e "actual working of the College"
had yet to be commenced. In answer, it was resolved that "in the opinion
of Corporation it is expedient that a College be _built_ before the 29th
of June next on the Burnside Estate as the surest means of securing the
bequest of the late Mr. McGill." But the bequest had already been
secured; it had been paid over to the Royal Institution in December,
1837! Notwithstanding the Board's decision, the Governors insisted on
the erection of a building before the 29th of the following June. The
amended Charter had not yet been approved. There was still provision
only for four professorships, and these had been filled by the members
of the Medical School. Only one of them was now vacant. Until the
Charter was approved, then, and provision made for the appointment of
more professors, the building erected could only be occupied mainly by
Medical teachers. In December, 1838, the Royal Institution again
recorded their opposition to the Governors' desire for "the hasty
erection in a few weeks of a building adapted only for instruction in
Medical Science." They expressed their belief "that the first proper and
most pressing measure to be adopted in execution of the plain expression
of the testator's will and of the Charter is to commence forthwith a
course of general instruction in the ordinary branches of a learned
Collegiate education in the buildings now erected on the Burnside
Estate." They added that "they see no difficulty in accomplishing this
object before it would be possible to commence the erection of a new
building, and they are of opinion that it would be a nearer approach to
a real performance of the testator's intentions than the attempt to run
up a new building before the 29th of June, next, which even if it could
be finished by that time would not deserve the name of a University."
They did not consider that the terms "erect" and "establish" used in the
will "could with any propriety be interpreted as meaning the erection
of a material building." They declared that it was undoubtedly the
testator's intention to establish an institution for collegiate
education; they expressed their determination to apply the funds first
of all to the payment of "a Principal and of such Professors as may be
required, and to proceed in due course with the erection of a more
extensive building than even that suggested by the Governors."

To this the Governors would not agree; they urged that a decision o