AN EDUCATIONIST.
His bent of mind constantly showed itself in his desire to help forward promising youths. It was not enough to him that the parish school of Kildonan should be the best in the Red River Settlement. He took those who were looking forward to professional life, and in his own study drilled them in the Latin and Greek classics, with which he was so familiar. A number of the Kildonan lads went on to higher positions, led in their earlier stages by his kindly hand.
Higher educational facilities were not wanting to Kildonan, for upon the borders of the parish, and beside the very church where until 1851 the fathers of the Kildonan people had attended public worship, was St. John's College. Here a good education was given, and, so far as known to the writer, there were no restrictions placed upon those students who were not members of the Church of England; but John Black desired to mould the leaders of the Presbyterian people after a fashion to preserve the best traditions of the race from which they sprang.
The small number of people in the Red River Settlement, and their remoteness from highly civilized life, was for a time an objection to the founding of another college on the banks of the Red River. Now, however, the vista of hope was opening out before the country, as a new province was entering on its career as one of the Canadian sisterhood. The Kildonan school reached the culmination of its excellence during the years 1870 and 1871 under the direction of Mr. David B. Whimster, a teacher from western Ontario. The attendance was large, the educational interest was great, and a goodly number of the best pupils were being instructed in Latin and French by Mr. Black. Now seemed the time for carrying out the dream which the Kildonan pastor had long cherished.