Superintendent of Schools predicted more defections.31
Table 7:3 shows the declining number of students remain-
ing in school, and their high failure rate.

Table 723, RE]. Education Enrollment & Achievements, 1914-1832

No. Wrote No. Passed "lo Passed
Grade 10 Exams Exams
Exams

6015 4226 436 188 43
6149 4383 465 245 53
6368 1450 490 215 44
6460 1413 521 267 51
5827 1830 464 150 32

N0. in No. in
Grades 1 & 2 Grades 7 & 8

These statistics suggest that the vast majority of students
were not completing the ten years of education. Shortage
of farm laborers and the use of children to work on the
farms is the likely explanation for this situation. Poor
attendance by students may also have been a factor in the
high failure rate in those who wrote the tenth grade exams
(also called the Prince of Wales College Entrance Exams),
but one expert concluded that the problem was with the
system of education itself, which was “only meeting the
needs of less than half of one percent of the pupils who
began school each year?”

During this decade forty—seven students (31 females and
16 males) in the five school districts passed the Provincial
exams at the completion of the tenth grade, an average of
less than five each year; but as Table 7:4 shows this
represents a four—fold increase over the previous decade.

Table 7:4, Education Achievement in the Five Communities, 1900-1934

 

1900 - 1909:
1910 - 1919:

No. Students
Passed PWC Exams

12 ( 5f, 7 m)
47 (31 f, 16 m)

No. Students Enrolled
in college/university

9( 4f, 5 m)
25 (15f, 10 m)

 

72

    

Kinkora School, 1913—14 '

(Left to Right) (Courtesy of Rose McCabe)

First Row: Freddie Gaudet, Emmet MCI ver, Wilfred Keefe, Linus Mulligan,

Johnnie Gaudet, Joseph Mulligan, Bert Ranaghan, John Ranaghan,
Charlie Murphy, John D. McIver, Pius Trainor, John Keefe, Albert Duffy,

Philip Duffy, Raymond Shreenan.

Second Row: Zita MacDonald, Elsie Murphy, Edith Keefe, Mae
Ranaghan, Margaret Ranaghan, Ethel McCarville, Hilda Shreenan,
Florence McCarville, Katie McCarville, Hattie Gaudet, Erna Murphy,
Tena Mclver, Gertie Trainor, Margaret Trainor, Helen Shreenan, Bernice
Shreenan, Tessie Ranaghan, Irene MacDonald, Rose McGuigan,
Helen Farmer.

Back Row: Edna Farmer, Edna Shreenan, Ada Smith, Clare Gallant,
Beatrice Murphy, Mildred Farmer, Irene McCarville, Teachers: Mae
Trainor and Storey H ynes, Ernest McCarvill, William Smith, Len

Farmer, Alban Farmer, Cyril MacDonald.

The increase was especially great for young women, a six-
fold increase. Ada Sith wrote those exams in 1915, went on
to Prince of Wales College to obtain a first-class teaching
license, and returned to teach at Kinkora in 1917. She recalls
a large number of “older” students returned to school at
that time, many of them young women whom Father Mac—
Donald had persuaded to complete school rather than go
to work in Boston.35 In addition to careers in teaching these