SESSIONAL PAPER No. 18 No. 4.-REPORT OF COMMITTEE OF THE ASSEMBLY OF UPPER CANADA. (Archives, Series Q., Vol. 377, p. 60.) The Committee to whom was referred the subject of Education and the School Lands, in discharge of their duty, and with a view of devising such means as in their opinion will tend to promote the general Instruction of the youth and children of the Province, upon such a system as may be satisfactory to all classes of their fellow subjects in Upper Canada, beg most respectfully to report : That on entering upon the subject of their inquiry they were forcibly struck with the uniform anxiety which has been manifested at all times by the Legislative and Provincial Authorities, for the establishment of a University. It formed part of the prayer of both Houses in their address to the King in 1797. It was strongly recommended by the Executive Government, the Judges and the Law Officers of the Crown in 1798. In 1806, the Legislature, to show that something more was even then required than Grammar Schools, did all their limited means permitted, in providing a small apparatus for the instruction of Youth in Physical Science, that they might enter the world with something more than a common District School Education. Such an institution was again noticed, most honourably, in 1820; and an earnest desire expressed by the Legislature, which knew best the wants of the Province, for its speedy establishment. In 1825 so many young men were found turning their attention to the learned professions that the Executive Government thought that the establishment of a University could be no longer delayed without the greatest detriment to the Province, and therefore applied to His Majesty for a Royal Charter, which was granted in 1827, in terms as liberal, it is said, as the then Government would allow, but such as proved by no means satisfactory to your Honourable House. Your Committee feel no disposition to inquire why the necessary modification of the Charter has not been made long ago, or why proper Buildings have not been erected, and the business of instruction in Literature and Science commenced, with the full understanding that the required alterations should take place, but they cannot help lamenting the delay, since it has done irreparable injury to the Youth of the Province. Many have already suffered; many are at present suffering; and whatever measures are taken to accelerate the Establishment, many will be deprived forever of the advantages which the University might have opened to them. Feeling the absolute necessity of such an Institution, and that every day's delay inflicts on the youth of this flourishing colony an injury which allows of no remedy, and that there is little reason to expect that His Majesty's Government will either speedily or effectually arrange the modification of the Charter your Committee recommend the Honourable House to take the matter into immediate consideration, and make such alterations in the said Charter as may be deemed fit and expedient. In considering the necessary changes, the attention of your Committee was drawn to certain resolutions adopted by your Honourable House in 1829 comprising such alterations in the Charter as appeared requisite for perfecting the Institution, and rendering it perhaps the most efficient Seminary on the Continent. Your Committee feel great satisfaction in stating, that after mature deliberation, they have come to the determination to recommend the same changes to the adoption of your Honourable House, with such slight variations as are requisite to secure certain great and permanent advantages. Your Committee determined from the first to recommend no alteration but what appeared necessary to render the University efficient; and to show that they were directed by principles only, and not by anything personal. In consequence, they do not propose to interfere in any appointment except that of Visitor, nor would they have made any change in this, had it not appeared inexpedient, that an office so important should be filled by one so frequently absent from the Province. One thing your Committee thought it material to keep in view, namely, that of preserving the character of the University as a Royal Institution, and the power and dignity which the Charter confers as emanating from the King and which can be conferred in no 64 VICTORIA, A. 1901 other way; and they request this may be kept in mind by your Honourable House when considering the Bill to be herewith submitted, since any alterations that might place these advantages in jeopardy would be purchased at a very dear rate. Having thus stated the grounds on which your Committee have proceeded it only remains for them to submit a Bill embodying the necessary alterations, taken chiefly from the Resolutions of 1829, and which emanates from a Committee of unquestionable ability, presuming at the same time, that your Honourable House is aware that under its present Charter the University of King's College is open to all denominations of Christians and that the Professors, excepting such as may be appointed Members of the College Council, may be of any Christian Denomination, and that it excludes none from what may be considered the essential benefits of the University; but your Committee leave the Charter as far as possible in its present form and have applied themselves to the removal of the objectionable parts by a distinct enactment which they beg leave earnestly to recommend to the adoption of your Honourable House. All of which is respectfully submitted, COMMITTEE ROOM, HOUSE OF ASSEMBLY, M BURWELL, Chairman. No. 5.-BILL FOR AMENDING THE CHARTER OF KING'S COLLege. (Archives Series Q., Vol. 381, p. 701.) Whereas, His late Majesty King George the Fourth was graciously pleased to issue his letters patent, bearing date at Westminster, the fifteenth day of March, in the eighth year of His Reign. And whereas, certain alterations appear necessary to be made in the same in order to meet the desire and circumstances of the Colony, and that the said charter may produce the benefits intended-Be it, &c. That for and notwithstanding anything in the said Charter contained, after the said University shall be organized upon any future appointment to the office of Governor, Lieutenant Governor or Person administering the Government of the Province, such Governor, Lieutenant Governor, or Person administering the Government, shall not be, Ex-officio Chancellor of the said University, but such person shall be Chancellor thereof as the Convocation of the said University shall elect, and that the Judges of the Court of King's Bench, shall for and on behalf of the King be visitor of the said College, in the place and stead of the Lord Bishop of the Diocese of Quebec for the time being, and that the President of the said University, on any future vacancy, shall be appointed by His Majesty, His Heirs and Successors, without requiring that he should be the incumbent of any Ecclesiastical office. And that the Members of the College in Council, including the Chancellor and President, shall be twelve in number, of whom the Speaker of the two houses of the Legislature of the Province and His Majesty's Attorney and Solicitor Generals for the time being, shall be four, and the remainder shall consist of the six senior Professors of arts and faculties of the said College, and in case there shall not at anytime be six Professors as aforesaid in the said College, and until Professors shall be appointed therein, the Council shall be filled with Members to be appointed as in the said Charter is provided, except that it shall not be necessary that any Member of the College Council to be so appointed, or that any Member of the said College Council or any Professor, to be at any time appointed; shall be a Member of the Church of England, or subscribe to any Articles of SESSIONAL PAPER No. 18 Religion,—and further that no religious test or qualification be required or appointed for any person admitted or matriculated as scholars within the said College or of persons admitted to any degree or faculty, therein. And whereas, it is expedient that the Minor or Upper Canada College lately erected in the Town of York, shall be incorporated with and form an appendage of the University of King's College-Be it therefore, &c.-That the said Minor or Upper Canada College shall be incorporated with and form an appendage of the University of King's College, and be subject to its jurisdiction and control. And be it, &c. That the Principal of the said Minor or Upper Canada College, hall be appointed by the King during His Majesty's pleasure, and that the said Principal shall ex-officio be a Member of the Council of the University of King's College. And be it &c. That the Vice-Principal and Tutors of the said College shall be nominated by the Chancellor of the University of King's College, subject to the approval or disapproval of the Council thereof. And be it &c. That it shall and may be lawful for the Chancellor of the said University for the time being to suspend or remove either the Vice-Principal or Tutors of the said Minor or Upper Canada College, provided that such suspension or removal be recommended by the Council of the said University, and the grounds of such suspension or removal recorded at length in Books of the said Council. No. 6-EXTRACT FROM COMMITTEE'S REPORT. (Archives Series Q., Vol. 381, p. 704.) It was the intention of your Committee here to have closed this communication and to have reserved for their next Report the information which they have obtained respecting Minor or Upper Canada College, but when once they came to the determination of embracing the District Schools of the Home District in their General Plan, it seemed to them more expedient to recommend that the Minor or Upper Canada College should be incorporated with the University of King's College, and they have accordingly prepared certain clauses for that purpose to be added to the Bill which accompanied their first Report, now before Your Honourable House, for amending the Charter of that Royal Institution. Several powerful considerations have induced Your Committee to adopt this course. 1st. The Legislature in thus disposing of Upper Canada College, will be acting in concurrence with its Founder, for it appears by the unanimous evidence before them that it is and has always been considered as an appendage to the University of King's College. 2nd. The Inhabitants of the Home District will have no just cause of complaint as they will in future have their own District School, affording to them the same advantages as the other Districts enjoy. 3rd. In looking upon Upper Canada College as a Minor portion of the University, Your Committee are inclined to believe that a more classical system of studies may be sometimes required as a preparation for the higher branches of knowledge to be taught in King's College than is either useful or necessary at the District Schools. 4th. That a greater strictness in Classical Literature may be a recommendation to some of the Inhabitants of this Province, and of our fellow subjects from the Mother Country who are daily coming amongst us, and who very naturally entertain a preference for the methods practised in the Great Schools in England. 5th. By continuing a strictly classical School and on the moderate terms of admission now in force parents possess the freedom of choice between it and the District Schools. 6th. Your committee were moreover the more inclined to this arrangement as it relieved them from the necessity of proposing alterations in Upper Canada College, to which they felt a repugnance, because the rights of the present Masters, till otherwise provided for, involves the inquiry with peculiar difficulties. 64 VICTORIA, A. 1901 On the whole Your Committee think it for the advantage of the Province as filling a link in the gre it system of Education that Upper Canada College should become part of the University. Should any modification be deemed necessary it will come better and with immediate effect from the Council of the University of King's College. More especially as His Excellency the Lieutenant Governor, who has manifested the greatest anxiety to promote the Education of the Youth of the Colony, is the Founder of Upper Canada College, and as Chancellor of the University can with the more propriety judge of and carry into execution such alterations as may be thought beneficial. We, Your Majesty's most dutiful and loyal subjects, the Commons of Upper Canada, in Provincial Parliament assembled, most humbly beg leave to approach Your Majesty to express our gratification at the information conveyed by Your Majesty's pincipal Secretary of State for the Colonies, that Your Majesty, in answer to Our address of the 23rd December, 1831, has been graciously pleased to express your desire that the sums arising from the sale of that portion of the School lands which has not already been alienated should be paid into the hands of the Receiver General to be applied in the Promotion of Education in such manner as the Legislature may direct. We have to acquaint Your Majesty that it appears by a statement sent down by His Excellency, the Lieutenant Governor, that the whole reservation of School lands amounted to 740,275 acres, of which, it would seem there has been conveyed: It is therefore obvious that a very inconsiderable portion of the whole reservation has been left for purposes which in the minds of those individuals who made the Legislative application in the year 1797 to His late Majesty, as well as in that of the Royal Donor took precedence of every other object, and were entitled to a much more valuable endowment. Of the quantity of Land thus remaining for the support of education in the several districts of the province 186,902 acres are in the townships of Sheffield, Bedford, Merlin and Proton and are reputed to be of exceedingly bad quality compared with the lands which have been alienated, consequently the means which may be derived from their sale will frustrate the object which His Majesty's Government contemplated in complying with the joint application of the Legislature for a Grant of Land to establish in the first instance Free Grammar Schools in the several Districts, and in due process of time other Seminaries of a larger and more comprehensive nature. SESSIONAL PAPER No. 18 We would further observe to Your Majesty, that upon an examination of the Statement alluded to, it appears that for the endowment of King's College and for other purposes exchanges of the School Lands have been made which have had the effect of reducing the appropriation so much that the just expectation of the Inhabitants of the Province can never be realized without the interposition of Your Majesty's Government by restoring the Lands set apart by Your Majesty's late Royal Father for the endowment and support of District Grammar Schools, and in due process of time for establishing other Seminaries of a larger and more comprehensive nature. The establishment at the Capital of the Province of a University endowed with the greater part of all the valuable School Lands reservation, may confer much benefit on the Inhabitants in its immediate vicinity and also on the wealthier part of the population who are more remote, but it cannot at present answer the intentions which actuated Your Majesty's Royal Father when the Lands were appropriated, in as much as the people resident in distant parts of the country have no opportunity of giving to their sons a preparatory course of instruction even if it were in every respect convenient to send them many hundred miles to attend the University. For these reasons as well as for many others which might be adduced, we are constrained to represent to Your Majesty the serious injustice of the measure which deprived the people of Upper Canada of that munificent grant of Land which was set apart for the diffusion of learning by the endowment of Free Grammar Schools in the several Districts, and we deem it necessary to inform Your Majesty that the primary object for which these Lands were reserved has hitherto been neglected; and by far the most important and valuable portion of them alienated for the immediate establishment of an Institution which it was intended not only by the joint application of the Legislature in the year 1797, but by the answer of His Majesty, should be endowed, after the Grammar Schools were provided for. We are unwilling to trespass on the time of Your Majesty; but this subject is, in our estimation so highly important to the best interests of Your Majesty's faithful Subjects in this Province, that we feel bound by the most sacred obligations of duty as Representatives of the People to express to Your Majesty our opinion that the buildings erected in York for Upper Canada College are at present sufficiently extensive and commodious to answer every purpose of a University, and ought therefore to be applied to that object, and thus prevent the vast expenditure which is contemplated in the construction of buildings for the University of King's College, and that Upper Canada College may under existing circumstances, most properly be designated "The University of King's College," and be incorporated and endowed as such by the Legislature of the Province, out of the General funds arising from the sale of School Lands. We therefore humbly implore Your Majesty to direct such proceedings, as to Your Majesty may seem consistent with justice to the People of Upper Canada, for the restoration of the lands originally set apart for the purposes before mentioned, together with the proceeds of all such portions as may have been sold or leased by the Corporation of King's College or the Executive Government, or in the event of its impracticability with respect to the Lands Granted to Individuals, to direct that an appropriation of equal value be made for that purpose; and also to convey to Your Majesty our earnest hope that Your Majesty may be pleased to appoint Commissioners to ascertain the value of any Lands which may be granted in lieu of those which have been alienated. COMMONS HOUSE OF ASSEMBLY, Fourth day of December, 1833. ARCH'D. MCLEAN, Speaker. |