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.
Nineteenth-century educational reformers were fond of an agricultural metaphor when it came to the provision of more and better schooling: even good land, they argued, had to be cultiated; othersie noxious weeds sprang up. In this study of education in Ontario from the establishment of Upper Canada to the end of Egerton Ryerson's career as chief superintendent of schools in 1876, Susan Houston and Alison Prentice explore the roots of the provincial public school system, set up to instill a work ethic and moral discipline appropriate to the new society, as well as the beginnings of separate schools. today the Ontario school system is once again the subject of intense and often bitter deabte. Many of the most contentious issues have deep and complex roots that go back to this era. Houston and Prentice tell the story of how Ontario came to have a universal school system of exceptional quality and shed valuable light on an area of current concern.
Selles documents nearly a century of Methodist education from the early seminary movement in Upper Canada, through the establishment of ladies' colleges, to the admission of women into the university. She reconstructs what life was like for women at these institutions and highlights changing ideologies, curricula, and views on women's education as well as introducing some of the unique personalities who shaped Methodist higher education. Selles concludes that by attempting to create an ideal Christian woman through education, Methodist education structures consciously created and imposed a class-based gender ideology.
Historical Distillates examines the history of the Chemistry Department at the University of Toronto, describing important events and triumphs through the years.
Through an in-depth study of the thought and intellectual formation of Nathanael Burwash (1839-1918), a little-known but highly influential Canadian educator and Methodist theologian, Marguerite Van Die presents a picture of one of the most unsettling periods in the Christian church. During Burwash's life, Canadian Methodist thought and education had to deal with the impact of biblical criticism, idealist thought, and the evolutionary theory of Darwin. Burwash saw himself as following in the footsteps of an earlier generation of Methodists, led by Edgar Ryerson. This vision was reflected in his views on childhood nurture and moral nationalism and his support of university federation in Ontario.
Volume I contains a biographical study of John Rae, a brilliant economist and scholar who lived in Canada for a period in the early part of the nineteenth century, an analysis of Rae's contributions to economics, and a collection of his articles and essays on a variety of topics. These miscellaneous writings, many of which originally appeared in contemporary newspapers and magazines, reveal the broad range of his intellectual interests as well as his polemic and literary skill. Volume II is a reprint of Rae's book Statement of New Principles on the Subject of Political Economy which was originally published in Boston in 1834. As a result of the reissue of this book, which has been scarce for some years, modern students of economics will be better able to appreciate Rae's fundamental contribution to the development of economic thought, particularly the theory of capital. Much of Rae's analysis of economic development and behaviour was based on a first-hand knowledge of the Canadian economy in the early nineteenth century, but his theory has a surprisingly modern flavour, and is completely relevant to the problems of primitive or emerging economies today. Rae, personally, has been a neglected and obscure figure and one of the main objects of this work is to throw additional light on his career. There were a number of gloomy and disappointing episodes in his life, but, despite them, his devotion to scholarly pursuits remained unimpaired, and his literary output continued throughout his life. This work should appeal to all those interested in the history of ideas, particularly to those concerned with the economic, political and religious controversies of the first half of the nineteenth century. For his contributions to economic theory John Rae is entitled to a place in the first rank of economists anywhere in the world, and for this reason he deserves the attention of all students of economics and sociology. His work is sprinkled with profound insights into human behaviour and, in addition, he displays a literary style which has seldom been surpassed in the literature of economics.
