A Leader in Free Education? Why Yes, Yes We Were
In Canada, you pay for education past grade 12. We haven't figured out that free education thing Europe has yet for those who want to go to university or college.
Through this Act, local taxes would be used to build and maintain the community's school, but, the government would pay to provide the teachers, giving them job security. Within two years, the number of Islanders in school doubled.
Why was PEI open to free education?
It appears that the Islands focus on education can be traced back to the land question. As I mentioned earlier, George Coles believed education would be important in figuring out the land tenant issue. Tenants had to sign leases and agreements to rent. These leases included conditions regarding the farmers access to the timber growing on the property, access to mills, currency to be used when paying rent, and liability. What was not included was compensation for any improvements the tenant made to the land. Without owning the land and irrevocable agreements, tenants didn't always have land security.
After the Napoleanic Wars, more settlers came to the Island, unassisted by landowners. Once they got here, they couldn't find anyone who could provide them with leases. Landowners did not always appoint someone on the Island to take care of leases for them if they were absentee landlords. Unable to obtain a lease, many squatted - AKA they started living on that land without permission. If a squatter lived on the land for 20 years, the land was considered theirs. Obviously, their worse enemy was a land surveyor.
Tenants also had to worry about people claiming to be proprietors or the landowners representative coming with the "land deed" or the "lease" and claiming the land. If you can't read or understand the document you are at a greater risk of being conned. If you paid your rent to this person, too bad. Your actual landlord or their representative didn't care and would still demand the rent. So even if you had a lease, you were still at a risk without a basic education.
Even if you had a lease, Islanders often moved homesteads and some even lost their farms when landlords found those who would take the land and pay back rent. And remember, if you had been there for two or three years and had a house built and the landlord evicted you, you weren't compensated for the home you built.
Without knowing what they were agreeing to, and sometimes relying on the landlord's proprietor to explain what was in the document, tenants often didn't know what they were agreeing to!
There were cases of tenants paying rent for more acres than they actually leased. For example, one tenant is reported to have been paying rent for 150 acres for years. He had requested the landlord do a survey of the land and he never did. The tenant only discovered he should have been paying rent for 103 acres once he had enough money to pay for the survey himself! In addition, there were no legal provisions or laws in place for these types of situations.
Educating youth would help ensure they didn't end up in the same predicaments as their parents. Parents and grandparents want their children to have a better life than they had, so it only makes sense they supported free basic education.
Robertson, Ian Ross. "Reform, Literacy and the Lease: The Prince Edward Island Free Education Act of 1852." Acadiensis 20.1 (Autumn 1990). pp. 52-71.
Robertson, Ian Ross. “COLES, GEORGE,” in Dictionary of Canadian Biography, vol. 10, University of Toronto/Université Laval, 2003–, accessed October 28, 2018, http://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/coles_george_10E.html.
But, it wasn't always this way. There was a time when you would have to pay for your child to go to school. Can you imagine if we still did that today for public education? If in addition to scribblers, pens, pencils, clothes, and depending on the grade crayons, geometry set, calculator, scientific calculator, school bag, lunch box, and so on you had to pay tuition?
So today, I am going to look at the Free Education Act of 1852. This Act set us up for the education system we have today.
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| The Union Corner Schoolhouse built 1960-1863. (Image Credit: PEI Historic Places) |
Early Settlement
Early settlements on PEI, or Ile Saint-Jean as it was known, did not have a comprehensive education system. Of course, when you are creating a colony or your colony is still in its early stages, you tend to not to focus too much on providing a formal education. According to James MacNutt, Acadian education focused on teaching survival skills and promoting "an awareness of the Roman Catholic Church." No purpose-built schools have been identified from this time.
When the British took over the Island, a heavier focus was placed on education. Part of this came from the Scottish, who believed education would help you get ahead in life. As a result, some settlers from the 1770s were more literate and understood arithmetic. Once their homes were built and they began to form their communities, these people were encouraged to volunteer to educate those without an education and children. But, this doesn't mean all of them could read and write. Some wouldn't have time to teach and others didn't have time to learn, access to this education, or an interest. If you are building up your society - homes, clearing land for fields, gathering wood, preparing food, etc. - you don't always think of ensuring your children can go to school. You focus on teaching them to survive.
As you can imagine, this type of education system is unreliable. In the early 19th century more actual schools were built. But, there were major issues... mostly related to money.
Although there were numerous schools on the Island, there were not enough teachers. Teachers were underpaid and their pay could be sporadic. Understandably, good teachers often found work elsewhere or were deterred from even coming to the Island in the first place. You also couldn't attend these schools for free. There was a tuition. So you may be able to send one or two children, but maybe not more. Meaning only some, if any, of your children, receive an education or those who did would teach their siblings how to read and write.
As you can imagine, by the 1850s, Islanders were frustrated with the poor quality of the Island education system.
Enter Premier George Coles. Coles wanted to tackle the Island's poor education system for two reasons. The first was the public wanted it. The second was he wanted to solve the land issues facing Island tenants. He believed the landowners were able to exploit tenants by forcing them into binding agreements they couldn't understand.
So in 1851, the Special Committee on Free Education was formed. The public rallied behind the Committee, and a year later, 53 petitions in support of free education were received by the government.
But how do you ensure education will be free?
Coles was inspired by Massachusetts and Ohio a few years earlier in 1848 where he had witnessed the benefits of state-paid education.
So in 1852, he proposed the Free Education Act. Through this Act, taxes were raised a little to pay for education. Some in the House of Assembly, such as Tory leader Edward Palmer, were concerned about taxes being raised and three petitions against the taxes were received. On March 18, 1852, the Free Education Act was passed with a vote of 16-3, ratified by the Legislative Council on April 1, 1852, and received the Lieutenant Governor's royal assent on April 3, 1852.
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| Province House (Image Credit: Province of PEI) |
Through this Act, local taxes would be used to build and maintain the community's school, but, the government would pay to provide the teachers, giving them job security. Within two years, the number of Islanders in school doubled.
By 1855, the proportion of students, based on provincial populations, in Island schools was 1/3 greater than in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick.
The Progressiveness of PEI?
In 1852, the Free Education Act was a very progressive move and demonstrates the importance the Island placed on education. PEI was the first colony to pass free education legislation. Nova Scotia implemented free education in 1864 and New Brunswick in 1871.
In 1853, the Island had John Murdoch Stark, a Scottish school visitor from David Stow's Normal Seminary in Glasgow, come to the Island to oversee the new school system. While he was not impressed with the quality of education and believed it needed improvement, he praised the Free Education Act,
This small colony has solved for herself the question which has been agitating the public mind of Britain for so many years, and which is still at issue.The issue Stark was referring to was figuring out how to provide a basic education to the entire community. In other words, we were ahead of Britain on this issue. While Britain may have had great places of education at this time, like the University of Oxford and the University of Cambridge, that doesn't mean the general population was educated. Only those who could afford it.
Why was PEI open to free education?
It appears that the Islands focus on education can be traced back to the land question. As I mentioned earlier, George Coles believed education would be important in figuring out the land tenant issue. Tenants had to sign leases and agreements to rent. These leases included conditions regarding the farmers access to the timber growing on the property, access to mills, currency to be used when paying rent, and liability. What was not included was compensation for any improvements the tenant made to the land. Without owning the land and irrevocable agreements, tenants didn't always have land security.
After the Napoleanic Wars, more settlers came to the Island, unassisted by landowners. Once they got here, they couldn't find anyone who could provide them with leases. Landowners did not always appoint someone on the Island to take care of leases for them if they were absentee landlords. Unable to obtain a lease, many squatted - AKA they started living on that land without permission. If a squatter lived on the land for 20 years, the land was considered theirs. Obviously, their worse enemy was a land surveyor.
Tenants also had to worry about people claiming to be proprietors or the landowners representative coming with the "land deed" or the "lease" and claiming the land. If you can't read or understand the document you are at a greater risk of being conned. If you paid your rent to this person, too bad. Your actual landlord or their representative didn't care and would still demand the rent. So even if you had a lease, you were still at a risk without a basic education.
Even if you had a lease, Islanders often moved homesteads and some even lost their farms when landlords found those who would take the land and pay back rent. And remember, if you had been there for two or three years and had a house built and the landlord evicted you, you weren't compensated for the home you built.
Without knowing what they were agreeing to, and sometimes relying on the landlord's proprietor to explain what was in the document, tenants often didn't know what they were agreeing to!
There were cases of tenants paying rent for more acres than they actually leased. For example, one tenant is reported to have been paying rent for 150 acres for years. He had requested the landlord do a survey of the land and he never did. The tenant only discovered he should have been paying rent for 103 acres once he had enough money to pay for the survey himself! In addition, there were no legal provisions or laws in place for these types of situations.
Educating youth would help ensure they didn't end up in the same predicaments as their parents. Parents and grandparents want their children to have a better life than they had, so it only makes sense they supported free basic education.
Sources:
Robertson, Ian Ross. "Reform, Literacy and the Lease: The Prince Edward Island Free Education Act of 1852." Acadiensis 20.1 (Autumn 1990). pp. 52-71.
Robertson, Ian Ross. “COLES, GEORGE,” in Dictionary of Canadian Biography, vol. 10, University of Toronto/Université Laval, 2003–, accessed October 28, 2018, http://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/coles_george_10E.html.
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