and as well will gain for the school, that commendation which shall always be bestowed on the deserving.”

In 1840, there were thirty pupils attending the school. The settlement was scattered and the children were in remote parts, making regular at- tendance difficult throughout the year.

, In 1848, ”among the improvements effected during the last few years, the blackboard was introduced as an indispensible teaching aid.” After this date for many years school reports were recorded but are not available for inspection. However, Sister Ella Cullen, who taught at Brackley school for two years, 1916 to 1918, has provided invaluable information from this early period with her memoirs, of early teaching days in Brackley.

8. Perhaps I am the oldest living former teacher, I am not sure. The teacher immediately before me

was Miss Bessie Forsythe, Charlottetown. (I believe she is deceased.) The citygirls who taught in one-room schools were at a disadvantage when they took charge because they were not used to so many different classes in one room. In those days we did not speak of ”grades” but signified standing according to Readers. We would say, e.g., ”Johnny is in 2nd class junior” when he began to use the Second Reader. I did not have any

Senior or ”Entrance” class in this school.

My teaching was done in the former old school building adiacent to the church. I remember somebody told me it was built before the Public School Act was passed, 1877. It had soft-wood floors, the usual pot-bellied stove and a water pail on a bench. On Monday mornings in the Cold winter 1 had to take my hardwood chair to the stove to warm it up before I dared sit on it. A new blackboard was a great consolation. I thanked the Lord many times for the horse shed where the boys played in winter noon hours, performing acrobatic stunts from rafter to rafter, etc. When weather and ice conditions were propitious they went to the Blatch Pond.

it was required that schools had to have Examination Days in December and June to which parents and friends were invited. These events usually included some closing exercises. One year in December we organized on Auction Sale. The boys made waste baskets (laced cardboard), the girls embroidered some articles; we realized sixteen dollars and receiving the same amount from the Dept. of Education we began a library, utilizing a small cupboard already in the school to hold the books. We got quite a number of books with what seems now a very small amount of money.

As a project to interest the pupils in helping the handicapped we sent a Christmas box to a boy from the district who was attending the School for

the Blind in Halifax.

It was customary that the teacher be invited to an evening meal sometime during the year to homes of pupils. This was of real value in

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