1667-1672
EDUCATION
AT QUEBEC: JACQUES LEBER, JEANNE LEBER, CHARLES LE MOYNE (OF LONGUEUIL), LOUIS PRUDHOMME—MARGUERITE BOURGEOYS' SCHOOL AT MONTREAL—"GALLICIZING" INDIAN CHILDREN—GANNENSAGONAS—THE SULPICIANS AT GENTILLY—THE JESUITS AT MADELEINE LA PRAIRIE.
Another effort of Louis XIV, through his minister Colbert, was the furtherance of education in the colony. It was naturally of a very rudimentary character in these early days of scarce population. To help, Colbert sent from the king, 6,000 livres on April 5, 1667. The work of education was in the hands of the clergy and religious with the exception of that done at Montreal by Marguerite Bourgeoys, who had not yet established her order. At Quebec, the Jesuits had since 1635 commenced a college for boys at which later young Joliet, who afterward with Père Marquette, was the discoverer of Illinois, was taught to defend philosophical theses. The Ursulines had a pensionnat of thirty girls, of whom Marie l'Incarnation, writing in 1668, says: "They gave more trouble than sixty in France. The externes give us some more trouble." Still she says that there is a great desire to educate the French girls and "they learn to read and write, to say their prayers, learn Christian morals and all that a girl ought to know." Among the pensionnaires was Jeanne Leber, the daughter of Jacques Leber, the Montreal merchant, and she was pious, and clever at elocution and lace work.
JACQUES MARQUETTE
At Montreal, as the population began to grow, Marguerite Bourgeoys now handed over the boys, who were beginning to be educated with the girls in the little primary school in the stable, to M. Souart, who, since the return of M. de Queylus, had been supplanted as curate by M. Gilles Pérot, and we find him styled in the documents of the time "former curé—schoolmaster." In this occupation he was assisted by M. Rémy, a deacon, who was afterwards entrusted for some time with the primary education of the town. The education was given gratuitously, but to maintain the schoolmaster, the syndic, accompanied by the clerk of the court, canvassed subscriptions from private individuals. In the fall, the Seminary made up the deficit. Marguerite Bourgeoys, and her four companions, still taught during the day for nothing, without any assistance as before, but during the night they worked at manual labour for their support. "Thus," says Dollier de Casson writing of 1652, "what I admire most about these young women, is that being without goods and willing to teach gratuitously, they have nevertheless acquired by the grace of God and without being a charge to anyone, houses and lands in the island of Montreal." In fact on August 29, 1668, Marguerite Bourgeoys bought a house thirty-six feet square adjoining the "Congregation" from the widow of Claude Fézeret. On September 21, 1668, she acquired from François Leber a grant of land, with a house on it, at Pointe St. Charles. The site of this house, with its buildings, can be seen to this day.
In 1669, she acquired, from Maturin Roulier, another piece of land with a granary and a meadow, situated in the direction of Sault St. Louis. All this, added to the original donation from M. de Maisonneuve, and sixty arpents and more granted through the Seigneurs, out of which she had put thirty-two under cultivation and on which she had placed a granary, went in great part to support her community of pious lay associates. In addition, on July 6, 1672, she bought an arpent of land adjoining the "Congregation" and built on it a larger establishment, as the number of her pupils surpassed the limited space of her stable school.
On October 9, 1668, Laval at Quebec started his "petit séminaire," out of the boys of which he hoped to draw the nucleus of a Canadian clergy. He started with six Hurons, to whom were added eight French boys. In 1669 there were three Montrealers being educated there, probably on a bourse from the king's bounty, viz., Charles Le Moyne, de Longueuil; Jacques Leber, brother of Jeanne, and Louis Prud'homme. The French boys, supported by the king's bounty, boarded, however, at the Jesuit College. Soon others joined, but as it was found that many of them did not care for study, they were sent to Cap au Tourment, where they learned mechanical trades and arts suitable to young colonists.