John Black, the Apostle of the Red River / Or, How the Blue Banner Was Unfurled on Manitoba Prairies

by George Bryce

DEPUTATION SENT.

The Assembly acted with extreme caution and discernment in the matter. A commission of two of its members, Drs. Ure, of Goderich, and Cochrane, of Brantford, the former an old fellow-student and warm friend of Mr. Black, was appointed to visit Manitoba and report upon the case. The commission decided that after a year the college should be removed to Winnipeg, and carry on its whole work there. This was naturally a great disappointment to Mr. Black. He was not convinced by the decision, and feared especially that hurt would be done the college among the old settlers of the country. He quoted in confirmation of his opinion the statement made by the Bishop of Rupert's Land, the head of St. John's College, that the removal was a mistake.

In this John Black, to his own surprise and happiness also, found himself mistaken. The Kildonan people, to their infinite credit, stood true to their principles and in the next and succeeding years, numbers of their young men were educated in their own college in Winnipeg, notwithstanding their feeling of disappointment at the loss of the college. Acting in the same manner as he had done when his views were not carried out in regard to the policy of managing the Prince Albert mission, the true-hearted Presbyterian pastor still gave his unwavering support to the college, and for several years when the college undertook the instruction of a small band of theological students, came, in company with Dr. Robertson, at considerable inconvenience to himself, and unrewarded except by the gratitude of the board and the high appreciation of the students, to deliver lectures in church history of which he was so complete a master. It was with the deepest appreciation of his scholarship and high character that the Board of Manitoba College congratulated him in 1876, when the sister institution in the Church, Queen's College, conferred the degree of Doctor of Divinity upon the one who had been the originator and strong supporter of general and theological education among the Presbyterians of the western prairies.

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.

PUBLIC SCHOOLS.

The change made by the first parliament of Manitoba from the denominational schools formerly prevailing to a system of public schools was a very striking one. The desire of the Roman Catholics to have separate schools for themselves was granted, and thus the germ of the great question which has for years disturbed Manitoba was introduced. Those, who in the old Red River Settlement days had been accustomed to their parish schools, were not seriously opposed to the separate school system. To them it seemed simply a more systematic way of working their parish schools, and receiving the assistance of a government grant. Dr. Black thus became the representative of the Presbyterian parishes and was a member of the first Board of Education for the province. Matters worked with a fair amount of smoothness, but there was a constant grasping of power by the Roman Catholic hierarchy to make a greater and greater division between the two sections of the board, until in ten years after the formation of the province the Roman Catholic schools were to all intents and purposes managed privately by the Catholic section of the board, and the Roman Catholic Archbishop recognized as the authority by whom, for his own section, all books in religion and morals should be approved. Protests in the newspapers, in political campaigns and otherwise were made against this gradual aggression on the part of the Roman Catholics.