nominal charge, but these benefits reached to very few. The English were allowed to avail themselves of this instruction; they were received without any distinction or partiality, and exempted from attending the religious duties.

In 1818, schools were generally established in Lower Canada, under a settled system, supported by a grant from the Provincial Legislature; but in 1832 this grant was reduced, and the year after, discontinued altogether. A separate plan had been commenced in 1829, giving a school to every parish, under the care of trustees elected by the landholders, who were allowed to hold and manage the school property, and receive benefactions. Half the expense of building the house for instruction was borne by the province, and a yearly sum of twenty pounds during three years, to the schoolmaster, was also given, with some further allowance for the children of the poor, in proportion to their number; those who were able, paid two shillings a month for their education. At this time there were thirteen hundred and forty-four elementary schools in Lower Canada, besides a certain number of girls' schools, each attached to a Roman Catholic Church.

In 1836, two normal schools were established by the Legislature, and considerable grants of

money were made, for the purpose of training teachers for the country districts. Altogether, the appropriations at that period for the general purposes of education, averaged above twenty-four thousand pounds a year. At the present time, there are twenty seminaries or colleges in Lower Canada, under the management of the Roman Catholic church exclusively, but there are only two Protestant colleges. One is the M'Gill College at Montreal, the founder of which devised, in 1811, a valuable property in lands and buildings, and ten thousand pounds in money, for the object. This institution has the power of conferring degrees. The other, the Lennoxville College, promises well, but is merely in its infancy. In Upper Canada, two hundred and twenty-six thousand acres of land are appropriated to King's College at Toronto, and sixty-six thousand to Upper Canada College. The Legislature also grants two thousand four hundred pounds annually for district and common schools, and about two hundred and thirty thousand acres of land are held for the purposes of general education. Three colleges in Upper Canada have the power of conferring degrees. The expense of a boarder in the proprietary school at Toronto is

thirty pounds a year-in the college, thirty-three. From the Roman Catholic seminary colleges in the Lower Province, a student who has passed through certain classes has a right to be admitted to the Bar after four, instead of five years' study.

A few years ago, the abuses and mismanagement of the public schools were very great, but at present they are working under a much improved system. It may be said that throughout the whole of Canada there are fair opportunities of elementary education for every one, except in the very remote and thinly-settled districts. In the Upper Province these privileges are appreciated to a greater extent than in the Lower; the habitans are scarcely persuaded of the necessity of being instructed; their better classes are rather indifferent on the subject; and some people go so far as to assert that the Roman Catholic priesthood in the rural districts are averse to the spread of enlightenment: they certainly need not feel alarm at the rapidity of its progress.

As mentioned in the portion of Lord Durham's report to which I referred in another part of this volume, the possession of rather a superior education by a certain number of young men, perhaps very humbly born, is not attended with happy or useful results. We find these people too proud or

too idle to follow the lowly and toilsome occupations of their fathers; they are not sufficiently gifted to attain success in their ill-chosen professions; and, driven by want, disappointment, and discontent, into the ranks of sedition, they are willing to persuade themselves and others that they are debarred from getting on by political causes, or indeed by any cause, except that of their own incapacity; they dream of independence, la nation Canadienne, freedom from foreign rule, and all sorts of absurdities. In this bright and imaginative future, each young village surgeon or attorney fancies he is to play a conspicuous part, and by such inflated ideas he tries to move the sluggish minds and sympathies of his ignorant relations. The most successful of these ambitious embryo Robespierres and Dantons rises perhaps to be the editor of some obscure newspaper, the organ of their innocuous and contemptible sedition; or the representative of some "habitans" district, when the stipend attached to his seat in the provincial parliament saves him from penury and want.

But these seminaries of education in Lower Canada produce also some very worthy exceptions to the class of which I have just now spoken; and there is a considerable proportion of French

Canadian gentlemen, whose character and acquirements entitle them to all respect and consideration.

The merchants of British birth or descent are naturally educated in very much the same way as their brethren at home, in a sound, practical, useful manner; any degree of classical proficiency is of course rare, but not altogether without instances; some are good linguists, all are generally well informed. They acquire at an early age the manners of men of the world, as their business brings them in contact with a number of people of various countries and of all classes. During the long winters, when all are bent solely upon amusement, they have also an opportunity of cultivating the habits and tastes of good society. Both the ladies and gentlemen in the large towns of Canada excel in manner; from their earliest youth they mix in the gaieties and amusements of their native place, and this acquirement is attained perhaps rather at a sacrifice of others, more solid, but less graceful and attractive.

The young lady who might be sadly puzzled over a passage of Dante or Ariosto, and not very clear as to whether Schiller was a poet or a fiddler, would most probably do the honours of a

VOL. I.