(fl. late 19th century), teacher. He taught for some 35 years at the Martintown school S. S. No. 12, which besides being the regular school for its area served as the GC Model School, i.e., the school in which young teachers were trained on the apprenticeship basis under an experienced teacher before they took over classrooms of their own. This was a less expensive and less time-consuming system than that of Normal School. Kennedy’s Model School closed about 1900. Apparently he would have 7 to 15 teachers per term training at the school. He must be assumed to have been, over the years, a man of influence within the GC educational system. However Kennedy may have dealt with the young teachers he was training, it appears from the testimony of Rhodes Grant (whose father evidently was one of Kennedy’s pupils) that in dealing with his own pupils at the school, Kennedy was a strict and violent disciplinarian. Rhodes Grant praises Kennedy, however, for his success in training his pupils in mental arithmetic, and notes that the subjects he taught included Latin and other high school subjects, and military drill. At a half-yearly meeting of the Glengarry Teachers’ Association at Alexandria, Kennedy, of the “Model school, Martintown,” introduced a discussion on reading. (Cornwall Reporter 15 Oct. 1881) Alexander Kennedy, “Principal County Model School of Glengarry,” was married in 1882 to Miss Christy Jane McArthur of New York. (Cornwall Reporter 19 Aug. 1882) Even a severe schoolmaster had to accept the consequences of living in the great age of GC pranksters, and the year before his wedding when a statement allegedly by Alex. Kennedy, “Principal,” Martintown, appeared in the Lancaster newspaper, good-naturedly denying rumours that he was about to marry, Kennedy had to deny that he had written it. (Glengarry Times 15 & 29 Oct. 1881) Nothing has been discovered about his later years.

See also Dr Donald MacDiarmid. MacGillivray & Ross 248 * Rhodes Grant, i, 62-63, 125