Codner first came to Newfoundland in 1788 and periodically traveled back to England where he was influenced by the Evangelical Revival occurring there during this time.
[citation needed] Public education in Newfoundland and Labrador, since the early 19th century, has largely been shaped by two factors: religion and the economy.
The economy was based on a single industry, the fishery; the Protestant and Catholic churches, from 1843 onwards, dominated the educational system.
experienced many name changes, such as the Newfoundland and British North American Society for Educating the Poor, this name change came in May 1829 to reflect the wider vision of the Society, moving beyond Newfoundland into the rest of the Canadian and North American colonies.
[5] The Society acknowledged that one of its primary aims, despite its non-denominational constitution, was to carry the ministry of the Church to isolated areas which could not afford to support a clergyman.
[6] Samuel Codner was from Kingskerswell, Devon, in a region with a long-standing tradition of involvement in the Newfoundland cod fishery.
He circulated a leaflet entitled Schools in Newfoundland, which asserted that a large proportion of the 70,000 inhabitants were without access to instruction.
[7] The Newfoundland School Society was established in June 1823 and had its first annual meeting on July 13, 1824, at the London Coffee House on Ludgate Hill.
were that the Schools must be managed by Masters and Mistresses of the United Church of England and Ireland and conducted on Dr. Bell’s System.
They believed that through their schools "we shall discharge the claims of kindred and of philanthropy, and most effectually teach them to understand and rightly appreciate their connection with, and interest in the moral, as well as national greatness of their Mother Country".
Codner then turned to some of the most important towns and cities in England, Ireland, and Scotland, evidently at his own expense, to solicit both donations and the assistance of political and ecclesiastical leaders in founding branch societies.
The society claimed to have provided instruction for nearly 16,500 students, both children and adults, which equalled slightly less than 25 per cent of the total population.
For example, conditions which affected the population were such things as illnesses (or epidemics) such as the flu, fever, whooping cough, smallpox, measles, etc.
Also, in smaller settlements, the teacher was allowed to attend the fishery in order to supplement their low teaching salaries; therefore, closing the school during that season.
would send shipments of clothes and shoes from England to Newfoundland to give to poverty-stricken families so their children could continue to attend school.
The Society acknowledged that one of its primary aims, despite its non-denominational constitution, was to carry the ministry of the Church to isolated areas which could not afford to support a clergyman.
The teachers sent out in the society’s early years were well trained and highly regarded as leaders within the communities in which they lived, and they usually served as catechists or lay readers as well.
A considerable number later elected to become ordained as Anglican priests and furnished the Newfoundland church with one of its main sources of clerics during the 19th century.
Regarding themselves as missionaries as well as pedagogues, they strove to inculcate the virtues of hard work, regular habits, sobriety, and the observance of Sunday as a day of rest.