SectioxX IL, 1905. [37] Tkans. R. S. C. 



Ill A Review of the Founding and Development of the University of 

 Toronto as a Provincial Institution 



By Rev. Dr. N. Burwash, 



(Read May 25, 1905.) 

 Introductory Note. 



This review does not attempt a complete history of the University 

 of Toronto. It is intended to trace the successive steps by which the 

 present relation of the university to the higher education of the pro- 

 vince as maintained by the state has been reached. This involved at 

 first a conflict of political and ecclesiastical forces, and finally a har- 

 monious co-operation on terais of mutual independence. The Province 

 of Manitoba has already founded its university upon the same basis, and 

 the other western provinces are likely to follow in tïïe same line. Several 

 states of the American Union have also made inquiries as to the suc- 

 cess of the system. It is therefore thought that such a review may be 

 of present interest. 



N. B. 



Toronto, April 17th, 1905. 



The Founding and Endoicment of the University of Toronto. 



The Province of Upper Canada was founded under the Constitu- 

 tional Act of 1791. During the preceding seven or eight years, a Unit- 

 ed Empire Loyalist population had been settling on the banks of the 

 St. Lawrence, on the shores of the Bay of Quinte, in the Niagara Penin- 

 sula and on the coast of Lake Erie. When the government of the pro- 

 vince was organized its population numbered about sixty-five thousand. 



The first governor of the new province was Col. John Graves Sim- 

 coe, who had been a conspicuous leader of the Loyalist volunteers during 

 the revolutionary war. His early life anj' education were those of an 

 English country gentleman of the eighteenth century, and his ideas and 

 tastes corresponded with the age and with the environment of his youth. 

 He looked forward to the development in the new province of the same 

 social conditions as existed in the old land; and, accordingly, in taking 

 thought for the well-being of the young colony proposed to himself that 

 provision should be made out of public funds for the maintenance of 

 religion and the promotion of higher education. This religion was to 

 be Protestant, as that of the adjoining Province of Lower Canada was 

 Eoman Catholic; but instead of tithes collected from the people, its 



