A. Stewart MacDonald D.F.C., MD. C..M. 
     
    
   
   
    
     the school as there were about 70 applications. Of course, 
     
     possibly it was a help that two of the trustees were cousins 
     
     of my mother. The reason for so many applications was 
     
     that the supplement was $150.00, or a teacher with a 
     
     second class license had to have $7500 over that - the 
     
     government paid 50 cents on each dollar. This was good, 
     
     as I got $600.00 for teaching in Little Sands two years later, 
     
     when I had a further year at Prince of Wales College and a 
     
     first class license. 
     
    

    
     There were 32 pupils in the Wood Islands West 
     
     School. Some of the girls were about my age and I knew 
     
     them from former dances which I attended. There had 
     
     been very bad discipline in the school the year before, 
     
     so one of the reasons I got the school was that I was 
     
     the grandson of Sandy Ronald, who was known for his 
     
     pugnacious abilities. I knew all about the rampages of 
     
     the year before. One of the older trustees told me that he 
     
     was passing the school during school hours and he saw a 
     
     couple of boys dragging a calf into the school. He waited 
     
     a few minutes to see what would happen, which was 
     
     nothing. 
     
    

    
     I remember cutting hay that summer, talking out 
     
     loud, preparing what I would say the first day when I got 
     
     there. I gave my little speech and said that the first one I 
     
     caught talking, I would call on my helper, thereby reaching 
     
     in my back pocket and bringing out a sort of ninetail, I 
     
     said, ”Now lets get down to work." I had four big girls sit 
     
     in each corner of the school and sat a grade one or grade 
     
     two pupil with each one, thereby cutting down their 
     
     interest in talking. I did the same for the older boys. The 
     
     first student caught talking was taken up to the front and 
     
     given a few wallops in each hand. That was the one and 
     
     only time I ever used the strap. That student was the son of 
     
     one of the trustees, and he became one of my favourite 
     
    
   
   
    
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