Sir William Peterson
Principal of McGill University
1895-1919
Sir William Dawson was Principal of McGill for thirty-eight years, more than a third of the century that has passed since the establishment of the University, and almost half of the period since its actual opening. It has not been possible here to speak of his researches, his writings, his connection with learned societies. Many honours came to him from Britain, from America, and from Canada. He was the first President of the Royal Society of Canada; he was President at various times of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, of the American Geological Association, and of the British Association. In 1884 he was knighted. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society, and he received honorary degrees from Edinburgh,—his old University, from McGill and from Columbia. But all his activities were incidental and subservient to his work as Principal of McGill and to his efforts for the advancement of the University. He saw the institution grow slowly but surely under his guidance, in the face of many discouragements, from very small beginnings to a foremost place among the great seats of learning of America and Europe. He found in 1855 a college struggling under debt, with inadequate revenue, with abandoned buildings, with few professors and with only one hundred students. In the last session of his Principalship more than a thousand students were in attendance, of whom three hundred and fifty were in the Faculty of Arts, and one hundred and thirty-five degrees were conferred; more than half a dozen spacious college buildings had been added to the original structure; the lower campus or yard was practically what it is to-day except for the new Medical Building; the endowments had increased to over a million and a half of dollars, the yearly income to nearly a quarter of a million and the disbursements to nearly two hundred thousand dollars. The growth of the University in equipment, in instructors, in courses and in general educational opportunities has already been indicated. In bringing about this marvellous growth, the Principal had the generous assistance and sympathetic encouragement of a loyal band of friends, among whom his greatest gratitude was recorded to William Molson, John H. R. Molson, Peter Redpath, Sir Donald Smith, afterwards Lord Strathcona; Thomas Workman, and William C. Macdonald. Without their aid and their generous gifts the expansion of the University, needless to say, would not have been possible.
But greater perhaps than the material and numerical growth which he accomplished, was the spirit of service William Dawson brought to McGill, and the influence of that spirit on the men and women who went out from the University to help in the development of Canada. It is difficult briefly and adequately here to outline the ideals which shaped his policy in guiding the University and the students over whose instruction he presided. They are found in his addresses on various occasions. Perhaps they are best summed up in his farewell message to the students in December, 1893, when he was leaving the University to pass a few months in the South in a vain effort to restore his already shattered health:
“I had hoped, in the present session,” he said, “to be among you as usual, doing what I could, officially and personally for your welfare, but was suddenly stricken down by a dangerous illness. In this, I recognised the hand of my Heavenly Father, doing all things for the best, and warning me that my years of active usefulness are approaching their close, and that it is time to put off my armour and assume the peaceful garb of age, in which perhaps I may yet be spared to be of some service in the world.
“For the time being, I must be separated from the work that has always been to me a pleasure, and you will excuse me for addressing to you a few words, on topics which seem to me of highest moment to you as students. I may group these under the word 'Loyalty,' a word which we borrow, with many others, from the French, though we have the synonym 'leal,' which if not indigenous, has at least been fully naturalised both in English and Scottish. These words are directly associated with the idea of law and obligation, and with the trite, though true, adage, that we who would command must first learn to obey.
“I need scarcely remind you of that loyalty which we owe to the sovereign lady the Queen, and to the great Empire over which she rules. I have had frequent occasion to note the fact, that this sentiment is strong in the rising generation of Canadians, and nowhere more so than in McGill. It is indeed not merely a sentiment, though, even in a time which boasts of being practical and utilitarian, the feelings of the heart count for something: it is based also on the rational appreciation of the benefits of a rule, which, while allowing the greatest freedom of individual action, secures equal rights and protection for all.
“We are, every one of us I hope, loyal to our University, and to the University as a whole, not merely to any particular faculty of it. McGill has endeavoured, more than most universities, carefully to adapt its teaching to the actual wants and needs of the student, whether in the matter of that general academical learning which makes the educated man, or of that special training which fits the graduate for taking his place, creditably, in the highest walks of professional life. To this, I think, its success has been largely due. Yet, with all the breadth and the elasticity of our system, we cannot perfectly meet every case, and there are still desiderata, the want of which is most deeply felt by those engaged in the management of the University. Our course, however, has been onward and upward, and it may be truly said that no session has passed in which something has not been added to our means of usefulness. The future, indeed, has endless possibilities, and there will be ample scope for improvement—and perhaps also for occasional complaints—when the youngest students of to-day have grown to be grey-haired seniors. You have good cause, notwithstanding, to be proud of your University, and to cherish feelings of affection and gratitude to the wise and good men, who, amid many difficulties, have brought it to its present position, and are still urging it onward.
“You should be loyal to the ideal of the student. You are a chosen and special band of men and women, selected out of the mass, to attain to a higher standing than your fellows, in those acquirements which make life noble and useful. It is not for you to join in the follies of frivolous pleasure-seekers, or to sacrifice the true culture of your minds and hearts to the mere pursuit of gain. Your aims are higher, and require isolation from the outer world, and self-denial, in the hope that what you are now sowing and planting, will bear good fruit in all your future lives. Live up to this ideal, and bear in mind that self-control, and the habits of mind which it implies, are of themselves worth more than all the sacrifices you make.
J. H. R. Molson
“Be loyal to the memories of home. I regret very much that McGill cannot at present offer to its students such temporary homes as college halls could supply. The time for this is coming, I hope soon. But most of you have those at home who look on your residence here with solicitude and longing, who will rejoice in your successes, and perhaps be heartbroken should any evil befall you. It is customary to say that young people at college are removed from the restraints of home and its influences for good. But this need not be. To the truly loyal, absence should make these influences more powerful, and the thought of those who are watching you with loving hearts, in distant homes, should be a strong impelling motive in the students' life.
“Next to home is heaven, and let me now add, loyalty to Him who reigns there, and to the Captain of our salvation made perfect through suffering for us. Many of you, I know, are earnest Christians and growing in spiritual life, as you advance in learning. To those who are not, let me say,—read, as a serious study, the life of Jesus Christ as given in the Gospels. Read it in the light of His own sayings, that 'He came not to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many,' and that 'God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have eternal life.' Read of His life as the Man of Sorrows, of His agony in Gethsemane, of His death on the Cross, crushed not merely by physical agony, but by the weight of our iniquities—and you may then judge, if there is any obligations so great as that under which we lie to Him, any loyal service so blessed as that of the Saviour. The gate may be strait, and we may have to leave some things outside, but it is held open lovingly by the pierced hand of our Redeemer, and it leads through a happy and fruitful life to eternal joys—to that land which the Scottish poet, whose religious ideal was so much higher than his own life, or the current theology of his time, calls the 'land o' the leal.' That happy country is near to me, but I hope separated from you by a long, useful and happy life; but let us all alike look forward to meeting beyond the River of Death, in that promised land where He reigns who said 'Him that confesseth Me before men will I confess before My Father that is in Heaven.'
“In the meantime you remain here to pursue useful work; I go to seek restored health elsewhere, and can only remember you in my prayers. Let us hope that when the winter is passed we may meet once more, and that I may be able to congratulate you on well merited success, not merely in regard to the prizes and honours which few can obtain, but in that abiding education of the mind and heart, which McGill offers to all her studious children without exception.”
On his last convocation as Principal, on April 29, 1893, he said to the graduating class: “I may say, we have full confidence that you will sustain the honour of the University, and will regard the education you have received as a sacred trust, of which you are the stewards, and which is to be used for the good of all, for the advancement of your country, and for the glory of God.”
Those who worked with him or who studied under him and who are best qualified to speak, tell that it was, after all, the noble humanity with which Dawson invested his teaching and his administration that gave greatness to his occupancy of the Principalship. It was his personality, his energy, his deep and vivid sympathy with student interests, even more than his learning and his contemporary influence in other spheres, that helped to re-create McGill. Under his spell there were many undergraduates who had thoughts and aspirations beyond the McGill of their day, thoughts of sacrifice, and of future service to the world.
In forwarding his resignation to the Governors, he wrote: “Much has been attained, but much still remains to be accomplished, especially with reference to the purely educational or academical faculty, which, in the present stage of Canadian society, demands more than any other, generous support. Means for this have hitherto been deficient, and much precious time and energy have been wasted in the inevitable struggle to maintain the ground already gained. It has been my earnest prayer that I might be permitted to carry out in the case of McGill my ideal of a complete and symmetrical university suited to this country, and particularly to the English population of this Province. It has pleased God to deny me this satisfaction; but I entertain the firm belief that good foundations have been laid, which will not be disturbed, but will be built on and carried to full completion, by the energy, care, and judgment of my immediate successors.” These hopes were destined to be fulfilled in the larger McGill of our day.
CHAPTER X
Higher Education for Women
WHEN Sir William Dawson became Principal of McGill in 1855, there was no provision in the University for the instruction of women. They were not permitted to attend the classes available to men. Indeed, women's education was then under discussion and debate in Great Britain and the United States. It had many supporters but it had also many opponents. The agitation for the higher education of women on equal terms with men, particularly in the liberal arts, went back to the days of Defoe's “Essay on Projects” in which he included a section on “an Academy for Women.” It had echoed from his time down through the eighteenth century until 1791 when Mary Wollstonecraft published her systematic treatise, “A Vindication of the Rights of Women.” Thereafter the original plea merely for education became but a minor part of a larger demand for the franchise and for general equality; and instead of a sober emphasis on the necessity for learning, there was a somewhat hysterical clamour that women “should be admitted side by side with men into all the offices of public life with respect both to kind and degree.” This agitation soon gathered abundant ridicule by the advocacy, led by Amelia Jenks Bloomer, of reform in women's dress, which would make it, as far as possible, the same as that of man, and would consequently be an outward and visible sign of the equality of the sexes.
Dr. Alexander Johnson
Vice-Principal of McGill University
1886-1903
The derision and scorn incurred by the movement because of the unwise zeal of some of its advocates had not yet passed in the fifties. In Canada, the question of higher education for women was avoided, or regarded with doubt or indifference. But Principal Dawson was an earnest and enthusiastic believer in women's education, and early in his connection with McGill he formed plans for the providing of facilities to make such education possible in the University. Because of the indifference and the opposition to what was looked upon as a useless innovation, these plans were slow in maturing and in actual accomplishment. The Principal, however, persevered; circumstances were favourable, and in the end his hopes were fulfilled.
In Montreal at that time there was a girls' school, presided over by Hannah Willard Lyman, who later received an appointment to Vassar College. In this school no adequate course of instruction was given in Natural Science. Miss Lyman was desirous that her students should receive some knowledge of that subject, and she asked permission to have her pupils listen to Dr. Dawson's lectures, which were given in the afternoons. Her request was granted and the school girls attended the lectures for one session. But the experiment, for some unexplained reason, was not satisfactory and it was not repeated.
In his annual University Lecture in the autumn of 1869, the Principal expressed his belief in the benefits that might be conferred by the University in providing means for women's education. “I think,” he said, “it would be quite possible for the University to provide lectures on scientific and literary subjects, which would be open to all the ladies' schools in the city, and that certificates of attendance and examination might be given to such pupils. I do not propose either that young women should attend the ordinary College classes, or that except in special cases the ordinary professors should lecture to them. I should have special classrooms, and in many instances at least special lecturers appointed by the University. Of course, this is a purpose for which the constitution of the University does not permit its funds to be used, even if they were sufficient for it—which they are not. I only wish to intimate my conviction that an opening for usefulness lies in this direction—one which I have often wished to have the means of cultivating, knowing that in this country very few young women enjoy, to a sufficient extent, the advantages of the higher kind of education; and that the true civilisation of any people is quite as much to be measured by the culture of its women as by that of its men.”
A few months later, at a meeting of Governors and friends of the University, held in February, 1870, preparatory to making an appeal for funds to the citizens of Montreal, the following resolution was unanimously passed:
“That this meeting rejoices in the arrangements made in the mother country, and on this continent, to afford to young women the opportunity of a regular college course; and being persuaded of the vital importance of this matter to the cause of higher education, and to the well-being of the community, respectfully commends the subject to the consideration of the Corporation of the University, for such action as the expected addition to the endowment may enable them to take.”
But no part of the funds which were contributed as a result of the appeal were specially assigned to the education of women. In December following a reception was given in Molson Hall to the benefactors of the University who had recently subscribed so generously to its revenue. At this gathering, Chancellor Day referred to the necessity for providing the means of furnishing a higher education for women, “a matter,” he said, “in which we are wofully behind the age.... I trust the time is not far distant when McGill College may become the privileged instrument of ministering to this urgent need. In this whole matter of education for either sex, women are directly and deeply interested.”
A few months later, in 1871, Hannah Willard Lyman, the former Principal of the school for girls, died. Her former pupils in Montreal determined in some way to perpetuate her memory. They collected the “Hannah Willard Lyman Memorial Fund” for the establishment of a scholarship or a prize for women to be awarded in McGill when women would be admitted to its classes, “in a College for women affiliated to the University or in classes approved by the University.” But no way existed for the carrying out of this desire. The Governors showed little sympathy with the idea of admitting women students to men's classes; they had no objection to a distinct women's College, but no funds for such an undertaking were available. Dr. Dawson then appealed for help to the women friends of McGill, and his appeal at once met with a ready response. In the autumn of 1871 a number of women interested in the higher education of their sex met at the residence of Mrs. John Molson, and formed the “Ladies' Educational Association of Montreal,” for the purpose of obtaining, in the absence of University opportunities, instruction for its members. This Association carried on its work for thirteen years, until women were at last admitted to McGill. It was self-supporting, although it asked only very moderate fees from its students and paid its lecturers generously. Principal Dawson gave the introductory lecture of the first session in October, 1871. The students who took the full course of lectures and passed an examination on the work received a certificate of “Associate in Arts.”
Percy Molson
Founder of the Molson Stadium
Killed in action July, 1917
But the hope of admitting women to the classes in Arts had not been abandoned. On October 25th, 1882, Professor Clark Murray moved at a meeting of the Arts Faculty a resolution, which was carried, to the effect “that the educational advantages of the Faculty of Arts should be thrown open to all persons without distinction of sex.” In the summer of 1884 a deputation of women who had already passed the examinations for Associate in Arts waited on Principal Dawson and asked that opportunities be provided in the College to enable them to proceed to the degree of Bachelor of Arts. The obstacle in the way of granting this request was the lack of funds. But a few weeks after the request was made, Sir Donald Smith agreed to give a sum of $50,000 for the purpose, on conditions to be settled by him. These conditions stipulated that the classes for women were to be wholly separate and distinct from those for men, and that no expenditure was to be incurred beyond the income of the endowment. The offer was accepted by the Board of Governors. The sum given was sufficient to provide the necessary duplicate courses for the first and second years in the Arts Faculty, and in the autumn of 1884 the first session for women in McGill commenced with fourteen regular and thirteen partial students. The women's classes were given in the lecture rooms of the east wing of the Arts Building. The students were known as “Donaldas,” after the name of their generous benefactor, and the course was known as the “Donalda” course.
After two years had passed, in October, 1886, Sir Donald Smith increased his endowment to $120,000 in order to provide sufficient income for courses in all four years, and thereby to enable women students to proceed to the B.A. degree. In the session of 1886-87 there were twenty regular and fifty-eight partial students enrolled in women's courses, and in 1887-88 the number increased to twenty-six regular and eighty-two partial students. At the end of that session eight women received for the first time the degree of Bachelor of Arts. Higher education for women in McGill was now an assured fact. The Principal's dream had at last been realised.
But Dr. Dawson had hope of a still greater development of women's education. He said: “This great work is not yet complete. We look forward to a College for women, either a College of the University co-ordinate with McGill College, or affiliated to the University. Such College while taking advantage of the Museum, Laboratories, Library, and other appliances of McGill College, and to a certain extent of its staff, will have its own building, provided with all modern improvements and refinements for educational work.... I desire to express, as a matter of personal experience, my entire sympathy with those who hold that the education of women should be conducted, as far as possible, in separate classes.” The hope here expressed was again to be realised—and Principal Dawson lived to see the accomplishment of his plans. Sir Donald Smith, then Lord Strathcona, was again appealed to. He increased his endowment fund for the erection and equipment of a building such as the Principal had in view, and the building of the Royal Victoria College was begun in 1895. On September 4th, 1899, two months before Sir William Dawson's death, the Royal Victoria College for women was opened, and the women students of McGill had at last a home and lecture-rooms of their own, “provided,” as Sir William had dreamed, “with all modern improvements and refinements for educational work.”
Lord Strathcona
Since the opening of the Royal Victoria College the opportunities for the education of women in the University have been greatly enlarged and developed. To-day women students are enrolled on equal terms with men, not only in the Faculty of Arts, but in the Faculties of Law and Medicine, and in the Departments of Commerce and Physical Education. Indeed, women students are admitted to all Faculties and Departments of the University with the exception of the Faculty of Applied Science. Women graduates of McGill have continued to go out for thirty-three years to fill important posts and to take a prominent place in the building up of Canada and in service to humanity. In the half-century that has passed since the formation of the “Women's Educational Association of Montreal,” with its humble beginnings and its scanty courses for “Associates in Arts,” the higher education of women has made undreamed of progress. In McGill it owes its guidance and its growth to the tolerance in a time of prejudice, the determination in a period of opposition, and the patient faith in a day of discouragement, of Sir William Dawson, who believed in the greatness of women's sphere and influence in his country and in the world.
CHAPTER XI
The Larger McGill of Our Day
IN writing of the final epoch in McGill's first century, and the larger McGill of our day, we must of necessity be brief. We are too close to that epoch justly to judge its significance, or to give to the events and the incidents of which it is made up the fair and adequate reference which they doubtless deserve. Only the passing of the years can place them in their true perspective. Any estimate of them in our day would perhaps be proved false by time. Matthew Arnold said: “No man can trust himself to speak of his own time and his own contemporaries with the same sureness of judgment and the same proportion as of times and men gone by.” The growth and development of McGill, then, during the last quarter of a century will be here given in bare outline only. The details of that growth are vivid in the memory of living men.
In May, 1895, Dr. William Peterson, Principal of University College, Dundee, Scotland, was appointed to succeed Sir William Dawson as Principal of McGill University, and at the opening of the session in the following September he arrived in Montreal to begin his work. The new Principal was born in Edinburgh in May, 1856. He received his education at the Edinburgh High School and at Edinburgh University, where he graduated in 1875 with Honours in Classics. On his graduation he was awarded the Greek Travelling Fellowship, and after a period of study on the continent he entered Oxford University for further post-graduate courses in Classics. On leaving Oxford he was appointed Assistant to the Professor of the Humanities in Edinburgh University. Two years later, in 1882, he was appointed to the Principalship of University College, Dundee, which included among its other duties the Professorship of Classics and Ancient History. Thirteen years later he became Principal of McGill.
The twenty-four years during which Principal Peterson guided the destinies of McGill were years of steady growth and development. They were years, too, of notable and generous gifts from men of wealth and vision who believed in the value of education and of the beneficent influence of McGill in Canada and the world. Soon after Principal Peterson's appointment two projects for which his predecessor, Sir William Dawson, had planned were carried to completion. Both of these were made possible by the loyal aid of two benefactors who had already contributed greatly to the expansion of the University. William C. Macdonald had already given the Macdonald Engineering Building and the Macdonald Physics Building for the advancement of Applied Science. He now added to these the Macdonald Chemistry and Mining Building with full equipment for the carrying on of courses which, we have seen, Dr. Harrington had originated years before in the cramped and poorly furnished rooms in the narrow corridor of the Arts Building. The building was opened on December 20, 1898. The Faculty of Applied Science had now passed from small beginnings and inadequate accommodation to a complete organization and a modern home. On September 4th, 1899, the Royal Victoria College for women was formally opened. It was the gift of Lord Strathcona, formerly Sir Donald Smith, who, in 1884, had made possible the establishment of the first courses for women given in McGill, and who, in 1886, had made provision for the complete four years' courses in Arts, the Donalda courses leading to the B.A. degree. The former Principal, Sir William Dawson, lived to see realised the two dreams for the fulfilment of which he had worked so arduously—the completion of the Science Buildings and the erection of a women's College as part of the University.
Dr. Charles E. Moyse
Vice-Principal of McGill University
1903-1920
Over the period that followed since the turn of the century we may pass briefly. It was a period of continued development, not always, however, without its discouragements and problems which need not be here recorded. But disappointments and obstacles were met by Dr. Peterson with courage and energy and hope. The result was progress. The Medical Faculty, which had grown beyond its quarters, needed more room if it was to keep pace with modern research and with the increased number of its students. Lord Strathcona, who had given the first Medical endowment fund in 1882, again came to the rescue, and in September, 1901, a new wing to the Medical Building was opened. In October, 1904, the Conservatorium of Music was established. Later, by the will of Sir William Macdonald, it was left an endowment fund which placed it on an independent basis and enabled it to be expanded into a Faculty of the University. In 1903 Dr. Alexander Johnson, who had been Vice-Principal for seventeen years, retired and was succeeded by Charles E. Moyse, Professor of English. In the spring of 1907 two disastrous fires occurred; in April, within eleven days of each other, the Macdonald Engineering Building and the largest part of the Medical Building were destroyed. Again the University's two great benefactors came to its assistance. Sir William Macdonald replaced the Engineering Building with a new building which was opened on April 27th, 1909, and Lord Strathcona provided for the erection of the new Medical Building, which was opened on June 5th, 1911.
Meanwhile Sir William Macdonald had undertaken to provide in connection with the University an institution intended to meet the needs of the country at large, particularly the rural districts, and to afford better facilities for the training of teachers. With this object in view he founded, in 1907, Macdonald College, at St. Anne de Bellevue, twenty miles from Montreal. It was designed to include three schools, one for Agriculture, one for Household Science and one for Normal Training. The gift for buildings, grounds, consisting of nearly eight hundred acres, equipment and endowment amounted to over six million dollars. The College was incorporated in the University as the Faculty of Agriculture.
There were many other gifts from Sir William Macdonald during this period. In 1909 an attempt was made by a syndicate to purchase the block known as the Joseph property at the southwest corner of the College yard or campus, for the purpose of building an hotel. The Principal was alarmed. He appealed to Sir William, whose pride was great in McGill and in the buildings he had erected. Sir William had no desire that the grounds of McGill should become the backyard of an hotel, however exclusive. He at once purchased the corner, and presented it to the University, thus completing the McGill square and providing a home for the McCord National Museum. Two years later he purchased, as he said, “for a playground for McGill students, the grown-up children of all Canada,” the Frothingham, Molson and Law properties, consisting of twenty-five acres, just east of the Royal Victoria Hospital and the Medical Building. This property, known as Macdonald Park, is the athletic centre of the University. In October, 1920, the Stadium in this park was formally opened. It was the gift of Percival Molson, B.A., who graduated in Arts in 1901, and who was killed in action in front of Avion, near Lens, on July 3rd, 1917, while serving as a Captain in the Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry. The McGill Union, erected on Sherbrooke Street, as a centre of student activities, was also the gift of Sir William Macdonald, McGill's greatest benefactor, whose donations to the University during the Principalships of Sir William Dawson and Sir William Peterson amounted to over twelve million and a half of dollars. In 1912 the four affiliated Theological Colleges formed a co-operating Divinity School in affiliation with the University for the instruction of joint classes, and Divinity Hall on University Street was opened.
The last five years of Sir William Peterson's Principalship were the years of war tragedy. When the war came in 1914 the University gave all its energy to the allied cause. When the trumpet blew for freedom, the Principal, although he could not actually enter the combatant lists, gave all his strength unstintingly. The part taken by McGill in the war cannot be here detailed; it must be left for another story. Only the bare outline need be mentioned. When the war cloud broke, the Canadian Officers Training Corps already in connection with the University was reorganised, and grounds and buildings became centres of military activity. In the spring of 1915 the McGill General Hospital, known later as No. 3 (McGill) went overseas. It was a distinctively McGill unit. It was organised within the Medical Faculty. All its officers were members of the teaching staff or graduates of the Medical School. The nurses were graduates of either the Royal Victoria Hospital or the Montreal General Hospital, and practically all the men in the unit were drawn from the student body. Early in the following year a heavy artillery unit was organised within the University, and was permitted by the Militia department to use the name McGill until its arrival in France. It was also allowed to embody the McGill crest with the artillery badge. It was organised as No. 6 (McGill) Siege Battery, but after its arrival at the front it was known as No. 7 Battery, Canadian Siege Artillery. The Commanding Officer and the second in command were members of the teaching staff of the University; the other officers and non-commissioned officers were largely graduates, and more than half the gunners were McGill students. Because of rapid promotions and consequent transfers of officers and men, as well as of the usual circumstances and changes of war, this unit lost before the end of hostilities its distinctively McGill character. The majority of McGill men in the original unit received commissions. Five full companies of infantry and part of a sixth were recruited in the University. They were known as “The University Companies,” and were sent to the front as reinforcements for the Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry. The majority of the officers of these companies and a large number of the men were graduates or students of McGill. The 148th Battalion, Canadian Infantry, recruited in Montreal, although not under the authority of the University, was affiliated with the McGill Canadian Officers Training Corps, and a large number of its officers and men were members of that organization. Later, two reinforcement drafts were organized in the University and each contained a large proportion of students. One was a heavy artillery draft, which on arrival in England in the autumn of 1917 was absorbed into the artillery pool and was used to supply new siege artillery batteries about to be organised or to reinforce field and heavy batteries already at the front. The other draft was recruited for the Tank Battalion raised in the universities of Canada. But apart from the men in the units and drafts organized in the University, McGill men, students, graduates and professors, were found in practically every branch of the service, whether army or navy. The attendance of students in the University was reduced to a minimum; the teaching staff was depleted. In all, over twenty-five hundred McGill men enlisted. Three hundred and forty-one were killed in action, or died of wounds or disease; five hundred and twenty-two were wounded; three hundred and eighty-two received decorations or honours, two of which were the Victoria Cross. In recognition of its services in the allied cause the University received a grant of one million dollars from the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. McGill's war record, tragic but glorious, is one of her proudest possessions.
Principal Peterson's health had been impaired even before the war by the cares of an active and busy life spent unsparingly in the interests and the advancement of the University. Like his predecessor, his life at McGill was one of unremitting labour and ceaseless, strenuous tasks which drew in the end a heavy toll from his strength. Then the war came. With its activities and the continuous demands it made upon his time and energy, it severely taxed his already weakened constitution. During the summer of 1918 he had been urged by his physicians and friends to rest because of his failing health. He did not heed the advice; he felt, indeed, that he could not in that troubled and anxious time obey it. He refused to curtail his exertions, and he continued to give his great ability and his unstinted service in every way to help the allied cause. On Sunday, the 12th of January, 1919, although he was not then in good health, he presided at a meeting on behalf of a fund for the benefit of the dependents of Scottish soldiers and sailors killed or disabled in the war. While the meeting was in progress he was stricken with apoplexy and partial paralysis. In the course of a few weeks he recovered his speech almost entirely, and later he regained the partial use of his right leg. When it became evident that he could not recover sufficiently to resume his place at the head of the University he resigned, and after May 1st he ceased to be Principal of McGill. On July the 24th he sailed from Montreal for England, where he resided until his death in February, 1921.
Sir William Peterson was Principal of McGill University for a period of twenty-four years, one quarter of its century of life. During that time many honours came to him. He occupied the presidency of many learned societies; he was knighted in 1915; he received honorary degrees from the leading universities of Britain, America and Canada; he was Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching; he won great distinction as a scholar and a writer. It would be unwise here to attempt to estimate the significance of his work as Principal of the University. We are perhaps too close to judge it with correctness or with justice. The McGill he left in 1919 was not the McGill he found in 1895. In the intervening years its development on the sure foundations that had already been laid was extraordinary and unprecedented for a university. Among the external evidences of growth during that time are the McGill Union, the centre of student activities; the Conservatorium of Music, with courses leading to the degree of Bachelor and Doctor of Music; the establishment of a Department of Dentistry, now grown to the stature of a Faculty; the acquisition of the Joseph property at the southwest corner of the Yard, and the new Molson and Law properties, consisting of 25 acres, the site of the Molson Stadium, and of the gymnasium and student residences of the future; the new Medical building; the establishment and development of the Graduate School, and of the Departments of Commerce, Social Service and Physical Education, and above all, the addition of Macdonald College with its vast acres at Ste. Anne de Bellevue, where the work of the Faculty of Agriculture, Household Science and the training of teachers is carried on. In these twenty-five years the number of students more than doubled. Financially, too, there was a change. In 1895 endowments amounted to over a million and a half of dollars, in 1919 they were over twelve millions, a sum to which the citizens' response to the appeal for funds in 1911 largely contributed; the income in 1895 was two hundred thousand dollars and the disbursements one hundred and eighty thousand; in 1919 the income and disbursements each amounted to approximately one million dollars. In addition to these visible evidences of progress many new and improved courses were established; the teaching staff was greatly increased, and the reputation of the University was enhanced at home and abroad. Externally and internally the newer and greater McGill bears testimony to the energy and determination of Sir William Peterson during his twenty-four years' occupancy of the Principalship. With the criticisms of his administration—that as Principal Sir William was an Imperialist first and afterwards a Canadian, and that in making professorial appointments he did not often consider Canadian scholars, with at least equal qualifications—we are not here concerned.
In the spring of 1919 Sir Auckland Geddes, Minister of National Service in the British Cabinet, and formerly Professor of Anatomy in McGill, was appointed Principal. He never assumed the duties of his office and a year later he resigned to become British Ambassador at Washington, U. S. A.
In May, 1920, Sir Arthur Currie, formerly Commander of the Canadian Corps in France, was appointed Principal, and in the following August he took up his new duties. In June of that year Vice-Principal Moyse resigned after forty-one years of service as Professor of English. He was succeeded as Vice-Principal by Dr. Frank D. Adams, Dean of the Faculty of Applied Science.
One of the first acts of the new Principal was the making of a general appeal, with the Governors, in the autumn of 1920, for public subscriptions to increase the endowment fund and revenues for the purpose of increasing professors' salaries and for the erection of new buildings or extensions. The response to this appeal was generous; a sum of over six million dollars was subscribed, of which one million was from the Province of Quebec. The renewed interest of graduates in their University was evidenced by the fact that they subscribed over half the amount raised. As a result of the increased endowment, two structures were at once undertaken, one an extension to the Library, and the other a new building for the Medical Faculty.
Sir Arthur Currie
Principal McGill University 1920
With an encouraging interest in its welfare by graduates and by citizens, with a large increase in students who last year numbered over three thousand, with forward face looking hopefully to the future, McGill University has rounded out its first century of life. The road over which it has passed, as we look back from the hilltop of to-day, has been long and arduous. It has been beset with many trials and difficulties. But the obstacles in the way of its advance were not unsurmountable; they were perhaps objects of discouragement, but never objects of total despair to the men of stout heart and firm faith and far-off vision who made McGill.