GL/HIST 3205 6.0:
L`école, la communauté et la nation au Canada

Dr. J.D. Cécillon

❝Cecillon has taken a fascinating, yet forgotten, incident in the local history of the Windsor border region of southwestern Ontario and constructed a layered account around it that successfully combines narrative description with expository analysis. It will appeal to specialized scholars of education, language, and religion, while also satisfying the informed general reader. Prayers, petitions, and protest, indeed. Bring it on.❞
• Larry Glassford, H-Net, H-Canada Resources

❝Cecillon beautifully explores the extent to which appeals to Rome, and the responses from the Vatican itself, were central to the debate surrounding Regulation 17 in Ontario. In other words, understanding the context of French-Catholic resistance to Regulation 17 requires the reader to understand the broader Catholic world of which the people were a part. Whereas typical histories tend to focus on the linguistic identity of French Canadians, this study rightly considers their Catholic identity as well… Cecillon’s book will be essential reading for anyone wishing to understand the history of French Canadians in Ontario. Moreover, it will be of great interest to anyone wishing to more closely examine and make sense of the ways in which the French-English [End Page 394] divide in Canada has shaped the many cultures and subcultures of Canadian and Catholic identities.❞
• Anthony DiMascio, Project Muse

❝Cecillon’s examination of the divisions within the ranks of the nationalist leadership is an interesting example of the problems of politically mobilizing a cultural minority and the difficulties that arise when leaders are seen as outsiders rather than insiders. This detailed and well-researched study of the Ontario schools crisis in the Windsor area has much to offer to readers interested in education, religion, and minority cultures.❞
• Françoise Noël, Historical Studies in Education

❝Avec cet ouvrage magistral, Cécillon nous permet d’apprécier les idéaux divergents des Franco-Ontariens, mais aussi l’effet dévastateur qu’a eu le Règlement 17 sur la culture et la langue françaises dans le Sud-Ouest ontarien.” Serge Dupuis, Revue Nouvel-Ontario Cecillon emphasizes that, not only did the Windsor border region differ significantly from other parts of the province but that the French-speaking population was also spread among diverse rural and urban areas with specific histories and multiple socio-cultural divisions. For this reason, province-wide interpretations of the French-language controversy do not do justice to the experience of those in the Windsor border region.❞
• Chad Gaffield, Canadian Historical Review