McKay, Alexander, N.S.

  • DICTIONARY OF CANADIAN BIOGRAPHY ARTICLE: Lois K. Yorke, “McKAY, ALEXANDER (1841-1917),” in Dictionary of Canadian Biography, vol. 14, University of Toronto/Université Laval, 2003–. https://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/mckay_alexander_14E.html
  • DCB profile notes:
    • Educator; b. 16 July 1841 in Earltown, N.S., son of Thomas McKay and Mary —; m. 3 Nov. 1871 Caroline Gidney in Sandy Cove, Digby County, N.S., and they had three sons and two daughters; d. 8 April 1917 in Dartmouth, N.S.
    • Alexander McKay began his teaching career in Pictou County in 1856. In 1859 he graduated from the provincial Normal School, Truro, and then taught in Digby, Colchester, and Kings counties before going to Dartmouth in 1872 as principal of schools. In 1880 he was appointed teacher of mathematics and physical science at the Halifax High School; he resigned in 1883 to become supervisor of Halifax city schools. Well read in American, British, and German educational theory and practice, McKay was thoroughly conversant with the concepts of the “new education,” which stressed integration of the intellectual development of the child and preparation for entrance into an industrial society.
    • It was once said of McKay that his “sole object . . . seems to be to improve the public school system of the day”; consequently his personal interests were virtually indistinguishable from his professional ones. He was a member of the Nova Scotian Institute of Natural Science from 1872, serving terms as secretary and president. During the late 1870s he lectured in mathematics at the Technological Institute, part of the short-lived University of Halifax. From the inception of the Halifax Ladies’ College in 1887 to his death, McKay sat on its board of governors. He was a regular contributor to the Educational Review (Saint John); an influential participant in the Provincial Educational Association of Nova Scotia and the Dominion Educational Association; a member of the Temperance Alliance; and in 1902 an appointee to the Acadian commission, which examined how best to teach English in the province’s French districts.
    • McKay’s emphasis on the practical, his commitment to social activism, his innate sense of diplomacy, and above all his unflagging enthusiasm marked him as an outstanding educator and administrator. He was active during a period of intellectual ferment in educational circles and worked within a tight provincial network where the difference between creators and implementers of ideas is now hard to distinguish; his small but significant contribution to the “new education” has not yet been addressed at length. Overshadowed by Alexander Howard MacKay*, provincial superintendent of education, a colleague and close friend with whom the supervisor is easily confused, and denied the most senior positions in the bureaucracy because he lacked academic credentials, Alexander McKay nevertheless worked quietly, diligently, and effectively to shape Halifax schools into a reflection of the best Canada could offer at the end of the 19th century.
  • Great Grandson of Proven Loyalist in Loyalist Directory –https://uelac.ca/loyalist-directory/detail/?wpda_search_column_id=15339
  • Find a GRAVE: https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/216681771/alexander-mckay