MERTON' COLLEGE AND CANADA. 477 



Like liis predecessor, Governor Simcoe, and like Walter de Merton, 

 Lord Elgin did not regard secular ed^^cation as all-sufficient. H^ 

 ever took into consideration the religious portion of men's nature- 

 We have a clue to his principles on this point in an extract from a 

 memorandum of his on a systematic course of study for degree, given 

 us by his biographer. It is characteristic of the student James 

 Bruce, and of the mature man Lord Elgin. " Ancient History," he 

 writes, " together with Aristotle's Politics and the ancient oi-ators, 

 are to be read in connection with the Bible history, with the view of 

 seeing how all hang upon each other and develop the leading schemes 

 of Providence." The various branches of mental and moral science 

 he proposes, in like manner, to hinge upon the IsTew Testament, as 

 constituting, in another line, the history of moral and intelligent 

 development. 



The sympathies of Lord Elgin, as Governor of Jamaica, as 

 Governor-General of Canada, and as Governor-General of India, 

 were entirely with those who believe (to adopt the words of the 

 Vice-President of the Committee of Privy Council on Education, 

 Mr. W. E. Eorster), that, "while it is a great and a good thing to 

 know the laws that govern this world, it is better still to have some 

 sort of faith in the relations of this world Avith another ; that the 

 knowledge of cause and effect can never replace the motive to do 

 right and avoid wrong ; that . . . Peligion is the motive power, 

 the faculties are the machines ; and the machines are useless without 

 the motive power." But, as a practical statesman. Lord Elgin felt 

 that the one kind of education he had it in his power to forward 

 directly by measures falling within his own legitimate province ; 

 while the other he could only promote indirectly, by pointing out the 

 need for it, and drawing attention to the peculiar circumstances of his 

 government respecting it. 



The persons in the mother country and among ourselves who main- 

 tain an agitation in favour of the educational arrangements of former 

 centuries, ignore the facts of modern society, which have been brought 

 into being, not without Providential supervision. It has become 

 impossible now for governments and governors to insist on particular 

 beliefs in communities, however possible it may have been for them 

 to do so once, and however right and perhaps beneficial it was for 

 them to do so then. Prom the necessity of the case, the modern 

 Csesar must confine himself to the things of Caesar. It does not 



