"Make Me Truthful, Good, and Mild": Values in Nineteenth-Century Ontario Schoolbooks

Abstract

Abstract. This paper examines values in textbooks used in Upper Canada/Ontario primary schools between 1846 and 1910. Value-oriented content was prominent in these books. Their focus on social class, work motivations, and general personal morality reflected closely political apprehensions of province's upper class. At same time, these fears were often based on erroneous assessments of Ontario society and led to values in schoolbooks which veered away from or even contradicted interests of this group. Such discrepancies underline complexity of relationship between class structure, beliefs, and values. Resume. Cet article examine les valeurs morales dans les manuels scolaires utilises dans les ecoles primaires du Haut Canada/Ontario entre 1846 et 1910. Il demontre que tels valeurs constituerent une part importante de ces livres, et que l'emphase qu'elles mettaient sur la structure des classes sociales, sur le travail, et sur la morale personnelle en general refletait les apprehensions politiques de la haute classe de la province. Quand meme, ces peurs etaient souvent basees sur des estimations erronees de characteristiques effectives de la societe Ontarienne, et produisaient des valeurs dans les livres scolaires qui furent egalement hors de propos ou qui meme contredisaient les interets de ce groupe. De tels desaccords soulignent la complexite de la relation entre la structure sociale et les croyances et valeurs morales. This study examines values in textbooks used in elementary grades of Ontario public schools between 1846 and 1910. During early decades of that period, first publicly financed, compulsory system of education was established in province, with a central administration which set policies, inspected schools, and selected textbooks. Ontario's example, in turn, led to very similar school acts in other provinces. (2) Egerton Ryerson, whose ideas shaped Ontario's educational policies, became Canada's most influential nineteenth-century schoolman (Lawr and Gidney 1973: 51). Work by Houston (1972), Prentice (1977), and Curtis (1988) has done much to revise conventional views of nineteenth century educational policies as benevolent and enlightened efforts to create a modern, progressive school system in a still largely rural society. Good intentions and enlightened ideas were not absent from work of policy makers such as Ryerson; evangelical notions of human salvation gave way to an increasingly secular optimism regarding improvement and perfectibility of children (Prentice 1977: 25, 26). However, Houston, Prentice and Curtis also show that educational policies were infused with a hefty dose of class interest. Ryerson's most persuasive argument against upper class resistance to increased taxation for a public school system was that balance gain financially of public schools was clearly on side of the wealtheir classes of community (Annual Report 1848: 38): education could legitimate class differences, reduce social unrest, and create a lower class with desirable work habits. However, past research on social origins of education in Ontario has suffered from two shortcomings. First, it has concentrated almost exclusively on views and policies of creators and administrators of public school system. By contrast, we know little or nothing about how these policies influenced actual school curriculum. An examination of values of textbooks cannot tell us how they were taught in classroom or how they influenced pupils. But it can bring us an important step closer towards understanding link between ideological priorities and education of children in nineteenth century Canada. Second, past research has tended to portray influence of social class on early education in Ontario as a seamless web of educational policies and class interests. Upper classes in particular appeared to have no difficulty making rational and foresightful choices which served their political interests to perfection. …