[RAYMOND] UNIVERSITY OF NEW BRUNSWICK . 101 



cation in New Brunswick, he was subsequently led to relinquish this 

 intention and to become prominently identified with the struggles, 

 and finally with the success of the College. 



After Brydone-Jack's arrival some alterations were made in the 

 College building by which he and Dr. Robb were accomodated with 

 rooms therein. This marked the beginning of a very intimate friend- 

 ship between the two men, and upon the death of Dr. Robb, some 

 twenty years later. Dr. Jack in his Encoenial address observed : 



"The death of Dr. Robb has no doubt been keenly felt by many of you as the 

 loss of a warm friend or valued instructor; to me it has been the removal of more 

 than a brother. For upwards of twenty years we had been associated in kindred 

 pursuits without the perfect harmony of our daily intercourse ever being disturbed." 



Robb and Brydone-Jack may be regarded as pioneers in the field 

 of practical science. The first modest addition to the original building 

 on the College campus was the observatory built through Dr. Jack's 

 efi^orts in 1851. Jack and Robb found in Sir Edmund Walker Head 

 a staunch friend and patron. He came to the province as Lieut. - 

 Governor in 1847 and no governor, unless it be Sir Howard Douglas, 

 displayed greater concern for the welfare of New Brunswick. He 

 had himself taken a distinguished course at the University of Oxford 

 and was a Fellow of Merton College. He was a friend of Professor 

 Geo. Ticknor, Longfellow's predecessor at Harvard, who said, "Sir 

 Edmund Head was one of the most accurate and accomplished scholars 

 I have ever known, and could repeat more poetry, Greek, Latin, Ger- 

 man and Spanish, than any man I ever knew." Nevertheless the same 

 Sir Edmund Head had a practical mind and under his patronage Dr. 

 Robb and his friends organized the "New Brunswick Society for the 

 encouragement of Agriculture, Home Manufactures and Commerce." 

 The same year, 1849, Dr. Robb delivered a course of public lectures 

 on agriculture which were highly appreciated and well attended. 

 Sir Edmund Head also induced the College Council to provide system- 

 atic instruction in engineering by employing McMahon Cregan, an 

 eminent engineer, working at that time in the province under the 

 railway contractors, Messrs. Jackson and Co. Mr. Cregan, with 

 Prof. Jack's assistance, gave special lectures in engineering during 

 the winter. This was the first attempt to go outside the old arts 

 course of the primary college in order to meet the wants of a special 

 class of students. Dr. Jack strongly emphasized the value of abstract 

 science. He speaks of the Great Exhibition held in London in 1851, 

 and in a more modest way of the first Provincial Exhibition at Fred- 

 ericton in 1852, as having impressed upon the minds of intelligent and 

 thinking men the momentous fact that a competition in industry must 



