The Principal declared his intention of remaining in possession of Burnside House, and he wrote to the Board that “no precise period is fixed for my vacating the premises.” The Board contended that they “desired an amicable adjustment of such differences as had unfortunately existed”; but for several years no adjustment was made. It is unnecessary to enter here into the details of the subsequent dispute between the Board and the Principal and Governors over the occupancy of Burnside House. It was but one of many unfortunate disagreements in which each side contended for what they believed to be just. The Principal's account for repairs to the property was in the end paid and in November, 1839, he vacated Burnside House. But the controversy between the two bodies did not then end.
In the summer of 1839, the Governors decided to ignore the Board and to seek direct aid from the Provincial Government. They asked for a grant of £5,000 for building purposes and £5,000 for the purchase of philosophical apparatus, furniture and books for a Library. They included also £100 a year for a Professor of Classical Literature and £100 a year for a Professor of Mathematics; £50 each for two Divinity Lecturers, one of the Anglican Church and one of the Church of Scotland; £50 each for three Medical Professors; and £50 for a Professor of Law “much wanted.” They expressed their desire, if the building fund was granted, to rent Burnside House and with the proceeds therefrom to pay for a building in town for the Medical School. “The Medical Faculty,” they said, “could then go into immediate operation, and all the other Professors, with the exception of the Principal, could also commence instruction at their respective residences.” Apparently it was their opinion that the Medical School had not yet begun to operate as an integral part of the University. For obvious reasons the above appeal failed. The Government declined to interfere. The grant was not made and the Governors of the College turned again with reluctance to the Royal Institution.
There was likewise further difficulty in connection with the amended Charter, which the Home authorities had not yet ratified. The Board of the Royal Institution had been asked by the Governor-General for their detailed opinions and suggestions on necessary amendments. The Board was slow to answer. The delay was preventing the appointment of Professors and the growth of the College. The hands of the Governors were tied. On August 11, 1839, the Principal wrote to Sir John Colborne, the Governor-General, protesting against the continued failure to decide the issue. “When I agreed to the appointment of another Principal in my room,” he said, “it was in the confident expectation that the amended Charter would have been in our possession before this period. By that Charter I should retain my office of Governor of the College even if vacated by my resignation of the Office of Principal, but as obstacles are thrown in the way of a speedy accomplishment of the wishes of the Governors in respect of the amended Charter, I feel myself constrained to retain the office of Principal until the Charter shall have been procured.” He also objected on behalf of the Governors to the appointment of any Professors and to the opening of the College, except the Medical Department, until approval was given to the Charter. Possibly the fact that the amended Charter permitted the acting-Principal, after his retirement, still to be a Governor of the College as Rector of Christ Church, Montreal, influenced the Board in their disapproval of it. For the quarrel was not always above personal prejudices, to which the advancement of the College was often unfortunately sacrificed.
On August 17th, 1839, the Board at last broke their silence, and in a letter to Sir John Colborne they gave utterance to their reasons for opposition. They blamed the Governors for not having first submitted the Charter to them before sending it to the Colonial Office,—and in this they were well within their rights. They had not, they said, even seen a certified copy of the document. They now agreed, however, that the existing Charter required alteration. They suggested that all the Governors of the College should be residents of the Province, but they objected to giving the Governors power to fill vacancies as they occurred, as this would lead in the end to a clique or cabal rule which would lead to abuses in the management of the Institution. The number of Professorships should, they thought, be left unlimited, at the joint discretion of the Governors and the Board. The Governors were to be subservient in power to the Board, and all appointments were to be ratified by the Crown. There should also be permission given for the granting of Honorary degrees. The Visitatorial duties and powers of the Royal Institution should be more clearly defined. “The Board,” the letter stated, “also think it important, seeing that the declared object of the Royal Charter was the promotion of true religion, that the body of the Governors should be Protestants, and they beg leave also to call the particular attention of your Excellency to the necessity of introducing some provision into the amended Charter for requiring not only the Principal, Vice-Principal and Professors, and all others engaged in the instruction of youth in the University, but also the Governors themselves before being admitted to office, to make and subscribe a declaration of their belief in the Holy Scriptures as the Word of God, and in the doctrine of the Trinity of persons in the Godhead, as held by orthodox Protestant Churches.”
To the majority of these suggestions the Governors agreed. But they denied the right of the members of the Board to exercise so great a power as such suggestions, if carried out, would give them. They protested against the necessity of having appointments ratified by the Crown. There was a rapid cross-fire of correspondence to the Governor-General, in which the various suggestions were presented and answered by each of the contending parties. But into the details of this long-continued and at times bitter correspondence it is unnecessary here further to enter. Meanwhile the Charter waited.
In the autumn of 1839, the Medical School was in need of funds. They appealed to the Governors. The Governors had no money, but they voted £500, and on September 19th, they applied to the Royal Institution for a grant of that amount “in order to enable them to commence a course of Medical Instruction.” The Board refused in the following letter forwarded on October 12th: “The Board resolve with regret that they cannot give sanction to this vote of the Governors, as they conceive themselves bound in the first instance to apply the means at their disposal for purposes of general instruction, and those means are so limited as to render it impossible to grant the sum demanded by the Medical Faculty without sacrificing general to one branch of professional education.... The Board are, however, fully aware of the advantages to McGill College and to the public generally which the proposed course of Medical lectures cannot fail to be attended with.” They hoped at a later date “to be able to entertain the application,” if the appeal for funds recently made to the Government should succeed.
Principal Bethune desired to procure a legal decision before a competent tribunal on the Board's refusal to make the above grant. The Governor of the Province was appealed to, but as he was about to leave Canada at the end of his term of office he again declined to interfere. He felt, too, with reference to a Provincial grant that he was only authorised to issue from the funds of the Province such a sum as was absolutely necessary to carry on educational work until a meeting of the Special Council could make provision for such an object and also for the voting of “a sum of money towards the erecting of McGill College.” The discussion was finally closed by a resolution of the Board on the 4th of April, 1840, in which they said that in addition to having voted £8,000 for the erection of a building they had provided for the establishment of three Professorships with £300 a year for each chair, and an additional £100 for the Principal. “In these arrangements,” they pointed out, “the Board did not lose sight of the necessity of subsequently providing for the instruction of students in the Medical and Legal professions, but they were clearly of opinion that in the actual state of the funds, these objects, however desirable, must be postponed for the opening of the Institution in the other branches of general education. To these arrangements the Governors offered no material objection and it was obvious that the resources at the disposal of the Board did not warrant any material increase of expenditure.” With reference to the requested grant for the Medical School, they expressed surprise that such a demand should be made on their scanty and already inadequate resources, and they declared that they “would not be justified in the administration of their trust, in suffering their resources to be diminished for any object however desirable or important but that which they conscientiously judged the most desirable and important and primarily contemplated in the will of Mr. McGill,—which was the providing of collegiate education.” There the discussion ended. The Medical School continued to be regarded as an independent institution, under the protection of the McGill authorities for the purpose merely of legalising their degrees. The Board had won in their contention, and the question was temporarily dropped.
In the meantime, during the brief armistice between the Governors and the Royal Institution, plans for the College building had been agreed upon and the contract had been let. The original plans had been greatly modified so that the expenditure might be in keeping with the funds available. But even with many changes the first estimate of £5,000 was soon found to have increased in fact to between £10,000 and £12,000. One of the original plans herewith reproduced, and typical of all the plans submitted, called for a large building in the form of the letter H. The two main wings looked east and west, instead of north and south as at present, and between them was a connecting structure. Rooms were provided for 100 students. The Medical building was to be separate. The College building was to have a Chapel, but it was also to have a large “cellar for beer and wine.” Certain sections attached to the building were distinctly classified and designated “for Professors,” “for McGill students,” and “for servants and Medical students.” It was found that such a building would entail too great an expense, and the plans were changed to provide two buildings, the present Central Arts Building and the present East Wing, or Administration Offices. The latter was intended to contain the Principal's apartments and rooms for Professors, and there the Principal subsequently dwelt for several years. Between the two buildings provision was made for a covered passage.
