Ryerson Memorial Volume: Prepared on the occasion of the unveiling of the Ryerson statute in the grounds of the Education department on the Queen's birthday, 1889Hodgins, J. George (John George)
History
Ryerson Memorial Volume: Prepared on the occasion of the unveiling of the Ryerson statute in the grounds of the Education department on the Queen's birthday, 1889
Hodgins, J. George (John George)
Education -- Ontario; Ryerson, Egerton, 1803-1882
The methods of teaching were almost as numerous as the teachers,
and followed no specified rule. Sometimes it was by classes, often
by individuals, and in other cases by an extensive use of monitors,
being generally a mixture of the three styles, and nearly always
a higgledy-piggledy, go-as-you-please arrangement, as easy as
possible to the teacher, and as unproductive of good results to
the pupil as such indefinite work might be fully expected to be.
And the character of the teachers, speaking in general terms, and
not forgetting many bright exceptions, was not above suspicion.
Certificates were granted by township superintendents, who too often
relieved the charitable, and the district council, by thrusting into
the school-house the ne'er-do-wells, the infirm, the crippled, the
sickly and the unfortunate, who, under ordinary circumstances, would
have become dependent upon the good nature and benevolence of their
fellow-citizens. In one district a superintendent, after the passage
of the new School Law, was compelled to give notice that he would
not grant certificates to any candidates unless they were strictly
sober, and that he would cancel the certificates of all teachers who
suffered themselves at any time to become intoxicated. And, we are
gravely informed, the result was that a majority, not all, of the
hitherto intemperate teachers became thoroughly temperate men, and
that the incorrigible were dismissed. The quality of the teachers
may be guessed at very fairly, it is safe to say, from the salaries
paid to them. In 1845, the average was £26 2s, or $104.40; in 1846,
£26 4s, or $104.80; and in 1847, £28 10s, or $114, and this, too,
for the most part, exclusive of board. Had the schools been kept
open during the whole of the teaching months of these years, the
salaries would have averaged $134 in 1845, $147 in 1846, and $148
in 1847. It must be borne in mind that, in those days, male were
much more numerous than female teachers, so that the smaller amounts
generally paid to those of the gentler sex had comparatively little
influence in lessening the general average. The parsimony and
poverty of the people had much to do, of course, with the quality
of the teacher, for men who could obtain higher wages at almost any
other occupation, through physical or intellectual superiority,
would not waste time and opportunity to earn more than the paltry
pittance paid to the pedagogue, simply through philanthropic desire
to advance the interests of the rising generation.
DR. RYERSON'S TEST OF THE INTELLIGENCE OF A SCHOOL SECTION.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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