Egerton Ryerson and Education in Upper Canada — John Shaqi
Egerton Ryerson and Education in Upper CanadaPutman, J. Harold (John Harold)
History
Egerton Ryerson and Education in Upper Canada
Putman, J. Harold (John Harold)
Education -- Ontario; Ryerson, Egerton, 1803-1882
"There is not in either Province any English Seminary above the rank of
a good school, at which a liberal education can be obtained. Thus the
youth of nearly 300,000 Englishmen have no opportunity of receiving
instruction within the Canadas in Law, Medicine, or Divinity. The
consequence is that many young men coming forward to the learned
professions are obliged to look beyond the Province for the last two
years of their education--undoubtedly the most important and critical of
their lives. Very few are able on account of the great expense to go to
England or Scotland; and the distance is so great and the difficulties
so many that parental anxiety reluctantly trusts children from its
observation and control. The youths are, therefore, in some degree,
compelled to look forward to the United States, where the means of
education, though of a description far inferior to those of Great
Britain, are yet superior to those within the Province, and a growing
necessity is arising of sending them to finish their education in that
country. Now, in the United States, a system prevails unknown to, or
unpractised by, any other nation. In all other countries morals and
religion are made the basis of future instruction, and the first book
put into the hands of children teaches them the domestic, social, and
religious virtues; but in the United States politics pervade the whole
system of instruction. The school books from the very first elements are
stuffed with praises of their own institutions and breathe hatred to
everything English. To such a country our youth may go, strongly
attached to their native land and all its establishments, but by hearing
them continually depreciated and those of America praised, these
attachments will, in many, be gradually weakened, and some may become
fascinated with that liberty which has degenerated into licentiousness
and imbibe, perhaps unconsciously, sentiments unfriendly to things of
which Englishmen are proud....
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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