Miss Dolina Macdonald, Student Teacher
The envelope is addressed:
Miss Dolina Macdonald
Normal School
Care of Rev. Alexr Forrester, D.D.Truro,
Nova Scotia
It was mailed at New Glasgow on September 10, 1867, and bears a Truro cancellation from the same day. “Normal School” tells us that Dolina was preparing for a teaching profession. And the person named in the care-of line was one of the most important figures in nineteenth-century Nova Scotia education.
Rev. Alexander Forrester
The name in the care-of line is an important clue to the setting in which Dolina McDonald found herself in 1867. Alexander Forrester was a Presbyterian clergyman and educationist who came to Nova Scotia from Scotland in 1848. His original visit was connected with the Free Church of Scotland's efforts to establish theological education in Nova Scotia, but he quickly became involved in the province's wider educational affairs. During his first stay he taught logic, “mental science,” Latin and Greek at the Free Church college and Halifax Academy, while also travelling through Nova Scotia and New Brunswick to raise funds for the college. Forrester returned to Halifax as minister of St. John's Church later that year. During the following years he became increasingly involved with education. Between 1850 and 1855 he was one of Halifax's school commissioners. His experience with the city's schools led him to campaign for better schoolbooks, compulsory assessment and, particularly, systematic training for teachers. In 1854 he was asked to succeed John William Dawson as Superintendent of Education. He accepted the position the following winter and was also appointed principal of the proposed Provincial Normal School. Before the school opened, Forrester travelled through New England, New York and Canada examining educational systems. During the summer of 1855 he held almost fifty public meetings throughout Nova Scotia to encourage interest in teacher training. The new co-educational Normal School opened at Truro on November 14, 1855, with about sixty students. It was the culmination of decades of discussion about the need for an institution devoted specifically to the preparation of teachers.
Training Teachers at Truro
Forrester established a demanding routine at the new institution. From 1855 onward he taught natural science and the theory and practice of education during the Normal School terms. During the recesses he travelled throughout the province inspecting schools, lecturing on education and conducting teachers' institutes. In 1857 the school acquired an important practical component when Model or Practice Schools opened at Truro for about 200 pupils, divided into primary, intermediate and high departments. These schools gave the Normal School students an opportunity to put the principles of teaching into practice. Forrester's ideas were strongly influenced by the Scottish educator David Stow and the Glasgow Normal School. His approach, which he called the “natural system,” was derived from the educational ideas of Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi. Education was intended to develop the child's moral, intellectual and physical faculties together. Forrester's interests were considerably broader than classroom instruction. Natural science, horticulture and agriculture all played roles in his conception of education.
Forrester in 1867
By the time Dolina's letter was sent, Forrester's position in Nova Scotia's educational system had changed.The major reforms of 1864–65 introduced free schools, compulsory assessment and greater centralization and supervision. In the reorganization, Forrester lost his position as Superintendent of Education. He did not, however, leave the Normal School. He remained its principal until his death in 1869, working with the new superintendent. He organized his Normal School lectures into a manual for teachers, The Teacher's Text Book, published in 1867. This gives the date on Dolina's cover an added significance. In September 1867, Forrester was still actively directing the institution he had helped establish twelve years earlier, while putting his ideas about teaching into print.
Who Was Miss Dolina Macdonald?
The envelope gives us only a name and an institution. The subsequent records, however, provide a promising identification. A Dolina McDonald died in Pictou County on March 2, 1871, at the age of 27. Her death registration describes her as a spinster and gives her residence as New Gairloch. Her parents were recorded as Donald McDonald and Margaret. The cause of death was phthisis, the nineteenth-century term associated with the wasting disease commonly called consumption and, in many cases, what we would now understand as pulmonary tuberculosis. The person who reported Dolina's death was Catherine McDonald, of New Glasgow.
The McDonald Family
The 1871 census reveals a McDonald household in New Glasgow containing a widowed Margaret McDonald and a 37-year-old Catherine McDonald, whose occupation is given as school teacher. The connection is striking. The death registration tells us that Dolina's mother was Margaret and that Catherine McDonald of New Glasgow reported her death. The census gives us a widowed Margaret McDonald in New Glasgow and a daughter, Catherine McDonald, age 37, who was herself a teacher. We do not yet have a document that explicitly identifies Catherine as Dolina's sister, so that relationship should remain a working hypothesis. But the evidence gives us a plausible family framework. If Catherine was Dolina's older sister, then the family appears to have had two women involved in teaching: Catherine was already a school teacher, while Dolina was at the Provincial Normal School preparing for the profession.
From New Glasgow to Truro
The postal history adds another piece to the story. Dolina's letter was posted at New Glasgow on September 10, 1867, and reached Truro the same day. The explanation is the railway. The Nova Scotia Railway's Pictou extension had been completed on May 31, 1867, connecting the Pictou County railway system with the main line at Truro. Thus, when Dolina's letter was mailed in September, the railway was still a relatively new feature of the New Glasgow landscape. The same-day New Glasgow–Truro postal movement is a nice illustration of how the railway was beginning to change communications in northern Nova Scotia. A letter posted in New Glasgow could be carried by rail toward Truro rather than relying entirely upon the slower road and stage connections of an earlier generation. For Dolina, the railway had another significance. It connected the Pictou County community from which she came with Truro and the Provincial Normal School, making it easier for students, teachers and their correspondence to move between the two centres.
A Possible Sender
Dolina's sister, Caroline McDonald, or her mother Margaret McDonald who were living in New Glasgow in 1871, become natural candidates for the sender. The envelope is a small "ladies' cover", and the correspondence is addressed directly to Dolina at the Normal School. A sister or a mother writing to a young woman away from home for teacher training would fit both the physical character of the cover and the circumstances.
Four Years Later
The story takes a sad turn. On March 2, 1871, Dolina McDonald died at only 27 years of age. Her death registration records her as single, living, perhaps teaching at New Gairloch. Her parents were Donald McDonald and Margaret. Her death was reported by Catherine McDonald of New Glasgow. The cause was all-to-common: consumption. Thus, the little envelope from 1867 may preserve a moment near the beginning of what appears to have been a teaching career—or at least the preparation for one—that was cut short only a few years later.
Sources and Research Notes
• Judith Fingard, “Forrester, Alexander,” Dictionary of Canadian Biography.
• Alexander Forrester, The Teacher's Text Book (Halifax, 1867).
• Nova Scotia historical and educational records concerning the Provincial Normal and Model Schools.
• 1871 Nova Scotia census, New Glasgow — McDonald household.
• Dolina McDonald death registration, Pictou County, March 2, 1871.
• Postal cover: New Glasgow to Miss Dolina Macdonald, Normal School, Truro, September 10, 1867.
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