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CHAPTER 4: ACADIAN PUBLIC SCHOOL TEACHERS: BACKGROUND AND EDUCATION
INTRODUCTION
To this point in the discussion of the Acadian teachers in public schools in eastern Nova Scotia the focus has been on the political and legal situation (see chapter 3) as well as an historical perspective of the place for French language education in the British North American colonies of the 1811 to 1864 period (see chapter 2). It will be the objective of this chapter to provide a background to the Acadian public school teachers working in the Acadian villages of the eastern part of Nova Scotia. In many instances the private teachers became public school teachers after 1841 (see section 3.5) in order to enable schools to apply for the provincial grant. Licensing had been a local affair for the Trustees and later the School Commissioners, however changes appeared to this system following the implementation of the 1864 and 1865 education acts (see sections 3.4 and 3.5).
This chapter will cover teacher origins and village schools as well as the training teachers might have had and finally a look at some of the legal constraints placed on the public school teachers of the day based on some of the legalities discussed in chapter three. The use of census records, parish records and government maps (see section 4.3.4) and related demographic documents will be used to give an accurate picture of the background of Acadian teachers in the public schools.
This chapter, concerning the public school teachers themselves is a pivotal answer to the questions raised in chapter one of this thesis (see section 1.3). Questions pertaining to the characteristics of these teachers and the social dynamics in the villages, including their ethnic background and teacher training, were raised in the first chapter and many of these are answered in chapter four. With these answers the reader will be able to appreciate the essential leadership role of the Acadian public school teacher as an educated participant in the small but influential elite of the Acadian village community.
While the primary school records are often silent concerning the origin of the public school teachers in Acadian villages, archival sources such as census records, parish statistics and diocesan documents can be used to trace their origins and reveal the work conducted by the Acadian teachers in the public system. In this chapter, the public school teachers in Acadian villages are identified and those of a Francophone heritage are studied through public records. Through this means, the educational and social background of the Acadian public school teachers can be illustrated. Often there was a lineage of teaching within families (see section 4.3.2.2, 4.3.3.3 and 4.3.4). There is evidence as well of a migration from teaching to the religious vocation within the realm of public school education as was the case of many of the Trappistine sisters who were previously teachers in Acadian villages, or male teachers who became priests (see sections 4.4.2 and 5.2.2.1). This phenomenon was found in other Acadian communities outside of Nova Scotia in the mid to late nineteenth century (Andrews 1996: 103).
There is confirmation of the continuity between the initial efforts at creating a small literate elite by the early mission priests as demonstrated by Sweet (1999a) and the teachers working in the early Acadian public schools (see sections 4.3.1, 4.3.3 and 4.3.4). This link is vital from the point of view of the survival of the French language and culture in some of the Acadian villages of eastern Nova Scotia dominated by the English language population. It also established the growing elite of educated Acadians able to take leadership roles in the village communities outside the confines of the Church. The leadership created was localised, however, to the Acadian villages themselves, and did not constitute an elite that was very much connected with other Acadian communities in the Maritimes (Andrew 1996: 76). The new elite was limited but followed the trend of being either the teachers, doctors, lawyers or priests in the villages.
The developments in the advancement of Acadian public school teachers in the newly founded or funded public schools in eastern Nova Scotia studied in this thesis were ahead of the Acadian Renaissance124 that took place in the 1880s and 1890s. This education “was particularly important in developing the more urbanized elite of the Acadian renaissance period … it also provided the qualifications necessary to establish the professional and church-based elite” (Andrew 1996: 63).
Basque (1996) has presented the leadership of the village of Néguac in northern New Brunswick in the first half of the nineteenth century in his work entitled Des hommes de pouvoir. Histoire d’Otho Robichaud et de sa famille, notables acadiens de Port Royal et de Néguac125. The development of this leadership and their role in that developing Acadian community in the “Acadian Peninsula” region of northern New Brunswick was important as evidence of non-ecclesiastical leadership in the Acadian villages of the region (Basque 1996: 131, Bourgeois & Basque 1984: 9-10). It should be pointed out, that while this elite was developing in Néguac, it was in a region dominated by the Acadian population and its cultural values and way of life. The villages were nearly exclusively French speaking and set away from the influence of the English population of the province. The isolation of such a large Acadian nearly homogenous population would permit the development of local Acadians into roles that might otherwise not extend, at such early dates, to other regions of the Maritime Provinces where, as in Nova Scotia, the Acadians were not permitted to settle together in large communities (Boucher 1985: 8). Instead, the Acadians of eastern Nova Scotia, being a minority in the province (Bastarache & Ouellet 1993: 413), were reliant at first on the Catholic Church before the development of a small number of non-ecclesiastical members of the communities, an elite which developed in Nova Scotia during the second half of the nineteenth century (see section 4.5.1 and Sweet 1999a: 54), later than that of northern New Brunswick. (Basque 1996: 131).
For many Acadian communities in eastern Nova Scotia, (Sweet 1999a: 52) an influx of English and Gaelic speaking immigrants in the early nineteenth century caused the Acadian villages to be either dominated by the new settlers or have a minority population of English speaking people who would come to control the leadership positions in the society (Ross & Deveau 1992: 120-121). The work of the early Acadian public school teachers in creating an educated Acadian leadership within the community, though relatively small at first, would ensure linguistic endurance essential to the well-being and future survival of the Acadian communities of eastern Nova Scotia.
In this chapter, the Acadian teachers are studied from the school reports of Inverness, Richmond, Antigonish and Guysborough counties (see Map 1 in section 1.1). These counties are the only ones to have a population of Acadians. Cape Breton126, Victoria and Pictou counties are not included for this reason. As there is more than one year without school reports from the schools of Richmond County, much as in all the other public school districts in eastern Nova Scotia, there should be no presumption that there was not a public school, but rather that the school reports were not filed or have since been lost. The same could be said for the date of the establishment of a public school, which should be counted from the date of public monies being forwarded for its support under the appropriate education acts (see section 3.2) rather than by date of first appearance of public school reports.
BACKGROUND OF TEACHERS
The teachers in Acadian public schools in eastern Nova Scotia are frequently mentioned by name among writers of Acadian education (Chiasson 1961, Ross 2001, Basque 1994), but the cognitive development of these teachers as well as their backgrounds are often given only a cursory reference. In this chapter, those Acadian and other Francophone teachers listed in archival sources between 1811 and 1864 as well as those from non-governmental sources will be analysed for their village of origin, ethnic background and teacher training. These dates are chosen as they indicated the first date of public school legislation in Nova Scotia (1811) and the “Tupper Law” (1864) that ended official French language use in public schools in the province. Non-Acadian teachers are also discussed in this chapter as some of the later teachers also came from other provinces and ethnic backgrounds: Lower Canadians, Jersey Islanders, Scottish, English, Irish and from France.
1.0 CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY
1.1 INTRODUCTION
1.2 MOTIVATION
1.3 PROBLEM POSTULATION
1.4 HYPOTHESIS
1.5 AIM OF STUDY
1.6 RESEARCH APPROACH AND METHODOLOGY
1.7 DELIMITATION OF THE FIELD OF STUDY
1.8 CONCLUSION
2.0 CHAPTER 2 ACADIAN EDUCATION, 1604-1864
2.1 INTRODUCTION
2.2 ACADIAN EDUCATION UNDER FRENCH AND ENGLISH REGIMES
2.3 ATLANTIC COLONIAL EDUCATION, 1710-1854
2.4 UPPER CANADA (ONTARIO), 1800-1864
2.5 ASSINIBOIA, RUPERT’S LAND (MANITOBA), 1810-1869
2.6 LOWER CANADA (QUÉBEC), A CASE APART, 1791-1860
2.7 CONCLUSION
3.0 CHAPTER 3 NOVA SCOTIA EDUCATION ACTS 1758 -1865
3.1 INTRODUCTION
3.2 EDUCATION ACTS FROM 1758- 1811
3.3 EDUCATION IN CAPE BRETON COLONY, 1784-1820
3.4 EDUCATION ACTS 1811-1839, FROM THE ENGLISH PERIOD TO THE ROAD TO PLURALITY
3.5 EDUCATION ACT 1841, A SPACE TO TEACH
3.6 EDUCATION ACT, 1864 “TUPPER’S LAW” & EDUCATION ACT, 1865
3.7 CONCLUSION
4.0 CHAPTER 4 ACADIAN PUBLIC SCHOOL TEACHERS:BACKGROUND AND EDUCATION
4.1 INTRODUCTION
4.2 BACKGROUND OF TEACHERS
4.3 ACADIAN TEACHERS IN PUBLIC SCHOOLS
4.4 PATTERNS OF EMPLOYMENT
4.5 CONCLUSION
5.0 CHAPTER 5: PREPARING ACADIAN PUBLIC SCHOOL TEACHERS
5.1 INTRODUCTION
5.2 TRAINING OF TEACHERS 1826-1865
5.3 SAINT FRANCIS XAVIER COLLEGE-SEMINARY
5.4 CONCLUSION
6.0 CHAPTER 6 SYNTHESIS
6.1 INTRODUCTION
6.2 CONCLUSIONS OF THE CHAPTERS
6.3 FINAL CONCLUSIONS
BIBLIOGRAPHY
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FOR A SPACE TO TEACH: ACADIAN TEACHERS IN PUBLIC SCHOOLS IN EASTERN NOVA SCOTIA, 1811-1864
