McGill University

“ 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. ”

“ With this commercial supremacy, the City of the Royal Mountain offers educational advantages and scientific culture of the highest order. The great value of the McGill University is not only the distinction of its intellectual position, or the high quality of its work, but also its guarantees of equality of educational opportunity to all whose career comes within the sphere of its influence. ”

“ 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 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ No man could have done for McGill what he did and not make academic enemies. He found a group of professional schools, each more or less autonomous, and he transformed it into a University. His ideal of the unity of learning made it necessary that he should run counter to the traditions of the various schools in seeking to co-ordinate all departments of study, and he exposed himself to criticism, just as President Eliot of Harvard did in his similar work for his University ”

“ 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. ”

“ He was university exhibitioner in English and also headed the honor list in animal physiology. His career as an educationist has been a successful one from the outset. He was appointed headmaster of St. Mary’s College, Peckham, and while filling that position was elected in 1878 to the Molson professorship of English literature at McGill University, Montreal. In 1903 McGill conferred upon him the honorary degree of LL. D. In the same year he was appointed dean of the faculty of arts and vice principal. His position in the university at once indicates his high standing in the profession. ”

“ More than five hundred thousand dollars has been subscribed. With part of this sum the Board of Governors purpose to erect a central building where all inter-collegiate lectures will be given and where a well-equipped library will be available to all students in Theology.
The advantages of affiliation with a great institution of Continental reputation such as McGill University are obvious. In the first place, a College is able to devote practically its whole income to strictly theological work, thus assuring the efficiency and thoroughness of the course. ”

“ The College is controlled entirely by the Presbyterian Church in Canada, the General Assembly appointing its Board of Management and Senate each year, as well as filling all vacancies on the staff. For educational purposes it is affiliated to McGill University, and maintains the closest relations with that institution. The students receive practically all their literary training in the University classes. ”

“ 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. ”

“ One of the influential educators in Canada is Dr. William Peterson, President of that powerful and progressive educational institution, McGill University. Dr. Peterson’s policy in the conduct of the university is to maintain a harmonious relationship [717] between classical education and the scientific training which is now so greatly in demand. That the university is kept well abreast of the times in scientific teaching and equipment is indicated by the fact that a recent addition to the institution has been a school for instruction in all branches of railroading. ”

“ In 1893 long years of labour began to tell upon even his vigorous constitution, and he resigned his posts at McGill University on 31 July, but was at once nominated as Emeritus principal, professor, and honorary curator of the Redpath Museum. ”

“ If we but follow the ideals of the men who made our University, with [274] their noble sacrifice, their splendid achievement and their unwavering faith as our heritage, the unwritten story of McGill's future will be more glorious even than the record of its past. ”

“ 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 Canada there is the McGill University, and in nearly every place one goes to there is a university, like the Johns Hopkins at Baltimore, where Johns Hopkins left 3,500,000 dollars to be devoted entirely to educational purposes; and that university is under the management of one of the most enlightened men in America, Professor Grillman, and he has as his lieutenants Professors Rowland, Mendenhall, and other well-known men, and each professor is in his own line particularly eminent. ”

“ 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. ”

“ That the theological colleges affiliated with McGill University have found it advantageous to cooperate for the training of students for the Christian ministry, and have actually so cooperated for some time with success; that in consequence, considerable sums of money have been subscribed by friends of the movement for the purpose of furnishing means and equipment ”

“ Medical students, too, were to be permitted to reside in the College, on condition that they were to be under the same discipline as the College students. The Medical Faculty accordingly moved to these rooms provided in the McGill buildings, and a closer contiguous connection with the University was thereby established. ”

“ 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 [254] for educational work.... ”

“ William C. McDonald, McGill University is as thoroughly equipped as any university in America. Mr. Peter Redpath, who gave the beautiful building for its Natural History Museum, has given a handsome building, fast approaching completion, for its library. The muster-roll of McGill is now 650.
At a meeting held in October the trustees of Columbian University, Washington, D. C, elected three chemists to as many chairs in the faculty: Dr. E. A. de Schweinitz, lately of the United States Agricultural Department, Washington, was elected Professor of Chemistry in the medical department; Prof. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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.” ”

“ 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. ”

“ We, having taken the premises into Our Royal consideration, and being desirous that an University or College should be established for the Education of Youth in the principles of true religion and for their instruction in the different branches of science and literature, are willing to comply with the prayer of the said petition, and to afford every assistance towards carrying the intentions of the said James McGill into execution. ”

“ 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 [240] 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. ”

“ 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 [234] 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 ”

“ 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. ”