The Toronto Normal School - Education is Liberation

A Vestige that Recalls the Beginnings of Black Education

Source : Picture of Toronto Normal School in 2019. Wikimedia Communs. Free license, by Enoch Leung, 2019.


Toronto Normal School, 1867

In 1855 Mary Ann Shadd’s sister, Emmeline Shadd, graduated from the Toronto Normal School (teachers’ college) at the top of her class and obtained a First Class Teaching Certificate.

Source: Toronto Public Library Digital Archive

Text version of the audio

The Normal School first opened in November 1847 and provided improved and standardized training for school teachers in Upper Canada. It moved to this location in 1851 where The Normal School was built, and it housed the classrooms for the student teachers. It was connected to The Model School where the student teachers would practice teaching elementary school students.  

First Class Teaching Certificate

In 1855, Mary Ann Shadd’s sister, Emmeline Shadd, graduated from the Toronto Normal School (or the teachers’ college) at the top of her class and obtained a First Class Teaching Certificate. William Peyton Hubbard, the son of freedom seekers from Virginia, trained as a baker at the Toronto Normal and Model Schools, specializing in pastry. He baked professionally for 16 years. 

The Hubbard Portable commercial baker’s

Out of his experience, Hubbard invented and patented the Hubbard Portable commercial baker’s oven and ran a successful business selling his patented baking oven. 

Education was extremely important to Black Torontonians and Black inhabitants across southwestern Ontario, particularly those who had fled enslavement in the United State. where they had been denied education because of their race. They, as well as Mary Ann Shadd Cary, viewed education as an integral instrument of freedom and liberation. 

Population in the late 1830s

The increase of the Black population in the province in the late 1830s into the 1840s led to the growth of the practice by white school officials and community members of excluding Black children from attending common schools with white children and the establishment of racially segregated schools. Rev. Egerton Ryerson, the Chief Superintendent of Education, felt that the anti-Black sentiment was so strong that there was nothing that he could do about it. Black parents and community members fought persistently against racial discrimination in education and going into the 20th century, segregated schools were closed and more schools became integrated.

Mary Ann Shadd Cary disliked and spoke out against the growing number of segregated schools in Canada West and felt that integrated schooling would benefit society by allowing Black people and white people to be in contact with each other to help break down racial prejudices. During her time teaching in Windsor, she taught students regardless of race, age, and ability to pay. She taught students of all complexions in appearance, both children and adults. 

Provincial Freeman

The Provincial Freeman covered the experiences of Black families in Canada West with racial exclusion in education and their fight for equal access. Mary Ann Shadd Cary also used the Provincial Freeman to encourage Black people to support integrated schools.

Egerton Ryerson, the superintendent of education of the province, wanted to grow and improve the provincial education system. It went through a number of locations before settling at the Gould Street location, opening on November 24th, 1851.

Emmeline Shadd began teaching in Caledon, Ontario in 1860, and became the first teacher at a new integrated school in Shrewsbury on Lake Erie. 

William Peyton Hubbard changed careers becoming a cab driver and operating his own livery stable. He then entered municipal politics. In 1894, Hubbard was elected city alderman, becoming the first Black person to be elected to public office in Toronto; he served for fifteen years.

Mary Ann Shadd Cary

Mary Ann Shadd Cary was a teacher at segregated Black schools in the United States before emigrating to Canada. She viewed education as an integral tool in uplifting the Black community and helping Black people progress in society. 

When she moved to Canada she felt the need to teach where there was the most need for her skills despite being offered a teaching position in Toronto and having the connection with Henry Bibb in Sandwich, so she went to Windsor where there was a relatively large and undereducated Black population. She felt that racial uplift could also be achieved through education by integrating her schools.

Second Common Schools Act

The passage of the second Common Schools Act in 1850 included a provision, the Separate Schools Clause, to allow Black and Catholic communities to establish their own schools. In theory, the law was intended to make it easier for and Black and Roman Catholic families to apply for government funding to open a ‘separate’ school if so desired by the community. 

The law did not intend to make separate schools mandatory. However, the law was used by many white community members and school officials to bar Black children from attending local public schools and forced their Black neighbours to attend separate schools established for their children, which resulted in creating a two-tiered racially segregated school system.

Extrait de
Tracing Mary Ann Shadd Cary's Footsteps in Mid-19th C. Black Toronto

Tracing Mary Ann Shadd Cary's Footsteps in Mid-19th C. Black Toronto image circuit

Présenté par : Dr. Natasha Henry-Dixon, York University
Directions

Téléchargez l'application BaladoDécouverte (pour Android et iOS) et accédez au plus vaste réseau francophone d’expériences de visites guidées en Amérique.