BRIEF HISTORICAL SKETCH OF EDUCATION

IN

LOWER CANADA.

SECTION II.

PART FIRST-CHAPTER I.

EARLY EDUCATIONAL EFFORT IN LOWER CANADA-1632–1759.

ALTHOUGH upwards of two centuries and a quarter have now passed away since the first school was opened in Lower Canada, yet it was not until nearly a full century had elapsed after Jacques Cartier discovered the country, that that event took place. In 1535, Jacques Cartier first entered the St. Lawrence; and, in 1632, Rev. Father Le Jeune opened the first Canadian school at Quebec. He commenced with only two pupils,-one a negro and the other an Indian boy, to whom he taught reading and writing. Next year his school was attended by twenty boys, chiefly Indian lads collected by missionaries from wigwams in the neighborhood. Father Le Jeune was greatly elated, and, in view of the noble prospect before him, of christianizing the Indian tribes, he wrote to his superior in France, to say that he would not exchange his little school of savages for the best university of Europe! The Indians permitted these youth to attend the school, chiefly because they were the less hardy and promising of their race, either mentally or physically, and, therefore, were unequal either to the vicissitudes of the chase or to the endurance or strategy of war. The restraints, however, of so monotonous a life proved too much for their untutored natures, and they gladly made

their escape. Although these carly efforts of Father Le Jeune were thus unsuccessful in inducing the Indians to benefit by his instructions, he did not despair; and, in 1635, under the patronage of the Marquis de Gamache, he founded the " Seminary of the Hurons," or of "Notre Dame des Anges," afterwards known as the Jesuit College of Quebec. He was greatly consoled at this event, which, he said, had been consummated "despite the powers of hell, banded in full force against it!"

Soon afterwards, and in 1639, a young widow lady of high rank, Madame Le Lapeltrie, laid the foundation of the convent of the Ursulines at Quebec, which was designed for the education of young Huron Indian girls. The plan, however, did not succeed.

Exactly two hundred years ago, and thirty-one years after Father Le Jeune had opened his first school in Canada, the distinguished Monseigneur de Laval, the first Roman Catholic bishop of Quebec, projected the Grand Seminary of Quebec. Subsequently, having acquired land for a site, he with great solemnity, on the 14th of April, 1678, laid the foundation of a new building, which he intended should be occupied by his favourite "Seminary of Quebec."

The primary object of this institution was the education of boys who felt an inclination for the priesthood; and such it continued to be until the conquest in 1759. In 1668, at the suggestion of Colbert, the celebrated finance minister of Louis XIV., Bishop de Laval founded the Petit Seminary; and an attempt was made in it to civilize, or, as it was said, francizise, a certain number of young Indians, who were destined to become afterwards, among their own tribes, the nucleus of a more extended civilization. Eight French and six Indian boys were, with this object, taken as boarders into the Petit Seminary and subjected to the same rules and course of instruction. But the attempt utterly failed as it

had done before in the Jesuit College and Ursuline Convent owing to the ungovernable conduct of the young Hurons.

In 1680, the bishop endowed the seminary with his own patrimony; and in October, 1688, he had the satisfaction of seeing sixty boys in attendance at its classes.* The bishop had previously established an industrial school near Quebec, from which the more promising young habitants were transferred to the Petit Seminary with a view to complete their classical studies. Those who were intended for the priesthood first pursued their ordinary studies at the Jesuit College, and finished their theological course at the Grand Seminary.

In 1647, the Theological Seminary of St. Sulpice was founded at Montreal by the clergy of St. Sulpice, in Paris. In 1677, the King of France granted to the compagnie de Montreal, Letters Patent confirming the Seminary.

Up to this time, few elementary schools existed in any part of the country. Bishop Laval, however, with patriotic solicitude, seconded the pious efforts of Sister Margaret Bourgeoist to establish schools in connection with the order of the Congregation de Notre Dame, which she founded at Montreal in 1653. The Recollets or Franciscans, too, kept a good many schools in operation; and the Jesuit College, Quebec, maintained out of its own revenues several primary schools under the management of ex-students of the college.

In 1680-1, His Majesty the King of France founded the Recollet Convent, in the upper town, Quebec; and, in 1697, the Monseigneur de St. Valier, second bishop of Quebec, established the convent of the Ursulines at Three Rivers.

In 1714, there were seventy-five pupils attending the Quebec Seminary. In 1728, the Jesuits asked permission

* The dress of the pupils attending the seminary was peculiar in its character; and consisted of a blue capot, or frock coat, with white corded seams, and a parti-colored sash. This sash has been replaced by a green one, and the distinctive dress itself has, with slight modifications, been adopted in nearly all the Roman Catholic colleges of Lower Canada at the present time.