ISSUES IN SYLVAN SCHOOL DISTRICT NO. 1739
1916 TO 1930

Kenneth Woollard

Alberta is not far removed in time from her pioneer days despite her modern appearance. Just sixty years ago most of her present-day cities were little more than villages and hundreds of homesteads were being cleared out of the bush. Given the primitive conditions of the roads and the slow methods of transportation in those early years, self-sufficiency was a simple fact of life for the rural settlers and they made do as best they could with the resources at hand. Simply communicating with those outside one's own immediate neighbourhood was often difficult and so the problems which inevitably arose in these nascent communities had to be dealt with on a local level. It was natural therefore for this autonomy to extend to the matter of education. Boards were formed, taxes were collected, schools were built and teachers hired largely under the impetus of the local inhabitants while the provincial government (in the first years of Alberta's existence) played a distant and tenuous role as overseer and arbiter in more general problems.

In this paper I hope to discuss just what some of these problems and issues were for the school boards in the period from 1916 to 1930 by taking as a focus for my examination the particular case of the Sylvan School District No. 1739. My reasons for this choice are twofold. First, I had the good fortune to find copies of the letters sent by this board to the various other organizations with which it dealt during this period. These letters turned out to be an enlightening source of information on the problems which assailed this district and, by analogy other small rural areas like it. While one must beware of over-generalizations, to an extent the basic concerns of facilities, finances and consolidation were common to all marginal areas throughout Alberta, though particular circumstances varied. 1

It would, however, be safe to say that not every district had such a dedicated and determined secretary-treasurer as did Sylvan. Thomas Street held that position and his acerbic comments and poetic turns of phrase are a source of both amusement and insight. In numerous, many-paged epistles to the Department of Education he lays bare his opinionated and highly subjective views on the situation in what he termed "probably the smallest and poorest District in Alberta."2 Neighbouring boards, recalcitrant ratepayers, and teachers were all the recipients of his ire, usually in connection with some financial concern since his determination to save the district expense was all-consuming. To be charitable, it should be said that he lacked one obvious motivation for parsimony since he neither resided in nor paid taxes to the Sylvan District. Nevertheless, in him the district had a strong and persistent voice and, during these years, the area did manage to grow and even prosper for a time thanks, in part, to his efforts. As he so aptly (if immodestly) put it: "For nine long years I have worked my hardest for Sylvan, under the greatest difficulties. We have brought this district out of the deepest depths and set it on a rock."3 This optimism was somewhat misplaced however; as time was to prove. By 1930 the effects of the Depression were being felt and, as settlers once again moved out, Sylvan School was closed.

INTRODUCTION

The establishment of a school district in the 1916-30 period was a relatively simple process. When at least eight children between the ages of five and sixteen years were present in a locality a petition for the granting of an ordinance creating a school district could be submitted to the provincial government. Once this was forthcoming a committee of three trustees was elected and the borders of the district were drawn. This last process was usually marked by considerable gerrymandering since, obviously, it was to the district's advantage to absorb as many taxable quarter-sections as possible. However, it was stipulated that the borders of new districts had to be co-terminus with those surrounding it, while nowhere could they exceed five miles in any dimension. As a result, hundreds of small administrative units were created, none of which were more than twenty-five square miles in area and all functionally autonomous.
Once established it becme the district's responsibility to raise and fund a school and this was accomplished largely through the taxation of land owners. The school board assessed the value of land, set a mill rate, collected the taxes and used them as necessary (with the consent of the ratepayers). This system allowed extensive local control, but it also had great potential for creating problems as we shall see later.
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1 An examination of school histories in the many local histories now published shows these themes to recur in many of them.
2 Correspondence of the Sylvan School District No. 1739; p.88.
3 Ibid; p.133

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