The first scholastic training of William Dawson was received in a small private school in Pictou. From there he went to the recently founded Grammar School conducted on "the good old-fashioned plan of long hours, hard lessons, no prizes, but some punishments." His parents desired that he should study for the Church; he began his college career with that object in view, but it was changed by circumstances. He entered Pictou Academy, which had just been established primarily for the training of young men for the Christian ministry; it was presided over by the Rev. Dr. Thomas MacCulloch, a Scottish teacher and preacher who exercised a large influence on the intellectual life of Nova Scotia. It was during his course at the Academy that William Dawson first became interested scientifically in geology and natural history, subjects which were later to form so large a part of his life work. As a result he took long excursions during vacations for the purpose of obtaining specimens and studying the minerals of his native province. In 1840, he entered Edinburgh University, where he completed his course in 1847. It was in one of his summer vacations in the Maritime Provinces that he first met Sir Charles Lyell, the distinguished geologist, and Sir William Logan, who later originated the Geological Survey of Canada. In 1847 he married Margaret Mercer of Edinburgh and with his wife he returned to Pictou. For a time he gave a special course of extension lectures at Dalhousie College, Halifax. In 1850, Joseph Howe, for whom he had a deep admiration, and with whom he had formed a friendship early in life, offered him the Superintendency of Education in Nova Scotia,--a newly established office. He accepted the post with many misgivings; and for the next few years he devoted all his efforts to bettering the educational conditions of the Province, addressing school meetings throughout the country and stimulating improvements. In 1853 while he was still Superintendent of Education, his old friend, Sir Charles Lyell, revisited Nova Scotia and the friendship formed a few years before was renewed. On the same ship with him was Sir Edmund Head, then Governor of New Brunswick, who, on this first meeting, was deeply impressed by Mr. Dawson's views on educational reforms. As a result he appointed him the following year to the commission formed to report on the re-organisation of the University of New Brunswick, which was then in a precarious state.