Better Schools Day in Saskatchewan and the Perils of Educational Reform

Abstract

In several ways the period of the Great War provided an atmosphere favorable to school reform in Saskatchewan. The conflict was seen by Canadians as a crucible of national consciousness, an era when the country came of age, shed its colonial status and entered the struggle as a major protagonist. As John Thompson has argued, the war was also seen as a struggle for democracy, one in which propaganda played a powerful role. 1 Indeed, the period was the paradise of propagandists, when the means of public information were limited and when the presentation of organized and compelling data was lapped up by a populace relatively undiscerning and uncritical. 2 Only later would the rise of new publications, radio, and post elementary education bring a flood of viewpoints, pronouncements and experts, weakening through surfeit the power of the printed and spoken word.