Education in Quebec in the 17th century

 

By James Douglas, Jr.

 

[Published by the Literary and Historical Society of Quebec in Transactions, New Series, No. 25 (1903)]

 

Quebec may claim the credit of being one of the first seats of learning on the Continent. In the City of Mexico was built the first American University, though created by Royal Charter in 1551, it was erected on so sumptuous a scale that the Century was closing before it was opened.

 

Harvard dates its birth from 1640, when the school developed into the college, by the aid of the Rev. John Harvard's gift of £1700 and his library of 260 volumes. The object of the bequest was "to advance learning and perpetuate it to posterity," the testator "dreading to have an illiterate ministry of the Churches, when its present ministers shall lie in the dust," It was 27 years later before the older colony of Virginia, through the perseverance of the Rev. Dr. Blair, came to possess the William and Mary College. Sixty-one years after the foundation of Harvard, Yale was also created with the avowed purpose of making it a training school for the ministers.

 

The first school-master in Canada was the Recollet Brother Pacifique, who taught some little savages at Three Rivers as early as 1616 ; the second was Father Le Caron, of the same order who, two years afterwards, opened a school in Tadousac. The Friars of St. Francis, had their means been sufficient, might have established the Seminary at Quebec, which their general syndic, Mons. Charles de Boues, recognised as an essential adjunct to missionary work; but, once the Jesuits entered the field, higher education was felt to be rightfully within their province.

 

"When the Jesuits returned to Canada without the Recollets, after the restoration, Father LeJeune promptly opened school with two scholars, and in 1635 the society built a schoolhouse, in which they tried the co-education of white and red boys with very indifferent success. At first the teaching was of an elementary character, but within twenty years the school had developed into a college with a teaching staff which included professors of grammar, rhetoric, philosophy and the humanities.

 

The education of boys and girls, in fact occupied the energies of a large proportion of the inhabitants of the little town, nor were women overlooked. The census of 1681, after enumerating the establishment of the Governor as 21 persons, that of the Intendant as 10 and the military force as 21, gives in detail the staff of the Seminary, the Jesuit College, the Recollet Monastery and the Nunneries as follows :

 

In the Seminary were Mons: the Bishop, M. de Bernier, the Superior and 23 Priests - 25

Boarders - 20

Male servants - 18

Wives and daughters of the servants - 4

On the farm of 60 arpents were 4 cows, 2 horses, 1 ass.

 

The household of the Jesuits consisted of :

Priests - 8

Brothers - 7

[1]Frèrese donnés, lay servants under vows (see note) - 4

Servants not under vows - 10

And the wife of Frère donné Guilbault.

 

The Jesuits had 4 oxen, 4 cows, 1 horse on their farm of 30 acres.

 

In the Recollets Monastery were :

Friars - 47

Frères donnés - 3

 

The Convent of the Hospitalières (the Hotel Dieu hospital) had on its staff of nurses :

Mothers - 19

Sisters - 9

 

As boarders were Mad. d’Aillebout, the widow of the ex-governor, and her servant Edmé Chastel. Tin good lady had twice entered the Ursuline Convent once during her husband's life, with his consent, and again after his death, but her resolution was not equal to her piety, and the seclusion of the nunnery taxed beyond endurance her active temperament, which found a more congenial sphere of duty in the hospital.

 

In the service of the hospital were :

Male servants - 23

Female - 1

and their live stock on their farm of 150 arpents, consisted of 30 horned cattle, 40 calves and 40 sheep.

 

The Ursuline Nunnery harbored:

Mothers - 22

Sisters - 7

French boarders - 17

Indian boarders - 10

on the farm of 200 acres were 4 male servants, 40 head of cattle, 3 horses and 13 sheep.

 

Thus to administer to the spiritual wants and to the education of its male population, there were in Quebec 47 ordained priests and friars, 29 Ursuline nuns taught the girls, and there were 39 Mothers and sisters in the hospital. In the five religious houses there were 104 priests and nuns under solemn vows, and they employed in the service of their households and farms some 67 men and women. Of the population, therefore, of 1345 over 12 per cent, was engaged directly or indirectly in religious, educational or hospital service.

 

The Ursuline nuns then as now taught day scholars as well as boarders and their school at that date was the only agency for imparting female education. Though they had on their roll ten little savages, the hope with which Mad. de la Peltrie and her friend Mère Marie de l'Incarnation had founded the nunnery, that it would be a training school for Indian girls, whom they wished to fit for becoming the wives of French bachelors, was fading year by year. Experience showed that French husbands were more prone to follow their squaws into the forest than the squaws were to settle down into French housewives. Nevertheless Frontenac himself still cherished the belief that he could win the Western tribes over to the French side by nobler motives than the desire of mere gain, and in his cortege from Fort Frontenac there were generally some Indian girls, whom he was bringing to Quebec to be educated and civilized by the Ursulines, and he contributed 1000 fr. annually towards their maintenance and education at the convent. The standard of education was not high in those days. Mère Marie de l'Incarnation said in 1660 in a letter to her son that some pupils are taught reading, writing, arithmetic, prayers Christian morals, in short all that a good girl should know[2]. If the pupils were not crammed with learning, they were taught the exquisite graces of courtesy and reverence for holy things, which grafted on their native vivacity, excited the admiration and respect of such gallants as Lahontan and such grave savants as Kalm; and which have been inherited in full measure by their sisters to-day.

 

The good ladies unfortunately had to bear more than their fair share of calamities. The first convent was burnt in 1650. A second fire broke out while the nuns and their pupils were at mass on Sunday morning, Oct. 20, 1686. It destroyed the nunnery with its valuable records, and the chapel, only sparing Mad. de la Peltrie's house. Misfortune, however, only stimulated their ardour and the interest of others in their work; for, on the re-opening of the convent after the fire, just half a century after the members of the order first landed in Canada, the community numbered 34 members devoted exclusively to teaching. Yet they were prepared for other tasks when called upon, for, the convent consented to spare some of their members to undertake the duty of nurses, in the nunnery established in 1697 in Three Rivers, where the population was too small to support both a school and a hospital. The Court at Versailles did not look with favour on this multiplication of conventual establishments, and the King, declined to confer on it Letters Patent. In the same dispatch he commented with disapproval on Bishop St. Vallier's plan of putting the General Hospital in charge of a separate community of the Hospitalières, and insisted that it should be subject to the Inspector of Hospitals.

 

While in Paris in 1663, or eight years after the opening of the Jesuit College in Quebec, and twenty-three years after President Dunster was inducted as principal of Harvard, Bishop Laval created by Letters Episcopal the Seminary of Quebec for the theological education of the clergy of Canada. The King confirmed this act, by letters patent of date April 30, 1663, and in September of the same year the Bishop landed in Quebec accompanied or preceded by M.M. de Maizeret, Pommier, Dudouyt, de Bernières, Lechavalier and Forest, who had been engaged to perform clerical functions and to conduct his contemplated seminary.

 

The intention of the founder was that the Seminary should be an establishment in which young clerics, “who might be judged fit for the service of Cod, should be educated and trained. And to that end they should be instructed in the manner of administering and preaching the sacraments and the methods of catechising and preaching apostolically; also should be taught moral theology, the ceremonies of the Church, the plain Gregorian Chant, and whatever other studies are necessary to fit them for fulfilling well the duties of the priesthood.”

 

The Jesuit College was already giving the community advanced training in secular learning, and its course of preliminary studies was adapted to those proposing to enter the church and undertake pastoral work. Bishop Laval, therefore, when he founded the Greater Seminary, confined the instruction given by its professors to purely theological and ritual subjects, entrusting the instruction of his future clergy in secular subjects to the able hands of the Jesuits.

 

Subsequently, and till the conquest, the pupils of the Little Seminary, which was opened in 1665, received their instruction in the Jesuit College on the other side of the Market Place. But this elementary school was then the principal source whence the clergy of Lower Canada who were to complete their education in the Seminary were selected, and such it remains to this day. Boys enter it young, and if they exhibit the ability and disposition held to be desirable in a priest, they are from childhood consecrated to God, and enveloped in the atmosphere of the Church. They live, move and have their very being in the Seminary, which is to them the expression of the Church's fostering care. Though the priesthood has thus been drawn from its pupils the Lesser Seminary of Quebec has none the less been the largest general elementary school in the Province: and from it, for a century and a half all the professions have drawn into their special schools a succession of children throughly drilled in the classical languages and less thoroughly in commercial branches.

 

With the exception of the Seminary maintained by the Sulpicians in Montreal and a school started by the Jesuits soon after 1692 in Montreal and which did not flourish[3] the Jesuit College in Quebec was, till the conquest, practically the only seat of learning in Canada equipped to give a general education. Ferland gives the number of students at the Jesuit College in 1668 as 120, of whom 60 were boarders. Lahontan in 1684, described the college as so small that it could accommodate only 50 pupil-boarders at a time, and La Potherie tells us that 80 of the Jesuits' pupils were lodged in the Seminary opposite. These were really youths who had been enrolled at the Seminary, but, who pursued their general studies at the College, where, according to Bishop Saint Vallier, they acquired as great aptitude and facility as the best educated youth in France.

 

The available information as to the course of study and the manner of life within the college is scanty. The latter has probably little changed, in-similar institutions of the kind, even to-day, the former we know has been greatly modified. Father Rochemonteix, in his "Les Jésuites et la Nouvelle France," has collected many data, which we have freely used.

 

Before Kirke's conquest René Rohault de Gamache, a devotee and afterwards a novice and a priest of the order gave 16000 fl., gold coin, and an annual rental of 3,000 livres to found and support a college in Quebec. Political, however, and the fall of Quebec prevented the realization of his wish.

 

Father Lalemant writes to the General Jean Paul Oliva : “The thoughts of the founder can be expressed in few words to aid and give spiritual instruction to the Canadians.”

 

The instruction was thus undoubtedly at first very elementary and exclusively religious. But in 1651 P. Ragueneau reports to the Superior that besides a teacher of reading and writing, there were in the college a profesor of grammar, another of mathematics and 16 scholars. By the year 1655, there were added professors of philosophy, rhetoric and the humanities.

 

Elementary mathematics had always formed a subject of study, but M. Talon, the Intendant, regarding Canada as a nursery for the Marine of France, induced the Jesuits to open a class for instruction in higher mathematics and hydrography. They had among their number a layman (Frère-Donné le Sieur de Saint Martin) fit for the task, who became the precursor of a line of eminent teachers of mathematics, astronomy and navigation, all Jesuit Fathers, provided by the King with apparatus and supported from the Royal Treasury.

 

The curriculum was extended when Bishop Laval decided to educate a native clergy, and, lacking a professional staff of his own, requested the Jesuits to teach theology. The professors of philosophy undertook this additional duty, for though M. de Beauharnais urges that, in consideration of the educational services of the Jesuits, the state pay the salary of 300 livres to an additional professor of philosophy, the recommendation was not agréable, to the King. He was willing to pay a professor of navigation, but not of philosophy, for, even in those days, there were advocates for a practical as opposed to a too exclusively theoretical training. Theology, having thus been added to the secular course of studies, the Jesuits continued to instruct youths for the priesthood long after the Grand Seminary was equipped. Their college also maintained contrary to the usage in Europe an elementary department, for P. de Lauzon in announcing to the General the death in 1734 of Father Guesnier, the professor of philosophy and theology, mentions that he also taught the catechism in the Junior school, which numbered over 100 children.

 

(From Williams' History of Canada) :—

“The ruling motive of Loyola was to arrest the growth of heresy by bringing the Church into harmony with the progress of the age, and thus producing a counter reformation within the Church itself. The agency by which he proposed to effect and actually did effect, this momentous revolution was "higher education." He conceived the idea, while yet an illiterate devotee in the monastery of Montserrat, where he had hung up his Knight's sword, resolved to fight no longer under the orders of the King of Navarre, but under those of the Pope. Loyola was a man of the world, and saw that the venom of heresy injected into all classes by Luther, Calvin, and the Dutch, English and Scotch reformers, to say nothing of the hardly less pernicious spirit of scepticism and cynicism emanating from such scholars in the Church itself as Erasmus, far from being counteracted, would be inflamed by the noisy, vituperative abuse of the monks. He correctly judged that a body of priests must be reared up within the Church, who, while absolutely obedient to the See of Borne, could defend the Church's position by argument as well as by an example of pure and devout living. He foresaw too that the spread of liberal ideas in politics and religion could be checked among the youths of Europe, all aglow with the intellectual intoxication of the revival of the 15th and 16th centuries, only by supplying them with as sound an education, based on as profound learning, as the best of the existing schools, colleges, and universities could offer, but imparted by professors who had been drilled, throughout a long novitiate, both as teachers and as priests, to make intellectual education subservient to religion as taught by the Church of Rome.

 

To fit himself for formulating such a system he went through thirteen years of hard study, which began only, when he was thirty-three years of age. The constitution of the order was framed by himself with the assistance of the famous group of his early disciples, but it was formally promulgated only after his death. The duties and functions of the Society are set forth as ten in number, the fourth being education. But though occupying only the fourth position, education stood really first among the means which the Society used to influence the world; for whether fighting heresy in Europe, or heathenism in Asia, or savagery in America, the one means which its members never neglected was the establishing of colleges and universities where sound learning was taught, and strict morality observed. Only two years had elapsed after the foundation of the order, which took place in 1540, before two colleges had been established, one in Portugal and the other at Goa, in Hindustan, the latter by the greatest of Oriental missionaries, Saint Francis Xavier. This college, which grew in time into a university, teaching all the branches of a liberal education in every language of the Orient, with a staff of 120 learned professors, all thoroughly trained and disciplined members of the order, became the parent of so many colleges in Japan, China and elsewhere in the East, that by the time the Jesuits entered on their missionary labors in North America, it seemed as though they were almost certain to win to Christianity the whole East, through the persuasive influence of profound learning, directed towards the exposition of Christian doctrine.”[4]

 

We cannot wonder that, tinder the stimulus of such magnificent success, the Society promised itself a similar harvest in America. But the human material afforded by the North American Indian was widely different from that on which they had worked in the Orient, as the Fathers discovered even before they had commenced to build their college, and while still endeavouring to collect a school of Indian children at Notre Dame des Anges, but if they could not convert the Indians through their schools, they could train the youths of the colony into good scholars and faithful Catholics. Therefore they lost no time in building a college. By the date the order had existed for a century and its system of education had been formulated in the Ratio Studiorum, which has remained to our day the educational code of every Jesuit college throughout the world. So successful had the system proved that, before the close of the 17th century, there existed 769 colleges and universities, manned exclusively by Jesuit priests, and enrolling as students one quarter of a million of the most promising of the world.

 

That the Jesuit college in Quebec was planned and built on such a scale, that it was larger than all the public buildings of Quebec combined, only expressed the enthusiastic faith of the order in its own high mission. Yet their school was virtually closed before the order was abolished by the British Government. Paradoxical as it may seem, both the success and the failure of the Jesuit body are probably due to the splendid education of its members. That men so thoroughly trained intellectually should eschew politics was as impossible in politically developed Europe as in barbarous America, and it has been their interference in secular affairs that has brought them into conflict with the civil powers. On the other hand, the order has for four centuries educated more scions of the governing classes than any other teaching body, and so attractive have its professors, whether as men, friends or trainers, been to their pupils, that even such heretics as Voltaire have expressed only kindly recollections of the years of tuition spent in a Jesuit College. Moreover their severe training has raised the Jesuits individually above the grossness into which too often the mendicant orders have fallen, while their learning and greater breadth of view have given their faith in the essential truths of Christianity a more rational basis than that possessed by some other ecclesiastical bodies, whose orthodoxy was merely the doxy of the catechism and tradition. A fair and well balanced judgment of this remarkable body of men and of the system under which they worked is as essential to any just estimate of the forces which have shaped Canadian history as in an unprejudiced view of Puritanism to a true comprehension of the story of the United States.

 

In the system which Loyola evolved, there is combined good sense with arbitrary obedience to rule. Though in the glow of his devout enthusiasm he reduced himself to poverty and supported himself during the long years of his literary education by charity, he learned from this experience, that hunger and physical fatigue are enemies to study, and that the mind works best in a healthy, well fed, properly rested body. Consequently, though he decreed that the members of his order should take the most stringent vows of personal poverty, he encouraged the order in its corporate capacity, to accumulate all the property it could for the support of its vast and widly extended missionary and educational enterprises. Its professors received no salaries, and its pupils paid no fees. Though in course of time it became the richest corporation in the world, the members of the order never degenerated, by reason of its wealth, into sloth and luxury, and its boarders— convicti—were well fed and well housed. The Canadian Fathers gladly submitted to extreme hardships and dangers in their missionary journeyings, living year after year in absolute isolation from all intellectual converse and social refinement; and if, when they returned to Quebec, they found awaiting them the innocent luxury of a good bed, their well kept garden and grove, and a good dinner washed down with good wine, cooled if it were not claret, with ice from their own ice-house (Lahontan makes special mention of that useful addition to their establishment) he would be a captious critic who should begrudge them such well earned comfort and refreshment.

 

Rochemonteix says that, according to the correspondence of the Superior preserved in the general archives, the principal exercises in the Quebec College apart from the lectures of the professors, were les Répétitions, Sabbatine, et les Menstruates. The Répétitions were held daily. Every Saturday, and at the end of each month the students engaged in a viva voce argument in the presence of a professor on a subject prescribed in advance. The advocate expounded the thesis and defended it; his oponent maintained the contradictory proposition. The argument was in Latin, and the debaters were rigorously confined in their argument to the syllogistic method. These weekly and monthly disputations were private, but before the end of the scholastic year there was a great public debate. The first of these is referred to in the Journal of the Jesuits of the 2nd of July, 1666. The Governor and all the functionaries of the State and Church were present. Louis Joliet, who afterwards accompanied Père Marquette to the discovery of the Mississippi, and Pierre de Francheville were among the disputants; while Talon the Intendant, joined in the debate très bien, according to the Journal, and speaking like the others in Latin.

 

It is unreasonable to criticise the course of study in Roman Catholic Colleges of the seventeenth Century by the Canons of education of to-day. Quite independently of the fact that education was conducted by ecclesiastics to whom Latin was a sacred heritage, Latin was the only language of science, in an age where the intercourse between nations of different tongues was so slight that it was a rare thing for a student to possess a knowledge of any modern language save his own.

 

The course of study was, therefore, exclusively classical till late in the century, as Father Brosnahan in his controversy with President admits. He allows that the twenty-five hours a week, constituting the class work of Jesuit scholars in the 17th century, were practically devoted to the exclusive study of Latin and Greek. As a contrast, in the Georgetown University to-day, little more than half of the student's time is devoted to the classical languages. As therefore purely commercial and utilitarian studies found no place in its curriculum and the training of the Jesuit's college however useful, it may have been in whetting the wits and tongues of students for mastery in the rhetorical competition, which was so important an element in their system, it was hardly well fitted for making engineers or self-reliant colonists. The strict observance of rule; the profound reverence inculcated for authority ; the minute introspection preached and practised, into motives and courses of conduct ; the close supervision, amounting to espionage, maintained over the pupils at all times; however calculated to restrain them from overt acts of immorality, must have diminished originality in their scholars have weakened their power of initiative and of independent action, and given them narrow and suspicious views of life, little conducive to effective co-operation with their comrades in the mighty task of winning the wilderness and holding it for France. This is true despite the fact that, as individuals, the French explorers outstripped all others. Where they failed was in combining their forces so as to hold the territories they discovered.

 

The points of difference between the Seminary and the Jesuit system of education were not great enough to make it easy to account for the decline of the one and the popularity of the other. The professors of the Seminary watched their pupils as sedulously as did the Jesuits; nevertheless the peculiarly artificial training of the Jesuit Father must in some way have created a gap between his pupil and himself, such as did not exist between the healthy, manly son of the habitant, or the independent city lad and the Seminary priests, who still recognize family ties and continued to be an active member of the body social.

 

A specific cause of Jesuit unpopularity was undoubtedly the wealth of the order, despite the unselfish use to which it was in the main turned. As no revenue accrued from the Jesuit College, education being free, and large staff of missionaries was supported by the order, there was some reason for endowing it with considerable property. But the accumulation of real estate by the order became early in the colony's history a subject of criticism. Their interest in the welfare of the Indian was unwarrantably coupled in the popular mind with an arrest in the profits of the fur trade. Most of their large landed estate was acquired by gift from the Crown or the trading company in the 17th century, and consequently the lands confiscated on the death of the last member, Father Casot, in 1800 substantially represent the property owned by the order a century earlier. It consisted of twenty acres in the city of Quebec, and nine acres in the city of Montreal, including the land now occupied by the City Hall and the Court House. In addition the order owned under fiefs and seignorial rights sub-fiefs, and as real estate held in soccage, 7 seignories in the district of Quebec, 2 seignories and 3 small parcels of land in the district of Three Rivers ; and in the district of Montreal, besides the property in the city, the seignory of La Prairie, making in all, as land held under seignorial tenure and otherwise, 953,820, arpents. The revenue from this very large block of land was inconsiderable. The tenants paid insignificant rents, and as the land in those early days seldom changed hands, the lods et ventes must have been small.

 

But whatever the income derived at the period of which we are speaking, the holding by a single religious body of nearly one million acres of the choicest land in the colony must have created in the public mind a measure of the same jealousy as was aroused in Old France against the Church, when it had become owner of about one third of the national domain. In France the irritation, growing out of the exemption of Church property, and of the estates of the priviledged classes from taxation, at a time when taxes were pressing with dire severity on the body of the nation, was one of the main causes of the Revolution. In Canada, where direct taxes for support of the state were never levied, discontent on that score was unknown; but even if the Jesuits did not share in the tithes collected from their tenants for the support of the secular clergy, it must have seemed to the habitants unjust to pay any officers of the Church with regular or secular clergy, both rent and tithes on the same farm, even though the rent was in payment for land and tithes in support of the Church.

 

 

(From Williams' History of Canada) :—

“The last college building, opened for study less than twenty years before the conquest, covered, with its court, more than an acre. Four stories rose from Fabrique Street, and two fronted on the large gardens and play grounds, which extended to Ann Street. In the early days there stretched across St. Stanislas Street, extending to the Esplanade Hill, a grove of forest trees which the old maps called "The Jesuits Woods." The Church jutted from the Northwest angle of the front, and faced the market place and the cathedral. It had formed part of the older college, its commencement dating back to 1666, and, prior to its completion, service was held in a chapel in the northwest corner of the old main building itself."

 

"The original College, and the Church as originally built, must have possessed even less pretensions to architectural beauty than the ungainly structure only recently torn down. Lahontan, in 1684, was charmed with the college and its beautifully kept gardens and ice houses, but Charlevoix, himself a Jesuit, describes the College in 1720 in most derogatory terms in one of his letters to Madame la Duchesse de Lesdiguières. He tells her that "she has doubtless read in the Relations of the beauty of the buildings. This was comparatively true when the town was a confused group of Frenchmen's huts and Indian hovels. Then the College and Fort, being the only stone structures, cut some figure (faisait quelque figure), and by contrast struck the early traveler as being fine buildings ; and succeeding travelers, as is their wont, simply repeated the glowing-descriptions. But now that the Indian cabins have disappeared, and the French huts have been transformed into respectable stone houses, the college, which is falling into ruins, and whose courtyard is as filthy as a stable yard, actually disfigures the town. Moreover, when it was built, the river and harbor could be seen from its upper windows; but when the Cathedral and Seminary shut out the glorious view, the market place supplied a poor substitute in the way of scenery.” The account of the Church, with its wooden floor, through whose open boards the wind whistled with icy blast in winter, is equally unpleasing. In a note, however, the author tells us that, in the interval between the date of his visit in 1720 and the publication of his book in 1744, the college had been partially rebuilt, and had been made really beautiful, fort beau, of which complimentary statement the present generation, which has seen its walls razed, can judge for itself.

 

Despite the educational advantages which the College offered it so declined that at the date of the Conquest there were only nine members of the order, including two missionaries, in Canada. The College and Church suffered seriously from the bombardment, but the Fathers returned to their restored quarters, reopened their classes in 1761 and carried on their work, when their brethren in Louisiana were banished in conformity with the decree of 1762, abolishing the order in France and the colonies. The British General refused to allow the members of the Jesuits in Canada to be replaced by novices; but the closing of the classical course in 1768 would seem to have been due, not so much to the reduced number of the teaching staff, as to decline in the number of students of the higher grades. This diminution may be accounted for by the emigration of so many of the wealthy class after the Conquest ; but it was more probably due to the growing popularity of the Seminary, and the increasing suspicion of the covert influences of the educational system of the Jesuits, a suspicion which expressed itself in the almost universal suppression of the order before the century closed. But though the College classes were closed, the Jesuits taught a primary school within the College walls till 1776.

 

The Seminary, as created and constituted by Bishop Laval in 1663 for the training of the Canadian Clergy, is now known as the Grand Séminaire; its functions are still what they were at first, the giving of a theological education, and its professors confine their teaching to theological subjects.

 

The first impulse towards the establishment of the Little Seminary, (Le Petit Séminaire) came from France, when Colbert communicated to the Bishop the King's earnest desire that the Christian Indians should be Frenchified, and his opinion that this could best be done by teaching the Indian boys the French language and French manners. The most Christian King was liberal in his theories and his advice, but stingy when asked to pay for carrying them into practice. The Jesuits had essayed in vain to civilize and denationalize the Indians more than 30 years before and they wisely determined not to attempt the experiment again.

 

Whether Bishop Laval believed or not in the possibility of success it matters not. The King had commanded, and like a loyal old noble he obeyed, and opened the Petit Séminaire on October 9th, 1668, with 8 French and 6 Hurons pupils. The number of the former grew, that of the latter declined, till, in 1673, the last one was removed by its parents.

 

The Church draws a distinction between education and instruction. As an educator it exercises, in its educational establishments, constant supervision over its youth: it studies the idiosyncrasies of each of its younger pupils, with the view to repressing evil, and fostering virtuous tendencies as much with the object of directing their intellectual development. In its seminaries, and even in the universities under its control, a much stricter watch is kept over the pupils and much less latitude of action and of study is allowed to them, than in Protestant schools and colleges.

 

It was quite consistant therefore with this distinction, that the Theological students of the Grand Séminaire, and the advanced pupils of the Petit Séminaire should till the Conquest, when the Jesuit College was thoroughly equipped with a teaching staff, be entrusted to the Jesuits for their instruction in secular learning.

 

But the Seminary was entrusted by Bishop Laval with other duties, and endowed with other prorogatives, than those of a teaching body. In order to reduce the clergy to more absolute dependence, and to regulate their remuneration more equitably, the institution from which they received their education was made the administrator of the tithes, which the King permitted to be imposed for their support. The Bishop hoped thus to bind them to their Alma Mater by ties of self interest as well as of affection. In making himself and his successors the supreme medium of ecclesiastical patronage within the diocese, he imitated, he claimed, the example of the primitive Church, but he had a more recent, and less ambiguous model in the constitution of the order of the Jesuits.

 

Also, with a view of securing uniformity in the Church he ordained that the Cathedral Chapter should be selected from the priests of the Seminary, and that, subject to the will of himself and his successors, the Seminary should control both the appointment, and the recall of the parish priests of the diocese.

 

In this, as in all his episcopal conduct, he acted on the suggestion of the propaganda, which replied to the inquiry of the nuncio, as to the influence the bestowal by the Bishop of the revenue of the Abbey of Maubec, would have on the Church of Canada, that “though the Gallican Church may have certain privileges, there is no need to extend to Canada.[5]

 

Such as it was and is, the Seminary, including the Great and Little has endeared itself to every priestly student educated within its walls in a manner to which no parallel can be found in any Protestant institution of either secular or theological learning. Its power to remove the curé, and its administration of the tithes became, it is true the subject of bitter controversy in the days of Bishop Saint Vallier but when these grievances were removed by relieving it of those special functions it retained in all essential particulars the form given to it by its founder. The spirit he inspired into it has survived, and it has preserved certain university features which, make it almost a unique model, well worthy of study by those who regard the associations of college life, and their survival in after years, as among the most desirable results of college education.

 

Bishop Laval had received an indelible impression from M. de Bernières during his residence in the Hermitage of Caen, and he aimed at perpetuating in his Seminary some of the features of that peaceful retreat. His intentions as founder of the latter institution were expressed in the following regulations :

 

First.—All priests must submit to the control of the Seminary under the direction of the Bishop.

 

Second.—They must not regard themselves as owners of the allowances assigned them for their subsistance, and as a recognition of their dependence they must render an account year by year of their expenses. (These two rules were abrogated by Bishop Saint Vallier, when the curés became fixed parish priests, under the rule of the Bishop.)

 

Third.—They must lead so blameless a life that none need ever be removed for misconduct.

 

Fourth.—To sustain their spiritual power they must once a year go into retreat at the Seminary. During this absence from their charge the Seminary will find a substitute to fill their places.

 

Fifth.—-The Seminary will continue to regard them as children of the home, where they will be received and treated with kindness, whenever they come to Quebec ill or on business.

 

Sixth.—The Seminary will provide for their wants in sickness and health, and make no distinction in the hospitality it offers, be the rank of the ecclesiastic who seeks it what it may.

 

Seventh.—To encourage and console its priests, when absent, a regular correspondence, couched in kindly terms, will be maintained with each of them.

 

Eight.—And when from age, hardship, or infirmity they are unfit for further work, they will find in the Seminary a home till death releases them, and afterwards their old friends, who are left behind, will pray for the repose of their souls.

 

The Seminary of Quebec has remained the cornerstone of the Roman Catholic Church of Canada. The priest still returns to it as to his home, and the provision to keep up systematic correspondence with the Bishop is maintained. In the Bishop's Palace there is a large library of bound volumes of Manuscript, consisting in great part of such letters, and containing invaluable records, bearing primarily on ecclesiastical affairs, but incidentally on the social and political history of New France during the past two centuries and a half.

 

Bishop Laval himself acted up to his own rules. A noble of France, he stripped himself of all he possessed, gave to the Seminary his personal property, the seignories which had been granted him, and the proceeds of the Abbey of Maubec, which had been conferred upon him by the King, and to the day of his death lived an austere but human life—either in the Seminary or at its industrial farm of St. Joachim, on the simple fare of the Seminary priest, taking more than his full share of the drudgery of ecclesiastical duties.

 

The first Greater Seminary was built of wood on the site of the present Episcopal Palace, forming part of the sixteen acres of land bought from Guillemette Hébert, widow of the old settler Guillaume Couillard. Near by, within a few feet of the principal wing of the present Petit Séminaire, was a stone building belonging to Madame Couillard which the Bishop bought and altered for the accommodation of his Petit Séminaire.[6]

 

This was occupied in 1678. That agrees with Villeneuve's plan of the city, made in 1670, as it shows two buildings, one apparently on the site of the present Presbytery. Mad. Couillard's house was occupied by the Bishop and the priests of the Seminary, who were also members of the Cathedral Chapter and the parish priest of the city. The school and boarding quarters were somewhat apart in the northeast corner of the garden. In Franquelin's plan of 1683 both buildings had disappeared, for in 1679, before sailing for Europe, the Bishop laid the foundation stone of a substantial stone building for his Greater Seminary, to replace the wooden structure. This safer and more commodious building joined the Petit Séminaire at right angles, and was opened for occupation on the Bishop's return in 1680.

 

The buildings for the accommodation of the Greater and the Lesser Seminaries were finally constructed on the plan exhibited by the buildings of to-day; and so substantially was the work done that some of the original walls still stand.

 

One of the fires which have been the scourge of Quebec broke out in the afternoon of November 15th, 1701, when the pupils and most of the teachers were absent on a holiday at Sillery. The Cathedral was with difficulty saved from the flames, which in three hours reduced the presbytery and the school to ruins. Bishop Laval was confined to bed by illness in his room in the Seminary, but was carried across the Market Place to the Jesuit College, where he and his clergy were hospitably entertained for a month, till quarters were prepared for them in the unfinished Episcopal Palace, which Bishop Saint Vallier had commenced in 1693. Here he remained only till the Seminary was rebuilt, as, notwithstanding his noble lineage and episcopal rank, he objected to living in a palace. Misfortune still pursued the Seminary. During the year following the fire of 1701 the Seminary had been rebuilt and enlarged to its present superficial dimensions, when it was again destroyed by fire. Again the Aged Bishop accepted the kind invitation of the Jesuits, and resided with them for two months till a small room in the porter's lodge, which the fire had spared, was fitted up for him. There he lived in the grandeur of simplicity till death released him in 1708. The Porter's Lodge stood where the Chapel was subsequently built. The old chapel, in which it had been his desire that his remains should rest, had not been rebuilt when he died. But the site of the present chapel is more hallowed by being the scene of his death than it could have been had it merely protected his ashes.

 

The second disaster seemed to invigorate rather than depress the aged Bishop. Some of the Directors proposed to allow the funds to accumulate before rebuilding—not so the indomitable old man. Navigation had closed. But he at once dispatched M. Joncaire to France, by way of Boston, to carry the deplorable tidings to Monseigneur de Saint Vallier. But neither his own pleading nor Monseigneur 's sad tale could wring much money out of the empty pockets of the people, or induce the King to spare a gift of more than 4,000 francs a year till the Seminary should be rebuilt.

 

The poor Canadians, spurred by the Bishop's courage and the example of self-denial set by himself and the Directors, contributed the balance, wherewith to rebuild the schools on an enlarged scale.

 

The Seminary possessed substantial resources from, the first, but owed most of its available cash to the Bishop's liberality. The revenues of the Abbey of Maubec, conferred on him, were turned over to the Seminary for the support of the Cathedral Chapter and for a century yielded a small revenue. The King made Laval also the Abbot of d'Estrie, but neither he nor the Seminary derived any benefit from it, as the union of the Abbey of d'Estrie to the Bishopric of Quebec was not sanctioned by the Holy See till the time of Bishop Saint Vallier. But Laval secured also for the Seminary the Isle Jésus ; the beach and shores of the St. Lawrence and the St. Charles from the Sault au Matelot to the Hotel Dieu; also the Seignory of Beaupré and the-Seignory of La Petite Nation above Montreal. His personal property was given on condition that—First, the Seminary support for three months of each year two missionaries among the Indians. (Of this condition the Institution was relieved by the donor in 1699.) Second, that the priests of the Seminary say a low mass daily for the repose of his soul, and those of the departed members of the Seminary of Foreign Missions. Third, that the Seminary support and educate for the priesthood eight pupils to be chosen by the Directors.

 

The revenues derived from these seignories and French Abbey would not, however, have sufficed to maintain the teaching staff, still less to erect the buildings, had not the Seminary controlled the tithes, and been the patrons and the bankers of the clergy of the diocese, whether engaged in education or in parochial work. As the population increased, the revenue from fees and board, moderate as the charges were, became a substantial source of income.[7]

 

The need of the Catholic University was recognized by the Fathers of the First Provincial Council, held in 1851. Among the various seminaries which might claim the right of originating and conducting it, the choice could lie only between the Seminary of Quebec and that of St. Sulpice in Montreal, which opened its doors under the Abbé Queylus, manned by the able priests from the parent Seminary in Paris, some five or six years before bishop Laval issued his ordinance for the establishment of the Quebec Seminary. The Seminary of Quebec was chosen and it has right loyally fulfilled the trust, having out of its own funds expended in the erection and equipment of a university, which could be called by no other name than Laval, about $300,000. And the standard it has maintained has been worthy of the name it bears.

 

The Chateau of St. Louis has disappeared; the old fortifications are crumbling; the guns on the Grand Battery have become useless; the Jesuit College, where highly trained teachers carried out a system of free-tuition, was first devoted to secular uses, then demolished; but the Seminary still stands, projecting the past into the present, and more vigorous and useful than ever. Within its old buildings priests, imbued with its old traditions, and true to its old constitutions, still teach. As a corporation it has kept aloof from politics and its course of study has expanded—so far as the limitations imposed by the Church's regulations would allow—with the growth of human knowledge and the requirements of modern society.

 

Whether we be of the opinion or not that a system of education, framed by ecclesiastics and superintended by priests, builds up boys into energetic, progressive, independent men, it must be admitted that it makes them gentlemen. Bishop Saint Vallier himself was struck, as even the most casual observer is to-day, by the appropriate behavior of the little Seminarists, who serve as acolytes during the mass. The exquisite grace with which they enter two by two, and after bowing to the altar, salute each other before taking their seats, is a charming exhibition of what careful training can accomplish. The influence is felt throughout life of such acts and gestures of reverence and politeness, and these, repeated generation after generation, become hereditary and leave an indelible impression, of refinement and gentle bearing on the race.

 

It must not, however, be supposed that complete satisfaction with the management of the Seminary and its funds has always reigned. Its wealth, however benevolently expended, created jealousy. There is a letter from a M. de la Marche, a nephew of M. Boucher of Three Rivers, to Count Pontchartrain, the French Colonial Minister, complaining of the cupidity of the Seminary, as shown by the wealth it had accumulated in lands and houses, and the miserable pittances doled out to the poor curés; also of the preference shown to its own infirm students when incapacitated for work-all of which charges were partially true, without being at all unanswerable.

 

While Bishop Laval was not so prescient as to depart from the standards and systems of primary and classical education prevalent in his day and long afterwards, he did recognize the need of a technical school, in which those who showed no aptitude for purely intellectual pursuits could learn a trade. The experiment of such a training grew out of his experience at the Seminary, where he soon found that there existed youths whose natural bent was toward any other occupation than the priesthood, and who would be more useful to society as farmers or mechanics. To meet this want he established a branch of the Seminary under the towering cliff of Cap Tourmente, at the Grande Ferme de Saint Joachim, where an elementary literary education and some instruction in practical and theoretical agriculture and the manual trades were given.[8] Bishop Saint Vallier, with the laudable intention of enlarging the scope and usefulness of the Farm School, introduced into the course of study a classical element ; but it was soon found to be foreign to the purposes of the Institution, as well as uncongenial to its pupils, and it was abandoned. When Bishop Laval's controversy with his successor was at its heighth, in 1691, not wishing to embarrass him by his presence in Quebec, he took up his abode at Saint Joachim, and the farm became so dear to him that in 1693 he founded six scholarships under the following conditions, which express clearly his intentions in establishing the school, and bespeak his good sound common sense. "The six children must be natives, of good habits and fit for work. Their choice is to rest with the Superior and Directors. They are to be fed, clad and trained to habits of politeness and piety, instructed in reading and writing, drilled to do honest work, and in the practice of the trade by which they expect to gain their livelihood, till they attain the age of eighteen, when they should be able to provide for themselves."

 

Eigth years afterwards M. Soumande—a priest of the Seminary and Director of the Farm—created three more scholarships, and endowed the school with 8,000 francs, to be devoted to the salary of a master who should train the three youths as school teachers.

 

In addition therefore, to founding a Seminary, which has grown into one of the great Continental Universities, the Bishop showed his appreciation of the value of technical instruction and training by establishing, with the assistance of his able directors, the Grande Ferme des Maizerets. And as he doubtless approved the action of Mons. Soumande, who added a normal school to the technical department, this remarkable man rounded up his storm tossed career by founding-institutions which forestalled the three great divisions of modern educational work,—the College for intellectual and professional training, the technical institute and the Normal School.

 

The "Catalogue des Officiers et des Elèves du Séminaire de Québec" for 1851-1852, which was the year in which the First Provincial Council met and the Laval University was virtually founded, gives as the governing body of the Seminary,—a Superior, the retiring Superior, eight Directors and four assistant Priests. As the staff of the Grand Séminaire there were the Director and two professors, one of Moral Theology and the Holy Scriptures, and one of Dogmatic Theology. Twenty-eight students of theology were enrolled. The faculty of the Petit Séminaire comprised a Director and Prefect of studies and an assistant, and professors of physics, chemistry, philosophy, natural history and mathematics; eight professors of rhetoric,—one for each of the eight classes. In addition there were teachers of linear drawing, and of oral and instrumental music.

 

The following interesting explanatory notes and regulations are appended:

 

 

ORGANIZATION DU SEMINAIRE

 

"Le Séminaire de Quebec fut fondé en 1663, par Monseigneur François de Laval de Montmorency, premier évêque de Québec. Les membres de ce Séminaire forment une corporation sans aucun rapport de filiation ou de dépendance à l'égard de quelque établissement que ce soit. L'œuvre à laquelle ils s'emploient spécialement est l'éducation de la jeunesse. Ils y travaillent sans autres rémunération que la nourriture et le vêtement, en santé comme en maladie.

 

L'autorité du Séminaire réside dans le bureau des directeurs dont un est le supérieur, élu pour trois ans et ne pouvant être continué plus de six ans. Les autres principaux officiers sont le procureur, le directeur du Grand Séminaire ou des élèves de théologie, le directeur du Petit Séminaire ou Collège, et l'économe. Depuis plusieurs années, il a été nécessaire d'ajouter un assistant-procureur et au Petit Séminaire, un assistant-directeur ou un prefect des études. Excepté les procureurs, tous les membres du Séminaire, tant directeurs qu'associés ou agrégés, sont ordinairement occupés à l'enseignement, soit de la théologie, soit des sciences, soit des humanités. Plusieurs prêtres non agrégés sont aussi employés à l'enseignement. Ceux-ci reçoivent, outre la nourriture et le logement, un modique honoraire.

 

 

ENSEIGNEMENT DU GRAND SEMINAIRE

 

L'enseignement du Grand Séminaire est confié à troris ou quatre professeurs. Il renferme la théologie dogmatique, la théologie morale, l'Ecriture-Sainte et les autres connaissances que demande l'exercice du saint ministère. Le cours est ordinairement de trois ans. Les élèves sont tous pensionnaires et porte l'habit ecclésiastique. Le prix de la pension est de £20 courant pour l'année scolaire.

           

PROGRAMME D'ETUDES, REGLEMENT, ETC. DU PETIT SEMINAIRE COURS D'ÉTUDES

 

Classe Préparatoire.—Grammaire Française de Lhomond.—Exercices français. Histoire Sainte. Notions préliminaires de géographie.

 

En anglais : Epellation, lecture, traduction du Catholic school-book, avec analyses et remarques sur la grammaire—Commencement d'arithmétique.

 

Note.—Vers le milieu de novembre, cette classe se partage en deux ordres : les plus avancés commencent alors la grammaire latine, et suivent à peu près les mêmes matières que la Septième, à laquelle ils se réunissent après la vacance dans la Sixième.

 

Septième.—Grammaire française de Lhomond.—Exercices français.—Eléments de la grammaire latine du même et première partie de la Syntaxe.—Thèmes, versions, traduction de l'Epitome Historiæ Sacræ, avec analyses et cahiers de bon français, etc.—Histoire sainte. Notions préliminaires de géographie.

 

En anglais, comme dans la classe préparatoire.

 

Sixième.—Eléments de la grammaire latine revus et syntax continuée.—Grammaire française de Chapsal.— De Viris et Phèdre avec analyses et traductions écrites. —Thèmes, versions, exercises français.—Géographie de l'Europe.—Arithmétique.—Abrégé de Mythologie, etc.

 

En anglais: Traduction de Murray's Introduction, avec analyses ; thèmes et versions.

 

Cinquième.—Syntaxe latine revue; Méthode commencée.—Syntaxe française de Chapsal.—Cornélius, César, Ovide et Eglogues de Virgile.—Histoire ancienne.—Géographie de l'Asie.—Arithmétique et tenue des livres en partie simples.

 

En anglais: Lennie's grammar; traduction de Cornélius ; thèmes et versions.

 

Quatrième.—Méthode latine revue et continuée.—Prosodie latine.—Grammaire grecque de Burnouf commencée.—César, Quinte-Curce ou Salluste et Virgile.— Fables d'Ésope.—Histoire romaine.—Géographie de l'Afrique et de l'Océanie.—Arithmétique.—Thèmes, version latines et grecques, vers latins.

 

En anglais : Modem history, traduction de César avec cahiers de traduction écrite ; thèmes et versions.

 

Troisième.—Prosodie latine revue.—Grammaire grecque revue et continuée. Salluste ou Quinte-Curce, Virgile, Cicéron, Actes des Apôtres et dialogue de Lucien. —Arithmétique, notions élémentaires de Toisé et de Géométrie.—Géographie de l'Amérique.—Art épistolaire; lettre et narrations sur des sujets faciles, etc.

 

En anglais: Modern history; traduction de Salluste avec cahiers ; thèmes et versions.

 

Seconde.—Principes de littérature avec de nombreux exemples tirés des meilleurs auteurs.—Histoire du Canada.—Virgile, Cicéron, Horace, Tite-Live ou Tacite, Xénophon.—Odyssée.—Thèmes, versions latines et grecques, vers latins, compositions françaises et latines lettres, etc.—Arithmétique.

 

En anglais : Modem history ; traduction de Cicéron avec cahiers ; thèmes et versions.

 

Rhétorique.—Préceptes de l'éloquence avec des exemples extraits des plus grands orateurs.—Cicéron, Horace, Homère, Conciones latinæ,.—Démonsthènes.— Thèmes, versions latines et grecques, compositions françaises et latines, vers latins.—Algèbre commencée.

En anglais:Modern history; traduction de Cicéron avec cahiers ; thèmes et versions.

 

Philosophie.—(Classe Junior.)—Logique, Métaphysique, ; dissertations, analyses raisonnées, etc.—Algèbre revue et continuée.—Géométrie.—Trigonométrie rectiligne et sphérique. Application de l'algèbre à la géométrie.—Sections coniques.—Courbes en général.—Eléments du calcul différentiel et du calcul intégral.—Diverses applications à l'arpentage, à la perspective, à l'astronomie, à la navigation, etc.—Tenue des livres en parties doubles.—Architecture militaire.

 

(Classe Senior.)—Morale.—Physique.—Chimie.—Expériences, applications aux arts et métiers, à l'agriculture, etc. Astronomie.—Histoire naturelle.— Architecture civile.

 

Musique.—Tous les élèves pensionnaires reçoivent deux leçons de musique vocale par semaine. On donne durant les récréations, des leçons de musique instrumentale à ceux des élèves qui veulent en prendre.

 

Dessin.—Les leçons de dessin ne sont point obligées. Il s'en donne une deux heures chaque semaine. Le Séminaire paie une partie du salaire des maîtres de dessin et de musique.

 

 

INSTRUCTION RELIGIEUSE

 

Les élèves sont partagés en cinq classes sous le rapport de l'enseignement de la religion. On donne à chacune d'elles au moins une instruction spéciale d'une heure par semaine. Les premières classes sont confiées à des prêtres de la maison.[9]

 

 

ADMISSION DES ÉLÈVES

1. Pour être admis dans la classe élémentaire, il suffit absolument qu'un élève sache lire et écrire; presque tous néanmoins ont un petit commencement de grammaire française, d'anglais et d'arithmétique.

 

2. Pour entrer en Septième, on exige de plus que l'élève ait appris et pratiqué la grammaire française de Lhomond. On désire de plus qu'il ait aussi commencé l'histoire sainte.

 

3. On peut juger, par les matières indiquées dans le programme ci-dessus, des connaissances requises pour entrer dans les autres classes. En général, l'élève qui commence ses études sous un maître privé, fera bien de s'appliquer aux thèmes et aux traductions avec analyse, et de devancer d'un semestre au moins la classe ou il espère être admis.

 

EXTRAITS DU REGLEMENT DES PENSIONNAIRES

 

DEVOIRS RELIGIEUX

Les pensionnaires assistent aux offices de la Cathédrale les dimanches, les fêtes d'obligation, les derniers jours de la semaine sainte et dans quelque autres circonstances. Dans l'avant midi, ils doivent faire, chaque jour, la prière du matin, entendre une messe basse et donner quelques minutes à la prière et à la récollection immédiatement avant le dîner; dans l'après midi, réciter le chapelet, écouter une lecture de piété pendant un quart d'heure et enfin faire la prière du soir. De plus, ils commencent et finissent tous les exercices (classes, études, etc.,) par une courte prière. Ils sont tenus de se confesser tous les quinze jours.

 

COMMUNICATION DES PENSIONNAIRES AVEC LE DEHORS

Les élèves ne reçoivent les visites des personnes du dehors qu'au parloir, et avec la permission d'un maître. Ils peuvent recevoir celles de leur parents tous les jours durant les recreations, celle du soir exceptée. Pour les personnes qui n'ont avec eux que des rapports de connaissance ou d'amitié, ils ne peuvent recevoir leurs visites que les dimanches et les fêtes d'obligation, durant la demi-heure qui suit immédiatement l'office du soir de la cathédrale.

 

Les élèves ne sortent jamais seuls du collège pour aller se promener, à moins que ce ne soit chez leurs parents (père ou mère, ou ceux qui les représentent,) ce qui leur est quelquefois accordé les jours de congé. Quand ils sortent pour affaires, ils ne doivent pas aller ailleurs qu'au lieu où on leur a permis d'aller. Hors des classes, les pensionnaires n'ont aucun rapport avec les externes.

 

Les pensionnaires n'écrivent point de lettres et n'ouvrent point celles qu'ils reçoivent, sans la permission du directeur, qui peut toujours prendre connaissance du contenu de ces lettres lorsqu'il le juge à propos.

 

Les pensionnaires ne peuvent rien recevoir du dehors pour leur nourriture au collège: les fruits en nature sont seuls exceptés de cette règle.

 

 

MOUVEMENTS JOURNALIERS

 

Avant Midi

De cinq heures et demie à six heures, le lever, l'habillement et la prière.

De six heures à sept heures, l'étude.

De sept heures à sept heures et demie, le déjeuner et la recréation.

A sept heures et demie, la messe.

De huit heures à dix heures, la classe.

Après la classe, un quart d'heure de récréation.

De dix heures et un quart à onze heures et un quart, l'étude suivie de quelques minutes de prière et d'examen.

A onze heures et demie, le diner.

 

Après Midi

Après le dîner, la récréation jusqu'à une heure.

D'une heure à deux heures, l'étude.

De deux heures à quatre heures, la classe.

De quatre heures à quatre heures et demie, la collation et la récréation.

De quatre heures et demie à six heures, l'étude.

De six heures à six heures et demie, le chapelet et une lecture de piété.

De six heures et demie à huit heures, le souper et la récréation.

De huit heures à neuf heures, la prière du soir et l'étude.

 

Remarques.—1. En été, le lever a lieu à cinq heures, et l'étude commence à cinq heures et demie, pour finir à sept. 2. Les plus jeunes élèves se couchent immédiatement après la prière du soir, durant toute l'année.

 

 

UNIFORME, ETC.

Les pensionnaires ne doivent jamais paraître hors des dortoirs sans l'habit du collège, qui consiste en un capot de drap bleu avec nervures blanches, et une ceinture de laine verte. Lorsqu'ils sortent du Séminaire, ils doivent de plus être couverts d'une casquette de même étoffe et de même couleur que le capot, portant aussi une nervure blanche. En hiver, le bas de la casquette est revêtu d'une bande d'astracan.

 

Les élèves doivent être pourvus d'habits et de linge de corps et autre en quantité suffisante pour être toujours dans un état de propreté convenable. Les effets que leurs parents doivent leurs fournir, outre les habits, sont :—pour le dortoir, une valise ou coffre propre à contenir leur linge et leurs habits, un baudet, un matelas, un traversin, un ou deux oreillers, des draps, des couvertures, un couvre-pieds, des taies d'oreillers, une couple de bonnets, des serviettes, un bassin, un miroir, du savon, un ou deux peignes, du noir et des brosses pour les souliers, des brosses pour les habits; pour le réfectoire, des serviettes, un gobelet, un couteau, une fourchette et une cuiller.

 

Tous les effets des élèves doivent être marqués de manière à pouvoir être reconnus certainement; autant qu'il est possible, le nom de l'élève doit s'y lire en toute lettres.

 

 

CONGÉS ET VACANCES

Les classes vaquent les jours suivants :—

 

1. Les dimanches, les fêtes d'obligation et les trois derniers jours de la semaine sainte. Ces jours-là, il y a ordinairement autant d'étude que le permet l'assistance aux offices.

 

2. Une fois par semaine, ordinairement le jeudi, seulement l'après midi depuis le premier d'octobre jusqu'au 1er. de mai, et toute la journée le reste de l'année.

 

3. Le 2 ou le 3 de janvier, le jour de la fête de Mgr. l'Archevêque, le jour de l'anniversaire de sa consécration, et enfin celui de la fête de M. le Supérieur du Séminaire.

 

Il n'y a jamais plus d'un grand congé par semaine. L'étude du soir a lieu les jours de congé, comme à l'ordinaire, et les jours de grand congé, il y a le matin, une étude d'une heure. Cependant ces études s'omettent lorsque les élèves vont à la campagne.

 

Les vacances commencent, chaque année, vers la mi-juillet, et finissent avec le mois d'août.

 

 

SOMMES À PAYEE PAR LES PENSIONNAIRES

 

Dépenses obligées

Pour la pension, on ne fait point de déduction pour les absences de moins de huit jours - 17£, 10s. 0 d.

 

Dépenses non obligées

1. Pour l'usage des livres de la bibliothèque            - 0£, 5s., 0d.

2. Pour les leçons de musique instrumentale, une somme qui n'excède pas – 1£, 10s., 0d.

3. Pour les leçons de dessin – 0£, 5s., 0d.

 

Le Séminaire ne fournit ni, livres, ni papier, ni encre pour les classes.

 

 

EXTRAITS DU REGLEMENT DES EXTERNES

On n'admet généralement comme externes que les jeunes gens de la ville. Pour les autres, ils ne sont admis que rarement, et encore faut-il qu'ils aient en ville de proche parents qui puissent le loger chez eux et surveiller leur conduite. Les externes catholiques sont tenus d'assister aux offices de leur paroisse les dimanches et les fêtes d'obligation, et aussi à tout office sur semaine auquel les pensionnaires ont coutume d'assister. Ils doivent entendre la messe qui se dit au Séminaire, tous les jours, immédiatement avant la classe du matin, assister aux instructions religieuses, et enfin donner un billet de confession le quinze de chaque mois. Les externes (ceux de la classe préparatoire exceptés), portent le même uniforme que les pensionnaires ; et il leur est défendu de sortir sans l'avoir.

 

Ils ne doivent pas s'absenter de la classe, des offices, etc., sans la permission du directeur. Si la maladie, ou une cause imprévue, les empêchent d'obtenir cette permission, ils sont obligés de présenter à leur retour un billet de leurs parents qui fasse connaître la cause de leur absence.

 

Les externes ne peuvent sortir le soir, après le jour tombé, qu'en compagnie de leurs parents, ou pour quelque service que ceux-ci exigeraient d'eux."

 

FIN.

 

 

The Catalogue of 1848-49 gives the names of students-who have terminated their course of study at the Petit Séminaire from the foundation of the institution till 1848, with the professions, when known, which they followed in after life.

 

From 1674 to 1685 there were fourteen graduates, of whom eight became secular priests, and one a Recollet friar. The name of François de Laval occurs among those whose profession is not indicated. During the-closing years of the Century few graduated, one was registered in 1697, but none in 1698 and 1699, and one only in 1700. But in 1701 four priests and five other students were turned out. The number fell off towards the close of the French domination, two appearing for 1755, two for 1756 and none subsequently till 1762. But from 1769, with few exceptions, the lists are full untill the close of the Century, when they again shrink, but the following note appended to the list of students partially explains this decrease.

 

Note.—La liste qui precede a été faite d'après des registres dans lesquels on inscrit chaque année les noms des élèves de toutes les classes du Petit Séminaire; mais, comme il a été impossible de retrouver toute la, suite de ces registres, il est à présumer que plusieurs noms ont été omis, surtout depuis 1794 jusqu'en 1823. Ces omissions seront réparrées une autre année, si ceux qui les remarqueront veulent bien les faires connaître.

 

LAVAL UNIVEESITY

The University of Laval, as the successor to the Grand et Petit Séminaires embodies in its curriculum the studies in the Departments of the Humanities and Science, which were taught previously in the Little Seminary, and the Theological courses of the Grand Séminaire but has added to them faculties of Medicine and Law. The following extract from its Annuaire explains its relations to the Seminary, and the extension of its activities to a branch college in Montreal.

 

 

L'UNIVERSITÉ LAVAL

L'Université Laval a été fondé en 1852, par le Séminaire de Québec. La Charte royale, qui lui a été accordée par S. M. la Reine Victoria, a été signée à Westminster, le 8 décembre 1852.

 

Par la Bulle Inter varias sollicitudines du 15 avril 1876, le Souverain Pontife Pie IX, de glorieuses et sainte mémoire, a donné à l'Université Laval son complément en lui accordant l'érection canonique solennelle avec les privileges les plus étendus.

 

En vertu de cette Bulle, l'Université a pour protecteur à Rome, auprès du Saint Siège, Son Eminence le Cardinal Préfet de la Propagande, La haute surveillance de la doctrine et de la discipline, c'est-à-dire, de la foi et des mœurs, est dévolue à un Conseil Supérieur, composé de NN. SS. les Archevêques et Evêques de la Province de Quebec, sous la présidence de Sa Grandeur Mgr. l'Archevêque de Québec, nommé lui-même Chancelier Apostolique de l'Université.

 

En vertu de la Charte royale, le Visiteur de l'Université Laval est toujours l'Archevêque catholique de Québec, qui a droit de veto sur tous les règlements et sur toutes les nominations. Le Supérieur du Séminaire de Québec est de droit le Recteur de l'Université. Le Conseil de l'Université se compose des Directeurs du Séminaire de Québec et des trois plus anciens professeurs titulaires ordinaires de chacune des facultés.

 

Il y a quatre facultés, qui sont les facultés de Théologie, de Droit, de Médecine et des Arts. Les professeurs de la faculté de Théologie sont nommés par le Visiteur. Tous les autres sont nommés par le Conseil. Les degrés auxquels peuvent arriver les élèves, dans chacune des facultés, sont ceux de Bachelier, de Maître ou Licencié, et de Docteur. La bonne conduite est une condition essentielle pour l'obtention des degrés.

 

L'Université Laval, dès le principe, s'est placé sous la protection spéciale de la Très Sainte Vierge Marie et a choisi pour sa fête patronale le fête de l'Imaculée Conception. Le 20 juin 1873, l'Université s'est consacrée solennellement au Sacré-Cœur de Jésus.

 

Conformément à une décision de la S. C. de la Propagande, en date du 1er février 1876, qui a été publiée dans l'Annuaire de l'année 1877-78, une extension des facultés de l'Université Laval a été en faveur de Montréal, dont l'Archevêque a été nommé Vice-Chancelier Apostolique de l'Université. On pourra voir, par la lecture du bref, Jamdudum du 2 février 1899, publié dans l'Annuaire de 1899-00, les modifications importantes qui ont été faites à la décision du 1er février 1876, concernant la Succursale de Montréal. Comme les sections des facultés de Montréal ont reçu, en vertu de ce bref, la quasi indépendance pratique, tout ce qui va suivre ne regardera que 1'organization de l'Université de Québec.

 

APPENDIX

 

LETTER OF BISHOP LAVAL CREATING THE QUEBEC SEMINARY, EDICT OF THE KING CONFIRMING THE SAME

 

ÉTABLISSEMENT DU SEMINAIRE DE QUEBEC PAR MONSEIGNEUR L'ÉVÊQUE DE PÉTRÉE

 

François, par la grâce de Dieu et du saint siège, évêque de Pétrée, vicaire apostolique en Canada, dit la Nouvelle-France, nommé par le Roy, premier évêque du dit pays, lorsqu'il aura plû à notre saint Père le Pape y érigé un évêché, à tous ceux, qui présentes lettres verront, salut en Notre Seigneur.

 

Les saints conciles, et celui de trente particulièrement, pour remettre effacement la discipline ecclésiastique dans la première vigueur, n'ont rien trouvé de plus utile que d'ordonner le rétablissement de l'usage ancien des séminaires, où l'on instrusoit les clercs dans les vertus et les sciences convenables à leur état. L'excellence de ce décret s'est fait voir par une expérience toute sensible, puisque le grand St. Charles Borromée qui l'exécuta le premier, bientôt après ce concile, et plusieurs évêques qui ont suivi son example ont commencé de redonner au clergé, sa première splendeur, particulièrement en France ; ce moyen si efficace pour réformer la conduite ecclésiastique dans les lieux où elle s'était affaiblie, nous à fait juger qu'ils ne serait pas moins utile pour l'introduire où elle n'est pas encore, qu'il l'a été dans les premiers siècles du Christianisme; à ces causes considérant qu'il a plû à la divine providence nous charger de l'église naissante du Canada dit la Nouvelle-France; et qu'il est d'une extrême importance dans ce commencement de donner au clergé la meilleure forme qui se pourra pour perfectionner des ouvriers, et les rendre capable de cultiver cette nouvelle vigne du Seigneur, en vertu de l'autorité qui nous a été commise, nous avons érigé et nous érigeons dès à présent et à perpétuité, un séminaire pour servir de clergé à cette nouvelle église, qui sera conduit et gouverné par les supérieurs que nous ou les successeurs évêques de Nouvelle-France y établiront, en suivant les règlements que nous dresserons à cet effet dans lequel on élèvera et formera les jeunes clercs qui paraîtront propres au service de Dieu, et auxquels, à cette fin, l'on enseignera la manière de bien administrer les sacrements, la méthode de cathéchiser et prêcher apostoliquement, la théologie, morale, les cérémonies, le plain chant grégorien, et autres choses appartenant aux devoirs d'un bon ecclésiastique et en outre afin que l'on puisse dans le dit séminaire, et clergé former un chapitre qui soit composé d'ecclésiastiques du dit Séminaire, chosis par nous et les évêques du dit pays qui succéderont, lorsque le roi aura eu la bonté de la fonder, ou que le dit Séminaire de soi, aura le moyen de fournir à cet établissement par la bénédiction que Dieu y aura donné, nous désirons que ce soit une continuelle école de vertu et un lieu de réserve, d'où nous puissions tirer des sujets pieux et capables pour les envoyer à toutes rencontres, et au besoin dans les paroisses, et tous autres lieux du dit pays, afin d'y faire les fonctions curiales, et autres auxquelles ils auront été destinés, et les retirer des mêmes paroisses et fonctions quand on le jugera à propos, nous réservant pour toujours et aux successeurs évêques du dit pays, comme aussi au dit Séminaire par nos ordres, et les dits évêques le pouvoir de révoquer tous les ecclésiastiques qui seront départis et délégués dans les paroisses et autres lieux, toutefois et quantes qu'il sera jugé nécessaire, sans qu'on puisse être titulaire, et attaché particulièrement à une paroisse, voulant au contraire qu'ils soient de plein droit, amovibles, révocables et destituables à la volonté des évêques et du Séminaire par leurs ordres, conformément à la sainte pratique des premiers siècles suivie et conservée encore-à présent en plusieurs diocèses de ce royaume ; et d'autant qu'il est absolument nécessaire de pourvoir le dit séminaire et clergé d'un revenu capable de soutenir les charges et les dépenses qu'il sera obligé de faire, nous lui avons appliqué et appliquons, affecté et affectons dès à présent, et pour toujours toutes les dixmes de quelque nature qu'elles soient, en en la manière qu'elles seront levées dans toutes les paroisses et lieux du dit pays pour être possédés en commun et administrées par le dit séminaire suivant nos ordres et sous notre autorité, et des successeurs évêques du pays, à condition-qu'il fournira la subsistence et de tous les ecclésiastiques qui seront délégués dans les paroisses et autres endroits du dit pays, et qui seront toujours amovibles et révocables au gré des dits évêques et séminaire par leurs ordres; qu'il entretiendra tous les dits ouvriers évangéliques, tant en santé qu'en maladie, soit dans leurs fonctions, soit dans la communauté, lorsqu'ils y seront rappelés; qu'il fera les frais de leurs voyages,, quand on en tirera de France, où qu'ils y retourneront, et toutes ces choses suivant la taxe qui sera faite par nous et les successeurs évêques du dit pays, pour obvier aux contestations et aux désordres que le manque de régie y pourrait mettre.

 

Et comme il est nécessaire de bâtir plusieurs églises pour faire le service divin, et pour la commodité des-fidèles, nous ordonnons (sans préjudice néanmoins de l'obligation que les peuples de chaque paroisse ont de fournir à la bâtisse des dites églises,) qu'après que le dit séminaire aura fourni toutes les dépenses annuelles, ce que pourra rester de son revenue, sera employé à la construction des églises, en aumônes et en autre bonnes œuvres pour la gloire de Dieu, et pour l'utilité de l'église, selon les ordres de l'évêque, sans que toute fois, nous ni les successeurs évêques du dit pays, en puissions jamais appliquer quoique ce soit à nos usages particuliers, nous ôtant même et aux dits évêques la faculté de pouvoir aliéner aucun fonds du dit séminaire et clergé en cas de nécessité, sans l'exprès consentement de quatre personnes du corps du dit séminaire et clergé, savoir, le supérieur, les deux assistants et le procureur. En foi de quoi nous avons signé ces présentes, et y avons fait apposer notre sceau.

 

Donné à Paris, le vingt-sixième du mois de mars, mil six cent soixante et trois.

 

(Signé) FRANÇOIS

Evêque de Petrée.

 

APPROBATION DU ROI POUR L'ÉTABLISSEMENT DU SEMINAIRE DE QUÉBEC

 

Louis, par la grâce de Dieu, roi de France et de Navarre, à tous présents et à venir, salut.

 

La résolution que nous avons prise de rentrer dans le domaine de la Nouvelle-France dite Canada, et d'en prendre un soin plus particulier que jamais pour le soulagement du pays, nous fait embrasser toutes les occasions de lui procurer quelque avantage et sachant bien que le plus grand qu'il puisse recevoir ce sont le moyens de l'instruction spirituelle des habitants et la conversion des sauvages, nous nous portons volontiers à les appuyer et à les favoriser de notre autorité, avec un zèle digne du titre que nous portons de roi très chrétien et de fils aine de l'église, ainsi sur ce que nous avons appris que le sieur évêque de Petrée, vicaire du Saint Siège Apostolique en toute la Nouvelle-France dite Canada, nommé par nous à l'évêché du dit pays, aussitôt qu'il aura plu à notre Saint-Père le Pape de l'établir, pour s'acquitter pleinement des obligations de son épiscopat et se faire soulager dans ses fonctions, aurait érigé un séminaire d'ecclésiastiques capables de seconder ses pieux desseins pour servir de clergé à cette nouvelle église et dans lequel on pourra fournir un chapitre composés des ecclésiastiques du dit clergé et séminaire, choisis par le dit seigneur de Petrée et les successeurs évêques du dit pays lorsque nous l'aurons fondé, ou que le dit clergé et séminaire de soi aura le moyen de fournir au dit établissement nous avons voulu encourir à cette bonne œuvre, et autoriser par ces présentes l'acte d'établissement qu'il en a fait le vingt-sixième jours de mars de la présente année qu'il nous a supplié d'agréer et confirmer pour son entière et parfaite exécution.

 

A ces causes sçavoir faisons qu'après avoir examiné en notre conseil le dit acte d'établissement et d'érection du dit séminaire, nous n'y avons rien trouver que d'avantageux à la gloire de Dieu et au bien de nos sujets, qu'à ces fins nous l'avons agrées et agréeons, confirme et confirmons par ces présentes, et en faisant ordonné suivant et au désir du dit acte, que toutes les dixmes, de quelque nature qu'elles puissent être, tant de ce qui liait par le travail des hommes, que de ce que la terre produit d'elle même, se payeront seulement de treize une et seront destinées et affectées irrévocablement pour toujours à la fondation et à l'entretien de ce séminaire et clergé, sans que le dit sieur évêque ni les successeurs, évêques du dit pays en puissent disposer en quelque manière que ce soit pour leur usage particulier mais seulement pour les besoins de la dite communauté, après lesquels ce qui restera sera employé à la construction et bâtiment des églises, en aumônes et en d'autres bonne œuvres pour le règlement et utilité de Péglise, par les ordres des dits évêques, sans préjudice néanmoins l'obligation que les peuples de chaque paroisse ont de fournir à la bâtisse des dites églises ; que si pour fortes considérations il est absolument nécessaire d'aliéner quelque fonds de la dite communauté, le dit sieur évêque ni ses successeurs ne le pourront faire que du consentement des quatre premiers officiers de la dite communauté, savoir, du supérieur, des deux assistants et du procureur, pour en examiner le besoin et souscrire l'aliénation; et pour maintenir tous les ecclésiastiques de ce clergé dans une totale soumision à leur évêque, et remédier à quantité d'inconvénience que produit quelque fois la stabilité des curés, dont le changement ne dépend point des supérieurs. Nous approuvons et voulons que tous ceux qui seront délégués dans les paroisses, églises ou autres lieux en toute la Nouvelle-France pour y faire les fonctions curiales et autres auxquelles ils auront été destinés, soient amovibles, révocables et destituables, toutes et quante fois que le dit sieur évêque et les successeurs évêques du dit pays le trouveront à propos, conformément à la sainte pratique des premiers siècles dont l'usage se conserve encore en plusieurs diocèses de notre royaume, à la charge que le dit séminaire entretiendra de toutes choses nécessaires les dits ecclésiastiques, tant en santé qu'en maladie, soit dans les paroisses ou autres lieux où ils seront envoyés, soit dans la communauté lorsqu'ils y seront rappelés et qu'il payera les frais de leurs passages et de leur retour, lorsqu'ils seront tirés de France ou qu'ils y seront envoyés.

 

Et pour donner un solide fondement à ce séminaire et clergé, dont nous souhaitons la perpétuité et le bon succès pour l'avantage de cette église naissante; nous avons approuvé et approuvons, autorisé et autorisons, rendu et rendons capables de tous effets civiles, comme les autres corps et communautés ecclésiastiques de notre royaume, pour acquérir tous domaines, droits et actions, recevoir toutes donation entre vifs et à cause de morts, testamens, legs et autres dispositions qui seront faites en sa faveur, tant en l'ancienne qu'en la Nouvelle-France, sans payer aucunes finances pour droits d'amortissement et nouveaux acquets, dont nous l'avons déchargé et déchargeons par ces présentes à perpétuité, voulant et attendant de rechef que le dit clergé et séminaire jouisset de la totalité des dixmes, groses et menues, anciennes et nouvelles, de tous les fruits généralement quelconque et sans aucunes distinction, qui proviendront sur toutes les terres dans le dit pays de la Nouvelle-France ou Canada, aux charges, clauses et conditions portées par son acte d'érection ci-attaché, sous le contre scel de notre chancellerie, sans que le dit sieur de Petrée, et ses successeurs évêques du dit pays puissent prétendre autre part que celle d'être les ordonnateurs de la dispensation qui s'en fera. Si donnons en mandement à nos aimez et féaux conseillers les gens tenant notre conseil souverain à Québec que se présentes ils fassent lire et enregistrer au greffe de notre dit conseil, et à tous gouverneurs et autres de nos sujets les faire exécuter selon leur forme et teneur et du contenu en icelles faire jouir le dit séminaire et clergé, faisant cesser tous troubles et empêchements à ce contraire. Car tel est notre plaisir ; et afin que ce soit chose ferme et stable à toujours, nous avons fait mettre notre scel à ces dites présentes, sauf en autre chose notre droit, et l'autrui en toutes.

 

Donné à Paris au mois d'avril, l'an de grâce mil six cent soixante-et-trois et de notre règne le vingtième.

 

(Signé) LOUIS.

 

 

Et sur le repli par le roi, Le Tellier, et scellé sur doubles lacs de soie rouge et verte cire verte et contres-celle sur même cire et lacs. Signe: Mezy, François, évêque de Petrée; Rouer de Villeray, Juchereau Laferte, Rouette Dauteuil.

 

(Signé) PEUVRET,

Greffier.