"Between Education and Catastrophe": Public Schooling and the Project of Post-War Reconstruction in Manitoba 1944-1960 by George Buri A Thesis submitted to the Faculty of Graduate Studies of The University of Manitoba in partial fulfilment of the requirements of the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Department of History University of Manitoba Winnipeg Copyright © 2008 by George Buri Library and Bibliotheque et 1*1 Archives Canada Archives Canada Published Heritage Direction du Branch Patrimoine de I'edition 395 Wellington Street 395, rue Wellington Ottawa ON K1A0N4 Ottawa ON K1A0N4 Canada Canada Your file Votre reference ISBN: 978-0-494-50329-4 Our file Notre reference ISBN: 978-0-494-50329-4 NOTICE: AVIS: The author has granted a non­ L'auteur a accorde une licence non exclusive exclusive license allowing Library permettant a la Bibliotheque et Archives and Archives Canada to reproduce, Canada de reproduire, publier, archiver, publish, archive, preserve, conserve, sauvegarder, conserver, transmettre au public communicate to the public by par telecommunication ou par Plntemet, prefer, telecommunication or on the Internet, distribuer et vendre des theses partout dans loan, distribute and sell theses le monde, a des fins commerciales ou autres, worldwide, for commercial or non­ sur support microforme, papier, electronique commercial purposes, in microform, et/ou autres formats. paper, electronic and/or any other formats. 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Abstract Anyone who read a Canadian newspaper or magazine in the fifties would have been aware of a 'crisis of education' gripping the country. The debate over public education was described as a methodological one between "progressives", who promoted participatory learning and a diverse curriculum designed to appeal to students' interests versus "traditionalists" who advocated a strictly academic program of teaching 'the 3 R's' via. In retrospect, however, this debate was not so much about how children were to be educated as it was about why. Progressives or Traditionalists were not solely schools of educational thought, but also "historical blocs" who advocated two distinct ideological positions. Progressives advocated what I term the "new liberalism": a vision of Canadian society in which Keynesian economics, compromise between labor and capital and mass consumerism would provide economic prosperity for a nation of middle-class, patriarchal, nuclear families. Supporters of progressive education included most major political parties, department of education officials, child psychologists, Teachers organizations and University-trained educational experts. Traditionalists were a more diverse group consisting of University professors, cultural conservatives, small '1' liberals, journalists, retired teachers and concerned parents. The unifying factor among traditionalists was their opposition to what they saw as a flawed approach to post-war reconstruction. They argued that the postwar compromise was poised to create a society of "soft" and materialistic philistines, overly in thrall of psychology and unable to think for themselves or succeed without the help of government. They argued that only through an academically strenuous program of education that focused upon the a minority of students with superior ability could Canada reach its full potential and fight off the "Soviet threat". Thus, the battle over public education was a battle for the future of Canada. Acknowledgements; I would like to thank Gerry Friesen for his invaluable assistance and support throughout all stages of the process of writing this dissertation. Thank you to Ken Osborne, Len Kuffert, Adele Perry and Wendy Mitchinson for acting as my examiners and providing insight and advice. Gratitude is also owed to John Tooth at the Instructional Resources Unit Archives as well as all the archivists at the University of Manitoba Archives and Provincial Archives of Manitoba for their assistance during the research process. For financial assistance I am indebted to the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada as well as James Burns. Thank you to Stephanie Choy and Trish Buri for being my copy editors. Finally, a special thank you to Jen Cheslock without whose love and support this would not have been possible. Contents: Introduction....l Part One: Progressives versus Traditionalists: The Construction of an Educational Discourse Chapter 1: Reconstruction, the New Liberalism and Child Psyehology....l7 Chapter 2: Child Centered Education: The Progressive Curriculum in Theory....55 Chapter 3: Education for Democratic Citizenship: The Postwar Curriculum in Practice....91 Chapter 4: The Traditionalist Backlash.... 146 Part Two: The Battle Over the Schools in the Manitoba Public Education System Chapter 5: The Battle over Reading and Grammar....202 Chapter 6: The Re-Invention of the High School....224 Chapter 7: Rural Schools....259 Chapter 8: The Battle over Teachers....277 Conclusion....317 Human History becomes more and more a race between education and catastrophe -H. G.Wells In 1945 Brace Moorhead, principal of the Manitoba normal school, ended bis annual report to the department of education by paraphrasing H. G. Wells, stating: "the race 'between education and catastrophe' has been intensified by the trend of world events. The incidence of the conflict has shifted from the war of nations to the eternal struggle against ignorance and superstition."1 Describing the job of teachers in such apocalyptic terms was not as unusual or out of place as it may seem to today's reader. The writings of Manitoban educational authorities and their counterparts throughout Canada and the United States in the immediate post-war period are filled with similar assessments. These men and women believed that once the war against Fascism in Europe was over, education was to be on the front lines of a new, even more difficult struggle to "win the peace". As Len Kuffert has observed, it would have been virtually impossible to live in Canada after the Second World War and not be intimately familiar with the term "reconstruction".2 After 1943, when it became clear that allied victory was merely a matter of time, the central questions that preoccupied Canadians did not concern the war itself so much as the kind of society that would emerge afterward. Kuffert shows that reconstruction was not merely a top-down process of the government "easing the economic and occupational transition to peacetime" but a genuine grass-roots cultural movement in which "more pragmatic intentions brought to light questions about the kind 'D. Bruce Moorhead, "Report of the Normal School", Manitoba Annual Report on Education, 1944-45 2 L. B Kuffert, A Great Duty: Canadian Responses to Modern Life and Mass Culture, 1939-1967 (Montreal: McGill Queens University Press, 2003), 66 of society that Canadians could (or should) fashion once the war ended."3 Eric Hobsbawm has termed the years from 1914-1945 the "Age of Catastrophe."4 When viewed from a Canadian perspective this label certainly seems apt. One catastrophic European war in which over 200 000 Canadians had been casualties3 had been followed by a period of dramatic confrontation between labor and capital, a horrific depression and another World War. Thus, the issue of reconstruction concerned not only the immediate reintegration of veterans and the transition to a peacetime economy but a rearrangement of the relationships between capital and labor, between government and citizens and between Canada and the wider world. In the process of inventing the post-war world, Canadians reformed many of their most important institutions, including the public education system. Although most reached