10307 Highway 1: The Paradise Academy

Architecture Style: Second Empire

Built: 1894

In 1850 the first Superintendent of Education for Nova Scotia, John W. Dawson, found many of the 500 schools then existing in the province below his expectations. But he called special attention to “The Academy or Grammar School of Paradise”:

Situated in a rural district, and supported by no other Legislative aid than the Grammar school allowance of 25 pounds per annum, an excellent teacher and liberal-minded people have enabled it to attract pupils from a distance, and to attain a degree of efficiency rarely surpassed by any of the county academies. This school is interesting as an excellent example of what might be done in rural districts of this province, had we a sufficient supply of able and trained teachers and zeal and union on the part of the people.

The school was the second on this site, formerly Marshall land. The winning tender was that of Ernest Balcom, ancestor of Anne Marie [Balcom] Pearle, member of the Women’s Institute School Committee more than a century later.  This spacious and elegant school put Paradise on the academic map. Massachusetts ex-patriots sent their children “home” to Paradise to study, and students came from other areas too. But it was primarily a community school for the people of Paradise who wanted their children to have the best.  When the school was closed in 1979, its ownership passed to the Women’s Institute. A  County Heritage Property, its tenants have been arts and crafts groups, or nursery schools. The Institute created a prizewinning Heritage Garden to honour the memory of generations of trustees, subscribers, teachers, and students- and to cheer us on our way as we went about our business through Paradise.

From this village academy came: 14 doctors and 1 dentist, 17 clergy (including some with M.A., D.D., or Ph.D., and 1 missionary  to China), 3 M.P.P.’s and 2 M.P’s.,( including an Attorney-General, a Minister of Education and Health and Welfare, a Commissioner of Railways), 14 university professors, 3 barristers, dozens of business leaders, countless farmers and agriculturalists, (including 1 Director of the N.S. Agricultural College and 1 M.B.E, for exceptional work in horticulture and marketing), many fine teachers, including school inspectors and principals, superb artists and musicians, scientists and engineers, 1 police inspector, military officers and soldiers (The 69th, World War I, World War II), 1 famous telegraph operator, and hundreds of civic-minded and creatively educated people.