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Scholarly sources on the life and work of Egerton Ryerson (in alphabetical order) 

We point out that there has been no serious source, that is, one based on documents from the time, that has implicated Egerton Ryerson in the design or implementation of the Canadian residential school system. The list below runs from 1186  to 2021 and includes a two-volume Life and Letters, several biographies, a thesis and chapters and articles, many of them peer-reviewed. People who make accusations against Ryerson are, in effect, circulating accusations, but however many times and in whatever forms they do so, without evidence. they should be dismissed. 

  • Burwash, Nathanael. Egerton Ryerson.  Toronto: Morang, 11903. 
  • Damaia, Laura. Egerton Ryerson. Don Mills ON: Fitzhenry & Whiteside, 1975.   
  • Fortune, Len. Act Indian: not Indian Act. Owen Sound: Restoring the Circle, 2013.  
  • Gidney,  R.D. “Egerton Ryerson,” Dictionary of Canadian Biography. vol. 11: 1881-1890): 783- 795.  
  • Hodgins, J. George. Ryerson Memorial Volume Prepared  on the Occasion of the Unveiling of the Ryerson Statue  in the grounds of the Education Department on the Queen’s Birthday 1889. Toronto: Warwick & Sons, 1889. 
  • Jones, Peter. Life and Journals of Ka-ke-wa-quo-wa-by(Rev Peter Jones) Wesleyan Missionary. Toronto: Anson Green, 1860.  
  • Maclean, Hope.  “The Hidden Agenda: Methodist Attitudes to the Ojibwa and the Development of Indian Schooling in Upper Canada, 1821-1860,” (M.A. thesis, University of Toronto, 1978.  
  • Maclean, Hope. “ A Positive Experiment in Aboriginal Education: The Methodist Ojibwa Day Schools in Upper Canada 1824-1855.” Canadian Journal of Native Studies XXII 1(2002):23-63.  
  • MacLean, Hope. “Ojibwa Participation in Methodist Residential Schools in Upper Canada. 1828-1860” Canadian Journal of Native Studies XXV (2005):93-137.   
  • McDonald, Neil and Alf Chaiton,. eds. Egerton Ryerson and His Times. Toronto: Macmillan of Canada, 1978.   
  • McLaren, Kristin. “’We had no desire to be set apart’: Forced Segregation of Black Students in Canada West Public Schools and Myths of British Egalitarianism.” Social History / Histoire Sociale 37(73), (2004):27 – 50.  
  • Miller,  J.R. Shingwauk’s Vision: A History of Residential Schools.  Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1996.   
  • Putnam, J. Harold. Egerton Ryerson and Education in Upper Canada. Toronto: Wm Briggs, 1912.  
  • Sissons, C.B. Egerton Ryerson: His Life and Letters. 2 vols .Toronto: Clarke Irwin, 1937-47.  
  • Smith, Donald B. Sacred Feathers: The Reverend Peter Jones (Kahkewaquonaby) and the Mississauga Indians. 2nd ed. University of Toronto Press, 2013 1988].  
  • Smith, Donald B. Mississauga Portraits. Ojibwe Voices from Nineteenth-Century Canada. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2013.  
  • Smith, Donald B.  “Egerton Ryerson and the Mississauga, 1826-1856. An Appeal for Further Study,” Ontario  History  vol. 113 (Autumn 2021).  
  • Thomas, Clara. Ryerson of Upper Canada. Toronto: Ryerson Press, 1969.  
  •  Timko, Robert M. and Aleksandr I. Kubyshkin, “Egerton Ryerson: building a spiritual and educational foundation for a Canadian identity.” Area Studies. International Relations. 21,4 (2016):32-43.  
  • Walker, James. “African Canadians.” In Paul Robert Magocsi, ed. Encyclopedia of Canada’s Peoples. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1999, 39-76.  

Note: One author, Len Fortune,  who had included one negative, incorrect, point on Ryerson in a publication, “A” is for Assimilation,, 2011, reprinted in his  larger Truth and Then Reconciliation: A Tribology, 2016, later corrected it. In a postscript, “Complete Transparency” to his brief to the Standing Strong Task Force, Fortune explained that he had used a source, “but didn’t back it up with a least one more reference, a mortal sin in my world.” Further, “Upon recent research, I discovered that Ryerson was a wonderful, extraordinary Canadian ( he was born in Canada ) who in no way was a racist, a sexist, an abuser nor an enabler of genocide, all of which he has been accused of … I’m thankful to both God and the Great Spirit that I was able  to recognize my mistakes and have in the past years tried to atone for them” (Fortune, Egerton Ryerson, April 2021). We hope that other honest researchers will do the same!