396 
WA TOTES 
[FEBRUARY 21, 1907 
through for lack of an initial grant; there are also 
the recommendations of the Roval Commission on 
fruit-growing, which seem no nearer realisation; as 
an advisory body the Board of Agriculture must get 
itself discredited unless it possesses some machinery 
for investigation. 
‘ THE UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO, 
HE very generous provision recently made by the 
province of Ontario for the financial support of 
the University of Toronto, as well as the very im- 
portant changes brought about last year in the consti- 
tution of the latter, are of more than local interest, 
and therefore the following account may be of service 
to those who watch the development of the colonial 
universities. 
This university, which was founded by 
Charter in 1827 and began teaching in 1843, had 
as its original endowment 225,000 acres of Crown 
lands in the province of Upper Canada, now Ontario, 
and the amount realised from the sale of these lands 
gave, with the tuition fees, all the revenue the univer- 
sitv had until 1897, when the Legislature granted it 
1400l. a year and 132,000 acres of wild lands within 
the unsettled portions of the province.. In 1901 the 
Legislature further undertook to pay the annual charge 
of the departments of physics, chemistry, and miner- 
alogy and geology. This latter addition to the 
resources of the university was rendered necessary by 
the gradual decrease in the revenue from the endow- 
ment and by the great increase in the number of 
students in attendance, taxing the energies of the 
teaching staff and the accommodation of the class- 
rooms and laboratories to the utmost. Until 1906 the 
revenues were spent in supporting two faculties, arts 
and medicine, as the annual budget of the School of 
Practical Science (engineering and technical science 
generally) was met directly out of the provincial 
treasury. 
This provision of 1901 met the situation for about 
three years, but in 1905 the need of additional 
laboratories and other buildings, as well as the con- 
tinually increasing numbers of students, made the 
question of further financial aid a very pressing one. 
There was also the question of the advisability of 
changing the relations which hitherto existed between 
the State and the university. All appointments to the 
staff had been made by the Lieutenant-Governor-in- 
Council, and, though these had been free from 
political taint, there was the possibility of such being 
dictated by considerations of party politics. It was 
also recognised that the constitution of the university 
was very cumbrous and unadapted for the work it had 
to do. 
The urgent aspect of the situation led the newly 
installed Whitney Administration to appoint a Royal 
Commission to examine and report upon the consti- 
tution of the university and its constituent colleges 
and faculties. The commission was a very represen- 
tative one, and from the first it earnestly set about 
its task, which was recognised to be a difficult one. 
It visited the larger American universities, conferred 
with their presidents and others who could furnish 
any aid in the form of advice, and patiently heard the 
views of the staffs of the various colleges and faculties. 
This commission also took up the financial problem of 
the maintenance of the university. 
The results of their labours were presented in the 
form of a report to the Lieutenant-Governor of the 
province in March of last year, and at the same time 
the commission drafted a bill for introduction into 
the Legislature to embody, in the form of an Act, the 
NO. 1947. VOL. 75] 
Royal 
changes which were thought advisable in the consti- 
tution. The suggested changes practically involved 
re-casting the constitution. The Act was accepted by 
both sides of the Legislature, and only minor modifi- 
cations were made in its passage through the 
House. 
Some of the changes made were sweeping. The 
control of the university was vested in a board of 
governors, twenty in number, eighteen appointed by 
the Crown, one the chancellor, elected by the 
graduates, and one the president, appointed by the 
board. This board was given the management of the 
endowment and income, but it can make no appoint- 
ment to the teaching staff except on the recom- 
mendation of the president, on whom now devolves 
the responsibility for the staff of the university. By 
the Act the School of Practical Science was made 
an integral part of the university, and its finances 
were made subject to the control of the board of 
governors. 
By far the most important result of the Royal Com- 
mission’s labours, and which was embodied in the 
Act of the Legislature, ensures to the university hence- 
forth adequate financial support. The provision to 
this end consisted in the granting to the university 
each year one-half of the annual average amount of 
the revenues derived by the province from succession 
duties or death duties, the annual average to be 
based on the receipts of the preceding three years. 
The total amount of these duties for the years 
1903-4-5 Was 304,d00/., or anuually 101,600l1. One- 
half of this latter sum has, as the Act directs, been 
paid to the university for the academic year 1906-7. 
As the province is growing wealthy rapidly, and con- 
sequently these succession duties are annually increas- 
ing in amount, of course the sum to be handed over 
annually by the province to the university will 
correspondingly increase. The amount to be thus 
given for the academic year 1907-8 will be 71,000l., 
and it is estimated that the university will receive 
from this same source in 1908-9 about 100,000]. What 
it will be in a few years more cannot be approximately 
forecasted, but it is not unlikely that within ten years 
the death duties may average 300,000l1., of which the 
university would receive 150,000l. 
As the ordinary income of the university, apart from 
that derived from succession duties, and apart also 
from interest on scholarship funds, is about 44,o00l., 
it may be seen that the total income from all sources 
for 1906-7 is 97,400l., and for 1907-8 about 118,o00l., 
but for 1908-9 it will be about 147,900]. It is not at 
all improbable that the income of the university five 
vears from now may be in the neighbourhood of 
$1,000,000, or more than 200,000. 
This is a very large income, but it must be noted 
that the work that the university has to do is also 
very great. It has not to undertake instruction in 
agriculture, for the province already maintains a 
splendid College of Agriculture at Guelph for which 
the annual budget is about 30,000/. Tt has, however, 
to provide adequately for faculties of arts, medicine, 
applied science, and education, and the task may be 
gauged from the fact that there pre already 2700 
students in the first three faculties. It has also to do 
for Canada what the great American universities are 
doing for the United States, that is, to meet the 
demand for advanced teaching and for research in 
all departments. It is, indeed, the ambition of some 
to develop the university into as great a representative 
of learning and research as either Harvard or Johns 
Hopkins is, and to make it at the same time a centre 
for the intellectual life of the Canadian nation to be. 
As it is now. it is the largest and wealthiest colonial 
university of the Empire. A. B. MacaLium. ~ 
