he torch which for him had been
lighted in Glasgow University should burn likewise for those who would
succeed him in the land of his adoption. He had indicated that
determination during the consideration of the subject in the
Legislature. But on the question of method he sought advice from his
young teacher friend, Strachan, whom he frequently visited in the
latter's home in Cornwall. During these Glengarry visits there was many
a happy and roseate night of mingled sociability and high seriousness,
after the custom of their race and time, when the two friends, the young
educationalist and the older man of wealth, with similar vision, sat
late in discussion of the Canadian educational problem and of plans for
its solution.

In a letter to the other surviving executors of James McGill's will,
written from York [Toronto] on May 31, 1820, seven years after James
McGill's death, the Rev. Dr. Strachan gave interesting information on
these discussions and their bearing on the circumstances leading up to
the practical working out of James McGill's dreams on education as
evidenced later in his will. He wrote: "It was, I believe, at Cornwall
during one of the visits which Mr. McGill made to Mrs. Strachan and me
that his final resolution respecting the erection of a College after
his name, endowing it, etc., was taken. We had been speaking of several
persons who had died in Lower Canada and had left no memorial of
themselves to benefit the country in which they had realised great
fortunes. And particularly I mentioned a University, as the English had
no Seminary where an Academical Education could be obtained. We had
repeated conversations upon the subject, and he departed determined to
do something and with some inclination to leave twenty instead of ten
thousand pounds, together with Burnside, and even to make some
preparations before his death, expressing at the same time a wish that
if he did anything I should take an active part in the proposed
College."

It was soon after the visit referred to that James McGill made his
will,--on March 8, 1811. He bequeathed to the Royal Institution for the
Advancement of Learning, in trust, the sum of L10,000 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 on the express conditions,--and these were the
only conditions imposed,--that the University be erected and