He was educated at the Pictou Academy and the anti-burgher seminary in West River in Nova Scotia, and, from 1853 to 1860, in Scotland at the University of Glasgow, where he had a brilliant academic career.

Grant threw the whole weight of his great influence in favour of Canadian confederation, and his oratory played an important part in securing the success of the movement.

He never lost an opportunity, whether in the pulpit or on the platform, of pressing on his listeners that the greatest future for Canada lay in unity with the rest of the British Empire; and his broad statesmanlike judgment made him an authority which politicians of all parties were glad to consult.

He attracted to it an exceptionally able body of professors, whose influence in speculation and research was widely felt during the quarter of a century that he remained at its head.

On the outbreak of the Second Boer War in 1899, Grant was at first disposed to be hostile to the policy of British Prime Minister Lord Salisbury and Joseph Chamberlain; but his eyes were soon opened to the real nature of President Paul Kruger's government, and he enthusiastically welcomed and supported the national feeling which sent men from the outlying portions of the British Empire to assist in defeating the South African Republic and the Orange Free State.

[3] Late in 1901, while lying ill in Kingston General Hospital, Grant was visited by the Duke of Cornwall and York, the future King George V, who was touring Canada following the death of Queen Victoria earlier that year.