INAUGURAL ADDRESS, % 
 
 DKLIVICRI-:!), IN CONVOCATION, 
 
 .M Tin; 
 
 OPEXIX({ OF THE EKiirni SES.SION OF 
 
 BiiUmxsH IjfolUc^t anir olnibtrsiti), ' 
 
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 II A LI FAN, 1ST NOV.. i.S;o. 
 
 IIV 
 
 CHARLES ALACDOXALI), ALA., 
 
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 HALIFAX, \. S. 
 
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INAUGURAL ADDRESS, 
 
 DELIVERED, IN CONVOCATION, 
 
 AT TIIK 
 
 OPENING OF THE EIGHTH SESSION OF 
 
 itlj^otisu ffionc0t ttnir ffllmbtrsitj!, 
 
 HALIFAX, 1ST NOV., 1870, 
 
 ny 
 
 CHARLES MACDONALD, U. A., 
 
 PROFESSOR OF MATHEMATICS. 
 
 
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 HALIFAX, : 
 
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 PRINTED 
 
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 BY 
 
 THE "NOVA 
 
 SCOTIA PRINTING 
 
 COMPANY," 
 
 
 
 1870. 
 
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a/ifir )/ /! 
 
 
 r//^ 6^^t;^/;^^r^ ^/ Dalhousie College and Unmnily 
 have much pleasure in giving the following Address to 
 the Public, When it was read, on November ist, by 
 
 \ Professor Macdonald. in the Assembly Room of the 
 Province Building a general desire was felt that it 
 should be printed; and Chief Justice Sir William 
 
 ' Young moved, and the Rev, George W. Hill seconded 
 accordingly. The subject it treats of is one of great 
 immediate and practical importance to all in the Mari- 
 time Provinces who are interested in Higher Education, 
 
 ... . . . 
 
 . •• •• • 
 
 * • * 
 ... •. . ••• 
 
 
 • ! . . ; : : . • . . 
 
 .. ••• 
 
 -'1'*' •■ i ' 
 
*; 
 
 INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 
 
 Mr Principal, — ,, i .. , , ,,. 
 
 At the commencement of another Session— the Eighth of 
 the existence of Dalhousic College as a College and Univer- 
 sity — we have to give our Students the usual welcome. Wc 
 are glad to see our old friends, who come up to renew their 
 College life and labours. We trust that they have turned 
 their long recess to good account, both for recreation and for 
 work, and that they have not been neglectful of the great 
 business of self-education, which, after all, is the soundest 
 and most real education, whatever Professors or School- 
 masters or any of the tribe of "coaches" may say in ex- 
 altation of their own office. We hope they have been 
 maintaining and extending their acquirements in the subjects 
 of their previous course, and that they come back with 
 good heart for their winter's study. We are glad, too, to 
 see the faces of those that come up to College for the fi' *. 
 time ; and we hope, by-and-by, to get better and favourai 
 known to them. And we trust that, in the Session n^. 
 opening, we shall be able to impart to all, old Students and 
 new Students, such mental discipline as will tend to make 
 them capable and successful in the professions and employ- 
 ments of after life ; and — more important still — we expect, by 
 opening up to them new fountains of knowledge and of 
 thought, to quicken within them that higher intellectual 
 activity which makes life truly valuable, and without which 
 even the greatest material success in any business or occupa* 
 tion is an uneasy and ignoble thing. • * ' i" •'* '"^' " 
 
 Perhaps the most important circumstance connected with 
 
 .52538 
 
our proceedings to-day, is the fact just announced Hy the Prin- 
 cipal, that this day dates the commencement of the Medical 
 Faculty in this University. The Preliminary Medical School 
 that existed here for three summers, though sheltered in the 
 College Buildings, was restricted in its purpose, deficient in its 
 complement of tuition, and no more a part of the University 
 than — the Post-office. It was a tentative effort, whose success, 
 in the opinion of well-qualified judges, justifies the present 
 issue, viz, : — that now to the Faculty of Arts, which, as to 
 teaching power, is numerically one of the best equipped in 
 British America, there has been added a complete Faculty of 
 Medicine. This means, so far as the Medical Students are 
 concerned, that they are henceforth the Alumni of the Uni- 
 versity ; that they submit themselves to its rules, and are 
 entitled in due course to its honours : and it implies, so far as 
 the public are concerned, that we are henceforth to manufac- 
 ture Doctors for home use, and perchance for export ; and 
 that Halifax, in addition to its importance as the Capital of 
 a Province, will have — whatever that may be worth — the 
 weight and estimation which accrue to a city that is the seat 
 of a considerable Institution devoted to liberal and profes- 
 sional education. 
 
 Here let me give an advice to our Medical Students, 
 whether potential or actual : and it is that, in conjunction 
 with their Medical studies, or, still better, as a preliminary to 
 them, they should take as much as they conveniently can of 
 an Arts course. There is no profession superior to that of 
 Medicine for giving scope to a large and liberal culture. The 
 field of the Medical Sciences is vast, and the man who enters 
 it with a mind already disciplined to severe and accurate 
 study has an advantage, at the outset, denied to him who has 
 scraped through your ordinary Medical-Matriculation Exami- 
 nation, whose demands are removed as little as possible from 
 absolute ignorance. Let me mention a fatt that I believe is 
 well-known, in Britain at least, and could be verified by any 
 one that should take the trouble to seek the statistics in the 
 proper quarter. .f,-\'. • ;: ■■•;■ . ■ ■.t,t nij r-i- (,;--, ' 
 
 l.» 
 
In the British Naval and Military Services the appoint- 
 ments are awarded after competition. Candidates must have 
 the dcfjree of M. D. from a liritish University, and must have 
 the Diploma of the College of Surgeons of London, or 
 Edinburgh, or Dublin. Of the published lists of the results 
 of these Examinations for the last five or six years I cannot 
 speak, as I have not seen them, but for many years previously 
 I was in the habit of observing them, and can confidently 
 speak, and I am informed that the results of late years have 
 been the same. Now, while from other Universities, such as 
 London, Edinburgh, Glasgow, one-third to one-half -he 
 number of Candidates used to be successful in winning ap- 
 pointments, three-fourths to perhaps five-sixths of the 
 Aberdeen Medicals used to succeed. The difference is strik- 
 ing, and shows that the Aberdeen men were, on the whole, 
 the best Doctors, at least at the beginning of their professional 
 career. I have heard it given as the satirical verdict of one 
 of the distinguished Examiners of the service, that, while it 
 was antecedently possible that a Candidate from elsewhere 
 might know something, it was even probable that an Aber- 
 deen man did. 
 
 I am aware something may be said to mitigate the force of 
 this verdict ;* and, even if it be fully admitted, it may be al- 
 leged that the larger hats required by Scotchmen of the 
 North East of Scotland enter into the explanation. But it 
 seems to me, and to judges better qualified than I am, that 
 the superior preliminary training in the one case over the 
 other is the main cause of the fact mentioned. At Aberdeen 
 a large proportion of Medical Students begin with a full Arts 
 course, and, not rarely, one of the most distinguished graduates 
 enters the profession. It is evident that a man so furnished 
 will have, in prosecuting further studies, something of the 
 
 ♦In particular, it has been said that, at Clinical lectures (delivered at the 
 bedside of the patient), the smaller Medical Classes of a smaller University, 
 such as .Aberdeen, have an advantage over the larger classes of the other 
 Universities referred to. 
 
 To this advantage Dr. Rcid, Dean of the Medical Faculty, made very proper 
 reference in his remarks at the opening of the Medical Faculty. 
 
same advantage over the ordinary Matriculant, that a trained 
 pugilist, with his coo) straight-delivered blows, will exhibit 
 over the undisciplined combatant who hits wralhfuUy out 
 into surrounding space. My advice, then, to a young Medical 
 Student regarding the course he ought to pursue woukl be : 
 If you wish to derive the greatest benefit from your Medical 
 Classes, and thus to excel in your profession, begin with a 
 liberal training in Arts. To proceed — 
 
 By the establishment of this new Faculty, I consider that 
 this University has taken its stand, more unquestionably than 
 before, as the University of the Province. We may now say 
 that we have two Faculties, completely, if not perfectly, fur- 
 nished with teaching power. Whereas in the other CoMegcs 
 of this Province, five Professors conduct the business of two 
 Faculties, viz.: Arts and Theology, — the fact that they are 
 able to do so placing in the most striking light both their 
 acquirements and their versatility, — Dalhousie College has a 
 teaching staff of eighteen, I think, — seven in Arts and eleven 
 in Medicine ; and, though numerical strength is no ground for 
 exultation over the other Cclleges, to which, second to our- 
 selves, we wish well, it does furnish us good reason to congratu- 
 late the Governors of this College and those who have assisted 
 them in this matter on having been bold enough to conceive 
 and successful thus far to realise a scheme fitted to be such a 
 benefit to our young men destined for the professions, and to 
 give this Province a claim to consideration among civilized 
 and progressive communities. Of course this benefit can be 
 realised but slowly. Education is an excellent seed, but takes 
 some time to spring up, and a long time to bear fruit. The 
 standard of intelligence and culture can be raised, not by an 
 instantaneously productive fiat, but by putting in motion an 
 organization that works out gradual effects. Already it may 
 be permitted to hope that Dalhousie College has given some 
 perceptible impulse to the higher Education in this Province. 
 Last year, between ninety and one hundred Students in all, 
 including Medical Students in this number, received instruc- 
 
tion at this College, — an evidence, among others that couUl 
 be cited, thit it is growing in Provincial importance. 
 
 But, while our progress hitherto has been gratifying and of 
 good omen, anyone that is in the least degree conversant with 
 University matters knows that much more is required for 
 College equipment than Professors to teach and Students to 
 be taught. Hitherto, nearly all that has been done here, has 
 been to provide the former, and to trust to a Providence that 
 has proved itself not altogether unkind in regard to the latter. 
 In respect to teaching accommodation. Scholarships for 
 deserving Students, honours for distinction in study. Library, 
 Museum, philosophical apparatus, and such like, very little haa 
 been done of what is needful to secure the highest efTiciency, 
 though tha^ little has been most praiseworthy. Our Library, 
 for example, though an excellent working Library fi>r Under- 
 graduates, — for it has been very carefully selected with this 
 special object, as being the most imperative, — is very small, not 
 1, 200 volumes certainly, and there is at present no provision 
 for its increase. Our apparatus is good up to a certain point, 
 but is defective in many things, considering the present state 
 of the physical sciences ; and, in our classes in physical 
 science, we have sometimes to offer a circuitous verbal expla- 
 nation of what the Students ought to have set before them 
 visibly by way of experiment. Our need of a Museum is less 
 claimant, inasmuch as, chiefly I believe through the courtesy 
 of Dr. Honeyman, our Students have not only access to the 
 Provincial Museum, but invitations to use it ; and it is well 
 furnished, particularly in the department of Mineralogy, We 
 have some scholarships to offer, but they arc too few ; we 
 have Prizes for Essays on excellent and practical subjects 
 prescribed from year to year, — subjects that arc more or less 
 indirectly connected with the studies of the Curriculum, But 
 even here there is a very conspicuous want. We have no 
 distinctions for success in the moro laborious and abstruse 
 subjects of the Arts Curriculum, vi/.. : — the Classics and the 
 Mathematical Sciences. The course of instruction in each of 
 these subjects extends over the four years of the course. 
 
The Classics and the Mathematics thus hold with us nominally, 
 what they hold in all other Universities really, the first place 
 in importance. Undoubtedly, they are the best fitted of all 
 liberal studies for the purposes of severe and accurate train- 
 ing. The Classics open up the stores of history, literature, 
 philosophy, teach the accurate use of language, and therefore 
 also, to a large extent, accuracy of thought, and, by leading us 
 nearer to the origins of human speech, throw important light 
 on psychology and the unwritten history of nations. Mathe- 
 matics furnish the key to the physical sciences ; without 
 Mathematics, indeed, these are not .sciences but rather empiri- 
 cal knowledge, or like the play of Hamlet with the part of 
 Hamlet left out. Of these studies we may say that they 
 inform the mind more, suggest more, draw on the mental 
 resources of the Student more, than any others in the Curri- 
 culum. Demanding from the Student more industry and 
 patient subtle thought, proficiency in them is the best index 
 of application and ability. Now we have no prize, nor medal, 
 nor honour of any kind, not a ribbon nor a spray of laurel — 
 nothing but the virtue which, according to the common-place, 
 is its own reward — for the best Clr.ssic or best Mathe- 
 matician who has borne with distinction the heat and burden 
 of the four years' course. 
 
 I point out these things, not in the spirit of complaint, but 
 in that of encouragement. Though much has been done, it- 
 is needful that we all, Governors, Professors, Student.s, and 
 the friends of Education outside the University, who doubt- 
 less arc many, should have impressed upon us that much is 
 still to be done in order that our College may take rank as an 
 Educational Institution worthy of the Province and of the 
 times. But there is one thing T more ardently desire than 
 even the supply of such wants as have been mentioned, for I 
 feel confident that if we had this, other things needful for us 
 would surely follow. / desire to sec the union of the Arts 
 Faculties in the sectarian Colleges of this Province with the 
 Arts Faculty of DalJioiisie College, in one Non- Sectarian 
 College. One well-equipped College for Arts, with Medicine 
 

 
 and Law if yon please, is sufficient for the Province ; and 
 more than one are more than it can support. Let the Sectar- 
 ian Colleges become Theological Seminaries ; as such there 
 is a most important and needful sphere of usefulness for 
 them. 
 
 In expressing my desire to see this simple and rational 
 issue of our present divided state, I calculate on having the 
 sympathy of all the liberal-minded that interest themselves in 
 the !)rosperity of this community. Nova Scotia, with its 
 small and sparse population, who, rightly or wrongly, appre- 
 ciate College Education so feebly, and with its five or six 
 starveling Colleges, each having its curriculum of Arts and 
 granting Degrees to its Students, may be fairly considered, in 
 so far as Education is concerned, as one of the less known 
 Wonders of the World. In this Province, to say nothing of 
 Roman Catholic Institutions, the Protestants have among 
 them four Colleges ; all except Dalhousie College being con- 
 nected organically with their several sects, and combining 
 Arts and Theology. The number of Students in Arts at 
 these Colleges cannot exceed one hundred and sixty or 
 one hundred and eighty, and these spread themselves over 
 a curriculum of three or four years in each College. The 
 College classes arc consequently very small. They are 
 usually so, after the first year, even in Dalhousie College, 
 which is considerably the strongest in numbers. And thus 
 we have three or four Professors, in different parts of the 
 Province, all teaching the same things to classes numbering 
 sometimes not half a dozen students. One man could do the 
 work better than the four, and the Students would be benefit- 
 ted by working together. May we not ask, lV//y this waste ? 
 
 The present system gives a minimum of work with a 
 maximum of power, a result characteristic of the very worst 
 machinery. In these Colleges we have not only a waste of 
 teaching power, since we set several Professors to do the 
 work that one could do better, but we have a waste of funds. 
 The number of Professors, in all our Colleges, teaching Arts, 
 must at present be about twenty. Now half the number arq 
 
10 
 
 amply sufficient for the purpose of an ordinary Undergraduate 
 Curriculum. Thus, roughly speaking, half the money spent 
 in maintaining these Professors would, if our Colleges were 
 fused into one and our funds concentrated, be saved or set 
 free for the purposes of tuition in other useful subjects con- 
 nected with science, art, and literature. 
 
 I have said that with fewer Professors, and therefore 
 larger classes, the business of College is more efficiently 
 done. For, Professors that have, as at present in our 
 small Colleges, to teach a variety of subjects, cannot, 
 ccuicris paribus, teach these so efficiently as if, by a due 
 division of labour, they had to deal each with only one 
 subject. Again, Professors, having much in common with 
 the remainder of mankind, teach better under the stimulus 
 of large classes, if not unmanageably large, than under the 
 disheartening influence of benches nearly empty. For 
 the same reason, you get, generally speaking, better men 
 to aspire to Professorships in a large and influential College, 
 than in a small and obscure one. Students, too, arc benefitted 
 by large classes; the more able and industrious are stimulated 
 to seek excellence where it involves so much distinction : and 
 the laggards are spurred into partial activity by the public 
 opinion of their class-fellows, — a wholesome influence which 
 is almost non-existent in a very small class. Hence it is 
 that, under our present system, along with considerable waste 
 of men and money, we may expect to have inferior teaching 
 on the part of our Professors, and inferior attainments on the 
 part of our Students. Hence further, our College instruction 
 is less attractive, and less sought for, than it ought to be. 
 The number of our young men that are liberally educated, 
 capable of being interesting or useful to themselves or others, 
 outside the routine of their daily business, is very small ; and 
 some of our most promising youth seek their Academic 
 education in the Universities of Britain, the Continent of 
 Xurope, or the United States. 
 
 Further : by the system of small sectarian Colleges, how- 
 <Ever well-equipped and efficiently conducted, the loss is to a 
 
11 
 
 large extent incurred of those -extra-mural advantages, which 
 are perhaps not less important for the formation of character 
 and the establishment of a sound and healthy morale, than is 
 the proper business of College studies. The advantage to a 
 young man is very great, of finding himself one of a large 
 community of young men like himself, but of various tastes, 
 characters, opinions, met for the common and generous 
 purpose of mental culture, — of studying the records of 
 man in past and present times, in history, literature, art, 
 poetry ; and of searching out the far-reaching laws and truths 
 of science, which, so far as we have yet found out, encom- 
 passes time, and space, and thought itself; all noisy sectarian 
 differences sunk out of sight in presence of these themes, 
 where the " true, the beautiful, and the good " are exhibited 
 and discussed without fear, or passion, or prejudice. The 
 sympathy of numbers is inspiring and ennobling in such a 
 case. Then, again, outside College classes, Students form 
 among themselves a kind of model republic, where, while the 
 highest consideration is reserved for the display of mental 
 power, every proof of practical ability, down even to the 
 handling of an oar or the stopping of a cricket ball, receives 
 duly graduated honour. Here, pre-eminently, is the place to 
 train men for the stir and struggle of life. Here the shy learn 
 to assert themselves ; the conceited get quick and salutary 
 lessons of modesty ; the dogmatic find that there are other 
 opinions besides their own tenable by argument ; the fine 
 gentleman, who founds his claims to consideration on his 
 superior social position or on the larger income of his father, 
 descends, with more or less of grace, to his just level ; the 
 : village genius, fresh from the praises of his schoolmaster and 
 the flatteries of home, is confronted with other geniuses equal, 
 lor perhaps superior, to himself. Manhood, modesty, liberal- 
 ity, toleration for difference of opinion or of feeling, a wider 
 knowledge of mankind, are among the principal fruits of the 
 intercourse of Students at a large seat of 'learning, where 
 different ranks, classes, and creeds mingle freely together. 
 These are just the advantages which the system of small 
 
12 
 
 semi-ecclesiastical Colleges all but throws away, and for 
 which it seems to bring no compensating good, except that 
 the sacred distinctions and jealousies of religious denomina- 
 tions are thus more likely to be maintained, and a larger per 
 centage of staunch uncompromising sectaries turned out, from 
 time to time, to maintain, in the face of a world in apathy or 
 in arms, the honor and glory of their own peculiar tsiK. 
 
 Need I remind you that Dalhousie College expressly 
 ignores sectarian difference in religion ? Our Governors 
 and Professors represent a tolerable variety of religious 
 belief, — a fact which, many will be surprised to learn, leads 
 to no misunderstanding or disharmony among them ; and 
 the reason is, because it has no bearing on the manage- 
 ment of the University or the teaching of the College. We 
 have had Students from all the considerable religious 
 bodies in the Province, and College distinctions have been 
 attained by them in pretty equal proportions ; nor have I 
 ever heard that any Student was shocked at the godless- 
 ness of the College on the one hand, or, on the other, 
 offended at the proselytising influences brought to bear upon 
 him. But, while Dalhousie College offers fewer disadvantages 
 to Students desirous of a liberal Education than the Denomi- 
 national Colleges of the Province, I repeat what I said before, 
 that our College Education cannot be placed on a satisfactory 
 footing till, uniting on a non-sectarian basis, we join our 
 efforts and our resources to produce one first class University 
 '~r the Province. Though this College has been successful, 
 and promises to become more prosperous still, even if the 
 other Colleges refuse to unite with us, yet I am not content 
 with a less gooa when a greater seems to be within our reach ; 
 and what is there, I ask, to prevent us all meeting on the com- 
 mon ground stated and thoroughly equipping a Faculty of 
 Arts, with useful additions, while maintaining our separate 
 Seminaries of Theology .-' In answer, I am told that the prin- 
 ciple of Denominational Education in our College system was 
 long ago accepted, after full discussion, and that we must abide 
 by it, as we took it for better, for worse. But what is there in 
 
13 
 
 the nature of things to compel our adhesion to it, if it is now 
 seen not to be the best ? And if it is bad, — if it is both expen- 
 sive and inefficient, and unsuitable to the circumstances of the 
 Province, — what is there that forbids us to go back on our 
 legislation in this matter, and to unbuild in order that we 
 may reconstruct ? Are we afraid to confess that we have 
 misjudged ? Is there any of us that would not be more 
 ashamed of being thought obstinate in a conscious error than 
 even of having committed the error itself? Is not candour to 
 acknowledge error an index of magnanimity ? It is so in the 
 individual ; why should it be less so in the community ? 
 
 I know that a College or University, labelled with the 
 name of one's own sect or Church-party, sounds a very fine 
 thing. It appeals to your sense of possession. You have 
 more property in it than- in an Institution common to many or 
 to all sects. You feel your own dignity and importance the 
 more in proportion to the narrowness of its limits : and if 
 Colleges existed to gratify our sense of importance and give 
 us scope for personal influence in their afifairs, their denomina- 
 tional character could perhaps be hopefully defended. The 
 feeling I refer to is a natural one. Hence it is that a man 
 takes more delight in his own garden or his own pictures than 
 in public pleasure-grounds or in a National Gallery of paint- 
 ings. So, too, as I have heard, the great antediluvian ancestor 
 of an illustrious Highland chief refused to avail himself of 
 the advantanges of Noah's Ark, and escaped the Deluge in a 
 boat of his own. Such at least was the statement of one of 
 his descendants, jealous for the honour and antiquity of his 
 clan, when he was asked where the clan was before the Flood 
 and why it is unchronicled in the Book of Genesis. And are 
 we not all too partial to "boats of our own" in cases where, 
 by forgetting self-importance in generous co-operation, we 
 could float together in craft both more commodious and more 
 dea-worthy? r 
 
 But there are persons who, superior to this prejudice, do 
 In all conscience think that the sectarian or religious difficulty 
 is insuperable, and that the merging of their denominational 
 
14 
 
 Colleges in one larger Institution unconnected with the 
 specialties of religious creed would be equivalent to the 
 giving up of their distinctive Theological lenets and prin- 
 ciples. A few words on this matter. I will grant, for the 
 nonce, all that the straitest sectary i an wish for. I will grant 
 that he has got hold of the truth, and that the criterion 
 which distinguishes him and his party from other sects, is of 
 the very essence of religious soundness and safety. I will 
 concede further that every religionist, acting on this hypo- 
 thesis, is not only justified in using, but bound to use, every 
 effort that none of the sheep of the special fold to which he 
 belongs may go astray, and that others may be gathered in. 
 But, do these concessions tend to establish either the justness 
 or the expediency of denominationalism in University Educa- 
 tion ? Is it wise to insist upon th ~ distinctions of sect in 
 matters where these are entirely irrelevant ? There are some 
 relations of social life in which, confessedly, religious differ- 
 ences have no proper place nor meaning. We do not, at least 
 we ought not to, vote for a man to represent us in the House 
 of Parliament, on the ground that he is of the same Church- 
 party as ourselves, but because we think him the most enlight- 
 ened, independent and incorruptible Candidate we can find. 
 When wishing to travel by railway, we do not first ascertain 
 that the guard and engine-driver are at one with us upon 
 points of faith ; nor should we be deterred from committing 
 ourselves to the train by any possible opinions of theirs, so 
 long as we had no reason to believe that they would fail in 
 their public duty. The merchant does not refuse to hold busi- 
 ness transactions with any persons except those of ascertained 
 serious views. It is sufficient for him if they be persons of 
 credit and known honourable dealing : nor are invoices of goods 
 and bills of exchange usually accompanied, in the same enve- 
 lope, with theological homilies. Now, with the subjects of a 
 liberal Education religion has as little to do as it has with such 
 matters as these. Religious principle, of course, ought to under- 
 lie all our thoughts and actions ; but religious dogma is quite 
 a different thing, and has no more proper place in liberal 
 
15 
 
 Education than in politics or commerce. There is, for in- 
 stance, no possible connexion between the conic sections and 
 the five points of Arminianism ; though a Mathematical 
 punster might allege that, as a conic section can generally be 
 described through any five assigned points in a plane, the two 
 sets of things may have a latent bearing on each other. The 
 exact signification of the words episkopos and prcsbytcros, 
 in the Church of the first ages, may involve much verbal 
 and historical criticism, and may carry in its deter- 
 mination very weighty results ; but the Greek Classics, 
 from Homer downwards, say nothing on the subject, and 
 afford no data from which it could be criticised except by 
 the more accomplished inmates of a Lunatic Asylum. I do 
 not know whether the Pope is Fallible or Infallible ; but, 
 whether the one or the other circumstance be the true one, 
 the Chemical relation of acid to alkali remains the same, and 
 the Undulatory Theory of Light rests on a mass of evidence 
 into which opinions about the Pope do not enter. What 
 the tenets and rules of Methodist Societies may be, I do 
 not know ; but I am sure they throw no light whatever on 
 the use of the Latin Subjunctive, or the controversy between 
 the "intuitive" and "derivative" theories of the moral sen- 
 timents. With religion, I repeat, the subjects of a liberal 
 Education have nothing directly to do. But if a Professor, 
 when expounding the wonderful simplicity and beauty of 
 the great laws and phenomena of nature, should make some 
 more pointed allusion to the designing and controlling Mind 
 which works out, from such simplicity and unity, results at 
 once complex and beneficent, — and this is about the furthest 
 inroad into religious teaching that he would ever be likely to 
 make, — is there anyone here who would object to that ? 
 Again I say, scientific knowledge is one thing ; religious 
 opinion is another. They are independent, and therefore not 
 contradictory. In the higher Education, they cannot be 
 Ijlended without injury and confusion to both. The case 
 6f Elementary Education at Common Schools is different,. 
 for it is not scientific ; and the considerations that are rele- 
 
16 
 
 vant to the one case, are not necessarily so to the other. 
 Into this, however, I will not enter here. 
 
 Let me continue. In science and literature there arc 
 Schools of Thought, there are undetermined questions which 
 it is the instructor's duty to present with due exhibition of 
 the grounds of opposing views; but there are no Sects 
 properly so called, no Standards to be assented to, no Con- 
 fession to be subscribed. There is no such thing as, Whoso- 
 ever doubteth the Binomial Theorem, whosoever rejects the 
 Mechanical Composition of the Atmosphere, or hesitates to 
 accept the Identity of Electricity and Galvanism, or the 
 Homeric Unity, let him be anathema. Science is a field in 
 which thought is passionless, and belief comes to us, not by 
 the devout ac^eptanqe of tradition, however well authenti- 
 cated, or by acquiescence in the precepts of men, however 
 wise and good. It makes its appeal simply to the under- 
 standing and the reason, and it is truly taught only when al! 
 authority but that of nature and the laws of thought is se! 
 aside. Let us try to imagine science sectarianised. Fanc} 
 Denominational Text-Books for Denominational Colleges. 1 ; 
 should think where the latter are indispensable, the formei | 
 ought to be useful. Let us conceive, then, a German " Editior I 
 of Thucydides, with emendations of the Text conformable ti| 
 Lutheran Doctrines ;" or, a " Manual of Formal Logic, sane 
 tioned by the General Assembly of the Kirk of Scotland ; 
 or, a "Treatise of Physical Astronomy, based on the Theor 
 of Universal Gravitation and the Articles of the Englis: ] 
 Church ;" or, the " Elements of Civil and Military Engineer ' 
 ing, adapted for the use of students of the Baptist Com « 
 munion." Such books would be ill-judged and ridiculous i < 
 no greater degree than is Religious Denominationalism i 2 
 Classical and Scientific Education. ' 
 
 Then, with respect to the Students themselves, they kno s 
 that they come to College for quite another purpose than ! ^ 
 discuss knotty points of Theological opinion, for which the ^ 
 have neither the time, the experience, the knowledge an C( 
 learoing, nor, generally speaking, the. indination. So far ; cs 
 
17 
 
 my knowledge of Students extends, I have observed that, at 
 College, the man whose talk is "goody" is rather avoided bv 
 his fellows ; but a disputatious religionist is, of all forms of 
 animal life, held to be the most intolerable. The danger that 
 a y-ung man incurs, at a University of mixed denominations, 
 of having his religious opinions interfered with and perverted 
 is evanescent in comparison with the other dangers to which! 
 both there and afterwards in the world when he enters it, he 
 is likely to be exposed. There is one danger perhaps in such 
 ,a University, though it is in fact incurred by all liberal 
 Education worthy of the name. If it is desired to retain a 
 young man under powerful sectarian influences, to make him 
 of his Church churchy, so that he shall see no colour of 
 excuse for, and no element of good in, views other than those 
 of his party ; then indeed liberal Education is dangerous for 
 ■him, because under it he is trained to consider the subjects 
 placed before him from many points of view, to hear conflict- 
 ing opinions stated without prejudice, and every consideration 
 in their favour put forward as their advocates would have 
 Jhem put, and calmly weighed ; and the habit of mind thus 
 formed he is likely by and by, if he has benefitted by his 
 training, to import into other subjects of thought,— religion 
 gmong the rest. But who would call such a mental habit 
 dangerous ? Who would not rather say that it is the safe- 
 gfuard of human progress, of honour, morality, and religion ? 
 / In condemning, for the purposes of liberal Education, our 
 present Denominational Colleges, and advocating the scheme 
 of One University for the Province, into which these Colleges 
 ^ould be merged, I am not spinning a cobweb hypothesis 
 QUt of my own consciousness. I proceed not only upon the 
 abstract reasonableness of the scheme, but on the ground of 
 realised fact. The four Scottish Universities are in all re- 
 spects National Institutions, and supply, with their four 
 Cplleges, College Education sufficient for the wants of three 
 millions of Scotchmen, educating at the same time a large 
 contingent from England and elsewhere. They are theoreti- 
 cally connected with the Kirk, but practically, except in the 
 
18 
 
 Faculty of Divinity, dissociated from it. There is no religious 
 test at entrance or at exit. From first to last a Student's 
 religious opinions are never enquired into, nor, if known to 
 the College authorities, would they be held to have any 
 bearing on his standing as a Student. In some of our 
 Colleges, Sunday services arc provided for those Students 
 who choose to avail themselves of them, but, even in this case, 
 there are no compulsory " Chapels." The Scotch, aware of the 
 value of Education, profit by these Institutions without re- 
 spect to religious differences. Young men of all creeds meet 
 here and find it most natural to meet and mingle. They 
 incur no more theological contamination than we are all liable 
 to from the fact of living in society at all. The Prizes, 
 Bursaries, Degrees, all College privileges and honours are 
 open to all, Briton, American, Turk or Hottentot, without 
 restriction. A man's Calvinism may be sound or his views of 
 Predestination faulty ; he may be High-Churchman or Low- 
 Churchman ; he may be simple Monotheist, or he may even 
 have a weak side to Fetish-worship ; still, the College is 
 open to him, his religious creed being ignored, for intel- 
 lectual culture and such distinction in study as he can fairly 
 win. For all this, our young men are not known to be 
 trained up after a godless fashion ; nor are Scotchmen in 
 general, or educated Scotchmen in particular, said to be 
 specially indifferent to religion. Rather has the prcefervidum 
 ingenium been thought to manifest itself conspicuously on 
 this subject. But I refer to the Scottish Universities, not to 
 praise them as perfect Institutions, but because. Nova Scotia 
 being a country so like Scotland in many respects, it is the 
 more susceptible of benefit from Scottish precedent ; and we 
 see that in Scotland non-sectarian College Education, instead 
 of bearing apples of Sodom, as some among us seem to think 
 that it ought to do, does in fact bring forth excellent fruit. 
 
 The great English Universities of Oxford and Cambridge 
 are much more closely allied to the Church of England ; yet, 
 as the Church of England, at least in Britain, is not a sect 
 
19 
 
 but inchulcs within it a w' » variety of theological opinion, 
 their system of Education has been so much the less marred 
 by sectarian cvilo. A certain religious conformity is still, I 
 believe, imperative on Undergraduates : but the test for the 
 H. A. degree has been modified to suit the capacity and 
 appease the demands of Dissent. Twenty years ago, the test 
 of subscription to Church Articles was rigidly enforced, and 
 Students that could not submit conscientiously to this, had to 
 leave the University without a Degree. But things are better 
 now, and though much has yet to be done to liberalize those 
 great seats of learning, the work is well begun ; a compre- 
 hensive University Tests' Bill is nearly as good as passed. 
 Ere long we may expect to see not only Degrees and Honours, 
 but the substantial rewards of Exhibitions, Fellowships, and 
 Professorships, except some few specially connected with 
 Theological study, freed from conformist bonds, even though 
 these are the respectable bond.s of the Church of England. 
 
 The growth of Dissent and the increase of wealth among 
 the middle classes in England, have, within this century, 
 naturally given rise to a great many Colleges outside the 
 aristocratic and exclusive Universities of Cambridge and 
 Oxford. Of these, some are connected with special sects, as 
 their names indicate, while others are not so. All of any 
 note, I believe, are affiliated to the London University, already 
 a great national Institution, though not forty years old ; and, 
 looking into the Calendar of the University, I am led to infer 
 that the most prosperous and advanced of these Colleges are 
 the non-denominational ones, such as University College, 
 London, and Owen's College, Manchester; though some of 
 the others make no unworthy figure. But England, with its 
 twenty millions of people and its enormous wealth, can afford 
 luxuries. Any respectable denomination of Dissenters in 
 England is perhaps numerically stronger and materially 
 richer than the whole population of Nova Scotia put together ; 
 and if any one should found an argument for Sectarian 
 Colleges upon English e.xample, I would, in addition to these 
 
20 
 
 considerations, respectfully remind him of the fable of the ox 
 and the frog ; the interpretation he can hardly miss : — 
 
 " Mutato nomine de co fabiila narnitiif." 
 
 But it docs not need that we should dwell on cither the 
 past or the present history of the English or the Scotch 
 Universities, in order to prove that they arc moving on with 
 the drift-current of enlightenment and progressing towards 
 complete emancipation from Theological trammels. Nobody 
 would venture to deny this. And how is it that they have ever 
 been subject to these trammels at all } In this way. These 
 Universities, excepting those of London and Edinburgh, date 
 from times before the Reformation, when as yet Education 
 was chiefly confined to the Clergy, and when, religious dificr- 
 enccs not existing in an expressed and organised form, there 
 were no sects in the Christian Church at all. Toleration for 
 non-conformity had not yet been born of the necessity that 
 gave it birth in later times. Dissent had no existence, and 
 therefore no standing and no rights. It may thus be said that 
 in these Medieval centuries Education was non-sectarian ; and 
 that the progress of the present day is leading us back to 
 those wise and unsophisticated views, forgotten amid the 
 more recent storm and animosity of religious controversy, 
 from which our forefathers started when, by the establishment 
 and endowment of those Universities, they founded so impor- 
 tant a part of the glory and the greatness of the British 
 people. 
 
 I am aware that in the United States Denominational 
 Colleges largely abound ; but with what effect on Education, 
 I am but little prepared to say. I know only that, measured 
 by the British and Continental standards, the States' Colleges, 
 generally, are not considered to rise above the level of High 
 Schools and Gymnasia,* and that people, in Britain at least, do 
 
 *This criticism of tlie United States' Colleges, was thought by some 
 persons present at the Lecture to l)e too indiscriminate. I fail to sec that it is 
 so. We all know that the American people have made magnificent sacrifices foi 
 the cause of Education, and that there arc some Universities in America of 
 which any country might be proud. 
 
21 
 
 not highly value their Degrees, of which they send across the 
 Atlantic a goodly number ; and there are some indications 
 that the Americans themselves arc becoming aware that, in 
 the matter of higher Education, they are far behind other 
 civilized nations, and will have to reform their system. If 
 these things are true, or even partially so, I cannot imagine 
 that anyone can have confidence in quoting American ex- 
 ample in favour of Denominational Colleges. 
 
 I am bold enough to think that, i)artly from these remarks 
 themselves, and, still more, from what they will have suggest- 
 ed, the following points can be not indistinctly made out: — 
 
 That liberal Education has, if properly conducted, no 
 relation to doctrinal Theology, and that therefore there is no 
 just obstacle to prevent diverse religious Denominations co- 
 operating in support of one Common University. 
 
 That, as in theory, so in practice, in non-sectarian Colleges, 
 neither the religious views nor the personal characters of 
 Students suffer from the insufficient supply of sectarian 
 dogma. 
 
 That one University, fully equipped and separated from 
 the Theological Schools of the different religious bodies, is 
 sufficient for this Province. 
 
 That the Province cannot support three or four Institutions 
 of this kind that shall all be able to offer an Education 
 adequate to the wants of the present age. 
 
 That the present system in this Province is the least 
 economical for utilizing the funds available for College pur- 
 poses ; while, with the expansion of Education, it must result 
 in still more zvaste, by requiring to be done three or four times 
 over that which, with a single University, would need to be 
 done but once ; or in still greater inefficiency^ by leaving the 
 demands for additional instruction unsupplied. 
 
 In short, our present system is highly unsatisfactory, and 
 demands reformation, which, so far as I can see, is not unat- 
 tainable. To persevere in it would surely be misplaced 
 devotion to party, and unfaithfulness to the present and future 
 
22 
 
 interests of our people. The worst thing you can do with a 
 remediable error is to defend it ; the best, though it may 
 seem to involve humiliation, to undo it and start afresh. It is 
 hard to defend a truism elaborately and solemnly ; and to 
 many of you the thing I have been trying to shew will seem 
 very like a truism. To such I owe an apology for having 
 said so much. Let me, in addition, remind you of the story of 
 the Irish servant sent by his master to market to sell a horse, 
 with instructions that if the animal's height should be asked, 
 he was to answer that it was sixteen hands high. Very soon 
 an intending purchaser asked this question, and from some 
 inadvertence or confusion between hands and feet, the Irish- 
 man answered that the horse was sixteen feet high, "Sixteen 
 feet! nonsense," said the purchaser; "you mean sixteen 
 /lands" " Did I say sixteen feet r said the Irishman. " You 
 did." " Then," said he, with one of the national oaths and a 
 gentle movement of the national weapon, " if I said sixteen 
 feet, I'll stick to it.'' It does not appear to me that the 
 sticklers among us for Denominational Colleges have sub- 
 stantially a better defence for their position, than the Irish- 
 man had for the alleged height of his horse. 
 
 And here I conclude, commending this subj jt to your 
 consideration. That many of you will agree with me upon 
 the University question, I doubt not ; though possibly you 
 would differ from me in the manner of setting forth the 
 views I have advanced. If it seem objectionable in any 
 thing, I have only to request you to look at the merits 
 of the case ; and I would welcome adverse criticism in the 
 spirit which is expressed by the formula, " Strike, but hear." 
 
 There is fair ground for believing that already this subject 
 is receiving the attention of some of the most instructed and 
 influential mil Is in the Province, and that the time is not 
 very distant when their views will be made to converge to 
 practical issues. 
 
 Should this important Reform in our University system be 
 achieved, while much will still have to be done for the cause 
 of Education, yet it is not too sanguine to say, that a new step 
 
23 
 
 in our intellectual progress will have been taken, by which 
 the mental and material progress and the practical ability o 
 our people will be so augmented, that our young men will no 
 be confined to their own country in seeking a sphere for their 
 abilities and enterprise, or go forth to other countries as 
 ittle better than hewers of wood and drawers of water, but 
 will become truly citizens of the world ; and that Nova Scotia, 
 though, like her elder sister, a small country, may in time 
 take her place side by side with Old Scotia, — perhaps surpass 
 ler, — in rank and influence among the nations of the earth.