24 FRONTEXAC AT QUEBEC. [1672. 



the expediency of civilizing the Indians, teaching 

 them the French language, and amalgamating them 

 with the colonists. Frontenac, ignorant as yet of 

 Indian nature and unacquainted with the difficul- 

 ties of the case, entered into these views with great 

 heartiness. He exercised from the first an extraor- 

 dinary influence over all the Indians with whom 

 he came in contact; and he persuaded the most 

 savage and refractory of them, the Iroquois, to 

 place eight of their children in his hands. Four 

 of these were girls and four were boys. He took 

 two of the boys into his own household, of which 

 they must have proved most objectionable inmates ; 

 and he supported the other two, who were younger, 

 out of his own slender resources, placed them in 

 respectable French families, and required them to 

 go daily to school. The girls were given to the 

 charge of the Ursulines. Frontenac continually 

 urged the Jesuits to co-operate with him in this 

 work of civilization, but the results of his urgency 

 disappointed and exasperated him. He complains 

 that in the village of the Hurons, near Quebec, 

 and under the control of the Jesuits, the French 

 language was scarcely known. In fact, the fathers 

 contented themselves with teaching their converts 

 the doctrines and rites of the Roman Church, while 

 retaining the food, dress, and habits of their origi- 

 nal barbarism. 



In defence of the missionaries, it should be said 

 that, when brought in contact with the French, the 

 Indians usually caught the vices of civilization 

 without its virtues ; but Frontenac made no allow- 



