276 J. G. BOUEINOT 



facilities like those afforded the girls alone by the Congrégation de Notre-Dame. Male 

 teachers holding prorincial school licenses, and at the same time capable of teaching 

 French, are not to be had except in a very few cases. Many parents are not at all anxiovis, 

 it is said on the highest authority, that their boys should be taught French in the schools, 

 as they find that a knowledge of English is under existing circumstances much more 

 useful to them. All these facts with respect to educational facilities and the use of the 

 French language go to show in a measure that English must sooner or later obtain the 

 mastery except in a few remote and isolated settlements. 



Of course this question of two distinct languages in a community has its difficulties 

 if one wishes to arrive at a solution fair to all nationalities, and the legislator may reason- 

 ably hesitate to give extraordinary facilities to the perpetuation of race distinctions. A 

 small minority must always expect sooner or later to be absorbed into the majority, unless 

 it is given and guaranteed special rights and privileges which enable it to have a longer 

 existence. The question arises, whether it is wise in the case of a minority like the 

 French Acadians of Cape Breton — about one-sixth probably of the total population — to 

 surround them with special safeguards for the preservation of a language alien from that 

 of the great majority, and in that way interpose a powerful obstacle to the formation of 

 one people, speaking the same language. The strength of the English people, it may be 

 argued, arises from the gradual blending of the Anglo-Saxon and Norman French elements 

 of the population. It may be said — and indeed it has been said — that it would have 

 been wiser had England after the cession of Canada by the treaty of Paris in 1763 looked 

 forward to an amalgamation of the English and French nationalities in that country 

 instead of giving the French Canadian special guarantees for the preservation of his 

 peculiar institutions. In other words, it may be asked, if it is not the wisest policy for 

 governments to place all nationalities on an equality in every respect, and to let nature 

 and circumstances guide and mould their future. For my part, however, I am inclined 

 to think that Great Britain in a measure atoned for the expatriation of the Acadians from 

 Nova Scotia when she gave the French Canadians in later times the privileges they now 

 enjoy. The French Canadians, as a result of the generous concessions of England, have 

 become a xjowerful and distinct element of Canadian political, social and intellectual life 

 and the time when they will blend with the English has been indefinitely postponed. 

 Things, however, seem different in Cape Breton. 



The Acadians where they are in a majority, as in Richmond, are likely to hold their 

 own for very many years to come ; but should a stream of English capital and population 

 come into the island, their language and habits as a distinct race must gradually 

 disappear whenever they become a small minority — as is the case now practically in the 

 district of Cape Breton — and the English tongue must prevail. The isolation of this 

 int<n'esting people in this remote island has been heretofore their protection, but eventually 

 there must be an end of this when a wave of the world's great enterprise comes to Cape 

 Breton, and alters its material conditions in essential respects. Still, looking at the very 

 considerable number of this people at this time, and their tendency to increase despite 

 emigration, it is obvious that their absorption by the mass of the English and Scotch 

 population must be very slow, and in the nature of things a century hence there will be 

 probably small settlements like those at Cheticamp, still isolated from alien influences, 

 which will recall the old days of Acadie and He Royale. 



