The Education of Destitute Homeless Children in Nineteenth-Century Ontario

Abstract

From the earliest years in Upper Canada, destitute homeless children, including orphans, were often placed in private homes under pauper apprenticeship indentures that required that the children receive an education. Beginning in the 1830s, such children were sometimes housed in temporary institutions awaiting private placements, and by midcentury these institutions also began to provide schooling. However, children’s homes providing long-term care developed in part because this education proved inadequate, and schooling, normally in-house, was an immediate priority on the opening of such homes. This focus on education appears to have been shared by the children in the homes and their parents, thus supporting a view of the development of state-funded, compulsory education as driven to a significant extent by popular demand. Once education became compulsory in 1871, these orphan home schools were gradually integrated as fully funded and professionally staffed components of the public school system.