1929 Brookside Training School in Nova Scotia is begun and opens the same year. The Brookside Training School was the culmination of nearly half a century’s agitation on the part of leading eugenic reformers in Nova Scotia.

The creation of the school was a direct result from the Royal Commission appointed on 15 November, 1926, which was tasked with investigating the occurrence of mental deficiency in the province and suggesting possible solutions. The Commission conducted a survey of the province in cooperation with the Canadian National Committee for Mental Hygiene (CNCMH). Released on 28 January, 1927 the results of the survey suggested that appropriate solutions included auxiliary classes in public schools, the appointment of a provincial psychiatrist and “the establishment of a training school for mental defectives.” ( The Bulletin, 1929, p. 2).

By 1931 the school consisted of two dormitories with 50 beds for boys and 70 for girls, classrooms, gymnasium, assembly hall, laundry and the facilities to teach the children carpentry, shoemaking, barbering and farming. The institution was under the control of Mr. and Mrs. MacKay. By 1931, it was at capacity. (Spaulding, 1931, p. 40) Dr. Eliza Brison who had previously been in charge of the International Daughters of Empire Home for feebleminded girls in Halifax was appointed as the first medical superintendent; she had also worked at the Walter S. Fernald State School in Waverley, Massachusetts.

The creation of this school was demonstrative of the climate of institutionalization of "mental defectives" relevant in Canada, during the eugenics movement.

-Leslie Baker

• Canadian National Committee for Mental Hygiene. (1929). The Bulletin: Official Organ of the Canadian National Committee for Mental Hygiene. Toronto.

• Spaulding, H.B. (1931). The Bulletin: Official Organ of the Canadian National Committee for Mental Hygiene. Toronto.