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College Life in Mid-Century

COLLEGE life in mid-century, or rather in the “forties and fifties,” during the early dark days of struggle and ten years thereafter, differed greatly from College life in our day. It is difficult perhaps fully to realise the changes since that time in other ways than growth. The McGill of our day is not the McGill of seventy years ago, not merely in its accommodation and its advantages, but in its internal activities.

Under the original Statutes of the College the administration was under the control of four distinct bodies: (1) The Corporation, which met annually on the day after commencement day “to inspect the Books and Accounts of the Registrar, Bursar and Secretary and to transact all such business relative to the property of the University as might be necessary.” This body seems to have taken no part in strictly Academic discussions. (2) The Board of Governors, which met quarterly in March, June, September and December, and which was in supreme control; two constituted a quorum and the Principal had a double or casting vote. (3) The Caput, which met weekly and consisted of the Principal, Vice-Principal and Professors, three forming a quorum. The duty of this body was “to frame Rules and Regulations for the discipline, lectures, studies and internal government of the Lecturers, Scholars, Students, Inferior Officers and other members of the College and to make regulations regarding the expenses and system of living within the College.” They had no control at first, however, over studies or lecturers in the Faculty of Medicine. (4) The Convocation, which met “four times in every Term for the purposes of conferring Degrees, such meetings being regulated by the Caput.” Every Professor, Lecturer and Tutor had to take the oath of allegiance and of office.

Discipline was severe and was rigidly enforced. Every Professor was given power to punish students by confinement and fine, the fine not to exceed five shillings and the confinement not to exceed twelve hours. Many of the early regulations are of interest. The duties of the Vice-Principal seem to have been responsible and arduous. All disciplinary measures as well as the general conduct of the University were under his direct supervision. He was compelled to reside in the College, and during the non-residence of the Principal he was to be “the parent and guardian of the College Household.” It was his duty “to examine students for matriculation, maintain the observance of the Statutes by Professors, Students, Inferior Officers and all other resident members of the College, enforcing such observance by admonitions and punishments; to direct the students in their studies, promoting by all the means in his power their progress in Religion, and Learning; to preside over the Collegiate Exercises and regulate the Inferior Officers and Servants of the College.” At meals served in the College distinctive tables were provided, one for “Members of Convocation and Bachelors of Civil Law, Lecturers, Fellows and Tutors”; one for Bachelors of Arts and Students in Law and Medicine who had graduated in Arts; and one or more for undergraduates. The academical year consisted of three terms, the Michaelmas Term, the Lent Term and the Easter Term, and it extended from the first Wednesday in September until the third Wednesday in June. The Arts course extended over three years. Until a Chapel should be built it was imperative that Divine Service should be held in some convenient room, and on the first and last days of every term the Principal or one of the Professors, Lecturers or Tutors selected by the Principal for the purpose, preached a sermon in the College or in one of the Protestant churches of Montreal; attendance in full academic dress of all the members of the University excepting those who had obtained a dispensation was compulsory. The prayers in the College Chapel were said morning and evening; the service was conducted in rotation by Officers of the College.

It was required that “the dress of all members of the University should be plain, decent and comely without superfluous ornament.” No member of the Arts Faculty was allowed to appear in Church, Chapel, Lecture or Dining-hall without his gown and only by special permission from the Vice-Principal was a student permitted to go outside of the College grounds without his academic dress. Students were not allowed to resort to any inn or tavern or place of public amusement without special permission from the Vice-Principal. They were not allowed to remain out of College nor to entertain visitors in their rooms after 10 o'clock at night, and the Vice-Principal, Professors, Lecturers and Tutors had authority to enter at all hours the rooms of undergraduates. Junior students were required “to pay the respect due to their Seniors both in public and in private by taking off their caps, giving place to them and by other useful modes of attention and civility.”

The course of study leading to a degree in the Faculty of Arts was of three years' duration. Courses were of two kinds, from which students could make a choice. One consisted of Mathematics, Logic, and Ethics; the other of Classics. In the former the First Year was devoted to the study of six books of Euclid, Algebra to the end of Quadratic Equations, and Trigonometry to the end of the solution of Plain Triangles. In the second year the course included a repetition of all the first year work, Analytic Geometry, Differential and Integral Calculus, and Logic, consisting of Fallacies, Induction and “a sketch of a system of Philosophy of the Human Mind.” The work of the third or final year was in Physics, Astronomy, and Ethics, principally “Butler's Analogy.” In the Classics course selections from Homer, Virgil, Euripides and Horace were read in the first year; selections from Cicero, Horace, Demosthenes and Sophocles in the second year; and selections from Herodotus, Æschylus, Thucydides, and Tacitus in the third year. In the first and second years the students were “exercised in Greek and Latin Composition, and they were also given a few lectures in Ancient History and Geography.” In the third or final year they were exercised in English Composition.

Conditions in the Medical School at that period have been described by a contemporary, Dr. D. C. Maccallum, who graduated in 1850, when the Medical Classes were held in two rooms of the Arts building:

“A large proportion of the students,” he said, “were men verging on, or who had passed, middle age. Indeed, several of them were married men and the heads of families. There was sufficient of the youthful, however, to keep things lively. 'Footing Suppers,' practical jokes, and special country excursions to secure material for practical anatomy, were of frequent occurrence. The last, involving as it did a certain amount of danger, commended itself particularly to the daring spirits of the class, who were always ready to organise and lead an excursion having that object in view. These excursions were not at all times successful, and the participators in them were sometimes thwarted in their attempts and had to beat a precipitate retreat to save themselves from serious threatened injury. They contributed, moreover, to the unpopularity of the medical student. 'Footing Suppers' were functions of the simplest and most unpretentious character. Each new matriculant was expected, although many failed to conform to the arrangement, to select an evening on which to entertain his fellow students, the entertainment consisting generally in furnishing biscuits and beer—the old, time-endorsed 'cakes and ale.' In partaking of these, smoking, relating humorous stories, chaffing each other and singing rousing songs, the evening usually passed with much bonhommie. But sometimes they were rather boisterous, or, at least, noisy and exciting....

“Dissections and demonstrations were made only at stated times during the morning and afternoon of the day. There evidently existed a marked disinclination on the part of both demonstrator and student to work at night in the highest story of a lonely building, far removed from other dwellings, imperfectly heated, and lighted by candles, the light being barely sufficient to render the surrounding darkness visible. Having occupied for two seasons the position of Prosector to the Professor of Anatomy, I had to prepare, during the greater part of the session, the dissections of the parts which were to be the subject of the Professor's lecture on the following day. This necessitated my passing several hours, usually from nine to twelve o'clock at night, in the dismal, foul-smelling dissecting room, my only company being several partially dissected subjects, and numerous rats which kept up a lively racket coursing over and below the floor and within the walls of the room. Their piercing and vicious shrieks as they fought together, the thumping caused by their bodies coming into forcible contact with the floor and walls, and the rattling produced by their rush over loose bones, furnished a variety of sounds that would have been highly creditable to any old-fashioned haunted house. I must acknowledge that the eeriness of my surroundings was such that I sometimes contemplated a retreat, and was prevented from carrying it into effect only by a sense of duty and a keen dislike to being chaffed by my fellow-students for having cowardly deserted my work....

“The examinations for the degree of the University were conducted orally, ten minutes being allowed to each examiner. The janitor, supplied with a watch and a large bell, was placed in the hall outside the door of the library, the room in which the examinations took place. At the expiration of each ten minutes he rang the bell, and the candidates went from one examiner to another. This was repeated until the student had completed the round of examining professors. Immediately on the termination of the examinations, the professors met and decided then and there the fate of the candidates. The latter, in the meantime, waited in the College in a rather painful state of suspense. They were summoned separately before the Professors, and the result, favourable or unfavourable, was in each case made known to the individual....

“It was customary at this time for the student to be indentured to a practicing physician, or, if not so bound notarially, to make a private arrangement with him to be allowed to study in his office and to be considered as his pupil. For this privilege a fee of £20 was usually demanded. Apart from the Éclat which was supposed to be attached to the position of a student under a popular physician, and the belief of the possibility of the patron being able to forward the interests of his pupils, there were, as a rule, few advantages derived from this association. It is true that in exceptional cases, if the physician had a large clientele and took a warm interest in his students, he could, by arranging their studies, occasionally examining them on the work done, and directing them in the routine of office work, be of material assistance to them. The office work of a physician in large practice, however, offered an excellent opportunity to acquire much practical knowledge. As, with few exceptions, physicians prescribed and dispensed their own medicines, the articled student had the opportunity of making up all the prescriptions. He compounded pills, a variety of which were always kept prepared for use, and he made the different tinctures and ointments. He had the privilege, also, of assisting at minor surgical operations, such as were performed in the office, of making physical examinations, of applying tests; in short, office practice offered the same facilities for acquiring practical knowledge, although in a minor degree, that the outdoor practice of a hospital or the practice of a dispensary affords....”

The recreations of students who dwelt in the College or its vicinity were few and simple. There were no athletic teams or athletic games. Indeed, the number of students in Arts and Law was scarcely sufficient to permit the forming of athletic teams, and the medical students were too busy all day and were too far from the College grounds to take an active part in college sports. There was no gymnasium and no physical instruction. There were no fraternities other than the fraternity of McGill itself. There was no Union, no Y. M. C. A. On evenings in spring and summer a military band usually played near the “ornamental bridge” over the stream in “the hollow” near the present Physics building. Citizens came up from the City to listen to the band, and before the Easter term ended students, too, enjoyed the music. The College grounds were long used by citizens as a park. The students seemed to have had an occasional dance during the spring term, and at times there were receptions in Professors' rooms to which students were invited. Later in the “fifties,” after the coming of Principal Dawson, other forms of entertainment were added. Of these Dr. Dawson wrote: “Evening gatherings at regular intervals during the session were arranged, and cards of invitation for these were sent to the different classes or years in rotation. At such gatherings there was usually music, sometimes a short recitation or address on some topic of interest, and scientific instruments, specimens and photographs were shown, simple refreshments provided, and every effort made to cause those who attended to feel thoroughly at home.” Sometimes there were gatherings which took the form of what were known as “conversaziones,” during which conversation, supposedly on literary or scientific subjects, but more frequently on less dignified topics, took the place of the dances of to-day.

On the whole, college life in the mid-century was characterised by a Spartan simplicity. The students of that period seemingly enjoyed its somewhat humble joys and its unostentatious and frugal amusements. Life in that time was, at least, not artificial or luxurious or competitive or sectional; but whether the plain living of the period was more conducive to high thinking than the multifarious student activities of a later day cannot here be answered.