The earliest attempt at technical education before the capitulation of 1760 will be found in Vol. I, Under The French Régime. The modern movement remains to be chronicled.
I
THE BOARD OF ARTS AND MANUFACTURES
In 1859 the Board of Arts and Manufactures of Lower Canada established a central school at Montreal.
In 1872, the Council of Arts and Manufactures made an attempt to put technical education on its feet. Hitherto the progress of industry had not been sufficiently perceived. The growth of manufactures following upon the National policy made the experiment more necessary. The early equipment was meager, the means small, and there were but few classes and few pupils. Still steady progress was made. In 1898 Mr. Thomas Gauthier became president and long steps in advance were made. There are now nearly three thousand pupils over the Province of Quebec, in Montreal, Quebec, St. Hyacinthe, Sherbrooke, Three Rivers, St. Jean, Lachine, Valleyfield, Sorel, Fraserville, Charny, St. Romuald, and Chicoutimi.
In Montreal alone there are over one thousand five hundred and ten pupils in four schools, of which the Monument National is the most important.
COMMERCIAL AND TECHNICAL HIGH SCHOOL
Technical night schools are also provided at the Commercial and Technical High School, the successor of the Montreal Senior School. This latter school was organized by the Protestant Board of School Commissioners in September, 1877, to accommodate the classes of what was then known as the second senior grade of the public elementary schools. For a year the school met in a building on Ontario Street, between Bleury and Mance streets, and in 1878 was transferred to the old high school building at the corner of Dorchester and University streets, now the Fraser Institute, and in 1883 to the building on Burnside Place between Metcalfe and Peel streets.
In 1906 the course of study of the Montreal Senior School was revised, its name changed to the Commercial and Technical High School, and the school moved to its new building at 53 Sherbrooke Street West.