Common Schools Act of 1871

The Common Schools Act of 1871 was legislation of the Canadian Province of New Brunswick, passed by the 22nd New Brunswick Legislative Assembly, which replaced the Parish Schools Act of 1858. The legislation aimed to abolish church-run schooling in New Brunswick and replace it with a system of government-run "common schools." The case of Maher v. Town Council of Portland was initiated as a result, and in the end, the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council upheld the Act. The act was stridently opposed by the Roman Catholic Church and its adherents, and a series of clashes between New Brunswick Catholics and the provincial government culminated in the shooting of two people following riots at Caraquet in 1875, after which the act was substantially amended to implement a joint religious/secular schooling system.

Since 1858, education in New Brunswick had been governed by the Parish Schools Act of 1858. It organized all New Brunswick schools under a provincial Board of Education but made no provision for the government to own or establish schools. As a result, the impetus to found new schools was required to originate at a local level, and in practice, most schools were established and operated by churches (particularly, Roman Catholic and Anglican), with the church then receiving a share of the province's education budget in return. In the diocese of Saint John, for example, there were some 160 Catholic schools operating by 1871, many staffed by professed religious, with a significant minority of them offering instruction in French. There were no standardized texts, and teachers had complete freedom in their choice of curriculum. Of those priests and professed religious acting as teachers, the majority had no formal teaching credentials. Attendance at schools was enforced by teachers and parents, with no government intervention.

By 1871, the New Brunswick government had begun to have substantial doubts about the system of education. It was skeptical about the quality of education begin delivered, and it was also concerned about attendance rates, with school attendance in the area of Gloucester falling as low as 55%.

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