Rural Protestant Schools

The authors point out that Protestants who settled in rural Quebec, especially after the American Revolution and the Napoleonic wars, established schools as early as they could and kept them open however they could. In many cases, this meant relying on the more prosperous families within the community to pay for a teacher and a schoolhouse. In others, it meant community members had to pool the meagre resources. The authors explain that Protestant communities took full advantage of government assistance whenever it was available, including through the Royal Institution for the Advancement of Learning, created in 1801; the Syndics Act of 1829; and the Education Acts, the first of which was passed in 1841. The authors note that an increasingly centralized public school system raised issues of administration and governance, highlighting linguistic and religious differences that were reinforced by a growing sense of mutual suspicion and competition among faiths and denominations. In the 1850s and 1860s, the intent was to establish a common school system that included both Protestant and Catholic schools. However, the authors explain, legislation passed in subsequent decades entrenched the confessional divide with the creation of two separate governing bodies, the Protestant and Catholic Committees of the Department of Public Instruction.

Les chantiers de l’Atlas historique du Québec : L’École au Québec : éducation, identités et cultures

Québec et Trois-Rivières

Centre interuniversitaire d’études québécoises (CIEQ)

2015

19p.

en

978-2-921926-49-2