David G. Vermette

[The French-Canadians] They are the descendants of the early French settlers of Canada, and under a century and a quarter of British rule have preserved a distinctive character, which shows little sign of progress or improvement. They are, for the most part, ignorant and unenterprising, subservient to the most bigoted class of Catholic priests in the world, and constitute a peasantry belonging more to the eighteenth than the nineteenth century. In recent years they have been seeking employment … in the manufacturing towns of New-England… They care nothing for our free institutions, have no desire for civil or religious liberty or the benefits of education … (The May 1, 1881 edition of the NY Times)

(p. 229).

The Maine law forbidding instruction in French in public schools caused considerable suffering for schoolchildren. Children were punished and humiliated for speaking so much as a few words of French even on the playground. The image of “the silent playground,” the title of an essay by Ross and Judy Paradis, refers to schoolchildren who played games in complete silence. They did not know the words associated with their games in English and would be punished if they used the French terms.

(p. 306)

A latter-day textile manager expressed views that epitomized the change in attitude between Lowell’s generation and the manager’s: “I regard my work people just as I regard my machinery. So long as they can do my work for what I choose to pay them, I keep them, getting out of them all I can… When my machines get old and useless, I reject them and get new, and these people are part of my machinery.”

(p. 123)