Bob Davis interviewed Dr. J.R. McCarthy  (Davis 1995) on the subject of Social Studies in Ontario and the history of Immersion Citizenship Education between the years of 1937 to 1957.
Dr. J.R. McCarthy was a teacher from 1937 onward and Deputy Minister of Education from 1967 to 1971. McCarthy was a progressive, who in the late 1960's greatly influenced the shift from
teacher centred learning to student centred learning. McCarthy had an interview with Bob Davis
on the subject of teaching history. McCarthy notes that the late 1930's produced an era of progressivism in education.  Bob Davis notes after his interview that the era of the depression created "voices demanding an education that would be more useful to the average student. Some voices were even saying that education should prepare students to build a better world. For our subject history this meant , at the elementary level , integrating history with geography to produce Social Studies . As I have mentioned , it also meant a new stress on citizenship education more focussed on getting into communities and less on civics textbooks."
Progressivism reached grade 9 and 10 in 1949 when History and Geography were merged to create Social Studies. McCarthy's vivid account shows indeed how history was taught before 1949.
"When I started teaching in the middle thirties, history was largely a recitation of facts . If you were talking about the First World War, you were talking about such battles as Ypres and Vimy Ridge , but you didn't spend time talking about the terrain over which this was happening.. It was like performing a play without a stage. Then you moved to geography to study the geography of France as a completely different subject. But you never said, "Just remember, this is where the battles took place.
The textbooks were just as bad . So the thinking in the new social studies was if you are going to discuss a war , first you study it on a stage represented by the topography of the place where the war took place, and you are going to talk about mud and trench warfare and so on.
Trench warfare doesn't take place in mountains. You have to spend time integrating aspects of reality."
McCarthy stated that social studies existed until 1957. This year social studies was repealed and in its place the subjects of History and Geography again attained completely separate status as subjects. The reasoning for this can be found in the macro level of society. The Hope Commission started in 1945 and published its recommendations to the Education system in Ontario in 1950. The effect of the Hope Commission on the teaching of history was little.   
The Era of the Cold War was upon Canada in the late 1940's and the 1950's. Thus after the end of the war " the government was concerned about the fact that some citizens were somewhat less than supportive of democratic principles and were in favour of the communist philosophy." The Hope Commission was of course an attempt to change the schools so that they catered more to the grassroots of society who had been stressed to such a great amount during the depression and the war. With the advent of the Cold War  it was seen that children were seen as one of the basis for society which would help save our way of life.
Item 128 of the Hope Commission (1950) states
" Our democratic process is characterised by a respect for personal freedom , a regard for the for the authority of the law, and an acceptance of the supremacy in its proper sphere, of a government elected by secret ballot under universal adult suffrage. The following statement of the characteristics of a good citizen will meet with general acceptance :
The good citizen must, for instance , possess a love of truth and a trained knowledge of how to seek it: he must believe in reason and know how to think clearly and to recognise prejudice."
            Davis (1995) notes in a section on the citizenship and character training, the Hope Commission puts most stress on Religious Education, English and Social Studies. Cadet training was also recommended.
I interviewed Don Santor who has been teaching history at the high school level from 1960 to the early 1990's. He also wrote several Canadiana (scrapbook) textbooks. Don Santor now teaches the pre-service teachers at the Faculty of Education at the University of Western Ontario. He noted that in the 1950's he was taught by the rote method and that the books were very centred around factual knowledge. Also he noted that streaming occurred at some level in the 1950's. The focus was very British. History was used for Citizenship Training. Don noted that in the early 1950's  when he was young there was integration between history and other social sciences, but it was minimal compared to today's standards. 
         The history textbooks of the Era show these things.

I found that World Civilization (Part 2, Modern History 1941 ) was very fact oriented, and had lower ended questions. It is extremely Eurocentric. This I believe can be expected of a society that viewed itself as European and indeed where racism did openly exist toward non-whites.
In the textbook named Canada and Commonwealth (1953) on page 10  it openly speaks of the White Man's Burden in a positive light. Here the coming of European powers to less developed nations to dominate them was described as a great benefit to the less civilized people of the world on page 8 below it shows that Citizenship training was involved in the teaching of history.

Also note that in Canada and the Commonwealth it shows the iron bloc as evil. Notice how the communist countries are in black. One must remember that   this textbook was written at the height of the Cold War .

Thus the needs for the teaching of this type of history to the young  were thus met.
By 1960 history was again its own subject. Citizenship training was out taken out of history. Five courses were to be taken in history. However as noted in the curriculum guidelines of 1962, the two interrelationships between the two were essential in the teaching of both subjects as noted in the curriculum guidelines of 1962. Also by looking at the guidelines of 1962 there was a British and  Anglo- Canadian  macro history that was taught. As the fall of British prestige occurred in the 1960's
this course would be modified to include   only the United States and Canada.
There is nothing at all in the curriculum guideline speaking of units on the contributions of minorities  to Canadian society.  The textbooks of the time show quite clearly that minorities were at best under represented if represented at all.

Grade 9     British History
Grade 10    Canada the United States and Great Britain in the 20^th Century
Grade 11    Ancient and Medieval
Grade 12    Modern European
Grade 13    Canada and the United States from 1763

The British Epic was used for British History.  3 of the four headings in the table of contents have to do with politics. 22 of the 47 individual titles refer to kings, prime ministers of parliament. Britain seen as roots for Canada. Britain still had some world prestige at this time so this is why British history was studies at this time.
Circular fourteen had a plethora of books which were used for Grade 10. One of these released in 1962 was Three Nations. This book upon inspection shows that there is no real focus whatsoever on the studying of minorities. The book also is very fact oriented and is lacking in higher order thinking.  Almost all questions are    Recall.
In the book Canada: The Struggle for Empire(1960) it seems very simplistic in its explanations of things.

This shows that there exists a lack of knowledge in the way of representing the struggles of minorities. In fact it shows that the textbooks of the time were racist, as the child like simplicity of the slave is evident by his smiling face. In reality slaves were mistreated and despised being treated as a form of subhumanity.

The factual oriented knowledge was the order of the day. There was a desire to keep the status quo. Contributions of minorities did not exist, there existed a cloud of racism, and fear of communists. Thus the teaching of history was itself a product of its time. A time which was racist and subjective  (hatred of U.S.S.R.), and jobs required more attitude than skills the history catered to that. Citizenship training was taught under the guise of history to create good citizens to fight the communists. Minorities were not vocal and the government only changes the status quo when necessary. I myself have heard from family members who had arrived from Greece at this  time that Anglo- Canadians would call new immigrants D.P.s  (Displaced Person) to their faces.  Thus it is shown that the teaching of history was what society wanted children to learn, which in this case  was the status quo.


Davis (1995) substantiates this claim by his findings  "The canon of 1960 was elitist, imperialist, pro-capitalist, patriarchal, racist, Anglo bias, patronizing of Quebec, and pro American. It was largely devoid of social history, multicultural history, women's history and the sociological content that masses of students could have related and learned from."