38 ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 



Roman Catholics, and therefore were willing to take the oath, or at least, 

 regarded the point as one on which conscientious men might honestly 

 diti'er, and which therefore might pr()])erly he made a matter of forbear- 

 ance." Those who condemned the taking of the oath were usually known 

 as Antiburghere, while those who did not object to its terms were called 

 Burghers. Br. MacGregor and other ministers who formed the presby- 

 ter}' of Pictou, were i-epresentatives of the Antiburghers, and the presby- 

 tery of Truro consisted of ministers sent out b}' the Burghers Synod of 

 Scotland. Dr. Pattei-son, whose memoirs of his grandfather are especial- 

 ly interesting on account of the record they give of the difficulties and 

 ])rivations ol" the jiioncers of the churches in Nova Scotia, tells us that 

 Dr. MacGregor on his first coming to the colony refused to unite with 

 the Pre-sbj'terian ministers, but at the same time carried out the instruc- 

 tions of the Antiburghers Synod that he was not to make seceders, and 

 eventually took a prominent part in uniting the different presbyteries of 

 the Secession Church on the basis of their common presbyterianism — the 

 forerunner of the larger union which in recent times has united all 

 branches of the Presbyterian church in Canada. 



The name of Dr. MacCulloch, who came to eastern Nova Scotia in 1803, 

 is intimately associated with the history of Pictou Academy/ of which he 

 was the founder. It never realized his orginal broad conception in con- 

 sequence of the opposition it met from the friends of King's in the legis- 

 lative and executive council. Indeed the early trials of this institution 

 more or less affected the politics of the country. The supporters of the 

 academy represented the spirit of liberal free education in opi^osition to 

 the too selfish sectarianism of King's. Indeed had there been more 

 liberality of thought and idea in the early days of old King's, it might 

 now be the most prosperous university in the provinces, instead of being 

 an institution more interesting from an historical point of view than 

 cons|iicuous for its success in these modern times. The narrow spirit 

 that confined it from the very outset practically to the Church of Eng- 

 land also gave it a rival eventuall}' in Dalhousie College, Avhich was 

 founded by Lord Dalhousie when governor of the province with the 

 avowed object of allbrdiiig the advantages of higher education to the 



' Pictou Academy has given many diHtinguished men to law and politics. 

 Among otiiers, Dr. Patterson in his History of Pictou, p. S.")i). mentions Sir T. D. 

 Arcliilmid, of the English Court of Exchp(|U<'r ; Sir William J. Ritchie, chief justice 

 of New Hrunswick, and later chief justice of the Supreme Court of Canada; Sir 

 Hugh Hoyles, chief justice of Newfountliand ; Sir .Vdams G. Archibald, K.C.M.G., 

 lieutenant-governor of Manitoba and Nova Scotia; Judge Young, of Prince 

 Edward Island; George R. Young, M.P.P., politician and journalist; Sir \V. J. 

 Dawson, l'\R.S., so long identitled with McGill College. On the same authority we 

 'earn that largely owing to the inlluence of the same institution in its early days, 

 " the county has ever since given a larger proportion of tiie best of her sons to the 

 ministry than any population of the same size in the Dominion." Dr. Patterson 

 gives a list in an appctidix to his history. 



