Both articles, “Motherhood and Public Schooling in Victorian Toronto” by Christopher Clubine and “The Boys in the Nova Scotia Coal Mines: 1873 and 1923” by Robert McIntosh share the focus on the dependence of child labour and its impact on public schooling. Clubine examines the impact that the compulsory attendance legislation act, enacted in Ontario in 1871, had on Toronto families. Lack of school attendance was due to children having to enter the workforce because of many factors: poor wages, irregular work, illness of their fathers, or to aid in domestic work in the household and/or childcare.[1] To enforce this new legislation, Toronto school board hired truant officer W.C. Wilkinson to go to the households of children with poor attendance and enforce this legislation[2]. While reading this article, the main question that came to mind was why would the Ontario government spend so much money to enforce this legislation when they could be addressing the problems of poor wages and increasing funds for family assistance which would overall increase school attendance?

Similarly, McIntosh addresses the need for young boys to enter the workforce to supplement their family income which explains why they sought jobs in the Nova Scotia coal mines that consequently affected their school attendance.  However, he notes that young boys’ employment in the mines was also accepted for two other reasons besides family financial support. Firstly, it would secure future employment for sons into highly-skilled positions such as coal cutters[3].  Secondly, child labour benefited the overall economy. For example, mine employers could pay a young boy 65 cents a day whereas an adult labourer received 50 percent more than boy’s wage and a cutter received over twice as much.[4] So long as young boys were employed in the mines, adults could receive higher wages.

In the article “The Rhythm of Work and the Rhythm of School”, Ian Davey argues why school enrollment in Ontario was so high but the average school attendance was low even after the introduction of free schooling in 1850.[5] While opponents of the free-school system argued that irregular attendance of children was due to the lack of value the parents placed in education because they didn’t directly pay for it, Davey identifies direct factors that affected irregular attendance such as harsh climates, poverty, and economic insecurity and elaborates on them.[6] Davey elaborates on these factors by presenting evidence from reports in the Annual Report of Normal, Model, Grammar, and Common Schools. These reports are from superintendents of various locations commenting on hardships such as cyclical depressions that would consequently decrease school attendance. Furthermore, times of prosperity resulted in an increase of attendance because parents’ dependence on children for financial and domestic help was no longer needed as much.[7] Davey also supports his article with other primary sources including inspections from the The Second Annual Report of the Inspectors of Public Schools for the City of Ottawa and books such as Thomas Hitchison’s City of Hamilton Directory that were written between 1850 and 1870.[8]

[1] Clubine, Christopher, “Motherhood and Public Schooling in Victorian Toronto,” in Sara Burke and Patrice Milewski (Eds.), Schooling in Transition: Readings in the Canadian History of Education, Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2012: 118

[2] Ibid., 116

[3] McIntosh, Robert, “The Boys in the Nova Scotian Coal Mines: 1873-1923,” in Sara Burke and Patrice Milewski (Eds.), Schooling in Transition: Readings in the Canadian History of Education, Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2012: 129

[4] Ibid., 129

[5]Davey, Ian, “The Rhythm of Work and the Rhythm of School,” In Nancy Janovicek and Joy Parr (Eds.), Histories of Canadian Children and Youth, Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2012: 108

[6]Ibid., 111

[7]Ibid., 112

[8]Ibid., 120