For the People: A History of St Francis Xavier University

Alexander D. Gregor is associate dean of the Faculty of Education at the
University of Manitoba and co-editor of Postsecondary Education in
Canada: The Cultural Agenda.

For the People joins a growing stable of solid university histories
produced by professional historians. Established in 1853, St. Francis
Xavier University became a cultural centre point for the evolving Celtic
Roman Catholic community of eastern Nova Scotia. Cameron’s study
effectively documents the struggles involved in maintaining a religious
mission in the context of a secular educational system. It also provides
a fascinating look at the ways in which a postsecondary institution can
become an integral part of a region, shaping its economic and social
development. Cameron’s masterful portraits of the pivotal figures,
both clerical and lay, behind the university’s community-service
initiatives lend a delightful human dimension to this very use-

ful history, which ends in 1970; we can only hope that a similar
examination of the subsequent quarter-century is in the offing.