enviable names as seats of learning, have become centres 

 of progressive thought, and stand for all that is best 

 educationally in the province. 



The University of Alberta was established in September 

 1908 with a group of four professors, thirty-seven students, 

 and one faculty, and occupied four small rooms in a city 

 school. Since its inception it has occupied a special place 

 in the economic and intellectual life of the province and 

 has developed into the fifth university of the Dominion 

 with respect to numbers with five recognized faculties, 

 more than eleven hundred students and a regular staff of 

 nearly one hundred professors and instructors. The 

 success of the University of Alberta is cited here merely 

 because it is a concrete example of what is being accomp- 

 jished by the universities of the Western Provinces, and to 

 illustrate what an unique position they have come to 

 occupy in the general and everyday life of the provinces 

 they serve. 



No more striking exemplification of the polygenous 

 composition of Western Canada's population could be 

 given than might be gleaned from an analysis of the 

 attending students of the university in 1921. Incidentally, 

 this tends to prove the success of the assimilating influences 

 at work among the foreign born population and that the 

 early teaching received leads a section at least to the desire 

 for higher education. 



Of the total students in attendance 813 were of 

 British origin, of whom 634 were born in Canada, and only 

 137 within the province of Alberta. Every province of 

 the Dominion was represented by students. There were 

 148 students who gave their place of birth as the United 

 States, in all twenty-seven states being represented. Other 

 students came from Russia, France, Austria, Ukraine, 

 East Galicia, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Germany, 

 Iceland and Switzerland. 



Research Department and Special Courses 



The registration of students by faculties was as follows :- 

 ^rts and science 593; applied science 67; law 75; medicine 

 and dentistry 181; agriculture 47, and special courses 143, 

 making a total of 1106. In developing the organization 

 of the university, the aim has been to relate the work as 

 closely as possible to the needs of the province so that the 

 following of the curriculum in respect of the regularly 

 enrolled student body, has comprised merely a section of 

 the work and as circumstances have arisen demanding the 

 assistance of the highest provincial educational authorities, 

 they have been met by the various faculties. During the 

 year 1921, for instance, short courses were given to soldier 

 farmers in agriculture, to farmers' wives in household 

 economics, to public health nurse candidates in nursing 

 and child-welfare and to others in dairying, pharmacy, 

 dentistry, correspondence etc. Wherever, in the rapid 

 development of the West, a problem crops up which only 

 the study of years can grapple with, the provincial uni- 

 versity is there to solve it. 



Agriculture Receiving Close Attention 



This work of provincial development has taken the 

 university far afield and beyond the scope of endeavor of 

 universities situated in calmer surroundings, which have 

 not the ceaseless activity of new development all about 

 them, and have no work of pioneering or moulding to 

 perform but follow a road paved by tradition. 



In an agricultural province where the foundation of a 

 sound basis of technical knowledge is coming to be more 

 and more appreciated, the study of agriculture naturally 

 secures considerable attention and much is being effected 

 for the development of the industry along the soundest and 

 most scientific lines. The agricultural faculty, especially 

 on its investigational side, ranks the first in Canada. Last 

 year the department of field husbandry alone had more 

 than one hundred problems in the process of solution. 

 The success of the animal husbandry department in its 

 feeding experiments, has attracted very wide attention. 



The geological department is playing a prominent part 

 In the development of Alberta's mineral deposits and its 

 investigations and researches both at the university and 



through parties sent out, have proven of the highest value 

 in supplementing what the Dominion government is doing. 

 The public health laboratories are claimed to be as fine 

 as any on the continent and as efficient, and are extensively 

 used by the medical profession of the entire province. 

 The rapid development of research initiated by memberi of 

 the scientific association promises well for the future. A 

 separate Research Department operated in co-operation 

 with the Provincial Government is definitely at work on 

 special problems. 



An Elaborate Extension Program 



One of the most valuable works of the establishment is 

 the carrying out of an elaborate extension program of 

 many ramifications which carries the benefits of the 

 university into the nethermost corners of the province. 

 Alberta is largely a province of rural districts which, 

 whilst having the soundest of elementary educational facili- 

 ties, are somewhat limited in opportunities for the higher 

 progression. This is admirably carried out though the 

 extension department of the university which circulates 

 libraries, has its debating organizations, its lantern slide 

 and film services and other means of blending instruction 

 with entertainment for the benefit of those unable to attend 

 the university courses. It is estimated that in 1921, 

 1 50,000 people received direct benefit through the workings 

 of the extention department of Alberta university. 



It is difficult to estimate the j ust value of the provincial 

 universities to the newer western provinces or the pro- 

 nounced effect they have had on the intellectual and 

 aesthetic growth of the area by initiating their activities 

 when the process of nation-building was still in the evolving 

 and moulding stages. Whilst every possible resource for 

 material progress has been ready to hand for the matter of 

 a little delving, the means of the higher cultivation, which 

 must progress with the commercial and industrial to 

 develop a really great people, has had to be created, and 

 this has been adequately effected through the provincial 

 universities. 



Canada's Indians Progress 



Popular fiction has picturized the Indian of 

 to-day as a person reluctant to acquire the ways 

 of civilization, living more or less in poor 

 conditions, hunting in the summer and existing 

 on government bounty during the winter. This 

 is an entirely erroneous impression and the report 

 of the Department of Indian Affairs for the year 

 ended March 31st, 1921, not only depicts the 

 Canadian Indian as sound, both physically and 

 financially, but of a superior mental type to that 

 common during the middle of last century. 

 The majority of them are farmers with ample, 

 well-cultivated holdings although many still 

 follow the trail. Their wealth in real and .per- 

 sonal property is estimated by the Government 

 at $68,502,140 in 1921, as compared with $67,- 

 915,077 in 1920, and $67,262,415 in 1919, or an 

 average per capita of $682,06. 



The latest statistics give the Indian popu- 

 lation of Canada at about one hundred thous- 

 and. The government report says "that among 

 the less civilized groups, the high birth rate 

 balances the high death rate, but, in the civilized 

 tribes, who have met and withstood the first 

 shock of contact with civilization, there is an 

 appreciable gain, not only in numbers, but in 

 physical standards." Ontario is the home of 

 26,411 Indians; British Columbia 25,694; Quebec 

 13,366; Saskatchewan 10,646; Alberta 8,837; 



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