Politics, Schools, and Social Change in Upper Canada

Abstract

THE EDUCATIONAL DEBATE in Upper Canada in the I83OS and I84OS mirrored the tensions of two decades of crucial social, economic, and political ferment. Why was the issue of tax-supported, publicly-controlled elementary schooling so contentious at this time? Was it because public schooling was so 'in the air' internationally that Upper Canadians could not remain detached? Was this debate merely another chapter in the ongoing church-state issue? • Partially; but most importantly the foundation of the provincial school system between I846 and I85O was the deliberate creation of Upper Canadians who shared a common outlook and common aspirations. In a society overwhelmingly rural and agricultural, the dominant orientation of this shared outlook was urban. Moderately conservative in social philosophy, the middle classes met the problems of rapid social change at mid-century with solutions appropriate to an urban commercial society. Until very recently, Canadian historians have confined their interest in education almost exclusively to school controversies touching on issues of biculturalism and church-state relations. Commonly their treatment of the development of educational institutions has relied on an analogy to democracy; thus the advance from log school-house to compulsory secondary education for all in Ontario has been enshrined in textbooks and popular literature alongside Canada's march to nationhood. The myth of progress, enlightenment, and humanitarian concern which evolved originally as an account of the history of American education spilled over to fill the vacuum in Canadian educational historiography. In the mythology, the movement for free public education is part of the larger struggle of the lower classes for participation in the democratic process, and the classic alignment of