In Patrice Milewski’s article “Teacher Institutes in Late Nineteenth-Century Ontario”, she discusses the importance of teachers attending meetings and conventions to further educate themselves on how to be better teachers[1]. This is an important topic, as the development of teachers was crucial during the rise of education in Canada. In this article, it suggests that “institutes were maintained for the “professional development of teachers” and that teachers owed it to the public and to themselves to attend.”[2] This article sheds light on how important and how much effort was put into prepare teachers to present the content in a desirable way to the children. Teachers were needed in order to put schooling on the high pedestal it was trying to obtain. This article can be linked to other articles of this topic and course because in Ian Ross Robertson’s article he discusses, “compulsory attendance”[3] for school and teachers were need for the “Free Education Act of 1852” to go through. This article also shows how school came into play and what was required of the teachers.

 

Ian Ross Robertson in his article “Reform, Literacy, and the Lease: The Prince Edward Island Free Education Act of 1852”, discusses the “Free Education Act of 1852” and how “attendance in the public-school system was compulsory.”[4] This article is very informative when it comes to this course and the readings for this topic because it can be linked to many areas of understanding childhood and schooling during the late nineteenth century. It can be connected to both John Bullen’s article and Patrice Milewski’s article because “compulsory attendance” for school altered childhood during this time. It changed the idea of children working, and it changed the dynamic of how much parents worked, but most important it altered what type of life these children would have in the future, based on the education they were given. Milewski’s article about teachers can be connected to the “Free Education Act of 1852” because it was important for the teachers to be trained in a way that would show promise to the student and parents. Schooling was a way to help the children have a more educated life, but it took time away from work, so it needed to be presented in a way that was beneficial to everyone. This article shows the struggle in daily life for individuals who were uneducated, and it uses that to promote the importance of education of children in this time period.

 

In John Bullen’s article, “Hidden Workers: Child Labour and the Family Economy in Late Nineteenth-Century Urban Ontario”, he discusses the amount of work small children do around or outside the house, at a young age. This article suggests that in order for the family to survive and make enough money, it was required of the children to either help around the house or find simple, odd jobs outside of the house to bring in a small income. Bullen also discusses “home centred industries that formed a branch of the notorious “sweat shop,””[5] it was a way to increase the number of workers to increase the amount of production at a lower cost. It provided low paying, long hours of work for women and children. This article displays what it was like to be a child in the late nineteenth century, and how going the work force was suggested in some cases or required in the majority. Bullen states, “in most working-class homes, children assumed domestic responsibilities before they reached the age of eight.”[6] “Domestic responsibilities”[7] were considered work, as they took away for the child’s ability to be a child. The information this article presents is crucial for understanding what childhood was like in this time period. This article can be link to the other articles we read this week because in Ian Ross Robertson’s article it discusses the “Free Education Act of 1852” and how that called for mandatory attendance for children. This act changed the workforce and how families sustained themselves.

 

Bibliography

Bullen, John, “Hidden Workers: Child Labour and the Family Economy in Late Nineteenth-Century Urban Ontario.” Labour/Le Travail 18 (Fall 1986): 163-87.

Milewski, Patrice, “Teachers’ Institutes in Late Nineteenth-Century Ontario.” Paedagogica Historica 44. 5 (October 2008): 607-620.

Robertson, Ian Ross. “Reform, Literacy, and the Lease: The Prince Edward Island Free Education Act of 1852.” In Sara Burke and Patrice Milewski (Eds.), Schooling in Transition: Readings in the Canadian History of Education, Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2012: 56-71

 

Footnotes

[1] Patrice Milewski, “Teachers’ Institutes in Late Nineteenth-Century Ontario.” Paedagogica Historica 44. 5 (October 2008): 607-620.

[2] Milewski, “Teachers’ Institutes,” 618

[3] Ian Ross Robertson, “Reform, Literacy, and the Lease: The Prince Edward Island Free Education Act of 1852.” In Sara Burke and Patrice Milewski (Eds.), Schooling in Transition: Readings in the Canadian History of Education, Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2012, 65

[4] Robertson, “Reform, Literacy, and the Lease,” 65

[5] John Bullen, “Hidden Workers: Child Labour and the Family Economy in Late Nineteenth-

Century Urban Ontario.” Labour/Le Travail 18 (Fall 1986), 170

[6] Bullen, “Hidden Workers,” 166

[7] Bullen, “Hidden Workers,” 166