The Ryersonian Influence on the Public School System of British Columbia

How do educational ideas and practices which are current in one society come to be adopted by another society? We seem to assume often that it is through some process of intellectual osmosis. Frequently, however, his­ torical research can unveil the individual personalities involved. An interesting case in point is the story of how the Ryersonian system of public education was transmitted from Canada West to British Columbia a century ago through the agency of British Columbia's first Provincial Superintendent of Education, John Jessop. Carlyle's theory that history is the essence of innumerable biographies can certainly be supported in this case by the record of the personal influence of this one man. Jessop arrived in Canada West (the Ontario of to-day) in 1846 from Norwich, England as a young lad of seventeen. For a few years he worked in the woods and probably had some experience with newspapers as well. He joined the Methodist Church, then the most active Protestant denomination in Canada West. In 1853 he decided to become a teacher and entered the Normal School in Toronto, recently opened by Dr. Egerton Ryerson. Here he first came under the influence of the Ryersonian system. Stuffed with subject matter and professional training day and night for six days a week, he ingested a curriculum which, if it were not superficial, would indeed be gargantuan. It was officially described as the Elements and Philosophy of Grammar, Orthography, Composition, Art of Reading, Rudiments of Logic, Geography (Mathematical, Physical and Political) with rudiments of the use of the globes, Elements of General History, Linear Drawing, Mulhauser's System of Writing, Rudiments of Trigonometry, with a view to Land Surveying with the Theodolite, Art of Teaching, with daily teaching in the Model School, mode of teaching the National School Books, Science and Practice of Arithmetic, including the use of the Logarithm Tables, Algebra as far as Quadratic Equations, the Progressions, and the Binomial Theorem, inclusive: Geometry, six books of Euclid; Heat, Electricity, Galvanism, and Magnetism; Mechanics, Hydro­ statics, Pneumatics, Animal and Vegetable Physiology (with special reference