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Beginnings Early Education in BC

Education in Early British Columbia

Company Schools

The first school in Victoria was established in 1849. Although Fort Victoria itself was established in 1843, white settlement did not begin in earnest until the Colony of Vancouver Island was founded six years later. Many historians have commented upon the “fairly rigid class structure”[1] that characterized the Hudson’s Bay Company. One’s rank within the company determined one’s social standing and it was inconceivable that children of different classes would mix in a common school.  As Barman notes, “In the new colony as in England, education was perceived as having two prime functions: preparation to maintain existing place within the social order, and inculcation of denominational religious beliefs.”[2]  Therefore, the first school established was a “Company School” for the children of the senior managers within the company. The Reverend Robert Staines was an Anglican cleric who arrived from England on March 17th, 1849 and was expected to take care of the spiritual and educational welfare of the new colony. He was assisted in his educational duties by his wife. He received a salary from the Company of $1700 a year for maintaining a fee-based boarding school as well as $1000 a year for serving as chaplain.[3]

Common Schools

Two years later it was decided that the privilege of an education should not be restricted solely to the upper classes and Governor Douglas recommended the establishment of a school for “the children of the laboring and poorer classes.”[4] As a British colony, this school was to provide “a good sound English education and nothing more” and was to be run by an individual “of strictly religious principles”.[5] A company labourer by the name of Charles Bailey was hired to be teacher and in 1852 Vancouver Island’s first common school opened. Despite receiving government funding, students were required to pay a $5 annual fee towards the teacher’s salary as well as provide their own books and supplies.[6] Originally housed in temporary quarters, this common school moved to the first purpose-built schoolhouse in Minie’s Plain just outside of Victoria in 1853. That same year the Island’s second common school opened in Nanaimo, and the third common school would open in the Company’s agricultural settlement of Craigflower near Victoria two years later. 1855 was also the year that the Reverend Edward Cridge arrived in Victoria to take over as chaplain and headmaster from Rev. Staines. Expected not only to “take charge of a Boarding School of a superior class”[7] he was also appointed Superintendent of Schools for the Colony of Vancouver Island. In November 1856, Cridge reported to Governor Douglas that the common school in Victoria was attended by seventeen boys, aged 6-15, whereas the common school in Craigflower is attended by twenty-one pupils, both male and female, aged 4-16.[8]

The distinction between company, colonial, and common schools can be confusing although it depends on what era is being referred to in order to differentiate between them.  The “Company School” refers to the elite boarding school first established in 1849 for the upper-class employees of the HBC. “Common schools” are like our modern day public schools in that there are publically funded and in 1865 the Common School Act was passed. Therefore, any school established before this date was often called a “Colonial School” although this term could also characterize any school established prior to 1871 – the date British Columbia entered Confederation.

Catholic Education in BC

The Company School was not the only school established in 1849. All the schools mentioned so far fell under the jurisdiction of the HBC and were therefore very British – meaning Anglican – in character. There were many Catholic settlers and employees of the HBC as well and prior to the creation of the Colony of Vancouver Island settlers of the Willamette Valley in Oregon Country requested that a priest be sent to their region. This request was answered when Francis Norbert Blanchet and Modeste Demers arrived to oversee the entire territory between the Pacific Ocean and the Rocky Mountains. In The History of Catholic Education in British Columbia Edith E. Downs notes that both priests had specific instructions to establish schools and catechism classes to ensure the Christian education of youth among other tasks.[9] The diocese of Vancouver Island was established on July 24, 1846 with Modeste Demers in charge. A year later Demers travelled both to France and Quebec in order to raise funds and obtain help for his new mission. While he was away, the Reverend Honore Timothy Lempfrit was put in charge and it was he who started Victoria’s first Catholic school in 1849. As Lempfrit originally boarded with the Douglas family, it is not surprising that this occasion is mentioned by Sir Douglas is one of his colonial reports of 1849.

 

"While on the subject of schools, it will interest you to learn, that

Father Lempfrit, a Roman Catholic missionary of the religious order of

“Oblates”, having been deputed by the Archbishop of Oregon City to

prosecute his ministry among the natives of Vancouver Island, was received

in this establishment and is now in addition to his missionary labours,

conducting a promising school, composed of the wives and children of the

Company’s Canadian servants, who derive great benefit and are rapidly

improving in respectability, under his zealous instructions. The Reverend

Father boards with us but has hitherto received no other support from the

Company."[10]

 

Lempfrit himself describes his circumstances in a letter dated 1850:

 

"... We arrived here on June 6th. The fort was truly crowded and they could

give me a lodging only after a few days. Since there was no church, I was

obliged to set up my chapel in a large shed at the edge of the water. But

since it was too far from the fort, I obtained a place where I was able to set

up a more decent chapel and to start a little school. For on arriving here I

found the poor children of our French Canadians in the deepest ignorance,

not knowing even how to make the sign of the Cross. I announced that I

was going to take charge of their instructions without at the same time

neglecting my poor Indians. From the beginning I have had from 20 to 25

pupils. Lately, I have fewer because several have gone to other forts.

I think that within a short time they will build me a house outside the fort,

where I shall be freer, since the poor Indians are a bit fearful and since

nearly all our French Canadians are living outside (the fort)."[11]

 

After Father Lempfrit left Victoria in 1851, Catholic education was sporadic at best until the arrival of the Sisters of St. Ann in 1858. Responding a request for service put forth by Bishop Demers, the Sister’s arrived in a “tent city” instead of an isolated fort as expected. The gold rush had struck and permanently altered the flavor of Victoria. When asked during the journey if the Sisters too were attempting to seek their fortune, Sister Mary Angele replied no and “they were astonished that we were concerned not about gold but only for the welfare of society by devoting our lives to the education of youth.”[12] The rustic conditions and lack of resources necessitated the lack of class division: Blacks, Caucasians, Aboriginals, elite, poor, Catholics, Protestants, Jews all sat next to each other on the rough-hewn planks that were used instead of desks. However, as the town grew and the Sister’s school expanded, more class divisions and race divisions manifested (See Beginnings - The First Ten Years). Commencing in 1859 a series of advertisements were placed in the Weekly British Colonist by Bishop Demers announcing the opening of a “Select School” for young ladies run by the Sisters.

Common School Act 1865 -1869

This “Select School” was not the first of its kind in Victoria and a quick scan of the early issues of the British Colonist will reveal many advertisements for similar private institutions. Before education was regulated by the government, any one could become a teacher and anyone could open a school. However, this system did not sit well with the editor of the British Colonist, Amor de Cosmos, who as an outsider from Nova Scotia, would regularly complain against the Island’s “Family-Company-Compact”. In one of his editorials published February 18th, 1860 he put forth an argument for the creation of a Free School Plan. Noting that despite the creation of the Colonial School, Victoria has no public system of education and the “tuition fee is a burlesque on the value of a good education.”[13]  De Cosmos did not wish to interfere with select schools; he only wanted to extend the opportunity of education to all children for “There is something noble – morally sublime, in a country so providing for the instruction of its youth, that none, however poor or unfortunate, need grow up untaught.”[14] This opinion was shared by a significant enough portion of the population that by 1865 the campaign led by de Cosmos resulted in the creation of the Common School Act. Providing for free, non-sectarian education this Act was an important turning point in the history of education on the Island and in British Columbia.

Post 1869 

Repealed by the 1869 Common School Ordinance, this new Act did not specifically state that education was to be free and non-sectarian. By the time British Columbia entered Confederation in 1871 the “deteriorating educational and economic situation of the last half-dozen years had amply reconfirmed the need for free non-denominational school.”[15] According to the British Colonist, this was one of the key issues in the creation of a new provincial legislature and “no candidate, be his private opinion what they might, volunteered to say a word against this form of education.”[16] In 1872, the Public School Act was established. This allowed schools to be funded through revenue from the Province and created school districts.  A Board of Education and School Superintendent were also appointed. The objective of this act was “to give every child in the Province such knowledge as will fit him to become a useful and intelligent citizen in after years.”[17]

Denominational schools had been recognized when British Columbia entered Confederation and thus became part of the provincial system. However, with the passing of the 1872 act, the request for funding for any type of religious or non-public school was firmly rejected. Public opinion supported this stance as illustrated by a letter in the Colonist from April 1872.

"Now to establish a denominational school in such a community is nothing more than to keep up the caste divisions in a country where "Jack is as good as his master" - where are we suppose to ignore the old fogey teaching of the old country where children are taught to regard the squire and the parson with dreadful and deferential awe."[18]

Not until over one-hundred years later would the province extend official recognition and financial support to private schools.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



[1] Barman, Jean, “The Emergence of Educational Structures in Nineteenth-Century British Columbia” in Children, Teachers, and Schools in the History of British Columbia, 2nd edition, ed. Jean Barman and Mona Gleason (Calgary: Detselig Enterprises Ltd. 2003), 14.

 

[2] Barman, Jean, “The Emergence of Educational Structures in Nineteenth-Century British Columbia” in Children, Teachers, and Schools in the History of British Columbia, 2nd edition, ed. Jean Barman and Mona Gleason (Calgary: Detselig Enterprises Ltd. 2003), 14.

[3]Barman, Jean, “The Emergence of Educational Structures in Nineteenth-Century British Columbia” in Children, Teachers, and Schools in the History of British Columbia, 2nd edition, ed. Jean Barman and Mona Gleason (Calgary: Detselig Enterprises Ltd. 2003), 14.

 

[4] Dunae, Dr. Patrick A., Timeline: 1840s-1940s, The Homeroom: British Columbia’s History of Education Website, March 25, 2008, <http://www.mala.bc.ca/homeroom/content/timeline/1840s/1850.html>

 

[5] Barman, Jean, “The Emergence of Educational Structures in Nineteenth-Century British Columbia” in Children, Teachers, and Schools in the History of British Columbia, 2nd edition, ed. Jean Barman and Mona Gleason (Calgary: Detselig Enterprises Ltd. 2003), 14.

 

[6] Barman, Jean, “The Emergence of Educational Structures in Nineteenth-Century British Columbia” in Children, Teachers, and Schools in the History of British Columbia, 2nd edition, ed. Jean Barman and Mona Gleason (Calgary: Detselig Enterprises Ltd. 2003), 14.

 

[7] Barman, Jean, “The Emergence of Educational Structures in Nineteenth-Century British Columbia” in Children, Teachers, and Schools in the History of British Columbia, 2nd edition, ed. Jean Barman and Mona Gleason (Calgary: Detselig Enterprises Ltd. 2003), 15.

8] Dunae, Dr. Patrick A., Timeline: 1840s-1940s, The Homeroom: British Columbia’s History of Education Website, March 25, 2008, <http://www.mala.bc.ca/homeroom/content/timeline/1840s/1850.html>

 

[9] List of Objectives:
 “evangelize the natives.

bring Christians into line with Church teachings.

spread the gospel

establish schools and catechism classes to ensure the Christian education of youth

study the Indian languages and prepare a grammar.

baptize and substitute lawful marriage for irregular unions.

establish schools and catechism classes to ensure the Christian

education of youth.

plant crosses in all remarkable places.”

Down, Edith E. , The History of Catholic Education in British Columbia,  1847-1900, CCHA, Study Sessions, 50 (1983), 569-90. March 25, 2008, 7.

<http://www.umanitoba.ca/colleges/st_pauls/ccha/Back%20Issues/CCHA1983-84/Down.pdf>

 

[10] Down, Edith E. , The History of Catholic Education in British Columbia,  1847-1900, CCHA, Study Sessions, 50 (1983), 569-90. March 25, 2008, 8.

<http://www.umanitoba.ca/colleges/st_pauls/ccha/Back%20Issues/CCHA1983-84/Down.pdf

 

[11] Down, Edith E. , The History of Catholic Education in British Columbia,  1847-1900, CCHA, Study Sessions, 50 (1983), 569-90. March 25, 2008, 9.

<http://www.umanitoba.ca/colleges/st_pauls/ccha/Back%20Issues/CCHA1983-84/Down.pdf>

 

[12] Sister Mary Angele, Journal, 3.

 

[13] Amor de Cosmos, “National Education”, The Weekly British Colonist, February 18, 1860.

 

[14] Amor de Cosmos, “National Education”, The Weekly British Colonist, February 18, 1860.

 

[15] Barman, Jean, “The Emergence of Educational Structures in Nineteenth-Century British Columbia” in Children, Teachers, and Schools in the History of British Columbia, 2nd edition, ed. Jean Barman and Mona Gleason (Calgary: Detselig Enterprises Ltd. 2003), 23.

 

[16] Barman, Jean, “The Emergence of Educational Structures in Nineteenth-Century British Columbia” in Children, Teachers, and Schools in the History of British Columbia, 2nd edition, ed. Jean Barman and Mona Gleason (Calgary: Detselig Enterprises Ltd. 2003), 24.

 

[17] Shirley Cuthbertson, A Highlight History of British Columbia Schools from Royal BC Museum, Online Exhibits, Thunderbird Park, Schoolhouse Display. March 25, 2008, <http://www.royalbcmuseum.bc.ca/exhibits/tbird-park/main.htm?lang=eng>

 

 

[18] “Citizen”, Letter to the Editor, Colonist, April 13, 1872.

 

 

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