THE UNIVERSITY ESTABLISHED.
The college continued to grow and, after the union of 1875, obtained a building of its own in the northern part of Winnipeg. It became in 1877, along with the Church of England College of St. John and the Roman Catholic College of St. Boniface, a part of the University of Manitoba, which was established in that year. From the first it took the lead in the University of Manitoba, and to-day has upwards of one hundred and eighty graduates in Arts. Dr. Black was among the earliest representatives of the college on the council of the university. The needs of the college became so great that in 1881 the beautiful college building represented in the accompanying cut was erected at a cost of $40,000. The Marquis of Lome laid the corner stone of the new college. Dr. Black lived to see the erection of the building, but passed away too soon to witness its occupation in the autumn of 1882.
The difficulties of the college were many during these early years. As has been said, "this part of its history was the period of uncertainty, and of many sleepless nights for its professors. Eleven or twelve years of no visible means of support, of inevitable friction, arising from the necessary change from Kildonan to Winnipeg, of an utterly insufficient staff for undertaking the university work in which it early took part, and of its professors each weighted down with as much missionary work as an ordinary missionary, to enable them to gain remuneration from the Home Mission Committee—these were the struggles of development with which the young organism grew into strength." No one was more sympathetic than John Black in encouraging the professors in their toil.
During its whole history Manitoba College has been a missionary centre for the west. The authorities of the college have always been anxious to make the college in every way useful to the Church. Its professors have taken a very active part in the home mission work and Indian missions, and its students have been strongly possessed with the missionary spirit. Before the college had the status of a theological college, in co-operation with the Presbytery of Manitoba, it gave instruction to students in theology with the approval of the General Assembly. In the year following that of the death of Dr. Black, Manitoba College was granted a regular theological department, and this part of the college work has been well organized and maintained under Dr. King and Professor Baird. No less than 81 graduates in theology have left the walls of the college between 1878 and the present time (1897). In token of its absorbing interest in home mission work, Manitoba College has willingly placed itself at the service of the Church in conducting a summer session in theology, for the better supply of the mission stations of the synods of Manitoba and British Columbia. Dr. Black would have greatly rejoiced, could he have seen the present prosperity of the institution for which he prayed and labored so long.