Upper Canada College

“ An endowment of some 60,000 acres from the School lands was given the new institution. It was generally felt that the new school would, for the present, supply the want of a university, and also make it unnecessary for Canadian youths to complete their education in the United States. [67]
Before Upper Canada College had been working a year a very numerously-signed petition was presented by some York patrons of the school praying for some modification of the exclusively classical nature of the programme for those boys destined for commerce and mechanical pursuits. ”

“ The opening of Upper Canada College in 1830 gave an impetus to education which soon began to be felt throughout the Province. It was impossible, in the nature of things, that with increasing population and wealth there should be no advance in our educational status. If the forty-six years that had passed had been almost exclusively devoted to clearing away the bush and tilling the land, a time had now arrived when matters of higher import to future success and enjoyment pressed themselves upon the attention of the people. ”

“ I spent my time from 1891 to 1899 on the staff of Upper Canada College, an experience which has left me with a profound sympathy for the many gifted and brilliant men who are compelled to spend their lives in the most dreary, the most thankless, and the worst paid profession in the world. ”

“ Toronto and Trinity medical schools occupy convenient buildings in the immediate vicinity of the general hospital, the Burnside lying-in hospital, and the Mercer eye and ear infirmary. The students in medicine number nearly 500, including a small number of lady students, for whom special instruction is provided. Upper Canada College, founded in 1829, is a provincial institution analogous to one of the great English public schools. It has about 300 students. The Collegiate Institute occupies a fine building immediately to the west of the horticultural gardens. ”

“ In 1831 the Methodists began to build at Cobourg the Upper Canada Academy, which was to be open to all religious denominations. They felt that although Upper Canada College was non-sectarian in a legal sense, yet, inasmuch as the principal and professors were Anglican clergymen, the institution was essentially an Anglican College. ”

“ Then came the mechanic and the professional man, and with the latter education was a necessity. It was not to be expected that the tastes of the rising generation would always run in the same groove with the preceding, and as wealth and population increased, so did the openings for advancement in other pursuits; and scores of active young men throughout the Province were only too anxious to seize upon every opportunity that offered to push their way up in life. Hence it happened that when Upper Canada College first threw open its doors, more than a hundred young men enrolled their names. ”

“ There are several colleges, very much on the system of the Scotch Universities, including Trinity College at Toronto, in connection with the Church of England, and Knox's College, a Presbyterian theological seminary. There are also medical colleges, both in Upper and Lower Canada, and a chair of agriculture has been established in University College, Toronto. From these statements it will be seen that, from the ample provision made, a good education can be obtained at a very small cost. There are in Lower Canada upwards of 1100 schools. ”

“ The lowest salary of any of the professors of this institution is £300 per annum, with the accommodation of a noble brick house and the privilege of taking boarders at £50 per annum."
The next is from "Sketches," published by William Lyon Mackenzie, London, 1833. "Splendid incomes are given to the masters of the new [Upper Canada] College, culled at Oxford by the Vice-Chancellor, and dwellings furnished to the professors (we may say) by the sweat of the brow of the Canadian labourer. ”

“ But the great Province of Ontario cannot lay claim to the honour of having established the first Colleges with University powers in British North America. King's College at Windsor, in Nova Scotia—the old home of 'Sam Slick'—was the first institution of a high order founded in the provinces, its history as an academy going as far back as 1788, when Upper Canada had no government of its own. This institution has always remained under the control of the Church of England, and continues to hold a respectable position among educational institutions. ”

“ He saw that the District Grammar Schools were very inefficient and were touching the lives of an insignificant proportion of the people of Upper Canada. He foresaw that for some years the revenue to be derived from the endowment of King's College would not support a very pretentious institution, [63] and that for such an institution, even if it were in operation, there would be very few students prepared by previous study to profit from its courses. In his opinion the immediate wants of the country would be better served by a high-class school than by a university. ”

“ We submit, therefore, that justice and the best interests of liberal education require the several colleges of the country to be placed upon equal footing according to their works. We ask nothing for Victoria College which we do not ask for every collegiate institution in Upper Canada upon the same terms. ”

“ In the College of Upper Canada, which is one of the public establishments of the city, a sound education in every department of polite learning can be had, at a very moderate expense: the annual charge for the instruction of each pupil, not exceeding nine pounds sterling. It has pretty good endowments in the way of land, and is a valuable and useful institution. ”

“ On the 7th June, 1832, the foundation stone of the Academy was laid; and on the 18th June, 1836, it was formerly opened under the designation of "Upper Canada Academy." In the previous year Dr. Ryerson was deputed to go to England to collect subscriptions on behalf of the institution. He was there enabled to obtain a Royal Charter for the Academy and a grant of $16,400 from the Local Legislature.
Amongst the last public acts performed by Lord Sydenham was the giving of the Royal assent to a Bill for the erection of the Upper Canada Academy into a College with University powers. ”

“ The Royal Military College at Kingston, Ontario, is a Dominion institution. All the others are provincial or controlled by local corporations. Alberta, one of the new provinces, has made provision for a university of its own. McGill University, Montreal, is doing collegiate work in British Columbia. The elementary schools (public schools, common schools) are free all over Canada. Every province makes generous provision for their upkeep. There are more than 20,000 free public schools in Canada, and about 1,250,000 pupils attend them. ”

“ The value of their buildings, endowments, etc., is upwards of $12,000,000, and the attendance is about 9,000 students. The classical colleges of Quebec—which make up the greater number of the colleges in Canada—are a combination of school and college attended by both boys and young men. They confer certain degrees and are generally affiliated with Laval University. The effect of the classical studies encouraged in these colleges is very perceptible in the culture of the well educated French Canadian. ”

“ Even those colleges which do not shut their doors to young men of any particular creed continue to be more or less supported by the denominations under whose auspices they were first established. No doubt, these colleges, sufficiently numerous for a sparsely peopled country like Canada, are doing a valuable work in developing the intellectual faculties of the youth of the several provinces. It is a question, however, if the perpetuation of a system which multiplies colleges with University powers in each province, will tend to produce the soundest scholarship in the end. ”

“ Under such circumstances, it should be the great object of all true friends of the sound intellectual development of Canada to place our system of higher education on a basis equal to the exigencies of a practical, prescient age, and no longer cling to worn out ideas of the past. In order to do this, let the people of Ontario determine to establish a national University which will be worthy of their great province and of the whole Dominion. ”

“ The establishment of a University at the seat of Government will complete a regular system of education in Upper Canada from the letters of the alphabet to the most profound investigations of science.... In regard to the profession of medicine it is melancholy to think that more than three-fourths of the present practitioners have been educated or attended lectures in the United States.... There are, as yet, only twenty-two clergymen in Upper Canada, the greater number from England. ”

“ University work in the maritime provinces, instead of being concentrated, as it might well be, in one powerful institution, is distributed among five small, but within their range efficient universities. The agricultural college at Guelph and the experimental farms maintained by the federal government give excellent training and scientific assistance to farmers. Sir William Macdonald in 1908 built and endowed, at an expenditure of at least £700,000, an agricultural college and normal school at St Anne’s, near Montreal. ”

“ It is satisfactory, however, to know that the tendency in Canada is rather in the other direction, and that an institution like McGill College, which is a Medical College of high reputation, is doing its best with the materials at command, to perfect the medical knowledge of those who seek its generous aid. No doubt the time is fast approaching when the State will be obliged to give greater assistance to Toronto University so as to enable it to enter on a broader and more liberal system of culture, commensurate with the development of science and literature. ”

“ The number of children for whom a school district can be organized in the western provinces varies from eight in Alberta to twenty in British Columbia.
With the exception of Prince Edward Island, which can take advantage of the universities in neighbouring provinces; and of British Columbia, which has colleges at Vancouver and Victoria affiliated with McGill University, and has recently set apart two million acres of public land for the endowment of a provincial university—each province has one or more universities. The University of McGill at Montreal is the richest of Canada’s universities ”

“ Since the parent college opened its doors to the anxious youths of the Province, five universities and the same number of colleges have come into existence. The faculties of these several institutions are presided over by men of learning and ability. They are amply furnished with libraries, apparatus and all the modern requirements of first-class educational institutions. Their united rolls show an attendance of about 1,500 students last year. There are 10 Collegiate Institutes and 94 High Schools, with an attendance of 12,136 pupils; 5,147 Public Schools, with 494,424 enrolled scholars ”

“ It sends out on an average about twenty graduates a year in the various departments, science, literature, mechanic arts, and agriculture. The bane of a State university is politics, and in the West the hand of the Granger is on the college, endeavoring to make it “practical.” Probably this modern idea of education will have to run its course, and so long as it is running its course the Eastern colleges which adhere to the idea of intellectual discipline will attract the young men who value a liberal rather than a material education. ”

“ We are glad to observe that the plan of free common schools has been adopted at the recent annual meetings in very many school sections throughout Upper Canada. The best gift the people of Canada can confer on their children is education, sound, practical education available to all. ”

“ Nor, in reviewing the means of mental equipment in Canada, must we forget the many establishments which are now provided for the education of young women outside of the Public and High Schools, the most notable being the Roman Catholic Convents of Notre Dame and Sacre Coeur, Ottawa Ladies' College, Wesleyan Ladies' College at Hamilton, Brantford Ladies' College, Bishop Strachan School at Toronto, Helmuth Ladies' College at London, Albert College, and Woodstock Literary Institute, besides many minor institutions of more or less merit. ”

“ For years there were no good elementary schools from which they could draw pupils with a foundation for a secondary education. During the same long period there were in Upper Canada no colleges to which graduates of Grammar Schools might go for professional training. This gave these schools a wide scope and great opportunities, but few seized the opportunities. The poverty of the people and the natural apathy of many in regard to education also prevented the development of good schools. ”

“ Several universities give instructions in medicine and law, and Toronto has also a medical college for women. At the present time, at least one-fifth of the people of the Dominion is in attendance at the universities, colleges, public and private schools. The people of Canada contribute upwards of ten millions of dollars annually to the support of their educational establishments, in the shape of government grants, public taxes, or private fees. Ontario alone, in 1899, raised five millions and a half of dollars for the support of its public school system ”