In 1871 the Provincial Government of British Columbia decided that providing a free and basic education for white children should be a part of their duties, however it was not until July 31,1874 that the Okanagan School District was established. For the first Okanagan School the provincial government bought William Smithson's dwelling house in Kelowna for seven hundred and fifty dollars, and he donated one acre for the school grounds to be built on. It took approximately one year to build the school, as well as to find a teacher to run it. The average salary for a male teacher per month was $66.01 and $56.11 for a female teacher during 1875, in the BC school districts. The school board trustees of the Okanagan school district were only offering sixty dollars, which made filling the position harder, as it really wasn't enough to support a teacher. After a long exhaustive search they employed Angus McKenzie who came up from California, carrying only blankets and books. Free meat, milk, butter, eggs and firewood were given to him by the community and he boarded with a family for free.
Fifteen children attended the opening of the Okanagan School. These children came from the Similkameen, Okanagan Falls, and the upper end of the Valley. They boarded with local ranchers and went home during the holidays. Angus McKenzie was given five maps and a black board to teach his students about Grammar, Geography, Arithmetic, and Writing. He was very much liked as a teacher. He had a first class certificate, which could equated to having a PHD in modern day. He gave the shy and 'backward' children bread if they participated in class. The school was a big pillar in the community's social life.
When the education superintendent visited the school in 1877 he was pleasantly surprised, remarking that the results since the opening of the school were extraordinarily remarkable. Children, who eighteen months ago couldn't speak, could now read and speak fluently at the fourth grade level. At that point the attendance of the school had increased to 21 pupils. Mr. McKenzie was transferred to a larger school in the lower mainland in October of 1878. After he left the Okanagan school board of trustees decreased the salary for a teacher to fifty dollars per month which was a fundamental reason why the school didn't have a teacher from July to October in 1882. Finally they raised the salary to sixty dollars per month and got the school its second teacher.
The Okanagan's first school building was reconstructed and renamed in 1929. A room and a second teacher were added in 1931. The name was changed to Benvoulin.
Methods used to get children to school were sometimes very creative. I think the favourite picture I have seen is of about 7 small children piled bareback on a very large horse! Some communities raised money for a 'proper' school bus, but many times it was just one local person who had a wagon or car and took it upon themselves to pile in as many children as they could to get them to school for an education. It was a community effort.
The Okanagan Historical Society Reports have many articles that cover teachers and the early schools. Two of them, Private Schools in the Okanagan Valley, by Hugh F, Mackie, and Black Mountain School Days by Minnie E.Mawhinney, are both to be found in Okanagan Historical Report No. 12 would give some interesting reading for a start.
For an interesting glimpse in to the types of text books that teachers could use as a basis of teaching their classes, visit the University of Pittsburgh's collection of 19th Century Schoolbooks.
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