In our readings this week, we focused on children, work, and compulsory schooling, and how the family life, specifically with regards to economics, was impacted as provinces began to mandate school attendance for young people. As Christopher Clubine documents in his article, “Motherhood and Public Schooling in Victorian Toronto,” the public school system in Ontario began to expand during the mid- to late-nineteenth century, an era when families often relied on their children to contribute to the family economy. Clubine writes, “From the mother’s perception, the irregular work and poor wages of the bread-winner necessitated various survival strategies, which would combine the paid and unpaid work of family members, [including children.]” [1] As public education became enforced, the structure of the family tasks evolved in order to accommodate the “rigid time-keeping of the public school,” [2] placing a greater load on the “mother’s ability to budget her time and other scarce resources.” [3] Although the implementation of compulsory schooling reduced the income of many working-class families, mandatory school attendance removed children from working conditions that were oftentimes hazardous. As Robert McIntosh writes in his article, “The Boys in the Nova Scotian Coal Mines: 1873-1923,” “By the mid-[19th] century the task of hauling coal generally fell to 14 to 17 year old boys… and their horses.” [4] McIntosh continues, “Where seams were too narrow to permit the passage of horses (or adults), coal continued to be moved manually by boys on all fours dragging sledges.” [5] Although childhood in the 19th century did not hold the connotation it does presently in the 21st century, that of play and imaginative exploration, and families relied on income from children for survival, it is likely that the tragic accidents that took place in the mines, resulting “in death or disability” [6] of the young workers were alarming. In addition to the loss of the daily contributions of the school-aged child, “the deeply rooted fear of direct taxation” [7] necessary to fund the newly-forming public schools “contributed to the reluctance of much of the rural population to accept schooling as desirable and necessary,” [8] as Robert Lanning discusses in his article, “Awakening a Demand for Schooling: Educational Inspection’s Impact on Rural Nova Scotia, 1855-74.” As demonstrated in these articles, compulsory school provided many children with the opportunity to further their education while evading sometimes harsh working conditions, parents were required to make economic sacrifices in order to accommodate the new legislation, which did not come without opposition.

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

[2] Ibid., 123.

[3] Ibid.

[4] Robert McIntosh, “The Boys in the Nova Scotian Coal Mines: 1873-1923,” in Schooling in Transition: Readings in the Canadian History of Education, ed. Sara Burke and Patrice Milewski (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2012), 128.

[5] Ibid.

[6] Ibid., 129.

[7] Robert Lanning, “Awakening a Demand for Schooling: Educational Inspection’s Impact on Rural Nova Scotia, 1855-74,”Historical Studies in Education 12, nos. 1-2 (Spring-Fall 2000): 133.

[8] Ibid.