NATURAL HISTOKY, TORONTO REGION 



couraged immigration. The war had raised the 

 value of all agricultural products, and the price of 

 land on Yonge Street advanced to figures that would 

 seem small now but were thought extravagant by the 

 prudent of that day. The gold fever in Australia 

 and British Columbia had fired the imagination and 

 helped to bring about this era of speculation. It was 

 not long before the Civil War in the United States 

 once more gave an impulse to trade in Canada, soon 

 lessened, however, by the abrogation of the Reciprocity 

 Treaty. During the war a number of Southerners 

 took up their abode here, making their rendezvous 

 in the Caer Howell Hotel on the Queen's Avenue. 

 The excellent schools and colleges had already begun 

 to attract students from both North and South. 



The provincial school system had been modelled 

 after those of Ireland and of Prussia by the Super- 

 intendent of Education, Dr. Ryerson. Upper Can- 

 ada College, the Eton of Canada, had been brought 

 to a high state of efficiency under Principal George 

 R. R. Cockburn. The University, founded as 

 King's College in 1842, had been freed from the con- 

 trol of the Church of England in 1850, and was in 

 other ways keeping pace with the spirit of the age. 

 Bishop Strachan, who had been President of the Uni- 

 versity, although now over seventy, had collected the 

 endowment of a new Anglican institution, Trinity 

 College. The Presbyterians had also their theological 

 school, Knox College, which after many moves and 

 more than a half-century in affiliation with the Uni- 

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