Successful Initiatives 163

Gilbert Buote Reg Porter Collection.

By 1920 there were seven branches of the Mutual Society on the Island, located in Palmer Road, Bloomfield, Egmont Bay, Mont Carmel, Rustico, Summerside and Charlottetown. The members met regularly at the branch level to talk about the Acadian cause. In 1933, for example, a motion was adopted in the Rustico branch asking every school district in the region to demand that teachers in French schools make the children speak French during recess®. Indeed, the Mutual Assumption Society was interested in any measure that helped foster French education and the French fact. The scholarship fund enabled the Society to sponsor the education of a good number of young people, including many from the Island. On several occasions the Mutual Society helped the Acadian Teachers’ Association by covering the travel expenses of members attending their congress.

The members of the Mutual Society on the Island held their first provincial assembly in 1932. Presiding at the meeting, Charles M.