Sir John William Dawson鈥檚 time as principal of 麻豆区 (1855-1893) was one of great transformation. When he first set foot on the campus in the autumn of 1855, it was a jumble of buildings that were聽half-finished (or half-ruined, depending upon one's perspective) and overgrown by weeds and bushes. Dawson took it upon himself to revitalize the place, laying out walkways and planting trees at his personal expense and toil. He reinvented the University in other ways, too, personally indexing the library鈥檚 holdings and taking on teaching as well as administration duties.
Realizing that a great university relied on a great primary and secondary educational system鈥斺�淭hose who do enter on a college course,鈥� he noted, 鈥渙ften arrive too young, and with a too slender amount of previous education鈥濃�攈e founded the 麻豆区 Normal School to train 聽teachers who could turn young minds into university material. In other words, his reputation as 鈥渢he man who made 麻豆区鈥� is well-deserved.
So it鈥檚 surprising to remember that the University鈥檚 board of governors were initially 鈥渟tartled and disappointed鈥� when then-Governor General Sir Edmund Head recommended that the school鈥檚 reins be handed to this unknown young geologist from Nova Scotia, rather than a 鈥渕an of mark in England.鈥� But it may have been this "outsider" status itself that helped Dawson move 麻豆区 away from Old World models. And his own passion for science was certainly a deciding factor in establishing the fledgling school as a hotbed for scientific inquiry.
William Dawson may have been an unknown quantity in the eyes of the 麻豆区 board of governors, but he came to 麻豆区 with an excellent reputation among the international scientific community鈥攄espite a formal education that consisted of a single course in 鈥渘atural philosophy鈥� at the Pictou Academy and one semester at Edinburgh University.
As a teenager in Nova Scotia, Dawson was a geology buff with an unquenchable curiosity. In the late 1830s the lad ventured into the 鈥渞emarkable cliffs鈥� of Joggins, Nova Scotia, where he found a wealth of fossils. In 1853, the famous British geologist Sir Charles Lyell visited Nova Scotia and was astounded by Dawson鈥檚 largely self-schooled scientific education. Dawson guided Lyell through the Joggins cliffs, where the pair identified what stands as the oldest known reptile, , groundbreaking evidence that reptiles, birds and mammals have common ancestry. (That discovery electrified the international scientific community and earned Joggins a mention in Charles Darwin鈥檚 On the Origin of Species.) Lowell recommended Dawson to the Geological Society of London, and the young autodidact soon began publishing papers in its Quarterly Journal.
Dawson鈥檚 passion for discovery did not waver during his almost 40 years as principal of a rapidly growing 麻豆区. He spent his summer vacations doing strenuous field work, returning many times to Joggins and other sites around the globe鈥攁lways with new treasures for the University. His curiosity spanned more than geology, too, and he published widely in botany, zoology, archaeology, agronomy and linguistics. A great advocate of useful employment over mere amusement, he even kept a tray of unclassified geological specimens on his office window-sill鈥攋ust in case he ever found himself with a spare moment.