Annual report of the Department of Education 1890-91

“Reports of Inspectors of Schools: Dartmouth has provided a house, in the north end, with two departments. The site is retired, dry and pleasant, surrounded with forest trees. What has been known as Tuft’s Cove school occupies one of the rooms. The “Greenvale” house has four large and well ventilated rooms. The basement is well planned and arranged for play rooms in wet weather. The site is admirable. It would take many years for the newly planted trees to assume the stateliness and beauty of the trees which surround this building. In fifteen of the school-rooms in Dartmouth the pupils are saved from the effects of stair climbing, which has been pronounced “evil, and only evil, and that continually.””

“Halifax County has sections among the [black] population; 5 of these have school houses which answer fairly well for the summer term, and we hope to have two more added for 1892. I may here remark that in the Fall River school no distinction of color has ever been recognized. Only think of two public schools, situated within two hundred yards of each other, the one with an average of 15, the other [black], and average of 11. What a waste of public money! When will this prejudice, as foolish as it is cruel, cease to cripple weak sections that need to economize all their forces?”

“Dartmouth has the distinction of being the first in the Maritime Provinces, to open a free Kindergarten in connection with the Public Schools. It was opened in May, 1888, under the able directorship of Miss Hamilton, who recieved her training at Truro. Her Kindergarten has won its way by sheer merit, and commended itself to the approbation of competent judges. It has its quarters specially designed in the Greenvale schoolhouse.

A happy feature of the Dartmouth schools is the Banking system.

The Chairman of the Board of School Commissioners, W.H. Stevens, Esq., in his report to the ratepayers of the Town, Nov. 1890, gives -“The amount deposited since their establishment three years ago, as $3165.15.”

Nova Scotia. Dept. of Education, and Nova Scotia. Superintendent of Education. Annual Report of the Department of Education. Halifax: Dept. of Education, https://hdl.handle.net/2027/uc1.b3013762