Governor Simcoe's Policy.-The first Lieutenant-Governor of Upper Canada was John Graves Simcoe, who had distinguished himself as a British officer during the Revolutionary War. He had been educated as a boy at Eton, and before entering the army had spent some time as a student at Merton College, Oxford. In 1790, he was elected a Member of the British House of Commons, and in that capacity took an active interest in the progress of the Constitutional Act during its passage through its various stages. Before leaving England to fill the position of Lieutenant-Governor he indicated in a letter to Sir Joseph Banks, then President of the Royal Society, the importance he attached to a system of higher education in a community such as that to which he was commissioned: "In a literary way I should be glad to lay the foundation stone of some society that I trust might hereafter conduce to the extension of science. Schools have been shamefully neglected; a college of a higher class would be eminently useful, and would give a tone of principle and manners that would be of infinite support to Government."* After his arrival in Canada, Governor Simcoe wrote from Quebec to the Right Honourable Henry Dundas, then Secretary of State for the Colonies, pointing out that while "lower education "might be provided for out of the resources of the Province" the higher must be indebted to the liberality of the British Government, as owing to the cheapness of education in the United States, the gentlemen of Upper Canada will send their children there, which would tend to pervert their

* Hodgins' Documentary History of Education in Upper Canada, vol. I, p. 11.

British principles." Mr. Dundas in his reply gave his opinion that "schools" would be sufficient for some time, adding that whenever steps should be taken by the Province to establish a higher seminary" he would have great pleasure in forwarding the project. In 1795 the Governor wrote to the Bishop of Quebec, of whose diocese Upper Canada then formed a part, stating that his views respecting a University were "totally unchanged," that they were "on a solid basis," and that whether they were or were not complied with by his superiors, they would certainly appear as his system to the "judgment of posterity." In the following year he again wrote to the Bishop admitting that he had "no idea" that a University would be established, though he was daily confirmed of its necessity. A few months afterwards he ventured to press the matter once more on the attention of the Imperial authorities in a letter,* from which the following is an extract: "In the meantime the sevenths+ of the Crown will become gradually productive as lands which have been granted shall be cultivated, or withdrawn from the market, and appropriations may be made agree ably to the opinion of the Council, to be sold hereafter for public purposes, the first and chief of which, I beg to offer

*Written to the then Colonial Secretary, the Duke of Portland, from York (now Toronto), on the 20th of July, 1796, a month before his final departure from Upper Canada.

+From the first settlement of the Province two sevenths of all the lands in the settled townships were reserved-one for the maintenance of a 66 Protestant Clergy," under the authority of section 36 of the Constitutional Act of 1791, the other for such special purposes as might be designated by the Crown. These were known as "Clergy Reserves and "Crown Reserves" respectively, the rest of the surveyed territory being described as "Waste Lands of the Crown,

with all respect and deference to Your Grace, must be the erection and endowment of a University, from which, more than any other source or circumstance whatever, a grateful attachment to His Majesty, morality, and religion, will be fostered and take root throughout the whole Province."

The First University Appropriation.-The interregnum between the regime of Lieutenant-Governor Simcoe and that of his successor Lieutenant-Governor Hunter, was filled up by the administration of the Hon. Peter Russell, President of the Executive Council. During this period a most important step was taken toward the carrying out of Gov. Simcoe's long cherished plan. On the 3rd of July, 1797, the following address* to His Majesty George III., was adopted by both Houses of the Legislature of Upper Canada :

Most Gracious Sovereign-"We your most dutiful and loyal subjects, the members of the Legislative Council, and the Commons House of Assembly of Upper Canada, in Parliament assembled, being deeply persuaded of the great benefits that the Province must necessarily derive from the establishment of a respectable Grammar School in each district thereof, and also of a College or University, where the youth of the country may be enabled to perfect themselves in the different branches of liberal knowledge, and being truly sensible of the paternal regard your Majesty entertains for every description of your subjects, do most humbly implore your Majesty to appropriate a certain portion of the waste lands of the Crown as a fund for the establishment and support of such useful institutions."

This address was transmitted by acting Governor Russell, and before the close of the year the Duke of Portland

*It would be interesting to trace the progress of this address through the two Houses, but unfortunately the journals of both for that session have been irrecoverably lost.

informed the Legislature that its prayer would be granted after consultation with the Executive Council, the judges, and the law officers of the Crown in the Province as to the manner in which and the extent to which the Crown lands should be appropriated. After hearing from the judges and law officers the Executive Council discussed the whole question very fully in a report* which was submitted to and approved by President Russell. It recommended (1) the immediate establishment of one grammar school at Kingston and one at Newark (Niagara); (2) the establishment of one each at Cornwall and Sandwich, as soon as the state of the fund would permit ; (3) the establishment of a university in the town of York, (Toronto); (4) the appropriation of 500,000 acres of "waste lands of the Crown" for the establishment and maintenance of the four schools and the university; and (5) the reservation of at least one-half of the whole grant for the purposes of the university.†

The Advent of Dr. Strachan.-As the proceedings connected with the organization of the Provincial University are closely connected with the personal work of the late Bishop Strachan of the Anglican Diocese of Toronto, it may be useful to note the circumstances which brought

*Dated December 1st, 1798. For the full text of this Report see Hodgins' "Documentary History," vol. I, pp. 20-23. See also Appendix to the Journals of the Legislative Assembly of Upper Canada for 1831, pp. 105-8.

+The amount of land actually appropriated in consequence of this report was 550,274 acres, of which there were set apart 190,573 acres in 1823 for "District Grammar Schools," and 63,996 acres in 1831 for Upper Canada College, leaving for the University 295,705 acres. See report of a special committee of Toronto University Senate on "Claims respecting the assets and endowment of the University." (Ont. Sess, Paper for 1895, No. 74.)

him from Scotland to Canada and made him the prominent figure he afterwards became in the development of educational work in this Province. He has himself recorded that after concluding his university course in Aberdeen he settled down at the age of nineteen as a parish schoolmaster in Fifeshire, where he had for pupils Sir David Wilkie, the famous painter, and Commodore Barclay, who afterward figured in Canadian History. Disappointed in his expectation of a subordinate position on the staff of the University of Glasgow, he accepted an offer to come to Canada. This had been conveyed to him through the Hon. Richard Cartwright from Governor Simcoe. The object in view was the organization of a "college or university," and had Governor Simcoe remained in office this might have been attempted after the lapse of no long interval. Mr. Strachan found, however, on hist arrival at Kingston on the last day of the year 1799, that the Governor had for reasons of state been transferred to another position, and that the university project had been indefinitely postponed. After spending three years at private tuition in Kingston he entered the ministry of the Church of England, and in 1803 removed to Cornwall, where, in addition to discharging his duties as clergyman of the parish, he conducted for nearly ten years the noted "Grammar School" of which several young men, who afterwards became distinguished politicians and jurists, were pupils. Among these were Sir John Beverley Robinson, Sir James Macaulay, Sir Allan MacNab, and the brothers, Sir James and Andrew Stuart. In 1812 he

* In an autobiographical address delivered to the clergy of his diocese in 1860. See Hodgins' Documentary History," vol. I.,

pp. 9, and 41-42.

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