IMAGE EVALUATION TEST TARGET (MT-3) 1.0 I.I ■" IIIIIM j 5 "" iL' llitt M 1.8 1.25 1.4 1.6 .« 6" — ► p% <^ /2 ^^» "c-l r -c^> ■^^^ r «'.>^^ ''>:" /A # # "■'J Photographic Sdences Corporation 23 WEST MAifi STREET WEBSTER, NY. 14530 (716) 872-450.1 L< •• On Monday November 20th, the day following that of the death of Sir William Dawson, a Special Meeting was convened at the University and attended by Governors, the Principal, Teaching Staff, and Students, when the following addresses were given. '' Principal Peterson, after reading the Ninetieth Psalm, spoke as follows : "Since we met in our various class rooms last week, a great and good life has been brought to its appointed end, Sir AVilliam Dawson had considerably overpassed the span of life of which the Psalmist speaks : it was 'by reason of strength' that it was for him well-nigh fourscore years. Ever since he assumed the principalship in Nov. 1855 — that is for a period of exactly 44 years — he has been the most prominent figure connected with this University, The last six years of his life — since 1893 — have been spent, it is true, in retirement from active work, but he has been with us in spirit all this time. Many of us know how closely, and with what a fatherly >< \ interest, h-i lias f(jll()\vt;d all our later history. Aiul now his life lins closed, in great physical weakn •:,:-;, but happily unaccompanied by distress or suffering : '01 1,0 distemper, of iu> blast he died, IBut fell like- autumn fruit that niellow'd long.' "Busy, active and strenuous ail his days, he must have chafed, I fancy, during recent years under a growing sense of uselcssness, — almost an impatience at being laid aside froin work, which had been to him so long the very breath of life; yet none ever said with more simple, child-like resignation, 'Thy way, not mine !" For such a painless passing out of life no note of sorrow nec^d be struck. There is no sting in a death like his ; the grpve is not his conqueror. Rather has death been s\v'allowed up in victory — the victory of a full and complete life, marked by earnest endeavour, untiring industry, continu- otis devotion and self-sacrifice, together with an abiding and ever-present sense of dependence on the will of Heaven. His work was done, to quote the Puritan poet's noble line, 'As ever in his great Task-master's eye :' and never for a moment did he waver in his feeling of personal responsibility to a personal God. Others will speak to you of his record as a scientific man. I shall j)ermit myself only to say that few can have an adequate idea of the power and forcefulness revealed in the mere fact that one who had so onerous a part to play as a ^' college head should liavc been able to keep up scientific work at all. A weaker nature would have exhausted itself in the problems of administration. ^'He, himself, has left it on record, in his paper entitled 'Thirty-eight years of McGill,' that these years were Tilled with anxieties and cares, and with continuous and almost unremitting labour.' There are on my library table at the present time three volumes in which three college presidents may be said to have summed up the life-work it has been given them to do for the institutions with which they were severally connected,— Caird of Glasgow, Eiiot of Harvard, and Oilman of Johns Hopkins. The first was a massive intellect which, m the security of a long-established University system, delighted to deal, in a series of addresses to the Glasgow si.udents, with such subjects as the unity and progressive- ness of the sciences, the study of history, the study of art, and the place in human development of Erasmus and (ialileo. Bacon, Hume, and Bishop Butler. The two American presidents have lived more in the concrete and they have put on record their attitude to and their methods of dealing with the various problems they have had to face in the educational world in which their work has been done. And alongside their memorial volumes I like to place a still more unpretending collection of 'Educational Papers,' which Sir William Dawson circulated among his friends. They mark the various sta-es, full of struggle and stress at every pomt, of his -3- college administration, aiul they form a record of what he was able to accom[)Iish — apart from his work as a geol()[,^ist — in the s[)here of education; for the High School and the Normal School of this city, for the schools of the i)rovince, and above all for aMcGill itself, which he found in 1855 a mere college with eighty students, and which he raised to the level of a great university with over a thousand. "And not even in his weM-earned retirement could he permit himself to be idle. To me, one of the most touching sights in the first year of my arrival here was the indomitable perseverance with which every day the well-known figure of the old Principal would make its way, bag in hand, across the campus to the museum he loved so well, there to work for a time among the valu- able collections which the university owes to his zeal, industry and devotion. It wvis in 1841 that he published his first scientific paper, and the activity which began then was continued down to the Thursday in the week before his death, when some reference to the mining industry of this country suggested to him that once more, with failing hand and wearied brain, he should put pen to paper on the subject of the ' Gold of Ophir'. And now he has entered into his rest, — affectionately '"'^nded to the last by the gentle care of a devoted and heroic wife, and solaced by the presence of a distinguished son, a loving daughter. The world had no power to hold "► 4 — "^ him any more. His work was done, and his spirit yearned to pass beyond all eartlily bounds. More fitly even than a yoiur^er man, whose death came very near to me in August of this year, could Sir William, in his great and growing weakness, have echoed the cry that he uttered, amid great(;r suffering : ' Never weallier-ljeaten snil more vviilinp[ herU lo shore, Never tired pilgrim's limbs allected slumber more, Than my \v(;aried sprite now lonj^s to lly out of my troubled brenst : O, come fjuickly, sweetest Lord, and take my soul to rest.' " He is gone, and ',ve shall see his living face no more. Hut teachers and sti ients alike may have ever with them the inspiration of his noble life, and the stimulus of his high example. What he was to thost 'ho were so long his colleagues, I leave others on this occasion to set before us : my closing words to the stuo Mits of McCiill must b«^ the expression of a conlident hi-[.c that the record of Sir ^villiam's lifvj and work v ill always be an aiViding memory in this place. If you will bear it about with you in your hearts, not only will you be kept from lip service, slackness, half-heartedness in your daily duties, — and from the graver faults of youth, at which his noble soul would have revolted, from dii^honesty, sensuality and impurity in every form ; but you will be able, each in his si)here, to realize more fully the ideal of goodness and truth, so that at the last you too may hear the voices whispering, as they have now spoken to him : ' Well done, thou good and faithful servant ; enter thou into the joy of thy Lord.'" - 5- V Dr. Alex. Johnson, Vice-Principal and Dean of the Faculty of Arts, said : " You h:ive heard that u is just forty-four years this month since Principal Dawson gave his inaugural address in this university. Forty-four years seems a long time when measured by the life of man, but it is short when measured by the duration of universities, and we cannot fairly estimate the work done during the thirty-eight years in which he held office, without noticing how young the University really is. Then we shall be judges of its wonderful growth. Students now in the professional faculties, who have taken the full course in Arts, can tell their fellow-students what they have seen of recent progress. The college grounds are now crowded with buildings. Seven years ago the only buildings opened and in use were the centre building, the museum and the front part of the medical building. No buildings then existed for engineering, or physics, or the library, or chemistry. A large part of the medical building has been added within that time. So much for seven years. "Going back only twelve years, we find that the Ch.incellor of that time, the Hon. James Ferrier, had been president of the Royal Institution (the present Board of (Governors), before the new charter was obtained in 1852, in getting which he took an active part. It was only last January (ten months ago), that Dr. .Vieredith, who was principal for seven years — 1846-1853 — before the accession of Sir William Dawson, died, — 6 — ^ 1 ''At the present moment we have, happily, among us, although on the retired list, three of the fifteen professors in Medicine and Arts who received Principal Dawson at his inauguration. Tlie University then is young. "What has been its growth ? The academic faculty, when Mr. Dawson came as principal, had only four professors, of whom some were volunteers serving gratuitously. He made a fifth, himself as professor of geology. There was no professor of chemistry, none of botany, none of zoology. He took all these upon himself rather than leave the faculty so bare. His powers of working were indefatigable, and as professor the used them to the utmost for many years, until o-radually relieved ; but I think it ought to be remem- bered that he had charge of both geology and zoology, until he was seventy years of age. I thought it my duty to call attention in Corporation, about the year 181)0, to the fact that he was overburdened. He was at that time giving fourteen lectures weekly, in addition to doing all his work as principal, and other outside work besides. "But, although indefatigable powers of work, combined with scientific ability and experience in teaching, made him an able professor over a wide range of subjects, yet these would not have made him successful as a principal had it not been for the power with which he was speci- ally endowed, namely, administrative ability. "Great commanders, we know, are rare. If a rich nation places all its resources at the disposal of a general - 7 -- , H and he is successful, he his applauded and honoured to the utmost ; for the future of the nation many have depended on his skill. What, then, does that general deserve who has had first to create the resources himself, and then has used them successfully ? "This was Principal Dawson's position at starting. It may be said briefly that the University had no resources. Those that existed are not worth mentioning. He had to create by getting the whole community to work with him ; and he did it. The professors in the college, the merchants in the city, the teachers in th^,' country, their rulers in the C'ouncil of Public Instruction, men in- terested in arts and manufactures, the religious boijies all over Canada — he was in touch with one and all. He gained tlieir attention, gained their respect and admira- tion, gained their entluisiastic aid; and hence, you have now AIcGill University, with a great endowment, and a great revenue. 'T have said nothin;^; of his woric as Principal of the Normal School, and as professor in it for many years, nor of the consequc;it drain upon his time and energy. Nor can I more than allude to a G:reat deal of other work of his. Of the numberless scientific papers he has written, of the books he has published, of the honours he obtained at home and abroad— fellowshi[)s of scientific societies, presidencies of the great Scientific Associations of Great Britain and America (he was the only man who had the honour of presiding over both bodies) — there is -8- i 4t t ( i