Читать книгу The Canadian Portrait Gallery - Volume 3 (of 4) - Dent John Charles - Страница 10

PRESIDENT OF VICTORIA UNIVERSITY, COBOURG

Dr. Nelles's life, like that of most men of purely scholastic pursuits, has been comparatively uneventful, and does not form a very fruitful field for biographical purposes. It has, however, been an eminently useful one, and has been attended with results most beneficial to the educational establishment with which his name has long been associated, and over which he has presided for a continuous period of thirty years. He is of German descent, on both the paternal and maternal sides. His paternal grandparents emigrated from Germany to the State of New York sometime during the last century, and settled in the historic valley of the Mohawk, where some of their descendants still reside. There Dr. Nelles's father, the late Mr. William Nelles, was born, and there he passed the early years of his life. He married Miss Mary Hardy, who was also of German stock on the mother's side, and was born in the State of Pennsylvania. By this lady he had a numerous family, the eldest son being the subject of this sketch. The parents emigrated from New York State to Upper Canada soon after the close of the War of 1812-15, and devoted themselves to farming pursuits. The Doctor was born at the family homestead, in the quiet little village of Mount Pleasant — known to the Post Office Department as Mohawk — in what is now the township of Brantford, in the county of Brant, about five miles south-west of the present city of Brantford, on the 17th of October, 1823. At the present day, the schools of Mount Pleasant will bear comparison with those of many places of much larger population; but fifty years ago, when young Samuel Nelles was in attendance there, they were like most other schools in the rural districts of Upper Canada — that is to say, they afforded no facilities for anything beyond a very rudimentary educational training. Such as they were, however, they furnished the only means of instruction at his command until he had entered upon his seventeenth year. Previous to that time he had lived at home, attending school and assisting his father in farm work. He had, however, displayed great fondness for study, and had, by dint of his natural ability and steady application, made greater progress than could have been made by any boy who was not possessed by an ardent thirst for knowledge. His parents accordingly resolved that he should have an opportunity of following out the natural bent of his mind. In 1839 he was placed at Lewiston Academy, in the State of New York, where he spent an industrious year, and where he had for a tutor the brilliant, witty and humorous John Godfrey Saxe. Mr. Saxe was not then known to the world as a poet, but he was an accomplished philologist, and was reading for the Bar. He had just graduated at Middlebury College, Vermont, and was teaching belles-lettres in the Lewiston Academy contemporaneously with the prosecution of his legal studies. In October, 1840, young Nelles transferred himself to an academy at Fredonia, in Chautauqua county, N.Y., where he remained ten months. In the following October (1841) he entered the Genesee Wesleyan Seminary, at Lima, N.Y., where he devoted his time chiefly to Classics, Mathematics, English Literature and Criticism. Having spent a profitable year at Lima, he entered Victoria College, Cobourg — which was then under the Presidency of the Rev. Egerton Ryerson — in the autumn of 1842. He was one of the first two matriculated students at the institution, which had just been incorporated as a University. After an Arts course of two years at Victoria College, and a year spent in study at home, he attended for some time at the University of Middletown, Connecticut, where he graduated as B.A. in 1846. He then spent a year as a teacher in Canada, and took charge of the Newburgh Academy, in the county of Lennox. In June, 1847, he entered the ministry of the Wesleyan Methodist Church, and was placed in charge of a congregation at Port Hope, where he remained for a year. He was then transferred to the old Adelaide Street Church, Toronto, where he laboured for two years. Thence he was transferred to London, but had only resided there about three months when, in the month of September, 1850, he was appointed President of Victoria College. This important and responsible position he has held ever since.

At the time of his taking office, the institution was by no means in a flourishing condition. It was carried on under circumstances of great difficulty and embarrassment, and had a competent administrator not been found to take charge of it, its future would have been very problematical. An improvement in its condition, however, was perceptible from the time when Mr. Nelles took the management. It has continued to prosper ever since, and has long ago taken rank among the most noteworthy educational institutions in the Dominion. At the time of Professor Nelles's appointment there was only a single Faculty — Arts — and the attendance was very small. The teachers were only five in number. The Professor's vigorous administration soon effected a marked change for the better. In 1854 the Faculty of Medicine was added. It at first embraced only one medical college, which was presided over for many years by the late Dr. Rolph. In process of time a second institution, L'École de Médecine et de Chirurgie, Montreal, became affiliated, and still continues to hold the same relationship to the University. A Law Faculty was added in 1862, and in 1872 a Faculty of Theology.

When Professor Nelles became President he at the same time became Professor of Mental and Moral Philosophy, Logic, and the Evidences of Religion. These subjects he has continued to teach ever since, with the addition, since 1872, of Homiletics. He has devoted his life to the task of building up the institution, and has been ably seconded by the staff of teachers whom he has from time to time gathered about him. Until comparatively recent times there was no endowment fund, and the College had to depend for its support solely on tuition fees, on the annual contributions of the ministers and people of the Wesleyan Methodist Body, and on a Parliamentary grant which Victoria College, in common with other denominational schools, had been wont to receive. After Confederation, all grants to denominational colleges were discontinued, and Victoria College was left almost entirely unprovided for. At a meeting of the Methodist Conference it was proposed by President Nelles that an appeal should be made to the people for contributions to an endowment fund. The proposal was adopted by the Conference, and the Rev. Dr. Punshon, who was then resident in Canada, took an active personal interest in the movement. He contributed $3,000 out of his own pocket, and made a personal tour through part of Ontario, holding public meetings, whereby a sum of $50,000 was secured. Several other Methodist ministers followed his example, and the fund steadily increased. In 1873, however, the amount was still insufficient, and the Rev. Joshua H. Johnson was appointed by the Conference to make further collections. Mr. Johnson entered upon his task, and pursued it with great vigour. His efforts were supplemented by a munificent bequest of $30,000 from the late Mr. Edward Jackson, of Hamilton. The requisite amount was eventually obtained, and the future of Victoria College secured.

The erection of Faraday Hall, at a cost of $25,000, chiefly for Scientific purposes, marks a new epoch in the history of Victoria College. This Hall was formally opened on the 29th of May, 1878. Dr. Haanel, a distinguished German Professor, was placed in charge of the scientific department, and the results of his teaching are already apparent in an awakened interest in scientific matters displayed by the students of the College.

Upon the whole, Dr. Nelles may well be pardoned if he looks back upon his thirty years' Presidency of Victoria College with a considerable degree of complacency. To him, more than to anyone else, is due its present state of prosperity and enlarged efficiency. He has also taken a warm interest in educational matters unconnected with the College, and his influence is perceptibly felt in all the local schools. He was for two successive years elected President of the Teachers' Association of Ontario, and his views on all matters pertaining to public instruction are held in high respect.

Dr. Nelles was chosen a delegate to represent the Canadian Conference at the General Methodist Conference held at Philadelphia in 1864, at the New Brunswick Conference of 1866, and at the English Wesleyan Conference held at Newcastle in 1873. The degree of Doctor of Divinity was conferred upon him by the University of Queen's College, Kingston, in 1860. His Doctor's degree in Law was conferred upon him in 1873 by the University of Victoria College. He is the author of a popular text-book on Logic, and has frequently contributed to periodical literature. He enjoys high repute as a lecturer, more especially on educational subjects; and his sermons, some of which have been published, are said to be of an exceptionally high order.

On the 3rd of July, 1851, he married Miss Mary B. Wood, daughter of the Rev. Enoch Wood, of Toronto, by whom he has a family of five children.