The Story of My Life / Being Reminiscences of Sixty Years' Public Service in Canada

CHAPTER LI.

1849.

The Bible in the Ontario Public Schools.

Early in 1849 an important crisis occurred in the history of our Public School system, the evil effects of which were only prevented by the prompt and emphatic protest on the part of Dr. Ryerson, and the equally prompt measures taken by Hon. Robert Baldwin in the matter. The event to which I refer was the hurried passage of a revolutionary School Bill at the end of a Session of Parliament by parties hostile to Dr. Ryerson—a Bill the effect of which would have been the exclusion of the Bible and religious teaching and influence from our Public Schools. In regard to that calamitous event, Dr. Ryerson stated that within three hours of learning that such a Bill was law he informed Mr. Baldwin that the office of Chief Superintendent of Education was at his disposal.

I was absent from Toronto at this time. Dr. Ryerson therefore wrote me a letter on the subject, dated December, 1849, in which he said:—I am happy to say the scandalous School Bill of last session is upset. The members of the Government (including the Governor-General) have examined my letter to Mr. Baldwin, of July last, and have come entirely into my views. Mr. Malcolm Cameron is also out of office, and is striving to create opposition against his former colleagues. Some of the extreme radical papers (Examiner, Mirror, Canada Christian Advocate, Provincialist, &c.,) all state that I had tendered my resignation, and had been persuaded by one or two members of the Government to withdraw it, and they speak piteously of the Government having succumbed to me. The Canada Christian Advocate says I have watched my opportunity to get "Mr. Baldwin and the Government under my thumb." I have been permitted to publish the correspondence of July last, and it has placed me in this new and proud position. I thank God for His goodness in thus opening before me a wider field of usefulness than ever, and for sealing at so early a period, with His approbation, adherence to great principles of Christian truth and social advancement, irrespective of men or parties. I shall commence the New Year with new courage and hope, and I am anxious to see you that we may together devise and prosecute the best means to promote our great work.

The circumstances under which this abortive School Bill, as it proved, of 1849, was passed, is thus described by Dr. Ryerson in a letter written ten years afterwards (in 1859):—

From 1846 to 1849 a host of scribblers and would-be school legislators appeared, led on by the Globe newspaper. It was represented that I had plotted a Prussian school despotism for free Canada, and that I was forcing upon the country a system in which the last spark of Canadian liberty would be extinguished, and Canadian youth would be educated as slaves. Hon. Malcolm Cameron, with less knowledge and less experience than he has now, was astounded at these "awful disclosures," and was dazzled by the theories proposed to rid the country of the enslaving elements of my Prussian school system. Mr. Cameron was at length appointed to office; and he thought I ought to be walked out of the office. Messrs. Baldwin and Hincks (as I have understood), thought I should be judged officially for my official acts, and that, thus judged, I had done nothing worthy of evil treatment. The party hostile to me then thought that, as I could not be turned out of office by direct dismissal, I might be shuffled out by legislation; and a School Bill was prepared for that purpose. That Bill contained many good, but more bad provisions, and worse omissions, but of which only a man who had studied the question, or rather science, of school legislation could fully judge. Mr. Cameron was selected to submit it to his colleagues, and get it through Parliament. He executed his task with his characteristic adroitness and energy. Mr. Hincks never read the Bill, and had left for England before it passed. Mr. Baldwin, amid the smoking ruins of a Parliament House and national library, looked over it, and thought from the representations given him of its popular objects, and a glance at the synopsis of its provisions, that it might be an improvement on the then existing law, while the passing of it would gratify many of his friends. On examining the Bill, I wrote down my objections to it, and laid them before the Government, and proceeded to Montreal to press them in person. I left Montreal in April, 1849, with the expectation that the Bill would be dropped, or essentially mended. Neither was done; the Bill was passed in the ordinary manner of passing bills during the last few hours of the Session; and within three hours of learning that the Bill was law, I informed Mr. Baldwin that my office was at his disposal, for I never would administer that law.

As to the effect of Mr. Cameron's Bill on Dr. Ryerson's future, he said:—The new Bill on its coming into operation, leaves me but one course to pursue. The character and tendency of the Bill clearly is to compel me to relinquish office, or virtually abandon principles and provisions [in regard to the Bible in the Schools] which I have advocated as of great and vital importance, and become a party to my own personal humiliation and degradation—thus justly exposing myself to the suspicion and imputation of mean and mercenary conduct. I can readily retire from office, and do much more if necessary, for the maintenance of what I believe to be vital to the moral and educational interests of my native country; but I can never knowingly be a party to my own humiliation and debasement. I regret that an unprecedented mode of legislation has been resorted to to gratify the feelings of personal envy and hostility. I regard it as a virtual vindication of myself against oft-repeated allegations, that it was felt I could not be reached by the usual straightforward administration of Government. Lately, in the English House of Lords, the Marquis of Lansdowne stated, that Mr. Lafontaine had returned to Canada, and boldly challenged inquiry into any of the allegations against him in reference to past years. I have repeatedly done the same. No such inquiry has been granted or instituted. Yet I am not only pursued by the base calumnies of certain persons and papers, professing to support and enjoy the confidence of the Government, but legislation is resorted to, and new provisions introduced at the last hour of the Session, to deal out upon me the long meditated blows of unscrupulous envy and animosity. But I deeply regret that the blows, which will fall comparatively light upon me, will fall with much greater weight, and more serious consequences, upon the youth of the land, and its future moral and educational interests.... Acting, as I hope I do, upon Christian and public grounds, I should not feel myself justified in withdrawing from a work in consequence of personal discourtesy and ill-treatment, or a reduction of means of support and usefulness. But when I see the fruits of four years' anxious labours, in a single blast scattered to the winds, and have no satisfactory ground of hope that such will not be the fate of another four years' labour; when I see the foundations of great principles, which, after extensive enquiry and long deliberation, I have endeavoured to lay, torn up and thrown aside as worthless rubbish; when I see myself deprived of the protection and advantage of the application of the principle of responsible government as applied to every other head of a Department, and made the subordinate agent of a Board which I have originated, and the members of which I have had the honour to recommend for appointment; when I see myself officially severed from a Normal School Institution which I have devised, and every feature and detail of which are universally commended, even to the individual capacities of the masters whom I have sought out and recommended; when I see myself placed in a position, to an entirely novel system of education at large, in which I can either burrow in inactivity or labour with little hope of success; when I find myself placed in such circumstances, I cannot hesitate as to the course of duty, as well as the obligations of honour and self-respect.... I think it is my right, and only frank and respectful, on the earliest occasion to state, in respect to my own humble labours, whether I can serve on terms and principles and conditions so different from those under which I have, up to the present time, acted; though I cannot, without deep regret and emotion, contemplate the loss of so much time and labour, and find myself impelled to abandon a work on which I had set my heart, and to qualify myself for which I have devoted four of the most matured years of my life.

Having now fulfilled my promise—to communicate to you, in writing, my views on this important and extensive subject—I leave the whole question in your hands.

The result of this letter was, the suspension and abandonment of the Act of 1849, and the preparation and passing of the Act of 1850.

Now Mr. Cameron might naturally feel deeply at the repeal of his own Act without a trial; but after he had time for further examination and reflection, and a more thorough knowledge of the nature and working of the system I was endeavouring to establish, I believe no man in Canada more sincerely rejoiced than Mr. Cameron at the repeal of the Act of 1849, and no man has more cordially supported the present system, or more frankly and earnestly commended the course I have pursued.[135]

The letter to Mr. Baldwin was written on the 14th July, 1849. Speaking of it, Dr. Ryerson said:—

In the former part of that letter I stated the circumstances under which the Act of 1849 had passed, and the fact that my remonstrance against it had not been even read. I then stated what I considered insuperable objections to it. I will quote part of my eighth and tenth objections:—the former relating to the exclusion of ministers as school visitors—the latter relating to the exclusion from the schools of the Bible and books containing religious instruction. They are as follows:—

Another feature of the new Bill is that which precludes Ministers of Religion, Magistrates, and Councillors, from acting as school visitors, a provision of the present Act to which I have heard no objection from any quarter, and from which signal benefits to the schools have already resulted. Not only is this provision retained in the School Act for Lower Canada, but Clergymen—and Clergymen alone—are there authorized to select all the school books relating to "religion and morals" for the children of their respective persuasions. But in Upper Canada, where the great majority of the people and Clergy are Protestant, the provision of the present Act authorizing Clergymen to act as School Visitors (and that without any power to interfere in school regulations or books) is repealed. Under the new Bill, the Ministers of religion cannot, therefore, visit the schools as a matter of right, or in their character as Ministers, but as private individuals, and by the permission of the teacher at his pleasure. The repeal of the provision under which Clergymen of the several religious persuasions have acted as visitors, is, of course, a virtual condemnation of their acting in that capacity. When thus denuded by law of his official character in respect to the schools, of course no Clergyman would so far sanction his own legislative degradation as to go into a school by suffrance in an unministerial character.... The character and tendency of such a change in connection with the Protestant religion of Upper Canada, in contrast with a directly opposite provision in connection with the Roman Catholic Religion of Lower Canada, must be obvious to every reflecting person.

To the school-visiting feature of the present system I attach great importance as a means of ultimately concentrating in behalf of the schools the influence and sympathies of all religious persuasions, and the leading men of the country. The success of it, thus far, has exceeded my most sanguine expectations; the visits of Clergy alone during the last year being an average of more than five visits for each Clergyman in Upper Canada. From such a beginning what may not be anticipated in future years, when information shall become more general, and an interest in the schools more generally excited. And who can estimate the benefits, religiously, socially, educationally, and even politically, of Ministers of various religious persuasions meeting together at quarterly school examinations, and other occasions, on common and patriotic ground, and becoming interested and united in the great work of advancing the education of the young.

The last feature of the new Bill on which I will remark, is that which proscribes from the Schools all books containing "controverted theological dogmas or doctrines." [Under a legal provision containing these words, the Bible has been ruled out of schools in the State of New York.] I doubt whether this provision of the Act harmonizes with the Christian feelings of members of the Government; but it is needless to enquire what were the intentions which dictated this extraordinary provision, since construction of an Act of Parliament depends upon the language of the Act itself, and not upon the intentions of its framers. The effect of such a provision is to exclude every kind of book containing religious truth, even every version of the Holy Scriptures themselves; for the Protestant version of them contains "theological doctrine" controverted by the Roman Catholic; and the Douay version of them contains "theological dogmas" controverted by the Protestant. The "theological doctrine" of miracles in Paley's Evidences of Christianity is "controverted" by the disciples of Hume. Several of the "theological doctrines" in Paley's Moral Philosophy are also "controverted;" and indeed there is not a single doctrine of Christianity which is not controverted by some party or other. The whole series of Irish National Readers must be proscribed as containing "controverted theological doctrines;" since, as the Commissioners state, these books are pervaded by the principles and spirit of Christianity, though free from any tincture of sectarianism.

I think there is too little Christianity in our schools, instead of too much; and that the united efforts of all Christian men should be to introduce more, instead of excluding what little there is.

I have not assumed it to be the duty, or even constitutional right of the Government, to compel any thing in respect either to religious books or religious instruction, but to recommend the local Trustees to do so, and to provide powers and facilities to enable them to do so within the wise restriction imposed by law. I have respected the rights and scruples of the Roman Catholic as well as those of the Protestant.

By some I have been accused of having too friendly a feeling towards the Roman Catholics; but while I would do nothing to infringe the rights and feelings of Roman Catholics, I cannot be a party to depriving Protestants of the Text-book of their faith—the choicest patrimony bequeathed by their forefathers, and the noblest birthright of their children. It affords me pleasure to record the fact—and the circumstance shows the care and fairness with which I have acted on this subject—that before adopting the Section in the printed Forms and Regulations on the "Constitution and Government of the Schools in respect to Religious Instruction," I submitted it, among others, to the late lamented Roman Catholic Bishop Power, who, after examining it, said, [he could not approve of it upon principle, but] he would not object to it, as Roman Catholics were fully protected in their rights and views, and as he did not wish to interfere with Protestants in the fullest exercise of their rights and views.

It will be seen that New England or Irish National School advocates of a system of mixed schools did not maintain that the Scriptures and all religious instruction should be excluded from the schools, but that the peculiarities of sectarianism were no essential part of religious instruction in the schools, and that the essential elements and truths and morals of Christianity could be provided for and taught without a single bitter element of sectarianism. The advocates of public schools meet the advocates of sectarian schools, not by denying the connection between Christianity and education, but by denying the connection between sectarianism—by comprehending Christianity in the system, and only rejecting sectarianism from it. The same, I think, is our safety and our duty....

Dr. Ryerson concludes this part of his letter with these emphatic words: Be assured that no system of popular education will flourish in a country which does violence to the religious sentiments and feelings of the Churches of that country. Be assured, that every such system will droop and wither which does not take root in the Christian and patriotic sympathies of the people—which does not command the respect and confidence of the several religious persuasions, both ministers and laity—for these in fact make up the aggregate of the Christianity of the country. The cold calculations of unchristianized selfishness will never sustain a school system. And if you will not embrace Christianity in your school system, you will soon find that Christian persuasions will soon commence establishing schools of their own; and I think they ought to do so, and I should feel that I was performing an imperative duty in urging them to do so. But if you wish to secure the co-operation of the ministers and members of all religious persuasions, leave out of your system the points wherein they differ, and boldly and avowedly provide facilities for the inculcation of what they hold in common and what they value most, and that is what the best interests of a country require.

Speaking in a subsequent letter of another feature of this question of the Bible in schools, Dr. Ryerson says: The principal opposition which, in 1846 and for several years afterwards, I encountered was that I did not make the use of the Bible compulsory in the schools, but simply recognized the right of Protestants to use it in the school (not as an ordinary reading book, as it was not given to teach us how to read, but to teach us the way to Heaven), as a book of religious instruction, without the right or the power of compelling any others to use it. The recognition of the right has been maintained inviolate to the present time; facilities for the exercise of it have been provided, and recommendations for that purpose have been given, but no compulsory authority assumed, or right of compulsion acknowledged; and the religious exercises in each school have been left to the decision of the authorities of such school, and the religious instruction of each child has always been under the absolute authority of the parents or guardian of each child.... Now many a parent may not exercise the right of using the Bible as a text-book of religious instruction for his child in school, but would even such parent (much less every Protestant parent) be willing to be deprived of that right?

To the objection that the Bible is "often read in a formal and perfunctory manner without any real benefit being derived from it by the pupils," Dr. Ryerson replied: Is not the Bible often read in the family, and even in the Church, "in a formal and perfunctory manner," without any benefit to either reader or hearers: but should we, therefore, take away even "the abstract right of reading the Bible" in the family and in the Church?

To the objection urged against the reading of the Bible in the schools because "a majority of the teachers are utterly unfit to give religious instruction," Dr. Ryerson replied: The reading of the Bible and giving religious instruction from it are two very different things. The question is not the competency of teachers to give religious instruction, but the right of a Protestant to the reading of the Bible by his child in the school as a text-book of religious instruction. That right I hold to be sacred and divine.

To a rejoinder that "the cry for the Bible in the schools is a sham," Dr. Ryerson thus replies: Apart from religious instruction, apart from even the reading of the Bible in the schools, the right of having it there—its very presence there—is not "a sham," but a sign, a symbol of potent significance. The sign of the Cross ... is not a "sham," but a symbol precious to the hearts of hundreds of thousands of our brethren; the coat of arms which stands at the head of all royal patents, nor the sparkling crown which encircles the brow of royalty, is not "a sham," but a symbol which speaks more than words to every British heart; the standard that waves at the head of the regiment, nor the flag that floats at the ship's masthead is not "a sham," but a symbol that nerves the soldier and the sailor to duty and to victory. So the Bible is not "a sham," but a symbol of right and liberty dear to the heart of every Protestant freeman, to every lover of civil and religious liberty—a standard of truth and morals, the foundation of Protestant faith, and the rule of Protestant morals; and "the cry" for the Bible in the schools is not a "sham," but a felt necessity of the religious instructor, whether he be the teacher or a visiting superintendent or clergyman,—is the birthright of the Protestant child, and the inalienable right of the Protestant parent....

No man attaches more importance than I do to secular education and knowledge, and few men have laboured more to provide for the teaching and diffusion of every branch of it; yet, so far am I from ignoring the Bible, even in an intellectual point of view, that I hesitate not to say, in the language of the eloquent Melville, that—

Whilst every stripling is boasting that a great enlargement of mind is coming on the nation, through the pouring into all its dwellings a tide of general information, it is right to uphold the forgotten position, that in caring for man as an immortal being, God cared for him as an intellectual, and that if the Bible were but read by our artizans and our peasantry, we should be surrounded by a far more enlightened and intelligent population, than will appear to this land, when the school-master, with his countless magazines, shall have gone through it, in its length and its breadth.

With a view to supply an omission, and to provide a Manual on Christian Morals for the schools, Dr. Ryerson, in 1871, prepared a little work, entitled First Lessons in Christian Morals. This work was recommended by the Council of Public Instruction for use in schools. It was objected to by the Globe newspaper on several grounds. To each of these objections Dr. Ryerson replied. The first and second objections referred to alleged errors and defects in style. In a letter on the subject, written in April, 1872, Dr. Ryerson said:—

Your third objection is against any book of religious instruction being recommended for use in the public schools. To this objection I reply, firstly, that the want of such a book has been not only felt, but expressed, from different quarters. Secondly, the Irish National Board have not only books on this subject, in their authorized list of school text books, but the Council of Public Instruction has long authorized three of them; each of which contains more reading than any one book of mine. Thirdly, in the Toronto University College, not only is Paley's "Evidences of Christianity" an authorized text book, but also Dr. Wayland's "Moral Science," of the most essential parts of which my books are an epitome.

A fourth objection is that I have given a summary of the "Evidences of Christianity," in respect especially to the inspiration of the Scriptures, miracles, and mysteries. In reply, I observe, first, that if young men, before they finish their collegiate education, should be fortified on this ground, it is equally necessary that those youths who finish their education in the public schools should not be left unarmed on this point. Secondly, pupils in the public schools of the fourth and fifth years are quite as capable of understanding the few pages in which I have condensed and simplified the answers to the common infidel objections, as are young men at college to master the large text books prescribed on the subject. Thirdly, the Irish National Board has provided a book on the subject to which I have devoted two lessons. On the list of text books authorized by the Irish National Board is one entitled, "Lessons on the Truth of Christianity, being an appendix to the Fourth Book of Lessons, for the use of Schools." This book enters far more largely into the subject of miracles than I have done, besides the additional two lessons of answers to infidel objections.

A fifth objection is that I have pointed out the defects of the teachings of Natural Religion, and shown the superiority of the teachings of Revelation over those of Natural Religion. In this I have followed the example of Rev. Dr. Wayland, President of Brown University, R. I.

A sixth objection is, that I have not confined myself to those "laws which regulate our natural obligations;" that I have taught the "positive institutions" of Christianity, such as repentance, faith, reading the Scriptures, personal devotion, family worship, attendance at public worship. In this I have also followed Dr. Wayland. In the conclusion of this letter Dr. Ryerson offers this "apology" for writing his little book on "Christian Morals:" Besides desiring a small amount of religious teaching, one hour (Monday morning) in the week, for the senior pupils of the Public Schools, which the trustees and parents might approve, I did desire a united testimony on the part of Protestantism, as there is a united testimony on the part of Roman Catholicism, as to religious teaching in the schools. One County Inspector writes, that the Roman Catholic priest, in a separate school which the Inspector visited, said, "Your schools are atheistic. You don't acknowledge God." The same charge has been often repeated by the same authority against the public schools. While I have provided and contended for full provision by which the Roman Catholics could teach their own children in their own books of religious instruction, I did desire that there might be a somewhat corresponding unity of testimony and teaching in religious principles and duties of common agreement among Protestants, being first most strongly impressed with its feasibility by the remarks of the late excellent Rev. A. Gale, who, when principal of Knox's Academy, on closing a public examination of the pupils, said that he was persuaded, from his own experience, that all needful religious teaching could be given to pupils at schools without infringing upon any denominational peculiarity. I had long meditated, and at length sought to realize this grand idea in our public schools. One discordant note has interrupted the harmony. The responsibility of the failure, if it is to be a failure, is not with me. I hope the Protestant Christians of Canada will yet realize it, and that my country will yet enjoy the untold advantages of it, though I may die without the sight.

[135] Mr. Cameron's avowals on the subject are frank and manly. On the occasion of his nomination for the County of Lambton, in October, 1857, he thus referred to the School System, and to its founder:—

On the whole, the system had worked well, the common schools of Canada were admirable, and had attracted the commendation of the first statesmen in the United States, and even in Great Britain they proposed to imitate Canada. He was opposed to Dr. Ryerson's appointment politically, but he would say, as he had said abroad, that Canada and her children's children owed to him a debt of gratitude, as he had raised a noble structure, and opened up the way for the elevation of the people.

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