106 THEISLAND ACADIANS

women of other peoples. They are not any the worse off for it and Acadian men are much better off. (TR)’

The cultural isolation of the Acadians was broken down for good between 1860 and 1890. They became more and more interested in education, they were more willing to learn English (in fact, they were eventually compelled to do so by the government), their farmers began to try new agricultural methods, and generally people took a greater interest in public life. However, becoming more open also meant becoming anglicized—a trend that was particularly apparent in communities such as Rollo Bay, Miscouche, Cascumpec and Tignish where Acadians lived amongst an English-speaking population.

It was estimated that in 1860 the Acadian population of the Island was approximately nine thousand’. At the time of the 1881 federal census, the first to enumerate people of French origin as a specific group, Acadians accounted for 9.9 percent of the population of the province—in other words 10,751 inhabitants’.

THE CLERGY LEADS THE Way

Bishop Peter McIntyre directed the Catholic Church on the Island throughout the period we are examining. He was consecrated in 1860, after Bishop Bernard Donald MacDonald’s death, and served as prelate of the diocese until 1891. Before being called to the episcopal See he was the parish priest in Tignish, a predominantly Acadian township. The diocese of Charlottetown, which at the time included the Magda- len Islands, expanded considerably during his reign; new parishes were founded, magnificent churches built, convents opened and numerous priests recruited”.

During the early years of his episcopate, Bishop McIntyre, like his predecessor, had to rely on the Montreal diocese for resident priests. Thus several priests from Quebec"' and two from the Magdalens came to serve on the Island’. Even one priest from France and another from Belgium spent several years among the Acadians’’. The first Acadian priest from the Island, Father Sylvain-Ephrem Poirier, retired in 1879, one year before the second Acadian was ordained. This was Father Jean Chiasson from Tignish. In 1884, Father Francois-Xavier