Article

Jérôme Demers

Published Online May 19, 2008

Last Edited March 4, 2015

Jérôme Demers, priest, vicar general, architect, teacher (born 1 August 1774 in Saint-Nicolas, QC; died 17 May 1853 in Québec City, Canada East). Demers taught literature, philosophy, architecture and science for over 50 years at the Séminaire de Québec.
Seminaire de Nicolet
1826-33, Nicolet, Que, architect Jerome Demers and Thomas Baillairge (courtesy Archives nationales du Québec: E6, S7, 1384-57, photo N. Bazin, 1957).

Jérôme Demers, priest, vicar general, architect, teacher (born 1 August 1774 in Saint-Nicolas, QC; died 17 May 1853 in Québec City, Canada East). Demers taught literature, philosophy, architecture and science for over 50 years at the Séminaire de Québec and was also superior and bursar of the community. In 1835 he published Institutiones philosophicae ad usum studiosae juventutis, his course notes made over 30 years of teaching and the first Canadian philosophy textbook. A master in communicating his knowledge and in stimulating appreciation of difficult philosophical problems and discoveries in physics and astronomy, Demers also respected his students and treated them with kindness and understanding. He took charge of building the new churches needed in the diocese and drew up plans for others and for the Collège de Nicolet. Demers's advice was also sought by politicians such as his former pupil Louis-Joseph Papineau.