A Meeting of the People

by Macleod, Roderick; Poutanen, Mary Anne

• ISBN13: 9780773526952
• ISBN10: 0773526951
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2004-09-30
• Publisher: McGill Queens Univ Pr

Summary

In A Meeting of the People Roderick MacLeod and Mary Anne Poutanen look at the Protestant public education system and the communities that established, and were served by, its schools, from the origins of public education in 1801 to the dissolution of confessional school boards in 1998. They focus on key issues such as class, ethnicity, religion, gender, health and welfare, patriotism, and the nature of local administration, bringing to life the people who attempted to establish and maintain schools and considering relationships between school trustees, parents, teachers, and the wider public. Their analysis shows that communities recognized the importance of providing schooling, despite what were often bleak circumstances. The authors show that Protestant families often had to make a difficult choice between supporting better educational facilities in a central place far away or encouraging the survival of the local community through maintaining one of its key institutions, the local school. They explore the ambiguous nature of Protestant education, at times understood as schooling reserved for a religious minority and at others as a liberal approach similar to public schooling across North America. The Protestant community, begun as a British element within a small colony, has developed into a diverse array of people from across the religious spectrum, periodically redefining itself to meet the needs of a changing Quebec society.

Table of Contents

Figures	ix
Tables	xiii
Maps	xv
Acknowledgments	xvii
Chronology of Key Events Pertaining to Protestant Education in Quebec	xxiii
Abbreviations	xxxiii
Introduction: Searching for Community	3	(259)
1 An Earnest Desire for Education: Early Protestant Schools in Quebec	20	(30)
2 Without Distinction of Creed: Common Schools and Protestant Communities	50	(28)
3 The Dissenters	78	(23)
4 Progress and Civilization: The City Boards	101	(35)
5 Local Matters: Protestant Boards and One-Room Schoolhouses	136	(29)
6 Central Places: Protestant Communities and Secondary Schools	165	(30)
7 Honorary Protestants: Jewish Pupils and Protestant Boards	195	(28)
8 Daughters of the Empire, Soldiers of the Soil: Protestant School Boards, Patriotism, and War	223	(21)
9 Pillars of the Community: School Boards and Social Welfare	244	(18)
10 Riding the Catholic Bus: The Decline of Rural Protestant School Boards	262	(23)
11 Meeting the Needs: Modern Schools, Protestant Architecture	285	(30)
12 The Protestant Metropolis	315	(28)
13 Numerous and Varied Origins: Immigrants, Human Rights, and the Protestant Tradition	343	(18)
14 The Language Bath: Protestant Boards and French Language Instruction	361	(19)
15 Paths to Wisdom: the Cree and Kativik School Boards	380	(20)
Conclusion: Strange Bedfellows: The Imposition of Linguistic Boards	400	(17)
Notes	417	(40)
Bibliography	457	(22)
Index	479