Duff, Emma Lorne, 1872-1935 : Emma Lorne Duff was born on 7 February 1872 in Liverpool, Nova Scotia. She was the youngest of four children. Her father, Reverend Charles Duff, M.A., was a Highland Scotsman and a Congregational minister and at one time, Inspector of schools for Queen's County, Nova Scotia. Her mother was Isabella Johnson of Ireland. Emma Lorne Duff is the sister of the brilliant jurist Lyman Poore Duff who was Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Canada from 1906 to 1944. She graduated from the Normal School in Toronto where, training courses for kindergarten teachers were established in 1885 at the Normal Schools of Toronto and Ottawa.
She began to work as a teacher in Toronto around 1888. She was not old enough to meet the requirement of the Board of Education of Ontario and she had to have a permit from the Minister of Education for more then a year. In 1900, she started her work as a kindergarten teacher. Emma Duff was recognized as a precursor and a leader in the kindergarten field in Canada and in the world and she became an authority on the subject.
Kindergarten schools came about in Canada when the public schools system was implemented and at a time which tended to crush the spirit of play which is the life of the kindergarten. The kindergarten system or the "garden for children" has changed attitudes towards the education of the very young. There was an immediate recognition of its value as advocated by the German philosopher and pedagogue Frederic Froebel who said : "Let us go and play with the children". He founded the first kindergarten in Blankenburg, Germany in 1837. In a new country as Canada there was much interest to Froebel's ideas. In 1882, the first kindergarten was established in Toronto as an integral part of its elementary education system. Not only did it serve a social or educational purpose, but was also used for research. The Kindergarten System was supported by Sir George Ross, who was Minister of Education, Dr. George Paxton Young who was professor of philosophy at the University of Toronto, and Dr. James L. Hughes who was Inspector of Public Schools in Toronto. In the meantime, kindergartens still were experimental and were being established in New York, Chicago, St. Louis and Philadelphia. Several Canadian women went to the United States to study its principles. They came back to Canada and decided to expand this movement first in New Brunswick, and then in Quebec and Ontario. Among these was Ada Marean and Emma Lorne Duff. Emma Duff became director of the "Kindergarten Primary Department" in Queen Victoria School in Parkdale, Toronto. She had a strong influence on other young teachers during her forty five years career.
She was recognized as the foremost teacher of kindergarten education in Canada and one of the best on the continent. She introduced many new methods of child education into her kindergarten class and was sought by educators throughout the country and the world for advice on child educational affairs. Her methods of teaching were based on the importance of considerable freedom in the kindergarten and also a need for a program in which work and play were balanced. The main principles of the kindergarten system were also based on meeting the needs of the growing child for activity and greater physical freedom, and education through play activities, social or group education, creativity or creative expression. Many activities of the kindergarten schools were games, rythms, dramatization, fine and arts, story-telling, the singing of songs, reading and counting.
Emma Lorne Duff became a leader not only in the kindergarten reform movement, but to teachers movements of every kind. Emma Duff was an active member of societies such as the National Federation of Kindergarten, the Women Teachers' Association, the Board of Education, the National Executive of Canadian Women's Press Club, the National Council of Education and a member the Canadian Authors Association. She was elected first president of the Toronto School Teachers' Association when it was formed in 1917. She was also chairman of Kindergarten Section of the Ontario Educational Association. She went to conferences in Canada and North America and trained overseas teachers who spent years studying our system in Canada.
As well as her duties as teacher, Emma Lorne Duff was known as a writer of stories and verses for young children. From 1927 to 1933, she published "A Cargo of Stories for Children" which were a selection of the children's stories that she wrote from her experience during the many years of her career. This book was illustrated by Elsie Deane. She also wrote poems for the "Saturday Night", the "Educational Courier" produced by the Federation of Women Teachers' Associations of Ontario and the Ontario Public School Men Teachers' Federations. Emma Lorne Duff died on April 1, 1935.
