CCHA, Historical
Studies, 62 (1996), 15-32
Selling Education:
The Problems of Convent Schools
in Acadian New Brunswick,
1858-1886
Sheila ANDREW
Teaching Sisters came from Quebec to open
schools in the Frenchspeaking areas of New Brunswick because Bishop Rogers of
Chatham, Père Camille Lefebvre, C.S.C., Director of the bilingual classical
college of St.Joseph, and several parish priests told them they were urgently
needed. They called on the Sisters to improve the level of religious education
by setting up convent schools, by training girls to teach in the public school
system, and by training girls to bring up their children as good Catholics.1 Sisters who
could communicate in French were welcomed because the public schools were
desperately short of good francophone teachers in the mid-nineteenth century.
Only six teachers with French surnames had first or second class licenses in
1861.2 The Acadian
population of New Brunswick was growing: in 1861, there were approximately
33,000, and the 1871 census showed 44,907, accounting for over 15% of the
population.3
The convent schools would be successful
because the Sisters were not daunted by the initial difficulties and were able
to satisfy the needs of many young Acadian women and their parents. However, at
first, convincing Acadians that the education they offered was valuable was a
challenge. Most of the Sisters who came to New Brunswick knew they would be
pioneers in areas where people had never even seen a female Religious.4 They understood the
need to persuade parents of the value of education, as many Acadians were short
of cash and educating daughters beyond the elementary level was not yet a high
priority.5 Their efforts to
educate women also made them the focus of conflicts based on varied
interpretations of the role of women in Acadian society. These were intensified
by the differences between Quebecois and Acadian society. Maritime francophones
who sent their children to convent schools in the mid-nineteenth century were
forced to see themselves in the context of a francophone society epitomised by
the urban centres of Quebec.
The Sisters, as representatives of
Quebecois urbanised culture, spoke a form of the French language that was very
different from Acadian speech patterns. This took on symbolic importance as
Acadian society changed rapidly in the mid-nineteenth century. Transportation
improved and villages grew into towns. Just like the Acadian men, women left
the farm and the fishing economy to enter commerce or education, and many women
moved to the urbanised mill towns of New England. The Acadian men whose letters
were recorded in New Brunswick’s only French language newspaper, the Moniteur Acadien, found the changing
role of women unsettling. Some wanted women to be educated for motherhood and
teaching; some wanted them to become ornaments to the best New Brunswick
society.6 The Acadians were
also trying to build their own nationalist movement and many wanted it to be
clearly distinct from the Québecois French Canadian lifestyle. They thought
Quebec had a more sophisticated urbanised society than Acadia and subsequently
a different view of the role of women.7 There were also disagreements
on the role of the English language in the education of women. Many Irish
priests and some Acadians thought teaching in French was only necessary as a
prelude to higher education in English. Other Acadians associated English with
worldliness unsuitable for Acadian women. When the New Brunswick Common Schools
Act of 1871 took government funding from Catholic schools, it not only
threatened religious education for the Acadians but also for the much larger population
of Irish and Scottish Catholics in the province. Acrid disputes developed
between those who believed that French education should be available at all
levels and those who believed that the future of Catholicism depended on giving
priority to English language education.8
The Sisters
responded energetically to the challenge of these various needs. The Sisters of
Charity founded schools in St.-Basile de Madawaska (1858), Memramcook (1873),
Buctouche (1880) and in Newcastle (1864). The Congrégation de Notre Dame from
Montreal opened schools in Bathurst (1869), Newcastle (1870), Caraquet (1874)
and St. Louis-de-Kent (1874). The Hospitalières de St.-Joseph set up a school
in Tracadie (1873) and replaced the Sisters of Charity in the St.-Basile school
(1873).
The work of the Sisters encouraged and
accomodated the changing role of women. The first francophone teaching Sisters
all came from Quebec, and as Marta Danylewycz has explained, the Quebec Sisters
were often good role models for women who wanted to develop their intellectual
or business skills.9 Convents also taught a particular code of
manners and language, based on their own rules and the expectation that many of
their pupils were being prepared for marriage in an urbanised middle class.10 The girls were
encouraged to learn music, drawing and fancy needlework. Combined with an
education that often went far beyond basic reading, writing and arithmetic,
these genteel accomplishments could be unexpectedly subversive.11
We can only guess what parents hoped to get
out of convent education as those who initially welcomed this opportunity for
their daughters did not record their reasons. However, some parents actively
supported the convent schools. Even before the 1871 Schools’ Act, at least
thirteen New Brunswick Acadians went to the C.N.D. convent at Miscouche on
Prince Edward Island.12 The parishioners of St. Basile had raised a
thousand pounds to build their convent school by 1860. The parish priest made
it sound an impressive building in his petitions for government support.13 The government
gave annual grants to the school and it had some success. In 1861 there were
six Acadian boarders and four Irish boarders. By 1863, there was an average of
twenty-seven female pupils over the year.14 However, the
numbers continued to be small and it was hard to retain support. Most parents
had to pay fees if they sent their daughters to the convent schools, as
government subsidies before the 1871 Schools’ Act did not cover all expenses.
In 1871, St. Basile had only six boarders, four of whom were Acadians. After
the Schools’ Act, subsidies stopped and economic problems, possibly aggravated
by tensions within the community and between the community, the parish priest
and the Bishop of Saint John, led the Sisters of Charity to leave St. Basile.15 The Hospitalières
replaced them in 1873. As a nursing order trying to respond to the demand for
schools, the Hospitalières faced exceptional challenges. They were not trained
teachers and in their early years at St. Basile, the Sisters said they were
only just keeping ahead of their pupils in English and mathematics.16
The 1871 Act, which stopped subsidies to
Catholic schools, challenged all the teaching orders in New Brunswick to
greater efforts. The C.N.D. immediately prepared for extra students at
Miscouche and opened a boarding school in Bathurst.17 As more schools
in Acadian areas closed when local officials either would not or could not
collect taxes for the secular school system, more convent schools opened. The
C.N.D. opened convent schools in Caraquet and St.-Louis. The Hospitalières
added a small school to their hospital in Tracadie. The Sisters of Charity
began to teach in Memramcook and Buctouche. In each case, they got a hearty
welcome from the Moniteur, often accompanied by accounts of the warm welcome they received from
the priest and the parishioners.18
They deserved a hero's welcome because
conditions were difficult. After the initial enthusiasm, the Sisters had to
prove the value of education. In the early years, they sought the help of the
press. The Moniteur Acadien carried advertisements for the convent schools at
Miscouche, Prince Edward Island, St. Louis, Memramcook, and Buctouche.
Prize-giving ceremonies and concerts were reported in detail. Even when the
local population was generous, it was hard to finance a school where the
parishioners had their own financial problems and female education was still
not a high priority.19 The Sisters did not yet open public schools
because the Common Schools’ Act of 1871 forbade religious instruction during
school hours. Thus, parents who chose a convent education for their daughters
usually had to pay rates towards the upkeep of public schools and fees to the
convent schools.20
The experiences of the Sisters in Caraquet
are a good example of the problems that followed the opening of the convent
schools. In common with the Sisters in other parishes, they had been provided
with buildings and some land. However, they could not rely on continuing
financial subsidies from the parish. The Caraquet priest and parishioners had
been working for four years on the convent building, but there was no furniture
when they arrived and they could not move in for a month. They began classes
with twenty-four students and two boarders.21 These pupils had
very little education as two could read a little; six were beginning to spell
and the rest were learning their letters.22 The parish did not
give them any more money to cope with these challenges.23 The Sisters
thought they were unpopular because they were a Montreal order in an Acadian
parish.24 However, the Caraquet fishermen and farmers may have given little
support because most were too poor to help. The Jersey-based fishing companies
controlled the local economy and kept them dependent on a debt-based system of
company store credits. Three months after the Sisters opened their school, a
devastating smallpox epidemic broke out.25 One month later,
some Acadians in Caraquet took part in riots directed against the 1871 Schools’
Act and the subsequent efforts to tax them to pay for the public school. Two
men died and the trial that followed was widely publicised.26 This did not
encourage New Brunswick Catholics to send their daughters to Caraquet.
To survive, the convents had to attract
boarders. Even in Quebec where public funding was provided, this was a vital
source of income, amounting to between 40% and 80% of revenue.27 In Caraquet, girls
who registered as boarders sometimes stayed for a month or less, but they still
paid considerably more than day pupils. The latter provided little revenue and
were sometimes taught for nothing when revenue from other sources permitted.28 There was a
limited pool of potential boarders, so the convents had to be competitive and
consider the local market.29 Girls did move from one convent school to
another, suggesting parents wanted value for money. The Sisters of Charity’s
Memramcook convent fees were the highest and their market the most promising.
The principals of the two successive Catholic boys’ colleges founded in
Memramcook had worked hard to convince parents that education was valuable.
Some of the sisters of college students went to the convent school. There were
several small towns in the catchment area and a prosperous farming hinterland.
This convent was able to charge $85 for ten months full board, including linen
and tableware.30 The C.N.D convent at St. Louis started later and was close enough to
Memramcook to feel the competition. It began at $53 for ten months full board.31 The Hospitalières
in St. Basile were far from competition but served a rural catchment area. They
began at $60 full board.32 Caraquet accounts show the C.N.D. there aimed
for $55 full board, but frequently settled for what they could get.33 Girls who made
their own arrangements for food paid $1.50 a month.
The Caraquet convent never advertised in
the Moniteur
and
apparently attracted boarders through contacts. Fees varied according to
requirements and possibly according to ability to pay. One boarder came from
Montreal and paid $141 for 18 months. The daughter of a prosperous Irish farmer
paid extra for the use of a bed frame, for washing and for crockery, pens and
ink.34 Local priests helped with recruiting as two of their nieces attended
briefly. Sponsors paid the fees for three orphans in other years. A local
farmer gave the Order land to finance one scholarship and the Sisters sometimes
stretched the subsequent income to pay for two. Donors were presumably
inspired by devotion, but also by a practical desire to educate family members,
as the first set of scholarships went to the donor’s nieces. Another farmer
gave the Order land adjoining the convent to pay two years’ fees for his
sister. The rest of the boarders came from Irish families in neighbouring
communities or the more prosperous local Acadian farming families. The latter
did not always manage to pay the full amount for boarding and the Sisters
accepted work, produce, and almost enough cash. In three cases, they waived the
fee of $1.50 a month charged to students who did not take their meals at the
convent.
Revenue from
Boarders: Caraquet 1874-81
Year #
Full Av.
stay # Board Av. stay Paid
Board in months own food in
months
74-5 10 4.5 6 2.7 $372.31
75-6 2 2.25 7 6.5 $75.60
76-7 3 6.36 7 5.66 $136.55
77-8 4 6.23 14 5 $347.25
78-9 3
6 6 8.25 $190.60
79-80 2 6 14 8.33 $229.83
80-1 2
1.5 11 7.57
$141.71
81-2 2 3.25 6 7.74 $136.84
Like other orders, the C.N.D. at Caraquet
found ways to supplement the fee from boarders. They managed the farm and
developed their own garden area. The Sisters of Charity in Buctouche also had a
farm and won regular prizes at the agricultural show. The Superior in that
convent made an ally of the Schools’ Inspector, Valentin Landry.35 He arranged for
the Sisters to get government pay under their original names after they entered
the convent.36 Presumably he did not inquire if religious teaching was restricted to
after school hours, as by law required. He maintained that the convent school
was not on land owned by the Episcopal Corporation and so it was not a church
school.37 The Sisters of Charity in Memramcook also showed ingenuity in
fund-raising. They organised a very successful excursion to Saint John. This
involved hiring a train, setting up ticket outlets in grocery stores, presbyteries
and the houses of local “notables,” and organising a picnic and an organ
concert for those who preferred culture to shopping and sight-seeing. The
excursion, at $1.50 for the train and 35 cents a head, apparently made a useful
profit.38
The convent schools were reflecting and
encouraging the changing role of women and in the process, the attitude towards
convents in the Moniteur began to alter. There was no all-out attack on convents in Acadia, but
the paper’s earlier enthusiastic support waned. This might have been because
most convents economized by ceasing to advertise. Only the Sisters of Charity
in Memramcook consistently paid for space. Coverage of concerts and
prize-giving ceremonies diminished and by 1883 an editorial criticized Quebec
convent schools.39 The editor blamed them for producing girls
unsuited to farm life who then emigrated to the United States. The editor said
this should be a warning to New Brunswick convents. In 1884, there was a direct
complaint that Acadian convents were too expensive.40 By 1886, there
was no coverage of convent school activities. The debate had shifted to a
lengthy controversy on the quality of French taught in convent schools and the excessive
use of English, particularly in Arichat, Nova Scotia.41 These comments
coincided with constant volleys of advice in the Moniteur directing women to
the virtues of humility and economy.
One reflection of the changing role of
women was an increased desire for female education. More research is needed to
measure the full effect of the convent schools, but they obviously helped more
women to get at least an elementary education. Caraquet convent, for example, had
fifty-four student boarders between 1874 and 1881. St. Basile convent had 137
students between 1874 and 1886.42 By 1879, this convent was providing free
education for day girls.43 Buctouche convent had 118 girls enrolled in
1880.44
The census figures show that increasing
numbers of young women seventeen and older were staying in school. In 1861,
there were only seventeen girls in that age group listed as students. By 1871,
there were thirty and by 1881, when the convent schools had time to develop a
clientele and to produce some teachers qualified for the public school system,
the number of older students had risen to eighty-two.
The number of boarders staying at the
Caraquet convent for longer periods reflected the general trend.
Average number of
months spent by boarders in the Caraquet convent
during the school year
and numbers returning for second or more years of study.
Year Av. stay #2
yrs. #3 yrs. #4 yrs. #5 yrs.
in
months
1874-5 4.8 0 0 0 0
1875-6 5.2 6 0 0 0
1876-7 5.6 4 2 0 0
1877-8 7.9 1 3 1 0
1878-9 7.72 3 1 1 0
1879-80 7.1 5 2 1 1
1880-81 7.39 3 4 2 1
1881-82 6.9 2 1 1 0
Some of these women went on to be teachers,
improving the overall level of education in Acadian areas. This was also an
attraction for parents who could now see education as a practical investment.
Girls could earn a little money before marriage. As early as 1864, Schools’
Inspector Freeze complimented the St.-Basile convent on the quality of education
it was offering. He said that seventeen of the “young ladies” were working in
schools just over the border in Maine. Schools in this area preferred them over
U.S. trained teachers because they were fluent in English and French. The
inspector also said the Academy was responsible for a “notable improvement” in
schools on the New Brunswick side of the border in 1870. They were introducing
modern teaching methods and the result was increased support for education in
the area.45 Almost 18% of the former boarders at the Caraquet convent had taught in
government funded schools by 1881. As the convent had only been open since 1874
and there were also day pupils, this suggests many students later taught. The Moniteur reported that
Valentin Landry gave teaching certificates to convent school students even when
they had not gone to the Normal School.46 This would be an
added attraction for parents who did not want their daughters to experience the
comparative freedom of boarding-house life in Fredericton while they studied at
the Normal School.
The arrival of all these educated women on
the labour market reflected the success of the convents and the general trend
to educate daughters. By 1881, the two best qualified Acadian female teachers,
one with a Class I certificate and the other Class II, were both former convent
school pupils.47 The number of female teachers in the province increased substantially
between 1861 and 1881. This put them in direct competition with the male
college graduates for teaching jobs, which may have caused some resentment,
fuelling the criticism that followed.
Acadian teachers in
New Brunswick public schools,
by census year
Year Female
# Female % Male # Male % Total
1861 15 18.75 65 81.25 90
1871 44 33 89 67 133
1881 97 42 131 57 229
Convents were even beginning to offer more
advanced education. Early advertisements for the Memramcook convent school
promised “particular attention to Christian virtues and morals, French, English,
Music, Drawing, House-keeping and Sewing.”48 By 1884, it was
also offering Chemistry, Book-keeping, and Algebra.49 Presumably by
coincidence, the same issue of the paper included a letter on the growing
“freemasonry” among women that was leading them to neglect their duties.
Inevitably, this education changed the
public life of women. Their teachers and religious role models included
strong-minded women. Amanda Viger, Sister St.-Jean-de-Goto, for example, was
the proud daughter of a Patriote of 1837. Dr William Bayard of Saint John
described her as a “beautiful, educated and refined young lady.”50 She gave
selfless service to the lepers of Tracadie, including work as secretary to a
government inquiry, set up a dispensary serving much of Gloucester county, and
developed the orphanage and school. Mère Augustin of the Menramcook convent had
a running battle with the parish priest in Buctouche because she wanted to get
him out of the affairs of the convent there.51 The convent
Sisters also took an interest in Acadian affairs. Significantly, the first
female subscriber to the Moniteur was from the Sisters of Charity Convent in
Saint John.52 The Buctouche and Memramcook convents took out their own subscriptions.
It was noteworthy that the Sisters regularly travelled by train to convents in
other towns at a time when those writing the Moniteur’s social columns
found any such trip by a woman an interesting event.53
The convent schools encouraged their
students to develop their own talents. The girls performed in concerts and
acted in plays, sometimes taking male roles. Memramcook also taught
“declamation” to encourage young women, “like young men,” to be “natural and
easy” when speaking, neither timid nor over confident.54 The education
system was competitive and encouraged excellence with prizes in every part of
the curriculum.
Convent pupils took these traditions away
with them. Two brave young ladies performed in the Shediac Dramatic society in
1876.55 Former “little birds of the convent” were writing to the Board of
Education demanding back pay for years they had taught and one even wrote to
her Member of the House of Assembly for support.56 Another teacher,
Elizabeth Doiron, had regularly appeared in the newspaper since she performed
in the Memramcook Christmas concert when she was five. She was in every list
of prize winners published while she was at the convent. When she became a
teacher, the paper reported school plays she produced and her work as director
of the parish choir. She came back to the convent in 1885 to present the gold
medal for mathematics. Then she took the train to Montreal and Quebec for a
holiday. She wrote letters to the paper urging male and female teachers to
attend Teachers’ Institute meetings. When she spoke at the Institute, the Moniteur covered her
speech in two issues. It had never recorded a woman’s speech before and
coverage in more than one issue was an honour usually reserved for priests and
politicians.57 Another young woman, “Une Acadienne,” was bold
enough to write that it was about time Acadian girls learned some
“savoir-vivre” instead of hiding from the world. She called for more
mathematics and grammar in the curriculum and less emphasis on house-keeping
skills.58 It is more than coincidence that the first Acadian
suffragist “"Manchette” was also a pupil of the Memramcook convent at this
time.59
The convent pupils must have created a stir
when they came home. The C.N.D. made a point of establishing the same standards
in all their schools, and New Brunswick advertisements stressed the importance
of order and correct behaviour.60 The girls became accustomed
to a very strict timetable that included long periods of silence and prayer.
Students were specifically warned against running, laughing, or talking in the
corridors, inopportune questions, arguing, singing, gossiping, whispering,
shouting, touching others, talking to boys, and sitting with their legs
crossed. Special warnings were issued before the holidays to help students
avoid these offences at home.61 Even day pupils must have
found the contrast with life in a lively Acadian family remarkable. Boarding
pupils must have found it very difficult to cope with living in two different
worlds. Most of the Caraquet boarders were the only member of their family
attending the convent. Between 1874 and 1887, only fifteen of the fifty-four
registered as boarders were siblings of others on the list. The others were
chosen for an education that inevitably set them apart from their families.
Even their parents must have often felt a growing gap between themselves and
their convent educated daughters as few of these boarders’ parents had more
than an elementary education and thirty-four could neither read nor write.
The girls also learned manners and
accomplishments that changed the lives of some families. The Moniteur began to publish
items on etiquette, including hints to young men on how to please the new
educated woman.62 Convent girls were taught to avoid Acadian French and speak a “purer,”
presumably educated Québecois form.63 Elizabeth Doiron
could not understand why “country folk” hung onto the old ways of speaking and
refused to speak “pure” French.64 As Acadian French had developed separately
from Quebec French and included many different words and structures, it is easy
to imagine the disdain of other little convent pupils when faced with
neighbours and family members who did not match up to their new standards.
Some Acadians resented the implied
superiority of Québecois standards. Pascal Poirier, the future Acadian
senator, who was at the college of St.-Joseph until 1873, later wrote that he
and his peers were irritated by teachers telling them how much better educated
students were in the province of Quebec.65 The Québecois
who had moved into northern New Brunswick were fishermen and farmers like the
Acadians. There is no evidence that they were any more educated or enthusiastic
about educating their daughters than any other Acadians. However, most of the
francophone teaching Sisters were educated Québecois and they taught the
manners of their own society.
As well as having to cope with a new set of
standards, Acadian parents who chose to send their children to board at the
convent faced some new expenses. Apart from the fees, boarders had to bring bed
clothes, table linen and their school uniform.66 Students might
want extra courses, such as art and music. These were useful for teachers and
ornamental in wives, but they cost more money. Painting and “works of good
taste” such as embroidery or flower-making ranged from $6 to $50 a year. Music
lessons cost between $20 and $60. Displaying these expensive talents required a
piano, organ, or harp. Smaller and cheaper instruments such as the violin or
the flute were apparently considered too physical for refined young ladies.67 Israel Landry’s
music store in Saint John advertised albums of music for the latest piano
pieces costing between $1.50 and $2.00. The piano, organ or harmonium would
cost between $50 and $500.68 We get a glimpse of conflicting roles when the
Moniteur suggested washing
dishes was good for piano playing as the warm water made the fingers supple.69 Associating with
rich young ladies from Montreal may also have given Acadian girls some
different ideas on fashion. In 1877, The Moniteur began to carry
advertisements for women’s dress shops, bringing the latest fashions from Saint
John and Halifax.70
The investments may have been made in the
hopes that daughters would marry young men with good financial prospects. The
first of many “fashionable marriages” was recorded in 1882 when a former
collegian married a former convent pupil. Even the wedding involved financial
investment as parents presumably paid for the “trés riche toilette” and some of
the “many rich and beautiful presents” required by the new style of celebration.71
There were complaints about the increasing
use of English as the language was associated with the move from rural Acadian
society to the temptations of the towns. It is easy to see why some
francophones were concerned. All the convent schools in Acadian areas took both
francophone and anglophone students. St. Louis, Memramcook and Miscouche advertised
courses in English and French. However, the advertisements do not say what
language was used to teach other subjects. Memramcook convent followed the
pattern set by the male college of St. Joseph and presented a parallel set of
prizes in both languages.72 In 1875, the convent offered arithmetic,
history, geography, religious instruction, and astronomy in English and French.
Botany was only offered in French and book-keeping was only offered in English.
The lists show girls with francophone names taking courses in English and a
smaller number of girls with anglophone names taking courses in French. Concert
programmes and advertisements for music suggest that most of the parlour pieces
performed by the young ladies would be English rather than traditional Acadian
or French. However, the convents were responding to market forces when they
taught English. The parents in St. Basile had insisted that the Hospitalières
provide an English language course.73 It was essential
for women entering teaching, as all correspondence with the Board of Education
was in English and promotion beyond the Class III teaching certificate required
English. Women who did business beyond the local level, or dealt with lawyers,
needed English.74 It was also impractical to separate English and French students in the
smaller convents. Given the state of convent finances, an anglophone boarder
from a prosperous family was a gift from heaven. Caraquet took five, who paid
$55.00 or $65.00 per year.
Criticism of the convents was at least
partly based on other perceived attacks on French. The Moniteur had originally
praised the St.-Louis convent for “leading to perfect equality in both
languages” and the Buctouche convent for teaching both the languages “essential
for success in this country.”75 However, hostility to the
use of English was growing. The French Preparatory Department at the Normal
School opened in 1878. It was intended to help francophone teachers earn a
Class III license and learn enough English to move on to higher levels. The
fiery priest MarcelFrançois Richard said this proved the government saw French
as a stage in education to be passed through before moving to English. A Quebec
M.P. fanned the flames when he suggested that the St.-Louis classical college
had been closed by the Irish Bishop Rogers because it was French.76 The convents
were caught in the crossfire as anglophone and francophone clergy struggled for
control.77
The use of English in convent education was
criticised because it was becoming a symbol of change. By the 1880s,
advertisers were looking for Acadian women to work in the Maritime cotton mills
or as domestics in the city of Saint John. Agents from New England were
persuading Acadian girls to emigrate to the mill towns where they could earn
their own money and sometimes assimilate into American anglophone society.
Critics said family immigration was caused by women’s taste for luxury. Even
within Acadian society, women’s roles were changing. They were moving into
business to serve the growing Acadian market for fashionable clothes and places
to stay when travelling. There was even talk of giving women the federal vote.
“Évangeline” the Ottawa correspondent of the Moniteur was disgusted:
“all we need now is legislation allowing them to wear pants.”78
The teaching Sisters did their best to
provide French instruction. The Sisters of Charity deliberately sent some
French Sisters from St. Basile to Buctouche and kept Suzanne Cyr, Sr.
Marie-Anne, in Memramcook to strengthen the French teaching in both schools.79
The results are harder to measure, but
French became increasingly important in New Brunswick Acadian education. At
least three former convent pupils defended it passionately. Elizabeth Doiron’s
speech, covered at such length, was on the value of the French language. Later
she wrote a call to all Acadian teachers to attend the Teachers’ Institute
meeting and make a stand for French.80 “Manchette” was as
proud of her Acadian heritage as she was critical of the Acadian establishment.
Suzanne Cyr was a student at the first St. Basile convent school and later
taught at Memramcook and Buctouche convents. As Sr. Marie-Anne, she was one of
the leading “French Sisters” who worked towards a separate French speaking
section of the Sisters of Charity in 1914.81 It was a former convent
school pupil who criticised convents for teaching French badly in 1886 and
another woman who defended them.
Linguistic background of teaching Sisters
in the principle
Acadian area convents82
Convent and Convent Francophone
origin Anglophone origin
Order Superior Teaching Sisters Teaching Sisters
1861
St. Basile sc Irish 1 1
1871
Newcastle CND French 1 1
St. Basile HSJ Irish 1 1
1881
Bathhurst CND French 3 1
Butouche SC US/anglo 8 0
Carquet CND French 2 1
Memramcook SC Scott 2 1
Newcastle CND French 1 0
St.-Basile HSJ French 11 2
St.-Louis CND French 2 1
The convent schools were teaching their students English and expensive tastes, but they were also developing confidence and independence, allowing Acadian women to take a more active role in public life. These changes were almost inevitable with exposure to a more urbanised society in a province with a dominant anglophone middle class. It is not surprising that they made some more conservative Acadians nervous and critical. These teaching Sisters included powerful role models for young Acadian women. They provided students with an education allowing some of them to be professional teachers. Yet, at the same time, they taught their pupils to be proud of their French and Catholic heritage. The survival and growth of the schools into the mid-twentieth century indicates that the Sisters overcame considerable difficulties and successfully gave many of their pupils the skills they needed to cope with a rapidly changing society.