“Have not our fathers done well without those costly schools?” said many. “What is the use of spending so much money for a thing that does not add a day to our existence, nor an atom to our comfort?”
I soon felt confronted by such a deadly indifference, not to say opposition, on the part of my best farmers, that I feared for a few days lest I had really gone too far. The last cent of my own revenues was not only given, but a little personal debt created to meet the payments, and a round sum of $500 had to be found to finish the work. I visited the richest man of Beauport to ask him to come to my rescue. Forty years before he had come to Beauport barefooted, without a cent, to work. He had employed his first earned dollars in purchasing some rum, with which he had doubled his money in two hours; and had continued to double his money, at that rate, in the same way, till he was worth nearly $200,000.
He had then stopped selling rum, to invest his money in city properties. He answered me: “My dear curate, I would have no objections to give you the $500 you want, if I had not met the Grand Vicar Demars yesterday, who warned me, as an old friend, against what he calls your dangerous and exaggerated views in reference to the education of the people. He advised me, for your own good, and the good of the people, to do all in my power to induce you to desist from your plan of covering our parishes with schools.”
“Will you allow me,” I answered, “to mention our conversation to Mr. Demars, and tell him what you have just said about his advising you to oppose me in my efforts to promote the interests of education?”
“Yes, sir, by all means,” answered Mr. Des Roussell. “I allow you to repeat to the venerable superior of the Seminary of Quebec what he said to me yesterday; it was not a secret, for there were several other farmers of Beauport to whom he said the very same thing. If you ignore that the priests of Quebec are opposed to your plans of educating our children you must be the only one who does not know it, for it is a public fact. Your difficulties in raising the funds you want come only from the opposition of the rest of the clergy to you in this matter; we have plenty of money in Beauport to-day, and we would feel happy to help you. But you understand that our good-will is somewhat cooled by the opposition of men whom we are accustomed to respect.”
I replied: “Do you not remember, my dear Mr. Des Roussell, that those very same priests opposed me in the same way in my very first efforts to establish the temperance society in your midst?”
“Yes, sir,” he answered with a smile, “we remember it well, but you have converted them to your views now.”
“Well, my dear sir, I hope we shall convert them also in this question of education.”
The very next morning, I was knocking at the door of the Rev. Grand Vicar Demars, after I had tied my splendid horse in the courtyard of the Seminary of Quebec. I was received with the utmost marks of courtesy. Without losing any time, I repeated to the old superior what Mr. Des Roussell had told me of his opposition to my educational plans, and respectfully asked him if it were true.
The poor Grand Vicar seemed as if thunder-struck by my abrupt, though polite question. He tried, at first, to explain what he had said, by taking a long circuit, but I mercilessly brought him to the point at issue, and forced him to say, “Yes, I said it.”