MAY, Samuel Passmore, Canadian educator, born in Truro, Cornwall, England, in 1828. He was educated privately, and on arriving at Quebec in 1853 was engaged by the literary and historical society of that city to rearrange their museum and to prepare a scientific catalogue. He soon afterward became connected with the education department of Upper Canada, had charge of the educational exhibit at Kingston in 1856, and in 1857 was appointed to establish meteorological observatories at senior county grammar-schools, and to give instructions in the use of instruments. He was graduated as a physician at Victoria college in 1863, and was for a time curator of its museum and lecturer on pharmacy and microscopy, he gave the first of a series of lectures on chemistry under the auspices of the Pharmaceutical society of Toronto in 1869, and in 1876 was appointed to take charge of the Ontario educational exhibit at the Centennial exhibition at Philadelphia. In 1878 Dr. May was appointed secretary for the Dominion at the Paris exposition of that year, and was awarded the gold medal for the food exhibit, which won the grand prize, lie also received the decoration of the Legion of honor, that of an officer of the Academy of Paris, and subsequently a medal from the French government. He received the appointment of superintendent of art-schools in connection with the Ontario department of education in 1880, and represented the Ontario government at the colonial exhibition in London in 1886. When Dr. May was put in charge of the art department there were only two public art-schools; now (1888) there are five, with more than seventy branch schools throughout the province.