[ADAMS] IN MEMORIAM—SIR JOHN WILLIAM DAWSON 7) 
chief duties and pleasures of a man of science. Most of his work 
along these lines was done during the summer vacations; in fact, he was 
led to accept the position of Principal of McGill University chiefly 
by the fact that the vacations gave him leisure and opportunity for work 
of this kind. He was always very progressive in his ideas relative to 
the scope and development of educational work, urging those in charge 
of such work to “survey and mark out on the ground wide fields of 
operation which they might hope in future to cultivate, and to occupy 
such portions here and there as seemed likely to yield an adequate 
return.” In his own University he was continually urging the endow- 
ment of new chairs and the broadening of the University’s work, so that 
all young men wishing to train themselves for any of the higher walks 
of life might in the University find their needs supplied. While always 
upholding the high value of a strictly academic education, he felt that 
in a young and rapidly growing country like Canada, whose develop- 
ment depended so largely upon the skill and knowledge which its 
people could bring to bear upon the problems confronting them, the 
study of science and its application to the needs of life were of especial 
importance, and strongly advocated the addition of teaching in Applied 
Science to the usual academic studies. He actually succeeded in estab- 
lishing, as far back as 1858, a School of Civil Engineering, which 
attracted a considerable number of pupils, but which after a severe 
struggle for five years in the face of professional and official opposition, 
was at length suspended owing to the temporary financial embarrass- 
ments of the University. In the summer of 1870, however, he went 
abroad, and visited the chief science schools in Great Britain and the 
Continent, as well as in the United States, for the purpose of collecting 
information concerning the best methods and equipment for the 
teaching of science, and in the Annual University Lecture, delivered 
upon his return in the fall of that year, spoke as follows:— 
“ Everywhere, as a means to this end, it is felt to be necessary to 
provide the widest extent of science education for the mass of the 
people, and the highest perfection of such education for those who are 
to take leading places as original investigators or as directors of business 
undertakings. 
“From the time when I first had the honour of addressing a 
Canadian audience, until this day, I have not ceased, in season and out 
cf season, to urge this subject on the attention of the ‘riends of 
education here, as one of the pressing wants of this country; and within 
the past few years, feeling that we were falling farther and farther 
behind other countries, I have made some special efforts to collect 
