40 ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 



This report was followed by an address to the King reciting the 

 facts embodied in the report and praying that lie would cause " the pre- 

 sent charter to be cancelled and one granted free from these objections.'^ 

 In addition petitions very numerously signed by the inhabitants of the 

 province and addressed to the British Parliament, were carried to Eng- 

 land by a deputation of prominent citizens. 



In 1828, a little more than a year after the issuing of the Eoyal 

 Charter, a select committee of the British House of Commons was 

 appointed to inquire into this and other matters. This committee recom- 

 mended that the constitution of the university should be changed, that 

 two theological professors should be employed, one of the Church of 

 England and one of the Churcli of Scotland; and that with respect to 

 the president, professors and others connected with the college, no reli- 

 gious test whatever should be required; and that, with the exception of 

 the theological professors, they should sign a declaration that, as far as 

 it was necessary for them to advert in their lectures to religious subjects, 

 they would distinctly recognize the truth of the Christian Eevelation, but 

 would abstain altogether from inculcating particular doctrines. Such 

 changes did not meet the views of those who had been agitating against 

 the charter of the new university. Their objections to the charter may 

 be summed up under the following heads : — 



1. It made the Anglican bishop of the diocese the visitor, thus plac- 

 ing in his hands the supreme judicial control of the university. 



2. It required the president of the university to be a clergyman in 

 holy orders in the United Church of England and Ireland, and made 

 the Archdeacon of York ex officio president. 



3. It placed the executive government of the university in the hands 

 of a council consisting of the Chancellor, the President, and seven mem- 

 bers who were required to be members of the Church of England and to 

 subscribe to her articles. 



4. It restricted degrees in divinity to persons in holy orders in the 

 Church of England, thus excluding clergymen of the Church of Scot- 

 land as well as of other denominations. 



On the other side. Dr. Strachan maintained that the charter was 

 the most open and liberal that had ever been granted, inasmuch as it 

 imposed no religious subscription or tests on students or graduates, other 

 than those in divinity. Thus the agitation was continued, not only 

 through the press and upon the floor of the House of Assembly, but also 

 by petitions and representations to the government in England, until 

 the close of the Maitland administration in the year 1828. 



The charter was dated the fifteenth day of March, 1827. Before the 

 end of the year a council was appointed the chief members of which were 

 the Lieutenant-Governor, cx-odicio Chancellor; and the Archdeacon of 



