There is a great deal of activity reforming the training and education of teachers in Canada, but most of these efforts flounder entirely or have only modest impact. We contend that they flounder because they are ahistorical. We analyze the history of teacher education in English-speaking Canada, elaborating how successive institutions have systematically appropriated social power of traditional authorities. This social analysis of tradition focuses our attention on the interrelations among institutions, social roles, power, and knowledge. By exploring these interrelationships we show how teacher educators, individually and collectively, and broader historical social forces "conspire" to maintain the status quo. We conclude by arguing that teacher educators can only become more effective agents of social change by re-examining their socio-historical situativity and by discursively articulate new authority based upon ability rather than compulsively recapitulating traditional power structures.