Imurray] university DEVELOPMENT IN CANADA 99 



This account of the development of the support and the control 

 of the universities in Canada does not reveal the origin of the idea 

 of the State university. For this explanation we must go farther 

 afield. In Ontario the idea of a State university first gained ascen- 

 dancy. From Ontario it spread to the West. Ontario's nearest 

 neighbour to the south, Michigan, was the first state to develop a 

 State university in a striking manner. 



Michigan was founded in 1837. Toronto's Royal Charter was 

 amended the same year. Michigan began teaching in 1841 ; Toronto 

 in 1843. Michigan, under President Tappan from 1852-63, blossomed 

 out and became the leading university in the West. In 1849 the 

 Province of Ontario changed the name of King's College to Toronto 

 University and assumed full responsibility for it. That the success 

 of Michigan had its effect upon Toronto is without doubt. The 

 inquiries and report of the Toronto Commission of 1905 show how 

 closely the development of the State universities in the American 

 Union had been studied. 



Whence came the idea of the State university to America? 

 Thomas Jefferson is sometimes credited with introducing it from 

 France into the University of Virginia. From his retirement from the 

 Presidency in 1809 until his death in 1825 Jefferson was planning the 

 buildings, gathering the Faculty and shaping the organization of the 

 University of Virginia, or, as has been said, "anticipating all the 

 great ideas of aim, administration and curriculum, that dominated 

 the American universities at the end of the 19th century." ^^ 



What Jefferson emphasized was not the State college as opposed 

 to the Church or private college, but the idea of the university as 

 distinct from that of the college. The aim of the college was "to 

 give a gentleman that broader and deeper culture with which custom 

 demands he should be equipped." The aim of the university is to 

 enlarge the boundaries of knowledge, to introduce students to new 

 fields of learning and to train men for the professions. Jefferson 

 assigned each branch of knowledge to a particular school with its own 

 instructors. Within the university he established eight independent 

 schools — ancient languages, modern languages, mathematics, natural 

 philosophy, moral philosophy, chemistry, medicine, law — ^each in 

 charge of distinguished men gathered from Britain and France as 

 well as America. The rigid curriculum of the college was replaced 

 by an elective system and sectarianism was banished from the uni- 

 versity. 



43 



Encyc. Brit., vol. 15, p. 306. 



