142 QUEBEC (Cmr) and the Canada military asylum for the widows and orphans of British soldiers, are maintained at the public expense. The most important educational institution is the "Seminary of Quebec," with its offshoot and dependent the Laval university. The seminary was founded in 1663 by Francois de Montmorency-Laval, first bishop of Quebec, who bestowed upon it at his death in 1708 all the personal prop- erty in Canada which he had purchased by the sale of his patrimonial estates in France. The grand seminaire or theological school was opened in 1666, and ihe petit seminaire or col- legiate school in 1668. The first building for the special use of these schools, of stone, on the site of the present middle seminary build- ing, was erected in 1678 ; it was burned in 1701, rebuilt, and again burned in 1705, when it was built larger. It was originally designed only for clerical students ; but when the Jesuit college, founded in 1637, was closed after the conquest, the seminary courses were thrown open to all classes. The whole community of professors and pupils numbered 54 persons in 1704, and 110 in 1800. Within the present cen- tury two new wings have been added to the original building, each far exceeding it in size and costliness. The institution was raised to the rank of a university by a charter signed by Queen Victoria Dec. 8, 1852, the power of con- ferring the canonical degrees in theology being granted by Pius IX., March 6, 1853. The cor- ner stone of the principal university building was laid Sept. 20, 1854. The three buildings erected are 576 ft. long (the main building being 286 ft.), five stories high, and of cut stone ; the whole lias been completed at a cost of $238,- 787, without counting the sums expended for museums, library, apparatus, and picture gal- lery, amounting to about $500,000. In 1865 the whole of the new wing of the theological seminary and a portion of the old were burned down; but the directors rebuilt and enlarged these portions, giving a total length of 684 ft. for the seminary buildings alone. The build- ings connected with the main university edifice are a separate school of medicine and a board- ers' hall for students in law and medicine. In thus founding the university and provi- ding it with all that was needful, the directors declined all aid from the government or the city. The large hall of convocation has seats for 1,200 persons, besides galleries for ladies ; the chemical laboratory is spacious, fire-proof, and provided .with complete apparatus. The mineralogical and geological collections were first prepared under the direction of the Rev. John Holmes, and afterward, with several large subsequent additions, arranged systemat- ically by Prof. T. Sterry Hunt. The museum of botany is equally complete. That of zoology contains upward of 1,300 different birds and over 7,000 insects. The ethnological collection is chiefly made up of the remains of Canadian Indians, and is mainly due to the labors of Dr. J. C. Tache. The museum of the medical de- partment is especially complete. The gallery of paintings, lately thrown open to the public, contains 150 originals, duplicates, and copies, sent from France after the revolution of 1791, and repurchased from various owners in Can- ada, by the Hon. Joseph Legare. The univer- sity library contains upward of 55,000 volumes, independently of the libraries belonging to the theological and preparatory departments, amounting to about 20,000 volumes more. The nine directors of the seminary are by right members of the university council, the superior of the seminary being ex ofticio rector of the university. The other members of the council are the three senior professors in each of the faculties of divinity, law, medicine, and arts. The Roman Catholic archbishop of Que- bec is ex officio visitor of the university ; to him belongs the appointment of the professors of divinity and canon law, and the conferring of all degrees in the same. In 1875 there were five titular professors in divinity and its kindred sciences, six in law, nine in medicine, and five titular and six associate professors in arts, and one honorary professor and three tutors or professors charge* de court. The divinity course embraces four years, the law course three years, and the medical course four years. There are six affiliated colleges: the college or preparatory seminary of Quebec, the col- lege of Nicolet, the college of Ste. Anne de la Pocatiere, the college of Ste. Therese de Blainville, the college of St. Joseph, Three Rivers, and that of St. Germain, Rimouski. The affiliated theological seminaries are those of Quebec, Ste. Anne de la Pocatiere, and St. Germain de Rimouski. About 40 priests and theological students are employed in va- rious capacities: of these the board of direc- tors, or the corporation of the seminary, re- ceive no salary, being provided with all ne- cessaries at an annual expense of about $250 for each. The auxiliary priests receive, be- sides their board, a salary of $100 ; the tutors or disciplinarians who are theological students have each a yearly salary of $55 ; and the whole amount of salaries is considerably less than $2,000. In 1874 there were in all 290 university students, of whom 55 were in the divinity school, 36 in the law school, 93 in the medical school, and 106 in the junior and se- nior classes of philosophy. Besides the uni- versity, Quebec has the Laval normal and model school, founded in January, 1857, under the superintendence of the Hon. Pierre J. O. Chauveau ; the Morrin college, the only non- episcopal Protestant one in the province ; and the Quebec high school. Morrin college oc- cupies the old prison in the centre of the up- per town; it has 10 professors, but is inade- quately patronized. The high school has been always very successful, and has 200 students, with a large staff of professors and a handsome library. The other principal schools are : the Ursuline convent, founded in 1639, having in 1875 89 nuns, and educating 260 boarders, 140
