Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 11.djvu/853

 DRIFT TOWARD EDUCATIONAL UNITY 837

Prinicpal J. P. Sheraton, of Wycliffe College (Low Angli- can), speaks in these words of the Toronto plan:

The plan followed here has worked very successfully. We secure for our students all the advantages of the university the broadening of view and enlarging of sympathy which come from contact with some two thousand students in arts, medicine, and theology, .... the equipment in arts and all the facilities which a great university like that of Toronto is able to give.

The Catholics find the Toronto plan as satisfactory as do the Protestants. Rev. D. Cushing, of St. Michael's College (Cath- olic), says:

I believe the Catholic students of this province who have made, or are making, a university course in Toronto, are pleased with the plan of affilia- tion adopted here. If you are contemplating any arrangement of this kind, I should advise you not to drop the project too hastily on account of any apparent difficulties. I do not at all consider it a hindrance to us to be located so close to other denominational colleges.

The Toronto plan is clearly a demonstrated success, finan- cially, educationally, and morally. The same plan is being car- ried out in Montreal, Winnipeg, and in the other provinces. In Montreal there are four affiliated denominational colleges. William Peterson (of Oxford University), principal of McGill University, Montreal, pronounces the Canadian idea of co-opera- tion "quite a success." "For myself," he says, "I am all for con- solidation." From the Atlantic to the Pacific this idea of friendly solution of the problem of higher education prevails in Canada.

IV. BEGINNINGS IN THE UNITED STATES

Beginnings of co-operation have at last been made in the United States, although we have been slow about it. Thomas Jefferson was father of the idea of co-operation between church and state university. In his letter to Dr. Cooper, November 2, 1822. concerning the University of Virginia, he advocated the establishment of schools of theology in connection with this in- stitution. His idea was that each religious denomination of the state should be encouraged to "establish a professorship of its own . . . ., preserving, however, independence of the university and of each other." He made this recommendation in order to