| <tab>Charles R. Sinclair remembered that “At the close of the Bethel Hill seminary’s first term the teacher Colin McKercher and his pupils had a social,” and that they held a debate, perhaps at the social, on the merits of the married versus the single life. He adds also that the students at the seminary “came from the surrounding country some fifteen miles, but boarded in the neighbourhood.” Ralph Connor (C. W. Gordon) remembered from the Fenian Raid alarm of 1866, “the surprising arrival of Colin McKerracher [sic], who was studying for the ministry, resplendent in his new uniform, to bid us farewell on his way to the front.” The military exercises at the seminary no doubt reflected the Fenian threat of the period, and McKercher’s own interest in the militia. | <tab>Charles R. Sinclair remembered that “At the close of the Bethel Hill seminary’s first term the teacher Colin McKercher and his pupils had a social,” and that they held a debate, perhaps at the social, on the merits of the married versus the single life. He adds also that the students at the seminary “came from the surrounding country some fifteen miles, but boarded in the neighbourhood.” Ralph Connor (C. W. Gordon) remembered from the Fenian Raid alarm of 1866, “the surprising arrival of Colin McKerracher [sic], who was studying for the ministry, resplendent in his new uniform, to bid us farewell on his way to the front.” The military exercises at the seminary no doubt reflected the Fenian threat of the period, and McKercher’s own interest in the militia. |
| <tab>Despite the above reference to Toronto in the //Witness//, Colin McKercher was evidently never a student at the University of Toronto. However, he did attend the Toronto Normal School in the session Nov. 1854-May 1855. An 1898 publication of the school gives the following information (copied completely here): “McKerchar [sp. thus], Colin: Taught in public schools in Victoria, Ontario, Glengarry, Essex, Stormont, Middlesex and Oxford Counties, and in a private academy in Glengarry–over twenty years in all; studied for the Presbyterian Ministry, and has spent over five years in home mission work in Manitoba, Algoma and Argenteuil.” He was apparently a primary schoolteacher in Cornwall in the 1870s. Nothing further has been discovered about his career. It is to be regretted that the seminary did not develop into a college, similar perhaps to the private academies so important in the education of national and local leaders in the 19th-century United States. See also Angus MacMillan, the farmer and diarist, for what appears to be a reference to a woman student at the seminary. | <tab>Despite the above reference to Toronto in the //Witness//, Colin McKercher was evidently never a student at the University of Toronto. However, he did attend the Toronto Normal School in the session Nov. 1854-May 1855. An 1898 publication of the school gives the following information (copied completely here): “McKerchar [sp. thus], Colin: Taught in public schools in Victoria, Ontario, Glengarry, Essex, Stormont, Middlesex and Oxford Counties, and in a private academy in Glengarry–over twenty years in all; studied for the Presbyterian Ministry, and has spent over five years in home mission work in Manitoba, Algoma and Argenteuil.” He was apparently a primary schoolteacher in Cornwall in the 1870s. Nothing further has been discovered about his career. It is to be regretted that the seminary did not develop into a college, similar perhaps to the private academies so important in the education of national and local leaders in the 19th-century United States. See also [[macmillan_angus|Angus MacMillan]], the farmer and diarist, for what appears to be a reference to a woman student at the seminary. |
