t, and, above all, those of his
own race who supported the new order. LaFontaine took up the gauntlet.
His retort was as obvious as it was crushing. If the French Canadians
had refused to come in under the Act of Union, they would have been
depriving themselves of any share whatever in the government of their
country. If they had refused to come in, Papineau would not have been
permitted to return, or to sit once more as a legislator and a free man
in the national parliament. The reply was unanswerable, and it put a
period to the influence of Papineau. Foiled and discredited, the old
leader was never again to sway the masses of his countrymen as the moon
sways the tides. His day was done. None the less, {106} the prestige
of his name drew after him a small following of the younger and more
ardent men to whom he taught the pure Radical doctrine. In _L'Avenir_,
the propagandist journal which he founded, he preached repeal of the
Union and annexation to the United States. Before long he abandoned an
arena in which he was no longer the great central figure for dignified
seclusion on his seigneury of Montebello beside the noble Ottawa.

In spite of all blind opposition a broad and enlightened programme of
legislation was carried out. Nearly two hundred measures, many of
prime importance, stand to the credit of this busy session. The vexed
question of a provincial university was finally settled. Baldwin's
bill for the founding of the University of Toronto, which had been laid
to one side by the Metcalfe crisis, was taken up again and carried
through all its stages to the status of a law. Conceived as the apex
and crown of a comprehensive scheme of education as broad as the
province, the University of Toronto more than met the hopes of its
founder. A straight road had been devised from the first class in the
common school to the highest department of collegiate instruction. The
needs of the {107} democracy had not been neglected, but wise and ample
provision had been made for the ambitious and aspiring few. How
completely the university has justified its existence is attested by
the spectacle of both political parties competing with each other in
their benevolence towards an honoured, national foundation. By the
multiplying generations of Toronto graduates the name of Robert Baldwin
should be held in high esteem as of the man who made possible the seat
of learning they are so proud to name their _alma mater_.