68 ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 



dowed and scholarships were jDrovided to meet those offered by the pro- 

 vincial university, Xew buildings were erected by voluntary subscrip- 

 tions and in the course of ten years they were able once more to com- 

 pete successfully with the state university and even to surpass it in some 

 departments of their equipment. The attendance of students was also 

 largely increased, so that they still held on their registers one half or 

 more of the matriculated students of the province; a result reached in 

 part by their acceptance of teachers' certiticates and the High School, 

 intermediate examinations pro tanto for matriculation, and by holding 

 their joint matriculation examinations at local centres whenever desired. 



In the meantime the university endowments derived from the sale 

 of the original grants of land reached their maximum when these lands 

 were all sold. About the same time the rate of interest began to de- 

 crease, and in consequence the income of the university could only be 

 maintained by encroachments upon its magnificent park and by increase 

 of students' fees. Thus once more its financial affairs were coming 

 under public consideration, not now by criticism from without, but by 

 the pressure of necessity from within. 



It was at this juncture that the great modern movement of uni- 

 versity development, which had already exercised a profound influence 

 in Gemiany, Britain and the United States began to make itself felt 

 in this country. The movement M^as first in the direction of the Phy- 

 sical and Biological Sciences. The old sciences had suddenly become 

 so expanded that they were rapidly subdivided, and the former work 

 of one professor now taxed the energies of half a dozen. Soon history 

 and a band of historical sciences joined in the demand for admission 

 into the university. The old classic fields of language and literature 

 took up the new method, and expanded themselves into philological 

 sciences, and scientific studies of the evolution of literature and literary 

 forms. Philosophy itself caught the impulse and the evolution of mind 

 became almost a branch of biological science. The results on university 

 life and work of this- vast nineteenth century development of science 

 were manifold. One of the most important was the adoption of labor- 

 ator}' and seminary methods of study. These involved building and 

 equipment of laboratories, museums and libraries at very large expense. 

 Another was the multiplication of courses of study involving multiplica- 

 tion of professors. Another was postgraduate work, and another very 

 general re^sult was the introduction of options into the B.A. course. 

 This latter principle had been recognized in the curriculum of the 

 University of Toronto as early as 1855 in an option between ancient and 

 modern languages in the third and fourth years and in an option of 

 sciences in the fourth year. In 1877 the principle of options was fur- 



