SIR WILLIAM DAWSON AND THE MAKING OF MCGILL
James McGill made his will, providing for the founding of McGill
College, on January 8th, 1811, two years before his death. He was
dreaming of a great University which would rise at some distant but
certain day in the new land of his adoption. He was doubtless dreaming,
too, of a strong personality who would guide the University to its
destined place in the country in which he had made his fortune and in
which he had unbounded faith. At that very time another Scotchman,
twenty-two years of age, was dreaming in his home in Banffshire--also,
by a strange coincidence, the home of James McGill's ancestors--of the
land beyond the horizon from which tales of fortune and happiness came
drifting across the ocean. He was a Liberal in politics and a dissenter
in religion. His independent spirit was revolting against conditions in
his own land. It was not easy to sever the ties which bound him to the
old home and to venture alone into an unknown and far-off country. But
the new land was calling, and its lure was upon him. He resolved to go
to Canada where he had heard that all things were possible to the
courageous and the industrious, and where men lived a man's life based
on merit and achievement, and unhampered by the fetters of worn-out
fetishes and conventions. And so it happened that on the 8th of March,
1811, exactly two months after James McGill had made his will, this
young Scotchman set out for the new world. The ship in which he was to
take passage--a square-rigged, clipper sailing vessel in those steamless
days--was to clear from Greenock, one hundred and eighty miles from
Keith, his Banffshire home. He had no money to spare to pay for a
conveyance. He must cover the distance on foot. He sent his heavy
luggage by carrier, and with a pack of necessary clothes and provisions
on his back, he set out with three adventurous but hopeful comrades on
his journey. He walked through the Grampians, by Kildrummy Castle, on
through the town of Perth, along the base of Cairngorm in the Highlands,
through the long valley of Glenavon, and thence to the sea-port town of
Greenock from which the packet ships went weekly out into the mists,
heading for the land of promise somewhere beyond the sky-line. He slept
with his companions on heather beds in front of peat fires in the homes
of the Highlanders through whose villages they passed, and the Gaelic
tongue of one of their number was always a charm sufficient to secure
them food. He reached Greenock on the 20th of March, but because of
unforeseen delay it was not until April 11th that he embarked for
Canada. After a voyage of five tempestuous weeks he landed in Pictou,
Nova Scotia, on May 19th, 1811, and there he determined to make his
home. The young Scotchman was James Dawson, whose son was destined in
1855 to become Principal of McGill.
[Illustration: Redpath Museum Photo Rice Studios
_Sir William Dawson, C. M. G., M.A., L.L.D., F.R.S., Principal of McGill
University_ 1855-1893]
In his new home James Dawson soon prospered as a merchant and
ship-owner, and later as a publisher, and in a few years he was head
of one of the most successful business firms in Eastern Nova Scotia. In
1818 he married Mary Rankine, a Scotch girl from Lonerig, in the parish
of Salamannan, who had emigrated to Nova Scotia after her parents' death
with her brother William, the only other member of her family. Like the
other pioneers of that time, they, too, were resolved to make a new home
and to restore their shattered fortunes in the new world. To James
Dawson and Mary Rankine two children were born, William and James, the
latter of whom died while still a boy.
William Dawson was born in the town of Pictou, Pictou County, Nova
Scotia, on October 13th, 1820, and there he received his early
schooling. His parents believed in the value of education. Early in his
career they determined that he should have whatever school privileges
the country provided, and that he should later receive a college
training. Many years afterwards he wrote: "To this day I cannot recall
without deep emotion the remembrance of the sacrifices they made, and of
the anxieties they incurred to secure for me opportunities of
improvement.... I would specially record with gratitude that, at a time
when he was in straitened circumstances, my father contributed liberally
in aid of educational institutions then being established in Pictou,
with the view of securing their benefits for his sons, and that he and
my mother aided and stimulated our early tastes for literature and
science."
The childhood influences that moulded William Dawson were typical of the
homes of the early Scottish pioneers in the Maritime Provinces of Canada
at the beginning of the last century. They were characterised by
simplicity, by frugality and by reverence. They were founded on an
unwavering belief in religion and education and honest labour as
necessary to the development of the individual and the nation. They were
based on principles inculcated in the youth of these early Canadian days
long before Carlyle with rugged pen and organ tone declared them. Later,
when Principal of McGill, Dr. Dawson used to speak with affectionate
remembrance of the agencies which fashioned him in the little seacoast
town of black wharves, and tossing tides, and far-come sailing ships
bearing mysterious cargoes from unknown and romantic lands, and manned
by strangely-garbed and bearded seamen speaking a foreign tongue. "Our
home," he said, "was a very quiet one except when strangers, especially
men engaged in missionary and benevolent enterprises, were occasionally
invited as guests. To some of these I was indebted for much information
and guidance ... There was always much work and study in the winter
evenings, and I remember with what pleasure I used to listen to my
father's reading, chiefly in history and biography, for the benefit of
my mother when busy with her needle, as well as of my brother and
myself, after our lessons were finished.... My early home had much in it
to foster studies of nature, and both my parents encouraged such
pursuits. A somewhat wild garden, with many trees and shrubs, was full
of objects of interest; within easy walking distance were rough
pastures, with second-growth woods, bogs, and swamps, rich in berries
and flowers in their season, and inhabited by a great variety of birds
and insects. Nothing pleased my father more than to take an early
morning hour, or rare holiday, and wander through such places with his
boys, studying and collecting their treasures. The harbour of Pictou,
too, with its narrow entrance from the sea, affords ample opportunities
for such investigations, and its waters teem with fish: from the gay
striped bass and lordly salmon to the ever-hungry smelt--the delight of
juvenile anglers. In such a basin, visited every day by the ocean tides,
there is an endless variety of the humbler forms of aquatic life, and
along the streams entering it a wealth of curious animals and plants
with which an inquisitive boy could easily make himself familiar in his
rambles and occasional angling expeditions." It was here that the
interest of the future scientist was first aroused in natural history.
Of his mother he wrote: "She was a woman of deep affections and many
sorrows ... her girlish years had been saddened by the death of her
parents, and by the mournful breaking up of her old home ... She had a
few warm and attached friends, and was very kind to such of the needy as
she could help."
The first scholastic training of William Dawson was received in a small
private school in Pictou. From there he went to the recently founded
Grammar School conducted on "the good old-fashioned plan of long hours,
hard lessons, no prizes, but some punishments." His parents desired that
he should study for the Church; he began his college career with that
object in view, but it was changed by circumstances. He entered Pictou
Academy, which had just been established primarily for the training of
young men for the Christian ministry; it was presided over by the Rev.
Dr. Thomas MacCulloch, a Scottish teacher and preacher who exercised a
large influence on the intellectual life of Nova Scotia. It was during
his course at the Academy that William Dawson first became interested
scientifically in geology and natural history, subjects which were later
to form so large a part of his life work. As a result he took long
excursions during vacations for the purpose of obtaining specimens and
studying the minerals of his native province. In 1840, he entered
Edinburgh University, where he completed his course in 1847. It was in
one of his summer vacations in the Maritime Provinces that he first met
Sir Charles Lyell, the distinguished geologist, and Sir William Logan,
who later originated the Geological Survey of Canada. In 1847 he married
Margaret Mercer of Edinburgh and with his wife he returned to Pictou.
For a time he gave a special course of extension lectures at Dalhousie
College, Halifax. In 1850, Joseph Howe, for whom he had a deep
admiration, and with whom he had formed a friendship early in life,
offered him the Superintendency of Education in Nova Scotia,--a newly
established office. He accepted the post with many misgivings; and for
the next few years he devoted all his efforts to bettering the
educational conditions of the Province, addressing school meetings
throughout the country and stimulating improvements.
In 1853 while he was still Superintendent of Education, his old friend,
Sir Charles Lyell, revisited Nova Scotia and the friendship formed a few
years before was renewed. On the same ship with him was Sir Edmund Head,
then Governor of New Brunswick, who, on this first meeting, was deeply
impressed by Mr. Dawson's views on educational reforms. As a result he
appointed him the following year to the commission formed to report on
the re-organisation of the University of New Brunswick, which was then
in a precarious state.
In 1854, the Governors of McGill, on the advice of Sir Edmund Head who
was about to become Governor-General of Canada in succession to Lord
Elgin, offered the Principalship to William Dawson. He accepted the post
and began his duties in the autumn of 1855. The outlook of the
University when he arrived was not encouraging. The College buildings
were not used for classes, but part of them was occupied by professors
and students; Medical classes were held in the Coté Street building;
classes in Arts and Law were held in part of the High School building.
The conditions of James McGill's will were not being carried out; there
was a College building on the Burnside Estate, it was true, but it was
not in operation.
But nevertheless the call for educational opportunities was urgent. One
hundred and ten students registered at the commencement of the session
in all departments of the University, of whom fifteen were in Law,
thirty-eight in Arts and fifty-seven in Medicine. The Faculty of Arts
consisted of five professors and one lecturer; the Faculty of Law had
one professor and two lecturers; and the Faculty of Medicine had nine
professors. The annual calendar for the previous session, 1854-55,
announced that "the board and lodging of students is a matter of much
practical importance. From fifteen to twenty [Arts and Law students] may
be received by the Professors resident in the College buildings and
provision will be made when necessary for the reception of others into
boarding houses, licensed by the Governors, upon settled economical
terms and subject to proper rules of discipline and conduct." Medical
students, it was pointed out, "could obtain board and lodging in the
town for from eight to sixteen dollars a month." It was clear that the
attendance would rapidly increase in succeeding years, and that
provision must at once be made for their accommodation and instruction.
The greatest hindrance to advancement was of course lack of funds.
The actual condition of the University at that time and the obstacles to
be overcome were afterwards frequently described by Sir William Dawson,
whose reminiscences of the period were always vivid:
"When I accepted the principalship of McGill," he said, "I had not been
in Montreal, and knew the college and the men connected with it only by
reputation. I first saw it, in October, 1855. Materially, it was
represented by two blocks of unfinished and partly ruinous buildings,
standing amid a wilderness of excavators' and masons' rubbish, overgrown
with weeds and bushes. The grounds were unfenced and were pastured at
will by herds of cattle, which not only cropped the grass, but browsed
on the shrubs, leaving unhurt only one great elm, which still stands as
the 'founder's tree,' and a few old oaks and butternut trees, most of
which have had to give place to our new buildings. The only access from
the town was by a circuitous and ungraded cart track, almost impassable
at night. The buildings had been abandoned by the new Board, and the
classes of the Faculty of Arts were held in the upper story of a brick
building in the town, the lower part of which was occupied by the High
School. I had been promised a residence, and this, I found, was to be a
portion of one of the detached buildings aforesaid, the present east
wing. It had been very imperfectly finished, was destitute of nearly
every requisite of civilised life, and in front of it was a bank of
rubbish and loose stones, with a swamp below, while the interior was in
an indescribable state of dust and disrepair. Still, we felt that the
Governors had done the best they could in the circumstances, and we took
possession as early as possible. As it was, however, we received many of
the citizens, who were so kind as to call on us, in the midst of all the
confusion of plastering, papering, painting, and cleaning. The residence
was only a type of our difficulties and discouragements, and a not very
favourable introduction to the work I had undertaken in Montreal....
"On the other hand, I found in the Board of Governors a body of able and
earnest men, aware of the difficulties they had to encounter, fully
impressed with the importance of the ends to be attained, and having
sufficient culture and knowledge of the world to appreciate the best
means for achieving their aims. They were greatly hampered by lack of
means, but had that courage which enables risks to be run to secure
important objects....
"Our great difficulty was lack of the sinews of war, and the seat of
Government being, at the time, in Toronto, I was asked by the Governors
to spend my first Christmas vacation in that city, with a view of
securing some legislative aid. There was as yet no direct railway
communication between Montreal and Toronto, and of course no Victoria
Bridge. I crossed the river in a canoe, amidst floating ice, and had to
travel by way of Albany, Niagara, and Hamilton. The weather was stormy,
and the roads blocked with snow, so that the journey to Toronto
occupied five days, giving me a shorter time there than I had
anticipated. I received, however, a warm welcome from Sir Edmund Head,
saw most of the members of the Government, and obtained some information
as to the Hon. Mr. Cartier's contemplated Superior Education Act--passed
in the following year--which secured for the first time the status of
the preparatory schools, whilst giving aid to the universities. I was
also encouraged by Sir Edmund and Cartier to confer with the
Superintendent of Education and with the Governors of McGill on my
return to Montreal, with reference to the establishment of a Normal
School in connection with the University. This was successfully carried
through in the following year."
With the loyal aid of the Board of Governors the Principal at once
undertook to arouse the interest of the general public in the
University. He realised the necessity of securing their speedy
co-operation and assistance. His belief was that the University should
not be isolated nor removed from the stream of national life; his hope
was that it should minister in a practical and tangible way to the
community in which it was situated. On November 5th, 1855, he was
inaugurated as Principal. A few days later he established the first real
link between University and citizens, on the purely instructional side,
by the commencement of a course of thirty popular lectures in Zoology,
Natural Philosophy, Civil Engineering, Palæography and the Chemistry of
Life. The fee for the course was £1. The course in Engineering was the
origin of the department of Applied Science, which later expanded into a
Faculty. Soon afterwards a course of lectures in Agriculture was given
by the Principal, who, while Superintendent of Education in Nova Scotia,
had given several lectures on that subject throughout the province. The
fee for this course was £1 5s.
A direct appeal for financial assistance was then made to the citizens
of Montreal. It met with an encouraging response, which greatly relieved
the situation and was what Dr. Dawson, forty years later, called "the
beginning of a stream of liberality which has floated our University
barque up to the present date." But other anxieties were soon to be
felt. Early in 1856 the building occupied by the High School and the
Faculty of Arts was destroyed by fire, together with the few books and
the scanty apparatus that had been collected or had been given by Dr.
Skakel many years before, as well as many of the Principal's natural
history specimens. Teaching was not interrupted, however, and during the
remainder of the session, the classes in Arts were held again, in part,
in the original College buildings, then undergoing repairs, and, in
part, in the Medical Faculty's building on Coté Street, in which rooms
were generously placed at the disposal of the Faculty of Arts. Because
of the occupation of part of the College buildings, and the expectation
of soon again putting them to permanent use, improvements were commenced
on the College grounds, by the planting of trees and the making of roads
and walks, the cost of which was borne largely by the Principal. In
1856, general courses in Applied Science were established in connection
with the Faculty of Arts, and degrees were first conferred in that
department in 1859. The courses in the Law School, which had been
formed into a separate Faculty in 1853, were extended to suit the
conditions and needs of the country. But funds were necessary to meet
the heavy extra expenses incurred, and in order to provide sufficient
money for the payment of debts and contingencies, it was thought prudent
to sell a portion of the College lands. From 1858 to 1860, therefore,
forty-four lots, averaging in size one hundred by one hundred and twenty
feet, were offered for sale by the University. Some of these were sold
at auction. They were situated on Sherbrooke, Victoria, Mansfield and
University Streets. Money was also loaned by the College authorities to
purchasers of lots to enable them to erect buildings. The temporary
revenue of the College was thus increased and expansion was consequently
made possible.
[Illustration: _William Molson, Esq.,_ 1793-1875
_Founder of Molson Hall_]
In 1860, the number of students in Arts, Law and Science had increased
to one hundred and five, of whom sixty were in Arts. It had been
previously decided that when the students in Arts should exceed fifty,
the original College buildings should again be wholly occupied. They had
meanwhile undergone extensive repairs. The College grounds were now
taking on some semblance of order as a result of trees and walks and
clearings. Accordingly, in the autumn of 1860 the classes in Arts,
Science and Law were moved back to the buildings which had been
practically abandoned eight years before. The centre building was used
for classes; the east wing was given up to rooms for the Principal and
some of the professors and students. The erection of a third building,
corresponding with the east wing, was then undertaken through the
generosity of William Molson. It provided for a convocation hall
above, and a library below. It was formally opened in 1862, and is known
as the William Molson Hall. Through the efforts of Mrs. Molson the three
buildings were soon afterwards connected into one, by intervening
structures, and the Arts building as we know it was completed. One of
the connecting structures was used first as a museum; the other as a
Chemical and Natural Science room and laboratory. The museum received at
once a portion of the Principal's own collection of specimens, and
others purchased by the Principal from his own resources. Later Dr.
Carpenter's valuable collection of shells was added, and the whole
furnished the nucleus for the present Peter Redpath Museum. The Science
room and laboratory were used for chemistry and assaying. It was there,
in small rooms and with but scanty equipment, that Dr. Harrington later
laid the foundations for the departments of Chemistry and Mining which
were subsequently to contribute so largely to the industrial development
of Canada. The Library in Molson Hall had room for twenty thousand
volumes, but when it was opened the College possessed only two thousand
books. These, however, formed the nucleus for the Peter Redpath Library.
During the following years the expansion of the University was steady.
It is unnecessary here to describe its growth in detail and only
outstanding additions to its equipment can be mentioned. The deeper
interest of graduates in their University was manifested in the
formation of a Graduates' Society by a small number of McGill men
resident in Montreal. Greater co-operation with the smaller colleges in
the Province was effected, and St. Francis College, Richmond, and
Morrin College, Quebec, were affiliated with the University. Theological
schools established by the various Protestant denominations were erected
in the shadow of the University and were granted affiliation. The
Congregational College was affiliated in 1865; it was followed by the
Presbyterian College in 1873, the Wesleyan College in 1876, and the
Diocesan College in 1880. Speaking of the connection of the Theological
Colleges with McGill, Principal Dawson said: "The value of these to the
University no one can doubt. They not only add to the number of our
students in Arts, but to their character and standing, and they enable
the University to offer a high academical training to the candidates for
the Christian ministry in four leading denominations."
The growth and development of the University was made possible only by
the generosity of its graduates and friends. In 1871 a second appeal was
made for funds, and the result was a large increase in endowments, and
in revenue. Several chairs were established and scholarships and
exhibitions were provided. It was in this year that the first attempt
was made to offer facilities for the higher education of women, not yet,
however, within the University, but unofficially connected with it. But
this movement must be left to another chapter.
At this period the Medical Faculty which had carried on its work for
twenty years in the Coté Street building required more accommodation and
a closer connection with the University. Funds for its adequate
equipment were not available. Indeed, ten years later Principal Dawson
wrote: "It is somewhat singular that this school so ably conducted and
so useful, has drawn to itself so little of the munificence of
benefactors. Perhaps the fact of its self-supporting and independent
character has led to this." It was decided, however, to undertake the
construction of a Medical Building on the College property. In 1872 the
front block of what was afterwards known as "the old Medical Building"
was erected for the Medical School, and the Medical Faculty returned,
this time permanently, to the College grounds. Funds for its endowment
were afterwards given by its friends. The year 1872 is a notable one in
the history of the McGill Medical School, for another reason than the
erection of its first McGill building,--it was also the year of the
graduation of William Osler, destined later to exercise so great an
influence on medical education in Canada, America, and Europe. The
department of Applied Science which had been connected with the Faculty
of Arts since 1856 was expanded into a separate Faculty in 1878. It had
been temporarily suspended because of a lack of funds in 1870; it was
now re-created, greater than before. But it had yet no building and no
adequate equipment. These, however, were to come in due course.
Speaking later of the decade between 1870 and 1880, Principal Dawson
referred to it as the middle period in his connection with McGill, "a
period of routine and uniformity, succeeding the period of preparation
and active exertion and preceding the period of culmination. During
these ten years," he said, "the University outlived for the most part
its earlier trials and struggles. Its revenues expanded considerably....
The number of its students greatly increased, as did also its staff of
instructors. Gold medals and scholarships were founded. The beginning
of a museum was formed, and the library, although still small, was
growing rapidly, by donations and occasional purchases. A suitable
building on the College grounds was provided for the Medical Faculty. A
new Faculty of Applied Science was active and prosperous, though as yet
without any building of its own. The statutes and regulations had become
fixed and settled, and the whole machinery of the institution was moving
smoothly and regularly. It had, in short, reached a position in which it
could challenge comparison with its sister institutions and rivals and
which to many seemed adequate to all the requirements of the time.
Still, there were many wants unsupplied, and constant difficulty was
experienced in meeting the demands made upon us, from our limited
resources, whilst many promising fields of usefulness had to remain
uncultivated.... On the whole, the ten years had been characterised by
steady, if slow, advance, achieved by much toil and many sacrifices."
But the Principal was not yet satisfied with the University's service to
the community. "It has been a matter of sorrow to me," he said, "that we
have been able to do so little, directly, for the education of the
working class and of the citizens generally, more especially in
science."
[Illustration: _Peter Redpath_
_Founder of the Redpath Library and the Redpath Museum_]
The final period of Principal Dawson's connection with McGill, from 1880
to his retirement in 1893, saw a further growth in the University. Into
the details of that growth we cannot here enter. The University was now
becoming a national rather than a local institution; it was contributing
more and more to national development. The Principal wrote, "we
should not regard McGill merely as an institution for Montreal or for
the Province of Quebec but for the whole of Canada." Its expansion was
fortunately in keeping with this ideal. In 1881 the erection of a museum
was undertaken through the generosity of Peter Redpath, and in 1882 the
Peter Redpath Museum was formally opened. In the former year, too,
another appeal was made to the citizens of Montreal for funds to relieve
its now straitened circumstances, and again the response was generous
and encouraging. In 1882 Principal Dawson said in his annual University
Lecture: "In these thirty years, [since 1852 when the amended Charter
was obtained] the College revenues have grown from a few hundred dollars
to about $40,000 per annum, without reckoning the fees in professional
Faculties and the income of the more recent benefactions. Its staff has
increased from the original eight instructing officers to thirty-nine.
The number of students has increased to 415 actually attending college
classes, or reckoning those of the Normal School and of affiliated
colleges in Arts, to nearly 600. Its Faculties of Law and Applied
Science have been added to those of Arts and Medicine. It has two
affiliated Colleges in Arts and four in Theology, and has under its
management the Provincial Protestant Normal School. Its buildings, like
itself, have been growing by a process of accretion, and the latest,
that in which we are now assembled, [the Peter Redpath Museum], is far
in advance of all the others, and a presage of the college buildings of
the future. We have five chairs endowed by private benefactors, fourteen
endowed scholarships and exhibitions, besides others of a temporary
nature, and eight endowed gold medals. More than this, we have sent out
about 1,200 graduates, of whom more than a thousand are occupying
positions of usefulness and honour in this country."
[Illustration: _Sir William Macdonald_]
This final period of Principal Dawson's work saw a sure and steady
advancement and many changes in the University. Among the evidences of
growth were the establishment of courses for women in 1884, with their
extension in 1886; the addition of the Medical Building in 1886, and its
still further enlargement in 1893; the endowment of several chairs; the
increase in the teaching staff; the establishment of scholarships and
exhibitions; the creation of new courses, and the plans for new and
much-needed buildings. In 1886 the Vice-Principal, the Rev. Dr. Leach,
retired after over forty years of service. He was succeeded as
Vice-Principal by Dr. Alexander Johnson, Professor of Mathematics.
Towards the close of this period the Faculty of Applied Science, which
had been established as a separate school in 1878, was placed, at last,
on an independent foundation--after its many trials and struggles--by
the munificent gifts of Thomas Workman and William C. Macdonald,
afterwards Sir William Macdonald, a native of Prince Edward Island.
Preparations were made for the erection of Science buildings with
adequate equipment and endowment. In February, 1893, a few months before
Sir William Dawson's resignation of the Principalship, two buildings for
the Faculty of Applied Science were opened--the Macdonald Engineering
Building, including the Workman wing, and the Macdonald Physics
Building, the equipment and facilities of which soon afterwards enabled
Professor Ernest Rutherford to carry on his experiments in
radioactivity. Meanwhile the Library in Molson Hall had become totally
inadequate for the volumes and documents that had been gathered by the
University. Peter Redpath, who had already given the Museum, was now the
Senior Governor of the University. On November 12, he wrote to the
Chancellor enclosing plans of a projected library and proposing to
commence building operations early in the following spring. The building
was practically completed before Sir William Dawson's retirement, but it
was not formally opened until October, 1893. In the last four years of
the Principalship of Dr. Dawson the University was given more than a
million and a half of dollars for endowment and equipment. What
gratified him most in receiving this amount was the fact that it
included many minor gifts which testified, at the close of his long
career, to the good will and confidence and co-operation of the general
public.
As a result of Sir William Dawson's constant anxieties and strenuous
labours, his health had been for some time in a precarious state. In his
annual University Lecture ten years before, he had said, "My connection
with this University for the past twenty-eight years has been fraught
with that happiness which results from the consciousness of effort in a
worthy cause, and from association with such noble and self-sacrificing
men as those who have built up McGill College. But it has been filled
with anxieties and cares and with continuous and almost unremitting
labour on the details of which I need not now dwell." Ten years had
passed since then, and the "anxieties and cares and unremitting labour"
to which he referred had not grown less. They had finally broken his
already weakened strength. On the 26th of May, 1893, after thirty-eight
years of arduous service, he tendered his resignation of the
Principalship of McGill to the Board of Governors, and reluctantly it
was accepted. After his retirement his interest in the University did
not diminish. He continued his researches and his writings. There was a
last visit to England in the summer of 1896, to attend meetings of the
Evangelical Alliance, the Royal Society, the Victoria Institute, the
Geological Society, and the British Association, at the latter of which
he illustrated to a large meeting of eminent geologists the structure of
_Eozoon_. In the summer of 1897 he was stricken with partial paralysis
from which he recovered somewhat, but which left him an invalid. Two
years later, in the autumn of 1899, his illness became acute. He lapsed
into partial unconsciousness. For several days he lingered. Then on
November 19th, a gray Sunday morning, very quietly at the last, he
slipped away. The next day, the Governors, Principal, members of the
teaching staff, and students gathered in the Molson Hall to do honour in
a Memorial Service, to the memory of the teacher, the administrator and
the man they admired and loved. The Memorial Address, here included in
the Appendix, was given by his successor, Principal Peterson.
[Illustration: _Sir William Peterson
Principal of McGill University_ 1895-1919]
Sir William Dawson was Principal of McGill for thirty-eight years, more
than a third of the century that has passed since the establishment of
the University, and almost half of the period since its actual opening.
It has not been possible here to speak of his researches, his writings,
his connection with learned societies. Many honours came to him from
Britain, from America, and from Canada. He was the first President of
the Royal Society of Canada; he was President at various times of the
American Association for the Advancement of Science, of the American
Geological Association, and of the British Association. In 1884 he was
knighted. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society, and he received
honorary degrees from Edinburgh,--his old University, from McGill and
from Columbia. But all his activities were incidental and subservient to
his work as Principal of McGill and to his efforts for the advancement
of the University. He saw the institution grow slowly but surely under
his guidance, in the face of many discouragements, from very small
beginnings to a foremost place among the great seats of learning of
America and Europe. He found in 1855 a college struggling under debt,
with inadequate revenue, with abandoned buildings, with few professors
and with only one hundred students. In the last session of his
Principalship more than a thousand students were in attendance, of whom
three hundred and fifty were in the Faculty of Arts, and one hundred and
thirty-five degrees were conferred; more than half a dozen spacious
college buildings had been added to the original structure; the lower
campus or yard was practically what it is to-day except for the new
Medical Building; the endowments had increased to over a million and a
half of dollars, the yearly income to nearly a quarter of a million and
the disbursements to nearly two hundred thousand dollars. The growth of
the University in equipment, in instructors, in courses and in general
educational opportunities has already been indicated. In bringing about
this marvellous growth, the Principal had the generous assistance and
sympathetic encouragement of a loyal band of friends, among whom his
greatest gratitude was recorded to William Molson, John H. R. Molson,
Peter Redpath, Sir Donald Smith, afterwards Lord Strathcona; Thomas
Workman, and William C. Macdonald. Without their aid and their generous
gifts the expansion of the University, needless to say, would not have
been possible.
But greater perhaps than the material and numerical growth which he
accomplished, was the spirit of service William Dawson brought to
McGill, and the influence of that spirit on the men and women who went
out from the University to help in the development of Canada. It is
difficult briefly and adequately here to outline the ideals which shaped
his policy in guiding the University and the students over whose
instruction he presided. They are found in his addresses on various
occasions. Perhaps they are best summed up in his farewell message to
the students in December, 1893, when he was leaving the University to
pass a few months in the South in a vain effort to restore his already
shattered health:
"I had hoped, in the present session," he said, "to be among you as
usual, doing what I could, officially and personally for your welfare,
but was suddenly stricken down by a dangerous illness. In this, I
recognised the hand of my Heavenly Father, doing all things for the
best, and warning me that my years of active usefulness are approaching
their close, and that it is time to put off my armour and assume the
peaceful garb of age, in which perhaps I may yet be spared to be of some
service in the world.
"For the time being, I must be separated from the work that has always
been to me a pleasure, and you will excuse me for addressing to you a
few words, on topics which seem to me of highest moment to you as
students. I may group these under the word 'Loyalty,' a word which we
borrow, with many others, from the French, though we have the synonym
'leal,' which if not indigenous, has at least been fully naturalised
both in English and Scottish. These words are directly associated with
the idea of law and obligation, and with the trite, though true, adage,
that we who would command must first learn to obey.
"I need scarcely remind you of that loyalty which we owe to the
sovereign lady the Queen, and to the great Empire over which she rules.
I have had frequent occasion to note the fact, that this sentiment is
strong in the rising generation of Canadians, and nowhere more so than
in McGill. It is indeed not merely a sentiment, though, even in a time
which boasts of being practical and utilitarian, the feelings of the
heart count for something: it is based also on the rational appreciation
of the benefits of a rule, which, while allowing the greatest freedom of
individual action, secures equal rights and protection for all.
"We are, every one of us I hope, loyal to our University, and _to the
University as a whole_, not merely to any particular faculty of it.
McGill has endeavoured, more than most universities, carefully to adapt
its teaching to the actual wants and needs of the student, whether in
the matter of that general academical learning which makes the educated
man, or of that special training which fits the graduate for taking his
place, creditably, in the highest walks of professional life. To this, I
think, its success has been largely due. Yet, with all the breadth and
the elasticity of our system, we cannot perfectly meet every case, and
there are still desiderata, the want of which is most deeply felt by
those engaged in the management of the University. Our course, however,
has been onward and upward, and it may be truly said that no session has
passed in which something has not been added to our means of usefulness.
The future, indeed, has endless possibilities, and there will be ample
scope for improvement--and perhaps also for occasional complaints--when
the youngest students of to-day have grown to be grey-haired seniors.
You have good cause, notwithstanding, to be proud of your University,
and to cherish feelings of affection and gratitude to the wise and good
men, who, amid many difficulties, have brought it to its present
position, and are still urging it onward.
"You should be loyal to the ideal of the student. You are a chosen and
special band of men and women, selected out of the mass, to attain to a
higher standing than your fellows, in those acquirements which make life
noble and useful. It is not for you to join in the follies of frivolous
pleasure-seekers, or to sacrifice the true culture of your minds and
hearts to the mere pursuit of gain. Your aims are higher, and require
isolation from the outer world, and self-denial, in the hope that what
you are now sowing and planting, will bear good fruit in all your future
lives. Live up to this ideal, and bear in mind that self-control, and
the habits of mind which it implies, are of themselves worth more than
all the sacrifices you make.
[Illustration: _J. H. R. Molson_]
"Be loyal to the memories of home. I regret very much that McGill cannot
at present offer to its students such temporary homes as college
halls could supply. The time for this is coming, I hope soon. But most
of you have those at home who look on your residence here with
solicitude and longing, who will rejoice in your successes, and perhaps
be heartbroken should any evil befall you. It is customary to say that
young people at college are removed from the restraints of home and its
influences for good. But this need not be. To the truly loyal, absence
should make these influences more powerful, and the thought of those who
are watching you with loving hearts, in distant homes, should be a
strong impelling motive in the students' life.
"Next to home is heaven, and let me now add, loyalty to Him who reigns
there, and to the Captain of our salvation made perfect through
suffering for us. Many of you, I know, are earnest Christians and
growing in spiritual life, as you advance in learning. To those who are
not, let me say,--read, as a serious study, the life of Jesus Christ as
given in the Gospels. Read it in the light of His own sayings, that 'He
came not to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for
many,' and that 'God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten
Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have eternal
life.' Read of His life as the Man of Sorrows, of His agony in
Gethsemane, of His death on the Cross, crushed not merely by physical
agony, but by the weight of our iniquities--and you may then judge, if
there is any obligations so great as that under which we lie to Him, any
loyal service so blessed as that of the Saviour. The gate may be strait,
and we may have to leave some things outside, but it is held open
lovingly by the pierced hand of our Redeemer, and it leads through a
happy and fruitful life to eternal joys--to that land which the Scottish
poet, whose religious ideal was so much higher than his own life, or the
current theology of his time, calls the 'land o' the leal.' That happy
country is near to me, but I hope separated from you by a long, useful
and happy life; but let us all alike look forward to meeting beyond the
River of Death, in that promised land where He reigns who said 'Him that
confesseth Me before men will I confess before My Father that is in
Heaven.'
"In the meantime you remain here to pursue useful work; I go to seek
restored health elsewhere, and can only remember you in my prayers. Let
us hope that when the winter is passed we may meet once more, and that I
may be able to congratulate you on well merited success, not merely in
regard to the prizes and honours which few can obtain, but in that
abiding education of the mind and heart, which McGill offers to all her
studious children without exception."
On his last convocation as Principal, on April 29, 1893, he said to the
graduating class: "I may say, we have full confidence that you will
sustain the honour of the University, and will regard the education you
have received as a sacred trust, of which you are the stewards, and
which is to be used for the good of all, for the advancement of your
country, and for the glory of God."
Those who worked with him or who studied under him and who are best
qualified to speak, tell that it was, after all, the noble humanity with
which Dawson invested his teaching and his administration that gave
greatness to his occupancy of the Principalship. It was his
personality, his energy, his deep and vivid sympathy with student
interests, even more than his learning and his contemporary influence in
other spheres, that helped to re-create McGill. Under his spell there
were many undergraduates who had thoughts and aspirations beyond the
McGill of their day, thoughts of sacrifice, and of future service to the
world.
In forwarding his resignation to the Governors, he wrote: "Much has been
attained, but much still remains to be accomplished, especially with
reference to the purely educational or academical faculty, which, in the
present stage of Canadian society, demands more than any other, generous
support. Means for this have hitherto been deficient, and much precious
time and energy have been wasted in the inevitable struggle to maintain
the ground already gained. It has been my earnest prayer that I might be
permitted to carry out in the case of McGill my ideal of a complete and
symmetrical university suited to this country, and particularly to the
English population of this Province. It has pleased God to deny me this
satisfaction; but I entertain the firm belief that good foundations have
been laid, which will not be disturbed, but will be built on and carried
to full completion, by the energy, care, and judgment of my immediate
successors." These hopes were destined to be fulfilled in the larger
McGill of our day.