Educating the Neglected Majority: The Struggle for Agricultural and Technical Education in Nineteenth-Century Ontario and Quebec by Richard A. Jarrell (review)

Educating the Neglected Majority is the late Richard A. Jarrell's study of the movement for agricultural and technical education in 19th-century Ontario and Québec. Led by ambitious educational reformers – a group which included legislators, journalists, manufacturers, and philanthropists – Upper and Lower Canada (later Ontario and Québec) took part in the earliest attempts in the North Atlantic world to institute agricultural and technical instruction for the working class. Jarrell was a professor in the Faculty of Science at York University before his death in 2013. A prolific researcher and writer on the history of Canadian science and technology, often with a particular focus on science and technical education, Jarrell's background situates him well to offer the most comprehensive study of its kind to date.

Jarrell's analysis is divided into two parts. The first part considers the shape and form of agricultural and technical education in pre-Confederation Canada. Through an analysis of the agricultural press, the minutes of nascent agricultural societies, provincial exhibitions, and an insightful reading of surviving government records, Jarrell demonstrates that the prime movers and shakers in Canadian educational politics were ahead of their time in the promotion of agricultural education in Upper and Lower Canada, and even made efforts to establish agricultural colleges. Nevertheless, convincing the farmer that sending a child away for such an education was worth the effort was another matter still. The few private agricultural schools that did spring up before Confederation tended to attract few students and funds, and died shortly after their founding. Despite interest from educational leaders such as Jean-Baptist Meilleur and Egerton Ryerson, "simply building up the common-school systems in Canadas East and West took all the available energy and money." (63) Universities did not fill the void in the early years, and tended to focus on liberal education intended to prepare students for other careers.

Pre-Confederation efforts in technical education were led mainly by supporters of informal mechanics' institutes. From its beginnings in England in 1823, the movement spread quickly throughout the British North American colonies, with the Montréal Mechanics' Institution firmly in place by 1828. The Rebellion of 1837–1838 slowed the movement down, but new mechanics' institutes, particularly in Canada West, began to appear in the 1840s. While libraries were their main attraction, they also served an array of purposes, from better training and education to organized social activities. Jerrell shows us that mechanics' institutes served a vast population, including not only those in the manual trades but also people from commerce, education, a variety of professions, and many of Upper and Lower Canada's political elite. The "Victorian middle class," the author reminds us, "rarely conceived of leisure time in a frivolous way but rather believed it must be constructive and uplifting." (71) The development of more formal technical education in pre-Confederation Canada, however, was dismal. One bright spot, though, was the emergence of engineering programs at both the University of Toronto and McGill University in Montréal.

The second part of this book considers developments in post-Confederation Canada and the campaign for advancements in agricultural and technical education in the two provinces until the early 20th century. For the farmer in search of formal education, this era was one of major advancement. Successive provincial governments in Ontario assumed the state's role in providing financial stimulation toward agricultural development and education. The Ontario College of Agriculture in Guelph was one such investment at the macro level, while at the micro level Ontario acknowledged its responsibility to fund the growing number of private, and increasingly specialized, agricultural associations. This was seemingly the right approach, according to the author. "Ontario's agricultural sector was far more complex at the end of the century, and its educational response was as good as any on...