61 

 

CONTINUITIES AND CHANGE: REFORMING THE CURRICULUM AND THE 

WAR’S IMPACT ON ONTARIO’S PROGRESSIVIST RHETORIC, 1937–1942 

 

Theodore Christou 

Queen’s University 

 

Social virtues are not things merely to learn about.  They are to be achieved only by 

practising them.  They are to be accepted willingly as desirable forms of conduct; they cannot 

be developed by coercion.  The school, therefore, must be organized to permit their exercise 

and growth in situations that require their practice.  Hence, opportunities should be provided 

for children to work together in groups, each child sharing in the planning, execution, and 

completion of worth-while tasks.
1
 

 

Abstract 

 This essay considers Ontario as a space of 

reception for progressive education in the period 

immediately following World War I.  It discusses 

the reforms to Ontario's curriculum that were 

heavily inspired by progressivist thinking.  In the 

context, progressive education concerned three 

themes, which reflected a concern for building 

schools that fit the modern, progressive age; these 

concerned a focus on the individual learner, 

promoting active learning, and correlating schools 

with social life.  The curriculum reforms, it is 

argued, attempted to weave consistency and order 

out of three parallel progressivist orientations:  

child study, social efficiency, and social 

meliorism. 

Introduction 

 This paper considers the period between 

1937 and 1942, which entailed broad and 

thorough revisions to Ontario‘s public school 

curricula.  Also, Canada‘s participation in World 

War II and the very significant threat that global 

conflict posed for the maintenance and 

preservation of democracy brought about some 

shifts in progressivist rhetoric.  The province‘s 

popular educational journals, which had 

heretofore consistently and almost stubbornly 

adverse to discussing or debating political 

matters, rallied behind the cause of a democratic 

education for a progressive world.  Still, the 

progressivist articles did not engage in any 

rhetorical disputes regarding different visions for 

school reform.   

Despite their willingness to engage with 

democratic pedagogical themes on a large and 

international scale, the journals remain diffident 

with regards to oppositional progressivist 

discourses within Ontario.  As such, there is a 

stark absence of editorial critiques about the 

curriculum reforms or of commentary on the 

government‘s stance on matters such as labour 

disputes.  The journals were, in general, 

supportive of the Ontario government.
2
  Many 

voices were absent in these sources.  Those that 

were included weighed in on pedagogical matters 

with cautious optimism, leaning toward a 

consensus view that democracy was a beacon of 

hope in times of darkness.  In this context, 

Duncan McArthur, as a major figure in the 

curriculum revisions and a voice in the 

periodicals, was aiming to weave together 

progressivist currents of opinion into a broad and 

cohesive vision to guide Ontario‘s school 

reforms. 



 

62 

 

Reforming the Provincial Curriculum 

 In 1934, as the worst of the Depression 

began to ease, a new government led by Mitchell 

Hepburn was elected to lead Ontario to better 

days.  Among his many campaign promises, 

Hepburn‘s vow to overhaul the education system 

was particularly appealing to Ontario‘s 

educationists, who for fifteen years following the 

end of World War I had presented progressivist 

visions in the periodicals.  Since 1923, Ontario‘s 

Premiers had retained the education portfolio for 

themselves; consequently, Hepburn argued that 

the Department of Education had been led by men 

lacking ―particular training‖ in educational 

matters.
3
  Dr. Leo J. Simpson, the new Minister of 

Education, had been a school board trustee in 

Barrie and was considered a good party organizer 

with grassroots support among trustees and 

educators.
4
  The new Deputy Minister of 

Education and Chief Director of Education, 

Duncan McArthur, would become the driving 

force behind the Department‘s push to reform 

Ontario‘s schools.  In Robert Stamp‘s view: 

 

Actual leadership was assumed by the 

new deputy minister, Duncan McArthur. 

This was the outstanding educator 

Hepburn had been seeking for over a 

year—a Queen‘s University history 

professor, member of the Kingston 

Board of Education, and a man who had 

the respect of the province‘s teachers.  

Hepburn had failed to lure McArthur 

into the political arena as a Liberal 

candidate in the 1934 election, but the 

subsequent offer of the senior civil 

service position in the department had its 

appeal.  Eventually, McArthur would 

have a taste of both worlds, for he 

moved from deputy minister to minister 

following Simpson‘s death six years 

later.
5
 

 

Among the first announcements by the newly 

formed Department of Education was a promise 

to review and revise Ontario‘s course of study.
6
 

The curriculum of Ontario‘s schools did 

undergo considerable change, most notably in 

1937 and 1938.  The reforms to the program of 

study in those years represent a culmination of the 

progressivist reform energies and an attempt to 

institutionalize progressivist practice in schools.  

The revised curriculum embodied the core 

progressivist principles as defined in this thesis, 

making provisions for individual learners, active 

learning, and studies of relevance to 

contemporary society.  E. J. Transom from the 

Central Public School in Timmins, trying to be 

objective in his assessment of Ontario‘s 

curriculum revisions, explained the primary 

difference between the ―old‖ and ―new‖ courses 

of study as follows: ―The old course stressed, 

almost exclusively, subject matter to be learned.  

The new course introduces other factors, like 

personality development, and socialization or 

citizenship.‖
7
  It also brought together many of 

the concerns raised in progressivist journal 

articles since 1919, including the study of extant 

social problems, the fostering of community, 

enterprise learning, health studies, and 

opportunities for students to have options 

regarding their courses of study.
8
 

As far back as 1911, reference had been 

made to the need for Ontario‘s educational system 

to broaden the course of study so that it could 

better relate to a modern world and its various 

needs.
9
  One prime focus was the need to 

differentiate between a program that would 

provide general learning leading to university 

matriculation and a program that would prepare 

students more narrowly for particular domains in 

society.
10

  It was not until 1937 that the shift 

toward a progressivist paradigm would fully 

transform Ontario‘s program of study. 



 

63 

 

One of the most significant themes in the 

revised program was the attempt to balance a 

concern for developing a common curriculum and 

an interest in enabling individual choice.  

Consequently, upon entering high school, all of 

Ontario‘s students were introduced to a common 

Grade 9 program that featured certain compulsory 

subjects: ―English, social studies, health and 

physical education, business practice and writing, 

mathematics, general or agricultural science, 

French, general shop for boys and home 

economics for girls, and music and art.‖
11

  

English, social studies, and health remained 

compulsory subjects in Grade 10, whereas in 

Grades 11 and 12 history replaced social studies 

as the third compulsory subject.  Further, students 

had to select four of the following optional 

subjects to supplement their core curriculum: 

―mathematics, science or agriculture, shop or 

home economics, and music and art or music or 

art.‖
12

  There were slight variations in the optional 

courses available to students in the industrial, 

home economics, commercial, and art courses. 

 As W. G. Fleming argues, with respect to 

program revisions for the elementary schools, the 

Programme of Studies for Grades I to VI of the 

Public and Separate Schools, 1937 ―was an event 

of considerable importance of the evolution of 

curriculum in elementary schools in Ontario 

because of the progressive outlook defined in the 

introduction and embodied in the 

recommendations.‖
13

  The Ontario program had 

been developed by a committee of educators led 

by Thornton Mustard and S. A. Watson and was 

heavily influenced by the Deputy Minister of 

Education, Duncan McArthur.   

In 1936, McArthur had selected Mustard, 

of Toronto Normal School, and Watson, from 

Keele Street Public School, and instructed them 

to lead the committee.  These two educationists 

―were pragmatists, convinced by the realities of 

the depression that a different approach to class-

room learning was necessary to prepare students 

for an uncertain future.‖
14

  In light of the dramatic 

effects wrought by modernity, faith in a stable, 

predictable future had been shaken.
15

  Their report 

and the ensuing revised Programme drew many 

of their ideas and phrasing from reports of the 

Consultative Committee of the Board of 

Education in Great Britain, which dealt with the 

topics of adolescence, primary schooling, and 

nursery schools.
16

 

 The Ontario Programme dealt with many 

similar interests, but not exclusively so.  A 

concentration on health was one relatively new 

domain for education stressed in the revised 

curriculum, involving the maintenance of healthy 

environments in schools and the provision of 

experiences that could produce lifelong healthy 

habits.  The instructional aspects of health 

education were framed in terms consistent with 

my definition of progressive rhetoric, as described 

most consistently by child study progressivist 

articles.  In other words, the instructional aspects 

should relate to social life and activity as 

experienced outside of the school.   

So important was this aim of health 

promotion that the Department of Education 

issued a handbook for teachers in 1938 to 

facilitate its implementation in the schools.
17

  The 

teaching aid, titled Health: A Handbook of 

Suggestions for Teachers in Public and Separate 

Schools was prepared by members of a Joint 

Committee on the Teaching of Health, appointed 

from the Department of Education and the 

Department of Health of the Province of 

Ontario.
18

  Its chapters addressed a variety of 

topics, including the ―Need and Meaning of 

Health Education,‖ ―Health Instruction in the 

Grades,‖ ―The Human Body: Scientific and 

Technical Information for the Teacher,‖ and 

―Communicable Diseases.‖
19

  Further, the 



 

64 

 

handbook included a glossary of terms, which 

related the daily school program to health 

instruction.
20

  The definition of homework offered 

in the resource is notable, as it most succinctly 

strikes all the chords of progressivist rhetoric: 

 

The child needs to play out-of-doors.  

For his [sic] growth he requires an 

adequate amount of sleep.  Homework 

which curtails the child‘s time for 

recreation and sleep is open to serious 

question.  There are types of homework 

which have important values in linking 

up the activities of the school with the 

child‘s home and community life.  These 

types give the child an opportunity for 

outdoor and creative activities and may 

lead him to explore his own latent 

abilities.  Such homework becomes a 

contribution to his physical mental, and 

social health.
21

 

 

Here, the three domains of progressivist thinking 

that were predominant in Ontario‘s progressivist 

discourse meet and intertwine; these involved 

concern for: a) the individual child‘s interests and 

development; b) his or her active participation in 

learning tasks; and c) the linking of school to 

society are brought together under the canopy of 

health.  

The Handbook of Suggestions for 

Teachers did not veil its progressivist rhetoric: 

―More and more does the progressive teacher 

appreciate the importance of the physical, mental, 

emotional, and social capabilities and limitations 

of the individual pupils under his [sic] care.‖
22

  

The progressivist themes were projected to offer a 

viable pedagogical alternative to the traditional 

curriculum, which was depicted as inflexible, 

narrow, and overly academic.
23

  This alternative 

sought to actively engage Ontario‘s teachers in 

the ongoing experimentation with and definition 

of progressivist schooling, while building a 

community of educators who would be 

stakeholders in the province‘s educational 

future.
24

 

 Duncan McArthur explicitly described 

health education as a powerful way of 

approaching education holistically, taking into 

account various aspects of students‘ development 

and linking children‘s school lives to their home 

lives.
25

  He described the revised curriculum 

initiated during his tenure at the Department of 

Education as: 

 

Essentially an educational program 

involving the training of both body and 

mind.  It will endeavour to improve the 

health of our youth by providing greater 

facilities for games and out-of-doors 

recreation.  We will endeavour to bridge 

the gap between school and home even 

should that involve a drastic revision of 

our traditional views regarding the 

function of the school.  Whatever affects 

the physical and mental well-being of 

the children is properly the concern of 

the educator.   The interest of the school 

in the boy [sic] must not be confined to 

what happens in the classroom between 

9 a.m. and 4 p. m.
26

 

 

 With the introduction of health study into 

the Programme of Studies, McArthur found a 

means of knitting together all three domains of 

progressivist concern.  Health was one theme that 

involved activity and active learning, concerned 

the individual development of students, and 

related studies to life outside school.  Healthy 

habits, for instance, were described as the results 

of doing, not ―reading and talking.  Instruction in 

Health, therefore, should be active rather than 

formal in its nature, and should be linked as 

closely as possible to the child‘s daily 

experience.‖
27

  Health, the document argued, 

―should not be regarded simply as a ‗subject‘ of 



 

65 

 

the curriculum but as a programme pervading the 

whole life of the school and the whole life of each 

pupil.‖
28

 

With respect to individual subjects, 

English represented the core of the curriculum.  It 

was seen as occupying ―first place among the 

intellectual exercises of the elementary school.  It 

is of prime importance that children learn to 

speak and write their mother tongue clearly, 

accurately, and gracefully.‖
29

  Emphasis was 

placed on clarity of expression and mastery of 

reading and writing, both oral and written.  

Supplemental reading was described as ―the most 

important phase of the English course … 

[because] the child who has learned to love 

reading is not only likely to continue his [sic] 

education all through life, but is prepared 

profitably to enjoy his leisure.‖
30

  A child who 

developed a love for reading and mastered the 

required skill set was capable of self-directed, 

lifelong learning.  Libraries were positioned as 

important sources of this supplementary reading.  

A list of suggested topics and resources for each 

grade was provided in the Programme, including 

domains of English instruction such as 

conversation, reading, verse speaking, verse 

making, storytelling, dramatization, letter writing, 

word study, sentence study, and writing. 

The introduction of social studies was the 

most meliorist progressivist element of the 1937 

curriculum revisions in Ontario.  This new subject 

was explicitly designed to relate school learning 

in more intimate ways to the broader social 

context of the province.
31

  It strove to engage 

students in active examinations of the world as it 

presently was and could be, not with its past or its 

heritage.  As McArthur himself noted, upon 

entering the Department of Education, it was 

apparent to him that ―both elementary and 

secondary school courses were out of harmony 

with the times, and accordingly sought a 

remedy.‖
32

  The expressed aim of the course for 

social studies was ―to help the child to understand 

the nature and workings of the social world in 

which he [sic] lives …. The course aims, also, to 

develop in the pupils desirable social attitudes.‖
33

  

The subject matter would be drawn from 

contemporary problems and issues in the world, 

which would then be contextualized in light of 

geographical and historical study.  The 

progressive concern for active learning was not 

neglected; it was ―expected that much of the 

course will be carried out through co-operative 

activities of various kinds.‖
34

  Active learning—a 

means of developing the right attitudes of mind—

should be encouraged.  Teachers should ―guard 

against merely talking about the duties of boys 

and girls, but must provide, instead, daily co-

operative activities through which the practice of 

mutual helpfulness will grow.‖
35

 

The revised description for the course in 

natural science reinforces this theme that the new 

style of education should emphasize the 

cultivation of habits of mind more than the 

absorption of facts or figures.  The sciences were 

important because they could foster in students ―a 

genuinely scientific spirit,‖ wherein a community 

of scholarship would thrive.
36

  Engaging students, 

as a community of learners, in active scientific 

inquiry would mean the cultivation of an 

orientation to learning required of future citizens 

in a progressive, evolving world.  The purpose of 

the course was to provide experiences for children 

so that they might learn ―to observe carefully and 

dispassionately, to formulate one‘s observations 

in words or in other ways, and to make proper 

inferences from what has been observed.‖
37

  

Experiential interactions ―with real things‖ in the 

scientific realm, such as field excursions and 

experiments, were preferable means of achieving 

these aims than set ―‗lessons at set periods‖ in a 

day.
38

 



 

66 

 

Emphatic concern for relating school 

studies with actual life beyond the confines of 

classrooms permeates the Programme.  The stress 

on active learning that is somehow self-directed 

or takes into consideration the individual child‘s 

interests is a persistent one.  Mathematics 

education, for example, involved helping the 

child to see the ―value of numbers in the ordinary 

affairs of life, to provide him [sic] with training in 

the use of numbers for his own practical purposes, 

and to form the foundation upon which his 

subsequent mathematical knowledge will be 

built.‖
39

  Art and music, while portrayed as useful 

media for active and creative expression of 

instinctive urges in children, were also means of 

correlating all the subjects and permitting 

individuals to construct and ―express more and 

more successfully their own ideas.‖
40

 

What united both the revised curriculum 

document and McArthur‘s broad vision for 

progressivist reform of schools was a desire to 

transform a course of studies seen as overly 

concerned with the inculcation of academic 

knowledge.  Such knowledge was seen as bearing 

little or no relevance to contemporary life, social 

activity, or democratic citizenship.  It is for this 

reason that the revised course of study refused to 

authorize a standardized textbook or reader for 

each subject and discouraged the use of 

examinations as the sole measures of progress.
41

  

McArthur, shortly after his appointment within 

the Department, had advised Ontario‘s 

educationists in 1934 that ―the relaxation of the 

examination system may prove to be of definite 

encouragement to teachers to promote reading 

beyond the limits of prescribed texts.‖
42

  Indeed, 

by 1940, only the Departmental examinations for 

high school entrance remained.
43

  Textbook 

learning, he continued, was not only narrow, but 

also its mandate compelled teachers to push 

through textbooks at the peril of ignoring broad 

student interest, activity, and exploration: 

 

The system of authorizing special text-

books for courses of study has likewise 

led to the encouragement of the 

formation of habits of mind which 

cannot be regarded as otherwise than 

undesirable.  The authorizing of a 

particular book as a text gives to the 

printed word within the book a literal 

inspiration.  It becomes easy for the 

student to assume that all of the truth 

relating to a subject is contained within 

the covers of the book.
44

 

 Further, the facts and figures contained 

within textbooks, once ―committed to memory are 

soon forgotten.  The information temporarily 

acquired is seldom related to the structure of 

knowledge or experience possessed by the 

pupil.‖
45

  Standardized departmental 

examinations were as ill-suited to progressivist 

thinking as was the authorization of any single 

textbook for a subject because both reinforced a 

passive, acquisitive model of learning.
46

  

Consequently, McArthur explained, ―the 

relaxation of the examination system may prove 

to be of definite encouragement to teachers to 

promote reading beyond the limits of prescribed 

texts.‖
47

 

 In addition to liberating students from 

prescribed texts and rote learning, the new model 

aimed at liberating the teacher.  By seeking to 

dethrone an academic curriculum taught through 

authorized textbooks and tested via provincial 

examinations, McArthur staked his progressivist 

visions on the teachers of Ontario who would 

necessarily enact such principles.  As reported in 

a 1941 supplement in The School, reporting on 

the new curriculum in Ontario, ―the successful 

operation of any plan of education depends upon 

the teacher.  The full benefits of the new 

curriculum can be realized only if the teacher 



 

67 

 

understands the objectives and is able to secure 

results.‖
48

  If the traditional, academic curriculum 

depended on standardized texts and assessments, 

the progressivist program of study would succeed 

only if teachers and principals were permitted 

freedom to make activities relevant, interesting, 

and interactive in different contexts.
49

  There is a 

cliché regarding a French inspector of schools 

who boasted that on any given day he could know 

what page of the textbook every child in the 

country was reading.  It was against such very 

standardized visions of schooling that the 1937 

and 1938 programs were positioned.
50

 

 It is because the notion of standardization, 

at its very core, conflicted with the progressivist 

stress on individualized instruction and the 

freedom to choose a personally meaningful 

course of study that the curriculum revisions 

provided ample opportunity for electives.  

Beyond the common Grade 9 program, McArthur 

contended there should be ―a wide range of 

studies available for the various qualities of minds 

in the boys and girls.‖
51

  It is in this context that 

the Department of Education‘s loosening of 

language requirements and the demise of Latin 

and Greek as compulsory subjects can best be 

understood. As McArthur told J. F. McDonald in 

response to the University College Professor‘s 

argument that the loss of Latin would make 

Ontario a weak and effeminate culture, ―the 

psychology that it doesn‘t matter what you teach 

a boy [sic] so long as it‘s unpleasant is 

antiquated.‖
52

  McArthur‘s progressivist 

sensibilities found that compulsion in learning 

was neither useful nor desirable.
53

 

 Aside from its implications for Ontario‘s 

curriculum reforms, this exchange between 

Professor McDonald and Minister McArthur most 

clearly indicates the extent to which the 

periodicals would go to isolate pedagogical 

statements from any political controversy and 

rhetorical debates.  Firstly, neither The School nor 

The Canadian School Journal published articles 

directly critical of McArthur‘s progressivist 

reforms.  Secondly, McArthur‘s debate with 

McDonald was not reported at all in the journals, 

only in newspapers that covered the O.E.A. 

conference that year, The Globe and the Toronto 

Daily Star.  The School provided no account of 

the conference.  The Canadian School Journal, 

the official organ of the Association, offered a 

terse but positive summary of McArthur‘s thesis 

that ―the greatest service the teaching profession 

could render to humanity would be to make 

French and Latin optional instead of compulsory 

subjects.‖
54

 There is no mention of McDonald or 

of any critical response to McArthur‘s address.  

The summary does remind the reader that ―Dr. 

McArthur said that the universities in this 

province are more rigid in their requirements than 

Oxford, Cambridge or Aberdeen.‖
55

 

In general, Patrice Milewski‘s assessment 

that ―the Programme can be understood as 

signifying a fundamental transformation that 

broke with previously existing pedagogies‖ is 

generally correct.
56

  Milewski identifies the 1937 

curriculum as ―a rupture in educational 

discourse.‖
57

  In his view, ―it conditioned or 

defined what could be said about teaching, 

learning, children and schooling for the greater 

part of the twentieth century.‖
58

  In Robert 

Stamp‘s assessment, both ―culturally and 

politically, the revised program of 1937 implied a 

partial rejection of absolute values passed on to 

former generations of pupils.‖
59

  The new 

Programme emphasized preparation for the 

present and the future more than it did 

transmission of past triumphs, heritage, and tales.   

The actual extent to which progressive 

discourse and rhetoric actually affected classroom 

practice and, even, educationists‘ conceptions of 

what direction progress should pursue is 



 

68 

 

debatable.  A rupture in the official discourse, 

howsoever dramatic or bold, does not necessarily 

correlate with a rupture in the modes and methods 

of instruction.  W. G. Fleming touches on this 

point directly: 

 

The Programme of Studies for Grades I 

to VI of the Public and Separate Schools, 

1937 demonstrates a highly progressive 

orientation and might have set the 

schools of Ontario on an entirely new 

path had certain circumstances been 

more propitious.  The main reason why 

the point of view expressed in the 

document was ‗ahead of its time‘ was 

that the short period of preparation for 

elementary teachers … made it 

impossible to induce them to abandon 

the patterns by which they themselves 

had been taught.
60

 

 

Fleming is right: progressive rhetoric takes on a 

very different character within the confines of a 

school or a particular classroom.  If, however, as 

is the case here, the language of progressive 

schooling is of prime interest, the 1937 and 1938 

curriculum documents represent significant 

ruptures in the discourse of systematized and 

departmentally sanctioned visions of progress. 

Ontario’s Curriculum Revisions in Relation to 

the Various Progressivist Orientations 

Yet at this juncture, it is fitting to ask how 

Ontario‘s curriculum revisions in the late 1930s 

and early 1940s can be assessed in light of the 

different progressivist orientations that populated 

the context.  Progressive education was received 

and interpreted variously by educationists.  This 

matter of competing, or divergent, progressivists 

is too often ignored in historical studies of 

progressive education, but the heuristics used here 

for describing different groups of progressives 

pursues a model laid out by Herbert Kliebard in 

the United States.   

Kliebard saw the field of progressives as 

populated by shifting coalitions of competing 

interest groups, each competing for influence over 

school reforms.
61

  As Kliebard argued, the very 

term progressive education begged a question: 

 

I was frankly puzzled by what was 

meant by the innumerable references I 

had seen to progressive education.  The 

more I studied this the more it seemed 

… that the term encompassed such a 

broad range, not just of different, but of 

contradictory, ideas on education as to 

be meaningless.
62

 

 

Kliebard identified three distinct and divergent 

progressive interest groups embroiled in a 

struggle for the curriculum and school policy, 

each advocating a particular reform aim: 

efficiency, social reconstruction, and 

developmental psychology.  The developmentalist 

interest group held, Kliebard argued, an almost 

romantic faith in nature and the unfolding stages 

of child development.  The developmentalists 

traced their ―ancestry as far back as Comenius, 

most prominently to Rousseau, and then to the 

work of Pestalozzi and Froebel.‖
63

  

Pedagogically, the orientation, which was geared 

principally toward the scientific and 

psychological understanding of human 

development, had a central principle of striving 

―first of all to keep out of nature‘s way.‖
64

  The 

social efficiency advocates saw scientific 

management of schools as the best means to 

reform schools and make them more progressive.  

―Of the varied and sometimes frenetic responses 

to industrialism and to the consequent 

transformation of American social institutions,‖ 

Kliebard noted, ―there was one that emerged 

clearly dominant both as a social ideal and as an 



 

69 

 

educational doctrine.  It was social efficiency.‖
65

  

The third interest group that Kliebard considers in 

relation to progressive education are the social 

meliorists, whose zeal for confronting social 

injustice in society through educational reforms 

reached its zenith during the Great Depression.
66

 

Returning to the subject of Ontario‘s 

progressivist curriculum reforms, what follows is 

an exploration of the extent to which the revised 

Programmes of Study reflected the concerns of 

distinct progressive interests.  Despite the 

coexistence of varying versions of progressive 

education in the province, all progressivist 

educators were bound by the parameters of 

particular themes, which they debated.  These 

themes, referred to here as the domains of 

progressivist rhetoric, were: a) concern with the 

promotion of active learning; b) promotion of 

education that conformed to the interests of 

individual learners; and c) relation of education to 

the needs and realities of modern, contemporary 

reality. themes: activity, individuality, and the 

relationship between education and society.   

As an example, the relationship of the 

individual to the larger social order in Ontario can 

be considered.  Efficiency progressivists were 

primarily concerned with the maintenance and 

management of the existing economic and social 

orders.  Progressivist reforms would help those 

orders run more smoothly and efficiently.  

Schools could be managed and operated as 

industries were run.  Ultimately, they needed to 

follow the industrial models in order to relate 

school studies as specifically as possible to the 

vocational realities in Ontario.  Students‘ 

aptitudes and interests could be gauged, 

businesses could be surveyed, training programs 

could be implemented, and guidance programs 

could help individuals find their vocational 

niches. 

The meliorist position was most 

frequently, at the very least implicitly, critical of 

business, rampant individualism, and laissez-faire 

capitalism.  The social order was, from this 

progressivist orientation, not only changeable, but 

also requiring change.  Greater social cooperation 

was necessary if future citizens, the students in 

Ontario‘s schools, could approach social 

problems and deal with them adequately.  A 

healthy democracy required active citizens who 

would challenge the established social orders and 

think critically about their contexts.  The good of 

any one person was indivisible from the good of 

all. 

 Similarly, child study progressivists 

depicted cooperation and social activity as vital in 

education, but for different reasons.  

Development and adjustment to different stages 

throughout life were characterized as necessarily 

social processes.  Individuals had freedoms and 

needed to exercise these in order to retain distinct 

senses of self through life, but all actions had 

consequences with social implications.  Social 

adjustment was not the same as social conformity, 

and the latter was unacceptable because it 

imposed a pattern of living and thinking that 

limited the individual‘s activity and creativity. 

 Reviewing the various types of 

progressivist positions, albeit summarily, reveals 

how difficult the Department of Education‘s task 

of bringing these together coherently was.  As 

mentioned earlier, the introduction of health 

studies was one way of stressing the common 

concerns of Ontario‘s progressivists.  V. K. 

Greer‘s appraisal of the new Programme of 

Studies made clear that the Department had aimed 

to cast its net broadly and appeal to all kinds of 

progressivists: 

 

Those successful teachers who had 

found the former courses somewhat rigid 



 

70 

 

now enjoy the freedom which they may 

use in the choice of subject matter.… 

The parents are also keenly interested, 

and very largely because they have noted 

the increased interest on the part of the 

children.  A prominent University 

professor states that the psychology of 

the course is thoroughly sound and quite 

abreast of the present-day opinions of 

leading psychologists.  The man on the 

street comments that his child is reading 

more and enjoying the activities and 

projects of the classroom.  On the whole, 

there can be no doubt that a child-

centred programme is a better 

programme than a subject-centred one.
67

   

 

The Department of Education believed that 

centring the new course of studies on individual 

students as opposed to academic content would 

give Ontario‘s educational stakeholders an 

agreeable foundation for reform.  Greer stated 

confidently at the conclusion of his long 

appraisal:  ―There need be no turning back.  All 

are agreed that we are now making progress under 

this new programme.‖
68

  If Greer‘s assessment of 

the situation was accurate, what did the 

curriculum revisions offer to progressivists of 

fundamentally different orientations to garner 

their support? 

 Health, which reached out to all 

progressivists, would have particularly appealed 

to child study concerns.  Indeed, the core themes 

in the revised Programme of Studies appear to be 

influenced in greatest measure by 

developmentalist concerns.  In the Programme‘s 

discussion of ―The Child‘s Need for Success,‖ for 

instance, Blatz appears to have written the 

following statement on the topic of security: 

 

The development of the individual takes 

place largely through social 

participation.  Indeed, many capacities 

of the individual are brought out only 

under the stimulus of associating with 

others.  But in order that development 

may be continuous, the efforts of the 

individual must be attended by success.  

It is true that ―we learn from our 

mistakes,‖ but it is equally true that 

continued and prolonged failure stops 

growth altogether.
69

 

 

An introductory section titled ―Fostering 

Individual Talent‖ is similarly imbued with child 

study rhetoric: ―This Programme of Studies 

accordingly attempts to provide for differences in 

the abilities, tastes, and interests of individual 

pupils; and requires that the teacher be alert to 

detect and foster the growth of individual 

talent.‖
70

 

Just as health studies were introduced with 

the intention that they would be woven through 

all aspects of the school, the ethos of 

developmental psychology permeated the entire 

document.  It suggested that mathematics, for 

example, be instructed in a way respectful of the 

learner‘s stages of development and 

understanding.
71

  Further, promotion from one 

grade to another would be based on the age of the 

student, and not solely on annual external 

examinations.
72

  The notion that school activities 

needed to be centred on the learner‘s interests in 

order to engage him or her in studies that are 

meaningful and motivating is woven 

throughout.
73

 

 The social efficiency progressivist rhetoric 

also weaves in and out of the document at various 

instances.  On occasion, it is wedded to a child 

study theme in a way that seems to show the two 

orientations as perfectly compatible: ―Learning 

takes place most efficiently when the interest of 

the learner is aroused.‖
74

  Such instances beg the 

question as to whether a teacher should aim to 

arouse the learner‘s interest in order to make 



 

71 

 

education more meaningful for the student or 

more efficient for the teacher.  The Programme of 

Studies was most certainly seeking to establish 

common progressivist ground; in this case, the 

engaged student is less likely to provoke 

disturbance and more inclined to work 

fastidiously on a task.  Similarly, the provision of 

greater options and elective courses following the 

common Grade 9 program seems favourable to 

both child study and efficiency progressivists.  

For the former, elective subjects would allow for 

greater experimentation and individual choice in 

school whereas, for the latter, freedom to select 

courses would permit the tailoring of educational 

programs suitable for particular abilities or 

vocational channels. 

In other sections of the Programme of 

Studies the school‘s role was depicted as having 

to ―assist the pupil to master those skills that are 

essential to human intercourse in a modern 

society.‖
75

  These skills included those involving 

―the conversion of materials to serve human 

purposes,‖ such as agriculture, home economics, 

manual training, and crafts.
76

  The descriptions of 

these subjects in the Programme of Studies, 

however, do not go nearly as far in their espousal 

of efficiency rhetoric as the mildest of such 

articles in the source journals.  The value of the 

course in crafts, for example, is stated in very 

Deweyan language: 

 

The value for older children of some 

training in the traditional crafts is now 

generally recognized.  In doing and 

making, students not only develop 

manual skill, but the ability to think their 

way through the difficulties presented by 

materials and processes.  Handwork has 

value also in helping children to realize 

the importance of accuracy, for mistakes 

in the concrete are easily recognized and 

can seldom be erased or wholly 

corrected.  Moreover, it cannot be too 

strongly emphasized that the brighter 

children require manual activity of this 

type as much as those of lower mental 

capacity.
77

 

 

Manual and craft work were thus presented as 

subjects that could help students develop useful 

skills and habits independently of any vocational 

pursuit.  Further, manual training was not to be 

treated as a subject toward which students would 

be streamed if their academic work was 

insufficient.  The message promoted greater 

inclusivity, not classification.   

Home economics is a very notable 

exception, clearly stating that the subject: 

 

Possesses a definite educational value, 

not unlike that of craftwork for boys, but 

more important in its practical bearing.  

Chief among these educational values is 

the development of a girl‘s natural 

interest in her home, together with the 

cultivation of desirable attitudes towards 

the privileges, duties, and 

responsibilities of life in the home.  

Scarcely less important, educationally, is 

the opportunity afforded by the work in 

Home Economics to train the girls in 

proper habits relative to their personal 

appearance, the care of their belongings, 

and the conservation of their health.
78

 

 

In terms of the efficient management, 

maintenance, and preservation of social order, 

nothing in the Programme of Studies makes a 

statement as transparently social efficiency 

progressivist as this: ―The practical value of skill 

in the various activities of the home must be 

apparent to all.  Regardless of their station in life, 

practically all girls will share, sooner or later, in 

the management of a home.‖
79

  Gauging by the 

descriptions of courses offered in the curriculum 

alone, one might surmise that only Ontario‘s girls 



 

72 

 

required particularized training for their 

predestined domestic role in society.
80

  On the 

whole, however, the Programme of Studies did 

not go as far in its espousal of efficiency rhetoric 

as it did with the language of child study and 

meliorism. 

 The social meliorist emphasis is 

emphatically clear in a number of instances, most 

notably in relation to social studies.  ―The aim of 

the whole course in Social Studies is to help the 

student to understand the social world in which he 

[sic] lives,‖ announced the provincial curriculum 

document.
81

  The meliorist concern for studying 

current events in the contemporary context was 

encapsulated in this new subject, which offered 

an opportunity to relate historical, geographical, 

and social studies to problems in students‘ lives 

outside of school.
82

  Discussion was identified as 

a useful tool for the teaching of social studies, a 

tool by which students could develop critical 

habits of mind:   

 

Children will acquire in a very 

meaningful way a great deal of 

geographical and historical material, and 

what is more important, learn to think 

geographically and historically and to 

watch for further items of information 

confirming or refuting the views 

expressed in class.
83

 

 

While espousing such meliorist ideas, the 

Programme of Studies weighed in far more 

cautiously than many of the discussions in the 

source journals did.   

Teachers were advised to confine the 

discussion of current events to matters of fact, 

rather than opinion: ―Little good and much harm 

can come from airing opinions upon international, 

political, or religious problems—opinions 

probably founded on inadequate information.‖
84

  

The note of caution can be interpreted as 

suggesting that teachers lead their students to 

make claims based on warrants and evidence, 

which would stimulate research.  It can also be 

seen as a way of limiting potential controversy 

associated with this new subject arising from 

overly provocative discussions or critical attitudes 

expressed in school.  Ultimately, the Programme 

of Studies stood firmly in its assertion that the 

principle of cooperation and the ideal of 

democratic citizenship were foundations for 

future social growth and activity.  As asserted in 

the 1942 edition of the document, published in the 

midst of World War II: ―The world has become 

an interdependent social and economic unit, and 

the future advancement of civilization, following 

the settlement of our present troubles, will be 

dependent upon the establishment of ideals of co-

operation rather than those of rivalry.‖
85

 

 Social studies, of course, came at the 

expense of history and geography, which were no 

longer treated as separate subjects in Ontario‘s 

elementary schools.  The province‘s humanists 

could have, at the very least, found the centrality 

of English in the Programme of Studies valuable.  

The first aim for English study identified in the 

document was the cultivation of ―a genuine and 

abiding love of good reading,‖ which implied that 

literature would persist in schools.
86

  In fact, 

every classroom was seen as requiring ―a small, 

well-chosen, attractive library‖ that would help 

―to cultivate properly the love of reading and to 

form the habit of finding in books information 

and enjoyment.‖
87

  The second aim, ―to develop 

in the students the power to express themselves 

correctly and effectively in oral and written 

language,‖ suggested that formal study of 

grammar and usage should remain in the school 

program.
88

  

 V. K. Greer‘s assessment of the new 

curriculum stated clearly that a progressive 

program did not imply unfettered activity catering 



 

73 

 

entirely to children‘s ―whimsical desires‖ and 

―changing interests.‖
89

  In fact, Greer seemed to 

acquiesce to humanists‘ critiques of progressivist 

reforms, stating that Ontario‘s schools would 

maintain their academic rigour: 

 

It will be wrong to interpret the new 

course as inviting the teacher to do away 

with all distasteful tasks.  It will also be 

wrong if the acquiring of factual 

knowledge is belittled.  It will be 

dangerous also if too much emphasis is 

placed upon play and upon activities 

which have very little or no worth-while 

purpose.  The inexperienced teacher may 

easily mistake physical bustle for mental 

activity, with the result that much energy 

may be spent and little progress made.  

Drill, review, and examinations will still 

be needed, and it will continue to be 

very important that the child‘s factual 

knowledge at the end of any period will 

be at least equal to, if not greater than 

formerly.
90

 

 

In fact, Greer cited Charles W. Eliot, President of 

Harvard University, stating that the pupil should 

―use his own language with exactness, freedom, 

and charm.‖
91

  For the time being, English, a 

broad term ―made to include English literature, 

English grammar, English composition, 

supplementary reading, spelling, and writing,‖ 

remained useful in Ontario‘s Programme of 

Study.
92

 

World War II, Ontario’s Schools, and the 

Educational Journals 

 As the 1940s and World War II neared, 

certain minor revisions to the 1937 and 1938 

curriculum documents were undertaken.  In W. G. 

Fleming‘s assessment, the ―general nature of the 

recommended approach remained essentially the 

same.  The introduction was rewritten in 1941 

with much greater stress on the objective of 

preparing children to live in a democratic 

society.‖
93

  Indeed, ―Education for Social Living‖ 

was the first theme treated in the 1942 publication 

by the Department of Education.
94

  ―Co-operation 

in a democratic group,‖ was depicted as the 

highest social value, requiring that students 

practice ―self-control, intelligent self-direction, 

and the ability to accept responsibility.‖
95

  

Ontario‘s schools, the introduction argued, 

needed to facilitate opportunities for students to 

work together in order to plan, execute, and 

complete worthwhile and common learning tasks.   

So vital were these cooperative activities 

to the vitality of democratic education that a 

lengthy, nine-page description of ―Enterprises‖ 

was included in the document immediately 

following the introduction.
96

  While the 1937 

curriculum had stressed individualized learning 

and self-direction, in 1941, in light of the war 

experience, the individual learner was depicted as 

having to learn and practise cooperative and 

democratic habits of mind.
97

  Fleming has argued 

that the stress on democratic citizenship also 

affected themes and topics in Ontario‘s textbooks 

and educational resources from the late 1930s and 

early 1940s.
98

 

Modifications made to the province‘s 

curriculum documents when reprinted in the early 

1940s reflected the most dominant theme running 

through The School and The Canadian School 

Journal between 1940 and 1942. In that period, 

the editorial articles in the two journals repeatedly 

reinforce the necessity of fostering democratic 

habits of living in Ontario‘s schools to counter the 

forces of Nazism and fascism. And Duncan 

McArthur, as befit the Minister of Education, 

demonstrated his commitment to the idea of 

democratic education in a flurry of speeches and 

publications between 1941 and 1942.
99

 



 

74 

 

On December 7, 1941, for example, 

McArthur published an article in Saturday Night 

titled ―Education for Democracy‖ that The 

Canadian School Journal found compelling 

enough to discuss at length for trustees and 

ratepayers throughout Ontario.
100

  In the article, 

McArthur stated that the purpose of education 

was the creation of good citizens.  There were no 

self-contained individuals, he argued, who were 

not also social beings with responsibilities to the 

school, town, municipality, province, Dominion, 

and Empire.  Ontario‘s schools had to prepare the 

province‘s youth to ―undertake the 

responsibilities of citizenship, fortified by habits 

of mind which accustomed them to the 

recognition of the rights of others and to their 

obligations to the community.‖
101

  Eventually, the 

war would end, McArthur stated; at that time, 

society would require citizens with courage, 

endurance, and understanding capable of building 

a new and forward-looking world. 

In his Christmas message to Ontario‘s 

trustees and ratepayers, the Minister of Education 

reminded readers of The Canadian School 

Journal that the strains provoked by world war 

had imposed extra responsibilities upon the 

province‘s schools.
102

  Because many fathers 

were engaged in military service and many 

mothers were occupied in war industries, ―the 

home has too frequently become one of the first 

of our war casualties.‖
103

  The teachers, in 

particular, had borne a greater burden in 

providing anchorage for boys and girls in the 

province, through curricular and extracurricular 

supervision.  Education had come to represent for 

McArthur a great model of public service and 

citizenship committed to the preservation of 

democracy. 

―In no other war or national crisis,‖ 

explained an editorial in The Canadian School 

Journal, ―has the school occupied such an 

important place as at the present time.‖
104

  Ivan 

Schultz, Minister of Education for Manitoba, 

echoed this sentiment when classifying ―teaching 

as a war profession.‖
105

  The first duty of 

teachers, he argued, was to the schools and the 

children.  Schultz implored educators across the 

country to remain in the classrooms, where they 

could be of best service to the community and the 

youth of society.   

 The Canadian Broadcasting Company 

(CBC), with radio broadcasts reaching homes 

across the entire province, was increasingly 

regarded as having ―direct responsibilities, 

educational and cultural‖ with regards to the 

fostering of democratic citizenship.
106

  ―The 

citizen‘s task,‖ explained the CBC‘s Gladstone 

Murray, ―might be described as learning how to 

play his or her individual part—through self-

sacrifice, discipline and initiative—in adaptation 

to new conditions.‖
107

  Preserving democratic 

ways of life was the primary responsibility of 

schools; radio, like education, touched the lives of 

the entire body of Ontario‘s citizenry.  In times of 

war, Murray argued, the responsibility of public 

institutions was to exert a unifying influence on 

the public‘s temper and thought, stimulating 

national consciousness.  In times of peace, which 

would follow, educational organizations had the 

responsibility to impart information and opinions 

that could enable citizens to participate in 

democratic life, ―i.e., reconstructing and 

reshaping the Post War [sic] world.‖
108

 

 It is, perhaps, these last two points which 

can best describe the responsibilities that 

Ontario‘s two most popular educational 

periodicals – The School and The Canadian 

School Journal, published by the Ontario College 

of Education and the Ontario Educational 

Association, respectively – appeared to assume in 

the context.  The exclusion of oppositional 

discourses from, for example, socialist and 



 

75 

 

separate school sources, offered a limited range of 

definitions regarding progressive education.  It 

can even be argued that the progressivist 

editorials in the journals represented a consensus 

view of educational reform, casting a net not 

broad enough to encompass actual debate, 

tension, or rhetorical cutting and thrusting.  Both 

the journals considered here depended on 

subscriptions for their survival.  Generally 

speaking, The School reached an audience of 

teachers, teacher educators, and teacher 

candidates.  The Canadian School Journal 

appealed directly to taxpayers and school trustees.  

The rousing of political debates and controversy 

was not in the interests of either source journal, 

and, perhaps to a fault, the journals isolated 

pedagogical matters from any political 

entanglements. 

 There certainly were differences between 

the publications, but these were most evident 

outside of the editorial articles and reports 

concerning this thesis.  The School, for instance, 

included sections on model lessons, assessments, 

and templates that could be of immediate 

practical use to educators.  The journal reported 

on matters happening in schools and of interest to 

those who worked in schools.  The Canadian 

School Journal included sections reporting on 

meetings of trustees, school councils, and school 

boards.  The journal brought to the attention of its 

readership events related to taxation, policy, 

jurisdiction, and funding.  This journal, in 

particular, concentrated its editorial topics during 

the early 1940s on themes related to democracy 

and citizenship.  This emphasis reflected the 

journal‘s base in the O.E.A., which, in the early 

years of World War II, had emphasized the idea 

of education for citizenship, with the aim of 

bringing together Ontario‘s educationists for that 

purpose.
109

 

 This is not to say that The School 

neglected the war effort and its implications for 

Canadian students.  The journal‘s angle on events 

was one that typically addressed classroom 

practice.  In 1940, for example, under the editorial 

management of Charles Phillips, The School 

began publishing a monthly diary that teachers 

used to help their pupils ―follow the course of 

momentous events in Europe.‖
110

  The diary 

recounted significant events happening in Europe 

during the war, and suggested that students mark 

these happenings on an outline map, follow the 

reports in local newspapers, and write a monthly 

essay recounting the ―Achievements of the 

Month.‖
111

 

Two months later, a lengthy article by H. 

E. Smith from the University of Alberta reminded 

Ontario‘s teachers that the basis of the 

educational philosophy ―caught up in the phrase 

‗progressive education‘‖ could be summed up in 

―an abiding belief in the superiority of the 

democratic way of life over any other known way 

of life.‖
112

  Living democratically, he explained, 

entailed an emphasis on ―the desire to co-operate 

rather than to compete, tolerance of the rights of 

others rather than selfishness, critical-mindedness 

rather than suggestibility, and concern with 

present conditions of living rather than with the 

life of the past.‖
113

  Progressivist rhetoric in the 

early 1940s predominately represented a means of 

asserting democratic attitudes and dispositions in 

educational contexts.  In this meliorist 

progressivist vision, active and critical citizens 

were the greatest hope for democracy.
114

 

 What is certain is that both journals, 

despite their editing out of certain controversial or 

oppositional discourses, were forums where the 

moulding of Ontario‘s educational future could be 

explored.  This future, particularly with regards to 

citizenship education and training, was depicted 

by progressivists as necessarily broadening the 



 

76 

 

vision of education to include more than book 

learning and academic knowledge.  Schools were 

means of bringing Ontario‘s youth into contact 

with the actualities and problems of life outside 

the classroom.  Faced with global conflict and 

world war, progressivist articles generally 

depicted the school‘s role as one promoting 

greater interest in public affairs, readiness to 

subordinate individual welfare to the common 

weal, and national unity.
115

 

Shifts within the Spheres of Politics and 

Pedagogy 

 The Co-operative Commonwealth 

Federation (C.C.F.) was a socialist party that had 

emerged from the Depression years as a national 

political force.  In Ontario, partly in response to 

―Hepburn‘s anti-Labour policies during the 1930s 

and the substantial growth in labour organizations 

and collective bargaining during the war years,‖ 

many of Ontario‘s educationists rallied behind the 

party.
116

  It was, according to Robert Stamp, a 

―mixture of status consciousness and utopian 

idealism that prompted some Ontario teachers to 

flirt with the C.C.F. and other left-wing political 

groups in the early 1940s.‖
117

  His assessment 

might explain why the Canadian Association for 

Adult Education put forward a 1943 document 

advocating greater social responsibility and social 

planning, and why the National Council for 

Canadian–Soviet Friendship gathered 15,000 

people in Toronto‘s Maple Leaf Gardens that 

same year calling for teacher exchanges between 

Russian and Canadian institutions.  In the 1943 

election, Ontario‘s Liberal government was 

ousted from power in favour of Colonel George 

Drew‘s Progressive Conservative Party, which 

secured a minority government by gaining a mere 

four more seats at Queen‘s Park than the C.C.F.
118

 

 While the start of World War II had 

provoked a shift in progressivist rhetoric, leaning 

it predominately toward meliorist espousals of 

democratic citizenship, the global conflict would 

persist longer than the almost singularly meliorist 

visions for progressive education could endure.  

In Robert Stamp‘s assessment, ―while a few 

educational leaders would keep the progressivist 

spirit alive throughout the war years, its viability 

as an educational philosophy was now under 

consistent attack.  Education for peace had been 

shelved in favour of military preparedness.‖
119

  

The League of Nations, which had been 

represented as the model of educational 

cooperation and democratic citizenship, had 

proven feeble and toothless in the face of Nazi 

and fascist threats.
120

  In 1945, with the war in 

Europe clearly won, Drew lost a vote in the 

Legislature and immediately called a new 

provincial election. 

Emphasizing the word progressive in his 

party‘s name, Drew equated the C.C.F. with 

fascist Germany‘s National Socialism and 

represented the impending election as one 

between the warring forces of fascism and 

freedom.
121

  The Progressive Conservatives 

actually did secure a majority government; the 

C.C.F. slipped to eight seats.  W. G. Fleming‘s 

suggestion that the 1937 Programme would have 

borne very different fruit had certain events 

transpired differently is abundantly clear in light 

of the politics of postwar Ontario.  Less than four 

months before the sudden passing of Duncan 

McArthur due to illness, Drew made clear that he 

had assessed progressivist ideas and found them 

wanting: ―Teaching democracy was important, 

but there‘s been a little too much carrying the 

ideas of democracy to the point that children have 

as much right to express opinions as the 

teachers.‖
122

  The Toronto Daily Star, with an 

ominous tone, predicted the end of progressivist 

thinking in the Department of Education, noting:  

 



 

77 

 

What the Colonel has overlooked is the 

fact that the only way to learn 

democracy is to practise it.  And the best 

way the teachers can put their lesson 

across is by fostering and encouraging 

self-confidence, initiative, and 

independent thinking among children. 

Col. Drew would have the youth 

strapped into obedience.
123

 

 

Premier George Drew, like his Conservative 

predecessors George S. Henry and Howard 

Ferguson, maintained the Education portfolio and 

steered the Department in a different direction 

from his Liberal predecessors, including the 

progressive-minded Duncan McArthur. 

Summary 

 Robert Gidney, whose historical 

consideration of Ontario‘s system of schools 

From Hope to Harris begins where this thesis 

ends, at World War II, described the province in 

1945 as ―just beginning to emerge from fifteen 

years of wrenching dislocation and haunting 

insecurity.‖
124

  While the war, which stimulated 

economic growth and instilled a sense of common 

purpose, solved some of the serious problems 

provoked by the Depression, it also ―bred its own 

dislocations, of people and resources, and the 

dominant mood of the immediate post-war years 

was a deep yearning for normality, security, and 

stability.‖
125

  Gidney‘s general observations 

regarding Ontario‘s population in the latter part of 

the 1930s and early 1940s have some relevance 

with regards to progressivist rhetoric in the 

province‘s journals.   

 Canada‘s active involvement in World 

War II began in 1939 and, by 1940, the sense of 

common purpose just referenced coalesced as a 

common interest in democratic education.  The 

discursive communities brought together by the 

journals agreed, despite different interpretations 

of what progress in schooling might entail, that 

democratic schools providing opportunities for 

active learning and citizenship training were vital 

to the nation.  In Robert Stamp‘s words, 

―teachers‘ magazines and teachers‘ meetings were 

preoccupied with the question of how best to 

teach citizenship and democracy.‖
126

 

 Perhaps, beyond the war effort, the 

coalescence can be attributed to the efforts of the 

Department of Education in Ontario, which, 

under the influence of Duncan McArthur, brought 

together various progressivist themes in the 

revised Programmes of Studies.  The new 

curricula introduced in 1937 and 1938 attempted 

to weave together distinct visions for progressive 

schools in the province and to derive some order 

and consistency from them.  The revised course 

of studies rejected a strictly academic model of 

learning based on memorization and examination 

of facts or figures contained within textbooks.  In 

so doing, it related to the domains of progressive 

education treated in this paper: active learning, 

individualized instruction, and links to 

contemporary society.   

 In the foreground of the revised 

curriculum, seen as weaving its way through all 

the subject matter, was the introduction of health 

study.  Social studies, a new course at the time, 

was likewise intended to bring together various 

subject matters.  Social studies, history, 

geography, and civics could be interrelated 

thematically for the purpose of addressing extant 

social problems or questions.  Enterprise tasks 

and project-based learning were depicted as 

useful ways of engaging students in the active and 

cooperative study of issues that had actual 

relevance outside of academic texts.   

Students in secondary schools were given 

a common foundation through a general Grade 9 

program that would allow them to explore various 

subjects before deciding on a focus.  From Grade 



 

78 

 

10 onward, they had increasing opportunities to 

select courses of study that were both useful and 

relevant to their interests and vocational or 

academic paths.  The loss of Latin as a mandatory 

subject caused some concern, but it was, 

McArthur argued, the only way of ensuring that 

the individual learner could ―try himself [sic] out 

along different lines under the guidance and 

direction of teachers, that he might reach 

conclusions regarding his particular capabilities 

and aptitudes.‖
127

  The varied program enabled 

Ontario‘s students to actively engage with 

―different lines of approach to education‖ in order 

to free them from the bonds of a strictly academic 

and traditional course of study.
128

 



 

79 

 

Endnotes 

                                                 
1 Programme of Studies for Grades VII and VIII of the Public and 
Separate Schools, 1942 (Toronto, ON: Department of Education, 
1942), 6. 
2 In fact, the source journals generally heaped praise on Minister 
of Education, Duncan McArthur.  Particularly following his 
appointment as Minister following the death of Leo Simpson, 
the journals reiterated McArthur‘s credentials, experience, and 
commitment to Ontario‘s schools.  See, for example, ―The New 
Minister of Education,‖ The Canadian School Journal (September 
1940): 319; ―The New Education,‖ The School (October 1940): 
172; and ―Personal,‖ The School (October 1940): 174.  Having 
reported, in ―The New Education‖ that ―a revision of the 
Programme of Studies has just been published,‖ the following 
commentary in ―Personal‖ extols the virtues of the Minister, 
arguing ―the province is fortunate in having a distinguished 
educationist in the cabinet post charged with the administration 
of the schools.‖  The Canadian School Journal, likewise, praised 
McArthur and expressed confidence that he would ―vitally affect 
the youth of Ontario and influence the critical period which will 
follow the war.  Ontario looks forward to still greater progress 
in the field of education and recognizes the valuable service 
which Dr. McArthur will contribute as a member of the Cabinet 
in all matters affecting public interest.‖  
3 See, for example, ―Education Criticism,‖ The Globe, June 5, 
1934: 5. 
4 See, for example, ―Notes and News: Ontario,‖ The School 
(September 1934): 65–68.  Simpson was a medical doctor as 
opposed to an academic, like McArthur. 
5 Stamp, The Schools of Ontario, 1876–1976, 155. 
6 ―Notes and News: Ontario,‖ 66–68. 
7 E. J. Transom, ―Time Off for Thinking,‖ The School (February 
1941): 507.  Transom believed the new, progressive schools 
drew their principles from the study of contemporary society: 
―The work of the teacher, principal, or supervisor now is to 
study society, ascertain modern trends and movements, learn 
the fundamentals of personality, child development, and child 
psychology.‖ 
8 These concerns, on the whole, are dominated by those 
espoused by meliorist and developmentalist journal articles.  
The Department of Education‘s concern for efficiency were 
predominately directed at reforming the system of taxation and 
consolidating school boards.  See, for example, ―Summary of 
Dr. McArthur‘s Address,‖ The Canadian School Journal (May 
1940): 192–93. 
9 John Seath, Education for Industrial Purposes (Toronto, ON: 
King‘s Printer, 1911). 
10 Ibid., 263. Seath actually noted seven domains for study in 
Ontario‘s schools: courses leading to university matriculation, 
courses leading to normal schools or Faculties of Education, 
household science courses, commercial courses, agricultural 
courses, manual training courses, and middle school art courses. 

                                                                                       
11 Fleming, Schools, Pupils, and Teachers, 129. 
12 Ibid., 130. 
13 Ibid., 123. 
14 Stamp, The Schools of Ontario, 1876–1976, 167. 
15 The preparation of students for an uncertain future, as well as 
the overall concern for trying to manage or control education in 
a mutable, unpredictable world was a common theme in 
progressivist texts, including John Dewey‘s.  See, for example, 
Richard D. Mosier, ―Progressivism in Education,‖ Peabody 
Journal of Education 29, no. 5 (1951): 274–81. 
16 Programme of Studies for Grades I to VI of the Public and Separate 
Schools, 1937 (Toronto, ON: Department of Education, 1937).  
The British publications are most commonly referred to as the 
Hadow Reports. 
17 Health: A Handbook of Suggestions for Teachers in Public and 
Separate Schools (Toronto, ON: The Ryerson Press, 1938). 
18 Ibid., v.  In the foreword, the handbook is described as having 
taken shape following experiments on the teaching of health in 
elementary schools in Ontario.  The experiments were initiated 
by the Department of Health, supervised by the Department of 
Education, and implemented by progressivist educators: ―This 
experiment was initiated by Dr. J. T. Phair, Chief Medical 
Officer of Health for the Province.  Through the offices of Mr. 
V. K. Greer, Chief Inspector of Public and Separate Schools, the 
co-operation of six inspectors was obtained.  These Inspectors, 
in turn, enlisted the services of a number of progressive and 
interested teachers who were prepared to undertake the work.‖ 
19 Ibid., vii–viii. 
20 Ibid., 6–16. 
21 Ibid., 15. 
22 Ibid., 28. 
23 Ibid.  In the handbook‘s discussion on ―The Individual Child,‖ 
the concentration on health is depicted as a means of enabling a 
flexible curriculum.  The traditional program was described as 
setting up arbitrary academic levels of achievement and insisting 
that they be met by every child: ―The inevitable result has been 
rigidity and inflexibility of the school programme.  There has 
been over-emphasis on arbitrary academic standards.  The 
neglect or inadequate consideration given to the physical, 
emotional, and social development of the individual child has 
resulted in the adoption of class-room procedures which too 
frequently are inelastic and ineffective in developing a well-
balanced personality,‖ 28. 
24 Ibid.  The text‘s foreword states the following: ―The 
Handbook is submitted for use in schools, not as a final guide, 
but as an experimental and tentative outline of procedure.  It is 
hoped that the teachers will accept it as such, record their 
observations and suggestions, and forward them to the 
Department of Education.  Such observations and suggestions 
should prove of great value in future revisions,‖ vi. 



 

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25 See, for example, ―Dr. McArthur‘s Views on Youth,‖ Toronto 
Daily Star, July 30, 1943: 6.  The article, incidentally, praises 
McArthur‘s ―progressive views on education.‖ 
26 Ibid., 6. 
27 Programme of Studies for Grades I to VI of the Public and Separate 
Schools, 1937, 25. 
28 Ibid., 25. 
29 Ibid., 35. 
30 Ibid., 35. 
31 ―Editorial Notes: New Approaches to the Social Studies,‖ The 
School (April 1937): 645. 
32 ―Ontario‘s Educational System,‖ Toronto Daily Star, July 19, 
1943: 6. 
33 Programme of Studies for Grades I to VI of the Public and Separate 
Schools, 1937, 71. 
34 Ibid., 71. 
35 Ibid. 73. 
36 Ibid., 87. 
37 Ibid., 87. 
38 Ibid., 87. 
39 Ibid., 101. 
40 Ibid., 127.  Emphasis in original text. 
41 See, for example, ―New School Course to Discourage Exams, 
Abolish Homework,‖ Toronto Daily Star, September 14, 1937: 1.  
This front-page article in the newspaper summarized the spirit 
of the 164-page curriculum document as leading to ―less stress 
on factual type of teaching.‖ 
42 McArthur, ―Education for Citizenship,‖ 286. 
43 Harris, Quiet Evolution.  The high school entrance 
examinations were not withdrawn until 1949. 
44 McArthur, ―Education for Citizenship,‖ 288. 
45 Ibid., 288. 
46 Ibid.  McArthur explained the relationship between 
examinations and textbooks as follows:  ―The presumed 
necessities of examinations, again, encourage the teacher to 
attempt to satisfy the requirements of education by demanding 
that the pupil make himself [sic] familiar with the information 
contained within the authorized text.  Instruction in such cases 
is degraded to the mere reciting of facts set forth on the pages of 
the text.  Such a process, by no stretch of the imagination, can 
be found to have any relation to education,‖ 288. 
47 Ibid., 288. 
48 ―Supplement: Reports on Educational Progress in Canada and 
Newfoundland, 1940–1941,‖ 919.  
49 See, for example, ―New School Course to Discourage Exams, 
Abolish Homework.‖  Recall, also, the cliché regarding French 
education, which postulated that at any given moment of the 
school day all children of the same age will be having exactly the 
same lesson.  This vision of a standardized and centralized 

educational system reflects how entrenched le programme―the 

national curriculum, dating from Napoleonic times―had 
become in the country‘s educational system. 

                                                                                       
50 See, for example, Julian Nundy, ―Education: Teachers as Lone 
Wolves: France, 750,000 Children Sit Down to Be Tested on 
the Same Day,‖ Independent, June 10, 1993. 
51 ―Optional French and Latin Urged by Deputy Minister,‖ 
Toronto Daily Star, March 30, 1940: 27. 
52 ―Optional French and Latin Urged by Deputy Minister,‖ 27.  
The Globe attributes a slightly different quotation to McArthur: 
―It does not matter what you teach, as long as it is unpleasant.  
That educational psychology is absolutely antiquated,‖  
―McArthur Would Cut Language Requirement,‖ The Globe 
(March 30, 1940): 5. 
53 ―Optional French and Latin Urged by Deputy Minister,‖ 27.  
54 ―Latin,‖ The Canadian School Journal (April 1940): 155. 
55 Ibid., 155. 
56 Patrice Milewski, ―‗The Little Gray Book‘: Pedagogy, 
Discourse, and Rupture in 1937,‖ History of Education 37, no. 1 
(2008): 92. 
57 Ibid., 92. Emphasis in original text. 
58 Ibid., 92.  My emphasis.  The parallels that Milewski draws 
between the educational rhetoric and medical discourse seem to 
go too far, and it seems a further stretch to assert that ―this 
discourse formed a body of knowledge that intervened in the 
experience of teaching and learning to shape or define normal 
child development, teaching, learning and schooling,‖ 92. 
59 Stamp, The Schools of Ontario, 1876–1976, 175. 
60 Fleming, Schools, Pupils, and Teachers, 9. 
61 Kliebard, The Struggle for the American Curriculum; Filene, ―An 
Obituary for ‗The Progressive Movement,‘‖ 20. 
62 Kliebard, The Struggle for the American Curriculum, xi. 
63 Herbert M. Kliebard, ―Keeping Out of Nature‘s Way: The 
Rise and Fall of Child-study as the Basis for the Curriculum, 
1880–1905,‖ in Forging the American Curriculum: Essays in 
Curriculum History and Theory (New York, NY: Routledge, 
1992), 51. 
64 G. Stanley Hall, ―Ideal School Based on Child Study,‖ Journal 
of Proceedings and Addresses of the National Education Association 
(1901): 474–88. 
65 Kliebard, The Struggle for the American Curriculum, 76. 
66 Ibid., 151–74. 
67 Greer, ―Appraisal of the New Programme of Studies,‖ 194. 
68 Ibid., 231.  Greer‘s article is spread over seven pages in The 
Canadian School Journal. 
69 Programme of Studies for Grades VII and VII of the Public and 
Separate Schools, 6. 
70 Ibid., 7. 
71 Greer, ―Appraisal of the New Programme of Studies.‖  Greer 
boasted: ―The new courses and the new textbooks in arithmetic 
will make the work more interesting and will delay complex 
processes until they are more readily understood by the pupils,‖ 
198.  See also, ―The Aim of the Course‖ in the Programme of 
Studies for Grades VII and VIII, which states:  ―The teacher should 
endeavour to lead his [sic] pupils at each stage of their growth to 



 

81 

 

                                                                                       
explain for themselves, in terms that are intelligible to them at 
the time, the social world in which they are a part,‖ 26. 
72 Greer, ―Appraisal of the New Programme of Studies.‖  Greer 
argued that the new curriculum offered a more holistic view of 
learners, focusing attention on the individual‘s development and 
not merely on academic achievement: ―No doubt the authors of 
the new courses intended that less emphasis should be put upon 
the annual external examination used solely as a basis for the 
promotion of pupils.  It would be an equally faulty extreme, 
however, to promote all pupils on the basis of age.  The best 
procedure will be the careful study for the work being done by 
pupils when they first begin to show retardation.  Individual 
attention will then be given, and there is no doubt that by doing 
this we shall avoid demotions and failures to a much greater 
extent than we have done in the past,‖ 199. 
73 See, for example, the section on ―Activity and Interest,‖ in the 
Programme of Studies for Grades VII and VIII of the Public and Separate 
Schools, 1942, which states the following: ―All learning involves 
activity and effort on the part of the learner.  ‗Learning is an 
active process.‘  ‗We learn to do by doing.‘  ‗The child develops 
through his own activity.‘  In applying these precepts one must 
remember that the term ‗activity‘ does not refer to physical 
movement only.  It must be borne in mind that mental 
processes—thinking, reflecting, planning—are as truly 
‗activities‘ as conducting an experiment or acting in a play,‖ 9. 
74 Ibid., 9. 
75 Ibid., 9. 
76 Ibid., 9. 
77 Ibid., 105. 
78 Ibid., 116. 
79 Ibid., 116. 
80 The value of home economics extended from the cultivation 
of girls‘ ―standards of good taste in clothing and home-
furnishings‖ to the fostering of ―an appreciation of scrupulous 
cleanliness in person, dress, and surroundings,‖ 116.  The 
content of the course included particular activities that each girl 
needed to learn, including: needlework, familiarity with various 
textiles and sewing equipment, cooking, laundering, and 
furnishings. 
81 Programme of Studies for Grades VII and VIII of the Public and 
Separate Schools, 1942, 26. 
82 Ibid.  The document states:  ―Every event occurs in a 
geographical setting, has roots in the past, has implications for 
the present and may have repercussions in the future,‖ 29. 
83 Ibid., 29. 
84 Ibid., 29.  Emphasis in original text. 
85 Programme of Studies for Grades VII and VIII of the Public and 
Separate Schools, 1942, 29. 
86 Ibid., 40. 
87 Ibid., 43.  See also Greer, ―Appraisal of the New Programme 
of Studies.‖  Greer argues for the importance of libraries in 
schools to support academic work: ―The course places strong 

                                                                                       
emphasis on the advantages of supplementary reading, and again 
the success of the course will depend largely on an ample and 
well-chosen library and on the ability of the teacher to inspire 
the pupils to read good books,‖ 197–98. 
88 Programme of Studies for Grades VII and VIII of the Public and 
Separate Schools, 1942, 40. 
89 Greer, ―Appraisal of the New Programme of Studies,‖ 196.   
90 Ibid., 196. 
91 Ibid., 197.  Greer‘s use of Eliot is all the more interesting in 
light of Herbert Kliebard‘s identification of Eliot as standing ―in 
the forefront of the humanist interest group.… Eliot, a humanist 
in his general orientation, was also a mental disciplinarian, but, 
although this thinking affected his thinking on curriculum 
matters to a large extent, he was not exactly a defender of the 
status quo in curriculum matters.‖  Kliebard, The Struggle for the 
American Curriculum, 9.  Emphasis in original text.  
92 Greer, ―Appraisal of the New Programme of Studies,‖ 197.  
Incidentally, L. J. Bondy, writing in the same year as Greer, 
wondered for how long English would be deemed useful by 
progressivists.  The humanities had lost ground with the demise 
of classics, and they would continue to be marginalized in the 
face of ongoing reforms: ―It is enough for my purpose that, in a 
scheme of this kind, it is only by mere accident that modern 
languages will be found useful, and their defenders will find it 
increasingly difficult to explain why they should be retained.… 
For a brief moment a few of the more thoughtless among the 
defenders of modern languages seemed to welcome the change.  
The loss of the Ancients would be the gain of the Moderns.  
Now it is becoming more and more evident that the forces that 
have achieved such success in ostracizing Greek and Latin are 
being arrayed with the same deadly purpose against the modern 
languages.  The success of these efforts is already being felt.  
Italian and Spanish have practically disappeared from our high 
schools; German is slowly yielding ground.  For reasons that are 
largely extraneous to education, French has not suffered so 
much in this province.  However, unless something is done to 
improve its position, we may confidently expect that it will join 
its vanishing companions.  And all this in the magic name of 
progress.‖  Bondy, ―The Present Situation in Modern Languages 
in Our Schools,‖ 121.  Emphasis in original text. 
93 Ibid., 128. 
94 Programme of Studies for Grades VII and VIII of the Public and 
Separate Schools, 1942, 5. 
95 Ibid., 6. 
96 Ibid., 13–21.  The section provided Ontario‘s teachers with 
directions regarding how to use enterprise activities to foster 
purposeful activity, natural ways of learning, integrated subject 
matter, self-direction, and fundamental skills. 
97 Fleming, Schools, Pupils, and Teachers, 128–30. 
98 Ibid.  These themes, Fleming noted, dealt more with 
contemporary social problems and issues.  Increasingly, they 



 

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concerned Canada‘s growing relationship to the United States 
and its role in the North Atlantic. 
99 See, for example, McArthur, ―Education for Democracy,‖ The 
Canadian School Journal (January 1941): 13; McArthur, 
―Education and the Empire,‖ The Empire Club of Canada Speeches 
(Toronto, ON: Empire Club of Canada, 1941); and ―Message 
from the Minister of Education,‖ The Canadian School Journal 
(December 1942): 373. 
100 McArthur, ―Education for Democracy,‖ 13. 
101 Ibid., 13. 
102 ―Message from the Minister of Education,‖ 373. 
103 Ibid., 373. 
104 ―Schools and the War,‖ The Canadian School Journal (June 
1942): 174. 
105 ―Notes and News: Teaching as a War Profession,‖ The 
Canadian School Journal (October 1942): 324. 
106 Gladstone Murray, ―Radio and Citizenship,‖ The Canadian 
School Journal (April 1942): 113. 
107 Ibid., 113. 
108 Ibid., 113.  Murray argued that ―radio listening has become a 
part of the defence mechanism of democratic society,‖ 113. 
109 Murray, ―Radio and Citizenship,‖ 114. 
110 A. S. H. Hill, ―Towards Victory: A Current Events 
Notebook,‖ The School (September 1940): 7.  
111 Hill, ―Towards Victory: A Current Events Notebook,‖ 7. 
112 H. E. Smith, ―The New Education in Alberta,‖ The School 
(November 1940): 187–88. 
113 Ibid., 188. 
114 See, for example, Charles Phillips, ―Editorial: School and 
Society,‖ 1.  Phillips informs readers of The School that ―many 
articles on a variety of subjects will be found to refer repeatedly 
to education for democratic citizenship.  Beginning with this 
issue, emphasis will be placed on a particular monthly theme.‖  
These themes were all related to classroom practice.  In 
September 1941, for example, the theme was classroom 
management. 
115 See, for example, C. C. Goldring, ―Some Educational Gaps,‖ 
The Canadian School Journal (April 1942): 140–41. 
116 Baskerville, Ontario: Image, Identity, and Power, 204.  
Hepburn, Ontario‘s Premier, bitterly opposed labour unions 
and refused to allow the Congress of Industrial Organizations 
(C.I.O.) to form unions in the province.  He not only took the 
side of General Motors when a C.I.O.-led strike began in 
Oshawa on April 8, 1937, but also formed a volunteer police 
force to suppress the striking workers.  At the same time, the 
C.C.F. supported the strike. 
117 Stamp, The Schools of Ontario, 1876–1976, 180. 
118 Baskerville, Ontario: Image, Identity, and Power, 205. 
119 Stamp, The Schools of Ontario, 1876–1976, 174. 
120 The social meliorist concerns for social justice, international 
cooperation, and active citizenship were persistent throughout 
the interwar period and survived the demise of the League. 

                                                                                       
121 Baskerville, Ontario: Image, Identity, and Power, 205. 
122 ―Notes and Comment,‖ Toronto Daily Star, March 16 1943: 6. 
123 Ibid., 6.  In fact, when critiquing democratic, progressivist 
education, Drew had argued that ―firm measures supported by 
the mandate of the strap still have an important place.‖ 
124 Robert D. Gidney, From Hope to Harris: The Reshaping of 
Ontario’s Schools (Toronto, ON: University of Toronto Press, 
1999), 10. 
125 Ibid., 10. 
126 Stamp, The Schools of Ontario, 1876–1976, 177. 
127 ―Dr. Duncan McArthur,‖ Canadian School Journal (April 
1937): 126.  This article reproduced a speech that McArthur, 
then Deputy Minister of Education, delivered to the Trustees‘ 
Department at the O.E.A. conference in 1937. 
128 Ibid., 126.  McArthur depicted Grade 9, which provided 
opportunities for students to sample different topics and 
programs, as the core of modern schools: ―That year, I say 
without any hesitation, will be the most important year for the 
boys and girls of our Collegiate Institutes.  The decisions likely 
to be made during the course of that year, discussions with 
parents and teachers, will have a most important bearing on the 
future of our boys and girls.‖