School Days: The One-Room Schools of Maritime Canada

Dennis Blake is a high-school history teacher with the Halton Board of
Education.

With a carefully graded mixture of nostalgia and research, George
Peabody takes the reader on a wonderfully illustrated tour of one-room
school houses in the Maritimes. The book begins with a general history
of Maritime education and the evolution of the school system. Peabody
breathes life into his explorations with descriptions of past curricula,
re-creations of the rural school day, and insights into the relationship
of school to society. He segues from a discussion of school gardens into
a concluding chapter that prompts the reader to muse about how
hindsight, reflection, nostalgia, and a belief in progress intertwine.

Peabody skims and dances through an immense topic of historical study.
School Days is not a scholarly work by professional historical
standards, but it is a scholarly work by the standards of a scholarship
that respectfully weaves a romantic and skilful tapestry as it
illustrates an aspect of social history that is too quickly fleeing
living memory.