The Ontario Readers 1886

The ideas Ontario kids were raised with in the 1880's:

The rules:  see item 6 about contagious disease!

Instructions to teachers regarding "orthoepy":

Many of the stories were pretty gory by today's school standards:

The book included numerous poems extolling the virtue of dying for King and country, good indoctrination for future cannon fodder for the imperial wars of the time.

For an interesting examination of similar school readers used in Manitoba, see Daly's Days of Yore, the blog of the Daly House Museum in Brandon, Manitoba.