In Upper Canada
grammar schools and academies were founded with commendable
promptness, and a common school system was established in 1816,
but grants were niggardly and compulsion was lacking. Even at the
close of the thirties only one child in seven was in school, and
he was, as often as not, committed to the tender mercies of some
broken-down pensioner or some ancient tippler who could barely
sign his mark. There was but little administrative control by the
provincial authorities. The textbooks in use came largely from
the United States and glorified that land and all its ways in the
best Fourth-of-July manner, to the scandal of the loyal elect.
The press was represented by a few weekly newspapers; only one
daily existed in Upper Canada before 1840.
Against this background there developed during the period 1815-41
a tense constitutional struggle which was to exert a profound
influence on the making of the nation. The stage on which the
drama was enacted was a small one, and the actors were little
known to the world of their day, but the drama had an interest of
its own and no little significance for the future.
In one aspect the struggle for self-government in British North
America was simply a local manifestation of a world-wide movement
which found more notable expression in other lands. After a
troubled dawn, democracy was coming to its own.
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