As we know, education for girls was not a priority in 19th century North America. In the early days of the SNJM Congregation, the founders and first nuns taught domestic arts to the girls in addition to French, English, arithmetic, history, art and religion. The idea was to encourage the learning of all the elements that would allow the young girl to be a complete wife and mother and thus ensure her role as the first educator in society.
As domestic science became more standardized and regulated by governments, the SNJM congregation complied. The SNJM continued to teach young girls and even established domestic schools or family institutes. The idea is to fight against the persistent prejudices by allowing young girls to develop other skills to open the doors to university and the job market.
In these schools of domestic arts, girls study chemistry, biology, housekeeping and administration, domestic medicine, psychology, sociology, economics, pedagogy, horticulture, etc. Skills that would help them in their future role as mothers, but that would also help the girls to broaden their horizons and discover their fields of interest.
Throughout Canada, the United States and Lesotho, the Sisters of the Holy Names of Jesus and Mary (SNJM) have taught domestic arts. Even today, cooking, farming, handicrafts, sewing and hobby arts are taught to students in SNJM schools with more contemporary approaches. In many schools, courses lead to concrete actions related to what is now called sustainable development.
In the 1940s, there was a garden agriculture course in Saint-Lambert. Today, we grow on the (green) roofs of the Pensionnat du Saint-Nom-de-Marie (PSNM) and Collège Durocher-Saint-Lambert.
