In 1878 Principal Grant made the proposition to raise $150,000, in order to provide new buildings, additional professors, and apparatus. The appeal was successful; additional ground of about twenty acres was at once purchased—a site of rare beauty and convenience—and the present noble building was erected.
The University of Trinity College, Toronto.
The immediate cause of the founding of this College and University was the suppression, in 1849, of the Faculty of Divinity in King's College, now the University of Toronto. In consequence of this the Right Rev. J. Strachan D.D., Bishop of Toronto, issued in February, 1850, a pastoral appeal to members of the Church of England for funds to enable him to establish a Church University and College. In response to this pastoral, the Bishop succeeded in raising a large endowment from voluntary subscriptions from churchmen in Canada, England, and the United States, so that on April 30, 1851, the foundation stone of the college building was laid, and on January 15, 1852, the work of instruction was begun, the staff consisting of four professors in arts, besides those in the faculties of law and medicine. During the last thirty years the endowment has been largely increased by liberal contributions made from time to time, so that the original amount is now about trebled. In 1878 a large and handsome convocation hall was erected, and in 1884 a long felt want was supplied by the erection of a finely proportioned and beautiful chapel.
The University of Trinity College at present consists of the faculty of arts and divinity, of an affiliated Medical School with a commodious building and a large staff of professors, and an affiliated Women's Medical College. Provision is also made for the higher education of women in connection with the Bishop Strachan School in Toronto, and connected with the University is a large school for boys at Port Hope.
The R. C. University College at Ottawa.
The College (or University) of Ottawa is under the direction of the Roman Catholic Church. It was founded in 1848 by the Right Reverend Joseph Eugene Guignes, O.M.I., D.D., first R. C. Bishop of Ottawa. In 1856, the Bishop confided the direction of the college to the "Society of the Oblate Fathers of Mary Immaculate." The total value of the college building and grounds is about $75,000. It has also a good library and cabinet of natural philosophy (or physics), and of chemistry and natural history. The college obtained university powers in 1866. It confers degrees in arts, science, and literature—B. A., B. Sc., B. L., as well as M. A.
The Western University, London.
This institution, in connection with the Church of England in Canada, was incorporated in 1878, with power to affiliate with Huron Theological College and to confer Degrees in Arts, Divinity, Medicine and Law. The affiliation between that College and the University took place in 1881, and the University was inaugurated in the month of October of that year. The object of its establishment was, as a Church of England Institution in the Diocese of Huron, to obtain the same power of conferring Degrees as was possessed by the sister University of Trinity College; also, that a liberal Education in Arts, Science and Literature might be extended to that extensive portion of the Province of which London is the geographical centre.
The McMaster University.
By the munificence of the late Hon. Wm. McMaster, McMaster University is being established on a sound financial basis. McMaster Hall, Woodstock College and Moulton College (for ladies) are affiliated institutions.