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102 Education in French colonies. [i608- and flogging with rods and cords was to be the severest form of chastise- ment. In 1686 the testimony of the slave was made good in cases where white witnesses were wanting, but not against the master. In the English Barbados there was in 1688 no fine for punishing the slave in life or limb, and only a penalty of ^15 for wanton, cruel killing ; the absence of provision for taking slave evidence in many British colonies made the protective clauses of the law nugatory. In the French colonies the ecclesiastical power was often exercised in the defence of slaves, and such writers as Labat, who had practical experience and literary power, made known in France how cruelly the slaves were treated. Their wretched life, he says, gives a bad opinion of our religion; all agree that there is nothing in the world more fearful than the existence they lead. He describes the French Catholics as no whit better than the English and Dutch heretics, and instances the insatiable avarice and horrible harshness of some habitants. The opinion prevails that the Spaniards made on the whole the best masters of slaves, as being less commercially minded, more inclined to sympathize with indolence, more lenient on the colour question, and more successful in making permanent homes in tropical countries where the English and French lived but temporarily. The Mulatto population in the French colonies generally bore a larger proportion to the white than in the British. In the French Antilles the presence of a large number of priests, of various and rival orders, insured the permanent existence of an element of civilisation. In the British islands the dearth of priests and churches, and the incompleteness of the whole parochial organisation was matter of common remark. Although in the West Indies the French provided better for educa- tion than the English, in Canada the complaints of inadequate provision were very general. The Jesuits were there singularly unsuccessful in establishing the schools with large classes characteristic of their method, and the attempts to provide for higher education were more active in the early than in the later years of the colony. The chief source of failure was the absence of students, for the scanty population was wholly absorbed in the struggle for existence. The literary and scientific workers were for the most part not Canadians, but Frenchmen who came to the country for a time, and returned home to write of what they had seen. It was early noticed that the women were better educated than the men, and possessed in consequence great social influence. The fact that not a single newspaper or book was printed in the French colonies before the middle of the eighteenth century is perhaps the most startling and impressive in the whole history of French coloni- sation. From early times the Spanish colonies, under the licence of the Council of the Indies, had presses, which issued large and important works of travel and history. Kalm, writing of Canada in 1748-49, says that the one press which had existed had closed. " All the orders made