APeriod of Transition 127

It should be noted that this Acadian was writing a few months after the second national Convention which was held in Miscouche. The conventions undoubtedly made the Acadians on the Island more aware of their precarious situation from a cultural point of view. Consequently, they took various steps to counteract the trend towards assimilation. The first priority was to improve French education for young people. At the Convention in Miscouche a motion had already been passed requesting that the provincial government: raise the stan- dard of teaching French in the Acadian districts to the same level as the teaching of English; pay Acadian teachers the same salary for teaching French as other teachers; and have the inspection of Acadian schools take place in French’. It was not until the 1890s that the government agreed to some of these demands.

ADULT EDUCATION

Around this time people started becoming interested in education for adults, especially for men. As we have already seen, the temperance societies established in all the parishes stimulated interest in a variety of topics. Another educational forum for adults developed in the form of debating and discussion clubs. Men would meet in order to debate topical issues and to practice the art of public speaking. A debating club was set up in 1874 in Abram’s Village”, 1876 in Mis- couche” and in Rustico in 18787°. The Moniteur Acadien announced the founding of a club in Abram’s Village where practical and amusing topics would be discussed every week and lectures given by the mem- bers during the winter. The editor of the newspaper said he was so pleased about this initiative that he hoped that Acadians in the other Maritime Provinces would follow this wonderful example’. It was Father Ronald B. MacDonald who organized the club in Miscouche. Like the Institut catholique de Rustico, this debating club had a library and a reading room. The Moniteur Acadien explained how it operated in its issue of June 1, 1876:

This group, whose meeting place is located across from the Church, has a spacious meeting room, a library, a reading room where members can go every day to read the Island newspapers, the best newspapers from Canada and the United States, etc. From time to time there are sessions during which highly topical issues are discussed, lectures given by the founder, Rev. R. MacDonald, or by one of the members or an outsider invited for this purpose. (TR)”®