Education

An act was passed in the Prince Edward Island Legislature in 1825 for the encouragement of education. This act gave small sums of public money to assist Island communities in the construction of schools and in the payment of teachers’ salaries.1 The teachers were members of the families settling from the old country. The Thomson, LeFurgey, Ives, and Craig families all had members who were school masters.

One room North Tryon School in the 1930s. Vernon Inman collection.

The licensing of teachers was regulated by the Island legislature under an act passed in 1829. The Board of Education was established in 1830 with its main duty being the licensing of teachers according to the following categories: ‘

0 First or lowest class to be competent to teach English, Reading,

Writing, and Arithmetic, at 5 pounds a year.

0 Second class to be competent to teach what has been mentioned, as well as Geometry, Mensuration, Land Surveying, and Naviga- tion, at 10 pounds a year.

0 Third class to be competent to teach all these subjects plus higher branches of Mathem2atics, Geography, and the use of the globe,

at 20 pounds a year. The legislation specified a minimum of twenty students per class- room. Holidays were of one week duration, plus the first Monday of

June, the second Monday of October, and the twenty fifth—day of

December. Mr. John McNeil was appointed as the first Prince Edward Island

school inspector in 1837. He inspected all Island schools for an annual

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