[burwash] a review OF THE UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO 69 



ther extended, and the modern languages as well as the modern sciences 

 became more important, and options were extended backwards to the 

 first and second years. The particulars of these changes cannot bo 

 ^iven in full. They are mentioned only in their bearing on the uni- 

 versity problem of the province. In 1883 the resources of the Univer- 

 sity of Toronto were no longer adequate to the work now demanded of 

 a university and it was forced to make application to the legislature 

 for direct assistance. The other colleges at once took exception to this 

 application, urging that they were doing one half or more of the uni- 

 versity work of the country, that all public aid had been withdra\\m 

 from them, and that they could never consent to direct legislative grants 

 Iseing made to a college which, while in name and endowments provin- 

 cial, was in reality one of several rival and competing colleges or uni- 

 versities. Hitherto the universit}^ had been maintained by a grant of 

 crown lands made by the home government ; and when the grant was 

 first made it was regarded not so much as a grant of the public property 

 -of the people but as a munificent gift from the King for the founding and 

 maintenance of a great public institution. Xow the situation was en- 

 tirely changed, and the application to the legislature was for a new grant 

 ■directly from the funds of the province, i.e., of all the people. So long as 

 the interest of the majority or even of a large section of the people who 

 stood firmly together was opposed to such a grant it was a political 

 impossibility, and a renewed and most vigorous controversy over the ne^^ 

 university question made this most fully evident. 



At this juncture the university was fortunate in having as its 

 vice-chancellor and the active leader of its financial affairs Mr., 

 now Sir "William ]\Iulock, a gentleman of broad patriotic instincts 

 and large views, one who had not been entangled in the controversies 

 of the past. From him came an appeal to the patriotism and pro- 

 gressive sympathies of the outlying colleges. In a letter addressed 

 to them, he virtually said : " Is it impossible for this province 

 to secure a university worthy of tlie name? Is there no way in 

 which we can unite to this end? Then once more the ideas of 

 Eol)ert Baldwin and William Henry Draper, of Dr. Liddell and of 

 Egerton Eyerson came to mind, and a plan of federation for a truly 

 provincial university l)egan to shape itself. A union of colleges in a 

 common university had l)een proposed at length some years before by 

 Dr. J. G. Hodgins, (Canadensis), and had been repeatedly suggested 

 by Professor Goldwin Smith, l)ut when ]iroposed seemed always to carry 

 with it the idea of the London University scheme. This had been bor- 

 rowed from Xapoleon's University scheme in France and both in France 

 and England had failed to reach the best results. To other minds the 



