126 THEISLAND ACADIANS

What subjects were Acadian children studying at this time? First, the young pupils learned to spell and to read French. In most schools, especially before 1877, English reading was only taught in the second year or, in many cases, even much later. It is interesting to note that boys were taught more English than girls. In 1864, most of the girls at the school in St. Félix, for example, did not learn any English at all.

Prior to 1877, the textbook that was used as a reader was called Le nouveau traité des devoirs du chrétien®’. The more advanced pupils took French Grammar (Grammaire Bonneau), Geography (with a French textbook) and Writing. In general it was the older pupils who took English Reading and English Grammar, in addition to Arithmetic taught with the aid of an English book, usually Gray’s and Thompson's Arithmetic®’. A bit of music was also taught in a few schools® and, in the majority, Catechism was taught outside regular school hours*.

After the School Act of 1877, pupils learned to spell and started learning to read French and English with the three books in the series of Royal Readers. These schoolbooks had English on one page and the French translation on the opposite: the idea being that it would be easier to learn English by translation. A few years after the new School Act was implemented, the Board of Education accepted the Montpetit series, French readers being used in Quebec schools”. The first four years were thus devoted to Reading and Spelling in English and French. It was only when Acadian school children reached Grade Five that they were able to start English Grammar, Geography and History, all taught with English textbooks’'. Needless to say, the teaching of French suffered in this system. An Island Acadian, concerned about the situ- ation, wrote in November 1884:

A great failure I see in Prince Edward Island is the lack of French teaching in our schools. Is it the government’s or the teachers’ fault? Both, I feel; because if the government gave more attention to the education of our young men, in the French as well as the English language, there would be better citizens living in our towns and cities. [...]

It would be good for our children if French Grammar were introduced into our schools; but in order to do that we need teachers who can teach it, which proves that we absolutely must have a French Department at the Normal School where our young men going into the teaching profession could receive a proper French education. Our public spokesmen should have understood this a long time ago and should have made it their duty to raise this important question. (TR)”