SEMINARY OF ST ANNE. 339 



rate of board is £17, 10s., as at Quebec, and the whole 

 expenses about £20 a-year. I was surprised to find in 

 so remote a spot a college containing so many pupils, 

 and interested in the fact that so many of the habitants 

 should be in a condition to pay even so comparatively 

 moderate a sum for the education of their children. 

 This institution enjoys a considerable reputation, and 

 has pupils from Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. 

 There are twenty such seminaries, it is said, in Lower 

 Canada; and it was formerly objected, as a matter of 

 reproach to the habitants, that too many of their young 

 men received at these numerous seminaries a classical 

 education, unfitting them for ordinary rural labour, 

 while too few received that elementary education which 

 our common schools are intended to impart. This 

 reproach is still in some degree applicable ; but the 

 influence of the United States and of Upper Canada 

 must by degrees bring the school-system of the Lower 

 St Lawrence more into conformity with the general 

 tendencies of the age in which we live. 



Near Kamouraska church and faubourg, the lower 

 bay of this name also contains good flat land, and, with 

 occasional interruptions, similar land stretches along the 

 shore as we descend. Inland valleys also, parallel to the 

 St Lawrence, exist behind the rocky ridges which suc- 

 cessively occur as we advance into the interior, in which 

 good laud, more or less granted and settled, prevails. 

 Should foreign settlers continue to shun this region, 

 there is ample room for the natural expansion of the 

 native population for many years to come. 



And yet the French habitants in this cold region of 

 North America increase very rapidly. For this increase 

 there are several reasons. One is, the early marriages 

 to which both sexes are addicted among the people of 

 French descent. At Kamouraska I had stopped a few 

 moments to obtain a fresh horse and carriage, and, on 



