119 29 25MB
English Pages 363 Year 1978
Queen's University Volume I
to Strive, to seek, to find,
McGiU-Queen'sUniversityPress Kingston and Montreal
Queen's University \blumel 1841-1917
and not to yield
HILDA NE ATBY Edited by Frederick W Gibson and Roger Graham
Tennyson,
Ulysses
© McGill-Queen's University Press 1978 ISBN 0-7735-0336-6
Legal Deposit fourth quarter 1978 Bibliotheque nationale du Quebec Design Peter Dorn, RCA,FGDC Printed in Canada Reprinted 1986
Contents vi
Illustrations
ix Foreword xiii
Preface
ONE i "A Token for Good" 11
NINE
151
TWO The Founding of Queen's
169
51 63
85 109
FOUR The Bible College FIVE Roots and Branches: Summerhill and the Medical College
TEN Learning on a Little Oatmeal
ELEVEN 193 A Unique Freedom
THREE
33 "Deep Humiliation"
Principal Grant : The First Decade
211
TWELVE Faculties New and Old THIRTEEN
225
Queen's and a National Ideal FOURTEEN
245
Constitutional Controversy FIFTEEN
six The Trials of Principal Leitch
269
SEVEN Severe Shocks and a Fresh Start
291
Queen's and World War I
305
Notes
337
Bibliography
340
Index
EIGHT 131 "A Marvellous Vitality"
A National University SIXTEEN
Illustrations vi Queen's University
i Thomas Liddell, Principal 1841-1846 (Agnes Etherington Art Centre] /2 2 House on Colborne Street, Queen's first building (Queen's Alumni Office] / 4 3Professor James Williamson (Public Archives of Canada C-757/9) / 8 4 William Morris, Chairman of the Board of Trustees 1840—1842 (from the painting by Ernest Lawson, Agnes Etherington Art Centre) / 16 5 John Machar, Principal 1846-1853 (from the painting by William Sawyer, Agnes Etherington Art Centre) / 44 6 John Cook, Principal 1857-1859 and Chancellor 1877-1879 (Agnes Etherington Art Centre] / 57 7 Summerhill and the Old Medical Building 1863 (Queen's University Archives] / 64 8 Fife Fowler, Dean of Medicine 1878-1903 (from the painting by J.W.L. Forster, Agnes Etherington Art Centre] / 70 9 The Old Medical Building (Public Archives of Canada C-69083) / 74 10 William Leitch, Principal 1859-1864 (from the painting by William Sawyer, Agnes Etherington Art Centre) / 86 11 James George, Vice-Principal 1853-1857 (from the painting by Sir Edmund Wyly Grier, Agnes Etherington Art Centre) / 94 12 William Snodgrass, Principal 1864-1877 (from the painting by Horsburgh [?], Agnes Etherington Art Centre) / 111 13 Professor John MacKerras (Queen's University Archives) /116 14 Graduates in Arts 1866 (McGill University Archives) / 127 15 Professor John Watson (Queen's University Archives) / 137 16 Queen's Journal, October 25, 1873, first page of first issue (Queen's University Archives) / 142 17 George Monro Grant, Principal 1877-1902 (Queen's University Archives] / 153 18 Old Arts Building (Public Archives of Canada C-75699) / 157 19 Professor John B. Mowat (Public Archives of Canada C-75723) / 159 20 Carruthers Hall (Queen's University Archives) / 165 21 Sandford Fleming, Chancellor 1880-1915 (Public Archives of Canada C-14127) / 171
22 CPR Survey Party 1871-1872 (Public Archives of Canada C-2787) / 173 23 Professor James Cappon (from the painting by Frederick H. Varley, Agnes Etherington Art Centre) / 179 24 Professor S.W. Dyde, (from the painting by J.W.L. Forster, Agnes Etherington Art Centre) / 179 25 Professor W.G. Jordan (from the painting by Sir Edmund Wyly Grier, Agnes Etherington Art Centre] / 179 26 Professor A.P. Knight (from the painting by Alberts [?], Agnes Etherington Art Centre) / 179 27 Professor John Macgillivray (Public Archives of Canada C-51981) / 181 28 Professor John Macnaughton / 181 29 Honours Science Class 1888 (Queen's Alumni Office) / 194 30 First Fifteen, Queen's University Football Club 1890 (Queen's Alumni Office) / 204 31 Women's Medical College Graduates 1888 (Queen's University Archives) / 215 32 W.L. Goodwin, Director of the School of Mining 1893- 1916 and Dean of the Faculty of Applied Science 1916-1919 (from the painting by G. Home Russell, Agnes Etherington Art Centre] / 219 33 Professor Willet G. Miller, (Public Archives of Canada C-36665) /219 34 Ontario Hall (Queen's University Archives] / 2 2 1 35 Fleming Hall (Queen's University Archives] / 221 36 "Geordie, Our King" (Queen's University Archives) / 227 37 Grant Hall and Kingston Hall (Queen's University Archives) / 237 38 Arts Concursus Iniquitatiset Virtutis 1896-1897 (Queen's University Archives) / 239 39 "Victor Hall" boardinghouse 1901 (Queen's Alumni Office) / 241 40 Daniel Miner Gordon, Principal 1902-1917 (from the painting by Sir Edmund Wyly Grier, Agnes Etherington Art Centre) / 248 41 James Douglas, Chancellor 1915-1918 (Queen's University Archives) / 260 42 Queen's University Hockey Club 1906 (Queen's Alumni Office) / 263 43 Queen's Tennis Team and Executive c. 1909 (Queen's Alumni Office) / 266 44 Political Science and Debating Club 1906-1907 (Queen's Alumni Office) / 270 45 Nicol Hall and Gordon Hall (Public Archives of Canada PA-56144) / 276 46 Professor W.L. Grant (Public Archives of Canada PA-98164) / 287 47 G.Y. Chown, Registrar and Treasurer (Queen's University Archives) / 287 48 No. 5 Queen's Stationary Hospital, 2nd Contingent, Canadian Overseas Expeditionary Force (Queen's University Archives) / 295 49 Farewell Dinner to Engineering Soldiers, British American Hotel, March 1917 (Queen's Alumni Office) / 298 50 Grant Hall as a military hospital 1919 (Queen's University Archives) / 300 51 Queen's Journal staff 1917-1918 (Queen's Alumni Office) / 302 ENDPAPERS : Queen's University, sketch by Professor Adam Shortt, Queen's Journal, Jan. 16, 1905 (Queen's University Archives)
vii
Illustrations
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foreword This, the first volume of the history of Queen's University at Kingston, written by Hilda Neatby and edited and completed by Frederick Gibson and Roger Graham, spans the years 1841 to 1917. Readers will be struck by how the university during this period was beset by misfortune after misfortune and yet through the sheer determination of its supporters surmounted them all to emerge by the end of the nineteenth century as one of Canada's great national universities. In the words of Leonard Brockington, "the story of Queen's is the story of a fire that would not be quenched." The history of Queen's in the nineteenth century was an experiment in survival. There were repeated financial crises such as those occasioned at the very beginning by the failure of the hoped-for endowments from the government and from the Scottish church to materialize, by the double blow in the 186os of the collapse of the Commercial Bank which held the university's endowment and the ending by the government of the annual grants which had been received during the preceding two decades, and by the repeated threats of bankruptcy which made necessary frequent financial campaigns for support from benefactors and graduates. There was the sharp and complete division among the Canadian Presbyterians following the Great Disruption in the Scottish church in 1843, only a few years after the birth of the new university had been materially assisted by the Union of Synods in Canada. There was the repeated revival of "the university question" in Ontario politics and the resulting pressure to concentrate secular higher education in Toronto. And there were some occasions of internal conflict and controversy, most notably the turmoil of the early 186os which led to protracted legal proceedings over the dismissal of a professor. Yet Queen's not only survived these crises but grew and developed from its humble beginning in March 1842 with two professors and fifteen students in temporary quarters into a national institution. Hilda Neatby not only chronicles the vicissitudes and the development of Queen's but does so in a way which deliberately relates its history to the wider
ix Foreword
x Foreword
national context in which the university was set. Indeed, one of the features which distinguishes this history of Queen's from the earlier history of the university by D.D.Calvin published in 1941 is the way in which the establishment and growth of Queen's is portrayed in terms of its inextricable interrelationship with the development of Canada, Ontario, and Kingston. Hilda Neatby's account of the first seventy-six years of Queen's shows how during that period the distinctive character of this university was shaped. Its character as a Scottish and Presbyterian foundation shines through in this work. So too does the insistence of its supporters, firmly rooted in the Scottish tradition of dispersed centres of higher education, upon maintaining a separate and independent life for the institution in opposition to repeated pressures for the concentration of higher education in one central university in Ontario. From its early days when students were drawn not just from Kingston but far afield from Canada West, Montreal, and the Maritimes, Queen's also aspired to reach out across Canada. This urge reached fruition under Principal Grant who was convinced that there was a special and unique contribution for Queen's to make to the life of the nation. He saw Canada as a growing nation and the task of Queen's to send out graduates dedicated to building the country. By the first decade of the twentieth century the national outreach of Queen's was reflected in the substantial number of students drawn from the four western provinces and by its development of widespread extension studies. Other features in the distinctive character of the university developed during this period also stand out. One is struck by the frequency of quotations from contemporary observers pointing to the outstanding calibre of such scholars and teachers at Queen's as Williamson, Dupuis, and Goodwin in the sciences, Watson in philosophy, Cappon in English, and Shortt in politics and economics. One commentator compared the teachers at Queen's favourably with those at Edinburgh. On another occasion the president of another university declared that "no Canadian university has ever had at any one time a group of greater teachers in the humanities." A characteristic which marked Queen's from other universities in Canada during this period was an emphasis, derived from the individualistic tradition of Scotland, upon flexible curricula tailored to individuals and the resultant intimate relations between professors and students. With this went a belief in the importance of freedom for students to express and defend any new idea without censorship and the early establishment of a tradition of student self-government derived from the conviction that the only cure for the abuse of liberty was more liberty. A particularly noteworthy characteristic of Queen's which emerges from this history is the pioneering role which the university has occupied in higher education in Canada. Although it does not possess the oldest charter, it was the first university in what is now Ontario to enrol students; indeed, it was the first university in central Canada to enrol students in arts; it was the first to initiate willingly university education for women and for a period of ten years, from
1884 to 1894, maintained a Women's Medical College; it was the first Canadian university, after the establishment of the Alma Mater Society in 1859, to give students the freedom to discipline themselves; it pioneered the development in the 188os and 18905 of extension studies reaching out across Canada and as part of this effort established Queen's Quarterly in 1893, the first publication of its kind in Canada; Queen's established the first lectureship in Canada in politics and economics in 1889 when Adam Shortt was appointed to the post, and was the first English-speaking university to teach Canadian history as a specific subject. With the establishment in 1889 of doctoral degrees in the humanities and sciences Queen's also pioneered in beginning serious postgraduate studies in Canada. The creation of the affiliated Kingston School of Mining in 1891 and its subsequent merging with the Faculty of Applied Science in 1915 marked also the prominent role which Queen's played in the development of engineering education. Two other pioneering efforts, the Faculty of Law, 1861-63, and the Faculty of Education, 1907—20, failed to survive, however, and were not revived until 1957 and 1968 respectively. It is clear from Hilda Neatby's account that the development of Queen's has owed much to the professors, principals, trustees, and graduates who by their determination that it should survive and make a distinctive contribution to Canada laid the foundations for the Queen's of today. Among those whom she particularly singles out are the renowned scholars and teachers, referred to above, who brought learning to the students and distinction to the university. The university also owed much to its lay supporters. Standing out particularly among them were William Morris, the first chairman of the board of trustees, who was instrumental in the founding of the university, and Sir Sandford Fleming who as chancellor for a lengthy period took a very close personal interest in its affairs. Among the principals of particular note were Liddell, who came from Edinburgh as the first principal to set the university on its course; Snodgrass (1864—77), who rescued the college by bringing it back to sanity and progress after the preceding period of turmoil; Grant (1877-1902), a giant who established, settled, and strengthened a solid constituency of support for the university among its graduates and benefactors and who guided Queen's to the task of playing a unique and essential role in the building of Canada; and Gordon (1902-17), who presided over the secularization of the university in 1912, the closer integration of the Faculties of Arts, Science, and Medicine, and the response to the challenging circumstances of World War I. Hilda Neatby's history of the first seventy-six years of Queen's University, edited and completed by Frederick Gibson and Roger Graham, is fascinating and inspiring. I hope that all who read it will find it as interesting as I have. Ronald L. Watts Principal and Vice-Chancellor Queen's University
xi Foreword
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Preface University histories usually arise from anniversary occasions. This is true of the histories of Queen's University. In 1937 the trustees commissioned D.D. Calvin to write a history of Queen's in honour of the university's first centenary, then four years distant. Calvin, a Kingstonian, Queen's graduate, and trustee, was also the joint author, with T.R.Glover, of A Corner of Empire: The Old Ontario Strand (1937). Calvin's history, published in the centennial year and entitled Queen's University at Kingston: The First Century of a Scottish-Canadian Foundation, 1841-1941, was a labour of love and fealty; it celebrated the trials and accomplishments of the first hundred years and captured with urbanity and charm the spirit of intense loyalty which throughout her history has animated the sons and daughters of Queen's. A generation later the 125th anniversary of the opening of classes at Queen's, coinciding with the celebration of Canada's first century, brought forth in the Board of Trustees a suggestion that the written history of the university should now be brought up to date. The principal, Dr. J.A.Corry, undertook to explore the possibilities. As a preliminary step he appointed H. Pearson Gundy of the Department of English, who had recently retired as chief librarian, to prepare an illustrated profile of the university in the 19605, accompanied by an historical essay. Professor Gundy's volume, entitled Queen's University at Kingston, was published in 1967 and, although not presented as a new or systematic history, it stirred further interest in such a project. In the summer of 1968 a young member of the Department of History gave shape and definition to the larger idea. It was then that Professor Gerald T.Tulchinsky, a graduate of the University of Toronto, newly recruited to Queen's from a teaching post at the University of Saskatchewan, came forward with a considered proposal. Dr.Tulchinsky conceived that a new history of Queen's would make a valuable contribution to the history of higher education and, generally, to the religious and intellectual history
xiii Preface
xiv Preface
of Canada; and he suggested that Dr. Hilda Neatby was the right person to write it. Those whom Dr.Tulchinsky initially consulted had no difficulty in perceiving the merits of his two-fold proposal. A new history would carry the story forward into the period of striking change following World War II and would be able to draw upon extensive new evidence about the earlier years which had become available after Calvin's pioneer study was completed. The suitability of Dr. Hilda Neatby was equally apparent. Head of the Department of History at the University of Saskatchewan, she was a distinguished scholar of Canadian history with a national reputation. She was also an informed and forthright spokesman on the subject of education. Her explosive book, So Little for the Mind, had disclosed afresh that she applied exacting intellectual standards to the judgment of educational philosophies and institutions. Her Calvinist convictions, it was considered, would dispose her to a general sympathy with the traditions of Queen's. Added to all this, Dr. Neatby possessed the distinct advantage, from the standpoint of the proposed study, of having had no direct connection with the Queen's University and of being able, on that account, to bring to the writing of its history an independent judgment and a fresh view. Finally, she stood within a year of normal retirement from Saskatchewan and her future plans, it was discovered, were indefinite. Dr. Tulchinsky's proposal, amplified by these considerations, made a strong appeal to the imagination of Dr. John J. Deutsch, who had recently succeeded Dr. Corry in the principalship. In January 1969 Principal Deutsch obtained from the trustees authority to engage Dr. Neatby. The principal promptly extended the invitation, coupling it, at the request of the Department of History, with the offer of a professorship in that department, with duties to be determined. Dr. Neatby readily accepted, stipulating only that she begin work in the summer of 1970 by which time it would be possible for her to discharge her remaining commitments to the University of Saskatchewan. The Queen's trustees approved these arrangements in the spring of 1969. Dr. Neatby took up her task on July I, 1970, and for the next three years pursued research and writing with single-minded attention - diverted only by an annual course for the history department — and with impressive results. In the summer of 1973, however, she was taken gravely ill, and after a month in hospital in Kingston moved back to Saskatoon to be near her family. She hoped to sustain her writing on a reduced basis. By the following spring she had recovered sufficiently to complete two chapters on the years of Daniel Gordon's principalship. In the autumn of 1974 she accepted an honorary degree from the University of Windsor and delivered the Convocation address. It was her final public appearance. She died on May 14, 1975, leaving behind a host of admirers and friends, new added to old. She also left, to her profound regret, an unfinished history of Queen's University. Before her death Dr. Neatby had completed a final draft of sixteen chapters
telling the story of Queen's from the beginning to the retirement of Principal Gordon. She also left notes and a partial draft of three chapters treating the period from 1918 to 1935; and she intended to follow these with chapters on the years of Principal Wallace and a final chapter rounding off her account of the next postwar era. When all this material was assembled and examined in the summer of 1975, it was plain that Dr. Neatby had accomplished a great deal of what she had set out to do. Accordingly Principal R.L.Watts decided that what had been finished should be published and that what remained to be done should be pressed forward with the aid of others so as to fulfil the university's original intent. It was arranged that Dr. Neatby's completed chapters be published as the first volume of a two-volume history and that two of her Queen's colleagues, Professor Roger Graham and Professor Frederick Gibson, perform whatever editorial duties were necessary to bring it to publication. Professor Gibson was also commissioned to write the second volume, bringing the account forward from the end of World War i to the mid-19608. In editing the present volume, we have left Dr. Neatby's text essentially undisturbed. We read her final typescript, made a number of minor textual alterations, and Professor Graham amplified a section of chapter seven dealing with the episode of church union. Care has been taken throughout to verify statements of fact and to check the accuracy of footnote references. Dr. Neatby's footnotes were voluminous and, to save space, they have been reduced by twothirds; the full original notes have been preserved, however, and they are deposited with her final typescript and other papers in the Queen's Archives where they may be freely consulted. We have also taken responsibility for the preparation of the bibliography and index, the selection of illustrations, and the choice of the title of the book. Dr. Neatby received generous assistance which she undoubtedly would have wished to acknowledge. Principal Deutsch, the trustees, and the Senate gave her access to the minutes and letters of the governing bodies. She derived profit and pleasure from interviews with a number of Queen's people including Miss MaryR. Anglin, Archibald A. Day, Gerald S. Graham, George P. Grant, Dr. Jean Royce, and Mrs. Robert C.Wallace. A former student and colleague, Rev. James K. McConica of the Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies at the University of Toronto, read several draft chapters. Ian Wilson, then the Queen's Archivist, and the members of his staff gave invaluable assistance in bringing forward the extensive records of the university and provided administrative services. Donald Redmond, the University Librarian at the time, and the staff of the Douglas Library afforded generous cooperation. The staff of the Public Archives of Canada, and notably Eldon Frost and Maureen Hoogenraad of the Manuscript Division and Claude Lemoine of the Library Division, made available important manuscript and pamphlet materials. Rev. Glenn Lucas, Archivist Historian of the United Church of Canada Archives at Victoria University, was similarly
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helpful with respect to the resources in his charge. Kathleen Graham and Anne MacDermaid served as Dr. Neatby's principal research assistants. Colleen Parrish investigated several manuscript collections at Queen's and drew material of special interest. Linda Dumbleton and Leslie Owen checked references and typed index cards and a succession of drafts. Nancy Graham and Dorothea Nuechterlein assisted in typing. Four other members of the Queen's Archives staff, Mary Day, Rose Mary Gibson, Roger Olson, and Eleanor Phillips, gave generously of their support in a variety of ways. In addition, we have obligations of our own and desire to record our warm gratitude to several persons who gave much help at the editorial stage. Barbara Robertson collaborated fully in reducing footnotes and assembling illustrations. James Carruthers painstakingly checked every footnote reference. Charles Beer drew up the bibliography and gave valuable advice on matters of form and style, Peter Greig prepared the index. Elizabeth Wagner assured a clean copy of the finaltypescript. Ann Green helped in the assembly and final selection of the illustrations and, with Peter G. Smith, read the proofs. Murray Gill made available the extensive photographic collection in the possession of the Queen's Alumni Office; and we are also indebted to the Public Archives of Canada, the McGill University Archives, the Queen's University Archives, and the Agnes Etherington Art Centre at Queen's for other illustrative material. Frederick W. Gibson and Roger Graham
ONE
"ATokenforGood" On a March day in 1842, the wife of Rev. John Machar of St. Andrew's Church, i Kingston, sat writing a leisurely letter to Rev. William Reid of Grafton who was ""A Token recovering from a serious illness. After somewhat lengthy expressio of sym- f or Good" pathyYand of spiritual consolation she went on to give him the news of the day. You will have observed by the newspapers that Queen's College is now in operation. There are 15 or 16 students, seven of whom are studying for the ministry, but though there are so few, the professors have a great deal of hard and harrying labour. They are teaching six hours a day. There are such different degrees of progress among the young men and most of them have been so superficially taught, that the teaching is at present very laborious. They feel the great need is. in the provision of good elementary and preparatory schools. We have great cause for thankfulness for the men who are to superintend this institution. The principal is a pious man possessing much energy, decision of character and practical wisdom, and seems zealously devoted to the work for which he has left his native land. He seems correctly to desire the good of the institution over which he is appointed to preside and to seek that it may promote the cause of Christ in the province. So far as we can see, one better fitted for this office with all its difficulties and discouragements peculiar to this country could not have been found. Mr. Campbell, too, is a man of decided piety, and of natural tolerant upright and conscientious aims, also zealously devoted to his work. Seeing that the Lord hath sent such men, I regard it as a token for good that He will bless this institution and make it a blessing promoting His own glory by it throughout the province. Mrs. Machar had every reason to be interested in the progress of Queen's. Her husband was a leading member of the Board of Trustees, his church was designated in Queen's royal charter as the university church and he was to be intimately connected with college concerns until the day of his death over twenty
2
Queen's University
i Thomas Liddell, Principal 1841-1846
years later. Having given the news of Queen's, Mrs. Machar went on to the other great topic of the day, the anxiety felt by all the faithful at the threat of disruption in the Church of Scotland, "the church of our fathers and our beloved native land"; and her fear of a coming period of "deep humiliation" and "divine chastisement" which she yet hoped might end in "the utter destruction of the dominion of Satan."1 Mrs. Machar was a better prophet than she would have wished to be. Although Queen's was accepted by many as "a token for good," difficulties and disappointments did press in during the early years and a period of "deep humiliation" was not long in coming. The present moment was, however, one of hope and modest thankfulness at the fulfilment of a pious ambition and the answer to many prayers. The college began operations on March 7, 1842, in temporary quarters, a small frame house still standing on Colborne Street. This unpretentious dwelling saw the beginning of university education in central Canada. Queen's claim on this score can be challenged only by McGill University which had opened a opened 'or D°° medical school in 1829; there were, however, no classes in arts until 1843. Upper Canada Academy at Cobourg had been in operation since 1836, and was renamed Victoria College in 1841, but university classes there began only in the fall of 1842. King's College at Toronto began teaching the following year. Four universities which have made such a notable contribution to the life of English-speaking Canada thus began operations about the same time; Queen's by a small margin claims seniority.2 The members of the original university community which assembled on Colborne Street were disappointingly few. Principal Liddell and Rev. Campbell, whose piety and energy had been commended by Mrs. Machar, were confronted by only fifteen young men. One of them, Thomas Wardrope, left an account of his journey to Kingston from West Flanboro, some two hundred miles from Toronto. Wardrope had already entered the University of Edinburgh when he was obliged with his parents to emigrate to Canada. He had heard "with hope and joy" of Queen's College but in that awkward season of March when sleighing was over and navigation had not opened, travelling was neither pleasant nor easv. He joined two other students, John McKinnon and Lachlan MacPherson, both sons of ministers, and they engaged a friend to drive them in a farm wagon. The first stage, Flanboro to Toronto, was made over the weekend, pausing of course for all of Sunday at Esquesing, "the Scotch Block." After spending Monday night in Toronto, they made Kingston in four days, rather over 40 miles a day, and on Saturday morning parted from their driver who set off immediately for home, completing his round trip in two weeks. The three young men, after some inquiries at their hotel, found one Donald Christie whose name assured them that he must know about the Presbyterian College. He sent them to Alexander Pringle, a trustee of Queen's and a leading
3 "A Token
for Good"
2 House on Colborne Street, Queen's first building
memeber of St.Andrew's Church, who not only directed them to Colborne Street but took all of them to board in his "snug cottage."3 The two professors proceeded immediately to examine the students on the materials which had been prescribed by the Board of Trustees: the first three books of Caesar's Commentaries and the first three of Virgil's Aeneid. Such a test seems to have been acceptable enough by the standards of the age, although the absence of any mathematical examinations was even then a matter of unfavourable comment. Ten students passed the examinations and were admitted as matriculants on the following day, after which the principal delivered an address to them "as members of the University." Those who were unsuccessful were invited to stay and make what progress they could with the help of tutors. The small numbers and somewhat dubious qualifications of the students who presented themselves should have been no surprise to anyone acquainted with the Province of Upper Canada, or Canada West as it had become in 1840. 5 Although it was growing rapidly through immigration from the British Isles and "A Token f
or Good" the United States, its still somewhat primitive economy depended chiefly on ly 'or farming, lumbering, and transport services on the lakes. Poverty of communications made the establishment of adequate schools difficult. Elementary education was totally inadequate and there were few good secondary schools, The new matriculants for the most part would have depended on their own efforts and on assistance from parents or from a kindly minister in preparing for their entrance examination. A number, however, had been able to achieve "advanced standing": one, George Bell, already an ordained minister, was accepted into the second year of divinity; three others into the third year of arts; three into the second; and the remaining three into the first year. Of these last, the one whose name is best known today was John Mowat, brother of the better-known Oliver and later a professor at Queen's. As Mrs. Machar said, professors and students worked hard. The classes were small, almost too small, but the number of subjects to be taught made a heavy burden for the two men, who probably gave a good deal of informal help outside the classroom as well. According to the principal, "Mr. Campbell, besides his proper department, Latin and Greek, teaches the junior mathematical class and French. Besides Hebrew, Church history, theology and logic, I conduct the senior mathematical class and natural philosophy - each of us thus being employed upward of seven hours a day."4 Thus the two original members of Queen's faculty struggled to cover a generous curriculum and at the same time to bring rather ill-prepared students at least near to the standards of the ancient Scottish universities on which Queen's was patterned. There seems no doubt that they were men of character and ability who between them established a tradition of serious work and solid scholarship. Principal Liddell has left behind him one of Queen's oldest treasures in the shape of his own portrait by the English painter Charles Grant, which still hangs
6 Queen's University
in the principal's office. The pale complexion, dark hair, delicate features, and rather subtle intellectuality of the face suggest a man hardly fitted for life in this pioneer community still not very far removed from the one depicted in frank and unloving terms by Susanna Moodie. In fact, Liddell was for a time surprisingly successful and remarkably adaptable. As a young man he had volunteered for the mission field but had been prevented by some prior claim from leaving Scotland. When offered the principalship of Queen's he was minister of Lady Glenorchy's Church in Edinburgh. He left Scotland in the fall of 1841, arriving at Kingston in December. A local paper described him as "a gentleman of profound learning ... and eminently practical," not only capable of teaching but also of organizing a new system of instruction adapted to a new country, yet maintaining the high standards of the old; "not less distinguished for his general learning and erudition than for his Christian humility and piety."5 Although the English-Canadian press at this age tended to be unmeasured in praise as in censure, there is plenty of evidence that Liddell possessed zeal, tact, an( j cjiarm 'm addition to considerable intellectual ability. With members of the Board of Trustees, including their formidable chairman, William Morris, Liddell established friendly and cordial relations. To his diligence in teaching he added a determination to maintain standards of scholarship. To the students personally he was "a kind, genial, fatherly man" to whom they were "much attached."6 On important questions of university policy, Liddell expressed himself with great clarity and force. He appears to have been generally liked and respected. Rev. Peter Colin Campbell was a competent and hard-working colleague. He had had a distinguished career at Edinburgh University, had spent some years on the continent studying the classics and modern languages, and was reputed to be a very good teacher. He came to Canada in 1837 and served as minister at Brockville. He devoted himself to the Queen's students in the first terms; and in addition to his classes did much of the work of the preparatory school which later he helped to found. He is described by one of the students with somewhat less affection than that given to Liddell as "very attentive to his duties, painstaking and thorough in his drilling in the various departments over which he presided."7 It is naturally more difficult to identify students than professors but something is known of the fifteen young men who gathered at Kingston in the spring of 1842. Five or six of those who received advanced standing had been studying for some years under the general direction of the Presbytery of Hamilton and with the assistance of Dr. John Rae, headmaster of the Hamilton grammar school. Among the Hamilton students were George Bell, John McKinnon, Angus McColl, Lachlan MacPherson, and Robert Wallace. These provided a nucleus of senior students who knew each other and who had been under something like regular academic discipline. They continued together during three sessions: 1842, 1842-43, 1843-44. "This little band of praying students formed a very
happy brotherhood, attached to each other and to their professors, applying themselves closely to study, and seldom taking relaxation, save perhaps a good long walk together on a Saturday afternoon." Thomas Wardrope, who gives this account, mentions a few other diversions, most of them sober enough: a sail across the bay, a trip to Fort Henry, a drive into the country, or a visit to the home of a friend, "where [I] enjoyed free interchange of thoughts and feelings on various literary, social and religious topics, very much to my profit, both as to expansion of mind and establishment of character." The stately and unfamiliar language may conceal the fact that, unlike as they appear to be in most ways, the young of 1840, like those of 1970, needed to talk themselves out. Wardrope also refers discreetly to their need for hospitality: "The leading families of our church, where the colleges are situated, would confer a great boon on the rising ministry and on our church and country as well, if they would kindly and prudently open [to the students] their houses," enabling them to en- 7 joy "with the family the refreshing cup of tea and the more or less exhilarating "A Token "A Token
for Good" social converse." The need was recognized at least by the professors who "invited "invited 'or °° the students to breakfast, dinner, or tea, at their houses - and endeavoured to combine instruction with recreation."8 The senior students of this group established Queen's first student association, the Dialectic Society of Queen's College, which held regular meetings for the reading and criticism of an essay, followed by a debate. The proceedings normally lasted from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m.9 Their other activities were "to give lectures, occasionally, on temperance" (drunkenness being one of the very serious social problems of the day) and to establish Sabbath schools. One thing more, however, was needed: "One great defect was the absence of all gymnastic or calisthenic exercises. Frequently the writer left the college work, after hours of closest application, with a severe pain in his head, and a sense of great weariness and exhaustion only to walk slowly and quietly home, to resume his wearing mental toil, conscious that a game of ball or cricket would have been of incalculable advantage both to body and mind, yet prevented by fear that such a liberty would have been considered unbecoming his dignity as a student for the ministry, or by the fact that such was the general view taken of public opinion by his fellow students, and that they never attempted to transgress in this matter."10 The twentieth-century reader who wonders why walking, sailing, and driving were permissible amusements but not ball or cricket, may remember that Thomas Arnold, the famous headmaster who did so much to make organized games not only a respectable but an essential part of a boy's education, had gone to Rugby only fourteen years before. It is hardly surprising that the new approach had not yet reached the frontier. Although the college had been opened in temporary quarters on Colborne Street, the Board of Trustees had ambitious plans for a campus. In 1841 the Kingston trustees proposed to spend £ i ,000 on the Ellerbeck estate, some fifty
8 Queen University
3 Professor James Williamson
acres of land to the west of the town directly opposite "Alwington," which was to be the residence of the governor general. William Morris, the chairman of the board, agreed, although he remarked regretfully that they could have been bought more cheaply, or even secured as a free gift elsewhere, had it not been prematurely announced that the site of the college was fixed at Kingston.11 He was right; before the bargain was closed the price had risen to £1,100 at the rumour that Kingston would be chosen as the capital of the united province. The board hoped to sell a considerable portion of the land in lots in anticipation of the expansion of the city, and to build on the remainder. A committee was appointed and plans called for. Meanwhile the trustees had hoped to rent the large, handsome country house of Archdeacon George Okill Stuart, in those days standing alone on top of the rise which, after a rather steep drop, slopes gently down to Lake Ontario less than half a mile away. The bargain was all but concluded by March 7, 1842, but either Stuart changed his mind, or the rent of £275 a year was considered too high, for nothing came of it. For one term the college resigned itself to itseli^^oo Colborne Street. The first term was soon over. By the end of June the students had scattered to such summer employment as they could find to help pay their expenses for the following winter. The divinity students were exempt from the fee of £2 a class paid by the other students, but board and room had to be provided for. Nor were they freed from "wearing mental toil." The autumn matriculation, according to the old country practice, was an ordeal to which all students were subjected. They did not, in the carefree spirit of later days, "write off" their classes in the spring, but were required on their return in the fall to undergo an examination on all the work of the previous year and in addition on "holiday tasks" assigned for the summer. Those who failed had to repeat the previous year's study. In the fall of 1842 the returning students assembled, not in the rather mean little house on Colborne Street, but at a modest yet solid and dignified stone house which still stands on Princess Street directly opposite St. Andrews Church. For these quarters, including an additional lot with space for temporary buildings, the rent was £75 a year. The young men were welcomed by the principal and Professor Campbell and by a new arrival from Scotland, James Williamson, professor of natural philosophy and mathematics. His appointment was a great relief to his colleagues, who gladly turned over to him the classes in mathematics. He also brought Queen's into the modern university world by the development of courses in science, which Williamson offered with the energy and abandon of the natural enthusiast "forgetting time and place in his abstruse calculations and learned exposition." The students found him "an amiable and excellent man" although they could grow restive on bitter winter days when compelled to ac-
9 "A Token
for Good"
company the professor and his instruments out onto the windswept and frozen lake for what must have seemed interminable lectures.12 With Williamson's arrival the staff was for the time complete, and in him there came the first of those earnest, faithful, devoted servants of Queen's who have given the institution a personality of its own. He arrived in 1842; he died in 1893, still in the service of the university.
TWO
T'he CZoundingofjhieem / s
22 Queen's University
existing King's College Council members were from English universities. He urged that in the appointments to be made at the expected opening of King's "as well to give a voice in the college council to the interests of the Scottish church as to soothe the injured feelings of our members in Canada ... a certain number of the literary professors ... be appointed by Her Majesty from the Scots universities."20 This was Morris's first idea: to achieve a liberalization, or perhaps just a strong Presbyterian flavour, in King's College Council by the use of the royal prerogative. Later he changed his mind and urged that the colonial act be disallowed in order to make possible an immediate reconstitution of the then exclusively Anglican council. This was asking too much; the act, said Glenelg, was "declaratory of the deliberate views of the people of Canada as expressed by their constitutional representative." It was unfortunate that it was not satisfactory to the members of the Church of Scotland, but "his Lordship apprehends that it was impossible to have formed any act to which some objection rmght not have been urged."21 Glenelg promised, however, to make a strong recommendation "that a theological professorship in accordance with the doctrine of [the Church of Scotland]" should be forthwith established at King's. Nothing was said of "the literary professors" although Glenelg urged Bond Head not to exclude "ministers and members of the Scots church" from the college council.22 In his political dealings with and for the Presbyterians, Morris was consistent with his own views and with those urged on the Canadian Synod by representatives of the Church in Scotland: to avoid all hostility to the Church of England, to think of it as a sister church, not to attack the privileges of establishment but to insist on the right to share them. In the meantime, however, King's College was not opened to students, and remained a university in name only. The Presbyterians were left only with the hope that someday it would open, and that they might eventually have some share in the government and management of it. While they were still struggling for a share in the control of King's College circumstances had forced the Presbyterians to begin consideration of some plan for the local training of candidates for the ministry of their church. The Presbyterian Church stood highest of all Protestant denominations in the standards of education exacted from its ministers: a university degree, followed in theory, at least, by three years of theological training.23 So far the churches and missions of the Church of Scotland in Canada and the Maritimes had been staffed by graduates of Scottish universities, frequently assisted if not entirely supported by grants from the Glasgow Colonial Society. During the 18305, however, with the rapid increase of Scottish settlements in Canada, the supply of ministers was becoming wholly inadequate. By 1839 it was said that eighty additional
men were needed.24 Since the two Synods together could boast no more than fifty or sixty ministers this was no doubt an exaggeration but with a Presbyterian population estimated at 100,000 and almost certainly not less than 75,000 there was a need for many more ministers. The difficulty was not only or chiefly the want of money. There was, said Rev. Alexander Mathieson, on a visit to Scotland in 1837, "a terrible want of missionary spirit among the young men" who were discouraged by "the frightful reports of the privations of the Canadian clergy."25 Of the young Scots ministers who did go to Canada, many still had their minds set on a translation home to a Scottish parish. Moreover, in spite of considerable emigration the number of parishes in Scotland was increasing and most young ministers could find work at home. There were also positive arguments for providing theological training in Canada. Many Canadian youths who were interested in the ministry could not easily go to Scotland for their training. These young men would be in some ways preferable to Scots ministers in that they knew the people and were less likely to be discouraged by the hardships even of the more primitive parts of the country. And ministers from Scotland were open to some objection: "A certain nationality of character is induced in our church which by no means befits the origin of a great proportion of those who compose it." There was a danger that it might appeal only to those of Scottish descent: "Church history it is believed furnishes no example of the establishment of Christianity in a country by means of the continued use of a foreign ministry."26 This view is astonishing, considering the passionate Scottishness being at that moment deployed over the rectory issue. It came, however, from the Presbytery of Toronto, where more contact with churches having affiliations with the United States, and, in general, more radical sympathies, might well produce expressions of opinion positively offensive to the conservative Presbyterians of Kingston and Montreal. Taken altogether these were strong arguments for establishing a Canadian seminary. At first the church leaders thought of nothing more, assuming that "literary and scientific training" could be secured at King's College, when it should be opened, or at McGill University in Montreal. Indeed Dr. Mathieson of Montreal, even while he was lamenting the want of missionary spirit in Scotland, was about to lay before the General Assembly in Edinburgh the whole question of theological education and to ask, among other things, whether certificates from King's or McGill would be acceptable as entrance requirements to a Canadian seminary approved by the Church of Scotland. But as plans for a seminary were discussed, the idea of an institution offering "literary and scientific training" as well as theological training came to have an increasing appeal to very many, for religious reasons as well as secular ones: "I have a strong repugnance to commit our youth ... to the charge of those who are
23 The Founding °> Queen>s
24 Queen's University
likely to have rule in King's and McGill Colleges for some time to come," wrote Rev. Alexander Gale of Hamilton in i83g.27 The first specific suggestion for a theological seminary in Canada seems to have come as early as 1830 from Rev. William Rintoul, who at the time had not even left Scotland. He expressed the conviction that all Presbyterians in Canada should unite, and, following the example of the Church of England there, "found a seminary for raising of Presbyterian ministers in the colony."28 At this time the full Presbyterian union was still ten years off; even the ministers of the Church of Scotland were not organized into a synod until the following year. In 1832, however, the newly organized Synod received an "overture" from Rintoul, now minister at Streetsville near Toronto, suggesting that the government be asked to found or at least partially to endow a seminary, and, failing that, that the Synod itself should undertake the education and training of ministers. The Synod agreed to approach the government and Rintoul found himself on a committee charged with preparing a suitable memorial. prom that time the matter in some form came up for discussion in Synod almost every year. By 1837 the Synod had considered and approved an elaborate scheme of theological education, had authorized the Hamilton Presbytery to supervise the preliminary studies of young men hoping to enter the ministry, and had encouraged other Presbyteries to take similar measures.29 Meanwhile the indefatigable Rintoul had prepared a lengthy report on the advantage of a seminary in Canada which was calculated to appeal not only to the piety, but to the pride, of the Synod. "The Episcopal Church which is indeed very accommodating in its terms of admission to the ministry so long as its ritual requirements are complied with" finds some of its most useful men among those educated in Canada; the Methodists "who have heretofore gloried in an unlearned ministry have founded a seminary at Cobourg; why should the Presbyterians reject men trained anywhere but in Scotland?" A modest institution with no more than two professors at first and with temporary arrangements for classrooms was suggested.30 This plan was accepted by the Synod in 1838. In the same year it was submitted to the Glasgow Colonial Society which approved it and passed it on to the Colonial Committee of the General Assembly, stating that "it is the deliberate opinion of the best friends of the church both in Canada and this country that an institution for all the departments of clerical education ought to be aimed at."31 About this time, the exact date is uncertain, unexpected encouragement for the larger plan of a general institution came from a most unlikely quarter. One Sir William Seaton, a Scottish baronet, met a wealthy and pious Presbyterian lady who was planning to emigrate to Canada, where, it was expected, she would be helpful and generous to those of her own church. Having succeeded in persuading her to change her mind, and to bestow upon him her hand with
her wealth, Sir William experienced a belated qualm of conscience. As a result the Presbytery of Toronto received from him a gift of £500 for rather vaguely designated objects. Rintoul and his committee easily concluded that the money should be considered the nucleus of a fund for the proposed college.82 It was Sir William's gift which indirectly produced, or precipitated, the Act of Incorporation of a Scottish Presbyterian university. The management of a capital fund required the incorporation of the Presbytery of Toronto (which had accepted the gift) or of some agent to represent the presbytery. The first plan seems to have been to have the money transferred from the presbytery to the Synod of the whole province, the Synod being prepared to seek incorporation for itself. A commission was appointed under the chairmanship of Rev. P.C.Campbell of Brockville. The preparation of a draft bill for this purpose was confided to Rintoul, who naturally consulted Morris as an influential member of the Legislative Council, and the unofficial adviser to the church on these matters. Rintoul did not confine himself merely to an Act of Incorporation but introduced into his bill the plan of a college. When Morris saw this draft he agreed in principle but he recommended certain important changes. The bill was presented to the Synod, meeting at Kingston on July 9, 1839, approved, and the commission was instructed to take the necessary steps to get the bill through the legislature and to raise funds for the college. There followed some months of rather uneasy cooperation between Morris, Rintoul, and the other members of the commission. Members of the Synod saw the college plan as essentially their own, and the future institution as properly coming under their own direction. Morris and others, including his friend Francis Harper of Kingston, were becoming increasingly interested in founding a true university of the Scottish pattern, independent of formal ecclesiastical control, although inevitably, through its staff and its students, closely linked with the church. Eventually there was developed a plan approved by all: an institution to give secular and theological instruction, to be situated at Kingston, and to have the style and privileges of a university. This draft bill was to be piloted through the legislature by Morris in the session of i84o.33 "The Act to establish a college by the name and style of the University at Kingston" had for its object "the education of youth in the principles of Christian religion and ... their instruction in the various branches in science and literature which are taught in the universities of the United Kingdom." The act named a board of twenty-seven trustees, comprising fifteen laymen and twelve clergymen, all to be in full communion with the Church of Scotland. The university was thus definitely an institution of the church, more so than King's College, which, by the reformed charter, asked only a most general profession of Christian faith from the lay members of its council. There was, however, a lay majority on the board of the new college, although not as
25 The Founding °> Queen s
26 Queen's University
decisive a one as William Morris had wished. The first principal was to be nominated by the Colonial Committee of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland; subsequent principals and professors were to be appointed by the Board of Trustees. No religious test was to be required of any students except of those in theology, but lay professors and lay trustees must subscribe to a declaration of faith approved by the Synod. The Synod also must approve of the program of theological studies. All other university matters, including the management of property, came under the Board of Trustees. As soon as there should be a principal and one professor the board was authorized to create an academic Senate of these two men along with three members of the board, the Senate to be directly responsible for academic supervision and discipline in the college. As soon as there should be four professors in addition to the principal, the Senate would be empowered to confer the degrees of bachelor, master, and doctor in the several arts and sciences. Thus the original purpose of an incorporated Synod was transformed into tne creatjorl ofF an academic corporation in theory largely independent of the Synod, although in practice depending on it for the raising of the considerable sums which were even now being asked as contributions from members of the church. A final clause in the charter was considered to be of very great importance, and was the occasion of much dispute and resentment. The British ministry had conceded in theory that the Presbyterians might claim the appointment to King's College of a professor who would teach theology according to the principles of the Church of Scotland. Great care had been taken in the preparation of the draft of the bill to do nothing to compromise this claim. During the passage of the bill through the Legislative Council, however, R.B.Sullivan, a leading member of the council, with the approval of the lieutenant-governor, Sir George Arthur, and of the governor, Poulett Thomson (later Lord Sydenham), had suggested to William Morris that a grant to the new university from the funds of King's College might be more satisfactory to both parties than the appointment of a Presbyterian theological professor at King's. John Strachan, as principal of King's and as a member of the Executive Council, agreed and Morris consented, stipulating, however, that the allowance should be liberal, going far beyond the bare salary of a theological professor. Morris suggested £1,000 a year, and he believed that the governor had agreed to this sum. The act, however, named no sum, stating only that the governor or his representative was authorized as soon as King's College should be in operation to allow the payment from its funds to the university at Kingston "of such yearly sum as to him shall seem just for the purpose of sustaining a theological professorship ..., and in satisfaction of all claim on the part of the Church of Scotland for the institution of a professorship of divinity in the University of King's College according to the faith and discipline of the Church of Scotland."34
This bill was introduced into the legislature on January 8 and passed into law on February 10, 1840. Morris now had his university, and he could congratulate himself that although it was a church institution and profoundly under clerical influence, both Scottish and Canadian, it was not merely a creature of the Synod. On one matter, however, he had been deeply disappointed. The governor objected to the name "Queen's College" on the ground that the Queen's name could not be used without her consent. Morris urged that Her Majesty could only consider the name as a compliment to herself, but the governor was firm; if the name were not dropped from the bill he must reserve it for Her Majesty's pleasure. At first Morris wished to retain the name, accepting the necessity of the reservation of the act. Later he yielded, on the understanding that the governor general would support a petition to the Queen for the bestowal of the name on the college by a royal charter. By this means he thought to achieve a double benefit for his university; not only the royal title but "the patronage of Her Majesty ... which she may feel inclined munificently to bestow at this auspicious period in her life and reign."35 The trustees' petition was accordingly forwarded to London in January 1840. The reply was favourable, with the condition that the governor general approve the draft of the charter before it should be submitted to the colonial secretary. This, however, was only the beginning of months of harassing delays and unexpected difficulties. The draft prepared by Morris was amended by the governor general who could not approve of the ambitious financial plans (the authorization to the trustees to administer property to the value of £15,000 yearly) or the request for "all the powers and privileges ... enjoyed by universities in Scotland."36 Morris protested - to no avail - that the purpose of these provisions was "that the College at Kingston might, in order to be useful, be regarded by the government as possessing the countenance and approbation from Her Majesty's government with which the sister institution in Toronto has been favoured."37 Finally the charter as approved by Sydenham was forwarded to a Scots Presbyterian lawyer, Alexander Gillespie, who had agreed to act as agent for the board in London. Only late in the fall was Gillespie able to report, and then with most discouraging news. The law officers had found all the proceedings in relation to the university to be irregular. First, the colonial legislature could not, in their view, incorporate a university, that being a prerogative of the Crown. Second, this irregular act having received royal assent through the governor general, the Crown could not gainsay itself by issuing a charter to amend its own act. The only course now, the law officers advised, was to disallow the act and begin proceedings all over again. Alexander Gillespie, reporting this news, was deeply concerned at the "grievous disappointment to all our friends in Canada." He would, he said, be prepared to advise giving up the charter altogether, but as the law officers had
27 The Founding °^ Queen's
28 Queen's University
determined to advise disallowance of the act as irregular, whether or not a charter was requested, that course would not now be open to the board. Gillespie therefore advised continuing the request for a charter although he warned that as the charter would have to include the whole constitution of the university, it would be long and detailed and therefore expensive.38 Gillespie's letter was written on November 5, 1840. After that date not a word was heard from the Colonial Office, now presided over by Lord John Russell, until August 18 of the following year when Russell's secretary sent Gillespie the excuses of one obviously embarrassed in an attempt to explain the inexplicable. In justice to Russell's staff it must be said that they had sent repeated pleas to the attorney general (Sir John Campbell, who was succeeded by Sir Thomas Wilde in June 1841) to take some action on the draft charter which had been submitted to him, that when letters had gone unanswered after some months they had interceded with the chief clerk of his office, that that measure having proved vain they had written a personal letter to James Stephen, ^ diligent anc j abje under-secretary, and that finally they had suggested that Russell approach the attorney general personally, perhaps on some social occasion when he might be sufficiently mellow to agree to devote ten minutes of his time to doing what should have been done six or eight months before. By August 18 the attorney general had approved the draft of the charter, but at this point Lord John Russell announced that as the government was about to resign he could proceed no further in the matter. Russell, however, did what he could to make amends for his own apparent neglect by recommending the matter strongly to his successor Lord Stanley who acted with remarkable expedition. The charter was issued at last on October 16, 1841, since that time celebrated as Queen's University Day.39 Long before this time, however, the board of the still unchartered university at Kingston had been constituted under the Act of Incorporation. The board in theory was a democratic body, the most popularly chosen of any university board in central Canada. Of the twenty-seven trustees roughly one-quarter was to retire every year and to be replaced by a kind of election: clerical members were chosen by the Synod and laymen by the lay trustees from a list of laymen nominated by all the congregations which were members of the Synod. This regulation confirmed the strongly Presbyterian character of the institution. It made possible popular influence, although it must be also said that it made probable the rule of an oligarchy as smoothly efficient as the Family Compact, if only the proverbial Presbyterian gift for dissent could be kept under control. The arrangement shows the hand of William Morris, who believed sincerely in democracy under wise and firm guidance. The first meeting of the board was summoned for May 20, 1840, in St. Andrew's Church in Kingston by the first named of the trustees, Rev. Robert
McGill, moderator of the Synod for that year. Of the twenty-seven appointed members, twelve clergy and fifteen laymen, only fourteen were present, eight clergy and six laymen. The proportion of clergy to laymen was undoubtedly displeasing to William Morris and his displeasure was greatly increased when Rev. John Cook of Quebec, principal pro tern under the act, seconded by Rev. P.C.Campbell, proposed Rev. John Machar of Kingston as chairman of the board, "actually [endeavouring on the part of the clergy]," said Morris indignantly, "to possess in addition to the situation of principal, the presiding chair of the Board of Trustees - what I say would the people at home think if a clergyman were to become candidate for the Chancellorship of one of their universities? ... We must take a stand against such clerical pretensions else the College after all will be a failure. I know that I incur the displeasure of the clergy by promulgating such opinions and principles, but if I can convince the laity that they are sound and in accordance with the established usages of home, I care little for the displeasure of anyone."40 Although this danger was averted, and Morris was himself elected chairman, he did not lose his distrust of Cook and Campbell. He did apparently seek to balance the clerical influence by introducing to the board a powerful layman in the person of his Kingston friend Francis Harper. Harper, although not a member, was present at the first meeting of the board and was chosen as treasurer, a position he occupied for many years. In September 1841 he became a regular member of the board and served as one of the small Kingston group on which much of the responsibility for routine business fell. The clerical members of the Kingston group were Rev. John Machar, Rev. P.C. Campbell, and, later, Professor Williamson. These, with Harper and two Kingston laymen, John Mowat and Alexander Pringle, were the only ones regularly available for routine meetings throughout the year. As a result the board too often adjourned for want of a quorum. Harper kept in close touch with Morris and was diligent in his attendance. It was perhaps he who contrived a nice balance between God and Mammon by arranging that meetings be held at times in the Commercial Bank rather than in the usual place of meeting, St. Andrew's Church. The general membership of the first board shows an interesting geographic distribution, there being nine members from the area to the west of Kingston, four of these from the Niagara peninsula and the other five from in and about Toronto. Of the other sixteen, eleven came from the corner of Canada West lying to the east of a line drawn from Kingston to Perth, three from Montreal and its neighbourhood, and two from Quebec. Although according to this arrangement power lay with the eastern group, its members were acutely aware of the importance of keeping in touch with the energetic and potentially wealthy districts of Toronto and Niagara.
29 The Founding °f Queen s
30 Queen's University
The newly constituted Board of Trustees was faced with two principal tasks: the appointment of academic staff, and the acquisition of premises for the college. It had been the general hope and intention that the arrangements would be completed for the opening of the college not later than the fall of 1840. For this reason members of the Synod who, in spite of Morris, naturally took a proprietary interest in the new college, had not waited for the slow processes of legislation, but had been hard at work ever since the terms of the bill had been agreed on in the fall of 1839. By November the moderator, Rev. Robert McGill, was urging the Colonial Committee at once to appoint two professors, "the best in braid Scotland," adding, lightheartedly, that the committee should have "no difficulty" in collecting in Scotland £5,000 along with books and "philosophical apparatus" for the opening of the college in Kingston on November i, i84O.41 By the following January McGill had matured a plan for a complete staff of five professors, a principal who would be professor of theology, and four others to te^ch "natural philosophy and mathematics," "logic and belles lettres," and "Greek and humanity" - for a total of £1,600 a year in salaries, allowing £300 for each professor and an additional hundred for the principal. For these positions McGill demanded paragons of perfection. They must, of course, be men of standing in the church, and fully qualified academically, but they must be something more - "not literary and classical drones; ... if they send us out dull men, however prodigious their learning, we are undone."42 William Morris fully agreed with McGill in his views on the kind of professors that were needed. A slightly different attitude appeared in Rev. William Rintoul, who put rather less emphasis on academic qualifications, and rather more on spiritual attainments: he hoped for "men of deep piety, thorough scholarship, enlarged understanding and acceptable manners. We much require men who are tried."43 By the following spring the difficulty of collecting funds, and perhaps a more realistic view of the numbers and the preparation of the students who might be expected, had resulted in a more modest estimate of the desirable number and qualifications of the initial staff. At the first meeting of the Board of Trustees in May 1840, it was agreed to open the college with three professors in classical literature, natural philosophy and mathematics, and divinity and moral and mental philosophy; three years after the opening of the college it was expected that a class of divinity students would justify the appointment of a professor to teach divinity alone. Further specialization made possible by additional appointments would be carried on as funds became available.44 The General Assembly in Scotland was to be asked to appoint a principal, who would teach divinity and moral and mental philosophy, and a professor of natural philosophy and mathematics. Meanwhile the board proceeded to nominate Rev. P.C. Campbell as "third professor," of classical literature, on the understanding that
he would not be asked to undertake his duties until the two professors from Scotland had been appointed.45 While practical considerations were dictating more moderate estimates of the desirable size of the staff, they were also inspiring rather different ideas of the kind of men needed. Morris's letters as time went on stressed more and more the importance of teaching as distinguished from delivering a set of lectures. Having supported the demand for the best that Scotland could provide, he began to ask suspiciously of those who might be proposed whether they could really teach. "We want a practical man of celebrity and experience from one of our Scottish universities." "The kind of persons we require are ... experienced practical teachers whose duty it will be to educate the pupils before they are qualified to receive lectures from anybody."46 The somewhat exacting demands of the trustees for men of eminent piety, learning, aptness to teach, patience, "tried" and ready for more trials, and all for £300 a year, may well have made the Colonial Committee believe that the distinction of appointing the first Queen's professors was a burdensome one. The matter was further complicated by the fact that "Queen's" did not speak with one voice; Morris, McGill, and Rintoul all sent over their personal views. Nor, unfortunately, was there one single authority in Scotland to whom these appeals might be addressed; the Colonial Committee's official spokesman was Dr. David Welsh, the secretary, but Dr. Robert Burns, formerly of the Glasgow committee, was most influential, and known to many in Canada who could write to him more freely than to Welsh. Moreover, the committee was not an executive body, but was itself answerable to the General Assembly. Although these difficulties did not cause open dispute, they do seem to have served to confuse the communications between the Board of Trustees and the Colonial Committee in Scotland. One further cause of confusion and dissension in Canada was the appointment of Rev. P.C. Campbell as "third professor" in May 1840. It is not certain why this had to be done, apart from the fact that at this time the board did believe that the college would open in the fall with two professors from Scotland, and that it seemed desirable to give Mr. Campbell time to make his preparations. Campbell had been minister at Brockville in the Kingston district. It so happened that Rev. A. Findlater from Montreal and Dr. John Rae of Hamilton in the west, who had been lecturing to the theology students of the Niagara Presbytery, both applied for the position of professor of natural philosophy and mathematics on the new staff. The board replied to them that as this position was to be filled in Scotland, their applications would be sent there. However, the committee in Scotland maintained that it was charged to find only a professor of divinity and one of moral philosophy, and therefore referred the applications back to Kingston, where, of course, nothing could be done as Campbell had already been appointed.47
31 The Founding °' Queen s
32 Queen's mversiy
As a result there was anger in the western districts, perhaps because an eastern man had been preferred to one from the west, perhaps because Rae was considered to have a kind of claim to a place in the new college in view of his past services to the theological students, perhaps because he was a layman who might serve as a balance to the two clerics who would be sent from Scotland. The ostensible objection to Campbell's appointment, however, was that the subscribers had been told that the first appointments would be made in Scotland; a Canadian appointment seemed a breach of faith, and, it was held, if there was to have been a Canadian appointment it should have been fully advertised. It was even suggested that Campbell's appointment should be cancelled rather than give offence to the western districts, and to their spokesman, Rev. Robert McGill of Niagara. All these doubts and disagreements, protracted as they were from May 1840, to October 1841, were bad for the relations within the newly appointed board, an( j f or the good understanding between the board and the church in Scotland. Theywere halted by the granting of the royal charter on October 16, 1841. The Scottish church then announced the appointment of Rev. Dr. Thomas Liddell as principal, stating, accurately or not, that until the actual issuing of the charter they had been unable to ask an eminent man to go to Queen's. The Scottish church also, for the time, waived the right to appoint a second professor, thus making their grant of £300 sterling available for Campbell. These two men, as has been seen, presided at the opening of the college in March 1842, and were joined by the official "second professor," J.A. Williamson, in the autumn of that year. Thus the first and most essential step in establishing the college as a teaching institution had been accomplished, but not without demonstrating the great difficulty of smooth operation in an institution where power was divided between laymen and clerics, Kingston and Edinburgh, the Board of Trustees and the Synod, Eastern Ontario and the districts of the west. These divisions were inevitable from the nature of the country and of the new institution. Now, however, the initiative was to a considerable degree transferred from the Board of Trustees in Kingston and the Colonial Committee in Edinburgh to the three members of the academic faculty. These men set themselves to translate ambitious but conflicting ideas and ideals into a visible and solid reality. Meanwhile, conflicts would continue to rage around them.
THREE
Deeb Hummatm Delays and disappointments are natural incidents in the early life of any ambitious and innovating institution. It was inevitable that these should have been encountered during the launching of a college by three separate and independent agencies, all of which had to wait on the unpredictable movements by the benevolent but often apparently somnolent monster at Whitehall. Almost immediately, however, Queen's had to undergo additional trials which do seem to justify Mrs. Machar's foreboding of "deep humiliation." The threatened schism of which she had written to Rev. William Reid did almost destroy the college. It was, moreover, accompanied by other humiliating reverses: the almost complete failure of various efforts to secure an adequate endowment, and the profound disagreement over college policy which led to the resignation, first of the chairman of the board, and then of the principal. At the beginning of 1840 the founders of the college believed that they had every reason to depend on adequate funds from the various sources which seemed at their disposal. After years of bitter complaining that the Church of Scotland, with legal claims equal to those of the Church of England, had received only crumbs from the table, they saw the passage of the Clergy Reserves Act of 1840, which conceded one-third of the proceeds of lands already sold to the Presbyterians and two-thirds to the Anglicans. Inadequate as this provision might seem to a church which claimed equality of status as well as equality of numbers, it was a vast improvement on what had gone before; and although the clergy reserves could not be used directly for the college, the relief to congregations which would otherwise carry the whole burden of church building and ministers' salaries would, it was hoped, make them generous to the college. Specifically the founders looked to four other sources of revenue. The government had endowed King's College with some 227,000 acres of good land which for years had yielded a steady income, part of which had been spent on salaries to college officials even though the institution had not yet been opened to stu-
33 "Deep Humiliation
34 Queen's University
dents. Queen's claimed a share of this endowment which had originally been made in 1797 for general secondary education. Without prejudice to this first claim the trustees were also counting on the grant of £1,000 a year from King's College funds for the endowment of a theological professorship at Queen's. As has been seen, a clause to this effect, but naming no sum, had been included in the Act of Incorporation of 1840, but omitted from the charter of 1841. Morris, however, expected the colonial administration to honour the informal understanding which he had reached with the Executive Council during the passing of the act. From Scotland the board counted on an endowment of £5,000 with an immediate allowance of £300 a year until the amount of the endowment should be secured. This was conditional on the raising of a sufficient endowment in Canada and on a staff and theological program which would meet with the approval of the General Assembly. Finally, and characteristically, the founders hoped for generous and eager support from Scots and Presbyterians everywhere in Canada. Sir William Seaton had started the endowment with £500. Some kind of promise to endow a professorship had also been given before his death by one Thomas Clark, member of the Legislative Council, a merchant and a magistrate.1 For the rest the energetic and enthusiastic moderator, Robert McGill (known, not entirely affectionately, to some of his colleagues as "Cock Robin"), not waiting either for act or charter or even for the expected union of the two Presbyterian Synods, had, following encouraging meetings in Toronto, Kingston, and elsewhere in the autumn of 1839, sent out an enormously lengthy, eloquent, and somewhat sentimental letter to all the faithful asking for contributions: " Every child should be encouraged by the favour of their [sic] parents to bring a stone for the erection of this fabric. Let even the hands of women prepare the drapery for the walls and its columns and carvings be memorials of the dead." Cock Robin was not really intoxicated by his own eloquence. He knew very well that, far more than drapery for nonexistent walls, he needed women willing and able to overcome their own natural thriftiness and that of their husbands in favour of a good cause and he made careful, if optimistic, estimates. The recent unreliable census had given the Church of Scotland under 40,000 members, but the hoped-for union promised upwards of 80,000 Presbyterians in all, and McGill easily rounded that number up to 100,000. From this large group he anticipated subscriptions from 7,750 heads of families, ranging from fifty who might give one hundred pounds each to five thousand at the other end of the scale who might give one shilling and sixpence, for a grand total of £35,ooo.2 Full of confidence and hope, he set off with Rev. Alexander Gale of Hamilton in November 1839, for a canvass of the western districts, while Morris was preparing to pilot the Act of Incorporation through the legislature. Unhappily, all these confident expectations failed, more or less. First, the legis-
lature made no endowment of land or money, nor was Queen Victoria moved by the use of her name to authorize any further depredations on the public lands of the province. The suggestion that King's College should part with a share of its substantial endowment was rejected; the generally sympathetic Colonial Office insisted that whatever the Presbyterian claims might be they did not warrant confiscation of private property.3 The second expected source of income failed entirely. Morris pressed hard for the £ 1,000 a year which, he insisted, had been promised in 1840 by R.B.Sullivan, with the consent of the governor, for the theological professorship. Sydenham, however, flatly denied that any sum had been named, and insisted that at most Queen's could claim only the letter of the disallowed act. This left to the discretion of the governor the amount, which, it was intimated, would extend to nothing beyond the bare professorial salary of £300 a year.4 In the end, thanks to the intervention of Governor Metcalfe in 1845, the double claim on government, for a general endowment and for a specific grant for theological instruction was satisfied, although not generously, by an annual grant from provincial funds of £500, in 1857 increased to $5,ooo.5 Over the third anticipated source of revenue, the endowment to be raised in Scotland and the temporary grant for a third professor, there was also, as has been seen, an unfortunate disagreement and misunderstanding. It was caused partly by the fact that the Colonial Committee had to make all pledges of financial assistance dependent on the assent of the General Assembly, and also that the committee could not formally bind its successors. Morris and the board believed that they could count on £300 a year until an endowment of £5,000 was placed in their hands by the Scottish church. The committee in Scotland insisted that the £300 was only a temporary assistance to be granted while funds permitted, and while it was clearly needed and deserved. As the committee did nothing to raise an endowment, the board was inclined to accuse it of bad faith. There seems to have been another explanation apart from the fact that the Scottish church was torn at the moment by threats of disruption. In the summer of 1840 the board had sent two ministers, Rev. Dr. Cook, principal pro tern, of Quebec, and Rev. William Rintoul, the earliest promoter of the college, to Scotland to confer with the church there, to deal with the authorities in London over the charter, and to collect money and books for the college. Cook and Rintoul were not satisfied with their collections, but they did bring back in money or in pledges over £i,2OO.6 It seems that there had been some informal agreement with the Colonial Committee that these collections should be accepted as a substitute for the promised endowment. The board was not clearly informed of this arrangement, and the anxious trustees began to think that the Scottish church was indifferent not only to the troubles of Queen's, but to its own pledges.7 The bitterness of the misunderstanding being over, however, the board could and did express much gratitude for a yearly grant of £300 sterling
35 "Deep Humiliation"
36 Queen's University
which was, in fact, regularly paid with extra grants for bursaries over a period of more than forty years. The final and, as it proved in the end, the most important source of income was the endowment fund to be made up of contributions from private supporters in Canada and elsewhere. The campaign for funds was going on steadily in the Canadas. Quebec was reporting subscriptions of £1,000, Kingston of £1,600, before the end of 1839. McGill and Gale, who had travelled from Toronto as far as Grand River, were delighted with the success of their efforts.8 By early April 1840, however, McGill thought it well to send out another appeal. To meet the conditions laid down for the grant of the Scottish General Assembly, he said, £5,000 should be paid in by May i for the "first professor" of theology. Although, according to the terms of the campaign, subscriptions might be paid in four annual installments beginning November i, 1840, as many as possible were urged to pay in cash immediately. Some responded, but when the Board of Trustees met on May 20, 1841, the £5,000 cash was not in sight and McGill's £35,000 remained a dream. The board at this May meeting agreed that the minimum required for the opening of the college should be £ i ,000 in addition to the endowment of the first professor, or £6,000 in all. In spite of special efforts in May and June, money came in very slowly. The city of Quebec had given most generously, some £1,400 in cash being sent up by the middle of May, but in Montreal complaints of hard times determined the canvassers to send what cash they had and to break off the campaign for the time. Morris complained that Montreal was "lukewarm" and asked Robert McGill if the clergy could not be persuaded to greater generosity, to which McGill replied, "Would to God we were all animated by a better spirit." Little was coming in from the west of the province, and by late August there was barely £4,000 on hand; in December the amount still had not reached £5,ooo.9 In July of the following year the treasurer had received something over £6,000. By this time, however, it was clear that it would be unwise and unprofitable to depend solely on the efforts of voluntary local collectors, even assuming that they had the full cooperation of the local clergy. On July 2, 1841, therefore, the board appointed E.W.Thompson, a layman and elder of Toronto, to be its official agent in charge of the collections at a salary of £200 a year. Thomson was to travel throughout the province collecting as he could, recording pledges and stimulating the local collectors. He accordingly went down river in August 1841. He found Quebec subscriptions almost fully paid up but Montreal was again disappointing. Back in Toronto, and finding that family matters would take him to Philadelphia, he proposed going also to New York to enlist the aid of the "rich Scotchmen" there for Queen's. On his return, however, he reported failure. "There is no hope of doing anything in the States at this time as Princeton College is suffer-
ing under pecuniary embarrassments, and requires the most strenuous effort of the Presbyterian Church to relieve it."10 Pursuing his collecting in Canada once more, Thomson was able to forward many small sums to the board, but in February 1842 he had to admit the practical failure of his mission. "There has been a degree of apathy existing with regard to the institution on account of the long delay that has taken place that has materially retarded the success that was anticipated."11 There were, however, some encouraging signs. John Fraser of Sherbrooke, sending £25, the first part of his pledge, in May of that year remarked that, "It [required] management to fulfill my desire to have a hand in so good a work but I know you must... incur outlay, and I am anxious not to be wanting to you on my part. ... We should do all we can to serve and cherish our Upper Canada Alma Mater that it may become an honour and a blessing to the descendants of dear Scotland."12 This letter expressing typically national as well as religious loyalty represented the spirit that Robert McGill and Morris had hoped to find everywhere. The comparative failure of the first campaign did not prove that this spirit was lacking. The appeal of 1839-40 was not so much ill-founded as untimely. Upper Canada was still in the comparative poverty of its pioneer days. The frank statement of a few years previously that ministers were scarce because so few from Scotland could endure the "fearful privations" of life in Upper Canada suggests a very bare existence in many Presbyterian parishes. The moderator, Robert McGill, comfortably established in the old and settled district of Niagara, might easily have overestimated the capacity to give. As for the failure of wealthy Montreal from which so much had been expected, there could hardly have been a worse time for opening the campaign. Montreal, the great forwarding centre for wheat and flour, was suffering the combined effects of a general trade depression and ten years of poor crops. Trade was now on the upswing and was to improve rapidly during the next two or three years, but in the early months of 1840 the outlook was gloomy indeed. It seems clear that in many places the response in relation to people's resources was generous. Kingston contributed over £2,000, and yet Kingston in 1840 was an Anglican stronghold with a total population of 6,000. Thus, although Queen's first endowment campaign was not a total failure, it did completely deceive the expectations of those who had launched it. Instead of the expected £35,000 to £40,000 by 1844, it had yielded in all a little over £11,000. Of this amount only about £2,500 came from west of Kingston, chiefly from Toronto and Niagara. The result was that, for the first ten years or more of its life, Queen's lived not on an assured public or private endowment, but principally on the bounty of the Scottish General Assembly, and from 1845 of the provincial government. These two bodies between them provided £866 currency a year. Interest on
37 "Deep Humiliation"
the paid-up endowment and the proceeds from the land bought near Kingston in 1840, which was being sold in town lots at a profit, amounted to a further £600 a year. The total sum was less than £1,500, not sufficient to meet even the very modest expenses of the institution. Therefore, the uninvested portions of the endowment fund were encroached on year by year until by 1847 it appears that a total of upwards of £2,500 had been withdrawn from the fund. Some of the trustees no doubt endorsed the traditional hope of "paying it back." Others were certainly anxious and disapproving, all too aware of the criticisms that might be levelled at them, but also unhappily aware that the alternative would be the closing of the college.
38 Queen's mversity
The endowment campaign drew to its close only in 1844. Long before that the trustees had had to face a critical decision: should they open the college on November i, 1840, as they had undertaken to do, and if not, how long could they delay without shaking the confidence of subscribers who were asked to make th e fi^t of fat{TR four payments by then on the understanding that classes would start on that date? The matter seemed for a time to be settled by factors outside the control of the board: the delay in issuing the charter, the expectation that the act would be disallowed, the failure to secure funds even for one professor, and, as a result of all these things, the failure of the church in Scotland to appoint a principal. Although annoyed by the delay and fearful of offending subscribers, Morris, McGill, and other leading trustees were prepared to defer the opening, and were unresponsive, to say the least, when the eager and evangelical William Rintoul urged immediate action. Rintoul had become impatient of delay, he was anxious to further the studies of the few theological students who had been working with Dr. Rae in Hamilton, and he therefore urged that they begin classes immediately, allowing Professor Campbell to carry on as he could until the principal and the other professor from Scotland should arrive. Rintoul's plea, rejected by Morris with irritation and even scorn, illustrates in some fashion the divergent views of the founders of Queen's. Rintoul, supported by Cook of Quebec, was prepared to think even an insignificant beginning better than none. With an unexpected touch of worldly wisdom he supported his arguments by the reminder that many people in Toronto thought the Presbyterians unduly timid, "while your old friend the Bishop is fabricating priests in great numbers, and with great rapidity."13 Morris, Harper, and perhaps even McGill, were less concerned with religious needs and were prepared to wait until they had some hope of securing for Scots and Presbyterians a worthy and dignified equivalent of the Anglican King's. The matter, however, was practically taken out of their hands when the Colonial Committee sent out Principal Liddell early in 1842. Liddell expressed great surprise at finding that the college over which he had been sent to preside
was still not even in existence. He accepted unwillingly the assurance that nothing could be done before spring. He did comply with the request of the Kingston trustees that he occupy himself during the interval on a kind of dignified collecting trip, journeying up the lakes and down river to visit Presbyterian communities and explain "the importance of university education." He did this, however, only on condition that a public announcement of the opening on March 7 be made immediately, thus presenting with a fait accompli the full meeting of the board which had been summoned for February.14 Morris, won by Liddell's tact, appears to have accepted the decision, though there was already preparing an event which would give a new look to the whole university question. Early in January 1842 the people of Kingston, still the capital of United Canada, had turned out to welcome their new governor, Sir Charles Bagot, successor to Lord Sydenham whose untimely death the previous September had shocked them and the whole province. Bagot, a man of broad intellectual interests, took advantage of the relative political calm which prevailed for a time to learn something of the general character and needs of the double community over which he was to preside. He saw in the nonfunctioning but affluent King's College at Toronto what he went so far as to call "a great scandal." He and his attorney general for Canada West, the moderate and competent Toronto Anglican William Draper, together convinced Bishop Strachan that his days of leisurely procrastination were over. On April 21, 1842, only a few weeks after Principal Liddell had opened and addressed his tiny "university" in the mean little house on Colborne Street, Bagot left his dignified home, Alwington, and took the steamer from Kingston to Toronto. There, amid "universal harmony and good will" and with orations, prayers, feasting, and toasts, he laid the foundation stone of the first permanent building of the University of Toronto. While the building went forward, the college authorities were busy engaging staff with a view to the opening of classes at King's in the spring of i843.16 It is possible that Morris, as a member of the Legislative Council, was present at this ceremony and it may be that Robert McGill would have come over from Niagara for the occasion. Whether or not they were present, they would be fully informed of the ceremony and of the accompanying social events from the provincial newspapers. It would almost certainly have occurred to both of them that while a fully operating and successful King's College might make it more difficult to secure an adequate endowment for Queen's, it could also afford an honest and dignified means of escape from an embarrassing situation. Whatever their inspiration, such ideas had clearly made a strong impression on the impressionable Cock Robin. On May 24 he addressed to Morris the first of seven letters which together make up a lengthy and discursive but eloquent essay on the whole university question. Briefly, McGill had now either practically adopted the attitude of the secularists who wanted one provincial university, or he had
39 "Deep Humiliation"
40 Queen's University
decided to make a virtue of necessity. Queen's, he said, at least with partial truth, had been founded as a university only because it was impossible to wait for the uncertain opening of King's. Now that King's was to be opened and conducted (as he stated with more optimism than accuracy) as a secular institution,16 the proper function of Queen's should be redefined. The opening in the previous March, "that hasty and ill-advised step," should not be allowed to prejudice the future. Instead of resuming classes in the fall the trustees should send Principal Liddell on a collecting tour in Scotland and employ Professor Campbell in a similar capacity at home. With the resulting endowment, increased by McGill with one optimistic stroke of the pen from the existing £ 10,000 to £25,000, the college could reopen, but as a theological college only, depending on King's as the provincial university for all secular instruction. The new King's would not be irreligious but it would be nontheological: "Theology can look for no more than perhaps the permission to squat within its enclosures."17 Queen's, McGill seemed to assume, would secure along with other colleges of other churches, the necessary permission "to squat" and to give theological instruction, leaving the secular education to a university formed to avoid the unhappy theological entanglements of the Old World. The new plan would also avoid the unfortunate practice of the United States, "multiplying as they do ... half-finished buildings under the name of colleges, where one or two teachers dole out amidst sordidness and privation, their scanty stores of learning to the few lads that by a forced patronage are gathered from the paltry villages by which they have been erected."18 The generous endowment of King's and the adequate one which Queen's would enjoy for its limited function would avoid yet another evil: "How desirable it is that it [the university] should be placed on a foundation which the vox populi could not, by any of its sudden or capricious warblings, disturb."19 In short, enjoying the ancient privilege of an independent charter and endowment, and the new freedom from theological commitments, McGill's proposed provincial university was to have literally the best of both worlds. It was no wonder that this splendid vision caused him to forget his earlier picture of the poor Scottish college dreaming of greatness while gladly accepting the same poverty that had marked the early years of Cambridge, Edinburgh, and Aberdeen.20 McGill's letters, although obviously intended for publication, were not published until 1846. It is probable that the cautious Morris, although encouraging him to set down his ideas, may have convinced him that a publication so hostile to a Presbyterian university and so at variance with McGill's previous record as moderator of the Synod and first-named among the Queen's trustees, would do little credit to him or to his cause. Meanwhile, however, Morris was also hearing from Kingston trustees. Al-
though like McGill they were thinking of a plan of union with King's in order to benefit by the facilities for secular instruction, they were willing to proceed much more carefully and conditionally. On May 25, Harper wrote to Morris. He believed that a suitable arrangement with King's was desirable, partly because Queen's was about to engage a third professor with no apparent means of paying his salary. Beyond this, however, Harper urged the union in the interests of true religion, threatened at once by a flood of secularism from the west, and of "Romanism" from the incoming Irish immigrants supported by the mass of French Canadians down river: "In these times of infidelity the two Protestant churches joining in this way would present a strong front against the encroachment of Romans and others." Harper hoped that Morris could persuade Sir Charles Bagot to "refer the matter to the heads of the two colleges as a suggestion on his own" and so save the dignity of each. He pressed the idea as the most important service which Morris could render at once to education and to religion.21 Morris accepted the idea and immediately got in touch with Sir Charles Bagot, who entirely approved in principle but apparently left the colleges to conduct their own negotiations.22 Meanwhile Principal Liddell, who as the term ended was preparing to leave for Scotland to bring out his family and to secure the additional professor, also wrote to Morris urging an arrangement which would leave secular education to King's and allow Queen's to concentrate on theological education.23 By the end of the summer, Morris and the Board of Trustees were, on the whole, convinced of the desirability of this step. A resolution of September 8, 1842, approved the prosecution of a plan of union, but only on terms which carefully guarded Queen's claims to financial support and to a share in the government of what would be the provincial university. Principal Liddell and Hon. John Hamilton, chairman of the board, were appointed to go to Toronto to lay their proposal before the Council of King's College. Their advances, however, received little favour from the members of the council and finally were rejected by the president, Strachan, who informed them "that he did not feel it to be his duty to bring such a subject under discussion or consideration by the Council."24 This rebuff did not discourage Liddell. Unlike Robert McGill, he did not even consider a secular university, but neither could he see a useful role for an unendowed one. Throughout 1843 he seems to have worked patiently, on the one hand with the members of the Executive Council, now of course resident in Kingston, the capital, and on the other hand with Egerton Ryerson, in the hope of securing a university bill which would be acceptable to Queen's and also to the newly chartered Victoria College at Cobourg. There was no thought of satisfying Bishop Strachan, but there was a good prospect of winning over many Anglicans, from the reputed radical Robert Baldwin to the moderate William Draper. The result was Baldwin's University Bill introduced to the legislature early
41 "Deep Humiliation"
42 Queen's university
in November 1843. The bill provided for a renunciation of degree-granting powers by King's, Queen's, Victoria, and Regiopolis Colleges in favour of a new University of Upper Canada to be situated at Toronto. Each of the three chartered colleges would retain its identity in association with the university, and would give instruction to its own theological students; Queen's and Victoria would each receive a small grant from the ample endowment which had been King's, and all would have a share in the government of the university. Baldwin's bill was welcomed by Liddell and the Board of Trustees, but with important reservations. The trustees objected to the omission of a religious test for members of the governing body, and to the very inadequate endowment offered to Queen's and to Victoria. Liddell in the name of the board also protested strongly against the proposal to admit other denominational colleges on such easy financial conditions that the dignity of the university and the quality of education might be gravely threatened. Egerton Ryerson, speaking personally but representing generally the views of the Methodists on Victoria College, agreed with these objections and was indeed unenthusiastic about the union since the Methodists wished to give a complete university course at Victoria. Liddell at first had every hope of securing satisfactory amendments to the bill, but he was disappointed. At this moment political and constitutional issues cut across the course of cultural history. Sir Charles Metcalfe, the governor general, who had succeeded the dying Bagot in March 1843, was' like him' favourable to university reform. He was not, however, favourable to the principles of responsible government as defined by Baldwin and his colleague Lafontaine. Relations between the governor general and his ministers had become increasingly strained during the summer, and the resignation of Baldwin and Lafontaine at the end of November killed the University Bill. This proved to be only the first of a series of similar disappointments over the next four years.25 It is intriguing to try to imagine a federated university which would have brought together on one campus John Strachan, Egerton Ryerson, and Thomas Liddell, to say nothing of their vigorous and diverse followers. But such imaginings soon dissolve into mere fantasy, leaving behind only the cold fact that during the first year of its precarious existence Queen's had been put up for sale by its progenitors and had found no takers. Another event of the summer of 1842 was felt at the time to be both embarrassing and humiliating. Although the position of chairman of the board of trustees was, by the charter, to be filled by election once a year, the board assumed that Morris's initial "appointment" as it was called, was permanent. There was proportionate dismay when in October 1842 he suddenly resigned in pique at a report that Rev. John Machar had criticized him, apparently for excessive preoccupation with political matters. Challenged at the board meeting Machar replied that his remarks had been confidential. As they had been re-
peated to Morris's brother James by no less a person than Hon. John Hamilton, member of the Legislative Council of united Canada, the whole matter, debated by the trustees over a period of four hours, was undoubtedly embarrassing enough.26 It was the more serious because it brought to the surface one of the causes of tension which had existed in the board from the beginning. As has been seen, Morris, and to a lesser degree his friend Harper, were anticlerical, resenting the strong clerical element in the university which they believed should be chiefly in the hands of laymen. From the first drafting of the Bill of Incorporation Morris had deplored clerical influence on the board, and clerical control of church property. He also complained constantly of the incompetence and secretiveness of the Canadian clergy, who were inclined to make arrangements among themselves, and even with their Scottish brethren overseas, without informing the chairman of the board. In addition a measure of mutual distrust had existed between Morris and Machar from the first meeting of the board when Dr. Cook had proposed Machar as the chairman of the board - a proposal which Morris would resent not only on principle but as showing a want of appreciation for his services to the university. On the other hand Machar as honestly, and one might say as reasonably, distrusted excessive lay power in certain matters. He believed strongly in the advantage of securing professors from Scotland, for example, because of his fear of lay influence over appointments made in Canada. "I am/' he wrote to Dr. Robert Burns of Glasgow, "very far from being sanguine as to our choosing the best men among us. I have been unwilling to say a word of disapprobation about the composition of the College trusteeship and I say it now to yourself only, lest I do evil, but I don't altogether like it. I don't like the preponderance of laymen among us. We ministers may at any time be outvoted, and have a man brought in against our will by laymen less qualified by far than the ministers to judge of the fitness of persons for such offices, and not at all unlikely in the case of a plausible and showy candidate to take part against the ministers."27 There was thus an honest and natural difference of opinion, each man believing that competence rested with his party. Because members of the college staff were and for some time would be ministers of the church, and because members from outside Kingston were often unable to attend, Morris had to face the prospect of working indefinitely with a practical clerical majority. There was also, no doubt, a personality clash. Morris was calm, efficient, honest, and just, and as free from "enthusiasm" as any good eighteenth-century churchman. Machar, frail in health, but intensely devout, earnest, and conscientious, had all the evangelical fervour of the early Victorians. Neither could fully appreciate the qualities of the other. And so Queen's lost an excellent and hard-working chairman and, perhaps, a valuable friend. There is reason to believe that, the plan of union with King's
43 "Deep Humiliation
44
Queen's University
5 John Machar, Principal 1846-1853
having failed, Morris ceased to have much exclusive concern for Queen's after he had left the chairmanship of the board. In 1844 he even tried to lure Professor Williamson away by offering to recommend him for the chair of mathematics and natural philosophy at King's at a salary of £500 a year and a house. Morris may been concerned to serve both King's and Williamson, but one must wonder whether he would have made this tempting offer had he still been chairman of the board at Queen's.28 It was during the year following Morris' resignation, while hopes for union with King's College still persisted, that Queen's was struck by the most severe blow, the deepest humiliation of all, a sharp and complete division of the newly united Canadian Synod as a result of the "Great Disruption" which occurred in the Scottish church in 1843. Causes of a major religious schism are always complex, but in Scotland the 45 main issue was clear enough. By custom there, as in England, the church "Deep accepted lay patrons, traditionally descendants of those who had built or en- h u umi latlon dowed a local church, and who therefore claimed the right to nominate the minister. The practice was open to abuse, but for long had been treated with the indulgence generally accorded to abuses hallowed by tradition. The religious revolution of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries in Britain, however, had drawn attention to the scandal of a practice naturally repugnant to a people of independent minds and strong theological opinions. After four years of fruitless search for compromise, the opponents of lay patronage, the "nonintrusionist" ministers, took what they believed to be the only right course: to the number of 474 they left the church, renouncing their homes and incomes and trusting for support to the voluntary adherents of their cause. This support was generously given; the next few years saw the erection of upwards of 500 churches and the collection of one and a quarter million pounds. Among Church of Scotland folk in Canada there was much disgust at the spread of this controversy to a country where the rights of patronage did not exist and where there was no real equivalent to the Scottish state church. Church of Scotland members in Canada accused the exponents of the Free Church of sheer factionalism. They were right, but only in a strictly theoretical and doctrinal sense. The Free Church group had become aroused to the difficult problem of the entire relationship between church and state and had come to believe that any church must be corrupted by any kind of dependence on the state. More subtly the Free Church people probably discerned among some of their colleagues that lack of evangelical fervour, that gentle, upright, and complacent worldliness excellently expressed by William Morris's friend the merchant John Mowat of Kingston as he reflected on possible professions for his son:
What do you think of the idea of binding yourself to the law for five years, say to commence the ensuing spring? ... Should you decline this, which you are at perfect liberty to do, we will have the affair narrowed so far that the Bar will be set aside, then we will have the Church and Medicine to deal with, and Trade, the latter comprehends as you know, merchandise and banking.29
46 Queen's University
To the products of the evangelical revival a passage such as this in the letter of a Presbyterian father to his young son would be in itself a scandal against the church. It was the duty of a father, far from presenting the ministry to his son as a respectable alternative to other learned professions, to urge him before he considered entering it to test his vocation, to count the cost, to remember the doom of those who should set their hand to the plow and then turn back. Such counsel when offered might sometimes be mere cant, but it did represent a fervent conviction among many who, having repudiated all worldly ambition anf j worcjly rewards, could easily believe that the comfortable and secure connection with the state was corrupting. Part of the case of the Church of Scotland for support was that it, like the Church of England, served to cultivate obedience to law, loyalty to Britain, and repudiation of republicanism. The support of the state was in a sense a "fee for service." This idea was repugnant to many Canadian Presbyterians. As one of them wrote to Morris, any connection between the church and state was undemocratic, assuming as it did that some sects were more loyal than others, and unspiritual, in that it made the church appear to serve the state.30 From a particular quarrel over one issue, therefore, the controversy had become a general difference over the question of church and state relations. The Free Church side was warmly espoused by two recent immigrants to Canada, Peter and George Brown, who had been encouraged to move from New York to Toronto by exponents of Free Church doctrines including Rev. William Rintoul and Isaac Buchanan, a wealthy Toronto merchant. These men were prepared to assist in the launching of a journal favourable to their cause. The result was the Banner, primarily religious in interest, to be followed in the spring of 1844 by the primarily political and much more famous Globe. Western Ontario, already inclining to the Free Church, had found in George Brown a leader of great ability and of extraordinary energy. The Free Church cause was also, to the indignation of its Church of Scotland opponents, warmly espoused by representatives of Scotland, including Rev. Robert Burns, founder of the Glasgow Colonial Society and one of the early Scottish friends of Queen's. Many Canadian Presbyterians therefore saw with dismay the culmination of the schism of 1843 in Scotland and believed, rightly, that the year of decision in Canada would be 1844. Before the Canadian Synod met in July the lines had been drawn. On July i o at the Synod meeting nineteen ministers out of a
total of some eighty-seven announced that they could no longer hold office in a Canadian church which maintained a formal connection with the Church of Scotland. These nineteen, as might have been expected, came chiefly from the western districts, eleven of them from the populous and wealthy Presbytery of Hamilton which lost half its ministers to the Free Church. Where the minister did not change the congregation might do so. St. Andrew's Church in Toronto was for years after 1844 severely handicapped by the transfer of its members to the new Knox Church which called as its minister Rev. Robert Burns, who had already been engaged in rallying Canadian Presbyterians to the Free Church cause. For the Church of Scotland in Canada the blow was severe but not crippling. There was even for a time an apparent financial advantage to some as the seceders were obliged to renounce their grants from the clergy reserves fund, leaving a larger amount per capita for the ministers who remained. For Queen's College, however, it was an unmitigated disaster. The indefatigable Dr. Burns had visited Kingston in the spring of 1844. Refused permission to speak in St. Andrew's Church, he addressed large crowds in the Methodist Church. His eloquence carried conviction to the little group of theological students at Queen's. Six out of the seven announced to Burns their intention to separate from the established Church of Scotland and to join the Free Church, and asked him to help secure professors from Scotland to organize a Free Church theological college in Canada. One of this group has left a restrained but vivid account of the crisis at Queen's and the endeavour of Dr. Liddell to counteract Dr. Burns' influence: In calling his students to account for attending Dr. Burns' address, Dr. Liddell endeavoured to draw forth their feelings of sympathy with him in the disappointment which he experienced in finding his little band of students deserting him so soon after his arrival in Canada. He stated that the now far-famed college of Princeton, N.J., began with seven theological students ; that he did not feel discouraged by the smallness of our number, but that he could not bear the thought that those to whom he had become attached, as his students, should leave him. However, conscience, and a sense of duty to Christ, impelled us onwards, though respecting our professors, and unwilling to give them pain. Hence, we took our stand according to our conviction.31 Of the six students who left Queen's, five made their way to Toronto and became the nucleus of the new Knox College, which in succeeding years flourished, teaching theology only, sending its students to King's College and later to University College for classes in arts. The formal secession at the Synod meeting on July 10 left the Church of Scotland with solid support in what was to become the chief Queen's constit-
47 "Deep Humiliation"
48 Queen"s University
uency in the eastern part of the province. It is, however, notable that whereas in 1843 twenty-nine congregations had exercised the right to nominate trustees, in 1846 only thirteen sent in lists, suggesting a loss of support and interest out of proportion to the numbers of the seceding ministers.32 Two of the most energetic of the original members of the Board of Trustees, William Rintoul of Streetsville and Alexander Gale of Hamilton, joined the Free Church, leaving Queen's in the west to the ambivalent support of Robert McGill, who within two years was to move to Montreal. Financially the schism made Queen's position worse. A special effort made in 1844 to gather in overdue subscriptions from the original endowment campaign bogged down, not merely because of growing Free Church sympathies but because, it was said, the whole future of Queen's was now uncertain.33 The birth of the college had been materially assisted by the union of the Synods in 1840; now the church had fallen apart again and the theological class, prime motive Queen's for the foundation, had for the time being almost disappeared. In the fall of ^44 only three theology students registered at Queen's. The year of the disruption was in more ways than one a critical one for Canada West. Baldwin and the reform group, having resigned on the responsible government issue in November 1843, were replaced on the Executive Council by a group of conservative ministers under William Draper. This council was at first politically very weak but it gained strength as moderate forces, including Egerton Ryerson and the Methodists, who were fearful for the monarchical principle and the connection with Great Britain, rallied to the support of Governor General Metcalfe and his ministers. Increasingly prominent among the opposition to the Draper ministry and to Ryerson was the Free Church leader George Brown, working through the columns of his new organ, the Globe. At first the reform party had no success. The governor general's ministers and followers won a decisive victory in Canada West at the elections held in the fall of 1844. The council was by this time reinforced by William Morris who brought with him the support of the Church of Scotland Presbyterians of Canada West; although they resented Anglican privilege they still feared republicans and secularists. In the same year Draper secured his most famous colleague, John A. Macdonald. The Draper ministry endured for three more years until early in 1848. These three years, however, saw an immense accession of power to the western reformers and to George Brown and the Globe. They also saw an increase of strength in the Presbyterian Free Church in the western areas of the province where immigration was causing a rapid increase in the population. The Lowland Scots who entered as immigrants at this time generally belonged to the Free Church, in contrast to those mainly of Highland extraction in the eastern area who adhered to the Church of Scotland. This shift of balance in religious and
political forces meant that the years 1844 to 1848 were most uncertain ones for Queen's. While a conservative ministry remained in power there was a chance that a union with King's could be concluded on favourable terms. If and when the reformers came in, however, a renewal of Baldwin's secularizing University Bill was certain. William Draper did his best. Early in March 1845 he introduced a bill drafted by William Morris which, in effect, satisfied Principal Liddell's criticisms of Baldwin's bill. The opposition, however, was too vigorous and the bill was withdrawn at the second reading. In the spring of 1846 the bill was again presented, but not as a government measure. Opposed not only by Baldwin with his supporters but by the friends of King's College, it was defeated.34 The defeat put an end to all real hope of a federation of denominational colleges sharing equitably in the original endowment of King's. Realization of this fact brought on a crisis in the affairs of Queen's and, apparently, revealed a profound division in the ranks of the trustees. Some had always been opposed to the move to Toronto and to union with King's.36 The disruption of 1844 and the increasing and obvious concentration of Church of Scotland support in the Kingston area could only strengthen this feeling. On the other hand, the disruption with all its weakening of material support, and the reinforcement of western secularists by Free Church Presbyterians who believed most firmly in the separation of church and state, could do nothing but confirm the views of those like McGill and Harper and Principal Liddell, who from 1842 had become convinced that Queen's must have state support or remain a feeble imitation of the small American "Bible colleges" which they regarded with aristocratic disdain. It was in 1846 that Robert McGill, now minister of St. Andrew's Church in Montreal, published his letters of 1842 to William Morris, letters which left no doubt of his strong opposition to any further thought of an independent university. And it was in the summer of the same year that Liddell presented his ultimatum to the board. The records of the meetings of that summer are, as usual, tantalizingly terse. It is however, recorded that in 1844 after the secession of the Free Church ministers and before the opening of the fall term Liddell had raised the question of whether the college could continue operations. Presumably he deferred action only because of the hope in 1845, extended until 1846, that the Draper-Morris bill would pass the legislature. That hope being gone by the spring of 1846 he urged the trustees to consider the only possible course open to them. To carry on with three professors was impossible. To secure more professors for so few students, eleven in 1845-46, would be, even if possible, unjustifiable. The province could support only one university. To ask Presbyterians, for the most part far from wealthy, to maintain an institution offering almost free tuition even to the sons of the well-to-do was unjust. To profess to instruct in theology youths utterly unprepared by necessary pre-
49 "Deep Humiliation"
50 Queen's University
liminary studies was a breach of trust to the church. Liddell's proposal seems to have been the same as McGill's: to reorganize Queen's as a theological college admitting only those students having an arts degree from King's or its equivalent. Having pressed these views in vain, the principal offered his resignation on July 13. Requested to give it, with his reasons, in writing, he did so at great length on July 14. With barely suppressed resentment he accused his colleagues on the board of having been half-hearted and even insincere m their apparent efforts at union with King's. He reminded them that some were at that moment sending their own sons to King's College, thus showing their lack of confidence in the institution which they yet would not allow to die or to be transformed. In somewhat softer language Liddell went on to echo the views of Robert McGill. In a province such as Canada a true university could not hope for informed or intelligent support from the general public. If not adequately and securely endowed it must only deceive its constituents by undertaking what it cou,d
^
achicve
ae
If Liddell hoped that his very powerful and exhaustive statement would win over the board he was disappointed. His resignation was accepted with obviously sincere expressions of deep regret, but it was accepted. Late in July he left for New York on his way to Scotland, and he did not return. He left Queen's without a principal, almost without a staff, without money, and - too obviouslydistracted by doubt and dissension.37 Over a period of several years the Board of Trustees carried on negotiations, direct and indirect, for Liddell's return. In 1849 they made a formal offer which he accepted, but at the last minute he sent an excuse and did not come. The most plausible explanation of this curious indecision on the part of a man who gave no other evidence of being weak or wavering in his judgment is that he may have hoped even as late as 1849 tnat a majority of the board might come over to his views and operate a theological college in cooperation with King's, or with the University of Toronto to which King's endowment was transferred by the act of 1849. There is no direct evidence for this but it may be offered as a plausible explanation of the apparent vacillation of an able man, who for all his apparently cavalier treatment of the Board of Trustees, retained his friendship with individual members of that group.38
FOUR
The'fflk'Qj® For three years after Liddell's departure the "university question" along with other great questions of the day remained unsettled. As the great disruption on ecclesiastical issues, which seemed alien to Canada, had profoundly affected religious and educational affairs in Canada West, so Britain's repeal of the corn laws, a primarily domestic issue, caused immediate and painful repercussions in North America and especially in the St. Lawrence colony. It so happened that the series of measures which preceded the repeal, aimed at facilitating the import of wheat grown abroad, had also, through colonial preferences, given an artificial stimulus to trade along the St. Lawrence waterway and to the business of Canadian millers and grain dealers. They now feared, and feared excessively, the competition that they must henceforth meet from Americans taking their grain through their own waterways to Britain's now unprotected market. The outlook in 1846, therefore, seemed gloomy. There was, however, more than this to irritate the merchants of Montreal. How long, without the tariff change, Britain might have continued to support Metcalfe's policy of refusing to recognize the Baldwin claim for responsible government is uncertain. The adoption of free trade, however, appeared to many in Britain and especially to the triumphant free traders, to take away the principal reason for maintaining an empire which had grown up as a vast centrally controlled customs union. There appeared to be little reason now for not taking the step which had been made almost inevitable by the policies of Sydenham and Bagot, a clear if unofficial recognition that the governor general henceforth, ignoring special claims of any so-called loyal party, should give undivided support to any group able to command a majority in the assembly. This was in fact the policy of the new governor general, Lord Elgin, who arrived in 1848. The elections of that year having given the reformers control of the house were followed by the resignation of Draper and his moderate group. Elgin immediately associated the reform leaders, Baldwin and Lafontaine, with himself in naming a new ministry, promising them his full confidence and sup-
51 The Bible College
52 Queen's University
port — a promise which he kept at some cost to the province and to himself during the riotous scenes in Montreal at the time of the passing of the Rebellion Losses Bill in 1849. The consequence of this relatively peaceful but fundamental constitutional change was clear from the beginning to the trustees and friends of Queen's University. The secularizing views of Baldwin and the reform party, strengthened by the increasing members of Free Church Presbyterians, would now certainly be put into effect. The large educational and religious endowments of the church in Canada East would of course be respected, but in Canada West the radicals would have their way. Baldwin's University Act of 1849 did, as was expected, create a completely secular University of Toronto, with no religious tests for trustees or faculty and no religious affiliations of any kind. The entire endowment's of King's was transferred to the new university. The existing chartered colleges were invited to move to Toronto, retaining their religious and corporate character but surrendering to the new provincial university their right to grant any degrees except those in theology. The distracting religious feuds of the past decade and more, the strong secular influence from the United States, and the vehement opposition of Free Church Scottish Presbyterians to any connection between church and state, all made some such settlement a political necessity. It is, however, a truism to say that measures dictated by political necessity may not fully satisfy even a majority of those concerned. Strachan's vigorous rejection of the "godless university" has been dismissed as an outburst of illtemper and bigotry. But Strachan, though overbearing, was no bigot. The course of university history in the next few years shows the strong support accorded to his essential view that a secular university was undesirable. His successful creation of Trinity College in 1851, the persistent aloofness of the Methodist Victoria College, and the dogged determination of Queen's to go on if necessary with no support outside the Church of Scotland in Canada, are evidence that many who disagreed with Strachan in everything else were reluctant to see university education wholly divorced from the church and from religious teaching.1 The position of Queen's was clearly expressed by the board in a petition against the bill and also in a public appeal to the church. The exclusion of any religious test, even the moderate one imposed by the revised charter of King's, was stated to be wholly unacceptable; and the board noted its regret that the elimination of the religious character of the university was the only alteration made in an academic program badly in need of reform.2 In its address to the legislature the board endeavoured to answer fully the arguments in favour of the apparently modern conception of "one university" in the province. The policy was said to be as unacceptable to the spirit of the age as it was to the condition of the country. "The spirit of the present age is adverse to monopoly of every kind. ... When a wholesome and honourable competition, one great
stimulus to every exertion is removed, nothing else can supply its place" - a shrewd retort to the secularists who were in general warmly in favour of free trade. As for the condition of the country: "If the number of students in Canada increase as there is every reason to believe that it will, and if they should be compelled to attend one university, their very numbers would prove a source of inefficiency to the institution ... when classes increase much beyond a certain number it becomes impossible to exercise a thorough individual supervision" — a prophetic glimpse of university troubles in the twentieth century. Meanwhile, few as the total number of students might be, it would be a hardship to those from distant parts of the province to travel to Toronto where living was expensive and summer employment rendered impossible by the adoption of the English term system.3 In short Queen's would not surrender its costly charter under the terms of this wholly unacceptable act, but would, if necessary, carry on with the sole support of the Canadian church.4 Other reasons for this decision were explained clearly to the members of the church. The need for ministers was urgent; any interruption of the studies of the young men or any deterrent to even a few prospective students should be avoided. Moreover, the Roman Catholics had recently established Regiopolis College in Kingston. To the Church of Scotland people this seemed to constitute an English outpost of the almost solid French Roman Catholic community down river. Should Queen's move to Toronto there would not be one Protestant college left in all the eastern districts of Canada West from Montreal to Cobourg.5 Equally strong, perhaps, if not so clearly expressed, was a sense of the subtle connection between Queen's and its own special environment. Although there was no formal test for professors or students6 every trustee was a member of the "Kirk," every professor an ordained minister, and these two groups were closely linked with each other and with the Synod by overlapping membership. Queen's was solidly Church of Scotland and henceforth would be dependent on that church support. It was surely the part of prudence to stay in that part of the province where the church was the strongest and from where links with the wealthy and generous congregations in Quebec and Montreal could most easily be maintained.7 Moreover, a move to Toronto would be dangerous. After 1849, indeed, there was no likelihood of the worldly-minded being attracted by the green pastures of the disinherited King's College, but the evangelicals would be exposed to the eloquence of Dr. Burns, who had in 1844 carried away all but one of the flock from Kingston. Although the whole university question was thus publicly reviewed by the trustees and others at the time of Baldwin's act of 1849, events showed that the real decision had been made three years earlier in the desperate summer of 1846 when the trustees, having rejected the proposals and accepted the resignation of Principal Liddell, had determined to carry on at Kingston. The board at this time appealed to and was supported by the Synod and the church as a
53 The Bible College
54 Queen's University
whole. From 1848 Queen's received additional support from an important publication, The Presbyterian, launched by a committee of the Lay Association of Montreal. This monthly journal gave full and friendly reports of college activities and strove to stir up support by exhortations of a kind which have been resounding in Canadian ears ever since: "One of the grand defects of the Canadian character is the want of self-dependence - we lack the untiring energy and invincible determination of our neighbours oh the other side of line 45. We expect everything to be done for us. ... They know the kindly interest of the Church of Scotland ... but that very knowledge should stimulate our exertion."8 In July 1846, however, the trustees had to make immediate arrangements for the fall opening in the hope that their faith would be justified by support from the church. LiddelPs resignation following the departure of Professor Campbell in 1845 left them with only one professor, James Williamson. One must suppose that some trustees had known Liddell's mind and their own, and had done some preliminary planning, for the day the principal's resignation was accepted it was agreed to appoint Rev. John Machar as principal, and as professors Rev. George Romanes, Hugh Urquhart, and James George, the first to teach classical literature and the other two theology. The new principal and all three of the newly appointed professors would remain in charge of their parishes: Dr. Machar of St. Andrew's in Kingston was on the spot; Professor Romanes's parish in Smith's Falls was not completely out of reach, and presumably managed on "pulpit supply"; Professors Urquhart and George of Brockville and Scarborough were each to lecture for six weeks only.9 This admittedly temporary arrangement was to be continued for the next six years except that Professor Romanes, whose appointment had been made officially full-time with salary, achieved by some means a substantial increase in his estate, and left for Scotland to enjoy it in i85o.10 He was replaced by Rev. Malcolm Smith of Gait. Thus Queen's with five professors, all clerics, three of them also in charge of parishes, and two of these resident for, at most, six weeks in the year, seemed to be fulfilling Liddell's prophecy; having laid aside the early dreams of rivalling Cambridge and Aberdeen, it was apparently on the way to becoming that typical North American product, a frontier Bible college. One can then only admire and wonder at the confidence that inspired Dr. Machar at the fall opening of 1856 when he delivered "an able and appropriate address," "in the presence of trustees, professors, students and others," "on the inducements that should lead young men to pursue a course of academical study and the manner in which they ought to conduct themselves," and followed this orientation course with an emphatic enumeration of the advantages of Queen's a central location, comfortable and inexpensive board, and a system of bursaries. He hoped to see the day "when the youth will flock to our colleges to imbibe the lessons of science, literature and religion." The Scottish Home and Mission-
ary Record reporting the affair quoted a remark of the local paper that "the state and prospects of the institution are more favourable this session than they have been for some years past."11 This optimistic comment was not entirely unjustified. Queen's, forced into competition with Victoria which had with government aid erected a substantial building, and with the University of Toronto which in 1849 took over both building and endowment from King's, did manage in spite of the shocks of 1844 and 1846 to maintain and increase its enrolment from ten in 1842 to something over forty in 1850, developing the local constituency in the St. Lawrence-Ottawa triangle, and still attracting some from the lower province, from Scotland, and even from the west.12 An important auxiliary activity and a potential feeder to the college almost from the beginning was the Queen's College School. Hon. John Hamilton, disliking the trustees of the local school, had suggested as early as 1840 that a school should be opened in connection with the college. Nothing was done at se this time, but the inadequate preparation of the first students of Queen's forcedn"s forced the professors to take some measures. Informal coaching in the spring term of 1842 was succeeded in the fall by something like a regular school conducted by Professor Campbell during that winter. The board took over the school in the summer of 1843. The instruction was given by a series of theological students who were obliged by want of funds to interrupt or delay their own studies, thus establishing the time-honoured tradition of the "teaching assistant."18 The basic curriculum of the school was the three R's supplemented by a classical course for those who wished to enter the university. The school grew much more rapidly than the college, reaching a number of well over sixty by 1850, by which time it had achieved a staff of headmaster and one or more assistants. The board was frequently importuned by the teachers for additions and improvements to the very modest accommodation and equipment provided, one teacher pointing out that the provision of desks with shelves would prevent the students from flinging their books into boxes strewn over the floor or onto the floor itself. There was, however, some doubt among board members whether even the modest costs of the school should be defrayed from the university endowment, and in the critical summer of 1846 it was decided that the school must be closed. Whether informal instruction went on is uncertain, but partly at least through the efforts of Professor Williamson the school was reopened formally in the summer of 1847. The school apparently met a genuine local need as well as being of material service to the college. It was inexpensive to operate, the students' fees, as their numbers grew, providing more than the salary of the teacher. The additional expenses, however, continued to disturb some of the trustees. In 1847 and again in 1852 it was objected that the board had no power under the charter to manage a school. The objections were overruled, but in 1852 three Montreal
55 The Bible College
56 Queen's university
members, Rev. Robert McGill and Hugh Allan of Montreal and Rev. Dr. Cook of Quebec, entered a protest on the minutes accusing the board of misappropriation of the trust funds. The school, however, which had in effect founded itself in 1842, was too useful to be dispensed with.14 Another institution essential to the college was the student residence, or in the more forthright terms of that day, a boardinghouse for the students. The need for one was recognized from the beginning. Whatever Dr. Machar might think, Kingston boardinghouses seemed expensive to students and those who came alone from tiny farms and villages were sometimes unfit to look after themselves, and were unfit also, their parents believed, to be exposed unsupervised to the delights and temptations of this metropolis of six thousand souls. The Kingston Chronicle and Gazette complained that Kingston swarmed with taverns and drinking shops on Queen Street - eleven in a distance of two hundred yards. This evil was attributed not to incurably intemperate habits but to the want of adequate housing which deprived people of the normal comforts Qf a nouse The transfer of the capital to Montreal must have eased the pressure, but there is no doubt that the boardinghouse would provide something of the "social comfort and domestic enjoyment" recommended by the Chronicle as useful in "staying the progress of vice and overcoming habits of intemperance and brutish sensuality."15 If the need was obvious, however, the means of satisfying it were hard to come by. Neither the little house on Colborne Street nor the more substantial one on Princess Street had rooms to spare. For the first two years the board confined itself to resolutions requiring staff and trustees to give such help as they could to those who needed it. During that time apparently both Professor Campbell and the trustee Alexander Pringle took students into their own homes.16 For the 1844—45 term the college moved to larger premises with facilities for expansion: two houses on William Street, a vacant lot adjoining, belonging to George Browne, the architect of the Kingston City Hall. As the number of students dropped to ten in this year of disruption, it was apparently found possible to accommodate them in the college buildings, and a cook was engaged. The arrangement must have been improvised as the fees to be paid by the students were not fixed until the spring. The following year Principal Liddell, Dr. Williamson, and John Mowat were appointed a committee of general superintendence, with Mowat looking after the purchase of furniture. By 1847 under a new arrangement Alexander Pringle, who had befriended the students at the beginning, was put in charge of the house and apparently he and his wife took over the housekeeping duties. In 1850 on the death of Pringle the supervision was transferred to John Campbell, teacher of the preparatory school, John Anderson who became a notable Queen's character being engaged as janitor.17 A college residence brings its own problems, or perhaps one should say, offers
57
The Bible College
6 John Cook, Principal 1857-1859 and Chancellor 1877-1879
58 Queen's mversity
a new learning experience. In the fall of 1850 Professor Williamson on behalf of the committee of supervision drafted for the approval of the Senate and the board "laws for the good government of the University of Queen's." Although no religious test was required, attendance at daily prayers and at church, as well as at classes was obligatory. Forbidden were the use of profane language, gunpowder and firearms, "ardent spirits," and tobacco (in the college); also keeping of dogs, wrestling, fighting, and "pelting with snowballs," and "getting in and out of the College buildings by other than the ordinary mode of ingress and egress." The college buildings were locked at 10 p.m. No doubt a minimum observance of these rules was encouraged by the provision of an increasing number of bursaries, traditionally given and held on condition of good behaviour. That the boardinghouse was appreciated by the parents is suggested by the fact that in the spring of 1851 the father of one student sent in money which was apparently considerably overdue for his son's board, offering, if required, to pay interest on the amount. The boardinghouse £ ^ universjty hac} ^o be closed in 1854 when Queen's moved from the f Qr William Street establishment on to the present campus, but it was continued for the college school.18 Critics of Queen's at this time, notably those who were sincerely promoting the cause of one university for the province, asserted that it was ridiculous for a college so small and poor to call itself a university. No doubt it was, but the name had been assumed in confidence and was cherished in the hope that if the quality of life and instruction could be maintained the deficiencies of poverty would in time be remedied. Under the anxious leadership of Dr. Machar the college was saved from falling into the fatal complacency of the small private school. There is no evidence of complacency among Queen's staff or trustees at this time, and every indication that the instruction was serious and solid. The curriculum by twentieth-century standards was narrow but formidable. First-year students did Latin, Greek, and mathematics, second-year students more of the same, and in the third year logic, moral philosophy, and natural philosophy were added. The report of the examination for 1848 shows that the visiting examiner was invited to test the senior Latin class in Horace, Cicero, and Juvenal and the Greek class in Euripides, Sophocles, and Xenophon. It was not "morceaux choisis" but large blocks of these formidable authors that the young men read. Daily exercises in translating English into Latin and Greek were occasionally varied by putting Latin into Greek and Greek into Latin. As a relief from the classics the students did mathematical exercises, the college boasting of maintaining a high standard in this subject. Professor Williamson, along with mathematics and natural philosophy, taught classes in "rhetoric" for which essays were assigned on various subjects: "The Character of Oliver Cromwell" (written in Latin); "The Solar System"; "The Distinctions Between the Prov-
inces of Natural Philosophy and Chemistry." The essays must have been valuable independent exercises, necessary to counterbalance the long hours spent by the students under close supervision in the classroom. The report of 1852-53 explains the method of instruction in mental and moral philosophy and logic, and in the theology classes: "On each of these subjects a pretty full course of lectures was given. During the afternoon, however, the students were regularly examined on the lectures of the morning. They were also required to do a weekly essay of considerable length on some subject unfolded in the lectures." Theological students had to prepare "a skeleton of a sermon" each week, and "each according to his status delivered his weekly discourse."19 The program suggests the kind of compromise between the work of a senior secondary school and that of an adult university student which prevailed in Scottish universities, where the students were considerably younger than their English counterparts. There can be no question that students and professors at Queen's worked very hard. Whether the work was raised above drudgery would ege depend, of course, on the character and methods of the professors. The record e record of the first ten years suggests that Queen's did suffer the chronic weakness of the small and poor college, an inability to secure and retain adequate staff. Although the founders had contemplated a staff of five professors, the college in the first decade never had more than three full-time permanent members, and for much of that time only two. Of these only one, Professor Williamson, remained throughout the period. Professor Campbell, who afterwards attained eminence as the principal of Aberdeen University, was attracted home to a Scottish parish in 1845; Principal Liddell followed the next year; Professor Romanes, Campbell's replacement, as has been said returned to Scotland in 1850; Principal Machar for a number of years insisted that he was only acting principal and constantly urged the board to make a permanent appointment.20 If the Scottish link helped to keep up sound standards, it could, unhappily, facilitate the journey home for able and ambitious men. All young universities meet this problem. Most prefer to have able men for a short time to retaining mediocrities permanently. Although precise evidence is hard to come by, judged by their writings, their reputation, their associations, it is probably accurate to say that Liddell, Campbell, Williamson, Machar, and Romanes were able, and perhaps very able, men. One evidence of this is the determination to keep in close touch with scholarship abroad, as shown by their creation and development of the Queen's library. Some of the works in the library came from friends in Scotland and elsewhere who were asked for gifts of books. It was perhaps in this way that the college secured standard works in theology, classics, and a considerable collection of medical books. It was, however, through purchase that the library secured the works of Niebuhr, the modern founder of classical history and the volumes of
59 The Bible College
60 Queen's mversi y
Grote, Niebuhr's English disciple and popularizer. The records, oddly, suggest that the library outstripped Grote, since a list of books for 1853 includes Grote's work in ten volumes. The final volumes were not published until 1856. Dr. Machar ordered them as they appeared and was eagerly awaiting the most recent in the summer of i85i.21 It is almost unnecessary to mention that the library boasted a complete run of the Edinburgh Review which began publication in 1802, and substantial runs of that other great current periodical, the Quarterly Review. Meanwhile Dr. Williamson, so burdened with teaching that he resigned, first as secretary to the Board of Trustees, and then as trustee, kept up his membership in the British Association for the Advancement of Science, contantly sent over modest orders for scientific apparatus, found time to correspond with W.E.Logan, appointed head of the Canadian geological survey in i842,22 and undertook geological expeditions about Kingston and beyond with Rev. Andrew Bell, a fellow enthusiast. In 1849 the library and equipment together were insured for £900. Perhaps ^ t & board thought that the college had enough books, for Machar was able to extract no more than £10 for the library in that year. By 1853 a small regular grant was assured through the appropriation of the matriculation fees (£ I for each student) for the purchase of books.23 Inadequate though the library may have been in size, the careful selection and the steady acquisition of recent publications must have done something to show to the students the atmosphere of a university community. Another ingredient in the temper of the institution that was being developed in these troubled years was an immense moral seriousness, a sense of mission. This was partly because of the pressure on the institution from the Synod and the church. Everyone knew that the life of the Church of Scotland in Canada depended on the ability of Queen's to offer a Presbyterian alternative to the University of Toronto and the Free Church Knox College. But behind that there is obvious in the college a kind of focusing of all the energy and moral earnestness which characterized the church of the day. Work, study, prayer, selfimprovement in every sense of the word, were deemed essential to happiness in this world and the next. In Queen's under Dr. Machar, the ideal of strenuous labour, so typical of a theology that repudiated works, was constantly held before the students. The principal's convocation sermon in April 1849 gives some idea of the atmosphere of the institution on what has since come to be regarded principally as a festive occasion. Having congratulated the young men on the privilege of returning to their homes after the year's study, Machar continued: Those of you who ... have zealously devoted yourselves to the prosecution of your studies ... are now reaping a high reward in the consequences of well-doing.
They ought not to rest on their oars, however: Count not as though you had already attained, but press on... But with you who have neglected the proper work of the place, and frittered away your precious hours and opportunities in idleness and folly, how different is the case. Your residence here has been anything but agreeable; and now the review of it, unless you are lost to a sense of everything noble, is stinging you with regret, and covering you with shame. - and so on, for several hundred words, urging repentance and reform before it should be too late, "lest the die with you be cast and your prospects of usefulness and happiness be forever darkened."24 As everyone of the small company present would know exactly who the culprits were, one can only assume that for some the spring convocation would be an uncomfortable, even a dreaded occasion. The sermon was not always quite so personal, but in intensity and solemnity it varied little from this standard. No doubt some of the young gentlemen, if permitted by their parents, would endeavour to laugh it off, but it would not be easy to neglect the judgment of a man widely respected and well-known by the students, known not only for his diligent teaching, but for his generosity in the giving of bursaries and (one may suspect) in passing on to the college library books which had been purchased for himself.25 Although some might have found his zeal excessive, he helped establish for the institution of which he was the reluctant head a tradition of moral earnestness and purpose, the echo of which still persists even amid the nihilism of the twentieth century.
61 The Bible College
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FIVE
ItyotsandEranches: £ummMaridthe report of trustees, Apr. 30, 1889. QUL, Campbell to Ireland, Sept. 20, 1869, shows the desire of graduates for a share in university government. Ibid., report of trustees, 1877, MacKerras to Snodgrass, Aug. 26, 1874. The other surviving first trustees were John Hamilton, still chairman of the board, William T. Leach, now Archdeacon Leach, and Peter Colin Campbell, principal of Aberdeen. QUL, MacKerras to Snodgrass, Oct. 19, 1877. The traditional £300 which had been given from the beginning, £50 for scholarships, and an additional £200 granted since the financial disasters of 1868. Trustees, Oct. 26, 1875The grants continued until 1886, progressively reduced from $2,658.33 in 1879 *° $243.05 in 1886. Trustees, June 4, 1864, March 1865. QUL, C.W. Malloch to Snodgrass, Apr. 26, 1866. Ibid., report of Snodgrass on conference with medical faculty, July 25, 1866; Trustees, June 10, 1865. Dr. Dickson joined the new college as a leading member, but Dr. Horatio Yates and his brother held aloof. Trustees, Apr. 27, June 8, Aug. 29, 1866; Apr. 26, June 8, 1867; Senate, Mar. 2, May 20, 1868, Feb. 26. 1869, Mar- 5> l873Senate, Mar. 29, Apr. 25, 1870, Mar. 28, Aug. 8, 1871, Mar. 5, 1873, Mar. 24, 1877. EIGHT
1 PAC, Grant Papers, Dec. 12, 1878. 2 For registrations see printed lists in Queen's calendars, yearly reports of trustees to the Synod and to the Colonial Committee in QUL, and Senate, Apr. 23, 1877. 3 Synod Papers, report of James Williamson, June 7, 1871. McKillop considered a sum of about $170, but he included $50 for clothing. QUL, Sept. 23, 1875, McKillop to Snodgrass. 4 Senate, Apr. 24, 1868, Apr. 26, 1870, Feb. 12, 1876; QUL, report of Trustees to Synod,
317 notes to pages 121-32
318 Notes to pages 132-35
Spring 1865. In 1867-68, 13 out of 25 matriculants obtained scholarships. In 1865-66, $1,300 was offered for competition in bursaries, scholarships, and prizes, or an average of $26 for each student in attendance. In addition all those students who qualified for the ministry and who were ordained could claim a refund of tuition fees paid. Ten years later there was a substantial increase in scholarship funds, about $1,800 being available in each session, $1,200 of which was reserved for students preparing for the Presbyterian ministry. In 1876 there were 59 students in arts and n in theology. Assuming there were 25 or even 30 preparing for the church, there would be available an average of $40 each with an expectation of a refund of tuition fees. There were also seven prizes of $25 each, and one of $40 for essays, so that eight young men would receive in the spring a substantial contribution to the expenses of the following year. 5 QUL, Apr. 25, 1867, Synod to Board of Trustees. 6 Jane Austen and E.B.Browning were known by their own names, the Brontes only by pen names, although the true authorship of their works was well known by this time. Mrs. Susannah Moodie, whose works in the Canadian Garland and elsewhere were well o nown, had known, had with her husband been an early patron of Queen's. 7 Trustees, Apr. 29, 1870; Senate, Apr. 26, 1870. The report to the Synod in 1871 mentioned the success of the classes and also of weekly lectures given by the professors to the general public on literary and scientific subjects. The professors gave the class fees to a fund for providing gas lighting in Convocation Hall. QUL, report of trustees to Synod, Apr. 27, 1871. 8 Senate, Oct. 13, 1876. This was in response to the request of Miss de St. Remy, headmistress of a girls' high school in Kingston. 9 Journal, Dec. 16, 1876, Jan. 12, 27, Feb. 10, Mar. 10, 1877. 10 QUL, Robert Jardine to Snodgrass, Mar. 7, 1867, Charles McEachern to Snodgrass, Dec. 26, 1876. 11 MacKerras, Dupuis, Watson, and Ferguson. D.D.Calvin, although he states correctly the year of their appointment, deals with Dupuis and Watson in a section headed "Grant's Men." In fact, Grant inherited them both, Dupuis' original appointment dating back to the time of Principal Leitch. 12 For MacKerras' letter of application and testimonial, see QUL, 1864. 13 Snode^rass commented on his "passion" for the college — "Did you ever know the like of it?"-and remarked that although at first he demanded too much of his students, he soon corrected this fault. PAC, Grant Papers, Snodgrass to Grant, Feb. 9, 1880. 14 QUL, Bell to Snodgrass, June 5, 1865. Bell, a graduate of McGill, was taken on the staff of the Geological Survey under Sir William Logan. He became director of the survey, remained a friend of Queen's, and received an LL.D. in 1883. 15 Trustees, Mar. 25, 1868. In April 1870 the two salaries were put together and Dupuis was paid $1,000 a year. Trustees, Apr. 29, 1870. 16 R.C.Wallace, ed., Some Great Men of Queen's, pp. 51-70. That some students perceived Dupuis' weakness appears from a story in the Queen's Review. A wooden building erected on the campus in the 18905 for mechanical equipment was to have been called "the Machine Shop," but Dupuis had insisted on the more dignified name "the Mechanical Laboratory." The athletic committee, having raised (they said) $7,000 for the building and having expected to be given adequate space for their activities in it were annoyed when they were put off with a little space on the top floor and a shower in the basement. They took their revenge one night by painting in very large letters across the upper part of the shed-light building, "Tool House." Dupuis was naturally annoyed. Unfortunately he gave unnecessary gratification to the students by
angrily insisting that he would resign if the culprits were not discovered and punished. QR3 (1929): H317 Journal, Dec. 10, 1890. Ferguson was the son of a successful Montreal merchant. 18 QUL, Murray to the board, May i, 1872. 19 Ibid., Edward Caird to Snodgrass, Mar. 14, 1872. 20 W.E.McNeill, "John Watson," Transactions of the Royal Society of Canada 33, sec. 5 (Ottawa: King's Printer, 1939): 159. 21 QUL, Inaugural Address, Oct. 16, 1872. 22 W.E.McNeill, p. 159. 23 Ibid. Cf. QUL, testimonial of Edward Caird, Mar. 14, 1872. 24 QUL, Inaugural Address, 1872. Watson says here that man is not independent of moral motives but shows his freedom by being governed by a sense of duty. 25 Trustees, Apr. 26, 1866, Senate, Apr. 7, 1865. See also Trustees, Apr. 28, 1865, when Snodgrass with Alexander Morris tactfully prevented the board from legislating on an academic matter which, on his motion, was referred to the Senate. Henceforth there was a tendency for business relating to property to be handled by the finance and estate committee of the board and academic matters by the Senate, both reporting to ng t "? general meetings of the board. Trustees, Apr. 24, 1873, June 2-11, 1874, Oct. 26, 1875. 26 Synod Papers, Leitch to the Synod, May 2, 1863. 27 This seems not to have been rigidly enforced for a time: as late as 1875 it was wasconceded conceded that a student who could establish advanced standing in Latin, Greek, or mathematics might complete the work for the B.A. in three sessions. 28 Senate, Jan. 27, Mar. 23, Apr. 17, 1865; Mar. 5, 25, 1866. 29 Ibid., Jan. 27, Mar. 23, Apr. 7, 1865, Apr. 23, 1867, Oct. 23, 1873. 30 Ibid., Mar. 29, 1875. 31 QUL, Librarian's report to trustees, Apr. 10, 1866. 32 Ibid., Jan. 15, Aug. 12, 1867, and other Romanes letters in this period. 33 Journal, Oct. 20, 1874. A catalogue printed in 1875 shows that by that date Queen's was already in possession of at least a part of its remarkable collection of bibles, including the Walton Polyglot, which had been presented to Dr. Machar. (See above, chap. 4.) 34 QUL, Apr. 18, 1877, Dec. 1876. 35 Journal, Oct. 23, 1875. 36 It seems that sports and gymnastics were no more than tolerated by the authorities. John Strange, "Queen's in the Seventies," p. 127. Strange says that Queen's played football "on the cricket field" and sent a team to Toronto in 1874. The Journal mentions football and the want of agreement about rules which caused McGill to refuse a challenge sent from Queen's in the session of 1874-75. Journal, Oct. 23, 1875. 37 For the inauguration and management of the Journal see AMS, Jan. n, 1872, Apr. 4, 1874, Oct. 20, 1877; Journal, Oct. 25, 1873, Mar. 13, 1875, Apr. 20, 1887. 38 AMS, Feb. 9, Nov. 2, 1867, Oct. 19, Nov. 9, 1872, Oct. 18, 1873, J an - 10> Dec. 12, 1874, Jan. 16, 1875. 39 Senate, Oct. 20, 1874; AMS > Dec. 18, 1875. 40 Robert Crawford, "Memories of the Sixties," p. 191. 41 According to the Journal (April 15, 1899), the first Conversazione was held in 1860, the chief mover being John Machar, founder of the Alma Mater Society. 42 Not for many years did dancing take place openly and according to an anounced plan in Convocation Hall. It was not that there was anything surreptitious about the classroom dances but there seems to have been a sense that the appearance of spontaneity
319 Notes est to pageses 136-45
,,.
320
Notes to pages I46-58
purged them of worldliness. AMS, Jan. 22, 1876. 43 QUL, W. Mundell to Snodgrass, Mar. 23, 1874. 44 Senate, Dec. 5, n, 1876; Journal, Dec. 16, 1876. 45 Snodgrass's own divinity students and seven others had refused to join the "strike." Senate, Feb. 16, 20, Mar. i, 2, 3, 1875. For an account of this incident, not entirely accurate in all details, see John Strange, p. 127. 46 QUL, R. Campbell to Snodgrass, May 3, 1876, Snodgrass to MacKerras, Aug. 23, 1877, DJ.Macdonnell to Snodgrass, Sept. 30, 1877. 47 PAC, Grant Papers, Snodgrass to Grant, Dec. 12, 1878. 48 QUL, Snodgrass to MacKerras, August 1877. 49 Ibid., Snodgrass to trustees, [September] 1877; Trustees, Sept. 14, 1877. 50 QUL, MacKerras to Snodgrass, Oct. 19, Dec. 28, 1877. 51 PAC, Grant Papers, Snodgrass to Grant, Feb. 9, 1880. 52 Ibid., Snodgrass to Grant, Dec. 12, 1878. 53 Letters to Snodgrass are to be found in QUL, September-December 1877. For an appreciation of Snodgrass by a graduate of 1872, see Malcolm McGillivray, "Makers of Queen's: Rev. William Snodgrass." 5
^
N m£ NINE
1 Journal., Dec. 22, 1887. 2 Grant's experiences are recorded in his best-known work, Ocean to Ocean (London, 1873). 3 QUA, Grant Papers, Grant to Snodgrass, Sept. 28, 1877. 4 PAC, Fleming Papers, vol. 18, letter 131, Oct. 6, 1885. The possible damage to Queen's from the Macdonnell heresy case was also a matter of anxiety to Grant. See W.L.Grant and F.C.Hamilton, Principal Grant, p. 203. 5 Journal, Dec. 15, 1877. 6 QUA, Grant Papers, Grant to Snodgrass, Sept. 28, 1877, July 17, 1878. 7 John Watson, "Thirty Years in the History of Queen's University," p. 194. 8 Reprinted in Journal, Dec. 7, i877;Nibid., Jan. 19, 1878. 9 Ibid., Apr. 27, 1878, and supp. 10 Trustees, Apr. 24, 25, 1878. 11 PAC, Grant Papers, Snodgrass to Grant, Feb. 8, 28, 1878. 12 QUL, report to General Assembly, Apr. 30, 1879. One feature of the campaign later proved embarrassing. People were encouraged to be generous by the offer of "endowment scholarships." The subscriber of $100 could nominate a student who might attend free of tuition fees. For $500 the right was made permanent to the benefactor and his heirs. The privilege proved to be an expensive burden. In 1891 Mr. Justice MacLennan gave as his private opinion that the wording of the certificate allowed the heir to attend in person only, and not to nominate another. The university seems not to have taken advantage of this opinion, but donors were asked personally to relinquish the privileges which had proved too costly for the college to bear. 13 PAC, Grant Papers, Nelles to Grant, Dec. 12, 1878, Charles Grant to Grant, Nov. 28, 1878; Grant and Hamilton, p. 225. 14 QUA, Grant Papers, Grant to Snodgrass, Dec. 31, 1878. 15 Journal, Nov. 22, 1887. 16 Trustees, Feb. 22, May 30, ^1879. 17 Journal, Oct. 30, 1880.
18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33
Ibid. Ibid., May 3, 1879. Ibid., May 7, 1881, p. 155. Grant and Hamilton, pp. 221 if., 269-70. Grant received other offers from Scotland and from the United States. QUA, Grant Papers, Grant to Beall, Oct. 10, 1892. W.S.Wallace, History of the University of Toronto, pp. 115 ff. PAG, Grant Papers, Nelles to Grant, Jan. 18, 1879, Jan. 9, 1880; QUA, Grant Papers, Grant to Snodgrass, July 17, 1878. For Grant's speeches, see QUL, Oct. 16, November, Dec. 8, 1883. Journal, June i, 1885. Council, Apr. 25, 1882. Ibid., Apr. 29, 1885. Watson, in Britain in 1888, interviewed and recommended Cappon and Macgillivray; Adam Shortt was his pupil and later his assistant. PAC, Grant Papers, Watson to Grant, July 17, 1888. Fowler had been a teacher in the provincial Normal School, Fredericton. He had few academic distinctions but was a most gifted and diligent amateur, recommended by s 3 , „ . . . , . . * the well-known American botanist, Asa Gray. „ „ For the circular, see QUL, 1887. Trustees, Apr. 26, 27, 1887. Grant and Hamilton, pp. 291-92; Trustees, Mar. 6, 1888. Geographically there is a remarkable consistency in the givings from 1870 on. Queen's was still chiefly supported by the "Kingston Triangle," Toronto, Hamilton, and Peterborough. Trustees, Sept. 18, 1888, Apr. 24, 1889, Apr. 30, 1890, Apr. 29, 1891. TEN
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
Senate, Dec. n, 1889; Journal, Jan. 15, 1890. Journal, May 4, 1889. Trustees, Apr. 27, 1898. Ibid., Apr. 26, 1893, APr- 25, 1894, Apr. 29, 1896. John Watson, "The College," p. 84. Journal, Oct 30, 1880. It may be that the Senate decision of 1893 that all proceedings of Convocation be in English rather than in the traditional Latin was a sop to this amiable Cerberus. Council, Apr. 25, 1893. 8 Journal, Nov. 8, 1890. 9 Trustees, Apr. 27, 1898. The principal apparently conducted all his own correspondence. In May 1902, after Grant's death, Watson as vice-principal asked if he might have a typewriter and $10 a month for a private secretary "so long as there is no Principal." This is the first mention of secretarial assistance for the principal since the engagement of an "amanuensis" for Principal Leitch, except that during Grant's serious illness in the fall of 1901 his son had acted as his private secretary. QUL, Watson to trustees-, May 19, 1902. 10 A.B. Nicholson was engaged as an assistant in classics at $600 in 1878. In 1890 he made a moving appeal for an increase in his salary which was still only $1,200. In that year the salary of Rev. James Fowler, Queen's eminent botanist, was raised to $1,200 and Nicholson's to $1,400. It took Adam Shortt some ten years to achieve $2,000 by the end of the century. In 1900 Professor John Macnaughton, engaged in 1889 at the
321
,. Notes t o . 0 pages 158-76
322 nOTES TO pAGES 176-82
maximum of $2,000, joined with others in protesting being kept for a decade or more on his "initial" salary, but the board with regret found that nothing could be done. 11 Finance and estate committee, 1864-89, Oct. 14, 1885; Trustees, May i, 1895, May 2 > 1900. 12 Trustees, Apr. 27, 1898. 13 Ibid., Apr. 26, 1899. 14 Ibid., Apr. 26, 1899, May 2, 1901. 15 For a comment on Grant's vigorous and exacting demands, see R.W.Brock, " 'Geordie': Some Recollections," p. 212. 16 The Temporalities Board administered the funds accruing from the sale of the clergy reserves (before secularization in 1854), from which payments were made to Anglican and Presbyterian churches. The funds were exhausted and final payments were made in 1900. Trustees, Apr. 26, 1893 (report of committee), Apr. 27, 1898, May 2, 1900. 17 Trustees' Letters, Mclver to J.D.Morice, Mar. 6, 1896, same to Mrs. Hannah Cernovsky, Apr. 27, 1885, same to P.C.MacNee, n.d., same to J.B.Mowat, Jan. 6, 1899. 18 QUL, Marshall to trustees, Apr. 26, 1897. „ tHERE IS 19 There is no evidence of when or how the principal was authorized to make this statement. Professor David Marshall, who in 1902 complained of a formal alteration in his status made without his consent, was informed that according to the statutes his appointment was during pleasure. He answered flatly that Principal Grant, acting for the trustees, had informed him (according to the regular terms used in the appointment of a university professor in Scotland) that the office was ad vitam out culpam, and that he, Marshall, would if necessary swear to this fact in a court of justice. QUL, May 7, 8, 1902 (correspondence between Marshall and the chancellor, chairman, and secretary of the board); Trustees, May i, 2, 1901, Apr. 30, 1902. 20 R. Falconer, "Scottish Influences in the Higher Education of Canada," Transactions of the Royal Society of Canada 21, sec. 2 (Ottawa: King's Printer, 1927) : 7, quoted in D.D.Calvin, Queen's University, p. 127. 21 That of the well-known economic historian, W.J.Ashley of the London School of Economics. Later Ashley went to Harvard. 22 QUA, Grant Papers, Grant testimonial, Grant to Shottt, June 26, 1886; Andrew Haydon, "Adam Shortt," QQ 38 (1931): 609-23. At a time when McGill was well-known for not appointing Canadians, and when Queen's graduates complained that Queen's overlooked them, Grant made his appointments chiefly from Canadians, including three distinguished Queen's graduates, Adam Shortt, A.P.Knight, and S.W.Dyde. 23 James Cappon, "In Memoriam." 24 Adam Shortt, "Random Recollections of Queen's," p. 133; W.L.Grant, "Reminiscences," pp. 144 ff; Journal, Mar. 22, 1890, Nov. 28, 1891. Dr. Watson said that on arrival at Queen's in 1872 he had first thought his colleagues "a little slow" but that he had never doubted their kindness, enthusiasm, and love of the truth; he spoke with warmth of Snodgrass, Williamson, and MacKerras, "one of the most beautiful and heroic souls I have known." Ibid., Nov. 9, 1900. 25 Senate, Apr. 26, 1880, Dec. 16, 1896. On the generally increased power of the Senate, see James Cappon, "In Memoriam." 26 W.L.Grant, "Reminiscences," pp. 144 ff. 27 Council, Apr. 27, 1880; AMS, Jan. 31, 1880. 28 Senate, Apr. n, 1879, Nov. 27,1895, Jan- 2 I > l%9729 Trustees, Apr. 30, 1890.
30 By 1895 the Ontario Department of Education had agreed to recognize the Queen's honours graduates as specialists and the Senate cooperated in establishing appropriate programs in English, classics, modern languages, and science. Senate, Jan. 12, May 7, 189531 Trustees, "Memorandum. ...," Sept. 18, 1888. 32 Journal, Feb. 25, 1893. 33 The B.SG. in the i86os seems to have been roughly the equivalent of the later D.SC. Queen's Calendar, 1883-84, p. 14. A D.SC. was awarded in 1885. Senate, Apr. 27, 1885. 34 Journal, Oct 30, 1888, report of speech by Watson, "The Future of Our Universities." 35 Trustees, Apr. 30, 1890, Apr. 27,1892, Apr. 26,1893. 36 In 1893 there were thirteen graduate students in arts and sciences. For the institution of the doctoral program, see Senate, Mar. i, 1889, Apr. 8, 1891. The first D.SC. was granted in 1892 to H.M.Ami for a thesis on "The Utica Terrain in the Geology of Canada." The first Exhibition of 1851 scholarship was awarded to Norman R. Carmichael in 1893. In May 1902, Vice-Principal Watson, reporting for the principal, stated that two fellowships in philosophy had been established at an annual value of $400. 37 Journal, Jan. 29, 1881; Council, Apr. 29, 1879. 38 Journal, Apr. 13, 1901. 39 In 1893 Sandford Fleming established an endowed lectureship for the annual Theological Alumni Conference. 40 Journal, Jan. 9, 16, 1892. Letters to Adam Shortt from students doing graduate work in Scotland and in the United States expressed the opinion that lectures at Queen's were as good as or better than the lectures they were now receiving. At the same time, W.B.Munro in Edinburgh expressed his admiration for the thorough grounding of the students he met there, and C.F.Lavell was impressed with the thoroughness of the American use of source material. Adam Shortt Papers, W.B.Munro to Shortt, Nov. 21, 1896; C.F.Lavell to Shortt, Apr. 3, 1895. They suggested an emphasis on precise knowledge and on scholarly method which may have been less emphasized at Queen's and which they now recognized as important. 41 Journal, Mar. 22, 1879, Feb. 16, 1895. Such a procedure was clearly contrary to the regulation as these students could not have fulfilled the necessary attendance qualifications. It is possible, if the Journal report is correct, that special permission may have been obtained on the ground of attendance elsewhere. 42 Adam Shortt, p. 131. 43 Ibid., Journal, Jan. 29, 1881. 44 Journal, Mar. 26, 1898. 45 In 1892 the Alma Mater Society passed a resolution asking the Senate to have general reference books placed in the vestibule of the library and promised to be responsible for any losses. It was noted that in November of that year only 320 books were taken out of the library - about one for every two registered students. Ibid., Dec. 10, 17, 1892. 46 Senate, Jan. 13, 1899. 47 This system broke down. The Senate minutes record that Dr. Watson, that stern moralist, failed to perform his allotted task. Senate, Feb. 26, 1887. 48 Adam Shortt Papers, Peacock to Shortt, Aug. 4, 1895. 49 QUL, report to the General Assembly, Apr. 30, 1879. This admirable move was followed by other tactful suggestions which ultimately secured from H.M. Stationery Office upwards of 500 volumes of the English and Scottish Rolls series.
323 Notes to Pages 186-90
50 Senate, Mar. 3, 1889. 51 "Report of the Principal to the Annual Meeting of the Trustees, 1901," QQ 9 (1901): 3752 Trustees, Apr. 27, 1892; PAG, Grant Papers, M. Bowell to Grant, Feb. 9, 1893, 27g6A. 53 0,0,9 (1901): 36. 54 Journal, Mar. 26, 1898. ELEVEN 1 2 3 4
324 NOtes to pages 100-203 2033 J
Journal, May 5, 1896. Ibid., Dec. 22, 1887. Adam Shortt Papers, Adam Shortt to George Shortt, Nov. 29, 1879. Usually the court was constituted of judges from the fourth year, lawyers and jury from the third year, and policemen from the second year. The accused would be haled before the court and if he failed to appear would be brought in by force. The proceedings gave ample opportunity for violent exercise and for occasional fights. They might, however, be entirely peaceful.
Adam Shortt Papers, Feb. 14, 21, 1880. 6 Journal, Nov. 27, 1886, Mar. 7, 21, 1896, Nov. 27, 1897, Dec. 6, 1901. The Senate left all disputes to the students, leaving the ultimate responsibility with the Alma Mater Society and exercising its authority only in demanding payment for damage done to furniture and buildings. 7 Ibid., Dec. 17, 1881. 8 Senate, Jan. 28, Feb. 11, 1882. 9 Journal, Dec. 31, 1881. 10 Ibid., Mar. 8, 1882. See also ibid., Jan. 21, 1882, for one of the jokes under the caption De Nobis Nobilibus which runs: "Prof, (lecturing on Roman history): 'It was generally believed by the masses that the Senate should be abolished, but ...' Yells and cheering which the prof, entirely fails to understand." 11 Ibid., Jan. 19, 1895. 12 Senate, Mar. 12, 29, 1897; Journal, Mar. 27, May 8, 1897. The high standard of conduct was not always maintained, but it was clear that the Senate could achieve more by working through the Alma Mater Society than in any other way. Two years later the Journal itself was urging on the Senate stricter enforcement of the rule requiring the graduates to wear academic costume. Ibid., Apr. 29, 1899, Nov. 9, 1900. 13 Adam Shortt Papers, Adam Shortt to George Shortt, Mar. 19, 1880. 14 Journal, Dec. 3, 1889. 15 Ibid., Dec. 9, 1899. 16 Student societies by the 18905 were growing numerous. There were the college societies, the Aesculapian and the Arts Society, societies like the Classical and the Philological which were related to particular studies, the YWCA, the Levana for the women, the Glee Club and the Banjo Club, and various athletic clubs. 17 For criticism of the YMCA see, for example, Journal, Dec. 18, 1889, Jan. 21, 1893. 18 Ibid., Feb. 4, 1887. 19 Ibid., Nov22, 1887. 20 Ibid., Oct. 25, 1879. 21 QR 7 (1933): 175 (letter from Lennox Irving). 22 Journal, Mar. 17, 1900. 23 While W.L.Grant as a former player supported the team with enthusiasm, he was
uncompromising in stressing the right proportions of an athlete's day: nine hours' study, three hours' sports; and he did not subscribe to the popular view that games were more important than study in moulding character. Some years later a victory over the Yale hockey team made Queen's the intercollegiate champions of North America. Journal, Jan. 30, 1897. 24 Senate, Oct. i, 1897. 25 Journal, Nov. 26, 1898. 26 Ibid., Dec. 17, 24, 1892. 27 Ibid., Dec. 6, 1901, Jan. 31, 1902. 28 Shortt added that "the gentry are real ones and no upstarts." Adam Shortt Papers, Shortt to family, Nov. 22, 1879. 29 In 1884 the first two women to graduate in Ontario, Eliza Fitzgerald and Annie Fowler, received from Queen's the B.A. degree. Miss Fitzgerald was awarded the gold medal in classics. Journal, midsummer 1884. 30 Ibid., May 8, 12, 1894. 31 Ibid., Ibid.,Nov. Nov.25, 25,1899. 1899. 32 Ibid., Feb. 8, 1896. TU- j A 29, 1885. oo 33 j j Ibid.,>Apr. v y> j 34 Ibid., Mar. 4, 1889, Jan. 21, 1893, Jan- 25> l&9&- The Alma Mater Society minutes indicate that the executive did ask Principal Grant that the women be excused from paying the athletic fee and that Grant refused, no doubt believing that with time they would and should be engaged in university activities without distinction from the men. 35 Ibid., Dec. 15, 1894. 36 Ibid., Nov. 21, 1891. 37 Ibid., Jan. 25, 1896. 38 AMS, Feb. 19, 26, 1881. 39 Journal, Apr. i, 1899. 40 Ibid., Feb. 3, Mar. 3, 1900. From time to time the society had held public meetings in the form of debates, lectures, or concerts. It seems that the women had been accustomed to attend these and to sit in the gallery. That men and women were not entirely used to informal contact out of the classroom is shown by the fact that the women did not use the general reading room, but received the newspapers and periodicals in their own room when the men had finished with them. In 1897 the Arts Society proposed to summon a general meeting to consider whether, as a return for the cooperation of the women in various social affairs, the men would not be willing to leave the general reading room to the exclusive use of the women for one hour each day. Ibid., Dec. 25, 1897. 41 Ibid., Nov. 22, 1901. The Senate, it seems, would have been content with the gowns but W.L.Grant, referred to in the verses as "Geordie's new assistant," who had come to serve as secretary to his father during his illness, insisted on the complete costume. TWELVE 1 Dr. Thomas Gibson, "A Short Account of the Development of Medical Teaching at Kingston, Ont." 2 Trustees, Apr. 29, 1880. 3 Journal, Feb. 21, 1885, Feb. 3, Nov. 27, Dec. 10, 1886, May n, 1887. 4 Gibson; for the disagreements see comments of Gibson on Women's Medical School, and Elizabeth Shortt, "The Women's Medical College."
2( -o 325 •?, Notes to . pages 203-12
326 Notes to
pages 212-26
5 QUA, Grant Papers, Dr. W.G.Gibson to Grant, Nov. n, 1887. 6 Council, Oct. 16, 1891, Apr. 27, 1892; Trustees, Principal's Report and Terms of Union, Apr. 27, 1892. 7 QUA, Grant Papers, Grant to A.W.Beall, Oct. 10, 1892. As D.D.Calvin (Queen's University, p. 20) says, the statement was not strictly accurate, as the medical faculty retained a large degree of autonomy until 1913. 8 Trustees, Apr. 27, 1892. Grant not only advanced money for Knight's laboratory equipment; with the chancellor, Sandford Fleming, he guaranteed a portion of Knight's salary for five years, but happily the fees proved to be sufficient. Knight remained at Queen's until his retirement in 1919; he helped plan the medical laboratories, helped organize the Biological Board of Canada (1898), and did valuable work in applied research on the fishing industry. QR 2 (1928): 97-99. 9 Trustees, May i, 1895. 10 Ibid., Nov. i, 1900. 11 Journal, Nov. 5, 1881. 12 Elizabeth Shortt, pp. 117-18. Mrs. Shortt was an interested party but her story is confirmed in all essentials by Dr. T. Gibson, pp. 7-8. 13 Journal, Dec 21, 1882. 14 Ibid., Mar. 21, May i, 1883. The writer, "Brother Josh," may well have been Adam Shortt, the pupil of Dr. Watson, who was a staunch defender of the rights of all women and of all human beings to education. He had previously been opposed to coeducation but as he married Elizabeth Smith in 1887 he may have been changing his mind. He was a senior in the session 1882-83. 15 Elizabeth Shortt; Senate, Mar. 24, Apr. 25, 1884. 16 Journal, midsummer 1884. 17 QUL, Memorial, Dec. 1892, signed by J.B.Carruthers; PAC, Grant Papers, Grant to Mowat, May 15, 1895. 18 Trustees, Apr. 27, 1892, Apr. 26, 1893; Q UL > Memorial, Dec. 1892; Statutes of Ontario, 56 Vic., c. 115 (1892). 19 PAC, Grant Papers, Mowat to Grant, Oct. 15, 1892, Feb. 4, 1893. 20 Miller was later to be professor of geology at Queen's and to do distinguished work in his own field. He initiated the development of corundum deposits in Eastern Ontario in 1897, and was instrumental in opening up the silver district around Temiscaming after 1904. He became provincial geologist in 1902. 21 In 1898-99 only 30 students were reported so that the figure of 103 for the session 1901-1902 is surprising. 22 Senate, May i, 1894. 23 PAC, Grant Papers, Grant to Mowat, May 15, 1985. 24 Ibid., Ross to Grant, Jan. 13, 1898, J.R.Stratton to Grant, Dec. 4, 1899. 25 Ibid., Goodwin to Hamilton, Mar. 28, 1903.
THIRTEEN 1 Fleming Papers, Grant to Fleming, Mar. 17, 1886. 2 Journal, Mar. 2, 1895. A McGill student then attending Queen's notes as the special qualities that he admires: the intimate relations between the professors and the students, the fruitful influence of the graduate students in theology and other studies, and the freedom of all to express and defend any new idea, with no censorship of the Journal and no supervision of student activities (beyond the insistence of the Senate that the Alma Mater Society pay for any damage done by students).
3 Trustees, Apr. 27, 1892, Apr. 26, 1893; "Report of the principal to the Board of Trustees," QQ i (1893): 80. 4 Senate, Sept. 18, Nov. 20,1882. 5 Ibid., Dec. 21, 1887, Feb. 23, 1889. Honours students were advised to attend the university in the first year. 6 Ibid., Jan. 12, 1892, Dec. i, 1894, Mar. 27, 1895. 7 Trustees, Apr. 30, 1884; Senate, Jan. 12, 1888. 8 A.P.Knight, "Summer Classes," QQ$ (1898): 314. 9 PAC, Grant Papers, Grant to Fleming, July 16, 1901. The references to early summer school arrangements do not give full information, but it seems clear that there were no regular classes directly under the university until 1896, those in 1894 and 1895 having been sponsored by the School of Mining. It is also probable that these early courses were for general instruction and for coaching rather than for specific credit. 10 Journal, Dec. 15, 1894. 11 Ibid., Nov. 18, 1893. 12 QUL, E.R.Peacock to N.R.Carmichael, Mar. i, 1900. 13 D.D.Calvin, "Queen's Quarterly, 1893-1943"; W.M.Conacher, "A Chronicle of Queen's Quarterly." 14 Journal, Mar. 27, 1897. The theological faculty was increased during Grant's time by two new chairs to a total of four professors but Grant did not want in any way to lessen the close connection with the arts professors. In 1899 he was particularly happy to appoint as assistant and prospective successor to Professor Mowat, W.G.Jordan, noted for his critical work on the Old Testament but in Grant's view also "sound in the faith." At his death Jordan was described as "an outstanding exponent of the new historical approach to the Bible," "a pioneer among Canadian scholars ... Queen's University furnished him an opportunity to speak without fear or favour about many things which in other places were hotly resented." QR 2 (1928): 65; ibid., 13 (1939): 158. 15 Malcolm MacGillivray, "Makers of Queen's: Rev. William Snodgrass," p. 105; Journal, Apr. 28, 1877. 16 W.L.Grant and F.C.Hamilton, Principal Grant, pp. 77-85. 17 Ibid., p. 86. 18 That this was an exceedingly difficult time for conscientious persons on both sides of the controversy is shown by a report in the Journal that an American Presbyterian missionary in China recognized as doing excellent work had felt obliged to offer his resignation because he had doubts about the mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch and alsb about the single authorship of Isaiah. His resignation was accepted. Journal, Jan. 20, 1894. 19 Ibid., Jan. 5, 1889. 20 Ibid., Dec. 22, 1887. This statement is by Agnes Machar with whom Grant maintained a frank correspondence. 21 Trustees, Apr. 25, 1894., 22 PAC, Grant Papers, Grant to Drummond, Mar. 16, 1894. 23 John Watson, "The University and the Schools," p. 327. 24 Journal, Mar. 17, 1894. 25 Salem G. Bland, "Queen's Theological Alumni Conferences in the 'go's," p. 237. 26 Journal, Feb. 27, 1897. 27 Watson Papers, "Principal George M. Grant," n.d., [1910?]. Grant, said Watson, never had any doubts, "not because he was so pure in heart" but because he was "utterly unspeculative." His theological views were "traditional and antiquated."
•* ' Notes to pases 22o-Q'j s OJ
a8 Council, Apr. 30, 1901.
328 NOtes to Pages 236-49
29 PAG, Grant Papers, Oct. 25, 1901. This letter to Grant attributed his failure chiefly to the prohibition issue, quoting one man as saying "when he wants money let him go to the hotel men for it." 30 In its apparent Italian inspiration Grant Hall is not entirely inappropriate to the man whom one of his biographers shows as a kind of sincere and godly Machiavellian. F.C.Hamilton, "Makers of Queen's: Principal Grant," p. 33. According to the architect, Grant Hall was modelled on churches of the eleventh and twelfth centuries in the south of France. 31 W.C.Baker, "The Queen's Spirit," QR 10 (1936): 167. 32 Journal, Nov. 6, 1902. 33 Hamilton, pp. 33-38. 34 Watson Papers, "Principal George M. Grant." Watson here criticizes Grant for ignorance of economics and philosophy, for a superficial knowledge of history, for traditional and antiquated theological views. He also remarks on Mrs. Grant's helpful "mediating oinfluenceinfluence on her cocksure husband." That Mrs. Grant was a perceptive woman possessing that sense of humour which was probably lacking in both Watson and Grant is shown by a story of which she was fond. A letter written to her by a little Presbyterian friend, who at the age of eight went into the country to stay with the Church of England rector, read: "I will not be Presbyterian any longer; I will be Episcopal; because I loves the Lord Jesus Christ, and because I likes it better." When Grant, preparing for one of his innumerable forays abroad, chose to grumble at the hardship of being dragged from his beloved home by the call of duty, Mrs. Grant apparently would murmur quietly, "Because I loves the Lord Jesus Christ, and because I likes it better." Grant and Hamilton,, p. 466. These authors bear out Dr. Watson's hints of Grant's Bonapartism, and also state frankly that Grant's practical refusal to consider any general increases of salary during his term of office was considered a hardship by all professors and caused one or two to leave Queen's. Grant himself gave about half of his annual salary back to the university and assumed rather too readily - for he had other sources of income - that others could do the same.
FOURTEEN 1 2 3 4
W.L.Grant and F.C.Hamilton, Principal Grant, p. 457. QUL, R. Campbell to MacLennan, Aug. 30, 1905. Ibid., July 19, 1902. Ibid., Sandford Fleming to MacLennan, Aug. 13, 1902; Drummond Papers, Watson to Drummond, Sept. 12, 1902. 5 QUL, Senate petition (Summer 1902). 6 The reference is, of course, to Watson as an exponent of Idealist philosophy. Adam Shortt Papers, W.L.Grant to Shortt, Sept. 30, 1902; D.M.Gordon Papers (miscellaneous), clipping, Evening Telegram, Oct. 17, 1903. For accounts of the trustees' meeting, Trustees, Sept. 17, 1902; PAC, Grant Papers, E.W.Rathbun to W.L.Grant, Sept. 18, 1902. See also correspondence with Barclay in QUL, Sept. 23, 26, 29, 1902.
7 Trustees, Nov. 6, 1902. 8 For details of Gordon's life, Wilhelmina Gordon, Daniel M. Gordon, His Life, and D.D.Calvin, Queen's University, pp. 140-41. For the appointment, Trustees, Nov. 6, Dec. 5, 1902. 9 Gordon Papers, Gordon to A.T.Drummond, Oct. 3, 1903.
10 By the spring of 1904, the college was carrying an accumulated deficit of $11,000 on a budget of something over $60,000. Gordon asked that his own salary be reduced from $4,000 to $3,000 but this was refused. Trustees, Apr. 27, 1904. In 1906 there was a small surplus. 11 Toronto, said Grant, was no longer "the copestone of the educational system," but only 7/11, Queen's being the other 4/11. Later he noted that in 1900-1901 Queen's had 400 matriculated undergraduates (including extramural students) and Toronto and Victoria between them only 611, of which about 150 would be students of Victoria. This would give some colour to his claim that Queen's could rival the "University of Toronto," that is, University College. G.M.Grant, "The University Question," p. 211. For the origin of Queen's students, a large proportion of whom did come from Eastern Ontario, see, for example, Senate, Apr. 27, 1901, Apr. 26, 1902, Apr. 22, 1905. 12 Grant's reference was, of course, to the division still prevailing at Toronto between "university" and "college" subjects, tuition in the former being provided by the university. 13 G.M.Grant, p. 214. 14 Grant And Hamilton 15 Trustees, May 2, 1900. 16 Grant and Hamilton, pp. 433 ff. 17 A summary of the opposition of the University of Toronto to Queen's claim is contained in James London and Nathaniel Burwash, Queen's University and the University Question. Grant found the accusations against Queen's "aggressive," "indefensible," and "in bad taste," and believed that they "must have angered the premier." PAC, Grant Papers, Grant to Caven, Oct. io, 1900. 18 Senate, Feb. 23, 1903; Council, Apr. 28, 1903; Trustees, Apr. 29, May 18, 1903. The committee of the board prepared to transfer to the theological college $150,000, and, in consideration of its fair share of university buildings, the right either to free accommodation or to a building site and $40,000. 19 Trustees, May 18, 1903. It appears, however, that the bill had been introduced in the Commons before the assembly met in June. Ibid., June 30, 1903. 20 Trustees, June 12, 1903; Gordon Papers, Statement of proceedings affecting the relations of Queen's University to the Church (cited hereafter as Statement of proceedings), Spring 1904. 21 PAC, Grant Papers, Grant to Caven, May 21, 1900. 22 Grant and Hamilton, p. 431. 23 W. Gordon, pp. 192 ff.; Gordon Papers, Gordon to Charlton, Aug. 23, 1905. 24 Kenneth Bell, "Education, Secondary and University," in Adam Shortt and A.G. Doughty, eds., Canada and Its Provinces, 23 vols. (Toronto: Glasgow, Brook and Company, 1914-17), 18: 391. There is a kind of reflection of this view, said to have been given by a member of the Mosley Commission, in Walter Frewen Lord, "Degree-granting Institutions in Canada-n," Nineteenth Century and After 62 (August 1907): 262-71. 25 I have found no direct evidence of any definite statement by Ross. He was said to have told "a deputation of Toronto educationalists" that no further aid to Queen's was contemplated even after the amendment of the charter; and this at the very moment when the board and assembly committees were completing their draft bill. Drummond Papers, Gordon to Drummond, July 11, Aug. 14, 1903; Gordon Papers, Gordon to Warden, Aug. 5, 1903. 26 Drummond Papers, Gordon to Drummond, Aug. 14, 1903.
329 NOtes to pages 250-54
330 notes to page s255-59
27 Notably, James Douglas and A.T.Drummond mentioned above. Ibid., Douglas to Drummond, July 12, 1904. 28 Trustees, Apr. 27, 1904. 29 W. Gordon, pp. 223-24; Gordon Papers, Statement of proceedings, Extracts from the minutes of the General Assembly; Trustees, Feb. 10, Sept. i, 1904. 30 Trustees, Aug. 29, 1905. 31 Gordon Papers, Gordon to W.H. Charlton, Feb. 15, Oct. 18, 1906; Gordon to Carnegie, Nov. 28, Dec. 5, 1905. 32 Ibid., R. Bell to Gordon, Nov. 8, 1905. William Mackenzie of Mackenzie and Mann in Montreal responded generously with $20,000 to endow a tutorship. Ibid., Gordon to Drummond, Jan. i, 1907. 33 Ibid., Gordon to J. Charlton, Feb. 23, 1907. They were able to claim it in the end, but not until the spring of 1913, nearly a year after the amendment of the charter had ended the church connection. Ibid., Gordon to Carnegie, Mar. 6, 1913, Gordon to Fleming, May 3, 1913. Trustees, Apr. 29, 1909, show cash receipts of $182,318.18 and total pledges and assurances of $350,000. 34 Gordon Papers, speech of J.P.Whitney, May 17, 1905. Statutes of Ontario 4 Edw. vn, c - 37 ( I 9°4)- Principal Grant had been fully aware of the unhappy position of the administration in Toronto. Writing to John Willison of a proposal to make him president in 1895, he remarked that he would not think of going without "some changes." At Queen's he had "a free hand" and he preferred that with poverty to "a struggle against those political and ecclesiastical wire-pullings from which a university must be free if it is to breed either men or thinkers." PAC, J.S.Willison Papers, Grant to Willison, Mar. 27, 1895. 35 Gordon Papers, Gordon to Whitney (draft), 1906; PAC, W.L.Grant Correspondence, vi, G.M.Macdonnell to Grant, Feb. 14, 1906. 36 Globe, Apr. 10, 1907. 37 Gordon Papers, memorandum to council, Oct. 29, 1907. These special grants were for the Faculty of Education discussed in the following chapter. 38 Ibid., Fleming to trustees, Jan. 9, 1907. 39 Council, Nov. 6, 1907. 40 Gordon confined himself to preparing with Fleming arguments to prove to Whitney that Queen's was not "denominational." Gordon Papers, letters between Gordon and Fleming, Nov. 28, 30, Dec. 3, 1906. 41 Trustees, May 4, Sept. n, 1906, Apr. 25, 1907; Council, Sept. 28, 1906. 42 David Marshall, professor of physics, had been retired in the spring of 1906 with the provision of an apparently nominal lectureship in astronomy at $500 a year. He too was provided with a private Carnegie pension. Trustees, Apr. 25, Sept. n, 1906, Apr. 20, 1907; Queen's University Endowments, 1841-1926, Pritchett to Gordon, Oct. 8, 1906, "List of Participating Institutions," July 1906; Gordon Papers, Gordon to Marshall, May 3, 1906. By July 1906, of Canadian universities only McGill and Dalhousie were on the list. Toronto, considered doubtful as a fully supported state institution, was accepted soon after. 43 Gordon Papers, "Schedule B" (prepared by Professor Dupuis, 1907 or 1908); Ontario Sessional Papers, xxvi, 4, pp. 288 ff. 44 Gordon Papers, Gordon to Fleming, Mar. n, 1908; Trustees, Apr. 29, 1908. Remembering, no doubt, his double desertion, the board accepted his resignation without any expression of regret, but in Queen's tradition he remains one of the great professors.
45 Queen's University Endowments, 1841-1926, report by James Gappon, 1908; Gordon Papers, Gordon to Fleming, Mar. 11, 1908. 46 Senate, Mar. 3, 10, 16, 1908. 47 Rev. D.R.Drummond of Hamilton, Rev. R. Campbell of Montreal, Principal Gandier of Knox were opposed. Chancellor Fleming and the chairman, Judge MacLennan, seem to have been doubtful. 48 Gordon Papers, Gordon to Fleming, Apr. 2, 1908. 49 This division may not have been determined entirely by the issue before the council. Some trustees objected to the claims of the Senate to have a voice in university government as distinguished from academic affairs. This difference of opinion went back to the days of George Weir, who had raised the issue in 1862. Under Snodgrass and Grant the Senate seems to have followed the principal's lead, but during the past few years there had been evidence of a wish for a greater voice in university affairs. Senate, Feb. 23, 1903. 50 Council, Apr. 28-29, T9°8; Trustees, Apr. 29-30, 1908. 51 Drummond Papers, Cappon to Drummond, May i, 1908; Gordon Papers, letters between Gordon and Drummond, May 4-20, 1908; Gordon to Fleming, May 20, 1908. 20, 1908. ~~ 52 W. Gordon, pp. 222 ff; Trustees, Oct. 14, 1908; Presbyterian Church in Canada, General Assembly Acts and Proceedings (Toronto: Murray Printing Company, 1908), p. 17. 53 Liddell had resigned in 1846 when the trustees refused to support him. Leitch lost effective control over the Senate, but in dealing with the University of Toronto and the government, and also in the victorious struggle with the Senate, he had the support of the board. 54 Gordon had been ill from anxiety and strain during the spring term. His leading colleagues on the board, the chancellor and the chairman, although they were decided by May 1908, seem to have had earlier hesitations. Queen's at this time was officially led by three aging men, devoted but tired. 55 Gordon Papers, Douglas to Gordon, June 16, 1908. 56 Trustees, Oct. 14, 1908. Principal Gandier of Knox College, a leading opponent of the change at the Assembly, wrote now withdrawing his objection, although regretfully because of the stand taken by the Senate. Gordon Papers, D.M.Gandier to Gordon, Oct. 13, 1908. 57 Trustees, Apr. 28, 1909. 58 Ibid., Oct. 5, 1909. 59 Ibid., Oct. 5, 1909, Apr. 26-27, 1910. 60 W. Gordon, p. 242; Gordon Papers, Gordon to Fleming, June 7, 1910. In October 1909 Gordon had been able to report unanimity except for Macdonnell and Rev. Robert Campbell whose positions he termed "extreme" and "unsupported." Ibid., Gordon to Douglas, Oct. 9, 1900. 61 Drummond Papers, Drummond to Gordon, Oct. 26, 31, 1910. 62 W. Gordon, p. 247; Trustees, Oct. 18, 1911. 63 Statutes of Canada, 2 Geo. V, c. 139 (1912). 64 At that time there was none. Trustees, Oct. 18, 1911, Jan. 30, 1912; Minutes of General Assembly, 1911, pp. 56-58. 65 Gordon Papers, correspondence of Gordon with Pritchett, Dec. 31, 1912, Feb. 17, May 28, 1913, June 19, 1916, Gordon to Carnegie, Oct. 22, 1915, Gordon to Douglas, Nov. 19, 191566 Ibid., Gordon to Willison, Dec. 16, 1914, Gordon to Hamilton Cassels, Mar. 18, 1915.
331 NOtes to pages 259-67
67 Trustees, Oct. 20, 1915. 68 Ibid., Apr 26, 1916. 69 The opposition, so long sustained, of G.M.Macdonnell, Rev. Robert Campbell, and a few others is difficult to explain in view of their consent to Grant's earlier scheme. D.D.Calvin says simply that Macdonnell would have followed Grant anywhere. There may have been other reasons. It seems clear that Macdonnell clung to the Scottish tradition which had associated true education with the humanities and the humanities with the church. It is possible that he may have been repelled, as others were, by the very vigour of Cappon, Macnaughton, Dupuis, Watson, and the others in repudiating all links with the church. Macdonnell may have believed that Queen's could remain "Christian" under Grant or Gordon, but have rejected the increasingly secular religion professed by these earnest and high-minded men. Macdonnell resigned as university solicitor in 1909 and as trustee in October 1912, his fellow trustees expressing profound appreciation for his thirty-eight years of service. Rev. Robert Campbell had resigned in June at the time of the meeting of the assembly. 332 Notes to pages 267-75
FIFTEEN 1 Gordon Papers, Gordon to S.D.Cathro, Jan. 7, 1907. 2 Senate, Apr. 13, 1911. 3 Ibid., Dec. 12, 1903. From the Northwest certificates of Grade 7 or 8 were "accepted." In 1908 J.F.Bryant, a graduate of Queen's who later became minister of public works in Saskatchewan, established a scholarship of $100 for the candidate making the highest mark in Grade 7 examinations in Alberta, and who was interested in going to Queen's. The scholarship was awarded in 1909. Toronto as well as Queen's received large numbers of nonmatriculated students, a Queen's professor asserting that Toronto surpassed Queen's in this doubtful practice. A.P.Knight, "Junior Matriculation," QQ 12 (1904): 418. 4 Gordon Papers, New York State commissioner of education to Gordon, Oct. 12, 1907. 5 Senate, Mar. 15, 1909, Mar. 28, Oct. 30, 1911. For all the emphasis on laboratory work in the science departments, extramural instruction was given at this time in physics, at least. Gordon Papers,. A.L.Clark to Gordon, Mar. 13, 1912. 6 Senate, Oct. 21, Nov. 26, 1909, Oct. i, 1915. 7 Trustees, Apr. 30, Oct. 15, 1913. 8 QQ i5,supp. (1907). 9 Cappon referred to the famous Manitoba Schools question which had presented Laurier, a French-Canadian Roman Catholic, with a dilemma from which he had deftly extricated himself by setting aside the question of religious rights and taking his stand on provincial autonomy. QQ 13 (1905): 425. 10 Gordon Papers, H.M.Mowat to Gordon, Apr. 4, 1905, Gordon to Mowat, Apr. 5, 1905, G.M.Milligan to Gordon, Apr. 5, 1905, Gordon to Milligan, Apr. 6, 1905. 11 QQ 15, supp. (1907): 15-16. 12 Journal, Feb. 16, 1904. 13 Ibid., Apr. i, 15, 1904. 14 Ibid., Apr. 15, May 6, 1904. It was Professor Cappon who said at an Alumni Conference that "one great function of the Bible was to supplement defects in human experience." Ibid., Feb. 16, 1904. 15 Gordon Papers, Mar. 21, 1910. A complaint signed by twenty-three students against Professor Donald Ross.
16 Ibid., Gordon to Rev. Alex Henderson, Jan. 13, 23, 1908. 17 Trustees, Apr. 28, June 16, 1909. 18 Minutes of the board show upwards of $35,000 in land purchases, 1909-13, including part or perhaps the whole of the land between Alfred and Albert Streets later used for the stadium. Trustees, Apr. 25, 1907, Oct. 5, 1909, Apr. 27, 1910. In 1908 the grounds committee recommended the appointment of a landscape gardener. Council, Apr. 20, 1908. 19 Council, Apr. 26, 1904; Gordon Papers, Gordon to MacLennan, Apr. 5, 1906; Trustess, Apr. 24, 1906, Apr. 29, 1908. 20 Gordon Papers, Gordon to Chambers, Dec. i, 1906, Gordon to A.S.Christie, Jan. 20, 1909; Trustees, Apr. 24, Sept. n, 1906. 21 Trustees, Apr. 30, 1902, Oct. 16, 1912. 22 Gordon Papers, printed memorandum, unsigned, n.d. [1904?]. Trustees, Aug. 29, Sept. 18, 1905. 23 Gordon Papers, Gordon to Whitney, Dec. 21, 1905, and encl. (Gordon to H.A.Pyne); Senate, Nov. 2, 14, 1906; Trustees, Apr. 20, 1907; Gordon Papers, Gordon to Fleming, Dec. 8, 14, 1906. 24 Gordon Papers, Cecil Lavell, memorandum on Faculty y of Education, Gordon to H.J. J T i A j Anderson, July 12, 1907. 25 Ibid., A.P.Knight to Gordon, June i, 1909, Seath to Lavell, June 19, 1909, Seath to Gordon, June 21, Sept. i, 1909; Trustees, Oct. 6, 1909. 26 Gordon Papers, address from the Senate to the minister of education, draft, n.d. For the control exercised by John Seath, see ibid., Macdonnell to Gordon, Mar. 21, 1910, Gordon to Macdonnell, Mar. 31, 1910. 27 Ibid., Seath to Gordon, Nov. 5, 1912. 28 Ibid., extracts from report of superintendent of education, 1917. 29 Ibid., annual report, medical faculty, 1913. 30 Trustees, Feb. 10, 1904. 31 "The University," QQ 12 (1904): 79-81. 32 Trustees, Oct. 13, 1903. 33 Michael Sullivan, Fifty Years of the Medical School at Kingston (QUA, Medical Faculty Records). 34 Gordon Papers, annual report, medical faculty, 1912. One difficulty about getting support for Queen's medical school, then and later, was the lack of adequate hospital facilities. 35 Ibid., annual reports, medical faculty, 1907, 1908, 1911, 1912, statement of J.C.Connell on length of Queen's medical term, July 15, 1912, memorandum, Western University to Government of Ontario, Jan. 19, 1911, J.C.Connell to Gordon, Oct. 23, 1907. 36 Ibid., annual report, medical faculty, 1908. 37 W.L.Grant Correspondence, G.M.Macdonnell to Grant, May 23, 1906. 38 Gordon Papers, letters between J.C.Connell and Gordon, Feb. 26, 1913. 39 Trustees, Apr. 30, 1913. 40 In 1910 salaries for full-time teaching staff ranged from $1,000 to $2,250. Ibid., Apr. 27, 1910. 41 Drummond Papers, Gordon to Drummond, June 16, 1904, Drummond to Gordon, Jan. 26, 1906. 42 Gordon thought highly of Peacock as a useful and conscientious member of the University Council and suggested his nomination to the Board of Trustees. Gordon Papers, Gordon to H.M.Mowat, Dec. 13,1907.
333 333 Notes to
pages Pages 275-83 275-83
334 Notes to
P
pages 283-93
43 W.L.Grant Correspondence, Peacock to Grant, Oct. 16, 1906. 44 R.A.Preston, "Presidential Address," Canadian Historical Association Report, 1962 (Ottawa: Canadian Historical Association, 1962), p. 9. 45 W.L.Grant Correspondence, Gordon to Grant, Dec. 28, 1904, Mar. 19, Dec. 16, 1909; Trustees, Dec. 13, 1909. Douglas, a native of Quebec and a graduate of Queen's had turned from the study of theology in Morrin College, Quebec, to a professorship of chemistry. Successful experiments in new modes of copper smelting combined with good fortune and remarkable business ability had enabled him to make a very large fortune in the United States. He was elected to the Queen's Board of Trustees in 1903. 46 W.L.Grant Correspondence, Peacock to Grant, Oct. 27, 1908. 47 Up to 1906 the board followed its previous rather loose method of voting individually on various proposals for appointments. In 1907, apparently for convenience's sake, the finance and estate committee in practice made the appointments, being authorized by the board to do so, and later securing confirmation of what they had done. There was some doubt about the constitutionality of the arrangement. Gordon Papers, correspondence among A.T.Drummond, MacLennan, and Gordon, Oct. 24, 28, 29, 1907. By 1911 the accepted procedure seems to have been nomination by a special appointments committee and acceptance by the board of its report. Trustees, Oct. 18, 1911. 48 The total registration for 1909-10 is given as 1,517. This presumably includes 136 in medicine and the School of Mining. 49 Senate, Nov. 27, 1900. 50 Ibid., Feb. 7, 1903. The departments named were classics, English, history, and "moderns." The natural sciences did not appear at this time; nor did mathematics, although mathematics and science as individual classes were included in the general program. 51 W.L.Grant Correspondence, Skelton to Grant, Mar. 19, 1917. 52 Gordon Papers, "Endowment Fund, Finances," 1905-1906. 53 Ibid., Mar. 13, 14, Oct. 12, 1912. The graduate was Dr. Agnes Craine of Smiths Falls. 54 The alarm was caused by the fact that Queen's now considerable endowment was not entrusted to independent, professional management. Ibid., Chown to Gordon, Dec. 9, 1907, Watson to Macdonnell, Macdonnell to Gordon, Nov. 18, 19, 1907; Senate, Apr. 18, 1910. 55 Trustees, May 4, 1906; Gordon Papers, Gordon to Dean Moyse of McGill, May 18, 1906. 56 Senate, Oct. 4, 31, 1911, Oct. i, Nov. 18, 1912. 57 Trustees, Apr. 25, 1907. 58 Ibid., Oct. 15, 1913; Gordon Papers, letters between Gordon and William Harty, Nov. 7-23, 1911. 59 Senate, Apr. 4, 1913; Council, Apr. 29, 1913; Trustees, Apr. 30, 1913; Gordon Papers, Gordon to Douglas, May 3, 1913. SIXTEEN 1 Willison Papers, Gordon to Willison, Oct. 6, 1910, Cappon to Willison, Oct. 13, 1910. 2 Queen's University Endowments, 1841-1926, Leonard to Gordon and encl., Dec. 23, 19133 Ibid., Douglas to Gordon, May 21, 1914; Trustees, Jan. 19, 1914. 4 Trustees, Jan. 14, Apr. 29, May 22, 1914. 5 Queen's University Endowments, 1841-1926, Leonard to Gordon, Mar. 10, 1914.
6 Ibid., Gordon to Leonard, Apr. 9, 1914, Leonard to Gordon, Apr. 16, 1914, interview with Col. Leonard, May 7, 1914, Gordon to Douglas, May 29, 1914; Council, Apr. 28, 1914. D.D.Calvin (Queen's University, p. 156) states that Leonard had wished to change the board to three: the principal, the officer commanding the military district No. 3 (Kingston), and the commandant of the Royal Military College, an even more objectionable board. Calvin may have had personal knowledge that Leonard had made such a suggestion, but Gordon's letter of April 9 is quite explicit that the new proposal, unacceptable to the university, was for a board of six. There is no record of any later proposal. 7 Willison Papers, Chown to Willison, Apr. 16, 1914; Gordon Papers, Willison to Gordon, Gordon to Willison, Apr. 17, 18, 1914; W. Gordon, Daniel M. Gordon, p. 264. 8 Willison Papers, Cappon to Willison, Sept. 27, 1914. 9 Queen's University Endowments, 1841-1926, Hamilton Cassels to Gordon, Dec. 23, 1914. 10 The bulk of the material on this unhappy postscript is in Queen's University Endowments. A copy of the resolution of the Board of Governors of the School of Mining challenging the decision is dated Dec. n, 1914. For an indication of bitter disagreement among the staff, see Queen's University Endowments, Cappon to Gordon, Jan. 11, 1915
11 Trustees, Apr. 28, 1915; Council, Apr. 27, 1915; Gordon Papers, Gordon to Canadian Defence League, Oct. 28, 1913, Gordon to Presbyterian, Nov. 10, 1913. 12 Senate, Sept. 16, 1914, Feb. 10, 1915; Trustees, Apr. 28, 1915. 13 Trustees, Oct. 20, 1915; Senate, Oct. 29, 1915, Mar. 31, 1916; Council, Apr. 25, 1916; Gordon Papers, L.W.Gill to Gordon, Dec. 26, 1916. 14 Senate, Sept. 16, Oct. 5, 16, 1914; Trustees, Oct. 16, 1914; Council, Apr. 27, 1915; Willison Papers, Cappon to Willison, Dec. 3, 1914. 15 In the Gordon Papers there is a printed leaflet containing a proposal by R. Bruce Taylor to set up a students' union as a memorial to the 179 Queen's graduates killed in the war. 16 Journal, Feb. 9, 13, 1917. By October 1917, $1,700 had been raised and $1,000 paid. Ibid., Oct. 12, 1917. 17 Registration fell from 922 in 1915-16 to 662 in 1916-17. Trustees, Oct. 18, 1916. By March of 1917, 980 Queen's men were on military service, according to the Journal (Mar. 9, 1917). 18 Senate, Sept. 29, 1914; Gordon Papers, Gordon to Douglas, Dec. 11, 1916, Gill to Gordon, Dec. 26, 1916; Trustees, Apr. 25, 1917; Journal, Dec. 12, 1916. 19 Journal, Oct. 16, Dec. 16, 1903. 20 Gordon Papers, Gordon to M.MacCormick, Apr. 23, 1908, Gordon to A.W.Alexander, Apr. 28, 1908. 21 Senate, Feb. 9, 16, 1910, Nov. 30, 1911. 22 Trustees, June 13, 1911; Gordon Papers, report to the finance and estate committee, Nov. 6, 1917. 23 Journal, Nov. 28, Dec. i, 8, 12, 15, 1916; Senate, Apr. 21, 1917. 24 Gordon Papers, letters between W.B.Anderson and Gordon, June 1916. 25 Ibid., letters between Willison and Gordon, Apr. 17-28, 1914, 26 Ibid., Gordon to H.Cassels, n.d.; W.Gordon, p. 272. 27 Trustees, Apr. 26, 1916.
335
. Notes to pages 293-303
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pages 9-21 UNPUBLISHED SOURCES
Public Archives of Canada Sir Sandford Fleming Papers, G.M. Grant Papers W.L. Grant Correspondence, Sir John Willison Papers Queen's University Archives Queen's University Records: Board of Trustees: Executive Committee minutes; Letter-books; Minutes and Proceedings Council: Minutes and Proceedings Domesday Book Medical Faculty Records Queen's University Endowments, 1841-1926 Queen's University Letters Senate: Minutes and Proceedings
Other Collections: Andrew T. Drummond Papers D.M. Gordon Papers G.M. Grant Papers Alexander Morris Papers William Morris Papers J.B. Mowat Papers Presbyterian Church of Canada, Synod Papers Adam Shortt Papers John Watson Papers
United Church of Canada Archives Glasgow Colonial Society Correspondence PUBLISHED SOURCES
Newspapers and Periodicals Argus, Kingston The Canadian Christian Examiner Chronicle and Gazette, Kingston Daily British Whig, Kingston Daily News, Kingston Globe, Toronto
Home and Foreign Record of the Canada Presbyterian Church Home and Missionary Record of the Church of Scotland The Presbyterian Queen's Journal Queen's Quarterly Queen's Review
337 Bibliography
Books and Articles
338 Bibliography
Angus, Margaret "The Old Stones of Queen's." Historic Kingston, no. 20 (!972),pp. S^SBland, Salem G. "Queen's Theological Alumni Conferences in the 'go's." QR 4 (1930): 237-41. Brock, R.W. "'Geordie': Some Recollections." QR 2 (1928): 212-16, 254-62. Calvin, D.D. "Queen's Quarterly, 1893-1943." QQ 50 (1943) : 117-29. . Queen's University at Kingston: The First Century of a Scottish Canadian Foundation 1841-1^41. Kingston: Queen's University, 1941. Cappon, James "In Memoriam." QQ 25 (1917) : 133-40. Careless, J.M.S. The Union of the Canadas 1841-57. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1967. „ onacher Conacher, W.M. "A Chronicle of Queen's Quarterly." QQ 60 (1953): 554-57. Bibl' wford, th Robert Crawford, Robert "Memories of the Sixties." QR 7 (1933): 191-95. Gibson, Thomas "A Short Account of the Development of Medical Teaching at Kingston." Journal of the Canadian Medical Association 18 (1928): 331-34, 446-51. Gordon, Wilhelmina Daniel M. Gordon, His Life. Toronto: Ryerson Press, 1941. Grant, G.M. "The University Question." QQ 8 (1901): 211-20. Grant, W.L. "Reminiscences." QQ 25 (1917): 141-47. and Hamilton, F.C. Principal Grant: A Biography. Toronto: Morang, 1904. Gregg, William History of the Presbyterian Church in the Dominion of Canada. Toronto, 1885. Gundy, H.Pearson "Thomas Liddell: Queen's First Principal." Historic Kingston,no. 19 (1971), pp. 17-27. Hamilton, F.C. "Makers of Queen's: Principal Grant." QR i (1927): 33-38. Hodgins, J.G. Documentary History of Education in Upper Canada. ... 28 vols. Toronto, 1894-1910. Kyte, E.G. "Journal of the Hon. William Morris's Mission to England in the year 1837." Ontario Historical Society Papers and Records 30 (1934): 212-62. Loudon, James Queen's University and the University Question, n.p., [1903?]. McGill, Robert L. Letters on the Condition and Prospects of Queen's College, Kingston, Addressed to the Hon. William Morris. Montreal, 1846. McGillivray, Malcolm "Makers of Queen's: Rev. William Snodgrass." QR i (1927): 105-10. Machar, Agnes Maude. Faithful Unto Death. Kingston, 1859. Memorials ... of the Rev. John Machar, D.D. Toronto, 1873. McNeill, W.E. The Story of Queen's. Kingston: Queen's University, 1941.
Magill, Max "The Failure of the Commercial Bank," in G. Tulchinsky, ed., To Preserve and Defend: Kingston in the Nineteenth Century. Montreal and London: McGill-Queen's University Press, 1976. Moir, John S. Church and State in Canada West. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1967, Carleton Library. Mowat, E. Lillian "Makers of Queen's: John Hugh MacKerras." QR 2 (1928): 34-37. Mowat, John Queen's University Incidents Related by John Mowat, One of the Founders, in Reference to Its Early History. Kingston, 1841. Presbyterian Church Acts and Proceedings of the Presbyterian Church in Canada in Connection with the Church of Scotland. Montreal, 1833-77. Shortt, Adam "Random Recollections of Queen's." QQ 27 (1920): 352-63. Shortt, Elizabeth "The Women's Medical College." QR 3 (1929): 80-84, 115-20,153-57. Strange, John "Queen's in the Seventies." QR 4 (1930): 127-31. Sullivan, Michael Fifty Years of the Medical School at Kingston. Kingston: n.p., 1905. University Question: ... Public Meeting Held in Kingston in Reference to the University Question. ... Kingston, 1861. University Reform: Report of Resolution ...of the Inhabitants of Kingston ... 6th March 1841.... Kingston, 1861. Wallace, R.C., ed. Some Great Men of Queen's. Toronto: Ryerson Press, 1941. Wallace, W.S. A History of the University of Toronto: 1827-1927. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1927. [Wardrope, Thomas] "Opening of the Queen's University at Kingston, 1842," in J.G. Hodgins, Documentary History of Education in Upper Canada. Vol. 4. Toronto, 1897. Watson, John "The College." QQ 10 (1902): 84-88. "Thirty Years in the History of Queen's University." QQ 10 (1902) : 188-96. "The University and the Schools." QQ 9 (1901): 323-40. Weir v. Mathieson 3 Grant 123(1866). Wilson, Alan The Clergy Reserves of Upper Canada. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1968.
339 Bibliography
Index NOTE : italicized page numbers indicate an illustration
340 Index
Aberdeen, Lady, 207 Adams, William George Stewart, 304 Aesculapian Society, 212 Allan, Hugh, 56,83,103, no, 3i6n27 Alma Mater Society: activities, 80-81, 143-45, 20°5 201-2; Athletic Committee, 205, 277-78; constitution, 200, 201-2, 3i3n3o; membership, 143, 146, 200-201, (medical-students), 201, 212, (women), 209, 301, 303; student self-government, 146, i95> 196, 198-99, 200 Alumni, 115-16, 202, 271; Associations, 269, 271 Alumni Conferences, 231, 233-35 Alumni Theological Conferences, see Alumni Conferences Anderson, John, 56 Anglicans, see Church of England Applied Science, Faculty of, 218, 220, 222 Arts, Faculty of: Canadian history courses, 283-84; graduates (1866), 127; modern language instruction, 139, 285; political science, 180, 272 Astronomy, 107, 220, 228 Bagot, Charles, 39, 41 Baldwin, Robert, 41-42, 51-52 Barclay, James, 246-47 Barclay, John, 83, 110 Bell, Andrew, 60, 79 Bell, Andrew (student), 80 Bell, George, 5, 6,169,175-76,189,190
Bell, Robert, 103, 135, 315n38 Boardinghouses, 56, 58, 206,241, 301 Borthwick, H.J., 92-93, 95, 3i4ni6 Botanical Society of Canada, 69 Burgess, I.J., 106 Burnet, Robert, 99, 101 Burns, Robert, 31,43,46 Bursaries, 81-82, 131-32, 3ioni8 Burwash, Nathaniel, 162, 252 Caird, Edward, 273 Calvin, D.D., 85, 180 Cameron, Angus, 81 Campbell, Alexander, 88, 106, 107 Campbell, John, 56 Campbell, P.G.C., 285, 297 Campbell, Peter Colin, i, 5, 6, 25, 30-32, 55, 56, 59 Campbell, Robert, 78-79, 93, 95 Canadian Engineers' Fifth Field Company, 296, 297 Canadian Officers' Training Corps, 292, 297 Canadian Pacific Railway survey party (1871-72), 151-52, 175 Canadian studies, 283-84 Cappon, James, 178,179, 288, 291-92, 294; Harpell controversy, 273-74; lectures, 18687, 228; secularization, 259, 261 Carnegie, Andrew, 255, 267, 277 Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, 258-59, 267 Carruthers, John B., 166, 217-18 Carruthers Hall, 165, 166-67, 218
Cassels, Hamilton, 267 Caven, William, 253 Charlton, John, 254, 255 Chown, G.Y., 176, 286,287, 288-89, 294, 303-4 Chown, H.H., 249 Christie, Donald, 3 Church of England: clergy reserves, 12-13, 33; position in Canada, 11-12, 14; rectory patents, 18-19 Church of Scotland, see also Presbyterian church, 14, 15; clergy reserves, 13-14,17, 19, 20, 33; Cobourg convention, 19-20; King's College staff appointment, 21-22, 26; Free Church controversy, 45-48, 12225 passim; General Assembly, Colonial Committee, 30, 31, 35-36, 37, 67, 125-26; Queen's College: (staff appointments), 11,26,30,31,32,67,68, (support), 11, 35-36,37,53-54, '25-26, 177 Clark, Thomas, 34 Clark, W.C., 283 Class fees, 8, 75, 78, 107, 280-81 Clergy reserves, 12-21; Act, 33 Colborne, John, 18-19 Commerce, banking courses, 272 Commercial Bank failure, 113 Concursus iniquitatis et virtutis, 195-96, 239, 324n4 Connell, J.C., 281-82 Connell, W.T., 213 Conversazione, 144-45, 205-6, 3^41 Convocation Hall, 155, 203 Cook, John, 35, 56,57, 65, 124, 31 in4; George-Weir controversy, 95-96, 97; principal, 82-83, 87 Coon, Eva, 303 Craine, Agnes, 288, 334n53 Curriculum, see also individual subjects: (1842), 5; (18505), 58-59, 77; (i86os), 139-40; (i8gos), 182-83; B-A- program, 78, 139-40, 286; B.SC. program, 140, 184, 220, 286; calendar, 182; departments (185960), 77; D.SC. program, 185; flexibility, 182, 184, 286; honours courses, 140, 183-84, 285; M.A. program, 78,184, 185, 286; PH.D. program, 185, 286. Postgraduate studies, 185, 188, 323n3o; specialist certificate courses, 285, 286
Dances, 145, 205-6, 319n42 Debates, 7, 80, 81, 143-44 Dialectic Society, 7 Dickson, John, 72, 90, 91, 103-4, I2 6> *35 Douglas, James, 260, 284, 297, 3341145; secularization, 253, 259, 261, 264 Douglas Chair in Canadian and Colonial History, 284 Draper, W. George, 106 Draper, William, 48-49 Drummond, A.T., 282; secularization, 253, 259, 261, 264 Drummond, Angus, 71, 106 Dunlop, Neil, 89-90 Dupuis, Nathan F., 107-8, 135, 145, 163-64, 166, 230-31, 247, 277, 3i8ni6; Faculty of Applied Science, 218, 220 Dyde, S.W., 178, 779,264 Education, Faculty of, 278-80 Ellerbeck estate, 7, 9 Elocution Society, 144 Engineering soldiers' farewell dinner (1917), 298 English literature, 82, 186-87 Etherington, Frederick, 297 Examinations, 5, 9, 77-78, 140, 188; deferment, 140, 188; extramural, 228 Falconer, R.A., 178, 256 Ferguson, George N., 135-36, 163, 258 Fergusson, Adam, 17 Findlater, A., 31 Fleming, Sandford, 151, 170, 777, 172, 174, 233; secularization, 257, 261 Fleming Hall, 227, 275 Fleming Lectures, 233 Fletcher, John, 164, 178, 182, 186, 258 Football, 143, 203, 319n36; First Fifteen (1890), 204 Forty-sixth Battery of Field Artillery, 297 Fowler, Fife, 70, 72, 90, 258, 281 Fowler, James, 164, 218, 229, 32in2g Fraser, John, 37 Free Church movement, see also Presbyterian church, 44-49, 122-25 passim French, 139, 285 Gale, Alexander, 23-24, 34, 36,48
34i Index
342 Index
General Athletic Fund, 205 George, James, 54, 65, 66, 67, 71, 72, 94, 95, 97, 31 in7; Borthwick criticism, 92-93; Queen's history, 76-77; Weir quarrel, scandal, 92-93, 95-97, 315n23 German, 139, 285; medal, 301 Gill, L.W., 296-97, 299 Gillespie, Thomas, 27-28 Glasgow Colonial Society, 15, 22, 24 Glee Club, 141 Glenelg, Lord, 20-22 Globe criticism of Queen's, 120-23 Glover, T.R., 178, 180, 186, 231 Goodwin, W.L., 164,166, 2/7,219, 294; School of Mining and Agriculture, 217, 218, 220 Gordon, Daniel Miner, 148, 247, 248, 249, 269, 274-75, 283, 303-4; Queen's College: (academic freedom), 273-74, 290-91, (Carnegie Foundation pension scheme), 258, 267, (endowment campaign), 255, 259, (secularization), 252-54, 258, 261-62, 264-65 Gordon, Thomas, 98 Gordon, Wilhelmina, 303 Gordon Hall, 275, 276 Grant, Mrs. G.M., 328n34 Grant, George Monro, 151-52,153, 154, 160, 167, 172, 213, 238, 243-44, 328n34, 330n34; "Geordie Our King", 193, 227; public lecture association, 187; Queen's College: (Alumni Conferences), 233, (building fund appeal), 236, 238, (endowment), 161-62, 250-51, (1878) 154-56, (1887) l64, 166-67, (Faculty of Applied Science), 220, 222, (library), 190-91, (secularization), 251-52, 253, (spirit, tradition), 193, 225-26, 238, 240, 242-44, (Summer School), 229; Queen's Quarterly, 230; religious views, 232-33, 235, 327n27, (Macdonnell heresy case), 148; School of Mining and Agriculture, 218, 222; students, 199, 200, (discipline, Concursus), 195-96, (women), 207, 208-9, 216 Grant, W.L., 203, 283-84,287, 304, 324n23 Grant Hall, 237, 238, 275, 328n30; military hospital, 299, 300 Great Britain, Select Committee of the House of Commons (1828), 13-14, 18,26
Gymnasium, 277; Fund, 205 Hagerman, Christopher, 19 Hamilton, Andrew, 80 Hamilton, C. Frederick, 217, 243-44 Hamilton, John, 41, 55, 88, 115, 174 Harpell, J., 273-74 Harper, Francis, 25, 29,41, 88 Head, Francis Bond, 20-21 Herbarium, 69, 79 History, Canadian, 283-84 Hockey, 203, 325n23; Club (1906), 263 Ireland, William, 78, no, 175 Jordan, W.G., 779, 327ni4 Kennedy, Frederick, 92 King's College, 3, 23-24, 39; Church of Scotland representation: (academic staff), 22, 26, (Council), 21-22; endowment, 18, 33, 52, (Queen's to share), 26, 34,35; union with Queen's, 40-42, 49, 50 Kingston, 117, 206, 236; Kingston Hall, 236; Old Arts Building, 155, 156, 158 Kingston Athletic Grounds, 277-78 Kingston Board of Education, 278 Kingston General Hospital, 89-92 Kingston Grammar School, 97-98, 131 Kingston Hall, 236, 237, 275, 299 Kingston High School, 131 Knight, A.P., 179, 213, 229, 326n8; Women's Medical College, 214, 216 Knox College, 47, 125, 251, 255 Laboratory facilities, equipment, 176, 18889, 277 Lavell, Cecil, 279 Lavell, M., 214 Law, Faculty of, 106-7 Law School, see Law, Faculty of Lawson, George, 69, 71, 77, 79, 90,102,103, 228 Leitch, William, 83, 85,86,92,98, 104, 228; Faculty of Law, 106, 107; GeorgeWeir scandal, 97; Kingston General Hospital controversy, 90-92; pension, 99; Queen's College statutes and regulations, 99-102; university endowment issue, 105-6
Leonard, R.W., 292-94 Levana Society, 208-9, 299, 301 Library, 141, 155, 183, 189-90; catalogue, 79, 190; collection, 59-60, 78-79, 140-41, 190-91 Liddell, Thomas, 1, 2, 5-6, 32, 50, 56; Queen's College: (Board of Trustees), 88, (opening), 38-39, (secularization, union with King's College), 41-42, 49-50 Litchfield, L.P., 72 Logan, William E., 6o, 79 Loudon, James, 252 MacClement, William Thomas, 272 McColl, Angus, 6 Macdonald, John A., 71, 125, 170 Macdonald Chair of Political and Economic Science, 180 Macdonnell, Charles, 146 Macdonnell, D.J., 147-48, 232 Macdonnell, G.M., 259, 264, 265, 332n69 Macdonnell, May, 303 McGill, Peter, 68 McGill, Robert, 28-29, 30-31, 32, 34, 48,56; Queen's College: (endowment campaign), 34, 36-37, (secularization, union with King's College), 39-41, 49-50 McGill University, 3, 23-24 Macgillivray, Alice, 216 Macgillivray, John, 178,181, 186, 285 Machar, John, i, 3, 29,42-43,44, 60-61, 66, 67, 68, 71, 80, 91, 99; library, 60, 61; Queen's College: (advantages), 54-55, (principal), 54, 58, 59, 310n9 Machar, John (son), 80, 313n30 Machar, Mrs. John, 1, 3 Mclver, J.B., 175, 177, 286, 288 MacKerras, John H., 116, 117-18, 126, 1 34-35,163, 318n13 McKinnon, John, 3, 6 MacLennan, D.B. (Mr. Justice), 174, 246 McLennan, Donald, 79-80, 313n28 McLennan, James, 75 McMaster University, 206 Macnaughton, John, 178,181, 186, 198, 25`8, 259, 261, 33on44 McNeill, W.E., 284 McNeill, Mrs. W.E., 301 Macphail, Alexander, 296, 297
MacPherson, Lachlan, 3, 6 Maitland, Peregrine, 12, 13 Malloch, Judge, 71, 128 Marshall, David H., 164, 177, 217, 322n19, 330n42 Marshall, John, 291-92 Mathematics, 82, 220 Mathieson, Alexander, 21, 23, 65, 88, 110, 311n4 Matriculation fees, 78 May, John, 98 Medical school, see Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, Faculty of: (1854-65) Medical school, 71-73, 75, 112, 126, 128, 313n13, (Kingston General Hospital controversy), 89-92, (staff), 72, 75, 126, 128; (1865-92) Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons, 126, 128-29, 201, 211-13, (summer classes), 229, (women students), 213-14, 216-17; (1892- ) Faculty of Medicine, 280-82, 296-97 Metcalfe, Charles, 42 Miller, Willet G., 218, 219, 326n2O Missionary Society, 141, 143, 199-200 Modern Language Society, 186 Morison, J.L., 284, 290 Morris, Alexander, 76, 83, no, 174 Morris, William, 6, 9, 15, 16, 17, 30, 31, 38-39,42-43,45; clergy reserves, 17,18, 20-21; King's College: (charter), 21-22, (union with Queen's), 40-41; Queen's College: (Act of Incorporation), 25-27, (Board of Trustees), 29, 87, 88 Mowat, John, 21, 29, 45-46, 56, 71, 82, 88 Mowat, John B., 5,45-46, 67-69,159, 163, 175, 177 Mowat, Oliver, 160; School of Mining and Agriculture, 217, 218, 220, 222 Mulock, William, 160, 162 Murray, J. Clarke, 133, 136, 228 Museum, 79, 155, 164 Nelles, S.S., 160-61 New Arts Building, see Kingston Hall Nickle, W.F., 304 Nicol, William, 217, 218, 220, 275, 277 Nicol Hall, 275, 276, 277 Observatory, 107-8, 277
343 Index
Old Arts Building, 157, 158, 166, 189, 275 Old Medical Building, 64, 73, 74, 155, 156, 189, 312n16; alterations, 112, 213, 275; Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons, use, 128-29, 212 Oliver, Alfred, 89-91 Ontario, Province: building endowments, 238, 249, 267, 275, 277; Mining School legislation, 217 Ontario College of Education, 280 Ontario Hall, 221, 249, 275 Ottawa extension lectures, 228
344 Index
Parkin, George, 234 Paton, John, 66, 79, 88-89, 90, 97, 110; Queen's statutes and regulations, 99, 100101 Peacock, E.R., 230, 283, 304 Political Science and Debating Club (19061907), 270 The Presbyterian, 54 Presbyterian church, see also Church of Scotland, Free Church movement, Presbyterian Church in Canada, 14-15, 19; Canadian seminary, establishment, 22-25 Presbyterian Church in Canada, 119, 121, 124; Queen's College: (endowment), 170, 255, 259, 265, 267, (secularization), 25254, 258, 261-62, 264, 265, 268 Presbytery of Hamilton, 6, 24, 47 Presbytery of Toronto, 23, 25 Pringle, Alexander, 3, 5, 29, 56, 88 Pritchett, Henry S., 259 Queen's College (1841 -1912), see also Queen's University (1912- ): academic staff: (academic freedom), 99, 273-74, 291-92, (assistants), 271, (Church of Scotland appointments), 11, 26, 30, 31, 32, 67, 68, (dress requirements), 80, (honours program responsibility), 183, 184, (pensioned retirements), 258, 282-83, (professional qualifications), 30-31, 59, (recruitment procedure), 67, (religious qualification), 26, 317n38, (salaries), 66, 71, 176-77, 258, 321n10, (student-teacher relations), 7, 186, 187, 206, (tenure), 178, 322n19; Act of Incorporation (1840), 2427, 34; administrative staff, 175-76, 286,
288-89; Board of Trustees: (composition), 25-26 (1840), 124 (1875), (operation), 87-88, 174-75, 3i3n3, (statutes and regulations), 100-2, 315n30; buildings, see also names of buildings, 155, 156, 158, 164, 166, 236, 238, 275, (Colborne Street house), 3, 4, (Princess Street house), 9, (William Street house), 56; campus, 7, 9, 63, 69, 158, 235, 278; chancellor, 124; charter: (1841), 27-28, 34, 307n9, (1874 amendment), 123-24, (1889 amendment), 317n38, (1912 amendment), 251-54, 258, 261-62, 264-65; committee of general superintendence, 56; endowment: (1839 campaign), 36-37, (1854 campaign), 6566, (1869 campaign), 115, 117-19, 316n24, (1878 campaign), 154-56, 320n12, (1880 campaign), 163, (1887 Jubilee campaign), 164, 166-67, 172, (1903 campaign), 255, 259, 261, 265, 267, (King's College grant), 26, 33-34, 35, (sources— 1840), 33-36, (sources—Church of Scotland ), 11, 35-36, 37,53-54,125-26,177, (sources—government grant), 113-14, (sources—Presbyterian Church in Canada), 170, 255, 259, 265, 267, (Temporalities Fund), 123, 177; enrolment: (1842-50,3,47,3101112, (1853-60), 76, (1863-66), 126, (1871-77), 131, (190010), 284; establishment, opening, 1, 3, 39; extramural service, 226, 228, 271; faculties, see names of faculties: (deans), 28889; finance and estate committee, 174-75, 289; principal, 85, 87, 100, 101; Senate, 26, 76, (statutes and regulations), 100-102; statutes and regulations, 99-102, 178; tradition, 60-61, 240, 242, 243; University Council, 124, 175; vacations, 309n3 Queen's College School, 55-56, 92, 95, 9798, 310n13 Queen's College Volunteer Rifle Company, 81 Queen's Endowment Association, 163 Queen's Highland Battalion, 297 Queen's Journal, 142, 143, 202; staff: (1917-18), 302, (editors), 202, 303; women student issue, 133-34 Queen's Quarterly, 230-31, 272-73; CapponHarpell controversy, 273-74; Cappon-
Marshall controversy, 292 Queen's Stationary Hospital, 297; No. 5, 295 Queen's Theological College, 265 Queen's University (1912- ), see also Queen's College (1841-1912): academic staff: (pensions), 267, (religiousqualifications), 265, (womenappointments), 303; Act (1912), 265; administrative staff, financial secretary, 289; endowment: (government grant), 267, (Leonard, R.W.), 294, (Presbyterian Church in Canada), 265, 267; Leonard residence controversy, 291-94; Senate reorganization, 289; World Wan: (finances), 299, (military training), 297 Queen's University Day, 28, 143, 202 Rae, John, 6, 31-32 Reid, William, i, 170 Rintoul, William, 24-25, 30, 31, 35, 38-39, 46,48 Romanes, George, 54, 65-66, 141 Ross, G.W., 250, 252, 254 Ross, James, 243 Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons, see Medicine, Faculty of Russell, John, 28 Ryerson, Egerton, 13, 41, 42 Sampson, James, 71, 72, 89-90 Saunders, Lois, 189 Scholarships, 82, 132, 313n35, 317n4 School of Mining and Agriculture, 217-18, 220-23, 267; endowment, grants, 257, 267, 275, 277
Science honours class (1888), 194 Seath, John, 279-80 Seaton, William, 24-25, 34 Semi-Centennial Celebration (1889), 16970 Shortt, Adam, 180, 198, 228, 283; Alumni Conferences, 234; library, 180, 189,190; Queen's College student, 193, 195, 326n14; Queen's Journal, 202; Queen's Quarterly, 231 Skating, 203 Skelton, O.D., 272, 283, 304 Smith, Elizabeth, 214
Smith, Malcolm, 54, 65, 66, 67, 71, 78, 79, 80 Smith, T.G., 172 Snodgrass, William, 68, 110, 111, 112, 128, 131, 134, 148-49; library, 141, 189; Macdonnell heresy case, 148; Presbyterian Church in Canada, 119-24; Queen's endowment campaign: (1869), 117-18, (1878), 155; student discipline, 145, 147; university endowment issue, 114-15 Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, 12
Spectator (Hamilton) on Mowat appointment, 68, 69 Sports, see also names of sports, 7, 81,143, 202-3, 205, 277-78 Stanley, Lord (colonial secretary), 28 Stanley, Lord (governor general), 169 Stephen, James, 20, 28 Stewart, John, 71, 72, 88-89, 92, 98; Kingston General Hospital controversy, 89-92 Strachan, John: clergy reserves, 12, 13, 1718; King's College, 18, 39; Trinity College, 52 Stuart, George Okill, 9, 63 Students: 1842, opening class, i, 5, 6-7, 47; accommodation, see also boardinghouses, 56, 291-94; associations, see also association names, 7; awards, 79, 140; discipline, 79-80, 146-47, 196-99, 286; dress, 80, 210; entrance requirements, see also Queen's College School, 5, 6, 131, 187-88, 332n3; finance, see also bursaries, scholarships, 9, 132, 185, 193, 195, 316n11; Grant Hall fund-raising, 238; holidays, 196-97; Kingston citizen-student relations, 7, 206; Queen's tradition, 60-61, 240, 242, 243; religious life, 47, 79-80, 146, 199-200, 274; self-government, see Alma Mater Society, Concursus iniquitatis et virtutis; teacherstudent relations, 7, 186, 187, 206; women, see Women; World War i, 294, 296-97, 298, 299 Study week, 81 Sullivan, R.B., 26, 35 Summer School, 229, 271-72, 327ng Summerhill, 63, 64, 66, 69, 112, 156, 180; additions, 73, 112; purchase, 9, 63, 65 Sutherland, Robert, 311n25
345 Index
Sydenham, Charles Poulett Thomson, Baron, 26, 35 Synod of the Presbyterian Church, 15, 19, 20, 23; Canadian seminary, establishment, 24-25; Queen's College, relationship, 26 Taylor, R. Bruce, 304 Tennis team, executive (c. 1909), 266 Theological Hall, see Old Arts Building Thompson, E.W., 36-37 Topp, Alexander, 121 Track competitions, 143, 202 Trinity College, 52, 70
346 Index
Union of the Synods, 15,45,46-47 United Presbyterian Synod, 15, 23 Universities: Acts: (1840), 25, (1849), 41-42, 52, (1853), 104, 114, (1905), 25556, (1912), 265, 282; commissions: (1861), 105-6, (1906), 256; endowment: (Clergy Reserves Act), 33, 34-35, (sectarian-secularization issue), (18403) 39-42,49-50,52, (186os) 104-6, 113-15, (1880s) 160-63, (1900-12) 250-59,261-62, 264-65, 267-69; entrance standards, 5; establishment, 3, 52; women, 132-33, 207 University College, 71, 104 University Day, 143, 202-3 University of Toronto, 52, 55, 82, 162-63, 183, 184, 256, 258, 329n11; endowment, 50, 55, 104, 106, 160-61, 250, 256; Faculty of Education, 278, 280; School of Practical Science, 217, 220 University of Western Ontario, 267 Urquhart, Hugh, 54, 66 "Victor Hall" boardinghouse, 241 Victoria College, 3, 41, 42, 52, 55, 162 Wallace, Robert, 6
Wardrope, Thomas, 3, 5, 7, 169-70 Watson, John, 136, 137, 138, 156, 163-64, 245, 247, 322n24; Alumni Conferences, 233; extramural lectures, 228, 229; Grant succession controversy, 245-47; Queen's Quarterly, 230 Weir, George, 67, 79, 98, 99, 103; academic freedom, 99; George quarrel, scandal, 9293, 95-98; Queen's statutes and regulations, 100, 102 Weir, Miss, 67, 96-97 Welsh, David, 31 White, John Francis, 146 Whitney, J.P., 255-57, 278 Whitton, Charlotte, 303 William Street boardinghouse, 56, 58 Williamson, James ("Billy"), 8, 9, 10, 32, 55, 60, 66, 71, 79, 103-4,106m,170,203; application for principalship, 109-10; Queen's College: (Board of Trustees), 29, 60, (statutes and regulations), 100, 102; student accommodation, 56, 58 Willison, John, 267 Wilson, Daniel, 160 Women: Queen's College, 133-34, 206-10, 325n29, (academic staff appointments), 303, (Alma Mater Society), 209, 301, 303, 325n4o, (dean of women), 301; university education issue, 132-33, 207; World Wan, 299, 301 Women's Medical College, 213-14, 216-17; graduates (1888), 2/5 World War 1, 294, 296-97, 299, 301, 303 Yates, Horatio, 72, 90, 126 Young, George Paxton, 120, 123 Young Men's Christian Association (YMCA), 200 Young Women's Christian Association (YWCA),299, 301