The Founding Moment

An incisive look at the founding of Trinity College, explaining the reasons it was founded, the social, religious, and cultural character it assumed, and the problems it encountered over its first thirty years.

In The Founding Moment William Westfall details the founding of Trinity College, telling the story of an important group of Anglicans who tried to respond creatively to the powerful social forces reshaping English-speaking Canada in the middle of the nineteenth century.He explores the motives, goals, and social and religious ideas that were behind the creation of this important institution of higher education, explaining the reasons Trinity was founded, the role it played in Canadian society, and the way its founding doctrines were transformed into a functioning college. He also challenges the social and educational views of the founders, giving voice to those who did not share the founders' vision and criticized the course the college was determined to pursue. These dissenting voices help us understand the problems the new college faced and the steps a new generation of leadership would take to point the college in a new direction, and define a very different relationship with the modern world.