384 The Canadian Horticulturist. 



the public school, and began his education at the time when the majority of 

 young men have already finished. Hitherto his training had been manual Qr 

 physical ; now he began to develop the mental side of his nature. From the 

 public school to Brantford Grammar school, and thence to Victoria College, 

 Cpbourg, he was led in his studies. From Victoria College he graduated as 

 Bachelor of Arts in 1868, taking the gold medal for the year for the highest 

 rank in general proficiency. Thus closed the second period of his life, and 

 seven years of study and preliminary training. After graduation, he taught for 

 a while in the Cobourg Collegiate Institute, from which position he was pro- 

 moted to the headmastership of the Brantford High School. This institution 

 was then in rank a third or fourth rate school ; under Mr. Mills it soon became 

 a collegiate institute, and began to attract attention as one of the most success- 

 ful»for training young men and young women for general work,ifor teachers, and 

 for University examinations. The growth of his school and its reputation for 

 thoroughness and good discipline, suggested a man for the Agricultural College 

 when the presidency became vacant. The offer came to Mr. Mills from the 

 Government entirely unsolicited, and was accepted in the summer of 1879, when 

 began the fourth period of his life, the work in which he is still engaged. The 

 Ontario Agricultural College had been established in 1874, and for many years 

 had many and great difficulties to contend with. We sometimes hear a great 

 deal about the agricultural colleges of the United States, but they have been 

 forced, in order to maintain an existence, to enlarge the scope of their work by 

 including technical, teachers' and even commercial courses. In many of these 

 colleges the agricultural course has been the least successful. The attempt, 

 therefore, to maintain an Agricultural College on its own merits in this Province 

 has presented peculiar difficulties, and the success achieved is much to the 

 credit of the various officials who have from time to time guided its course. 

 When Mr. Mills became President, the College was still working up hill, fight- 

 ing its way with little encouragement, and with much opposition. P'or the past 

 sixteen years he has devoted his unstinted energies to the work. The College 

 is a large institution, and has presented extraordinary problems to solve. It has 

 had a hard struggle to gain the recognition and approval of the very class for 

 which it was established. It has all the perplexities attendant upon a large 

 boarding school. It has had to overcome the prejudice aroused by having had, 

 in its earlier days, a number of students who were not agricultural in their 

 up-bringing or their inclination. The students are now coming from the best 

 farms of the Province, and the institution is becoming more and more every 

 year an Agricultural College for Ontario. 



The work of the College has been greatly enlarged during President Mills' 

 regime, by the addition of a third year's course, and affiliation with Toronto 

 University, whereby the degree of Bachelor of Science in Agriculture is con- 

 ferred upon its students. Travelling dairies have been instituted by the Minister 

 of x'\griculture, and the work performed by the dairy department of the College. 



