measures for its improvement are speedily undertaken there is a
danger that McGill College will soon be numbered among the things that
were."

The Governors in the end decided to look nearer home for a Principal--a
man of strong personality to take the helm in this critical period. They
determined, if possible, to appoint a Canadian who was familiar with the
country, its spirit, its temper and its educational needs. Down in
Pictou County, Nova Scotia, they found him in the person of William
Dawson, a native Canadian and a graduate of Edinburgh University. In
1855 they offered him the Principalship. He accepted the position and
began his duties in the autumn of that year. In the thirty-four years
that had gone since its establishment and the twenty-six years since its
opening, the College had struggled through many vicissitudes and trials.
It had frequently been on the border of extinction. But the crisis in
its troubled history had at last been passed. A new era, more wonderful
and more successful than even its most optimistic friends dared look
for, was about to begin. The foundations had been laid, perhaps not
always wisely, but at least firmly and hopefully. The College was now to
go forward--for again, as in the past, its sign-posts pointed onward.
The faith of its founder was at last to be justified. It remained for
the new Principal, William Dawson, to guide it on its unwavering march
to usefulness and to power, and by his tact, his judgment, his wisdom
and his strength to impress his name upon its century story as the man
who was greatest among "the makers of McGill" in the first hundred years
of its existence.

CHAPTER VIII

COLLEGE LIFE IN MID-CENTURY

College life in mid-century, or rather in the "forties and fifties,"
during the early dark days of struggle and ten years thereafter,
differed greatly from College life in our day. It is difficult perhaps
fully to realise the changes since that time in other ways than growth.
The McGill of our day is not the McGill of seventy years ago, not merely
in its accommodation and its advantages, but in its internal activities.

[Illustration: _McGill College in_ 1855]

Under the original Statutes of the College the administration was under
the control of four distinct bodies: (1) The Corporation, which met
annually on the day after commencement day "to inspect the Books and
Accounts of the Registrar, Bursar and Secretary and to transact all such
business r