In 1885, following a period of severe economic depression and social unrest in colonial Canada, state teachers in rural Perth County, Ontario met and formed the nucleus of what could clearly be described as a teachers' union. The idea spread quickly, and within six months the founding convention of a province-wide union was held in Toronto. Understandably, state officials were not pleased, and worked assiduously over the ensuing months to counter this movement. Building on the already-pervasive official discourse of individualized "professional responsibility", these officials began hinting about the possibility of teachers being "blessed" with a state-sanctioned "College of Preceptors" - a strategy that had previously been employed in England for a similar purpose. This article attempts to describe these events (and their sad outcomes), within the context of a review of the origins of state schooling systems, recent theory related to governmentality and individual (self-) regulation, and recent schooling "reforms" being undertaken concomitant with the (continuing) globalization of neo-liberal regimes of governance.