Schools.—Montreal provides for the education of its young people through two distinct systems of public schools, one for Roman Catholics, the other for Protestants, each governed by a board of commissioners. The schools are maintained by an annual tax based upon the assessment. Unlike the neighbouring province of Ontario, Quebec makes no provision for a state university. But James McGill (1744-1813) left property valued at the time of his death at £30,000 for the foundation of a college. A royal charter conferring university powers was obtained in 1821. During early years slow progress was made, but with the appointment of Sir William Dawson as principal, in 1855, the institution entered on a career of prosperity. It now embraces ten faculties, arts, applied science, law, medicine, dentistry, pharmacy, agriculture, music, commerce and graduate studies. The finely-equipped Mac donald scientific laboratories, with the Redpath Museum and University Library (275,00o vols. in 1928) form part of a noble group of buildings on the campus in Montreal. Two of these were destroyed by fire in 1907 but have since been rebuilt. The Univer sity of Montreal (French) embraces the faculties of arts, den tistry, law, medicine, philosophy, science and theology. The col lege library (5o,000 vols. in 1928) has been enriched by a rare collection of Canadian books and manuscripts, bequeathed by Judge Louis Francois Georges Baby (1834-1906) of Montreal. The administrative buildings of this University were destroyed by fire in 1919. The University will be housed in new and much larger buildings at the foot of Mount Royal. Of other educational institutions in the city the most important is St. Mary's College, founded in 1848 by the Jesuits, and removed to the present build ing in 1855. The archives boast a notable collection of early Canadian manuscripts. Historical collections are housed in the Chateau de Ramesay, dating from 1704, and in the McCord Museum, McGill University.
Industries.—Montreal's position as the chief port for the trade of the Dominion, is largely due to the foresight of her great mer chants. With the gradual opening up of the means of communica tion by land and water, and the development of her facilities for handling the exports and imports of the country, the city has in creased rapidly in importance. In shipments of grain, as well as in dairy produce, Montreal has far outstripped all her rivals.
The total grain receipts in 1928 were 217,316,874 bushels. Mont real now stands fifth among the great ports of the world. The port facilities are thoroughly up-to-date and keep pace with the rapidly growing needs of the city. There were 2,900 factories in
the city in 1928 including very large flour mills.
Montreal is governed by a Mayor and 35 aldermen, elected every two years. The city returns 13 members to the Dominion House of Commons and 11 to the Provincial legislature of Quebec. The population of the city, according to the census of 1921, was 618,506; 1931, 818,577. With the suburbs, it was estimated at about ,000poo, more than half French.
History.—The history of the town is steeped in romance. From that first remarkable scene, so graphically described by Francis Parkman, when, on the 18th of May 1642, Maisonneuve and his little band of religious enthusiasts landed upon the spot where the Montreal Customs House now stands, and planted, in the words of the saintly Dumont, a grain of mustard seed destined to overshadow the land, the history of the town was to be inti mately associated with missionary enterprise and such heroism as the world has rarely seen. Montreal began as a religious colony, but its very situation, on the outer confines of civilization and at the door of the Iroquois country, forced it to become a military settlement, a fortified town with a military garrison. Similarly its position, even then an ideal one from a commercial point of view, made it the dominating centre of the fur trade. For a hundred years after its foundation these three influences held sway. Within another hundred years, they had become but atoms in a larger and more varied population. The fur trader of New France, merged after the conquest in the fur trader of the North West Company, remained for a time the one picturesque survival of earlier and more romantic days. Finally he too disappeared.