Everyone Hates the Normal

Marion, second from left, in Normal School photo.

Well, I was able to find a newspaper description of the 1927 Macdonald Normal School Graduation and the 1907 Mcgill Normal School Graduation, so that I can probably mesh the two and describe what likely happened at Flo’s graduation in 1911. Prayer to start, some choir singing (Flora was in the choir), lots of important people attending, some giving speeches. Prizes awarded.

I am pretty sure, a few years ago as I embarked on this research for Flora in the City, I read that Macdonald only absorbed the Mcgill Normal School reluctantly. Where did I read this?

I have puzzled together something about it from Gazette reports. In 1905, Macdonald (the Tobacco benefactor) said that his new school would not be absorbing the McGill Normal School (despite the fact that many assumed it would, that it was a natural thing.)

Then suddenly they are absorbing it…Political wrangling I guess. I’m assuming Principal Robins was against the move, as he resigned or lost his job when the transfer occurred, while all the other teachers moved to Macdonald, literally.

In 1906, the Normal School is saying it is looking for ways to create residences for women students, a big problem that keeps rural women from applying. (The Nicholson letters describe the huge problems young had getting places to live in Montreal.)

John Ferguson Snell’s book on Macdonald College states Macdonald absorbed the Normal School because in 1906, an educational official did a survey and figured out that Women Teaching Students had difficulty finding places to live in Montreal.

(Marion’s letters from Normal School reveal this. She stayed at the Y and hated it. Too many rules! I think I will have her talking to this official in 1906. Maybe she did! The Y rooms were cold, it seems, from Marion’s letters. Also, there’s an interesting bit in her letters about a Gazette letter that claims the Y, situated near the Windsor, is too good a location for teaching students, proving that women, alone in the city, were looked down upon.

One of Marion’s fellow students is writing a reply to the letter.)

I also found an article that showed that there was some kind of smear campaign agains the Normal School and its teachers in 1907 that went all the way to the Legislative Assembly and then the Head Instructor, a Miss Peebles, took an extended vacation to Europe.

And Dr. Robins, long time Principal of the Normal School, resigned when Macdonald took over the Normal School and he said, enigmatically, in his last speech during the graduation ceremonies that Macdonald had ‘wider connections.’

The fact is, I think, Macdonald always expected to have a teaching school, but one that taught manual training and nature study to rural candidates who would go back to the country to teach. In other words, they wanted to fill the void.

Neither Macdonald nor Robertson gave a hoot about city students, whose parents ‘herded to the city.’

And yet, that’s who they ended up helping. Teachers like Flora Nicholson didn’t want to teach in boring, ill-equipped rural schools, where there was no chance to find a husband. Not if they could help it.

The short of it is, Marion’s experiences in 1905/1906 at the Normal School, influenced the decision to have the Normal School put at Macdonald, where there were state of the art residences, new building, excellent ventilation, clean water and electricity!

(Apparently, the Belmont classrooms of the Normal School had terrible ventilation. A student passed out from gas poisoning or something. This is an interesting fact, if you consider the ‘health concerns’ of the era, tuberculosis, etc. )

Somehow I have to get this all in the novel…A little in the Flo novel, a lot in the Marion novel.

McGill Normal School

Well, this article, from 1904, is quite illuminating, with respect to Flo in the City, my story about a girl coming of age in the pivotal 1910 era in Canada.

Here, Dr. Robbins, the Principal of McGill Normal School, is lamenting the fact that they can’t lure men into the teaching profession.

This is having the effect of effeminizing the youth of the nation. Indeed, it’s having “a grave national effect” the article says. Youth need ‘a strong masculine hand’ over boys during those impressionable years.

There is a belief to this effect today.

This can be solved, says Dr. Robbins, by increasing male teacher’s salaries for no one can raise a family on a teacher’s salary. Oddly, I have statistics from 1897 that show that male teachers already make more than double females’salaries.

Average Salaries, Male Teachers. Elementary with diploma (this is yearly): 213.00 RC.$600.00 Protestant.
Female elementary with diploma 104.00 RC; 182. 00Protestant (Yikes! What a discrepancy).

Model and Academy with diploma: Male: 491.00 RC; 835.00 Protestant. Women: 130. RC.. 302.00 Protestant.

No wonder Marion is quoted in a 1905 letter, “Everyone hates the Normal.” What with a Principal that thought so witheringly of his staff (which included his own daughter, a master teacher) and students.

No wonder she went on to become union leader and fight for higher salaries for female teachers, after being left widowed with four children and after having been duped out of her husband’s share of his family’s business, or so she thought, so her lawyer thought, because I have the lettter. (You have a good case, but it would cost too much to go to court,” he says.

In this context, it is easy to believe (what I mentioned in my last blog) how teachers were bullying and sadistic. Clearly, if women were considered too ‘soft’ to teach boys, they were encouraged to be harsh, to prove they weren’t bad at their jobs. Flora Nicholson was soft-hearted. She writes in a 1914 letter that ‘she feels sorry for her students. They have such hard lives.” Marion didn’t feel this way, or certainly didn’t express it. She did, though, work hard to get the best out of them.

Marion quit teaching and married because a ‘mere boy out of teaching school’ was promoted over her, with a starting salary 150 a year over her present salary, even though she had a remarkable record and 6 years experience.

In England, the public school system (which was really private) was created for the same reason. Young boys of 5 were pulled away from their homes and the doting moms, to masculinize them. How good you were at school sports became the measure of a man.

My father, a child of the Raj, had this happen to him. And despite the fact he was Captain of all the school teams, he was scarred for life by this background. Indeed, he tells a story: One day another younger pupil (at St. Bees, County Durham) came up to him and said “It must be great to be you.” and he wanted to say, “Yea, you think so.” He was miserable.

Finally, A Photo that is dated.

Finally, a photo that is dated. 1904. The Quartet. Whoever they are. Girls the same age as Edith and Marion, or a little younger. The Peplers? Possibly.

Here I post a complete letter from Marion to Flora, 1905, when she was in Montreal, at McGill Normal School. It is the only time she wrote long letters home. As as teacher, she didn’t have the time, I guess. This letter reflects how important CONNECTIONS were in the city, and also shows how she counted on Herb to escort her about, and not always successfully. This letter has a comment about a Minister’s performance, which is something I mentioned in an earlier blog. Marion also mentions that Herb telephones her. Well, there’s not much telephoning going on in these letters, for reasons to be explained later. Clearly Herb had access to one and Marion had one at the Y.

Dear Flora,

It is now your time to get a letter so here it is. How is school and all the rest of Rd? Why don’t you write me some more jokes? Have just finished laughing over the last.

Last Sunday I went up to called at Stewarts’s, could not get Herb so went alone. They were fine and asked both Herb and I up to tea next Sunday. Herb says he won’t go but perhaps I can persuade him. On my way back I called on Clare and she asked me to tell Edith that she was overpowered with getting so many letters from her – and by the way so am I. Especially the long ones. She is studying hard for her exams begin next week and ours are only 5 weeks off so I see where I must study like Fury from now on. Last Sunday Ms. Parker asked Ruth and I over to take tea with Birdie but I was out had not got home from Clare’s so did not go. Sunday night Miss Stien and I went to Crescent Street Church

Mr. MacKay is fine, almost as good as Dr. Johnston. I think I like him better although most people do not. After Church Herb came over then Grace C and Miss Dunton came and we had a nice time. Miss Dunton came to see Miss Stein, though she was not with the rest of us.

Tonight Jim Davis came over and brought one of his boyfriends and stayed quite a while. Other boy’s name is Walker and he is real nice.

Over Sunday night Herb came over and Kerryman and Jim were there He took them all in and the next day telephoned over and asked who that Crazy Davis was, so you see what he thinks of him. He said K was nice which was a good deal from him, don’t you think?

It is about a 5 minute walk from the end of the bridge to the cars. We take the cars at a place called St Etienne and then transfer to the Wellington and that will take us to McGill and then we take the Windsor and St Lawrence west.

Have not got Herb to go to Mrs. Paterson’s yet. I think he wishes that I was at home for I am always at him to go somewhere that he does not want to go. Last Sunday morning 7 of the girls from the house went on the mountain and had a fine time. It was such a fine day. We cut through the cemetery . It was the first time I had been there. Haven’t been up to Herb’s room yet. Don’t know when I will go. Brenda was over last night for a little while. She has got her hair up on top of her head and does not look nearly as nice. Has a lovely diamond. Have no time to go to see the Miss Fisher’s -at least not at Present. Now I must stop… with love as ever Marion Annie Nicholson and the Old Nick as I am usually called these days.