McGILL AND ITS STORY

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James McGill

1756-1813
Founder of McGill College

McGILL AND ITS
STORY 1821-1921

By CYRUS MACMILLAN

Author of “Canadian Wonder Tales,” Etc.

LONDON: JOHN LANE
NEW YORK: JOHN LANE COMPANY
TORONTO: CANADIAN BRANCH
THE OXFORD UNIVERSITY
PRESS
MCMXXI

Copyright, 1921, by John Lane

TO
MY McGILL COMRADES
WHO FELL IN THE WAR 1914-1918

We who remain shall grow old,
We shall feel the snows of cheerless winter;
But you shall be forever young,
With you it shall be forever spring,
Where you wander through the willows
Of the valley in your West.

PREFACE

The following pages give in general outline the century story of McGill University. They have no pretension to the title of detailed History, for it has been possible to chronicle only the circumstances which shaped the University in its infancy and the important events of its succeeding years. The story is one of struggle and disappointment, of discouragement and controversy, and of ultimate success and triumph. The men who made McGill were men of far and clear vision, of unfaltering courage and unwavering faith. They never doubted the final breaking of the clouds; they were baffled only to fight better in their forward march on behalf of national enlightenment. They believed in the future greatness of Canada, and of the place of education in moulding their country's destiny. The students of to-day who enjoy the advantages of a great seat of learning are not always conscious of the toil and the anxiety, the weariness and the fret of their College's early years; they perhaps do not always appreciate their glorious heritage and the efforts and the sacrifices of those who scorned delights and lived laborious days in order to leave that heritage behind. The author's hope is that the story of struggle herein recorded may deepen our gratitude for our privileges, and our reverence for McGill and the men who made it.

It has been impossible here to enter into minute details of organization or administration or personnel. The book is a story of epochs rather than of individuals,—but epochs in which the sign posts ever pointed onward. Biographical material has, therefore, been reduced to a minimum and no attempt has been made to give names or notices of Professors, many of whom, the writer is well aware, should otherwise receive appreciative reference as among the makers of McGill. With the exception of the portrait of the present Principal, too, the photographs include of necessity only those who are already numbered with the University's past.

The writer's deepest thanks are here expressed to those without whose assistance this story could not have been told. He is grateful to Professor Stephen Leacock for advice and encouragement; to the Principal, the Governors, and the Secretary of McGill, Mr. A. P. S. Glassco (Science, 1901), for permission to examine letters and minutes; to Dr. J. A. Nicholson, (Arts, 1887) for his valuable aid in locating and obtaining access to documents; to the staff of the Redpath Library, especially Miss D. A. Lomer, for their unfailing and patient help in the search for records; to Mr. J. W. Jeakins, Secretary of the Graduates' Society, and to Mr. E. Ardley of the Redpath Museum for kind assistance; to the attendants in Archives for many courtesies; to George B. Fraser, Esq., for permission to photograph prints; to the late Rev. Dr. Robert Campbell whose knowledge and memory of old Montreal was wide and vivid; and particularly to John Lane, Esq., of the Bodley Head for his personal interest and experienced advice in the preparation of this volume.

Since the information concerning the ancestry of James McGill is at present meagre, I should be glad if any reader possessing information as to his ancestry and early career would communicate with me in Canada, or with my publisher, Mr. John Lane, The Bodley Head, Ltd., Vigo Street, London, England, so that this section of the book may be amplified in future editions.

C. M.

McGill University,
July, 1921.

CONTENTS

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

The photographs from which the prints were made are the work of Norman and of the Rice Studios.

THE ROYAL INSTITUTION FOR THE
ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING

CHAPTER I

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The Royal Institution for the Advancement of Learning

THE Charter under which McGill University was established, was obtained on March 31st, 1821. The century mark in the University's history has now been passed. One hundred years is a long period in the life of a nation or a country; it is a longer period still in the life of an individual; but it is perhaps longest relatively in the life of an educational institution, particularly if that institution had its birth in struggling pioneer days. It is a period in university life which sees, as a rule, an undreamed of growth and development from small beginnings to unlimited influence, from scanty resources and great disappointments to a large if not always adequate endowment and equipment, from a merely local service to a national and even a world educational power. This is distinctly true of the century of McGill University's story. It began as a College, intended to minister to a very small community. It has grown in one hundred years to serve the world. It has graduated over twenty-five hundred Bachelors, over thirty-three hundred Doctors of Medicine, over nineteen hundred Engineers, over eight hundred Lawyers besides holders of higher or graduate degrees; it has given hundreds of graduates to high positions in the Church, the State, and industrial and educational institutions. It has drawn its students from all lands, and it has sent its products in trained men and women into every country on the globe. Long ago it divested itself of the merely local, and to-day the old term, Studium Generale, used in the middle ages to designate a University, may well be applied to McGill,—“a School where students of all kinds and from all parts are received.”

The establishment of McGill University was but part of a more comprehensive plan to improve educational conditions in Canada in the beginning of the 19th century. After the peace treaty of 1763, which ended the Seven Years' War and gave Canada to the British, immigration to the colony was comparatively small, and little effort was made by the Home Government to provide educational opportunities for the children of those who sought happiness or fortune in the new land beyond the ocean. Indeed, in that time the authorities were too busy trying to solve difficult problems at home to devote much energy to the internal problems of the colony. They had no time and perhaps they had even less care for their colonists. The treaty of 1763 had not brought peace. The advocacy for political change was causing deep anxiety and the new radicalism under the plea for the new democracy was making a slow but steady advance which troubled the statesmen of the age. Then came in quick succession the American Revolution, the French Revolution and the Peninsular War, all of which absorbed the attention of the Home Government. By her steadfast attitude in 1776, Canada had proved her right to expect and to receive sympathetic attention and encouragement from the Home Government, but it is perhaps not to be wondered at that in the circumstances of the troubled period the educational advancement of Lower Canada was neglected or ignored, and that educational opportunities were practically non-existent.

In other parts of Canada education seems to have received more sympathetic interest. Particularly in the Maritime Provinces good schools had been established, largely, however, through the efforts of the colonists themselves. A new impetus was given to education by the arrival of many settlers from the United States during and after the Revolution. These settlers had enjoyed in New England excellent educational advantages; they had lived close to great universities with their beneficent influence, the Universities of Harvard and Yale, of Williams and Dartmouth and Brown, and they determined to establish in their new home the educational facilities which they had already enjoyed in another land. It was felt in Lower Canada that similar opportunities should be speedily provided for the English-speaking children of the country. The majority of settlers in Lower Canada were of Scottish origin. They were largely soldiers or the descendants of soldiers who had fought in the Highland Regiments during the campaign of 1759, and who after the Treaty of Paris in 1763 had taken up the land assigned to them by the Crown. Many of these soldiers, too, later became fur-traders and entered the service of the North-West Company. These settlers were all eager that their children should have at least an elementary education. It was felt, too, that in the unrest and the uncertainty of the period immediately following the American Revolution it was not advisable to send students in search of higher professional training to the universities of the United States, which in the days of their British allegiance had attracted Canadian students in large numbers. But above all, the settlers realised the necessity for the establishment of schools in which the children of the French-Canadians should be taught English. It was declared that from the national point of view such training would have a far-reaching influence on the future of Canada as an integral part of the British Empire, and that without such instruction, which would result in a bond of language, Canada could never be a united land.

Efforts were accordingly made to establish a system of free schools, with the hope that later a university might be founded. As early as 1787 the matter received the serious consideration of the Legislative Council, and a scheme of education in the Province was actually prepared. But the scheme met with vigorous and determined opposition from one section of the community and it was in the end abandoned by the authorities after a somewhat bitter controversy. Some years passed without further action. In 1797 General Simcoe, the first Governor of Upper Canada, and his Executive Council decided to establish a Seminary for higher learning in that Province. They invited Mr. Strachan, a graduate of St. Andrews' University, Scotland, to organise the College but before he arrived in Canada General Simcoe was removed from office and the establishment of the proposed university was long delayed. The plans of Upper Canada in 1797 to establish a university, although their fulfilment was long postponed, inspired the people of Lower Canada to greater efforts on behalf of education. They continued their agitation, but their efforts had little immediate success. The conditions in Lower Canada were earnestly and anxiously set forth in the following appeal made to the Governor-General, Sir R. S. Milnes, by the Rev. Dr. Jacob Mountain, Lord Bishop of Quebec, on October 19th, 1799:

“There is so intimate and obvious a connection between the education of youth and the general state of public morals, that I trust I shall not be thought to deviate from the duties that are more particularly assigned to me, if I presume to solicit your Excellency's attention to the disadvantages under which the Province has long laboured from the want of proper schools for the instruction of the children both of the higher and of the lower orders of the community.

“In doing this, it is by no means my intention to enter into the examination of these disadvantages so far as they are common to us with every other society which is without proper institutions for the education of youth; I shall take the liberty of mentioning such only as appear to be in a great measure peculiar to ourselves.

“Let me be permitted, then, to suggest the danger which may result to the political principles and to the future character as subjects of such of our young men among the higher ranks as the exigency of the case obliges their parents to send for a classical education to the colleges of the United States.

“In these Seminaries, most assuredly, they are not likely to imbibe that attachment to our constitution in Church and State, that veneration for the Government of their country, and that loyalty to their King, to which it is so peculiarly necessary in the present times to give all the advantage of early predilection in order to fix them deeply both in the understanding and the heart.

“To obviate this danger, it would seem expedient to found at least one good Grammar School in this Province and to invite able Masters from England by the liberality of the endowment.

“It may not be improper to state here that there is already at Quebec a respectable school, which offers the means of instruction to those who are designed for the more accurate professions, or for the pursuits of Trade and Commerce in which, together with the lower branches of education, are taught the Latin language, Mathematics, and Navigation, by a master well qualified for the task he has undertaken. I would wish to suggest the expediency of insuring the continuance of this advantage (which has not hitherto been duly appreciated) by some mark of the protection of the Government.

“But it is not only good Grammar Schools for the education of such young men as are designed for the learned Professions or who from their rank in society may hereafter fill situations of great political importance in the Province that are wanted; a more humble but a not less important branch of the community seems to call also for your Excellency's benevolent attention.

“It is well known that the lower orders of the people in this Province are for the most part deplorably ignorant; that the very slender portion of instruction which their children obtain is almost entirely confined amongst those, who do not live in the Towns, to the girls alone; and more especially, it is notorious that they have hitherto made no progress towards the attainment of the language of the country under which government they have the happiness to live.

“This total ignorance of the English language on the part of the Canadians draws a distinct line of demarcation between them and His Majesty's British subjects in this Province, injurious to the welfare and happiness of both; and continues to divide into two separate peoples those, who by their situation, their common interests and their equal participation of the same laws and the same form of Government, should naturally form but one.

“If the evils are confessedly great which arise from this want of a community of language, it should seem expedient to endeavour to provide an immediate remedy for the defect, and it should also seem that this can only be done by facilitating as much as possible the means of acquiring the English language to the children of the Canadians.

“The plan which I would beg leave to submit for this purpose is simple and I trust practicable. Its aim may appear to be humble, but its effects, I am persuaded, would be in a high degree beneficial and important.

“It is briefly this:—that a certain number of English School Masters, to be hereafter determined, should be employed and paid by the Government; that one of these should be placed in each of the cities and towns, and in the most considerable villages for the purposes and under the express obligation of teaching the English language gratis to a certain number of the Canadian children, and writing and arithmetic when required, at an easy rate; that Trustees or Commissioners should be appointed to manage the fund which the Government in its bounty may see fit to appropriate to the end, to determine the number of Masters that may be required, their respective salaries, and the number of children they shall respectively teach gratis, to fix the rate at which Writing and Arithmetic shall be taught on, and to have the power of removing the Masters for incapacity or neglect of duty, and of promoting them successively to the more lucrative situations for able and meritorious conduct.

“I would barely hint, by way of a leading idea upon this subject, that the salaries might perhaps extend from £20 to £60 per annum according to the number of inhabitants in the Village, Town, or City in which the Teacher should be placed, and that it might perhaps not improperly be a condition that he who received a payment of £20, should be obliged to teach English gratis to ten Canadian children, he who received £30 to fifteen children, and so on in proportion.

“The importance and extent of this subject demand, I am well aware, more local information and better judgment than I have been able to apply to it;—I presume only to suggest it as an object not unworthy of immediate consideration to your Excellency's superior wisdom.”

This appeal was submitted by the Governor-General to the Executive Council of Lower Canada and was approved by that body. It was then forwarded to the Colonial Office for further consideration. As a result, on July 12th, 1800, the Duke of Portland, sent to the Lieutenant-Governor a long despatch from which the following extracts indicate that the Home Government sympathised with the Lord Bishop's suggestion:—

“With respect to making a suitable provision for the education of youth in Lower Canada, and more particularly for laying a foundation for teaching the English tongue generally throughout the Province, I not only fully coincide with the sentiments expressed by the Bishop of Quebec and concurred in by the Executive Council on this point, but I am of opinion that the proposed Free Schools for this purpose should be established under the express condition of teaching the English language gratis to the children of His Majesty's subjects resident within the district for which such schools are established, without any limitation as to the number of such children.

“The Master should certainly be authorised to make a reasonable demand for teaching Writing and Arithmetic or, what would be still better, the terms may be settled from time to time by the Trustees or Governors of such Free Schools in the appointing of which it is His Majesty's pleasure that the Governor, Lieutenant-Governor, or person administrating the Government for the time being, the Bishop of Quebec, the Chief Justice of the Province, and the Speaker of the Assembly should always be of the number.

“In addition to the Free Schools for teaching the English language, (which I consider to be of the first necessity, and for the establishment of which you will consider yourself hereby authorised to appropriate from the Provincial revenues such sums as may be necessary to pay the salaries of the Masters who shall from time to time be appointed by you), it will be necessary in one or perhaps two instances to have recourse to others of the higher order and of the nature of our Public Schools here, in order that neither the means nor the necessary encouragement may be wanting to cultivate the study of the learned languages. It appears to me that this establishment will be sufficient for the present, although in due progress of time Foundations of a more enlarged and comprehensive nature will be requisite for the promotion of Religious and Moral Learning and the study of the Arts and Sciences. With this view His Majesty, ever ready to manifest his paternal consideration and regard for his subjects, and desirous to afford all possible assistance and encouragement to his Province in carrying into execution an object of such importance as the instruction and education of youth, has signified to me his Royal pleasure that you should upon consulting the members of His Majesty's Executive Council report to me in what manner and to what extent it would be proper to appropriate a portion of the Crown Land or revenues arising therefrom for this purpose.”

As a result of the agitation for the providing of educational opportunities in Lower Canada, the Royal Institution for the Advancement of Learning was established by Act of the Legislature in 1801. Under this Act, the King gave directions for the establishment “of a competent number of Free Schools for the instruction of children in the first rudiments of useful learning; and also as occasion should require for foundations of a more comprehensive nature.” It was declared that “His Majesty had further signified his intention that a suitable portion of the Lands of the Crown should be set apart, and the revenue thereof appropriated to these purposes.” The Act provided that all property which should thereafter be given, bequeathed or purchased for educational purposes was to be vested in the trustees of the Royal Institution, with the necessary powers of management. Provision was made for the establishment of Free Schools at specified places throughout the Province by the authority of the Government, and for the building and repairing of schoolhouses, but not for the salaries of the masters. Accordingly, elementary free schools were soon erected in different parts of the Province, and several teachers were appointed by the authorities.

Notwithstanding the passing of the above Act, educational advancement in the Province for many years made but slow progress. There was no adequate system of management. In 1803, Lord Hobart issued instructions to the effect that a portion of the Crown Lands was to be set apart for the promotion of education. These instructions were not carried out; at best such a scheme would have been insufficient for the purpose; subsequent experience in the case of the Clergy Reserves proved the inefficacy of such an appropriation. There was a long delay in establishing the Corporation which the Act of 1801 had in view. In 1815, the Home Government directed the Provincial Government to proceed with the election of trustees under the Act, but it was not until 1818 that trustees were finally appointed. The trustees included the Lord Bishop of Quebec as Principal; the Lord Bishop of Montreal; the Chief Justice of Lower Canada; the Speaker of the Legislative Council; and the Speaker of the Legislative Assembly.

It is unnecessary to enter here into the details of the early history of the Royal Institution. Its first years were years of struggle. The schools erected under its authority were one-room buildings of cedar logs. Indeed, they were mere log-huts, but they provided the first free English Education in Lower Canada, and laid the foundation for a Canadian nationality. The records of the Royal Institution indicate the determination with which teachers and officials battled sturdily with poverty, and with discouraging conditions. The Secretary's salary was always many months in arrears, and he frequently complained, with unfortunately but little satisfaction, that not only had he given his time for some years without remuneration, but that he had expended even his own fuel and candles. In 1819, thirty-seven schools were in existence in the Province; these were occupied by fifty-three Teachers; the total expenditure for education was £883.10; the highest salary paid was £100,—at Quebec and at Montreal; the lowest salary was £11.5; the average salary was £18. It was pointed out by the authorities that these salaries were not intended to be the sole support of the teachers, but that they were meant “to operate as an aid and encouragement for the exertions and contributions of the inhabitants themselves.”

Although the salaries were small and the school-buildings and equipment very poor and uncomfortable, the discipline of the Royal Institution seems to have been surprisingly strict and exacting. Criticism of teachers, their methods and the books they used, was plentiful and continuous. It was not unusual for teachers to be censured “for not keeping school at all,” or for giving too many holidays, or for tardiness in opening school in the morning and eagerness in closing it in the afternoon. At least one teacher was warned that his arrears in salary would not be paid, and that he would be instantly dismissed “if he did not treat his wife with greater kindness.” The teachers were billetted among the inhabitants in their respective districts; after a few days' sojourn in one house they moved on to another, thus making all the settlers bear in turn the burden of providing their food and lodging. In this way they managed to exist on their scanty salaries, which were frequently unpaid for many months. The school-buildings were used at times by travelling missionaries for religious services. This seems to have been a source of much annoyance to the authorities; the teachers rather than the inhabitants of the district were always held responsible, and were frequently severely reprimanded for permitting such use of the schoolhouses. It was not unusual for teachers to be told plainly by letter from the Secretary that they would be dismissed or “that no part of the salary hitherto granted by the Government would be allowed, unless the Methodists were wholly and immediately excluded from using the school-room as a place of worship.”

The Royal Institution had many difficulties to contend with. Although its methods were not always efficient and its management was not always adequate, it is deserving of gratitude for laying the foundation of English education in what was to be later the Province of Quebec. It not only guided for many years elementary and grammar school education, but it planned for the establishment of a State or Government College where higher education could be obtained. But before the proposed plan was carried into effect, provision was made by a citizen of Montreal for the endowment of a College to bear his name. As a result, the Royal Institution for the Advancement of Learning supervised the establishment of McGill College and directed it in its infancy, for under the Act of 1801 all property and money given for educational purposes in the Province of Lower Canada was placed under its control.

CHAPTER II

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The Dawn of McGill

DURING the discussion in the Legislature of educational conditions in Lower Canada which resulted in the establishment of the Royal Institution for the Advancement of Learning under the Act of 1801, one of the most prominent members of the Provincial Parliament was James McGill, a merchant and fur-trader who represented the West Ward of Montreal in the Legislative Assembly. Only meagre facts about the life of James McGill are available and the documentary evidence bearing on his career is scanty. He was born in Glasgow, Scotland, on the 6th of October, 1744. His parents were natives of Banffshire. After an elementary school education in his native town he entered Glasgow University at the age of twelve, in accordance with the custom of those days which permitted attendance at a University at a very early age. The Matriculation Album of Glasgow University contains the following entry:

1756, Jacobus McGill, filius natu maximus Jacobi mercatoris Glasguensis.

Nine years later, his younger brother Andrew entered the University, as indicated by the following record in the Matriculation Album:

1765, Andreas McGill, filius natu quintus Jacobi mercatoris Glasguensis.

Like so many other adventurous Scotchmen of that period, after completing his education James McGill determined to seek his fortune in the new land beyond the horizon, from which wondrous stories of the wealth and romance of the fur-trade were drifting to the old world. He emigrated to the American Colonies, where he remained for some years, and where he was later joined by his younger brother, Andrew. But before the American Revolution the brothers moved to Canada and in 1775 they were firmly and prosperously established in business in Montreal, where the older brother became connected with the famous fur-trading North-West Company. That he was at that time regarded as one of the leading citizens is evident from the fact that he was selected for many important and responsible civic duties. During the American Revolution when Canada was invaded and General Guy Carleton withdrew all the troops to Quebec and left Montreal to its fate, James McGill was one of those who saw the folly and uselessness of resistance. He preferred to save the city from unnecessary destruction and he was one of the twelve citizens,—six French and six English,—who were selected to sign the capitulation of the city to General Richard Montgomery on November 12th, 1775. His five associates were John Porteous, Richard Huntley, John Blake, Edward Gray and James Finlay. On December 2nd, 1776, he married Mrs. Marie Charlotte Guillemin, a French Roman Catholic lady, the widow of a French Canadian gentleman, Joseph A. T. Desrivières. The ceremony was performed by the Rev. David Charbrand Delisle, Rector of the Protestant Parish of Montreal and Chaplain of the Garrison. The Church record reads:—“1776, James McGill, Esq., and Mrs. Charlotte Guillemin, widow, were married by Licence the 2nd December, 1776.” Mrs. James McGill was born in Montreal in 1747, the daughter of William Guillemin and Claire Genevieve Foucault. She married Joseph A. T. Desrivières in Montreal on the 19th of September, 1763, at the age of sixteen.

Soon after his arrival in Montreal James McGill acquired the Burnside estate of forty-six acres, with the Burnside Manor, in which he resided during the remainder of his life. He took into partnership, under the name of “McGill and Todd,” his friend, Isaac Todd, a man of keen business ability and of civic prominence.

James McGill is described by his contemporaries as of “a frank and social temperament,” in figure “tall and commanding, handsome in youth and becoming somewhat corpulent in his old age,” and in his leisure time “much given to reading.” He was a prominent member of the Beaver Club, the members of which were all fur-traders who had amassed considerable wealth in their calling. A contemporary had a memory of him in jovial mood at one of the festal meetings of this Club, “singing a voyageur's folk-song with sonorous voice, and imitating, paddle in hand, in time with the music, the action of the bowman of a canoe ascending a rapid.”

Because of his pleasing personality, his prosperity and business strength, and his marriage connections with another race and religion, he was held in respect and popularity by all classes, irrespective of nationality or creed. It was therefore but natural that he should enter political life after the granting of the Constitutional Act by the Home Government in 1791. He was selected, with J. B. Durocher as his colleague, to represent the West Ward of Montreal in the first parliament of Lower Canada which met on the 17th of December, 1792. Later he became a member of the Legislative Council, and in 1812 he was appointed one of the commissioners for removing from the city the old walls which had been built in 1724. He took a prominent part in the Militia organisation; during the war of 1812 he was honorary Colonel of the Montreal Infantry Volunteer Regiment; later and before hostilities ended, although he was too old for active service, he was promoted to be Brigadier General, and he seems to have had a large part in directing the administration of the various Militia units. After a busy, active and strenuous life of unselfish service for his community and of devoted efforts for the promotion of tolerance and harmony between races and creeds as the one sure foundation for a united Canadian nationality, he died in Montreal on December 19th, 1813, at the age of sixty-nine, and was buried on December 21st. The official record of his death reads: “On the nineteenth day of December, one thousand eight hundred and thirteen, the Honourable James McGill, Colonel, Commandant of the Montreal Militia, died, and was buried on the twenty-first following.” The certificate of death was signed by his partner, Isaac Todd, and by Thomas Blackwood, a native of Lanarkshire, Scotland, who was at one time employed in the firm of McGill and Todd, and who later formed a business partnership with Francis Desrivières.

Montreal as James McGill knew it

Mrs. James McGill survived her husband less than five years. She died in Montreal on the 16th of April, 1818, aged seventy years and nine months, and was buried on the 18th following. There were no children from the marriage.

James McGill was born of Scotch Presbyterian parents and he grew up in the church and religion of his fathers. When he settled in Montreal there was no Church of Scotland in the city. The first Presbyterian congregation in Montreal consisted of a small group of Scottish settlers. It was organised without a church building in 1786 by the Rev. John Bethune, who ministered to its members from March 12th in that year until he moved to Upper Canada in May, 1787. But it was but a temporary organisation and had no continuous status. From 1787 to 1790 there is no record of the holding of a strictly Presbyterian service in the city. The only Protestant body holding service regularly was known as “the Protestant Congregation of Montreal,” the pastor of which was the Rev. David Charbrand Delisle, one of the three clergymen who had been employed by the Church of England to labour among the French-Canadians. He was Rector of the Parish of Montreal and Chaplain of the Garrison. This congregation worshipped until 1789 in the Church of the Recollet Fathers, which with great tolerance and courtesy was for twenty years at their disposal; in 1789 they were given the Chapel belonging to the Jesuits' College, then Government property; they opened it for public worship in December under the name of Christ Church.

Like all the young Protestant Scotchmen living in Montreal at that time, James McGill became by necessity a member of the Protestant Episcopal Congregation. The adherents to the two Protestant creeds were tolerant and harmonious in their relations one with the other and they were content to worship together. In 1789 when the Bishop of Nova Scotia visited Montreal an address was presented to him by the Church Wardens, and by “a committee of the Protestant inhabitants of Montreal,” irrespective of their former creed. The majority of the latter were Scotch Presbyterians. The Bishop was met at Pointe aux Trembles by the reception committee. One of the “Protestant inhabitants” who signed and presented the address was James McGill. There is no doubt that the larger number of this “committee of Protestant inhabitants,” at that time identified with the Protestant Episcopal Congregation of Montreal, returned to the Church of their fathers as soon as a Church was built, several of them becoming office-bearers. The precise action taken by James McGill is uncertain. He seems to have divided his allegiance between the two communions; while not severing his connection entirely with the Church of England he gave his support to the establishment of a Church of Scotland and later became identified with it. When the St. Gabriel Street Church, the first Presbyterian Church in Montreal, was built in 1792, he subscribed ten guineas towards the construction of the building. He signed the call to the first pastor of the Church, the Rev. James Somerville; he thereafter contributed three pounds a year to his stipend and occupied pew No. 16 in the Church. His brother Andrew later contributed five pounds towards removing the remaining debt from the building. The Rev. Mr. Somerville, the pastor of the Church, officiated at Andrew's funeral. There is little doubt from the records that James McGill regarded himself as of the Church of Scotland although he was for a time, in those days of somewhat surprising religious harmony and tolerance, a member of the Protestant Episcopal Church of Montreal.

One of James McGill's most intimate friends and confidants in Canada was the Rev. John Strachan, afterwards the Right Reverend Bishop of Toronto, who was thirty-four years his junior. He was a native of Aberdeen, Scotland. He received his M. A. from King's College, Aberdeen, in 1797, and then attended for some months Divinity Classes at St. Andrew's University, near which he had a post as a Parish schoolmaster. Towards the end of 1797, he came to Canada by invitation to organise a seminary of learning in Upper Canada, but the plan was abandoned and he became tutor in a private family in Kingston, Ontario. He offered himself as a candidate for the pastorship of the St. Gabriel Street Presbyterian Church on September 21, 1802, but before his letter was received another applicant, the Rev. James Somerville, had been accepted. Later he took orders in the Anglican Church and was appointed to the Church at Cornwall. He opened there a school and his fame as a teacher was soon widespread. Among his pupils were the three sons of the Rev. John Bethune who had established the first Presbyterian Congregation in Montreal, one of whom afterwards became Rector of Christ Church and acting-Principal of McGill University. In 1807, he married the widow of James McGill's younger brother, Andrew, formerly Miss Wood of Cornwall, and he was thus brought into closer relationship with the McGill family. His enthusiasm for education and for its advancement in Canada was unbounded and it is evident that he impressed his ideas as to ways and means and methods on the mind of his wealthy merchant friend. James McGill was a believer in the value of education; he knew what it had done for his own home-land, and what Scotland, educationally, was doing for the world. He determined that the torch which for him had been lighted in Glasgow University should burn likewise for those who would succeed him in the land of his adoption. He had indicated that determination during the consideration of the subject in the Legislature. But on the question of method he sought advice from his young teacher friend, Strachan, whom he frequently visited in the latter's home in Cornwall. During these Glengarry visits there was many a happy and roseate night of mingled sociability and high seriousness, after the custom of their race and time, when the two friends, the young educationalist and the older man of wealth, with similar vision, sat late in discussion of the Canadian educational problem and of plans for its solution.

In a letter to the other surviving executors of James McGill's will, written from York [Toronto] on May 31, 1820, seven years after James McGill's death, the Rev. Dr. Strachan gave interesting information on these discussions and their bearing on the circumstances leading up to the practical working out of James McGill's dreams on education as evidenced later in his will. He wrote: “It was, I believe, at Cornwall during one of the visits which Mr. McGill made to Mrs. Strachan and me that his final resolution respecting the erection of a College after his name, endowing it, etc., was taken. We had been speaking of several persons who had died in Lower Canada and had left no memorial of themselves to benefit the country in which they had realised great fortunes. And particularly I mentioned a University, as the English had no Seminary where an Academical Education could be obtained. We had repeated conversations upon the subject, and he departed determined to do something and with some inclination to leave twenty instead of ten thousand pounds, together with Burnside, and even to make some preparations before his death, expressing at the same time a wish that if he did anything I should take an active part in the proposed College.”

It was soon after the visit referred to that James McGill made his will,—on March 8, 1811. He bequeathed to the Royal Institution for the Advancement of Learning, in trust, the sum of £10,000 and his Burnside Estate of forty-six acres, together with the dwelling house and other buildings, for the erection on the estate, and the endowment, of a University or College on the express conditions,—and these were the only conditions imposed,—that the University be erected and established within ten years of his death and that one of the Colleges to be comprised in the University should be called “McGill College.” If the College was not erected in the time specified the conveyance to the Royal Institution was to be null and void; and the estate and endowment were to revert to his widow, and after her death to her first husband's nephew, Francis Desrivières and to his legal heirs. He named as executors of the will John Richardson, James Reid, John Strachan, and James Dunlop.

These executors were all close personal friends of the testator. The career of John Strachan has already been outlined. Although it was not specified in the will that he should be connected with the proposed College, it may be assumed that because of his close friendship, his marriage connection, and his established reputation as a brilliant and successful educationalist with definite ideas on Canadian nationality, James McGill desired that he should have a prominent part in the organization of the College and that possibly he should be its first Principal. That this desire was stated to the trustees seems certain. In a letter written from Toronto some years after James McGill's death, while the trustees who knew the circumstances were still living, Bishop Strachan said:

“If it had been my desire, it was certainly in my power to have been at the head of it [McGill College] for it so happened that I had some difficulty in prevailing with my friend, Mr. McGill, to forbear annexing it as a condition to his bequest that I should fill that situation;” and he added that “a Professorship in McGill College was never desired or thought of by me, nor could any situation in that institution have formed an inducement to me to leave this Province to which I have been for so many years devoted.”

The three trustees associated with the Rev. Dr. Strachan as administrators of the will were all prominent in civic and provincial affairs. They were all Scotchmen and were connected with St. Gabriel Street Presbyterian Church. John Richardson, partner in the mercantile house of Forsyth, Richardson and Co., was a native of Banffshire, Scotland. He represented the East Ward of Montreal in the first Parliament of Lower Canada, which met in 1792, and he took his seat at the same time as James McGill, his colleague from the West Ward. With the latter, he was one of the commissioners appointed for the removing of the old city walls in 1802 and it was through his influence that the bill providing for the construction of a canal to Lachine was passed. The firm of which he was a member contributed £20 towards the building of St. Gabriel Street Presbyterian Church and he personally subscribed £3 a year towards the minister's stipend; he occupied pews No. 6 and No. 47. He was one of a committee of three formed to purchase the land on which the General Hospital now stands; he was chairman of the committee which superintended the construction of the Hospital and was later chosen as its first president. He died in 1831, aged seventy-six.

The Honourable James Reid, the second trustee named, was admitted to the Bar of the Province in 1794; he was raised to the Bench as a puisne Judge in 1807, and later in 1823 he was made Chief Justice of Montreal. He subscribed one guinea a year to the stipend of the first pastor of St. Gabriel Street Presbyterian Church and occupied pew No. 14. He died in 1848 at the age of seventy-nine. After his death, his widow erected to the memory of her husband the southwest wing of the Montreal General Hospital.

James Dunlop, the fourth trustee named, settled in Montreal in 1777 and established a general store in St. Paul Street. He took an active part in the military organisation during the War of 1812, and served as Major under Brigadier General James McGill. He subscribed ten guineas towards the building of St. Gabriel Street Presbyterian Church and his name appears for ten pounds on a special subscription list for liquidating the debt on the original building; he signed the manifesto in favour of the first pastor of the Church, the Rev. James Somerville; he contributed five pounds annually towards his salary and occupied pews No. 19 and No. 99. He died in 1815 at the age of sixty.

James McGill's estate sloped from the base of Mount Royal towards the St. Lawrence River. It consisted of forty-six acres of fertile land extending south to what is now Dorchester Street and reaching from the present University Street on the east to what are now McTavish and Metcalfe Streets on the west. St. Catherine Street and Dorchester Street were not then in existence and Sherbrooke Street was but a narrow road running through the farm. East, west and south of the estate were open fields and a few scattered houses, and the city proper lay a long distance away, beside the water-front. A small stream of water passed through the farm. It entered from the east near the present Milton Street entrance on University Street; it then turned south and was increased in volume by the water from a spring near the site of the Macdonald Engineering Building. It passed on through the present tennis courts in “the hollow” by the Physics Building, crossed Sherbrooke Street where it was joined by another small stream from the southwest, and then flowed close to Burnside House and on towards the city. It is recorded that the name Burnside was given to the estate because of this stream or “burn” as the Scotch called it. James McGill's home, Burnside House, a large stone building, was situated on the present McGill College Avenue, about midway between the present Sherbrooke and Burnside Streets on the left-hand side looking south; it was demolished in 1860 to make room for the buildings now in that locality. A narrow road led from near the front of the house to what is now St. Antoine Street. The estate was divided into small sections which were later rented for purposes of cultivation or pasture. It contained numerous trees and shrubs, and was at that time regarded as one of the most valuable and desirable parts of the district of Montreal.

In the days of James McGill, Montreal was a small town of from twelve to fifteen thousand inhabitants, and of these the large majority were French. Indeed, the whole province had but a scanty population. One-third of the houses were wooden huts. The town stretched out along the water-front in a series of narrow blocks and straggling streets. The trade with foreign countries was exceedingly small. The entire carrying capacity of ships annually arriving at Quebec did not exceed 12,000 tons, and only a few of these ships went on to Montreal. In 1813, the year of James McGill's death, only nine vessels entered Montreal from the sea, and their total capacity was but 1,589 tons. At the end of the 18th century, the exports of furs and other products from the entire province was little more than half a million pounds sterling. Strange and primitive customs were still in vogue in the city. The price of bread was regulated by “His Majesty's Justices of the Peace,” and bakers were required to mark their bread with the initials of their name. Slavery was not unknown, and a sale advertisement towards the end of the century included in the articles to be sold “a stout, healthy negro man about 28 years of age,—an excellent cook, and very fit for working on a farm.” A mail for England was dispatched about once a month. It went by way of New York and took from three to four weeks to reach that city; it was then forwarded by packet-ship to England, and usually at least four months passed before an answer could be received. The incoming mail was put off the New York packet at Halifax; it came overland from Halifax to Montreal, this part of the journey alone taking nearly four weeks.

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The Burnside Estate

Such was the somewhat primitive city in which James McGill lived and laboured and amassed his wealth. Such was the community to the service of which he contributed unstintingly of his material substance, his energy and his talent. Such, too, were the conditions in which this hard-headed, practical business man dreamed a dream,—a dream of a greater Canada with a distinctly Canadian nationality trained to solve its own problems in its own way, and of the necessity for providing for the youth of the great land mirrored in his mind the privileges of an adequate education similar to that which he had enjoyed in his own native country. For James McGill seems to have been a combination of the practical Scottish business man and the dreaming Scottish mystic. Like the other early Canadian pioneers of his race he was a hard-fisted man battling by necessity in a hard-fisted new world, but he kept in that new world the spiritual vision born of Scottish glens and mists and hills. He worked like his ancestors for the building of churches and schools and court houses, symbolic of religion, education and law, as milestones of civilisation in a new land and without which no country could make progress. He knew that without the torch of a free and liberal education the land of promise to which he had come and from which he had received much, could not advance to what he believed to be its destined place of power and service in the world. And so he dreamed of a great University which would not only be local in its usefulness, serving a small city which his faith told him would one day grow to giant size, but also national in its influence, and ministering to the enlightenment of that larger Canada which his vision saw in the far and dim distance. The making of his bequest two years before his death for the establishment and the endowment of McGill College was the first step towards the fulfilment of his hopes. But between the dream and its ultimate realisation lay long and troubled years of baffling difficulty and bitter discouragement, and at times, despair.

CHAPTER III

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Delay and Difficulty

LESS than three years after he had made his bequest, James McGill died, in December, 1813. Soon after his death the executors of his will sought to fulfil his desire with reference to the establishment of a College, and to ensure that the conditions imposed with regard to time would be complied with as speedily as possible. But they were confronted by obstacles over which they had no control. The will bequeathed the Burnside Estate and the Endowment Fund to the executors in trust, on the understanding that they should as soon as convenient after the testator's death convey it to the Royal Institution for the Advancement of Learning, to be used by them as provided under the Act of 1801. But, as we have seen, the organization of the Royal Institution was bitterly opposed by one section of the community. Every effort to have trustees appointed and to have the Institution put in actual operation was frustrated. The authorities feared to cause friction or discord, and they preferred postponement. There was therefore no Royal Institution, other than in name only, to which the McGill bequest could be conveyed. There were no trustees. It was necessary first for the executors and those interested in the establishment of the College to effect the actual organization of the Royal Institution by securing the appointment of trustees as called for by the Act. They continued, with vigour, to impress this necessity upon the authorities in order that the McGill bequest should not lapse, and they were promised prompt action. But in that troubled period of warfare the Home Government was involved in too many difficulties to devote time to the problem. Action was for these various reasons consequently long delayed and it was not until 1818 that the promise was fulfilled and that the authorities at last appointed Trustees and established in fact the Royal Institution. Were it not for the fear of losing the legacy,—a misfortune which after all was narrowly averted,—and the persistent efforts of the executors, the appointment would have been doubtless longer delayed. The Provincial Legislature could not appoint trustees without orders and they were unwilling to make any grant of money without authority from the Colonial Office.

But as a result of the hopeful promise made to the executors by the authorities towards the close of 1814, the former began to discuss and to put forward plans for the carrying out of the desire of the founder of the College. The Rev. Dr. Strachan was their spokesman. On February 14, 1815, he wrote to three personal friends who were then members of the Legislature of Lower Canada asking their co-operation and assistance, advising haste, and setting forth his own ideas on the establishment of McGill College,—ideas based on his knowledge of educational conditions in Canada and on his own experience of nearly twenty years in educational work. He urged the Provincial Legislature to act independently of the Home Government and to grant the funds necessary to put the College at once in operation, and he suggested making use of the Jesuits' Estates or the Crown Lands for this purpose. From this letter the following extracts are of interest:

“As we [the Executors] have sent the necessary documents to the Commander of the Forces to point out the necessity of his acting promptly in establishing a College according to the conditions of Mr. McGill's Will, and as it is probable he may apply to the House of Assembly upon the subject, I furnish you with my ideas.

“The scheme enclosed for the two Schools and College is as economical as it can well be to render it respectable and useful. The number of students will not be great for some years, nor will it ever be such as to make the Professorships lucrative. Even the Principal will hardly ever be able to reach one thousand pounds per annum, a remuneration sufficiently moderate for the accumulated duties which he will have to perform and to maintain in such an expensive place as Montreal the dignity of his station. If the Provincial Parliament waits for something to be done by the King all will be lost,—for the Government have too many things to call their attention. But when the matter is once set on foot, an address from the Legislature can at any time procure assistance from His Majesty's Ministry. Yet six thousand pounds per annum appears to me a trifle, considering the increased opulence of the country. It is not probable that the Roman Catholics will object to such an arrangement,—they have already three Seminaries said to be well endowed,—but if any of them be poor the Legislature ought to grant them pecuniary relief.

“I say nothing respecting religion, but in the Chapel of the University Lectures on Theology may be given to Protestant students, which Roman Catholics shall not be required to attend. There are many particular regulations which I do not mention, I just furnish a crude outline.

“You are to recollect that if nothing be done, you will soon lose Mr. McGill's donation. The time will never again be so propitious. I say nothing about the nomination of Professors; men of some talent must be selected and of great zeal for the promotion of the Sciences. The first Principal will have many difficulties to encounter and may not live to see the Seminary in a very flourishing condition, but it will ultimately exceed the most sanguine expectations.

“I prefer the form of the Scotch and German Universities to the English, or rather a mixture of both plans, because much more may be done at one-fourth of the expense. In the English Universities the public Professors seldom lecture more than once a week,—many of them not at all; the whole system of teaching is conducted by Tutors and emulation and a love of study is kept up among the students by fellowships, etc. The great opulence of Cambridge and Oxford is far beyond our reach, and although I should be sorry ever to see them lose a shilling, for I think them wisely adapted to so rich and populous and learned a country as England, I consider them unfit for this country. Our professors must each during the session, give two, three, or even four courses of lectures, till the funds afford the means of increasing their number.

“I must further add on the subject of finding Professors, that gentlemen newly from England, and accustomed to the wealthy Universities of that country, may not always possess the qualities necessary to make them useful in this projected Seminary. Learning they may have in abundance, but the industry, labour (I may say drudgery) and accommodation to circumstances cannot be expected from them. There are several gentlemen in this country qualified for the first race of Professors, and after the Seminary is once set agoing there will be no risk in electing Englishmen to fill vacant chairs, because the rules and regulations being established, all must submit.

“I have only mentioned one restriction, the Principal to be of the Church of England. This, I think necessary on many accounts. The Seminary must and ought to have a distinct religious character, and this simple regulation will confer it without circumscribing its liberality and openness to all persuasions. I think also the Principal's department should be Moral Philosophy or Theology.”

In the same letter Bishop Strachan outlined his suggested scheme for the organisation of McGill College. He pointed out “that the necessity of sending young men out of the Province to finish their education has been found both dangerous and inconvenient; that reason and policy equally demand that our youth be educated in the Province, or in England, if we wish them to become friendly to our different establishments and to the Parent State; that few can defray the expense of sending their children to England, and, if they could, the distance from parental authority is dangerous to their morals; and that there is at present no Seminary in which the English youth of Canada can obtain a liberal education.”

To remedy these alleged evils, he therefore proposed that there should be established “two Grammar Schools, one at Quebec, and one at Montreal, each under a Rector or Head Master and three Assistants, at which the following branches of education shall be taught: the Greek, Latin, French and English languages, Writing, Arithmetic, Geography, and Practical Mathematics. These schools, to be appendages and nurseries for a University to be established on the model of the Scotch and German Universities in the neighbourhood of Montreal, on the property bequeathed for that purpose by the late Honourable James McGill, and to be named as he desired, McGill College or University; that the following branches of academical education be taught in the said University, (1) Greek and Latin; (2) Natural History and Botany; (3) Mathematics and Astronomy; (4) Natural Philosophy and Chemistry; (5) Moral Philosophy, Logic and Rhetoric; (6) Surgery and Anatomy; (7) Civil and Public Law; that the Professors of Surgery and of Civil and Public Law shall not be required to reside within the College; that a house be provided within the College for a Principal and four Professors; that the members of the University be constituted a Corporation capable of sueing and being sued, and of receiving donations of money and lands, etc., for the benefits of the Institution; that the Principal be always a clergyman of the Church of England; that young men of all denominations, as Christians, be freely admitted to the different lectures; that new Professorships be established as soon as the funds will admit; that the University be represented in the House of Assembly by two Members; that no degree be conferred upon a student who has not resided three years; that an attendance of three years at the University shall entitle a student to be called to the Bar one year earlier than any other, provided he be of age; that a report of the state of the University be annually laid before Parliament; that there be frequent Visitations by the Bishop, the Chief Justice, the Speaker of the House of Assembly, etc., appointed a committee for that purpose; and that there be two public examinations every year.”

Dr. Strachan estimated the expense of the necessary buildings to be £18,000, “made up of £4,000 for each of the two Grammar Schools including residence for the Head Masters, and £10,000 in addition to James McGill's bequest of £10,000, an excellent site and house extremely commodious for the Principal or one of the Professors.” The annual expense of the Grammar Schools was estimated at £2,000, “made up of £300 a year to each of the Head Masters, £200 a year to each of two second Head Masters, £100 a year to each of four Under Masters, and £300 to each school for servants, repairs, library, premiums, etc.” It was added that “this will render them desirable, and together with a moderate fee, payable by each scholar to his respective Teacher, will make them an object to men of talent!”

The total annual expense of the University was estimated at £4,000, made up as follows: “The Principal to be also a Professor, £750; the Senior Professor, £500; three Professors, £400 each; the Professor of Surgery and Anatomy, and the Professor of Civil and Public Law, £200 each; in addition each Professor is to enjoy a moderate fee from the students attending his lectures; for the purchase of books for the Library, £300; for the purchase of Philosophical and Chemical apparatus, £250; for the purchase of Plants for the Botanic Garden, £100; Librarian's salary, £100; Gardener's salary, £100; Servants and Contingencies, £300.” It was explained that smaller salaries were given to the Professors of Surgery and Law because “they will be Professional men not expected to reside in the College or to be exclusively confined to its duties, but attending at the same time to their private practice.”

Three reasons were given by Dr. Strachan for preferring Montreal to Quebec as the place for the establishment of the University: “its more central position; its greater suitability for a Botanic Garden; and the large sum of money and a most beautiful estate already given for the express purpose.” In conclusion, Dr. Strachan wrote: “Thus it appears that for an appropriation of £18,000, and six thousand pounds per annum, an establishment may be formed of incalculable importance to the Province, in a religious, moral and political light. The Legislature might in a few years be relieved from the burden by procuring from the Crown the Jesuits' Estates to be given for the support of the Institution, and by grants of lands capable of becoming productive. The allowance for Philosophical and Chemical apparatus will in a few years become too great; the surplus may then assist the library.”

The three members of the Legislature to whom this letter was sent by Dr. Strachan at once brought it to the attention of their colleagues, and the question was again referred to the Home Government. It seems to have been pressed with earnestness and persistence but it was apparently not regarded as very urgent by the Colonial Office. The authorities were evidently too busy with the Napoleonic Wars in Europe and America, and with their own internal problems to give much attention to Colonial education, and the year passed without further action. Finally, on the 30th of December, 1815, Lord Bathurst wrote from Downing Street to Sir Gordon Drummond, then administering the Government of Lower Canada, the following letter asking for information about the Jesuits' Estates, and intimating the intention of the Government to proceed with the establishment of a College or Colleges in the Province, for the erecting of which the revenues of these estates might be used:

“His Royal Highness, the Prince Regent, being desirous of marking by some permanent establishment the high sense which he entertains of the exertions made by the Provinces of Canada during the late war with the United States, has been pleased to signify his intention of founding and endowing in the Province one or more Colleges for the education of youth. An establishment so necessary cannot be too early accomplished, and although the details of such a measure are not completely arranged, yet Montreal has been from its central situation selected as the town best fitted for such a purpose. There does not appear any reason why the commencement of the work should not take place immediately. You will, therefore, lose no time in selecting such a spot in the immediate vicinity of Montreal, taking care that the ground selected be sufficiently extensive to leave an adequate space for the formation of walks and gardens, and you will proceed without delay to enclose it for that purpose. You will further take the necessary measures for acquainting the trustees in whose hands the late Mr. McGill deposited by will a sum of £10,000 in aid of this object, that it is the intention of His Majesty's Government to commence such an undertaking and to call upon them as soon as the plan shall have been definitely settled for the application of the funds entrusted to them for the purpose of erecting the building. I forbear in this first stage of the undertaking to mention either the assistance which His Majesty's Government is prepared or may be enabled to give or that which the Province may be disposed to contribute. The benefits of such an establishment are such as must be felt both in the Colonies and in the Mother Country, and when felt cannot but ensure on the part of both a hearty co-operation and liberal support.

“With a view to the endowment of a College, the estates lately belonging to the Jesuits and now in possession of the Crown, afford a resource of which His Majesty's Government are to a certain extent determined to avail themselves. But previous to deciding upon the extent of the establishment it is necessary that I should be informed of the present value of these Estates, of their capability of improvement and of the mode in which their revenues have hitherto been disposed of.

“I have therefore to desire that you will as early as possible furnish me with adequate information upon these several points. Upon the receipt of which His Majesty's Government will lose no time in entering upon the final arrangement of an establishment calculated to afford to all classes of His Majesty's subjects in the Province that degree of education and those means of improvement which they have hitherto been compelled to seek at a distance from home.”

It is evident from the above letter that the writer had no knowledge of the conditions of James McGill's will nor was he aware that before Colleges could be established it was first necessary to appoint Trustees for the Royal Institution and thereby to enable that body to assume control of educational institutions established in the Province, as already provided for by the Act of 1801. However, the Executors of the McGill will were informed, as requested, of the Home Government's intention, and the information asked for with reference to the Jesuits' Estates was forwarded to the Colonial Office. Lord Bathurst was apparently meanwhile made acquainted with the conditions of the will and with the Act of 1801. A few weeks later, on March 14th, 1816, he again wrote to Sir Gordon Drummond, as follows:

“My despatch of the 30th December will have informed you of the determination of His Royal Highness the Prince Regent to avail himself of the return of peace to forward the important objects of education and instruction in His Majesty's Dominions, and especially in the Provinces of Canada. When I then addressed you I had not had an opportunity of perusing the will of Mr. McGill which afforded by the liberality of his bequest such important assistance in carrying such an object into effect. I have since been furnished with a copy of the will of which an extract is enclosed for your consideration. You will no doubt observe that the mode in which the bequest is directed to be made, no less than the nature of it, superseded the necessity of carrying into effect the instructions conveyed to you on the 30th December under an erroneous impression of its contents. You will therefore consider that instruction to be recalled and in lieu of adopting any measures for enclosing a spot well fitted for the erection of the University, you will suspend all measures of such a nature till the necessary preliminary arrangements have been made in conformity with the Act of Parliament of the Province of Lower Canada passed in the 41st year of His Present Majesty, entitled 'An Act for the Establishment of Free Schools and the Advancement of Learning in this Province.' Those arrangements you will immediately carry into effect, by appointing under the Great Seal of the Province the following persons to be Trustees of the Schools of Royal Foundation in the Province in the manner and for the purposes specified in the Act and constituting them a Body Corporate by the name of the Royal Institution for the Advancement of Learning. The persons to be nominated in the first instance are the Governor, Lieutenant-Governor, or person administering the Government for the time being; the Right Reverend Jacob Mountain, Bishop of Quebec; Jonathan Sewell, Esq., the Chief Justice of the district of Quebec; James Monk, Esq., the Chief Justice of the district of Montreal; the Reverend J. O. DuPlessis, Superintendent of the Romish Church.

“As soon as this preliminary arrangement shall have taken place you will call upon the persons named in Mr. McGill's will for the execution of the trust reposed in them, and you will by an early opportunity receive detailed instructions for your future proceedings.”

Three weeks later, on the 9th April, 1816, Lord Bathurst forwarded to Sir Gordon Drummond the following despatch containing the names of additional Trustees and cancelling for obvious religious, political and racial reasons which would prevent criticism the former appointment of the Governor:

“In my despatch of the 14th ult., I conveyed to you the instruction of His Royal Highness, the Prince Regent, to nominate and appoint under the Provincial Act of 1801 a Body Corporate for the Advancement of Learning, and I communicated to you the names of several persons who appeared best qualified for such a duty. It has since appeared more advisable to increase the number of Trustees to eight in order to obviate the inconveniences which if the number were less might arise from the non-attendance of individual members. It has been deemed proper also in order to obviate all objections which might be grounded on the circumstances of the peculiar situation in which with regard to this commission the Governor is placed, to withdraw from that commission the name of the Governor or Officer administering the Government. You will therefore take the necessary measures for inserting in the Patent the following names in lieu of those which I have previously specified, viz.—Jonathan Sewell, Esq., Chief Justice of the district of Quebec; James Monk, Esq., Chief Justice of the district of Montreal; the Right Rev. Jacob Mountain, Bishop of Quebec; Rev. J. O. DuPlessis, Superintendent of the Romish Church; the Rev. Dr. Alexander Sparke of the Church of Scotland; John Richardson, Esq., of Montreal, a member of the Executive and Legislative Councils; William Bachelor Coltman, Esq., of Quebec, a member of the Executive Council; and John Reid, Esq., of Montreal, one of the Judges of the Court of King's Bench.”

Notwithstanding the above instructions the Provincial Government was slow to act, for reasons already specified. Opposition to the establishment of the Royal Institution continued to be powerful and somewhat bitter, and two years passed before trustees were finally appointed. The Rev. J. O. DuPlessis, the Superintendent of the Romish Church, objected to becoming a member of the Board, and later declined. Meanwhile vigorous efforts were made to have the grants for schools and the McGill bequest augmented by the Crown, through the use of Crown Lands or the revenues of the Jesuits' Estates as partly promised in Lord Bathurst's letter of December 30, 1815.

As a result of these persistent efforts by some members of the Legislature and by church authorities interested in education, the Home Government realised that the funds devoted to educational institutions were lamentably insufficient and that additional means should at once be provided for the better equipment of schools and for the engagement of a greater number of teachers. They seem to have realised, too, that the bequest of James McGill was not in itself sufficient to provide for the erection of College buildings and for a subsequent endowment. They therefore decided after much consideration to make use of the estates of the Jesuits which had reverted to the Crown on the extinction of the order. For several years the assigning of the revenues of these estates to educational and religious purposes under Protestant control had been advocated and by the strange irony of history this was in time brought about. Indeed, as early as February 10th, 1810, Sir Gordon Drummond, then administering the Government of Lower Canada, wrote from Quebec to the Colonial Office stating that the Anglican Cathedral in Quebec “was badly in need of repair and that for the purpose of repair there was little hope of obtaining from the inhabitants of Quebec any contribution worthy of consideration.” He therefore asked that the Home Government should authorise him to devote to the purpose part of the revenue arising from the Jesuits' Estates, the whole of which “to the amount of more than £4,500 annually has hitherto been transferred to the Military chest.” And he added, “I beg leave to suggest my opinion that this is the most proper source from which the means of repairing the cathedral can be drawn, and indeed, that this fund might with propriety in the future be applied to the general support of the places of worship of the Established Church throughout the Province.”

In answer to this request, however, no immediate action was taken, for although the Home Government had a legal right to dispose of the Estates as they saw fit, they naturally wished to proceed slowly and tactfully in order to avoid religious friction or bitterness within the Province. In 1815, when, as already pointed out, it was intimated by the Colonial Office that the Jesuit Estates might possibly be appropriated in aid of the McGill bequest, there seems to have been no intention to limit the assistance which should be provided by this increased revenue to McGill College alone. On the contrary, the object appears to have been to use the additional funds in order that, irrespective of race or creed, the benefits of education might be diffused as widely as possible throughout the country. But delay again followed, and it was not until the next year that definite instructions were issued by Lord Bathurst for the transfer of the Jesuits' Estates to the Royal Institution for the Advancement of Learning. These instructions were contained in the following historic letter, destined to have so large a part in the establishment of McGill College and in Canadian education, and forwarded to the Officer Administering the Government of Lower Canada by Lord Bathurst from Downing Street on May 10th, 1816:

“I have already expressed to you the gracious intention of His Royal Highness, the Prince Regent, to forward the extension of education in the Provinces of Canada and I have pointed out the preliminary measures necessary on your part to give effect to that intention. In furtherance of this object, I have received the commands of His Royal Highness to instruct you to transfer to the Trustees of the Royal Institution for the Advancement of Learning all those estates which formerly belonged to the Society of Jesuits, which, since the abolition of that order, have been vested in the Crown, in order that the Royal Institution for the Advancement of Learning may possess present means for establishing and maintaining the Seminaries which it may be necessary to found and may possess the revenue which cannot fail progressively to increase in proportion to the improvement of the Provinces and the consequent demand for additional means of instruction.

“In transferring, however, those estates to the management of the Royal Institution for the Advancement of Learning, you will retain for the future disposal of His Royal Highness the accumulation of the rents and profits of preceding years which may be either in the hands of the Receiver of those estates, or which may have been by him paid to the Colonial Government, and you will with as little delay as possible transmit to me a detailed account of the amount of the Fund which has been so created.”

Meanwhile the executors of the will of James McGill had been again informed of the definite intention of the authorities to proceed with the erection and endowment of a College at Montreal, and on May 13th, 1816, John Richardson, one of the surviving executors, acknowledged on behalf of himself and his colleagues receipt of the information in the following letter, in which, remembering perhaps Lord Bathurst's letter of December 30, 1815, they emphasised the conditions imposed in the will:

“We have the honour of receiving your letter of the 9th inst., written by command of His Excellency, the Administrator in Chief, to acquaint us that His Majesty's Government have it in contemplation to erect and endow a College at Montreal and that it is their intention as soon as the plan of this establishment shall be definitely settled, to call upon us as Trustees of the Will of the late Mr. McGill for the application of the lands entrusted to us for that purpose.

“And further desiring to be acquainted for His Excellency's information, what are the extent and advantages considered with reference to the object proposed of the House and property of the late Mr. McGill in the vicinity of Montreal and whether the grounds are sufficiently extensive to have an adequate space for the formation of walks and gardens,—in compliance with His Excellency's desire, we have to acquaint you that the grounds above mentioned contain about forty-six superficial arpents in a very healthy, moderately elevated, and pleasant situation, well watered, at a convenient distance from the city towards the mountain, and consequently appear to be sufficiently extensive and well calculated for every purpose of the contemplated establishment. There are already upon the premises a good stone house of two and a half stories, a barn, office, and a large garden, which may be applied to the residence of the President or some of the Professors or to other useful purpose connected with the object in view.

“We have further to acquaint you for His Excellency's information that the devise by the late Mr. McGill is upon several conditions, one whereof is that 'one of the Colleges be named McGill College, or if only one College should be selected, then that the said one shall be called McGill College!' Another of the conditions is 'that it be erected upon the tract so devised.'

“We therefore take the liberty of suggesting that it will be needful in forming the plan of the establishment to attend to these conditions so as to enable the Trustees to act in conformity to the trust reposed in them by the will of the deceased.”

Two years of inaction followed, and even after the trustees of the Royal Institution were appointed, delay characterised the efforts of the authorities. There seems to have been considerable disagreement between the Home Government and the Provincial Government with regard to the exact objects for which the revenue of the Jesuits' Estates was intended, and on the method of distribution. The Home authorities would not agree to assign any of the revenue to aid in the establishment of McGill College. Finally, in 1819, Lord Bathurst directed the Duke of Richmond, the Governor-General, immediately to commence the building of McGill College, and he authorised him to defray the expense which it might in the first instance be necessary to incur “from any funds which might be in the hands of the Receiver of the Jesuits' Estates.” But this instruction was not carried out. Its object seems to have been merely to prevent the lapse of the McGill bequest in conformity with the expressed condition of the will that the College should be erected within a definite time. Further, the proposed assistance from the Jesuits' Estates seems to have been an advance and not a gift. It is unnecessary here to follow in detail the disagreement and the struggle arising from the distribution of the revenue of these estates. For several years the subject was one of controversy, and meanwhile the cause of education suffered. In 1823 Lord Bathurst recommended to the Lords Commissioners of the Treasury that a loan of £50,000 at 4% interest should be granted to the Royal Institution, but this recommendation was not complied with. In 1825 a system was proposed by Lord Dalhousie, and subsequently followed, by which the management of the estates was taken over by the Inspector of the King's Domain under the control of the Governor in Council. He was allowed an agent in each district to collect the rents which were then turned in at stated periods to the Receiver General. For several years, however, particularly in 1830 and 1831, the question of assigning the revenues from the estates for the purpose of education was repeatedly under discussion, but no pledge for such financial assistance was given by the Home Government. At last, in 1831, the Home Government surrendered the Jesuits' Estates to the Provincial Legislature, and against much opposition the schools were placed under the control of the House of Assembly. The salaries of teachers were greatly reduced; they were granted on an annual vote on condition that instruction be given by each teacher to at least twenty pauper scholars. As a result, it was stated by those opposed to this new plan that “the schools were nothing more than places of cheap education for the children of people in the lower walks of life.” But notwithstanding this criticism the schools of the Province seem to have flourished to some extent at least under the new system. But it should not be forgotten that the Jesuits' Estates which had so long been the subject of discussion and controversy had in the end a very prominent part in the early history of McGill College. It was because of the funds derived from them when all other sources of revenue were exhausted that the trustees of the Royal Institution, and the executors of the will of James McGill, were permitted to prove in the courts the legality of the McGill bequest and to prosecute successfully their claims to his Burnside estate.

In accordance with Lord Bathurst's instructions to the Duke of Richmond in 1819, the Royal Institution for the Advancement of Learning proceeded to have the McGill property transferred from the executors of the will to their own control. They gave a power of attorney to S. Sewell, who subsequently continued for several years to act on their behalf. But delay again characterised the efforts of the Royal Institution, and it was not until January 18th, 1820, that final application for the transfer of the McGill estate was made to the three surviving executors, Hon. John Richardson, Hon. James Reid, and the Rev. Dr. Strachan. The estate was then in possession of Francis Desrivières, the nephew of the first husband of Mrs. James McGill. He was occupying Burnside House, James McGill's former home, and he was in control of the lands, products and rents of the estate. On receipt of the request from the Royal Institution, the executors wrote to Mr. Desrivières on January 20th, 1820, informing him that a University or College was about to be erected and established “for the purpose of education as designated in the will and in conformity to the conditions therein presented,” and asking “when the tract of land and premises now in your possession can be delivered over without subjecting you to unnecessary inconvenience.”

This inquiry was the beginning of a long and wearying controversy which resulted in protracted litigation and ended finally in an appeal to the Privy Council. The reply to the above request indicates that the Desrivières family was not inclined to give up the property without a struggle. Francis Desrivières wrote, “I beg leave to mention that when the demand for the property in question is made by the Corporation referred to [The Royal Institution], I will determine how far a compliance with that demand ought to take place on my part.” The executors forwarded this reply to the Attorney for the Royal Institution with the comment “you will perceive that it is evasive.” They further stated their intention to proceed nevertheless with the conveyance, “which, when completed, will be handed over to you; it will then rest with your Corporation to pursue such measures as may be considered proper on the occasion.”

The necessary papers for the transfer of the estate, but not the endowment fund,—from the executors of the will to the Royal Institution were finally completed in May, 1820; on June 7th following, the conveyance was effected and the Deed was recorded on August 3rd. It was evident, however, to the executors that difficulties were in the way of securing possession of the property. In a letter to the Rev. Dr. Strachan, written on the 24th of May, 1820, the two remaining living executors, John Richardson and James Reid, said: “We are sorry to say that a general belief prevails, and we fear is too well founded, that Mr. Desrivières, the residuary legatee, means to contest this bequest of his venerable benefactor. If that shall be really his intention, it will speedily be known by a refusal after a formal demand is made by the Corporation for the delivery of possession of the aforesaid grounds and premises,—whereupon a suit will be instituted against him in the October term.” To this letter Dr. Strachan replied, “I should hope that Mr. Desrivières will have a greater respect for the memory of his greatest benefactor than to contest a Legacy which goes to establish an institution which he had so much at heart.”

That the “general belief” and the fears above referred to were not groundless was soon apparent. Formal application for the vacating and the giving up of the estate was made by the trustees of the Royal Institution. The application was curtly refused. Francis Desrivières was in possession of the estate and he determined to remain in such possession until the Courts should decide otherwise. His solicitors based their claim, on his behalf, on the plea that a college had not yet been erected, that no steps had been taken towards its erection, that there was no intention to proceed with its establishment, and that it was now too late to comply with the conditions of the will with reference to time. With respect to the endowment fund, they claimed that they were not obliged to pay it until a college had been actually erected as provided in the will. As a result of these claims, a suit was at once instituted in the Courts by the Royal Institution for the purpose of obtaining possession of the estate, and on October 3rd, 1820, the Board passed a resolution authorising their attorney, Mr. Sewell, to secure the aid of Mr. Stuart as counsel in the case. Mr. Sewell subsequently had the assistance of Mr. Ogden, Mr. Vallières de St. Real, Mr. Griffin, and Mr. Cochrane.

The Board soon realised that if their suit was to be carried to a successful conclusion they must have funds to meet necessary expenses. They applied to the Governor-General for financial assistance, and as a result a sum of £200 was advanced to them as a loan, from the proceeds of the Jesuits' Estates. They realised, too, that it was necessary at once to give the College some semblance of organisation. Their solicitors advised the securing of a Charter without delay, and on February 7th, 1821, the Secretary of the Board wrote to Mr. Sewell, stating that “application for a Charter will be made to His Majesty's Government without loss of time, but it is the unanimous opinion of the Board that the case should proceed.” The Charter [here included as [appendix B]] received the sanction of the Crown on March 31st, 1821, and formed the basis of the court plea of the Royal Institution. Two years later the Board decided to secure a teaching staff, and by 1824 they had appointed a Principal, who was to be also Honorary Professor of Divinity, and four Professors. The latter held merely pro forma appointments, and were intended to fulfil a technical legal requirement; none of them ever lectured in the University, and when the College was actually opened five years later those who still remained willingly resigned to leave the Governors free to fill all Professorships as they desired. But the fact of their appointment doubtless helped the Board in the suit then pending.

It is needless here to outline in detail the litigation that followed. In answer to the Desrivières claim, the Board contended that, as required by the testator, McGill College had now been, to all intents and purposes, erected and established by Letters Patent under the Great Seal, and by the appointment of Professors. All the conditions of the will had therefore, they said, been fulfilled. Accordingly on November 8th, 1821, they made a formal demand upon the executors, the Hon. John Richardson and the Hon. Justice Reid, for the transfer of the legacy of £10,000 with interest due since the death of the testator. Francis Desrivières was in possession of this money, and on December 4th, 1821, the executors called on him for its payment. He replied that it would not be paid until the college had been built and established, as the case connected with property only had not yet been decided, and he did not regard the mere obtaining of a Charter as fulfilling the conditions of the will. As a result the executors and the Board issued instructions on December 26th, 1821, for the instituting of a second suit to obtain possession of the endowment fund, and the two suits proceeded.

The settlement of the first case was long delayed, and was attended with numerous discouragements. It involved, too, great expense, which the Board was not always able to meet. The judgment of the Court of King's Bench in Montreal was in favour of the Royal Institution. Mr. Desrivières then appealed from this judgment to the Privy Council, and again an irritating delay ensued before the appeal was heard. In July, 1823, the Board asked the Governor-General for a further loan of £300 from the revenues of the Jesuits' Estates as they were again in financial straits. The advance was made, but it was soon expended, and when forwarding a payment on account to Mr. Sewell on April 15th, 1824, the Secretary of the Board wrote, “this payment exhausts within a few pounds all the money of the Royal Institution. We are therefore in no very enviable situation as to funds.” Four more years passed before the first suit was finally settled; they were years during which in the face of obstacles that threatened the very existence of the College, the Board frequently despaired of success. On August 17th, 1824, the Secretary wrote to the Lieutenant-Governor of the Province, Sir F. N. Burton, pleading for his assistance and co-operation in bringing the case to a speedy conclusion, and asking for further financial assistance. The following extract from his letter indicates that the outlook was not entirely hopeful:

“The judgment of the Court of King's Bench at Montreal in favour of the Institution in suit against Mr. Desrivières has been confirmed by the Court of Appeals; but a further appeal has been made to the Privy Council; the sum of £300, advanced by way of Loan, by order of His Excellency, the Governor in Chief, in consequence of the address above referred to (in addition to £200 before received), from the proceeds of the Estates heretofore belonging to the late Order of Jesuits' has been subsequently expended. Your Excellency is likewise aware that not only is a question arising out of these complicated legal proceedings now pending in the Court of Appeals, but also that the action for the £10,000 which promises to be at least as expensive to the Institution as that for the Estate of Burnside, is as yet undecided in the Court of King's Bench at Montreal. Of the final result of these proceedings no doubt can reasonably be entertained; but the Institution have before them in the meantime the prospect of protracted Litigation without any means whatever of meeting the heavy expense attendant upon it,—or even of defraying their ordinary contingent expenses, however trifling their amount. In these circumstances of unexampled difficulty, the Institution once more humbly pray that your Excellency in transmitting their Memorial to His Majesty's Government, will be pleased to accompany it with such representations as to your Excellency may seem best calculated to relieve them from the extreme embarrassment of their situation; from which, if it is not speedily extricated, not only must all hope be relinquished of the actual establishment of McGill College, already erected by the Royal Charter, but their operations must be suspended altogether and their very existence as a Corporation virtually cease.”

The reply to this letter was unfavourable, or at least indifferent, and on November 14, 1824, an appeal was made for a grant or a loan of £50 from the revenues of the Jesuits' Estates. Finally, towards the close of 1828, the judgment previously given in favour of the Royal Institution was confirmed by decree of the Privy Council in Appeal, and early in 1829 the Burnside Estate was given into the Board's possession. The suit in connection with the endowment fund was still pending. Because of the judgment given in the first suit, there was no doubt, however, about its ultimate result, but it was not finally settled by the Privy Council in favour of the Royal Institution until 1837.

When the Board took possession of the Burnside Estate they decided to lease to a farmer named O'Connor, the farm and garden for one year, “on the halves,” on condition that the lease could be cancelled by the Board on three months' notice. The leasing of the property was frequently the cause of controversy and annoyance. O'Connor contracted a bill for garden seeds amounting to over £3. He was unable to pay it and the seed merchant held the Estate liable, as the products of the seeds had improved the property. There was a long and technical discussion, until at last the bill was paid from the proceeds of the sale of wood from apple trees O'Connor had cut down, apparently to end the trouble. On the whole, the leasing was for a time profitable to the Board, but it was not always attended with harmony. Later, the land was leased to another farmer named Kelly for seven years, on condition that the lease could be surrendered on four months' notice, “and that Kelly should cut down the poplar trees.” Subsequently, the estate was leased in smaller sections.

In order to strengthen the claims then before the courts for the possession of the endowment fund, it was desirable actually to open the College in Burnside House as speedily as possible. It was decided that the opening should take place on Wednesday, the 24th of June, 1829, and notification of this intention was published in the press. In April a committee of the Board was appointed to draw up a Code of Statutes for the government of the College. The Rev. Archdeacon Mountain, son of the Principal of the Royal Institution for the Advancement of Learning, had been appointed Principal of the proposed University five years before. But no arrangements had been made for the future. There was apparently but little promise of a grant from the Government, and until the second suit should be settled in the courts and money thereby made available, it was obvious that all plans must be indefinite. The future would, it was hoped, take care of itself; the main object to be considered for the present at least was the opening of the College. With that accomplished, and the endowment fund paid, all difficulties, it was thought, would vanish, and the College would go forward to its intended place. But before it lay troubled years of uncertainty and anxiety. It was only the firm determination and the undefeated optimism of those who believed in its destiny that kept it from being merely the hope or the dream of a Scottish pioneer rather than a place of everlasting influence in our national life. The struggle of those years was not always without great disappointment, and even bitterness. But the product that emerged from the turmoil was perhaps greater and stronger for that fact.

CHAPTER IV

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The College Opened

THE Principal who guided McGill College in its infancy and for six years after its opening, was the Rev. George Jehosophat Mountain. He was appointed to the Principalship in 1824, while the University was a name only. The family from which he was descended had won distinction in education and in the church, and it was fortunate that the young College should be cradled under the care of a guardian of his learning, his traditions and his breadth of vision. His father, the Rev. Jacob Mountain, was given livings by the younger Pitt in Lincolnshire and Huntingdonshire in England, and later a prebend's stall in Lincoln Cathedral. When a diocese was created in Canada his name was at once suggested, because of his success at home, and in 1793 he came to Canada to become the first Anglican Bishop of Quebec. He subsequently acted as Principal of the Royal Institution for the Advancement of Learning and as such he had an active part in the educational affairs of the Province. His son, George, was born in England in 1789 and when he arrived in Canada with his parents he was but four years old. He therefore justly regarded himself as a Canadian. He received his early education in Quebec and continued his studies in England, where he took his B.A. degree at Trinity College, Cambridge. He then returned to Canada and assisted his father as Secretary until he was ordained in 1816, at a time when the establishment of McGill College and the methods of fulfilling James McGill's desire were under discussion. In 1817 he became Rector of Quebec, and in 1821 Archdeacon of Lower Canada. When in 1824 the Board of the Royal Institution found that it was necessary, in order to secure the McGill bequest, to appoint Professors to the proposed College they selected Archdeacon Mountain as Honorary Professor of Divinity and Principal of McGill College. But he gave no lectures and received little or no remuneration for his work. His duty seems to have been mainly to preserve the forms which the terms of the will required. He laid the foundation for the creation of the Faculty of Arts, and while he believed that instruction should be given in a manner consistent with the English National Establishment, he desired that the University should be open to students of all creeds with equal privileges and that Professorships should be tenable by graduates of the Scotch Universities. He retained the Principalship until 1835, when he retired, to return for a time to England. It is unnecessary here to follow in detail his subsequent career. In 1836 he was made coadjutor of Dr. James Stewart, Bishop of Quebec and became thereby Bishop of Montreal, the consecration ceremony being performed at Lambeth. After his retirement from the Principalship he continued, as we shall see, to devote much time and attention to the affairs of the growing University as a Governor, and he lived to see the College of which he was the first guardian advance to growth and usefulness even far beyond his dreams. During his last years he occupied the Anglican See of Quebec, where he died in 1863.

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Rev. George Jehosophat Mountain
1789-1863
First Principal of McGill University 1829-1835

The ceremony which marked the official opening of McGill University was held on Wednesday afternoon, June 24th, 1829. It had been advertised in the press for some time, and in addition special invitations were sent out to many citizens interested in educational advancement. It was therefore attended by what the contemporary press called a gathering of “numerous and respectable individuals.” Because of the historical importance of this meeting, the report of it, which appeared in the Montreal Gazette in the issue of Monday, June 29, and which is similar in its details to the Governors' minutes of the meeting, is here given in full:

“In consequence of a notification having been published—that this College would be opened, and that formal possession of the estate of Burnside, upon which it was established, would take place on Wednesday, a very numerous assemblage of the inhabitants of this City were present at what we consider to be one of the most important and interesting ceremonies lately witnessed in this part of the Province. Though there was none of the gaudy appearance and display characteristic of religious or Masonic Processions, yet to the mind of the philosopher and friend of education, the simple and appropriate ceremony, an account of which we are about to lay before our readers, presented more charms than if decked out with all the pageantry of chivalry and romance.

“A large room in the house which has been for some time existing on the estate having been fitted up, it was soon after one o'clock filled by the numerous and respectable individuals who had assembled to witness the ceremony. Among the company we noticed several officers of the government, the principal members of the Bar, the lecturers at the Montreal Medical Institution and several gentlemen, more or less connected with the proposed College.

“The Right Reverend the Lord Bishop of the Diocese, attended by the Rev. G. J. Mountain, D.D.; the Rev. J. L. Mills, D.D.; the Rev. B. B. Stevens, A.M.; the Rev. A. Norman; and the Rev. A. F. Atkinson of Montreal; the Rev. James Reid of St. Armand; the Rev. W. Abbott of St. Andrews; the Rev. J. Abbott of Yamaska; the Rev. I. Braithwaite, A.B., of Chambly, and the Rev. H. Esson, and E. Black of the Kirk of Scotland in Montreal having entered the Hall, the business of the day was soon after proceeded upon.

“The Royal Charter incorporating the Governors and Professors of the University being placed on the table, His Lordship the Bishop of Quebec rose and addressed the assembled body. He stated that in consequence of the absence of His Excellency the Administrator of the Government, who was one of the Governors of the corporation of McGill College, it became incumbent on him to make a few remarks on the present occasion. He would, however, first state that he was commissioned by His Excellency to express his regret that in consequence of the very late arrival of the April and May mails he was unable to leave Quebec in time to assist at the ceremony of promulgating the charter which had been conferred on the College. His Excellency in his letter was pleased to add that he would not fail to use all his exertions to promote the Institution. Having fulfilled this duty, the Lord Bishop begged to observe that the bequest which had been made in favour of this College by the late Hon. James McGill consisted of the valuable estate of Burnside, comprising the building in which they were then assembled, and the garden and grounds adjoining, together with the sum of £10,000, in furtherance of his benevolent intention. This liberal bequest was made in 1811 (two years previous to the death of Mr. McGill), in trust to a corporation called the Royal Institution which was contemplated by an act passed in 1801. This Institution was to transfer the bequest, when a College, in pursuance of his views, was established and bearing his name. To this most benevolent legacy, he could not help referring as characteristic of its liberal donor, with whom he had the honour of an acquaintance, and as furnishing an example which he hoped to see more frequently followed in the Province. The late Mr. McGill, who had assumed a very considerable fortune within the country, did not, like many others, leave the Province and spend his money in some other part of the globe, but having no direct heirs, he had left a very handsome legacy for the laudable purpose of commencing a University in a country where such an establishment was very desirable. The Institution was to bear the name of its excellent founder, and he firmly hoped that it might prove a blessing to many generations yet to come, that it might tend to immortalise his name, and be the best monument that could be erected to his memory. The Royal Institution was incorporated in 1818 and through their instrumentality, this College was in pursuance of the will of Mr. McGill incorporated in 1821 by a charter which would be read to them. Under that charter the Governors of the College were the Governor and Lieutenant-Governor of Lower Canada, the Lieutenant-Governor of Upper Canada, the Chief Justices of Montreal and Upper Canada, the Bishop of Quebec and the Principal of the College. It would be needless for him to refer to the detentions and obstacles which had hitherto prevented the College from going into operation; it was known that they arose from the residuary legatee under the will of Mr. McGill disputing the legality of the bequest, and carrying his opposition through all the Courts of the Province, till His Majesty in his Privy Council had finally given the decision in favour of the Institution, whose duty it had become to prosecute for the recovery of the bequest. The suit in relation to the money bequeathed to the College was still before the Council, but he was happy to say that that unfortunate dispute would soon be terminated as it was understood the residuary legatee intended to withdraw all further opposition. It was the intention of the Royal Institution to transfer to the Governors of the College the property of Burnside, and on the part of the Governors, he was authorised to say that they were willing to accept of it. A majority of them were either now present or consenting, for he was charged with the consent of the Governor of this, and the Lieutenant-Governor of the adjoining Province, both of whom had expressed a desire to attend on the present occasion, and it was known that there was now no Chief Justice in Upper Canada. On the part of the majority, he accepted from the Royal Institution the Charter which the Secretary of that body would now read.

“The Rev. Dr. Mills, Secretary to the Royal Institution for the Advancement of Learning, then read at length the Charter of the College.

“The Lord Bishop then again rose and said that he was authorised on the part of the Governors of the new College to state it to be their intention as far as it was in their power to carry into effect the liberal intentions of the late Mr. McGill. It was not a work in which they themselves were solely interested, but it was an institution which concerned every inhabitant of the Province, and under such feelings the Governors were determined that no obstacles should deter them from following up and prosecuting the views of the testator. He deemed it unnecessary for him to exhort them upon the advantages of education, as he was sure they were all of opinion that a moral and religious education on Christian principles, and a scientific course of studies on a true philosophical system were what it was their bounden duty to promote. The Governors in assuming the Charter hoped that their exertions would meet with the co-operation of every individual within the Province.

“The Venerable Archdeacon Mountain then rose, and stated that as the individual named to fill the honourable office of Principal of the new College, it became his duty now to say a few words. He could not but express his sense of his own unworthiness for such a distinguished office, and he firmly hoped that he would be succeeded by a long line of eminent and learned principals. He had it in charge for his colleagues to state their anxiety to put the College into immediate operation, and he might urge as a proof of their wish that they had not been idle in this respect. With the assistance of the Honourable Mr. Cochrane then present, they had been engaged in preparing and modelling a constitution and rules for the government of the Institution. Although it was not necessary to detail at present their precise nature, yet he could take upon himself to state that they were liberal in every sense of the word, imposing no test upon Professors or Students. In thus applying the term liberal he wished it distinctly to be understood that he was not conveying the charge of illiberality against those noble and venerable Institutions of the Mother Country, in which a test was properly exacted of conformity to the National Religion, but there were local circumstances which required local adaptation; and according both to the terms of the will and the provisions of the Royal Charter, all offices whatever in McGill College were left freely open either to Protestants or Roman Catholics, and Students of all denominations would be permitted to attend. He deemed it necessary for him to explain how the present Professors happened all to be members of the Church of England. When found necessary to name Professors in virtue of the Charter of the College, his late father, then Bishop of the Diocese, had submitted several names to His Excellency the Earl of Dalhousie for these offices, among which those of the Rev. Archdeacon Strachan and the Rev. Dr. Harkness, having been proposed as eligible, either one or the other, to the same Professorship, His Excellency, whether swayed by a feeling of delicacy and desire to avoid the appearance of partiality, on account of his being himself a member of the Church of Scotland, or from whatever cause, decided in favour of the former gentleman. This circumstance was mentioned in proof that the original as well as the present intention of the Governors was in all respects to shew due respect to the intentions of the will of Mr. McGill and the terms of the Charter. It had been deemed necessary for the present to declare that the Professors should be graduates of some British University, but that a preference should hereafter be shown to those who had graduated within its walls. The Governors would feel it to be their duty under all discouraging obstacles to push on the great undertaking, and never to cease in their exertions for its prosperity. They hoped they would meet with general support and they trusted with confidence that they would be assisted by all, when the very liberal terms of the will and Charter were considered. It would be necessary for them to make a strong and powerful appeal to the Mother Country, and they also expected great pecuniary assistance from those resident near the establishment, and more directly interested in its prosperity. They would as soon as possible establish a system of collegiate education, and there was a predisposition to engraft upon the College the well-known and respectable Medical Institution now in existence in the city. The door of the building was at length open, and it was the duty of all to proceed with vigour. They might at first complain of a great want of means for such an Institution, for it required much to place it on a respectable footing, but while they thus looked forward with confidence, they should not be unmindful that the Province was highly indebted to the very liberal disposition of Mr. McGill, who had set such a praiseworthy example to his fellow-citizens, whose duty it now became generally to aid his work and follow up his munificent views. The Archdeacon concluded his address by expressing his conviction that all who were present felt alike the dependence of every human undertaking for its success upon the blessing of Divine Providence, and would therefore be unanimously ready to join in the religious services with which it was proposed to conclude the business of the day; and in which he accordingly proceeded.

“The 8th chapter of Proverbs, which had been selected as appropriate to the occasion, was first read; after which the following verses selected from different Psalms were repeated in the way of alternation, the responsive part being sustained by the other Clergy of the Church of England who were present.

“'The Lord hath been mindful of us and shall bless us: even he shall bless the house of Israel; he shall bless the house of Aaron.

“'He shall bless them that fear the Lord both small and great.

“'The Lord shall increase you more and more, both you and your children.

“'All the whole Heavens are the Lord's: the earth hath he given to the children of men.

“'The lot is fallen unto me in a fair ground: yea, I have a goodly heritage.

“'Lord, thou art become gracious unto thy land: thou sendest a gracious rain upon thine inheritance, and refreshedst it when it was weary.

“'O pray for the peace of Jerusalem,—they shall prosper that love thee.

“'Peace be within thy walls, and plenteousness within thy palaces.

“'For my brethren and companions' sakes, I will wish thee prosperity.

“'Yea, because of the house of the Lord our God, I will seek to do thee good.

“'Except the Lord build the house; their labour is but lost that build it.

“'Not unto us, O Lord, not unto us, but unto thy name give the praise; for thy loving mercy and for thy truth's sake.

“'Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost.

“'As it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.'

“The Archdeacon then proceeded with the following prayers:

“'O blessed and eternal God, who by wisdom hast founded the earth and by understanding hast stretched out the Heavens—Father of Light and Author of every good and perfect gift, from whom we receive all that we have, and all that we are made capable of performing—upon whose pleasure both we, and our works, and all creation depend—look down from the habitation of thy holiness and glory, and favour the undertaking which is here before us; let thy blessing rest upon it; let the cloud and pillar of thy presence go with us; establish the work of our hands upon us, yea, the work of our hands establish thou it. Our hope is in Thee and thou art able to do for us, in things temporal as well as spiritual, exceedingly abundantly above all that we can ask or think. Raise us means, we beseech thee, to provide for the wants of this Institution: dispose the hearts of men and order the course of events favourably towards it: shed down the spirit of wisdom and of patient continuance upon those who plant and those who water, and do thou give the increase from on high. Sanctify all the instruction which shall hereafter be given and all the studies which shall be pursued in this Institution, and render them subservient to thy glory and the good of mankind. Grant that all the stores of knowledge and science, which shall be here opened to the minds of youth, may form them to the greater love of thy holy name, and lead them to magnify thee in thy wonderful works. O righteous Father, who hast hid the highest of all knowledge from the wise and prudent of this world, and revealed it unto babes, grant that none may be here spoiled, through philosophy and vain deceit, nor lifted up in hearts through the opposition of science falsely so called, but give them grace to cast down imaginations and every high thing which exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and to bring into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ. Yet, O Lord, while they are subjected to this gentle and blessed yoke, enrich this Institution, we pray thee, with ample streams of all sound learning and science; and as we are taught in thy holy word that the Lawgiver of thy ancient people was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, and the blessed apostle St. Paul, profited above his equals, as well in the studies of his time and people, as in the learned lore of the ancients at large—and as thou didst miraculously supply to the first planters of our holy faith that knowledge which, under thy blessing, must now be acquired by labour and length of time—grant that all beneficence and industry may be exerted in the endowment and enlargement, the furtherance and prosperity of this Institution; grant that the grain of seed which is here sown may become, in process of time, a great and goodly tree; that Science and Literature may spring up and flourish upon this dedicated spot, and bear fruit a hundredfold.

“'With these our prayers, O Father of Heaven and Earth, we offer up our humble thanksgiving for all thy mercies manifested to us, and especially for that thou didst put it into the heart of thy servant, the Founder of this Institution, to provide, out of the means which thou hadst given him, for so needful a work. And, alike in thanksgiving or prayer, we approach thy Throne in the prevailing name and through the powerful mediation of Jesus Christ, whose own holy words also we couple still with our imperfect address.' The Archdeacon here repeated the Lord's Prayer.

“Then followed the Prayer for the Church Militant, from the Liturgy, with some adaptations to render it immediately applicable to the local authorities and to the occasion of the day. The assembly was dismissed by a blessing pronounced by the Bishop.

“Before closing this subject, we deem it but justice to the Venerable Archdeacon Strachan, to state, that to that Reverend gentleman the Province is greatly indebted for McGill College, as to his suggestions on this subject, his friend and relative the late Mr. McGill lent a ready and willing ear, and was induced to frame the bequest, which is now about to be employed according to the intentions of its donor. To that gentleman, we understand, is also due the very liberal arrangement which was announced by the Principal, with regard to the total absence of any tests for the admission of Professors or Students....”

When the ceremony of formally opening the College and establishing the Faculty of Arts, “as a place of liberal education,” was ended and the gathering dispersed, the Governors of the College met in the late afternoon for the transaction of business. They received the Lecturers of the Montreal Medical Institution, who formally placed before them the plans for “engrafting upon the College the well-known and respectable Medical Institution” as already indicated in the report above. The scheme was acceptable to the Governors and the Montreal Medical Institution became part of McGill University. The Governors' Minutes of the meeting contains the following entry:

“The public business having been closed, the Governors of the Corporation held an interview with the members of the Montreal Medical Institution, who had been requested to attend the meeting for that purpose. During this interview it was resolved by the Governors of the Corporation that the members of the Montreal Medical Institution (Dr. Caldwell, Dr. Stephenson, Dr. Robertson, Dr. Holmes) be engrafted upon the College as its Medical Faculty, it being understood and agreed upon by and between the said contracting parties that until the powers of the Charter would be altered, one of their number only should be a university professor and the others lecturers; that they should immediately enter upon the duties of their offices. All of which arrangements were agreed to.”

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Andrew Fernando Holmes, M.D., LL.D.
1798-1850

The Montreal Medical Institution owed its origin to the Medical Staff of the Montreal General Hospital, which was opened to patients in May, 1822. At that time there were no opportunities in Canada for the obtaining of medical education. Realising the existing and urgent need for such training, certain members of the Hospital Staff gave courses of lectures to students during the winter of 1822-1823. Later, a memorial was forwarded to the Lieutenant-Governor setting forth the necessity for the foundation of a permanent school of medical education, and outlining plans for the establishment and incorporation of the proposed Medical Institution. The reply to this memorial stated that an endeavour would be made to give assistance to a Medical School, and as a result the Montreal Medical Institution was organised. It was opened in October, 1824. Efforts were then made to secure its incorporation, and in 1826 a Charter was drawn up and forwarded through the Lieutenant-Governor to the Solicitor-General for opinion or approval. A delay of several months followed, and it was not until 1828 that a reply was received. The reply was not favourable to the Institution. The Charter was refused for the reasons that the School was not connected with any Seminary of Learning, and that it had no foundation or endowment. No degrees could therefore be conferred and the Institution had no standing in law. Meanwhile the Privy Council had given judgment in favour of the Royal Institution in the first Desrivières suit in connection with the Burnside Estate, as already recorded, and it was clear that a similar judgment in the second suit in connection with the endowment fund was but a question of time. The establishment of McGill College was assured, and arrangements for its opening had already been announced. It naturally occurred to those interested in the Medical Institution that their problems of University connection and of endowment referred to by the Solicitor-General could be solved by “engrafting” the Institution on the proposed McGill College. They accordingly forwarded a memorial to the Government, suggesting that the Lecturers in the Institution be appointed “professors of the University to be established at Burnside near the city.” The Government referred the suggestion to the Board of the Royal Institution to whom formal application was then made by the Medical body. A committee of the Board was appointed to consider the question. The Medical Institution pressed for a decision, and on February 16, 1829, the Secretary wrote to Dr. Holmes, of the Hospital Staff, stating, “The Committee to whom was referred the communication from the Montreal Medical Institution have not, I am sorry to say, yet made their report; but I trust the business will be proceeded in very shortly, and I shall not fail to inform you of the result without delay. Of this be assured that there is every desire on the part of the Board to meet the wishes of the Institution as far as it may be found practicable to do so.”

The Board had in 1824 appointed Dr. Fargues of Quebec Professor of Medicine, but he expressed his willingness to resign in order to leave the Board free to negotiate with the Medical Institution. On April 10th, 1829, the decision of the Board was conveyed to Dr. Holmes, in the following letter:

“Referring to a former communication upon the subject, I lose no time in transmitting to you the following Extract from the Report of a Committee of the Royal Institution, to whom it was referred to consider what measures it may be necessary for the Board to take, on having now obtained possession of the Estate of Burnside.

“The Medical Institution at Montreal, connected at present with the Montreal Hospital, having solicited the aid and protection of the Royal Institution, and expressed a desire to become a branch of McGill College, it is conceived that the gentlemen of that Institution might be willing (in consideration of being so associated with a legally constituted establishment) to execute gratuitously the duties of one or more Professorships in the College, connected with the Faculty of Medicine. The Professorships being limited to four, it is obvious that there can be only one Medical Professor, and I am happy to inform you that Dr. Fargues, having been solicited to resign, has consented to do so with the utmost readiness, and it is accordingly open to the gentlemen of the Montreal Medical Institution to recommend for the consideration of the Governors of the College any one of their members, being a graduate in Medicine, as his successor.”

As a result of this decision the Governors of the College agreed to appoint one of the Lecturers in the Montreal Medical Institution to the Professorship of Medicine vacated by the resignation of Dr. Fargues. Meanwhile there was a misunderstanding between the Governors and the Board over the number of Professors already appointed in 1824. The Charter provided for a Principal and four Professors; the Governors made these appointments, but also made the Principal Honorary Professor of Divinity. The Board contended that five Professorships had thus been created and filled, contrary to the provisions of the Charter. On April 22nd, 1829, Dr. Stephenson wrote to the Board on behalf of the Medical Institution urging that the number of Professorships in the College be increased to enable all the Medical Lecturers to be attached to McGill College. The Secretary replied on May 19th, 1829, as follows:

“Your letter of the 22nd ult., was duly submitted by me to the Board of the Royal Institution, and I am directed to inform you in reply, that the Board having carefully considered the subject, are of opinion that, as the matter actually stands at present, it is not in their power to procure an augmentation of the number of professorships. They conceive, however, that the Medical Professor of the University might deliver Lectures in one particular branch of the Science, and that the other Departments might be conducted by gentlemen, who should be named Lecturers in the College, as is the case with respect to the different branches of Learning and Science, which are taught in the Colleges of the Universities at home. The words of the Charter are evidently restrictive. The College shall 'consist of a Principal and four Professors,' and in this view of the subject the Board are supported by high legal authority. This limitation, for which it is difficult to assign an adequate reason, is much to be regretted. The Governors of the College have committed an oversight in some way or other. It had not escaped the previous notice of the Board. The Bishop, the Archdeacon and myself intend visiting Montreal next month, when we shall have an opportunity of discussing the subject at full length. I have only now to add that we all of us, both as a body and as individuals, feel interested in the success of the Montreal Medical Institution, and that we shall be most happy if it can be in any way promoted by a connection with McGill College.”

After the College was formally opened it was necessary for the Governors and the Board of the Royal Institution to wait for the final decision of the courts on the possession of the endowment fund, which was still held by the Desrivières heirs. No money was available for salaries; no building on the estate was suitable for classes. It was therefore considered impossible, for the present at least, to undertake actual teaching in the College. But meanwhile the Montreal Medical Institution had received from the Royal Institution the “aid and protection” it required, and it continued to carry on its work and to give instruction to students as before, but with a definite connection with the University as one of its Faculties. Pending the securing of the endowment fund which would make possible the putting in operation of the College proper, as provided for in the will, the Governors of the College therefore decided to appoint, temporarily, and without remuneration, the lecturers in the newly formed Medical Faculty to the four professorships at their disposal, in order that degrees in at least one department of the University could be conferred. To make this possible the Professors who had already been appointed in the Faculty of Arts, and whose duties could not yet begin, willingly consented to resign. But before degrees could be granted it was necessary, under the terms of the Charter, to draw up statutes for the government of the University, such statutes to receive the approval of the Crown. The Statutes, Rules and Ordinances for the Medical Faculty were agreed upon by the Governors; and were submitted to the Colonial Office by Lord Aylmer on March 8th, 1832. The Royal approval was forwarded to the Lieutenant-Governor of the Province in a despatch dated May 2nd, 1832, together with the confirmation of the appointment of William Caldwell, John Stephenson, Andrew F. Holmes and William Robertson of the Medical School to the four University professorships, “without specifying at present the precise nature of each Professorship.” They received no remuneration from the College. Later, Dr. Stephenson acted for a brief period as supervisor of the Burnside Estate.

The Home Government's knowledge of the exact circumstances and terms and even the making of the Montreal Medical Institution into a Faculty of McGill seems afterwards to have been somewhat hazy. On August 20th, 1834, the Colonial Office wrote to Lord Aylmer, the Lieutenant-Governor, saying, “It would appear from Sir James Kempt's Despatches of 1830, that it was contemplated to incorporate with the College an association of Medical Practitioners but that difficulties arose as to the selection of the Governors ... but I do not gather from your despatch whether the incorporation of this association is still desired.” He asked for a report on the question—a question that had been decided five years before. It was pointed out in reply that the Montreal Medical Institution no longer existed independent of the College and that the several Lecturers in that school now occupied all the four Professorships provided for by the Charter. There was misunderstanding, too, as we shall see, between the Governors of the College and the Royal Institution with reference to the temporary or the permanent nature of the above appointments, three of which the latter Board had never ratified, and of which they were apparently not informed. For several years the tradition of a distinct Institution, as it had already been known, continued. The Medical Faculty carried on its work more or less independently of the College, although it was incorporated with it and was legally a part of it, but because of tradition it was not always regarded as an integral part of the University. It was looked upon as a well established teaching body now linked up with the new College. The Rules and Ordinances of the University did not apply to the Medical Faculty, and for several years after the actual erection and opening of the College buildings the students of the Medical School were not included in the statement of enrolment annually sent to the Home Government by the Visitor to the University.

On the 24th of May of 1833, four years after the opening of the College, the first University degree awarded was conferred in the Faculty of Medicine on William Logie. On May 7th, 1833, Dr. J. Stephenson, Secretary of the Medical School, wrote to Principal Mountain with reference to the conferring of this degree:

“I am directed by the Medical Faculty of the University to inform you that Mr. William Logie of Montreal, after having produced to the Secretary of the Faculty credentials entitling him, was examined, as the Statutes, Rules and Ordinances of the College direct, touching his Classical knowledge and then got a general examination on all the branches of Medical and Surgical Science. The Medical Faculty found him well qualified to practise Medicine and Surgery and accordingly have announced to him that they will forward his name to the Governors to obtain the Degree of Doctor of Medicine and Surgery.

“In consequence I am directed by the Faculty to address you on the following points:

“1st. That we will, with your approbation, have our Gowns made as that of a Bachelor of Laws except the Cowl.

“2nd. That we will have the Theses printed by Mr. Armour of Montreal.

“3rd. The Faculty desire to know how the degree will be conferred on the 24th of May and the tenor of said Degree that they might be getting it ready.”

Under the rules of that time, it was necessary for a student proceeding to a degree to defend before the members of Faculty a Thesis on some previously approved topic. The Thesis was printed at the expense of the student. The rules provided, too, that “the student be required to attend the Hospital during the time required by the Statutes, and to receive clinical instruction from the Professors at the bedside of the patients.” The legal power of the University to confer degrees on the graduates of the Medical Faculty was questioned by rival authorities, and was later tested in the courts, but the legality of the degree and the privilege of the holder to practise Medicine in the Province was upheld.

The Governors now decided that an effort should be made to begin actual teaching in the liberal Arts and Sciences as called for in the will of the founder. They determined to appoint professors and to conduct classes, temporarily, in Burnside House. At a meeting of the Governors held on the 4th of January, 1834, at which were present Lord Aylmer, Governor in Chief, The Lord Bishop of Quebec, and the Principal of the College, it was decided to ask that the Charter be amended, and that the Governing Board of the College be changed to consist henceforth of the following: The Governor in Chief, the Lieutenant-Governor or person administering the Government; the Lieutenant-Governor of Upper Canada; the Lord Bishop of the Diocese; the Chief Justice of Montreal; the Chief Justice of Upper Canada; the Speaker of the two Houses of the Provincial Parliament of Lower Canada; the Senior Executive Councillor residing in Montreal; the Archdeacon of Quebec; the Solicitor-General; the Principal of the College; the Rector of Montreal; together with four other Governors to be named by the Governor in Chief, the Lieutenant-Governor or the person administering the Government under a power to be introduced into the Charter to that effect. Efforts were made afterwards to have the Minister of the Church of Scotland added to this list, ex-officio, but it was pointed out in reply that he was “not conceived to have any perpetual capacity in law and thence cannot be an ex-officio Governor.” It was decided also that His Excellency be requested to recommend to His Majesty's Government that power should be given in the amended Charter to the Governors of the College to establish additional professorships from time to time, at their discretion, according to the exigencies of the University and the means at their command.

It was further resolved that in the meantime until endowments for Professorships were available from the McGill bequest, “gentlemen resident in Montreal qualified to give lectures should be appointed on the same footing as the four Professors in the Medical Faculty and that they should receive fees from their students ... with the duty annexed of delivering occasional lectures, fees being paid by those who will attend them according to a regulated scale, there being at present no means of endowing Professorships with salaries.” Professors were recommended for the following subjects: Classical Literature and History; Natural Philosophy and Mathematics; and Hebrew and Oriental Languages—all to be appointed on the same footing as provided for by the foregoing resolution. At this meeting, too, a recommendation was made that a Vice-Principal should be appointed—or that one of the Professors be empowered to act as Vice-Principal—because of the frequent absence of the Principal on other duties. Later, the Chair of Natural Philosophy was separated from that of Mathematics. As a result of the Governors' decision an amended Charter was drawn up for submission to the authorities, providing, among other things, for an increased number of Professorships. It was prepared by the Professors of the Medical Faculty, but it was greatly altered by the Governors at a meeting called to consider it. The Colonial Office to whom it was forwarded would not approve of it, and even the consideration of it was very long delayed. The question was debated until January, 1837, when the Colonial Office declared that it was impossible further to discuss it.

In April, 1834, the occupation of the House and Premises of Burnside as a “Classical School” was approved. But it was to be conducted by the Professors in their private capacity and no provision was made for their maintenance, and the occupation of the premises was to be subject to the conditions imposed by the Governors and the Royal Institution acting conjointly.

The Principal, Archdeacon Mountain, now expressed his desire to retire from office. Other duties were calling for his attention. Indeed, at intervals for several weeks in succession he had been obliged to take little part in the management of the University, for his presence as Archdeacon of Lower Canada was required in many places. Frequently, too, it was necessary for him to be absent from the Province for a considerable length of time. He felt, also, that he had been appointed Principal mainly for the purpose of putting the College in operation and that his work was now done. The Governors then decided to offer the Principalship to the Rev. S. T. Wood of Three Rivers, and if he declined to accept it, to offer it to the Rev. Thomas Littlehales of Christ Church College, Oxford. But neither of these men would agree to occupy the proffered post; indeed, the former entirely ignored the Governors' letter. Archdeacon Mountain was induced to remain some months longer, or until a competent successor could be found. The Professorship of Classical Literature was offered to the Rev. James Ramsay, a graduate of Trinity College, Dublin; that of Mathematics and Natural Philosophy to Mr. Alex. Skakel of King's College, Aberdeen; and that of Hebrew and Oriental Languages to the Rev. E. Black, of the University of Edinburgh. Difficulties resulting from the Charter prevented these appointments from being actually made at that time. Because of irritating delays, the somewhat hopeless situation brought about by the refusal of the Home Government to permit the increase of Professorships, and numerous other differences of opinion, trouble was now growing between the Governors and the Crown. At a meeting of the former held on November 14, 1834, at which were present Lord Aylmer, Governor in Chief, the Chief Justice and the Principal, the Governor was asked to bring to the notice of the Secretary of State “the great inconvenience which it is feared may result from the necessity of referring to His Majesty's Home Government, as required by the Charter, every appointment of a Professor or even of a Principal.” This was the beginning of a bitter and prolonged controversy which did not end until 1846, and which involved the College in perhaps the gravest difficulty and uncertainty of its history.

Meanwhile, the case against the Desrivières heirs, James McGill Desrivières, Henri Desrivières, Francis Desrivières, and Alex McKenzie, had proceeded. Every effort was made to have the suit settled. On December 21, 1833, the Governors authorised the Medical Professors to join them in a Memorial on the subject to the Home Government. The Board of the Royal Institution persistently urged haste, but delay followed delay. At last, on February 7th, 1835, the Order in Council deciding the case in favour of the Board was issued, but it was not forwarded until the 21st of May. But notwithstanding the decision of the Privy Council the heirs of James McGill were slow to accede to the demands of the Royal Institution. On March 8th, 1836, the Secretary of the Board wrote “as to Burnside we are extremely perplexed by the pertinacity of the heirs in resisting and threatening further resistance to the payment of any money on account of the debt due to the Royal Institution unless terms are granted them ... which ... members of the Board think that we could not accept without rendering ourselves personally liable if any further loss should accrue thereby to the College. I should be strongly disposed to try and borrow money to begin with, if I knew what tangible security we could offer.” A further delay resulted, and even after the suit was settled the executors of the will hesitated to transfer the money to the Board or the Governors until the Home Government fulfilled certain promises which they understood to have been made. It was not until October, 1837, that the case was brought to final conclusion. As a result of delays, negligence, and unsatisfactory communications, the Governors appointed a special agent in London to conduct their business, with the frank comment, “If documents are sent through the Public Offices to Great Britain by way of the Colonial Office, there will be no end to the delay.”

In July, 1835, two months after judgment was given in favour of the Board, Principal Mountain retired from office in order to proceed to England. Now that the possession of the endowment fund was assured he believed that the College would soon be without difficulties and that its infant days of helplessness had passed. The Principalship was offered to the Rev. S. J. Lockhart, M.A. (Oxford), Chaplain and Secretary to the Bishop of Quebec. He seems to have accepted the post, but he never assumed the duties of his office. A meeting of Governors was held in Quebec on November 18, 1835, attended by Lord Gosford, who had meanwhile become Governor in Chief of Lower Canada, the Lord Bishop of Quebec, and the Chief Justice of Montreal. It was there resolved “that the Rev. John Bethune, Rector of Christ Church, Montreal, be appointed Principal of the College pro tempore; and that it be conveyed to him that his appointment shall not interfere with any future appointment which the Governors of the College may see fit to make.” The office of Principal was accepted by Mr. Bethune on November 24th, 1835, in the following letter:

“I cordially accept the appointment which the Governors of McGill College have done me the honour to confer on me, of Principal of the Institution pro tempore, under the explanation given to me by the Chief Justice of Montreal of the following passage in your Lordship's communication 'that the appointment shall not interfere with any future appointment that the Governors of the College may see fit to make,' viz., that if the funds of McGill College should at any future period enable the Governors to offer the Principal a sufficient emolument to secure his exclusive services to the Institution the present nomination shall not interfere with any such future appointment—but that the present nomination is not to be cancelled to make room for any future pro tempore appointment.”

During the six years that had passed since the formal opening of the College definite progress had been made. But apart from the activity of the Medical School, which did not owe its origin to the University and had merely changed its name, the progress was connected only with laying plans for the future and with securing adequate resources and a definite habitation. The Governors were harassed by litigation and by not a little uncertainty; they were dismayed at times by the evident lack of sympathy and the discouraging indifference of officials of the Home Government. But they did not cease to hope, and they did not dream of abandoning their educational scheme. They would struggle on to the fulfilment of the founder's vision. It was the task of the newly appointed acting-Principal to carry out these plans and to take up the administration of the University in one of the most difficult and critical periods of its existence. The years that followed were to be troubled years of poverty, anxiety and controversy, not unmixed with bitterness, during which, at times, extinction and oblivion threatened the University's life.

CHAPTER V

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Anxious Years

THE Rev. John Bethune, appointed acting-Principal of McGill in temporary succession to Principal Mountain on November 18th, 1835, was a Canadian by birth and education. His father, the Rev. John Bethune, a native of the Island of Skye, Scotland, and a graduate of King's College, Aberdeen, emigrated to America before the War of Independence. At the beginning of the Revolution he served as Chaplain of a militia regiment fighting in the Carolinas on the British side; he was taken prisoner by Republican troops, and after his release by exchange he moved with other British Empire Loyalists to Canada. He lived for a short time in Nova Scotia, became Chaplain again of a Highland Regiment fighting in defence of Canada against Montgomery's Army, and when the War ended he settled in Montreal. Here he organised, as we have seen, the first Presbyterian Congregation in the City, and ministered to it from March, 1786, until May, 1787. He then removed to Williamstown in the county of Glengarry, where he became minister of the Church of Scotland.

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Rev. Dr. John Bethune
Actg. Principal of McGill University
1835-1846

The future acting-Principal of McGill, the Rev. John Bethune, the younger, was born at Williamstown, Glengarry County, in January, 1791. He received his education at the school of the Rev. Dr. John Strachan at Cornwall, already referred to. After serving in the War of 1812, he entered the ministry of the Church of England, possibly through the influence of his former teacher, who left a deep impression on the minds and lives of all his pupils, and in 1814, he was ordained by Bishop Mountain at Quebec. He was stationed for a time at Brockville and vicinity, and in 1818 he was made Rector of Christ Church, Montreal, where he remained for more than fifty years, eventually becoming Dean of the diocese. He was acting-Principal of McGill from November, 1835, until May, 1846. He died in August, 1872.

Soon after his appointment, the acting-Principal entered into negotiations with the Board of the Royal Institution on the question of the erection of a suitable building on the Burnside Estate for the reception and instruction of students, as required by James McGill's will. The Medical lectures, the only lectures given in the name of the College, were given in a building far removed from the College property. The College authorities did not even pay the rent of the building nor did they pay the salaries of the Professors, and the School, except in name, and for its own protection and the privilege gained thereby for the conferring of degrees, was still, to all intents and purposes, a private institution. Technically, it was contended, it was not a part of the University at all. It was not situated on the Burnside Estate as the will of the founder required, and it could not therefore be considered as fulfilling any of the provisions of the bequest. Even the legality of the degrees conferred had been questioned, and had been accepted on the basis of equity and intention rather than on that “of justice and of fact.” The Principal and Governors realised the force of these arguments, and the necessity of removing the cause. The situation could only be met, they believed, by the erection of a building or buildings on the Burnside Estate, as the terms of the bequest demanded, and the Governors urged immediate action. They pointed out that “without provision for resident students very little good can be expected to result from the opening of the College, and without residence within the College for one or more professors it cannot be expected that resident students will be obtained.” The acting-President of the Royal Institution for the Advancement of Learning, A. W. Cochrane, wrote to Principal Bethune on January 11th, 1836, stating “with respect to the measures proper to be taken towards the speedy erection of a College on Burnside property, it was my intention to have submitted to a meeting of the Royal Institution which was fixed for Thursday next a proposal to advertise for plans and estimates of a suitable building.... My own opinion is that a new building calculated for 40 students (intimus) with a suitable public apartment and accommodation for two professors would be sufficient for the present demands of the country (perhaps even beyond what is necessary) and that at all events it would not be justifiable to exceed the expenditure of £4000 or £5000 out of the bequest for such a purpose at the outset. The present building, Burnside House, might be adapted to the residence of the Head of the College.” He added that, as promised in 1801, the Crown should give an endowment for general education in the Province, in a way that would not rouse political or sectarian feelings. “I should not,” he said, “wish to see the question connected with the proceedings of any political association. If taken up in this general way, I think that some public movement at Montreal in favour of it would not fail to have a good effect; but great caution and moderation are requisite.” But the Board and the Governors could not agree on the kind of building required and over a year passed without any action on the part of either body.

Further difficulty arose in connection with the amended Charter of 1834, which had not received the approval of the authorities. Until it was given confirmation no additional professorships could be appointed. That it did not conform to the ideas of the Board of the Royal Institution is evident from a letter written to Principal Bethune by the President in June, 1836. Objection was taken to making the Governors a self-elective body, and the necessity of making it essential that the Governors or a majority of them should be of the Protestant faith was also insisted on. That the discord between the Governors and the Board which led in the end to unfortunate bitterness and disaster, was then developing is also apparent in this letter. The President of the Board wrote: “Whatever changes are proposed to be made in the existing Charter must, I should conceive as a matter of course, be submitted for the consideration of the Royal Institution, the Visitatorial body who are bound to see that the views of the founder of the College are not defeated.” The Governors then decided to submit new amendments, and at a meeting held on November 14th, 1836, attended by the Lieutenant-Governor, the Chief Justice and the Principal, the Charter recommended in January, 1834, was changed to read as follows: “The Governors of the College shall consist of the Governor in Chief of Lower Canada; the Right Rev. Charles J. Stewart, Lord Bishop of Quebec and his successors, Bishops of Quebec; the Right Rev. George J. Mountain, Lord Bishop of Montreal and his successors, Bishops of Montreal; the Rector of Christ Church, Montreal, and his successors of the said Church; a minister of the Church of Scotland resident in Montreal, to be selected for the purpose by the Presbytery of Montreal to be perpetually succeeded by a minister of the Church of Scotland chosen in like manner; the Principal of the College; the Hon. James Reid; the Hon. George Moffat; the Hon. Peter McGill; William Robertson, M.D.; William P. Christie; Samuel Gerrard and John Samuel McCord.” Authority was given to fill all vacancies by a majority vote of the Governors, seven to constitute a quorum. It was stipulated that all Governors of the College must henceforth be residents in the district of Montreal. The Chief Justice and the Principal agreed to the above changes in the Charter, but the Governor of the Province “declined under existing circumstances to give any opinion on the subject, and his vote was not recorded.” It was also decided at this meeting that the rents from the Burnside Estate be expended on repairs and that the premises be placed in the occupation and charge of the Principal for the time being, he to keep them in a good state of repair. This latter decision was not approved by the Royal Institution and it gave rise to further controversy. Without the approval of the Board of the Royal Institution the Governors forwarded their amendments to the Governor-General for transmission to the Home Government, but at the request of the Board he stayed proceedings.

Meanwhile, the ultimate possession of the endowment fund was causing anxiety. The case was settled in favour of the College in 1835, but the Governors were unable to secure the money. The Desrivières heirs who were in control of the legacy demanded terms as we have already seen, but their terms were refused. When the Executors at last secured possession of the funds they declined to convey them to the Royal Institution until certain promised conditions were fulfilled by that body acting for the Home Government. On November 10th, 1836, a memorial on the subject of the legacy was forwarded to the Colonial Office by Dr. Strachan, one of the surviving Executors of the will of James McGill. He pointed out that the original bequest had increased by the accumulation of interest to £22,000. This amount together with the Burnside Estate would, he said, be transferred to the Royal Institution when two conditions were fulfilled—first, the contributing by His Majesty's Government towards the erection and endowment of the proposed University, and second, the carrying out of the intention of the testator, to which Dr. Strachan stated himself to be a living witness, that the proposed College should be essentially Protestant. To this Memorial the Colonial Office replied that the will did not stipulate for a contribution from His Majesty's Government towards the proposed University, and added “nor can we perceive any disposition on the part of the testator to impress on the Institution to which he so liberally contributed a character of religious exclusiveness.... The testator did not in his will either directly or indirectly introduce such a condition, and adverting moreover to the even-handed liberality with which his bequests were distributed between the poor Catholic and Protestant inhabitants of Montreal, we apprehend it would be impossible to impose such a restriction founded on mere verbal testimony as to the intention of the testator.... His Majesty's Government cannot now advise His Majesty to reconsider it for the purpose of narrowing the Charter of 1821.” In November, 1836, the Board conveyed to the Governors of the College the possession of the Burnside Estate, subject to the Board's subsequent approval of all decisions affecting it. But the controversy between the executors and the Colonial Office over the conveyance of the funds, which the heirs had not yet given up, continued for several months. It was not until October 20th, 1837, that the litigation finally ended. In December following, a transfer of all monies, investments, etc., was obtained by the Trustees of the Royal Institution, estimated at the value of £22,000, the amount of the legacy and accrued interest, and yielding an income of between £800 and £900. But in the meantime the College suffered and its progress was retarded.

There were other worries than those of buildings and charter and endowment fund. Since the College was opened in 1829 no repairs had been made on the Burnside property. The buildings and fences were rapidly falling into decay; the neighbours were complaining that the fences of Burnside had disappeared and that through the property cattle wandered at will to their lands and gardens, and the farmer who had leased the premises “on the halves” had neither the money nor the inclination to effect a remedy. There was also a demand for streets or roads through the estate. The Governors had no money at their disposal; they must beg every cent expended from the Royal Institution. The situation was incongruous. On December 17th, 1836, Principal Bethune wrote to the Secretary of the Board informing him that “there is a demand on the part of the neighbours for fences, which on a close inspection are found to be unserviceable with the exception of 170 cedar rails or rather logs which will serve by being split into two for rails.” The neighbours, he said, preferred “a fence 10 feet high, but they will be satisfied with one 6 feet high.” He also advised that the Royal Institution should join in the proposal of one of the neighbours, Phillips (who is remembered in the present “Phillips Square”), “a man difficult to deal with if thwarted by delay,” for opening streets through the estate of Burnside.

As a result of this appeal the Board granted £75 to be expended on the buildings and fences. The expenditure of this sum created further friction between the Governors and the Board. The latter body was not informed until February, 1837, of the Governors' decision at their meeting on November 14, 1836, to put Burnside House and premises into the occupation and charge of the Principal of the College. When they received the information they wrote to the Principal asking him what use he intended to make of the estate. The Principal in his reply questioned the authority of the Board, and said: “With regard to the use intended to be made by the Governors of the House, the Governors do not conceive themselves in any way accountable to the Board in this respect ... yet they feel no objection to communicating it for the information of the Board.” To this letter the Secretary of the Board replied: “The Board was only originally induced to make the grant of £75 on the 14th of November last, for the repairing of the Burnside House and fences in the expectation that the same would be made tenantable and be let to the advantage of the Trust, and have learned with much dissatisfaction that the House is to be occupied by the acting-Principal without any advantage to the Trust; and a personal interest thereby given to him to prevent the College going into speedy operation; and that the Board do also think it necessary to record their opinion that as the Visitors of McGill College they are at all times entitled to inquire into the management of the Burnside property, especially when a demand is made upon the Board for a grant of money to be laid out on the said property. It was ordered [by the Board] that Mr. Bethune be further informed that under the circumstances disclosed to the Board for the first time in his letter, the Board cannot feel themselves justified in advancing any further sums for the repairs on the Burnside property.” The Principal answered that the Board had no right to act in any matter affecting the College without consulting the Governors; that “the Governors cannot recognise the Visitatorial powers of the Board to the extent claimed”; and that the Board was “illegally and unjustly detaining the funds.” He emphasised his desire “to effect a restoration of harmony and unanimity between all the parties”; but it was clear that because of the rapidly growing friction and misunderstanding a crisis was not very far off.

For several months thereafter no meetings of the Governors were held. The Rebellion of 1837 and the struggle for Canadian autonomy required all the attention and the energy of the Provincial authorities, and the subject of Collegiate education was again somewhat neglected. But in May, 1837, the Royal Institution announced to the Principal that they were about to erect buildings for the University, and they asked for suggestions which might guide them in calling for plans. But the Principal and Governors declined to make suggestions. They denied the right of the Royal Institution to undertake the erection of buildings, and they contended that the whole property and management of the affairs of the College devolved upon the Governors. They would therefore not surrender into other hands what they conceived to be their own vested rights. They pointed out, too, that the case between the executors and the Royal Institution for the possession of the funds was not yet settled. The Board replied that until a College was actually erected they were in control, under the terms of the will. They were somewhat inconsistent in their attitude. In the first suit against the Desrivières heirs for the possession of the estate they had pleaded that by the mere obtaining of the Charter the College was to all intents and purposes “erected and established.” The courts sustained their plea. Now, however, they repudiated their own former contention; they maintained that the College had not yet been “erected and established”; and that until buildings were actually constructed they had the sole authority!

Discord continued to characterise the relations of the two bodies. The Governors' meetings were usually attended only by the Principal and the Chief Justice. The former had a double or casting vote in case of dispute. He was virtually in control. The Board of the Royal Institution declared that he did not represent the views of the Governors. Apart from the disagreements arising from a dual management, other causes contributed to the bitterness of the controversy. The period was not conducive to harmony. Downing Street was not a name to conjure with, and “Downing Street rule” had become in Canada a synonym for indifference or coercion. The suspicion that the Royal Institution was but the mouthpiece, or at least the meek and unprotesting agent, of Downing Street only added to the irritation. The suspicion was not well founded, for the Royal Institution did not willingly submit to dictation from the Home authorities. But a new and sturdy Canadian spirit was evident in education as well as in politics. It was apparent as early as 1815 when Dr. Strachan outlined his plan for a University and expressed his doubts on the suitability of English methods in Canada. It had grown rapidly since that time. The year 1837 was a year of turmoil, with a cry for the privilege of solving Canadian problems in a Canadian way by those who were familiar with the requirements and conditions, and were not dwelling thousands of miles away. In such a period, aside from the waste of time, it was doubly distasteful to the Governors and to those interested in education to have to submit all appointments and all plans to the Home Government for ratification. The friction was, on the surface, between the Governors and the Royal Institution, but its roots lay deeper. Its cause was not far removed from the cause of the political rebellion of the hour.

After several months of somewhat discordant discussion the Principal finally agreed to submit to the Board suggestions on the proposed buildings, and on June 30th, 1838, he forwarded an outline of what he believed the College should include. He suggested that it should provide “(1) Accommodation for 100 students, namely, 100 sleeping rooms, and 50 sitting-rooms, two students in one set of apartments; (2) apartments for the Principal, and Vice-Principal, and family, and for four other Professors. The present house of Burnside might, he said, be adopted for the residence of the Principal; (3) a College Hall which for the present may be used both for lectures, exercises and refectory; (4) a Library; (5) a Chapel; (6) Steward's apartments.” As an alternative to (3) he suggested three lecture rooms with some adjacent small apartments. It was proposed that prizes should be offered for the first and second best plans with specifications and estimates, not only for the buildings, but also for the laying out of College grounds on the northwest side of Sherbrooke Street “in avenues and ornamental and kitchen gardens.” It was pointed out that this land consisted of about seventeen acres, and was considered sufficient for the College grounds, and that the upper side of Sherbrooke Street, which was then being opened to the width of 80 feet, was considered the best site for the College, as it was the most elevated land on Burnside and had the best approach. It was desired that the Building should include “a large room for the business of the Professor of Latin and Greek which might also be appropriated to many general purposes; a room for the Professor of Mathematics, Natural Philosophy and Astronomy with suitable adjacent apartments for his apparatus; a room for the Medical Department with suitable adjacent apartments for Chemical apparatus.” The Professorships proposed to be established in the first instance were four: that of Divinity and Moral Philosophy to be occupied by the Principal; that of Medicine, with a suitable number of Lectureships in the different departments of Medical Science; that of Mathematics, Natural Philosophy and Astronomy; and that of Latin, Greek and History. It was pointed out that “in the present state of the College funds the greater number of these Professors can have little more allowed them than the fees derivable from pupils and that their salaries will therefore be uncertain.”

The Royal Institution refused, however, to proceed at that time with the erection of buildings on so large a plan as suggested. On August 1st, 1838, they announced their intention to “proceed immediately on such an extent as the limited resources at their command will justify.” They agreed to call for plans for a building containing lecture rooms and a public hall, but no apartments for students or professors, the building to cost not more than £5000. They contended that all the money in their possession was required to endow professorships and that they could not therefore make so great an expenditure as the large building suggested by the Governors would entail. They stated, too, that only three professorships could at present be established, those of Classical Literature, Mathematics and Natural Philosophy, and Metaphysical and Moral Philosophy, on the understanding that when the charter was changed to permit it, each of these professorships should be divided into two. They pointed out that their University scheme “in the absence of the long hoped for assistance from Her Majesty's Government will not embrace either Theology, Law, or Medicine.” It was stipulated that the Principal should be also one of the Professors. An interesting condition with reference to the teaching of Theology was also set forth by the Board in the following resolution:

“That it is not expedient that a Professor of Divinity be appointed under the Charter, but that it be intimated to the Right Reverend the Lord Bishop of Montreal on behalf of the Church of England in this Province and to the Reverend the Presbytery of Quebec or the Synod of Canada on behalf of the Church of Scotland that Lecture Rooms will be set apart and that application will be made for such an alteration in the Charter as will give all rights and privileges of the University to such Professor or Professors as they may appoint and endow, or procure endowments for, for the instruction of students of Divinity of their respective churches; and that the authorities in both churches be respectfully requested to recommend or to enforce on their students attendance on the classes of general education in the College.”

It was later decided that the Board of the Royal Institution and the Governors of McGill should write a memorial to Her Majesty's Government asking for the means of endowing at least four Medical Professorships; that a similar memorial be prepared with respect to a Professorship of Law; and that until such Professorships be established, every facility be given within the College to Lecturers in the various branches of Medical and Legal Science. These memorials had no response.

Another effort was now made by the Governors to secure the passing of the new Charter as amended in 1834 and 1836, which had been ignored by the Home Government. But Lord Gosford, the Lieutenant-Governor, refused to give it his sanction. Application was then made to Lord Durham, but no answer was received from His Lordship, who declared that he was “too busy to consider the question.”

The correspondence during this period indicates that the Board and the Governors were working in harmony. But the peace was not of long duration. It lasted but a few days. It was, however, of sufficient length to permit of temporary agreement on the kind of building required. As a result, plans for the laying out of the grounds and for the erection of buildings were at last called for by the Board of the Royal Institution, and the following advertisement appeared in the Mercury and the Official Gazette on the 16th of August, 1838, and in the Quebec Gazette on the day following:

TO ARCHITECTS

Office of the Royal Institution for the
Advancement of Learning

Quebec, 16th August, 1838.

By order of the Principal and Trustees of this Board, Public Notice is hereby given that they are desirous of obtaining plans, specifications, and estimates for the erection of suitable buildings on the estate of Burnside, near Montreal, for the McGill College; and that the sum of fifty pounds currency will be paid for the plan which shall be accepted by the Board as the best plan; and twenty-five pounds for the plan which shall be adjudged as second best. The said plans to provide:

With a connected plan for the distribution of the ground on the northwest side of the continuation of Sherbrooke Street in avenues—with ornamental and kitchen gardens.

The said plans to provide for the erection in the first instance of such portions of the building as are specified below to be hereafter incorporated with the general design when completed; the sum at present disposable being limited to about £5000.

Information respecting the proposed site and grounds, with other particulars, can be obtained on application to the Rev. Dr. Bethune, Principal of McGill College, Montreal, to whom the plans are to be delivered on or before the 1st of October next.

William S. Burrage,
For the Rev. R. R. Burrage,
(Sec'y to the Board of R. I.)

Plans were accordingly submitted by several architects, and were forwarded by the Board to the Governors of McGill for their comments. The Governors pointed out that even in the best and most suitable plan submitted “no provision was made for retiring rooms for Professors!” The plans provided for a Post Office at the entrance to the grounds, a Botanical Lecture-house and “ornamental bridges” over the stream that ran through the grounds near the present University Street. The Board of the Royal Institution declined to accept any of the plans submitted on the ground that they involved too great an expenditure, and building operations were again indefinitely delayed.

[To List]

The Plan of the Proposed University

The Governors continued to urge with vigour the immediate erection of a building. They tried to force the Board, for no apparent legal reason, to have the building completed before the 29th of June, 1839, the tenth anniversary of the opening of the College, and in October, 1838, the Principal wrote to the Board: “I am well informed that it is the intention of the heirs Desrivières, should not a College be erected on Burnside property within ten years from the period of possession thereof by the Royal Institution, to sue for the recovery of the whole bequest. No legal advice has been taken on the subject, but we think it prudent to avoid the contest.” The Board sought legal advice on the latter question and were assured that there were no grounds whatsoever for such an assumption on the part of the heirs, and that such a contention could not be defended in law. No attempt indeed was made to put forward such a plea, and it is very doubtful if such an attempt was ever contemplated. But that the Board feared this possibility is evident from their determination speedily to establish the College on a more real basis. They decided to begin instruction in Burnside House. Difficulties, however, were in the way. The Principal was occupying the dwelling house, and although he had taken possession of it without the Board's approval they could not well compel him to leave. Moreover, he had expended a considerable sum from his own private funds on repairs to the estate. He had submitted a bill for the amount to the Board, but the Board declined to pay it as they had not authorised the expenditure. They contended, too, that he could reimburse himself from the products of the farm. The situation was a delicate one, and gradually the evils of a dual control were being disclosed. The Board knew that the Principal would not vacate the building in which they wished to begin instruction until his bill was paid. On November 21st, 1838, they voted: “that a communication be made to the Governors of McGill College that it is in the opinion of the Board expedient that a permanent Principal and Professors be appointed and the actual working of the College commenced as speedily as possible in Burnside House till such time as more convenient buildings be erected, by which means the wishes of the Governors to have the College established and in operation before the 29th of June next will be met, and that the Board will take into consideration the claim of Dr. Bethune arising out of expenses incurred by him on the estate of Burnside while in his possession on his vacating the premises and rendering an account.” Meanwhile the Governors' meetings had dwindled to two, and sometimes to one member. There was criticism that their meetings were no longer representative, and to these statements, because of their own objection to the alleged Downing Street methods of the Royal Institution, the Governors were sensitive. To meet this criticism they established the “Corporation” of the College, to include not only the Governors, but a number of the members of the teaching staff, and certain citizens selected because of their interest in education. The first meeting of this body was held on November 27th, 1838. There were present Sir John Colborne, the Governor-General; the Principal; Drs. Robertson, Stephenson and Holmes of the Medical School, and the Hon. George Moffat. It was at this meeting that the resolution of the Board above referred to was considered.

The resolution was not received with applause nor with delighted approval. The Governors doubted the efficacy of the plan. The Principal was not eager to vacate Burnside House. The Professors in the Medical School resented the suggestion that the “actual working of the College” had yet to be commenced. In answer, it was resolved that “in the opinion of Corporation it is expedient that a College be built before the 29th of June next on the Burnside Estate as the surest means of securing the bequest of the late Mr. McGill.” But the bequest had already been secured; it had been paid over to the Royal Institution in December, 1837! Notwithstanding the Board's decision, the Governors insisted on the erection of a building before the 29th of the following June. The amended Charter had not yet been approved. There was still provision only for four professorships, and these had been filled by the members of the Medical School. Only one of them was now vacant. Until the Charter was approved, then, and provision made for the appointment of more professors, the building erected could only be occupied mainly by Medical teachers. In December, 1838, the Royal Institution again recorded their opposition to the Governors' desire for “the hasty erection in a few weeks of a building adapted only for instruction in Medical Science.” They expressed their belief “that the first proper and most pressing measure to be adopted in execution of the plain expression of the testator's will and of the Charter is to commence forthwith a course of general instruction in the ordinary branches of a learned Collegiate education in the buildings now erected on the Burnside Estate.” They added that “they see no difficulty in accomplishing this object before it would be possible to commence the erection of a new building, and they are of opinion that it would be a nearer approach to a real performance of the testator's intentions than the attempt to run up a new building before the 29th of June, next, which even if it could be finished by that time would not deserve the name of a University.” They did not consider that the terms “erect” and “establish” used in the will “could with any propriety be interpreted as meaning the erection of a material building.” They declared that it was undoubtedly the testator's intention to establish an institution for collegiate education; they expressed their determination to apply the funds first of all to the payment of “a Principal and of such Professors as may be required, and to proceed in due course with the erection of a more extensive building than even that suggested by the Governors.”

To this the Governors would not agree; they urged that a decision on the Charter be obtained at once. On February 5th, 1839, the Board again expressed their views. They were sensible, they said, of the necessity for the appointment of additional professors, but they emphasised the folly of waiting for this permission before erecting a College building. Approval of the amended Charter might be postponed indefinitely, and the present Charter provided for a building for collegiate education. They added: “The Board are not aware of the circumstances under which the Medical Faculty of Montreal became possessed of all the Professorships of the College but they must suppose that it could only have been a temporary arrangement, without remuneration, adopted with such precautions as not to allow the present holders of Professorships setting up the pretension to continue to fill them to the exclusion of other branches of knowledge. The existing arrangement appears to the Board to be clearly liable to the objection that it is contrary to the terms of the Charter and the intention of the founder since an institution of which the offices are so filled for the purpose of one science alone cannot in law or in common parlance be considered as a University where all the branches of literature are or may be universally taught, and such an Institution is erected by the Charter according to the express will of the testator.”

Their plan was to appoint a permanent Principal who should be required to lecture in some branch or branches of knowledge, and to establish temporary Lectureships which could be changed to Professorships when the amended Charter, permitting an increase in the number of Professorships, was approved. Under this plan they saw “an easy means of opening at once a course of public instruction which would meet the present wants of the Province and be capable of future extension.” They would devote the endowment fund, they said, to the payment of Professors' salaries. The house on the Burnside Estate was sufficient, they thought, “for the limited purpose at present contemplated,” and “in that building, if nowhere else, a College should be put in actual operation,” for by so doing “an effective answer would be afforded to any demand or pretension that might be raised to obtain the forfeiture of the property bequeathed on the pretence of the College not being in operation.” They promised to proceed to the erection of a building “with all despatch consistent with due caution. But at least a year from next summer must elapse before a building suitable to the purpose of a University can be prepared for occupation.” They therefore urged the use of Burnside House for the present, at least.

In answer to this letter the Medical Professors contended through the Principal, that their appointment was not a temporary arrangement and that it was not their intention to resign their commissions. The Governors stated further, that they could not feel themselves justified in pressing for the resignation of any of these Professors, who were receiving no salary, but who “now had a near prospect of reaping some advantage from their appointment.” They condemned the Board for unnecessary delay in erecting a building in which to hold classes and their letters did not add to the harmony so desirable in that critical period. The Principal and Governors did not approve of using Burnside House for lecture rooms, because, in their opinion, it was unfit for such a purpose “except on such a scale as would entitle it only to the name of a Grammar School; because they believed a suitable building could be erected within a year; because it was intended to be the residence of the Principal; and because they could not see that any object would be attained by such a temporary, insufficient and unsatisfactory arrangement.” They stated further, with some suggestion of defiance, that they would be prepared to open the College with suitable teachers as soon as the necessary building or buildings were erected “on the most extensive scale and in the most efficient manner which the funds that may be at their disposal will admit of, and that until such a building was provided no instruction would be given.”

The Royal Institution seems to have desired harmony and to have been willing to meet the wishes of the Governors at least half-way. At a meeting of the Board on February 20th, 1839, it was decided to call again for plans to be submitted before the 10th of May following. It was resolved at this meeting “that the accommodation of the Medical Faculty be limited to two rooms for class rooms, these to form part of the general building unless separate accommodation in detached buildings could be obtained for them within the limits of the £5,000 allotted for the whole edifice, and without interfering with or embarrassing the general plan; and that if the Medical Faculty required other or larger accommodation than was consistent with these conditions they must be left to their own resources to obtain it, the Board, however, being willing to allow them to build on some part of the grounds of Burnside if they found funds for doing so.” They had meanwhile petitioned the Lieutenant-Governor, Sir John Colborne, and Council, for a Provincial grant to aid in the construction of the building, but their appeal had no success.

The Governors of the College then decided to agree to the erection of a smaller building than that at first requested. The Medical School, too, for various reasons concluded that they did not desire accommodation in the new building. The Governors wrote to the Board stating that they would be satisfied with the erection of a building for 60 students, without sitting rooms; necessary class rooms; College Hall; Library; Steward's Apartments and accommodation for the Principal and two Professors—which could be built for £6,000. They pointed out that in this estimate there was no provision whatever for the Medical Department “nor perhaps will such provision be at all necessary. The present Medical Professors are now of opinion that the situation of Burnside is too remote from the centre of the population for this department, because, besides the inconvenience to the Professors themselves, the attendance there of Medical Students who will be generally resident in the Town at 4 or 5 different Lectures daily will be attended with very serious inconvenience if not insuperable difficulty. They would therefore much prefer that a sufficient allowance should be made for renting a building in Town for the Medical Department. To meet their views in this respect the House on Burnside (which will not be required for the residence of the Principal if accommodation be provided for him within the walls of the College), together with that portion of the premises on the southeast side of Sherbrooke Street, might be let for a sum fully adequate to the expense of renting sufficient accommodation for the Medical Department in Town.”

To this latter suggestion the Board agreed. They were still determined that pending the completion of the proposed building, Collegiate teaching should be undertaken at once in Burnside House. But it was first necessary that the Principal give up the house. A dispute then arose between the Board and the Governors with reference to the responsibility for the repairs to the estate. More money had been expended than the Board had authorised. The Board contended that the Principal should make an allowance for rent of the house, which he had occupied for nearly two years, and they refused to pay the account submitted for the expenses incurred. The Governors declined to admit the justice of this claim. The Principal had already written to the Board in January, 1839, stating that he would “keep possession of Burnside until his full account was paid, and that he would vacate the premises when required to do so by the Governors.”

The Board then agreed to pay to the Principal the whole amount claimed by him, “however liable to objection, with whatever deduction for rent he himself should agree to,” if he would consent to vacate Burnside House. The Principal, in a somewhat scornful reply, declined for two reasons, first that this proposal implied the necessity of bribing him to vacate the premises; and second that by accepting it, he might be considered as selling for the settlement of his account the possession which the Governors held of the premises by reason of his occupancy. But he again stated that he would vacate the premises when ordered to do so by the Governors. The result was a protracted and bitter discussion between the two bodies, with many recriminations on both sides and more frankness than tact. The Lord Bishop of Montreal, the Rev. Dr. G. J. Mountain, who was Principal of the Royal Institution and formerly Principal of McGill, naturally interested himself personally in the discussion. On February 25th, 1839, he wrote to the Principal, saying, “I will tell you unreservedly what I think, which is that ... you are apt to give colour to the transactions in which you are engaged.... I say this without reserve because if you will receive it in good part I think it may be of use to you and save upon occasion hard constructions being put upon your proceedings.... It is very unwillingly indeed that as Principal of the Board, I have been drawn into any sort of collision with you.”

To this the Principal promptly replied, accusing the Board of gross neglect and unnecessary delay. “Indeed,” he said, “their zeal for the interests of the College has for some time past chiefly manifested itself in their efforts and schemes for dislodging me from Burnside and in their proceedings they seem to have adopted the favourite peroration of Cicero which may be freely translated thus, 'and Bethune must be ousted.'” He added: “I can afford to forgive the Board for any hard constructions they put upon my proceedings; they may be necessary for their own justification.” To this Bishop Mountain replied: “I have had quite enough of this painful collision.”

The Principal declared his intention of remaining in possession of Burnside House, and he wrote to the Board that “no precise period is fixed for my vacating the premises.” The Board contended that they “desired an amicable adjustment of such differences as had unfortunately existed”; but for several years no adjustment was made. It is unnecessary to enter here into the details of the subsequent dispute between the Board and the Principal and Governors over the occupancy of Burnside House. It was but one of many unfortunate disagreements in which each side contended for what they believed to be just. The Principal's account for repairs to the property was in the end paid and in November, 1839, he vacated Burnside House. But the controversy between the two bodies did not then end.

In the summer of 1839, the Governors decided to ignore the Board and to seek direct aid from the Provincial Government. They asked for a grant of £5,000 for building purposes and £5,000 for the purchase of philosophical apparatus, furniture and books for a Library. They included also £100 a year for a Professor of Classical Literature and £100 a year for a Professor of Mathematics; £50 each for two Divinity Lecturers, one of the Anglican Church and one of the Church of Scotland; £50 each for three Medical Professors; and £50 for a Professor of Law “much wanted.” They expressed their desire, if the building fund was granted, to rent Burnside House and with the proceeds therefrom to pay for a building in town for the Medical School. “The Medical Faculty,” they said, “could then go into immediate operation, and all the other Professors, with the exception of the Principal, could also commence instruction at their respective residences.” Apparently it was their opinion that the Medical School had not yet begun to operate as an integral part of the University. For obvious reasons the above appeal failed. The Government declined to interfere. The grant was not made and the Governors of the College turned again with reluctance to the Royal Institution.

There was likewise further difficulty in connection with the amended Charter, which the Home authorities had not yet ratified. The Board of the Royal Institution had been asked by the Governor-General for their detailed opinions and suggestions on necessary amendments. The Board was slow to answer. The delay was preventing the appointment of Professors and the growth of the College. The hands of the Governors were tied. On August 11, 1839, the Principal wrote to Sir John Colborne, the Governor-General, protesting against the continued failure to decide the issue. “When I agreed to the appointment of another Principal in my room,” he said, “it was in the confident expectation that the amended Charter would have been in our possession before this period. By that Charter I should retain my office of Governor of the College even if vacated by my resignation of the Office of Principal, but as obstacles are thrown in the way of a speedy accomplishment of the wishes of the Governors in respect of the amended Charter, I feel myself constrained to retain the office of Principal until the Charter shall have been procured.” He also objected on behalf of the Governors to the appointment of any Professors and to the opening of the College, except the Medical Department, until approval was given to the Charter. Possibly the fact that the amended Charter permitted the acting-Principal, after his retirement, still to be a Governor of the College as Rector of Christ Church, Montreal, influenced the Board in their disapproval of it. For the quarrel was not always above personal prejudices, to which the advancement of the College was often unfortunately sacrificed.

On August 17th, 1839, the Board at last broke their silence, and in a letter to Sir John Colborne they gave utterance to their reasons for opposition. They blamed the Governors for not having first submitted the Charter to them before sending it to the Colonial Office,—and in this they were well within their rights. They had not, they said, even seen a certified copy of the document. They now agreed, however, that the existing Charter required alteration. They suggested that all the Governors of the College should be residents of the Province, but they objected to giving the Governors power to fill vacancies as they occurred, as this would lead in the end to a clique or cabal rule which would lead to abuses in the management of the Institution. The number of Professorships should, they thought, be left unlimited, at the joint discretion of the Governors and the Board. The Governors were to be subservient in power to the Board, and all appointments were to be ratified by the Crown. There should also be permission given for the granting of Honorary degrees. The Visitatorial duties and powers of the Royal Institution should be more clearly defined. “The Board,” the letter stated, “also think it important, seeing that the declared object of the Royal Charter was the promotion of true religion, that the body of the Governors should be Protestants, and they beg leave also to call the particular attention of your Excellency to the necessity of introducing some provision into the amended Charter for requiring not only the Principal, Vice-Principal and Professors, and all others engaged in the instruction of youth in the University, but also the Governors themselves before being admitted to office, to make and subscribe a declaration of their belief in the Holy Scriptures as the Word of God, and in the doctrine of the Trinity of persons in the Godhead, as held by orthodox Protestant Churches.”

To the majority of these suggestions the Governors agreed. But they denied the right of the members of the Board to exercise so great a power as such suggestions, if carried out, would give them. They protested against the necessity of having appointments ratified by the Crown. There was a rapid cross-fire of correspondence to the Governor-General, in which the various suggestions were presented and answered by each of the contending parties. But into the details of this long-continued and at times bitter correspondence it is unnecessary here further to enter. Meanwhile the Charter waited.

In the autumn of 1839, the Medical School was in need of funds. They appealed to the Governors. The Governors had no money, but they voted £500, and on September 19th, they applied to the Royal Institution for a grant of that amount “in order to enable them to commence a course of Medical Instruction.” The Board refused in the following letter forwarded on October 12th: “The Board resolve with regret that they cannot give sanction to this vote of the Governors, as they conceive themselves bound in the first instance to apply the means at their disposal for purposes of general instruction, and those means are so limited as to render it impossible to grant the sum demanded by the Medical Faculty without sacrificing general to one branch of professional education.... The Board are, however, fully aware of the advantages to McGill College and to the public generally which the proposed course of Medical lectures cannot fail to be attended with.” They hoped at a later date “to be able to entertain the application,” if the appeal for funds recently made to the Government should succeed.

Principal Bethune desired to procure a legal decision before a competent tribunal on the Board's refusal to make the above grant. The Governor of the Province was appealed to, but as he was about to leave Canada at the end of his term of office he again declined to interfere. He felt, too, with reference to a Provincial grant that he was only authorised to issue from the funds of the Province such a sum as was absolutely necessary to carry on educational work until a meeting of the Special Council could make provision for such an object and also for the voting of “a sum of money towards the erecting of McGill College.” The discussion was finally closed by a resolution of the Board on the 4th of April, 1840, in which they said that in addition to having voted £8,000 for the erection of a building they had provided for the establishment of three Professorships with £300 a year for each chair, and an additional £100 for the Principal. “In these arrangements,” they pointed out, “the Board did not lose sight of the necessity of subsequently providing for the instruction of students in the Medical and Legal professions, but they were clearly of opinion that in the actual state of the funds, these objects, however desirable, must be postponed for the opening of the Institution in the other branches of general education. To these arrangements the Governors offered no material objection and it was obvious that the resources at the disposal of the Board did not warrant any material increase of expenditure.” With reference to the requested grant for the Medical School, they expressed surprise that such a demand should be made on their scanty and already inadequate resources, and they declared that they “would not be justified in the administration of their trust, in suffering their resources to be diminished for any object however desirable or important but that which they conscientiously judged the most desirable and important and primarily contemplated in the will of Mr. McGill,—which was the providing of collegiate education.” There the discussion ended. The Medical School continued to be regarded as an independent institution, under the protection of the McGill authorities for the purpose merely of legalising their degrees. The Board had won in their contention, and the question was temporarily dropped.

In the meantime, during the brief armistice between the Governors and the Royal Institution, plans for the College building had been agreed upon and the contract had been let. The original plans had been greatly modified so that the expenditure might be in keeping with the funds available. But even with many changes the first estimate of £5,000 was soon found to have increased in fact to between £10,000 and £12,000. One of the original plans herewith reproduced, and typical of all the plans submitted, called for a large building in the form of the letter H. The two main wings looked east and west, instead of north and south as at present, and between them was a connecting structure. Rooms were provided for 100 students. The Medical building was to be separate. The College building was to have a Chapel, but it was also to have a large “cellar for beer and wine.” Certain sections attached to the building were distinctly classified and designated “for Professors,” “for McGill students,” and “for servants and Medical students.” It was found that such a building would entail too great an expense, and the plans were changed to provide two buildings, the present Central Arts Building and the present East Wing, or Administration Offices. The latter was intended to contain the Principal's apartments and rooms for Professors, and there the Principal subsequently dwelt for several years. Between the two buildings provision was made for a covered passage.

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The Proposed McGill College Original Building

It was soon apparent that the cost of the new buildings would be greater than estimated. Before June, 1840, a sum of £2,783 had been expended and provision had to be made for the payment of a further sum of £5,000 in the following January. In order to secure this amount it was decided to advertise for sale certain lots adjoining the College site on Burnside Estate, and to procure plans for the laying out in building lots of all the land not in use. This was the beginning of the disposal of the unused part of the estate, a sacrifice which relieved the College from temporary financial embarrassment but which in later years, when real-estate increased in value, greatly depleted its revenue. The funds at this time were so low that the Governors could not pay a watchman or caretaker and the Board wrote to the Governors in October, 1840, asking, “Is any suitable person known to you who would consent to have charge of them [the buildings under construction] without remuneration, on condition of the requisite fuel being provided?” The gross annual revenue from the McGill properties vested in the Board for the support of the College was only £559. 6. 8. The Board again appealed to the Government for a grant of £5,000 to finish the building, also for “a very moderate sum to purchase the large collection of books formerly belonging to the late Mr. Fleming, the greater part of which would form a suitable foundation for a Library.” This appeal was again unsuccessful.

During the summer of 1841, amidst many discouragements and financial worries, the erection of the buildings went forward. On October 21st, 1841, the Principal, who was one of the building committee, notified the Board that they were nearly ready for the reception of pupils. But their completion was for various reasons delayed several months. The Governors then decided to apply to the Legislature for a grant of £1,500 a year for current expenses and £5,000 for Philosophical Apparatus, the rudiments of a Library, and furniture; to ask also for the passing of an act repealing the Act of 1801, and vesting the McGill bequest in the Governors of the College; and to request that the Chief Justice and the Principal be authorised to communicate with the Royal Institution and to take steps to carry out this resolution. This application was again without avail, and the submitting of it was obviously not conducive to harmony and peace.

Arrangements were now completed for the sale of lots from the Burnside Estate. In all 25½ acres were offered in small sections “as soon as Mr. Phillips' consent could be obtained to give one-half of the ground required for a proposed street,” and negotiations were entered into for the leasing of any of the land left unsold. The Governors demanded that the Royal Institution should transfer to them the entire property, but the Board refused, claiming that they were prohibited from so doing by the terms of the will.

The Governors then devised an ingenious scheme to secure possession of the premises. The Principal proposed to the Board in May, 1842, that they lease the estate to the Governors for a period of 99 years. This the Board refused to do. They had obviously no desire to allow the Governors to get control. An endeavour to secure a lease was then made by a Mr. Pelton, and his application was recommended by the Principal. The Board replied that there were legal and insuperable objections to the granting of such a request and that they had no power under the law to give a lease for a longer period than 21 years. They agreed to give Pelton a lease for that period, and they guaranteed “that the same shall be renewed for each subsequent term until the whole period of 99 years shall be accomplished.” The lease seems to have been actually entered into, but because of difficulty over the security offered, combined with legal obstacles, it was cancelled soon afterwards. It transpired later that Pelton was merely the agent of the Governors and that in order to secure possession of the property, they had engaged him to act on their behalf, on the understanding that he was to transfer the lease to them when he received it.

Of the Governors' connection with this plan the Board was obviously not aware at the time. The details were frankly and clearly outlined in an interesting letter written by acting-Principal Bethune to the Hon. R. A. Tucker, Principal of the Royal Institution, on November 4th, 1845, when Pelton tried without success to establish a claim to some of the property. Extracts from this letter give further indication of the bitterness and hopelessness of the controversy:

“After the sale of the 99 years' lease had been advertised, it occurred to me that a good opportunity was thereby afforded to the Governors of the College for getting the management of the property into their own hands, by purchasing the lease. I need hardly say that the difficulties which had occurred between the late Board of the Royal Institution and the Governors of the College with regard to the right of possession naturally led to such a desire. Being the only Governor then resident in Montreal, and His Excellency, the late Sir Charles Bagot, having left the management with reference to that sale to me, I took upon myself the responsibility of making the purchase for the Governors;—but I felt convinced that if I did so in my own name, the Board of the Royal Institution would throw difficulties in the way. I therefore employed Mr. Pelton to purchase the property for me, and he did so on the perfect understanding that the property should, in the first instance, be conveyed to him, and afterwards by him to me, as he supposed, but really to 'the Governors, Principal and Fellows of McGill College.' In that transaction therefore Mr. Pelton acted as my agent; and continued to do so, placing only such tenants on Burnside as were approved by me, and collecting the rents for and paying them to me until the 1st May, 1844, after which he refused to continue to pay them to me. Immediately after the adjudication of the property, a correspondence took place with the Royal Institution about security for the payment of the rents, before it was discovered that a 99 years' lease could not be granted, and Mr. Pelton took upon himself without consulting me to offer security, which he said was accepted by the Board; and then, knowing that I had not offered any security, proposed to me to let him be the bona fide purchaser; but I refused, saying that I supposed the same person who was willing to be security for him would also be security for me. It was immediately after this discovered that the Royal Institution could not grant a lease for a longer period than 21 years, and the whole affair was considered by me as at an end, that is, that it was no sale, because the Royal Institution could not be expected to do that which they had no legal authority to do....” The lease was subsequently cancelled, and it was shown that Pelton had no legal claim upon the property.

When the College buildings were nearing completion, towards the end of 1842, the Board prepared the necessary documents for the transfer of the Burnside Estate to the possession of the Governors of the College. But they took care to safeguard their own powers. They retained the right to inquire from time to time into the management and administration of the University, to remove officers of the College for misconduct, to examine into the compliance of the Governors with the Charter, and to establish statutes and by-laws for the government of the College. In short, the Governors, although they were at last to obtain possession of the property, were still to be subservient to the Board.

This was naturally not satisfactory to the Governors. In accordance with the resolution passed on August 8th, 1842, they drew up a bill the object of which was “to abolish the Royal Institution, and to provide for the better government of McGill College.” It stipulated that all the monies, goods and chattels of which the Royal Institution was possessed under the will of James McGill should be vested in the Government of the University. The Principal went to Kingston to endeavour to have the bill passed during the following session of Parliament but the abrupt ending of the session prevented even its introduction. He went to Kingston again in 1843, but he was frustrated by a similar cause. Against the bill the Board emphatically protested. They declared it to be an attempt to overthrow the plainly expressed intentions and directions of the testator, and an action “as unexampled in the history of British legislation as it is contrary to the first principles of law, justice and reason.” They stated further that “they have executed the intentions of the testator diligently, faithfully and efficiently, so far as they have not been obstructed in doing so by the acts of those whose duty it was to have facilitated their proceedings.” The bill was not passed. It helped only to shatter whatever hopes may have existed for the ending of the quarrel between the Governors and the Board as then constituted. It made it plain that there was now no possibility of an amicable agreement.

In the spring of 1843, the buildings were completed as far as the funds available would permit. Because of lack of money, the Board did not feel justified in making any outlay on the College grounds. Meanwhile, however, they had increased the value of the estate by giving to the City of Montreal the continuation lines of Dorchester and St. Catherine Streets on condition that the additional fences required on opening these streets should be erected at the expense of the city.

In June, 1843, it was decided to open the buildings for the reception of students in the first week of the following September. To this the Board and the Governors, strangely enough, agreed, but the agreement was only momentary. The Board asked the Governors for an estimate of the amount required for furniture for the buildings. The Governors refused to make an estimate. They were unable, they said, to do so; they desired a covering grant of £500 to buy what they needed. The Board suggested with some touch of sarcasm that they should get “a carpenter or a tradesman” to make an estimate if they could not make it themselves, but the Governors again declined. The Board contended that they could not make a grant unless they previously knew precisely the details of the proposed expenditure; and the Governors answered that they would borrow £500 if the Royal Institution would not give it to them. The Board then asked for an accounting of the money “already received and expended by the Principal in connection with the rents and products of the Burnside Estate.” The Secretary was instructed to reply that no account would be submitted as the Governors felt that any money so received was but a very small remuneration for services rendered by the Principal. To this the Board rejoined with bitterness that the Principal had not been regularly appointed, that he had done no duty as Professor, that they had never authorised his taking possession of Burnside and that the products from the farm should provide for him more than a sufficient remuneration; they were determined, they said, to pay no salaries unless accounts were rendered to them and approved. Such, at this critical period, was the co-operation arising from a dual control!

On June 21st, the opening of the College in the autumn was approved by the Governor General. The Rev. F. J. Lundy (a graduate of Oxford) had been appointed Professor of Classical Literature in November, 1842. He had received, with the Principal, one of the first D.C.L. degrees conferred by McGill in the spring of 1843. In addition to his duties as Professor he was now appointed Secretary of the College, and was later made Vice-Principal. His appointment to the Faculty of Arts was not ratified at once by the Board of the Royal Institution, and they intimated that they would not pay his salary. The Governors voted £300 a year and fuel for a Professor of Mathematics. As a result of the Board's contention that the Principal had not been regularly appointed, a commission or warrant of appointment was issued by the Governors on July 12th, and on the following day the Principal was appointed to be also Professor of Divinity, at a salary of £250, “as soon as funds derived from the property shall admit of it.” A Bursar, Secretary and Registrar was appointed at a salary of £100 a year and fees, to be later sanctioned, and a Beadle was selected at £30 a year and fees and board.

A Code of Statutes, Rules and Regulations for the government of the College was now prepared by the Governors. Without the approval of the Board it was forwarded to the Governor-General for submission to the Crown for ratification. Six years passed before these Statutes, with slight alterations, received Royal sanction, with the result that the College opened without definite rules for its guidance. The reasons for this delay will be outlined elsewhere. It is only necessary to mention here that the first difficulty in connection with the Statutes arose from requirements connected with religious instruction in the University. Two of these, which were later disallowed by Her Majesty's Government, provided first, that “no Professor, Lecturer or Tutor shall teach in the College any principles contrary to the doctrines of the United Church of England and Ireland,” and second, that “on every Sunday during the term, all the resident members of the University under the degree of B.C.L. who have not obtained a dispensation to the contrary, shall attend the morning service in the Protestant Episcopal Parish Church of Montreal.” It was also stipulated that “the prayers in the College Chapel shall be said in rotation by such officers of the College as shall be in Holy Orders of the United Church of England and Ireland.” These provisions, together with the fact that the acting-Principal, who was also Rector of Christ Church, had just been appointed Professor of Divinity, gave rise to critical discussion, and made Lord Metcalfe, the Governor-General, pause before advising the Colonial Office to obtain the Royal ratification of the Statutes. He wrote to Lord Stanley, “The main point involved in these questions is whether the Religious Instruction to be given at McGill College shall be exclusively that of the Church of England....

“The grounds on which the Governors have adopted the affirmative of the proposition, and appointed a Divinity Professor of the Church of England, are ably stated in their letter to me. On the other hand, there are strenuous remonstrances against this arrangement on the part of the Ministers of the other Protestant persuasions in the Province, and a strong feeling against it in the community; and the design manifested to connect the Institution, in that respect, exclusively with the Church of England will most probably deprive it of that support from the Provincial Legislature without which it will necessarily be crippled. The opinions on this subject, understood to be prevalent in the Province, are likely to lead to discussions in the Legislature; and it may become necessary to modify the Institution so as to make it more suitable to public expectation and general utility. If, therefore, it rested with me to determine on this reference, I should be disposed, either to disallow the Professorship of Divinity, or to suspend the decision until it could be seen that the Institution can stand on the footing on which the Governors have placed it.

“I am, by the Charter, a Governor of the Institution, but have not acted in that capacity; at first, simply because more urgent business prevented my going to Montreal to take a part in the proceedings of the Governors; but subsequently, on reflection, for the following reasons:—I doubt the expediency of the Governor-General's taking a part as one of the Governors of an Institution in which he may be overruled by a majority, and apparently sanction measures which he disapproves. The perusal of the correspondence between the Governors of the College and the Royal Institution of Quebec satisfied me that I ought not to place myself in a position which would render me liable to become a party concerned in such a correspondence, and subject to the assumed authority and control of another Institution. The Income of the Institution having become a bone of contention between the Church of England and the other Protestant Churches, it appears to me to be right that I should perform my part as Governor-General without being embarrassed by proceedings to which I might be a party as a Governor of the College.”

The action of the Governor-General was approved by Lord Stanley and consideration of the Statutes was consequently postponed.

In shaping the policy of the University the place of religious instruction and theological training received earnest consideration. On the necessity of including it in the College curriculum the Governors of the College and the Board of the Royal Institution agreed, but they differed on the nature of the instruction and on the theological creed which should dominate or dictate such teaching. It was recognised as a vexed question. The Governors attempted to explain and justify their attitude of alleged religious “exclusiveness” referred to above in Lord Metcalfe's despatch, and to give reasons for the Statutes already mentioned. The following extracts from a long and somewhat laboured letter forwarded by the Governors to Lord Metcalfe on July 15, 1843, are of interest. The arguments advanced in the letter and the frequent “begging of the question” need no comment. The Governors still pleaded for a Provincial grant, but they wished part, at least, of that public grant devoted to one exclusive form of theological teaching, and they were not averse to giving to the entire University a distinctively sectarian character.

“Another reason which compels us,” they said, “to commence on a scale so limited, is the scantiness of our means. At present, the resources of the College, arising from the property bequeathed by the founder, supply only an annual income of £560 Provincial currency, and that not clear of deductions. The Legislature has occasionally appropriated £500 annually, in aid of these funds, and though we trust there can be no danger of this assistance being withdrawn, after the College shall have begun to be more extensively useful to the Province, yet, it is incumbent on us, to consider that even this small aid is not permanently assured to the University, and that to enable us to go beyond what we have now proposed, it will be necessary that the funds should be very considerably increased.... To meet the exigency of the present moment, we earnestly hope that the liberal suggestion, in which the late Governor-General concurred, will be acted upon with effect by Your Excellency and the Legislature, and with as little delay as may be consistent with the unspeakable importance of the object to be obtained. In Lower Canada, which is supposed to contain a population of not less than 800,000 souls, there is at present (except in regard to the Medical Faculty) no seat of Learning, either Catholic or Protestant, in which a Degree can be conferred in any Art or Science. This is a defect which, we believe, has not existed since the era of civilisation among so large a community of British subjects, and we very anxiously hope that from this moment no time may be lost in establishing McGill College upon such a footing as may command the confidence of the country, and enable the Institution, though indeed too tardily, to answer the purposes contemplated by its munificent founder.... There is one point (and it is the last) upon which, from the interest naturally and properly attached to it, we are aware much discussion may arise, and upon which, from its paramount importance, we desire, above all things, to be open and explicit.

“It will be found, on examination of the Statutes now submitted, that no test of a religious character is requisite, either from the Teachers or Scholars. Persons of any religious creed may, therefore, dispense instruction or receive it, except as regards religion itself, the College being equally open to all. But it will be found also that it is proposed to be distinctly made a Statute of the College, that no Professor, Lecturer or Tutor shall teach within it any principles contrary to the doctrines of the United Church of England and Ireland.

“We have not been able to bring ourselves to take part in the establishment of an Institution for the education of youth without making provisions for their Religious Instruction, and for inculcating as a duty the worship of their Creator. We have therefore made certain Statutes respecting the performance of, and attendance at, Divine Service, and we have established, so far as our power extends, a Professorship of Divinity in our College.

“Taking these provisions in connection with the Statutes which enjoins that nothing contrary to the doctrines of the United Church of England and Ireland shall be taught within the College, it follows obviously (and this we wish to be plainly understood) that the Divine Service to be performed, and the Professorship of Divinity to be established, will be of the Church of England, and of no other. But we have been careful at the same time to exempt from any necessity of attending Divine Service, or of being present at the Lectures on Divinity, all such Scholars, being members of other Religious Communities, as may desire a dispensation.

“Knowing the diversity of opinions entertained respecting the footing on which religious instruction should be placed in Seats of Learning, and how futile have been the efforts made to reconcile them, we came to the consideration of this subject with a dire sense of its difficulty, and with much anxiety that we should ourselves arrive at the soundest and best conclusion, and that our conclusion may, for the sake of the Institution and of the Province, be sanctioned by that authority to which under the Statutes it must be submitted. We offer no further arguments for the propriety of not leaving religious instruction and public worship unattended to, or inadequately provided for, in a College which is destined to conduct in a Christian country the education of youth at a period of life when they are most exposed to temptations, and when, if ever, the attempt should be made to furnish them with the highest and most sacred motives to the discharge of their religious and moral duties.

“We do not believe that there is, rationally speaking, a choice between the two alternatives, of omitting wholly to establish any system of religious instruction and public worship in the College, or of providing for it by placing the Institution in strict and acknowledged connection with some one recognised Church or form of doctrine. Not assenting to the former course, we have unanimously agreed on the latter, and we have in favour of the course we have adopted the examples of the Universities of the Mother Country, which have been for ages looked up to with undiminished confidence and respect. We have also in its support the acknowledged favour of an experiment made in England under many advantages to recommend it to public favour, an University established on other principles; and we have, in addition to this, the very strong arguments to be derived from the well supported and most useful Institutions of learning established in Lower Canada in strict connection with the Roman Catholic Church, and from the efforts made by the Roman Catholics, the Church of Scotland, and the Methodist Society to found Colleges in Upper Canada as closely connected with their respective religious bodies,—Colleges in which there is not only nothing taught contrary to their respective Creeds, but in which the whole government and business of the Institution is carefully confined to those who profess the one form of Doctrine.

“We have considered, too, that while these Religious Bodies, comprising together the great bulk of the population, have given this strong and plain evidence of their conviction that this system is the soundest, they have not thought it unreasonable to solicit the aid and countenance of the Government and the Legislature towards the establishment of such Colleges, and have not found their solicitations hopeless. So far as regards our Roman Catholic fellow-subjects, who form a great majority of the population in this portion of Canada, we do not apprehend that we shall be offending any prejudices of theirs, for we believe they would be as unwilling to throw impediments in the way of Institutions of Learning not intended to belong exclusively to their Church, as they would be reluctant to admit the interference of others in the management of their own valuable Seminaries where the exclusive maintenance of one form of doctrine and worship tends to secure in all respects the advantages of unity and peace.

“It then only remains, in the view which we have taken on the subject, that we should state shortly the reasons which have led us, where we thought a connection with some one Church should be established and acknowledged, to make that Church the Church of England.

“They are these:—1st. The founder, Mr. McGill, is silent in his will upon the subject of religion, and gave no direction to which these Statutes will be repugnant. He was himself a member of the Church of England, in communion with that Church. We do not feel at liberty to imagine that he desired religious instruction to be excluded, and we think it reasonable to believe that in selecting some Church whose ministration should be recognised in the College which he intended to found, he would naturally have desired the choice to fall on that Church of which he was a member.

“2nd. The Charter which appoints us to be Governors declares that His Majesty desired the erection of this University in order to provide for the instruction of youth in the principles of true religion, as well as in the different branches of Science and Literature; and whatever may be the honest convictions of opposing Churches and Sects, we think it right to assume that when the Sovereign speaks of the principles of true religion, he means that which is the prevailing National Religion of the British Empire, and which he must himself have solemnly professed. We consider, therefore, that in placing McGill College on the footing proposed, we have taken the only course which we could satisfactorily account for, whatever may be the opinions or acts of others, whom it does not rest with us to control.

“3rd. While other religious communities have their separate Colleges closely connected with their form of doctrine and worship and partaking of public support, there is none in the Province of Canada which is bound by plain and acknowledged ties to the Church of England. We have felt it not to be unjust or illiberal to allow to the members of that Church this advantage so desirable to themselves in an Institution founded by the munificence of one of their communion while the youth of all other religious bodies may, in the discretion of themselves and their parents, resort to it for instruction in the several branches of Science, with the assurance that no attempt will be suffered to be made to bias their religious belief; and with the satisfaction at the same time of knowing, that whenever instruction in Religion may be desired, it cannot be uncertain in what form it will be conveyed.

“We hope that our fellow-subjects of all persuasions will view, without jealousy or alarm, the provisions which we have proposed to make on this subject, and that they will carry their liberality so far as to give efficient aid to an Institution, founded, as we believe, on the only principles of which reason and religion can approve,—namely, the principle of giving it a known and acknowledged religious character. At all events, we have not refrained from adopting that course which our judgment has led us to prefer; we have had no difficulty in resting in the conclusion which we have come to, and no difference of opinion among ourselves. It now rests with Her Majesty to dispose of these measures, which we humbly submit to the Royal consideration.”

Her Majesty's Government, however, on the advice of the Governor-General, ultimately withheld their assent from the controversial clauses referred to.

Before the College was opened the Governors made a final effort to curtail the powers of the Board of the Royal Institution. They considered that with the erection of College buildings the duties of the Board in connection with the McGill bequest were at an end and that with any other buildings which might later be erected the Board was not concerned. They wrote to the Royal Institution and to the Governor-General setting forth their views. “If the Board's power is what is stated and assumed,” they said, “it will not be possible for the Governors to attain the object of the Charter.” They deplored the spirit in which the authority of the Board had been exercised. They assumed that James McGill intended his bequest to be administered by the Board only until buildings were erected and a Charter granted to a Corporate body, for the Board's control was primarily over grants from the Crown and not from private individuals. The Board had now, therefore, no legal existence, for the objects for which it had been created were gone. It was clearly apparent, in their judgment, that when he gave control of his bequest to the Board, James McGill thought public funds would be added to his gift; this, they believed, was proved by the stipulation of “ten years” after his death as the required term for the erection of the College; hence he had given his bequest to the Board simply and solely because they controlled public funds given for education. But practically no public funds had been regularly given; hence the Board's control automatically ceased.

It is unnecessary to follow here the Governors' subtle reasoning. They seem to have forgotten the Provincial funds granted from the Jesuits' Estates, and to be unmindful of the fact that they were at that very moment still pleading for a Provincial grant, as indicated in the letter quoted above. They justly emphasised, however, the necessity of providing a convenient power of management within the College itself and the ending of the dual control. It was absurd, they rightly contended, that every cent expended for a piece of stove pipe or a chair should be first approved by the Board. The Governors resented, too, the visitatorial power of the Royal Institution. “In what spirit,” they asked, “and for what purpose do they carry out the right of visitation?” Such power was useful, they declared, only for the purpose of interposing in the minutest details of the management of McGill College, although a Corporation and a board of Governors existed for that purpose; the Royal Institution, in short, was, in its connection with McGill, nothing more than “a source of interference and impediment,” and the Governors asked that the Legislature should investigate the whole situation with a view to remedying it. This appeal, like the others, failed to make any impression on the authorities, and the causes of friction were not removed.

In this atmosphere of discord and dissension and disputed powers the College buildings were opened on September 6th, 1843, and collegiate instruction was at last commenced in accordance with the founder's bequest. Twenty-two years had passed since the College had been established by Charter, and fourteen years had gone since its actual opening. They were years of doubt and uncertainty, of protracted litigation and differences, even of virulent wrangling and bitter strife. But amidst it all and in the face of all its obstacles, the College had gone slowly but steadily forward. Its sign-posts had pointed onward. Reading to-day the troubled pages of its early story revealed in a mass of musty documents written by hands long since folded, or dictated by voices long since stilled,—which then helped to shape its destiny,—we wonder how it survived. The explanation lies in the fact that the men who guided it, whether of Governors or of Royal Institution, were men of unfaltering faith; they believed in the future of McGill; amidst their disagreements and their controversies, they never lost sight of the founder's hope although their ways for the fulfilment of that hope lay often painfully apart. From the struggles of its early years McGill now emerged to be an established fact. The first of its buildings, the present Arts or Centre Building, had been erected and opened. The College had at last an actual home. But the days of its travail and its worry, its poverty and its depression, its fight for life itself, had not yet passed.

CHAPTER VI

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The College in the First McGill Buildings

THE original College buildings were opened for the reception and instruction of students on September 6th, 1843. Only twenty regular students were in attendance during the first session, seventeen of whom took the Classical course and three the Mathematical course. Steps were at once taken to provide an adequate collegiate education as called for in the founder's will, and to organise the teaching and administration on as extensive and sound a basis as the available funds would permit. A few books and some scanty school equipment were received from the Normal School recently closed. The fees of students were fixed at £5 a year, of which £1 13s. 4d. was assigned to the Senior Professor as his portion, 6s. 8d. to the Bursar, and the remaining £3 to the “House Fund.” In addition, each student paid to the Registrar who was also Secretary and Bursar, a matriculation fee of 10 shillings which that official was allowed to keep for his own use. The fees were reduced a few months later to £3, of which the House Fund received £2 13s. 4d., and the Bursar 6s. 8d. Students under fourteen years of age and over eighteen were not allowed to matriculate into the ordinary classes except in very exceptional cases. The matriculation examination was at first mainly in Latin and Greek Grammar and the 1st Book of Cæsar's Commentaries. Students who failed to pass this examination were allowed to enter the College and were formed into a separate class. They paid an additional entrance fee of 10 shillings and an annual fee of £2, for which they were not to expect the attention given to other students. Students over eighteen were permitted to enter as “Fellow Commoners,” and were allowed the special privilege of dining at “the high table.” They paid a double matriculation fee, and their ordinary fee was twenty-five per cent higher than that of other students. For a brief time only there was a common dining-room, but because of financial storm and stress and the necessity for additional room this was in the end abandoned and the students boarded with the professors who had rooms in the College. Indeed, the willingness to accept students as boarders seems, in some cases at least, to have been a condition of appointment, and little choice in the matter was left to the professor. It was decided that all examinations for degrees should be held “within the walls of the College in the presence of all the officers of the University and College,” and that every candidate for a medical degree “must forward his inaugural dissertation to the Principal before the last day of March.”

Soon after the opening of the building, Principal Bethune and the Governors looked about for additional professors or instructors or tutors. In negotiating with prospective tutors it was pointed out that “no gentleman would be elected to a Tutorship who was not able to translate fluently the works of Horace, Xenophon, and Herodotus, together with the other Classical authors of that stamp; and that an examination of all candidates would be held.” One candidate inquired about rooms in the College for himself and his wife, but the Vice-Principal replied, “I must inform you that there will be no accommodation for your wife in the College at present, but that you will yourself be expected to reside within the College. The Tutor is not allowed his board during the long vacation.” In February, 1844, William Wickes, M.A., a graduate of Trinity College, Cambridge, was appointed Professor of Mathematics and Natural Philosophy. He was promised £20 to defray his travelling expenses “as soon as it can be paid.” Mr. E. Chapman was appointed Tutor, at a salary of £100 a year payable, it was hoped, from students' fees, and his board and lodging; and the Rev. Dr. Fallon was appointed Lecturer in Divinity.