THE UNIVERSITY QUESTION

As the name Robert Baldwin will always be associated with the successful removal of all denominational character from the University of Toronto, some explanation of the question at issue is here in place. The present University of Toronto originated in an antecedent institution called King's College. The first impetus towards the creation of this college had been given by Governor Simcoe, who called the attention of the imperial government to the wisdom of making provision for a provincial university and to the possibility of effecting this by an appropriation of Crown lands. In 1797 the two Houses of the legislature of Upper Canada petitioned the Crown to make an appropriation of a certain portion of the waste lands of the colony as a fund for the establishment and support of a respectable grammar school in each district of the province, and also of a college or university. In 1799 the land grant was made. It consisted of five hundred and fifty thousand, two hundred and seventy-four acres of land. Beyond this nothing was done for many years. Meantime a certain part of the land was set aside for special educational objects; one hundred and ninety thousand, five hundred and seventy-three acres were appropriated in 1823 for district grammar schools, and in 1831, sixty-two thousand, nine hundred and ninety-six acres were given to Upper

1 See J. Loudon, History of the University of Toronto, printed in Canada, an Encyclopædia, 1898.

Canada College.1 At length in 1827 a royal charter was issued for a university to be known as the University of King's College. Under this document the conduct of the university and of its teaching was vested in a corporation consisting of the chancellor, the president and the professors. Certain clauses of the charter gave to King's College a denominational character: the bishop of the diocese was to be, ex officio, its visitor, and the archdeacon of York (at that time Dr. John Strachan) its ex officio president: the university was to have a faculty of divinity, all students in which must subscribe to the Thirty-nine Articles of the Church of England: the same test was prescribed for all members of the university council.

The issue of this charter had occasioned a violent agitation. Vigorous protest was raised against the peculiar privileges thus extended to the Church of England. The opposition to the charter prevented any further action being taken towards the actual establishment of the college. Finally, in 1837, a statute was passed by the legislature of Upper Canada which revised the terms of the royal charter. It provided that the judges of the court of king's bench should be the visitors of the college, that the president need not be the incumbent of any particular ecclesiastical office, that no religious

1 In 1828 part of the original grant of land was exchanged for an equal portion of land belonging to the Clergy Reserves.

2 Statutes of Upper Canada, 7 Will. IV.

c. 16.

KING'S COLLEGE

tests should be required of students, and that no professor, nor member of the council, need be a member of the Church of England. The statute still left the faculty of divinity as a part of the university, and left it necessary for every professor and member of the council to subscribe to a belief in the Trinity and in the divine inspiration of the Scripture. Even after the charter had been thus modified, a further delay was occasioned by the rebellion of 1837, and it was not until 1842 that the building of King's College actually commenced, the corner-stone being laid by Sir Charles Bagot in his capacity of chancellor of the university. In April of 1843 actual teaching had begun, the old parliament buildings on Front Street, Toronto, being used as temporary premises. Meantime the long delay which had been encountered in the creation of the provincial university, and the somewhat arrogant claims that had been put forward by Dr. Strachan and the extreme Anglicans, had led the members of the other sects to make efforts towards the establishment of denominational colleges of their own. The Methodists incorporated in 1836 an institution which opened its doors at Cobourg in the following year under the name of the Upper Canada Academy.1 In 1841 an Act of the parliament of Canada2 conferred on the academy the power to grant degrees, and gave it the name 1 See Egerton Ryerson, Story of My Life, Chap. xiv.

2 4 and 5 Vict. c. 37.