Education

436 LETI'ERS IN CANADA they are preached, and that there are still some preachers around who believe that the essence of Christianity is a Word to be proclaimed, and not merely to be discussed! (DONALD V. WADE) EDUCATION The literature of education is usually bland. In 1968, however, there was a little spice for a change, notably in ti,e contributions of Howard Adams, Michel Brunet, Howard Adelman and Dennis Lee, Gerald F. McGuigan, Roland Haumont, and A. B. Hodgetts - to name them in the order in which they appear below. Five books are essentially historical. I think it is correct to say that no comprehensive history of education in Canada was published between 1957, when The Development of Education in Cancul.! by C. E. Phillips appeared, and 1968, when A Brief History of Canadian Education by F. Henry Johnson was released (McGraw-Hili, viii, 216, $3.35 pa.). The latter does not compare as a work of scholarship, but it is welcome as an overview of a fascinating though often frustrating story. First to be critical. With respect to pre-school education, higher education and adult education, treatment is superficial; emphasis is on public elementary and secondary education. Most sources are secondary; as a result there are SOme errors and almost no new insights. Hardly a cliche is avoided: "great and dynamic neighbor," "hardy adventurers," "daughters of French Canada," "roving bands of Indians" on the "vast prairie," "horny-handed sons of toil," "the auld sod," and so on, and on. In spite of these shortcomings, one does get the sense of movement throughout history - to free elementary schools, compulsory education, secondary schooling for all, expanded higher education. One senses the extensive influence of such great men as Meilleur, Strachan, and Ryerson and one realizes anew how unhappy have been the results of religiOUS divisions among Canadians throughout the whole of their history. In The Education of Canadians 1800-1867: The Roots of Separatism (Harvest House, xiii, 145, $5.95), Howard Adams conducts an angry search for those responsible for the separate education of Protestants and Catholics in Canada. He is concerned also to identify the culprits who kept Canada's schools colonial for so long. Figures conventionally treated as heroes become villains in this version of history. John Strachan and the EDUCATION 437 Family Compact were foes of democracy and COmmOn schools. The Royal Institution for the Advancement of Learning was an Anglican plot to assimilate the French in Lower Canada. Durham and Buller were bad guys, and so was Sydenham. The Anglican Church and the Catholic Church, in league with the Conservatives or whoever was in power, were forces in favour of "sectarian and colonial" education and in opposition to "secular and national" education. Egerton Ryerson, though acknowledged as a reformer with respect to educational method, was a divisive force and, therefore, a villain - an espeCially dangerous one because his influence was so great and so widespread: The prevalent interpretation of Ryerson's contribution to Canadian education is that he is the founder of the secular, common school system in Canada. In reality, Ryerson was largely responsible for imposing upon Canada a colonial and separatist system of education which was fundamentally Protestant. Since most of these features have persisted to the present day Ryerson can be fairly considered a founder of the Canadian school system. (62) This is the kind of separatism Adams documents. The sub·title of the book, "The Roots of Separatism," suggests that the reader is to be informed about the origins of the political movement called "separatism" which is current in Quebec. It is misleading. Though rough as a product of scholarship, the book is faSCinating. Unfortunately, the divisions between Catholics and Protestants did not disappear at the point (1867) where Dr. Adams left the story. Two prOVincial teachers' unions celebrated the fiftieth anniversary of their founding by commissioning the writing of their histories. That of the Alberta Teachers' Association, Teachers of the Foothills Prcn7ince (University of Toronto Press, 344, $6.00), is by John W. Chalmers, author of Schools of the Foothills Prcn7ince, which was published in 1967. The other, the story of the Federation of Women Teachers' Associations of Ontario by...