IMAGE EVALUATION TEST TARGET (MT-3)
V
//.
/
o
{/
§
/
(/.
1.0
I.I
flip IIIII2.5
:- IB
tt 12.2
2.0
i.8
|
1.25 1.4 |
.6 |
||
|
■^ |
6" |
► |
A
'/Q
^.
c*i
O
/,
O
7
m
Photographic
Sciences Corporation
#
■ \
s
:\
q^^
\
^<b
V
'O
V
6^
-^x
%
"O
"^
23 WEST MAIN STREET
WEBSTER, NY. 14580
(716) 872-4503
'%
^^
CIHM/ICMH
Microfiche
Series.
CIHM/ICMH Collection de microfiches.
Canadian Institute for Historical Microreproductions Institut Canadian de microreproductions historiques
1980
Technical and Bibliographic Notes/Notes techniques et bibiiographiques
The Institute has attempted to obtain the best original copy available for filming. Features of this copy which may be bibliographically unique, which may alter any of the images in the reproduction, or which may significantly change the usual method of filming, are checked below.
D
D
D
D
Coloured covers/ Couvurture de couleur
□ Covers damaged/ C
Couverture endommagee
Covers restored and/or laminated/ Couverture restaur^e et/ou pellicul6e
Cover title missing/
Le titre de couverture manque
Coloured maps/
Cartes gdographiques en couleur
Coloured ink (i.e. other than blue or black)/ Encre de couleur (i.e. autre que bleue ou noire)
I I Coloured plates and/or illustrations/
D
Planches et/ou illustrations en couleur
Bound with other material/ Relid avec d'autres documents
Tight binding may cause shadows or distortion along interior margin/
La reliure serr^e peut causer de I'ombre ou de la distortion le long de la marge int^rieure
Blank leaves added during restoration may appear within the text. Whenever possible, these have been omitted from filming/ II se peut que certaines pages blanches ajout§es lors dune restauration apparaissent dans le texte, mais, lorsque cela dtait possible, ces pages n'ont pas 6X6 film^es.
Additional comments:/ Commentrtjres suppldmentaires:
L'lnstitut a microfilm^ le meilleur exemplaire qu'il !ui a dt6 possible de se procurer. Les details de cet exemplaire qui sont peut-dtre uniques du point de vue bibliographique, qui peuvent modifier une image reproduite, cu qui peuvent exiger une modification dans la mdthode normale de filmage sont indiquds ci-dessous.
□ Coloured pages/ Pages de couleur
□ Pages damaged/ Pages endommagdes
I I Pages restored and/or laminated/
D
Pages restaurdes et/ou pellicui^es
Pages discoloured, stained or foxe( Pages d6color6es, tachetdes ou piqu^es
Pages detached/ Pages d^tach^es
Showthrough/ Transparence
Quality of prir
Quality in^gale d) I'impression
Includes supplementary materic Comprend du materiel supplementaire
Only edition available/ Seule Edition disponible
I I Pages discoloured, stained or foxed/
I I Pages detached/
I 1 Showthrough/
I I Quality of print varies/
I I Includes supplementary materia'/
I I Only edition available/
Pages wholly or partially obscured by errata slips, tissues, etc., have been refilmed to ensure the best possible image/ Les pages totalement ou partiellement obscurcies par un feuillet d'errata, une pelure, etc., ont 6t6 film^es d nouveau de fagon d obtenir la meilleure image possible.
This item is filmed at the reduction ratio checked below/
Ce document est film^ au taux de reduction indiqud ci-dessous.
10X 14X 18X 22X
26X
30X
|
7 |
12X
16X
20X
24X
28X
32X
tails
du odifier
une mage
rrata o
lelure.
D
32X
The copy filmed here has been reproduced thanks to the generosity of:
Douglas Library Queen's University
The images appearing here are the best quality possible considering the condition and legibility of the original copy and in keeping with the filming contract specifications.
Original copies in printed paper covers are filmed beginning with the front cover and ending on the last page with a printed or illustrated impres- sion, or the back cover when appropriate. All other original copies are filmed beginning on the first page with a printed or illustrated impres- sion, and ending on the last page with a printed or illustrated impression.
The last recorded frame on each microfiche shall contain the symbol —4>- (meaning "CON- TINUED "), or the symbol V (meaning "END"), whichever applies.
Maps, plates, charts, etc., may be filmed at different reduction ratios. Those too large to be entirely included in one exposure are filmed beginning in the upper left hand corner, left to right and top to bottom, as many frames as required. The following diagrams illustrate the method:
|
1 |
2 |
3 |
L'exemplaire fllm6 fut reproduit grdce d la g6n6rosit6 de:
Douglas Library Queen's University
Les images suivantes ont 6t6 reproduites avec le plus grand soin, compte tenu de la condition et de la nettetd de l'exemplaire filmd, et en conformity avec les conditions du contrat de filmage.
Les exemplaires originaux dont la couverture en papier est imprim6e sont filmds en commen^ant par le premier plat et en terminant soit par la dernidre page qui comporte une empreinte d'impression ou d'illustration, soit par le second plat, selon le cas. Tous les autres exemplaires originaux sont filmds en commenqant par la premidre page qui comporte une empreinte d'impression ou d'illustration et en terminant par la dernidre page qui comporte une telle empreinte.
Un des symboles suivants apparaitra sur la dernidre image de cheque microfiche, selcn le cas: le symbole — ♦- signifie "A SUIVRE", le symbols V signifie "FIN".
Les cartes, planches, tableaux, etc., peuvent dtre filmds d des taux de reduction diffdrents. Lorsque le document est trop grand pour dtre reproduit en un seul cliche, il est film6 d partir de Tangle supdrieur gauche, de gauche d droite, et de haut en bas, en prenant ie nombre d'images ndcessaire. Les diagrammes suivants illustrent la m^thode.
\ \
1 2 3
4 5 6
WITH THE COMPLIMENTS
-OK
PRINCIPAL GRANT.
a. i^^o^
^
I'ts^
THE UNIVERSITY QUESTION.
IN an interview with the Editor of the Toronto Star the other day, I gave a brief statement of this question from our point of view, because that in the circumstances seemed chiefly re- quired. It will not be out of place to reproduce that statement here, although — thanks to the courtesy of the Press, more par- ticularly and naturally in Eastern Ontario — it has been widely circulated in whole or in part. It contained some printer's mis- takes which it is as well to correct, and — seeing that it had to be very brief and to be confined to our point of view, it was of necessity inadequate, as a presentation of the case. What the ordinary intelligent man wants to know is, not what is the inter- est of this, or that person, place or sect, but what is for the interest of the Province as a whole at the present time, what our educational condition implies, and what a sense of justice demands. I said, in the City Hall, last May, in my Convocation address, that if the University question was re-opened, a com- prehensive measure was called for ; that not only should the claims of Toronto University be co.isidered and aid extended to it, but that Queen's had a prior claim which should also be con- sidered. It never occurred to me then that anyone, least of all a University Professor or President, would characterize an Academic address of this kind as " a hold-up " of Toronto Uni- versity or an " aggression " upon it, which its graduates could with propriety be called on to repel. Such a style of dealing with the higher education of the Province serves no good pur- pose. It beclouds a question which should be studied calmly and in a serene atmosphere. It irritates the great mass of peo- ple outside the narrow circle of University life, so far as they pay any attention to it, because it is an offence to their best in- stincts. Education is important, not because of its money value, but because — if of the right kind — it develops the spirit in man, the spirit which values literature, science, art, in a word all truth, for its own sake. In the end, that — like godliness— will
154436
212
QUEEN'S QUARTERLY.
be found " profitable unto all things." Bet when University authorities make money for their own institution the be-all and end-all of their speeches, when they declare that the lack of money f < > it is the root of all evil, when they express the hope that a millenium is coming when forsooth ! Ontario shall have only one University, one P'aculty of Medicine, — why not also one Faculty of Science, one Institute of Technology, one Normal School, one Art School, and one factory, — no one is profited, least of all the one University. They are sacrificing the best in- terests of the country, which demand free development of the human spirit, even more than the development of its material re- sources, to a theory too small for actual — let alone prospective — conditions, and they are disregarding rights which a generous mind would be prompt to appreciate.
I have always had a high sense of the importance and the possibilities of the University of Toronto. Thirty years ago, in the Province of Nova Scotia, I pointed it out publicly to my friends as a model for us in a small Province to imitate. Twenty- three years ago, in my inaugural address at Queen's, I praised the policy which — when the Province was young, poor, and des- titute of secondary schools, — gave all the public land set apart for University purposes to one institution, because that ensured not only a well-equipped University from the outset, but also with regard to others the survival only of the fittest and the certainty that they too would have to attain to a high standard before re- ceiving recognition. It must be confessed, on the other side, that the attitude of some of those who have at times posed as the representatives of the Provincial University has not been at- tractive. They have proved that a State University may have the defects of a State Church, and thus that instead of being a unifying it may be a disrupting force, and that very drastic changes may be required before an adequate and ideal education- al position is reached. But whatever the result or the changes that may be made, let the discussion of the question be dignified, and let us Iry to reach common grounds
As statesmen deal not with fancies, but with actual con- ditions, let us ask what is the state of the case, as it appears to the friends of Queen's ?
"In Kingston is a university, operated for more than half a
THE UNIVERSITY QUESTION.
a»3
century under Royal charter — the same authority as that under which Toronto now acts — with land, buildings, and revenue re- presenting more than a million dollars, voluntarily contributed for the noblest public ends. This university does almost the whole university work of Eastern Ontario, while it attracts stu- dents from the Dominion generally. On account of the sectari- an attitude of the province in the thirties and forties of this cen- tury, it was originated by the Presbyterian Church, on the model of Edinburgh University, and was from the first "open to all on the same terms."
RECENT ACTION.
It has been practically undenominational for twenty-five years, for the Church having ceased then to appoint any of its Board of Management and Control, the Board felt that it repre- sented the public and acted as guardians of a public trust. The Board has become convinced that it is its duty to make the uni- versity as national by statute as it has been national in practice. The Supreme Court of the Church has unanimously assented to the principle of the Board's proposal. The graduates, benetac- tors and corporators have also unanimously assented to the change and to the creation of a new corporation which shall fully represent its public character. The Board, therefore, asks the Government to take such share in the management of the university as it may consider necessary ; to co-operate finan- cially—in accordance with British practice in dealing with uni- versities and university colleges— so that its work may be still more beneficial to the public ; and to inaugurate in connection with it an annual pubHc audit.
Can the Government and Legislature refuse such request, in view of the principles on which they have acted with regard to other educational institutions ? Our educational system is con- ducted on this principle of Governmental co-operation with pub- lic bodies and independent boards. The principle applies to common schools, secondary schools, the recently established "continuation classes," and the still more recently established technical departments in several Collegiate Institutes.
Two important college cases may be cited :
I. In 1892-3 a number of gentlemen in different counties of Eastern Ontario subscribed $35,000 for a school of mining and
214
QUEEN'S QUARTERLY.
agriculture. The municipality of Kingston gave them a hand- some property, worth $25,000, to aid the project. The school has been such a success that the Government at the request of the Dairymen's Association has taken over tiie dairy school, and it gives $13,500 a year to the mining department. The mining school has already some seventy regular students and three or four times that number taking partial courses.
2. By the unanimous vote of the Legislature last session, Upper Canada College, regarded previously in public Acts as an integral part of Toronto University, was transferred to an inde- pendent board, contingent on its friends subscribing $50,000 for its extension. Yesterday that Act of the Legislature was for- mally consummated. Questions may be asked here : (a) If three or four hundred thousand dollars of public property are given to a board, in virtue of promises of $50,000, from two or three hundred rich men, how much should be given to a boaid which has raised a million from ten thousand subscribers, very few of whom are wealthy ? (b) If public liberality on such a scale is extended to an institution in Toronto, doing secondary school work, in competition with three Collegiate Institutes doing similar work in the same city, what treatment should be given to a university which serves the needs of a large and dis- tinct section of the province, and has provided higher education for hundreds — or thousands — who without it would never have received any college training ? (c) If an institution re- ceives provincial aid, which has never been recognized by muni- cipalities, though they have been encouraged for 50 years by the Municipal Act to do so, how should the province deal with an institution which has been aided directly and indirectly by muni- cipal grants, and to which the ratepayers of Kingston voted $50,000, six months after the law was changed to allow them to vote money for such a purpose ? (d) If so much public assist- ance can be rightly given for the education of rich men's sons, how much should be given to a university with more than halt the number of undergraduates* in arts that Toronto University
*In December, 1899, the Globe published the following statement alleged to be official, of the number of students in Arts, for sessions 1898, 1899, and 1900, in the combined University of Toronto and Victoria; —
In 1898, 870
1899, 762
1900, 725
V A
THE UNIVERSITY QUESTION.
2»5
has, — over sixty per cent, of whom come from the homes of our farmers and mechanics ?
The principle of legislative co-operation is thus recognized all through the piece. How can the Government refuse to ap- ply the principle to what is admittedly the greatest educational institution in the Province, with the possible exception of the University of Toronto ?
WILL OTHERS APPLY ?
A question in the form of objection may be asked on the other side. If Queen's is aided, will not other universities apply ? The answer is that, according to the report of the Edu- cation Department, there are only two educational cenlres doing university work in Ontario which the department and the public recognize, viz., Toronto and Kingston. In Toronto the province has established, by the Confederation Act, a university pro- fessoriate, which greatly aids several colleges in the city, and which is equally open to all colleges and universities in the city. It is asked, injustice to the east, to do the same in Kingston; not at the same cost, for while the universities in Toronto do 79 per cent, of the work required by our secondar ; schools, Queen's does only 20 per cent., although its proportion is stea- dily growing relatively to the others. No university in Ontario, outside of Toronto and Kingston, gives a single graduate to our secondary school system. One per cent, is contributed by Manitoba, Harvard, McGill and Great Britain combined.
Therefore, no other university in Ont?.iio is in a position to apply, and it will take any other from twenty to fifty years' hard work to reach the position of Queen's. By that time Ontario
For the same years, the nuirber in Queen's was—
In 1898, 407 - :, ; 1899, 430
1900, 433 Fully a hnndred of our students are "extra murals"; that is men— chiefly teach- ers—who cannot attend classes but who are kept in constant touch with the work under tutorial supervision, try the exercises, write the essays, and pass the examin- ations. This is the class which London University in England was mainly intended to reach ■ with this difference that— so far as I know— London gives them no aid by means of University tutors. In the Globe of Dec. i8th last, the numbers for the session igoi are given, and the matriculated are distinguished from the non- matriculated students. Only the former are undergraduates, for they alone have taken the necessary preliminary examination, and they alone should count. It ap- pears that in Toronto and Victoria combined there are now 61 1 of the.se ; and as Victoria must have 150, that would make between four and five hundred for Toronto. Queen's this session has four hundred, who have passed the same public examination, 115 of them "extra-murals."
2l6
QUEEN'S QUARTERLY.
will have as large a population as Scotland ; and Scotland, when it had not half the present population of Ontario, possessed four universities, every one of tliem with professors of European rep- utation ; obliged to " cultivate literature on a little oatmeal," because the greedy Barons appropriated the land which John Knox would have given to parish schools, grammar schools, and unive ities. The farmers, merchants, mechanics, and manufac- turers of Ontario will not prove as greedy as the Scottish Barons in the days of Knox. The objection that others will at once ap- ply for Provincial aid, should Queen's be aided, is therefore not valid."
To this extract I ought to add, in all fairness, that it is to be hoped the time will come when others will be in a position to apply. A fetish may be made of number two, as well as of the sacred num- ber one. No person has a right to dictate beforehand how many the country needs. England had only Oxford and Cambridge, when the Queen came to the throne. Though these two have been greatly extended since, they are still admittedly far from complete. The number however has increased to seven, and it is evident that in time Knox's ideal, " a university for every principal city " or section of the country, will be reached in England. There is no difficulty in deciding what universities should be aided, if there is any public conscience 'n Ontario ; and if there is not, something more radical is needed than "One university, with allied denominational universities, — but all in one place." That cry may suit the exigencies of some, but it is a poor cry, and not a policy on which statesmen can stand. It may be noted that the British commissioners of the 1851 exhi- bition, once they had decided to establish Fellowships worth ^150 stg. a year in connection with British and Colonial univer- sities, had no difficulty in finding which, at present, are worthy of the honour. They recognised two in Ontario, Toronto and Queen's, and two in the rest of Canada. Our vision ought to be as true as theirs ; and if we cannot trust our own vision, we can act on theirs as a precedent. It ought surely to be clear that " in a matter of this kind every institution must stand on its own merits. If the record of Queen's justifies a Government grant, that does not entail assistance to others with inferior claims. If Queen's is unworthy of a grant, that should not exclude others with adequate claims."
THE UNIVERSITY QUESTION.
217
IS queen's denominationai. ?
Having considered the objection that "others rnif;l)t apply," a second objection which has been urged deserves to be noted. The Denominational bogey has been invoked, in spite of the his- tory of Queen's, its reputation where it is best known, and the fact that public money is not expected until the University is separated in name as well as in reality from the Church with which from its origin it has been so honourably connected. This change in its Constitution has not been proposed and discussed for the purpose of getting aid from the State. It comes about as the result of the evolution of the University into a larger life than that which its Constitution expresses. It calls for the separation of the Theological Faculty, and its affiliation as an independent corporation to the University, because no Church is yet prepared to treat Theology as a science. Possibly, in the twenty-first century, Denominationalism will be considered as unworthy of Theology as it is now considered unworthy of Literature, Philoso- phy or Science, but the good time coming will not be hastened by ostentatiously ignoring or unwisely protesting against actual conditions. What lias the whole history of Queen's been but a long struggle against the sectarianism of the Province in various forms ! Queen's came into e.xistence in 1841, because the Provin- cial University was sectarian. Fifteen years later, it had to form a Medical Faculty, because medical students in Toronto could not get degrees, without submitting to sectarian tests. Subsequently, it had to do the same for women, because Canadian women had to expatriate themselves in order to become qualified as medical missionaries. As neither its charter, statutes, nor by-laws re- ferred to sex, for there is no sex in mind any more than in the good, the beautiful and the true, no difficulty in this regard was ever raised in Queen's, whereas the doors of the Provincial Uni- versity were opened only when the scandal of women refused ad- mission, though winners of Matriculation Scholarships and obliged to forfeit their Scholarships and come to Queen's, made the injustice too glaring to be longer endured. In these and other ways the Province has benefitted educationally, and the Provin- cial University has benefitted, by the existence of its sister in the East. Those things are not mentioned for the sake of glorying, but to point to the dangers inevitably connected with monopoly
2id
QUEEN'S QUARTERLY.
in the region of the mind. Nothing more surely cramps, dead- ens and sectarianizes the spiritual. Monopoly may be good in the production, manufacture, transportation and distribution of material things. In connection with the human spirit, it is al- ways hurtful, and possibly deadly to our highest interests. Sec- tarianism, let us never forget, does not inhere in an institution, but in the mind. Cast it out in one form, and it appears in another and probably a more insidious form ; and it is often worst, where most vehemently protested against. H ave we an illustration of this in the fact that those who call aloud that Queen's is denominational, with therefore no claim on the Province, see no objection to the State allying itself with con- fessedly strictly denominational universities like Victoria or Trin- ity ; the Church doing one half of the public vork leading to an Arts Degree, the State doing the other half, and a division of subjects made to suit ecclesiastical and personal preferences ?
A THIRD OBJECTION.
There is another objection with which I have a certain sym- pathy, because springing from a patriotic desire it appeals to us as Canadians. We are told that a new conception of univer- sities is now current in the United States ; that the minimum annual expenditure for a modern University is a quarter of a million, with at least a million in buildings and equipment ; that Toronto has only half that sum, and must have the other half, if it is to compete with the creation of Mr. John D. Rockefeller, Mr. Ezra Cornell or Mr. Leland Stanford ; and that Ontario is too poor to have more than one University, if indeed it is rich enough to afford one. So penetrated with this conviction is a distinguished gentleman who has made Toronto his home that he mourns over the existence of McGill. The money of rich English-speaking Montrealers would have been spent to so much better purpose in Toronto ! and as for people speaking French, who cares for them ? That seems to me to be the reductio ad absurdtim of the whole argument. It need scarcely be said that every intelligent man admits the importance of endowments for research, of scientific knowledge applied to every industry, and of provision for post-graduate work. All that will come. It has come to a certain extent already, but it will not come more quick'y or surely by massing the under-graduates of Canada or
THE UNIVERSITY QUESTION.
219
even of Ontario in one centre. They can not or they will not go, and that ought to end the matter. It will not come by ig- noring the fact that liberal culture for hundreds and thousands of under-graduates is more important to the State than expensive provision for units. Again, Ontario is not poor. Even if it were, the great work to which it should be summoned is not to engage in a vulgar competition with the multi-millionaires of the United States. It will rather attend to its own business, study Its own conditions, and do its own work. Let the potsherd strive with the potsherds of the earth ; but let people with a soul seek higher if less pretentious victories than those which money can give and take away. The plea of Ontario's poverty is discredi- table. Her people are richer on the average than Scotchmen, while her potential resources are far greater. The Government of the mother country, bearing all the burdens of the Empire and the accumulated entail of a thousand years of struggle, gives $360,000 a year to the four Universities of Scotland, besides a grant to the University College of Dundee; and no money from the public exchequer yields so high a rate of interest Ontario has already more than half the population of Scotland, and-according to the British basis and method- it would pay her to spend, judiciously and gradually, $200,000 a year on the various departments of University work within her borders. The University of Toronto, we are told by its highest authority, is " intensely British." It will surely then follow British precedents rather than those set by raw Western States According to the highest estimates, it needs $50,000 a year more than ,t now gets ; even if that sum were given, a handsome mar- gin would be left for Queen's, not to speak of other Universities and Institutes of Technology, which are sure to grow up in con- nection with the healthy growth of a Province that has within it tfie elements as well as the extent of a nation.
What then is the University question ? It is. in the first place, whether facts shall be recognized and justice done to yueens? The parents, the secondary schools, and, generally speaking the press and all interested in the higher education of Eastern Ontario, recognize Queen's as their University. Within he last twenty years, Kingston~by individual donations and the cordial vote of all classes to tax themselves for its extension
im
'2iO
QUEiiN'S QUARTERLY.
-has contributed to it $150,000. The Department of Educa- tion has for years pubh'cly recognized its work as on the same level with that of the University of Toronto. Can the Govern- ment and Legislature, charged with the high duty of educating the people and elected to deal out even-handed justice to the whole Province, refuse to recognize these facts ? It cannot. In one way or another, soon.r or later, they must be recognized, gueen's can afford to wait, because-founded on wholesome Scottish traditions-it lives on its income and declines to run mto debt. We seek the co-operation of the Province in our work, simply for its extension ; to meet the expansion of the country, the promise of the new century and the resistless de- mands of the liuman intellect.
The University question is, in the second olace, whether our higher education, which in the long run moulds and inspires our whole system, shall be encouraged to develop freely m accordance with its own laws and the life of the people or whether it shall be cribbed, cabined and confined by the arbi- trary theory that there should be only one University in On- tario ? This theory means, when reduced to its underlying prin- ciple, that no other University has a mcral right to exist, and that It would be a blessing to the people, if the earth opened its mouth and swallowed the others up, as happened to Kor h Dathan and Abiram, when they spake against Moses. As at bottom It means this, the answer to the second question is as inevitable as the answer to the first.
G. M. Grant,
Principal of Queen's.
REFLECTIONS ON UNIVERSITY MONOPOLY.
A MONG the numerous questions which arise in connection with the future of university education in Ontario is one as to the wisdom of attempting to stamp the whole of the higher educational life of the Province with one die. In all the efforts of men to provide for tiiemselves the means and instruments of life, the utmost economy and efficiency in organization, with concentration of knowledge and skill, resulting in the maximum of product for the minimum of human effort, is altogether ad- missible. It may be summed up in the economic ideal of the greatest poss.hle concentration in production and the greatest possible diffusion of products. In other words, it is the height of wisdom to get the means of life in enlarging quantity, while we redeem an increasing portion of life from mere bondage to Its own instruments. But, when it comes to a question of the aims and ideals which inspire life, and for whose realization alone the vast economic resources placed at our command have meaning, we are at once on different ground. We are no longer deahng with means to an end, but with the end itself. This is not to be cramped, abbreviated, robbed of its individuality and reduced to a characterless series of indistinguishable units turned out by a great centralized machine sliop, however splen- didly equipped or systematically or^^anized on a basis of minute division of labour.
It is undoubtedly the higher purpose of a true university training to open up before the youth of the country a broader and fuller view of the possibilities of life than is to be had from the mere pursuit of any calling or trade, however indispensable we know this to be. Indeed it is just because the various oc- cupations of life admit either of a generous and self-realizing reatment, or of a narrowing, almost self-obliterating pursuit that so much depends upon this larger and freer treatment wl ich university teaching, among other agencies, makes possi- ble, immediately to the body of students and through them in varying degrees to the rest of the community. But inasmuch as this implies the awakening of subtle spiritual powers the edu- cating or drawing out to consciousness in the individual of those capacities and aspirations which lie dormant within him
^
222
QUEEN'S QUARTERLY.
no hard and fast system can be prescribed for the accomplish- ment of this end.
All forms of educational monopoly and stereotyping are fatal to that spirit of freedom, alertness and expectation which must characterize a progressive civilization, in vhich the achieve- ments of the present and the aspirations of the future, though in close touch with the past, are ever going beyond it.
If the government of a rich province like Ontario is to con- fine its assistance to one type of university centre there must re- sult a tendency, not unnoticed even now, to breed in the public mind the idea that there is but one normal type of university organization and education, and that all others are to be de- spised. Should this tendency reach its logical matuiity, there ceases to be any choice as to the medium of a higher education for nine out of ten of the youth of the Province. With no option there is no discussion of methods, comparison of results, or stimulus to variety and independence of thought at the very stage of intellectual development when these are almost every- thing.
For a university centre enjoying a monopoly ot govern- ment aid and educational control, it is but the natural conse- quence of anything but genius that there should result a relaxing self-complacency, the inbreeding of a close corporation, self- glorification without and petty intriguing within, and many other symptoms of decay.
No intelligent person, it may be hoped, will object to ample provision being made from the funds of the Province for the equipment of a thoroughly organized university system in To- ronto. But in the very interest of that system as insuring its spiritual vitality, it is surely reasonable to claim that the Provin- cial Government should aid at least another type of university centre, such as that at Kingston, so long as it proves itself worthy of support and intrinsically capable of giving and receiv- ing stimulus in connection with the purely state university. By aiding a university which, though independent in management and relying chiefly upon private benefactions, yet is entirely de- voted to the higher education of the country, the government of the Province would share in the credit due to its work, and prove its sympathy with that independence and freedom in intellectual matters, which is the very essence of all true education.
A. Shortt,