François-Xavier Garneau (1809-1866) was a French-Canadian historian whose "Histoire du Canada" was the first serious interpretation of Canada's past.

The parents of François-Xavier Garneau were illiterate, and his primary education was rudimentary. But he had the good fortune to go, at the age of 11, to a new school founded by Joseph-François Perrault, whose outstanding efforts to raise Quebec's educational level must have marked this pupil profoundly.

Travels and Early Employment

Thus at the age of 16 Garneau was apprenticed to the well-to-do lawyer Archibald Campbell, gaining professional status and considerable cultural enrichment. During this time he made his first journey to New York and published his first poem.

In 1831 Garneau embarked on a visit to England which lasted almost 2 years and included two trips to France. He thus had a firsthand view of the British constitution during the Great Reform period. He was...