The Tradition of Liberal Education in Canada

THE TRADITION OF LIBERAL E'DUCATION IN CANADA N HISTORICALsurvey ofthecurricula ofthefaculty ofArts in the universitiesand collegesof Canada will make clear that they havebeendeeplyin debtto thoseof Great Britain and Ireland. The oldest colonial university, founded after the American Revolution, is King's College, situated in Windsor, Nova Scotia, from 17110 until 11t23,when it moved to Halifax and becamefederated with Dalhousie University. Led by Sir Alexander Croke, a judgeof the PrizeCourtof NovaScotia,andformerlya gentleman commonerof Oriel College,Oxford, the board of the collegetook the Oxford statutes as their model, and against the advice of Bishop Inglis ordainedthat, No member of the university shall frequent the Romish Mass or the meeting-houses of Presbyterians,Baptists or Methodists, or the conventiclesor placesof worshipof any other dissenters from the Church of England, or where Divine Serviceshall not be performedaccordingto the liturgy of the Churchof England,or shall be presentat any rebelliousor seditiousmeeting. Of the first two professors, one,the Rev. William Cochran(17881833 ),was a graduate of Trinity College,Dublin, and sometime professor of theGreek andLatinlanguages in Columbia College, New York; the other, the Rev. Charles Porter, came from BrasenoseCollege ,Oxford,as the first president, and taught mathematics as well as divinity and Hebrew. The curriculumof 1814 is ambitious, and consistsalmost entirely of such subjects and booksas had for several centuriesbeen acceptedas affording a liberaleducation. Rhetoric,logic,and moralphilosophy, through the medium of classical authors, with a tincture' of mathematics, constitute the course. That the teachers were not unsuccessful in their aim is perhapsproved by the quality of the educated gentlemenwho lived in Halifax, Windsor,Annapolis,and other towns of the provinceduring the first half of the nineteenth century. Chronologically next comes the academy at Fredericton, 00 100 THE CANADIAN I-•ISTORICAL REVIEW established in 1800by provincialcharteras "the Collegeof New Brunswick", a name changedby royal charter on December15, 1827, to the University of King's College,and in 1859 to the University of New Brunswick. The Rev. Edwin Jacob, D.D., whooccupied the presidency of the college for thirty years(182959 ), and taught classics, history,and moralphilosophy,had been a fellowof CorpusChristi College,Oxford. There weretwo other professors: one, a graduate of King's College, Windsor, taught logic, mathematics,and Hebrew; the other taught divinity and metaphysics.The really powerfulforcescamelater in the history of the university, with the arrival from Scotlandin 1837of David Gray, M.A., and JamesRobb, M.D. (died 1861), the former of whom was succeeded in 1840 by William Brydone Jack, a pupil of Sir David Brewster, and an M.A. of St. Andrews. Jack became professor of mathematicsand natural philosophy,and Robbtook the newly established chair of chemistryand natural history,and foundeda geologicalmuseumand an extensivecollectionof the flora of the province. Thesewere the heraldsof a new day, and in the faceof longand repeatedstruggles they heldhighthe standardsof a liberal education,but alsodid much to imbue the public mind with the necessityof the applicationof scienceto industry. In 1853 Dr. Jack stated that while the classicallanguagesof ancient Greeceand Rome and the higher mathematicsare the basis of all sound education, the most efficient instruments of intellectual training ..... the requirementsof the age and the inevitablelaw of progress seemto demandthat classics and mathematicsshouldnot reignthe solitaryand unassailable despots they have hitherto been considered. • In 1835 instruction in French was introduced for the first time, and in 1848 a chair of modernlanguages was established, and occupiedby ProfessorD'Avray for twenty-three years, with, it is said, signal success. DalhousieUniversity was foundedby the Earl of Dalhousie in 1819on the modelof Edinburgh. Dr. Thomas McCulloch, its first president(1838-43),was a graduate of GlasgowUniversity, and introduced the Scottish curriculum into Nova Scotia, but owing to political and ecclesiastical troubles, the university fell into inactivity and was not revived until 1863. McCulloch's influence, however, was continued in his pupil, James Ross, tW. O. Raymond, The Genesis of the Universityof New Brunswick,in Transactions of theRoyal Societyof Canada,seriesiii, vol. xii, sectionii. LIBERAL EDUCATION IN CANADA 101 principal of the resuscitatedinstitution, and under him there was formedwithin a fewyearsa remarkable faculty, amongwhomwere Charles Macdonald from Aberdeen, professor of mathematics, John Johnsonfrom Dublin, professorof classics, Jamesde Mille, born in St. John, N.B., a graduateof Brown University, professor of history and...