Rural Life

In 1946, the Manitoba Royal Commission on Adult Education investigated directions for the modernization of the province in the new era of change. It was charged particularly with looking at rural Manitoba's cultural, educational, and leadership opportunities in the wake of new technologies, dwindling populations, and altered political and social affiliations. Giffen's extensive study examined the towns of Carman, Elgin, and Rossburn, all significantly different in terms of their ethnic makeup and level of political and organizational sophistication. His report, an analysis of "education for leadership," was considered "too revealing" for public release. It remained in the Ontario Legislative Library until it was retrieved, 50 years later, by well-known historian Gerald Friesen, who has written an extensive postscript to the report. As a snapshot of rural agricultural life in prairie Canada at a time of great change, the study is invaluable.