For a space to teach: Acadian teachers in public schools in eastern Nova Scotia, 1811-1864

Abstract

This doctoral thesis concerns the Acadian teachers in the public schools of the eastern counties of Nova Scotia between the years 1811 and 1864. The early Acadian public school teachers provided the Acadians, the French speaking population, in Nova Scotia, instruction in their own French language even under legal constraints to do otherwise. The region covered in this dissertation includes the counties found on Cape Breton Island and the counties of Antigonish and Guysborough on the mainland portion of the province between 1811 the year of adoption of the first Education Act in Nova Scotia concerning public education and concludes with the 1864 Education Act which created a homogenous unilingual school system in English. Acadian education would progress from small groups of children taught by itinerant school masters and visiting mission priests to formal one-room school houses where numbers were sufficient. Lay teachers being found in the communities would perpetuate the French language following their own education at the few available institutions for training. The work of these Acadian public school teachers, even when legislation prohibited it, resulted in the survival of the Acadian French communities in eastern Nova Scotia. In the preparation of this thesis, original sources were used including school reports, school commissioner reports, and colonial census records, private journals of the bishops and priests as well as those of community members. The original sources are invaluable as a record of the year to year work of the Acadian public school teachers where there are few other documentary sources remaining of their work. While the origins of the public schools in Nova Scotia has been documented as well as Acadian schools, this is the first look at the Acadian public school teachers who worked in the various communities of eastern Nova Scotia and their backgrounds.