26o THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



tiring zeal. In a sketch written soon after his death, we are told 

 that " the twelve years of his regime have been marked by an 

 extraordinary rapidity of development in various directions. The 

 attendance of students has greatly increased, so that they now 

 number about five hundred in the faculty of arts alone. The 

 teaching medical faculty has been restored to the university, and 

 is now in a highly prosperous condition. A foundation for a law 

 faculty has been laid. The university has been brought into 

 more effective and beneficial relation to the secondary schools, by 

 the establishment of a co-operative supervision over their leaving 

 examinations. During the past six years women have been 

 permitted to attend lectures in the university and University 

 College, their number being now about one fifth of the whole 

 attendance, and the ratio rapidly increasing. Several additional 

 institutions have been taken into affiliation with the university, 

 which has thus been strengthened with the whole community, as 

 well as with many special and powerful interests." 



As originally established, the University of Toronto and Uni- 

 versity College were to a certain extent distinct institutions. The 

 university was simply an examining and degree-conferring cor- 

 poration, while University College was a teaching institution, 

 with a faculty of arts. By a recent change, part of the teaching 

 function, comprising all the work in science, philosophy, and his- 

 tory, has been transferred to the university ; and as a result, the 

 President of the College became actually, as he had been in com- 

 mon parlance, the President of the University. 



For the interests of science and literature it was probably for- 

 tunate that Prof. Wilson's accession to the college presidency, 

 with the consequent great increase in his scholastic duties, did 

 not occur at an earlier day. During the twenty-seven years 

 which elapsed between his arrival in Toronto and this accession, 

 he had leisure to pursue his studies in various directions. In 1862 

 appeared his most important work, entitled Prehistoric Man : Re- 

 searches into the Origin of Civilization in the Old and the New 

 World. This work attracted much attention on both continents, 

 and gave a new direction, particularly in Germany, to anthro- 

 pological inquiry. A second edition appeared in 1865, still in one 

 volume. The continuing demand and the growth of scientific 

 knowledge called for a new and revised issue, with many addi- 

 tions, which appeared in 1875, in two large and finely illustrated 

 volumes. 



The author's literary taste and judgment were happily shown 

 in his admirable book, Chatterton : a Biographical Study, which 

 appeared in 1869. It was a thoroughly successful effort to re- 

 habilitate the moral character of the " marvelous boy," as well as 

 to display the real nature and extent of his surprising intellectual 



