Although the centenary celebrations at Montreal indicate that Me-Gill University is already a hundred years old, the roots of that great educational institution reach still further into the past. In the fascinating volume “McGill and its Story”' just published, Cyrus MacMillan, the author, states that the British settlers in Lower Canada, after the conquest of Quebec, were eager that their children should have at least an elementary education. It was felt, too, that in the unrest and uncertainty of the period immediately following the American Revolution it was not advisable to semi students in search of higher professional training to the universities of the United States, which in the days of their British allegiance had attracted Canadian students in large numbers.

Efforts were accordingly made to establish a system of free schools with the hope that later a university might be founded. As a result of the agitation for the providing of educational opportunities in Lower Canada. The Royal Institute for the Advancement of Learning was established. Under this Act, the King gave directions for the establishment "of a competent number of Free Schools for the instruction of children in the first rudiments of useful learning; and also as occasion should require for foundations of a more comprehensive nature.” Accordingly, elementary free schools were soon erected in different parts of the Province, one-room buildings of cedar logs. Indeed, they were mere log-huts, but they provided the first free English Education in Lower Canada, and laid the foundation for a Canadian nationality. The Secretary's salary was always many months in arrears, and he frequently complained, with unfortunately but little satisfaction^ that not only had he given his time for some years without remuneration, but that he had expended even his own fuel and candles. It was not unusual for the teachers to be censured “for not keeping school at all,” or for giving too many holidays, or for tardiness in opening school in the morning and eagerness in closing it in the afternoon. At least one teacher was warned that his arrears in salary would not be paid and that he would be instantly dismissed "if he did not treat his wife with greater kindness.”

The Royal Institute for the Advancement of Learning supervised the establishment of McGill College and directed it in its infancy, for under the Act of 1801 all .property and money given for educational purposes in the Province of Lower Canada was place' under its control. James McGill is described by his own contemporaries as of “a frank and social temperament"; in figure, “tall and commanding, handsome in youth, and becoming somewhat corpulent in his old age.”’ and in his leisure "much given to reading.” James McGill died in 1813 and in his will bequeathed the Royal Institution for the Advancement of Learning, in trust, the sum of £10,000 and his Burnside Estate of forty-six acres, together with the dwelling house and other buildings for the erection on the estate, and the endowment, of a University or College.

The first Principal of McGill was the Reverend George Jehoshaphat Mountain, who was appointed Principal in 1824 while the University was only a name. The official opening did not take place till June 24th, 1829. and was attended by what the contemporary press called a gathering of "numerous and respectable individuals." Anxious years marked the early history of McGill, due to lack of funds and quarrels between the Board of the Royal Institution and the Governors of the College. In November, 1848, the Governors had only the sum of £54 at their disposal. They divided it between the Bursar and the two Lecturers in proportion to the amount of salary in arrears and as a result the Lecturer in French received £ 2 14s. as his share from January 1st. 1848, to November 29th, 1848. That was the full amount of salary received by him during the year; but he still, says the author, had his cow and his garden.

The first real progress was made when the late Sir William Dawson became Principal. “When I accepted the appontment at McGill" he stated in his return letters I had not been in Montreal, and knew the college and the men connected with it only by reputation. I first saw it in October, 1855. Materially it was represented by two blocks of unfinished and partly built buildings amid a wilderness of excavators’ and masons' rubbish overgrown with weeds and bushes. The grounds were unfenced and were pastured at will by herds of cattle, which not only cropp'd the grass, but browsed on the hrubs, leaving unhurt only one great elm, which still stands as the 'founder’s tree,' and a few old oaks and butternut trees, most of which have had to give place to our new buildings. The only access from the town was by a circuitous and ungraded cart track, almost impassable at night. The buildings had been abandoned by the new Board, and the classes of the Faculty of Arts were held in the upper story of a brick building in the town, the lower part of which was occupied by the High School.’”

A direct appeal for financial assistance was then made to the citizens of Montreal. It met with an encouraging response, which greatly relieved the situation, and was what Dr. Dawson. forty years later, called “the beginning of a stream of liberality which has floated our University barque up to the present date.”

The more recent expansion of McGill to its present strong position is well known. The appointment of Sir Arthur Currie as Principal and the still more recent election of Mr. E. W. Beatty, President of the Canadian Pacific Railway, as Chancellor, have given it a practical administration which is calculated to ensure its continued progress as an essentially National University. In the Epilogue to his volume Professor MacMillan writes: “There is a new spirit in McGill. Today its pulsing life, under the guidance of its great Canadian leader, reaches through all grades and faculties and departments of its students as it has never done before. There is a general forward movement unhampered and undivided by considerations or competitions of sections or of faculties. The University is closer, too. than it once was to the current of national feeling. It is seeking to minister to Canada, the land which gave it birth and from which its greatness sprang. But while it will serve Canada, it will continue to draw its students, like the true “Studium Generale." from every country on the globe, and to send them back to serve their individual countries to advance the enlightenment of the world. McGill’s first century has been a century of trial, but a century of great accomplishment of the world." The publishers of “McGill and its Story, 1821-1921” are S. B. Gundy, of the Oxford University Press, Toronto, in Canada, and John Lane in London. England, and the John Lane Company in New York.