Ryerson Memorial Volume / Prepared on the occasion of the unveiling of the Ryerson statute in the grounds of the Education department on the Queen's birthday, 1889

by J. George Hodgins

Dr. Ryerson a Commissioner on King's College, etc., New Brunswick in 1854.

On the 1st of May, 1854, the Legislature of New Brunswick passed an Act empowering the Lieutenant-Governor to appoint a Royal Commission:—

"To enquire into the present state of King's College, its management and utility, with a view of improving the same, and rendering that institution more generally useful, and of suggesting the best mode of effecting that desirable object," etc.

In accordance with this Act, Sir Edmund Head, the then Lieutenant-Governor, in August, 1854, appointed the following gentlemen as commissioners, viz.:—Hon. John Hamilton Gray, (late Judge of the High Court of British Columbia), Rev. Dr. Egerton Ryerson, John William (now Sir Wm.) Dawson, Hon. John Simcoe Saunders, and Hon. James Brown.

In accepting the position of commissioner, Dr. Ryerson, at the close of his letter to Provincial Secretary Partelow, said:—

"When I mentioned to the head of the Canadian Administration the request which had been made to me from New Brunswick, and the probability that a compliance with it would cause my absence for two or three weeks from the duties of my department, he thought I ought, by all means, to go—that it was part of my appropriate work, and that we should regard each Province of British North America as a part of our own country.

"New Brunswick is so to me, in a peculiar sense, as the birth-place of my sainted mother and my elder brothers and sisters."

The commission met first at Fredericton, and afterwards at Toronto. To Dr. Ryerson was entrusted the principal duty of drawing up the elaborate report, and in Hon. J. H. Gray's letter as chairman, accompanying the report in December, 1854, he says:

"I beg to express, with the full concurrence of my fellow commissioners, our acknowledgements of the very valuable assistance afforded us by Dr. Ryerson. His great experience and unquestioned proficiency on all subjects connected with education, justly entitle his opinion to great weight."

Sir Wm. Dawson, in a letter to Mr. Gray, thus summarizes the contents of the report:—

"1st. The improvement of the College course of instruction and its extension by the introduction of special courses. 2ndly, The definition of the true place of the Provincial College in its relations to the other educational institutions of the Province, and to the religious beliefs of the people; and 3rdly, The union of all the educational institutions in a Provincial university system, under official supervision."

A change in the Government of New Brunswick in 1854, prevented the report being considered in the Legislature at that time. In a letter from Mr. Gray to Dr. Ryerson, dated May 15, 1855, he says:—

"The change of Government prevented our report being adopted and acted upon, but it met with universal approbation, and from every portion of the Province the voice of praise has gone up. I give you credit for it all; and in my remarks in the House, I made my acknowledgements publicly to you and Mr. Dawson."

In a confidential letter to me, on Separate School matters, from Dr. Ryerson, dated Quebec, January 30, 1858, he said:—

"Sir Edmund Head (now Governor-General), highly approved of my Report, etc., on the New Brunswick College question and has sent it to the authorities of McGill College to see if they cannot adopt something of the same kind."

Mr. Gray had hoped that the comprehensive bill proposed by the commission in 1854, and to give effect to their recommendations relating to King's College, Normal and Model Schools, and a Chief Superintendent of Education, would be passed in the following year, 1855. In this he was disappointed, for the bill did not pass until 1860. In a letter to Dr. Ryerson from the Hon. Charles Fisher, dated Fredericton, 14th May, 1860, he said:—

"After years of controversy and difficulty we have passed an Act to remodel King's College on the plan proposed by your commission, under the title of the University of New Brunswick. We have not connected the College or the head of it with the other educational interests in the Province, but confined him to the University, and he must be a layman. This provision was inserted to prevent difficulty."[54]