ABSTRACT
The position of Archbishop John Ireland on the use or non-English languages in the education of children came to the surface as a result of an experiment in his diocese of St. Paul which has come to bear the name “The Faribault School Plan.” Ireland’s arrangement was by no means a new experiment. Between 1840 and 1890 we find like measures taking shape in the United States under various names such as Poughkeepsie Plan, the Georgia Plan, etc. The exact model came from Poughkeepsie, New York which originated its plan in 1873. In the 1890s, of course, attacks from Protestant ministers, some of them bigoted, could be formidable. Their salvos however were easily warded off compared to the bombardments Ireland received from the Germans and the Jesuits. The Faribault Plan would not have raised the ire of the Germans and the Jesuits against the Archbishop of St. Paul if the plan had not coincided with the culmination of another controversy.
