Education was a story of Progress and Quests
Room and board cost $2.75 a week, with an additional 25 cents for washing.
IN OVER 100 YEARS, the system of running the city schools has changed very little.
There was a board of education in Confederation year, and the high school and elementary schools were administered by the same public board as they are today.
MANY OF THE same subjects were taught, but not more than 2,500 children were enrolled in the grammar (secondary) schools and the nine common schools. And never more than half of these were in school on any one day.
Today, 74,840 city children attend school fulltime. And they have 127 to choose from, with only seven fee-paying.
Organized education began in Hamilton in the early 1800s.
The poor relied on common schools, which gave their children little more than the three Rs.
Five were opened in Barton Township by 1817 and parents paid about $12 for sending their children to schools described as “immensely ill-adapted, filthy, and degrading that the children blushed as being obliged to enter them.”
In 1821, the pace-setting Gore District School opened to educate some of Ontario’s “best” children — for a fee. One of its first pupils was Egerton Ryerson, the father of today’s educational system.
After 17 years, the Gore School united with a Central School built by the city’s school trustees. This marked the start of a united education system and the demise of the 28 private schools.
When Hamilton reached city status in 1846, it had six common schools.
One was described as good, four middling, and the last inferior. They were in rented quarters with outdoor privies, and the teacher’s duties included cleaning the privies and buying the firewood.
In 1847, Ryerson’s Common School Act came into effect, and a board of trustees was elected. They had about 300 children who came to school regularly, although 1895 city youngsters were aged five to 16.
THE TRUSTEES’ first major task was to plan the new Central School, which opened in 1853 with 200 pupils.
There were about 22 private schools open in 1850, teaching subjects such as penmanship, rhetoric, and natural philosophy.
Today, the city’s private schools have their roots in the 1900s, except one — Loretto Academy opened in 1865, and still flourishing.
Hillfield Boys School stems from an amalgamation of Highfield, founded in 1902, and Hillcrest, founded in 1929. Strathallan Girls School began in 1923, and in 1963 the boys and girls schools united under one governorship.
THE PROVINCE’S first private school for girls opened in Hamilton in a former hotel in 1861 on the site of where the Connaught Hotel is now.
The Wesleyan Female College demanded long hours of its students. They studied from 6 to 7 a.m.; had another five hours in school and a further two hours in evening study.
Room and board cost $2.75 a week, with an additional 25 cents for washing.
The school flourished and had over 2,000 students before it closed in 1896.
The city’s first high school, the Hamilton Collegiate Institute, in its own building opened in 1866, a year before Confederation, at the corner of Main and Caroline. And on July 1, 1867, the Central School children celebrated with a flag-waving parade.
The Technical Institute opened in 1908 next to the new Collegiate Institute on Stinson Street at Victoria Avenue, with courses in electricity, woodworking, mechanical drawing, and household science, day and night.
IT WASN’T until 1914 that education became free. The fee of 10 cents a pupil was eliminated.
Two years later, 16 became the compulsory school-leaving age.
In 1923, Hamilton’s second collegiate was built at the Delta. With two collegiates, the older one changed its name to Hamilton Central Collegiate Institute.
Several years later, the third collegiate was built in Westdale.
In 1929, Mrs. Agnes Sharpe became the first woman trustee elected to the board, and the building of Westdale Secondary School began. The $1,500,000 school was said to be the largest in the British Empire.
The depression hit Hamilton, and brought the deletion of the auditorium from plans for the new Central High School of Commerce.
In 1946, the board found a new home — the remodelled Allenby School. This was the year it also went into FM broadcasting, then released the licence because of costs.
The same year, Central Collegiate burned down.
It was never really replaced, but instead moved into the Technical Institute and became a tripartite academic, commercial, and technical school.
Hill Park was the first secondary school to be built on the Mountain, opening nine years ago.
Since then, the board has been building a new secondary school a year, and now boasts 10 secondary schools, three junior vocational schools, and 76 public schools, with a combined enrolment of over 53,000.
Hamilton has a wide variety of education, from nursery schools, courses for handicapped and very bright children, many high school programs, McMaster University, and the new Mohawk College.
The drop in the birth rate is finally slowing the expansion rate, but growth is continuing in the separate school system.
This had its beginning in 1852 when three Sisters of St. Joseph came to the city to give classes in their convent.
The Ontario Separate Schools Act was passed in 1855 and St. Mary’s parishioners built two schools — St. Patrick’s and St. Mary’s, which both opened in September, 1856.
In 1860, the two-room St. Vincent’s opened and the St. Lawrence School opened four years later.
In 1959, Bishop Ryan High School, a co-educational school, opened.
NOW, THERE are 30 schools in the system with 18,572 pupils and 640 teachers. Last year, the separate school board, with its first woman member, opened a modern education centre on Mulberry Street.
Separate and public school supporters pay the same taxes, although the separate school board spends only one-fifth of the public board’s budget — or just over $5,000,000 a year.
High school education for Catholic boys began in 1912, as 35 seniors enrolled at St. Mary’s School on Main Street in 1928, and was added to in 1951.
The new Cathedral Girls School was opened in 1955. Until that time, the Sisters of St. Joseph had taught the girls at St. Patrick’s school and clubhouse.
In 1959, Bishop Ryan High School, a co-educational school, opened.