Higher educational facilities were not wanting to Kildonan, for upon the
borders of the parish, and beside the very church where until 1851 the
fathers of the Kildonan people had attended public worship, was St.
John's College. Here a good education was given, and, so far as known to
the writer, there were no restrictions placed upon those students who
were not members of the Church of England; but John Black desired to
mould the leaders of the Presbyterian people after a fashion to preserve
the best traditions of the race from which they sprang.
The small number of people in the Red River Settlement, and their
remoteness from highly civilized life, was for a time an objection to
the founding of another college on the banks of the Red River. Now,
however, the vista of hope was opening out before the country, as a new
province was entering on its career as one of the Canadian sisterhood.
The Kildonan school reached the culmination of its excellence during the
years 1870 and 1871 under the direction of Mr. David B. Whimster, a
teacher from western Ontario. The attendance was large, the educational
interest was great, and a goodly number of the best pupils were being
instructed in Latin and French by Mr. Black. Now seemed the time for
carrying out the dream which the Kildonan pastor had long cherished.
THE COLLEGE PLANNED.
In the autumn of 1870, the very year in which the young province of
Manitoba was born, a provisional board of twelve of the leading
Presbyterians of the province signed a prospectus and circulated it
through the province inviting assistance for an institution to give a
training in Classics, Mathematics, Chemistry, Natural History, Moral and
Mental Philosophy, and the Modern Languages. We may certainly say there
was no restricted view in the minds of the founders of the infant
college. Early in 1871, £300 sterling had been subscribed on the Red
River, and before the meeting of the General Assembly material for the
new building had been secured and the building was expected to be
sufficiently advanced for use in the autumn of the year.
The General Assembly met that year in Quebec, and the Rev. William
Fletcher, a commissioner from Manitoba, strongly presented the case for
the new college.
THE ASSEMBLY DECIDES.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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