The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching Division of Educational Enquiry and the Shaping of Canadian Higher Education

Abstract

When the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching was established in 1905, universities in Canada and New-foundland were eligible for participation in a pension fund for faculty and grants to universities. Canadian universities were quick to seek access to the Carnegie pension plan and for support from the Corporation. Access to both programs came with strings attached, including recommendations of educational studies commissioned by the Foundation, six of which addressed Canadian higher education specifically. As attractive as the prospect of Carnegie support was, it posed a dilemma for many universities and self-regulated professions associated with them in regard of mandate and autonomy. This study investigates how Canadian universities and the professional societies associated with them responded to the studies, found ways to take advantage of the reports, or in some cases make compromises to manage the internal conflicts that arose from them, and finally their embryonic introduction of the concept planned systems of higher education.

Canadian Higher Education and the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching Pension Plan

“…Mount Allison predicted that the Foundation, even after the plan for federation collapsed, would pay out some of the $3 million it had committed for transition to the plan, absent pension fund eligibility (Mount Allison and the Carnegie Plan for University Federation, Appendix 1 [April, 1928], MAUA). The prediction turned-out to be correct (Lang, 2022).…”

“…In 1909 the Foundation warned universities that sheltered arms-length proprietary medical, dental, and law schools that they would not be accepted unless the schools were either brought up to the same standards of universities already on the accepted list or cut loose (Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, Annual Report, 1909). True to its word, in 1910 the Foundation commissioned the first in a series of educational enquiries on professional schools, later including dental and law schools in Canada, and Manitoba's 1877 federation legislation (Lang, 2022).…”

“…When the Foundation was established, most interest in it on the part of universities was the pension fund and the rules surrounding it. Advancing the cause of higher education was also part of the Foundation's mandate through its Department of Educational Enquiry (Lang, 2022). In 1910 the Foundation released an "educational enquiry" of medical education, which had an indirect but important connection to the pension fund (Flexner, 1910).…”

“…However, some objectives of the report were realized anyway, by Foundation funding absent full rationalization. Reports proposing reform of medical (Flexner, 1910), legal (Redlich, 1914;Reed, 1921) and dental education (Geis, 1922) however, were adopted by Canadian universities without controversy (Lang, 2022). Grants from the Corporation were often very specific, for example to support the National Gallery and the Quebec Association for Adult Education.…”

“…Between 1910 and 1932 the Foundation commissioned six educational enquiries that influenced the evolution of Canadian higher education (Lang, 2022). In two of the studies-one of education in the Maritime provinces and Newfoundland, and one of medical education-the pension fund and the rules for access to it played pivotal roles.…”