"As another note of the state of society at that time may be mentioned occasional advertisements for the sale of negro lads and wenches, or of rewards for the recovery and restoration of missing ones. Slavery was not abolished in Lower Canada till 1803. In Upper Canada, as a separate province, it hardly ever existed. Did the manumitted blacks remain in Canada after their liberation, or did they seek a more congenial climate? "For education there does not seem to have been any public provision, but private schools for both sexes were numerous. These were probably expensive, so that the poorer classes were virtually debarred from the advantages of learning. The instruction of Catholic children was in the hands of the clergy, and it may be that in some of the conventual schools a certain number were admitted free of expense or at reduced rates. It would appear that some of the young ladies were sent to English boarding-schools, if we may judge by advertisements in which the advantages of these institutions are set forth. "A Miss or Mrs. Agnes Galbraith not only taught school, but also carried on the millinery business, to which she informs the public that she had served a regular apprenticeship, besides having been 'a governess for several years to a genteel boarding-school.' "The principal of a boys' school who resided at Three Rivers 'respectfully begs leave to remark that he means to presume no further than he is perfectly able to perform, and build his hope of encouragement on no other foundation than his assiduity to merit it.' His 'course' is nevertheless a pretty full one, including English, French, Latin, Greek, writing in a natural and easy style after the best precedents; arithmetic, vulgar and decimal; geography, with use of the globes; geometry, navigation with all the _late modern_ improvements; algebra, and every other useful and ornamental branch of mathematical learning. Some of the other male teachers write in a similar strain of their qualifications."