To make available online, samples of the archives of the Institut Canadien which are available at the Fraser-Hickson Library in Montreal. Some samples are the list of members, book catalog as well as miscellaneous documents concerning the Institut Canadien which are part of the archives.
This website is not intended to be a history lesson on the Institut Canadien or the Guibbord Affair, however further information on both subjects is available at the Fraser-Hickson Library.
Below is an excerpt from the book: The Fraser-Hickson Institute: An Informal History
The Institut Canadien came into being in Montreal shortly after Vattemare's visit, but it owed nothing to his ideas. In its early ages, the Institut Canadien probably did devote most of its energies to the cultural advancement of its members. It set a high standard in its lectures and debates, on most occasions avoiding affront to cherished beliefs, but it was not entirely free from the advanced ideas of some of its leading spirits. Too precise a statement is impossible, since in 1850 one of the devastating fires to which Montreal was prone swept through the heart of the city. In it were destroyed the library of 1550 volumes and all the records of the Institut Canadien.
It is a rare achievement to be able to write the history of an institution with as much vividness as the life of a person. Yet this is what Edgar C. Moodey has been able to do in this history of the Fraser-Hickson Institute. It is not the stiff and arid "institutional history" - putting down on the record the essential facts for reference purposes in years to come. The story he tells has all the human qualities, the insights into human experience, that give biography its power to hold the reader's attention. After all, a library is a particularly human thing - a living thing with a soul of its own, needing nutriment, adjustments to changing realities, and a sense of fulfilment. The story of the Fraser-Hickson Institute has all the human elements of vision, struggle, conflict, determination, doubt, frustration, hope, courage and service.
Yet, through all the flux of time, as Mr. Moodey's narrative reveals, the Fraser-Hickson Institute has adhered to one unalterable purpose: to provide a free public library, and to provide it with a free spirit. For many years it was, in fact, the only free public library in Montreal; and it has resisted all pressures and propositions that would have subjected it to control by other organizations or interests.
