Dr. John C. Matthews, 91, former chairman of the Dept. of Education at Adelphi University in Garden City, died May 30, 1999 following a long illness. He began his career in a one-room schoolhouse in Canada and devoted a liftetime to teacher training as well as education research and planning in Canada and the US.

In Canada he conducted studies which resulted in the consolidation and expansion of the public education system of Prince Edward Island. During his 20-year tenure at Adelphi, several thousand undergraduates, graduate students and local teachers attended his lectures on educational psychology, philosophy and methods. Death was due to complications of Parkinson's disease.

Dr. Matthews joined the faculty of Adelphi as education department chairman in 1957 after holding the same post at Ohio's Fenn College (now Cleveland College). His department chairmanship at Adelphi extended to 1966 after which he continued his professorship unitl 1977, lecturing graduate and undergraduate education classes and retiring as professor emeritus. After retirement he continued teaching graduate classes part-time at Dowling College in Oakdale until advancing illness forced him to stop in 1979.

During the 1960s, he was also a member and served as chairman of the Village of Garden City's advisory committee on education, which prepared the recommendations expanding Garden City's High School to accomodate the growing "baby-boom" student population.

He was born in November 1907 in rural Elmsdale, Prince Edward Island in eastern Canada. In 1930 he became schoolmaster of Elmsdale's one-room schoolhouse after completing his studies at Prince of Wales College in Charlottetown, the provincial capital. His experiences there revealed the limits of the public education system of the time which emphasized preparing students at small local schools to enter private or parochial academic junior colleges. An unfortunate result of this structure was to limit many students' opportunities for higher learning and achievement because they were often discouraged from pursing higher education or other career training.

This motivated Dr. Matthews to pursue advanced studies in education, first at Mt. Allison University in New Brunswick, Canada, and ultimately at Columbia Teachers' College in NYC where he studied educational psychology and philosophy under Dr. E.L. Thorndike, among others, obtaining his Ed.D. in 1952.

While completing graduate work at Columbia, he was commissioned by the City of Charlottetown to study that city's education system and make recommendations for improving and consolidating public secondary education there. The result was The Charlottetown Study, published in 1952, which recommended consolidating the city's schools and drawing upon highly qualified instructors from both private and parochial colleges to enhance public secondary edcuation, life training and academic opportunities for students. The Charlottetown study initiated a rapid consolidation, enhancement and expansion of public higher education, culminating in the creation of the University of Prince Edward Island less than 20 years later as a single, public, nondenominational center of higher learning.

Arrangements were made by the Fairchild Chapel, Garden City. Memorial service. Donations can be made, in Dr. Matthews' name, to the Parkinson's Disease Research Team of NY Presbyterian Hospital, Sergivsky Center (212-305-9086). The funeral was private and held on Prince Edward Island.