He was also in attendance, in 1888, at the Lambeth Conference, was the guest of the Archbishop at Lambeth Palace, and assisted at the consecration of two Bishops. With the Lord Bishop of Peterborough, he was presenter of one of them,--the Rev. Dr. Thicknesse, consecrated Bishop Suffragan of Leicester, in the Diocese of Peterborough.
The enthusiasm with which Bishop Quintard, immediately after his consecration, took up and pushed forward whatever promised to be of spiritual benefit to the people of the South, was characteristic of the man. Especially attractive to him was the scheme set forth in the address by Bishop Polk to the Bishops of the Southern Dioceses, published in 1856, emphasizing the importance of building up an educational institution upon broad foundations, for the promotion of social order, civil justice, and Christian truth; to be centrally located within the Southern States. The scheme had been formulated and developed by its projector and originator, Bishop Polk; and "The University of the South" was duly organized in 1857. A liberal charter was secured from the State of Tennessee; title was acquired to a domain of nearly ten thousand acres of land upon the top of Sewanee Mountain; the corner-stone of a main college building was laid; and pledges of an endowment amounting to half a million of dollars were obtained before the war broke out.
In the fall of 1865, before his election to the Episcopate, Dr. Quintard met upon a train between Nashville and Columbia, the Rev. David Pise, a prominent presbyter of the Diocese of Tennessee, and Secretary of the Board of Trustees of The University of the South as it was organized before the war. On the same train was Major George R. Fairbanks, of Florida, a lay Trustee on said Board. The conversation of these three gentlemen was upon the proposed University. The magnificent domain secured for that institution, it was asserted, would revert to its donors unless the proposed University were in operation within ten years of the date of the donation, that is, in 1868. Dr. Quintard pledged himself not only to save the domain, but to revive the scheme for the University and to establish such an institution of learning as Bishop Polk, Bishop Otey, and others had in view when The University of the South was organized in 1857.