Rural teachers’ salaries a contentious issue in 1906
The following is a re-print of a past column by former Advertiser columnist Stephen Thorning, who passed away on Feb. 23, 2015.
Some text has been updated to reflect changes since the original publication and any images used may not be the same as those that accompanied the original publication.
Is a salary of $500 per year for teachers too high?
That was the question debated in Arthur on a cold winter afternoon more than a century ago. Teachers’ salaries have always been a contentious issue. A segment of the population invariably believes that teachers draw too much money and do not work nearly as hard as most other people in the workforce.
In 1906 and 1907 the Ontario economy was in the midst of a boom. There were inflationary pressures in prices, but most wage earners enjoyed some real gains in their income. Teachers, especially those in rural one-room schools and smaller towns, were an exception.
As a consequence, many men, seeing that the grass was greener beyond the school yard fence, were leaving the profession. Women, almost exclusively young and unmarried, filled the majority of positions. When they married, usually after only a few years as teachers, others took their place.
The consequence was that the typical teacher was young, poorly trained and inexperienced. And the turnover among them was great: they moved on whenever they were able to find a position at a higher salary.
The custom back then was to hire teachers on a calendar-year basis. That meant that each year there was a huge turnover of teachers after Christmas, in the middle of the school year, causing all sorts of disruptions.
James Whitney’s Conservatives took over the provincial government in 1905. The premier tapped Robert A. Pyne, a medical doctor from North Toronto, to be his Minister of Education. He would hold the post until 1918, steering into place a number of measures designed to modernize the province’s educational system.
Early on, Dr. Pyne noted that the quality of teachers, particularly in rural areas, seemed to be inadequate for the responsibilities entrusted to them, and that the best men and women did not stay long in teaching. In 1906 he proposed a minimum salary to make the profession more attractive, to attract and hold a permanent body of good teachers.
When Dr. Pyne introduced the schools bill in the legislature the opposition erupted in a furor. Anger was especially high in rural areas such as north Wellington, and continued strong for more than a year.
Men who taught in rural Ontario earned, on average, about $400 per year, and women in the range of $300. Trustees of the one-room schools in Wellington County were more generous than that. A $300 salary was the minimum here, and figures at some schools ranged over the $400 mark.
But those sums were small compared to what Dr. Pyne proposed: $500 for teachers in one-room schools or those with administrative responsibilities, and $300 minimum for those assisting qualified teachers, to be paid in part by taxes levied at the county level. There was no salary differential between men and women.
Farmers and local trustees stirred opposition to the proposals during 1906. The main arguments were that the costs would bankrupt farmers, and that the provisions of Dr. Pyne’s Public Schools Act eroded local autonomy on salaries and other matters.
The debate continued through the fall and winter with a series of public meetings. At Arthur, Richard Hanna, John McClellan and some of their business associates organized the only one in Wellington. They were delighted when Dr. Pyne himself agreed to come and defend the new legislation, and discuss possible amendments to it.
Residents from all over the county packed Arthur’s town hall on Jan. 10, 1907. Reeve Colwill welcomed the crowd and Dr. Pyne. Then it was on to the speakers, beginning with James Tucker, the MPP for West Wellington, supporting Dr. Pyne.
James McEwing, who was then president of the Ontario Farmers Association, asked to speak next, though he was not a scheduled speaker. He had to leave for another meeting, he claimed, and could not wait for the concluding discussion.
McEwing was vehemently against the legislation, but his arguments were somewhat contradictory: teachers preferred to negotiate their salaries; the minimum salary placed a heavy burden on farmers; the same teachers were in the system after the legislation as before; and a raise of $100 was too small to cause anyone to remain a teacher.
McEwing drew scattered hecklers, who objected to his sudden inclusion in the proceedings, and in the end they shouted him down. W.H. Hoyle, a Conservative MPP, followed, defending the legislation. He claimed that it merely continued a course set by the previous Liberal government, and that a $500 minimum salary was already in effect in other jurisdictions.
Dr. Pyne followed, impressing the crowd with his grace and logic. He stated that his primary focus was on public schools because 90% of the population never attended high school (the age to leave school was then 14). He argued that it was necessary for the school system to change to keep pace with the changes in society and to prepare youngsters for a productive future.
While Dr. Pyne impressed the crowd, the most eloquent defence of the legislation came from Major J.J. Craig, MPP for East Wellington, and the public school inspector for the south of the county. He considered the 1906 Schools Act to be the most important piece of provincial legislation in years. The major skewered James McEwing, pointing out major errors in his statements. The old system of model schools for teacher training was a disaster, he claimed, and the most incompetent of the products of those short courses dominated among the ranks of rural school teachers. The new legislation abolished that method of training, and in its place substituted rigorous courses at normal schools.
Following Major Craig, J.J. Morrison of Peel, the future leader of the United Farmers, rose in defence of James McEwing and against any salary increases for teachers. He claimed that opposition to the legislation was muzzled by the Conservatives, and he hoped that Dr. Pyne would take seriously the grievances of farmers.
The meeting had commenced at 2pm, and carried on for almost five hours before adjourning. But that was not the end of the arguments. A week later, James McEwing wrote to the Arthur Enterprise-News, explaining his early exit, and claiming that opponents of the school bill were not given an adequate hearing.
A week later James McClellan, who had chaired the meeting, answered McEwing. He claimed that McEwing said nothing that had not already been stated dozens of times, and that he disrupted the meeting by distributing pamphlets.
More interesting in that issue of the Arthur paper was a lengthy letter from J.J. Morrison. His objections to the new schools act did not rest only on the salary question, but on a number of other issues as well. Morrison thought it unfair that the minimum salary applied only to rural schools, and he disapproved of the element of compulsion altogether.
He thought it was desirable that the elementary teaching profession be dominated by women, and also thought it a practical necessity, because most rural schools could never afford a salary that would keep a man who was supporting a family. Morrison saw nothing wrong with much lower salaries for women than for men.
While recognizing that rural schools could be much improved, Morrison did not think they were as bad as they were painted by Dr. Pyne, because they had produced so many notable and distinguished men in Ontario. Morrison’s solution was to raise slowly the qualifications required of teachers, and over time, the salary levels would sort themselves out.
The arguments on the rural school question continued well into 1907. In the spring of that year there was another public meeting in Arthur, this one with James McEwing and Major Craig the main speakers in arguing the questions. Nothing new came out of that confrontation. The Whitney government did ease the opposition somewhat with an increase in grants to rural schools, but otherwise the 1906 School Act remained in force.
As Minister of Education, Dr. Pyne brought in many other reforms, such as the inexpensive standard text books that most oldtimers have seen or used. He was also a champion of mechanical, agricultural and household science courses.
Afterwards, Dr. Pyne took pride in his early accomplishments as minister. In April 1909 he addressed the Empire Club in Toronto. In it, he repeated his defence of the teacher as the centre of a functional educational system, repeating much of the sentiment he expressed in Arthur more than two years earlier:
“We have not done a great deal in this province, but I have had the satisfaction of seeing the rural parts of this province very much awake and alive. You remember two years ago when we brought in that bill fixing a minimum salary. The farmer at once got his club out, and you remember how farmers were stirred all over this province. I believe we are reaping the benefit of that policy today, because salaries have increased, and there is some tendency to make the teaching profession permanent, and not a stepping-stone as it was in the past.
“Inspector Maxwell was quite right in that if you once get the people awake and alive they are prepared to help themselves in the great progress that everyone looks forward to. You may have the finest buildings, the finest equipment, but if you have not got a first-class teacher in your school or in your establishment, it all goes for nothing. The teacher is the important lever in education; in fact, it is around him that the whole matter centres, and, if you have not got a thoroughly trained and up-to-date teacher, nothing in the way of buildings or equipment can compensate for that.”
*This column was originally published in the Advertiser on Oct. 20, 2006.