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. ^

Sir % Oiilliam Dawson,

C.m.6., ELD., T.R.Sm T.e.s. «c.

JBorn, ©ctobcr l3tb, IS20
S)icD, IRovcmbcr 19tb, 1899

ffrom 1855 to 1893 iPrtncipal ot /IDc(3tll innivetsitx)

. . » iTlDontrcal . . »

ilVi^ljN^V

••

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-

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 —

''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 -- ,

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-

(

' ).

no need for me to speak. Of the great work he did in
showing the harmony between science and religion, 1
have no doubt others will speak.

"A great man has passed away from us, but his works
survive ; and his memory will be cherished as long as
tlie University which he built up continues to benefit
those for whom he laboured so strenuously. This is the
test of success to which he has himself appealed."

1
I

Dr. Cniik, Dean of the Faculty of Medicine, said that
since the death of Sir William Dawson, the feeling upper-
most in his mind was one of deep personal loss. He
w^as one of the men who had attended the inaugural
lecture of Sir William, as well as the whole of his first
course of lectures on Botany and Zoology. He had
only graduated the year before, and it was in the follow-
ing year that he was officially appointed to a position on
the teaching staff of the College, so that Sir William
formed a connecting link between those two important
events in his life. Ever since that time his relations
with Sir William had been constant and intimate, and
he had ever looked on his Principal with mingled feelings
of love and reverence. At the time of his first appear-
ance in McGill it was hard to detect tlv;; latent powers
that lay in Sir William, and it was not until he had ovcr-

— —

come many of the difficulties that lay in his path that
it was realized that a great man was in their midst.
He did for McGill what perhaps no other n^an could
have done, — he saved its very existence. The incubus
of inertia had long settled upon it so heavily that nothing
but herculean effort, such as Sir William put forth, could
have lifted it.

Sir William Dawson accomplished as much good by
his example as by his precept. He was not a man to
carp and preach at those under him or to constantly
remind a man of his faults, but his example was ever
one worthy of following, and his life was a living sermon.
He possessed in a rare degree the power to get the best
possible work out of his assistants. Never in his life had
he seen Sir William's equal as a teacher. He had such
a clear and forceful way of arranging and stating his facts
and knowledge, that it was impossible for anyone to listen
to one of his lectures without getting the best possible
idea of the subject in question. He was a man of most
lovable disposition, and if he had one fault it was
because of his tender loving heart. Some had blamed
him for the manner in which he had ever refused to
dismiss a professor without first gently pointing out his
mistakes and trying his best to help the man, but even
in this^ '^ his failing leaned to virtue's side." He was
like a loving father to the professors, guiding, correcting

— 10 —

]

and even taking their burdens on his own shoulders
when too great for their strength. He was ever like the
willing horse on whom the heaviest burdens are laid and
on whom were heaped duties that did not properly be-
long to him, but which he, nevertheless, accepted without
complaint.

Professor Cox said : "You have heard from some who
have been his life-long friends and fellow-workers what
they have found it in them to say of Sir William Dawson;
and now it is my privilege to add a few words as one
who came to know him later in life.

^'We are conscious that already six generations of
students have passed through this university to whom
he was no more than a name, and we would fain use
these precious moments to call up before you some
vivid and personal impression of the man. But how
poor are words as substitutes for the personal touch !
It is easy to say that he was a scholar of distinguished—
almost encyclopaedic— learning ; that in science he
attained the very highest honours ; and that he made
McGill— nay, it would be truer to say that for thirty-eight
years he was McCJill. True, he found a group of bene-
factors, such as surely no man ever before had at his
beck and call, — men who possessed not only the means

— • 1 1 —

but the far-sighted public spirit to employ them for
great ends under his guidance ; he had able and faithful
colleagues, some of whom are Nvith us still ; and, peihaps
best of all, he had many, many hundreds of students
who, so far knew how to profit by his teaching and
example that they have spread the fame of McGill broad-
cast over the land. But to the world at large, which
loves always to crystallize its ideas round a man, McGill
was Sir William Dawson, and Sir William Dawson was

McCiill.

"But though we have been proud to remember that
he was probal)]y the greatest palaeontologist this continent
has produced, and have felt our hearts swell with grati-
tude to him as the father of McGill, it is not of this that
we have been chiefly thinking since yesterday, and wish
to remind you to-day. It is the gracious personality of
the man. When I passed yesterday evening and saw
the flag at ha'^mast, drooping mournfully in the dim
li-^^ht I thought of the thousands of times the familiar
fi-rore had entered through the portals below. There is
not a corner of this building that fancy does not people
with that figure, from this hall, where he has conducted
so many pubUc ceremonies of the University to the east
wing, where in tlie old days the cheerful lights at night
used to assure us that the head and heart of McCiill
was busily at work.

— 12 —

i
i

''His personality impressed strangers at first sight.
Quite lately the deep sympathy he always felt for the
weak and the oppressed led him to take a characteristic-
ally keen interest in the poor Doukhobors ; and when
a venerable member of the Society of Friends, who had
made many journeys on their behalf, paid me a visit, I
begged him to call on Sir William, and give him an
account of them. He came back presently to thank me,
with his face strangely illumined and said. 'I have seen
William Dawson, and we have been very near the gates

of heaven.'

"The first thing to strike a newcomer was a courtesy
so marked that you might call it courtliness. It was so
real, because it was based on such genuine consideration
for all. You might see him explaining some simple
matter to a child, or go to him wich some trivial difficulty,
and you felt sure that his great powers were as freely at
your service as if he were presiding at the councils of
the University, and shaping its policy. What dignity it
lent to our public ceremonies ! The peculiar gesture
with which he 'capped' the graduating class at the granting
of degrees has often struck me as conveying at one
motion a patent of knight-errantry and a benediction.

"Next you felt the native power of the man. I have
never met a finer instance of the mailed hand in the
velvet glove. He had all the qualities of the great states-
man ; breadth of view, combined with grasp of detail ;

— 13 —

foresight that makes the record of liis life read Hke the
written fulfilment of the plans of his youth ; insight that
led him straight to the kernel of any difficulty ; swift
decision to deal with emergencies great and small, as
they arose ; patience and tireless industry, and method,
that enabled him to make the most of his work. He
was a born ruler, a born teacher, a born investigator.
Any one of these gifts is exceptional ; the combination
of two of them is unusual ; but to find all three united
in one man is rare, indeed. And withal there was
refinement and distinction, the keen edge of the finely
tempered tool.

''But, after all, to use Walt Whitman's rugged phrase,
' That which enables a man to stand with aplomb
before his fellow men is character.'

" The pre-eminent note of Sir William's character was,
to my mind, his singleness of purpose, his simplicity.
How incredibly far-off all meanness and baseness seemed
from him. You might disagree with him, or think him
masterful ; but as well grasp the poles and draw them
together as try to associate pettiness or self-seeking with
him. In the pursuit of objects he thought worthy, he
disdained no task, however trivial, spared no sacrifice.
And was there really anything in which Sir William was
not interested? He seemed to catch the full zest of life
as it passed, and let nothing find him blunted, or dull,

~ 14 —

}

or weary. In Pater's beautiful words :— ' To burn always
with this hard, gem-like flame, to maintain this ecstasy
is success in life.*

" In one word, he was fit to be the example of the
thousands of young men who frequent a university. That
is a word of solemn im{)ort — to us who are set in posts
of authority, to be your guides, and to you, on whom is
laid the responsibility of choosing the best that is in us
to give you, and rejecting all wherein we fail.

" We are met to celebrate, with proud grief, if you
will, the safe conclusion of a noble and glorious life,
which has now been sealed with the everlasting sleep.
Hereafter nothing can harm it, nor any tarnish come
near it. He who for eighty years so strenuously main-
tained its lofty tenor, has inherited rest. But in this
university the memory of it will be our sacred and in-
violable possession. There will doubtless be outward
memorials, but better even than these splendid piles of
dead stone about us, will be the living witnesses who have
drunk in his spirit, and illustrate it in their own lives.
In a world of poor ideals, ambitions taken up at random
and followed unstably, the value of one such concrete
instance of a life well planned and well lived, devoted to
high ends, is beyond price. When the loss of such a
leader shakes us for a moment out of the dull routine of
habit, we do well to pause and consider, * Have we

— 15-

chosen well ?' We think perhaps of great fortune and
the statesman's power, and these are good so far as they
bring opportunity for service; of literary fame or scien-
tific renown, — who shall decry them in these halls ? — of
a profession faithfully and successfully followed — there
is no better life work for most of us.

"But when the end comes, shall we be satisfied?
Listen to his own words, in the farewell University
Lecture : — 'My life at McGill has been fraught with the
happmess which results from conscious efibrt in a worthy
cause.'

" I say again that Sir William Dawson was fit to be an
example set before the young men of a university. But
if I stopped there, knowing the devout faith by which he
lived, he would rightly hold me guilty of treason to all
that he held most dear. Many of us in this room could
not see eye to eye with him on matters of dogma, but
this we know, that the example on which he modelled
his life is the highest and best that has been vouchsafed
to men ; and if he attained excellence worthy of our
imitation, it was because first and last he sought to make
his life a type of Christ."

" And I heard a voice from heaven saying unto nie, VViitc,
Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord from hcncefcrih : Vea,
saith the Spirit, that they may rest from their labours ; and their
works do follow them." — Rev. xiv. , 13.

I knew him not as those who shared the way
lie traversed, or who came beneath his sway ;

But, casual crossins; of his path, I found
That where he walked it was perpetual day.

Perpetual day of noble act and thought,
Science and faith unto one purpose brought,

Good for his fellow beings, and our lives
Are better for the lessons he has taught.

His school of thought abided not the new,
(Yet who has come that hath the perfect view ?)

But, if a life that profiteth be aught,
His life, his work, his thought, his faith, were true.

All to one cadence like a perfect chord, —
And as the clod beat on the hollow board,
^ The sunlight broke, and from the sky a voice

" Blessed are thoy who slumber in the Lord."

B. D.

Montreal, 21st November, 1899.

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