[MURRAY] UNIVERSITY DEVELOPMENT IN CANADA 91 



he introduced into McGill had already received recognition in Toronto. 

 Where New Chairs in Agriculture, Physics, Geology, Natural History, 

 Engineering, History, English and Modern Languages, had been 

 established and applications received from able and distinguished grad- 

 uates of British universities.^* Huxley and Tyndall were among the 

 number. 



The State aid which the Iving's Colleges received was always an 

 object of attack. Naturally the denominations demanded a share of 

 State aid for their colleges. In Nova Scotia, Pictou Academy received 

 a grant in 1819 and thereafter, with varying success, applied each 

 year for aid. In 1845 the principle of denominational grants was 

 adopted by Nova Scotia,^^ and until 1881 the system was continued, 

 though modified from time to time to escape undue sectarian pressure. 

 In Ontario the denominational grants were discontinued in 1868.^^ 

 They seem to have been begun in the forties. These grants led to the 

 multiplication of recipients of grants — ^eight or nine in Nova Scotia 

 and as many more in Ontario. The basis of the distribution varied 

 from a fixed sum for each institution, without respect to work, needs 

 or rank, to so much per capita for each denomination distributed as 

 they wished; or to a pro rata amount determined by the number of 

 students and character of work. 



It is not surprising that disgust and intense dissatisfaction developed 

 over these sops to sectarianism, which bred strife and embarrassed 

 education by multiplying divisions and preventing the extinction of 

 the unfit and useless. 



College Union 



Union was advocated as a panacea for the ills of the body politic. 

 The Union of the Canadas in 1841, of the Provinces in 1867, was 

 reflected in attempts to unite the colleges and so escape the bitterness, 

 the waste and inefficiency of sectarian competition in educational 

 and in religious matters. In Ontario the spirit of union was more 

 effective than in Nova Scotia. Union of the Canadas, Confederation 

 of the Provinces, were reflected in the National Unions of the Presby- 

 terians in 1875, of the Methodists in 1884, and in the projected college 

 unions of 1843, the unions in the Universities of Halifax and Winni- 

 peg in 1876, and in the Toronto Federation of the Universities in 1887. 



In Nova Scotia several attempts at union of the colleges were 



made, but with minor results. In all of these attempts Dalhousie 



^^University of Toronto, pp. 35, 107. 



s^Dalhousie Gazette, vol. 35, p. 171. 



'^Hodgins: Schools and Colleges of Ontario, vol. 3, p. 25. 



