NATURAL HISTORY, TORONTO REGION 
couraged immigration. The war had raised the 
value of all agricultural products, and the price of 
land on Yonge Street advanced to figures that would 
seem small now but were thought extravagant by the 
prudent of that day. The gold fever in Australia 
and British Columbia had fired the imagination and 
helped to bring about this era of speculation. It was 
not long before the Civil War in the United States 
once more gave an impulse to trade in Canada, soon 
lessened, however, by the abrogation of the Reciprocity 
Treaty. During the war a number of Southerners 
took up their abode here, making their rendezvous 
in the Caer Howell Hotel on the Queen’s Avenue. 
The excellent schools and colleges had already begun 
to attract students from both North and South. 
The provincial school system had been modelled 
after those of Ireland and of Prussia by the Super- 
intendent of Education, Dr. Ryerson. Upper Can- 
ada College, the Eton of Canada, had been brought 
to a high state of efficiency under Principal George 
R. R. Cockburn. The University, founded as 
King’s College in 1842, had been freed from the con- 
trol of the Church of England in 1850, and was in 
other ways keeping pace with the spirit of the age. 
Bishop Strachan, who had been President of the Uni- 
versity, although now over ‘seventy, had collected the 
endowment of a new Anglican institution, Trinity 
College. The Presbyterians had also their theological 
school, Knox College, which after many moves and 
more than a half-century in affiliation with the Uni- 
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