Sir Wilfrid Laurier National Historic Site of Canada
The One-Time Model Student Turns Liberal Polemicist
Wilfrid Laurier as a preparatory school student
© Collection du Musée Laurier
Wilfrid Laurier continued his education at the Collège de L'Assomption,
a preparatory school. Following graduation as class valedictorian, he enrolled
at the Law Faculty of McGill University. Upon completing his studies in 1864,
he was admitted to the bar that same year.
Wilfrid Laurier practised law in Montreal for a few years. During this period,
he frequented Montreal's liberal circles and, as a reporter and orator, he took
part in the political debates of the time. However, his fragile health prompted
him to leave the city. Upon being nominated editor of Le Défricheur,
a newspaper, he moved to the town of L'Avenir. Not long afterwards, he moved
again, this time to Arthabaska, where he settled permanently. As director of
a "rouge" (i.e., secular, progressive-minded) newspaper, he energetically
combated Confederation in 1867. The impassioned idealist of the time was far
from imagining that one day he would himself reach his own pinnacle of glory
as Prime Minister of this same Confederation.