With the approval of the amended Charter in the autumn of 1852, efforts were made to reorganise the University, and to commence a forward movement. The new Board of Governors authorised and established under the amended Charter found the University in an unsatisfactory and almost hopeless predicament. It was struggling under lamentable deficiencies in its educational arrangements; it was faced by heavy pecuniary embarrassments and altogether inadequate resources. It was, in short, destitute of funds. Even its buildings had been abandoned, but it was hoped only temporarily. Conditions in the Faculty of Arts were particularly bad. Yet there was hope. It was evident to the Governors that an attempt at resuscitation must immediately be undertaken. An agreement was entered into with creditors for the making of small periodical payments with interest. Arrangements were made for the appointment of a competent Treasurer, and for the holding of regular meetings of Governors and of Corporation. A Committee on Ways and Means was selected, consisting of the President, Judge Day, and Messrs. Davidson, Ramsay and Dunkin. The Provincial Government was appealed to, and in December, 1852, the Legislature gave the College a grant of £1000 “to help liquidate the debts.” It was clear that a new era in the University's life was about to begin, but that persistent energy and determination would be required to guide the University through the night that still covered it.
In February, 1853, a Finance and Building Committee of the Board was appointed, consisting of James Ferrier, Benjamin Holmes, and T. B. Anderson. One of the first acts of this Committee was to take legal proceedings against the purchasers of lots, for the most part “persons of ample means” who had failed to make payments long overdue. In June, 1853, a sum of £75 was voted by the Governors to complete the portico of the Arts Building, “the Board being very desirous of correcting as soon as possible the present unsightly aspect of the Centre building.” They also called for estimates for “the putting up in front of the College on Sherbrooke Street of a fence of the same description as that of the new Cemetery.” To effect greater efficiency the office of the Secretary of the Royal Institution was moved to one of the rooms of the McGill buildings—the East wing—in July, 1853, and the Secretary became also Secretary of the Governors. The two offices became identical. Later, because of the cold and the general discomfort, the office was transferred for some time to a building at the corner of Dorchester and University Streets, known as Burnside Hall. But that conditions there were not ideal is evident from an appeal made in December, 1854, to the firm that had previously repaired the antiquated furnaces. The Secretary wrote: “Instead of imparting to us an equable and cheering warmth such as might reasonably be expected from their matronly development ... to me they are painfully and consistently cold. Do, then, come to our relief and save us from the horrors of frozen limbs, hospitals and amputations; or first, if you prefer it, pass a morning without overcoat, cap and comforter in my office with the thermometer at zero.”
In the summer of 1853 repairs were made to the College buildings in the hope of making them again habitable. The blasting in connection with the reservoir had caused much damage. Windows were wholly shattered and there were wide cracks and breaks in roof and walls. The contractor failed to make restitution, and the City Corporation was then urged to make the necessary repairs and to guarantee that there would be no further wreckage. The City authorities were slow to respond, but in the end they made reparation. Fences were also restored or newly built, and an effort was made to lay out the College grounds in some semblance of order. In September the lower part of the grounds was granted free for the holding of the annual Agricultural and Industrial Exhibition. In the spring of 1854 the City threatened to enter suit against the College for unpaid taxes, but the dispute was amicably settled. The total income from rents on which the taxes were based amounted to £182, of which the sum of £102 was derived from the rent of Burnside House and gardens, £60 from the Professor and £20 from two students who still occupied rooms in the College buildings. This income was exclusive of the rents of lots, which amounted to about £400. In the summer of 1854 the Governors gave to the city free of charge land for the opening of streets “on condition that all the College property shall be entirely exempt from every sort of assessment until it shall have been sold.” Land for the opening up of University Street had been given in 1851. The Streets now provided for were Union Avenue, between Dorchester and St. Catherine Streets; McGill College Avenue; Burnside Place; Victoria, Mansfield, St. Catherine, Cathcart, Dorchester, and Monique Streets. It was stipulated that Victoria Street and McGill College Avenue “should not be opened, for the present, higher than Burnside Place.”
But notwithstanding the Governors' efforts, the University was still far from adequate prosperity. It was not yet in a flourishing condition and its outlook while hopeful was not wholly auspicious. Greater co-operation on the part of the public was obviously needed, and the contemporary press frequently deplored the lack of public encouragement. There was peace and concord in its administration, but there was little advancement in its academic activities. It was clear that it had either to go forward or to cease to function. It was plain, too, that in addition to funds a new Principal and several instructors should be appointed as expeditiously as possible. The Governors, it was rumoured, were looking abroad for a Principal; they were also, it was said, considering the reorganising of the College on the plan of English Universities. Neither of these suggested procedures was popular, and neither was in the end followed. In August, 1854, one of the contemporary newspapers, the Sun, which has long since disappeared, in referring to the needs of the University voiced editorially the opinions of the people:
“All we need,” it said, “are persons at the helm who will take an active interest in the progress and advancement of the institution.... It won't do to sit idly down—to follow the dignified and majestic example of Cambridge and Oxford. Montreal is not in England—it is in Canada. We have a way of doing things for ourselves. It is not necessary in order rightly to accomplish an end to ask how they do it 'at home'; we can find out a mode ourselves. McGill College will never be anything until some exertion is made by those who have control of it. A languid indifference or a sickly half-dead interest will never secure to it a permanency among the institutions of the day”; and the writer added that “unless measures for its improvement are speedily undertaken there is a danger that McGill College will soon be numbered among the things that were.”
The Governors in the end decided to look nearer home for a Principal—a man of strong personality to take the helm in this critical period. They determined, if possible, to appoint a Canadian who was familiar with the country, its spirit, its temper and its educational needs. Down in Pictou County, Nova Scotia, they found him in the person of William Dawson, a native Canadian and a graduate of Edinburgh University. In 1855 they offered him the Principalship. He accepted the position and began his duties in the autumn of that year. In the thirty-four years that had gone since its establishment and the twenty-six years since its opening, the College had struggled through many vicissitudes and trials. It had frequently been on the border of extinction. But the crisis in its troubled history had at last been passed. A new era, more wonderful and more successful than even its most optimistic friends dared look for, was about to begin. The foundations had been laid, perhaps not always wisely, but at least firmly and hopefully. The College was now to go forward—for again, as in the past, its sign-posts pointed onward. The faith of its founder was at last to be justified. It remained for the new Principal, William Dawson, to guide it on its unwavering march to usefulness and to power, and by his tact, his judgment, his wisdom and his strength to impress his name upon its century story as the man who was greatest among “the makers of McGill” in the first hundred years of its existence.