The Acadian Convention

Newspaper
Year
1890
Month
9
Day
11
Article Title
The Acadian Convention
Author
Acadien
Page Number
3
Article Type
Language
Article Contents
THE ACADIEN CONVENTION. To the Editor of the Casket : Mr. Editor,—With the sole desire of furthering the object of our Convention, I again avail myself of your kind invitation to write up the subject in your columns. I am confident that my remarks will be productive of a great amount of good, if published in your paper. First, because many of our Acadiens in this diocese cannot read French, and so are without the means of knowing what is going on among their friends if it is not published in English. Secondly, because, as our Acadien parishes are nearly ail in charge of Scotch and Irish pastors, and as it is by their kind meditation that we hope to obtain our legitimate ends, your paper may be instrumental in making them aware of their obligations in this regard towards their Acadien flocks. All that these zealous pastors want is to know our claims, for I am pretty sure that when once they know them they will not fail to see how reasonable and just they are. The following are the four resolutions adopted at our last Convention. 1st. “The Acadien Convention decrees that it is desirable that in all our schools, either high or common, academies or colleges, convents or boarding schools, the English language be taught concurrently with the French language; but that as much as possible the latter be the medium of instruction.” There is no ground for misgivings as to our desire of learning the English language. Living as we do in the midst of an English population we can no more dispense with the knowledge of their language than we can abstain from intercourse with them. We feel the absolute necessity of knowing English, but we wish to retain our own language, and at the same time use it as the medium for acquiring a knowledge of English. 2nd. “The Convention desires humbly to call the attention of the religious and lay authorities to the fact that there exists in Nova Scotia and in P. E. Island a large number of places wholly French where French is not at all taught in the educational institutions; that this state of things is most prejudicious to the best interests, religious and material of the Acadiens; that it is desirable to remedy it by encouraging the teaching of French to all Acadiens without prejudice to the teaching of English or any other language.” This resolution touches one of the greatest obstacles in the way of our social advancement, as well as the most unjustifiable manner we have been dealt with in this matter of education. I will prove all I advance. Let those whom it may concern consider my arguments not in the light of prejudice and personal feeling but in that of reason and common sense. My first argument is this, that it is well nigh impossible for us to learn the English language unless we learn it through the French. It is a natural law of the human intellect to proceed from the cognition of the known to that of the unknown. But to learn English by English is, for us, the same as to try to learn the unknown by the unknown. Take an Acadien child and send it to a school where English alone is taught. How is it going to learn English? Who will tell it the meaning of what it reads about? Not the master, for he does not know French. Not the other children, for they don’t know English. It will be compelled, however, to attend school day after day, year after year. The parents of this child will pay the master’s wages, the government will make a great many expenses, employing a host of officials to inspect the schools, examine the teachers, etc., etc., but to what avail one is at a loss to discover. The child in question may have acquired a certain mechanical knowledge of English, but, unless it has recourse to French, it will never have an intelligent or rational knowledge of that language. If the child is intelligent, it may after continued hard work, come to know that such and such a combination of letters make such and such a word; but meanwhile there is no knowledge being gained of the meaning of such and such a word. The child may know a grammar from memory from cover to cover, and yet be unable to write an English letter correctly. How then will a person so poorly equipped be able to fight advantageously and honourably the battle of life? By his countrymen of other nationalities he will be ever looked upon as a dunce, or an ass, a mere hewer of wood and drawer of water for his more fortunate fellow-men. And such in reality he is. The system of education he has been forced to follow, has made him one. And it has cost the government just as much to make an ass of him, as it has cost to train the brightest and most useful member of the community. It glories in this. Reason and experience, which are for other men the sole source of all knowledge, teach it nothing on this point. Its tympanum is so hardened by adulation and self conceit, that the clamour of a whole race fails to make it vibrate. But this is not, I am confident, an epidemic malady among our leading men in this land. There are among them men whose ability to perceive at once the justice of a cause is not outstripped by the fixed determination to espouse it. Let them then embrace our cause, and render a great service to their country. At least, let them not put obstacles in our way, when we take steps to compass our legitimate ends. For fear of protracting “ultra modum" this very imperfect exposition of the object of the Acadien Convention, I will merely mention the two other arguments I intended to put forward to show why French should be taught concurrently with English in our schools. These are our religious interests and the educational value of the French language itself. 3rd. “The general committee invites the Acadiens of the Maritime Provinces, to celebrate their national feast-day (15th Aug.) in every French parish. Being that, thank God, we have remained Catholics as well as French, the offering of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, should in all cases form a leading feature of the celebration.” 4th. “The next Acadien convention will be held in Cape Breton, at the place and date chosen by the general committee duly convened.” I will conclude by given the telegrams exchanged between our Holy Father the Pope and his honor, Judge Landry, on the occasion of the Acadien convention. DORCHESTER, N. B. H. E. CARDINAL SIMEONI, St. Peter’s Rome. The French Acadiens of the ecclesiastical province of Halifax being about to assemble in a convention, with the approbation of his Lordship Archbishop O’Brien, on the thirteenth of August, as submissive and devoted children of the Church of Rome and loyal subjects of His Holiness Leo XIII, present him their humble and respectful homage and solicit for their country, Acadie, the apostolic benediction. JUDGE LANDRY, President. The answer soon came, in these encouraging terms: ROME, 13 Aug., 1890. His HONOR, JUDGE LANDRY, Dorchester, N. B., The Holy Father thanks the French Acadiens of the ecclesiastical province of Halifax assembled in convention for their homage presented by His Em: Cardinal Simeoni, and grants with ail his heart the benediction asked. CARD. RAMPOLLA. Thanking you, Mr. Editor, for your very kind indulgence, I am yours respectfully. ACADIEN. Arichat, C. B., Aug. 30. ’90.