There is no longer any real dispute that the past, as distinct from traditions, is an invention based on a careful selection of apparently empirical evidence. Historians now accept that there is no "ultimate" truth; there are many perspectives or narratives, all valid and all exploring new realities and new truths. The current multi-streamed discourse in history, however, is fraught with impossible challenges for public historians. Some narratives focus on a heritage of achievement and triumph. Others will focus on exploitation and marginalization, which will in turn be denied by the narratives of the exploiters. Not all narratives can be accommodated equally without creating problems of imbalance or a diet of pablum. Such is the conundrum of the Canadian historian who would like to achieve that pleasant Canadian nirvana ? consensus.

N THE PROCESS OF PREPARING THE 1933 Annual Report of Department of Health for Prince Edward Island, Dr. W.J.P. MacMillan wrote to Robert Wodehouse (whom he called the real sponsor of health department) for a summary of story behind department's creation in 1931. Wodehouse, executive secretary of Canadian Tuberculosis Association, briefly outlined his contributions and concluded: I have known Island, its people and its health work most intimately for eleven years. have done everything in my power to improve health work for these people, whom like more than any others in Canada. can only add...it is best thing that has ever been done there. Behind these few words lay a decade of concerted effort, political lobbying, backroom bargaining, and educational programmes. Although tuberculosis mortality rate on Prince Edward Island was highest in Canada in 1921, Island was only province which lacked a health department and provided virtually no public health services. Ten years later, both political parties agreed that government should assume responsibility for people's health. An analysis of struggle to achieve this goal illustrates how well-organized and committed volunteer associations can influence and shape government actions; and provides useful insights into Island mentality in 1920s. During 19th century, Prince Edward Island governments provided public health services on a piecemeal, ad hoc basis. When confronted with epidemics, authorities initiated emergency measures that were later transformed into legislation. After perils subsided, these enactments lapsed until next contagious disease visited Island, whereupon legislation was resurrected. The Public Health Act of 1908, passed in response to an outbreak of smallpox, designated Executive Council as Provincial Board of Health, authorized formation of local boards of health throughout province when needed, and made possible appointment of a temporary Chief Health Officer in times of crisis. Prior to 1927, however, only permanent government bodies concerned

THE EXPERIENCE OF THE CARNEGIE CORPORATION of New York in the Maritime Provinces and Newfoundland during the period between the two World Wars was unorthodox. Or at least that was the feeling of Morse A. Cartwright, Director of the American Association for Adult Education, when he wrote to Carnegie Corporation president F.P. Keppel in 1936 to thank Keppel for showing him copies of letters received from the president of St. Dunstan's College. Cartwright, a frequent adviser of the Corporation in its programmes of support for adult education, went on to elaborate his view in some detail:

In recent years Canadian and American historians alike have given considerable attention to the managerialism and social engineering inherent in the progressive reform tradition. Concentrating upon the attempts of businessmen and professionals to make the reform impulse conform to their own needs, modern historians havet discovered a preoccupation with efficiency, scientific management and social improvement in the progressive reform movement.' In the name of a more scientific and rational socio-economic order, turn of the century progressives in Canada and the United States discarded traditional Darwinian notions of economic activity in favor of a more efficient, responsible, and regulated capitalist system. The tendency to concentrate authority in the hands of the scientific expert extended far beyond the factory or industrial workplace; it also permeated the reform of politics, municipal government, education, conservation, criminal justice, and public health. Professionals were particularly active in the movement for reform. Increasingly aware, of their own professionalism, engineers, doctors, social scientists, and other strategically situated elite groups responded to the unfortunate conditions that accompanied