Context

How have the violent effects of eugenics become interwoven within institutional settings? The systemic institutionalization of “race betterment” thinking at Huronia was also embedded within white, middle class, settler educational systems. These educational systems informed how teachers, healthcare providers, nutritionists, psychologists, social welfare workers, religious and business leaders, researchers, politicians, among others, were trained.

The leaders and teachers of eugenics held false assumptions and incomplete understandings of heredity that came from the work of Gregor Mendel (1822-1884). Mendel became interested in plant hybridization and began breeding garden peas in the mid-1850s. After analyzing the traits of hybrid offspring (such as seed colour), he believed that each trait was determined by two “factors.” Each parent contributed one factor or piece of hereditary information that remained the same across generations. Certain dominant traits appeared when one inherited factor was dominant. The recessive trait appeared when both inherited factors were recessive.

Mendel’s “factors” were later renamed “genes” in the first decade of the twentieth century, and the idea was quickly taken up by animal and plant breeders such as C. A. Zavitz, who was a faculty member at Ontario Agricultural College. Zavitz attended the Eighth Annual Meeting of the American Breeders Association in 1911. This conference marks a significant moment since the law of heredity was now being applied to human traits. While this is now recognized as an overextension of Mendel’s law of heredity, the conference program featured animal and plant breeding alongside topics in human eugenics. The Opening Address by Dr. Alexander Graham Bell, for example, was entitled "Our Immigration Laws from the viewpoint of Eugenics." This conference was a precursor to the First International Eugenics Congress in 1912, at which the American Breeders' Association presented on the prevalence of hereditary defects in human ancestry.

Ontario Agricultural College and Macdonald Institute taught eugenics between 1914 and 1948.^1(footnote)

In their eugenics course, students at Macdonald Institute and OAC were taught about the elimination and segregation of those with “bad germ plasm”, who were called “unfit”, “defective”, “backward”, “inferior”, and “subnormal.” Teachers of eugenics were strong proponents of restricted immigration, restricted marriage, forced institutionalization, sterilization, and educational segregation of the “unfit” in Ontario. They viewed the “unfit” as a threat to the immediate and future strength of a Canadian Nation, which aspired towards a white middle class status quo.

Much of what early twentieth century proponents of eugenics believed rested on pseudoscience and faulty analyses. A major fallacy underlying the movement was a seriously flawed notion of heritability. Eugenicists mistakenly believed that Mendel’s basic law of genetics could be used to explain physical, mental, and moral conditions and characteristics with a strong familial tendency. These traits are now understood to involve a complex range of elements including genetics, learned behavioural patterns, malnutrition, exposure to infection, and other social or environmental factors.

The exams, exam schedules, and course calendars show how embedded eugenics became in the organizing structure of the Colleges. Returning year-after-year in virtually the same orientations and patterns, these documents show a machine-like tradition of efficiency in the structuring of educational programing and practice.^2(footnote) This approach to education models a fixed world that students must learn to adapt to in order to obtain an education and earn a degree. The 1928-1929 and 1936-1937 exam schedules shows the Macdonald Institute offered eugenics alongside a range of “human betterment” courses: science (chemistry), Domestic Science (Home Nursing, Written Cookery), Laundry, English, Institutional Methods (Housekeeping), Physiology, Cookery, Physics, Dietetics, Psychology, Kitchen Planning, Economics, Education (Observation), Sewing, Horticulture, Textiles, and Household Management Courses.^3(footnote) OAC’s 1941-42 and 1947-48 Course Calendars show eugenics in its “Genetics 18” courses up until 1948.^4(footnote)