School Consolidation in Maritime Canada: The Educational Legacy of Edgar L. Morphet and His Disciples, Country School Journal, Vol. 5 (2017), pp. 31-47 (original) (raw)

One-room schoolhouses organized in a multitude of small, locally controlled school districts once dominated the rural and small-town landscape of Maritime Canada. From the 1920s to the 1960s, one-room schoolhouses were gradually supplanted due to school consolidation, which was most actively promoted by influential American educational administrator Edgar Morphet (1895─1990) and a new breed of twentieth-century educational planners. Driven by a relentless "bigger is better" philosophy, Morphet and his Canadian disciples came to dominate school planning, design, and organization in the Maritime provinces (Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Prince Edward Island) despite regular and ongoing resistance from rural communities. Clear signs of that resistance still survive today in family discussions around the kitchen table.