that in which we are now assembled, [the Peter Redpath Museum], is far
in advance of all the others, and a presage of the college buildings of
the future. We have five chairs endowed by private benefactors, fourteen
endowed scholarships and exhibitions, besides others of a temporary
nature, and eight endowed gold medals. More than this, we have sent out
about 1,200 graduates, of whom more than a thousand are occupying
positions of usefulness and honour in this country."

[Illustration: _Sir William Macdonald_]

This final period of Principal Dawson's work saw a sure and steady
advancement and many changes in the University. Among the evidences of
growth were the establishment of courses for women in 1884, with their
extension in 1886; the addition of the Medical Building in 1886, and its
still further enlargement in 1893; the endowment of several chairs; the
increase in the teaching staff; the establishment of scholarships and
exhibitions; the creation of new courses, and the plans for new and
much-needed buildings. In 1886 the Vice-Principal, the Rev. Dr. Leach,
retired after over forty years of service. He was succeeded as
Vice-Principal by Dr. Alexander Johnson, Professor of Mathematics.
Towards the close of this period the Faculty of Applied Science, which
had been established as a separate school in 1878, was placed, at last,
on an independent foundation--after its many trials and struggles--by
the munificent gifts of Thomas Workman and William C. Macdonald,
afterwards Sir William Macdonald, a native of Prince Edward Island.
Preparations were made for the erection of Science buildings with
adequate equipment and endowment. In February, 1893, a few months before
Sir William Dawson's resignation of the Principalship, two buildings for
the Faculty of Applied Science were opened--the Macdonald Engineering
Building, including the Workman wing, and the Macdonald Physics
Building, the equipment and facilities of which soon afterwards enabled
Professor Ernest Rutherford to carry on his experiments in
radioactivity. Meanwhile the Library in Molson Hall had become totally
inadequate for the volumes and documents that had been gathered by the
University. Peter Redpath, who had already given the Museum, was now the
Senior Governor of the University. On November 12, he wrote to the
Chancellor enclosing plans of a projected library and proposing to
commence building operations early in the following spring. The building
was pra