Law had
one professor and two lecturers; and the Faculty of Medicine had nine
professors. The annual calendar for the previous session, 1854-55,
announced that "the board and lodging of students is a matter of much
practical importance. From fifteen to twenty [Arts and Law students] may
be received by the Professors resident in the College buildings and
provision will be made when necessary for the reception of others into
boarding houses, licensed by the Governors, upon settled economical
terms and subject to proper rules of discipline and conduct." Medical
students, it was pointed out, "could obtain board and lodging in the
town for from eight to sixteen dollars a month." It was clear that the
attendance would rapidly increase in succeeding years, and that
provision must at once be made for their accommodation and instruction.
The greatest hindrance to advancement was of course lack of funds.

The actual condition of the University at that time and the obstacles to
be overcome were afterwards frequently described by Sir William Dawson,
whose reminiscences of the period were always vivid:

"When I accepted the principalship of McGill," he said, "I had not been
in Montreal, and knew the college and the men connected with it only by
reputation. I first saw it, in October, 1855. Materially, it was
represented by two blocks of unfinished and partly ruinous buildings,
standing amid a wilderness of excavators' and masons' rubbish, overgrown
with weeds and bushes. The grounds were unfenced and were pastured at
will by herds of cattle, which not only cropped the grass, but browsed
on the shrubs, leaving unhurt only one great elm, which still stands as
the 'founder's tree,' and a few old oaks and butternut trees, most of
which have had to give place to our new buildings. The only access from
the town was by a circuitous and ungraded cart track, almost impassable
at night. The buildings had been abandoned by the new Board, and the
classes of the Faculty of Arts were held in the upper story of a brick
building in the town, the lower part of which was occupied by the High
School. I had been promised a residence, and this, I found, was to be a
portion of one of the detached buildings aforesaid, the present east
wing. It had been very imperfectly finished, was destitute of nearly
every requisite of civilised life, and in front of it was a bank of
rubbish and loose stones, with a swamp below, while the interior was in
an indescriba