and more especially in the premier Province of Ontario--as the splendid
exhibit recently made at Paris and Philadelphia has proved to the
world--are the results of the legislation of a very few years. A review
of the first two periods of our political history affords abundant
evidence that there existed in Canada as in Europe much indifference in
all matters affecting the general education of the country. Whatever was
accomplished during these early times was owing, in a great measure, to
the meritorious efforts of ecclesiastical bodies or private individuals.
As long as France governed Canada, education was entirely in the hands
of the Roman Catholic Church. The Jesuits, Franciscans, and other
religious male and female Orders, at an early date, commenced the
establishment of those colleges and seminaries which have always had so
important a share in the education of Lower Canada. The first school in
that province was opened in 1616 at Three Rivers, by Brother Pacifique
Duplessis, a Franciscan. The Jesuits founded a College at Quebec in
1831, or three years before the establishment of Harvard and the
Ursulines opened their convent in the same city four years later. Sister
Bourgeoys, of Troyes, founded at Montreal in 1659 the Congregation de
Notre Dame for the education of girls of humble rank, the commencement
of an institution which has now its buildings in many parts of Canada.
In the latter part of the seventeenth century Mgr. Francois Xavier de
Laval-Montmorency, a member of one of the proudest families in Europe,
carried out a project of providing education for Canadian priests drawn
from the people of the country. Consequently, in addition to the Great
Seminary at Quebec, there was the Lesser Seminary where boys were taught
in the hope that they would one day take orders. In this project the
Indians were included, and several attended when the school was opened
in 1668, in the humble dwelling owned by Mme. Couillard, though it was
not long before they showed their impatience of scholastic bondage. It
is also interesting to learn that, in the inception of education, the