Part 29 (1/2)
And if to this day the University building, in its exterior aspect and accidents, is startling to those who knew its site when as yet in a state of nature, its interior also, when traversed and explored, tends in the same persons to produce a degree of confusion as between things new and old; as between Canada and elsewhere. Within its walls are to be seen appliances and conveniences and luxuries for the behoof and use of teacher and student, unknown a few years since in many an ancient seat of learning.
In a library of Old World aspect and arrangement, is a collection rich in the Greek and Latin Cla.s.sics, in Epigraphy and Archaeology, beyond anything of the kind in any other collection on this continent, and beyond what is to be met with in those departments in many a separate College within the precincts of the ancient Universities--a pre-eminence due to the tastes and special studies of the first president and other early professors of the Canadian Inst.i.tution.
Strange, it is, yet true that hither, as to a recognized source of certain aid in identification and decipherment, are duly transmitted, by cast, rubbing and photograph, the ”finds” that from time to time create such excitement and delight among epigraphists, and ethnologists, and other minute historical investigators in the British Islands and elsewhere.
There used to be preserved in the Old Hospital a model in cork and card-board, of the great educational establishment to which, in the first instance, the Avenue was expected to form an approach. It was very curious. Had it been really followed, a large portion of the park provided for the reception of the University would have been covered with buildings. A mult.i.tude of edifices, isolated and varying in magnitude, were scattered about, with gardens and ornamental grounds interspersed. These were halls of science, lecture-rooms, laboratories, residences for president, vice-president, professors, officials and servants of every grade. On the widely extended premises occupied by the proposed inst.i.tution, a population was apparently expected to be found that would, of itself, have almost sufficed to justify representation in Parliament--a privilege the college was actually by its charter to enjoy. We should have had in fact realized before our eyes, on a considerable scale, a part of the dreams of Plato and More, a fragment of Atlantis and Utopia.
When the moment arrived, however, for calling into visible being the long contemplated seat of learning, it was found expedient to abandon the elaborate model which had been constructed. Mr. Young, a local architect, was directed to devise new plans. His ideas appear to have been wholly modern. Notwithstanding the tenor of the Royal Charter, which suggested the precedents of the old universities of ”our United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland,” wherever it should be practicable to follow them, the architecture and arrangements customary in those places were ignored. Girard College, Philadelphia, seems to have inspired the new designs. However, only a minute fragment of one of the buildings of the new plan was destined ever to exist.
The formal commencement of the abortive work took place on the 23rd of April, 1842--a day indelibly impressed on the memory of those who partic.i.p.ated in the proceedings. It was one of the sunniest and brightest of days. In the year just named it happened that so early as St. George's day the leaves of the horse-chestnut were bursting their glossy sheaths, and vegetation generally was in a very advanced stage.
A procession, such as had never before been seen in these parts, slowly defiled up the Avenue to the spot where the corner-stone of the proposed University was to be laid.
A highly wrought contemporary description of the scene is given in a note in _Curiae Canadenses_: ”The vast procession opened its ranks, and his Excellency the Chancellor, with the President, the Lord Bishop of Toronto, on his right, and the Senior Visitor, the Chief Justice, on his left, proceeded on foot through the College Avenue to the University grounds. The countless array moved forward to the sound of military music. The sun shone out with cloudless meridian splendour; one blaze of banners flushed upon the admiring eye.--The Governor's rich Lord-Lieutenant's dress, the Bishop's sacerdotal robes, the Judicial Ermine of the Chief Justice, the splendid Convocation robes of Dr.
McCaul, the gorgeous uniforms of the suite, the accoutrements of the numerous Firemen, the national badges worn by the Office-bearers of the different Societies, and what on such a day (St. George's) must not be omitted, the Red Crosses on the b.r.e.a.s.t.s of England's congregated sons, the grave habiliments of the Clergy and Lawyers, and the glancing lances and waving plumes of the First Incorporated Dragoons, all formed one moving picture of civic pomp, one glorious spectacle which can never be remembered but with satisfaction by those who had the good fortune to witness it. The following stanza from a Latin Ode,” the note goes on to say, ”recited by Master Draper, son of the late Attorney-General, after the ceremony, expresses in beautifully cla.s.sical language the proud occasion of all this joy and splendid pageantry:--
”Io! triumphe! flos Canadensium!
Est alma n.o.bis mater; aemula Britanniae haec sit nostra terra,-- Terra diu domibus negata!”
Another contemporary account adds: ”As the procession drew nearer to the site where the stone was to be laid, the 43rd Regiment lined the way, with soldiers bearing arms, and placed on either side, at equal intervals. The 93rd Regiment was not on duty here, but in every direction the gallant Highlanders were scattered through the crowd, and added by their national garb and nodding plumes to the varied beauty of the animated scene. When the site was reached,” this account says, ”a new feature was added to the interest of the ceremony. Close to the spot, the north-east corner, where the foundation was to be deposited, a temporary building had been erected for the Chancellor, and there, accompanied by the officers of the University and his suite, he took his stand. Fronting this was a kind of amphitheatre of seats, constructed for the occasion, tier rising above tier, densely filled with ladies, who thus commanded a view of the whole ceremony. Between this amphitheatre and the place where the Chancellor stood, the procession ranged itself.”
The Chancellor above spoken of was the Governor General of the day, Sir Charles Bagot, a man of n.o.ble bearing and genial, pleasant aspect. He entered with all the more spirit into the ceremonies described, from being himself a graduate of one of the old universities. Memories of far-off Oxford and Christ Church would be sure to be roused amidst the proceedings that rendered the 23rd of April, 1842, so memorable amongst us. A brother of Sir Charles' was at the time Bishop of Oxford. In his suite, as one of his Secretaries, was Captain Henry Bagot, of the Royal Navy, his own son. Preceding him in the procession, bearing a large gilded mace, was an ”Esquire Bedell,” like the Chancellor himself, a Christ Church man, Mr. William Cayley, subsequently a member of the Canadian Government.
Although breaking ground for the University building had been long delayed, the commencement now made proved to be premature. The edifice begun was never completed, as we have already intimated; and even in its imperfect, fragmentary condition, it was not fated to be for any great length of time a scene of learned labours. In 1856 its fortune was to be converted into a Female Department for the over-crowded Provincial Lunatic Asylum.
The educational system inaugurated in the new building in 1843 was, as the plate enclosed in the foundation-stone finely expressed it, ”praestantissimum ad exemplar Britannicarum Universitatum.” But the ”exemplar” was not, in practice, found to be, as a whole, adapted to the genius of the Western Canadian people.
The revision of the University scheme with a view to the necessities of Western Canada, was signalized by the erection in 1857 of a new building on an entirely different site, and a migration to it bodily, of president, professors and students, without departing however from the bounds of the s.p.a.cious park originally provided for the inst.i.tution; and it is remarkable that, while deviating, educationally and otherwise, in some points, from the pattern of the ancient universities, as they were in 1842, a nearer approach, architecturally, was made to the mediaeval English College than any that had been thought of before. Mr.
c.u.mberland, the designer of the really fine and most appropriate building in which the University at length found a resting place, was, as is evident, a man after the heart of Wykeham and Wayneflete.
The story of our University is a part of the history of Upper Canada.
From the first foundation of the colony the idea of some such seat of learning entered into the scheme of its organization. In 1791, before he had yet left England for the unbroken wilderness in which his Government was to be set up, we have General Simcoe speaking to Sir Joseph Banks, the President of the Royal Society, of ”a college of a higher cla.s.s,” as desirable in the community which he was about to create. ”A college of a higher cla.s.s,” he says, ”would be eminently useful, and would give a tone of principles and of manners that would be of infinite support to Government.” In the same letter he remarks to Sir Joseph, ”My friend the Marquis of Buckingham has suggested that Government might allow me a sum of money to be laid out for a Public Library, to be composed of such books as might be useful in the colony. He instanced the Encyclopaedia, extracts from which might occasionally be published in the newspapers.
It is possible,” he adds, ”private donations might be obtained, and that it would become an object of Royal munificence.”
It was naturally long before the community of Upper Canada was ripe for a college of the character contemplated; but provision for its ultimate existence and sustenance was made, almost from the beginning, in the a.s.signment to that object of a fixed and liberal portion of the public lands of the country.
In 1819-20, Gourlay spoke of the unpreparedness of Upper Canada as yet for a seat of learning of a high grade. Meanwhile, as a temporary expedient, he suggested a romantic scheme. ”It has been proposed,” he says, ”to have a college in Upper Canada; and no doubt in time colleges will grow up there. At present, and for a considerable period to come, any effort to found a college would prove abortive. There could neither be got masters nor scholars to ensure a tolerable commencement for ten years to come; and a feeble beginning might beget a feeble race of teachers and pupils. In the United States,” he continued, ”academies and colleges, though fast improving, are yet but raw; and greatly inferior to those in Britain, generally speaking. Twenty-five lads sent annually at public charge from Upper Canada to British Universities, would draw after them many more. The youths themselves, generally, would become desirous of making a voyage in quest of learning.--Crossing the ocean on such an errand would elevate their ideas, and stir them up to extraordinary exertions. They would become finished preachers, lawyers, physicians, merchants; and, returning to their native country, would repay in wisdom what was expended in goodness and liberality. What more especially invites the adoption of such a scheme is the amiable and affectionate connection which it would tend to establish between Canada and Britain. But it will not do at present to follow out the idea.”
Gourlay's prediction that ”in time colleges will grow up there” has been speedily verified. The town especially, of which in its infant state he spoke in such terms of contempt, has been so prolific of colleges that it is now become a kind of Salamanca for the country at large; a place of resort for students from all parts. It is well probably for Canada that the scheme of drafting a batch of young students periodically to the old country, was not adopted. Canada would thereby possibly, on the one hand, have lost the services of some of the cleverest of her sons, who, on obtaining academic distinction would have preferred to remain in the mother country, entering on one or other of the public careers to which academic distinction there opens the ready path; and, on the other hand, she should, in many an instance, it is to be feared, have received back her sons just unfitted, in temper and habit, for life under matter-of-fact colonial conditions.
In the original planting of the Avenue, up whose fine vista we have been gazing, the mistake was committed of imitating nature too closely.
Numerous trees and shrubs of different kinds and habits were mingled together as they are usually to be seen in a wild primitive wood; and thus the growth and fair development of all were hindered. The horse-chestnuts alone should have been relied on to give character to the Avenue; and of these there should have been on each side a double row, with a promenade for pedestrians underneath, after the manner of the great walks in the public parks of the old towns of Europe.
[Ill.u.s.tration]
XXII.
QUEEN STREET--FROM THE COLLEGE AVENUE TO BROCK STREET AND SPADINA AVENUE.
Pursuing our way now westward from the Avenue leading to the University, we pa.s.s the Powell park-lot, on which was, up to recent times, the family vault of the Powells, descendants of the Chief Justice. The whole property was named by the fancy of the first possessor, Caer-Howell, Castle Howell, in allusion to the mythic Hoel, to whom all ap-Hoels trace their origin. Dummer Street, which opens northward a little further on, retains, as we have said, the second baptismal name of Chief Justice Powell.