Governor Simcoe authorized the Hon. Messrs. Cartwright and Hamilton, to select a person to take charge of the proposed college. The celebrated Rev. Dr. Chalmers having declined the appointment, it was accepted by Mr. (late the Right Reverend Doctor) Strachan (Bishop of Toronto) then a schoolmaster at Kettle, Scotland; but his arrival at Kingston, on the 31st of December, 1799, he found that the project of a college had been abandoned, Governor Simcoe, in the meantime, having left for England. It was soon discovered that half a million of acres of land would endow but few grammar schools, land being then only worth a shilling per acre: the schema had, therefore, to be abandoned. Meanwhile the Hon. Mr. Cartwright made an arrangement with Mr. Strachan to instruct his sons, and a select number of pupils for three years. In 1804, Mr. Strachan, having been ordained, removed to the mission of Cornwall, where, at the request of the parents of his former pupils, he opened a private school. For several years this school was the only one of any note in Upper Canada; and in it and in Mr. Strachan's school at York, were educated many of those gentlemen who have filled some of the most important positions in the province. Subsequently Mr. Strachan's school was constituted the grammar school of the Eastern district. In 1806, a temporary act was passed by the Legislature and made permanent in 1808, establishing a classical and mathematical school in each of the eight districts into which Upper Canada was then divided. In the same year(1806) at the suggestion of Dr. Strachan an Act was passed, granting £400 for the purchase of apparatus for illustrating the principles of Natural Philosophy, which were to be deposited in the hands of a person employed in the instruction of youth. In 1807 an appropriation of £800 a year for four years was made to provide for the salaries of masters in the Grammar Schools to be maintained in each of the districts into which Upper Canada was divided. These masters were to be engaged by trustees appointed by the governor, and the governor's sanction was also necessary for the teacher's appointment. There is still in existence the letter, dated, April 16th, 1807, signed by Governor Gore, appointing the Rev. George Okill Stewart, D.D., Archdeacon of Kingston, first Head Master of the Home District Grammar School at York (Toronto). North of what is now Adelaide Street (formerly Newgate Street), bounded westward by Church Street, and eastward by Jarvis Street, was a large field, almost square, containing about six acres--for many years the playground of the District Grammar School.