Inventing Secondary Education : The Rise of the High School in Nineteenth-Century Ontario

The received view is that secondary education in Ontario is a result of Egerton Ryerson's Education Act of 1871. But R.D. Gidney and W.P.J. Millar show that Ryerson and the Provincial Education Office responded to rather than directed policy in higher education. In fact, the system in place today is evidence of Ryerson's failure to implement the programs he wanted. Inventing Secondary Education is the first contemporary examination of the origins of the Ontario high school, and one of the very few which focuses on the development of secondary education anywhere in Canada. The authors chart the transformation of the high school from a peripheral to a central social institution. They explore the economic and social pressures which fuelled the expansion of secondary education, the political conflicts which shaped the schools, and the shifts in curriculum as new forms of knowledge disrupted traditional pedagogical values. By the late nineteenth century the high school had acquired a secure clientele by anchoring itself firmly to the educational and professional ambitions of young people and their families. Inventing Secondary Education is the first contemporary examination of the origins of the Ontario high school, and one of the very few which focuses on the development of secondary education anywhere in Canada. The authors chart the transformation of the high school from a peripheral to a central social institution. They explore the economic and social pressures which fuelled the expansion of secondary education, the political conflicts which shaped the schools, and the shifts in curriculum as new forms of knowledge disrupted traditional pedagogical values. By the late nineteenth century the high school had acquired a secure clientele by anchoring itself firmly to the educational and professional ambitions of young people and their families. Drawn from an enormous amount of empirical data derived from school records, census manuscript material, assessment rolls, and literary and biographical sources, Inventing Secondary Education enriches our historical understanding of schooling in nineteenth-century Ontario society and illuminates some of the roots of modern educational dilemmas. Contents Tables Acknowledgments Illustrations 1 Introduction 2 Patterns of Educational Provision in Upper Canada 3 The Provision of School Places: The Roles of Demand and Supply 4 The Failure of Voluntarism and the Transition to Public Education 5 The Development of the Grammar Schools, 1807–66 6 Teachers, Pupils, and Pedagogy: Inside the World of the Grammar School, 1855–70 7 "A Blot upon the Whole School System": The Attempt to Reform the Grammar Schools, 1853–65 8 The Revenge of the "Parasite Grammar Schools," 1866–69 9 Ryerson in Retreat: The Politics of Education, 1868–76 10 The "Degradation" of the Public School 11 Reshaping the High School Curriculum 12 Defining the Upper Boundaries of the High School 13 The Social and Educational Limits of a High School Education 14 The High School in the 1880s: Changes and Continuities 15 Conclusion General Tables Appendices Notes Index A B C D E F G H I K L M N O P Q R S T U V W Y