SIPEIElODEI 
 
 OP THB 
 
 Honorable Mr. Marchand 
 
 ON 
 
 Elementary Education 
 
 DEUVERED IN THE LOWER HOUSE LAST SESSION. 
 
 •o^o> 
 
 v 
 
 An 
 
 Answer to the Speech of the Premier When He Brought 
 Forward His Resolutions on Public Instruction. 
 
 tO^O* 
 
 Mr. Speaker, — I believe that we ought, 
 before all things, to give serious attention 
 to the ftlementary education of this Prp- 
 virice. The necessity for this reforia has 
 been ftelt for a long time, and therefore, I 
 regret that the Government has been bo 
 tardy in attending to the matter. 
 
 The Hon. the Premier informs ua that 
 be intends to increase the grant for the 
 common schools, by means of a special fund 
 which will be formed through the sale ot 
 1,500,000 acres of colonization lands to be 
 Bpecially reserved for this purpose; and he 
 asserts that, when all this reserve is Bold, 
 the sale price will produce an annual re- 
 venue of sixty thousand dollars. But at 
 the same time he informs us that xmtil 
 this transaction, as prolonged as complicate 
 ed, is accomplished he will add to the com- 
 mon school grant, a sum of fifty thousand 
 dollars per annum. 
 
 It would have been better to say at once 
 that this last alternative showed the Gov* 
 cmment's real intention, and that the first 
 would never be accomplished. A little 
 consideration will serve to show this. 
 
 Besides the long delay which there must 
 be before this vast extent of one million 
 
 five hundred thousand acres of our public 
 lane' s can be sold, and the proceeds so in- 
 vested as to produce a fixed income, an- 
 other difliculty will have arisen which the 
 Hon. Premier has pot foreseen; the total 
 sum produced by this sale when it has been 
 effected will not represent the capital ne- 
 cessary to give an annual revenue of sixty 
 thousand dollars which he pretends to pro- 
 vide. 
 
 A very simple calculation will show this. 
 
 The colonization lands which will be 
 included in this reserve are sold at thir- 
 ty cents per acre; this represents a capital 
 of $450,000, producing at 4 per cent., the 
 rate named in the resolutions to this 
 House, an annual interest of $18,000. It is 
 $18,000 only, and not $60,000, which the 
 Government will be able to draw from the 
 capitalized rese'-ve, when after a long de- 
 lay the sale of all shall have been effected. 
 That is to say that its calculation is uot in 
 earnest; so much the less so as the ex- 
 penses authorized by the sixth resolution , 
 would occasion a great reduction of the I 
 funds already insufficient, as I have just'i 
 shown. ^1 
 
 Why were we not told at once that thf'^ 
 
sole intention was to put the second alter- 
 native into effect ? Tlmt is to say purelr 
 nnd simply to increase tlie annual grant for 
 the common schools by fifty thousand dol- 
 lars. Upon this point I entirely coincide 
 with the hon. gentleman, and the Opposi- 
 tion will willingly join with the Govern- 
 ment in considering how to use this money 
 in a way most advantageous to the ad- 
 vancement of the elementary education of 
 our Province. 
 
 This is one of those questions which 
 ought to be considered by the members 
 without party spirit. This is what we are 
 disposed to do in advising with the Gov- 
 ernment as to the means to be used in or- 
 der to arrive at the desired result. 
 
 I observe with pleasure that the Hon, 
 the Premier, in the explanation which he 
 has just given of the question, appears to 
 wish to place it upon neutral patriotio 
 grounds; that is v hy I do not understand 
 the necessity which he appears to have felt 
 before facing the practical side of his sub- 
 ject, of making declarations of prinicples, 
 verfectly useless in my opinion. 
 
 There is no need for us to give assur- 
 ances to our people regarding the moral 
 teaching to be given in our public schools; 
 Jili the needful guarantees are to be found 
 in our laws and there they will remain. 
 The consciences of all may rest in perfect 
 ease so far as that is concerned. Whe- 
 ther the present Government or the party 
 which I have the honor to lead, be charg- 
 ed with the conduct of affairs in the future 
 the same guarantees will be respected. 
 The antecendents of the Hon. Premier, 
 as my own, ought to be sufHciently well- 
 known in this respect and if it were neces- 
 sary to reassure the public, that I, myself, 
 should make a declaration of principles 
 as the last speaker has believed it to be 
 I bis duty to do, I would not hesitate to 
 Igive it in the most positive and clearest 
 lanner possible. 
 
 We, on this side of the House, are o' 
 
 t^ne opinion in disapproving of "godless" 
 
 ihools. We have moral and religious 
 
 paching in our schools and we will keep 
 
 ?he education of the young ought to be, 
 
 as the Hon. the Premier has just said, 
 physical, moral and intellectual at the 
 same time; the heart of the child muat 
 be cultivated at the same time as his in- 
 telligence, and simultaneously in the courwB 
 of his studies, have instilled into him 
 the principles of Christian morality with 
 such practical knowledge that later he 
 may become • a good and useful citizen- 
 Let it be known then once for all that 
 religious instruction will be respected and 
 maintained in our schools But alongside 
 of this teaching there is that of ordinary 
 secular knowledge; it is, according to my 
 opinion, this part of the system, which 
 is defective and which demands earnest 
 reform, in order that our young people 
 may acquire all that is needed to place 
 them on a level with the youth of the 
 sister provinces, and to be in a position to 
 enter with them on the battle of life. 
 It is from this standpoint alone that we 
 ought to consider, during this discussion, 
 the reforms to be accomplished. We all 
 are in accord that they are needed, we 
 ought to seek for the best means of real- 
 izing them, 
 
 That which is lacking above all in our 
 elementary education is, method. With- 
 out doubi/ our teachers, male and female.are 
 insufficiently paid, and we ought in aug- 
 menting the school grant, to see that those 
 who merit it profit by it by an increase 
 of salary which will encourage them to 
 CArry out with energy the difficult career 
 they have chosen. In this career, as in 
 all others, special knowledge is required 
 and to obtain this the teacher must, be- 
 fore undertaking any work, pass through 
 a course of training during which he shall 
 be able to gain such a knowledge of the 
 elementary principles of pedagogy, that 
 he can acquit himself efRcaoiously in his 
 duties. This preparation is as necessary 
 to him as it is to the professional man, 
 or even the artisan. One cannot become 
 an advocate, doctor or notary, without 
 going through the proper course, as one 
 must serve an apprenticeship before be-* 
 coming a carpenter, mason or smith. 
 The profession of teaching, the most im- 
 portant perhaps, (insomuch as it is «oharK- 
 ed with the moral and intellectual training 
 
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 of the young Reneration), uo less thoji the 
 other is not exempt from these prelimin- 
 ary studies. Unhappily, they are almost 
 entirely wanting amongst the greater part 
 of our teachers, and especially among the 
 females, in our public schools. Very of- 
 ten a young girl, after scgne years at 
 school, when from seventeen to eigh- 
 teen years of age, posBCssing not the 
 least idea of pRdagogy, is put in 
 charge of a large class, some of whom 
 are very little younger than the teacher; 
 as a consequence there is a complete lack 
 of discipline and a defective, methodless 
 teaching which produces deplorably inade- 
 quate r*«u!ta when it doea not fail alto- 
 gether. 
 
 Here is a great void which we must 
 fill (and it is an urgent reform which is 
 required), by using and attending better 
 to the materials which are ready to hand. 
 It is useless to hope that we can instil 
 a thorough method into the some six thou- 
 sand male and female teachers who are in 
 charge of our public schools, in a day; but 
 we could at least use this new subsidy 
 so as to assist them in obtaining a know- 
 ledge of the elementary principles of 
 pedagagy, indispensable to the right man- 
 ag(:ment, and to the success of a school. 
 A scheme, very simple and by no means 
 costly, has been suggested to me to further 
 this object which I Dropose that the Gev- 
 eri'ment should try. 
 
 Our Inspectors of Schools are already 
 required to pay two visits each year to 
 every school in their district, the one at 
 the beginning and the other at the end 
 of the school year. The first is not in- 
 diepensable and could be usefully 
 replaced by two or three days of con- 
 ference which the inspector would give 
 to all the teachers in each of big munici- 
 palities, the reunion to be held in the 
 most central places in each county of the 
 district. In these conferences the Inspec- 
 tor would deal simply and succinctly with 
 the most practical methods of teaching 
 and he would finish the course by an ex' 
 emination by which he could ascertain 
 the degree of merit of each teacher from 
 the point of view of regular attendance 
 
 and the application of that pedagogical 
 teaching which he has endeavored to instil 
 into his hearers, certificates to be given 
 in accordance with results. This con* 
 densed teaching would be under the con* 
 trol of the Council of Public Instruction 
 and conformable to such instructions as 
 the Council see fit to issue. Upon the 
 testimony of theee certificates, a bounty 
 in the shape of a bonus added to the sal- 
 ary, would be given to such certificated 
 masters and mistresses as have profited 
 most by the lessons ; who have made ef- 
 fective use of them in their own schools, 
 and who have been most successful in 
 teaching the various subjects of the ap- 
 proved course of study. By means of 
 this inexpensive plan the personnel of the 
 teaching body would from the first, ac- 
 quire some idea of those indispensable 
 principles of pedagogy which could be ap- 
 plied in the course of the very first year 
 and thus a distinct advance would occur 
 spontaneously throughout the Province; 
 this advance would be accentuated gradu- 
 ally and surely in school as a consequence 
 of each of the conierences which the teach- 
 er attejided during his career; no doubt ai- 
 ter some years of a training of this kind, 
 regularly followed, all theee teachers who 
 are devoted to their work would have so 
 profited by these opportunities as to 
 make themselves competent and thus fin- 
 ish by placing their schools in a satis- 
 factory position of efficiency. And they 
 would ^e encouraged in this useful work 
 by the prospect of r^.wards offered to the 
 most meritorious in the shape of an ap- 
 preciajjle addition to the yearly salary. 
 
 It is not a complete system which I pro- 
 pose; but it affords the means — awaiting 
 something better — of promptly assisting 
 those who wish to profit by a knowledge 
 of those elementary principles of peda- 
 gogy which are essential to the right con- 
 duct of a school. It would be an imme- 
 diate and considerable Improvement on the 
 existing state of affairs, and one of which 
 the present generation would reap the 
 benefit whilst waiting for a more perfect, 
 system, I have no doubt that the conse-j 
 quent success i;a our country schools 
 
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 4 
 
 would, to a certain extent, assist in over- 
 coming the diacouraKement or indifTereace 
 of a great number of parents who to-day 
 do not insist on the chddren attendinij 
 regularly, giving as a reason that thuy 
 learn nothing and that they simply waste 
 their time at cicbool; a reason only too well 
 founded. 
 
 Thanks to this regrettable impression, 
 widespread and general, our elcmentjiry 
 schools, with their low attendance, ol'ten 
 remain in a condition of lamentable in- 
 fer'ority; thus it is that a very large pro- 
 portion of the industrious and intelli^^ent 
 youth of our towns and in the country, is 
 deprived of that practical instruction 
 which is essential to advancement and suc- 
 cess in whatsoever career is chosen. 
 
 The imperative duty laid upon us, aa 
 legislators, then is to provide effectually 
 for the raising of the standard of our ele- 
 mentary education, in furnishing the neces- 
 sary resources and rendering it accessible 
 to all, even those of small means. That ia 
 to say that the legislative appropriation* 
 for the common schools ought to be in- 
 creased as far as our financial condition 
 will permit, and that on the other hand 
 the necessary expenses imposed upon fami- 
 U««i for the instruction of their children 
 
 ought to be reduced to the lowest possible 
 figure. 
 
 In order to foi-ward the !ast object, it 
 appears urgent that, under the direction of 
 the Council of Public Instruction, a series 
 of class books, as uniform as jjossible, may 
 be adopted aild furnistoed to the sohola™ 
 in all the school districts, so that in going 
 frcm one school to aJiother they may not 
 be obliged by frequent changes, especially 
 in great industrial cenfrea, to go '■o the 
 heavy expense of providing afresh. 
 
 This simple reform is desirable, not only 
 from an economic point of view in the 
 schooling of the youth of the working 
 classes, but also as a m^ans of obtaining 
 uniformity in the subjecta taught in all 
 the schools of the Province. 
 
 I am led to make these few suggestions 
 by a sincere desire to assist the Govern- 
 ment in the task it lias undertaken, that 
 of placing Public Instruction upon a sound 
 footing. And I am in a position to assure 
 it that whatever is undertaken that is 
 useful in this work, will receive the most 
 coidial support from the Liberal party. 
 
 If, in the near future, it falls to our lot 
 to preside over the affairs of the Province, 
 we intend to devote special att«.>ntion to 
 the development of elem«;ntajy education. 
 
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