The Canadian Education Association: The First 100 Years, 1891-1991

Dennis Blake is a visual arts teacher with the Halton Board of
Education.

This is a work of traditional amateur history filled with individuals’
names, dates, conference resolutions, places, and financial information.
As such, it contains all the flaws and strengths associated with the
genre—most notably, a lack of historical perspective and analysis. In
their defence, such histories can provide colorful pictures of bygone
ages, and thereby appeal powerfully to the emotional and romantic side
of historical interest.

In addition—and this is the strength of The Canadian Education
Association—amateur histories often serve to inspire professional
historians by the questions they tantalizingly touch upon, but by their
nature are unable, or unwilling, to explore. While this book is an
interesting read for those with an antiquarian concern, it is especially
provocative fodder for those engaged in researching the expansion and
professionalization of social-betterment organizations outside
government bureaucracy in the post–World War II period.