hand, a thorough English and scientific education and elementary classical instruction for those of the youth of their congregations who might seek for more than a common school education, or who might wish to prepare for the university, and who, not having the experience of university students, required a parental and religious oversight in their absence from their parents.

5. That it would be economic as well as patriotic on the part of the government to grant a liberal aid to such seminaries, as well as to provide for the endowment of a university or a common school system.

It is evident from the contemporary press that already a new principle was making its way into the university question, viz., the entire separation of the higher education from religion, leaving that entirely to the voluntary efforts of the churches. "I cannot, for the life of me, see," says a prominent editor of that time, "what religion has to do with the department of the university devoted to arts and sciences." Dr. Ryerson's view was the very opposite of this, religion with him forming an essential element in all education.

Another element in the educational problem of that time was the appearance of residential secondary schools either owned by or patronized by the principal religious denominations. Upper Canada College was really such under the control of the Church of England. Upper Canada Academy, still

THE MACDONALD BILL

continued as a preparatory adjunct of Victoria College, was another. Knox College filled for some years a similar place for the Free Church Presbyterians, and the Society of Friends were establishing another in Bloomfield. Those institutions, the outcome of the religious and intellectual spirit of the age, were destined for a time to be eclipsed by the rise of the high schools as a part of the system which Dr. Ryerson was now inaugurating; but their persistence to the present and their large extension in secondary colleges, both for young men and young women, is the best proof of their value in an educational system.

Mr. Draper's bill was lost by the carrying of an amendment to the second reading, and so ended the second attempt at the formation of a provincial university. Its failure was due to two causes. The voluntary party in the House and outside were now taking the ground that even for education no state grants should be made to churches. The church party, on the other hand, were making a most determined effort to retain control of the university and its endowment. Mr. Draper's bill suited neither, and was killed by their combined

vote.

A similar fate befell the effort in 1847 made by the solicitor-general, Mr. John A. Macdonald, to solve the university problem. His bill offered the largest concessions yet tendered to the church party. He proposed to hand over to them King's

College, with the building now completed, together with an annual income of $12,000, and to give to Queen's and Victoria and Regiopolis $6,000 each. The balance of the annual income arising from the university endowment was to be expended on the district grammar schools and in promoting the teaching of scientific agriculture. This bill, known as the partition scheme, called forth the most strenuous opposition of the Liberals, who had now planted themselves firmly on the principle that the university endowment should not be divided, and that the provincial university should be completely secularized. On the other hand, it was rejected by the church party, who still claimed the whole endowment, as well as the college. The combined opposition of these two parties caused its withdrawal.

This partition bill of Mr. Macdonald was the introduction of an entirely new phase of the university question. Hitherto all were agreed on the idea of a single provincial university. The question at issue was its control in the interests of a single religious body, as opposed to the equal rights and privileges of all. Nor was there any question as to the relation of the churches and religious teaching to university education. All university reforms proposed to retain this by the incorporation of the existing colleges. The principle of historic continuity was thus maintained. There was no proposal to destroy existing institutions for the erection

THE SECOND BALDWIN BILL

of the new. Mr. Macdonald's proposition was thoroughly conservative. It proposed to do full justice to all existing institutions, but at the expense of the central university, which had now become the ideal of liberal thought. The ground of conflict was thus shifted, and henceforth the battle was to be between one secular state university and the four church colleges. Mr. Macdonald's partition bill received Dr. Ryerson's strong support, and determined his position on the university question to the end of his life, for the following reasons:

1. It appeared to him to meet the full extent of the needs of university education as at that time existing in the leading colleges of the Englishspeaking world. The vast modern extension of the sphere of the university was then unknown.

2. It coincided with his conservative instincts, which always led him to work with spontaneous historic growth rather than upon theory.

3. It satisfied his convictions of the need of religion as an essential part of all education.

4. He judged that the four colleges already established would afford the advantages of higher education to a larger number than would receive them in one central university.

The defeat of the Conservative government at the next election and the return of the Liberals to power, placed the university question once more in the hands of Mr. Baldwin, and his now largely advanced positions were embodied in the bill of

1849. The central idea of this bill was the complete separation of the provincial university from all ecclesiastical influence and control. The subject of divinity was excluded from the university; all religious tests, subscriptions and exercises were done away with; it was forbidden to the government to appoint an ecclesiastic on the senate, and such could not fill the office of chancellor. The only privilege offered to the outlying colleges established by the churches was the right to appoint one member of the senate, and this privilege was offered only on condition of their being deprived at once and forever of the power to confer degrees except in divinity. The central idea was the extinction of all other colleges as educational institutions and their conversion into theological schools, and this to be accomplished either by their voluntary surrender, or by the force of state-endowed competition.

It is not surprising that this bill satisfied neither the high church party, who found themselves stripped by it of the college and endowments to which they had held so tenaciously, nor the other religious bodies, who at so much sacrifice, had founded colleges of their own. It met the wishes of the thorough "voluntaries" alone, who as yet had not founded colleges of their own. It certainly was at variance with Dr. Ryerson's fundamental principles of education, which sought to combine morals and religion with intellectual culture and to unite