The January 20, 1912 issue of The Charlottetown Guardian was notable for having sheet music on the front page. The song, “Jack O’Lantern Boogieman,” was from the show How Baxter Butted In which ran on Broadway in November and December 1905 (it was later made into a movie, the 1925 Warner Brothers film of the same name).

On the front of The Guardian it was being used to promote the show Madame Sherry: “Jack O’Lantern Boogieman as sung by Elizabeth M. Murray now playing Madame Sherry in Frazee, Lederer & Woods production ‘Madame Sherry’, New Amsterdam Theatre, New York”.

The promotion may have been too late, for it seems that the show closed almost a year earlier in March of 1911.

I took the high-resolution scan of the cover of that day’s Guardian (from a beta of the IslandNewspapers.ca project of Robertson Library) and, as I did with the sheet music for The Island Hymn, ran it through the SharpEye Music Scanner and saved the result as a MIDI file, which I brought into GarageBand on my Mac, fiddled with a little (assigning different instruments to each of the three parts just to make it easier to distinguish them), and then saved as an MP3. Which you can listen to.

It’s not a perfect result, of course — the newspaper scan was skewed a little, the printing wasn’t perfect to begin with, and the conversion from sheet music to MIDI is likely imperfect too. But it’s still pretty amazing to hear music leap off the page of a 100 year old newspaper.

In this biographical note about Arthur Peters, Premier of Prince Edward Island from 1901 to 1908, is this intriguing note:

There is some debate over the exact burial location of Arthur Peters. While his name appears on a monument dedicated to those premiers buried in the Sherwood Cemetery, some insist that Peters is actually buried in St. John’s Anglican Cemetery in Summerside.

I see the seeds of a Nicolas Cage action-adventure epic buried in those words.

The entry for Peters in the Dictionary of Canadian Biography is an interesting capsule history of Prince Edward Island a century ago. It appears that the the issues of the day then were, with some variation, just as they are today:

From the early 1890s the province was to suffer a dramatic loss in population, a decline in the value of the output of its farms, fisheries, and manufactories, and a general economic malaise. Once the railway to the Pacific was completed and the federal government’s National Policy was adopted as the blueprint for transcontinental union, the Island was left isolated on the Atlantic margin. Consequently, politics there came to be dominated by issues that flowed from the Island’s declining role in an expanding federation and from its physical insularity: the preservation of Island representation in the dominion parliament, the negotiation of sufficient federal subsidies, and the continuing search for reliable, year-round communication with the mainland.

Peters’ life was full of interesting material: his maternal grandfather, for example, was Sir Samuel Cunard, founder of the Cunard Line; his brother Frederick was also Premier, from 1891 to 1897; in the election of 1904 Peters and his opponent Harry D. MacLean received an equal number of votes. Indeed the end of the 19th century was full of interesting political stories; witness:

In 1897 Frederick Peters made a decision which astonished his party and would ultimately affect Arthur’s political career. He resigned as premier and moved to Victoria as a law partner of Sir Charles Hibbert Tupper. Peters was succeeded as premier by Alexander Bannerman Warburton, who, in turn, stepped down to accept a judgeship. Donald Farquharson assumed office next, but he too resigned, to contest a federal seat. Arthur Peters had joined his government in 1900 as attorney general and in December 1901, after Farquharson’s resignation, he was chosen party leader. On 2 January he was asked by Lieutenant Governor Peter Adolphus McIntyre to form a government.

That’s four premiers in four years if you were keeping score.

The question remains, however, just where is Arthur Peters buried?

A full two years after everyone else was bitten by the Downton Abbey bug — and after figuring out that it’s not called Downtown Abbey (“a rogue pastor quits his rural parish to become a renegade cop on the streets of New York City”) — I have fallen prey to its many pleasures.

Although I appreciated Gosford Park and some of the Merchant Ivory films, I’m not a big fan of the “period drama” genre, but I find myself strangely drawn in to the many intrigues of the withering of the aristocracy. Part of the appeal is that it’s simply a soap opera — as an old All My Children fan from way back, I’m not immune to the call of a good soap — but I’m also fascinated by what the program has to say about class, especially if you regard modern Prince Edward Island as a distant cousin of the same aristocracy.

I’m just starting in to the second season — World War I has just started, Lady Mary is still without a husband and I await the return of Mr. Bates eagerly.

When the Government of PEI released its Capital Budget for 2012-2013 in November of 2011, the first thing I noticed was a drastic cut — $500,000 to $0 — for a line item called “Computer Refresh.” It sounded innocuous enough — “sprucing up” the technology, I took it to mean.

It turns out that line item represented all spending on education technology — computers, scanners, LCD projectors, everything. And the government was deciding to spend $0 on that for a year.

This move by the province inspired a series of resolutions at the 2012 Annual General Meeting of the PEI Home and School Federation; beyond the resolution to restore the funding itself was a resolution that I proposed to “Rename the Capital Budget Line Item for Information Technology.” I wanted to make sure that in future capital budgets this spending wasn’t hidden behind the term “Computer Refresh” and, instead, had a more accurate description of what it actually meant. The resolution passed.

In June of 2012, the Minister of Education and Early Childhood Development responded to our resolution: “Thank you for this recommendation and I will ask my staff to make a request to have this capital line budget name changed.”

And, true to his word, when the Capital Budget for 2013-2014 was released yesterday the line-item was changed to “Classroom Technology.” Which, to my mind, is about as good a description for that this money is for as you can come up with.

It took a good amount of time and energy by a large group of people to make happen: I had to write a resolution, bring it forward to the board of the PEI Home and School Federation as a proposed resoluition for the Annual Meeting and get it accepted; the resolution then had to be distributed to 53 local home and schools across the province for discussion and debate, and then delegates from those schools had to come to Charlottetown for the Annual Meeting where the resolution was read, discussed and voted on. The successful resolution then had to go to the Minister for consider, where I presume it was discussed with his staff, and he had to make a decision to make the change. And then the change itself had to flow through the capital budget process and into the budget process.

To change two words.

But they are two important words and they will only get more important as classroom technology becomes more central to the learning process.

This isn’t glamouous democracy — it’s work down in the engine room rather than out on deck — but I’m happy to have gone through the process, happy that my fellow parents worked to make this happen, and happy that the next person who comes across the Capital Budget will understand it just a little bit better.

My friend Bruce Garrity is in Africa right now, volunteering at a school near Meru, Kenya.

You can read all about his work on his blog and, if you know Bruce at all, you’ll recognize the same practical, no-bullshit attitude toward solving problems that is so much a part of Bruce.

Except that in a school in the middle of Kenya Bruce doesn’t need to convince anyone to solve problems, he just solves them himself, combining money donated by his vast network of friends and family with an “okay, let’s go buy some underwear and trousers” attitude. It is, in many ways, a project Bruce has been working up to all his life.

In advance of our TeacherNet open house at Prince Street School last week I made contact with Bruce to see if we could connect him and his students with students at Prince Street.  Prince Street is twinned with a primary school 2 hours away from Bruce, and the now-we-can-use-Skype situation afforded by the new wireless network in the school seemed like a good opportunity to make a virtual connection.

Bruce got to work on his end, and the teachers at Prince Street took over once initial connections were made.  And so, this morning I got this photo from Oliver’s teacher:

That’s Oliver in the bottom-left (with Philip Brown, French teacher and a former city council colleague of Bruce’s, to his left) and Bruce looming large on the right.

I love it when a plan comes together.

Sad news this morning that Hon. Gilbert Clements, former Lieutenant Governor of Prince Edward Island, has died.

What’s missing from the formal biographies is that Clements was an early and enthusiastic adopter of technology and the Internet: he was, I can say with some confidence, the first Lieutenant Governor to go online from Government House, and thus the first “wired” occupant of that office.

I came to understand this one day in the late 1990s when the phone rang in my office:

“Peter? Gilbert Clements…”, said the caller.

It was the Lieutenant Governor calling for technical support.

I’ve forgotten what his technical issue was; it was likely something to do with modem settings or how to use the right PPP server. Whatever it was, once I got over the shock of a personal call from the Lieutenant Governor, I was able to help. It was both my first and last interaction with him.

Gilbert Clements will be remembered for many things; I’d like to think that some small recognition for his being a vice-regal Internet pioneer is one of them.

When you live in a place to which the adjective “small” is often applied (“small Island,” “Canada’s Smallest Province”, etc.), it’s easy to become a little obsessed with issues of relative geography. Just how small? So I built a little experiment — The PEI vs. The World Machine — to allow comparisons to be made. Like How big is Charlottetown’s airport compared to Toronto’s? or How big is the neighbourhood I grew up in compared to the neighbourhood where I live now? or How does Miami Beach compare to Cavendish Beach?.

Try it it for yourself: as you zoom one map, the other will zoom in sync. You can scroll either map to any location (meaning, of course, that you can use this to compare two places that aren’t Prince Edward Island too!).

Note: as latitude changes, so does the scale of the map, so watch the scale bar in the bottom-left of each map.

If you’re playing the home game, you’ll have noticed that suddenly, on Saturday night, the wind came up, the windmills started to turn, and PEI started to generate a lot of wind energy. Indeed, for a lot of yesterday we were approaching or going over 100% of electricity generation from wind. If you got up early this morning on Prince Edward Island — before 5:30 a.m. — and turned on the lights, the electricity powering those lights was coming from the wind. Remember, you can also follow @peiwind to be notified when circumstances conspire to tip us over 100%.

From The Guardian, December 9, 1916, and generous appreciation of the janitor at Prince Street School:

Last evening on behalf of the parents, pupils, and ratepayers connected with Prince Street School, Mr. C. W. P. Seale, of this City, waited upon Mr. Augustus Mitchell, janitor of the school and surprised him with the presentation of a purse of gold and the following address. Mr. Mitchell expressed his surprise and only consented to accept on being assured that it was a farewell offering on the part of practically everybody connected with the school and in appreciation of the splendid service he had given continuously since he became connected with the school, a service which included, in addition to the ordinary work of a janitor, a kindly and gentlemanly oversight of the children in attendance:

Mr. Augustus Mitchell,
Upper Prince Street School.
Dear Mr. Mitchell:

We, the friends of Upper Prince Street School, desire to express our appreciation of the manner in which you have performed your arduous work as Janitor. We are aware that when you first took charge of our school, you found matters not too pleasant on account of a lack of proper care of the school both inside and out. After years of hard work on your part, both, school and grounds have become a credit to the city and a joy and pleasure to the school children. Its freedom from disease germs, on account of the cleanliness of the rooms, enables parents to send their children with confidence that, so far as the school building is concerned all is well. We doubt that in the whole of Canada there is a neater kept school grounds than those of Upper Prince, for which we tender you our sincerest thanks.

We ask, therefore, as as small token of our appreciation of your labor, not only in connection with the school grounds, but in your watchful over the tender youths in attendance here, that you will accept this gift with the humble hope that you may long be spared to continue your good work with us.

– On behalf of the Parents and Pupils of Prince Street School.

The Guardian heartily commends the above sentiments express in the address. Prince Street School has for some years been a recognized beauty spot in the city and the credit for this is entirely due to Mr. Mitchell’s tireless efforts and continuous care. The sentiment and the gift will be appreciated by the teachers and the pupils, all of whom hold Mr. Mitchell in the highest esteem. The city is fortunate in having in such an important and responsible position a man who is so thoroughly reliable and competent to perform the duties entrusted to him.

I have been listening to this Meg Hutchinson song for a week, and can’t get it out of my head.