“All of Us Common People” and Education in the Depression

Abstract

One draconian proposal of the Great Depression in Canada involved the Kidd Report of British Columbia. Regarding education, the Report recommended closure of poorly attended rural schools, reduction in numbers of teachers and their salaries, increase in normal school fees, withdrawal of the university grant, and imposition of high school fees - issues entailing a critique of schooling and sharp controversy. The controversy vented a geyser of popular indignation, and of strongly held assumptions about schooling. Most powerful was the ingrained belief that education was a right which led to socio-economic advancement in a democracy. For Canadian life the school was seen as central. This perception suggests that the institution functioned as an outlet for insurrectionary impulses rife during the depression. Particularly important are these conclusions in light of recent educational historiography which has shunned “democratic” motivations and depreciated the role of schools in society.