Organizations

Immediately after the Laurier-Greenway Compromise of 1897, the French community began to organize training classes to prepare teachers for the province’s bilingual schools. Beginning in 1900, classes were held in a space rented from St. Boniface businessman J.B.Leclerc. Two years later, a two-storey brick building was erected at the corner of Aulneau and Masson in St. Boniface to house a bilingual Normal School, one of the first Normal Schools in the province. Normal School classes were taught each winter over a 10-week period by inspectors Roger Goulet and Alexander L. Young, and the remainder of the time the building was used to train teachers who were preparing for their diploma. By the end of 1915, 234 bilingual teachers were teaching in the province’s 126 French bilingual schools. In March 1916, when the Manitoba legislature repealed the section of the Public Schools Act which allowed for bilingual education, the francophone population was dealt a serious blow, and the new legislation ultimately resulted in the closure of the bilingual Normal School. The building remained open as a uniligual teacher training center until 1923, when it was purchased by the Missionaires Oblates (Oblate Sisters) and converted into a boys’ school and dormitory. Classes were then transferred to the Winnipeg Normal School.