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Home > Catholic Encyclopedia > Q > The Province of Quebec


THE PROVINCE OF QUEBEC

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GEOGRAPHY

The province of Quebec occupies mainly the two slopes of the vast basin formed
by the St. Lawrence River whose course runs chiefly between the Laurentian and
Alleghany ranges. Its boundaries are: to the north, the district of Ungava; to
the northeast, Labrador; to the east, the Gulf of St. Lawrence; to the
southeast, New Brunswick, and the States of Maine and New Hampshire; to the
south, the States of Vermont and New York, and the Counties of Glengarry and
Prescott in Ontario; to the west, the province of Ontario. Quebec is comprised
between the 45th and 54th degrees of latitude north, and the 57th and 79th
degrees of longitude west of Greenwich. Its area measures 354,873 square miles;
about equal to that of the United Kingdom, France, Belgium, and Holland united.
No country in the world of the same extent possesses so many and so abundant
waterways, chief of which are the St. Lawrence, discharging the Great Lakes, and
navigable to its very source, and its principal tributaries: the Ottawa, the St.
Maurice and the Saguenay, each of which surpasses in navigableness the largest
rivers of Europe. Innumerable cascades falling from the Laurentian heights
represent boundless mechanical forces; the forest resources of Quebec are still
immense, and its asbestos mines the richest in the world. The principal cities
are:



Quebec, the capital, founded in 1608, population, according to the last census
(1901), 68,840; Montreal founded 1642, population, exclusive of lately annexed
municipalities, 267,730; Three Rivers, founded 1634, population, 9981;
Sherbrooke, 11,765; Hull, 13,993; Valleyfield, 11,055. Quebec, the capital, long
enjoyed a political, military, and commercial superiority over all Canada.
Although since surpassed in material prosperity, it still appeals to the scholar
and student, teeming as it is with historical interest, while to the tourist it
offers a view of magnificence and picturesqueness perhaps unique in the world.
Here landed the discoverers of the country and the founders of the nation;
hither came the bare-footed Recollect, the black-robed Jesuit, the Ursuline and
the hospital Sisters; here the noble and saintly Laval ruled the infant Church
of New France; from hence the Faith radiated throughout North America. Here was
born Joliet, the discoverer of the Mississippi; here the viceroys held court;
here flourished, from the very outset, many of the dearest devotions of the
Church. Laval's first cathedral was dedicated in 1666 to the Immaculate
Conception; the cult of the Holy Family was approved in 1665, a fact lauded by
Leo XIII in his Letter "Neminem fugit" (14 June, 1892); the first celebration of
the Feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus in the New World took place in the
Ursuline chapel (1700); Traditions of courtesy as well as of piety were created
that have left their impress on the people's character. Almost the entire
population of the province of Quebec, i.e. about five-sixths, consists of
French-Canadians; the remainder comprises chiefly the descendants of English,
Scotch, and Irish immigrants. About 12,000 Indians and half-breeds of the
Iroquois, Huron, Micmac, Abenaki, and Montagnais tribes occupy reservations in
different sections of the province. With one or two exceptions, these aborigines
are instructed by missionaries in their respective tongues, which they have
faithfully preserved in spite of their environment.


PRESENT CONDITIONS

Although there is no state religion, and freedom of worship is sanctioned by
law, the immense majority of the population being Catholic in faith and
practice, the relations between Church and State are, as a rule, harmonious. The
hierarchy and clergy are habitually treated with due consideration and respect,
in recognition not only of their sacred character, but also of the efficient
part they have ever taken in the moral as well as the social well-being of the
country. Public order, education in every degree, agriculture, colonization, and
even industry, all owe a debt to the influence of the Church, which the
political authorities are prone to recognize. In all public religious
demonstrations, such as the procession of Corpus Christi, the dignitaries of the
State occupy a prominent rank. The province of Quebec comprises three
metropolitan sees: Quebec, Montreal, and Ottawa. That of Quebec counts four
suffragan dioceses: Three Rivers, Rimouski, Chicoutimi, Nicolet, and one
vicariate apostolic, the Gulf of St. Lawrence. The suffragan sees of Montreal
are: St. Hyacinth, Sherbrooke, Valleyfield, and Joliette. The ecclesiastical
province of Ottawa, partly situated in Ontario, comprises the Diocese of
Pembroke and the Vicariate Apostolic of Temiscamingue. The Catholic population
of the province, according to the last government census (1901), was 1,449,716,
out of a total of 1,648,898. Later statistics (ecclesiastical), including 1910,
show an increase for the two ecclesiastical provinces of Quebec and Montreal,
and exclusive of that portion of the civil province depending on the
metropolitan See of Ottawa, of 163,611, giving a total Catholic population for
1910 of 1,613,327, Quebec and suffragan sees having a total of 731,609, and
Montreal, with its suffragans, of 789,502. This increase in a province where
race-suicide is unknown and families proverbially numerous, in spite of a
notable infantile death-rate, should be far greater, were it not for the
continuous flow of emigration to the United States and to the western provinces
of Canada, with a comparatively small immigration from Europe. This emigration
of French Canadians, according to authentic statistics, amounted to 10,000 for
the single year of 1909. (For history, see CANADA.)




CORRECTION

All penitentiaries and prisons are provided with Catholic chaplains subsidized
by the State, and feast-days of obligation, as well as Sunday, are observed.
Reformatories for youth are managed at the public expense by the Brothers of
Charity for older boys, by the Sisters of the Good Shepherd for girls, and by
the Sisters of Charity for younger children of both sexes, the Government
contributing in the last two cases a per capita sum for a limited number of
juveniles. The two largest sanitaria in the province are managed, by government
contract, by the Sisters of Providence and of Charity, in Montreal and Quebec,
respectively. Homes for idiots, enjoying government subsidies, are likewise in
the care of religious. According to the latest criminal statistics (1908), the
province of Quebec, with a ratio of 13.91 per 10,000 of population, comes fourth
in order of excellence, after the three maritime provinces, where there has been
no immigration within the last decade; and third for number of convictions
according to population, being one for each 96 inhabitants, Prince Edward Island
and New Brunswick alone surpassing Quebec.


EDUCATION

The public-school system in the province of Quebec, without being ideal, is, in
a notable measure, respectful of the rights of the family and of the Church.
This desirable condition results mainly from the constitution of the Council of
Public Instruction, composed, ex officio, of the hierarchy of the province
representing the Church, and of an equal number of laymen. The latter are
nominated exclusively by the lieutenant governor in council. The council is
presided over by a superintendent of public instruction who represents the
State; there is no minister of education, and politics are thereby partly
excluded from the administration. Several principals of normal schools and lay
professors have lately been added to the council. The council has the power to
distribute a limited portion of the public moneys for primary and classical
schools, to propose certain nominees to normal schools and to the board of
examiners for teaching licences, to approve or reject all text-books. But its
powers are more advisory than legislative, nearly all its deliberations being
subject to government sanction. A committee similarly organized attends to the
educational interests of the Protestant minority. The most striking feature of
the Quebec school law is the absolute liberty enjoyed by each of the two chief
religious denominations of controlling its own schools agreeably to the wishes
of parents. In municipalities where they form the majority, Catholics cannot
interfere with the rights of Protestants, and vice versa. In this respect, of
all the school laws of the dominion, that of Quebec may justly be considered as
the fairest and most conducive to religious harmony; never was a majority so
liberal towards a minority. The school grants are even proportionally larger to
the latter (the Protestant minority) than to the former. It has been rightly
proclaimed that nowhere has the separate school law been more generously and
conscientiously applied, and that, to the honour of French Catholic Quebec,
there has never been any occasion to invoke government interference for the
protection of the minority. This fair treatment extends likewise to the
language. The French-speaking province of Quebec amply provides for the
requirements of the English-speaking minorities, as regards education in their
mother tongue. Moreover, a course of English, in many cases quite efficient, is
given in every French school of the intermediate and higher grades. It must be
noted that there is only one school law for the province, under which all
schools, Catholic and Protestant, are organized. To interest the people more
deeply in the schools and give greater unity and strength to the system, the
legislature has grafted it on the parish organization. Each parish is thus
incorporated three times:

 * for church affairs;
 * for municipal affairs;
 * for school affairs.

The parish priest is eligible as school commissioner, and has the right to visit
the schools with the exclusive choice of textbooks relating to religion. In
parishes where there is a Protestant minority, the minority has a right to a
dissentient separate school, controlled by special trustees. Lay inspectors,
nominated by the governor in council, visit all schools under control of the
school commissioners; diocesan clerical inspectors, chosen by the respective
bishops, are authorized to visit even schools receiving a partial grant from the
Government. Normal or training schools, based on the principle of
denominationalism, were definitively created in 1857, two for the Catholics, one
in Quebec for both sexes, the Laval, and one in Montreal, the Jacques-Cartier,
for male teachers, and one for Protestants, in Montreal, the McGill. Recently,
normal schools for women teachers only have been established in Montreal, Three
Rivers, Rimouski, Chicoutimi, St. Hyacinth, Hull, Sherbrooke, Valleyfield,
Nicolet, and Joliette, under the management of religious communities, and
grafted on pre-existing educational institutions. In each of the ten Catholic
normal schools of the province, the principal is a priest nominated by the
Catholic committee. Another late improvement is the establishment of special
schools of domestic economy under the management of sisters. (For legislation
relating to the Church, see CANADA.)

The latest report of the superintendent of public education for the school year
1909-10 gives the following general statistics for the province of Quebec:
schools, 6760; teachers, 14,000; pupils, 394,945; average attendance, 308,982;
average per cent, 78.23. The same report shows an increase above the figures of
the year previous of 7552 in the number of pupils. There has also been a
considerable increase in the expenditure, due to grants for technical schools,
and to the newly organized normal schools. The total government outlay for
1909-10 was $6,210,530, showing an increase above that of 1907-08 of $1,744,993.
The contrast between the amount spent and the number of schools, teachers, and
pupils, instead of signifying an inferior quality of education, testifies to the
economy wrought by the employment of teaching religious orders, 5805 of whose
members (out of a total of 14,000 teachers) are employed in the public schools.
(For statistics regarding universities, classical colleges, and the several
teaching orders, see CANADA.)

The accompanying table of comparative school statistics for the entire dominion
was published officially by the Department of the Interior in 1908. (Those
marked with an asterisk are estimated.)

 * Canada: 22,971 schools; 44,896 teachers; 1,214,457 pupils; 776,968 average
   attendance; $19,370,538 expenditures
 * Alberta: 1,070 schools; 1,171 teachers; 39,109 pupils; *17,311 average
   attendance; 282,205 expenditures
 * British Columbia: 422 schools; 816 teachers; 33,314 pupils; 23,558 average
   attendance; 1,220,509 expenditures
 * Manitoba (1907): 1,943 schools; 2,480 teachers; 67,144 pupils; 37,279 average
   attendance; 324,836 expenditures
 * New Brunswick: 1,828 schools; 1,903 teachers; 66,383 pupils; 38,584 average
   attendance; 776,320 expenditures
 * Nova Scotia: 2,516 schools; 2,664 teachers; 101,725 pupils; 58,343 average
   attendance; 1,215,500 expenditures
 * Ontario: *6,413 schools; *10,643 teachers; *478,549 pupils; *284,988 average
   attendance; *8,769,876 expenditures
 * Prince Edward Island: 476 schools; 580 teachers; 18,012 pupils; 11,646
   average attendance; 176,092 expenditures
 * Quebec: 6,549 schools; 13,139 teachers; 372,599 pupils; 285,418 average
   attendance; 4,465,537 expenditures
 * Saskatchewan: 1,754 schools; 1,500 teachers; *37,622 pupils; *19,841 average
   attendance; *2,139,663 expenditures

Of the two oldest provinces of the dominion, Ontario and Quebec, the latter
stands first as regards the number of schools, of teachers, and of average
attendance, being inferior only in the number of pupils (irrespective of the
ratio to each population), and in expenditure. About one-eleventh of the number
of pupils in the province of Quebec are non-Catholics. The following table,
based on the preceding statistics, shows the relative standing of each province
of the dominion, according to the percentage of average attendance for 1908:

 * Alberta: 17,311 average attendance (44.26%)
 * British Columbia: 23,558 average attendance (70.71%)
 * Manitoba: 37,279 average attendance (55.52%)
 * New Brunswick: 38,584 average attendance (56.42%)
 * Nova Scotia: 58,343 average attendance (57.35%)
 * Ontario: 284,988 average attendance (59.55%)
 * Prince Edward Island: 11,646 average attendance (64.65%)
 * Quebec: 285,418 average attendance (76.36%)
 * Saskatchewan: 19,841 average attendance (52.73%)




SOURCES

Resource map. Department of the Interior, Dominion of Canada (Ottawa, 1908);
Rapport du surintendant de l'instruction publique (Quebec, 1909); PAQUET,
L'Église et l'éducation au Canada (Quebec, 1909); ANGLIN, Catholic Education in
Canada in Catholic Educational Association Bulletin (Columbus, O., Aug., 1910);
HOPKINS, Canada. An encyclopedia of the country (Toronto, 1898); Le Canada
ecclésiastique (Montréal, 1911); Criminal Statistics (Ottawa, 1909).


ABOUT THIS PAGE

APA citation. Lindsay, L. (1911). The Province of Quebec. In The Catholic
Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company.
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/12598a.htm

MLA citation. Lindsay, Lionel. "The Province of Quebec." The Catholic
Encyclopedia. Vol. 12. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1911.
<http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/12598a.htm>.

Transcription. This article was transcribed for New Advent by Douglas J. Potter.
Dedicated to the Immaculate Heart of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

Ecclesiastical approbation. Nihil Obstat. June 1, 1911. Remy Lafort, S.T.D.,
Censor. Imprimatur. +John Cardinal Farley, Archbishop of New York.

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