[burwashI a review OF THE UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO S9 



form, which would involve a question that must sooner or latfi' be set- 

 tled. On the second reading, a motion for postponement divided ths 

 Conservative ranks, and the bill was defeated. The main significance of 

 the event lay in the fact that the defeat was the result of a combina- 

 tion of the party of reform with the extreme Conservatives; Baldwin 

 r.ud Boulton voted for postponement, — the latter deaf to the prescient 

 Avaming of Mr. Draper, tlie former looking forward to the opportunity 

 \,'hich that warning seemed to promise. 



The literature which • accompanied this third abortive attempt at 

 comprehensive legislation on the constitution of the university is of 

 interest as showing that the main elements of the question were the 

 same then as now. The problem to be solved was to make the univer- 

 sity acceptable to all sections of the community. Yet there was a fun- 

 damental difference arising from the fact that the idea of entire inde- 

 pendence of church and state was not at that time, fully or distinctiv 

 apprehended. Towards this principle men like Baldwin were steadily 

 moving; and the defeat of this bill probably marks their passage to a 

 position from which there was afterwards no retreat. On the other 

 hand, these three bills mark the beginning of difference between such 

 men and the supporters of Queen's and Victoria. To secure the complete 

 triumph of the voluntary principle Mr. Baldwin was willing to make the 

 university entirely secular. This the friends of Queen's and Victoria 

 did not desire. To them the religious element was an essential part of 

 all education including the highest, and was more important than even 

 the voluntary principle. This principle, in fact, they had not as yet by 

 any means fully accepted as regards education. Mr. Draper's bill was of 

 the nature of a compromise. Lt made some sacrifice of the voluntary 

 principle in the aid granted to denominational colleges, as it secured the 

 religious side of university education by making these colleges essential 

 parts of the system. As matters stood at this juncture, the Conservative 

 party was the only party likely to make such a compromise, but they 

 were prevented from doing so by a section who were resolved to retain 

 at all hazards the endowment of King's College for the Church of 

 England. 



One further atteuipt at compromise was made before the complete 

 secularization of the imiversity. This was the partition bill of Mr. John 

 A. Macdonald in 1847. Had this bill carried, it would have postponed 

 to the far future the possibility of a university worthy of the province, 

 and would have endowed the Anglican Church with a property which is 

 to-day worth three and a half millions of dollars. What it would have 

 accomplished for Victoria, Queen's and lîegiopolis may be gathered from 

 their later historv under an annual government grant. Mhile saving 



