When the moment arrived, however, for calling into visible being the long contemplated seat of learning, it was found expedient to abandon the elaborate model which had been constructed. Mr. Young, a local architect, was directed to devise new plans. His ideas appear to have been wholly modern. Notwithstanding the tenor of the Royal Charter, which suggested the precedents of the old universities of "our United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland," wherever it should be practicable to follow them, the architecture and arrangements customary in those places were ignored. Girard College, Philadelphia, seems to have inspired the new designs. However, only a minute fragment of one of the buildings of the new plan was destined ever to exist.
The formal commencement of the abortive work took place on the 23rd of April, 1842—a day indelibly impressed on the memory of those who participated in the proceedings. It was one of the sunniest and brightest of days. In the year just named it happened that so early as St. George's day the leaves of the horse-chestnut were bursting their glossy sheaths, and vegetation generally was in a very advanced stage. A procession, such as had never before been seen in these parts, slowly defiled up the Avenue to the spot where the corner-stone of the proposed University was to be laid.
A highly wrought contemporary description of the scene is given in a note in Curiæ Canadenses: "The vast procession opened its ranks, and his Excellency the Chancellor, with the President, the Lord Bishop of Toronto, on his right, and the Senior Visitor, the Chief Justice, on his left, proceeded on foot through the College Avenue to the University grounds. The countless array moved forward to the sound of military music. The sun shone out with cloudless meridian splendour; one blaze of banners flushed upon the admiring eye.—The Governor's rich Lord-Lieutenant's dress, the Bishop's sacerdotal robes, the Judicial Ermine of the Chief Justice, the splendid Convocation robes of Dr. McCaul, the gorgeous uniforms of the suite, the accoutrements of the numerous Firemen, the national badges worn by the Office-bearers of the different Societies, and what on such a day (St. George's) must not be omitted, the Red Crosses on the breasts of England's congregated sons, the grave habiliments of the Clergy and Lawyers, and the glancing lances and waving plumes of the First Incorporated Dragoons, all formed one moving picture of civic pomp, one glorious spectacle which can never be remembered but with satisfaction by those who had the good fortune to witness it. The following stanza from a Latin Ode," the note goes on to say, "recited by Master Draper, son of the late Attorney-General, after the ceremony, expresses in beautifully classical language the proud occasion of all this joy and splendid pageantry:—
"Io! triumphe! flos Canadensium! Est alma nobis mater; æmula Britanniæ hæc sit nostra terra,— Terra diu domibus negata!"
Another contemporary account adds: "As the procession drew nearer to the site where the stone was to be laid, the 43rd Regiment lined the way, with soldiers bearing arms, and placed on either side, at equal intervals. The 93rd Regiment was not on duty here, but in every direction the gallant Highlanders were scattered through the crowd, and added by their national garb and nodding plumes to the varied beauty of the animated scene. When the site was reached," this account says, "a new feature was added to the interest of the ceremony. Close to the spot, the north-east corner, where the foundation was to be deposited, a temporary building had been erected for the Chancellor, and there, accompanied by the officers of the University and his suite, he took his stand. Fronting this was a kind of amphitheatre of seats, constructed for the occasion, tier rising above tier, densely filled with ladies, who thus commanded a view of the whole ceremony. Between this amphitheatre and the place where the Chancellor stood, the procession ranged itself."
The Chancellor above spoken of was the Governor General of the day, Sir Charles Bagot, a man of noble bearing and genial, pleasant aspect. He entered with all the more spirit into the ceremonies described, from being himself a graduate of one of the old universities. Memories of far-off Oxford and Christ Church would be sure to be roused amidst the proceedings that rendered the 23rd of April, 1842, so memorable amongst us. A brother of Sir Charles' was at the time Bishop of Oxford. In his suite, as one of his Secretaries, was Captain Henry Bagot, of the Royal Navy, his own son. Preceding him in the procession, bearing a large gilded mace, was an "Esquire Bedell," like the Chancellor himself, a Christ Church man, Mr. William Cayley, subsequently a member of the Canadian Government.
Although breaking ground for the University building had been long delayed, the commencement now made proved to be premature. The edifice begun was never completed, as we have already intimated; and even in its imperfect, fragmentary condition, it was not fated to be for any great length of time a scene of learned labours. In 1856 its fortune was to be converted into a Female Department for the over-crowded Provincial Lunatic Asylum.
The educational system inaugurated in the new building in 1843 was, as the plate enclosed in the foundation-stone finely expressed it, "præstantissimum ad exemplar Britannicarum Universitatum." But the "exemplar" was not, in practice, found to be, as a whole, adapted to the genius of the Western Canadian people.
The revision of the University scheme with a view to the necessities of Western Canada, was signalized by the erection in 1857 of a new building on an entirely different site, and a migration to it bodily, of president, professors and students, without departing however from the bounds of the spacious park originally provided for the institution; and it is remarkable that, while deviating, educationally and otherwise, in some points, from the pattern of the ancient universities, as they were in 1842, a nearer approach, architecturally, was made to the mediæval English College than any that had been thought of before. Mr. Cumberland, the designer of the really fine and most appropriate building in which the University at length found a resting place, was, as is evident, a man after the heart of Wykeham and Wayneflete.