admired and loved. The Memorial Address, here included in
the Appendix, was given by his successor, Principal Peterson.

[Illustration: _Sir William Peterson
Principal of McGill University_ 1895-1919]

Sir William Dawson was Principal of McGill for thirty-eight years, more
than a third of the century that has passed since the establishment of
the University, and almost half of the period since its actual opening.
It has not been possible here to speak of his researches, his writings,
his connection with learned societies. Many honours came to him from
Britain, from America, and from Canada. He was the first President of
the Royal Society of Canada; he was President at various times of the
American Association for the Advancement of Science, of the American
Geological Association, and of the British Association. In 1884 he was
knighted. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society, and he received
honorary degrees from Edinburgh,--his old University, from McGill and
from Columbia. But all his activities were incidental and subservient to
his work as Principal of McGill and to his efforts for the advancement
of the University. He saw the institution grow slowly but surely under
his guidance, in the face of many discouragements, from very small
beginnings to a foremost place among the great seats of learning of
America and Europe. He found in 1855 a college struggling under debt,
with inadequate revenue, with abandoned buildings, with few professors
and with only one hundred students. In the last session of his
Principalship more than a thousand students were in attendance, of whom
three hundred and fifty were in the Faculty of Arts, and one hundred and
thirty-five degrees were conferred; more than half a dozen spacious
college buildings had been added to the original structure; the lower
campus or yard was practically what it is to-day except for the new
Medical Building; the endowments had increased to over a million and a
half of dollars, the yearly income to nearly a quarter of a million and
the disbursements to nearly two hundred thousand dollars. The growth of
the University in equipment, in instructors, in courses and in general
educational opportunities has already been indicated. In bringing about
this marvellous growth, the Principal had the generous assistance and
sympathetic encouragement of a loyal band of friends, among whom his
greatest gratitude was recorded to William Molson, John H. R. Molson,
Peter Redp