The necessity for a system by which textbooks were evaluated for inclusion in the curriculum was highlighted in the School Act of 1846. Due to the scarcity of textbooks in the rural school sections, school teachers would use whatever resources were at their disposal, including American texts promoting anti-colonialism.

Lewis, Richard. How to Read.
Toronto: Adam Miller & Co., 1879.
[A drill book for the cultivation of the speaking voice.]
Reference Code: School Books, ELO 1
Archives of Ontario Library Collection

Knight, A. P. High school chemistry consisting of directions for performing a series of experiments,
with test questions on the experiments and simple problems for investigating. Toronto: Copp, Clark Company Limited, 1887.
Reference Code: School Books, Box S 1 (1887)
Archives of Ontario Library Collection

As a means of standardizing what was being taught in schools, Egerton Ryerson required that all schools use textbooks approved by the Education Department. Authorized textbooks would be made available for purchase or distribution through the Educational Depository. Schools that did not teach from authorized textbooks could be denied funding from the Education Department.

Titles of approved textbooks were published in a list circulated by the Department of Education known as Circular 14. In 2002 this list was renamed the Trillium List.

Public schools were the primary source of reading material for everyone in the community. In circulars, such as the one below, Egerton Ryerson encouraged trustees to supplement their school's collection of authorized textbooks with additional books for the reading pleasure of their students, parents and ratepayers.

Ryerson paid special attention to the establishment of school libraries not only because it encouraged literacy, but also as a means of controlling what books were being read.

Library books, just as textbooks, had to meet specific standards to be approved by the Department of Education. This requirement was intended to protect young minds against "that pernicious class of the lighter literature of the day"

Click to see a larger image (180K)
Circular in Regard to School Libraries, &C., Department of Public Instruction for Ontario (22 October 1874)
[signed by Egerton Ryerson]
Department of Education printed forms, circulars, pamphlets, regulations, directives and memos
Reference Code: RG 2-26, box 1, file 1874
Archives of Ontario

Click to see a larger image (71K)
Railway school students reading in their library, [ca. 1950]
Ontario Department of Education
Black and white print
Reference Code: RG 2-43 Acc. 4437 #14
Archives of Ontario, I0020875

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