hould also be permission given for the
granting of Honorary degrees. The Visitatorial duties and powers of the
Royal Institution should be more clearly defined. "The Board," the
letter stated, "also think it important, seeing that the declared object
of the Royal Charter was the promotion of true religion, that the body
of the Governors should be Protestants, and they beg leave also to call
the particular attention of your Excellency to the necessity of
introducing some provision into the amended Charter for requiring not
only the Principal, Vice-Principal and Professors, and all others
engaged in the instruction of youth in the University, but also the
Governors themselves before being admitted to office, to make and
subscribe a declaration of their belief in the Holy Scriptures as the
Word of God, and in the doctrine of the Trinity of persons in the
Godhead, as held by orthodox Protestant Churches."

To the majority of these suggestions the Governors agreed. But they
denied the right of the members of the Board to exercise so great a
power as such suggestions, if carried out, would give them. They
protested against the necessity of having appointments ratified by the
Crown. There was a rapid cross-fire of correspondence to the
Governor-General, in which the various suggestions were presented and
answered by each of the contending parties. But into the details of this
long-continued and at times bitter correspondence it is unnecessary here
further to enter. Meanwhile the Charter waited.

In the autumn of 1839, the Medical School was in need of funds. They
appealed to the Governors. The Governors had no money, but they voted
L500, and on September 19th, they applied to the Royal Institution for a
grant of that amount "in order to enable them to commence a course of
Medical Instruction." The Board refused in the following letter
forwarded on October 12th: "The Board resolve with regret that they
cannot give sanction to this vote of the Governors, as they conceive
themselves bound in the first instance to apply the means at their
disposal for purposes of general instruction, and those means are so
limited as to render it impossible to grant the sum demanded by the
Medical Faculty without sacrificing general to one branch of
professional education.... The Board are, however, fully aware of the
advantages to McGill College and to the public generally which the
proposed course of Medical lectures cannot fail to be attended