Manual labour is servitude. A day of idleness is a holy day. For those whose means do not permit to live in idleness the school is the only refuge; but they must prove their quality. This is the goal which drives many Scotch boys to the University, scorning delights and willing to live long, mind-laborious days.

John McCrae's father felt bound "to give the boy a chance," but the boy must pass the test. The test in such cases is the Shorter Catechism, that compendium of all intellectual argument. How the faithful aspirant for the school acquires this body of written knowledge at a time when he has not yet learned the use of letters is a secret not to be lightly disclosed. It may indeed be that already his education is complete. Upon the little book is always printed the table of multiples, so that the obvious truth which is comprised in the statement, "two by two makes four", is imputed to the contents which are within the cover. In studying the table the catechism is learned surreptitiously, and therefore without self-consciousness.

So, in this well ordered family with its atmosphere of obedience, we may see the boy, like a youthful Socrates going about with a copy of the book in his hand, enquiring of those, who could already read, not alone what were the answers to the questions but the very questions themselves to which an answer was demanded.

This learning, however, was only a minor part of life, since upon a farm life is very wide and very deep. In due time the school was accomplished, and there was a master in the school--let his name be recorded--William Tytler, who had a feeling for English writing and a desire to extend that feeling to others.

In due time also the question of a University arose. There was a man in Canada named Dawson--Sir William Dawson. I have written of him in another place. He had the idea that a university had something to do with the formation of character, and that in the formation of character religion had a part. He was principal of McGill. I am not saying that all boys who entered that University were religious boys when they went in, or even religious men when they came out; but religious fathers had a general desire to place their boys under Sir William Dawson's care.

Those were the days of a queer, and now forgotten, controversy over what was called "Science and Religion". Of that also I have written in another place. It was left to Sir William Dawson to deliver the last word in defence of a cause that was already lost. His book came under the eye of David McCrae, as most books of the time did, and he was troubled in his heart. His boys were at the University of Toronto. It was too late; but he eased his mind by writing a letter. To this letter John replies under date 20th December, 1890: "You say that after reading Dawson's book you almost regretted that we had not gone to McGill. That, I consider, would have been rather a calamity, about as much so as going to Queen's." We are not always wiser than our fathers were, and in the end he came to McGill after all.

For good or ill, John McCrae entered the University of Toronto in 1888, with a scholarship for "general proficiency". He joined the Faculty of Arts, took the honours course in natural sciences, and graduated from the department of biology in 1894, his course having been interrupted by two severe illnesses. From natural science, it was an easy step to medicine, in which he was encouraged by Ramsay Wright, A. B. Macallum, A. McPhedran, and I. H. Cameron. In 1898 he graduated again, with a gold medal, and a scholarship in physiology and pathology.