Educating the Neglected Majority : The Struggle for Agricultural and Technical Education in Nineteenth-Century Ontario and Quebec

A history of the heroic and sometimes abortive efforts to provide education for farmers and tradespeople in Victorian central Canada. "This is a comparative study of the evolution of technical and agricultural education from the early nineteenth century up to about 1900 in Ontario and Quebec. In the extensive literature on Canadian educational history, these two areas have remained largely on the periphery. No detailed picture exists of the early attempts to teach workers to fit into a Canadian society shaped by the Industrial Revolution. The provincial systems taught basic literacy to children, but did not offer specialized or adult education. Instead, technical education, under a variety of names and guises, occupied the thoughts of educational reformers, educators, legislators, manufacturers, etc., not to mention the 'mechanics' or 'artisans' who might receive it. The book describes both formal training (specialist schools, night classes, teacher training in science and art) and informal means of educating (public lectures, journalism, societies, exhibitions, etc.). The focus is upon the rural and industrial populations, rather than on middle-class-oriented professional and commercial education. The state was central to these efforts, both formal and informal, throughout the century. Earlier studies of specific aspects of education have often ignored events and ideas outside a particular region or group; Jarrell emphasizes the wider context underlying ideas about agricultural and technical education (British, French, American, Irish) and underscores the interplay between the two provinces."-- Provided by publisher Educating the Neglected Majority is Richard Jarrell's pioneering survey of the attempt to develop and diffuse agricultural and technical education in nineteenth-century Canada's most populous regions. It explores the efforts and achievements of educators, legislators, and manufacturers as they responded to the rapid changes resulting from the Industrial Revolution. Identifying the resources that the state, philanthropic organizations, private schools, moral reform societies, and churches harnessed to implement technical education for the rural and industrial working classes, Jarrell illuminates the formal and informal learning networks of Upper Canada/Ontario and Lower Canada/Quebec at this time. As these colonial societies moved towards mechanization, industrialization, and nationhood, their educational leaders looked to US and British developments in pedagogy and technology to create academic journals, evening classes, libraries, mechanics' institutes, museums, specialist societies, and women's institutes. Supervising these varied activities were legislatures and provincial boards, where key figures such as E.-A. Barnard, J.-B. Meilleur, and Egerton Ryerson played dominant roles. Portraying the powerful hopes and sometimes unrealistic dreams that motivated energetic and determined reformers, Educating the Neglected Majority presents Ontario and Quebec's response to the powerful industrial and demographic forces that were reshaping the North Atlantic world. Cover Copyright Contents Foreword Preface Introduction: Farmer, Artisan, Mechanic, and Technical Education Part One Pre-Confederation (1830s–1867) 1 Informal Education for the Farmer to 1867 2 Formal Education for the Farmer to 1867 3 Mechanics’ Institutes and Informal Education to 1867 4 Formal Technical Education to 1867 Part Two The Campaign (1867–1900) 5 Agricultural Education in Ontario 6 Agricultural Education in Quebec 7 Technical Education in Ontario 8 Technical Education in Quebec Conclusion Epilogue: Towards the Twentieth Century Appendices Appendix A County Agricultural Societies (1864–1865) Appendix B Mechanics’ Institutes after 1850 Notes Bibliography Index