“Dissections and demonstrations were made only at stated times during the morning and afternoon of the day. There evidently existed a marked disinclination on the part of both demonstrator and student to work at night in the highest story of a lonely building, far removed from other dwellings, imperfectly heated, and lighted by candles, the light being barely sufficient to render the surrounding darkness visible. Having occupied for two seasons the position of Prosector to the Professor of Anatomy, I had to prepare, during the greater part of the session, the dissections of the parts which were to be the subject of the Professor's lecture on the following day. This necessitated my passing several hours, usually from nine to twelve o'clock at night, in the dismal, foul-smelling dissecting room, my only company being several partially dissected subjects, and numerous rats which kept up a lively racket coursing over and below the floor and within the walls of the room. Their piercing and vicious shrieks as they fought together, the thumping caused by their bodies coming into forcible contact with the floor and walls, and the rattling produced by their rush over loose bones, furnished a variety of sounds that would have been highly creditable to any old-fashioned haunted house. I must acknowledge that the eeriness of my surroundings was such that I sometimes contemplated a retreat, and was prevented from carrying it into effect only by a sense of duty and a keen dislike to being chaffed by my fellow-students for having cowardly deserted my work....
“The examinations for the degree of the University were conducted orally, ten minutes being allowed to each examiner. The janitor, supplied with a watch and a large bell, was placed in the hall outside the door of the library, the room in which the examinations took place. At the expiration of each ten minutes he rang the bell, and the candidates went from one examiner to another. This was repeated until the student had completed the round of examining professors. Immediately on the termination of the examinations, the professors met and decided then and there the fate of the candidates. The latter, in the meantime, waited in the College in a rather painful state of suspense. They were summoned separately before the Professors, and the result, favourable or unfavourable, was in each case made known to the individual....
“It was customary at this time for the student to be indentured to a practicing physician, or, if not so bound notarially, to make a private arrangement with him to be allowed to study in his office and to be considered as his pupil. For this privilege a fee of £20 was usually demanded. Apart from the éclat which was supposed to be attached to the position of a student under a popular physician, and the belief of the possibility of the patron being able to forward the interests of his pupils, there were, as a rule, few advantages derived from this association. It is true that in exceptional cases, if the physician had a large clientele and took a warm interest in his students, he could, by arranging their studies, occasionally examining them on the work done, and directing them in the routine of office work, be of material assistance to them. The office work of a physician in large practice, however, offered an excellent opportunity to acquire much practical knowledge. As, with few exceptions, physicians prescribed and dispensed their own medicines, the articled student had the opportunity of making up all the prescriptions. He compounded pills, a variety of which were always kept prepared for use, and he made the different tinctures and ointments. He had the privilege, also, of assisting at minor surgical operations, such as were performed in the office, of making physical examinations, of applying tests; in short, office practice offered the same facilities for acquiring practical knowledge, although in a minor degree, that the outdoor practice of a hospital or the practice of a dispensary affords....”
The recreations of students who dwelt in the College or its vicinity were few and simple. There were no athletic teams or athletic games. Indeed, the number of students in Arts and Law was scarcely sufficient to permit the forming of athletic teams, and the medical students were too busy all day and were too far from the College grounds to take an active part in college sports. There was no gymnasium and no physical instruction. There were no fraternities other than the fraternity of McGill itself. There was no Union, no Y. M. C. A. On evenings in spring and summer a military band usually played near the “ornamental bridge” over the stream in “the hollow” near the present Physics building. Citizens came up from the City to listen to the band, and before the Easter term ended students, too, enjoyed the music. The College grounds were long used by citizens as a park. The students seemed to have had an occasional dance during the spring term, and at times there were receptions in Professors' rooms to which students were invited. Later in the “fifties,” after the coming of Principal Dawson, other forms of entertainment were added. Of these Dr. Dawson wrote: “Evening gatherings at regular intervals during the session were arranged, and cards of invitation for these were sent to the different classes or years in rotation. At such gatherings there was usually music, sometimes a short recitation or address on some topic of interest, and scientific instruments, specimens and photographs were shown, simple refreshments provided, and every effort made to cause those who attended to feel thoroughly at home.” Sometimes there were gatherings which took the form of what were known as “conversaziones,” during which conversation, supposedly on literary or scientific subjects, but more frequently on less dignified topics, took the place of the dances of to-day.
On the whole, college life in the mid-century was characterised by a Spartan simplicity. The students of that period seemingly enjoyed its somewhat humble joys and its unostentatious and frugal amusements. Life in that time was, at least, not artificial or luxurious or competitive or sectional; but whether the plain living of the period was more conducive to high thinking than the multifarious student activities of a later day cannot here be answered.
CHAPTER IX
Sir William Dawson and the Making of McGill
JAMES McGILL made his will, providing for the founding of McGill College, on January 8th, 1811, two years before his death. He was dreaming of a great University which would rise at some distant but certain day in the new land of his adoption. He was doubtless dreaming, too, of a strong personality who would guide the University to its destined place in the country in which he had made his fortune and in which he had unbounded faith. At that very time another Scotchman, twenty-two years of age, was dreaming in his home in Banffshire—also, by a strange coincidence, the home of James McGill's ancestors—of the land beyond the horizon from which tales of fortune and happiness came drifting across the ocean. He was a Liberal in politics and a dissenter in religion. His independent spirit was revolting against conditions in his own land. It was not easy to sever the ties which bound him to the old home and to venture alone into an unknown and far-off country. But the new land was calling, and its lure was upon him. He resolved to go to Canada where he had heard that all things were possible to the courageous and the industrious, and where men lived a man's life based on merit and achievement, and unhampered by the fetters of worn-out fetishes and conventions. And so it happened that on the 8th of March, 1811, exactly two months after James McGill had made his will, this young Scotchman set out for the new world. The ship in which he was to take passage—a square-rigged, clipper sailing vessel in those steamless days—was to clear from Greenock, one hundred and eighty miles from Keith, his Banffshire home. He had no money to spare to pay for a conveyance. He must cover the distance on foot. He sent his heavy luggage by carrier, and with a pack of necessary clothes and provisions on his back, he set out with three adventurous but hopeful comrades on his journey. He walked through the Grampians, by Kildrummy Castle, on through the town of Perth, along the base of Cairngorm in the Highlands, through the long valley of Glenavon, and thence to the sea-port town of Greenock from which the packet ships went weekly out into the mists, heading for the land of promise somewhere beyond the sky-line. He slept with his companions on heather beds in front of peat fires in the homes of the Highlanders through whose villages they passed, and the Gaelic tongue of one of their number was always a charm sufficient to secure them food. He reached Greenock on the 20th of March, but because of unforeseen delay it was not until April 11th that he embarked for Canada. After a voyage of five tempestuous weeks he landed in Pictou, Nova Scotia, on May 19th, 1811, and there he determined to make his home. The young Scotchman was James Dawson, whose son was destined in 1855 to become Principal of McGill.