The early settlers of Sherbrooke were New Englanders and Scots, both ethnic groups who honoured education, and they provided schools for their children long before the Free School Acts of 1864 and 1865. Indeed, the petitions sent to the Legislature are unusual for the period because the petitioners were able to write their own names and no one signed them with an 'X'.
In 1817 David Archibald 3rd deeded a lot of land at Sherbrooke to be used as a site for a school and meeting house, but school classes were probably taught in a room in one of the houses before a schoolhouse was constructed, as tradition relates that William Bent held school in his kitchen.(86)
David Archibald 3rd, Wentworth Taylor, and David Fisher were trustees for the school at Sherbrooke where William Bent was paid 25 lbs. for teaching from December 1st 1815 to December 1st 1816.(87) Hugh MacDonald was paid 12.10 shillings "for teaching and superintending the school... for one half year" from the 15th December 1816 to 15th June 1817. David Archibald, Wentworth Taylor and William Taylor were the trustees.(88) A school was built in 1818 and used for twenty years, with church services also being held in the building.(89)
New schoolhouses were built in 1850 and 1867. In 1850 J. W. Dawson, the Superintendent of Education for Nova Scotia, was visiting various districts and holding meetings. He wrote about the St. Mary's District: "the Commissioners are active and labourious, and their clerk, Rev. J. Campbell, is one of the most useful and zealous friends of education in the district... I was much pleased to find in process of erection, at Sherbrooke, a very well planned schoolhouse. I gave some suggestions on the subject of seating, and trust that when finished it will be a model to the district".(90)
In his report in 1867, School Inspector Samuel R. Russell mentioned the long continued depression of business and the successive failures of the fishery on the coast. However, within the last year a school had been built at Sherbrooke "scarcely inferior to the county Academy, except in size, and play grounds". Furnished with patent desks, it had two departments, and was well attended, and in charge of competent teachers.(91)
The first meeting of the School Board for the District of St. Mary's under the Education Act of 1864 was held at the Court House in Sherbrooke on the 4th of November 1864 with the following present: Rev. John Campbell, Rev. Henry Eagles, Charles Burns, Hugh McDonald Esquire, John W. McKeen, Esquire, Alexander Cumminger, Neil Gunn, Abner P. McKenzie, Esquire, and Samuel R. Russell, Inspector of Schools for Guysborough County. They apportioned the school grant and examined teachers for licences. John D. Copeland and John F. Fraser, teachers at Sherbrooke for six months in 1866, received as government grants $124.10 and $125.30 respectively.
It has always been a problem to provide good schools and well qualified teachers in the poorer districts of Halifax and Guysborough Counties - a problem with which successive Boards of Trustees and Inspectors of Education have struggled. The opening of the St. Mary's Rural High School at Sherbrooke has done much to provide first class educational facilities for junior high and senior high school for children from a large district.
St. Mary's Rural High School opened in September 1953 to serve Grades 7 to 12 from 31 rural and village sections in the Municipality of St. Mary's. The first year there was an enrollment of approximately 250 students, with a staff of seven academic teachers and two specialists. The official opening took place on November 1, 1953. It was located on several acres of high ground overlooking the beautiful St. Mary's River and the village of Sherbrooke, and for the first time in the educational history of the municipality provided an opportunity for all the boys and girls of the area to acquire a good education on the secondary level(92).