Shifting Perspectives : Early British Columbia Textbooks from 1872 to 1925

Abstract

Authorized textbooks have played an important role in determining Brit­ ish Columbia's school curriculum. A relatively small number of textbooks have been used to shape children's views of their society. These textbooks have reflected the popularly approved religious, moral, political, econo­ mic, social and cultural ideas of the dominant societal group; therefore an analysis of them gives us insight into the mores and attitudes of Cana­ dian anglophone leadership during the late nineteenth and early twenti­ eth centuries. This paper traces how the world view, i.e., the set of assumptions held about the basic make-up of the world and of society, gradually shifted in B.C.'s textbooks between 1872 and 1925 — a period that set the stage for Canada's entry into modern society. As McKillop has pointed out, this was a period during which the universal moral authority of Christianity gradually gave way to more liberal, secular and critical views of society — but ones that were still rooted in a strong sense of cultural moralism.1 This development was clearly evident in Canadian textbooks. Using all the readers, many of the history and geography books, and a selection of the science, health and mathematics texts prescribed during the half cen­ tury following the passing of B.C.'s first Public School Act, this paper analyzes the extent of change in the views of religion and morality, of Canada as a nation, of science, culture and progress, and of the child and his society. The 1925 cut-off date was the year the landmark progressive Putman-Weir report on education was released — a time when the im­ pact of modern industrialization was making itself felt, when Canadian consciousness was being promoted by political and cultural leaders, and when social gospel thinking was resulting in such things as the founding of the United Church of Canada and the institution of old-age pensions.