The Canadian Portrait Gallery - Volume 3 (of 4)Dent, John Charles
History
The Canadian Portrait Gallery - Volume 3 (of 4)
Dent, John Charles
Canada -- Biography
transferred himself to an academy at Fredonia, in Chautauqua county,
N.Y., where he remained ten months. In the following October (1841) he
entered the Genesee Wesleyan Seminary, at Lima, N.Y., where he devoted
his time chiefly to Classics, Mathematics, English Literature and
Criticism. Having spent a profitable year at Lima, he entered Victoria
College, Cobourg--which was then under the Presidency of the Rev.
Egerton Ryerson--in the autumn of 1842. He was one of the first two
matriculated students at the institution, which had just been
incorporated as a University. After an Arts course of two years at
Victoria College, and a year spent in study at home, he attended for
some time at the University of Middletown, Connecticut, where he
graduated as B.A. in 1846. He then spent a year as a teacher in Canada,
and took charge of the Newburgh Academy, in the county of Lennox. In
June, 1847, he entered the ministry of the Wesleyan Methodist Church,
and was placed in charge of a congregation at Port Hope, where he
remained for a year. He was then transferred to the old Adelaide Street
Church, Toronto, where he laboured for two years. Thence he was
transferred to London, but had only resided there about three months
when, in the month of September, 1850, he was appointed President of
Victoria College. This important and responsible position he has held
ever since.
At the time of his taking office, the institution was by no means in a
flourishing condition. It was carried on under circumstances of great
difficulty and embarrassment, and had a competent administrator not been
found to take charge of it, its future would have been very
problematical. An improvement in its condition, however, was perceptible
from the time when Mr. Nelles took the management. It has continued to
prosper ever since, and has long ago taken rank among the most
noteworthy educational institutions in the Dominion. At the time of
Professor Nelles's appointment there was only a single
Faculty--Arts--and the attendance was very small. The teachers were only
five in number. The Professor's vigorous administration soon effected a
marked change for the better. In 1854 the Faculty of Medicine was added.
It at first embraced only one medical college, which was presided over
for many years by the late Dr. Rolph. In process of time a second
institution, L'École de Médecine et de Chirurgie, Montreal, became
affiliated, and still continues to hold the same relationship to the
University. A Law Faculty was added in 1862, and in 1872 a Faculty of
Theology.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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