472 MEKTON COLLEGE AND CANADA. 



respectfully of so truly respectable a prelate, was certainly of 

 trivial importance to what I now propose." And he adds ; 

 " The labours of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel are 

 visionary, as applicable to the conversion of the American Indians in 

 their present state ; but would be of most essential benefit by pro- 

 moting a University, which, if placed in the part I meditate, would, 

 in its turn, have great influence in civilizing tl\e Indians, and, what 

 is of more importance, those who corrupt them." 



He then puts it generally to the Church of the mother country, 

 that its members ought to assist in establishing a University in the 

 Colony, inasmuch as such an institution would be a bulwark therein 

 ' against the encroachments of dangerous principles which everywhere 

 were endangering society. The term " minute" which he uses, was 

 probably caught from the title of Bishop Berkeley's book, the 

 " Minute Philosopher," dii-ected against the free-thinkers of his day.- 

 "The Episcopal Church in Great Britain," he says, " from pious- 

 motives as well as policy, are materially interested that the Church 

 should increase in this Province. I will venture to prophesy its 

 preservation depends upon a University being erected therein, as one 

 of the great supports of true learning against the minute, the plebeian, 

 the mechanical philosophy which, in the present day, from the suc- 

 cessful or problematical experiments of ill professors in rational 

 inquiries, has assumed to itself the claim of dictating in religion and 

 morality, and, in consequence, now threatens mankind with ruin and 

 desolation." 



The old Universities of England, he suggests to the Bishop, ought 

 • also to be applied to for help. 



" The Universities of England,. I make no doubt," he says, " would 

 ' conti'ibute to the planting of a scion from their respectable stock in 

 this distant colony. In short, my Lord, I have not the smallest hesi- 

 tation in saying that I believe, if a Protestant Episcopal University 

 should be proposed to be erected even in the United States, the 

 British nation would most liberally subscribe to the undertaking." 



Again, he refers to his project in a letter to Bishop Mountain, 

 under date of "Navy Hall, October 16, 1795," thus :— " My views 

 in respect to a University are totally unchanged ; they are on a solid 

 ' basis, and may or may not be complied with, as my superiors shaB 

 think proper ; but shall certainly appear as my system to the judg- 

 ment of posterity." 



