French-Canadian Education and Culture in the 19th Century

In the second half of the 19th century (after the 1850s), several changes took place in higher education and the culture as a whole: 

• French-language higher learning institutions (universities) educated a new French-Canadian elite.
• French-Canadian identity began to develop through literature and painting.

During the first half of the 19th century, only Anglophones had access to universities in Canada. Two major institutions were opened:

• McGill University (1821): Funded by wealthy businessmen, the university initially focused on science and administration. Future engineers, doctors, and physicists were educated there.
• Bishop’s College (1843): It was founded to serve the regional Anglophone community.

Université Laval was Canada’s very first Francophone university. It was founded in Quebec City in 1852, when the Séminaire de Québec received permission to convert into a university.

Unlike McGill, Université Laval focused on liberal professions. In its early days, it was made up of four faculties:

• Theology
• Medicine
• Law
• Art

The founding of Université Laval contributed to the education of a new French-Canadian elite.
 

Expansion towards Montreal

There was also a need for Francophone higher education in Montreal. In 1878, a campus of Université Laval was opened in the city. In 1920, this satellite campus became an independent institution: Université de Montréal.
 

From the very beginnings of Confederation, the rights of Francophones living outside Quebec were a source of great tension. At the time, many federal politicians held anti-French and anti-Catholic views.

This hostility was only reinforced by the Orange movement. This group rallied around two overarching goals:

• The advancement of British supremacy
• The creation of an exclusively Anglophone and Protestant Canada

Under this influence, some provinces passed laws restricting access to French-language education or Catholic teaching. Francophone minorities had their rights restricted in various regions of the country:

• New Brunswick (1871)
• Manitoba (1890)
• Ontario (early 20th century)

In Quebec, these measures were met with a deep sense of injustice and caused heightened friction with the federal government.

In the mid-19th century, a French-Canadian literature began to develop. This movement was a response to Lord Durham, who stated in his report that French Canadians were a people “without history and without literature.”

Historian François-Xavier Garneau published his Histoire du Canada to demonstrate the richness of French Canadian heritage. By 1860, this book had inspired a new literary trend in Quebec: patriotic literature. A group of authors, including Octave Crémazie, formed around Abbé Henri-Raymond Casgrain. Their works, influenced by romanticism, praise the heroes of New France, the Catholic religion, and rural life. This movement rejected urbanization and promoted the values of nationalism of survival and agriculturalism.

The Montreal Literary School was founded in 1895 with a focus on modernism and poetry. Its member authors defied established conventions to explore new horizons. In doing so, they turned away from traditional values—a drastic departure from the patriotic literature of the era

These authors held meetings and talks, as well as readings where members shared their works, mainly poems. By championing free expression with no prescribed themes, the Montreal School gave creatives like renowned poet Émile Nelligan the freedom to explore universal themes such as love, the human condition, and death. The Montreal Literary School had a major influence on the development of Quebec literature in the early 20th century.

The 19th century also saw the emergence of women’s literature in the form of poetry, tales, short stories, and novels, which developed in parallel with patriotic literature. These authors also explored their French-Canadian and Catholic cultural identity in their works. Most of their writings were published in newspapers and magazines. Print media supported the emergence of women’s literature by asking women to contribute columns or articles. Print media also created demand for literary works, which were often published in serial form—that is, in several parts in different issues of a newspaper or magazine.

Many female authors used pseudonyms when they wrote. They either wrote under a male name or a different female name, since it was still frowned upon for women to write and share their opinions.
 

For a long time, painting in Canada was largely confined to portraits of people. Near the end of the 19th century, an increasing number of painters produced landscapes. Gradually, landscapes came to dominate Canadian painting.

By painting snow-covered landscapes and distinctly Canadian settings, these artists contributed to the creation of a uniquely Canadian identity.