moral training which elevated him immeasurably above the peasantry of
England as well as of his old home. The clergy of Lower Canada
confessedly did their best to relieve the ignorance of the people, but
they were naturally unable to accomplish, by themselves, a task which
properly devolved on the governing class. Under the French régime in
Canada the civil authorities were as little anxious to enlighten the
people by the establishment of public or common schools as they were to
give them a voice in the government of the country.

Evidence of some culture and intellectual aspirations in social circles
of the ancient capital attracted the surprise of travellers who visited
the country before the close of the French dominion. "Science and the
fine arts," wrote Charlevoix, in 1744, "have their turn and conversation
does not fail. The Canadians breathe from their birth an air of liberty,
which makes them very pleasant in the intercourse of life, and our
language is nowhere more purely spoken." La Gallissonière, a highly
cultured governor, spared no effort to encourage a sympathetic study of
scientific pursuits. Dr. Michel Sarrasin, who was a practising physician
in Quebec for nearly half a century, devoted himself most assiduously to
the natural history of the colony, and made some valuable contributions
to the French Academy. The Swedish botanist, Peter Kalm, was impressed
with the liking for scientific study which he observed in the French
colony. But such intellectual culture, as Kalm and Charlevoix mentioned,
never showed itself beyond the walls of Quebec or Montreal. The
province, as a whole, was in a state of mental sluggishness at the time
of the conquest by England, under whose benign influence the French
Canadian people were now to enter on a new career of political and
intellectual development.

Pitt and Wolfe must take a high place among the makers of the Dominion