The Scottish influence in Canada made for a broader
curriculum than was current in Canadian colleges like King's Nova
Scotia, King's Fredericton and Bishop's, which were derived from the
Anglican tradition. These institutions concentrated pretty narrowly on
classics and mathematics.24 King's College Fredericton is a case in point. Prior to
1840 its curriculum looked very broad, including not only classical
authors and mathematics, but also mental and moral philosophy, the
evidences and general principles of the Christian religion, logic,
rhetoric and history. However, the principal, Dr. Edwin Jacob, a
graduate of Corpus Christi College, Oxford, maintained that, while the
aim of the college was to impart intellectual and moral culture, he
believed that this was to be achieved almost solely through the study of
the ancient classical languages and literature.25
The emphasis of the Scottish universities on
philosophy and science has been noted and when Scots in Canada had
anything to say about university curricula they reflected this
influence. When William Brydone Jack, a graduate of St. Andrews and a
student of Sir David Brewster, a famous Mathematician, arrived at King's
College Fredericton, he soon made his influence felt. Having been
appointed professor of mathematics and natural philosophy, Jack
challenged the dominance of the classics at the college and sought to
expand the curriculum to include more "practical subjects." He persuaded the College Council to acquire a fine
equitorial telescope, then the best of its kind in North America, and
initiated a course in surveying which led at a later date to the
establishment of a department of engineering.26
McCulloch's curriculum at Pictou included classics,
Hebrew, history, philosophy, mathematics and natural philosophy.27
When John Strachan was discussing the
curriculum for King's College, York, in 1826, his scheme called for
1. Classical Literature, including English
2. Mathematics, Practical and Theoretic
3. Natural History, including Botany
4. Natural Philosophy and Chemistry
5. Moral Philosophy and Divinity
6. Surgery and Anatomy.28
At Queen's the early curriculum was largely a replica
of that being offered at Edinburgh. This is not surprising since the
teaching staff in 1846-7 consisted of three Edinburgh men (the Rev. John
Machar, the Rev. James Williamson, the Rev. George Romanes) and two
other Scots, the Rev. James George (St. Andrews) and the Rev. Hugh
Urquhart. The subjects listed in the Queen's College calendar of 1845-6
were theology, church history and biblical criticism, oriental
languages, natural philosophy [physics], moral philosophy, logic,
mathematics and classics. The natural philosophy course included
"Mechanics, Hydrostatics and Hydrodynamics, Pneumatics, Light, Heat,
Fixed and Locomotive Steam Engines, Electricity, Galvanism, Magnetism,
Electromagnetism and Electrochemistry."
While Scottish colleges in Canada tended to reproduce
the Scottish curricula, they did not follow the Scottish abandonment of
the BA degree. Queen's showed the effects of the Scottish attempt to
revive the BA after 1826. The earliest Queen's curriculum provided for a
BA in three years and an MA in four; but after the Scottish universities
abandoned the BA, following the Report of the Royal Commission of 1858,
it was retained at Queen's and by other Canadian universities such as
It was inevitable that the Scottish influence on
Canadian education should be largely a Presbyterian influence. William
Rattray in his work, The Scot in British North America, has
described the impact of Presbyterian thinking on the general cast of the
Scottish mentality: "Whatever may be thought of the dogmatic value of
the Presbyterian standards, it is certain that they deepened the sense
of duty, the feeling of manly independence and the impatience of
external restraint in matters of faith and practice."30 The influence of Presbyterianism was apparent in
Canadian education, particularly in the dominantly Presbyterian
colleges. One gets a picture of the
polemical, Calvinist tone of theology at Queen's in its early days, in
the description of the courses in theology as described in the calendar
for 1845-6. They included
Lectures on the
Person, Character and Offices of Christ, as disclosed in various
ways, both in the Old and New Testament.... Lectures on the
Principal Doctrinal Heresies of the Primitive Christian Church, and
the various modifications of these heresies presented in modern
times [including, no doubt, Arminianism]. Lectures on the leading
Doctrinal tenets of the various Christian Churches.
Lectures on the connection between Moral
Philosophy and Christian Theology and particularly on the principles
of moral obligation.31
The clearest examples of the undiluted Presbyterian
tradition were the theological colleges such as Knox, which was
established in Toronto in 1844 by the Presbyterian Church of Canada, the
offshoot of the Free Church in Scotland, and Presbyterian College, which
was established in Montreal in 1868. Presbyterian College had a charter
similar to that of Knox and, at the outset, a staff of three who were
all graduates of Knox.
D.H. MacVicar, the first Principal of Presbyterian
College, was almost a type figure of the solid Calvinist Presbyterian.
His lectures always showed the influence of such divines as Charles
Hodge and Jonathan Edwards as well as Calvin himself. J.H. MacVicar's
Life of his father indicates the character of D.H. MacVicar's
lectures and of his theology: "In the earlier days ... the doctrine of
election, perhaps, received larger attention in the classroom than later
on, though it was never tabooed. He believed too intensely in the
sovereignty of God to pass it over in silence; but he grew accustomed to
expect questions at this point. There was sure to be some one ready to
voice a personal difficulty about reconciling the mission to preach a
free gospel with the inscrutable decrees."32
According to MacVicar's son, his father would meet
this criticism by drawing a church on the blackboard with the people
sitting in the pews. "Now," he would say, "Jones here may be elect,
Smith over there may not. The preacher in the pulpit knows nothing about
that, however, and the only thing he can do is preach the Gospel to
While Presbyterianism was dominant in the theological
colleges it also exercised a strong influence upon the general Scottish
philosophy of education. Presbyterians brought to the educational world
certain attitudes which were not uniquely Presbyterian, but merely
Christian; but they were put forward by the Presbyterians with
particular vigour and consistency. One was the idea that the whole
universe was made and controlled by the Lord: "This is my Father's
world." The tremendous emphasis of Calvin and other Reformers on God's
sovereignty was basic in Presbyterian educational theory. Related to it
was the proposition that all our vocations and schemes of education are
for the Lord. Thus a writer in the Canadian Christian Examiner and
Presbyterian Review for August, 1839, asserted, "Education consists,
not merely in a knowledge of reading, writing and cyphering . . . but in
bringing to maturity the powers of the mind, and in giving them such a
direction, and finding them such employment, as will best answer the
ends of our creation; namely the glory of God, and the enjoyment of his
William Snodgrass, the Principal of Queen's from 1866
to 1877, presented a very clear exposition of the Christian approach to
learning in his inaugural address, entitled The Sacredness of
Learning. Snodgrass attributed all truth and all knowledge to the
great, sovereign God, the author of all things. He asserted that the
distinction between sacred and secular learning was a man-made
distinction. Really all learning comes from God, "the Author of that
volume which is usually, but not consistently, divided into the two
great sections, natural and revealed."35 Snodgrass asserted that God's authority is decisively
determined when we appeal to his written word. He adjured the students
Gentlemen, this authority is supreme. By the
holiest and most constraining considerations you are bound to defer
to it. Recognize it in every exercise of those intellectual powers
and moral sentiments with which your Maker hath endowed you.
Recognize it in all the sources and means of instruction, which, by
a divinely beneficent arrangement, profusely and invitingly surround
you - in your perusal of the records of history, every page of which
bears convincing testimony to the invisible but omnipresent hand
that holds the direction and shapes the issue of all events in your
study of the book of nature where each relation you observe, each
law you discover, each symbol you interpret, is an exponent of the
marvellous skill with which the Father of lights both, everywhere,
on land and skies, on air and seas, photographed the glory of his
perfections in your inquiries into the physical structure and
spiritual organization of the individual man, and into the universal
conditions, diversifying distinctions, and ultimate destiny of
humanity, all of which demand the belief, as they are pregnant with
the evidence of, a moral government.36
Lord Elgin, who was a Presbyterian,
provided an example of the conjunction of Christian theology and
educational philosophy in his speech at the opening of the Toronto
Normal and Model School on July 4, 1851. Asserting that the foundation
of the Canadian Common School System was "laid
deep in the rock of our common Christianity,'' Elgin continued:
While the very semblance of
dictation is to be avoided, it is desired and earnestly recommended
and confidently expected that every child who attends our Common
Schools shall learn that he is a being who has an interest in
eternity as well as in time; that he has a Father, towards whom he
stands in a closer and more affecting relationship than to any earthly father, and that
that Father is in heaven .... That that Father's kingdom may come,
and that he has a duty which like that of the sun in our celestial
system, stands in the centre of his moral obligations, shedding upon
them a light which they in their turn reflect and absorb, the duty
of striving to prove by his life and conversation the sincerity of
his prayer that the Father's will may be done upon earth as it is
done in heaven.37
While some Canadian Scots brought orthodox Christian
thought to bear upon the development of higher education, others, more
liberal in theology, helped to carry the universities out of the orbit
of Christian orthodoxy. Herein lies much of the importance of G.M. Grant
at Queen's and of the Scottish-Canadian philosophers John Watson, Clark
Murray and George Paxton Young. They helped to carry Queen's, McGill and
Toronto away from their Christian origins and into the position of
pluralistic, non-sectarian universities.38
Watson, Young and Murray were appointed to chairs of
philosophy at Queen's, Toronto and McGill respectively in 1871-2. Under
their influence philosophy achieved an influence over the whole tone of
university life which it has not since recaptured. They succeeded three
professors of philosophy who were clergymen and whose primary interest
was theology: James Beaven at Toronto, James George at Queen's and W.T.
Leach at McGill.39 Watson, Young and
Clark were all trained in Scottish universities (Watson at Glasgow,
Young at Edinburgh and Murray at Glasgow and Edinburgh). All three had
orthodox, Presbyterian backgrounds (indeed Young was a Presbyterian
clergyman). All three could be classified as ethical idealists.40 Each
repudiated the supernatural aspects of Christianity in the attempt to
devise a rational defence for the ethical values of Christianity. Watson
could well have been speaking for the three in comments which he made on
the lectures of his great teacher, Edward Caird, after the latter's
The close shell of traditional Calvinism was
burst.... As time went on, and the walls, behind which the
traditional philosophy and theology had for so long sheltered
themselves, fell as by a miracle, as the walls of Jericho collapsed
at the sound of the trumpet, it was discovered that the new
philosophy, if it indeed disclosed a new heaven and a new earth, did
not in reality destroy Christianity but fulfilled it. The older men,
and especially the older clergymen, who found their favourite
formulas quietly set aside might grumble and prophesy disaster, but
the younger men, more alive to the advance of scientific discovery
and of an aggressive enlightenment, which threatened to destroy all
faith in higher things, felt that the new philosophy enabled them to
preserve the essence of religion while giving to it a more rational
G.M. Grant, who arrived at Queen's as principal in
1877, six years after Watson's appointment, exercised the same
liberalizing influence. Like Watson and others he helped to effect the
transition at Queen's from an orthodox Presbyterian to an essentially
non-sectarian institution. Born in Nova Scotia, the son of Scottish
parents, Grant was educated at Pictou Academy and the University of
Glasgow where he obtained the highest honours in philosophy. Ordained to
the ministry of the Church of Scotland in 1860, he was minister of St.
Matthew's Church, Halifax, from 1863 to 1877. He is chiefly remembered
as the greatest single influence in the development of Queen's during a
long tenure of office, 1877-1902.
Grant prided himself on his moderation. He accepted
the findings of the scientists and the biblical critics while insisting
that people should be critical about them. In his inaugural speech in
1877 he urged his audience to
cultivate then a cordial spirit towards criticism
and science. Accept thankfully the undoubted results of the one, the
facts of the other .... Collect all the facts and rightly interpret
them and you will find that they prove subversive of all
anti-Christian theories. You say that they invade the province of
theology proper. Well the theologians first taught them the bad
lesson by treating the Bible as an inspired scientific text book.42
Grant's early reputation at Queen's was indicated by
a student's song at his inauguration. It rejoiced that after years of
financial privation, Queen's was being sent "a
Grant, Watson and the other philosophers, despite
their liberalism, still reflected their early Presbyterian backgrounds.
Grant's relation to the Presbyterian church was always close and indeed
he was one of the architects of Presbyterian union in 1875. Watson
always opened his lectures with prayer: "Prevent us, O Lord, in all our
doings with thy most gracious favour and further us with thy continual
help."44 The group was in the
tradition of Scottish moderation rather than that of the Scottish
evangelicals. It was not without significance that Grant was identified
with the Auld Kirk, rather than with one of the more evangelical
off-shoots of the Auld Kirk such as the Free Church. While Young was a
Free Church minister, his reaction to the Free Church was very like that
of a moderate.
Sir William Dawson, the great Principal of McGill
(1855-1893), on the other hand represented the influence of Christian
evangelicalism in the field of higher education. His role was to attempt
to counteract the liberalizing influence of Grant and the Scottish
philosophers, particularly his own McGill philosopher, Clark Murray.
Dawson, a Nova Scotian Scot, educated at Pictou
Academy and the University of Edinburgh, early developed an interest in
the geology of Nova Scotia: He was associated with the Scottish
scientist Sir Charles Lyell in investigating the geology and mineralogy
of the Maritime provinces. After serving as superintendent of education
in Nova Scotia (1950-54) he came to McGill where he served as principal
with great distinction over a long period (1855-1893). Dawson was of
special importance in establishing the study of science at McGill and in
Canada. According to a recent authority he always had a Calvinist
suspicion of the Arts faculty as being too humanist.45 Dawson was a leading protagonist in the
scientific and religious controversies of the late nineteenth century.
He represented a detailed and sustained attempt to maintain a synthesis
between the theories and observations of the scientists and the record
The most spectacular feature of Dawson's career was
his sustained attack on the position of Darwin, Huxley, Asa Gray and
other evolutionists. Dawson maintained that species were specially
created by God and were immutable, although all species, including man,
could vary widely and rapidly, within certain limits. As a geologist he
utilized a good deal of Canadian data in support of his position. His
writings on evolution have been described by a recent authority as
"futile, valid, respectable and just plain cranky."46 He represented a not unsuccessful attempt, in his
day, to continue the two theological traditions (natural and revealed)
as developed by Paley in the eighteenth century and Hugh Miller in the
nineteenth. Under his jurisdiction young Canadians were encouraged to
pursue scientific investigation while remaining within the evangelical
fold. Thus in its calendar for 1876-7, the Presbyterian College in
Montreal could assert:
The Senate of the Presbyterian College, having a
full knowledge of the nature of the training given, and the
religious influence exerted on students in the McGill University,
confidently recommend parents to send their sons to it, whether they
are designed for the Christian Ministry or for any of the learned
The Scots in Canada were divided on one of the
principal problems in relation to university education, the appropriate
relationship between the church and the university. Adherents of the
Auld Kirk maintained that church-related colleges should include arts
and other faculties as well as the theological school. Queen's in its
early period came out of an Auld Kirk community. When the university was
in the process of establishment, a meeting of its sympathizers held in
Toronto on December 10, 1839, passed a resolution "that the
circumstances of the Presbyterians in these Provinces require that means
be adopted to afford them the benefit of a literary and scientific
education, based on scriptural principles. "48
Adherents of the various groups which had seceded
from the Auld Kirk, Particularly the Presbyterian Church of Canada (the
Canadian projection of the Free Church of Scotland) believed that the
arts and science faculties should be entirely under secular control,
with the church controlling only the professional training of candidates
for the ministry. Thus Knox and Presbyterian College in Montreal
represented the Free Church tradition. This distinction between the
adherents of the Auld Kirk and its opponents was more the rule in
Central Canada than in the Maritimes. Pictou College, under the auspices
of the Secession Presbyterian Church, was an example of a church college
comprising arts as well as theological training.
Among the leading advocates of a church-controlled
arts college were Thomas McCulloch and John Strachan. In Strachan's
case, of course, the controlling church was to be the Church of England.
In the proposed plan for the organization of King's College, York, which
he submitted to Sir Peregrime Maitland, the Lieutenant-Governor of Upper
Canada in 1826, he stipulated, "The Principal and Professors, except
those of medecine and law, should be clergymen of the Established
Church; and no tutor, teacher or officer, who is not a member of that
Church, should ever be employed in that institution."
The list of Scots favouring a purely secular
university was impressive. Perhaps the most famous pronouncement in
support of this position was that of Lord Dalhousie at the laying of the
cornerstone of Dalhousie University on May 22, 1820:
Before I proceed in this ceremony, I think it
necessary to state to you, gentlemen, the object and intention of
this important work .... This College of Halifax is founded for the
instruction of youth in the higher Classics and in all Philosophic
studies, it is formed in imitation of the University of Edinburgh;
its doors will be open to all who profess the Christian religion; to
the youth of His Majesty's North American Colonies, to strangers
residing here, to gentlemen of the military as well as the learned
professions, to all, in short, who may be disposed to devote a small
part of their time to study .... It is founded upon the principles
of religious toleration secured to you by the laws, and upon that
paternal protection which the King of England extends to all his
Thirty years later in Toronto, Lord Elgin displayed
the same preference for a non-sectarian university. His views were
similar to those of Robert Baldwin, the real architect of university
secularization in Toronto, but they were in accordance with Elgin's own
philosophy. He vigorously supported the policy of secularizing King's as
the University of Toronto and envisaged a strong non-sectarian
institution with affiliated divinity schools representing the various
denominations. He hoped that Queen's and Victoria would come into the
university and agreed only with reluctance to grant a charter to
Strachan's new institution, Trinity, as a church-related arts college.
He pointed out to Earl Grey, the Colonial Secretary, on October 25,
1850, "At the same time it must be remembered that the object of our
recent legislation on the University question has been to set up one
great Institution in the Province where a high Educational standard
might be maintained and which should give degrees which shall be worth
Shortly after the establishment of the University of
Toronto, a young Scot, Daniel Wilson, was appointed Professor of History
and English Literature. He proved to be one of the leading advocates of
the non-sectarian university. Wilson (1816-1892) had been born in
Edinburgh and educated at the Edinburgh High School and Edinburgh
University, before coming to Toronto in 1853. In 1880 he became
President of University College and in 1887 President of the University
of Toronto. Wilson's churchmanship was rather unusual for a Scot: he was
an Anglican evangelical and one of the founders of Wycliffe College.51
Wilson's views on the church-related arts college
were similar to those of the Baptists and the Free Church Presbyterians.
In 1877 when the Bishop of Huron, Isaac Hellmuth, who was about to
establish Western University at London, offered Wilson the position of
Provost and Vice-Chancellor at a very considerable salary for that time
Wilson was not gratified. Reporting the incident in his diary on May 3,
1877, he described Western as a Protestant university with an Anglican
theological faculty and added, "I do not
believe in denominational colleges other than theological. Orthodox
science is generally another name for shallow bigotry."52
In a letter to Hellmuth on May 4, Wilson explained:
I need not assure you of my sympathy in reference
to all that pertains to the clear setting forth of evangelical
truth, for I have battled for that through evil as well as good in a
tolerably unmistakable manner. But I must inform you that I no less
strongly desire to see the untram-meled freedom of scientific and
philosophic research. Truth has nothing to fear in the long run from
the researches of such men as Darwin and Huxley. I think it suffers
far more from the shackles with which orthodox zeal would hamper
inquiry with the most honest intentions .... Truth has everything to
gain from the most absolute freedom of
While Queen's as an Auld Kirk institution was
originally in the tradition of a church-related university, its
constituency changed drastically after the completion of Presbyterian
church union in 1875. Queen's was subjected to the Free Church influence
and became in effect a non-sectarian university with an affiliated
theological college.54 This
dispensation was perfectly acceptable to Grant when he became principal
in 1877. During his career in Nova Scotia he had not been keen on the
idea of denominational colleges and had favoured the idea of one good
interdenominational university for the province. Speaking in March,
1876, Grant deplored the fact that "denominational colleges have been
fastened upon us for a generation, and are to be continued forever."55
He preferred the position of Joseph Howe, the great Nova Scotian
reformer, who, Grant asserted, had
advocated "an institution where young Nova Sco-tians without distinction
of class or creed could contend in that literary contest where defeat is
no dishonour and where victory ensures modesty."56 When Grant came to Queen's in the following year he was
quite happy to accept the changed status of the university.57
He was willing to concede to the University of Toronto the whole of the
endowment from the land set apart by the province for university
education.58 He did not, of course, conclude that Queen's
should merge with the University of Toronto. Instead he conceived of two
secular universities, one, the University of Toronto, supported by the
provincial government and the other, Queen's, supported by a national
Manitoba College, which began classes in Winnipeg in
1869, in a sense represented both the early Queen's and the Knox
traditions.59 The College showed some
signs of the Queen's Auld Kirk idea of maintaining the union of arts and
theology and late in its career it made a brief experiment (1910-1914)
in offering an arts course. It was a classical college which combined
mathematics with classics. True to its Scottish background the college
also stressed mental and moral philosophy. Yet, under the influence of
its early teachers, John Black, James Robertson and George Bryce, it was
primarily in the Knox tradition and made training in theology its
The Roman Catholic Scots were in a different position
from the Presbyterian Scots in regard to higher education. As members of
a religious organization which was largely composed in Canada of other
ethnic groups, the French and the Irish, the Scots were not able to
dominate church colleges, with the possible exception of St. Francis
Xavier, in the manner in which Presbyterian Scots dominated such
institutions as Pictou, Queen's, Manitoba College and the Presbyterian
divinity schools. However, the Scottish strain was paramount in some of
the early colleges, Iona and St. Andrews, and the Scots played a leading
role in St Dunstan's in Prince Edward Island. In the Roman Catholic
polity the role of the bishop in the founding of colleges was just as
important as that played by Anglican bishops like John Strachan and G.J.
Mountain. Three early bishops, Alexander Macdonnell (1762-1840), Angus
MacEachern (1759-1835) and Colin MacKinnon (1810-1879), should be
Bishop Macdonnell made a beginning in "higher
education" with the establishment of a school in his house at St.
Raphael's in Upper Canada in 1821. Like other Protestant and Roman
Catholic establishments it commenced as a combination of high school and
divinity school.60 In 1826 the
institution opened as Iona College with Fr. W.P. MacDonald as its first
rector. In 1828 the bishop reported eight divinity students in the
second year, one in the first year and two in philosophy. Macdonnell's
removal to Kingston in 1836 ended the career of Iona, which was
succeeded by a new institution at
Kingston, Regiopolis. The Scottish influence in Regiopolis is clear from
the fact that it was established by Bishop Macdonnell in 1838 and its
first rector was his nephew, Fr. Angus Macdonnell. Regiopolis secured a
university charter in 1866 but was closed in 1869, as a result of the
decision of the Ontario government not to support denominational
The Scots were active in the establishment of
colleges in Prince Edward Island. Bishop Angus MacEachern, the first
Bishop of Charlottetown, was the moving spirit in the establishment of
St. Andrews College. MacEachern, who was born at Kinloch Moidart in
Scotland, was trained at the Royal Scots college, Valladolid, Spain.
After ordination by the Bishop of Valladolid he served in western
Scotland before emigrating to Prince Edward Island.62 MacEachern, with the support of William Fraser, the first
Bishop of Antigonish, established St. Andrews near the head of the
Hillsborough River in 1831, with the Reverend Edward Walsh, an Irish
priest, as rector. Walsh was succeeded in 1835 by another Irish-born
priest, Charles Macdonald.63 St. Andrews was more the
forerunner of a college than a college in its own right. MacMillan, the
historian of the early Catholic Church in Prince Edward Island, reports
that the curriculum consisted of Greek, Latin, French and mathematics,
as well as the subjects taught in an ordinary commercial course.64
The school attempted to secure students from the Protestant community in
Prince Edward Island and exacted no religious tests from its students.
Under MacEachern the emphasis was no doubt heavily Scottish. He was
always anxious that his ordinands should have the Gaelic and wanted his
seminarians studying in Quebec to read Gaelic so that they could
minister to the Gaelic-speaking Roman Catholics of the Maritimes.65
Unfortunately his quasi-Scottish college was short-lived. After a series
of rapid changes in staff it was closed in 1844.
St. Dunstan's College succeeded St. Andrews in 1855
after an interval of eleven years and provided a new area of activity
for Scottish educators. St. Dunstan's in its early period had a
curriculum the rough equivalent of a French classical college, and
prepared candidates for the priesthood for further study in the
seminaries of Quebec and Montreal. Its first rector, Angus MacDonald,
was succeeded in 1869 by James MacDonald (1869-1880). The names of
appointees to the teaching staff under James MacDonald indicates the
variegated character of the faculty: James Charles MacDonald, Michael J.
Macmillan, Cornelius O'Brien, Stanislaus Bou-dreault and Allan J.
MacDonald. A subsequent list of the staff in 1889-90 indicates the same
ethnic variety: J.C. MacDonald, Greek and mathematics; J.A. MacDonald,
physics and mental philosophy; J.A. Blaquière,
Latin and French; Ronald MacDonald, history and mathematics; J.M.
Sullivan, bookkeeping, business and telegraphy; W.P. McNally, French and
In Nova Scotia, as in the other two Maritime
colonies, the Scots were associated first with a small, short-lived
college and afterwards with a larger one which survived.
Bishop Colin MacKinnon, the Bishop of Arichat, was the moving force in
the establishment of Arichat Seminary on Cape Breton Island in 1853. Dr.
John Cameron, perhaps the most distinguished of the early Scottish Roman
Catholic educators, became its principal in 1854. Born in Antigonish and
educated at Rome, Cameron has been described as "a thorough scholar and
an eloquent preacher."67 Later,
in 1877, he became Bishop of Arichat.
In 1855 the seminary was moved to Antigonish and its
character changed. Instead of an advanced seminary, the plan at Arichat,
it became a 'college for the public' and was intended to be a training
school not only for priests, but also for others. Thus it became St.
Francis Xavier College (it was so named in 1859), with a curriculum
resembling that of a French-Canadian college. Many of its graduates
proceeding towards the priesthood went to the Laval Seminary. St.
Francis Xavier was dominantly but not completely under Scottish control.
Cameron was its first rector, holding office until 1863. Its initial
staff was largely Scottish, including two Camerons, Father William
Chisholm, Mr. Rod MacDonald but also Dr. John Schulte. Unlike
Presbyterian institutions like Knox and Presbyterian College, Montreal,
which began and remained purely theological schools, St. Francis Xavier
did not become a theological school, but instead had a long and
distinguished career as the most Scottish of the Roman Catholic
A consideration of some leading educators in the
latter part of our period provides further evidence of the ubiquitous
Scottish influence. Some were Presbyterians; but others made their
contributions in other Protestant academic communities. George Douglas
began his life as a Presbyterian but made his great contribution in
another denomination. His father was a staunch Presbyterian who reared
his family in that faith. After the arrival of the family in Montreal in
1832, George was converted to Methodism and in 1850 ordained to the
Wesleyan ministry. After holding charges in Bermuda and in several
Canadian cities he became Principal of Wesleyan Theological College,
Montreal, in 1874. As principal he laid especial emphasis on the study
of metaphysics; but he is chiefly noted for his eloquence as a preacher.
Rattray asserts, "It is a remarkable fact that the most eloquent
preachers of the Methodist Church in Canada are Scots, and Dr. Douglas
is one of the most eloquent."69 A
consideration of Douglas's published Sermons and Discourses indicated
that he was indeed eloquent in the nineteenth century sense with a
highly rhetorical style.70
R.A. Fyfe (1816-1878), a Canadian Scot, was ordained
to the Baptist ministry and was briefly (1843-44) Principal of the
Canadian Baptist College in Montreal.71 Fyfe played a large role in changing the thinking of
Ontario Baptists in regard to education. Prior to 1850 they were opposed
to church participation in education at any level, except for the
training of the clergy. While
opposing King's College in the period 1827-1849, the Baptists made no
effort to establish a Baptist college, nor did they favour
denominational participation in primary and secondary education. In the
1850s Fyfe undertook to change the thinking of his fellow Baptists. In
the Baptist periodical, the Christian Messenger, in an article
bearing the unobtrusive title, "A Proposal," Fyfe suggested founding an
academy in a western locality, where Baptist parents might send their
sons and daughters. He proposed that the academy should provide
theological training and a good secondary school under Christian
supervision. He asserted that education under religious influence was
the best training for other spheres of Christian activity as well as for
the pulpit. Largely as a result of Fyfe's influence the Canadian
Literary Institute (later Woodstock College) was established. Under
Fyfe's principalship three departments (preparatory, literary and
theological) were developed. So was begun a train of events which
culminated in the establishment of McMaster University in 1887.
Malcolm MacVicar, a leading Baptist teacher, was a
brother of the equally redoubtable Presbyterian academic, Donald Harvey
MacVicar, the Principal of Presbyterian College, Montreal. Malcolm
MacVicar, born in Argyleshire, Scotland, held various academic posts in
the United States and was appointed to Toronto Baptist College in 1888.72
He played an active role at Baptist College,
representing the institution in negotiations with the University of
Toronto in 1884 and was the first Chancellor of McMaster University.
In Winnipeg, St. John's College was derived from a
church school, Red River Academy, which was established in 1833. During
the regime of the first Bishop of Rupert's Land, David Anderson, the
Academy became a theological college as well as a secondary school.
Anderson mentioned St. John's Collegiate School and St. John's College
in his charge of 1850; but by 1865 little was left of the institution
but some dilapidated buildings. The revival and real beginnings of St.
John's College was the work of the second Bishop of Rupert's Land,
Robert Machray (1832-1904).73 Born in
Aberdeen, Machray had been trained at King's College, Aberdeen, where he
took the traditional Scottish combination of courses in mathematics,
natural philosophy and moral philosophy. Later he graduated from Sidney
Sussex College, Cambridge. A Presbyterian during his early career,
Machray joined the Church of England while at Cambridge and in 1856 took
holy orders. Shortly after his consecration as bishop in 1865 he
displayed great concern for the development of education in his diocese
at every level. Under his vigorous support St. John's was reorganized
and was incorporated in 1871. The Scottish influence in the college was
exercised not only by Machray himself but also by others including the
first warden, Reverend John McLean, a classmate of Machray's at Aberdeen
and a prizeman in Latin, Greek, natural and moral philosophy;74
Canon S.P. Matheson, who became Professor of Exegetical Theology in
1873; and Canon Robert Machray, the
Bishop's nephew, who became Professor of Church History and Liturgics in
Of the early teachers at Manitoba College, George
Bryce, a Canadian Scot, was the real founder, a brilliant and versatile
figure, prominent in the life of the college, the Presbyterian Church,
the Manitoba and Winnipeg school systems and a prolific writer on the
history of Manitoba. His publications included Manitoba: Its Infancy,
Progress, and Present Condition (London, 1882), A Short History
of the Canadian People (London, 1887), and the Life of Lord
Selkirk (1912). Dr. Andrew Baird, one of Bryce's colleagues, wrote,
"Dr. Bryce was admirably fitted for his work as a pioneer. Quite
competent in his own department, he was versatile and capable of giving
help and leadership in all sorts of spheres. Always cheerful, always
ready, there were few benevolent or religious enterprises in which he
had no hand."75
Thomas Hart, a Canadian Scot and another early
teacher at Manitoba, had been trained at Queen's and Edinburgh. A
quieter type than Bryce, he confined his activities to teaching. Baird
wrote dryly that Hart, with fewer outside commitments, "was always on
hand and kept the wheels going round. One of the gentlest and kindliest
of men, . . . was so memorable that men who had no gift for Greek, which
was compulsory in those days, plugged faithfully because even their
modest degree of success so pleased their beloved teacher."76
Dr. John Mark King, born and trained in Scotland,
became Principal of Manitoba College in 1883 and carried on in the
Scottish tradition. A graduate of the University of Edinburgh, who had
distinguished himself in the departments of philosophy and mathematics
and who had supplemented this with post-graduate training at the
University of Marburg in Germany, King was a great administrator. A man
of penetrating critical judgment, he had unusual gifts as a teacher.
According to Baird, "His mind was analytical and delighted in making
distinctions between things or opinions which are liable to be confused
with each other but which ought to be kept separate. Quite beyond his
gifts as a teacher was the impression made by the intensity and weight
of his moral character."77 He had many
of the qualities obviously derived from a Calvinist background.
The history of a "tradition" is twofold: it is
concerned with thought and action. This article has been an account not
only of Scottish thought but also of the roles of particular Scots in
Canadian education. The role of both the native Scot and also of his
Canadian descendant has been to project into Canada a Scottish
intellectual tradition. Largely it has been a tradition of Christian
orthodoxy and of a Scottish university curriculum, transmitted by
Presbyterians like McCulloch, MacVicar, Dawson and Bryce; by other
Scottish Protestants like Fyfe, Strachan and Wilson and by Roman
Catholic educators like MacEachern, Macdonell and John Cameron. Other
Scots, like Grant, Watson, Young and Murray were no less a product of
Christian orthodoxy, although they were in reaction against much of the
orthodox Christian position.
So much for the background of the Scottish tradition
in higher education; but to say that their basic ideas were derived from
Scotland is only to tell part of the story of the Scots in Canada. Their
chief contribution was to identify themselves with the Canadian
environment and to make their ideas part of the intellectual tradition
of the Canadian community. Of all the ethnic groups who have come to
Canada, the Scots were the quickest in acclimatizing themselves. Witness
the long list of Scottish politicians, clergymen, bankers, textile
manufacturers, lawyers and others who made so considerable a
contribution to Canadian development. The Scots in higher education were
part of this tradition. Probably the Scots born in Canada, like Grant
and Dawson, were more completely adjusted to the local milieu than were
those born in Scotland, like Strachan and Daniel Wilson. Yet Strachan
was sufficiently Canadian to realize the importance of developing a
native clergy, as distinct from one trained in Great Britain,78
and Wilson was regarded as sufficiently
Canadian to be offered the post of Minister of Public Instruction in the
Ontario government in 1875.79
The long-run influence of the Scots in Canadian
higher education has been profound. In the Roman Catholic world Scots
helped to organize colleges which preserved the Scottish identity in a
religious community in which the Scots were in a minority. In the
Protestant world in Canada the quality of academic life has often
reflected the influence of Scottish Calvinism. Its rigorous intellectual
discipline tended to produce men with a capacity for sheer hard work and
with a penetrating, critical spirit. Thomas McCulloch, the great
religious controversialist in Nova Scotia; John King, who delighted to
make distinctions between things often confused; G.P. Young, vigorously
denouncing competing philosophies as "palpable absurdities,"80
reflected this influence; but there were
many more who displayed the same qualities. They exemplified the Puritan
spirit, and the Puritan tradition in Canada was largely, although not
completely, Scottish in its origins.
1. John H. MacVicar, Life and Work of Donald
Harvey MacVicar (Toronto: 1904), pp. 69-70. Actually MacVicar was
born in Scotland (Dunglass, Argyleshire) although he came to Canada at
an early age.
2. Quoted in D.B. Horn, A Short History of the
University of Edinburgh 1556-1889 (Edinburgh: the University Press,
1967), pp. 119-120.
3. George W. Spragge, ed., The John Strachan
Letter Book: 1812-1834 (Toronto: 1946), pp. 67-8, Strachan to Samuel
Sherwood, Andrew Stewart and James Stewart, February 14,
4. R.G. Cant, The University of St. Andrews, A
Short History (Edinburgh: Oliver and Boyd, 1946), p. 89.
5. Horn, pp. 161-162.
6. James Coutts, A History of the University of
Glasgow (Glasgow: James Maclehose & Sons, 1909), p. 343.
7. Robert Falconer, "The Scottish Influence in the
Higher Education of Canada," Royal Society of Canada, Proceedings and
Transactions, XXI (1927, Third Series),
Section 2, p. 14.
8. Horn, p. 160; Cant, p. 107; Falconer, pp. 13-14.
9. Memorials of the Life and Ministry of the Rev'd
John Machar, D.D. (Toronto: John Campbell & Son, 1873), pp. 14-15.
10. Ibid, p. 16.
11. For an account of the small Presbyterian
theological colleges which functioned in the Maritime Provinces between
1839 and 1863 see D.C. Masters, Protestant Church Colleges in Canada
(Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1966), pp. 81-82.
12. Strachan to S. Sherwood, Andrew Stewart and James
Stewart, February 14, 1815. There is some evidence that Strachan was
originally brought over to Canada for much the same reasons as he later
advanced for bringing Scots to Canadian colleges. Henry Scadding, who
was one of Strachan's clergy, wrote that the Kingston families who
brought Strachan to Canada "when casting about for the education of
their sons appear to have looked toward Scotland rather than England,
partly perhaps from national predilection, and partly from a reasonable
impression that the economic and primitive university system of Scotland
was better adapted to a community constituted as that of Upper Canada
then was, than the more costly and more complicated systems of England."
Scad-ding: The First Bishop of Toronto, p. 12, quoted in W.J.
Rattray, The Scot in British North America (Toronto: Maclear and
Company, 1880) II, 430.
13. Bishop's University, Nicolls Papers, G.J.
Mountain to Jasper Nicolls, June 12, 1845.
14. H.A. Nicholson, a medical graduate of Edinburgh,
held the chair of natural history at Toronto, 1871-73. Robert Ramsay
Wright, an Edinburgh graduate, held the chair
of natural science, later biology, at Toronto 1874-1901. From 1901 to
1912 he was vice-president of the university.
15. Colonial Advocate, Queenston, May 18,
16. H.L. Scammell, "The Rise and Fall of a College,"
Dalhousie Review, xxxii (1), 1952. The opponents of the college
insisted on the letter of its charter which entitled it to be merely an
"Academy" and not a "College."
17. H.M. Tory, A History of Science in Canada
(Toronto: Ryerson Press, 1939), p. 44.
18. H.L. Scammell, "Why did Thomas McCulloch come to
Dalhousie," Nova Scotia Historical Society Collections, 31, (1957),
19. One gets a very human picture of Strachan in a
letter from young George Ridout to his parents in York shortly after
George and his brother Tom had arrived at Strachan's Cornwall school;
"Mr. Strachan asked us to night, as we went to get some paper from him
whether Tom had rather be called Tom than Tarn as he generally calls
him. Tom told him which he had rather be called and Mr. Strachan laughed
and when he does he laughs hearty." Ontario Archives, Ridout Papers,
George Ridout to his parents, January 27, 1806.
20. Henry Scadding, Toronto of Old (Toronto:
Adam, Stevenson & Co., 1873), p. 162.
21. John Strachan, The Christian religion
recommended in a letter to his pupils (Montreal, 1807).
22. See above.
23. Some of the early Scottish educators can merely
be mentioned. At Dalhousie: James Ross, born in Forfarshire and trained
at Pictou College, Principal of Dalhousie (1864-1885) and Professor of
Ethics and Political Economy; James Gordon MacGregor, a Dalhousie
graduate who studied at Edinburgh and held the chair of Physics at
Dalhousie (1879-1901); Charles Macdonald, a graduate of Aberdeen and
Professor of Mathematics at Dalhousie from 1863 to 1901.
The McGill Medical Institution, the earliest active
part of McGill College, was founded by Dr. Stephenson, a native of
Montreal, who studied at Edinburgh. Dr. Caldwell, the first holder of
the chair of medicine, was born in Ayrshire, studied in Edinburgh and
had been a surgeon in the 13th Regiment of Dragoons. Dr. Robertson,
first lecturer in midwifery and diseases of women and children was
descended from a Perthshire family and a graduate of Edinburgh. Like
Caldwell he had been a military surgeon. See J.J. Heagerty, "Medical
Practice in Canada under the British Regime," in Tory, pp. 73-75.
24. Masters, pp. 12, 66-68, 70-71.
25. Frances A. Firth, "King's College, Fredericton,
1829-1859," The University of New Brunswick Memorial Volume,
Alfred G. Bailey, ed. (Fredericton, 1950), p. 25.
26. Ibid., p.26.
27. Scammell, "The Rise and Fall of a College."
28. J. George Hodgins, Documentary History of
Education in Upper Canada, 1 (Toronto: Warwick Brothers and Rutter,
1894), 1790-1830, 214. Strachan's proposed curriculum for a college in
Montreal in 1815 was very similar to the York proposal. Strachan to
Sherwood, A. Stewart, J. Stewart, February 14, 1815.
29. Falconer, p. 14.
30. Rattray, I, 191.
31. Queen's College Calendar, 1845-1846, p. 5.
32. MacVicar, pp. 121-122.
33. Ibid.,p. 122.
34. Canadian Christian Examiner and Presbyterian
Review, August, 1839, p. 252.
35. William Snodgrass, The Sacredness of Learning,
Address delivered at the Opening of Session 1864-5, Queen's College,
Kingston, 1864, p. 13.
36. Ibid., pp. 9-10.
37. Toronto Globe, July 5, 1871. Elgin's
immediate concern in this speech was primary and secondary education;
but it indicates a general attitude which is relevant to this paper,
since Elgin was also concerned with higher education, i.e. the problem
of the University of Toronto.
38. John Irving, "The Development of Philosophy in
Central Canada from 1850 to 1900," Canadian Historical Review,
XXXI (1950), 252-287.
39. Two of these three, Leach and George, were Scots,
the former educated at Edinburgh and the latter at St. Andrews and
Glasgow. Beaven was English and a most rigid Anglican.
40. Murray was more difficult to classify than Watson
and Young. Irving describes his final position as "eclectic idealism."
Irving, p. 279.
41. John Watson, "Edward Caird as a Teacher and
Thinker," Queen's Quarterly, XVI
42. Queen's College Journal, December 15,
1877, pp. 5-6.
43. W.L. Grant and F. Hamilton, Principal Grant
(Toronto: Morang & Co. Limited, 1904), p. 206.
44. T.R. Clover and D.D. Calvin, A Corner of
Empire [Queen's], (Cambridge: At the University Press, 1937), p.
146; Irving, p. 272.
45. Charles F. O'Brien, Sir William Dawson, A Life
in Science and Religion (Philadelphia: American Philosophical
Society, 1971), p. 2. For other material on Dawson's career see also Sir
William Dawson, Fifty Years of Work in Canada Scientific and
Educational (London and Edinburgh: Ballantyne, Hanson & Co., 1901).
46. O'Brien, p. 144.
47. Annual Calendar Presbyterian College Montreal,
Session 1876-77, p. 16.
48. Queen's University Domesday Book, 1831
-1924, p. 32.
49. Quoted in D.C. Harvey, An Introduction to the
History of Dalhousie University (Halifax: McCurdy Printing Company,
1938), pp. 19-20. Dalhousie did not persevere in the plan of making the
College an imitation of Edinburgh.
50. The Elgin-Grey Papers 1846-1852 (Ottawa:
J.O. Patenaude, King's Printer, 1937) Public Archives of Canada,
II, 726-727, Elgin to Grey, October 25, 1850.
51. Scottish episcopalians were usually high, not
52. H.H. Langton, Sir Daniel Wilson
(Edinburgh: Nelson, 1929), p. 88.
53. Ibid., pp. 88-89.
54. That the members of the Church of Scotland were
anxious to maintain Queen's as a Presbyterian institution was indicated
by a pamphlet published in 1871, Presbyterian Union and the College
1971), by an alumnus of Queen's College. The alumnus
argued that the Church of Scotland must reject union with the Canada
Presbyterian Church if its members insisted upon secularization of
55. Grant and Hamilton, p. 184.
56. Ibid., p. 185.
57. Masters, p. 110. The footing of Queen's had been
a delicate point in the negotiations leading to the union of 1875. An
arrangement was effected which left Queen's nominally Presbyterian, but
which virtually transformed it into a private institution. Hitherto, the
governing body, the Board of Trustees, had been elected by the Synod
from a list of persons nominated by the individual congregations. After
union, the Board became a self-perpetuating body. Theoretically the
corporation of the University consisted of the communicants of the
Presbyterian Church in Canada; but practically the church as a body had
no control of the university.
58. Grant and Hamilton, pp. 208-9.
59. Masters, pp. 93-94; A.B. Baird, The Story of
Manitoba College, radio script, February 12, 1930.
60. Lawrence K. Shook, Catholic post-secondary
education in English-speaking Canada: A History (Toronto: University
of Toronto Press, 1971), pp. 18-19.
61. The Universities of Canada Their History and
Organization, Appendix to the Report of the Ontario Minister of
Education, 1896 (Toronto: Warwick Bros. & Rutter, 1896), pp. 142-143.
62. Rev. John C. MacMillan, The Early History of
the Catholic Church in Prince Edward Island (Quebec: Evenment
Printing Company, 1905), pp. 51-55.
63. Shook, p. 37.
64. MacMillan, p. 293.
65. Shook, p. 14. When MacEachern was in failing
health he stipulated that a possible coadjutor should be able to speak
English, French and Gaelic. He preached a sermon in Gaelic shortly
before his death. MacMillan, pp. 300-301.
66. Shook, pp. 39-44.
67. Rattray, iii, 845-846.
68. Shook, pp. 75-78.
69. Rattray, iii, 842.
70. See Douglas's "Educational Address" in his
Discourses and Addresses (Toronto: William Briggs, 1894), pp.
71. A. J. MacLachlan, "Canadian Baptists and Public
Questions before 1850," unpublished BD thesis, McMaster University, R.
Hamilton, "The Founding of McMaster University," unpublished BD thesis,
McMaster University. For a brief biographical note on Fyfe see The
Universities of Canada, pp. 128-129.
72. In 1881 the Theological Department of the
Canadian Literary Institute was moved to Toronto where it became the
Toronto Baptist College.
73. Rev. Charles H. Mockridge, The Bishops of the
Church of England in Canada and Newfoundland (Toronto: F.N.W. Brown,
1896), pp. 209-230; T.C.B. Boon, The Anglican Church from the Bay to
the Rockies (Toronto: Ryerson Press, 1962), pp. 67-70, 95-96;
Masters, pp. 87-88; Rattray, Vol. III, p. 847.
74. After his consecration as Bishop of Saskatoon in
1874 Bishop McLean founded Emmanuel College, Saskatoon.
75. Baird, op. cit., Rattray, III, 848-9.
76. Baird, op. cit.
78. Strachan, "An Appeal to the Friends of Religion
and Literature, in behalf of the University of Upper Canada," ,
Hodgins, Documentary History of Education in Upper Canada," I,
79. Langton, p. 86.
80. John Watson, op. cit.