Subseries 3 - Educational activities

40 cm of textual records

Subseries consists of records kept while Dawson was Superintendent of Education in Nova Scotia, administrative materials, and other records related to his educational career. As Superintendent of Education in Nova Scotia, Dawson kept two notebooks of journal entries and general observations on Nova Scotia schools (box 39). About 35 cm of purely administrative materials (boxes 41-44) were retained by Dawson in his private papers. Most of the correspondence concerns routine matters of Corporation business, staff and student affairs, fund-raising and buildings, but there is a special file on the controversy with Prof. J. Clark Murray over co-education in 1888. Other materials include copies of documents on the early fortunes of McGill, Dawson's Normal School record book, with lists of students and some financial accounts (1859), an office memorandum book (1863-1878), and manuscripts of addresses delivered at university functions, including his resignation speech and a substantial address on the education of women. Dawson also assembled an "Educational and Biographical" scrapbook, largely of news clippings by him or about his principalship (box 39).