schools in respect to that law.

I observe, in the first place, that the new Law (see last Secrepeals the ve y Law by which Legislative aid is now granted nmon Schools in Upper Canada; that it makes no provision ver for enabling Municipal Councils to establish Common 1 Libraries; that it makes no provision whatever for enabling ntemplated County Boar's to perform the duties imposed upon that it provides no security or means by which the diversion, case, of any part of the Legislative School Grant from the contemplated by the Legislature can be prevented; and that vides none of the means essential to acquiring the needful ation in regard to any matters relating to the operations or istration of the law or the expenditure of moneys in particuses in any Township in Upper Canada, as it does not authowen the slightest correspondence, on either side, between the cial Superintendent and any Township Superintendent, leave Provincial Superintendent no means whatever of acquiring nformation of any kind except by application to the Clerks of -unty Councils. With such omissions in the general proviand great essential parts of the School Law (without adverting erous details), it is obvious that its introduction must issue pid decline, instead of advancement, in our Common Schools. But there are many provisions of this Act still more injurious its omissions. I will mention some of the more general. t abolishes all that has been done by the Board of Education, view of introducing a series of suitable Text-books in the on Schools of Upper Canada-an event which I can look little less than a calamity to the Schools and youth of the

ce.

(2.) It must also impair, to a considerable extent, the ess of the Provincial Normal School, as one object of the g of Teachers in that Institution is not only to qualify them h generally in the best manner, but to teach the National Books to the best advantage, and to organize Schools acto them, an object which is, in a great measure useless, The authority which manages the Provincial Normal School ded of all right to say any thing respecting the School textScores of testimonies have been given in Official Reports the Correspondence of the "Journal of Education," as to nefits already resulting to Schools from the labours of the of Education in regard to Text-books as well as in respect to ormal School. The most useful recommendations of the are not even perpetuated until the action of other Boards, ts authority, in respect both to Text-books and Books for liis abrogated. (3.) The new law alters the constitution em of managing the Normal School,-repeals provisions to hat Institution owes its very existence, and, to a great exsharmonious and economical management-and contains ons which will add considerably to the expense, and deduct e efficiency of the management of that Etablishments that were introduced not only without consulting the Sundent of Schools and the members of the Board of Education, established and matured the operations of the Normal School inst their judgment. (4.) What has been done during the o years for improving the system of Schools in our Cities orporated Towns, is also to be abolished, and instead of givBoards of Trustees in those Cities and Towns authority to rate-bills, they are to be set aside, and a retrograde moveto be made back to the old system, which has long since andoned by every City and Town in the neighbouring States of the relicts of stationary ignorance and the monumental against all School improvement in Cities and Towns, -as ce has shown in the Cities and Towns of Upper Canada for twenty years. (5.) Those who have voluntarily fulfilled ≈ of School Visitors during the last two years and upwards, vise denuded of their character as such, while correspondBes of persons in Lower Canada are retained as School

December, 1849.

I

Visitors, and while the Clergy there are not only continued in the office of School Visitors, but are invested with the absolute and exclusive authority to select all books used in the Schools "relating to religion and morals"'—a power that it was never thought of conferring upon the Clergy of Upper Canada. They have not been invested with authority to interfere in respect to a single regulation or book used in the Schools. The School visits of the Clergy of the several religious persuasions (besides 1,459 visits of Magistrates and 959 of District Councillors,) have amounted during the last year to 2,254-exceeding an average of five School visits for each Clergyman in Upper Canada; nor have I heard of an instance of any thing unpleasant or hurtful resulting for such visits; but, on the contrary, the most abundant proofs have been given of the salutary, social, and educational influence arising from enlisting so vast a moral power in the cause of popular education. The repeal of the legal provision by which Clergymen can, in their official character and as a matter of right, visit the Schools, is, of course, a Legislative condemnation of their acting in that capacity; nor can any Clergyman be expected to visit the Schools or regard them with interest, after having been denuded of the right of doing so except by sufferance and as a private individual, while the Clergy in Lower Canada (where a different form of religion most widely prevails,) are placed in so very different a legal relation to the Schools. felt satisfied at the time, as I have since learned, that the members of the Government generally, were not aware that the provisions of the new Act involved such an insult to the Clergy of Upper Canada, and the severance from the Schools of a cordial co-operation and influence most important to their advancement. (6.) The new Act contains provisions relating to the ground and manuer of admitting into, and excluding books from the Schools, which appear to me fraught with the most injurious and painful consequences, and to which I do not wish to make further reference in this place. (7.) While the present law protects the School Fund against the loss or application of a sixpence for the entire administration of the School system, the new Act permits the whole expense of the local superintendence of Schools to be deducted from the School Fund, and authorizes the alienation of one-fourth of the entire School Fund from ordinary apportionments to the establishment and support of Pauper Schroots. The discretionary alienation of so large a portion of the School Fund cannot but be injurious to ordinary Schools and their Teachers; and I think the introduction of a class of pauper Schools in the country is most earnestly to be deprecated. I can show that I have not only had regard to feeble and needy School Sections, but that under the provisions of the existing Law, I have invariably met the case of such sections; so that not one of them, as far as I have been able to ascertain, has been deprived of the advantages of the School system on account of its poverty; nav, that such Sections have been aided in a way most effectually to prompt and encourage local exertions, to exempt them from the baneful influence and degradation of constituting a distinct class of pauper Schools, and not to deduct a farthing from the ordinary apportionments to Teachers and Schools. (8.) The new Act requires conditions and forms of proceedings from School Trustees unnecessarily onerous and burdensome; and imposes restrictions and obstacles upon Trustees in providing for Teachers' salaries, which cannot fail to cause losses to Teachers and trouble and discouragement to Trustees. This is one point on which the present Law has been justly complained of; but the new Act provides for greatly multiplying those grounds of complaint, rather than removing them. (9.) The method (as provided by the new Act) of getting up local Reports through the medium of County Clerks, who have no practical connection with, or knowledge of the operations of the School Law, has been tried in the State of New-York, and has been found utterly abortive, as I can show from statements on the subject by the State Superintendent.

Such is a summary statement of those provisions of the new School Act which, I feel satisfied, must render its operations a source of incalculable injury to the Schools, and of great dissatisfaction to the people. I can adduce facts and authorities to illustrate and establish any or all of the points above stated, whenever des red. What has been referred to as the popular and remedial features of the new Act-such as the County Boards for the examination of Teachers, Schools for the children of coloured people, the apportion ment of certain sums for the establishment of Libraries, extending, the facilities of the Normal School, the establishment of a School

of Art and Design, adapting the School System to that of Township Councils-were recommended in my communications and Drafts of Bills dated the 14th October, 1848, and 23rd February, 1819: but they are so mutilated and so connected with the incompatible and most strange provisions, as to be neutralized and rendered useless. The new Act seems to be the creation of inexperienced theorism and the collection of Sections and parts of Sections from several Acts and Bills without any clear perception of their relation the one to the other, or their working as a whole. Some of the most objectionable provisions were not in the printed copy of the Bill, but were introduced when this Act of forty-nine octavo pages was pressed through the Legislative Assembly in a single hour at the very heel of the Session, after most of the Members' copies of the printed Draft of the Bill had been destroyed by fire, and when perhaps not five persons could form the least idea of its contents, and when the only Member of the Assembly who was a Member of the Board of Education and who understood the law practically as well as by careful examination, and who had expressed his preparedness and intention to offer suggestions and amendments, was known to be absent from his place in the House.

It being necessary that some decisive action be taken in respect to the School System as affected by the new Act, I take the liberty of submitting the following recommendations to the GovernorGeneral in Council :

1. That the Corporations of Cities and Towns be advised to take no steps at present, towards cutting up the constituencies which they represent into little independent petty School Sections, but allow the present Board of Trustees to remain for the time being ; and under the 17th Section of the new Act, these Boards of Trustees will be invested with all the powers with which it invests any newly elected Trustees. Thus will confusion and the breaking up of all that is doing in Cities and Towns, be prevented until the Session of the Legislature.

2. That in each of the rural School Sections throughout Upper Canada, one Trustee be elected, as seems to be intended by the 23rd Section of the new Act taken into connexion with the 17th Section [as has been advised by the Attorney-General] and as should have been the case had not the present Law been interfered with. Thus there will be no break in the existing School Corporations, and the evils resulting therefrom will be avoided.

3. That as the fourth clause of the Second Section of the new Act provides that the Schools shall be conducted according to such forms and regulations as shall be provided by the Chief Superintendent, the present Forms and Regulations (which are in the hands of all the Trustee Corporations throughout Upper Canada, and are familiar to them) be continued unchanged until the ensuing Session of the Legislature. Then as the 73rd Section of the new act continues the present District Superintendents in office, with their present powers and duties, until the first day of next March, all the operations of the Common School System can be maintained inviolate until that time; no provisions of the new Act will be contravened, and the manifold evils of its introduction will be avertel.

4. That on the meeting of the Legislature, the new Act be withdrawn, and the present Law continued with such amendments to remedy its defects and adapt it to the approaching Township Municipal System as I proposed in a Draft of a short Bill transmitted to the Provincial Secretary the 23rd February last, together with any further amendments that a careful examination and consultation with persons of practical experience may suggest.

Thus wil the people feel themselves relieved of the dreaded task of beginning again to learn the forms and regulations of a new and complicated Law; the friends of Education will feel that there is some stability in the great principles of the system they have laboured so much and so successfully to establish, and that it will not be subjected to the caprices of party legislation or the mutations of party power, while it will, from time to time, undergo those amendments and improvements which experience and the progress of society shall demand.

The Honorable

JAMES LESLIE,

I have the honor tobe,
Sir,

Your most obeient Servant,

(Signed,)

-Secretary of the Province,

Toronto,

E. RYERSON,

REPLY TO THE FOREGOING LE

SECRETARY's Toronto, 15th De

SIR, I have the honor to inform you that Hi Governor-General has had under His consideration letter of the 7th instant, containing several suggest to the carrying into effect of the new School Act. feels that your practical knowledge of the work! System, entitles your opinion to much weight; an tions offered in your letter appear consistent with ples of the School Act, His Excellency has directed be considered in Council with a view to Legislati during the next Session of the Provincial Parliamen time, I am instructed to authorize you to adopt s may appear to you expedient, to continue the pre Regulations and to maintain the present system o Common Schools in Cities and Towns, so far as to do so in accordance with the Law.

The Reverend

I have the honor to be,

Sir, Your most obedient S (Signed,)

EGERTON RYERSON, D. D.,

Superintendent of Schools, U Toronto.

CIRCULAR,

Addressed by the Chief Superintendent to the tendents and Trustees of Common Schools in relative to the Local School Reports for 184 GENTLEMEN,-I adopt this public method of various inquiries which have been addressed to m mode of proceeding at the ensuing Annual School held at noon on the second Tuesday in January nex at the same time, to offer such suggestions as m pursue the simplest and best course in the perf duties for the time being.

In reply to the oft-proposed question,-"Wil Trustees have to be elected at the approaching Meeting in each of the present School Section only ONE, and that in place of the Trustee whose t expires, and elected in precisely the same manner a proceeded in the election of a Trustee under the p answer is given on the advice of the Honorable Att Upper Canada, who is of opinion that in the present (which, with their present Trusteeship, are pe 17th Section of the New Act,) the proceedings of nual Meetings should be conlu tei as provided Section of the New Act,-which requires, that and householders present shall, by a majority, proper person who shall succeed the Trustee wh shall have expired, and the person then electe in office three years, and until his successor shall h Provided always, that the person whose term of expired, may be re-elected, if he be willing."

2. Blank Trustees' Reports having, about two m forwarded to the several District Superintendents the various Corporations of Trustees within thei dictions, I would recommend the Trustees, in a these blank reports filled and read at their Annual, and then transmitted immediately to their Distric Thus will their constituents be informed of what their Trustees-Representatives during the year work will have been done at the year's end. E should be taken to fill up every column of the Rep law imposes a forfeiture and fine upon Trustees shall have been proved to have exaggerated any order to obtain an undue share of the School Fu correctness, and completeness in Trustees' Repor dation of accurate and full information in regard state of the country. With this fact I hope eve Trustees will be duly impressed. Let nothing!

88

December, 1849.

mitting their present year's Report to their District Superinnt within a week, if not within a day, after their Annual l Meeting.

In regard to the Forms and Regulations, I observe that the nt forms and regulations will remain unaltered until the ensuession of the Legislature. In all things that Trustees may quired to do for some months, the present forms and regulawill answer under the new Act.

The District Superintendents having been furnished with Blank ts, I earnestly request that they will fill them up, (adding up e columns) and transmit them to this Office as early in Febas practicable, as I wish to prepare and submit my own Annual -t before the close of the next Legislative Session. I beg that ct Superintendents will accompany their Statistical Reports such remarks on the progress, condition, and prospects of the ls under their charge, as their own information and experience enable them to make-and especially as their term of office the present law will expire on the first of next March. I be grateful, both on personal and public grounds, if the DisSuperintendents, aided by the Trustees, will enable me to make chool Report of Upper Canada for the current year as comand comprehensive as possible.

EDUCATION OFfice,

Toronto, December 19th, 1849.

R,-Uniting in yourself the double office of the Head of the ration and Chairman of the Board of Trustees for the

, I herewith transmit to you Blank Reports ne Schools under your jurisdiction, and desire to direct your ion to what appears to me the mode of proceeding best calcuo promote their interests for the next few months. ust you will see that all the columns in these Blank Reports rrectly filled up, and that the Report of your Board, thus full omplete in its statistical details, be transmitted to this Office as as practicable after the beginning of the year-not later than rst of February-accompanied by such observations on the and progress of your Schools as you may think proper. respect to the position in which your Schools may be placed new School Act, it is to be much regretted, that while that epeals the present School Law relative to Cities and Incord Towns, it provides no substitute, except the old rural sysvhich is only applicable to country neighbourhoods, and which rely incompatible with any progress or system of Schools in and Towns. For several months past I have directed the ion of individual members of the Government to this and other pus omissions and provisions of the new Act; I have recently ht the subject officially under the notice of the Governor al in Council; and I am authorized to recommend to the fae consideration of the Body over which you have been chosen side, a course of proceeding which will not contravene the new 1 Act, but which will, at the same time, save your Municipalom the evils of a subversion of your present system, until the lature can make such legal provision as the circumstances of and Towns may require. By the Seventeenth Section of the School Act, the present school divisions and the present Boards ustees are perpetuated, until the former are altered, and sucs appointed to the latter; and there is no provision in the hich requires any Municipal Council or Corporation to take for doing the one or the other. Should, therefore, your present of Trustees be continued, it will be invested with all the powany newly elected Trustee Corporation; and among those s, is that of imposing Rate-bills, if desired. I therefore subhether, for the time being, and until the ensuing Session of

PROSPECTUS OF THE THIRD VOLUME OF THE

JOURNAL OF EDUCATION.

The original objects of this Journal not having yet been accomplished, we intend to continue it another year, in the same form, as during the past year.

As our School Law is, at last, to undergo a thorough investigation, and will, doubtless, during the ensuing Session of the Legislature, be finally settled in its great features and general provisions, the clear and practical exposition of them wil! be of the utmost importance to all Councillors, School Superintendents, Visitors, Trustees and Teachers; and that exposition will be one object of the third volume of this Journal.

There is also good reason to believe, that the requisite provision will soon be made for the establishment of SCHOOL LIBRARIES; and it will afford us peculiar satisfaction to give every information in our power on the mode of establishing and managing libraries, characteristic notices of the Books selected for them, and directions as to the best and cheapest method of obtaining them.

It would not, perhaps, be desirable for us to devote so large a space in the third volume as we have in the second, to SCHOOL ARCHITECTURE; we purpose, nevertheless, to add a few more appropriate plans of School houses; and we intend to continue our short expositions and illustrations under the head of Practical Science and the Arts, until we shall have illustrated the most useful branches of them. We may also give some illustrations (by engravings) of other subjoote.

In the departments of Educational, Literary and Scientific Intelligence, past diligence will not be relaxed. We have observed that large portions of our summaries under these heads (the preparation of which has required no small labour) have been copied into one or two English, as well as several other journals. In the preparation and selection of articles relative to the duties, relations and interests of all parties in connexion with the progress of Schools and the diffusion of general knowledge, we refer to the past as a sample of the future.

We have as yet been able to make little progress in a review of European Systems of Public Instruction. If we can do no more in the third volume, we intend to give a comprehensive (though brief) account of the System of Public Instruction in FRANCE, under the late and present Government- —a system of which little is known in Canada, and which is unsurpassed in magnificence and grandeur.

We entreat the continued co-operation of all friends of general education and knowledge to extend the circulation of this Journal. Subscription, One dollar a-year, payable, in all cases, in advance. All communications to be addressed to J. GEORGE HODGINS, Esquire, Education Office, Toronto.

Editors are respectfully requested to notice this Prospectus.

Copies of the First and Second Volume of this Journal can be obtained on application to Mr. HODGINS, Toronto; Price, Five Shillings each.

Acknowledgments to the 17th December inclusive.-For Vol. IL W. Thomas, Esq., D. Sinclair, W. Patrick, Esq., J. Morrow, A. Henry, D. Y. Hoit.

Toronto: Printed and published by THOS. H. BENTLEY; and may be obtained from ScOBIE & BALFOUR, and A. GREEN, Toronto ; JOHN MCCOY, Montreal; P. SINCLAIR, Quebec; M. MACKENDRICK, Hamilton; J. IZARD, Woodstock; and D. M. DEWEY, Arcade Hall, Rochester, N. Y.