GEORGE PAXTON YOUNG, M.A.
The life of Professor Young has been even less eventful than commonly falls to the lot of persons of purely scholastic pursuits. He was born on the 28th of November, 1818, at the border town of Berwick-upon-Tweed—one of the few walled towns to be found in Great Britain at the present day. In his boyhood he attended the schools of his native town, whence he passed to the High School of Edinburgh. He subsequently entered the Edinburgh University, and attended the lectures of Professor Wilson—the "Christopher North" of Blackwood's Magazine—who then occupied the Chair of Moral Philosophy there. During his early years he was an industrious student, and displayed that great aptitude for mathematical and philosophical inquiry by which his subsequent career has been distinguished. After obtaining his degree he was for some time employed as a mathematical teacher in the Dollar Academy, Clackmannanshire. After the Disruption of the Scottish National Church, in 1843, he entered the Theological Hall of the Free Church, which had just been opened at Edinburgh, and became a candidate for the ministry, attending the lectures of the late Dr. Chalmers and other eminent divines. After his admission to the ministry he was placed in charge of the Martyr's Church, Paisley, but remained there only a few months, having resolved to emigrate to Canada where he had many friends among the ministers and members of the Presbyterian Church. This resolution was carried out in 1848. Immediately upon his arrival in this country he was inducted into the pastorate of Knox Church, Hamilton, where he remained three years, at the expiration of which he resigned his charge, and accepted the Professorship of Mental and Moral Philosophy in Knox College, Toronto. His fondness for philosophical studies, and his wide acquaintance with philosophical literature, marked him out as peculiarly fitted for such a position. The sphere of his duties gradually widened, and in addition to Mental and Moral Philosophy and Logic, he soon had under his charge Exegetical Theology and the Evidences of Christianity—departments which are now in charge of Principal Caven and Professor Gregg.
During his Professorship in Knox College, Professor Young contributed some remarkable papers on philosophical subjects to the pages of the Canadian Journal. One of these, containing a brief exposition of some points in the Hamiltonian philosophy of matter, reached the hands of Sir William Hamilton himself, the most eminent exponent of the Scottish philosophy. The latter was so impressed by the merits of the paper that he addressed to the author a long and very complimentary letter, in which he bore testimony to Professor Young's power of grasping and elucidating the most abstruse points in a philosophical system of which he was not the originator. Such a testimony, from such a source, must have been highly gratifying to Professor Young, for Sir William was not a man given to wasting his words, and would certainly not have written such a letter to a stranger had he not been very greatly impressed by the merits of the article in the Journal. Various other articles from his pen have from time to time appeared in the same periodical, and every one of them bears the stamp of a mind which, to parody Iago's well-known saying, is "nothing if not mathematical." While on the subject of authorship it may be mentioned that in 1854 a theological work from his pen was published at Edinburgh, under the title of "Miscellaneous Discourses and Expositions of Scripture." In 1862 he published in the Home and Foreign Record a paper on "The Philosophical Principles of Natural Religion," which evoked much favourable comment alike from the religious and secular press at the time of its publication.
After discharging his professorial duties in connection with Knox College for about ten years with much zeal, and with great satisfaction to all persons concerned, Professor Young resigned his position on the Staff. In taking this important step he gave proof of an honesty and a genuine manliness of purpose which are worthy of the highest commendation. His philosophical researches had brought about a state of mind which, in his own opinion, rendered him unsuited to the position of a teacher of divinity. He was no longer in entire sympathy with the doctrines which he was called upon to expound to the students. How far the divergence extended we have no means of knowing, nor is it a question into which the public have any right to inquire. A man's theological beliefs are between himself and his Maker. It is sufficient to say that Professor Young resigned his Professorship and his connection with the ministry, and this without having any other means of livelihood in prospect. "His course," says a contemporary writer, "was characterized by an amount of intellectual candour and moral courage which do him credit, and is in striking contrast with the practice of those who, on finding themselves at variance with the communion to which they belong, and in the attitude of drifting away from their dogmatic moorings, have neither the discretion to await in silence the end of their own intellectual struggle, nor the courage of their convictions, and the resolution requisite for placing themselves at any sacrifice in a position to speak and act on them without restraint." He soon afterwards found a suitable field for the exercise of his talents. The position of Inspector of Grammar Schools was offered to, and accepted by him, and for more than four years he discharged the duties of that office with a diligence and success which have been attended with great benefit to the public, and which have won wide recognition. His tenure of office, indeed, may be said to mark an important epoch in the educational history of this Province. At the time of his appointment, the Grammar School system was singularly inefficient. The fact of its inefficiency had long been acknowledged by leading educationists, but no one had indicated anything like an adequate remedy. Mr. Young's official reports not only exposed the defects of the system, but suggested the requisite legislation whereby those defects might be removed. His reports for the years 1866 and 1867 were deemed of sufficient importance to be published in full in the Chief Superintendent's Report for the latter year, and they were the means of bringing about a revolution in the whole Grammar School system. Most of the suggestions embodied in them have since been acted upon by the Legislature, and the School Acts of 1871, 1874 and 1877 are to a large extent founded upon them.
Having accomplished so much, Professor Young resigned his Inspectorship, and once more accepted the position of Professor of Philosophy in Knox College, but his duties during his second tenure of the Professorship did not involve the teaching of Theology. Upon the death of the late Dr. Beaven, in 1871, he succeeded to the Chair of Metaphysics and Ethics in University College, Toronto, which he still retains. His incumbency has been marked by most gratifying results. The subjects taught by him are by many persons regarded as dry and uninteresting. Professor Young's lectures are so much the reverse of this that they are sometimes attended as a matter of choice by persons who never approach the building in which they are delivered for any other purpose. To render metaphysics and ethics acceptable to persons who have no special object to serve by pursuing such studies is an achievement of which any Professor might justly feel proud. His department, which was formerly the most unpopular in the University, has become one of those most resorted to by candidates for honours. He is equally popular as a teacher and as an examiner, and is said to be one of the most erudite of men in the literature of his department. He is also very eminent as a mathematician, and has made original discoveries in that branch of study which, in the estimation of persons who are capable of forming an opinion, entitle him to rank among the foremost of living investigators.