RECONCEPTUALIZING EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATION: RESEARCH,
THEORY AND PRACTICE
14TH CONFERENCE: Rotorua, New Zealand, Nov. 30th – Dec 4th, 2006.
Helen May
University of Otago
Faculty of Education
Richardson Building
Dunedin
New Zealand
[email protected]
Baljit Kaur
University of Canterbury
School of Education
Private bag 4800
Christchurch
New Zealand
[email protected]
Larry Prochner
University of Alberta
Faculty of Education
551 Education South
Edmonton, AB
Canada T6G 2G5
[email protected]
Nineteenth century missionary infant schools in three colonial settings:
The experience in India, New Zealand, and Canada
Abstract
This session presents three small case studies of missionary infant schools in India,
New Zealand, and Canada. The aim is to reconceptualize the history of childhood and
education in colonial settings. The resulting critical history of early childhood
education has the potential to help us question current thinking in the field, not only
about pedagogy, but also concerning imperialism and issues of power.
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Introduction
Economic and missionary interests were essential forerunners to British colonial
expansion across the globe during the nineteenth century. The politics of religion,
economics, and governance were much entwined. The consequences of these
endeavours still impact on the indigenous peoples whose countries were colonised,
almost two centuries later. This session presents three case studies concerning
colonies distant and different to each other: India, New Zealand, and Canada. In the
context of missionary endeavours of the early nineteenth century there were
considerable similarities in the religious and education blueprint for ‘saving the
heathen,’ often with a focus on ‘civilising the young savage.’
The consequences of missionary, and later colonial, endeavour for each colony were
different. In Canada and New Zealand indigenous and semi-nomadic ‘native’ peoples
soon became minority cultures as the immigration of European settlers became part of
the colonial intent. In India, where economic and strategic interests were to the fore,
the impact was different in scope and kind. India had a long, and by some counts, rich
traditions of literacy for centuries prior to the British arrival as well a highly stratified
social order, multiple languages and entrenched religious belief systems.
The three case studies illustrate a relatively undocumented aspect of missionary work
concerning the adaptation of new European ideas of schooling very young children in
so-called infant schools. The comparative focus on the shared aspects of their colonial
experience is illuminating of both the shared pervasiveness of missionary endeavour
and the diversity of contexts to which those ideals were applied. The presentation
includes illustrated case studies of missionary infant schools in the North Island of
New Zealand, Upper Canada and in British India, all established in parallel during the
first half of the nineteenth century. i The characteristic of all infant schools, whether in
amongst the poor in Britain or the heathen in its colonies, was to create an ordered
environment apart from the perceived disorder of the child’s home, and the focus was
to produce an educable and orderly child. Each case study, set mainly during the
1830s-40s, will provide a different facet of the missionary quest to save children from
their heathen ways through schooling.
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‘Taming’ the precocious Maori child: a case study in New Zealand
Helen May
Being literate – being civilised
The 19th century British settlement of New Zealand coincided with the move towards
public schooling in Western countries that, in Britain, included two year olds in infant
schools.ii At the inaugural meeting of the British Infant School Society, in 1824, it
was stated that ‘Infant schools should give children of the poor, principles of virtue’
and save them growing up into the perpetrators of ‘the most atrocious and injurious
crimes’.iii The characteristic of infant schools was to create well-ordered environment
apart from the perceived disorder of the child’s home, and the focus was to produce
an educable and orderly child.
From 1814, twenty-six years prior to the arrival of the colonial settlers in New
Zealand, missionaries transported and adapted new educational ideas and techniques,
as a vanguard tool towards creating a ‘civilised’ Christian Maori society.iv
Missionary, William Brown, observed that, ‘if one native in the tribe can read and
write, he will not be long in teaching the others. The desire to obtain this information
engrosses their whole thoughts and they will continue for days with their slates in
their hands.v Maori scholar Kuni Jenkins suggests that, ‘[The Maori] believed that the
missionaries were actually in touch with God, were really able to talk to God through
the power of the printed word…Thus Maori society was persuaded to believe in the
necessity of print literacy.’vi These early educational successes underpinned an
assimilation policy unique to the New Zealand colonial experience that envisaged
Maori would become brown pakeha (Europeans).
The move by early missionaries in New Zealand to introduce the teaching approaches
of the experimental British infant schools, was a response to the precocious
intellectual potential they observed in young Maori children, along with deep
concerns for their moral welfare. Descriptions of the Maori young children and those
British young street children contained similar rhetoric. An infant school education,
whether it was to remove young children from the British gutters, or their Maori
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‘kainga’s’, would save them from their uncivilised and disorderly worlds. David
Goyder, the master of the first British infant school in Bristol described their:
...wandering about the streets, lanes and avenues of our populous cities and
towns, disgusting the beholder with their pallid, filthy appearance
...exhibiting their progressive advancement in vice misery and ruin.vii
Concurrently in 1835, Missionary William Yates was telling an English audience
that:
In New Zealand, as in every other country, a spoiled child is a great plague; but
if the pest was in any one place more severely felt than in another, it was here.
Brought up in evil, and without restraint of law in their youth, it could be no
great wonder if, as men, they indulged in every vice…viii
Despite similar rationales for ‘taming and saving’ either ‘native’ or ‘gutter’ children,
there were significant cultural differences. Maori children were much integrated into
the adult world but relatively free from stern parental discipline. This was a matter of
style rather than neglect and even the missionaries noted that Maori childrearing was
caring and loving.ix This appeared as indulgence compared to European beliefs
concerning ‘spare the rod and spoil the child.’ Missionaries wanted to curb the
perceived laxness in Maori parents and waywardness of their children. On the other
hand they learnt that any attempt to use the force, commonly applied in European
schools, would result in the children leaving, a drop in baptisms and sometimes a
frightening reaction from Maori families. This possibly explains the interest by some
missionaries in infant school methods that professed an ideal of kindly and playful
approach to lessons and activities.
‘The best soil for cultivation’
The first infant school was reported at Paihia, in 1832.x Captain W. Jacobs, a visitor in
1833, observed that a lot of the women at the girls school had babies on their back. He
described the next stage for these babies:
The Infant School contains 26 little children. I found 18 of them assembled
some of whom were European, who from the smallness of their numbers are
associated with the native infants in this interesting little school. The assiduous
superintendence of the female members of the Mission appears evident, in the
manner in which these little creatures go through their exercises; and there
cannot be any doubt that the moral culture which the system engenders, no less
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than the mental improvement of the scholars, will make it a blessing to the
Mission. xi
The arrival of the Rev. Joseph Matthews at the Waimate mission in 1832, was
significant. Various reports note his knowledge of the Infant School System. A
retrospective memoir described how:
… he had the gift of teaching, and applied the up-to-date methods to his
undertaking. Grasping the point that learning could be made pleasant to
scholars, he invented learning games…with short stories to impress the main
features of the lessons on their minds, thus gaining their whole-hearted interest,
and he experienced no difficulty in keeping up attendance. xii
Matthews’ journal, June 28, 1832, backgrounds his motivation:
All the flower of the country are away at the fight. I am thinking of devoting
my time and talents to the infant race…I feel deeply impressed with the
subject. Many discouragements present themselves: the children are under no
control at home….There is a sufficient number of infants in the settlement to
begin with. They must have a single garment on at School….In surprise on
the first day, including European and Native, they amounted to 24. Many will
be induced to bring their children, when they know they have a place for them.
The vestry at the chapel has a fire-place and I have made my forms, and put
them in order after the English plan; and intend, with God’s assistance, to go
on in the same way…It must be understood that hitherto the infants have been
of necessity neglected. If they have been in the settlement, still their time has
been spent in idleness, whereas this ground is the best soil for cultivation.xiii
Matthews had adapted his layout from Samuel Wilderpin’s plans.xiv The programme
and the lessons were similarly intended to be pleasing to the children. Moreover, boys
and girls always, and Maori and European sometimes, were being educated together.
Matthews perceptive observation of a Maori father and his young son is insightful
into the contrast adult-child relationships her perceived:
I was very happy in teaching the Infant School which I had organised; and from
what I have observed, I should conclude that were the Infant System to obtain a
good footing in the villages of the Natives, it would soon change the moral face
of nature in New Zealand. No English children ever enjoyed the system more
than those Native children to whom I taught it…The custom of the Chiefs is, to
make known every thing of importance to the child. I have noticed the principal
Chief of Kaitaia talking to his little boy as though the child was able to give him
advice. The father would steadfastly look his son in the face, while describing
the scene which took place. And his son would as earnestly behold his the
father, and show, by strict attention, that every word was digested.xv
5
Matthews was caught between an admiration for the intellectual potential of young
Maori children and the belief that Maori life was uncivilised. He was getting an
inkling why Maori children were such precocious learners, and wondering how this
aptitude could be utilised by the missionary teachers.
Political ‘uproar’
The early schooling of younger children sits within a broader political context
whether it be linked to Christian indoctrination, Europeanisation, or as tool on the first
rung of the ladder towards the shaping the ideal adult of the times. That missionary
education was a forerunner to the broader politics of British colonialism is evident in
these infant school fragments. The death of a child at the Waimate mission in 1840,
reveals tensions around the recently signed Treaty of Waitangi between the British
Crown and Maori Chiefs due to the arrival of land seeking settlers. The child’s death
caused ‘an uproar’ from the chief Hone Heke who later, in 1844-5, four times cut
down the government’s flagpole at Waitangi: an event still enacted in Maori protest
today.xvi
(June 11) The natives are in a disturbed state in consequence of an infant school
girl who died on Lord’s Day morning at Mr [George] Clarke’s [house]. A few
days previous some disagreement having taken place amongst themselves, she
ran away. Mr Clarke sent a man to bring her back and the natives attributed her
death to the violence used by the man in effecting his object; but the child
doubtless died from a severe cold, which she took in consequence of it being a
very wet day when she left the Clarke’s house.
(June 19) A party from Kaikohi arrived led by John [Hone] Heke. They made
some very hard speeches against us…much forbearance was necessary…They
had begun to suspect that we were in league with the government to take their
country. This idea they countless got from the Europeans [colonial settlers now
arriving]. They ordered all our working people to leave us. Should they do so it
will involve us in difficulties.xvii
We gain little insight into the reasons why the child ran away, or the issue of her
subsequent mistreatment and/or illness, or whether her whanau [family] were indeed
‘happy’. However, the wider Treaty politics, of land ownership and sovereignty, are
evident. By 1840, more than 14,000 acres of land in the vicinity of Waimate had been
purchased, much of it by the missionaries themselves.
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‘Weaned from their kaingas’
Waimate Mission was the show-piece of the ‘arts of civilised life’. One of the
residents was teacher William Bambridge, who had arrived in 1842. Some diary
excerpts mention the infant school.xviii
(September 18, 1843) Opening of the Infant School
This has been a cheerful day indeed. I am not quite certain but I think [it was
due to] the Bishop [Selwyn’s] circular of notice concerning the infant school to
nearly all the natives who came to church. The consequence was that children
were brought to the number of 57 whom the Bishop arranged in the church and
then told to follow him in a single file to the building which he has latterly fitted
up for the purpose. After I had registered the adult natives in the church I went
to the infant school and entered the names.
The parents required very minute explanations as to the treatment which the
child would receive and very closely inspected the dormitories [in the
classroom] which his lordship had had nicely arranged including the gallery.
The parents having been satisfied the children were left at one o’clock and were
in a short time in full exercise upon the English alphabet, clapping hands and
varied other amusements….
This infant school venture, with children boarded apart from their parents, is likely to
be linked to a broader quest, to establish a network of Maori boarding schools.
Bambridge continues:
(November 13, 1843) I have been much pleased with the infant school today. In
their singing I tried two girls alone with ‘God Save the King’ and they did it
beautifully. The rest joined in the chorus and clapped their companions who
succeeded well. I think the children who are remaining at this school will
continue. Today they seemed to be almost weaned from their kaingas…
(May 27, 1844) There was an encouraging increase in the number of children at
the infant school [at Waimate] this morning. The more I see of New Zealand
youths themselves I am convinced they are capable of being taught anything…
‘An alphabet on her coffin’
The content of early schooling and its links (or otherwise) to the world of everyday
living has always been debated. In 1845 Christopher Davies writes:
The children [at Otumoetai infant school] have mastered the great difficulty of
pronunciation of the English alphabet, and have learned several sentences. The
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average attendance during the past six months has been 41. I am sorry to say
that I receive very little encouragement from the parents of the children; for
they frequently allow them to accompany them on fishing excursions or when
they take a journey.xix
Going fishing, for an Englishman, was possibly a leisure activity. For Maori, fishing
was an economic endeavour in which they would want their children schooled.
Being schooled had other costs to Maori society. In 1846, Davies’ description of the
children’s newly found literacy is both poignant and insightful.
I am sure you will be grateful to learn that our school at Otumoetai is going on
steadily. I muster 91 children and on average 70 daily. The majority of them
have got over the difficulties of the alphabet and have learned a great many
Pakeha words. Their eagerness to learn surpasses anything I witnessed amongst
Europeans. Whenever you go on the beach the alphabet meets your eye,
whether on the sands or on the sides of houses…one little girl died of
consumption. When her body was brought to be buried here, some of the
children had printed the alphabet on her coffin. Poor child never learnt it.xx
The child was just one of many deaths amongst the Maori population as missionaries
and traders moved around.
In summary, this case study provides an insight, through missionary eyes and minds,
of a period when young Maori children at school, albeit ‘wild’ and ‘indulged’, were
also seen as precocious and avid learners, quicker than their European counterparts.
Later appraisals constructed the young Maori child at school as a problem, and
disadvantaged by comparison to European children. How and why this transformation
occurred has not been considered in this paper. The intention was to chronicle an
aspect of early education, previously absent from our understandings of education
history, and to make more explicit the connections between mission schooling for
Maori, early education, Europeanisation and colonisation.
8
Gathering the destitute child: a case study in British India
Baljit Kaur
The beginning of early childhood education in India dates back to 1830. It started in
the form of infant schools for very young children, as was the case in Europe as well
as other British colonies. In India, however, this beginning had been completely lost
to the extent that official documents, policy reports on education as well as reference
books and text books for prospective teachers have unanimously and repeatedly
claimed that the start of early childhood education lies at the turn of the twentieth
century. Further, this effort is believed to be meagre and sporadic at that time and
through the first half of the twentieth century. Thus, at the time of India’s
independence in 1947, the area of early childhood education is seen as virtually nonexistent. This late start coupled with limited efforts, then, has been taken to be one of
the main reasons for the slow uptake and low priority of education of young children
(variously called preschool, pre-primary or early childhood education) in independent
India.
This narrative of history of early childhood education in India, widely read and
uniformly accepted, means that the field is seen to be barely half a century old. The
consequences include a misreading of the role of the 20th century initiatives in the
spread of education for very young children and attribution of undue blame or credit
in several quarters. Equally significantly, it stops researchers and policy makers from
looking for better explanations for the present conditions. Since the past has been
assumed to be non-existent, there are no messages to take from it.
However, historical research supported with archival evidence tells a different story
of the emergence of early childhood education in India; that the Indian scene was not
very different from other colonies, and that it echoes similar developments within
England itself. It tells a story of attempts at moral and spiritual redemption of the
natives, particularly native Christians through education of the very young by the
missionaries. It tells a story of arguments and counter arguments as to the purpose of
educating very young children of the poor in the colonies. It tells a story of the defeats
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and the victories of different viewpoints of missionaries and public servants, and a
story of strife and appeasement within their respective ranks and across them. The
advent of infant schools for very young was not a smooth sailing into untroubled
waters in the 19th century nor was it as wide spread as the mass literacy movement of
the 20th century. That is as true of India as it is of the Western world. However, for all
that, it marks a significant point in the ever-present struggle of how human adults
define and treat their young.
I find the parallels across colonies fascinating even though the specifics take varied
forms in different contexts. My purpose in this case study is to share some of these
intriguing details as these in part hammered into shape the face of earliest attempts at
educating young Indian children in 1830s and 1840s.
Setting the scene: British India in the early 19th century
Britain’s East India Company, having arrived on Indian shores in 1600, had long
established its supremacy over its counterparts, such as the French, and the Portugese,
maintaining its trading monopoly by the early19th century. The Company saw the
british missionaries as a threat to their economic interests and opposed their entry into
territories under their control till the Charter of 1813, when British missionaries were
allowed to operate in the Company’s territories, and education of the natives became
its concern. It would be another twenty years before the Company will become the
political agent of the Crown.
In 1813, a stately sum of one Lac Rupees was sanctioned for education but not until
1823 did the General Committee of Public Instruction get constituted that took charge
of matters educational. The object of the General Committee was to be the
“considering, and from time to time submitting to the government the suggestion of
such measures, as it may appear expedient to adopt, with a view to better instruction
of the people; to the introduction of useful knowledge, including the sciences and arts
of Europe; and to the improvement of their moral character”.xxi Infant education per
se did not figure in the Committee’s brief but in the years to come, it was to play a
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significant role in the delayed establishment of an Infant School at Hoogly, first of its
kind in India sanctioned and supported not by the Church but by the Crown.
The period of 1820s and 1830s was one of heightened activity with new players and
new responsibilities on the British Indian scene. Missionaries could operate more
freely. Some schools and colleges were established increasing the awareness and
demand for Western education. Change in the language of the courts from Persian to
English brought the medium of instruction controversy to the boil, finally being
resolved in favour of English; thus further fuelling the need and necessity of
educating the sons, and sometimes daughters, in English ways among certain quarters
of Indians, particularly the higher castes and landed gentry of Bengal.
In Britain acrimonious public debates continued between those who advocated
religious education in schools versus those who stood for liberal, secular education.
However, in India, given the predominance of other religions, mainly Hinduism and
Islam each with its own school systems, this debate took the form of Christian, rather
than religious, education versus liberal education. The government officials were
often at pains to be seen as secular and liberal in their educational endeavours. Many
overtly and covertly criticized the place of religious instruction in education, often
pitching missionaries and public functionaries against each other. In the context of
these larger controversies infant education in India faced particular challenges, given
its close, albeit not unproblematic, ties with Church and religious instruction in
Britain. The missionaries took the lead in establishing infant schools, beginning in
1830. The public officials would debate the relevance of this institution for the Indian
masses for almost a decade before sanctioning an infant school outside the
jurisdiction of the Church.
The education of the mind and the control of the disposition
Bishop Turner, the newly arrived fourth Bishop of the See of Calcutta, opened the
first infant school sometime between June and August of 1830 in Calcutta in Bow
Bazar.
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The Lord Bishop of the diocese has established a native infant school, which
promises interesting results. From the last number of Christian Intelligencer, we
learnt that it is flourishing as well as can be expected, considering the novelty of
the thing in this quarter of the world. The children, we have heard, are those of
the poorer classes, whom their parents have scarcely the means of subsisting,
much less of educating, “There are about forty-eight children in daily
attendance, from two years old to eight, and the neat and clean appearance of
the youthful group, as well as their progress, do great credit to those in
superintendence of the establishment. The children are brought to the school
about nine o’clock in the morning, and remain until five in the afternoon; they
get a good dinner of curry and rice at one o’clock P.M.xxii
The infant school was meant for children of the poor, those who had already accepted
Christianity as well as those who were sympathetic to the idea. The lure of a square
meal a day for the child might have been inducement enough for some. In the poverty
stricken and class ridden society of Bengal of that time, the popularity of the
missionaries amongst the dispossessed would have had as much to do with the
novelty of their relatively welcoming approach as to any perceived superiority of their
professed faith. In other words, for some people at least it would have been prudent to
take advantage of the new life opportunities that the missionaries had on offer with or
without their infant school.
This infant school, however, did not last long. Bishop Turner was responsible for an
impossibly large territory within India as well as today’s Sri Lanka (called Ceylon
then) that he undertook to visit starting in September 1830. By the time he returned to
Calcutta in May 1831, he was a very sick man and passed away in July 1831.
Although understandably the infant school would not have been a top priority for the
Church under these circumstances, it seems to have continued to function in 1831 and
1832. Several commentaries about Bishop Turner’s contributions in 1831-32 make
reference to this ‘unique institution’, ‘one of its kind in this part of the world’ and
express hope that it will continue to flourish as well as inspire others to emulate its
credible example. While the actual reports about the infant school itself are scanty, the
question of infant education was subject to frequent discussions in the local press.
Calcutta Christian Observer in 1833 commented that,
“The John Bull has of late been ably advocating the cause of Infant School; and
the editor promises to favour the public with still further information on the
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subject…. One grand obstacle to the general and immediate success of any such
scheme as that of Infant Schools, in this land, will be found in the hitherto
almost unconquerable domestic prejudices of the Natives. Much however may
be done among the Christian population.”xxiii
The missionaries regarded the heathen natives with much disdain for what were seen
to be their ignorant, evil and ignoble ways of life and religion. Such populace that did
not see the shining light of Christianity, could not be expected to be enlightened
enough to embrace the new way of educating its children. However, they were
hopeful for those who had converted to Christianity. The Calcutta Infant School
Society, the first Infant school society in India, established in 1833 reflected this
view. It was a high profile committee with the Governor General as its Patron and the
Bishop of Calcutta as its President. A committee of gentlemen, comprising of clergy
and laymen, was formed with the proviso that at an unspecified later date the
workings will be taken over by a Lady patroness and a committee of ladies.
The resolutions passed at the committee were similar to those of the Infant School
Society established in 1824 in Britain.
The special object for which this Society has been formed is to establish, in
some central part of the metropolis, an infant school which may exemplify the
principles now explained; and which, while it dispenses its benefits to the
adjoining population, may also serve as a model of imitation with respect to its
mechanism, and as a seminary for training and qualifying masters and
mistresses to form and superintend similar institutions.xxiv
The Calcutta Infant School Society likewise aimed to start one infant school in central
Calcutta, with the hope that others will eventuate by imitation. It was resolved that,
…the object of the Society be two fold.
1. To bring up children, from the age of two to seven yours, in habits of order
and obedience, connected, so far as may be possible at so tender an age,
with moral and religious instruction.
2. To extend the plan as far as possible by gratuitously instructing in the
Central School, Masters and Mistresses for other schools in Calcutta, and
in Outer Stations.xxv
The central school was to be staffed by a trained master to be specially brought in
from England who was to undertake to train masters and mistresses locally while
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teaching the infants of the professed Christians in the first instance. The committee
by the end of its meeting had raised Rupees 2,000 in donations for the establishment
of the infant school.
Mr. and Mrs. Perkins, trained master and mistress that the Society engaged, duly
arrived from England in 1833 to undertake the tasks set up for them. The school itself
however could function only for a few months. The difficulties of instructing infants
without knowing their language drove the Society to temporarily close the school,
while Mr. Perkins tried to find a solution to the problem. The infant school on its reopening was restricted to the Christian children only, and an adapted system for infant
instruction suited for Indian conditions was implemented. The changes seemingly
bore fruit and for the next decade or so, there are glowing reports on the public
examinations of infants that ‘delighted and surprised’ the adults.
The children, most of whom were the merest infants, between two and five
years of age, presented the strongest evidence of the success which had
attended the exertions of the master and mistress. They were cheerful,
animated, intelligent, and as a soldier would say, ‘in the highest state of
discipline’…. We will undertake to say, that at least half the assembly left the
Town Hall in perfect astonishment, that the education of the mind and control
of the disposition might be safely and advantageously commenced at so early
a period of life.xxvi
The main feature of the Indian adaptation was related to the medium of instruction.
Thenceforth, the infant schools had to employ a Bengali ‘teacher aide’ to assist the
communication between the children and the English master. The specific details for
the day to day functioning of this apparently collaborative approach to infant
instruction seem to have been lost to history. During mid to late 1830s at least four
mission stations at various times and for variable durations had infant schools running
on the same lines as the Calcutta infant school and under the general guidance of its
master, Mr. Perkins.
The infant schools run by the missionaries catered largely to the children of newly
converted native Christians. The conversions of high caste Hindus to Christianity,
when these occurred, received wide publicity in India as well as in England. Most of
the converts, however, were from lower castes. Women and men who actually did
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stand to gain freedom from the highly discriminatory and often abusive social and
religious practices.
The 1830s were also witness to another kind of infant school. This one, started in
1839 after more than three years of arguments and counter arguments between the
General Committee officials, was neither directly related to the infant school society
nor to the Church. Most of the children who attended this infant school at Hoogly
(also in Bengal presidency) were high caste Hindus, with very few Muslims and
Christians. The instruction, however, could not have been much different from the
Calcutta infant school, since Mr. Gomes, the master at Hoogly, was trained by and
had worked with Mr. Perkins in the ‘Indian infant system’. The school functioned
successfully through 1840s.
To sum up, the period between 1830 and 1850 marked a significant milestone in the
emergence of infant schools in British India, which continued to echo various
developments in England throughout the rest of the 19th century.xxvii Given that the
history of early childhood education in India is as long as anywhere else in the world,
the current question of its poor status and spread have to be looked for not in its short
history but elsewhere. After seven decades of independence, India now has one of the
most extensive preschool education systems in the world. However, the curriculum
and pedagogy of what constitutes education for the young is as controversial now as it
was a century and a half ago, albeit with different focal points. The religious
education, specifically Christian education, is not a point of contention anymore.
However, the goals and objectives of nationally funded and internationally supported
preschool education still pertain to ‘childhood rescue’ of the poor.xxviii The poor do not
know how to bring up their children and somehow the State is going to make up for
that deficit. In that respect, hardly anything has changed.
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Constraining the wild Indian child: A case study in Upper Canada
Larry Prochner
Nineteenth century Protestant assimilation strategies for First Nations people in
Canada included their immersion in English customs and language. First Nations and
American Methodist missionaries constructed segregated Christian villages on a
European model with schools, churches and permanent houses in several locations in
Upper Canada starting in the 1820s, at Grape Island, Credit River, and Rice Lake.
These missions included infant school classes as a pre-primary level based on the
ideas of Pestalozzi and Wilderspin, and provided instruction in English and First
Nations languages. The mission communities aimed to develop a new generation of
leaders who would encourage more and more converts to the Christian faith and
European way of life.xxix This is a brief case study of an infant school for young
Mississauga children at the Grape Island Mission that operated from 1826 to 1836.
Land surrenders and missionaries
In the three decades following the War of the American Revolution there was a
dramatic increase in settlers in the region around the St. Lawrence River in Upper
Canada, and First Nations people were pressured by the colonial government to forfeit
land to make room. As one example, the Mississauga (Ojibwa) First Nations lost 3
million acres in a series of “land surrenders” to the Crown over a period of fifty
years.xxx In 1805 the Crown purchased 250,000 acres from the Mississauga at Credit
River for one pence per acre or the equivalent amount in gifts.xxxi The Crown’s
strategy was then to resell the land to settlers at a profit: in the words of historian Alan
Taylor, “building state power from a web of private-properties.”xxxii In the face of
these developments some Mississauga chose to convert to Christianity, motivated by
a combination of spiritual as well as pragmatic reasons, for example, the promise of a
school and education for their children.
The region around the Bay of Quinte was a site of intense mission activity led by
Americans Methodist such as Rev. William Case, who worked along with First
Nations preachers, most notably the Rev. Peter Jones. The missionary strategy
followed an established scheme, starting with an American-style camp meeting that
16
could last for several days in which preachers like Jones sermonized in Ojibwa, and
converts prayed and sang. This was followed by organizing new converts within a
church and locating them in a settlement resembling a European-style village. In this
way, believers were isolated from unbelievers and provided with a full cultural
immersion. The final stage was to train local leaders in the mission schools.
Grape Island
The Grape Island Mission followed this pattern. In 1826, the Methodists leased Grape
Island and several others nearby from the Mississauga for 999 years for 5 shillings for
their agricultural settlement.xxxiii The first residents, numbering about 150, lived in
tents the first winter. In the spring they built log houses and a number of public
buildings–a chapel, a schoolhouse with a separate room for the infant school, a
hospital, general store, blacksmith’s shop, and mechanics shop.xxxiv At its peak, the
ten-acre island had a population of 300 living in 33 log residences. The infant school
enrolled about 50 children in a building measuring 30 feet long by 25 feet wide.
Village life followed a strict disciplinary code. Time was marked out by the sound of
a cow horn blown by missionary William Case starting at 4:00, and again for
breakfast at 6:30, dinner at 12:30, supper at 17:00, and bedtime at 21:00. Nuclear
families lived in individual cottages, with the man placed in position as head of the
household. Missionaries inspected the residences, recording details such as a
misplaced kettle, an unmade bed, or a few leaves on the floor brought in by the wind.
Infant schools were an element of this controlled world. Children were separated from
adults in the community, and placed under scrutiny of the mission teachers. They
were further classed in groups by age within the school, with the youngest at the
bottom of a gallery and the older ones perched on the highest benches. The children’s
attention was kept on the sparse curriculum: lessons in reading, writing and Bible
study.xxxv There are few other details regarding the infant school program. However, it
could be assumed that it resembled schools established elsewhere in Canada from
1825 to 1860 that followed Samuel Wilderpsin’s plan.
17
A number of teachers, all female, taught at the school over the ten years.xxxvi Three
were Betsey Stockton, Hester Hubbard, and a Miss Skeleton.xxxvii Stockton was a freed
slave from New England and a Presbyterian missionary.xxxviii She had been part of a
mission to the Sandwich Islands (Hawaii) where she formed and led a school for
missionary and Hawaiian children on Maui in 1823, reputed to be the first Europeanstyle school on the Islands. In 1826 she returned to the United States, teaching first at
an infant school in Philadelphia in 1827, and then briefly at the Grape Island mission.
It may be that she learned about the mission by attending a lecture by Rev. Case. Case
made a number of trips to the US to solicit volunteers and raise funds. He was often
accompanied by First Nations preachers. It was while on tour in 1828 that he attracted
Hester Hubbard and her friend Eliza Barnes to the cause. Both Hubbard and Barnes
taught at Grape Island, and Barnes also worked for a time at the Rice Lake Mission
teaching domestic arts. Case married Hubbard, and Miss Skeleton took over teaching
from her upon their marriage, introducing a Pestalozzian approach.
Ultimately, the mission on Grape Island failed, partly as a result of its unsuitability for
agriculture: firewood, cattle, and crops were situated on three separate islands, while
the converts lived on a fourth. The Methodists abandoned Grape Island in 1836, and
under Cases’s direction the Mississauga were resettled in a new community near Rice
Lake called Alderville in 1837, where their descendants continue to reside. A
boarding school for girls was established the next year.xxxix As on Grape Island, Case
fashioned Alderville as a European-style community. Residents were offered larger
farms, and there was a day school as well as a boarding school. The schools were
eventually combined to become the Alderville Manual Labour School, generally
regarded as Canada’s first residential school for First Nations children.xl As described
in a report of the British Wesleyan Missionary Society that administered the school,
children could thus be separated from their families “until they are made emphatically
new creatures.”xli
With the focus on industrial training in residential schools, infant schools for First
Nations children disappeared even though young children remained in attendance.
However, the merits of the infant schools as a specialized program for children below
the age of six or seven continued to be promoted. In his report to the government of
18
New Brunswick in 1842, Moses Henry Perley recommended the start-up of infant
schools on Indian reserves.
The first step towards the real improvement of the Indians is to gain them over
from a wandering to a settled life, and to form them into compact settlements
having agricultural schools for youth and infant schools for the very young… If
attended with a reasonable degree of success, it may not be too much to
anticipate that [Infant Schools] would lead to the perfect civilization of the
rising generation of Indians.xlii
Perley further recommended that First Nations and settler children should be educated
together in English, believing that First Nations children would benefit from
proximity to white children as a quick means of assimilating “the habits, thoughts and
feelings of the other inhabitants of the Province.xliii He acknowledged that First
Nations’ parents may be reluctant to send their young children, and proposed that
benefits (annual payment for lands) received by parents be contingent on their child’s
attendance. However, he believed that parents, “upon finding themselves relieved
from the trouble of looking after them for a considerable portion of each day, would
insist upon the attendance of the children as a relief to themselves.”xliv His conclusions
foretold the future of residential schools for First Nations children and the punitive
measures used to ensure their attendance.
19
i
Kaur, B. (2004) ‘Keeping the infants of coolies out of harms way: Raj, Church and infant education in
India, 1830-51, Contemporary Issues in Early Education, Vol. 5. No. 2, pp. 221-235; May, H. (2004)
School beginnings: Case study two: Dreams and realities for the youngest colonial settlers, 1840s50s. Research and Policy Series No. 3, Institute for Early Childhood Studies, Victoria University of
Wellington; May, H. (2003) School beginnings: A history of early years schooling. Case study one:
Missionary infant schools for Maori children, 1830s-40s, Research and Policy Series No. 3, Institute
for Early Childhood Studies, Victoria University of Wellington; Prochner, L. (2000) A history of
colonial infant schools in Canada, Australia and New Zealand, 1825-1860. Paper presented at the
European Early Childhood Education Research Association Conference, London; Prochner, L.
(2004) Early childhood education programs for indigenous children in Canada, Australia and New
Zealand. An historical overview, Australian journal of early childhood, Vol. 29. No. 4, pp.7-16.
ii
Rusk, Robert R. (1933) A history of infant schools, London, University of London.
iii
McCann, P. and Young, F. (1982) Samuel Wilderspin and the infant school movement, London,
Croom and Helm, p. 23.
iv
Barrington, J. M. and Beaglehole, T. H. (1974) Maori schools in a changing society, Wellington,
NZCER; Jenkins, Kuni (1991) Te ihi, te mana, te wehi o te ao tuhi. Maori print literacy from 18141855. Literacy, power and colonisation, unpublished MA thesis, University of Auckland; Simon, J.
(ed) Nga Kura Maori. The Native School system 1867-1969, University of Auckland Press; Simon,
J. and Tuhiwai Smith, L (eds) (2001) Civilising Maori? Perceptions and representations of the
Native School system, Auckland of University Press.
v
Brown, W. (1845) New Zealand and its Aborigines, London, Smith Elder and Co.
vi
Jenkins, 1991, p. 34.
vii
Cited in Clarke, Karen, (1985) Public and private children: infant education in the 1820s and 1830s,
(eds) C. Steedman, C. Urwin, V. Walkerdine, Language, Gender and Childhood, London,
Routledge and Kegan Paul.
viii
Ibid, p. 241.
ix
Salmond, Anne (1997) Between worlds. Early exchanges between Maori and Europeans 1773-1815,
Auckland, Penguin.
x
MR, 1833, p. 469.
xi
MR, 1834, p. 61.
xii
Matthews, S. C, and .L. J. (1940) Matthews of Kaitaia, New Zealand, A. H. and A. W. Reed, pp. 1112.
xiii
MR, 1833, pp. 243-4.
xiv
Wilderspin, Samuel (1929) Infant education, London, James Hodson.
xv
MR, 1834, pp. 511-2.
xvi
Moon, Paul, (2001) Hone Heke, Nga Puhi Warrior, Auckland, David Ling Publishing Limited.
xvii
MR, 1841, p. 516.
xviii
Bambridge, MS-0129-0132. ATL.
xix
MR, 1846, p. 332.
xx
Ibid.
xxi
Calcutta Christian Observer, 1839, p. 101
xxii
Government Gazette, October 11
xxiii
Calcutta Christian Observer, 1833
xxiv
McCann, P. and Young, F. (1982) Samuel Wilderspin and the infant school movement, London,
Croom and Helm, p. 70
xxv
Calcutta Christian Observer, 1833
xxvi
Calcutta Christian Observer, 1835, p. 384
xxvii
Kaur, B. (In Press). Early childhood education in India from 1830s to 1940s: Leapfrogging through
a century. In P. Mohite & L. Prochner (Eds.), Playing Across Borders: Preschools in India. HDFSCAS, Vadodara & Concept Publishing, New Delhi.
xxviii
Baker, B. (1998). “Childhood” in the emergence and spread of U.S. public schools. In T. S.
Popkewitz & M. Brennan (Eds.), Foucault’s challenge: Discourse knowledge and power in education.
Teachers’ College Press, New York.
xxix
John W. Grant, Moon of Wintertime: Missionaries and the Indians of Canada in Encounter since
1534 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1984); James R. Miller, Shingwauk’s Vision: A History of
Native Residential Schools (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1996).
xxx
Ripmeester, Michael, 1995. “It is scarcely to be believed…’: the Mississauga Indians and the Grape
Island Mission, 1826-1836. The Canadian Geographer 39(2), 157-168.
20
xxxi
Alan Taylor, The divided ground: Indians, settlers, and the northern borderland of the American
Revolution (New York: Knopf, 2006), p. 350.
xxxii
Alan Taylor, The divided ground: Indians, settlers, and the northern borderland of the American
Revolution (New York: Knopf, 2006), p. 407.
xxxiii
Frank Eames, “Pioneer schools of Upper Canada, Papers and Records no. 18 (1919), 101. The
excerpt reads: “Grape Island (Mississauga Indian Mission). Grape Island and Huff’s Island (or at this
date of 1826, “Logrim’s”) were leased for a period of 999 years for the sum of five shillings. Fifteen
Indians signed the indenture, which was dated at Belleville, October the 10th, 1826. The above islands
comprised some sixty-one acres, and upon Grape Island, the smaller of the two, a village and [] was
constructed the first winter.”
xxxiv
George Copway, The life, history and travels of Kah-ge-ga-gah-bowh (George Copway) (Albany,
1847).
xxxv
Second Annual Report of the Central Auxiliary Society for Promoting Education and Industry
among the Indians and Destitute settlers of Canada: Submitted to the public meeting held in the
Masonic Hall Hotel, Montreal, April 8, 1829 (Montreal, 1829), 27-28.
xxxvi
Miller, Shingwauk’s vision, p. 76.
xxxvii
Teacher John B. Benham is noted in Frances Halpenney (Ed.), Dictionary of Canadian biography,
vol. VI (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1987), 335; Also teacher William Smith in 1827, noted
in Eames, “Pioneer schools in Upper Canada.”
xxxviii
See Gerald H. Anderson (Ed.), Biographical Dictionary of Christian Missions (New York:
Macmillan Reference, 1998), 643; A. Scott Moreau (ed.), Evangelical Dictionary of World Missions
(Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 2000), p. 909.
xxxix
J.R. Miller, Skyscrapers hide the heavens: A history of Indian-White relations in Canada (3rd ed.)
(Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2000), 134.
xl
Brian E. Titley, “Indian industrial schools in Western Canada,” in Nancy M. Sheehan, J. Donald
Wilson, & David C. Jones (eds.), Schools in the West: Essays in Canadian Education History (Calgary:
Detselig, 1986).
xli
Source unknown. Cited in G.S. French, Rev. William Case, Dictionary of Canadian biography, Vol.
VIII (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1985), 134.
xlii
Moses Henry Perley, Reports on Indian settlements, etc. (Fredericton, 1842), p. 18.
xliii
Ibid. In 1901, the US Superintendent of Indian Schools Estelle Reel would express this idea fifty
years later, but in a more explicitly racist manner: “Association with good white people is the best
civilizing agency that can be devised.” Cited in Margaret L. Archuleta, Brenda J. Child, & K. Tsianina
Lomawaima (Eds.), Away from home: American Indian boarding school experiences (Phoenix: Heard
Museum, 2000), p. 36.
xliv
Ibid.
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