College Life in Mid-Century
COLLEGE life in mid-century, or rather in the “forties and fifties,” during the early dark days of struggle and ten years thereafter, differed greatly from College life in our day. It is difficult perhaps fully to realise the changes since that time in other ways than growth. The McGill of our day is not the McGill of seventy years ago, not merely in its accommodation and its advantages, but in its internal activities.
McGill College in 1855
Under the original Statutes of the College the administration was under the control of four distinct bodies: (1) The Corporation, which met annually on the day after commencement day “to inspect the Books and Accounts of the Registrar, Bursar and Secretary and to transact all such business relative to the property of the University as might be necessary.” This body seems to have taken no part in strictly Academic discussions. (2) The Board of Governors, which met quarterly in March, June, September and December, and which was in supreme control; two constituted a quorum and the Principal had a double or casting vote. (3) The Caput, which met weekly and consisted of the Principal, Vice-Principal and Professors, three forming a quorum. The duty of this body was “to frame Rules and Regulations for the discipline, lectures, studies and internal government of the Lecturers, Scholars, Students, Inferior Officers and other members of the College and to make regulations regarding the expenses and system of living within the College.” They had no control at first, however, over studies or lecturers in the Faculty of Medicine. (4) The Convocation, which met “four times in every Term for the purposes of conferring Degrees, such meetings being regulated by the Caput.” Every Professor, Lecturer and Tutor had to take the oath of allegiance and of office.
Discipline was severe and was rigidly enforced. Every Professor was given power to punish students by confinement and fine, the fine not to exceed five shillings and the confinement not to exceed twelve hours. Many of the early regulations are of interest. The duties of the Vice-Principal seem to have been responsible and arduous. All disciplinary measures as well as the general conduct of the University were under his direct supervision. He was compelled to reside in the College, and during the non-residence of the Principal he was to be “the parent and guardian of the College Household.” It was his duty “to examine students for matriculation, maintain the observance of the Statutes by Professors, Students, Inferior Officers and all other resident members of the College, enforcing such observance by admonitions and punishments; to direct the students in their studies, promoting by all the means in his power their progress in Religion, and Learning; to preside over the Collegiate Exercises and regulate the Inferior Officers and Servants of the College.” At meals served in the College distinctive tables were provided, one for “Members of Convocation and Bachelors of Civil Law, Lecturers, Fellows and Tutors”; one for Bachelors of Arts and Students in Law and Medicine who had graduated in Arts; and one or more for undergraduates. The academical year consisted of three terms, the Michaelmas Term, the Lent Term and the Easter Term, and it extended from the first Wednesday in September until the third Wednesday in June. The Arts course extended over three years. Until a Chapel should be built it was imperative that Divine Service should be held in some convenient room, and on the first and last days of every term the Principal or one of the Professors, Lecturers or Tutors selected by the Principal for the purpose, preached a sermon in the College or in one of the Protestant churches of Montreal; attendance in full academic dress of all the members of the University excepting those who had obtained a dispensation was compulsory. The prayers in the College Chapel were said morning and evening; the service was conducted in rotation by Officers of the College.
It was required that “the dress of all members of the University should be plain, decent and comely without superfluous ornament.” No member of the Arts Faculty was allowed to appear in Church, Chapel, Lecture or Dining-hall without his gown and only by special permission from the Vice-Principal was a student permitted to go outside of the College grounds without his academic dress. Students were not allowed to resort to any inn or tavern or place of public amusement without special permission from the Vice-Principal. They were not allowed to remain out of College nor to entertain visitors in their rooms after 10 o'clock at night, and the Vice-Principal, Professors, Lecturers and Tutors had authority to enter at all hours the rooms of undergraduates. Junior students were required “to pay the respect due to their Seniors both in public and in private by taking off their caps, giving place to them and by other useful modes of attention and civility.”
The course of study leading to a degree in the Faculty of Arts was of three years' duration. Courses were of two kinds, from which students could make a choice. One consisted of Mathematics, Logic, and Ethics; the other of Classics. In the former the First Year was devoted to the study of six books of Euclid, Algebra to the end of Quadratic Equations, and Trigonometry to the end of the solution of Plain Triangles. In the second year the course included a repetition of all the first year work, Analytic Geometry, Differential and Integral Calculus, and Logic, consisting of Fallacies, Induction and “a sketch of a system of Philosophy of the Human Mind.” The work of the third or final year was in Physics, Astronomy, and Ethics, principally “Butler's Analogy.” In the Classics course selections from Homer, Virgil, Euripides and Horace were read in the first year; selections from Cicero, Horace, Demosthenes and Sophocles in the second year; and selections from Herodotus, Æschylus, Thucydides, and Tacitus in the third year. In the first and second years the students were “exercised in Greek and Latin Composition, and they were also given a few lectures in Ancient History and Geography.” In the third or final year they were exercised in English Composition.
Conditions in the Medical School at that period have been described by a contemporary, Dr. D. C. Maccallum, who graduated in 1850, when the Medical Classes were held in two rooms of the Arts building:
“A large proportion of the students,” he said, “were men verging on, or who had passed, middle age. Indeed, several of them were married men and the heads of families. There was sufficient of the youthful, however, to keep things lively. 'Footing Suppers,' practical jokes, and special country excursions to secure material for practical anatomy, were of frequent occurrence. The last, involving as it did a certain amount of danger, commended itself particularly to the daring spirits of the class, who were always ready to organise and lead an excursion having that object in view. These excursions were not at all times successful, and the participators in them were sometimes thwarted in their attempts and had to beat a precipitate retreat to save themselves from serious threatened injury. They contributed, moreover, to the unpopularity of the medical student. 'Footing Suppers' were functions of the simplest and most unpretentious character. Each new matriculant was expected, although many failed to conform to the arrangement, to select an evening on which to entertain his fellow students, the entertainment consisting generally in furnishing biscuits and beer—the old, time-endorsed 'cakes and ale.' In partaking of these, smoking, relating humorous stories, chaffing each other and singing rousing songs, the evening usually passed with much bonhommie. But sometimes they were rather boisterous, or, at least, noisy and exciting....
“Dissections and demonstrations were made only at stated times during the morning and afternoon of the day. There evidently existed a marked disinclination on the part of both demonstrator and student to work at night in the highest story of a lonely building, far removed from other dwellings, imperfectly heated, and lighted by candles, the light being barely sufficient to render the surrounding darkness visible. Having occupied for two seasons the position of Prosector to the Professor of Anatomy, I had to prepare, during the greater part of the session, the dissections of the parts which were to be the subject of the Professor's lecture on the following day. This necessitated my passing several hours, usually from nine to twelve o'clock at night, in the dismal, foul-smelling dissecting room, my only company being several partially dissected subjects, and numerous rats which kept up a lively racket coursing over and below the floor and within the walls of the room. Their piercing and vicious shrieks as they fought together, the thumping caused by their bodies coming into forcible contact with the floor and walls, and the rattling produced by their rush over loose bones, furnished a variety of sounds that would have been highly creditable to any old-fashioned haunted house. I must acknowledge that the eeriness of my surroundings was such that I sometimes contemplated a retreat, and was prevented from carrying it into effect only by a sense of duty and a keen dislike to being chaffed by my fellow-students for having cowardly deserted my work....
“The examinations for the degree of the University were conducted orally, ten minutes being allowed to each examiner. The janitor, supplied with a watch and a large bell, was placed in the hall outside the door of the library, the room in which the examinations took place. At the expiration of each ten minutes he rang the bell, and the candidates went from one examiner to another. This was repeated until the student had completed the round of examining professors. Immediately on the termination of the examinations, the professors met and decided then and there the fate of the candidates. The latter, in the meantime, waited in the College in a rather painful state of suspense. They were summoned separately before the Professors, and the result, favourable or unfavourable, was in each case made known to the individual....
“It was customary at this time for the student to be indentured to a practicing physician, or, if not so bound notarially, to make a private arrangement with him to be allowed to study in his office and to be considered as his pupil. For this privilege a fee of £20 was usually demanded. Apart from the éclat which was supposed to be attached to the position of a student under a popular physician, and the belief of the possibility of the patron being able to forward the interests of his pupils, there were, as a rule, few advantages derived from this association. It is true that in exceptional cases, if the physician had a large clientele and took a warm interest in his students, he could, by arranging their studies, occasionally examining them on the work done, and directing them in the routine of office work, be of material assistance to them. The office work of a physician in large practice, however, offered an excellent opportunity to acquire much practical knowledge. As, with few exceptions, physicians prescribed and dispensed their own medicines, the articled student had the opportunity of making up all the prescriptions. He compounded pills, a variety of which were always kept prepared for use, and he made the different tinctures and ointments. He had the privilege, also, of assisting at minor surgical operations, such as were performed in the office, of making physical examinations, of applying tests; in short, office practice offered the same facilities for acquiring practical knowledge, although in a minor degree, that the outdoor practice of a hospital or the practice of a dispensary affords....”
The recreations of students who dwelt in the College or its vicinity were few and simple. There were no athletic teams or athletic games. Indeed, the number of students in Arts and Law was scarcely sufficient to permit the forming of athletic teams, and the medical students were too busy all day and were too far from the College grounds to take an active part in college sports. There was no gymnasium and no physical instruction. There were no fraternities other than the fraternity of McGill itself. There was no Union, no Y. M. C. A. On evenings in spring and summer a military band usually played near the “ornamental bridge” over the stream in “the hollow” near the present Physics building. Citizens came up from the City to listen to the band, and before the Easter term ended students, too, enjoyed the music. The College grounds were long used by citizens as a park. The students seemed to have had an occasional dance during the spring term, and at times there were receptions in Professors' rooms to which students were invited. Later in the “fifties,” after the coming of Principal Dawson, other forms of entertainment were added. Of these Dr. Dawson wrote: “Evening gatherings at regular intervals during the session were arranged, and cards of invitation for these were sent to the different classes or years in rotation. At such gatherings there was usually music, sometimes a short recitation or address on some topic of interest, and scientific instruments, specimens and photographs were shown, simple refreshments provided, and every effort made to cause those who attended to feel thoroughly at home.” Sometimes there were gatherings which took the form of what were known as “conversaziones,” during which conversation, supposedly on literary or scientific subjects, but more frequently on less dignified topics, took the place of the dances of to-day.
On the whole, college life in the mid-century was characterised by a Spartan simplicity. The students of that period seemingly enjoyed its somewhat humble joys and its unostentatious and frugal amusements. Life in that time was, at least, not artificial or luxurious or competitive or sectional; but whether the plain living of the period was more conducive to high thinking than the multifarious student activities of a later day cannot here be answered.
CHAPTER IX
Sir William Dawson and the Making of McGill
JAMES McGILL made his will, providing for the founding of McGill College, on January 8th, 1811, two years before his death. He was dreaming of a great University which would rise at some distant but certain day in the new land of his adoption. He was doubtless dreaming, too, of a strong personality who would guide the University to its destined place in the country in which he had made his fortune and in which he had unbounded faith. At that very time another Scotchman, twenty-two years of age, was dreaming in his home in Banffshire—also, by a strange coincidence, the home of James McGill's ancestors—of the land beyond the horizon from which tales of fortune and happiness came drifting across the ocean. He was a Liberal in politics and a dissenter in religion. His independent spirit was revolting against conditions in his own land. It was not easy to sever the ties which bound him to the old home and to venture alone into an unknown and far-off country. But the new land was calling, and its lure was upon him. He resolved to go to Canada where he had heard that all things were possible to the courageous and the industrious, and where men lived a man's life based on merit and achievement, and unhampered by the fetters of worn-out fetishes and conventions. And so it happened that on the 8th of March, 1811, exactly two months after James McGill had made his will, this young Scotchman set out for the new world. The ship in which he was to take passage—a square-rigged, clipper sailing vessel in those steamless days—was to clear from Greenock, one hundred and eighty miles from Keith, his Banffshire home. He had no money to spare to pay for a conveyance. He must cover the distance on foot. He sent his heavy luggage by carrier, and with a pack of necessary clothes and provisions on his back, he set out with three adventurous but hopeful comrades on his journey. He walked through the Grampians, by Kildrummy Castle, on through the town of Perth, along the base of Cairngorm in the Highlands, through the long valley of Glenavon, and thence to the sea-port town of Greenock from which the packet ships went weekly out into the mists, heading for the land of promise somewhere beyond the sky-line. He slept with his companions on heather beds in front of peat fires in the homes of the Highlanders through whose villages they passed, and the Gaelic tongue of one of their number was always a charm sufficient to secure them food. He reached Greenock on the 20th of March, but because of unforeseen delay it was not until April 11th that he embarked for Canada. After a voyage of five tempestuous weeks he landed in Pictou, Nova Scotia, on May 19th, 1811, and there he determined to make his home. The young Scotchman was James Dawson, whose son was destined in 1855 to become Principal of McGill.
| Redpath Museum | Photo Rice Studios |
Sir William Dawson,
C. M. G., M.A., L.L.D., F.R.S.,
Principal of McGill University
1855-1893
In his new home James Dawson soon prospered as a merchant and ship-owner, and later as a publisher, and in a few years he was head of one of the most successful business firms in Eastern Nova Scotia. In 1818 he married Mary Rankine, a Scotch girl from Lonerig, in the parish of Salamannan, who had emigrated to Nova Scotia after her parents' death with her brother William, the only other member of her family. Like the other pioneers of that time, they, too, were resolved to make a new home and to restore their shattered fortunes in the new world. To James Dawson and Mary Rankine two children were born, William and James, the latter of whom died while still a boy.
William Dawson was born in the town of Pictou, Pictou County, Nova Scotia, on October 13th, 1820, and there he received his early schooling. His parents believed in the value of education. Early in his career they determined that he should have whatever school privileges the country provided, and that he should later receive a college training. Many years afterwards he wrote: “To this day I cannot recall without deep emotion the remembrance of the sacrifices they made, and of the anxieties they incurred to secure for me opportunities of improvement.... I would specially record with gratitude that, at a time when he was in straitened circumstances, my father contributed liberally in aid of educational institutions then being established in Pictou, with the view of securing their benefits for his sons, and that he and my mother aided and stimulated our early tastes for literature and science.”
The childhood influences that moulded William Dawson were typical of the homes of the early Scottish pioneers in the Maritime Provinces of Canada at the beginning of the last century. They were characterised by simplicity, by frugality and by reverence. They were founded on an unwavering belief in religion and education and honest labour as necessary to the development of the individual and the nation. They were based on principles inculcated in the youth of these early Canadian days long before Carlyle with rugged pen and organ tone declared them. Later, when Principal of McGill, Dr. Dawson used to speak with affectionate remembrance of the agencies which fashioned him in the little seacoast town of black wharves, and tossing tides, and far-come sailing ships bearing mysterious cargoes from unknown and romantic lands, and manned by strangely-garbed and bearded seamen speaking a foreign tongue. “Our home,” he said, “was a very quiet one except when strangers, especially men engaged in missionary and benevolent enterprises, were occasionally invited as guests. To some of these I was indebted for much information and guidance ... There was always much work and study in the winter evenings, and I remember with what pleasure I used to listen to my father's reading, chiefly in history and biography, for the benefit of my mother when busy with her needle, as well as of my brother and myself, after our lessons were finished.... My early home had much in it to foster studies of nature, and both my parents encouraged such pursuits. A somewhat wild garden, with many trees and shrubs, was full of objects of interest; within easy walking distance were rough pastures, with second-growth woods, bogs, and swamps, rich in berries and flowers in their season, and inhabited by a great variety of birds and insects. Nothing pleased my father more than to take an early morning hour, or rare holiday, and wander through such places with his boys, studying and collecting their treasures. The harbour of Pictou, too, with its narrow entrance from the sea, affords ample opportunities for such investigations, and its waters teem with fish: from the gay striped bass and lordly salmon to the ever-hungry smelt—the delight of juvenile anglers. In such a basin, visited every day by the ocean tides, there is an endless variety of the humbler forms of aquatic life, and along the streams entering it a wealth of curious animals and plants with which an inquisitive boy could easily make himself familiar in his rambles and occasional angling expeditions.” It was here that the interest of the future scientist was first aroused in natural history. Of his mother he wrote: “She was a woman of deep affections and many sorrows ... her girlish years had been saddened by the death of her parents, and by the mournful breaking up of her old home ... She had a few warm and attached friends, and was very kind to such of the needy as she could help.”
The first scholastic training of William Dawson was received in a small private school in Pictou. From there he went to the recently founded Grammar School conducted on “the good old-fashioned plan of long hours, hard lessons, no prizes, but some punishments.” His parents desired that he should study for the Church; he began his college career with that object in view, but it was changed by circumstances. He entered Pictou Academy, which had just been established primarily for the training of young men for the Christian ministry; it was presided over by the Rev. Dr. Thomas MacCulloch, a Scottish teacher and preacher who exercised a large influence on the intellectual life of Nova Scotia. It was during his course at the Academy that William Dawson first became interested scientifically in geology and natural history, subjects which were later to form so large a part of his life work. As a result he took long excursions during vacations for the purpose of obtaining specimens and studying the minerals of his native province. In 1840, he entered Edinburgh University, where he completed his course in 1847. It was in one of his summer vacations in the Maritime Provinces that he first met Sir Charles Lyell, the distinguished geologist, and Sir William Logan, who later originated the Geological Survey of Canada. In 1847 he married Margaret Mercer of Edinburgh and with his wife he returned to Pictou. For a time he gave a special course of extension lectures at Dalhousie College, Halifax. In 1850, Joseph Howe, for whom he had a deep admiration, and with whom he had formed a friendship early in life, offered him the Superintendency of Education in Nova Scotia,—a newly established office. He accepted the post with many misgivings; and for the next few years he devoted all his efforts to bettering the educational conditions of the Province, addressing school meetings throughout the country and stimulating improvements.
In 1853 while he was still Superintendent of Education, his old friend, Sir Charles Lyell, revisited Nova Scotia and the friendship formed a few years before was renewed. On the same ship with him was Sir Edmund Head, then Governor of New Brunswick, who, on this first meeting, was deeply impressed by Mr. Dawson's views on educational reforms. As a result he appointed him the following year to the commission formed to report on the re-organisation of the University of New Brunswick, which was then in a precarious state.
In 1854, the Governors of McGill, on the advice of Sir Edmund Head who was about to become Governor-General of Canada in succession to Lord Elgin, offered the Principalship to William Dawson. He accepted the post and began his duties in the autumn of 1855. The outlook of the University when he arrived was not encouraging. The College buildings were not used for classes, but part of them was occupied by professors and students; Medical classes were held in the Coté Street building; classes in Arts and Law were held in part of the High School building. The conditions of James McGill's will were not being carried out; there was a College building on the Burnside Estate, it was true, but it was not in operation.
But nevertheless the call for educational opportunities was urgent. One hundred and ten students registered at the commencement of the session in all departments of the University, of whom fifteen were in Law, thirty-eight in Arts and fifty-seven in Medicine. The Faculty of Arts consisted of five professors and one lecturer; the Faculty of Law had one professor and two lecturers; and the Faculty of Medicine had nine professors. The annual calendar for the previous session, 1854-55, announced that “the board and lodging of students is a matter of much practical importance. From fifteen to twenty [Arts and Law students] may be received by the Professors resident in the College buildings and provision will be made when necessary for the reception of others into boarding houses, licensed by the Governors, upon settled economical terms and subject to proper rules of discipline and conduct.” Medical students, it was pointed out, “could obtain board and lodging in the town for from eight to sixteen dollars a month.” It was clear that the attendance would rapidly increase in succeeding years, and that provision must at once be made for their accommodation and instruction. The greatest hindrance to advancement was of course lack of funds.
The actual condition of the University at that time and the obstacles to be overcome were afterwards frequently described by Sir William Dawson, whose reminiscences of the period were always vivid:
“When I accepted the principalship of McGill,” he said, “I had not been in Montreal, and knew the college and the men connected with it only by reputation. I first saw it, in October, 1855. Materially, it was represented by two blocks of unfinished and partly ruinous buildings, standing amid a wilderness of excavators' and masons' rubbish, overgrown with weeds and bushes. The grounds were unfenced and were pastured at will by herds of cattle, which not only cropped the grass, but browsed on the shrubs, leaving unhurt only one great elm, which still stands as the 'founder's tree,' and a few old oaks and butternut trees, most of which have had to give place to our new buildings. The only access from the town was by a circuitous and ungraded cart track, almost impassable at night. The buildings had been abandoned by the new Board, and the classes of the Faculty of Arts were held in the upper story of a brick building in the town, the lower part of which was occupied by the High School. I had been promised a residence, and this, I found, was to be a portion of one of the detached buildings aforesaid, the present east wing. It had been very imperfectly finished, was destitute of nearly every requisite of civilised life, and in front of it was a bank of rubbish and loose stones, with a swamp below, while the interior was in an indescribable state of dust and disrepair. Still, we felt that the Governors had done the best they could in the circumstances, and we took possession as early as possible. As it was, however, we received many of the citizens, who were so kind as to call on us, in the midst of all the confusion of plastering, papering, painting, and cleaning. The residence was only a type of our difficulties and discouragements, and a not very favourable introduction to the work I had undertaken in Montreal....
“On the other hand, I found in the Board of Governors a body of able and earnest men, aware of the difficulties they had to encounter, fully impressed with the importance of the ends to be attained, and having sufficient culture and knowledge of the world to appreciate the best means for achieving their aims. They were greatly hampered by lack of means, but had that courage which enables risks to be run to secure important objects....
“Our great difficulty was lack of the sinews of war, and the seat of Government being, at the time, in Toronto, I was asked by the Governors to spend my first Christmas vacation in that city, with a view of securing some legislative aid. There was as yet no direct railway communication between Montreal and Toronto, and of course no Victoria Bridge. I crossed the river in a canoe, amidst floating ice, and had to travel by way of Albany, Niagara, and Hamilton. The weather was stormy, and the roads blocked with snow, so that the journey to Toronto occupied five days, giving me a shorter time there than I had anticipated. I received, however, a warm welcome from Sir Edmund Head, saw most of the members of the Government, and obtained some information as to the Hon. Mr. Cartier's contemplated Superior Education Act—passed in the following year—which secured for the first time the status of the preparatory schools, whilst giving aid to the universities. I was also encouraged by Sir Edmund and Cartier to confer with the Superintendent of Education and with the Governors of McGill on my return to Montreal, with reference to the establishment of a Normal School in connection with the University. This was successfully carried through in the following year.”
With the loyal aid of the Board of Governors the Principal at once undertook to arouse the interest of the general public in the University. He realised the necessity of securing their speedy co-operation and assistance. His belief was that the University should not be isolated nor removed from the stream of national life; his hope was that it should minister in a practical and tangible way to the community in which it was situated. On November 5th, 1855, he was inaugurated as Principal. A few days later he established the first real link between University and citizens, on the purely instructional side, by the commencement of a course of thirty popular lectures in Zoology, Natural Philosophy, Civil Engineering, Palæography and the Chemistry of Life. The fee for the course was £1. The course in Engineering was the origin of the department of Applied Science, which later expanded into a Faculty. Soon afterwards a course of lectures in Agriculture was given by the Principal, who, while Superintendent of Education in Nova Scotia, had given several lectures on that subject throughout the province. The fee for this course was £1 5s.
A direct appeal for financial assistance was then made to the citizens of Montreal. It met with an encouraging response, which greatly relieved the situation and was what Dr. Dawson, forty years later, called “the beginning of a stream of liberality which has floated our University barque up to the present date.” But other anxieties were soon to be felt. Early in 1856 the building occupied by the High School and the Faculty of Arts was destroyed by fire, together with the few books and the scanty apparatus that had been collected or had been given by Dr. Skakel many years before, as well as many of the Principal's natural history specimens. Teaching was not interrupted, however, and during the remainder of the session, the classes in Arts were held again, in part, in the original College buildings, then undergoing repairs, and, in part, in the Medical Faculty's building on Coté Street, in which rooms were generously placed at the disposal of the Faculty of Arts. Because of the occupation of part of the College buildings, and the expectation of soon again putting them to permanent use, improvements were commenced on the College grounds, by the planting of trees and the making of roads and walks, the cost of which was borne largely by the Principal. In 1856, general courses in Applied Science were established in connection with the Faculty of Arts, and degrees were first conferred in that department in 1859. The courses in the Law School, which had been formed into a separate Faculty in 1853, were extended to suit the conditions and needs of the country. But funds were necessary to meet the heavy extra expenses incurred, and in order to provide sufficient money for the payment of debts and contingencies, it was thought prudent to sell a portion of the College lands. From 1858 to 1860, therefore, forty-four lots, averaging in size one hundred by one hundred and twenty feet, were offered for sale by the University. Some of these were sold at auction. They were situated on Sherbrooke, Victoria, Mansfield and University Streets. Money was also loaned by the College authorities to purchasers of lots to enable them to erect buildings. The temporary revenue of the College was thus increased and expansion was consequently made possible.
William Molson, Esq,
1793-1875
Founder of Molson Hall
In 1860, the number of students in Arts, Law and Science had increased to one hundred and five, of whom sixty were in Arts. It had been previously decided that when the students in Arts should exceed fifty, the original College buildings should again be wholly occupied. They had meanwhile undergone extensive repairs. The College grounds were now taking on some semblance of order as a result of trees and walks and clearings. Accordingly, in the autumn of 1860 the classes in Arts, Science and Law were moved back to the buildings which had been practically abandoned eight years before. The centre building was used for classes; the east wing was given up to rooms for the Principal and some of the professors and students. The erection of a third building, corresponding with the east wing, was then undertaken through the generosity of William Molson. It provided for a convocation hall above, and a library below. It was formally opened in 1862, and is known as the William Molson Hall. Through the efforts of Mrs. Molson the three buildings were soon afterwards connected into one, by intervening structures, and the Arts building as we know it was completed. One of the connecting structures was used first as a museum; the other as a Chemical and Natural Science room and laboratory. The museum received at once a portion of the Principal's own collection of specimens, and others purchased by the Principal from his own resources. Later Dr. Carpenter's valuable collection of shells was added, and the whole furnished the nucleus for the present Peter Redpath Museum. The Science room and laboratory were used for chemistry and assaying. It was there, in small rooms and with but scanty equipment, that Dr. Harrington later laid the foundations for the departments of Chemistry and Mining which were subsequently to contribute so largely to the industrial development of Canada. The Library in Molson Hall had room for twenty thousand volumes, but when it was opened the College possessed only two thousand books. These, however, formed the nucleus for the Peter Redpath Library.
During the following years the expansion of the University was steady. It is unnecessary here to describe its growth in detail and only outstanding additions to its equipment can be mentioned. The deeper interest of graduates in their University was manifested in the formation of a Graduates' Society by a small number of McGill men resident in Montreal. Greater co-operation with the smaller colleges in the Province was effected, and St. Francis College, Richmond, and Morrin College, Quebec, were affiliated with the University. Theological schools established by the various Protestant denominations were erected in the shadow of the University and were granted affiliation. The Congregational College was affiliated in 1865; it was followed by the Presbyterian College in 1873, the Wesleyan College in 1876, and the Diocesan College in 1880. Speaking of the connection of the Theological Colleges with McGill, Principal Dawson said: “The value of these to the University no one can doubt. They not only add to the number of our students in Arts, but to their character and standing, and they enable the University to offer a high academical training to the candidates for the Christian ministry in four leading denominations.”
The growth and development of the University was made possible only by the generosity of its graduates and friends. In 1871 a second appeal was made for funds, and the result was a large increase in endowments, and in revenue. Several chairs were established and scholarships and exhibitions were provided. It was in this year that the first attempt was made to offer facilities for the higher education of women, not yet, however, within the University, but unofficially connected with it. But this movement must be left to another chapter.
At this period the Medical Faculty which had carried on its work for twenty years in the Coté Street building required more accommodation and a closer connection with the University. Funds for its adequate equipment were not available. Indeed, ten years later Principal Dawson wrote: “It is somewhat singular that this school so ably conducted and so useful, has drawn to itself so little of the munificence of benefactors. Perhaps the fact of its self-supporting and independent character has led to this.” It was decided, however, to undertake the construction of a Medical Building on the College property. In 1872 the front block of what was afterwards known as “the old Medical Building” was erected for the Medical School, and the Medical Faculty returned, this time permanently, to the College grounds. Funds for its endowment were afterwards given by its friends. The year 1872 is a notable one in the history of the McGill Medical School, for another reason than the erection of its first McGill building,—it was also the year of the graduation of William Osler, destined later to exercise so great an influence on medical education in Canada, America, and Europe. The department of Applied Science which had been connected with the Faculty of Arts since 1856 was expanded into a separate Faculty in 1878. It had been temporarily suspended because of a lack of funds in 1870; it was now re-created, greater than before. But it had yet no building and no adequate equipment. These, however, were to come in due course.
Speaking later of the decade between 1870 and 1880, Principal Dawson referred to it as the middle period in his connection with McGill, “a period of routine and uniformity, succeeding the period of preparation and active exertion and preceding the period of culmination. During these ten years,” he said, “the University outlived for the most part its earlier trials and struggles. Its revenues expanded considerably.... The number of its students greatly increased, as did also its staff of instructors. Gold medals and scholarships were founded. The beginning of a museum was formed, and the library, although still small, was growing rapidly, by donations and occasional purchases. A suitable building on the College grounds was provided for the Medical Faculty. A new Faculty of Applied Science was active and prosperous, though as yet without any building of its own. The statutes and regulations had become fixed and settled, and the whole machinery of the institution was moving smoothly and regularly. It had, in short, reached a position in which it could challenge comparison with its sister institutions and rivals and which to many seemed adequate to all the requirements of the time. Still, there were many wants unsupplied, and constant difficulty was experienced in meeting the demands made upon us, from our limited resources, whilst many promising fields of usefulness had to remain uncultivated.... On the whole, the ten years had been characterised by steady, if slow, advance, achieved by much toil and many sacrifices.”
But the Principal was not yet satisfied with the University's service to the community. “It has been a matter of sorrow to me,” he said, “that we have been able to do so little, directly, for the education of the working class and of the citizens generally, more especially in science.”
Peter Redpath
Founder of the Redpath Library
and the Redpath Museum
The final period of Principal Dawson's connection with McGill, from 1880 to his retirement in 1893, saw a further growth in the University. Into the details of that growth we cannot here enter. The University was now becoming a national rather than a local institution; it was contributing more and more to national development. The Principal wrote, “we should not regard McGill merely as an institution for Montreal or for the Province of Quebec but for the whole of Canada.” Its expansion was fortunately in keeping with this ideal. In 1881 the erection of a museum was undertaken through the generosity of Peter Redpath, and in 1882 the Peter Redpath Museum was formally opened. In the former year, too, another appeal was made to the citizens of Montreal for funds to relieve its now straitened circumstances, and again the response was generous and encouraging. In 1882 Principal Dawson said in his annual University Lecture: “In these thirty years, [since 1852 when the amended Charter was obtained] the College revenues have grown from a few hundred dollars to about $40,000 per annum, without reckoning the fees in professional Faculties and the income of the more recent benefactions. Its staff has increased from the original eight instructing officers to thirty-nine. The number of students has increased to 415 actually attending college classes, or reckoning those of the Normal School and of affiliated colleges in Arts, to nearly 600. Its Faculties of Law and Applied Science have been added to those of Arts and Medicine. It has two affiliated Colleges in Arts and four in Theology, and has under its management the Provincial Protestant Normal School. Its buildings, like itself, have been growing by a process of accretion, and the latest, that in which we are now assembled, [the Peter Redpath Museum], is far in advance of all the others, and a presage of the college buildings of the future. We have five chairs endowed by private benefactors, fourteen endowed scholarships and exhibitions, besides others of a temporary nature, and eight endowed gold medals. More than this, we have sent out about 1,200 graduates, of whom more than a thousand are occupying positions of usefulness and honour in this country.”
Sir William Macdonald
This final period of Principal Dawson's work saw a sure and steady advancement and many changes in the University. Among the evidences of growth were the establishment of courses for women in 1884, with their extension in 1886; the addition of the Medical Building in 1886, and its still further enlargement in 1893; the endowment of several chairs; the increase in the teaching staff; the establishment of scholarships and exhibitions; the creation of new courses, and the plans for new and much-needed buildings. In 1886 the Vice-Principal, the Rev. Dr. Leach, retired after over forty years of service. He was succeeded as Vice-Principal by Dr. Alexander Johnson, Professor of Mathematics. Towards the close of this period the Faculty of Applied Science, which had been established as a separate school in 1878, was placed, at last, on an independent foundation—after its many trials and struggles—by the munificent gifts of Thomas Workman and William C. Macdonald, afterwards Sir William Macdonald, a native of Prince Edward Island. Preparations were made for the erection of Science buildings with adequate equipment and endowment. In February, 1893, a few months before Sir William Dawson's resignation of the Principalship, two buildings for the Faculty of Applied Science were opened—the Macdonald Engineering Building, including the Workman wing, and the Macdonald Physics Building, the equipment and facilities of which soon afterwards enabled Professor Ernest Rutherford to carry on his experiments in radioactivity. Meanwhile the Library in Molson Hall had become totally inadequate for the volumes and documents that had been gathered by the University. Peter Redpath, who had already given the Museum, was now the Senior Governor of the University. On November 12, he wrote to the Chancellor enclosing plans of a projected library and proposing to commence building operations early in the following spring. The building was practically completed before Sir William Dawson's retirement, but it was not formally opened until October, 1893. In the last four years of the Principalship of Dr. Dawson the University was given more than a million and a half of dollars for endowment and equipment. What gratified him most in receiving this amount was the fact that it included many minor gifts which testified, at the close of his long career, to the good will and confidence and co-operation of the general public.
As a result of Sir William Dawson's constant anxieties and strenuous labours, his health had been for some time in a precarious state. In his annual University Lecture ten years before, he had said, “My connection with this University for the past twenty-eight years has been fraught with that happiness which results from the consciousness of effort in a worthy cause, and from association with such noble and self-sacrificing men as those who have built up McGill College. But it has been filled with anxieties and cares and with continuous and almost unremitting labour on the details of which I need not now dwell.” Ten years had passed since then, and the “anxieties and cares and unremitting labour” to which he referred had not grown less. They had finally broken his already weakened strength. On the 26th of May, 1893, after thirty-eight years of arduous service, he tendered his resignation of the Principalship of McGill to the Board of Governors, and reluctantly it was accepted. After his retirement his interest in the University did not diminish. He continued his researches and his writings. There was a last visit to England in the summer of 1896, to attend meetings of the Evangelical Alliance, the Royal Society, the Victoria Institute, the Geological Society, and the British Association, at the latter of which he illustrated to a large meeting of eminent geologists the structure of Eozoon. In the summer of 1897 he was stricken with partial paralysis from which he recovered somewhat, but which left him an invalid. Two years later, in the autumn of 1899, his illness became acute. He lapsed into partial unconsciousness. For several days he lingered. Then on November 19th, a gray Sunday morning, very quietly at the last, he slipped away. The next day, the Governors, Principal, members of the teaching staff, and students gathered in the Molson Hall to do honour in a Memorial Service, to the memory of the teacher, the administrator and the man they admired and loved. The Memorial Address, here included in the Appendix, was given by his successor, Principal Peterson.