ertainment 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.

CHAPTER IX

SIR WILLIAM DAWSON AND THE MAKING OF MCGILL

James McGill made his will, providing for the founding of McGill
College, on January 8th, 1811, two years before his death. He was
dreaming of a great University which would rise at some distant but
certain day in the new land of his adoption. He was doubtless dreaming,
too, of a strong personality who would guide the University to its
destined place in the country in which he had made his fortune and in
which he had unbounded faith. At that very time another Scotchman,
twenty-two years of age, was dreaming in his home in Banffshire--also,
by a strange coincidence, the home of James McGill's ancestors--of the
land beyond the horizon from which tales of fortune and happiness came
drifting across the ocean. He was a Liberal in politics and a dissenter
in religion. His independent spirit was revolting against conditions in
his own land. It was not easy to sever the ties which bound him to the
old home and to venture alone into an unknown and far-off country. But
the new land was calling, and its lure was upon him. He resolved to go
to Canada where he had heard that all things were possible to the
courageous and the industrious, and where men lived a man's life based