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In the years after the Conquest of 1759-60, the British authorities were exceedingly concerned about the strong French Canadian presence in the colony, and they tried repeatedly to assist in the establishment of schools that were outside the control of religious authorities. These efforts were undermined by the Catholic Church and, more importantly, by the disinterest of local communities, in which education was associated more with households than classrooms

The establishment of school systems across Canada during the 19th century followed a strikingly similar form and chronology due to the complex and often competing ambitions of both official educators and parents

proposals for a public school system

The characteristic conviction of the school promoters was that mass schooling could be an effective instrument for instilling appropriate modes of thought and behaviour into children; in their minds, the purpose of mass schooling did not primarily involve the acquisition of academic knowledge. School systems were designed to solve a wide variety of problems ranging from crime to poverty, and from idleness to vagrancy

leaders in a variety of communities in central British North America took up arms in pursuit of coherent demands for political change

The key element of family reproduction is its orientation toward the future, including considerable anxiety about the direction and pace of social and economic change. This anxiety has involved a fear of downward social mobility both intra- and intergenerationally. Certainly, such fear preoccupied families before the 19th century and explains why land was characteristically seen as the central component of material stability and family cohesion in both New France and British America. And, during the 19th century, land continued to be seen as the most secure foundation for family economies

However, the development of agrarian, merchant and industrial capitalism heightened perceptions of economic insecurity. Everyone became aware that while great fortunes could be made, they could also be lost just as quickly. The obvious insecurity of even well-paying jobs or successful businesses came to loom increasingly large in the minds of parents planning for their children as well as themselves as elders in the context of declining land availability.

One response was to have fewer children and to invest more in their education

Compulsory attendance legislation was passed in the Canadian provinces (except Québec) during the later 19th century but only a minority of parents were not already enrolling their children in class.

Some resistance to schooling did develop, particularly from those reluctant to pay extra taxes

Why many parents believed that schooling would improve the prospects of their children was primarily connected to the value attributed to academic training. Unlike the emphasis of school promoters on character formation, the shaping of values, the inculcation of political and social attitudes, and proper behaviour, many parents supported schooling because they wanted their children to learn to read, write and do arithmetic.

articulation of schooling with the labour market

By the late 20th century, schooling had become part of an institutional network which included hospitals, businesses, prisons and welfare agencies.

growth of formal instruction funded by taxes and supervised by the state. This growth resulted from concern about cultural, moral and political behaviour, from the emergence of a wage-labour economy, from changing concepts of childhood and the family, and from the general reorganization of society into institutions.