Religions of the People of the City of Montreal, 1911.
FOOTNOTES:
1The sketch by the Rev. J.A. Gordon written in 1906 has been used.
1The sketch by the Rev. J.A. Gordon written in 1906 has been used.
1760-1841
SCHOOL SYSTEM OF MONTREAL BEFORE THE CESSION
NEW MOVEMENT FOR BOYS—THE COLLEGE DE MONTREAL—THE BEGINNINGS OF ENGLISH EDUCATION—THE FIRST ENGLISH SCHOOLMASTERS BEFORE 1790—A REPORT OF 1790 FOR THE SCHOOLS OF CANADA—THE DESIRE TO REAR UP A SYSTEM OF PUBLIC EDUCATION—THE JESUITS’ ESTATES—THE “CASE” AGAINST AMHERST’S CLAIM TO THE JESUITS’ ESTATES AND FOR THEIR DIVERGENCE TO PUBLIC EDUCATION—NEW ENGLISH MOVEMENT FOR A GENERAL SYSTEM OF EDUCATION—THE ACT OF 1801—THE ROYAL INSTITUTION FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING—NEVER A POPULAR SUCCESS—ITS REFORM IN 1818—A COUNTERPOISE—THE FABRIQUE ACT OF 1824—REVIEW OF SCHOOLS UNDER THE ROYAL INSTITUTION—SUBSIDIZED SCHOOLS—REVIEW OF CATHOLIC SCHOOLS—LAY SCHOOLS—LORD DURHAM’S REPORT ON EDUCATION. NOTE: THE JESUITS’ ESTATES.
Under the English Rule the system of primary education carried on by the Sulpicians for boys and Marguerite Bourgeoys’ congregation for girls was continued as before the session. That for boys began when the Sulpician Souart, the first schoolmaster of Montreal, commenced his school teaching about 1669, after he had finished the first term as superior of the seminary.
The earliest new movement for boys after the English possession was made as follows:
In 1773 the stables and poultry house of the old Château de Vaudreuil became a school for little boys for elementary education, and from this date the château became known as the Collège de St. Raphael, the successor of the Pétit Seminaire established in 1767 by M. Curatteau in his presbytery at Longue Pointe.
In 1776 the Collège de St. Raphael was formerly inaugurated for the purpose of higher education, but it continued its elementary classes or petites écoles.
On October 11, 1790, in answer to a request of Lord Dorchester of the sixth of the same month, a catalogue of the professors of the College of Montreal for 1790 was sent with some remarks on the college and on the schools. The latter are as follows:“The schools which the ecclesiastics of the Seminary of Montreal keep are nearly as old as the establishment of the town. They teach only reading and writing in Latin and in French. The Seminary undertakes all the expense, furnishes the wood and the books, pays the masters’ board and lodges them. These schools are divided into ‘grandes’ and ‘petites.’ The petites écoles are for children who are only beginning to learn to read. The grandes écoles are for those who commence already to know how to read and who are learning to write. The parents who are able, pay five shillings a year for each scholar. The poor pay nothing at all.”
The first English schoolmaster in Montreal would seem to be a John Pullman, who came from New York in 1773 by the recommendation of the Rev. Dr. Ogilvie to try to establish a school in Montreal in consequence of an application to him from gentlemen of that city. He worked under a committee. This above information is told in the memorial of 1779, in which he applied for a license of Protestant schoolmaster similar to the position that Tanswell then possessed in Quebec. His recommendation was signed by the leading men of Montreal. But his scholars dwindling through competition, doubtless, his poverty forced him to apply, in 1782, for any small employment as a clerk and for a subscription to a work he had prepared, the short title of which was “Cash Clerks’ Assistant.” Finlay Fisher opened a school about 1778 which he said was well attended and flourishing. The Rev. Mr. John Stuart opened an academy for youth in Montreal in 1781. Mr. Stuart was born in the province of Virginia in 1736 or 1740, was ordained in England, returning in 1770 to Philadelphia, whence he went as a missionary to the Mohawk valley. On the outbreak of the American revolution he had been made a prisoner for his loyalty. He seems to have escaped and made his way to Montreal. He prepared his advertisement and sent it to Governor Haldimand, who offered to give him every encouragement and appropriated to the undertaking part of the bounty allowed by government, adding “Your advertisement will be published tomorrow, but I directed the words ‘principally intended for the children of Protestants’ to be left out as it is a distinction which could not fail to create jealousies at all times improper but more particularly so at present.” His Excellency desired that all classes should be received. Mr. Stuart in complying said that he had already admitted any persons that offered, Protestants, Catholics, Jews, etc.
It was difficult to get schoolmasters in the early days. Mr. Stuart’s assistant was a Mr. Christie. He was incapable of teaching even the lowest branches of arithmetic and language. Mr. Stuart on November 27, 1782, reported in all simplicity to Haldimand: “I could have dispensed with his ignorance of the English language and faulty accent, but when I found him unacquainted with the rules of common arithmetic and often obliged to apply to me (in presence of the pupils) for the solution of the most simple question, I could no longer doubt of his inefficiency.” A new assistant was engaged and shortly afterward Christie left the province. Finlay Fisher in 1783 in his memorial applied for Christie’s salary, £25 a year, to be added to his own; he did not receive it, however, till May 1, 1786, when it came due for the first time for the preceding six months. Mr. Stuart’s last salary at Montreal was for the six months between November 1, 1785, to April 30, 1786. He then went to Kingston on which his gaze had been fixed for some time. He became the first Anglican clergyman there. In 1789 he established a classical school there, the first school of the kind in Upper Canada.
An early report issued in England before 1790 by the “Society for the Propagation,” speaking of the early struggles, mentions that “there is not a single Protestant church in the whole province. * * * There are two schools, to each ofwhich a salary of £100 a year is allotted by the government, the one at Quebec and the other at Montreal. The schoolmaster’s name at Quebec is Tanswell. The Rev. Mr. Stuart had the school at Montreal for a short time (after his flight from Fort Hunter, where he was a missionary) until, about two years ago, the government thought proper to take half his salary away and divide it between a Mr. Fisher and Mr. Christie, both Presbyterians.* * *But besides the division of the salary there is neither a schoolhouse nor land appropriated nor trustees appointed, nor any regularities made respecting the application of the £100 salary. The inhabitants are opulent and generous and only want a proper person to place and establish a seminary. In that case the income cannot fail of being considerable. The prices for tuition have been for Latin, half a guinea, for English and arithmetic, $2 per month. There is not an English school in the place.”
STUDIES FROM THE CARTIER MONUMENT: LawSTUDIES FROM THE CARTIER MONUMENT: Law
STUDIES FROM THE CARTIER MONUMENT: Law
STUDIES FROM THE CARTIER MONUMENT: EducationSTUDIES FROM THE CARTIER MONUMENT: Education
STUDIES FROM THE CARTIER MONUMENT: Education
In 1790, however, a memorandum was made of the ecclesiastical and educational aspects of the country which gives us an insight into the growing life of the English colony in Canada and Montreal, occasioned, no doubt, by the influx of the United Empire Loyalists migrating into the country:
PROTESTANT CLERGY
PROTESTANT SCHOOLS
No returns yet made up of ye Protestant schools in ye counties of Gaspe, Lunenberg, Mechlenburg, Naysau and Hesse.
Although, therefore, the educational outlook was not very great1in 1790, yet already there was foreseen the necessity of an established system of public education in connection with the government. For this funds were badly needed.
In pursuing the history of the educational movement in which Montreal shares, notice must be now taken of the Jesuit estates, for upon the funds accruing from these, an early movement started to rear the means of an educational system in Canada. After the suppression of the Society of Jesus in 1774 in Canada these estates had been promised to Lord Amherst as a recognition of his services. This met with consistent opposition, and a contra-movement arose to secure the estates as a means of rearing up a public educational system. A petition of November 19, 1787, was signed at Quebec by 195 inhabitants transmitting a “case” in which it was claimed that “as Canadians and citizens they had a right therein by title, and law, the College of Quebec having been founded for their education. It is their patrimony which they have cleared and cultivated. Even as subjects they have a right to public education which exists in every government.” The “case” insists that the Jesuits were only the rectors, professors and managers: that the Hundred Associates and others had founded the colleges for educational purposes. The petitioners demand that the troops then using the college as a barracks should be dislodged and pray the government “to restore the antient professors of the college or to name others and regulate the recompense due to their talents and attentions.” It is but just to note that the Jesuits neverceded their claims to the complete possession of their estates, nor recognized a mere trusteeship.
A similar petition to that of 1787 was addressed by the inhabitants of Montreal in 1793, and again in 1800, praying that on reversion of the Jesuit estates the revenue should be diverted to the education of youth. Three Rivers similarly protested against the policy of the Amherst grant. At the first legislative assembly a recommendation was made for the divergence of the Jesuit funds to popular education. Thus Amherst’s patent was not signed. The death of Perè Casot, the last surviving Jesuit of the old régime, occurring in 1801, the governor claimed the estates for the crown, which hitherto had been administered by the Society. A majority in the house preferred that they should be devoted to educational purposes and demanded the titles. But it was not till 1831 that they were finally ceded, with the exception of the Jesuit College at Quebec which became converted into a barracks. Meanwhile the Anglican bishop of the diocese and other English leaders, especially the merchants, deploring the lack of educational facilities, agitated for ageneralschool system, one of the arguments being the usefulness this would have of encouraging the English language through the province. At this time three classes of schools were in contemplation: parish schools (elementary), grammar schools and superior seminaries or universities, schools on the line of Westminster, Winchester and Eton. With regard to a university the committee of the executive council thought it premature to formulate any plan, but recommended that an appropriation should be made to cover any plan that might be adopted.
The future of education was reported on in answer to the following questions: “The establishing of schools and seminaries for the education of youth from those funds now unemployed as well in England as in this province and particularly a respectable college in this city with able professors and erecting free schools at convenient distances throughout this extensive province for the purpose of opening and enlarging the human mind, conciliating the affections of all His Majesty’s subjects and having a tendency to render this a happy and flourishing province.” Observation: “There remains for us to advert to a subject which we consider as the surest and best means of obtaining a cheerful and dutiful obedience to the laws and government from subjects in general, and that is by establishing throughout the province at proper distances public schools for the education of youth. We hardly know of a single school in any country part of the district for teaching boys and it is to the zeal of the few sisters of the congregation that we are indebted for all the little which is taught to girls throughout the country. The captains of militia who are frequently called upon to enforce law and order are so illiterate that not one in three can write or even read. The consequence is confusion and disorder and frequent suits and complaints between them and the militiamen.” They then suggest that for funds the estates of the Jesuits, which they understood likely to revert to the crown, could be conveniently applied for the purpose; that also, owing to the separation of the American states, there might be some unappropriated funds in England which could be applied for. The report reverts to the former petition of 1785 for a house of assembly, suggesting this as the only way to promote the welfare of the province as a British colony. In 1793, therefore, a further recommendation was made to the legislative assembly which presented an address to the governor urging upon the crown thepropriety of devoting the Jesuit estates for educational purposes. No answer having been given, another on the same subject was presented to the governor in 1800.
In reply to this the governor, in a speech to the legislature, intimated the intention of the government “to set apart a portion of the crown domain instead for the establishment of a competent number of free schools for the instruction of their children in the first rudiments of useful learning and in the English tongue; and also as occasion may require for foundations of a more enlarged and comprehensive nature.” In 1801, therefore, an act entitled “an act for the establishment of free schools and the advancement of learning in the province” was passed by the provincial legislature to give effect to these promises. It provided also for “the establishment of a Royal Institution for the Advancement of Learning.” To this corporation was entrusted the entire management of all schools and institutions of royal foundation in the province as well as the administration of all estates and property appropriated to these schools.
This act remained practically a dead letter, since no grants were ever made. What rendered the scheme a failure was the additional reason of its unpopularity with the majority. Of the eighteen trustees of the Royal Institution, four only were Roman Catholics; and of the fourteen Protestants, three were prominent officials in Upper Canada. The teachers, too, were principally from Britain, unacquainted with the French language and generally ignorant of the habits of the people.
In 1818 in order to give practical effect to the act of 1801 all the government schools then receiving government aid were placed under the Royal Institution. The question of representative trusteeship was made more simple and more equitable, but the Protestant Lord Bishop of Quebec was named principal. This again kept the Catholics from participating, the movement being still looked upon as Protestant and Anglicizing. So that Lord Dalhousie wrote from Quebec on the 10th of June, 1821, to Lord Bathurst, asking that His Majesty would sanction the establishment of a Catholic institution precisely similar to that of the Protestants for the government of their schools. “The Catholic religion in this province,” he said, “is certainly the most sure defense yet against our neighbours and every fair encouragement should be given to it in promoting education and learning. One great objection complained of is the being subjected to the superintendence of the Royal Institution, of which the Protestant bishop is president. That objection is natural in a country where the Catholic religion prevails as to numbers and is guarded by ministers always watchful and perhaps jealous of the Protestant church.”
The Royal Institution was never popular because of its want of sympathy with the people whom it wished to benefit. It cannot be said to have been a success, owing to the peculiar denominational constitution of its charter and the apathy in its own council. Still it pointed the way to a general scheme of public education which afterwards bore fruit. Its greatest success is in the present day McGill University, whose official title is still the “Royal Institution for the Advancement of Learning.”
Various attempts were made by the legislature to introduce a more popular system of management in the schools. In 1824, on the elaborate report of a special committee of the province which represented that in many parishes not morethan five or six of the inhabitants could write; that generally not above one-fourth of the entire population could read and that not above one-tenth of the entire population could write, a counterpoise measure to the royal institution was passed for the Catholics entitled the “Fabrique act” by which the Fabriques or corporations of the parish churches consisting of the curé and church wardens as school commissioners, could hold and acquire property, etc., to found and carry on elementary schools, one for every one hundred families. One of the great reasons for the failure of educational legislation down to 1836 was the want of permanency about it all. Another was the jobbery of politicians in a time of seething turmoil. Arthur Buller, commissioner, appointed by Lord Durham in 1838, reports clearly on this. “In short, the moment that they found that their educational provisions could be turned to political account, from that moment those provisions were formed with a view to promote party rather than education. This was their essential fault. This, it was, that pervaded and contaminated the whole system and paralyzed all good that was otherwise in it.” There were about one thousand, six hundred schools in Canada and these had to be closed.
It is now in place to review the state of education in Montreal under the Royal Institution. When finally funds were forthcoming they were supplied by an annual vote of the provincial parliament of £2,000, but under an authority from Lord Bathurst, dated January 24, 1817, a grant was made from the revenues of the Jesuit estate confined to the grammar schools of Quebec and Montreal. The latter received £200 a year with £52 a year for the rent of the schoolhouse. By the rules of the foundation twenty free scholars were to be admitted. At this date there were fifteen all told who paid for their education as day scholars. The terms for instruction in the higher education were £10 a year and £8 for the lower.
There were also two elementary schools at Montreal which received appropriations from the government, viz., the British and Canadian schools (£300) and the National free school (£200). With regard to the schools under the institution a memorandum of Sir John Kempt states that “by a return made in the year 1818 the number of schools in this province was stated to be thirty-seven attended by only 1,048 scholars and maintained at an expense to the public of £1,883 10 strg.”
In 1829 he also states the number of schools up to July 1st as seventy-eight and the number of scholars 3,772. Up to this date Catholics had no connection with the institution. In Lord Aylmer’s report of 1832 the schools under the royal institution of which the names are given as well as those of the teachers and their salaries, number seventy. The schools of Montreal given among the list of “society or private” institutions receiving occasional aid from public funds are given thus:
There were in addition many private Catholic and Protestant schools. We may note the origins of some of the most important public schools. The Royal Grammar school was founded in Montreal in 1816, with Mr. Alexander Skakel, M.A., who came out from England as head master. A writer in the Montreal Daily Herald of Saturday, March 15, 1913, writes:
“This may be said to have been the first ambitious attempt to put Protestant education in Montreal on a substantial and efficient footing. Mr. Skakel came out under, as he was wont to say, the pleasing illusion that the new world would offer him prospects denied him in the old. He was disillusionized, for the colony was not only young and raw, but the political and social conditions of the time were anything but congenial, while the emoluments were slender, and the life, generally, wholly different to that to which he had been accustomed. However, Mr. Skakel—whose portrait hangs in the High School—did not complain, but went straight on, developing the school which met, first of all, in the old Belmont Park building, and afterwards in the Fraser building at the corner of Dorchester Street and Union Avenue.”
Mr. Skakel was succeeded by the Rev. John Leeds and the Rev. George Simpson. The Royal grammar school was merged with the high school shortly after the organization of the latter in 1845. The Lancaster School took its name from Messrs. Lancaster and Bell, who came out from England, having been instrumental in establishing popular schools there, and they interested themselves in the formation of the British Canadian school. The early days of education were those of sacrifice for the teachers, ill paid, with inadequate teaching facilities, both in materials and buildings, overwork, and for the treasury which had to depend on voluntary gifts and collecting cards. Things are better now, but one wonders whether the teaching profession will ever come to its own.
The National School was founded in 1816 under the auspices of the Montreal district committee of the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge. In 1839 the number of boys was 36 French and 120 English, and of girls 20 French and 84 English.
The British and Canadian School Society, which was opened in a building belonging formerly to the Montreal Hospital, was instituted on the 21st of September, 1822, to maintain on an extensive scale a school to promote the education of the labouring classes, and secondly, as a model school to train up teachers under Mr. Lancaster and a committee of gentlemen for future schools to follow the British system. It was meant to be undenominational. Its early success enabled it to build by funds from voluntary sources and from the provincial governmenta more commodious schoolhouse on Lagauchetière Street, the foundation being laid on the 17th of October, 1826. It was designed to school 414 boys and 232 girls. In 1826 the number of attendance was:
This school lapsed in 1837, the year of the rebellion, which proved so fatal to education. There were 1,600 schools in the province, teaching 40,000 children, and these had to be closed. The Brothers of the Christian Schools made their entry into Montreal in 1837. Their important work, of which humble seeds were now laid, developed greatly under the Union, its story being therefore left to a later chapter.
A summary of the schools of 1839 is presented by Bosworth in “Hochelaga Depicta.” Besides the “New College” or “pétit seminaire,” there were “several respectable academies in the city, as the Royal Grammar School in Little St. James Street, conducted by A. Skakel, Esq.; the Rev. Dr. Black’s, adjoining St. Paul Church; Rev. J. Ramsay’s, Main Street, St. Lawrence suburbs; Messrs. Howden & Taggart’s, Craig Street; Mr. Workman’s, in Hospital Street; and Mr. Bruce’s, in McGill Street. There are also young ladies’ schools of high reputation, as Miss Easton’s, in Bonaventure Street; Miss Felton’s, in St. Gabriel Street; and Mrs. Fitzgerald’s, in Notre Dame Street. The total number of schools it would be impossible to assign. A few years since two gentlemen of the city made personal inquiry throughout the place with a view to determining the point. They found fifty-nine of different classes, but it is probable not only that some were overlooked, but that the number is greater now than it was then. There was also much private tuition in the families of the more wealthy inhabitants.”
The writer probably includes in the fifty-nine or more among the unnamed schools those of the Catholics, which were under the auspices of the Sulpicians, the teaching orders of the Congregational Nuns and the Brothers of the Christian Schools, and those conducted by lay people. A review of the schools for Catholics up to the Union may be now presented.
The early movement under the Sulpicians up to 1790 has already been stated. About 1796, as the city was beginning to expand, M. Roux, the superior of the seminary, opened a new school for children in the St. Lawrence district under the control of a layman. Later he established other schools at Bonsecours, St. Lawrence, St. Antoine, St. Mary (or the Faubourg de Quebec), and St. Joseph, all these schools with the exception of the seminary receiving children of both sexes. M. Quiblier, succeeding M. Roux, determined to erect separate schools or boys and girls, the latter to be under the direction of the Congregation Nuns. These, therefore, opened successively a great number of classes, three at theFaubourg, St. Lawrence; six at that of Quebec (St. Mary’s), two of which were for the Irish; three classes at St. Antoine, and three at St. Joseph, and two classes at the Recollects for the Irish.
The Seminary provided the schools, their furniture and upkeep, and undertook to convey the nuns to and fro morning and evening. About fifteen hundred children were instructed and educated gratuitously in these schools. In addition the Congregation maintained in its own motherhouse, the pensionat, composed of six classes; the “great school,” with its three classes; and the “small school,” with two.2What he had done for the education of the girls M. Quiblier would do for the boys, and it is due to him that he succeeded in bringing the Brothers of the Christian Schools to Montreal in 1837. A tribute paid by the Hon. Jacques Viger to M. Quiblier and the Sulpicians may be quoted from a Précis Historique which he composed. “Sur les petites écoles de la paroisse de Montréal pour les garçons.” “Should the time come,” he says, “when the Gentlemen of the Seminary might have no other right to public recognition than that of having constantly exercised their generous zeal for education undying blessings should be their desert; and if M. Quiblier had no other title of glory beyond that of having surpassed his predecessors in that respect that title would be fine enough.* * *Such are, among the other good works of the house of St. Sulpice, those which it has never ceased to lavish on the progress of education in a town of which it can, with good cause, be called the foundress and the mother.”
Mr. Huguet-Latour, in his “Annuaire de Ville Marie,” notes some of the schools of this period as follows. It is interesting as showing the part then being played by the laity:
“On May 1, 1813, a school was founded for young girls by Mrs. Richard O’Keefe.
“About 1819 a school was founded by a Mr. Ryan in the house of the ‘Recollets.’
“In 1825 a school for boys was established by Mgr. Lartigue, on October 1st, on the ground floor of his Episcopal residence at St. James Church, and another for girls, on January 3, 1827, under the direction of his secretary, afterwards Bishop Bourget, in a house hired for the purpose. In 1828 the sewing classes began in this school under the direction of the ‘Association Bienveillante des Dames de St. Jacques.’ These lasted till 1853. In 1831 these ladies, while still maintaining the supervision, hired a mistress to teach the school. On October 1st of the same year, Mgr. Lartigue opened a school for English boys, in the basement of the Sacristy of his cathedral.
“In 1830 a third class for boys was added. The first schoolhouse of St. James (75 by 40 feet, with three stories) was built in 1831 on land given by Mgr. Lartigue in 1831. Thither the various classes connected with St. James were transferred in 1831 and 1832. This school suffered, with the Cathedral, destruction in the great fire of July 8, 1852. The school, which commenced in 1825 with sixty children, had reached 400.
“On July 7, 1834, a school was founded at No. 31 Beaudry Street by Mr. Joseph Bourgoin.”
As a summary of the general outlook on Canadian education in the Province of Quebec3at the time of the rebellion we may use Lord Durham’s own summing up in his famous report in preparation for the Union. “The bulk of the population is composed of the hard-working yeomanry of the country district commonly called habitants.* * *It is impossible to exaggerate the want of education among them; no means of instruction have been provided for them and they are almost universally destitute of the qualifications even of reading and writing.* * *The common assertion that all classes of Canadians are equally ignorant is perfectly erroneous; for I know of no people among whom a larger provision exists for the higher kinds of elementary education or among whom such education is really extended to a larger proportion of the population. The piety and benevolence of the early possessors of the country founded in the seminaries that exist in the different parts of the province, institutions of which the funds have long been directed to the promotion of education. Seminaries and colleges have been by these bodies established in the cities and in other central points. The education given in these establishments greatly resembles the kind given in the English public schools, though it is more varied. It is entirely in the hands of the Catholic clergy. The number of pupils in this establishment was estimated altogether at 1,000 and they turn out as far as I could ascertain between two and three hundred young men thus educted.”
Thus at the time of the rebellion of 1837, at least in the towns such as Montreal, the outlook on education was not so depressing as it is generally painted.
NOTE
The long drawn out question of the Jesuits’ estates was settled in 1888. Its history may now be recapituated. After the suppresssion of the society in 1773, the government waited until the death, in 1801, of Father Casot, the last Canadian Jesuit to claim them. Amherst had been promised them, but the public sentiment was against this, and they were demanded for the cause of public education. The Jesuits meanwhile always maintained that there was an implicit contract on the part of the government to restore them. Up to 1888 the yearly revenues accruing had become very great. In 1800 these reached the sum of $7,800; in 1812 that of more than $9,000; in 1822, $6,000; in 1831, $15,000; in 1840, $27,000; in 1852, $45,000; during the other years more or less considerable sums. The total is about $960,000. If there is added to that the use of the lands of Champ de Mars, the courthouse and the city hall, and the land of the college at Quebec, it will be seen that the amount reached nearly two million dollars’ revenue. The value of the estates themselves resulting from the donations made by the kings of France and rich individuals was about four to five millions.Evidently all this could not all be returned. It became a question of indemnity. In 1874 the Jesuits demanded such. Father Braun composed a memorial to Rome on the point, and Father Chazaux, then superior, addressed a request to the government in the name of the Holy See which had consented to the demand for the indemnity.
There was delay until May 12, 1887, when the Quebec government incorporated the Society of Jesus, and on July 12, 1888, passed the Jesuit estates bill, partially compensating the Society of Jesus for their loss. On March 3d of the following year the Commons sustained the act respecting the Jesuit estates by a vote of 188 to 13. On June 11th the Equal Rights party formed up to protest. On June 19th the Presbyterian Assembly denounced the act of incorporation of the Jesuits and the Jesuits estate act, and the Anglican Synod did the same this month. In July a general meeting in Queen’s Hall in Montreal also protested.
A petition was at this time presented to the Governor-General, Lord Stanley, requesting the disallowance of the act of March 3, 1888, and in answer, on August 2d, he replied that the adverse advice of his ministers, which he deemed sound, bound him to uphold it.
On November 5, 1889, the Hon. Honoré Mercier, the premier of the province of Quebec, paid to the Jesuits the sum of $400,000, of which $60,000 was turned over at once to the Protestant Board of School Commissioners for the province. The balance did not go solely to the Jesuits, for Rome decided that of this the claims for a share made by other Catholic-teaching bodies should be maintained, so that eventually the Society of Jesus received barely one-third of the indemnity. It is now clearly recognized that an elemental act of justice was at last completed.
FOOTNOTES: