Researching the second phase of Tighsolas (where I will get down to write Flo in the City) I came across even more information about education in Quebec during the Tighsolas Era.

It was the 1915 issue of the Educational Record of the Province of Quebec, a annual report by the Protestant Committee.


This particular issue is a stupendous find in that it summarizes how Education was dealt with in Quebec back then. There is a Department of Public Instruction with a Superintendent of Schools who heads it with two secretaries under him, one English, one French.
That there is a Protestant Committee that is responsible for 1)the organization, administration and discipline of pubic schools;2) for the division of the province into inspection districts;3) for the government of normal schools; for the examination of candidates for school inspector;4)for determining holidays.

In the Tighsolas letters, a local man, J.C. Sutherland, becomes Superintendent of Schools in 1912 (he's a Richmond druggist who had the textbook concession) and Herb Nicholson thinks it is a patronage appointment. This man goes onto an illustrious long career.

Herbs complains, and, yes, who you know was important back then, but this man likely had a hand in promoting sister Marion's career later on.

And "who you know" likely got Flo, a poor student, into Macdonald.

This issue also contains a short history of McGill Normal School, up until 1907,when it moved to Macdonald Campus.

Apparently,in 1906, when Marion attended,the staff of the Normal School consisted of a Principal, a Dr.Robins, 2 ordinary professors, one assistant professor, eight instructors and five lecturers.

The article says that in its first 50 years the college trained 2,989 teachers and gave out 4,188 diplomas, 300 academy, 1452 Model School (one being Marion's) 33 kindergarten and 2,333 elementary. I guess teachers got multiple diplomas.

They say how Miss Lila B Robins,daughter of the Principal, retired in 1915 from teaching math at the normal school. Flora mentions her in one of her letters. She is not impressed with the teacher. Flora claims she could teach better than Miss Robins! The hubris of youth~

Both Flo and Edith's names are in this report - they both attended teacher's convention in Westmount.

Edith is mentioned again as being a teacher at St. Francis School in Richmond. Marion, of course, was retired and raising her family.Flora was living with her in Westmount.

Well, this issue also has a wonderful comparison of the state of education in Quebec between 1903 and 1913.. Perfect for Tighsolas.

Here are some interesting comparisons that underscore what is going on in this era of galloping change.


Between 1903-1913, pupils in Montreal increased from 8,495 to 22 953.

Sherbrooke (a large town) say a slight increase and Richmond, a smaller town, saw a decline. 1193 to 934.

Yes, people, especially Anglo Protestants, were moving to the city. That's what Marion,Flo and Herb did. Edith was in Richmond for only a year or two. She soon moved to Montreal.

The number of Protestant Elementary schools in Quebec declined,808-786 but that was largely because HIGHER education was becoming more common.Model schools increased over the 10 year period 44-53, academies, 28-38.

The number of students across the board increased about 30 percent in the 10 year period. Elementary 27,467 to 39,341. Model School from 3, 672 to 4, 603. Academies from 4,266 to 10,623.

What? More kids attending High School than Middle School? I suspect this is because the Academies take in French Catholic students.


Teachers with diplomas increased, but only slightly over the 10 years,

In elementary in 1903-4 there had been 925 teachers with a diploma, 225 without. In 12-13 there were 933 with diplomas, 419 without. The next year, where Flora Nicholson's diploma gets into the mix, there are 101 teachers with diplomas.
So, the percentage of teachers WITHOUT diploma rose between 1903 and 1913-14 from 16.97 percent to 22.29 percent, a little better than year before when it stood at 24 percent. HERE IS THE REASON FLO GOT A DIPLOMA AND EDITH GOT SOME JOBS TEACHING! They needed more teachers than they put out during the previous ten years.

Married women didn't teach, so many of the teachers McGill Normal School trained only worked a few years. Marion joks in a 1906 normal school letter that some fellow students are only interested in getting 'a pupil of one' after graduation. She wasn't like that. She was ambitious. Yet she married in 1913 and only came back to teaching after her husband died in 1927.

This Flo in the City Story will explain why this happened. (Hint: it has something to do with the push-pull of biology and ambition and the lack of freedom and respect afforded single women in society.

So no wonder males were paid more. They were a better investment:

More stats: Average salaries for a male teacher in 1903 in the city was $1,285 a year. In towns $550. For a female teacher it was $$378 in the city; $161 in the town. By 1912-13 it rose to $1,475 in the city and 550 in the town for a male and 627 and 262 respectively for a female teacher. Marion was making 600 in 1912 teaching fifth form and getting a raise to $650. Still,she felt she should be paid what a man was getting.Edith, without a diploma was making a tiny 200 a year in the city (Westmount Methodist) but this school was private. Flo got $500. right out of MacDonald to start in 1912, but men were getting $800.

(Edith despite her lack of qualifications, must have been a good teacher. There's a blog on the web about an Italian/Canadian religious scholar who idolized Miss Nicholson and believed her to be his inspiration in life!!

About 12.5 of the population of Quebec was attending these schools. (Some French Catholics attended Protestant School and vice versa, but not in as great amounts.) There was a sharp decline in said population in the rural areas. (2/3 rds of Montreal was English in 1910)

This was a wartime issue of course, and it included, already,a poem by Rupert Brooke. It also included a very prescient statement: that the war devastating Europe would make better higher quality education all the more important.

As this website shows,the Powers that Be, through the Royal Commission on Industrial Training and Technical Education in 1910-13, already understood that the new industrial age would require better trained citizens. There were too many untrained poor. Too few jobs for too many immigrants and displaced rural folk.

A history book I recently read claimed that WW1 happened because of this overpopulation. - in all the cities of the Western World. Alas, the tree was pruned down to the trunk. Poor and rich alike died. In England that left 10 women for every one eligible man. Spinsterhood was the fate of many women who came of age after the war. So they were available to go out into the workforce.Single women wanting husbands ditched their corsets for flapper dresses and learned to shake their booty as never before.

In Canada, it was easy to escape the draft (married men, like Hugh Blair didn't have to go to war) I'm not sure if my husband's grandfather was drafted. In a 1914 letter Marion describes an argument with her mother in law, who is terribly against the draft and has no interest in seeing her 4 sons sent to war. She is French Canadian. Marion writes that if Hugh has to go, he has to go.

The Nicholsons were not untouched by war. Here's a page of WW1 letters sent to Flora.

And although the man per woman ratio was better than in England after WW1, Edith never married and Flo married down.. as they say.
My own British grandmother, Dorothy Forster went to Malaya after the war to marry planter Robert Nixon, a Yorkshireman.