Newfoundland School Society - Religious Affiliation

Religious Affiliation

Although the N.S.S. claimed to be interdenominational, the schools run by the Society became increasingly identified and involved with the Church of England. The Society acknowledged that one of its primary aims, despite its non-denominational constitution, was to carry the ministry of the Church to isolated areas which could not afford to support a clergyman. In 1923 they merged into a denominational school system known as the Church of England schools. The existence of the society was one of the influences in the evolution of a denominational school system in Newfoundland. The teachers sent out in the society’s early years were well trained and highly regarded as leaders within the communities in which they lived, and they usually served as catechists or lay readers as well. A considerable number later elected to become ordained as Anglican priests and furnished the Newfoundland church with one of its main sources of clerics during the 19th century. Regarding themselves as missionaries as well as pedagogues, they strove to inculcate the virtues of hard work, regular habits, sobriety, and the observance of Sunday as a day of rest.