Bridge Built Halfway: A History of Memorial University College, 1925-1950 9780773562493

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A Bridge Built Halfway

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A Bridge Built Halfway A History of Memorial University College, 1925-1950 MALCOLM

MACLEOD

McGill-Queen's University Press Montreal & Kingston • London • Buffalo

©McGill-Queen's University Press 1990 ISBN 0-7735-0761-2 Legal deposit fourth quarter 1990 Bibliotheque nationale du Quebec

Printed in Canada on acid-free paper This book has been published with the help of a grant from the Social Science Federation of Canada, using funds provided by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada and with assistance from Memorial University of Newfoundland.

Canadian Cataloguing in Publication Data MacLeod, Malcolm A bridge built halfway Includes bibliographical references. ISBN 0-7735-0761-2 i. Memorial University College — History. I. Title. LE3.N45M32 1990

378.718'!'09

090-090275-2

This book was set in 10/12 Baskerville by Q Composition

- Pyrrhus, Sir, Pyrrhus a pier. - Tell me now, Stephen said, poking the boy's shoulder with the book, what is a pier. - A pier, sir, Armstrong said. A thing out in the waves. A kind of a bridge. Kingstown pier, sir. - Kingstown pier, Stephen said. Yes, a disappointed bridge. James Joyce, Ulysses

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To my sisters, in gratitude for a lifetime of affection and support Mora Andrews, San Francisco Joan Gibson, Halifax Marlene Whiston, Flinton, Ontario

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Contents

Tables xi Preface xiii Illustrations xvi 1

NEWFOUNDLAND AND HIGHER EDUCATION,

1890-1925 3 Council of Higher Education. Second-year Lectures. Ecumenical Experiments. Roman Catholic Reorientation. Maritimes University Federation. A Monument. American Financial Aid. English Headmaster. Context: Newfoundland. 2 A STUDENT PROFILE 35

Home Address. Religion. Sex and Age. Class Background. Going to College? 3 STUDIES 60 Core. Engineering. Household Science. Education. Agriculture. A Whole-person College. Forestry, Law, Library Science. Academic Standards. Liberal Education Versus Vocationalism. 4 STAFFING

83

Nationality. Academic Credentials. Religious Affiliation. Equal Opportunity. Dismissals and Academic Freedom. Salary Scales. Contracts. Sabbatical Leave. Pension Plan. Sick Leave. Workloads. Rank and Promotion.

x Contents 5

COLLEGE LIFE

105

The Academic Routine. Studies. Student Organizations.

6 SPIRIT 126 Regulation of Student Life. Community. In Place of Parents. Research. Remembering Memorial. 7

THE SOCIOECONOMIC BACKGROUND,

1925-50 148

Decline. Despair. Defence. Stages of College Development. 8

GOWN AND TOWN(s): NEWFOUNDLAND, ST JOHN'S, CANADA, AND MEMORIAL COLLEGE l66

Relations with St John's. Outreach. Relations with Newfoundland. Relations with Canada. 9 GOVERNANCE 188

Policy-Makers. Relationships. Finances. Status. 10 AFFILIATIONS AT HOME AND ABROAD 217

Normal School. Summer School. St John's Colleges. Universities Abroad. 1 1 AFTER

MUC

240

Further Studies. Subsequent Careers. Alumni. 12 AN OVERVIEW — PAST AND PRESENT 254

7925, 1950, 1985. Confederation. Memorial in the Context of Newfoundland's Development.

Appendixes 265 Notes 309 Bibliography 353 Index 365

Tables

1 Number of Newfoundlanders Studying Abroad, 1890-1925 33 2 Participation Rate of Newfoundland Students at Memorial University College, 1925-5° 36 3 Enrolment at Eastern Canadian Universities, 1925—47 37 4 Location of Home Address for Students Entering Memorial University College, in Academic Years 1928, 1938, 1948 38 5 Home Address Homogeneity at Memorial University College Contrasted with Dalhousie and Mount Allison 40 6 Health of Memorial University College students, 1944 42 7 Religious Affilation of Students Entering Memorial University College, in Academic Years 1928, 1938, 1948 45 8 Sex and Average Age of Students Entering Memorial University College, in Academic Years 1928, 1938, 1948 47 9 Apparent Socioeconomic Class of Students Entering Memorial University College in 1928, 1938, 1948 53 10 Fathers' Occupations-Students entering Memorial University College in 1938 54 11 Programs Chosen by Students Entering Memorial University College, Academic Years 1928, 1938, 1948 57

xii Tables

12 Number of Courses in the Core Program (Arts and Science Faculty), of Four Atlantic Region Institutions, 1938-39 64 13 Degrees Held by Scholars when Appointed to the Faculty of Newfoundland Memorial University College, 1925—50 88 14 Academic Record of Students Entering Memorial University College in Academic Years 1928, 1938, 1948 115 15 Final Term Academic Results of Students Who Entered Memorial University College in 1928, 1938, 1948 116 16 Percentage of Students Who Passed Their Full Course (Midterm Examinations 1948-49) 117 17 SRC Accounts 1935—36 124 18 Night Courses, 1932—33 170 19 Night Courses, 1945-46 171 20 Memorial Outreach by Radio, 1935 181 21 Newfoundland Government's Financial Commitment to Postsecondary Institutions, 1922-49 201 22 Percentage of Memorial College Revenue from Principal Sources 202 23 Summer School Courses, 1938 223 24 Three-Year Program for Theology Students, Courses in the Queen'sMemorial Affiliations, 1939 229 25 Places of Further Study by Memorial College Graduates, 1926—48 247 26 Careers Chosen by Memorial Graduates Who Studied Abroad 250 27 Brain Drain? Rate of Return to Newfoundland of Memorial Graduates Who Studied Abroad 251 28 Some Measures of University Development, 1925, 1950, 1985 255 29 The 1948 Confederation Issue: Memorial University College Graduates Contrasted with All Newfoundland 260

Preface

In the early1980s the main purpose of my research was to investigate various kinds of connections between Newfoundland and Canada prior to confederation in 1949. One interesting pattern I found concerned university students. I discovered that throughout the whole first half of the twentieth century Newfoundlanders seeking higher education had to go abroad and that the great majority of them went to Canada. Among this group were diploma-holders from Memorial University College. I decided that I would use these exstudents as a resource and see what I could learn about Newfoundland's links with foreign countries by systematically quizzing them on their upbringing, education, and life's work. It was inevitable, I suppose, that my interest would continually be directed to the common thread which linked my informants, their studies at Memorial. I surrendered to the attraction of this topic, and the project took on a life of its own - like the institution whose history, I came to realize, was waiting to be written. To the oral history I was collecting, I added the usual task of mastering the documentary and published sources for a university history. This enabled me to describe, in addition to the student-centred social history which was my first interest, Memorial's curriculum, staffing, governance, and affiliations in the context of a grim but challenging time in Newfoundland's life. The principal conclusion of the study is that the disappointingly slow development of Memorial College in the period 1925-50 faithfully mirrored Newfoundland's socioeconomic and constitutional difficulties at that time. The Canadian connection also persisted as a genuinely important theme, for example, in the discussion in chapters 10 and 11 of graduates' further studies and subsequent careers. Following a narrative of how higher education developed in Newfoundland up to 1925, chapters 2-11 analyse the most important

xiv

Preface

aspects of the junior college experience. Since the period I studied was relatively short, only twenty-five years, with a good deal of intrinsic unity, the chronological approach which seems de rigeur in most other Canadian university histories was not necessary. While I did not follow their pattern, I was certainly inspired and helped by many fine studies in that genre which appeared during and after the 1970s. In particular I was able to explain developments at Memorial in the context of what happened elsewhere. This was an advantage that many earlier historians of institutions, working with a literature mired in boosterism, did not have. I tried to maximize the value of oral history, drawing from that source not only colour and anecdotal illustrations but statistics as well. I interviewed or corresponded with a randomly selected sample of approximately 15% of 1926—50 graduates and assumed that their memories accurately represented the experience of the whole student body. Thus I offer generalizations on a dozen questions which other historians have tended to ignore because the printed record does not produce the kind of information needed. For example, in chapter 2: How significant were social barriers between students of different religious denominations? Who made the decision that these members of Memorial's first generation of students would attend college? This book is the main result of the Memorial University College history project which I pursued during 1982-8. The project had two other products which future students, if passionately interested in Newfoundland higher education, may wish to consult. At a certain stage in developing this manuscript I withdrew some chapters or sections which were excessively personal, trivial, or, frankly, dull. Five papers resulted, fully documented, dealing with the founding trustees, the two presidents, the staff, public relations, and facilities at Parade Street. Totalling about 50,000 words, they are deposited in the Centre for Newfoundland Studies and listed in the second-last section of this book's bibliography. Also, the audio tapes of my several dozen interviews, typescripts made from them, and some other material collected during the project, are deposited in the Memorial University of Newfoundland's Folklore & Language Archive. A large number of individuals and agencies helped with this project. A research grant from the Social Sciences & Humanities Research Council is gratefully acknowledged. I received financial assistance from Memorial University of Newfoundland, courtesy of President Leslie Harris, who also gave me unimpeded access to the vital office files from the Paton and Hatcher periods and did not require or even suggest that my manuscript should be given to a committee for institutional review. Grants from the federal Department of Employ-

xv

Preface

ment and Immigration helped me to afford research assistance during the four summers, 1985—8. Research assistants employed at various times were Jeannie Howse, John Kennedy, Heather Roberts, and Frank O'Leary. Typists who wrestled with interview transcripts and the manuscript were Debbie Barnes, Joan Butler, Colleen Daiton, Diane Dawson, Marg Gulliver, Sharon Lamb, and Bev Maher. Glenn Banfield helped to prepare the index. Jim Flynn, Jeff Budden, Paula Clarke, Susan Hart, and Suzelle Lavallée volunteered to conduct a few interviews. Everywhere on campus where I applied for assistance it was forthcoming. The Department of History gave me solid backing. Philip Hiscock at the Folklore and Language Archive kept me supplied with audio tapes, recording equipment, and advice, and arranged for typescripts of many of the interviews. Glen Collins let me into the registrar's old records; John Acreman and Eleanor Bennett facilitated my access to the Board of Governors' minutes; Ben Hansen and his people in the photography section took care of my requirements under that heading; and Bob Benson of Alumni Affairs greatly helped in locating people I wanted to contact. The Centre for Newfoundland Studies - Ann Hart, Nancy Grenville, etc. - assisted me both as a library and as an archive. Among those off-campus who were of particular help were Sister Clotilde and Rev. Francis Coady of the Roman Catholic archdiocesan archive, Burnham Gill of the United Church, Rev. Frank Cluett of Queen's College, Rev. R. Kearley at the Avalon consolidated school board, and Bobbie Robertson of the Newfoundland Historical Society. Colleagues who read part of the draft manuscript and gave advice were Paul Axelrod of York University, Robin Harris at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, John Reid at St Mary's and, closer to home, Jim Greenlee (Grenfell College), Helen Carew, Alan Macpherson, Leslie Harris, Jim Hiller, and George Story. Others who contributed interest and/or information included Hugh Anderson, Melvin Baker, Gerhard Bassler, Niall Gogan, Norman Hillmer, Phillip McCann, Ward Neale, Gwendolyn Puddester, and Bill Whiteley. I have put off until the end my thanks to the most essential people. There were first of all the ten dozen informants who assisted during the oral history phase of my study. Scattered thickly across Newfoundland and thinly in the rest of Canada, with a few in the United States (and two correspondents in England), they shared with me their experiences, their memories, often souvenir photos too, served up with a sip of sherry or a cup of tea. In making all these approaches I was rebuffed only once. Oral history informants are identified in the bibliography. I gratefully acknowledge their generosity. In the

xvi

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case of my wife Heather and son Sean, the required characteristic was fortitude. I appreciate how patiently they accepted my frequent preoccupation with the project, and I welcomed their participation in travels and visits, as I sought interviews along the length of Nova Scotia from Coxheath to Dayspring and as far south as Boston, where in 1986 we found a sturdy scientist residing at the same address from which he had written fifty-five years earlier to inquire about a teaching post in distant Newfoundland.

1 The Council of Higher Education which organized and launched Memorial University College, all four original trustees (Blackall, Burke, Curtis, Kennedy) in the front row. (Holloway photo)

2 The first major expansion of the curriculum (1931) introduced pre-engineering. Here some of the first third-year students at Memorial study mechanical drawing. (Photo courtesy of Atlantic Guardian/Atlantic Advocate).

3 First-year French, 1947: Shirley Wornell reciting, A.C. Hunter presiding. (Photo courtesy of Atlantic Guardian/Atlantic Advocate).

4 The household science laboratory in the first year that this program was offered (1932-33). Front, left to right: Jean Clark, Isabel Garland, Elizabeth Summers, Dorothy Clark, Madeline Kean. Back: Grace Penney (instructor), Gertrude Blake. (MUN photo)

5 Books of the week/What's new in the library, 1947. (Photo courtesy of Atlantic Guardian/Atlantic Advocate).

6 Memorial faculty 1933, already doubled in number since 1925. Left to right: C.A.D. Macintosh (Engineering); Muriel Hunter (Spanish); Allan Fraser (History, Economics, Political Science); Monnie Mansfield, registrar and right-hand woman to two presidents; Albert Hatcher (Mathematics, President 1933-52); Paul Lovett-Janison (Chemistry); J.L. Paton (Classics and German, President 1 925-33); Reginald Harling (Physics); Sadie Organ (Mathematics, Library); Alfred Hunter (English, French); Helena McGrath, Memorial's first graduate (Classics, English), and Fred Sleggs (Biology). Thanks to Helena Frecker and Kay Hanley for help with identifications. (MUN photo)

7 Vincent Burke, chairman of trustees/governors 1925-50, with Allan Gillingham (Classics, German, Secretary of Faculty), 1947. (Photo courtesy of Atlantic Guardian/Atlantic Advocate) 8 Allan Fraser, professor and broadcaster, about the time he became MP for St John's East (1953), carrying more weight than when he was tennis champion of the North of Scotland and of Newfoundland in the 1930s. (Photo from Newfoundland Radio in Pictures, courtesy of Atlantic Advocate, and thanks to Philip Hiscock for finding it).

9 A tradition which has disappeared, the Memorial familiarization picnic; perhaps autumn weather has deteriorated. This 1927 scene includes, front, from the left: Bob "Sandy" MacLeod, Bill Hampton, Madeline Sparkes, May Stevenson, Bob Dove, and Victor Calver. (Photo courtesy Olive Field Dawe, New Minas NS)

10 (Photo courtesy of Gertrude Facey Rees, Worthing, Sussex, England)

11 The Newfoundland/Canadian/American cast of Lady Precious Stream on stage at Memorial University College assembly hall, 1945, including (seated, left) Hal Holbrook of us Fort Pepperrell; the Newfoundland actress Ruby Johnston who became Mrs. Holbrook (seated, right), and (standing, sixth from right) Michael Harrington, graduate of Memorial-both college and university-later member of the National Convention and editor of the Evening Telegram. (Photo courtesy of Michael Harrington)

12 MUC cadet corps, 1942, as the playing field in front of the college reverted to its earlier function as a parade ground. (Photo courtesy of Jean Diamond Guildford, Halifax)

13 First fall social, 1946. (Photo courtesy of Atlantic Guardian/Atlantic Advocate)

16 Before there was Memorial College there was Normal School. Here is the whole complement of Normal in the fall of 1924, its fourth year of operation, the first in the new building on Parade Street. Staff (second row) are James Murdoch, Emilie Stirling, Solomon Whiteway (Principal), Elizabeth McGrath, Charles Hutton, John Hogg and John O'Grady. (Photo courtesy of Senator Fred Rowe) Left

14 Above "They were very dark days, 1942, and 1943 ... We had blackouts and used to have air-raid practices at the university ... When I got out in the corridor I met a blast of water. Some of the engineering students who were assigned to the hoses had turned them on ... It was mainly for that reason that we didn't have another air-raid practice." Interview with David Pitt. (Sketch by Keith Fillier) 15 Below The closeness of Memorial graduates abroad. Two of the young women, having joined the RCAF, were on their way to Ottawa. The others, variously nursing at the Royal Victoria Hospital or students at McGill, came down to Montreal's old Bonaventure station for a 15-minute reunion between trains, 1943. Left to right: Joan Maddock, Edgar Martin, Marion Peters, Glad Harvey, Jean Simms and Grace Howell. (Photo courtesy Mrs. Marion Peters Scott, Atlanta, GA)

17 Not a graduation despite all the academic gowns in evidence, merely a normal dispersion after class on a pleasant day in the 1940s. (Photo courtesy of Atlantic Guardian/Atlantic Advocate)

18 Memorial University College was very much an urban institution. Aerial view of the old downtown campus at its most developed and crowded stage in the late 19505. (MUN photo)

19 The author, left, with two of the many people who contributed information for A Bridge Built Halfway: Marion Peters Scott (MUC graduate and chemistry instructor, 19405), and Hugh Anderson (Dept. of Chemistry since 1953).

A Bridge Built Halfway

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CHAPTER 1

Newfoundland and Higher Education, 1890—1925

Inter-denominational schemes of such magnitude ... unfortunately not common in Newfoundland - except always the work of the Council of Higher Education (Methodist Schools Report 1917, commenting on the first general summer school for teachers)

The 1925 opening of Memorial University College (MUC) ended a process that had begun thirty years earlier. It was in the 1890s that the Newfoundland government first established a bureaucracy for coping with higher education. During the period of the First World War plans for general university studies to the sophomore level foundered, but more limited projects in household science, navigation, and teacher training bore fruit. Several factors then interrelated to make the university college a practical proposition: a more cooperative attitude on the part of Roman Catholic authorities, the national movement for a suitable war memorial, the generosity of American benefactors, and the movement for university federation in the Maritime provinces of Canada. THE COUNCIL OF H I G H E R EDUCATION

In the 1890s elementary school facilities were still lacking in many parts of Newfoundland, but the situation was being rectified steadily with an average of twelve new schools established annually. The 1901 census found 783 schools and about 35,000 children in attendance (two-thirds of the 5-14 age group). The average size of schools remained what it had been at the 1884 census, forty-five pupils. All facilities were paid for and owned by church-oriented school boards.

4 A Bridge Built Halfway

The three major systems, always separate, sometimes rival, were those of the Methodist, Roman Catholic, and Church of England denominations.' Opportunities for secondary studies were very rare. The three main churches operated "colleges" in St John's which provided an enriched program. They catered to the city's elite, and also to the wealthiest outport families, whose children lived in residence while attending the upper grades. At these colleges - St Bonaventure's and St Bride's (Roman Catholic), Bishop Spencer and Bishop Feild (Church of England), and Methodist College - one could study up to grade ten in the early iSgos, up to first-year university level twenty years later. In just a few of the outport schools the occasional ambitious young person, if lucky enough to have a teacher who had actually completed some high school studies, might also aspire to approach the same level, working against great odds in the same room with several lower grades. The only institution devoted to postsecondary instruction was Queen's College in St John's, which had operated since the 18405 for one narrow purpose, the preparation of Church of England clergy. In 1890 the government of Prime Minister William Whiteway announced a competition for essays proposing how the education system could be improved. Forty essays were submitted, about evenly split between those who opposed the denominational system and those who favored it. The winning entry came from Brother J. Slattery, President of Saint Bonaventure's College. Not unexpectedly an advocate of the denominational system, Slattery nevertheless proposed an interdenominational authority to supervise services provided to older pupils whose needs had passed beyond simple indoctrination and basic literacy. The government embraced this reformist thinking. Legislation in 1893 created the Council of Higher Education (CHE), its approximately two dozen members fairly evenly drawn from the spectrum of religious interests. Several permanent members - the superintendents of the three largest school systems and the principals of their St John's colleges - were always firmly in control.2 Thus the (famous initials) CHE did not supplant denominationalism in education. It did provide a valuable apparatus, by the use of which denominational educators were able first to recognize, then to enforce, a truce among warring factions. The first innovation accomplished by the CHE was standardized, Newfoundland-wide examinations at several key stages in a student's career from age twelve to sixteen, with the University of London as external examiner. Canon William Pilot, the visionary Church of England superinten-

5 Newfoundland and Higher Education

dent, was sure that the creation of these standards would speedily promote the self-confidence of Newfoundland youth. Their progress would then demand recognition in the form of degrees "conferred by the 'University of Newfoundland' hereafter to be incorporated."3 This idea rusticated for two decades before it was again taken up in any serious manner. Ambitious and privileged young Newfoundlanders who sought higher education necessarily studied abroad, at the rate of perhaps one hundred per year around the turn of the century (see appendix i). By the time of World War i the usual destination of their travels shifted from Britain to North America, especially eastern Canada.4 By the turn of the century one could have expected that the natural future for Newfoundland would be three universities, one Catholic, one Anglican, and one Methodist or generally Protestant. This indeed - with the superaddition of Baptist and Presbyterian institutions - is what had happened during the iSoos in Nova Scotia, Newfoundland's closest, most meaningful model of how a seaboard British country in North America might develop. In Newfoundland's case it was the denominational leaders themselves who headed off such fragmentation of resources. As the Methodist superintendent of schools asked in a 1905 Newfoundland Quarterly article: "Is it conceivable that the Legislature will make large grants for university training on denominational lines while every class of existing institutions from the colleges to the lowest schools is in need of additional funds and clamouring for them?"5 Apparently not. Educational magnates began to lay specific plans for two new goals: university-level general studies for the preparation of the next generation's leaders, and professional training for teachers. These needs arose from within Newfoundland. As it happened, they received an extra push from an outside source. When the Rhodes scholarship plan began to funnel promising students into studies at Oxford University, Newfoundland was one of the very smallest countries which had an annual scholarship all its own. After the scheme had operated for a few years, however, the governing trust let it be known they were not really satisfied with Newfoundland's candidates. They broke the news to the CHE in 1911 — Rhodes scholars should really have accomplished two years of university studies before coming to Britain. Scholars from Canada managed it - even those from remote Alberta and Saskatchewan, coming all the way to Toronto, Queen's, or McGill - "much further than your students would have to go to get advanced education in the colleges of Nova Scotia or New Brunswick." In 1912 a Rhodes representative discussed the matter with educational administrators in St John's. He suggested three possible approaches:

6 A Bridge Built Halfway

1 Newfoundland's educational system could be expanded so that scholars would have two years of university studies at home. 2 Government scholarships could enable the most promising students to begin university studies abroad. 3 Newfoundland could accept a Rhodes scholarship only every third year, using the award to support a candidate who would then go abroad for two years of preparation before entering Oxford. Aghast at the second-class status which Newfoundland would admit to by following the third course, the educators decided that the first approach was the "only feasible and proper one."6 Giving very fair notice, the British trustees announced in 1913 that beginning three years later (academic year 1916-17) candidates needed to have two years at a degree-granting university, or the equivalent, in order to be considered.7 SECOND-YEAR LECTURES

The next step was a Canadian reconnaissance. In retirement a quarter-century later, Church of England superintendent William Blackall recalled how in 1913 he persuaded the CHE to seek affiliations with universities in the Maritimes. He was chosen as the delegate to visit those foreign campuses - Acadia, Dalhousie, etc. - seeking the necessary concessions and agreements. Back in St John's, assured that the students would be admitted for further work with advanced standing, Blackall and company planned a modest program they called "extension lectures," to be presented evenings and Saturdays.8 The following year the three superintendents jointly presented Prime Minister Edward Morris with the first key document in Newfoundland university history. For some time, they wrote, they had looked forward to raising the finishing level of Newfoundland schooling to the equivalent of completing second year at a Canadian university. (Ten or twenty years earlier they would likely have measured their intentions against British standards, but the Cabot Strait ferry service and other developments were drawing Newfoundland closer to its continent.) "We think the time is now come when steps should be taken to make two years of a university course in St. John's possible." Since the highest grade in the colonial curriculum already equalled first year university, this meant that just one added year of studies needed to be organized. The innovation would help many students of ability who under present arrangements could not afford to travel far for higher education and provide better preparation for teachers. The superintendents had been hurried into their recom-

7 Newfoundland and Higher Education

mendation by the Rhodes Committee decision that soon no one without the equivalent of two years university studies would be offered their prestigious award.9 The cabinet quickly took this under consideration and gave official approval only two weeks later. In all of Memorial University history, there is no worse example of bad timing than this sequence of proposal and response. World War i had broken out in the meantime. The superintendents placed advertisements in the papers: Extension Lectures! Arrangements are being completed with Canadian Universities by which candidates from Newfoundland may qualify in St. John's for the beginning of the third year in Arts and other courses; ... The charges will be the same as are generally made in Canada. Students should apply at an early date.10

The war first wrecked these plans by drawing away the students, then delayed their resurrection by loading the government with additional debt. Added to the burden of the railways, this debt made every public action through the 19205 and 19308 much less likely and easy. During the four years of war no progress was made towards organizing liberal arts and science courses. Still hope sprang eternal every year at the CHE. In 1915, in order to smooth the path of study for those who would seek degrees on the mainland of Canada, two examinations for the "associate in arts" were inaugurated. Junior associate represented matriculation for university entrance, usually about age sixteen. The senior associate was equivalent to first year studies at a Canadian university. "This examination — substitute for that of the University of London, ... will be found more useful to many of our students ... covers a wider scope of Mathematics and also provides for Physics; thus meeting the requirements of the Freshman Year, which the London examinations failed to do." The superintendents had on file acceptances from four maritime province universities - Mount Allison, King's, Dalhousie, and Saint Francis Xavier.11 ECUMENICAL EXPERIMENTS

Also around the period of World War i, although plans for secondyear lectures were repeatedly prepared and frustrated, the CHE successfully launched several limited schemes requiring interchurch cooperation. Earliest and longest-lasting was a school of household science. It operated in St John's for twelve years starting in 1911, drawing a group of senior students, high school girls, from each of

8 A Bridge Built Halfway

the three systems. It thrived despite the fact that some classes went on until 6:00 p.m. The instructors were Evelyn Wright, then Elizabeth Maddox, then Ethel Dickinson.12 Another effort modelled upon this first one was much less successful. A navigation class was begun in 1916-17, again intended for pupil-teachers from all the city colleges, boys this time. The plan was to prepare teachers so that they could themselves become instructors in navigation once they reached the outports. The course was not popular and lasted just two years.13 The superintendents were thinking about improving teacher training by combining denominational resources in a more comprehensive way. Up to this time all the church systems had apprenticed their own teachers through various ad hoc schemes. Opinion now began to favour an interdenominational training operation. The first proposal came from the Church of England in 1905. In 1915 it was earnestly discussed in the Anglican synod, which sanctioned such an institution two years later, as the Methodists had done in 1916. "The Roman Catholic superintendents, though in an unofficial way, have likewise expressed their willingness to co-operate."14 All denominations came together in support of an experimental summer school for teachers in 1917. Newfoundland churches had never dared to join so closely before. The three superintendents directed the school, entrusting the principalship to Arthur Barnes (Church of England). The lion's share of instruction (science of education, school management, nature study) was borne by two teachers imported from Nova Scotia. Eighteen Newfoundland instructors with assignments small or large filled out a busy timetable; their numbers included several whose subsequent contributions to Memorial College or to the Normal School will win them fame later in this narrative: Charles Hutton, James Murdoch, Emilie Stirling (Eraser), Solomon Whiteway and, to become famous as registrar for thirty years and Dean of Women, a then young Monnie Mansfield. A large group of 314 assembled for the four-week intensive session, carefully and interdenominationally staged — without regard for the lungs or stamina of those who had to scamper several blocks back and forth - at Saint Bonaventure's College, Methodist College hall and the Church of England central school.15 Fortunately for ecumenism in Newfoundland higher education everything proceeded smoothly in that experimental summer. It was so encouraging that they tried it again in 1918, this time entrusting the rotating principalship to the Roman Catholic educator, Vincent Burke. Since his own professional training in the intervals of a busy Newfoundland career had taken place at Columbia University, it was

9 Newfoundland and Higher Education

not surprising that the outside experts called in this time were from New York and Alabama. Registration totalled 216. The government incurred no expense in either summer, the events being funded by anonymous benefactors.16 From 1917 on, Methodist annual reports called upon the government to provide an interdenominational training school for all prospective teachers. Three or four rooms somewhere in St John's would be adequate; probably two classes of teachers could pass through during a normal academic year. Anglican reports took a more comprehensive approach. Blackall regretted the drain of ambitious students forced to go abroad, many of whom never returned. Those who could not afford to go abroad were deprived for life of all the advantages they would have realized from university studies. Newfoundland needed a postsecondary college. "Few seem to care. In this matter I certainly appear to be a voice crying in the wilderness."17 Meanwhile the household science classes — the only interchurch enterprise more or less permanently institutionalized - encountered tragedy. Early in 1919 classes had to be closed, along with all the other schools in St John's, because of a terrible Spanish flu epidemic. Dickinson volunteered to help in the special flu hospital, caught the disease and died in a few hours. The work was reorganized the following fall with a Ms Crawford (from McGill's Macdonald College) as teacher. She was later succeeded by a Ms Furneaux, who left in the spring of 1923. The superintendents then let this Special arrangement lapse, expecting a replacement program would soon be in place.18 ROMAN CATHOLIC R E O R I ENTATION

Through this whole period and up until 1950, the most steadfast supporter among Newfoundland major denominations for homegrown schemes of higher education was the Church of England. First Pilot, then Blackall, advocated jointly conducted teacher training. Methodist support for every practical plan could be dependably taken for granted. As early as 1905 Rev. Levi Curtis had publicly expressed his opinion, "that the educational outlook would be more hopeful had we a different system. The fact is we have in Newfoundland denominationalism run to weeds."19 Methodists made the system work as well as possible, since it seemed to suit Newfoundland's fractious population, but they looked for a better day and were open to suggestions. Initially unopen to suggestions were the Roman Catholics, slowest of all the denominations to put their support behind the

10 A Bridge Built Halfway

idea of nondenominational higher education. Without a considerable change in official Catholic attitudes in the years before Memorial's opening, the all-Newfoundland junior college could never have come into existence. A benchmark of Catholic opinion early in the century is provided by the outcome of a large meeting in June 1905. Archbishop Michael Howley convened the priests of the St John's diocese and representatives from Harbour Grace and Saint George's to discuss educational matters with himself and the other two bishops. His close assistant, Rev. Edward Roche - a leader to watch in this story - was named the meeting's secretary. The particular crisis was caused by some suggestions made by the Church of England superintendent that amalgamation of schools in the smallest outports should be considered. At the St John's conclave, the unanimous resolutions were first, that the difficulty was "by no means as great as it is represented to be" and, second, that "any changes in the education act which would be contrary to the spirit and principle of our denominational system are to be strenuously opposed."20 A seven-person watchdog committee, including Roche, was appointed to keep a careful eye on developments. The Catholic Church therefore had its attitude fixed when the three superintendents developed their 1914 plan for second-year university studies for the sake of the Rhodes scholarship in particular and Newfoundland youth in general. Although it seems strange, it is clear that RC Superintendent Burke had not been consulting with his Archbishop. When Howley recovered his composure after reading the newspaper advertisement inviting registration for "extension lectures," he sent off a pointed note to his superintendent of schools. The announcement, he wrote, "contemplates the introduction of some sort of a teaching Institution outside and independent of our local Colleges. This is a matter which I look upon as dangerous, as it would be likely to prove damaging to, if not destructive of, our present Educational System." He asked Burke to "convey to the other Inspectors that we could not [at] all Sanction such an innovation."21 Burke's reply contributes greatly to the evaluation of his superlatively important role in Memorial's early history. It was possible, it seems, to become a champion of nondenominational efforts at one educational level, while still promoting fragmentation at others. He wrote to the aging shepherd of Newfoundland catholics, agreeing that extension lectures "may likely prove damaging to our present system of education ... Shall ask the Superintendents to meet in order that I may lay your views before them." Three days later Blackall,

11 Newfoundland and Higher Education

and Methodist superintendent Rev. Levi Curtis, wrote to request a meeting with the Archbishop.22 No record of the meeting or its outcome has been found. Since there was little response to the advertisement for students, the matter was not as crucial as it could otherwise have been. What moved affairs forward somewhat that winter, despite the discouragements of wartime, was the death of Archbishop Howley. Roche was his successor. Finally seated at the desk he had circled for so many years, Roche found in the incoming correspondence an important note from Blackall, who needed an audience for a discussion of educational matters. Postsecondary studies had top priority. Many of us - Blackall probably worded it this way to include Burke with the reformers — think the time has come to make provision for some university studies above the matriculation level.23 Perhaps the Protestant superintendents were able to reach a fuller meeting of minds with this Catholic archbishop than with the previous one. They were all men of about equal age, men of the twentieth century, whereas Howley had belonged to a previous generation. Before the year was over, Archbishop Roche announced a very important change in the course which the Catholic ship usually steered in educational matters. As a wise diplomat, Roche associated a group of prominent Catholic leaders with him in the revolution he was making. The fourteen people summoned to the first meeting of the Catholic Educational Council (4 October 1915) provided evenly balanced representation from the three Newfoundland dioceses and included, of course, the influential superintendent Vincent Burke, who had been running ahead of his church although it was about to catch up. The Catholic Council discussed the proposal for extension lectures. "With certain qualifications the Bishops view it not unsympathetically." Burke explained the need - Rhodes scholarship students requiring two university years; and the danger - if the Newfoundland system could not top this hurdle, opinion hostile to the whole denominational system could be expected to increase. So the CHE proposed a "Licentiate in arts," embracing second-year English, mathematics, Latin, French, physics, and chemistry. The idea was to draw instructors from all the city colleges. The archbishop made a significant concession to modern thinking, in that he raised no objection to women and men pursuing these studies together. "If we do not go in for the new scheme," one delegate commented, "the other denominations will probably decide to go in by themselves and this may lead to financial complications for Catholic education." The Council's final

12 A Bridge Built Halfway

conclusion was that, although it did not seem to them that the matter was properly within the CHE mandate, still the principle of these extension lectures "may be accepted generally."24 Roche reiterated some of this thinking and made it official church policy in his keynote address - printed and bound for wide distribution — to a 1916 retreat for all Newfoundland clergy. To safeguard the Newfoundland system within which Catholic schools were so safely harboured, it was necessary to prevent any popular allegation that the system was "an obstacle or bar to educational progress. In the higher branches of education and in the training of teachers it may be necessary in the future to unite more closely with other denominations ... Eventually, of course, if we refuse to have anything to do with the matter it will be taken up independently of us and we shall be left to pursue our own course in our own way." Here was Roche's revolution: he thought "unreasoning obstinate refusal" to consider any and all proposals for interdenominational action would be wrong. He considered it vital to show that Newfoundland's system was "at the same time sufficiently elastic and adaptable to be able to meet every condition that true educational progress in Newfoundland renders necessary."25 Newfoundland Catholicism under Archbishop Roche had obviously taken a giant step towards cooperation. The precedent-setting 1917 and 1918 summer schools followed. Interdenominational bargaining no doubt continued. The outward sign of how successful it was came in 1920, when the Government for the first time installed a secular Minister of Education in charge of the school systems and legislated into permanent existence a Newfoundland Normal School to carry on the cooperative work begun during those summers of 1917 and 1918. Arthur Barnes was the first Minister of Education; he explained to a teachers' convention in July that the Normal School, although nondenominational, would still be religious in its orientation. Educators worldwide realized the "need of training the teacher for his spiritual work and molding of character." Barnes "rejoiced that the denominational leaders had agreed such a school was necessary and the Government had arranged to fill the want."26 The new Normal School's successful eleven-and-one-half-year presence in Newfoundland educational annals is described in chapter 10. For now, it is necessary to underline the importance of the interchurch agreement that empowered the government to create it. By 1919-20 the denominationalist educators of Newfoundland had been inured to each other's presence and then attracted into friendly cooperation through joint work on the CHE for over a quarter of a century. Now they dared to aim for greater professionalism in the

13 Newfoundland and Higher Education

teaching corps than any denomination could afford by itself. Although Memorial University College was still several years in the future, this historic agreement, of which precise documentation is lacking, was the key step in its complicated creation. MARITIMES UNIVERSITY FEDERATION

The 1920 interchurch agreement which brought Normal School into existence was peculiarly a product of Newfoundland society with its characteristic pattern of schisms and mediation. The next circumstance which focussed attention on general university studies, however, was a powerful influence radiating into Newfoundland from outside, from the Atlantic region of Canada. In the 19205 the Carnegie Corporation, a philanthropic organization based in New York, undertook a campaign to promote the rationalization of postsecondary education in the Maritimes. One general Carnegie mission was to benefit the British empire. It was therefore not surprising, although in defiance of normal political boundaries, that Newfoundland and the Maritimes were considered together as a single region. Newfoundland educational leaders were invited to and present at all the meetings which promoted the idea of a giant, federated university in Halifax to replace the previous fragmented, duplicated efforts.27 By the end of 1922 a fully detailed plan of seventy-four sections had been agreed upon. Seven colleges would link up and develop a joint program and shared campus, much as the federated University of Toronto (or Oxford) had done. A minor aspect of the plan called for a junior college to be established in Newfoundland, perhaps one in Prince Edward Island as well. Among the six elected members of the governing board would be one resident of each island; the Newfoundland and PEI governments could also name one each (along with two named by New Brunswick and three by Nova Scotia).28 The short history of the plan for union is that the governments approved it but the universities would not. King's College accepted American aid to move into Halifax because there happened to be a fire just at this time which destroyed its facilities in Windsor, Nova Scotia. Carnegie funds also helped to inaugurate beginning-level university studies in St John's (Memorial, 1925), which extended the accessibility of higher education out to the northern edge of the target region. The movement had no other practical results. It did, however, concentrate the attention of Newfoundland's Catholic hierarchy upon the possible perils and benefits of interchurch cooperation in higher education. The initial inclination of the Newfoundland

14 A Bridge Built Halfway

church, all three bishops being unanimous, was to favour this federal scheme. Catholic students from Newfoundland were in the habit of scattering to a multiplicity of secular, even anti-Catholic universities on the mainland. "It would be far better," they decided, "that our catholic students should attend a university where the dangers to faith and morals are reduced to a minimum" by Catholic representation in the management of the institution, which would surely be the case according to any agreement that might be reached. Six bishops met in conclave at Halifax a few days before the Carnegie-sponsored general meeting, to see if a cohesive regional approach could be formulated. Bishop John March of Harbour Grace represented Newfoundland. He and Archbishop Edward McCarthy of Halifax came favouring the federation scheme, but the other four bishops - Saint John, Chatham, Charlottetown, and, tellingly, Bishop James Morrison of Antigonish defending the interests of Saint Francis Xavier University - did not. The meeting's decision showed a common front. The bishops considered general university federation would be detrimental to existing Catholic institutions. Building momentum, Morrison went right back to Antigonish where next day, the governors of Saint Francis Xavier, previously unsounded, decided against joining the union scheme.29 These official resolutions were not the final words on the issue from the Catholic side. There was close to an even split of opinion on the matter, the common front being a facade for conflicting ambitions and needs. Even at Saint Francis Xavier there were forward-looking thinkers who favoured federation as promoting academic excellence. Father J.J. Tompkins — economics professor, vice-president and famous as spark plug of the cooperative movement — wrote to Archbishop Roche that only a few stubborn Scots opposed the innovative plan. "I have often said ... that Newfoundland might have to put this proposition through for us and it certainly looks like it of late." Building up the case - they planned an appeal to Rome to override the bishops' decision — Tompkins sent some very interesting documents to St John's to help guide the thinking there. The superior of Saint Michael's College, University of Toronto, wrote that Saint Michael's completely controlled the teaching of philosophy and religion to its own students. "In History we have the same rights"; they had never needed to be exercised. The Bishop of London thought that Ontario Catholics would welcome an opportunity similar to that offered in the Maritimes and Newfoundland. The Archbishop of Toronto, too, thought Saint Francis Xavier should not be afraid of federation. He tried naming the new "superversity" which was to appear down east, "Maritime University of Canada

15 Newfoundland and Higher Education

and Newfoundland." The initials are familiar to many who will be interested in this narrative. Although the central university would control regulations for honour programs, "the confederated colleges would themselves have honour courses in those subjects which [affect] denominational interests, such as Philosophy and History."30 Some of the most telling evidence which Father Tompkins assembled came from colleagues of his on the faculty at Antigonish, Catholics who had not just survived but prospered in higher education environments abounding with non-Catholic elements. Professors H. Smith (Classics), R. Gautheron (French), and H. Bucknell (History, English) wrote letters, which Tompkins circulated, describing how danger to Catholic faith and morals was absent in their experiences, at Oxford, Paris, and Cambridge, respectively. At the last university they were outnumbered 3200 to no, yet "No Catholic who went to Cambridge sound in his religion has ever been adversely affected by the teaching there given; on the other hand scores of protestants have become Catholics."3' Thus bolstered by suggestions and opinions from two continents and three countries, the Newfoundland Catholic Church agreed to second the Archbishop of Halifax in his appeal to Rome favouring university federation. In January 1923, Roche sent McCarthy two letters, one intended for Rome (which could be translated into Italian if desired). As Roche saw the matter, Newfoundland's position was somewhat different from that of the provinces of eastern Canada. There it was possible that effective Roman Catholic institutions might emerge, as Saint Francis Xavier and Saint Mary's were doing. But in his country "it is absolutely certain that we shall never have a Catholic University here. Our young men will have to go away." The federated university proposed for Halifax would likely become one of the soundest, most comprehensive institutions in the whole of Canada. "It is surely of supreme importance to get a Catholic foothold in such an Institution." He also sent to the Reverend Peter Di Maria in Ottawa - apostolic delegate for both Canada and Newfoundland - a copy of the Newfoundland bishops' five-page memorandum for the Vatican's Sacred Congregation on Seminaries and Universities. The Carnegie Corporation's anxiety to include Roman Catholic communities in university federation implied that the federated institution would include a Catholic college with its own administration and, importantly, "control of the teaching of Philosophy, History, Pedagogy and Economics." Since a fully developed university - with expertise in allfieldswas a dauntingly expensive proposition, this federation model, familiar from the National University of Ireland, the University of

i6 A Bridge Built Halfway

Toronto, etc., was the way to give Catholic students safe access to superior higher education while avoiding the necessity of developing a giant Catholic institution which was in any case beyond the Church's financial resources. In the Atlantic region the tide was running in favour of improvements in higher education. "If we do not go in and influence the University, it may become not only non-Catholic but anti-Catholic."32 It was during this 1922-23 period that the Roman Catholic Church in Newfoundland confirmed its earlier ecumenism, deciding that the risks of interdenominational cooperation in higher education were worth running. This position - a complete about-face since the last days of Archbishop Howley — confirmed the future of Memorial University as a school for all of Newfoundland, with the resources of the whole country behind it. The new superintendent of Roman Catholic schools appointed in 1920, Ronald Kennedy, naturally became associated with Burke, Roche, and other Catholic leaders in accomplishing this change of course. Bringing the new superintendent up to date, Roche referred (in 1922) to a joint meeting "some years ago," at which all the churches had officially accepted the idea of a nondenominational normal school. He also recalled his own 1916 pronouncement: "In the higher branches of education and in the training of teachers it may be necessary in the future to unite more closely with other denominations."33 Just by luck, the oral history phase of this project randomly selected Kennedy's daughter as a potential informant. An interviewer who went to visit the widow of the history professor Allan Fraser found in addition a former student, a former faculty member in biology, and Ronald Kennedy's daughter. She had some appealing recollections of how her father had helped to invent Memorial. "I did hear a lot of my father's conversations about it at home." When Kay Kennedy was about ten years old There was a little controversy amongst the Catholic hierarchy about the Catholic students attending a school, an educational institution [which would be non-denominational?] Yes, and my father was very interested in the school starting ... Dr Burke was going to see the Archbishop about it and he wouldn't see him, said he wasn't the superintendent of the Catholic schools ... I heard a telephone conversation when I was very small with my father discussing this over the telephone and saying yes he would go see the Archbishop as soon as he got back to St John's. He got it all straightened out and the Catholics went in with it all. My father did it, I'm sure he did.34

17 Newfoundland and Higher Education A MONUMENT

Developing plans for higher education in Newfoundland became accidentally entangled with the debate over suitable forms of recognition for those who served in the Great War. In their 1918 annual reports the superintendents began calling for a building, needed for "advanced general education, the application of scientific instruction to our national industries, and the professional training of teachers ... the sooner we secure a building dedicated to the work of education, and more imposing than any of our denominational buildings, that will be used in educational efforts in which all are united and which will testify to our unity rather than to our differences, the better for the common weal."35 In the following year Rev. Curtis proposed on behalf of all the superintendents an interdenominational building to be a memorial to Newfoundland's gallant warriors.36 They seized the postwar moment, packed a 1919 meeting of the Patriotic Association, and had a committee formed to consider their resolution (BlackallCurtis): that a suitable memorial to those who served could take the form of an educational building, to "raise to a higher level the whole status of education in Newfoundland, and materially assist its young people to achieve success in life."37 This opened a debate which raged for two months, simmered another year, and never fully ended. Editorials and most letters to the editor favoured the proposition. Others, however, preferred a more traditional kind of monument, soldiers on horseback or sailors wrestling shells to the guns. If the idea of a monument to honour the dead by serving the living were to take hold, other suggestions abounded - a life-saving station at Cape Race, club rooms for factory workers, a night school for navigation, a home for needy mothers or for the widows of those who served.38 Escaping this furore for a further term of study at Columbia University, Burke tried to close off debate in a letter written from New York in April. Many famous universities in Europe were founded in dedication to the fallen at war, for example, he said, Oxford or Leiden. The front lobby could have a plaque recalling those lost. The proposed college would be a democratic memorial, giving members of less affluent families an opportunity more nearly equal to those who could afford to study abroad.39 Between Christmas and New Year Burke was assured of his Archbishop's support. Given advance notice of the Patriotic Association committee's findings, Roche agreed that an educational building would be the "most suitable Memorial."40

i8 A Bridge Built Halfway

The committee made its report in January 1920. Having considered all the proposals, they recommended a War Memorial educational building to be a "centre for a Newfoundland University and for teachers' College where pupil teachers may receive professional training." The Patriotic Association agreed, resolving to ask the government to erect, equip, and maintain such a building to house the Normal School, a technical school, and a Memorial Hall in which the names of all who served would be inscribed.41 After the superintendents and the Association had continued to polish their ideas for another two months, the official submission to Newfoundland's Executive Council was made in March. Since no compromise was possible, the Association called for two memorials. One should be traditional statuary "of imperishable material, as dignified and beautiful as our means will allow"; the other an educational building for teacher training. They noted that all churches gave their support. The building should include a Memorial Hall for war records, tablets, pictures, and trophies; also a technical school if possible. "The Committee feels very strongly that the Monument and School should be placed together on a site apart from other Buildings."42 The government agreed with the main part of this proposal — the teacher-training college — in April, but left to the future the question as to how the facility might be adapted to honour those who served and fell. This aspect was actually overlooked when the title NORMAL SCHOOL was chiselled into the stone over the building's front doorway. Subsequently, the second institution to be installed in the premises was given the name "Memorial," so that the idea did triumph after all. An initial contribution of $100,000 was voted in July 1920. Plans were prepared, and the parade ground chosen as the site. In 1922 the government announced that the Normal School building, "while serving its practical purpose, shall also stand as a Memorial of the service and sacrifice of the brave men from this Colony who stood between us and the enemy and gave their lives in the dark days of the Great War" and appropriated another $100,000. Construction got underway that summer.43 While walls went up, opposition to the superintendents' plan continued. No doubt at this stage much of it was motivated by partisan considerations rather than by the project's merits. W.A. Higgins and J.R. Bennett, members of the Newfoundland House of Assembly, complained that the chosen site was supposed to have been turned into a recreation facility for the children of St John's. Higgins could be quite nasty; in a 1923 debate in the House of Assembly he said the whole project was conceived just to give Arthur Barnes a job. "It is a

ig Newfoundland and Higher Education

joke to build this big place with 18 or 19 rooms just because somebody has become what is termed an educationist ... I hope I will be here when the government will have the good sense to give up this crazy idea of a Normal School and turn the place into a hospital." Fifteen years later, from his retirement in Nova Scotia, superintendent Blackall remembered that the last great threat, just before the building was turned over to Barnes's Department of Education, was this idea that it could serve admirably as a hospital. (In the early 19408, in wartime again, that did become partly its fate.) Prime Minister Walter Monroe "was able to side-track the monstrous suggestion," Blackall wrote to Albert Hatcher, the second President of Memorial College not hospital. Then "in the course of a few months you and Paton arrived to start the embryo ... Laus Deo!"44 AMERICAN FINANCIAL AID

When the Normal School was permanently established in 1920, the superintendents had achieved half of their long-range purpose for higher education. The other half envisaged general arts and science studies to the sophomore level. This took another five years to arrange. As befits a small, open country at the crossroads of the North Atlantic community, American funding and British expertise smoothed out the final obstacles in the path, while Newfoundland educators gained access to both largely through Canadian channels. Implementation of the decision to establish the Normal School was a very methodical process. Solomon Whiteway, social studies teacher at Methodist College and since 1917 in charge of pupil teachers there, was appointed Principal. His whole responsibility in the first year, 1920-21, was further study at Columbia University, including a special course on the training of teachers. Only in the fall of 1921 did Whiteway gather three or four part-time assistants and enroll the first class of forty-one students in rented premises (two rooms) at the Church of England Synod building.45 Normal School carried on, two terms per year with separate classes, until 1932 — carried on very successfully, although after 1925 it was rather overshadowed by the university college, of higher status, with which it shared the new building. The last great problem in adding general university studies to the teacher-training program was financial. Unhappy at seeing the cost of the new building grow from an estimated $250,000 to about $300,000 - and, it must be remembered, unused to taking direct responsibility for educational facilities - the government was unwilling to incur additional operating expenses. This was an obstacle with

2O A Bridge Built Halfway

which the superintendents were familiar. Like Principal Whiteway, they tried to get around it by going through New York. They had made their first joint appeal to the Carnegie Corporation, requesting assistance for improvements in Newfoundland's higher education, back in 1917. The response was unfavourable. When correspondence failed they tried the personal approach. In 1919 Burke and Curtis visited New York to discuss Newfoundland's needs. Softened up, American philanthropy included Newfoundland in a survey of prospects for higher education in the maritime provinces. The 1922—24 negotiations over university federation kept alive the Newfoundlanders' zeal to charter a college of their own. The need for university studies was emphasized in annual reports published by the Department of Education and circulated in the colony. Burke wrote that Newfoundland "stands alone among the self-governing dominions of the British commonwealth in not having an institution devoted exclusively to higher education ..." "If we cannot have a full four years' course of college work," he thought it should be possible to arrange "the establishment of at least a two years' course in a Newfoundland Junior College." Blackall wrote that Newfoundland's situation was "unique." It was the "only important polity that I can discover that is unwise to the importance of higher education. It is said: provide educational facilities for every hamlet before you think of higher education ... But how are the teachers to be fitted?" Curtis wrote (1923): "Newfoundland needs a Junior College about as much as it needed a Normal School for teacher-training ... The patriotism and statesmanship that made possible a Normal School would be found equal to the further requirement of a Junior College when the opportune moment has come."46 Well into the autumn of 1924 the idea of a Newfoundland junior college remained a pious dream, more hope than expectation. When the Normal School officially occupied the new building on 29 September, orations on the subject sounded sincere but ineffectual. "The next step — and it should be taken immediately," said Blackall, "was the inauguration of a Junior College."47 The following month, however, and in a foreign country, the single most important event of Memorial College history occurred. Out of the wreckage of the movement for university federation, the Carnegie Corporation sponsored the establishment of a central advisory committee (maritime provinces and Newfoundland), to see whether ongoing coordination and consultation might accomplish some of the good purposes which local particularisms had so far blocked. Burke represented Newfoundland at the Advisory Committee's first meeting in the Dalhousie University board room on 28

21 Newfoundland and Higher Education

October. The second item of business — moved by President W.S. Carter, University of New Brunswick, seconded by Frederick Sexton of Nova Scotia Technical College and adopted unanimously — was a resolution recommending to the Carnegie Corporation that it make available $15,000 annually for five years for the establishment of a junior college at St John's.48 The New York organization's help to Memorial, according to Blackall, was "not the biggest thing in their existence, but the finest. This College is destined to accomplish for a whole country what no institution aided by the corporation can possibly accomplish in another country." Writing in 1934, the tenth year of Memorial's existence, he claimed that the college had breathed life into education, and had "given hope to hundreds of students who otherwise would never have found themselves on wings."49 They had put it all together. The 1914 plan for second-year university studies piecemeal, evenings and weekends, was finally to be realized in a workday institution, and it had taken only ten years. Those years had seen serious interruption by war, cancelling "extension lectures"; an important bargain struck among the Newfoundland churches, assisted by the elevation of a more progressive or pliable figure to the Roman Catholic Archbishopric; and a whole nation's desire to honour those who had served. From that impulse the superintendents drew a fine, nondenominational building. The curriculum had been set long ago — first and second year studies as known in the universities of eastern Canada. For an operating budget they were able to combine Carnegie's yearly $15,000 - adequate for five or six instructors' salaries, more if they were really sparing - with a small pledge from colonial authorities. They assumed that for students they had merely to stamp a foot — like Pompey raising his instant army. Students, quarters, curriculum, and cash for operating - all the essentials were there. ENGLISH HEADMASTER

With what exhilaration must Burke have returned to St John's, late in October 1924, with the final piece of the puzzle - Carnegie Corporation'sfinancialsupport - in his briefcase? Now the superintendents could pass to the less problematical task of actually organizing a college. The principal question over that 1924—25 winter was: To whom should be given the important responsibility of bringing it into working existence? They may well have considered one of their own people for Memorial's presidency. Whiteway would have done well, or Burke, or Barnes if he had not belonged to the wrong political party. By firm

22 A Bridge Built Halfway

tradition, however, an English or at least British principal usually gave credibility to academic standards by taking the top post in the church colleges at St John's, still colonially minded.50 This was no time to tamper with expected norms; they decided to seek an eminent outsider. Luck intervened at this stage of the story, when John Lewis Paton came to Canada. Paton had capped a highly successful teaching career by serving for twenty-one years as Highmaster of Manchester Grammar School. There he was known for nearly doubling the number of students; promoting trekking, scouting, foreign travel, and an amazing variety of clubs; improving the grounds by employing the whole school as a workforce; and modernizing the curriculum while keeping classics strong.51 He was a genuine expert, well respected among top-level English educators. For example, when the Encyclopedia Britannica in 1925 needed 1,400 words on the latest thinking about secondary-school organization, they sought out Paton, across an ocean, "as the most eminent authority on this subject."52 Paton retired from the Manchester school in the summer of 1924 at the age of sixty, full of good health, energy, and enthusiasm, and probably looking for a new challenge. For the following winter he accepted an invitation from the Canadian Council of Education to make a leisurely cross-country tour over several months, investigating conditions and giving public lectures. The Newfoundland leaders, kept current with events in Canada through the Central Advisory Committee and their other connections in the Maritimes, decided to size this man up for the job they had in mind.53 Paton landed in Halifax in January of 1925 and began slowly working his way westwards. By the time the Newfoundlanders decided to interview him, he had proceeded far beyond their usual orbit. Levi Curtis was delegated to catch up to the English visitor and lay the Newfoundland proposition before him; he tracked his prey as far as Winnipeg.54 In April Newfoundland educational history was made far from home when the two men, presumably in Paton's hotel room, settled into easy chairs for a grand discussion of aspirations (Newfoundland's) and expertise (Paton's). Fifteen years later — now widely known and revered across the island on which up to 1925 he had never set foot — Paton reflected how he perhaps would never have known Newfoundland at all, except for the Winnipeg interviews with the Methodist school superintendent. Quickly then, it seems, Curtis told the others it was going to work out splendidly and made Paton the official offer he was authorized to present. Paton wrote to St John's on 26 April - he was now in Brandon - accepting the presidency. Burke and company immediately telegraphed their joy.

23 Newfoundland and Higher Education

Some of these details in Memorial's first search for a president are a little imprecise and must be assumed or conjectured from sketchy records. At this stage, however, the process of college development comes fully into historical view, for in early May Burke, as Deputy Minister of Education, sent Paton a six-page letter summarizing everything to date. They were pleased that he had agreed to come and head up the new college, and to know he was already looking for staff members. "We think your idea of undertaking to secure a Roman Catholic to profess history is an excellent one; we must have, at least, one Roman Catholic on the staff." Burke next discussed the college timetable. At any particular time there would be two classes of university students, two of teachers in training, and probably a fifth "odd class for various miscellaneous subjects; for we desire to cater to our young people's wants as fully and completely as we possibly can." A weekly schedule of thirty to thirty-two lectures in each of the two university years was expected. Chemistry and physics would need five periods per week, the other subjects four. For the Normal School part of the operation, fourteen, mostly professional subjects would each occupy from one to four periods per week — another timetable of thirty-two lecture periods, but quite separate from the university students' schedule. Burke then came back to faculty requirements and shared with Paton the thinking in St John's. So far there were three instructors on hand: a president who "happily" could also teach classics; Whiteway, the Normal School principal, teaching professional subjects; and Betty McGrath (honours BA University of Toronto) as librarian and registrar, who could assist, if needed, in Latin, French, and Spanish. Other professors required were for mathematics (hope he can assist in physics); science (help with mathematics); English (perhaps a woman in this post); modern languages (he/she can help with Latin); "then there is the subject of history." The whole list totalled eight faculty members, but Burke hoped that Paton would be able to scrape through the first year with just seven. Burke proposed that Paton, when he finished his speaking tour of Canada, should visit universities — Toronto, McGill, Dalhousie, etc. — as he travelled east again. A meeting of eastern Canadian university presidents was planned for early June. Perhaps Paton could obtain an invitation to attend it. It was important to complete arrangements for the entry of second-year graduates from Newfoundland into the third year of mainland institutions, and to discover "what conditions they will be likely to impose upon us." Paton had asked about the library in St John's. For teacher training it was adequate; Burke undertook it would be added to for the liberal arts and pure science.

24 A Bridge Built Halfway

Finally: "Extra-mural work. We cannot tell you how delighted we are that you have visualized the need of this work in Newfoundland. We are positively charmed."55 This letter is an extremely important document. It marks the end of a long period of struggle and leads into the active operation of the new college. It is especially helpful in putting Paton into his proper context. For the next eight years he became the new institution's prominent leader and promoter. His admirable, if eccentric, personality and energetic concern for each student had a great impact. Many who encountered him during his life's last flash of brilliance thought he was the most unforgettable character they had ever met. Since Paton became so publicly active, it is easy to think that it was he who invented Memorial. The May 1925 hiring letter shows that he was brought in towards the end of the planning process to fill out a picture already fully conceived and outlined. By mid-July, having made contacts at the Canadian universities which stood Memorial in good stead when definitive affiliation arrangements were settled over the next several years, Paton was in St John's. If he had hoped for a call to the colonies in taking early retirement from Manchester Grammar School, this drafty outpost was not likely the colony he had anticipated. But it seems clear that he was a genuine altruist, no careerist, eager to serve where the need was definite and he could be effective. With such a wealth of experience behind him, he naturally continually improved the outline which Burke had sketched. He had written around in the search for faculty members. His total list - the penurious Newfoundlanders no doubt loved this part — was now reduced to just six positions: English and classics, modern languages, chemistry and physics, biological sciences "with special fish knowledge," mathematics, the technical department. A scrappy planning document, written on the back of something else, shows how Paton hoped to accomplish all this within the limits of the Carnegie appropriation — $4,000 for "upkeep," the rest salaries.56 Paton, Congregationalist himself— a lucky stroke if there were to be any Anglican/Catholic/Methodist feuding - found the major sects reacted much as he had been told they would. The Church of England seemed the strongest backer. The principal of Feild College wrote to inquire if the new institution would have a program suitable for his own daughter. "As you are probably aware there are certain forces at work unfavourable to the M. Coll. I am glad to be able to make what the politicians would call a 'gesture of confidence' ... We are all facing a certain amount of denominational prejudice in Secondary and Higher Education, and we badly need your help to prevent

25 Newfoundland and Higher Education

the partial strangling of real progress."57 Archbishop Roche's 1925 Lenten pastoral letter did not specifically refer to higher education, the Normal School, or Memorial. There was a very imprecise call for "united co-operation on all sides." The other denominations actually gave a better demonstration of that cooperation and mutual trust than the Roman Catholics did. At the United Church and Church of England colleges in St. John's, teaching for senior associate (grade twelve) was immediately given up in 1925, and all prospective students were channelled to the new institution. Many Catholic students also entered Memorial; nevertheless the Catholic institutions maintained for a while all their traditional programs and levels. In 192728, of sixty-five Catholic pupil teachers being trained, only eighteen were at Normal School (with thirty-one at Saint Brides and sixteen at Saint Bonaventure's). The official position was that Normal School should provide the "professional" part of a teacher's preparation while the academic part "properly belongs to the Colleges." Throughout the 19305 and 19405, Roman Catholic institutions maintained their involvement in teacher preparation to a much greater extent than the others. This was inescapable, given Catholic determination that religious values infuse the various disciplines of learning and teaching. In university level studies, as distinct from teacher training, the interchurch bargain which produced Memorial University College did not seem fully ratified until the 1928 announcement that Saint Bonaventure's would no longer accommodate senior matriculation students.58 Except for an official September inauguration, orchestrated with customary hoopla, the initial reception given to both Memorial College and its president was in some quarters guarded. "You are doubtless aware," Barnes continued Paton's lessons in the colony's educational history, "that the erection of the Normal School met with a storm of adverse criticism due, doubtless, in part to political animosity, and in part to local prejudice ... The work, however, went on, and now that the institution is functioning one confidently looks for a change of sentiment in its favour." Already by mid-October 1925, he wrote, the size of the university class at Memorial and the growth in attendance at evening lectures proved the need for this new effort, an "unanswerable reply" to those still advocating discontinuance.59 While some Newfoundlanders remained dubious, Paton's friends in other countries thought the island colony had pulled off a great coup. From British Columbia: "how I wish THIS Province had had the sense to secure your services instead of leaving a barbarous eastern country like Newfoundland to exult in the capture of your scalp - and contents."60

26 A Bridge Built Halfway CONTEXT: N E W F O U N D L A N D We now may ask two related questions that will put the start of Memorial University history into its proper overall context. Why was it that the junior college was not organized until the middle of the 19205? It seems rather late, considering developments in nearby parts of North America. Once we understand this delay, then we can ask what combination of circumstances finally produced this important innovation in Newfoundland. The most apt comparison to make, when thinking about developments in Newfoundland, is with the maritime provinces. There the earliest university charters go back to the arrival of Loyalist refugees in the 17805; long before 1900 there were several degree-granting institutions in operation. Why was Newfoundland so late in starting to provide similar opportunities? The answer no doubt lies in the totality of social and economic conditions on the big island. Newfoundland in the early decades of this century had a small, firmly rooted, but very scattered population. The 1921 census (263,033 persons) showed that the rate of population growth had stayed much the same for thirty years, averaging just under 1% per annum. This rate was less than one would expect from a birth rate of twenty-five per thousand and a death rate under half of that. It reminds us that the country was experiencing substantial out-migration.61 Patterns of emigration - to Cape Breton, Massachusetts, and other parts of North America — had appeared in the 18905 and were now habitual. Recent estimates indicate that Newfoundland was losing between 1,500 and 3,000 people per year from 1900 on.62 While contributing to immigrant cultures abroad, Newfoundland itself had become almost a closed society, ceasing after 1850 to attract any significant number of newcomers. In 1884 97% of the population was native-born; in 1911 it was 99%.63 By North American standards, society was extremely stable and settled. It was overwhelmingly homogeneous in terms of language and ethnicity as well, consisting of English-speakers of British extraction, with very small pockets of Amerindians and francophones. The major divisions in this society were those of class and religious affiliation. The census treated religion as if everyone were Christian, which was in fact almost the case. What passed for "religious pluralism" in Newfoundland was the assortment of sects which actually shared most key beliefs: in 1921 Roman Catholics and the Church of England accounted for just under one-third each; 28% were Methodist and 1% Presbyterian; and

27 Newfoundland and Higher Education

the Salvation Army already had 5%, following the introduction of this faith into the island just thirty-five years earlier.64 The one-quarter million Newfoundlanders were scattered sparsely across a vast terrain. The island itself was under 600 km across at the widest part, but the people dwelt for the most part in small villages isolated from each other along a coastline so fissured and indented it would stretch for 10,000 km if straightened out. "A large island ... in its geographical features not an hospitable one ... each of its coastlines like a graph gone mad, and the interior a wilderness."65 Over 70% of the people lived in localities with fewer than five hundred inhabitants. Unlike the rural Maritimes, these small communities were not outposts of self-sufficient agriculture. Instead, they had for centuries been part of a well-organized, interdependent network offish-trade activities that spanned the ocean. All this commerce naturally created pressures for urbanization at strategic points, where business headquarters directed the flow of goods from and to an extremely tradedependent economy. Thus the 1921 census reported twenty-odd places with a population of over 500 people - St John's preeminent with about 36,000 (14% of the total population), then Bonavista with 4,100, Harbour Grace and Grand Falls at 3,800 each, and so on.66 Altogether 29% of Newfoundlanders lived in these urban concentrations. This was a smaller percentage than in the Maritimes (40% urban in 1921), but it shows Newfoundland as different in degree, not in kind, from the mixed rural-urban lifestyles of those other jurisdictions.67 In the early 19205 the fishery was still the greatest engine of the economy. Since the 18905 the number of men engaged in the various fisheries, including the seal hunt, had maintained a steady average of about 4o,ooo.68 This represented a declining proportion of the male workforce, from 65% down to 55%. They landed on average 200,000 tons of cod and much smaller weights of herring, lobster, salmon, and other species.69 Prosperity in the industry fluctuated much more with the luck of the catch, the weather, the cure, and market conditions, than with the effort put into it. Newfoundland was being gradually beaten out by competitors. A world market share of 50% in the 18905 had declined two decades later to just 30%. After World War i, Norway and Iceland continued to innovate and make headway at Newfoundland's expense and, ominously, Spanish and Portuguese fishing fleets returned to work the offshore fishing grounds after an absence of centuries.70 By the 19208, however, an important degree of diversification

28 A Bridge Built Halfway

had occurred in the Newfoundland economy. Once the fishery had reached its fullest development in the i88os and was henceforth unable to absorb additional workers, the government gave leadership in promoting other resources and possibilities. Serially, the choices fell upon the expansion of agriculture, then increased manufacturing and processing (import substitution), then the mega-project building of the Newfoundland railway (completed across the island with a ferry link to Nova Scotia in 1897). As the political leader Edward Morris said, the options seemed to be starvation, emigration, confederation — all three unpalatable — or opening up the country.7' Next came the important stage, which was to endure for generations, of seeking foreign capital and technology to exploit the country's unused resources for the sake of the jobs and the production this would bring. Many were the deals that went sour or never materialized.72 Others, however, hardened into new ventures which took root and began to transform socioeconomic conditions. Preeminent among these were large-scale iron mining on Bell Island from 1895 on, directed by Canadian firms which utilized this Newfoundland resource to make possible the development of heavy industry in Cape Breton, and twin pulp and paper operations brought into production on the Exploits river under British auspices in 1909— 12.73

Such beginnings of industrialization did not make the country an economic paradise, nor did they nearly live up to the inflated rhetoric of politicians who had to exaggerate expected benefits in order to justify the concessions and giveaways required to bring in outsiders. "Picturing pie in the sky rather than counting loaves on the table is a tradition of some antiquity in Newfoundland politics and literature."74 Nevertheless, these developments lessened Newfoundland's reliance upon a single export, multiplied opportunities for workers, and made the economy more self-contained. By 1911, 113,000 acres were under cultivation; in 1921 there were 3,200 full-time farmers and another 35,000 who cultivated part-time, altogether one-third of the total workforce. "It is needless to say that those who are assiduous on the land as well as on the sea generally manage to live in comparative comfort."75 Some significant manufactures developed: first carriage-works, tobacco, stained glass, boots and shoes, fruit bottling, and beverages; later (by the 19205) machine castings, other metal products, stoves, hardware, rope, leather, canvas, doors and sashes, furniture, bedding, clothing, paint, drugs, monuments, printed goods, confectionery, bakery products, and "butterine" (margarine).76 The overall structure of the economy was therefore much more

29 Newfoundland and Higher Education

varied and interesting, more modern, than was the case thirty years earlier when over 90% of the workforce clustered in a single industry. The 1921 breakdown showed:77 Fishery (40,511 men; 24,937 women) Other primary industries "Factories" & "mechanics" Service industries (clergy, teachers, govt. service, offices and shops, merchants, professionals) Unspecified "others"

65,448 workers 6,983 6,695 10,062 16,121

Leaving those 16,000 "others" out of the calculation, this list shows that about 80% of the workforce were engaged in primary industries, less than 10% in secondary undertakings, and over 10% in services. Comparable 1921 figures for the Maritimes are 43%, 23%, and 33%. It seems that conditions in Newfoundland were being influenced by the same modernizing, industrializing tendencies as were operating in nearby mainland jurisdictions, but not yet to the same degree.78 How prosperous was Newfoundland? Throughout most of the nineteenth century, according to one estimate, Newfoundlanders were "not significantly worse off' than people in other British North American colonies.79 A measure of the relationship puts total goods production in Newfoundland at about 55% of that in the Maritimes in the early i88os. Thereafter the national income gap widened, however, as industrialization took root more quickly and more strongly elsewhere. By 1920, Newfoundland's per capita goods production had slipped to one-third of that in the Maritimes (27% of all Canada).80 Why did Newfoundland descend to this rather poor position? A variety of reasons has been suggested: a weak resource base, an incompetent elite, the truck system with merchants grinding the faces of the lower class, exploitation by outsiders, imperial smothering, and the export of savings and profits. One commentator stresses the low productivity that resulted from the weakness of the labour force: specifically, from widespread illiteracy. In the 18905 the proportion of those over ten years old and completely unable to read or write was estimated at 32% (compared with 13% in the Maritimes, 13% in Canada as a whole, 5% among native-born whites in the United States, 13% in Ireland, and 3% in Britain). "There was no country responsible for its affairs and the progress of its people which drew upon such a meager supply of educated people for its entrepreneurial, managerial, and administrative requirements."81 Then, too,

30 A Bridge Built Halfway

money and exchange problems were always great for a trade-dependent economy which sold the bulk of its exports in distant currencies while needing Canadian and American dollars to buy most imports. The leading cause of the country's decline was mismanagement in the fishery. New investment and technical and marketing innovations were needed in the early twentieth century, if Newfoundland were to keep abreast of competitor nations. But complacency reigned; "obscurantist conservatism" stifled government-led attempts at reform; deterioration and inefficiency became habitual.82 The 19205 was a time of ambiguity and contradiction in Newfoundland society with some indicators positive, others negative. One dubious sign was a widespread emergency in the poor fishery year 192122, one so severe that the government spent one-quarter of ordinary revenue, $2 million, on roads and bridges, dole, and other forms of relief.83 Over-expenditure caused by this and other situations (the railway, war pensions, etc.) was financed by steady borrowing. By 1924 Newfoundland's national debt was over $60 million, up steeply from $43 million just four years earlier.84 Then, too, some health conditions - infant mortality, the incidence of tuberculosis - were much worse than anywhere else in North America.85 Two-thirds of Newfoundlanders, the outport working class, were caught in a system of entrenched oppression, with bleak or no prospects of upward mobility.86 A fisherman disposing of his catch was forced to take whatever price he was offered, and to "buy his necessities at whatever price the merchant charged. He had no alternative."87 In the starvation winter of 1921—22 groups in a few south coast communities, desperate for rations, made raids on merchants' stores.88 There were certainly instances of merchants' going bankrupt by overextending credit to needy customers (neighbours), but the general attitude reported by the 1933 Amulree royal commission was that merchants were not seen as friends whose cooperation was necessary, but as "enemies whose sole object is to exploit the fisherman for their personal gain."89 Meanwhile, the general absence of cash in the outport truck economy inhibited the development of service industries and of- what is often the great engine of change and social flexibility - a middle class.90 In the other third of Newfoundland - St John's, the larger outports and new company towns like Grand Falls — society was more complex and opportunities more open. Here workers' families had some realistic expectation that the next generation could be different. Class barriers were often breached, and a plentiful middle class managers, professionals, teachers, clergy, and public servants - harboured the ambitions of social betterment common in urban North

31 Newfoundland and Higher Education

America and were apt to see education as a major means of advancement. For the majority of Newfoundlanders, life, beyond the routine satisfactions of family and the daily round, could seem quite grim. For those who went to sea or to the ice, the daily round could also prove dangerous. (In Newfoundland they have done away with special appeals when misfortune strikes, Paton explained when he returned to Britain from his presidency of Memorial College. Instead, they have the Permanent Marine Disaster Fund. 91 ) Public confidence in the colony's whole system was undermined in both city and country when a 1924 inquiry found that scandalous corruption infected many parts of the governmental apparatus up to the very highest level. A "profound sense of moral inferiority and ineptitude" entered the general consciousness of Newfoundland.92 On the other hand, there was also a good deal of pride and optimism in the Newfoundland psyche at that period. Intertwined "concepts of patriotic nativism and denominational allegiance ... underlay the strength of the island's social fabric in the latter part of the nineteenth century, and after."93 World War i was a traumatic adventure which intensified nationalism while diminishing the importance of traditional divisions. The prouder word "Dominion" replaced "Colony" in official nomenclature from 1918 on.94 The next one and a half decades, according to one scholar, were the "most turbulent" time in Newfoundland's history.95 The period also witnessed many healthy changes and progressive innovations. Although tuberculosis still raged, smallpox was eliminated as a major concern after 1918 by a country-wide program of vaccination. In 1920 Newfoundland's first long-distance telephone service was inaugurated from St John's to Carbonear, and radio began extending communications to ships half way across the Atlantic. First-class gravel roads were constructed in some localities.96 In the mid-19205 women (over 25 years of age) received the right to vote.97 Economic diversification received two important boosts in the 19208. Previously, the Anglo-Newfoundland Company development at Grand Falls had set new high standards for a clean, well-planned community, efficient services, amalgamated schooling, and stable, well-paid industrial employment. Now the government of the unprincipled Richard Squires, before being ejected from office in 1924, negotiated a deal with British capitalists who hoped to achieve the same success on an even larger scale in the Humber River watershed and woodlands of western Newfoundland. In 1923, 2,000 workers assembled in that picturesque near-wilderness to construct the linked projects of the Deer Lake power station and the world's largest integrated pulp and paper operation at Corner Brook. Newsprint pro-

32 A Bridge Built Halfway

duction started in 1925. Soon Corner Brook, which had barely qualified for the Newfoundland list of urban places in the 1921 census,98 grew to become the country's second city. That same year a United States company smelted the first ores from copper-lead-zinc deposits of the upper Exploits Valley, and the planned community of Buchans began growing there." Newfoundland needed these substantial new enterprises in order to help balance the dead weight of tradition and inefficiency in the fishery. Some definite progress had also been made in the field of education. From the turn of the century new schools were added at the rate of fifteen per year. There were 1,079 schools in 1921, catering to 51,000 pupils. This represented 80% of the target five to fourteen age group (up from 67% twenty years earlier), plus a small group of 2,000 pursuing secondary studies after age i5.100 Grants to church school boards for operating expenses increased very significantly during the First World War, and from 1916 on the government began spelling out how these funds were to be spent. Previously only a contributor to education, the political authority now took the chief financial responsibility; its role "had become preponderant and decisive."101 In the same period, as we have seen, unified arrangements for the training of teachers, and a department of education, were instituted in 1920. With these facilities more accessible and somewhat better funded, it is not surprising that the country's illiteracy rate was cut in half, from 32% around 1900 to 16% in igai. 102 Capping the improved structure of Newfoundland schools with a university college was a very natural next step. The same Squires administration that boasted of having "put the hum on the Humber" also commissioned the new Normal School building, with borrowed money of course.103 The government of Walter Monroe, successor to Squires, followed through and installed professors on Parade Street. Why was there nothing like a university in Newfoundland prior to 1925? The answer lies apparently in the country's relatively sparse, relatively poor, very scattered population and small middle class. Until the 19208 the system of basic elementary education was still being established. High levels of illiteracy suggest a limited appreciation for education in general, let alone higher learning. In all these features Newfoundland made a definite contrast with the Maritimes. From about the turn of the century Atlantic region societies and economies began to resemble each other more closely. Some combination of economic diversification, industrialization, growth of the middle class, the spread of schooling and literacy, modern communi-

33 Newfoundland and Higher Education Table 1 Number of Newfoundlanders Studying Abroad, 1890-1925* Academic Year Beginning

Nfld. Students Abroad (estimates)

Nfld. Population (census)

No. of Students Abroad per 10,000 of Population

1890 1895 1900 1905 1910 1915 1920 1925

75 140 95 50 150 130 220 230

196,000 205,600 215,200 225,700 236,500 246,900 257,200 270,600

3.8 6.8 4.4 2.2 6.3 5.3 8.6 8.4

* Estimates of the number of students abroad are very rough. How they were reached is explained in Appendix 1.

cations, greater awareness of mainland examples - and perhaps a desire to emulate conditions in the Maritimes - together provided the context in which plans for increased higher education in Newfoundland were implemented with such deliberation. A desire for postsecondary studies, rising much more quickly than population size during normal economic times, was one sign of change. Table i shows the approximate scale of the demand: about 100 students in the colonial population in 1900, 150 in 1910, over 200 in 1920. This rising curve of scholarly out-migration was an important factor in the events that pushed developments along. The threat of limits being set on the colony's participation in Rhodes scholarships strengthened the opinion that something should be done about the slothful posture in higher education. The lengthening tradition of fair balance among the religions created an atmosphere in which former animosities were permitted to subside. National grief and pride after the slaughter in Europe were translated into public spending on a new facility. Canadian curriculum, American funding, and an English headmaster, properly packaged, could form a Newfoundland institution. Although the general socioeconomic context no doubt best explains the genesis of Memorial, the influence of a few key personalities was also of great significance. The three school superintendents who planned sophomore extension lectures in 1914, later joined by Ronald Kennedy, provided the essential ingredient - an interface for sectarian bargaining and cooperation. They were great leaders, no doubt; they also reflected twentieth-century attitudes and values, more tolerant and materialistic than in previous times, in a society of

34 A Bridge Built Halfway

growing complexity. By the time Curtis, Burke, and Blackall demonstrated the benefits of interdenominational cooperation in the 1917 summer school, they had among them a total of 45 years of experience as superintendents. When newly appointed to a sensitive post, one customarily occupies the first several years learning how to defend its prerogatives and to find the limits. After that one has the wisdom and the weight to build for the future. By the eve of World War i the three leagued superintendents were aged enough in their offices to feel secure in risking linked initiatives. By 1925, still working together and of one mind, they had behind them sixty-nine years of experience in directing the colony's educational efforts. This group longevity helped budge Newfoundland from a deeply entrenched tradition of sectarian suspicion and separation. When the will of the Rev. Levi Curtis was probated in 1943, a sum of $1,500 was bequeathed to Memorial University College for a scholarship fund. The oldest superintendent had stipulated that awards from this investment were to go to children of United Church clergy or to other adherents of that belief.104 It seems a shame, somehow, that the last will of a leader who helped to free higher education from the shackles of denominationalism should revert to the narrower, fractured concept of society. It reminds us, however, that Memorial's founders created a secular institution in order to achieve educational and career advantages for adherents of their respective religious groupings.

CHAPTER 2

A Student Profile

The place is silent now; not long before Students had entered by that very door. Not many hours have passed beyond our ken Since curious specimens of Phylum 10, Female and male, were gathered here to learn1 (A.R. Scammell, MUC 1931, "The Haunted Lab.")

Of major universities in the Atlantic region, Memorial University of Newfoundland (MUN) is the youngest. Students were first admitted to the non-degree-granting program of Memorial University College in 1925. The next quarter-century makes a natural period in institutional history. Its unity derives from the fact that this was the time of junior college immaturity, before the institution was elevated to degree-granting status just as Newfoundland confederated with Canada. The general affairs of Newfoundland went through several phases during those two and a half decades. The late 19208 and early 19305 saw the last blossoming of Newfoundland independence, before pride and economic diversification sickened into widespread dole-subsistence and public bankruptcy. The years 1934—39 saw the inauguration of the Commission of Government, a benevolent dictatorship marked by many, often fruitless, attempts at modernization and reform, while little recovery was made from the great depression. The discovery of the colony's strategic utility by both Canada and the United States inaugurated in 1940 a new era of plentiful military spending which eliminated unemployment and dole for a while and brought relative prosperity to ordinary families and the administration as well.2 Prosperity was prolonged into the postwar period, but constitutional uncertainty paralysed effective planning for reform. These pulses in the life of Newfoundland were reflected, sometimes

36 A Bridge Built Halfway Table 2 Participation Rate of Newfoundland Students at Memorial University College, 1925-50. Year

Registration

Estimated Nfld. Population*

1925 1926 1927 1928 1929 1930 1931 1932 1933 1934 1935 1936 1937 1938 1939 1940 1941 1942 1943 1944 1945 1946 1947 1948 1949

57 69 78 93 111 137 158 192 167 220 272 255 263 266 282 254 262 264 254 297 364 434 397 329 307 400

270,600 272,500 274,400 276,300 278,200 280,100 282,000 283,900 285,800 287,700 289,600 292,800 296,000 299,300 302,400 305,700 308,900 312,100 315,400 318,600 321,800 328,400 335,000 341,600 348,200 354,800

MUG

1950 (MUN)

Ratio (Number of Students per 10,000 Population

2.1 2.6 2.9 3.3 4.0 4.9 5.6 6.9 5.8 7.6 9.4 8.8 8.8 8.9 9.4 8.3 8.5 8.5 7.9 9.3 11.4 13.2 11.7 9.7 8.8 11.4

*Estimates, rounded to the nearest 100, are based upon the 1935 and 1945 census counts.

tardily, in Memorial's enrolment history, as shown by table 2. From fifty-seven registered in the first year, the plateau of one hundred students was reached in 1929, and there were two hundred five years later. Then depression and war stopped growth, a discouraging pattern common also among Canadian universities.3 Four times between 1933 and 1944 the enrolment was less than it had been the previous year. In 1936, 255 students registered; in 1943 there were 254. Standstill. After that registration began to leap up towards the modern era. Returning veterans with special assistance from the government boosted attendance in the late 19408 until it peaked at 434. Three years later, with the veterans departed, registration slumped to 307; the following year, normal conditions once more, it rose to 400 and has been growing ever since.

37 A Student Profile Table 3 Enrolment at Eastern Canadian Universities, 1925-47. Academic Year

Mount Allison1

1925-26 1931-32

301 355

1935-36 1940-41

449

1946-47

(previous year 568)

881

Dalhousie2

800 (previous year 1016)

Saint Francis Xavier4

MUC

MUC as % of St. F. X.

-

202 268

57 158

28 59

-

Acadia3

884 678

399

305 312

272 254

89 81

1569

877

870

434

50

Notes: 1 Figures in this column are calculated from Mount Allison University calendars until 1942; the figure for 1946-47 is taken from Reid, Mount Allison, 449. 2 Dalhousie University calendars; Axelrod, "Moulding the middle class," 87; Harris, A History of Higher Education, 473. 3 Data contained in a letter from J. Cockayne, Assistant Registrar (Acadia) to M. MacLeod, 30 June 1986. 4 Figures from Saint Francis Xavier calendars until 1942; the figure for 1946-47 is from Harris, Higher Education.

As Newfoundland's total population increased from about 270,000 in 1925 to 350,000 in 1950, the participation rate at Memorial increased from 2 to 7 students per 10,000 of population by the mid 19305, then stalled at 8 to 9 per 10,000 (except for the immediate postwar years) until the end of the college era. These participation rates cannot, however, disguise the fact that the total enrolment of Memorial in all the preconfederation years was really very small. Of course, the whole human and institutional scale of things was much smaller in the 19205 and 19305 than it became sixty years later. Table 3 compares enrolment figures at MUC with those at several of the closest universities on the Canadian mainland. Acadia, Dalhousie, Mount Allison, and St Francis Xavier were of ancient lineage even in 1925, with charters that went back fifty to one hundred years. Even Dalhousie, however, often had only three or four times the number of students at Memorial, and there was a time in the late 19308 when the St John's college almost equalled St Francis Xavier in size, before falling off to half the enrolment when the veterans came on the scene. By the 19805 Memorial, with its chartered monopoly on providing university services to a captive and increasing population, had outstripped all these older institutions in number of students. The early foundations of this success story lie in the ambitions, achievements, and demography of the first generations of students at MUC. Where

38 A Bridge Built Halfway Table 4 Location of Home Address for Students Entering Memorial University College, in Academic Years 1928, 1938, 1948

Region Northern areas2 Central Nfld.3 Bonavista Bay Trinity Bay Conception Bay St. John's Metropolitan Area Placentia Bay & Southern Avalon South Coast4 Western Nfld. Labrador United Kingdom

1938-39 (%)

1948-49 (%)

Percentage of Nfld. Pop. in that Area1

9 8 8

5 5 8 5 23 36

12 7 3 9 13 39

12 6 8 8 15 20

4 2 -

4 7 5 1

5 9 3 -

10 9 12 2

1928-29 (%)

2 28 40

Notes 1 Average of figures in 1935 and 1945 censuses. 2 From Cape Bauld to Lumsden (on the "Straight shore" east of Fogo). 3 The Exploits river system from Red Indian Lake to Bishops Falls. 4 From Cape Ray to Fortune.

exactly did they come from? Were they mostly male or female? What motivated them? How typical of the Newfoundland scene, how representative of society were these first marchers in the Parade Street parade? HOME ADDRESS

Memorial University College did not give equal service to all parts of the country. Table 4 shows home addresses reported by students registering for the first time at ten-year intervals during the junior college period. The St John's metropolitan area, where the college was physically located, placed about twice as many students in the halls of learning as the area's proportion of the Newfoundland population would warrant. Conception Bay - also close by, also relatively prosperous compared with many other parts of the island - was similarly overrepresented in the beginning, although in the late 19405 its share of the student body declined. The most underrepresented areas were the regions of Placentia Bay, southern Avalon peninsula, and western Newfoundland. These territories sent only one-third as many students as might have been

39 A Student Profile

expected from the distribution of population generally. It seems that Placentia-southern Avalon was the part of Newfoundland where satisfaction with traditional low levels of schooling, or disinterest in higher education, was greatest. Western Newfoundland, however, was a very different case. Communities on the west coast were a long way - five to six hundred kilometres - from the ornate front door of the university college. On the Newfoundland railway, serpentine proof of the island's modernization, there were eight hundred kilometres of distance and expense between St John's and Corner Brook. Looked at from Corner Brook's viewpoint, Antigonish in Nova Scotia, and therefore Saint Francis Xavier University, were just as close. Not only that, but a good proportion of pre-paper-mill settlers in western Newfoundland belonged to families whose forebears had migrated into the area from Nova Scotia during the 1840-60 period.4 When the church developed St Francis Xavier as a centre for Catholic and Celtic learning, for many families on the west coast it was not only the closest but also their own university. The indications are that the university participation rate in western Newfoundland was relatively high compared with most parts of the colony, but the region's students were more likely to go to St Francis Xavier, or some other nearby college on the mainland of Canada, than to head off in the other direction for Memorial and St John's. There were years when nearly half of all Newfoundlanders at St Francis Xavier hailed from the west coast. MUC'S publicist noted in 1932 that "Corner Brook was the first school to start a leaving scholarship tenable for two years at this college."5 The figures in table 4 show, however, that special efforts to persuade people in western Newfoundland to think of Memorial as their own college did not work very well prior to 1950. The territories where Memorial, by propaganda and reputation, was more successful in increasing student clientele when the depression slackened were the northern reaches beyond Bonavista Bay from the Straight shore and Fogo Island around the northern peninsula — and the whole stretch of the south coast from Fortune westward. From the 19208 to the 19405, representation increased until these areas produced the same fraction of MUG studentry as they did of Newfoundland's total population. Yet at the turn of the century some parts of these areas had the worst literacy rates in the whole country.6 That they could eventually produce their proportional share of university students probably indicates significant shifts in both schooling practices and social values. Overall, the enrolment picture shows Memorial slowly winning the loyalty and attendance of the country's furthest regions. Northern, western, and south-coast

40 A Bridge Built Halfway Table 5 Home Address Homogeneity at Memorial University College Contrasted with Dalhousie and Mount Allison Dalhousie 1930s1 (%)

Newfoundland Maritime Provinces Rest of Canada United States Britain Bermuda, West Indies, Asia, other

5 82 3 9

negligible 1

MUC New

Mount Allison 1938-392 (%)

Students 1938-39 (%)

3 88 6 1 nil 2

99 1 -

Notes: 1 Axelrod, "Moulding the Middle Class," 88. 2 Mount Allison University Calendar 1939-40, 140-53.

Newfoundland, with about one-third of total population, began in the 19208 by contributing only one-tenth of the students at old Memorial, but by 1948-49 these areas were home for one-fourth of them. Another feature of the Memorial experience which is revealed by these home address statistics is the closed nature of the society to which the college catered. In the student records studied to produce table 4, Labrador, St-Pierre, and contiguous parts of the Canadian mainland were all unrepresented. Only one student gave a home address not on the island of Newfoundland — his family lived at Shillington in Bedfordshire, England. Two other 1938 entrants had also been born abroad - one Edinburgh, one Montreal - but the families now lived in Newfoundland. The insular experience of students at old Memorial was very different from the mixture of regionalisms and even nationalities found in the universities of the nearby maritime provinces. At Dalhousie in the 19308, for example - see table 5 - 9% of students came from the United States and another 6% from other foreign countries including Newfoundland. Every Canadian province was represented. Similarly, at Mount Allison in the same period one student in eight was from outside the region of the maritime provinces. Rubbing strange elbows broadened the education enjoyed at those other colleges; Memorial lacked this advantage. This is not to say that students at Memorial were all one big happy family of similar background. Home address was indeed one of the principal barriers separating the student body into mutually suspicious, sometimes antagonistic camps. Townies versus Baymen - St

41 A Student Profile

John's versus the outports - is a well-recognized division in Newfoundland society. How important was it back in the days of the old college? Was there serious tension between the two groups? During the oral history phase of the Memorial College history project, these questions were put to one hundred former students. The result was largely inconclusive. For every dozen who said there was an important difference, there were a dozen and a half who said there was none, but less convincingly. To a certain degree it was the outport students who remembered the division forty tofifty-fiveyears afterwards and were willing to talk about it, while a majority of the town students did not or were not. One has to keep in mind here the rose-coloured-glasses syndrome often associated with oral history: people recall the satisfying more readily than painful or embarrassing aspects of long-past experience. "To my knowledge," wrote Olive Dawe (MUG 1927): "There were no town versus outport barriers to sociability among the students — perhaps because of [President] J.L. Paton's example, and his social recognition or acceptance of us all, as one group. We were at Memorial with a purpose — 'to do well' — we had the same aim - there was no time for any divisions - we were at unity."7 Allan Gillingham, another early student (1928), later a professor, was asked if he remembered town students looking down upon outport people: "No, I don't remember that at all. If any looking down we did, that would come much, much later when we had teachers- in-training at the college, because some of those were odd youngsters who would drop their h's in the wrong place ... who might dress oddly at the beginning, and being foolish we would probably regard that as odd. But it was more ignorance than malice on our part, I think."8 Another town student called the relationship between the St John's and outport students "very cordial. There were times when we'd probably rib them because of their accents. Of course we had accents too but their accents were rather peculiar and they seemed to lack confidence."9 The first MUG student from a tiny Notre Dame Bay outport, however, remembered that, "We were regarded a little bit below the salt, we had to prove ourselves. They were the elite, they had gone to Bishop Feild College and Methodist College and all that, so we had to be on our mettle. [How was that prejudice shown?] I think it was mostly in student offices; they went to the St John's groups — we stayed in the background."10 Some of the outporters even found universities they attended subsequently - institutions in a foreign country - more friendly and congenial than the Newfoundland college was. "It seems to me that I never did become a real part of Memorial College in the same sense as I became a part of Mount

42 A Bridge Built Halfway Table 6 Health of Memorial University College Students, 1944 Defects found

Teachers in Training

Active pulmonary TB Suspicion of TB Dental Vision Tonsils Orthopedic Skin Hearing Heart Miscellaneous

1 1 23 14 5 4 3 0 0 5

Total number of defects Total students examined Ratio of defects to students

56 66 5:6(85%)

Academic Students

1 15 12 6 5 1 3 2

7

52 139 2:5(37%)

Allison. I was at home there. As much as I appreciate the many good things that Memorial College did for me, I never acquired the warmness for the institution, that I acquired for Mount Allison. The town versus outport barrier existed at Memorial and perhaps had something to do with this."11 Another student who was also at MUG in the early 19408 and at Mount Allison thereafter found he "fitted in better" with students from the Maritimes than with people from St John's, "because I was an outport bay noddy, and they were townies."12 College authorities were aware of practical and educational, as well as social, differences among their two groups of clients. "I know the members of the Board ... appreciate the fact that many of our outport students are seriously handicapped because of the impossibility of staffing small schools."13 Brutal evidence of outport disadvantages came to light indirectly, when towards the end of the 1943-44 academic year the Department of Public Health arranged for complete physical examinations and chest x-rays for the whole student body. The results, presented in two reports,14 showed that students enrolled for preparation as teachers were much less healthy than the others (see table 6). This was the program which outport students dominated by about four to one, whereas students from St John's - who during their youth had easier access to higher quality health care — comprised about half of the "Academic students." No doubt this explains the academic group's much lower incidence of tooth decay, eye problems, TB, etc. Despite unpropitious indicators, outport students nevertheless

43 A Student Profile

attained one important advantage over the townies. Although less exposed to modern ways and urban living, they achieved more academically. Stuart Godfrey (1932) remembered: One of the things that kind of woke me up was that so many of these outport boys and girls were very fine students ... I certainly saw a high regard for their capabilities in the staff at Memorial ... Mr Paton called me in about something one day, I don't know what it was for, perhaps he wanted to give me a little calling down about something, we got talking about Newfoundland students and he said, Stuart, I've never come across students anywhere with such a hunger for learning and education as outport Newfoundland students and the fact that I remember it shows it must have made a deep impression on me.15

Another informant thought some of the town students were perhaps a little frivolous. "They didn't have so much riding on it, living at home and coming from a different level of society, I mean financially. They didn't have the financial worries that we [outporters] had and in some cases they were just going ... to university because it was the thing to do."16 Comparing the academic achievement of town students and those from the most benighted outport areas confirms this impression. Northern Newfoundland and the stretch of south coast from Port aux Basques to Fortune included communities as isolated and disadvantaged as any on the island. The scholastic record of students who entered Memorial from those areas in 1928, 1938, and 1948 was compared with the record of St John's entrants in the same years. The academic achievement of the outporters was more steady and successful both in the first term, when the shock of city life was the greatest, and in the students' final set of examinations. In the first September-January term the average mark for first-year students from St John's was 49% (that is, 9 marks above the old MUG pass of 40%). Outport students, however, scored an average of 52.3%. Also, about one in twelve of city students did not write that first set of examinations, while marks were recorded for all the outport students. Moving to the grades at college-leaving, one finds that both groups improved their scholastic standing. At this stage the average mark of a town student was 51.1%, and of an outport student 56.3%. Ten % of St John's students, but none of the outporters, had dropped out during their first year. One of Memorial's early students, now permanently enshrined in Newfoundland literature, is Art Scammell. He had already written his famous "Squid jiggin' ground" before coming in from Notre

44 A Bridge Built Halfway

Dame Bay for college. One of the pieces he wrote while at MUG is "The haunted lab," a poem in rhyming couplets in the style of Alexander Pope, written after the class had studied "The Rape of the Lock" in English 2. The poem is reproduced in appendix 3. Scammell chuckled when describing the impact his work made on the sometimes crusty Alfred Hunter; it "won his admiration, he read it out in class and he praised me a bit. [What did the townies think of that?] Well, they were short of flabbergasted — to think that a chap from Change Islands could - could outdo Pope, you know."17 RELIGION

Another factor often found divisive in other parts of Newfoundland society was of very little importance among the student body of old Memorial College. The college had been created as the nondenominational capstone for an educational edifice, which at every lower level was riven along religious lines into several separate systems. Memorial's experience proves that the time was right for this experiment. Religious divisions - so prominent in most students' previous schooling - vanished quickly when they entered upon studies at Parade Street. Denominational identification was by no means ignored. Church affiliation was a standard item of information sought by the registrar when students enrolled. This information did not affect their admission (there were no denominational quotas), although there were sometimes quotas in the summer school for teachers, and the administration made sure that all the major sects were represented in faculty appointments (these aspects are discussed in chapter 4 below). Over 99% of entrants to MUG had one of eight standard religious affiliations to claim. They seem to have swallowed easily and whole the expectations of a narrow Christian society, and perhaps only a few had ever given sustained, independent thought to the important issues with which religion deals. Whoever said the twentieth century was a secular time never knew Newfoundland or students entering old Memorial. Analysing these affiliations shows that Memorial faithfully reflected the relative strength of denominations in the Newfoundland population. Table 7 reveals that the Church of England, Salvation Army, Pentecostal, Presbyterian, and even tiny Seventh Day Adventist and Jewish segments were all represented in numbers corresponding with their share of general demography. The participation of Roman Catholics — they comprised one-third of the potential college clientele - declined from 32% in 1928 to 23% in 1948. The only denomina-

45 A Student Profile Table 7 Religious Affiliation of Students Entering Memorial University College, in Academic Years 1928, 1938, 1948

Roman Catholic Church of England Methodist United Church Salvation Army Pentecostal Presbyterian Seventh Day Adventist Jewish None or unknown

Proportion of Nfld. Pop.

1928-29

1938-39

1948-49

(%)

(%)

(%)

Census) in %

16 31

23 36

33 32

41 5 1 1 1 1 1

35 3 1 1 1

26 6 1 1 ? ?

32 25 2* 42 -

(1935

*With United Church after 1928 (church union 1925)

tion consistently over-represented was the United Church of Canada. Just one-quarter of the population, Methodist/United Church families, provided between 35% and 44% of the student body. This seems to have been the religious grouping most attracted by the idea of using higher education as a ladder for social mobility. More important than the generally even representation of all religious factions is the testimony of former students to the absence of social barriers based on denominational distinctions. They are almost unanimous in stating that the program of studies for which one was enrolled, plus natural human divisions according to interests, gender, and personality, governed the formation of cliques and groups at the old college. There were no religiously oriented clubs or organizations. Several dozen former students were asked to name the best friends they made while at college, and then to state the religious affiliation of these people. Some appeared not to have really realized before that the close friendships made at Memorial were a mixture of United Church, Roman Catholic, Salvation Army, etc. Among the few who recalled college life segregated on religious lines, it often seemed to be a stance directly attributable to the older generation. "It made a little bit of difference to some of the parents," one recalled. "I was Catholic; maybe one of my parents might say well I don't know if you should go out with him, he is a Protestant."18 A Jewish student from the same period of the early 19308 remembered: "Antisemitism was present but I felt no more than inter-Christian antagonisms. I was in no way disadvantaged."19

46 A Bridge Built Halfway

One of the main reasons why religion made little difference at Memorial was that rituals of religious fair play had, by the second quarter of the twentieth century, been hammered into a satisfying round of expectations, behaviours, and limitations. For example, one superior student in 1940 contemplated applying for the Rhodes scholarship but, "I knew the year before another Protestant had received it so I knew that I wouldn't stand a chance." It was the turn now for a Roman Catholic student to win that honour, he remembered without rancour, so his attempt would have to wait for another year.20 Only occasionally did religious affiliation cause, not rancour, but something kin to disappointment. "One thing that still sticks in my memory is what happened when one of the students died. We all went in cap and gown to attend the funeral service. It was an Anglican student, so we paraded down to the Anglican Cathedral. The Roman Catholic students fell out, they didn't go inside the church. They waited until the service was over. [Were they criticized by other students for doing that?] I wouldn't use the word criticized ... it was a novel experience rather than something you criticized."21 Religious affiliation, then, was an important distinguishing feature of nearly every soul at the college, and religious differences were routinely recognized. These customs, however, rarely interfered with close social intercourse. Nine out often among students interviewed agreed with Margaret Sanford (1938). Although a few of the students at Memorial "were Jews, we didn't know it. Didn't know it... We were aware that we were educated either Church of England, United Church, Roman Catholic ... Salvation Army or whatever, but it didn't make any difference, none at all. None.22 SEX AND AGE

The students' vital statistics support three important conclusions. The proportion of women to men fluctuated wildly during Memorial's first quarter-century. The average age of male students increased by almost two years in that time, while that of the women declined. In each case one has to look closely at aspects of the college program and at other factors in both the college and the socioeconomic context in which it operated, in order to understand the reason for and meaning of these changes. Table 8 shows the gender/age characteristics of new students in the fourth, fourteenth, and twenty-fourth year of operation. In 1928 the college catered primarily to that year's crop of students leaving grade eleven. Most of them were about 17.5 years, with the overall average lifted to 18.4 because of a small group of

47 A Student Profile Table 8 Sex and Average Age of Students Entering Memorial University College, in Academic Years 1928, 1938, 1948 Men

Women

1928-29 1938-39 1948-49

Total

%

Average Age

%

Average Age

%

Average Age

30 44 22

18.5 yrs. 18.5 yrs. 17.3 yrs.

70 56 78

18.3 yrs. 20.0 yrs. 20.1 yrs.

100 100 100

18.4 yrs. 19.4 yrs. 19.2 yrs.

mature students. One-third of the student body were women, a standard percentage mirrored at universities on the Canadian mainland nearby.23 Complexities set in thereafter. By 1938 females made up 44% of students entering Memorial. This was the result of the teacher training (education) program which became part of Memorial's offerings in 1934. In ordinary times there was a 10% annual loss from the teaching profession in Newfoundland.24 Now, declining incomes in that depression-wracked line of work made it less attractive to male bread-winners, while the need for recruits increased. So sixty out of one hundred students taking teacher training at MUG that year were women. In all the rest of the college, however, the women kept their ancient place, about one-third. By 1948, however, the proportion of women entering the college was down to 22%, just half of what it had been ten years earlier. Why? It would be easy to guess that this had something to do with the Second World War and to be wrong. Memorial, like most Canadian universities, experienced a large influx of male veterans that affected its vital statistics in the postwar years. This group had gone through, however, by 1948. Instead, it was the development and popularity of professional programs in the college curriculum which explained women's inferiority in numbers. Back in 1928 just 10% of college entrants selected the premedical course, and preengineering had not begun. By 1948, 131 of Memorial's 329 students were enrolled in engineering and medicine. Thus 40% of the student body were in programs from which women were almost entirely excluded. In the rest of the college 31% of the students were women. Therefore the study of the male-female ratio shows that women were a rather consistent one-third of students in the core program, while gender ratios in overall college registration waxed and waned according to the sexrelated requirements and popularity of professions.25 The next question is why the average age of men entering Memorial went up from 18.3 to 20 years between 1928 and 1938, remaining at

48 A Bridge Built Halfway

the higher level thereafter. Basically, it was because teachers and others learned to take advantage of the college to strengthen their general education and improve career prospects. Computer analysis of the considerably older than average men (those over twenty-one on entering Memorial) revealed that these men tended to be Protestants (United Church and Salvation Army), from Bonavista and Trinity Bays and the south coast rather than St John's, of lower-class origin, and enrolled in arts/science "B" (science emphasis). Their life stories are in some cases inspiring. For example: a student born in a Notre Dame Bay community in 1906, Salvation Army, a teacher, whose first postsecondary experience was as a one-term student in the Normal School, September-December 1929. He was thirty-one years old when he first registered at Memorial nine years later, coming from a teaching post in Clarenville. After a successful year he returned to teaching for another two years before coming back to finish the junior college diploma in 1941—42. Here we see ability and perseverance united, a typical example of the interrupted but successful program of studies.26 A different combination of circumstances landed Arthur Butt at MUC as a twenty-nine-year-old freshman. Born in Flat Islands, Bonavista Bay, in 1906, he finished grade six there at the age of twelve and went fishing with his father. He started coming about on a different tack ten years later. "I had a conversion experience ... after that I always thought that there was someone on my trail. And I didn't want to listen ... I found it difficult to tell my father that I was making a break with the schooner and the fishery." It was autumn and they were in St John's shipping their fish. Butt told his father he was going back to school. "He said what have you got on your mind? I said, dad, I am going to be a minister." (Here, for dramatic effect, the boom swings across suddenly and knocks the skipper into the water, or a tub full of slippery fish slides off a bench all over the deck.) Recovering, Mr Butt senior said: "You know we have got no money ... I only have one thing to give you, my prayers. And I said all right, dad, I'll take those. That will be better than anything else." Butt had "talked to the teacher before I went to St John's and said will you take me on? And she said yes ... I said if I had to take grades 7, 8, 9, 10, and i l l will be half an old man before I am finished. Would you put me up for grade nine? She said you've been out of school for a long time ... I said I'll promise you that I will work harder than any student you have ever had." At twenty-five years old, squeezed into a desk alongside preteenagers, Butt at first felt rather awkward, although he always held his own in recess scuffles. He did the grade ten work that same year, completed grade eleven the next, spent two

49 A Student Profile

years on a United Church mission field with eight preaching places in White Bay, studied for the Memorial diploma in 1935-37, finished an arts degree at Dalhousie, then attended Pine Hill Divinity Hall, and was ordained in ig4i. 27 Once the opportunities offered by the college were well broadcast around the island, Memorial received a good share of these determined older students who came back from the work force in their late twenties and thirties for general arts and science studies. Finally, why did the average age of women coming into the college drop by more than a year between 1938 and 1948, from 18.5 to 17.3 years? Here the evidence is less conclusive, since the women always varied much less in age than the men. Once again the answer lies largely in the characteristics of the teaching profession. Whereas in 1938 women entering teacher training had an average age of 19.5 by 1948 the same group was aged 17.5. It obviously was now more common than before for women who intended to teach to come to the college for some professional preparation before exposing themselves to the rigours of the classroom. This aspect of the college age profile reveals a modernization and professionalization of the teaching profession, as well as an increased prosperity which permitted a large group to pass on to postsecondary education without needing to pause and earn income first. It was always a concern of Memorial's administrators that the student body should not be too young. The hothouse programs offered by the residential upper schools in St John's always produced a few precocious young people who were academically - but not socially or in degree of maturity — qualified for college entrance before Memorial thought it wise to accept them. The rule which developed was that one needed to be sixteen full years of age upon entry. While the college was still feeling its way to this regulation, in 1928—29 seven of fifty-three entrants were less than sixteen. Only one completed two academic years. In 1948 five under-age students were accepted, all boys. The youngest was a lad from the northern peninsula beyond St Anthony, who celebrated his fifteenth birthday just before starting classes. Son of a fisherman, he did well scholastically - with an average in the 6os - but the report from practice teaching experience was discouraging because of his immaturity and poor speech. More commonly, the college would not make exceptions for applicants who were under sixteen. The result was that quite a few Memorial students had passed through grade eleven more than once while waiting to grow up. The record was held by a man who, after passing grade eleven (Prince of Wales College), was still too young to go to Memorial, "so I had to take it a second year." He had lower grades

50 A Bridge Built Halfway

the second time around. If he had carried on like this he might have succeeded in failing grade eleven. Then he entered MUC but had to discontinue because of family finances. During the following two years, no jobs being available, he was back at Prince of Wales where he did grade eleven two more times (Commercial 11 and 11 Advanced).28 A notable feature of the social scene at old Memorial, therefore, was the rather wide age range of students: ages 14 to 26 in the 1928 intake group, 15 to 33 ten years later, and a spread of 33 years - 15 to 48 years of age - among the new students in the academic year 1948-49. Except for some concern about the preparedness of the very youngest students, this mixture of generations and experiences from the most naive to veterans of fishery, classroom, and pulpit, worked well, and no doubt each age group contributed to the general education of the others. The relative positions of women and men were not quite so well handled. Some tensions existed, and there were limitations that were resented. In early Memorial photographs a great number of the women wear neckties - which were of course part of the prescribed uniform at girls' schools such as Bishop Spencer College. It may be too strong to say that there was a tradition that young ladies who wanted a higher education were encouraged to dress like men — or it may not. On the Students' Representative Council at MUC, the president was always male. Women encountered some interference in their program of studies. One, attempting to enrol for geology, remembers she was given to understand that tramping out on wild, lonely expeditions in search of outcrops and samples, floundering across bogs, etc., was not within the range of ladylike behaviour.29 In professional preparation the college certainly catered more to men. The household science program existed with women in mind, but very few enrolled. The preengineering clientele - from the mid-19308 over one-fifth of the student body - was exclusively male. No female engineering students appeared at Memorial until after the 1961 move to the new campus. This was typical of the times; at Mount Allison, for example, the 1944 presentation of an engineering diploma to a woman was an unprecedented happening not repeated for twenty years.30 Memorial did have women enrolled in premedical studies, but we must not be misled by that. In 1948, for instance, five of thirty-eight first-year premeds were women. Among the second-year students, however, there was none. It may be that the few girls who began in premed lacked the determined ambition actually to become physicians that the boys had or that they took premed for the sake of

51 A Student Profile

interesting studies with a certain scientific orientation or to make the acquaintance of others with the same interests. Women who were serious about medicine might well be discomfitted by experiences similar to Kathleen Kennedy's. In 1932 she finished two years of premed study as the only woman in the group. Did she enjoy the graduation party? "Mr Paton and his sister always invited the graduates into their house for afternoon tea ... I heard afterwards that all the pre-meds, there must have been twelve or thirteen of them or something like that, had someone take their picture and I wasn't included ... I got after those fellows for years about it. A lot of them are dead now, but I said well you dirty mean things - talk about discrimination against females, I said, what chance would I have in medical school when the premeds wouldn't even have me in their picture?"31 On the other hand, it is clear that for most of the period the proportion of women in the total student body was very healthy, even approaching equality overall when they were preponderant in the teacher training program. What a shock, opening mail from a former student now living in England, to receive one of her mementoes from those days - a photograph of the 1928 Memorial women's hockey team: real ice hockey, rough, and unladylike. The tradition of girl's college hockey, dead within the memory of today's students, persisted at old Memorial for some time. In this as in many other ways, lifestyles at the Newfoundland institution generally followed patterns familiar on Canadian campuses.32 In both countries, the idea that women's liberation belongs to the second half of the twentieth century is false. A study of Dalhousie in the 19305 found there a condescending attitude towards women, and different approaches to supervision of leisure and living arrangements according to sex. These features were not reported by informants on conditions in Newfoundland. In Paton's first annual report he boasted of the college's having already gathered $3,000 into a scholarship fund. Since men could aspire to the Rhodes, he wrote, "It is clear that the women should have the first claim upon this fund."33 One former student was asked if there seemed to be any lingering opinion, when Memorial was young, that women should not really aspire to a college education. "I never got that impression. And of course if there was it would have been squashed because Mr Paton had such a good opinion of women, their brain power and their ability ... we would have got a lovely talk in assembly one day if he had sensed anything [like that] ... The only time that I saw Mr Paton really angry" concerned the honour of women. Chesley Drover was at the piano for the usual assembly sing song. Someone suggested

52 A Bridge Built Halfway

"My darling Clementine." "Ches played the introduction and we started to sing, and Mr Paton came down on the table on the stage with his fist. 'Stop it,' he said, 'stop it! I will not have that sung under any roof under which I am' ... He said 'it just puts down womanhood,' he said, 'it's a horrible song. I will not have it.' And you know he was so red we thought he was going to have a stroke ... Chesley turned from the piano and said, 'are there any other suggestions?' "34 One had perhaps not thought of "Clementine" in those terms before, but there is cynicism at the end — "I kissed her little sister, and forgot my Clementine." The young people at Memorial were taught that individual personalities are unique, whether they are men or women. One hopes they understood, that Paton was not too subtle. As they filed from the auditorium, did one fellow nudge his buddy, whisper he had learned his lesson and would never again request a song in assembly? CLASS B A C K G R O U N D

The next student characteristic to be analysed is socioeconomic class. Particular difficulties beset this investigation. The concept of class is shifting and emotive, endlessly debatable. Previous studies of class structure - in Newfoundland or in the student body of nearby Canadian universities - provide little help. Finally, the information base on which to build an analysis is very slender. It consists merely of responses which four-fifths of the students made at registration to the question: What is your father's occupation? Social class is determined by the extent and security of a family's claim to part of the wealth which society produces. Particular indicators, of greater or lesser significance, are the breadwinner's income and type of occupation, the nature/location of the residence, years of schooling and church, ethnic or other affiliations.35 If the published literature had included a thoughtful model that used this type of thinking to elaborate Newfoundland's class structure in the period, that would have been of great help in assigning students to their socioeconomic class. Unfortunately, no such study has been published. The extant analyses of students at Mount Allison36 and Dalhousie37 universities were not fully applicable to the Newfoundland situation. No alternative remained but to make the construction of a table of Newfoundland's class structure in the 1925-50 period part of the Memorial college study. A general framework had to be erected, into which detailed facts about the student clientele could then be fitted. Some of the thinking involved in designing this class structure,

53 A Student Profile Table 9 Apparent Socioeconomic Class of Students Entering Memorial University College in 1928, 1938, 1948 (Based on Parent's Occupation) Percentage of Students

Proportion of Nfld

Occupational Class

1928-29

Upper - highest paid professionals, owners, managers, etc., average income over $2500 13 Upper middle - highly skilled occupations average income $1500-2500 45 Lower middle - lowest paid professional & many semiskilled occupations, average income $900-1500 19 Lower - occupations requiring very common, low-level skills, average income $475-900 23

Workforce, (1945 Census)

1938-39

1948-49

11

10

1.4

34

32

8.9

25

33

24.9

30

26

64.7

which is based upon occupational income data reported in the 1945 census, is discussed in appendix 2. Applying "father's occupation" data to this scheme results in table 9, where the proportion of students originating in each of four occupational income groups is compared with the percentage of the total workforce represented by these constellations of jobs. One should note, however, that the information here is not as complete as the data used in previous analyses of the students by home address, age, religious background, etc. A sizeable minority of the students did not respond to the question about their father's occupation - 11% of the entries in 1928, 25% in 1938, and 16% in 1948. These holdouts reveal a pattern: in most such cases a mother rather than father is given as next of kin. When these fathers died or disappeared, the family's standard of living presumably declined. Pertinent though this is in an attempt to analyse class origins, there was no legitimate way to include these cases in the statistics. The figures in table 9 show that the class composition of Memorial students was badly skewed in an undemocratic, that is, elitist direction. Over the three decades of the 19205, 19305, and 19405, students from the upper and upper-middle classes, which comprised only i o% of Newfoundland society, made up nearly half of the student body. The lower class was by no means excluded, but this group, which comprised two Newfoundlanders out of every three, was represented in the halls of higher learning by less than one in three of the students.

54 A Bridge Built Halfway Table 10 Father's Occupation - Students Entering Memorial University College in 1938 Category Professional Business Supervisory White collar Artisan-skilled Semi- and unskilled Farmer, fisherman

Percentage of Known Cases

20 14 4 14 13 11 25

Dalhousie University, 1930s, for Comparison*

28 31 11 9 8 6 8

*Axelrod, "Moulding the Middle Class," 91.

Nor do we see convincing evidence of greater participation by the lower class as time passed. What does strike one from these figures is the increasing attendance of lower-middle-class students. From one-fifth of the student body in the late 19205, they increased to one-third twenty years later. This growth was balanced by a fall in upper- and upper-middle-class representation to the point where students from these classes were only four times as likely to be in the college as their population in Newfoundland society would suggest, rather than six times as likely which was the situation in 1928-29. It would be good to know how Memorial's class structure compared with Maritime universities in the same period. Adopting for Newfoundland students the same method of analysis employed by a recent student of the largest institution in Halifax, the result is at least suggestive. Table 10 shows that the college in backward Newfoundland drew upon a more comprehensive cross-section of the population than did the most developed of Nova Scotia's institutions. From the threefirst-listedcategories - generally considered higher-status occupations than the others - Dalhousie drew 70% of its student body, but MUG only half that proportion. All the humbler walks of life were much better represented at the Parade Street campus in St John's, than at Studley in Halifax. To a degree these figures reflect the fact that the Nova Scotian economy was more fully developed than Newfoundland's; society there was more modernized. They also remind us that Dalhousie's significant professional programs in law, medicine, dentistry, and pharmacy drew upon a generally city-bred, elite clientele. Memorial in 1938 - with teacher training, drawing a big outport response, the most popular part of its curriculum - bore an appropriately more rural, accessible image. So, while privileged classes were overrepresented at MUC, the hum-

55 A Student Profile

bier families had a greater level of participation in college studies than was sometimes the case at other colleges in the region. "You will like the students," a prospective faculty member was told in 1948. "They come from all over the island, often from very humble homes and poor schools, but are very easy to get on with; most likable people."38 The main point to note in these statistics is that the existence of the university program in St John's contributed to upward social mobility through education, especially for the lower-middle class. G O I N G TO C O L L E G E ?

Finally, what motivated young and not-so-young Newfoundlanders to register for higher education? This question was approached in several different ways while interviewing former students. One question was whether the decision to go to college had been essentially their own or someone else's. Reactions were mixed. Over half remembered quite clearly that it had been their own decision. Included among the self-motivated were all of the older students who came back to college after spending several years in the adult work force. After working for several years, first as a teacher, then as a lay minister, one recalled: I said with five or six hundred dollars in the bank, which was a lot then, I'll take a chance on going to university. I had written to Mount Allison, I had written to Memorial... I decided well Memorial is Newfoundland, it is home ... I went into Memorial University and woe is me. [Really?] In the first place I didn't know how to study ... I knew about getting up sermons from reading and making notes ... but I was a minister and I wasn't answering to anybody ... I wasn't preparing something for a professor or anything like that.39

There were also some self-reliant youngsters in the group. "Each one of us ... was expected to make his or her own decision, pretty much, about education and about the future," said one member of the class of 1940. "It penetrated even my slow mind that if the three eldest had managed by then to break through in the thirties, even maybe the youngest was meant to do something too."40 The next largest group - about one-quarter of them - knew it had been a parent's decision and said so. "I don't think I made the decision ... I think it was taken for granted in the family that we would [go to college] peculiarly perhaps because no one in the community had ever gone to college except my mother. Now mind you our sights

56 A Bridge Built Halfway

were not set terribly high ... We were destined to be either teachers or preachers."4' Another i o% of responses indicated a vague recollection of family expectation, where there was no conscious decision and certainly no disagreement — these should probably be added to the ranks of students manipulated into Memorial by ambitious parents. There was one final group of students who gave chief credit for the decision to some other party. Arthur Butt, we saw, felt that he had been chased into Memorial by the hound of heaven. One 1926 student remembered "no conscious decision to go to college. Manipulation by my two older sisters and by some of my teachers, drift and accident all conspired to further my academic career ... Matty King, principal of Centenary Hall... was a close friend of my two older sisters, and whenever I suggested leaving school, all three bore down heavily on me."42 Another, five years later, was recruited by Ted Russell, famous in Newfoundland letters as proprietor of the Pigeon Inlet yarns, himself an earlier MUG alumnus. "Russell came to Fogo to be the school teacher ... He inspired us to do various things ... persuaded me to come and I was the first from Fogo itself to come to Memorial to take the arts course."43 Another question bearing upon the matter of individual motivation was, Were there any previous college graduates in your family? Some families have strong traditions with essentially the same patterns reappearing in each generation. Only a minority of Memorial's 192550 students, however, could have been moved by such considerations. Of fifty-four who answered the question, twenty-four had one or both parents, or an older sibling, who had done postsecondary studies. A few more had college graduates in the family, but not close - uncles or aunts on one side or the other, or even more distant, perhaps a grandparent. Half, however, indicated that in three known generations of two families, reaching back to the parents of both their parents, they were the first college students. In this group were found many members of the families of fishermen or semiskilled workers the next generation being boosted up the socioeconomic ladder to white collar or professional careers. Whether an outcome of long family tradition and firm expectation or a newly seized, unprecedented twentieth-century opportunity, what did the various students want to study at Memorial? The programs for which entering students registered in 1928, 1938, and 1948 are shown in table 11 (and will be discussed in the next chapter). The most popular choices which emerged in the middle 19308 - in order of priority — were preparation for teaching and the science/ medicine emphasis. The preengineering option drew about 15% of each year's crop of entrants from then on, and those choosing the

57 A Student Profile Table 11 Programs Chosen by Students Entering Memorial University College, Academic Years 1928, 1938, 1948. Programs

1928-29 (%) 1938-39 (%) 1949-48 (%)

Arts and Science "A" (arts emphasis) Arts and Science "B" (science emphasis) Premedicine Preengineering Teacher training/Education Special/other

26 59 9 6

13 15 7 15 47 4

20 3 20 15 41 1

program stressing arts/humanities/social science (many of them teachers at one stage or another) fluctuated around the same proportion. The final question put to oral history respondents was: would you have gone to college if Memorial had not been established in St John's? Only a very few found this hypothetical question too hard to handle. The number that said decisively yes - they would no doubt have gone away to Dalhousie, Mount Allison, Saint Francis Xavier, etc. - was exactly balanced by an equal number who realized they never would have done postsecondary studies, if the extra expense and initiative of leaving their own country had been required. Many could never have afforded it; to others it would not have occurred as a reasonable ambition. The first step in upward mobility needs to be less daunting and difficult than going into exile. The analysis of the Memorial University College student body between 1925 and 1950 reveals elements of both change and continuity. It was always a relatively small group, homogeneous in nationality, one half of it made up of individuals in whose families postsecondary education was previously completely unknown. Religious persuasions represented at MUG faithfully mirrored Newfoundland society in general, and a certain tension between urban and rural students was always there. In these respects the quarter-century is a single period in the institution's social history. Important changes did, however, occur: in the fluctuating ratio of women to men, in the average age of both, and in the relative strength of upper-, middle- and lower-class contingents. By the late 19405 some of the island's distant coasts and corners were much more significantly represented than they were in the first years of the college. The depression, the dole, wartime prosperity, and the changing requirements of professions for which many of the MUG crowd

58 A Bridge Built Halfway

were preparing themselves made the period dynamic and altered the demography at Parade Street. In making opportunities available that otherwise did not exist, offering almost equal accommodation to women and men, catering to an amazing range of ages, and drawing individuals from the lower and especially from the lower-middle classes into realms of activity more knowledgeable, more skilled, and more lucrative — Memorial even in its immature preconfederation phase acted as an important agency of change for the country and its people. Contrast the apparent university participation rate of eight students per 10,000 of population in 1925 with the figures sixty years later. In census year 1981 Memorial University accommodated 7,213 full-time students, while the population of the province was 568,000. That makes a participation rate, (omitting all students off the island) of 127 per 10,000: a 1,500% increase. It is necessary to emphasize that Memorial was just the agency, not the prime cause, of change. The main impulse behind the twentiethcentury popularity of higher education and the multiplication of opportunities for it must be sought outside Newfoundland. It lies in the general genius of modern times for complexity and organization. Mass higher education in the western world has developed since 1945 from a transitional phase in the preceeding decades when the number and type of postsecondary institutions proliferated, students multiplied while being recruited from a wider spectrum of social groupings, and professional studies were grafted onto arts and science. Economic growth, social aspiration, cultural values, and state policy were the engines which drove the changes.44 The same forces which refashioned universities in Britain, Canada, and the United States were at work in Newfoundland too. Brought into existence to fill a localized, domestic need with a characteristic North Atlantic response, Memorial altered society to a degree by completely redirecting individual lives. One could multiply examples of this by the dozens and hundreds, but just one, that of Dr William Hampton (MUG 1927) will have to do. In young Bill Hampton's family — the paternal Brigus connections and the maternal Forseys of Fortune Bay - there were no college-trained people. Bill was the first. At one stage in his youth Mr Hampton senior offered either to set Bill up in the fish business or to assist him with the pursuit of further higher education after Memorial College. Bill chose the less travelled path. Typical Memorial student in all respects except his eventual level of academic achievement - ph D McGill in chemistry with a thesis on gelatin gels - Memorial and what it led to made all the difference in his life and career. Now he is known to science as a

59 A Student Profile

director of fisheries research in Newfoundland and Massachusetts for twenty years and inventor of the fish stick; to the history of Newfoundland's modernization he is known as first president of the College of Fisheries.45 But for Memorial and the qualities it unlocked in him, he would have been just another fellow in the fish business.

CHAPTER 3

Studies

If you can concentrate on Mathematics On sin and cos and all that other rot, If you can try to prove two figures equal, When all the time you know that they are not... (Arthur Scammell, "If— ", 1930)

The initial curriculum of studies at Memorial University College was set in 1914, when the plan for sophomore-level lectures adopted the subjects prescribed by universities in the Maritimes. The educators who made this choice still remained wedded for some time to British standards. Memorial, when young, thus taught a Canadian curriculum but sent all its first-year final examinations to England to be graded by the University of London. This paradox represented a near-final stage in the transition of Newfoundland from the British to the Canadian cultural empire. During the 19305 the transition continued. Standards for matriculation were now set by the Common Examining Board of the Maritime provinces and Newfoundland. Memorial evaluated all its own work, and academic standards did not seem to suffer. When program elaboration then produced preengineering, household science, and preagriculture courses, they were all designed in close harmony and cooperation with better developed institutions in Nova Scotia and Quebec, where Newfoundland students would go to complete their studies. Not everyone was happy with the increased attention paid, as time passed, to professional training, but this general trend was too strong to be resisted.

61

Studies

CORE C O U R S E S

The original curriculum was outlined in Vincent Burke's May 1925 letter to Paton in Winnipeg. Burke included this "rough forecast" of what would be required for first-year students.1 SUBJECT

NO. OF LECTURES/WEEK

English subjects 4 Mathematics 4 Latin 4 French 4 Chemistry 5 Physics 5 other Subjects 4-6 Extra-mural work

The courses which Paton advertised that summer in the first Memorial College calendar adhered closely to the planners' line. The offerings were English, mathematics, chemistry, and physics, plus five languages - Latin, Greek, French, German, and Spanish. Saturday mornings were reserved for laboratory classes in the two science subjects and also, interestingly, in surveying. "Other subjects will be added later according to need shown."2 What caused these particular disciplines, rather than others, to be present at the outset? College promoters in Newfoundland's Department of Education had themselves developed and were wedded to the Council of Higher Education curriculum for senior matriculation. This was a Newfoundland version of comprehensive education equivalent to beginning university studies and directly modelled on requirements in English-speaking jurisdictions nearby, especially Nova Scotia. One observer complained that Memorial "set about imitating the model of an English public school and was almost totally indifferent to Newfoundland studies. Newfoundland History, for example, was not taught at the institution until the academic year 1943—44."3 This judgment does not do justice to the first president's determination to serve his new country's needs. The first initiatives he took to remodel the CHE syllabus adopted in Memorial's first year brought about the addition of German, Greek, and biology in igsG.4 Biology was the first science added to the groundwork of chemistry and physics, specifically because of the Newfoundland situation. For one thing, it was important to develop this discipline in order to provide instruction for Memorial students who intended to study medicine;

62 A Bridge Built Halfway

also, Paton calculated that in this field above others, the instructional needs of the college could be well combined with research that would assist the fishery, still the major prop of the Newfoundland economy. A professor of biology, Fred Sleggs, was added to the faculty in 1926. The president thought he had reached an agreement with Newfoundland's Ministry of Marine and Fisheries that it would support Sleggs's fishery research in the summers and subsidize two biology students to work with him. "Unfortunately this part of the programme has never been carried out and the Minister of Marine has been unable to give us an answer as to whether they want him or not."5 The first of Memorial's scientists oriented to the university's twentieth-century forte - resources research - Sleggs carried out investigations of capelin and other aspects of the fishery.6 The college program, however, did not even include marine biology. Through to the end of the college period, the three courses offered were elementary botany, biology, and comparative vertebrate anatomy. Paton remained keenly interested in the fishery, helped to bring the Bay Bulls fisheries research station into existence, and was an active member of its governing body. In characteristically pungent fashion he gave his own recipe for fishery reform. The cure of fish in Newfoundland, he wrote to a correspondent in England, "is still medieval in method and blissfully remote from all idea of hygiene. It will be necessary to insist that water shall be clean, dogs kept off the flakes (= platforms), spitting prohibited on flakes, and no man in drying his fish shall sit on it."7 Paton's successor, Albert Hatcher, continued steady support for the discipline of biology. When Wilfred Templeman left the faculty in 1944 after teaching biology for eight years, he recorded his appreciation of the college administration's generous help towards building up facilities in his science. "No request has been refused." The number of microscopes had doubled in eight years, important collections had been gathered, and the laboratory operated efficiently with a set of mimeographed directions modelled after those of McGill.8 Geology was the other new science to be introduced. An elementary course on fundamentals first appeared in the calendar in 1930, taught by a visiting lecturer (H.A. Baker, government geologist). When the preengineering program began, the requirements of civil engineering linked geology closely to it. Thereafter it was offered by Engineering Faculty members, although students in arts/science were welcome to fit geology into their program if they could. In 1938 there was serious discussion about establishing geology as a regular scientific discipline under a fully qualified professor. The salary for a professional geologist was at least $2000, but for an assistant lecturer in

63 Studies engineering only $1,600; the Board of Governors decided that a full-time geologist was "not desirable at present."9 Interest in earth science remained lukewarm until the end of the college period. In the last MUC calendar, 1949—50, the science offerings were Chemistry 1,2, and 3; Physics 1,2, and 3; Biology i, 2, 3, and 4 (nature study for teachers in training); and still just the one introductory course in geology, taught by the head of engineering. On the arts side the additions to Memorial's curriculum in the late 19208 were history, economics, and political science. Although history was not listed in the first year (1925) Solomon Whiteway took time from Normal School duties and taught it anyway (history of civilization). When a permanent appointment was made in 1928 and the incumbent (Allan Fraser) was well qualified in social sciences as well as history, single course offerings in economics, and then in political science, were soon introduced. In 1949-50 these alternatives remained, along with an ancient history course offered by the Department of Classics, a course on medieval/modern world history, and the Newfoundland course which replaced British history in the MUC calendar after Fraser was released for a year and a half during World War ii so that he could research and write a good part of the book he now listed as one of the texts for the course: R.A. McKay, editor, Newfoundland: Economic, Diplomatic and Strategic Studies. In history, as in biology, the existence of Memorial College directly helped to concentrate disciplined scholarly attention upon matters of interest to the island country. How did Memorial's course offerings compare with those available at other institutions in the region? Table 12 gives the situation in the late 19308. Dalhousie was the largest university east of Quebec; Saint Francis Xavier harboured ambitions. Prince of Wales College in PEI — not to be confused with the United Church college of the same name in St John's - was a junior college even younger than MUC, the first two university years having been added only in 1932. Dalhousie had the broadest program, twenty-three subjects, including psychology, anthropology, and Hebrew. Dalhousie also had the greatest depth, offering an average of nine courses in each discipline. Subjects taught at St Francis Xavier were not so well developed. There was an average of about six courses in each. The scope of the program, however, almost equalled that of Dalhousie, some missing subjects being compensated for by Italian, Gaelic, religion, and a general science course. The curriculum at the junior colleges was naturally less impressive. Prince of Wales taught only eleven subjects and a total of eighteen courses. Memorial's program was better developed: sixteen subjects were taught for credit with an average of three and a half courses in

64 A Bridge Built Halfway Table 12 Number of Courses in the Core Program (Arts and Science Faculty) of Four Atlantic Region Institutions, 1938-391 Subject

Dalhousie

Latin Greek Hebrew French Spanish German Gaelic Italian English

12 11 1 7 6 8

20

History Economics Political Science Sociology Anthropology Philosophy Psychology Religion

15 10 11 6 1 8 5

Mathematics Physics Chemistry Geology/mineralogy Biology Gen. Science

11 19 11 8 15

Art/fine arts Music/glee club Commerce Engineering subjects (drawing, mechanics, surveying, materials, descriptive geom.) Home economics/household science

1 2 10 9

Total courses

207

Saint Francis Prince of Wales Xavier (Charlottetown)

MUC

4 4

2 1

2 2

6

2

3 2 2 10

2 2 2

2

5

8 6

1 1

2

1

3 2 2

6 8 8 5 7 9 5 1

2 1 3 2

5 3 3 1 4

22

22

2 9

11

14

6

121

18

55

Notes 1 See the calendars for 1938-39: of Dalhousie, 67-95; Saint Francis Xavier, 50-77; Prince of Wales, 21-22; and MUC, 27-43. 2 Not for credit

65 Studies

each, while the staff included faculty members for noncredit offerings in cultural subjects. Memorial even had certain courses which St Francis Xavier lacked. There were no courses in commerce, sociology, Italian, or Gaelic; religion and philosophy were also missing, and very much on purpose - they were too explosive and potentially divisive to be harboured in a new experiment in interchurch cooperation. Memorial did, however, offer two years of political science and two years of Spanish, neither of which was available at St Francis Xavier. Both these institutions had well-rounded programs in domestic science, missing from the curriculum at Dalhousie. If this comparison were made in the late 19408 there would be an impressive innovation in Memorial's list. Geography for university credit began in 1946. At that time, none of the Maritime universities taught the subject, and McGill had appointed its first geographer only the previous year. Does that mean that Memorial was in the forefront of curriculum innovation? Yes — but the course of events had not followed the usual pattern. There was no lengthy preamble of committees, reviews, and reports, carefully weighing the advantages and implications. The college actually had a fairly extensive experience with geography, not in the regular academic sessions, but in summer school, where a course in geography and its appropriate teaching method was offered from time to time.10 No active consideration was being given to expanding the usual social science offerings, however, until Harold Goodridge returned to the city. Goodridge had been born in St John's and brought up in England. He earned a geography degree at Cambridge, taught in England and at a college for princes in Indore, India, and served as war artist in the Royal Indian Navy before finishing his circumambulation of the globe to become secretary to governor Sir Humphry Walwyn in St John's. That was in the spring of 1944. A year and a half later Walwyn was replaced, the new governor brought his own entourage, and "Harold Goodridge found himself stranded on his native shore."11 But he was not without resources. He belonged to an elite St John's family, and moved in the Governor's circle. A close friend was a member of Memorial's Board of Governors. His fame as an artist Goodridge would later do the impressive mural in the main lobby of Confederation Building - was growing. When therefore the art instructor had to be replaced, Goodridge's name was mentioned at a board meeting. Professor Allan Gillingham reported on the information he gathered. "Harold regards himself as not having proper academic qualifications for such a post, and besides he is qualified in Geography. Accordingly, it was thought that it might be possible to engage him as part-time Lecturer in

66 A Bridge Built Halfway

Geography." In Newfoundland schools about 1000 students annually wrote grade eleven geography - nearly as many as did history - but "the subject is not taught well, or given a humanistic approach ... and the college would render a worthwhile service to the teachers of this subject."12 There was therefore a sensible rationale offered for the position, even though it is clear that the introduction of geography resulted more from accidents of personality, connections, and availability, rather than from the intrinsic needs of a program that was being carefully and intellectually developed. This combination of sciences, humanities, and eventually social sciences including geography, was the core program at Memorial College. Two years of study were offered. The first was senior matriculation or grade twelve, which from 1925 was quickly dropped by almost all secondary schools in the country. Until the 19308 the college did not control its own examinations at this first-year level; students continued to write the University of London external examinations organized by the Council for Higher Education. Memorial always set its own standards in second year. There were three principal groupings of students: Arts and Science "A" (with a stress on the humanities); Arts and Science "B" (with a scientific bent); and the premedical option with the heaviest science load of all, usually about six of the ten courses over two years. From 1943 on, this option was described in the calendar as "pre-medical and pre-dental." Emboldened by their success in winning support from the Carnegie Corporation, Memorial's trustees sought Rockefeller Foundation endowment for the Department of Biology as a necessary step towards improving medical service in Newfoundland. They made their plea in the fall of 1927. Three points were stressed: Dalhousie, McGill, and the University of Toronto had all accepted Memorial's premedical training; this teaching had been stressed, while other courses suffered, because the supply of physicians, bad enough at one per 1300 of population in St John's, was one doctor per 3200 in the rest of the country; and Newfoundland needed a centre for medically-oriented research. "Some of our doctors find trouble with internal parasitic worms, and want help to discover the source of this evil and the way to deal with it."13 No funding resulted from this initiative. Other minor groupings of arts/science students were those preparing for theology or law. From the beginning there was also always a small handful of "special" students who stayed on after gaining the twoyear diploma, either to ready themselves for the University of London "Inter-Arts" examination or for general educational purposes. The depression of the 19308 meant that many students were unable to afford to go abroad to finish their degrees, and these enlarged this

67 Studies group. Paton catered to their needs by having third-year courses developed. A dozen were being offered by the time he resigned.14 This expansion of college work was not sustained, however, and not until the 19505 did third- and fourth-year courses become generally available. Whether the college was always as thoughtful as it might have been in choosing new disciplines for development, the core curriculum was comprehensive enough for its day. Each student's experience nevertheless tended to resemble that of many others', because the place was so small. Usually there was just one or one and a half professors per discipline. Any particular subject was therefore apt to be equated with one particular personality and approach. This reinforced the unity of the college and made possible tributes such as Art Scammeli's version of "If in 1930.15 IF If you can keep your head and not get flustered, When Mr. Paton calls on you in Class, If you can always get the right translation And earn a word of praise from him at last; If you can imitate the vim and vigour Which that great scholar puts into his work, If you can copy his determination And keep on working when you want to shirk.

If you can get a mark as low as zero, When Mr. Chatwood gives you tests in class; If you can take it all and not get rattled, And say with cheerful grin, "O won't I pass"! If you can understand why Boyle and Pascal Could have the nerve to find out what they did, And then forgive that bounder Archimedes For thinking when he should have bathed, instead.

If you can concentrate on Mathematics. On sin and cos and all that other rot, If you can try to prove two figures equal, When all the time you know that they are not; If you can learn Proportion, Variation,

68 A Bridge Built Halfway If you can inwardly digest Progression, too, Professor Hatcher's blessing will attend you, And ten to one, old man, he'll get you though. ENGINEERING

Pre-engineering, the second major program, outside the embrace of arts/science, was inaugurated in 1931. No documents survive to explain the reasoning behind its introduction.16 An important minority of Memorial's potential clientele was not well served by the original junior college program, because on the mainland nearby the preprofessional training of engineers was conducted along integrated lines with drawing, mechanics, and surveying included in studies that began at the senior matriculation level. Prospective engineers planning to finish a degree at Nova Scotia Technical College had to be on the mainland for their full university career - an expensive proposition - as long as these courses were not offered at home. The decision to offer preengineering complicated the college by adding a regular third year. The syllabus for Memorial's engineering program - drawing, surveying, mechanics - was set by Nova Scotia Technical College, where a two-year professional program capped preliminary studies begun at Dalhousie, Mount Allison, and four other affiliated maritime province universities. When Memorial joined this group — officially affiliated at the end of 1932, thereafter naming a representative on the Board of Governors of NS Technical College - it was the clearest, strongest sign yet of the Newfoundland institution's gravitation towards Canadian partners and higher education patterns.17 Preengineering required a drafting room to be fitted up and a new faculty position. Other instructors assisted part-time. For the first few years of his presidency, Hatcher added responsibility for Mechanics 2 to his usual teaching load in mathematics. He also had some responsibility for the overall planning of the new program, writing from his summer holiday at Brigus (August 1931), for example, that in planning an English course for engineering students the basic requirements were utilitarian composition and some literature they would enjoy.18 In addition to the three years of courses for credit, from 1936 on there was also the engineering seminar. Held once a week, it offered each student the chance to deliver a prepared talk and then have his presentation discussed and criticized. Sometimes, however, students felt it was more coercion than opportunity. The engineering society had a meeting and decided they didn't want to have

6g Studies this course ... The Vets especially found it hard ... They passed a resolution and said they weren't going to this particular second year classroom and the late Dr Hunter came in and said, "gentlemen you are not familiar with the rules of arbitration. When you make a complaint you wait until the decision is made, you don't just go out on your own." So we all went to class that particular Saturday. [What was the end result of that controversy?] We went to classes and the course remained.19

Another special aspect of preengineering was the annual surveying camp for students as they passed from first to second year; this was held in the first three weeks of September. The purpose was to give them practical experience in field operations. On the mainland there were sections of Halifax, Antigonish, and Wolfville which had been surveyed and resurveyed since time began, it seemed; MUG took the more interesting approach of moving its survey camp from place to place on the island. The first-ever camp (1931) was held at Corner Brook, where the students prepared the western end of that mushrooming settlement for street development. Other camps in the 19308 were at Brigus and Markland. This makes for a more varied institutional history, but from the faculty organizer's point of view, survey camp facilities and accommodation were always ad hoc and newly invented. No camp was held in 1944. The following year, too, plans were not firm until the last minute when a wartime YMCA hostel was made available for no charge at Harbour Grace. The enlarged camp for third- as well as second-year students — produced a good set of surveys that September at the request of Harbour Grace Town Council. In his report, Professor Stan Carew recommended that the college buy its own building from among the surplus military facilities that were being vacated around the country. Thereafter the camp stayed in the Conception Bay community for several years.20 HOUSEHOLD SCIENCE

The next new program of studies to be inaugurated was something for women. Household science already had a long history when it was added to Memorial's curriculum in 1933. As explained in chapter i, it was the first interdenominational program offered to pupilteachers in the church colleges during 1911—23. Paton's idea was to upgrade its status from a service course for prospective teachers to a more comprehensive program leading to a diploma. From his Newfoundland command post he wrote with approval and encouragement, as Edna Baird, one of the bright graduates from Memorial's first class, gained high level qualifications at Dalhousie, McGill, and

70 A Bridge Built Halfway

Johns Hopkins hospital. Baird recalled his wish that "every woman in Newfoundland should have some preparation for marriage." She was appointed to the faculty in the first wave of returning MUG graduates in 1933. "I had five subjects: foods and cookery, nutrition, interior decorating, physiology, and clothing and textiles."21 Her workload often embraced in addition classes of girls from the city high schools who would come into Memorial's well-equipped household science laboratory for two-hour sessions once a week. Like the preengineering program, household science also had a Canadian affiliation, in this case with Macdonald College of McGill University. Proceeding there, graduates of Memorial's two-year program could go directly into the third year of MacDonald's Bachelor of Household Science stream. Unlike the plentiful flow of engineers going on from St John's to Halifax, few Newfoundland students ever took this path to Montreal. The government's approval of household science among Memorial's offerings dovetailed well with some other public health initiatives taken in the depression-wracked mid-19305, such as the addition of a travelling nutrition expert to the adult education staff and a "brown flour" campaign against beri-beri.22 The program had both boosters and detractors. One board member thought it should be required rather than optional for teachers in training. "Isn't this a v. serious error in policy?"23 Vice-president Alfred Hunter, on the other hand, noted in 1948 that household science had few students and "involved studies, or activities, which it is hard to equate in intrinsic value with those in the seven departments listed above" (English, mathematics, biology, chemistry, physics, history-social science, French-Spanish).24 EDUCATION

The program with the most convoluted, and probably the most important, history of all, was the preparation of teachers. Normal School predated Memorial University College, then coexisted with it for several years. They were two separate institutions from 1925 to 1932, with student bodies entirely separate; but many of the college professors taught in the Normal School, and vice versa. The letterhead used in those years proclaimed an overarching unity: "Memorial University College and Normal School." At Christmas 1932 Normal School was phased out of existence as a result of the calamity in public finance which soon drove Newfoundland back to colonial status.25 For the next year and a half there was no organized preparation of teachers in Newfoundland. Education continued to be carried in

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the Memorial curriculum as an elective subject. Solomon Whiteway had retired, and it was taught by Normal School's other former full-time faculty member, Helen Lodge. In the year in which the Commission of Government was installed, another sign of a reenergized drive to modernization and professionalism was the creation of a teacher-training department, alongside classics, engineering, English, etc., as an integral part of the college. This was a significant decision; Newfoundland was departing from the usual Canadian pattern. In New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, for example, training institutes operating entirely outside the university system had long monopolized the preparation of elementary school teachers. In the 19305 some of the maritime universities were starting to add a postgraduate opportunity in order to compress all the professional education subjects (and practice teaching) into one short year. Newfoundland rejected both schemes and from 1934 chose an approach that integrated professional and academic studies and exposed even primary-school teachers to university life and learning.26 The previous half-year terms of Normal School were abolished. Students were resident for the regular September-June academic year. Until 1946 the department was named "Teacher Training"; then it became "Education." A two-year program was introduced in 1939; a three-year program in 1946; and, since the Department of Education was so well advanced in planning for the transition to university status, fourth-year offerings were available in ig49.27 Although it was part of old Memorial, teacher preparation was unlike other programs. For the sake of staffing Newfoundland schools, the government always offered intending teachers financial support that was not available to other students. In 1934 the Board decided that teachers-in-training were "to pay incidental fees, to wear gowns, but not to pay the $50.00 fee" which was the regular annual tuition. An afterthought to those same minutes, however, was: "Shall T.T. remission of $50.00 fee be arranged differently so as not to mark any distinction between them and other students?"28 The solution was to vary the amount of the grant made to individual "pupil teachers." An outport student in training at one of the church colleges and there were always at least a few - was given a grant in the middle 19308 of $160 per year, but if attending Memorial $210. Students from St John's, taking teacher training at MUG, received $50 and nothing towards their board. They all paid the regular tuition fees.29 The student body in education far exceeded the college average in the proportion of people from poor families, many of them outporters, who would not have been able to attend except for the pupilteacher grants. The subsidy created a social stigma that was significant

72 A Bridge Built Halfway

in college society. Another anomaly was that, although Memorial controlled its own entrance requirements, it was the denominational boards of examiners who accepted or rejected an individual as a teacher candidate, thereby determining entry to the profession and eligibility for the grant. Complex problems arose, exemplified by a complaint that President Hatcher received from Channel in 1937. The Church of England Board of Examiners had accepted me for teacher training, this student wrote, but MUG would not let me in. He objected to the suggestion that he needed to write supplemental examinations in Latin and history since he had passed them both, although not at the same time.30 Memorial Calendars usually contained the timetable for all other programs and departments, but the timetable for education courses was posted separately. Student teachers sometimes had assemblies all their own. Their course of study was very fragmented; for example, in 1939 there were ten courses in first-year teacher training, as compared with the standard five in arts, science, and household science, and seven in first-year preengineering. Education students were frequently dashing on and off campus on practice teaching assignments, usually had a group organized as a girl guide company, and sometimes enrolled a boy scout troop as well; while faculty members in that department had extra duties in connection with a weekly seminar for teachers, school broadcasts, and the annual summer school. In many ways education was the premier discipline at old Memorial, and it was certainly the best embodiment of the public need which brought both junior college and Normal School into existence. Nevertheless it was sometimes viewed as second-rate by those who stressed academic excellence. In 1948 the acting president communicated a sentiment which was not his alone: "Faculty frequently finds it advisable to direct students to take [extra] subjects especially in the case of teachers in training, some of whose subjects are not intellectually onerous, whilst their need for general education is very great." Memorial's Board of Governors - mostly superintendents and teachers, as will be explained in chapter 9 - defended the profession. "With reference to the Acting President's comment on the subjects of the teachers in training, the Board is of the opinion that the subjects of the credit courses in Education are equally as onerous as other subjects and require the same skill in scholarship."31 AGRICULTURE

The most unexpected of the programs officially listed at old Memorial was preagriculture. It first appeared in 1937 and was available there-

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after. The introduction of this program had some little history in Newfoundland, but it was chiefly the result of outside initiative. There was a time in the early 19305 when Paton and others became quite enthused about the country's becoming more nearly self-sufficient through small-scale farming. Remember the comment of the 1921 census reporter: "Needless to say that those who are assiduous on the land as well as on the sea generally manage to live in comparative comfort."32 Two chickens in every backyard, tethered alongside the upturned dory, and a cow in every shed. This line of thinking produced several innovations in Newfoundland during the mid19308: a colonial demonstration farm (1935); a school in practical agriculture attached to it, which drew two hundred young men to its free one-year course during 1936-49; the Commission of Government's famous land settlement scheme from which so much was expected and so little gained; and the preagriculture program at the university college. In 1934 President Hatcher commented upon a report which recommended the establishment of an agriculture course at his college. For $2,000, he wrote, Memorial could add a qualified instructor to its staff to give short courses for selected target groups and participate in a regular program preparatory to a degree in agriculture.33 The next initiative came from Macdonald College. The vice-principal wrote, proposing that an affiliation in agriculture, similar to that established for household science students, should be worked out. Some concerns were expressed from Montreal about the contents of Memorial's mathematics and chemistry courses, but the MacDonald College senate in April 1937 approved a trial three-year affiliation. The spokesperson wrote to Hatcher there was no doubt that the arrangement could be continued indefinitely.34 The preagricultural program shown in Memorial's Calendar consisted of three years, the final one comprising advanced courses in biology, chemistry, mathematics, physics, and "agriculture." Students could then enter third year at MacDonald College. In faculty lists, timetables, etc., there was never any indication as to when or by whom this MUG agriculture course might be taught. For many years the calendars which carried the brief reference to pre-agriculture also said: "The main object of the Memorial University College is to provide the first two years, and, in the case of engineering, the first three years, of University Education ,.."35 Agriculture was overlooked. It seems likely that the whole business was more an exchange of friendly correspondence with a collegiate partner in central Canada, rather than an arrangement which affected life and work in the college. Perhaps no student ever selected this program.

74 A Bridge Built Halfway A WHOLE-PERSON COLLEGE

In addition to the disciplines which directed students towards higher teaching certificates or into degree programs at mature universities, the college also took a serious and methodical approach in a wide range of other studies. From the very first years, courses in fine arts appreciation and awareness were offered by talented instructors. The Carnegie Corporation assisted this effort by donating reproductions of famous paintings as well as a good collection of classical music recordings with a phonograph. In the course of the oral history project many former students - now knowledgeable fans of good music or art - said that they had their first exposure to high culture at Memorial and had experienced benefit from this ever since. The 1938 calendar showed a relatively well-developed program of optional, noncredit courses of this type: Glee Club, singing, art appreciation, and a special art class (still life, living models, and mural decoration). Ten years later they had dwindled to two: art appreciation and the international relations club. From 1939 on there was always a faculty member in art, whose major responsibility was helping the teachers-in-training to prepare for classroom activities. These efforts were expanded to include weaving and sculpture with Random Island clay. In the first few years after the Carnegie art collection arrived (1931), organized cultural activities flourished under the honorary curator, Muriel Hunter. The collection had a special place reserved for it off the library's main reading room; voluntary attendance at weekly lectures on appreciation grew from 8% to 20% of the student body; a picture of the week, with accompanying commentary, was hung in the corridor.36 There was a good deal more besides. At summer schools the needs of teachers as both classroom and community leaders led to the inclusion of such subjects as health, nature study, and, of course, physiology. Evening courses frequently offered included navigation, pharmacy, public speaking, diesel engines, electricity, astronomy, accountancy, slide rule, commercial law, house planning/construction, commercial English, Italian, radio operation, and blueprint reading for plumbers. F O R E S T R Y , LAW, L I B R A R Y S C I E N C E

It would not be right to leave a discussion of Memorial's courses of study without adopting the approach Sherlock Holmes took in the curious incident of the dog in the nighttime. The key point was that the dog did not bark. In Memorial's case, there were certain

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disciplines which would have fulfilled definite needs in the community, but which the college did not develop. One subject which was not taught was forestry. The giant Corner Brook pulp and paper mill opened the same year that Memorial did, and both institutions contributed to the modernization and diversification of activities in Newfoundland, adding value to renewable resources. By the time of confederation forest/paper products had surpassed the fishery in value, producing 40% to 45% of the income from resource industries.37 Forests having become so important, one might expect that the Newfoundland college would pay close attention to studies connected with them, and the first president was very much aware of the need. For ordered development, he wrote, Newfoundland needed farming, mining, fishing, and forestry. Just as in fishery matters there was tremendous ignorance, "all rule of thumb," so it was in forestry as well. "I was walking with the owner through a forest he owned - fine spruce timber. We came upon a patch which was smothered with moth - trees blasted with them. 'Is this our old enemy, the goat-tailed?' said I. 'I don't know' said he. 'What are you going to do about it?' 'I don't know.' And he was an intelligent educated man. Only there was no guidance for him."38 There were stirrings indicating that, once basic biology courses were in place, something might be done about forestry. Hatcher made an approach to LJNB in 1935; the president there sent back his calendar and pointed out that the first three years in forestry at Fredericton were very similar to Memorial's first two years of engineering. It would be good to add some botany and mensuration to the course, or students could make up these subjects after arriving at the University of New Brunswick.39 Four years later the engineering professor, noting that preagriculture continued to be listed even though there was no interest in it, recommended putting forestry engineering in to the calendar to see how strong the demand might be.40 In 1949 a well-qualified forestry engineer, a Latvian among the crowd of refugees from postwar Europe, brought himself to the attention of Newfoundland's Secretary for Education. Someone had told him that Memorial was about to start a program in forestry and silviculture. Alain Frecker replied: "We should like to see our little college develop along national lines in such a way it could make a first class contribution to the economic and industrial as well as to the professional and intellectual life of the country. But it may be some considerable time before plans such as those referred to in your letter receive active consideration."41 After the transition to university status Memorial commissioned a

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study with recommendations - they proved very influential - from recent University of Alberta president Robert Newton. The dean of engineering made a submission which listed forestry second, after mechanical engineering, among specialties that should be developed to degree level. Newton recommended that both civil and mechanical engineering were more urgently needed than forestry. During six decades of program development at Memorial, college and university, there was never any move to challenge the Atlantic region monopoly by the University of New Brunswick School of Forestry, the second oldest in the country (founded igo8).42 Silviculture and mensuration have yet to enter the easily-recognized vocabulary of the St John's campus. Another likely candidate for university-level studies in Newfoundland was law. It was a discipline and set of skills which society definitely demanded, and ever since the 18908 there had been a steady stream of Newfoundland students to Dalhousie law school. It would have been quite easy to offer this program because, although specialized library resources are needed, there is no requirement for the expensive equipment and laboratories which complicate expansion in the sciences. Lengthy debate among faculty members in the winter and spring of 1946 produced a twelve-page report recommending that four years after a university charter had been obtained, the degree of Bachelor of Laws could be offered. Alternatively, the Law Society could require two years of an approved course in arts and sciences before entrance to legal training with local firms.43 The following year the secretary of faculty, Allan Gillingham, contributed an interesting article full of photographs to the Atlantic Guardian, a vehicle of Newfoundland nationalism and nostalgia published in Montreal. His expectation was that degrees in law, as well as in commerce and theology, could quite easily follow the granting of full university status.44 It certainly seemed assured that a Memorial School of Law would precede any college of medicine by at least a generation or two. As the junior college era came to a close, another very likely next step in program development was the discipline of library science. In one of the recurrent bursts of enthusiasm for a university charter which punctuated the period of the Second World War, the Commissioner for Home Affairs and Education circulated a confidential memorandum titled "Newfoundland University." Its ideas about new courses, he said, resulted from lengthy discussions with Memorial's president. Degree programs in nursing and pharmacy should not be too hard to arrange in conjunction with interested outside agencies.

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A BA or BSC with a Library Science diploma, however, could be offered immediately. The usual number of twenty courses would be required, of which three would be in the discipline of librarianship. In other words it could be done with one staff member, and she was already part of faculty.45 Two years later, the faculty scheme already referred to supported this proposal. "The present and prospective growth in public libraries has created a need for trained librarians."46 In the 1947 summer session the university librarian offered for the first time a course in librarianship.47 ACADEMIC STANDARDS

How well did the college handle the task of instruction in the particular range of disciplines it offered? Was the academic standard acceptable? It seems that the answer is in the affirmative, or at least that Memorial showed up well enough in comparison with eastern Canadian universities of the time. Comparisons with Dalhousie, Mount Allison, and McGill were frequently made, because the great majority of Memorial graduates who completed university degrees did so at those foreign institutions. From the oral history the testimony is nearly unanimous that Canadian colleges expected their students from Newfoundland would have a good grounding in the various subjects; and indeed these students fared well. Canada's opinion of the standard at Memorial was probably exaggerated. Newfoundland's failures and marginal prospects rarely turned up on the mainland; it was usually the keenest and best who went on for degrees. At Mount Allison and Pine Hill Divinity Hall, Arthur Butt told Hunter, he "never had as fine courses as English i and 2 with you."48 On another occasion, when a former student was perhaps not averse to telling Memorial's mathematician what he would doubtless love to hear, a young man wrote back to Hatcher from Nova Scotia Technical College: "We are the only ones here who have had enough astronomy and spherical trigonometry to fit the needs of advanced surveying ... I saw Prof. Carew here ... quite different from meeting him in the formal atmosphere of a College classroom. I guess the moral is that even college Professors are human."49 Modifying the chorus of praise, others found Carew not only human, but also overworked. He ran the department virtually single-handed, while offering three courses in each of drawing, mechanics, and surveying. One former student was asked about preengineering in the late 19408. "No it was not a good program. I didn't know that at the time, but I found out after I went to McGill afterward, ... We had one professor ... who covered

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everything. [You weren't well prepared for the studies of McGill?] No, I wasn't, yet I was about the top one or two in the class at Memorial.50 At home college authorities rarely had to defend themselves against the accusation that standards were too low. The mail often brought protests to the contrary. In the voluminous correspondence which President Hatcher carried on with parents and other interested outsiders, there were complaints in most years that the college expected much too much. To give just one example, a parish priest from Conception Bay responded in 1936 to a letter which one of his families had received from the college, advising the withdrawal of the student because of academic failure. The priest wrote that the young man was of above average ability, but perhaps living at St Bonaventure's he had insufficient time to study. To Hatcher's standard formula, that the student in question seemed unable to profit from college studies, he took stiff exception. If that were the case, "You are either of very superior intellect around there, and if so they all must be in the College, I have not met them in St. John's - or I don't know what I am talking about." Replying quickly, Hatcher wrote the comments he usually made in such cases. Jack's lack of success was not a mark of inferiority, not everyone was suited for university studies. Although the faculty and college advised withdrawal, the student would be permitted to stay if that were desired, and the staff would assist him as much as they could.5' Defending college standards against the impulse to be accommodating and kind was a constant theme at old Memorial. In his annual report for the academic year 1937—38, Hatcher wrote: "Our standards have been criticized as too exacting. We cannot agree ... for those of our students who go no farther a habit of serious study is an asset of incalcuable value; while for those who go on to University studies elsewhere it is a real guarantee of success ... We would not care to hear the reverse criticism."52 It took constant vigilance to maintain standards. The students were not asked directly how their professors were doing, but the registrar, Monnie Mansfield, was able from her position to collect intelligence from within the student camp. For example, the two British faculty members added in 1948 gave her cause for concern. The chemist had never taught at university level before. The biologist, "Rev. Professor W. Rees-Wright," was a man of many parts. He seems to know something about everything from making a cake to building a house. When Mr. MacDougald was sick and Marion [Peters] was in hospital he filled in and took the Chemistry class. I

79 Studies understand from the students that his lectures consisted of interesting talks on the coal mines in Wales and had very little bearing, if any, on quantitative and qualitative analysis. ... I fear for our students proceeding to Medicine and Chemical Engineering. This College has such a fine reputation which has been so carefully nutured and so jealously guarded that we cannot afford to let down our standards in this way.53 LIBERAL EDUCATION VERSUS VOCATIONALISM

During the 19405 there was much discussion about the nature of the curriculum which had been developed at Memorial. In 1941 a faculty threesome - Hunter (English, French), Gillingham (classics, German), and Organ (library, mathematics) - sent the president a joint memorandum. To Hatcher's mind, steeped in naval tradition - he had been an instructor at the Royal Naval College of Canada for eleven years - a letter signed by three people might have looked like mutiny. They reminded Hatcher of how they had drawn his attention to the four-year, nonelective course in liberal arts pioneered at St John's College, Annapolis, Maryland. They approved of the American institution's stress upon the hundred greatest books, works which exemplified western traditions and of the idea that higher education should produce good intellectual and moral habits. Hatcher was asked to discuss this approach with the heads of maritime universities and to see what the Carnegie Corporation thought about MUG'S bending its curriculum in the same direction.54 There is no sign in the records that he did either. Two years later Hunter produced one of the most reasoned papers in Memorial's early history, "Some Thoughts on the Future of the College," and sent it to the president. His purpose, he explained, "was firstly to clarify my thoughts; secondly, to have them in a carefully considered form for submission as a kind of report or aide-memoire to select people who are or who should be, concerned in the welfare of the College ... I hope there are things in my paper that you agree with, others that at least you do not object to: I fully expect that there are parts with which you disagree ... I hope I may confidently expect that you will read my paper with sympathetic appreciation of my motives, even if you disapprove quite fundamentally of my findings." Facing the "prospect of the elevation of our college to the dignity of a chartered university," Hunter's paper proposed a high-minded view about a university's "proper nature, value and purpose." Once again the liberal arts program at St John's College (Annapolis) was

8o A Bridge Built Halfway

exalted as a model. Citing seven current experts on university studies from both sides of the Atlantic, Hunter put forth some disquieting propositions: 1 "Universities impart knowledge and prepare for practical life without integrating the knowledge and the preparation into a sound philosophy." 2 "The conception of knowledge as one and integral ... has been displaced by its treatment as discrete or fragmentary." 3 The elective system by which students choose what to study "has unduly exalted the natural sciences, technical training and professional preparation and promoted specialisation by the immature."

The terms of affiliation of the Memorial University College with Universities on the Continent obliged us to adopt the elective academic pattern generally favoured there. Students in Arts or Science select 10 unit courses of which only 2, English and Mathematics in the first year, are obligatory. The choice of the remainder is determined by the whims of the student, the accidental necessities of his case and by the prospective demands of other universities or of professional employment. The lot of the professional specialist is the contrary of this: he takes an exactly and almost completely prescribed course which is so devised as to demand the minimum of study of subjects differentiated — wrongly — as cultural. Engineers bow in the temple of the Rimmon of literature for 45 minutes a week; doctors for an hour and a half, but are considered sufficiently impregnated after one year ... If the elective system and professional specialisation are alike harmful then the Memorial University College seems to be subject to two evils.55

In seven pages of handwritten "Comments on Hunter's paper" Hatcher showed he was at quite at variance with the vice-president's view. He did not bemoan the lack of a philosophy at the college he headed, because values should be discovered, not imposed: For a person or a group of persons the means of a good life are simple & homely ... it seems old fashioned but some of us were taught in our youth if we did intelligently & well the tasks life brought to us our lives would be eternally significant. Apply this to an institution which finds a worthwhile task to do. Each of its members does his own work ... Gradually there comes an integration of its varied efforts. New opportunities ... doors open. A distinct character, spirit is evolved ... It is natural for us to be impatient. My Lord delayeth his coming ... A real significance is the outcome rather than the primary plan.

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He was not opposed to vocationalism, as Hunter was. Professional pride was a good thing. Hunter's complaint about a lack of unity in the college's intellectual life would be remedied to a good extent, if residence facilities could be provided. Opposing the ivory-tower viewpoint, that only a narrow range of "elevated" interests was valuable, Hatcher — navigator, instructor of engineers in Mechanics 2, as well as professor of mathematics — took the view that all human activities were worthwhile, "provided the teaching and the practice are honest, thorough & conscientious ... Life is living. Its flower is the outgrowth of many activities ... maths as well as music, medicine as well as art, engin. as well as poetry are at once the avenues as well as the fields of the good life."56 Whether right or wrong - those terms are meaningful - Hunter's unpragmatic, perhaps elitist view of the integration of all knowledge could not prevail. His debate with the president was but a Newfoundland episode in a wide-ranging debate on issues raised by R.M. Hutchins in his Higher learning in America (1936), a debate which did nothing to hold back the tide running strongly in favour of professional studies.57 By the late 19408, 75% of Memorial College students were enrolled for professional preparation in education, engineering, and medical studies. By that time the college was fully supported by taxes and tuition fees, and it could not possibly omit services so highly valued by society. The Hunter clique thought certain studies — such as language and literature - were like orchids and should be valued in the garden, while others, like domestic science, should be weeded out. The philosophical position of the faculty as a whole was in 1946, inescapably, an unsatisfying but practical blurring of distinctions and difficulties. The primary function of the university is to act as the cultural heart of the society for which it exists, sending to every part of that society the life-blood of sound learning, exact thinking and wisdom. The core of a university is therefore the life lived by its members, and their pursuits in the liberal arts and pure science. It is also expected of a university that it should furnish the trained men and women needed for the professions and for positions of responsibility in government and commerce. The second is the more excellently performed in proportion as the requirements of the first are fulfilled. These considerations should determine the general character of a university, the nature and contents of its curriculum, and the modes of its relationship with the world outside ... Learning knows no frontiers: nevertheless every people has its characteristic circumstances and needs. The prospective University of Newfoundland need therefore not consider itself obliged to conform to any given academic pattern but whilst remaining steadfastly

82 A Bridge Built Halfway adherent to the timeless ideal of truth ... may properly work out its own art of life and work and in so doing help to give shape and direction to the life of Newfoundland.58

Four conclusions may be drawn from this review of curriculum and program development during Memorial's first quarter-century: 1 The program became an amalgam, perhaps not entirely satisfying to anyone, of core studies in science and the humanities and in narrowly specialized preparation for engineering, teaching, and household science. 2 In these respects Memorial developed along the same lines as those followed by nearby Canadian universities. Despite many features of life at old Memorial, which resembled more than anything an English prep school, the curriculum at the heart of college work was patterned on Canadian rather than British or American institutions. 3 Relatively little planning or thought, so far as they have survived in the documents, went into the establishment of these programs. In the 19405 a good deal of interesting, provocative planning was done. The plans had very little or no influence on university expansion from the 19505 on. 4 In the twenty-five-year history of the college, the chronology of program development is very clear. It was in the first ten years that most of the important developments occurred, including the absorption of teacher training into the regular curriculum. Initiation of programs in preengineering and household science in the early 19305 was directly linked to the new wing built in 1931—32, which provided space for the necessary labs and kitchens. Thereafter, space restrictions permitted little change or development.

CHAPTER 4

Staffing

It appeared to the Executive that some of the staff were doing too much work. (Memorial University College, Board of Governors minutes, 1936)

The structures which governed the college, and most of the key policies those structures produced, are described in chapter 9. One particular set of administrative policies, however, needs prior discussion. Problematic situations with which committees and governors came to grapple did not appear in a vacuum. They were brought into existence by the institution's on-going operation. The essential equation for a working college comprises three elements: students, curriculum, and a staff of instructors. We have seen how students were available from across Newfoundland, and how the curriculum was borrowed from Canada. For the teachers the significant policies were those concerning recruitment and the terms (salary, leaves, freedom, workload, etc.) of their employment. NATIONALITY

Responsibility for keeping Memorial's meagre roll of positions filled rested with the president. Sometimes there was assistance from other faculty members with particular contacts, or from friends and supporters in foreign countries. Where did Memorial recruit its teachers? Three main patterns can be observed during the quarter-century. When Paton was president up to 1933, he tended to look to Britain, which was not surprising. Paton was English himself, had enjoyed a long career and often seemed to know everyone there. An example of this orientation can be seen in his correspondence for March 1926, a more-or-less typical month as far as recruiting matters were

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concerned. F.E. Weiss at Victoria University of Manchester was interviewing candidates on behalf of Memorial. One Manchester candidate wrote directly that he was not interested, but Reginald Stephenson submitted an enquiry about the vacant post in physics. F.A. Bruton, Paton's former colleague, sent word that he would come for summer school. The University of Cambridge appointments board regretted that four young men they had contacted did not wish to go out to the colonies. A schoolmaster wrote from Cairo expressing interest in the physics position which was awarded to Stephenson. Another teacher at the Imperial College of Science and Technology, London, wished to know if an initial appointment would be for two years.1 Paton, however, was not slavishly wedded to British instructors. The previous summer, before the first faculty list had been completed, one of the feelers he put out when chemistry, physics, and mathematics were still open, was to the Teachers' Agency in New York.2 After 1933 the principal focus in recruiting switched from Europe to North America. The academic orientation of the new president, Albert Hatcher, was Canadian; he had studied at McGill and taught at Bishop's College and the Royal Naval College of Canada (Halifax and Esquimalt).3 His network of strategically placed colleagues and contacts was quite different from Paton's and included two of his brothers in what was in the 19305 probably still the educational capital of Canada, Montreal.4 The new orientation was shown when a search for a professor of education was undertaken in 1934. Hatcher consulted Nova Scotia's Superintendent of Education, McGill, the University of Toronto, his brothers in Montreal, the Harvard University Graduate School of Education, and the appointment service of the American Association of University Professors. Columbia University, citadel of progressive education for the whole continent, was also contacted with the request to suggest "any British graduates they would have on their list suitable for appointment." Lloyd Shaw of Prince of Wales College (Charlottetown), also closely linked to and strongly recommended by Mount Allison University, was appointed. When Shaw was promoted to the deputy minister's post (Secretary of Education) a year later, it all had to be done again. This time the choice fell on E.G. Powell, whose credentials from Saskatchewan, McGill, and Columbia were perhaps less significant than his pre-MUc posting in the Lachine school system under Gordon Hatcher.5 When the chemistry position became vacant in 1942, Hatcher wrote to the presidents of Dalhousie and Acadia universities, to two prospective candidates he had in mind, and also as usual to brother William (Billy) in McGill's chemistry department. On Billy's recommendation

85

Staffing

Fred Maddock, MUC graduate (1934) and a doctoral student nearing completion at McGill, was hired. Candidates found on the mainland of Canada could be more easily interviewed and more cheaply brought to St John's, compared with prospects in Britain. Nevertheless, problems could arise. In 1943 it took six months to bring Dorothy Wilson from Canada as instructor in art, because she had difficulty obtaining a labour exit permit.6 The tendency to recruit from North America became so strong that the only scholars appointed from Britain in all the college period after 1933 were the professors of chemistry and biology named in 1948. That was the year that A.C. Hunter was acting president while Hatcher took sabbatical leave. Hunter's roots, like Paton's, went back to England. In other words, the college had no policy as such of preferring to recruit in one country or the other. It all seemed a matter of individual personality, almost of whim, and depended in part upon which old boy was operating the network. There was a third pattern of much greater significance than these first two. Throughout both the Paton and Hatcher presidencies, great stress was laid upon recruiting well-qualified Newfoundlanders. This began with Paton when he was assembling the very first staff. In July 1925 he failed to attract W.G. Guy from Carbonear, a doctoral candidate in chemistry at the University of Chicago, who wrote that he had already accepted an appointment at William and Mary College, Virginia (it became a career-long commitment). At the end of the month, however, the wire that Paton sent to a mathematician from Moreton's Harbour was more successful. Albert Hatcher wrote from Lennoxville that he had persuaded Bishops' College to release him, and he accepted the post as mathematics professor at the new college.7 The pool of highly qualified Newfoundlanders on which to draw was somewhat restricted until Memorial had been underway for several years and its junior college graduates began emerging with second, sometimes third degrees from foreign institutions. Paton began, and Hatcher continued, the policy of keeping close track of the most promising individuals. Edna Baird (MUG 1927) lightheartedly explained "There was one thing that I had against J.L. [Paton] as we called him ... he had decided early that he wanted me to come back on the staff and start home economics. So he said one time, or implied as much, Don't waste your time [going out socially], and any time ... he knew that I would be going out with Mr Stephenson on a certain evening, he would give him some job to do."8 She gathered qualifications at several foreign institutions and Paton wrote to her several times a year. She would like to undertake the task he mentioned, she wrote him from Baltimore at the end of 1931, but

86 A Bridge Built Halfway

she wondered if the fact that she was under thirty and unattached could impede their joint plans for her appointment to the faculty.9 Nevertheless, in 1933 she, Sadie Organ, and Allan Gillingham formed the first wave of Memorial students appointed to teaching posts in their own college. By 1939 registrar Monnie Mansfield could boast in a public address that the faculty now consisted of eighteen full-time instructors, of whom eleven were Newfoundlanders and eight former Memorial students.10 The closest that the Board of Governors came actually to articulating a policy on the matter was in 1944, when Paddy Duder (graduate 1929, joined faculty 1935), having received an offer of employment from the United States, tried to use it to lever English and French apart into two separate departments so that he might be head of either one. The governors seized the opportunity to formulate a resolution. They regarded "with special consideration and interest those members of the Faculty who are Newfoundlanders and graduates of the College. This expression of policy is intended not to reflect upon other members of the Faculty but to inspire in the graduates of the College the feeling that the Board of Governors is anxious to see Newfoundlanders reap to the full the benefit of their success and scholarship."" Actions speak even louder than such proclamations. Appendix 4 gives the names of all eighty-three persons appointed as instructors at Memorial during the period, with nationality given for all but seven of them. Analysis shows that of these 42 (55%) were Newfoundlanders, 17 (22%) British, 14 (18%) Canadians, and 3 (4%) Americans. From 1933 on, when graduates of the college became available, 69% of new appointees were Newfoundlanders.12 ACADEMIC CREDENTIALS

The governors' preference for hiring Newfoundlanders did not override their desire to have the best-qualified people. There is no indication they ever took less-qualified people merely because they were natives. Appendix 4 shows that the seventy-eight professors whose scholastic records are known possessed among them - at time of joining the staff- a total of 128 degrees. That works out on average to i .6 degrees each: a rather well-qualified faculty for a junior college in which the teaching stopped two full years short of a first degree. Dalhousie, which of all universities in the region had the best-developed curriculum, including several graduate programs, had a staff which was only marginally better qualified. ' 3 Memorial shows up very well in this regard. An interesting question to ask about the credentials of Memorial

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staff members is where they were gained. It should reveal something about the interplay of outside influences on this vulnerable country in the open Atlantic. When the geographic (national) distribution of the thirty-five institutions which granted these degrees is mapped, it shows that two-thirds of the degrees - 81 out of 128 - were from institutions in Canada, especially McGill, Mount Allison, Dalhousie, and Toronto. Thirty-one (24%) were from Britain, qualifications from London and Oxford accounting for half of this group. There remained fifteen degrees (12%) from the United States, chiefly Harvard and Columbia; and one from the University of Paris. All the details are given in table 13. One could be misled by this set of statistics into thinking that early Memorial was so fully in Canada's orbit that the majority of its staff were transplanted Canadians. This is quite wrong, of course. The two-thirds of faculty that were Canadiantrained consisted chiefly of Newfoundlanders returning from abroad. It nevertheless suggests an important preconfederation Canadian influence at the campus in St John's. People naturally take from personal experience their idea of what university life should be like. Thus the Canadian pattern of how things were done — the only pattern that was known and shared in common by most faculty tended to be reproduced in the young college as it took shape. RELIGIOUS AFFILIATION

One wishes that Memorial's administrators had more fully spelled out their thinking about the religious orientation of the instructors. In Burke's first letter to Paton, he wrote: "We think your idea of undertaking to secure a Roman Catholic to profess History is an excellent one; we must have at least one Roman Catholic on the staff."14 There are two important notions here. One is the minimum representation required to give an acceptable appearance of balance in a small staff of six or so. The other concerns the nature of history as a discipline. The study of history is concerned with attitudes, values, and controversies that never end. At Memorial the principal course would cover European developments since 1500 - a period in which important elements included the Reformation, the Inquisition, and strife in Britain between the Tudors and Stuarts, not to mention — and it is always mentioned in Newfoundland - the oppression of Ireland. So history was a religiously sensitive subject. Added to this, as noted in chapter i, the St John's hierarchy, while concerned with the possibility of university federation in the Maritimes, was repeatedly bombarded with suggestions that the faith of Roman Catholic students

88 A Bridge Built Halfway Table 13 Degrees Held by Scholars when Appointed to the Faculty of Memorial University College, 1925-50 Foreign country and Institution CANADA

Dalhousie King's Saint Mary's Nova Scotia Technical College Mount St. Vincent Acadia Saint Francis Xavier Mount Allison St. Dunstan's McGill Macdonald College Queen's Toronto Western Ontario Manitoba Saskatchewan British Columbia

81

63

31

24

15

12

1

1

1 3 6 1 4 3 15 1 16

1 1 11 1 2 1 2 6

4 10 2 1 2 1 1

1 1 1 1

U N I T E D STATES

Harvard Columbia City University of New York Denver Drew Other: Paris

Percentage of Total

12

UNITED KINGDOM & IRELAND

Oxford Cambridge London Dublin Durham Wales Manchester Sheffield Liverpool Edinburgh Lie. R. Acad. Music Cert. Art Master

Number of Degrees

6 6

1 1 1

1

Source: MUC calendars 1928-29 to 1949-50.

could be secure in a mixed college, provided that instruction in certain subjects, including history, was kept in Catholic hands. One may hypothesize that Archbishop Roche, as a price for bringing the

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support of his church behind the new college, insisted that the history professor should be a scholar who saw the Reformation in the same way that he did. There is no documentary evidence of such a bargain. Burke approved Paton's proposing a Catholic historian — after Curtis had been closeted with him, explaining Newfoundland folkways to him, possibly telling him what to suggest. The history position could not be filled in the first year, and Solomon Whiteway substituted. In 1926 a candidate from UNB wrote to Paton about the post. One of the college trustees had mentioned that "a Catholic was desirable & [I] see from your letter the point of that." David Travers, religion unknown, appeared from somewhere that year but was gone by 1927. Then two Normal School part-timers (Elizabeth McGrath and Emilie Eraser) taught a half-year each. Finally in 1928 persistent recruitment turned up Allan Eraser, just graduated from the University of Edinburgh, a Scots Catholic, who took over the dangerous subject for the next quarter-century. As late as the 19508 this discipline still seemed supersensitive. When Eraser resigned in 1953 to contest St John's East in the second federal election, President Raymond Gushue discussed the problem of his replacement with senior members of faculty. Gordon Rothney was proposed, well recommended for the way he had handled himself as a replacement during Eraser's sabbatical the previous year. Rothney was Anglican. "Since there are certain aspects of the teaching of History," Gushue wrote to his committee on appointments, "which, if not handled delicatedly could cause offence, I checked with the various denominations regarding the appraisal of Dr. Rothney's teaching. I received nothing but praise."15 Whether a Catholic professor of history was part of a high-level bargain among the church/schooling leaders of the 19208 may never be known for sure. Religious considerations crop up in recruitment documents throughout the period without ever causing serious problems. In the 19305 when Samuel Harrington was putting out feelers for MUG in Britain, he knew that Paton considered the religious denomination important, but lacked the essential detail. He had to contact the president "to wire me what denomination" was wanted and "whether that is to tell most whether other things are equal or not." When Simone Avis was given a one-year contract, she quickly reassured Paton of prudent lukewarmness: "Owing to the fact that my parents are of different religious denominations, I have been brought up to have no sectarian prejudices, so that I should be able subsequently to make my decision." On another occasion Paton wrote to a Jewish scientist, who inquired about a position, that his religion could be a difficulty.16 No Jewish faculty member was appointed up

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to 1950, but this may not be significant, since the staff was small and the Jews of Newfoundland a miniscule community. When the first president was leaving he was determined for the sake of a more balanced staff to find as a replacement to handle classics, ancient history, and German, a female Roman Catholic (eye colour not specified). He had other desiderata, too, which helps to explain this charming telegram, received from a women's college at Oxford in response to his queries about a particular candidate there: "CATHOLICISM DISCIPLINE OF YOUNGER CHILDREN LONDON ACCENT."17 On this occasion, in fact, the desire to strengthen minority ranks in the faculty was so strong that for once a superbly qualified Newfoundlander was discouraged. Allan Gillingham (MUG 1928) was also at Oxford, a Rhodes scholar, finishing up a degree there after winning the Jubilee prize in Newfoundland and his first B A at McGill. I would have liked to join the Memorial staff, he wrote Paton: classics, philosophy, some German later on. "If you cannot find a Catholic, I should like the change." The main search was unsuccessful, as it happened, and Gillingham was hired after all, on condition that he spend the summer preparing himself to teach German. A few years later, when Alice Kent resigned from the teacher-training department, the board's executive was authorized to fill the vacancy, provided "the appointee be of the Roman Catholic Faith ..."l8 EQUAL O P P O R T U N I T Y

A fourth consideration affecting recruitment decisions may well seem of greater importance to many readers in the 19905 than religion, academic qualifications, and nationality. What was the position of women on the Memorial College faculty? Women comprised an impressively large proportion of the staff. Although there were only two women out of the eight instructors in the first year, and both of these part-time, the numbers improved until women were seven out of sixteen in 1933, and eight of eighteen in 1940. Overall, 39% of those appointed to teaching posts up to 1950 were women. Sustaining the extent of their influence was the fact that their average service was the same as that of the men, about five and one-third years. Nor were women confined to peripheral or "women's" subjects. For one thing, although music and art were often treated as peripheral at other places, entrusted to women because they could not do much harm, at Memorial men took almost as great a part in teaching these subjects. From the early years of Normal School (before 1925) until the late 19305, Charles Hutton and James Murdoch almost

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monopolized official offerings in these subjects. Library posts also are often reserved for women. Sadie Organ was college librarian for seventeen of these years, but the possibility of considering her contribution "women's work" is denied by the fact that she also carried an important teaching load in the "male" subject of mathematics. For posts that were clearly and purely "women's," therefore, we are left with household science. Instructors in this subject served a small and exclusively female student clientele. The total service of the three women appointed in household science constituted only 11% of the 171 women-years of service that Memorial received from its female staff members during the period. Appendix 4 will identify the mainstream subjects in which they were important: women taught, in addition to mathematics, English, other languages, education, even chemistry and biology. Moreover, many observers assert that of equal impact with the president in running the college was his good right hand, registrar Monnie Mansfield. Although she did not teach, she was made Dean of Women and achieved academic rank in the 19405. "We had a few female professors in those days," answered one oral history respondent. "You asked me about eccentric, fascinating, they weren't either one of those."19 He might have confirmed, however, a more significant descriptor: influential. Actual disagreement about hiring men or women is rarely recorded in the surviving documents on recruitment. As we saw, Paton tried and failed to turn over his work in classics and German to a woman when he left. Earlier, a 1928 advertisement sought a "university graduate (preferably female)" with "successful experience in teaching - as Assistant on staff."20 Cynics may suspect that any female preference resulted from the fact that women were always paid considerably less than men (see section on "Salaries"). Moreover, the administrators were not entirely free from stereotypical expectations that men were best fitted for certain subjects. When the position in biology was vacant in 1936, the strongest candidates were one of either sex. Hatcher thanked Harold Thompson (director of the Bay Bulls fisheries research station) for recommending one of his scientists, Nancy Frost (MUG 1927; B sc Acadia 1929; M sc Western Ontario 1931). The board, however, appointed Wilfred Templeman (MUC 1928; B sc Dalhousie 1930; PH D Toronto 1930-33). Previously a lecturer at McGill, Templeman was "more experienced, especially in actual teaching, besides, of course, being a man."21 Balancing this note of exclusion, and equally infuriating to feminists, was the idea held by some that the library was woman's work. In 1950 a man was recommended for library assistant only because "it now appears extremely unlikely that it will be possible to secure a competent

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woman for this post... Since the present salary is that of a lecturer (woman) this appointment would, I presume, mean a higher rate, namely that of Lecturer (man) ...22 Except for salary inequity, women were treated fairly in staffing decisions until the 19408. The Second World War is said to have been a time when many doors hitherto closed to women were edged open. The opposite was the case at Memorial College. It was in October 1939 - with the war just a few weeks underway - that the Board of Governors first discussed the idea of refusing employment to married women. What is the policy, Hatcher officially inquired in some loaded questions, regarding women (i) married to male staff members; (2) already on faculty, planning to marry another staff member; (3) married to a faculty member applying for a position; or (4) married to someone not connected with the college? Also, he needed to know whether he had full authority over staff members termed "honourary." Muriel Hunter, the honorary curator of art, had recently had a misunderstanding with the president over an $8 expenditure he had not approved.23 This may or may not have helped to trigger a momentous, sexist decision. The board's directive of March 1940 was that the president indeed oversaw all staff persons. Moreover, it was "inadvisable at present to add any more married women to the staff." Hatcher was directed to terminate the services of Hunter, who was also a part-time instructor in Spanish, and of Kathleen Fraser, a lecturer in biology since 1935, who had married the history professor the previous summer. Hunter offered to continue her unpaid work in art, but the Board thought it best to make other arrangements. "I was surprised and grieved to hear of the decision of the Board of governors," she wrote to Hatcher, "and am at a loss to understand their attitude." Since the president had not favoured her total exclusion, she wrote, she was willing to initiate the teacher-training art mistress (a spinster) in the care of the Carnegie collection. "I shall always be ready to further the cause of Art in Newfoundland, as well as the interests of that institution which means so much in the life of my husband."24 It is not possible to know whether Memorial's 1940 regulation was a reaction to depressed economic circumstances, the marriage of Allan and Kathleen Fraser, the president's difficulties with the art curator, or even a spiteful move by Mrs Emma Hatcher to reduce the stature of the Hunters. Perhaps none of the above. The policy persisted for twenty years. Through the 19408 applications from married women were not considered. In 1950 a woman instructor "asked whether in the event of her marrying, she would be expected to give up her work ..." Hatcher "replied in the affirmative." The

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Board softened sufficiently to decide that "each case of this sort should be considered on its merits, and that no overall regulation was required." If the woman planned to marry another staff member, however, she definitely could not stay. The Terms & Conditions of Employment issued in 1959 stated: "Upon the marriage of a female teacher, her employment shall terminate" (although the Board could continue her services on a temporary basis, renewed periodically).25 Were women treated fairly in the matter of promotion? When the education professorship had to be filled three times during a twoyear span 1942-44, the Board pointedly and repeatedly passed over Helen Lodge, refusing her the promotion to which she thought herself entitled. None oFthe three men selected had academic qualifications superior to her Toronto M A nor did they possess her considerable experience — Normal School since 1926, Memorial since 1934 — in the professional formation of teachers. What other considerations the Board had in mind, and whether sex was one of them, are not articulated in the documents. Lodge did not submit to this rejection quietly. The second time she was overlooked she resigned. Her withdrawal was later converted to a half-year sabbatical "for family reasons" and she returned to the staff for another twelve years, until her death in igsG.26 Memorial's early record on the question of women is therefore contradictory. On the one hand women were well represented in faculty and provided their fair share of intellectual animation and leadership; on the other hand they were not safe from discriminatory policies that interfered with their career plans and personal lives. Many Canadian institutions had even worse records. Mount Allison, for example, had a strong preference for hiring men; in the 19305 all female instructors were in marginal, female subjects except for one lone professor of classics. At Queen's, up to 1950, the female portion of faculty was never as much as 6%.27 They were similarly few in number at Dalhousie, where the record of long-term female professors is a dismal collection of horror stories.28 Except for the unjust dismissals of ig4o,29 Memorial's history has nothing to match the heartless and mean-spirited treatment meted out to women on staff at Nova Scotia's leading university. DISMISSALS AND ACADEMIC FREEDOM

Having reviewed the major considerations when hiring was in progress we can now ask: What would bring the college to let someone go? Aside from Muriel Hunter and Kathleen Fraser, whose crime

94 A Bridge Built Halfway

was marital status, it is not obvious that anyone was dismissed. However, the documents do provide some hints. In 1928 Reginald Stephenson was criticized when his first-year physics students scored badly in the London University external examination. When he later requested a year's leave of absence, the trustees directed Paton to make a negative response. In the president's papers is the draft of a letter to Stephenson — one "I am loath to write ... Seeing the 3 years appointment will come to an end at the end of next June, the Trustees, while appreciating your great ability as a Physicist, would prefer to make a new appointment to the Lecturership for Physics in the College."30 While this draft was apparently "not sent" (marginal note), the message probably got through. Stephenson left Memorial the next summer for further study and a successful academic career in the United States. Paton had more dirty work to do in 1930, when students complained about the geology course being given by Herbert Baker, the Newfoundland government geologist on loan as a part-time teacher. The trustees asked their president to tell Baker that he should "discontinue his lectures for the present, pending an inquiry into certain charges that have been made concerning his work." Within a month — this development could be completely coincidental - Baker closed his office and prepared to leave Newfoundland. Still on friendly terms, he bequeathed valuable papers and equipment to the college, while seeking Paton's support in his quest for a teaching post at University of Liverpool.31 A third case - the only one involving a full-time instructor with firmly established tenure — had its origins in the college era but came to a head following the transition of the college to university status. A professor accepted an appointment in one discipline although his preparation was stronger in another; he taught for nine years. Then the new president (Raymond Gushue) heard disquieting reports that Memorial students going on for further study in that subject were not as well prepared as they had previously been. This report was presented to the staff member in such a way that the professor had little choice but to resign. The 19505 was a time of ruthless house cleaning at Memorial, as administrators sought to enforce the higher standards of a full-fledged university. The deficiencies that they perceived had their roots in the staffing problems and patterns of the college period. On the other hand, the absence of dismissals through the 19308 and 19408 suggests that, compared with previous and later regimes Hatcher, or his board members, took a less rigorous stance on the question of academic excellence. Finally, was there ever a case of the type which university critics

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Staffing

love to find: dismissal not for incompetence or student dissatisfaction but merely because of a faculty member's opinions? The closest approach to any such incident concerned John Colman, a professor of biology in 1933-36. With his prestigious degrees - BA Oxford, BA Cambridge ("by incorporation"), and PHD Harvard - Colman seems to have been a thorough academic, and he was certainly not reticent. He published in the Evening Telegram his opinion that Newfoundland had "a more backward school system than any English speaking country." Perhaps he had not realized that Memorial's governing board included the superintendents of the schools. He was rebuked and told officially that it was "ill-advised for a man in the position he holds in the Memorial University College to publish such a statement."32 Was this interference with academic freedom? Since Colman continued teaching for the next three and one-half terms, as planned, it seems not to have been a very serious issue. Sometimes potential problems were spotted a long way off and never even came to St John's. During the Second World War the Board's decision concerning the vacancy which Bernard Long eventually filled, had been to offer it to a Dr Wilson from Britain. Hatcher subsequently received a telegram in which this applicant stated that as a pacifist he was not prepared to engage in any war-related work. The appointment was rescinded.33 Policies about personnel matters evolved only slowly over the years, as Memorial's administrators took a pragmatic approach and invented their own methods for regulating a postsecondary institution. The policies that were adopted usually grew from a form of crisis management, that is to say, only after the need had arisen. They were then refined and codified for the future. The most important policies were those on salaries, sabbatical and sick leaves, pensions, workloads, and promotions. SALARY SCALES

Memorial's original salary plan permitted a top rate of $3,500 for a fully qualified professor. Inexperienced lecturers started at about $1,500. In 1933 the depression brought about a reduction in all salaries: the ceiling for professors was cut to $3,000, while a 10% cut was imposed on everyone. This was a common experience right across Canada, Bishop's University in Quebec being one of the few exceptions.34 The cut in Newfoundland was restored in 1935-35 Then, in 1942, following the meeting of a faculty deputation with the Board

96 A Bridge Built Halfway

of Governors, a more generous scheme was implemented with annual increments up to a fixed level. Professors could now earn $3,600, associate professors $2,800 and lecturers $2,400 (maximums - see appendix 5). Before settling on these figures, the Board of Governors had collected information and made a detailed comparison with the scales of salaries at the two leading institutions in Atlantic Canada, Dalhousie and the University of New Brunswick.36 A cost-of-living "bonus" was also introduced, and now for the first time the traditional form of discrimination which made women's salaries lower than men's was codified. After several increases in the cost of living allowance as a result of wartime and postwar inflation, there was a range for women of $i8o-$24O, while the men's range was $i5o-$3go.37 Pay rates were increased again in 1949 after another faculty deputation had presented its case. "The Faculty is unaware of any other body of public servants which has not enjoyed both a restoration to its original pre-depression rate ... and an upward revision," said Hunter. "The circumstances in which some members, particularly junior married members of the Faculty have to live, are detrimental to their work and to the proper prestige of the College. It is unbecoming that they should have to live in poor houses, in poor quarters, take in lodgers, make articles for sale, and, in other ways, eke out their salaries."38 The final college salary scale in 1949 saw the rate for male professors rise to $4,000 and that for lecturers rise to $2,700, excluding the cost-of-living allowance. Women's salaries were set firmly at 80% of the men's, with smaller increments and allowances. These salary scales were generally lower than those of Canadian universities. McGill, for instance, already had a professor's rate of $3,500 in 1912. Memorial's rate of $3,500 for a full professor in 1925 compared with only $2,800 at Mount Allison, $4,000 at Pine Hill Divinity Hall and Queen's (a Presbyterian rate?), $4,500 at McGill, and up to $5,600 at the University of Saskatchewan. By the early 19508 Memorial's rates were generally on a par with those of the poorest universities in the region (Acadia and Mount Allison) at about $4,000 for a full professor. UNB paid $5,500, Dalhousie $5,700, Queen's $4,500, and some universities in central Canada up to $7,200. Memorial's salaries for the highest ranks were slightly below those of Saskatchewan, but the rates for assistant professors and lecturers (instructors) were higher.39 Although they were somewhat underpaid by Canadian standards, Memorial's teachers were nevertheless advantaged in the context of Newfoundland wages and salaries. In the magnificently detailed 1945 Newfoundland census, the highest-paid MUC faculty members stood

97

Staffing

fifth among the professions. Their average salary of $3,686 was surpassed only by the average income of a handful of auctioneers ($3,700), seventeen dentists ($3,725), eighteen mining executives ($4,493) and 102 physicians and surgeons ($4,721). These statistics apply only to President Hatcher and the other highest-paid men, one-third of the entire faculty. The other, humbler instructors appear in the census as professionals ("other"). Their average salary of $1,833 nevertheless put them in the top 7% to 8% of Newfoundland incomes.40 Discrimination against women was entrenched in the salary scale throughout the whole period. It was also entrenched in society generally, which explains why for a long time there were no particular protests. Marion Peters, who joined the faculty as a chemistry demonstrator in 1946, remembered that "women staff members were paid 80% of what they would be making if they were male, and nobody thought anything of it. So much for women's lib in the 408." The college had adopted the salary policy long followed in the colony's schools, although by 1949 women teachers were paid 90% of the men's rate, rather than Memorial's miserly 8o%.41 The public, unapologetic codification of prejudice at last drew some liberal fire. In 1950 Hunter, as convenor of the MUG salary committee, pointed out defects in the plan that had been adopted. In order to correct these, there should be more than four increments and a full allowance for seniority; more recognition should be given to the registrar and the bursar; and: "Payment of Women. The work, responsibilities and qualifications being the same as for men the salaries should be the same. In any case they should be not less than ninetenths of the salaries paid to men."42 CONTRACTS

After setting the initial salaries in 1925, the next personnel routine which the trustees were induced to standardize for practical reasons was a set of contractual "conditions of appointment of professors." These guidelines, originally drafted by the Newfoundland Department of Justice in 1930, remained in effect, with most of the standard clauses intact, to the end of the college era. Teachers were subject to the president's instructions. They "shall be under an obligation to assist in the work of Evening Classes, if so desired ..." Salary was to be paid in ten installments, on the sixteenth of each month from September to June. Most appointments were for three years and the board would pay first-class fare to St John's, one way. A professor who left after only one year must repay two-thirds, after two years

98 A Bridge Built Halfway

one-third of this sum.43 One change in these conditions within a few years was the reimbursement by the Board of travelling expenses both ways for persons employed for one year only. In a 1943 decision this practice was confirmed and made general policy for the future.44 SABBATICAL LEAVE

The next important policy decision concerned "sabbatic leave." In 1931 Paton announced to a faculty meeting that the Board had approved a plan under which a faculty member after six years' service could have half salary for one year's leave, which was to be spent in an approved manner.45 Some of the riders which became attached to the policy during the 19308 and 19408 were that only one faculty member could be on sabbatical leave at any one time; that seniority was to help in deciding on conflicting requests; and that applicants could be required to find their own substitute for the year.46 As time passed, sabbatical remuneration was improved, and by 1947 there was reference to the "usual" three-quarters salary.47 Memorial was ahead of many Canadian universities in instituting the practice of sabbatical leave. At Saskatchewan during this period, one could only take leave without pay. At Queen's sabbatical leave was a rare privilege, haphazardly offered only to senior professors. After 1937 it became available there for all ranks, but only on terms that would "impose no cost" on the university. Around the same time Mount Allison reluctantly agreed that the difference between an instructor's regular pay and that of a replacement could become a sabbatical grant. By the 19505 this had become a "usual payment of $1000," but "The notion that a sabbaticant should enjoy a substantial proportion of a normal salary lay still in the future."48 Yet that notion had been part of Memorial's governance since 1931. Where had it come from? One suspects that Paton had brought with him support for a practice that was then more widespread in the old world than in Canada, where the Newfoundland college found most of its administrative models.49 From Paton's time on Memorial was always very generous in these matters. In the financially difficult year 1937 the governors approved a sabbatical for Sadie Organ, when she won an American Library Association fellowship for further study. On further reflection, since she had served only four years, this was reduced to an honorarium of $600 (about one-third of salary).50 Although the practice was imported from Britain, Gillingham thought that it was made to order for a college in St John's. While on naval service he wrote to Hatcher with great enthusiasm. Sabbatical leave was splendid. "Not many

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Colleges have it. Fellows who have worked with me and have taught at McGill for years keep remarking that our College is unusually wise ... it is necessary because of our remoteness."51 T H E P E N S I O N PLAN

The college was not so forward in implementing a staff pension plan. The first mention came in a 1938 letter from the secretary of the faculty (Gillingham) to the Board of Governors. It was discussed again in the first face-to-face bargaining session in November 1941. The question was then tossed back and forth between the Board and the colonial administration. Finally in 1944 the college, the Department of Education, and the Commissioner for Finance all agreed on a plan for which Governor Walwyn sought approval from the Secretary of State for Dominion Affairs. All employees would be eligible after a minimum of ten years service for a pension of 2% of the final salary multiplied by the years of service. They were to contribute 5% of salary to the plan. The plan was fully interchangeable with the Newfoundland civil service and teachers' schemes. The British authorities approved the plan with two significant changes. First it would apply only to the teaching staff. Also, whereas both the Board of Governors and Commission of Government wanted all the past service of employees on the payroll since 1925 to count towards a pension, London would only agree "that two-thirds of back service should reckon, without payment of arrears contribution ... hope this will be found to meet the case."52 Memorial was therefore quite slow in providing a pension plan for its employees. At McGill there had been Carnegie-sponsored pensions at the age of seventy since World War I, and a contributory scheme - 5% of salary - in place since 1929. Secretaries and other nonacademic staff were included when the McGill plan changed from a voluntary to an obligatory one in ig42.53 While some of the schemes put forward by MUG faculty embodied provisions drawn from American and Canadian practice, the proposals were more frequently based upon the federated superannuation system for British universities and the UK superannuation act of 1935. The Memorial University (pensions) Act of 1950 was based upon the plan as implemented in 1945. A survivor's benefit of one-half the normal pension was available for an extra 1% of salary contributed. Two-thirds of the period of employment at the college before 1945 would count towards the pension; the other one-third could be purchased - but the surviving pioneers from 1925 (Hatcher and Hunter) would not have to do so, as Newfoundland with provincial status now

ioo A Bridge Built Halfway

overruled the British decision five years earlier. "An employee who was a member of the faculty of the Memorial University College when it was established is entitled on retirement... to a pension equal to two thirds of his pensionable salary."54 Robert Newton, reviewing everything during the transition period from college to university, found the 1950 Act good, "more generous in its provisions than popular schemes such as the Teachers Insurance and Annuity Association of America or the Canadian Government Annuities."55 SICK LEAVE A detailed policy on sick leave was adopted in 1948, after Fred Maddock, the chemistry professor, became very seriously ill. He was a graduate of the college (1934) who went on to study at Dalhousie and McGill, before being hired at Memorial in 1942. In his fifth year of service he began suffering severe recurrences of childhood asthma. The demonstrator had to carry more and more of the teaching load: "Fred was far from well... there were times when he could hardly breathe ... He came in a couple of times at the beginning and that was it. It was so sad to see him hunched over some awful smelling stuff which he breathed in to open his air passages." Students were given an indelible impression of courage and determination overcome by human frailty. "Before each lecture he would have to lock himself in his little office and burn whatever it is that asthma patients burn that... gives them some relief. You would go into the lecture room and smell this smoke coming out and you would see smoke coming out underneath the door. Eventually he would emerge gasping and coughing and stagger up to the front of the room and give his lecture."56 Maddock became bedridden in November 1947. In April of 1948 the secretary of faculty (Bernard Long) conveyed to the Board the view that Maddock deserved full sick leave according to all precedent and faculty expectations. The Board of Governors joined in pressing for a generous response. The government's decision in June 1948 was to implement a plan, whereby after three years service one qualified for two months sick leave at full pay and a subsequent two months at half pay. The Board considered these benefits too low, promised to seek later reconsideration, and "agreed that the scheme should be accepted but under protest."57 Maddock meanwhile had sought out the dry climate of Arizona. Memorial's bursar sent him his last pay cheques in July — half his salary for the months of February and March.

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Acting president Hunter supported Maddock's request for a year's leave of absence. The governors had no way of dealing with longterm disability. In view of the nature of Maddock's illness, they wrote in August, "there is little likelihood that the Board will in fact have to consider his reappointment." Hunter was asked to write "in your usual understanding manner" with an offer of release from his commitment to the college. "The Board would, under the circumstances, like the suggestion that he resign to come from him, if this could be tactfully arranged."58 This is indeed what happened; failing to find employment in the sunny south, Maddock returned to Montreal where he died in the winter of 1951. He was thirty-four.59 In the next sick leave case, the Board was more generous because the president himself was the subject of concern. Hatcher's very lengthy service justified special benefits: up to five months at full pay and five more at half pay. This became in fact the maximum benefit for employees with five or more years of service when, in 1950, the sick leave plan proposed for Newfoundland teachers was extended to employees of the university.60 WORKLOADS

The governors were still groping towards a rational policy on workloads when the college era closed. In the first years it seemed that the professors were willing to do practically anything asked of them and consequently built up a busy teaching schedule. In 1936 the Board asked its chairperson diplomatically to discuss teaching loads and contact hours with President Hatcher. It was a touchy matter requiring sensitive handling. No complaint had been voiced, even though "it appeared to the Executive that some of the staff were doing too much work."61 Was this perhaps the last time that Memorial administrators voiced such an observation? No standardization of workloads resulted. In 1948-49 Hunter prepared a thorough study which showed that the range for full-time faculty members was from eleven to twenty-eight periods (of forty-five minutes each) per week. The average, omitting faculty members with administrative responsibilities, was twenty periods (fifteen hours). Engineering instructors had the heaviest schedules.62 A detailed policy on teaching loads was finally adopted in 1950. It stated that loads should be equal, with one hour of lecture equal to one and one-half hours of laboratory time. The president could be excused from teaching. Senior faculty members should do a large part of the first-year work. Third- and fourthyear courses in arts and education subjects would have only two hours

io2 A Bridge Built Halfway

per week, while "the number of classes per week in Science subjects should be patterned after the timetable of Dalhousie University." The average load would be fifteen to eighteen hours per week.63 RANK AND PROMOTION

In the final years of the college, thought was also given to a regularized scheme for promotions. The Commissioner for Education thought a roster was needed, showing the number of professors and associate professors required. "Reaching the top of one's present [salary] scale or completing a certain length of teaching service is not in itself, nor even taken together, a sufficient justification for promotion."64 One of Hunter's most thoughtful essays on college administration is his eleven-page paper on professorships (September 1948). There were three kinds of professors, he wrote - the functional (head of the department), the personal (professorship recognizing distinguished scholarship) and the automatic (based on promotion without regard to scholarship or responsibility). Hatcher, he said, tended to favour the personal principle, while he himself leaned towards the functional. Automatic promotion from assistant to associate to full professor he thought objectionable. All teachers might finally rank as professors, and salary costs would become onerous. Having more than one professor per department could result either in there being no actual head or in a title without responsibility. Automatic promotion "tends to induce stagnation on the staff, since a junior teacher attains full rank by process of time instead of in competition for a higher appointment elsewhere. It is clearly not a good thing that a man should spend his whole teaching life in one institution," Hunter wrote in the twenty-fourth year of his career at Memorial.65 He thought that the college needed professors in nine disciplines or subject groupings - English, languages, mathematics, biology, physics, chemistry, education, engineering, and historysocial science. The number of students justified a second education professor. In addition, both registrar and librarian should have the same title and status, giving twelve professorships in all. A faculty council submission to the Board of Governors later that winter (drafted by George Hickman, Bernard Long, and Jack Blundon) agreed with. Hunter's detailed prescription except in one particular: it recommended separate professorships for classical and modern languages. Qualifications for promotion to professor should be a certain minimum age, academic attainments, seniority, and research accomplishments. They favoured grouping departments of related disciplines under a nominal head but argued against actual

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deanships: "the Faculty Council does not view with favour the creation of special permanent posts with extra remuneration for this purpose."66 This consensus of opinion about professors as heads of disciplines had been general in Canadian universities for several decades.67 In the second half of the twentieth century, Memorial and the other institutions settled upon the approach which Hunter termed "personal" - full professorship as a rank showing an individual's achievements. The "functional" approach had in any case never been fully followed in the pre-iQ5o college. As Newton found, examination of the 1951 faculty list "suggests that some had been promoted to ranks out of keeping with their academic qualifications in order to give them satisfactory salaries."68 The college always had some nonteaching employees. From the 19208 on there were the registrar, the librarian, the bursar, and the caretaker. Registrar Monnie Mansfield and "Sandy" Cook, the caretaker who lived with his family in a basement apartment, were among the best-known, best-liked personalities of the era. The librarian and the registrar were eventually recognized as faculty members. This was common practice in Canada as regards librarians, but an innovation for a registrar. Olive Mews replaced a Mr Marshall as bursar in 1936, Stuart Godfrey succeeding her in 1939. An assistant bursar, Paul Winter, was first named in 1946 when the accounts were in a terrible tangle.69 An assistant librarian and a college secretary dated from the 19305, and during the 19405 a second secretary and a caretaker's assistant were added. By 1950 the list of full-time personnel therefore contained about two dozen teaching posts and nine others. The college found it easy to retain some of its academic staff, but experienced a high turnover in certain disciplines. Appendix 4 names the instructors during the period 1925 to 1950, with their years of service. In English, mathematics, history, and household science there was a large measure of continuity, with instructors remaining for seventeen, twenty-two, even the full twenty-five years. In classics there were three principal teachers, with an average of eight years each. But in the sciences, engineering, and education, there were five, six, or even more instructors. The degree of continuity was lowest in chemistry, with eight professors remaining on average only three years. George O'Sullivan had a nervous breakdown half way through the first year. John Mennie was attracted away to a joint fisheries-Dalhousie post in Halifax and a long life at McGill. Fred Maddock left because he was dying. Three other chemists deserted

104 A Bridge Built Halfway

St John's for careers in New England. The common theme was better opportunities and rewards elsewhere. The turnover in education - six principal instructors, with an average stay of four years - had a different cause: better opportunities in Newfoundland. The college post was intimately linked to a career ladder in the Newfoundland department of education, with the result that on three occasions professors appointed to Memorial were the very next year promoted to administrative posts in the government bureaucracy. In engineering, too (five professors in twenty years), the teachers were often attracted away by other opportunities in the profession. Several of the scientists, like Mennie, wanted the opportunity and support to do research and were not "greatly attracted by a position in which ... entire time would be occupied in elementary teaching."70 When Hatcher discussed the recruitment of scientists with the president of Harvard University, "he too says such persons are hard to find, the chances in industry being what they are. Our salary scale is too low, of course."71 Except for low salaries, unavoidable in a country with a weak economy, and some unfortunate but little-protested inequities in its treatment of female staff, the college regulated personnel matters in a smooth and adroit manner. Inquiries from Jews, pacifists, atheists, or others with unpopular opinions were so few that no sure grounds for praise or blame emerge. All Christian sects were treated with scrupulous balance, by high policy. In the matter of sabbatical leaves, this tiny campus gave leadership to Canada. The other conditions of employment, such as pensions and promotion, were typical of the time. The foreign models of which administrators were most aware were those in Canada, though they also gathered suggestions in Britain. There was in addition a tendency to reproduce at Memorial some of the patterns familiar in the Newfoundland school system. The resulting amalgam was a set of personnel policies that was not precisely like any scheme in Britain or Canada, but was unique to St John's and shaped by the situation there. Meanwhile, recruitment concentrated heavily upon the resources of Newfoundland itself. That generation seems to have taken seriously the notion of a national university.

CHAPTER 5

College Life

It was a cold, dreary city ... Memorial College at that time ... perched up there, it looked like a concrete block, the Kremlin or something only smaller. And on this bleak waste of land with winds coming in off the harbour and the ocean ... I was cold all the time I was there". (Interview with Mrs Gwen Baird Monk, Kingston, Ontario, 4 May 1983)

The interactions of staff and students constituted from 1925 on a new feature in Newfoundland society: the academic community devoted to advanced learning. The setting for this important project was a twenty-acre site at the southeast corner of Parade Street and Merrymeeting Road in downtown St John's. At one time the area had been a military training ground, by the 19205 it was just "the Barrens." Almost at the top of the first hill coming up from the harbour, the campus had no shelter: "The college was a big bare structure with its back to open country. In winter, spindrift snow and wind whirled around, trying to shake its solidity. Then the students ran up frozen steps bent in a double."1 Paton devoted many Saturdays during his eight-year presidency to beautifying the campus with rake, grass seed, and transplanted shrubbery. He had the personality and authority that could induce members of the student body to assist him. But no greenery grew happily on that eminence. By the mid1950s the campus was about as ugly as it had been in 1925, when the builders left a jewel of a facility in a sea of mud. Academic life at Parade Street was highly structured. Both students and the institution itself had detailed schedules to follow, as each academic year went through its seasonal cycle. The main preoccupation of students was their studies. For many, however, there was still time and energy left over to choose from a wide range of activities -

io6 A Bridge Built Halfway

special interest groups, dramatics, journalism, socials, etc. - which were organized under the overall supervision of the Students' Representative Council (SRC). THE ACADEMIC ROUTINE

A very measured, deliberate activity, college life followed a definite annual rhythm. The academic year began in mid-September with an opportunity for the previous year's borderline cases to write supplemental examinations. Then followed thirteen weeks of classes and a two week break through Christmas and New Year. That much of the routine was standard from 1925 through to 1950. The second part of the regular academic year grew shorter during the quarter century, as final examinations moved from the middle of June to the third week of May. Even in the 19405, therefore, mid-year tests were still held well after New Year. For instance in 1944-45, fifteen weeks of college work preceded those challenges, which occupied the last week of January. "Between the close of examinations and beginning of second semester there will be a suspension of lectures but the College and Library will remain open and students will remain in residence in St John's."2 Lectures in 1944-45 resumed on February 5th; there were two free days at Easter; and graduation day was the first Saturday in June. Then relative peace descended upon the college for a month. Summer school, which began as a four-week session in July in the 19205, theoretically independent from Memorial although located in Memorial premises, had by the late 19405 developed into a six-week session with work for university credit. Mid-August to mid-September was the second annual period of quiet. Not all important rhythms were academic. The somewhat haphazard scheduling of major social events orchestrated by the Students' Representative Council evolved by the 19405 into a rather rigid scheme which permitted the major student groupings equal and fair access to the limelight and facilities. In 1947-48, for example: SRC social for new students, 17 October Premedical social, 21 November Ex-servicemen's Christmas party, 19 December Arts and science social, 13 February Engineers' social, 17 March Education Society social, 23 April

Most of these dates were Fridays. How the engineers managed to

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College Life

monopolize St Patrick's Day - the best date in a Newfoundland year is unknown. Occasional, less formal parties, and a sports day in the spring, completed the social calendar.3 Of all the regular features of college life, none was more important for understanding the nature of the institution than assembly. This was a gathering of the entire college community, weekly to begin with, although by the mid-19305 some weeks were skipped. Assembly cemented college bonds and set traditions. Nigel Rusted (MUG 1927) remembered an early gathering at which Paton announced the college motto, Provehito in altum. He credited Hatcher with having found in the Latin bible Christ's order to St Peter: Launch out into the deep, and let down your nets for a draught. "Since we were maritime people and associated with fishing, it was a good reminder we should also launch out further in our education and knowledge." Religious gestures, very important in many public phases of Newfoundland life, were deliberately minimized at assembly. "I remember the first assembly — Mr Paton suggested we should recite the Lord's prayer. At the next assembly he said that the Roman Catholics had complained about having prayers and didn't think we should have a prayer, so he suggested that a minute of silent prayer shouldn't be criticized by anybody."4 The usual assembly agenda emphasized union and sharing. It was a time for moral exhortations, invitations to earnestness, college announcements, worthwhile entertainments, and special speakers. From the early 19308 on custom required that professor Allan Fraser begin the year with an address on the required college apparel - a history of the cap and gown.5 The 1935 assemblies were typically varied: 1 College opening in September — welcome, new courses, evening classes, message from the ex-president, Eraser's "Cap and gown" 2 24 September — timetable, care of the building, gift of books, caps and gowns on sale, Students' Representative Council, Glee Club 3 i October — Mrs Janes sang 4 1 7 October - lecture on EJ. Pratt, announcements concerning SRC athletics, study groups; Evan Whiteway sang 5 24 October - musical program from Kathryn and Douglas Mews 6 3 1 October — music from Brenda Marshall 7 14 November — lecture from Mrs Dunfield, music, announcements: "Down to work now. Half term gone. Pass up amusements" 8 28 November - Ode to Newfoundland, two representatives from YMCA 9 5 December - J.R. Lench sang, announcements on debates, Glee Club, death of Billy Garland, students to meet with the SRC after assembly

io8 A Bridge Built Halfway 10 19 December — announcement of Rhodes Scholarship for H.B. Mayo (Normal School 1928, MUC 1932-34), Glee Club sang Christmas songs 11 9 January 1935 — Ode to Newfoundland; students returning late after New Year must see the president; rearranging the library; news of four Old Memorials, including a letter from the Rhodes scholarship winner. Mayo's sister recalled fifty years later how she "puffed up with pride when someone ... stood up and read a letter from her brother at Oxford"6

24 22 May (second last assembly of the year) — the success of Old Memorials was again featured. Death of Lloyd Howell, his funeral at 2:30 p.m. to be attended by the male students.7

The tradition of assembly declined only slowly. In 1946-47, eight were still held during the academic year, roughly one per month from September to April. The coming of the university, adding two more years of students, weakened the sense of community. Now there were too many people to meet together in one room. The education department continued holding assemblies of its own longer than anyone. In 1944 a faculty meeting recorded the high value put upon the tradition of assembly, and why. There should be entertainment if convenient, but this was "quite secondary to the purpose of creating right ideas directly or indirectly."8 Another feature of the early Memorial schedule, promoted by Paton from his concern that every student succeed, was "Inquisition." After the announcement of mid-term results students were called in turn into a room where all of the instructors sat around a table to discuss their progress or otherwise. They remembered the "Inquisition" because it was so nerve-racking. Recalled in tranquillity, after one had safely escaped to Toronto or somewhere, it seemed less daunting. After examinations comes the inquisition, wrote Fabian O'Dean (1936). "It was not without its fun for I remember students coming out from it and boasting how they had defied such and such a professor but as we did not hear the proceedings ourselves, we rarely believed the students."9 From 1932 "Inquisition" was held only for students who were doing particularly poorly.10 It seems to have died out during the Second World War. What else was there? From time to time a fancy college banquet, such as the first annual one held at the Sterling Restaurant just before Christmas 1926. Cod steak, roast beef, no wines - but toasts in plenty: the King, Newfoundland, Memorial University College and Normal school, the athletic union, the staff, old students.11 Every autumn,

log College Life

of course, Memorial trooped to the cenotaph to commemorate the sacrifice for which the college was named. Looking equally sombre in caps and gowns, but feeling blacker, they also paraded on several occasions during the 19308 to the funeral of a fellow student. Even the unity of the college was never proof, however, against the obstinate separateness of religions. When Paton died in 1946, a notice went up announcing a memorial service in Queen's Road church. All were asked to be ready to leave the college at 2:30. "Those of you whose religious regulations or customs do not admit attendance at such a religious service of another communion are not asked to attend. The College respects your loyalty to your church."12 Regular signs warned when the end of the college year approached. After the end of March cocoa was no longer served in the women's common room. Then came the election of key officers for the following year: president and secretary of the Students' Representative Council, and president of the Athletic Union.' 3 After the strain of final examinations came what many found to be a worse ordeal: public exposure. Marks "were posted. On the list, below the line, above the line, it was a horrible business. You just clamoured around the notice board ... went from the top and brought your finger down till you struck [your name] and then you fainted or went on."'4 When summer school came, it had its own rituals. There were numerous concerts, demonstrations, hikes; an uplifting opening assembly; the nature ramble and ceremony at the F.A. Bruton tree in Bowring Park. Before summer ripened, however, the regular academic year came to a close with a burst of activities. The last fortnight of 1934—35 was typical: final classes, examinations, elections, the entertainment of the graduates at the president's home, a hiking club jaunt to Middle Cove, a college picnic at Mount Pearl, the year's last broadcast (by Edna Baird), and the graduation dance, open to current and former students, on Friday, 21 June.' 5 Margaret Duley portrays a Memorial graduation in her 1939 novel Cold Pastoral. After the dozenth speaker had referred to the motto, the heroine graduate's uncle was out of patience. "My God, if another person tells them to plunge into the deep, I'll follow with pleasure. My knee is like a hot coal."'6 Afterwards tea and sandwiches were served, as usual on college occasions, by the small squad of overworked household science students. Paton turned a teacher's sentimental reflections into poetry.'7 When you are gone and in your place Is found another stranger face, When from the list drops out your name

no A Bridge Built Halfway And when your presence went and came ... All may forget you just the same, When you are gone. But in the never ending race If only for a moment's space You bore the torch and fanned the flame, And passed it on undimmed by shame, — Your spirit time shall ne'er efface, When you are gone.

The life of a student had its own rhythm. Almost everyone walked to the college, walked back home for lunch at noon, and returned. After 1929 the library was open five evenings a week, 7-9:30 P.M., so there must have been quite a few who made that walk six times daily. A few of the more distantly located used public transportation. While the college period lasted, very few enjoyed the luxury of a car. They had to go back and forth because until the end of the 19405 there was no food service of any kind. In some years facilities for making hot water (for chocolate, coffee, etc.) were available in the common rooms. Classes were of forty-five minutes duration, with no break necessary in the tidy small building. Five such periods were squeezed in between 9:00 A.M. and 12:45 P.M., another three from 2:15 P.M. to 4:30 P.M. - plus classes on Saturday morning. In the early years Wednesday afternoons were for games. Those who refused to participate in the games, or had no class scheduled, were expected to be in the library. There was no free time during the day except for that one and a half hours at noon. In addition to the regular program and timetable, there were many other organized activities to keep the students occupied. Compulsory games lasted only as long as Paton did, but - as explained in chapter 3 - a determined and well-orchestrated effort to round out the student's experience and appreciation of beauty continued. By 1940 some form of noncredit course or cultural activity was "demanded" of all students.'8 The students' living arrangements were of three kinds. Usually about two-fifths were residents of the St John's metropolitan area. They lived at home, sometimes walking long distances, and generally had an experience which was a continuation of previous schooling. A second group, of about the same size, were boarders. Many private homes in the inner city were pleased to take in from one to three students. A few of the boarders lived with relatives or friends of their family; the great majority stayed with strangers. The remaining one-fifth of students lived in residence. Memorial

in College Life College never had a residence; but Queen's College could usually accommodate twenty to thirty men, while all three major churches operated residences for both sexes in connection with their high school programs. There was always room for at least a few university college students. Naturally, when students of one institution lived in accommodations governed by the tempo and timing of another, there were some hitches. The chaplain and guardian at the United Church College residence had to write Paton in 1927 that the Memorial students he was accommodating were too often late for meals. The worst case was a Miss Stevenson, who "did not appear for tea at all... explained that she had a class which kept her till half-past six." He inquired whether Memorial's hyper-activity was really fair to either the students or their homes. "It is a question if we shall submit to it, or ask Miss S. to find another boarding house."19 George Earle (1933) who lived at (Anglican) Feild Hall while attending Memorial, recorded recollections of that lifestyle. Residence diet, "like the depression itself," had "to be experienced to be believed. We became experts at eating prunes ... Feild Hall was a mile from Memorial and having to walk this four times every day gave lots of exercise. In those days all the snow that fell lay till spring thaw; all deliveries were made by horse-drawn vehicles and when what the horses did mixed with the snow and this became slush, you can well imagine that the daily walks were not always pleasant. But it made us walk fast."20 A final pattern in living arrangements was an escape from the confinement of residence life, when parents would permit it. On average about one-third of those who spent their first year in residence joined the group of scattered boarders during the second year. The June-August period was when college and students' schedules most differed. Some few of the wintertime students would appear again at summer school, needing professional preparation if they planned to teach that autumn. For the most part the students scattered and found employment wherever possible. The college attempted to assist and supervise this as well as all other aspects of their experience. The correspondence of both presidents contains enquiries about the chances for work on large projects. In 1928, Paton tried to place some of his young men with International Power and Paper at Corner Brook, and at the Buchans mine where a preference was stated for the more rough-and-tumble types. After the preengineering program began, its leaders became particularly active in finding work for students. Bell Island was one spot where Memorial students were much appreciated as workers. The chief engineer of

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Dominion Steel Corporation put his commendation of them on record in 1942, when he "referred particularly, not only to the academic knowledge of the students, but also to their skill in making use of their knowledge in practical situations, as for example, the application of Mathematics to Engineering problems."21 Except for the engineers with their particularly saleable skills, efforts by the college to find summer employment for students did little to solve the problem. Usually it was individual initiative and contacts which enabled students to find jobs in construction or the service industry. Some even went fishing, even though higher education was generally seen as the surest avenue away from that traditional dirty work. For a time in the 19308 any jobs at all were very hard to come by. The first third-year courses in regular arts and science which Memorial offered were intended to accommodate graduates who had not been able to earn what they needed to go on with their studies on the Canadian mainland. As regards jobs for students, as in most other sectors of Newfoundland's employment market, the wartime era of base construction was the golden age. In 1940—41 Professor S.J. Hayes "interested himself in obtaining employment with the American Engineers of well-nigh every student in Engineering at the Muc."22 By this period, female students were looking for work in greater numbers than ten to fifteen years earlier. Nevertheless, for a few years everyone could find a job, in work-gangs, mess-halls, construction offices, or the usual civilian stores and banks. Interviewing former students turned up some quite rare summer employments. In 1938 C. Barrington-Brown of Anglo-Ecuadorian Oilfields Ltd. arrived in St John's intent on checking historical reports of an oil slick in marshlands of the Bay d'Espoir drainage system. His guide to this hard-to-reach spot — by coastal boat to Conne River, then by canoe and foot — was the chief boy scout of Newfoundland, a MUC premedical student going into second year.23 Ten years later the country's constitutional crisis enabled another student to become a kind of entrepreneur between terms, offering employment to dozens of his fellow-students. Brian Edwards (MUC 1949) was a returning officer in the famous referendum votes of 1948: I have just forgotten how I got that job ... I may have got it because my uncle Captain William D. Edwards at that time used to run the elections for the city ... his nephews and nieces and their friends all worked for him for fifty cents a night... then when the referendum came by perhaps because I had this experience ... I got the job ... As returning officer for St. John's East it

113 College Life was my responsibility to set up these sixty polling booths which meant I had to hire sixty deputy returning officers, sixty poll clerks and sixty door guards ... Where did I go? To the university and I stuck up notices on the board ... I had a job for the summer and boy I can give all you girls and fellows who apply to me a job for one day where you can make $10, $15 or $5 depending on the job ... I had a very high class of workers.24

The most fascinating jobs of all, however, were held by two male students back in 1931. First Paton received a telegram from New York, asking if Jack Angel could write examinations early so as to sail with Captain Bob Bartlett from St John's on 10 June. He was to be second engineer and assistant photographer for an Arctic exploration on the famous schooner Morrisey. The college agreed. Within a month Angel had rummaged up his warmest gear, scribbled some tests, cleared the Narrows, and was writing back from latitude 63 degrees 27 minutes north: "The sun was below the horizon last night for only four hours. At 12:00 p.m. last night I wrote my diary on deck." Another student also went on the expedition, shanghaied from the college with just five hours notice. Bob Dove, appropriately in charge of ornithology as well as ship's surgeon, wrote to describe Reykjavik and to marvel at how much better Icelanders handled their fish compared with Newfoundlanders. Memorial had the habit of making each person's experience help to educate the others. The following spring, therefore, Angel was on the Literary Society agenda to tell the whole college what he had seen in the north.25 STUDIES The major experience of the students during the cycles and seasons of college life, was their studies. Table 11 in chapter 2 showed the changing popularity of the small number of programs available. One notes the overall preference for science - the science-oriented arts and science "B" course and the very similar premedicine program — over the concentration in humanities and languages grouped as arts and science "A". The importance of teacher training, the original impulse behind the whole junior college movement as it developed in the early 19208, is evident. Although the education students were accommodated in the institutionally separate Normal School in 1928, by 1938 they formed nearly half of Memorial's newly-registering students and in the postwar period still represented over 40%. Engineering students seemed to have formed a steady 15% of the college since the introduction of the program in the early 19305. In the class

i i 4 A Bridge Built Halfway

entering in 1948, the 35% proportion of students in professional programs (premedicine plus preengineering) was nearly double what it had been in prewar years. The small number of students who entered in the "special" category consisted of two groups. Some were weak students, marginally qualified for studies at Memorial, often taking merely one course or an abbreviated program and performing quite unsatisfactorily. The others were those registered at the Roman Catholic colleges - in the late 19205 and again for a period of time in the 19405 - but attending some first-year (grade twelve) classes at Memorial, typically mathematics, physics, and a language. A third small category of special students does not appear in the statistics of entrants. These were students who had successfully completed the diploma program at the college and then registered for an extra year in order to prepare for some external examination or to broaden their knowledge while deciding what next to do with their life.26 The next question is: How did students do in their studies? Students entering Memorial embarked on disciplined programs of work the supervisors of which did not readily grant a full measure of success. Table 14 is a close analysis of the entire record of our sample bodies of students, those entering in the academic years 1928, 1938, and 1948. It attempts to list, describe, and quantify the entire range of success and failure. The main thing to notice is that the table shows no definite trend. It suggests that throughout the 1925—50 period, about 40% of the students could hope to achieve "success" in their college career. The definition of success used in constructing the table is perhaps a little generous. It includes as successfull those students who needed an extra year to complete a two- or three-year program, and also a somewhat bewildering array of students from the 1948 intake who — since MUC had spawned MUN and students could extend the period of study — attended for seven, nine, or even eleven terms without ever giving the registrar cause to note "diploma" or "degree" on the record. These students must have found college satisfying, otherwise they would have left; they are therefore included under "success." If some of these durable students of the 1948 batch were shifted down to the middle category of limited or abbreviated success, the success rate declines to a level more in keeping with the pattern of previous decades. The proportion of students who achieved limited or abbreviated success averages just under 40%, and an unfortunate or less energetic 20% can be termed failures. It must be kept in mind that among students who are shown as attending for one year only there are

115 College Life Table 14 Academic Record of Students Entering Memorial University College in Academic Years 1928, 1938, 1948.

Good to Moderate Success Completed degree from MUN after 1950 Completed program in allotted time Completed program in 1 extra year 5'/2 years attendance 4'/2 years attendance 4 years attendance 3'/2 years attendance 3 years attendance 2V2 years attendance 2 years attendance 1 V2 years attendance Total %

1928-29

1938-39

1948-49

(%)

(%)

(%)

2 34 4

1 24 1

2

3

3 3

20 13 2 1 2 1 4 1 2 6 1

32

53

42

Limited or abbreviated success

Completed program, no diploma 612 3 years attendance, 2 years credit 1 1 year only 15 49 20 2 years attendance, 1 year credit 11 4 Total %

32

54

23

4 6 9 6

3 3 7 1

2 7 10 5

27

14

24

Failure

2 years attendance, failing Dropped out during 2nd year 1 year attendance, failing Dropped out during 1st year 4 years attendance, credit for 1 Total %

2

many who could easily be shifted to the top category. For example, half of the 1938 intake of students are shown having remained one year and achieved abbreviated success. The great majority of these had come to college for the one-year teacher-training program. They therefore completed their program in the allotted time. If percentages from this line were moved to the success category, then the 1928 group would show 57% successful, the 1938 decade would become 81% successful, and the 1948 students would show a 73% success rate. So perhaps it would be more accurate to think that the "success" rate, initially perhaps 50-60%, did move up to 70-75%. After the 1938 teachers in training, the largest groups in the table

116 A Bridge Built Halfway Table 15 Final Term Academic Results of Students Who Entered Memorial University College in 1928, 1938, 1948.

No ExaminaFailure tions

1928-29 1938-39 1948-49

4% 4 2

17% 15 22

Average Average Average Success 40-59% 60-79% 80-89% Rate

51% 53 36

26% 27 39

2% 1 1

79% 81 76

Average Mark of Those Writing Exams*

52.6 53.0 53.9

* This is not a tally of every mark recorded in the final term. Instead, in that system where the passmark was 40%, failures were counted as 30, marks in the 40-59 range as 50, those in the 60-79 range as 70, and those in the 80-89 range as 85.

consist of those who completed a full program in the allotted time — except in 1948 when such a large proportion (20%) of the students stayed on to complete a degree once that became possible, that it is clear there was a need in Newfoundland for the extended program of studies. The drive for the completion of a university degree can be seen in the top line of the table. Not only did one-fifth of the 1948 students qualify, but in the 1938 group, and even in the 1928 group there are students who did eventually complete a Memorial degree when it became possible after 1949. Table 15 helps to clarify our overall sense of what occurred as regards academic standards and the rate of success for Memorial students. It seems that we were right to treat the quarter-century as one period as far as academic standards are concerned. Looking at the achievement in their final Memorial term of the students entering in these three sample years we see that the average mark shifted only slightly from 52.6 to 53.9%. (Always bear in mind that the Memorial pass grade was 40%.) One hears about the inflation of marks in recent decades, but these figures suggest that any such inflation did not begin before 1950. The pass rate for the 1948 students was lower than it had been in previous decades. Students consistently scored "F" far more frequently than a first-class mark of 80% or higher. The significant trend revealed by the figures is the shift in marks from the middle 4o%~59% range up to the 6o%~79% range or down to the failing range below 40%. The bell curve became flatter. Students at the top of the graph - those most outstanding for academic success during the quarter-century - are listed in appendix 6. One of the years which was chosen for our close analysis of student achievement - 1948-49 - was luckily also a year in which the presi-

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Table 16 Percentage of Students Who Passed Their Full Course (Midterm Examinations, 1948-49) Year

Program

Percentage

1

Arts and Science Household Science Education Engineering Premedicine Arts and Science Household Science Education Engineering Premedicine Education Engineering

47

2

3

57 28 42 75 69 50 65 91 26

dent took leave. Vice-president Hunter therefore directed the college that year. He may have adopted a strategy of out-mathematizing the mathematician Hatcher in some of his reports to the Board of Governors. Certainly his commentary on the midterm examination results is more statistical and businesslike than any other president's reports which have survived.27 His analysis helps strengthen our understanding of the factors affecting student success at old Memorial. Hunter remarked upon the outstanding figures in this report, except for the 91% success rate in third-year education. His opinion of the education program as intellectually inferior to other studies at the college, was probably well known to everyone by this time. The least satisfactory condition of affairs, where the work seemed to be too hard rather than too easy, was among the preengineering students. Their low success rates in second and third year, he attributed to the overloaded program. Whereas the standard requirement was five courses in arts and science and premedicine, engineers were made to take eight in most years. He saw no relief in sight for this overload, as the curriculum for engineering was set by Nova Scotia Technical College in Halifax. The engineers' failure rate was disastrous in the first year as well. Only 28% had passed all the required courses that winter. Hunter gave a social and intellectual analysis of the situation. Many young Newfoundland men, no matter how unsuited to engineering studies, were drawn to attempt to enter the profession because of the plentiful jobs and high pay for engineers. The college was lenient in its handling of these ambitions, as half of

118 A Bridge Built Halfway

the students were not fully qualified but pursuing the program as "conditioned" candidates. STUDENT ORGANIZATIONS

Besides the disciplined labours prescribed by the curriculum, college life contained many diversions. Extracurricular activities most important in the student experience included socials or dances, special interest clubs, amateur theatricals, and student journalism. All of this was very similar to student life at Canadian universities. A significant difference is that, compared with some mainland institutions, Memorial paid less frantic attention to sports. Its isolated location prevented the rise of interuniversity rivalries to fan that flame. The organized life of students was presided over by the Students' Representative Council whose constitution, copied from Dalhousie, provided one elected male representative for every fifty men, and one female for every fifty women. Its mandate was to establish guidelines within which other student societies operated, support social activities and college publications, and help finance the Athletic Union which operated independently with its own constitution.28 The SRC exerted a certain influence on the general governance of Memorial, provided that no unusual situations arose to prompt faculty to exert its ultimate dictatorship. College socials tended to be splendiferous affairs, especially those staged by the professional associations (preengineering, premedical, etc.) in the 19405. There was a band in attendance and there were chaperones. The SRC, or officers of the sponsoring society, formed a receiving line. Flowers were lurking somewhere to be presented to the president's lady. The usual locale was the gymnasium in the western basement of the old building, its shabbiness disguised by bunting, although its condition would have been overlooked anyway in the excitement and, especially, in the dim lighting. Through most of the era the women carried dance cards to schedule their "engagements" for the evening. Many of the individual dance sessions were in honour of someone. The 1942 graduation dance, for example, programmed a dozen such pieces - six before supper and six after honouring "the college," "the faculty," "the Arts and Science Society," etc. Naturally enough, romance might well blossom, not always sabotaged by these nerve-racking evenings. Of one hundred people encountered doing the oral history, at least fifteen had married and known life with partners whom they first encountered in the halls of Memorial College. This included a few cases of student-faculty

119 College Life

romance which blossomed decorously a few years or even several decades after the first unequal encounter in college. Some of the special interest clubs had just a brief or intermittent existence, waxing and waning with particular students. Organizations devoted to chess, debating, and the discussion of international relations fall into this category. For a few years there was a "glossary club" which collected Newfoundland vocabulary and speech mannerisms, at the same time as the teacher-training program attempted to iron them out of everyday classroom speech. The "teachers seminar" of the mid-19308 provided all-round and professional development and extended its reach by radio. Memorial was very much the headquarters, but the clientele involved practising teachers much more than the current crop of trainees. Of much greater impact in the college during those same reforming years when the Commission of Government began were the citizenship study groups. The program began in the fall of 1934 and ran for several years, generally guided by Alfred Hunter. There were several groups with different meeting times. Each month the student members had a different topic for reading, analysis, and debate. The focus was very much on the country; they acquired knowledge of Newfoundland's interests and needs, and learned that it is the welleducated person's duty to understand national problems. Some of the topics studied during the first year were the Amulree report, municipal government, the fisheries, cooperation, and Newfoundland history (the first attention paid to this last subject). Three years later the program still persisted, with five groups averaging ten students each (local self-government, fishermen's debts, resettlement, compulsory education).29 More important than these casual or temporary structures were the year-to-year functions of the "student societies," which sponsored activities appropriate for those enrolled in certain courses of study. The household science club could usually be relied upon to provide refreshments and hospitality for other people's events. Education, arts and science, and premedical societies formed their own teams, sponsored lectures and outings, and often vied with each other to stage the most elaborate and successful of the winter round of college socials. The society with the strongest and busiest tradition was that of the engineers. The range of activities in 1936-37 was typical. The president for the following academic year was elected in May, so that the executive could be off and running without delay in the fall. Through the winter regular Saturday morning meetings were held either a lecture or seminar with students as speakers. The topics were

12O A Bridge Built Halfway

"of industrial or technical interest." The Saint Patrick's night event was a barn dance, staged with the cooperation of household science. Engineering students made visits to various industrial organizations, provided copy to fill the engineering section of the yearbook Cap and Gown, screened two films, and inaugurated a new tradition with a banquet at the Newfoundland Hotel ($20 assistance from the SRc).3" In its assembly hall Memorial had one of the principal auditoriums in St John's. Staging theatrical performances for the general public was a well recognized way of raising money and of exhibiting interesting talents while developing new ones. In most years Memorial's Dramatic Society flourished and staged from one to three productions. The taste always ran to frivolous, forgettable comedies that were a lot of fun. Not always so forgettable, perhaps, for fifty years later one of the 1929 students was able to say that that year's explosive hit, Professor Pep which raised $500 in two nights, was "very good comedy. Paddy Duder had the lead, Professor Pep, a very eccentric professor with Russian inclinations - he was always making these bombs that exploded at the wrong time. Our science group actually made the bombs ... we had a riot really when these bombs would go off." The students had all the fun from involvement in organizing the show, building sets, acting, advertising, and stage managing; yet the audience would pay them for doing it. Proceeds usually went to the scholarship fund. The record may have been $520 earned by The Charm School in ig3o.3' For some ambitious productions college dramatists would link up with other sponsors. In 1932—33 Trial by Jury brought in gross revenue of almost $ i ,000; the profits were divided equally among MUG, Queen's College, and the Church of England Cathedral organ fund.32 The glee club — for which the indispensable foundation was music/ singing instruction in the teacher-training program - was only a little less active than the dramatic society in staging public performances. Academic year 1936-37 was more active than most, with the glee club performing for two nights before Christmas and staging another concert twice in early May. The total receipts of $400 realized $261 for student aid. The following Christmas they presented "Carols by Candlelight," realizing $140 after paying carefully tabulated expenses for decorations, trees, carpentry, advertising, flowers, printing, janitors, accompanist, and, of course, $17 worth of wax.33 Journalism was always of interest to a small number of the students. These writers produced the first annual Cap and gown in 1931 (preceded the previous year by a similar yearbook with a name that did not stick, The College Mag.34 Before 1950 the student body was not large enough to sustain a regular campus newspaper, although there

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College Life

were three occasions on which one was briefly started. A group of students headed by Michael Harrington - later editor of The Evening Telegram - brought out the first-ever issue of a student newspaper on 14 November 1936. This Memorial Times contained six pages, about 20% advertisements, a foreword from President Hatcher, study group notes, foreign affairs, news of a mid-term excursion to Topsail and of a new procedure in literary society debates. "Savants trim ladies' field hockey squad" heralded one sports item; "The engineer" told how one of that persuasion made even hell comfortable, bored tunnels through obsidian cliffs, drained the Lake of Brimstone, etc. A few minor items and some poetry and fillers rounded out the paper. Harrington's editorial, "Adventure in Journalism," said "We have no abiding passion that urges us to reform humanity, play the role of prophet, or preach a loud-mouth Jingoism ... 'Success of a newspaper as a social institution is determined by the character of the information, instruction and entertainment it furnishes its readers'. Trying to achieve this laudable ambition, we will hope for success."35 In that academic year the Times published volume i, numbers i— 3 during November and December, and volume 2, numbers 1-3 during January—May. The first revival saw three issues published during 1945-46 under editors Al Taylor and Bill Summers. Among features in volume 3, number 1(18 December 1945) were a farewell to Governor and Lady Walwyn, one-half page of sports, premed memos and other news of student societies, and the report of a talk in assembly by former editor Harrington, now radio's well-known "Barrelman." The next revival was a single issue in November 1947, with editors Edison Lowe and John Ryan; the paper still had about 15% advertisements. The contents seem perhaps a little more frivolous than the previous papers (relaxed mood following wartime?). There was a good three-stage history of the Times itself, there were notes from the veterans, from premed, chemistry, engineering, SRC, and articles on a campus queen ballot, the Hallowe'en party, "the fad that makes the women pay," and a gossipy item entitled "Romantic Cycles." Student journalism then collapsed again for the next two years, until the first two issues of a new paper titled THE - left blank on purpose while a permanent name was being decided upon. By 1951 it had become the Muse, as it still is.36 In sports students were active enough, but the stress was consistently on participation and enjoyment rather than glorious triumph over other institutions. In the early years everyone played something - the grammar school approach to body-and-character-building - unless they took extraordinary steps to be excused. The college always had its own playing field, but no gymnasium until 1932, and

122 A Bridge Built Halfway

always had to make arrangements for ice time (the closest rink was St Bonaventure's). The range of games was wider than can be easily imagined and included women's hockey in which the 1928 team coached by Muriel Lawrence won Memorial its first championship. A student from the following decade remembers that now outmoded athletic tradition. In the regular competition against Prince of Wales and Bishop Spencer colleges, she played for Memorial in field hockey, basketball, and ice hockey. "We used to get up and go to the rink early in the morning for practices and it was great. Charlie Godden was our coach ... I think he might have been a student there, probably played on the boys team ... [Your mother played ice hockey before you?] Yes. We played in high school too you know. We always played ice hockey ... We wore gym tunics ... didn't wear shoulder pads. [Did you play ladylike hockey?] I remember bouncing against somebody ... We played as rough as we could."37 Some good impressions of the camaraderie involved in early MUG sport and of its close integration with other aspects of college life, are contained in the college notes published weekly in a St John's newspaper. The first week of October 1929, for example, saw three games of "football" - soccer, that is - most popular Newfoundland sport of the era. Memorial's men went against Bishop Feild, United Church, and Saint Bonaventure's colleges. There was also women's field hockey: "Monday afternoon, a fierce mixed battle was fought from which even spectators were not safe." At the Newfoundland athletic association sports day that same autumn, Memorial placed first in the relay race and men's broad jump, while another representative tied for first in the ladies' dash. "We almost lost our voices and cough lozenges were hurriedly circulated. We noticed that the French was even worse than ever the next morning."38 Indoor sports, especially badminton, began to develop after Memorial acquired its own gymnasium. During most of the Second World War the city's playing fields were converted to drill grounds, while a navy/merchant marine hospital occupied the college gym. These arrangements inhibited interest in sports for the duration of the war. In the postwar period competition was tougher than before, as American teams from Fort Pepperrell made their presence felt and helped establish higher standards, especially in basketball. Sport at the old college was always governed by the Athletic Union which organized both women's and men's programs. In a typical year, soccer and field hockey dominated autumn sports. In the winter term there were five major activities. The athletic union report for 1933-34 shows a rather light schedule. Memorial men iced a hockey team in the "intermediate" league and won two out of seven games

123 College Life

against St. Bonaventure's, Bell Island, and the Strollers. In women's hockey that year Memorial played seven games, winning five and the championship again. The men's basketball team, practising twice a week, played only two games up to mid-March, while getting ready for city league play scheduled for April. The women's basketball team had won both of their games. The gymnasium was available twenty hours weekly for tennis (badminton) which was a sport for participation only; there was no outside competition.39 The SRC, which empowered this mix of activities, had a twofold reputation. When the oral history was being collected, half the respondents said the council was effective in its work; the other half, also former students, said they barely noticed its existence. This probably indicates that those in the second group were little involved in student affairs. The experience of college has a limited impact on students who only study and do not live there, and Memorial had no residence at all. The most powerful student leaders of the college era influential in the SRC and the whole range of other organizations - are identified in appendices 7 and 8. Often there was no great competition for seats on the students' council. George LeGrow, member of the 1936-37 council, was asked if campaigning for election was vigorous. The answer was: "Most invigorous ... Campaigning was hardly all that necessary because the students knew each other so well ... [Were members of the SRC looked up to?] I think so ... a little. It was assumed you had a little more authority than the others. [Would faculty members be aware which students were members of the SRC?] Oh yes ... I can see us meeting, sitting around a table ... We were the final authority, in arranging or getting permission for student activities. It was all very routine.40 The significance of the SRC increased after 1935 when a $5 union fee from each registered student was turned over to it. The arrangement, Memorial's governing body made clear, still left the students' spending of these funds "subject to Faculty control, the condition 'that a balance if large be turned over to the Trustees' not to appear in the Constitution of the SRC."4' The treasurer's report the following year showed that under this regime the student government handled a cash flow of about $2,ooo.42 By the end of the college period the cash flow had doubled with the growth in registration, but the scale of students' business stayed the same, with $5 of each $50 entrance fee still being turned over to the council.43 The theory was, from the beginning, that the council should significantly influence the experience of students, organizing their nonacademic activities and having a "general responsibility" for discipline. After the council gained some financial weight in the mid-

124 A Bridge Built Halfway Table 17 SRC Accounts 1935-36 Income ($)

Expenditure ($)

Balance forward

71

Union fees Magazine Banquet Socials Bay Roberts trip

1234 464 95 17 20

Total income

1901

Athletics (hockey, swimming, basketball, football, wrestling, tennis, boxing, rugby, ping pong) Magazine Banquet Orchestras Decorations, janitor, hire of crockery and piano, taxis, picnic bus, trees and flowers, etc.

1338

Total expenditures

2499

534 363 149 115

19308 it began to exercise its disciplinary authority more actively. An official SRC communication to President Hatcher in 1938 complained of several breaches of college discipline. Some students were habitually playing cards for money in the men's common room; eight were named. There was a broken window in the Cap and Gown room, and the council had investigated a report that T, also named, had fallen against it. They found he had been carrying a bottle of rum, and had sold raffle tickets on it; T's "actions showed that he was not normal," put plainly, he was drunk. Also, things had been disappearing from the locker rooms. Janitors were keeping articles found in the common rooms. SRC asked Hatcher to require that caretakers turn found articles over to them, reprimand the students who had been named, and require that the notorious T — who was also one of the poker players — repair the damage he had done. Expulsion should not be necessary for a first offence. Hatcher's response after a three-week lapse of time was that one student had been reprimanded and warned that he would be expelled next time, the damage had been made good, and he thanked the SRC for their cooperation.44 Three years later the council again flexed its muscle, censoring the engineering society after an unfortunate incident. "It was decided that the officers of the Society be asked to resign."45 (They resigned, and then were all reelected. The trouble was that they had hosted popular Professor St Glair Hayes to a farewell banquet without inviting president Hatcher.)46 The authority of the student government was somewhat diminished with the existence of a faculty committee on discipline ("Supervisory Committee") from 1942 on. SRC still retained, however, the supervision of games and social activities; of student conduct in the

125 College Life

gymnasium, common rooms, lockers, and lavatories; power to report students to the supervisory committee; to suspend students from games/activities; to bar individuals from the use of common facilities; and to enforce payment for damages.47 Memorial's student organization, like those at Canadian universities, was important in the administration of activities. It also had a certain, carefully crafted role in general governance. When regular faculty meetings were instituted in the 19408, representatives of the SRC were admitted after the adoption of the minutes. They stayed in the meeting until their presence was no longer useful or required.48 As we have seen, the council was trusted to handle an important cash flow and could initiate procedures leading towards expulsion. Though influential, the SRC was never independent. Its authority was always restricted by overriding paternalism. Students who were nominated had to be approved by the president before they could stand for election. This gave the college administration a chance to prevent students who were borderline in their studies from being distracted by student affairs. Nevertheless, Hunter still worried: "It is not easy to see how we can prevent the election of a President whose docility is his chief quality for office but it ought to be possible to withhold membership from students whose leisure is scanty or whose personal influence is undesirable."49 College life was a busy round of classes, student societies, assemblies, an occasional play or dance, always more classes, examinations, and glee club, with a lot of time spent getting back and forth to an institution with no residence. In theory the students' council and the panoply of societies under its umbrella had a strong influence on how nonacademic routines were shaped. In essence, however - the next chapter makes this clear - students were comprehensively manipulated and moulded by an administration which firmly held the reins throughout the period.

CHAPTER 6

Spirit

Lift up your voices, lift them, Our College to extol, Whose doctrines practised through the years, Our thoughts and acts control. Within whose walls, fresh clear-eyed youth, In search of knowledge roam. And learn how joy and wisdom crown Their academic home. Memorial, Memorial. We rally to your call: On you, on you May blessings fall. (Revised version of the college song, 1943)

Lacking graduate students and even senior undergraduates, Memorial very rarely admitted students to the role of apprentice. Instead, it treated them as wards to be protected and moulded. The spirit of the institution was therefore quite restrictive. Despite the many rules, however, there were few occasions when students were punished for infractions. The idea of a corporate experience shared by all, a paternalism which was not resisted, an emphasis on instruction or indoctrination, with little regard for research, these were the outstanding features of the pre-ig5o college.

127 Spirit R E G U L A T I O N OF STUDENT LIFE

College life was highly regimented. Regulations abounded and were enforced among the students as if they were children. A half-page note found in the president's papers reads, "I promise on my honour not to smoke again in the Building" — this written in Paton's own hand and signed by a student.1 In the mid-19308 Hatcher began to relax the regulation,2 but smoking continued to be banned from even common rooms, until it was felt after the war that the privilege could not be denied to ex-servicemen and was therefore extended to the students generally (with specific locations and proper controls). The best remembered of all the petty regulations concerned academic dress. Most former students mentioned the black gowns, and Hunter's ejection of students from classes if they were "academically nude." Here is an important point. The students admired the tradition — academic pursuits were very special and required sombre garb - and they did not mind the bother. One might mind the cost, but the gown could eventually be sold back to the college or to another student for about the same price originally paid. Indeed, several students mentioned how wearing the gowns reduced the expense for presentable clothes. "Impressions of the Memorial College on arrival. Cold, bleak ... enjoyed wearing a gown — something to hide in."3 Another tradition developed by the 19405 (there is no sign of it earlier) was distinction in the use of doors. The north door (facing Merrymeeting Road) was for faculty members although, by humbly petitioning, the SRC could get official permission for particular individuals who lived on that side of the college to use it as well.4 Rules more appropriate for an elementary school than for a college were applied even in summer school when the student body included numerous practising teachers. A mimeographed handout in 1948 reminded instructors that men must enter by the east door, women by the west door, and that everyone must keep to the right in the corridors.5 Characteristic of rigid discipline in the college was the regulation on attendance: all students were to be present "from 9 A.M. to the last period and be in the Library when not attending lectures."6 This produced that grade-school phenomenon, the parent's excuse, some of them typically Newfoundland. "Owing to my vessel, having driven ashore Tuesday night I was forced to take my son with me to the Bay."' One of Hatcher's reforms, introduced in 1934, was to exempt

128 A Bridge Built Halfway

second-year students from roll calls. The requirement, however, was reimposed in the academic year 1939-40.8 Something like a pass-law regime seems to have prevailed during the Second World War. The office had a supply of "absence slips" which a student could have completed and signed by the registrar or her assistant, certifying that (name's) absence on (dates) "has been satisfactorily explained."9 The herding together of first-year students was largely eliminated in the fall of 1946, about eight weeks into the first term, since the students included many veterans returning from the armed forces. It was more difficult to impose on them a discipline better fitted for youngsters. It was therefore announced in assembly that in view of the large number of students enrolled, henceforth only certain students would be required to be in attendance all day long: those whose admission to the college was conditional, those repeating any first year subject, and those on probation.10 Oral history informants gave varying responses when asked if they objected to this regimentation. Some did object; more did not; and more again talked about the question without saying anything definite. The change in public values over half a century, compounded by their individual changes in age and status, made it basically a futile question. Rev. Arthur Butt, a mature student when he was at Memorial, remembered the constant nagging. If Hatcher or Hunter "saw a piece of paper on the floor, he would pick it up and at the next assembly we would be reminded ... there was a rigidity at Memorial that made it more like a grammar school ... the same regulations were for all. First year students, even if you were forty or fifty years old, were subjected to the same regulations." But at the time, "It didn't bother us at all."11 Olive Field found it "still the same as going to school. In my diary I said, went to school every day, went to school, never said went to college ... I wasn't aware of being a semiuniversity student."12 Students who went on from Memorial to study at mainland universities all agreed that first-year students at Acadia, Dalhousie, etc. were consistently treated as more mature and more adult than were firstyear students at Memorial. But that was perhaps a weakness, some thought, at those foreign institutions. One who graduated from the college before 1930 later saw her own children go through Memorial as well. "I had a far better experience at college than they did because I think they were more like a number ... Students now don't get the advice, you know, and the judgment on their characters that we got because we were so few in number."13 One unfortunate result of all the rules and regulations was the distance it created between faculty and students. In certain ways the

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whole college was one big family — or rather, not so big. In a small community one tends to have an accurate idea of others' strengths, weaknesses, ambitions, and living arrangements. This type of intimacy produced a family feeling. But on the other hand, keepers of petty discipline have to maintain a definite distance from their charges. Students at the college were always addressed by their surnames. Faculty members were always their supervisors as well as superiors. Allison O'Reilly, class of 1943, was asked if Memorial were a family. "Oh, they were there and we were here ... Dr Hatcher used to use the term that we were a family. And we were indeed perhaps in that we all had the same aim. They had the aim to educate us well... we were willing to be educated, but there was no close relationship with the faculty."14 One informant gave an extreme example of this distance between faculty and students by telling how Allan Fraser had to be prodded into learning the students' names. A method the professor sometimes used was to have students read from the text, one after the other. After getting them started at the head of one row, "he wouldn't look at all and he'd say 'You,' and you knew that meant the person behind. I didn't like this ... This day in economics he had us reading and he came to me and he says 'You.' I was reading my book very intently, and he says 'You' a little bit louder and I still didn't take any notice, and the third time he says YOU. I looked up and I said, 'Oh, do you mean me, Professor Fraser? My name is Audrey Stirling.' And he got red, 'Yes,' he says, 'I mean you' ... Do you know from then on he learned our names?"'5 Some concerns about discipline were quite trivial. "Perpetual watchfulness is required to quell incipient whispering" — Memorial echoed the perpetual complaint of librarians. "There seems to be a childish sort of attitude that when watchfulness ceases for a moment, talk is permissible," while the caretaker "repeatedly objected to the daily condition of the floor littered here and there with torn paper."16 An article complaining of heel and skid marks on the corridor linoleum which Sandy Cook lovingly polished was published in the St John's daily paper. "The only people in the College that cannot be identified by their foot marks are the members of the faculty; they alone preserve the stately tread of the Victorian days."17 Much more serious in Memorial's disciplinary annals were the occasions when students faced ejection from the college for lack of success in their studies. Warnings were quite frequent, but a close study of the available records for the 19305 indicates that suspensions occurred only five or six times in the decade. For example, there is a 1931 letter from a St John's parent to Paton, referring to the president's letter and phone call which had shocked the people at

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home. Although "penalties for breaches of rules are necessary," the father thought that the sentence pronounced upon his son was "very harsh ... respectfully suggest that a severe reprimand and a caution, with the proviso of better work for the remainder of the term, would have filled the bill to as good advantage as prolonged suspension."18 Other cases intensified the division between town and outport, such as Hatcher's 1936 struggle with Twillingate. There Thomas Rose, a teacher at Durrel Academy, made strenuous efforts to persuade three of his students to complete grade eleven and go into town to college. All three failed badly. "I am perplexed to know what type of student you require ... Not only has it put me in an embarrassing position but it also may very probably change the intentions of other people who are considering a college education for their children." In his reply, Hatcher did not apologize for the standards maintained. One of the three Twillingate scholars was too young, he wrote, the others did not even contact the college advisor appointed for them. "Our procedure in warning parents of weak students is similar to that of Canadian universities, except that we do not, as they do, dismiss a student who fails in every subject in the mid-year examination." The Twillingate students had received more than the average attention from Memorial faculty. "If they have allowed the privilege of returning home for Christmas to interfere with so important a matter as their College studies, I am afraid that we cannot do much about it. I see no reason why any student who maintains here the same zeal and application shown at your school should not do as well in our First Year examination as in Grade XI."19 Other kinds of disciplinary cases, not linked to studies, arose infrequently. In the files for 1938 there is a yellow answer booklet made up into a crib sheet - nine closely-written pages of chemical formulas and equations. On the front of the booklet there is a note in Hatcher's handwriting: "taken from CP during the examination." Three years later there was correspondence over a student whose application for readmission had been turned down. "General behaviour in College was not satisfactory, and, at one period, he was suspended from classes in Mathematics because of indifference and bad behaviour. In the cadet corps too he was guilty of breaches of discipline at several times throughout the year." The father asked whether his son had not been punished too severely. Hatcher undertook to ask the faculty to reconsider, while holding the opinion himself that "since your son appears to have been unwilling to take advantage of the opportunity for university education," there was really little that ought to be done. Although the faculty maintained their position that the student in question ought not to be readmitted, instructors in three subjects

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were willing to have him, so that he could register as a special student if he wished.20 In the whole history of the college the most serious disciplinary matter involved neither poor marks nor indifference to mathematics, but a pseudo-sexual prank that backfired. One Friday in October 1943 a woman student, chatting with friends at the front steps of the college, laid her purse on the parapet for a few minutes. When she turned around she noticed a couple of the young men apparently putting her purse back, but she thought nothing further of the matter until, an hour later at home, she found something in the purse which she had not put there herself. She needed help to identify it and, "being told what the object was, she reported the matter to the Dean of Women, who took it to the Committee of Discipline." The object was a condom, or as Hatcher explained to Burke, a "safe." It took a full week of investigation to break open this scandal. The students whom Anne (not her real name) had seen handling the purse were obvious suspects. Professors Hunter and Duder as members of the discipline committee questioned them on Monday; they had handled the bag, but that was all. Word was percolating through the college, and not all were as careful in their utterances as they should have been. Thursday afternoon Hunter received an anonymous message, postmarked in St John's that same morning: "i OVERHEARD A.Z. TALKING ABOUT FRI. MORN. HE KNOWS WHO DID IT — I THINK HE HELPED HIM."

Next, the education professor assembled all male students and called for the one who knew something to speak up. Student C came to Hunter privately and told him that B knew something. Questioned, B said that A.Z. told the boys in the drafting room about a trick being played. On Friday afternoon the discipline committee again confronted the two original suspects. First, A.Z. denied everything. Then the president joined the meeting. As the suspect still "persisted in his denials of further knowledge, the Chairman, without giving the name of the informant, read ... the statement of what he had said in the Drafting room. [A.Z.] then made a full admission of his part in the affair." He explained how he had held the purse open while another student, B.Y., placed the condom in it. When B.Y. was brought in, he soon confessed and signed a statement.21 The disciplinary committee met again on Saturday to consider what action to recommend. Their decision was that B.Y. should be expelled and his accomplice suspended until the following September (ten months). Hatcher sought the Board's authority for implementing this decision. Moving with scrupulous deliberation, the Board resolved that the Chairman

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request a report... outlining the procedure followed in the case by the Committee on Discipline; also that both students involved be asked to state whether they know of any reason why the decision of the Disciplinary Committee ... should not be carried out."*2 The students' letters of exculpation in this sensitive matter were addressed to the general protectress of Memorial's women, Monnie Mansfield. The letter from the lesser culprit gives the clearest statement of why the matter was viewed so very seriously. He now understood he had damaged the lady's reputation and also that of the college. "It was not until Dr. Hunter pointed out that the name of the College was seriously threatened that I realized" the prank's full significance. His parents wanted him in college in wartime rather than in the armed forces. To be readmitted on any terms of probation, no matter how onerous, would seem a light sentence to him for which he would be grateful. The other student had offered in his confession an interesting extenuation. No habitual user or loose liver, apparently, he "had had the 'safe' in my possession for not less than a year."*3 The Board of governors approved the decisions taken, "appreciate the care and consideration which the Disciplinary Committee gave these cases before making their recommendation ... This is the first case of this nature. ... Definite and strict action should be taken to impress upon the students the gravity of the matter."*4 This story — which resulted in serious interruption to the life-plans of two young people - has been told in detail for three reasons. First, it exemplifies the shift in values between the 19405 and the iggos. In our time the matter would not seem serious at all. We would be much more concerned about people removing things from a purse, rather than putting something into it. Have we lost the capacity to be shocked? Secondly, this particular crisis was very much a part of the impact upon society of the Second World War. Contraceptives became much more plentiful when troops, whose officers were supplying them freely in order to combat the spread of venereal diseases, flooded into the city. Helen Porter remembered how marriageable girls loved to be pursued by visiting sailors and airmen. "Some who didn't manage to get married had their babies, in spite of the French safes that everyday littered the roads. The first time I saw one I thought it was a new kind of balloon."*5 These balloons remained secret, shameful commodities. The war hastened changes in habits and attitudes that separate that time from ours. The Memorial freshette was not affronted by the mysterious thing she found in her handbag, until someone pointed out to her what it was. Finally, the incident underlines what a quiet place the early college

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was if this minor matter was the most serious breach of discipline to call for official notice and action in the first two decades of Memorial's existence. The absence of disorder was then a marked feature of college life right across Canada. A quick survey of the published literature turns up few disciplinary cases more serious than that of students lightly punished for breaking a dress code. At Queen's in 1928 two were suspended for the year after becoming so drunk that they needed hospitalization. Then more suspensions were handed out after a student group, denied permission to hold a dance on campus, staged it downtown instead. This resulted in a one-day strike - the peak of student unrest in the period. At McGill during the Second World War two students were suspended for refusing military training.26 At Memorial the "French safe affair" was not seen as an isolated incident. Instead, it seemed to signal a sinister slackening in the tone of college life. Prior to about 1942 the SRC apparently had "general responsibility for discipline," and there were no particular difficulties. Then a committee of faculty was formed. First proposed as a "Committee on Morals and Discipline," it was instituted as a committee of discipline, or (according to the headings used in the president's files) the "Supervisory" committee. The SRC was certainly left with some disciplinary responsibilities, as explained in the previous chapter, and to this extent the faculty committee, of which Hunter was named chair, was supervisory. The 1943-44 report of this discipline committee called it the worst year yet. In addition to the expulsion and suspension brought on by a prank in very poor taste, they found that vulgarity and even dishonesty were rife. "Students object when money is taken, but there appears to be no strong feeling against the pilfering of objects ... The conduct of spectators and players has at times been that associated with the lower kind of professionalism rather than with the recreation of ladies and gentlemen." Why were these things so? Several causes were listed. Vocational societies had become too important; there was no single activity for all students; the socials were too elaborate; and there was a dangerous leavening of poorly qualified or frivolous students. The college faculty and administration had failed to enforce a decent code. But the overriding reason derived from "circumstances of a garrison town in war."27 What could be done about it? The minutes of a faculty meeting in March 1944 indicate the beginning of a new effort, as several items were agreed upon. Faculty members would take turns as officer of the day, responsible for discipline. Two were named liaison officers

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with the students' council. The number of socials was to be restricted, and only students would be admitted. Student societies — education, engineering, premed, etc. — could no longer plan and stage individual socials, something which had hitherto resulted in rivalry and a breakdown in college unity. Instead, each of the year's principal social events would be planned by ad-hoc committees representative of the whole college. It was decreed that vocational societies "shall accept a code ... to subordinate the interests of these Societies to the good of the College." Each faculty member who was honorary president of a student society would henceforth attend the meetings, preside at elections, read the minutes, and generally accept some responsibility.28 A page of instructions for the officer of the day was mimeographed. It was perhaps drafted by Hunter, who had filled this role in the trenches long before and now went to war again against wickedness. The "chief misdemeanours" were: 1 Noise-making, especially during the first period of the day and especially whistling 2 Misuse of common rooms and corridors. "Students are not to use the corridors next to the common rooms and locker rooms of the other sex." 3 Smoking in rooms other than the common rooms 4 Hanging around after the end of classes. "We have suffered from the impropriety of men and women students of a certain character and a patrol along the corridors, especially the less frequented ones, is a necessity."29

Another set of suggestions guided the honorary presidents of student societies in limiting college fragmentation. The esprit de corps of the societies was thought good, but exclusiveness to the degree that members of a different group were considered as enemies was bad.30 Things could not be put right overnight. After a full year's campaign the committee on discipline still reported problems: there was noise, smoking in unauthorized places, and bridge played in the common rooms. The system of admission tickets for college socials had not worked well.31 But the effort to control the fragmenting impact of student societies and to improve the general tone of college life seems to have worked. During the next several years there were no expressions of alarm over discipline and no more expulsions. It was done so smoothly that oral history respondents who attended Memorial in the mid-19405 had no recollection of having lived through a purge or crack-down.

135 Spirit COMMUNITY

Despite the concerns of Hunter and others that attitudes were too fragmented in the early 19405, unity is nevertheless an outstanding feature of the Memorial College story. The community's small size promoted cohesion, which was strongly reinforced by assemblies of the whole college at frequent intervals. Effective steps were taken to make the common experience include not only current, but also former college members, staff and students together sharing a certain corporate identity. In 1926 Paton began the practice, long maintained, of reading in assembly the letters he received from graduates now studying abroad. Through these messages from various directions, current students were reminded that they belonged to an important tradition and that they stood on an upward path among other climbers to achievement and enlarged experience. Once earned, membership in this group never ceased. Jack Nickerson was a faculty member who taught chemistry for a few short months in the winter and spring of 1926 after the previous incumbent had apparently contemplated jumping out a window. Nickerson interrupted his graduate studies at Dalhousie for the opportunity to gain instructional experience and he never returned to St John's after June of that year. But he cemented a firm connection. Subsequent assemblies were kept informed of his progress in graduate studies as he moved from Canada to the United States. The news that he had received his doctorate from Princeton was on an assembly agenda in 1935. At special assemblies, such as the occasion when framed photographs of John Lewis Paton and William Blackall were to be ceremonially hung (1935), all friends of the college and "Old Memorial's" - the awkward tag given former students were invited to be present.32 A sense of togetherness and joint enterprise was the first president's most valuable legacy to the college. No doubt Paton was the author of a lyrical passage which occurred in "College notes," published in the Daily News, in the fall of 1932. It told how the Dominica had sailed from St John's that week with thirteen Old Memorials bound for Canada and further studies: The girl stood on the rainy deck Whence all but she had fled The rest had gone to lunch below But she stayed up instead

136 A Bridge Built Halfway She held red roses in her hand Her eye was moist with dew Yet she reached out her lily hand And waved a fond adieu. The steamer's siren blew its blast It was the parting knell Whereat her comrades cleared their throat And loosed the college yell.

"No, that is poetic licence. That is what they should have done and did not. The fact is we are still so green and fresh we have not yet become [so] expert as to yell. It will come and greet our comrades, we hope, on their return."33 Hatcher in turn worthily maintained the stress upon community. Throughout the 19305 correspondence with recent graduates often took the form of a circular letter which passed during the winter from group to group of expatriate Newfoundlanders at Saint Francis Xavier, Dalhousie, Acadia, Mount Allison, McGill, etc.34 During Hatcher's term of office someone was moved to soften the idea of a yell and set it to music. The college song first appeared in the Cap and Gown in 1941, sticky with sentiment: Lift up your voices, lift them up Our College to extol, Whose doctrine practised through the years Our thoughts and acts control; Within whose walls fresh clear-eyed youth In quest of knowledge rove; Through whose corridors walk honoured ghosts Of cov'nants sealed above. Memorial! Memorial! To you our voices rise! Memorial! Memorial! Her name write 'cross the skies! Memorial! Memorial! From darkness help us rise!

Two more stanzas and ever-stronger versions of the chorus are in appendix g.35 The author of the song was "M.E.M." A company of tinkerers got busy fixing it up. Fred Emerson, a member of the Board of Governors who voluntarily lectured on music appreciation, urged William Blackall, a former member of the Board, to compose some rousing

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music to replace the Rule Britainnia tune used for the chorus. Blackall had the music ready by Christmas and sent it over from his retirement in Nova Scotia. Soon the college notes reported, "Class began with a playing of the college song, words by Miss Muriel Matthews and music by Dr. W.W. Blackall. It is a good tune to fine words."36 Perhaps not everyone thought so. Matthews quickly wrote in to disclaim authorship. When it appeared again in the 1943 Cap and Gown - music as well as words, both slightly modified by Emerson - the original writer was still anonymous.37 When the university replaced the college and grew large, the carefully nurtured sense of identity and spirit was let slip. By the 19805 a fine School of Music had inherited the traditions established by the pupil-teachers' glee club and the volunteer lectures on appreciation. When the college song was passed around ("We rally to your call") nobody had ever heard it, or heard of it. IN PLACE OF PARENTS

Students of every age and condition were given very little appearance of freedom and none in reality. The college assumed the place of parents in structuring and supervising the whole life experience during term time. One positive aspect of the paternalistic attitude was the great attention Memorial paid to smoothing the way, materially, for its students. There were several kinds of assistance: scholarships, loans, grants, library prefectureships. Hatcher explained to the Board of Governors how he went about choosing students for various positions. First an advertisement calling for applications was placed on a notice board. The initial selection was made in confidence by the appropriate committee or faculty member. These selections were recommended to the president — his "review of the selections allows him to give consideration to the economic need of the applicant as well as to his fitness for the post."38 The Board of Governors became quite businesslike about financial aid after 1935 and adopted in these matters a beneficial and clear routine. The best students were named for the scholarships offered by friendly maritime universities. Of outright grants (nonrepayable) there were few - typically two or three per year in the late 19305, six in 1946-47, because of special circumstances and a large number of students. The loan fund was doled out in small but effective amounts, protected by sensible restrictions and safeguards and carefully watched to make sure that the funds were rolling over and returning to benefit new waves of students. There were typically five or six

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loans per year, usually $150 or $200, sometimes less. The "usual conditions" were simple: no interest would be charged until two years after the student had gained a degree, and before receiving a loan students had to take out a life insurance policy for at least the amount of the loan, naming the Board of Governors as beneficiary.39 By the start of the war the Board was carrying a dozen students on the books, some with amounts outstanding from six years earlier. Two years later there were sixteen, including one ex-student still owing $95 of $400 borrowed in 1933-34. The Board formed a subcommittee to see about encouraging collections. Within only five weeks it were able to report that a drive had resulted in payment of several accounts in arrears.40 By the end of fiscal 1948-49 the college had on its books thirty former students with loans. The largest amount, $600, represented support for at least three further years of university studies. Some accounts were over a decade old. These balances were down to $15 and $25, however, and soon to be paid off. The various funds, a dozen or more, which enabled Memorial to advance its students' studies and careers by carefully doling out support, are listed in appendix io.41 In numerous other ways, too, the college counted its students like children, shaped them, and protected them from themselves as well as from others. The main purpose of assembly was to encourage right thinking. Student societies were supervised and their publications censored. In 1939 the board observed that "certain articles in the Magazine 'Cap and Gown' were mentioned as being objectionable." Their decision was that Hatcher should arrange for some member of faculty to supervise all college publications.42 Every year the calendar printed the regulation that out-of-town students were to report during the first month of term which church they would be attending. The college undertook to provide the various priests and pastors with a list. With Saturday morning classes and special activities, and with this Sunday regime, students could be made to answer for their whereabouts every day of the week. They were not only tended like aflock- for their own good - but, while the college stayed small, each individual student could well become a special case and be treated as such. "Because of the special service rendered the College from time to time by her father, now deceased," it was ordered "that EC'S second term fee be excused." While still vice-president, Hatcher was not too shy to write to a St John's lawyer that his nephew had done more mathematics "than anyone else in Nfld. has ever taken so far." Young Jim should definitely now go on to Nova Scotia Technical College in Halifax. The

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total cost for the year would be about $600, and he already had a Memorial scholarship for half that amount. "Please do not think me presumptuous in suggesting that perhaps you, his uncle ..."43 Nothing brought out parental instincts and the desire to interfere more than that old bugbear, sex. Memorial holds a special place in the history of sex in Newfoundland because it broke down barriers. For the majority of those who experienced life in the college, this was the first time in their schooling since puberty that girls and boys were together. Previously the two sexes had separate schools of their own in both the Church of England and Roman Catholic systems. Many were therefore discovering the opposite sex for the first time while at MUC. This led to unnecessary grandstanding, no doubt, but also doubled the impact of the educational experience, as many oral history respondents testified. Scholarship at the St John's college could be suggestive in a special sense. Margaret Duley puts thoughts almost impure in the mind of her heroine contemplating registration at Parade Street. "Her body yearned for the academic dress of cap and gown and the rubbing of shoulders at lectures and assemblies."44 Only shoulders, she said, and that was probably the common expectation of sixteen- and seventeen-year-olds entering Memorial. College authorities wondered if the facts of life below the shoulders perhaps needed illumination. Paton invited a city physician to come and explain things to the male portion of the student body. He declined for two reasons. One was that everyone had his own particular demon to fight. To ask for help really required confession, and that was too much to expect in public. Secondly, there would be some young men who had not "heard of the other side and who are happily living with pure and chaste thoughts." It would be cruel to enlighten them. All things considered, he thought Paton would do better to ask a clergyman.45 In subsequent records of the college through the 19305 and 19405, no reference to sex education is found under hygiene, family life, or any other of its many disguises. A certain amount of enthusiastic fraternization went on, and some of the faculty could be trusted not to be too shocked. When Chesley Howell had moved on to McGill, he wrote a mid-year letter back to Paton so full of gems that the old man featured it both in assembly and in the college notes. Howell had won $50 for coming first among students of theology in third year arts - "more than Cabot got for discovering N.F.L.D.!!!. ... I also have wondered if there is any, shall I say, kissing in the corridors at dusk, as there was wont to be in the good old days."46 Kissing in the corridors was precisely one of the misdemeanours which Hunter was

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still trying to stamp out in his disciplinary rampage a dozen years later. We are in the presence here of a genuine college tradition, durable, inevitable, not without danger, but not without charm. The administration's war on sex could be as subtle as it was consistent. One of the rare occasions when the question of academic freedom could be said to have arisen during the college period was in April 1940, when the President asked Sadie Organ to have her library committee consider tagging the Magazine Digest as unfit to circulate. She hid the offending issue immediately, and the committee, agreeing with the president, decided to cancel Memorial's subscription. Unfortunately for the historian, these censors never said why they objected. The Magazine Digest was a monthly published in Toronto, typically about 130 pages, with thirty articles reprinted from here and there "the cream of the world's best books and magazines condensed for quick and easy reading" (as it said of itself). Which issue was it likely to be that had arrived at St John's around the end of March? Nothing in the issues of January, February, March, or April now seems very alarming. The March number — the most likely culprit — did contain some items thought spicy at the time. One article concerned the danger of giving marital advice by radio, another was an explication of the new world order of socialism, law, and knowledge. What Memorial's tender souls most needed protection from was probably "The menace of the 'child-women,' " by Dr Fritz Wittels. He described a "precociously matured beauty ... To them one man is very much like the next. There is a element of auto-eroticism in all their sexual experience, much like that of the infant who does not distinguish between one nipple and another."47 It might not do to utter the word "nipple" in the college library, out of concern for those young men who may not have noticed. There were no sexual scandals during the whole quarter-century. The records do not show anyone withdrawing because of pregnancy. Fred Sleggs (biology 1926-33) was thought by a few of the students to have been a little too interested in the young women, and one or two others among the early professors might date a student, but there were no repercussions except the occasionally arched eyebrow. We noted with what horror the appearance of a condom on campus was greeted. Of much more serious potential was the report which Hatcher made to the Chief of the Newfoundland Constabulary in 1940, that one of the girls had recently been interfered with on the street by two men in uniform, Canadian soldiers. This was apparently an accosting rather than a rape; although slow in coming forward, the student volunteered information for the police but wanted no publicity about it.48 Students were warned about the troops in town,

141 Spirit the college maintained its slate of evening activities, and Hatcher persuaded the Constabulary (city police) to step up patrols in the vicinity. Memorial cared about students' safety so much that it exerted its protection extra territorially. Perhaps the most amazing document in the whole study is Hatcher's complaint to the headquarters of Canadian National Railways in 1937. He had learned - probably because his own son was then a student at Mount Allison — that on the afternoon of 8 May, between Sackville and Truro, a railway person in uniform had offered "obscene objects" for sale. This person was short and dark, with a mustache, speaking poor English. "Since several of our Newfoundland young people attending Canadian Universities use the C.N.R.," he wanted this person reproved, and his products melted to mucilage.49 International boundaries were no bar to the protective instincts of the Newfoundland college, and wherever two or three students, even ex-students, were gathered together, the college always retained the role of guardian. •

RESEARCH

Intellectually, the great stress was always on instruction. The spirit of inquiry — which acquired almost equal status in the 19508 at most Canadian universities - was of much less significance in the days of the college. Nevertheless, there was a handful of faculty members who doubled as scholars while maintaining a busy teaching schedule, and made significant contributions to knowledge in their disciplines. For Alfred Hunter, professor of languages throughout the whole college era, the discipline was literary criticism. "It seems to me that in criticism there are two profitable kinds of work; [one is to] ... write down your understanding of life-with-letters when long thought, experience and reading have entitled you to have such an understanding; the other is to make accessible ... the undeservedly neglected writings of the past." Modest at age thirty-nine, when he took Memorial's first-ever sabbatical leave, Hunter confined his ambitions to the second kind of project, an edition of the valuable, but unknown works of a seventeenth-century French commentator. His Jean Chapelaine, opuscules critiques (minor critical writings), published in 1936, was a weighty volume of 530 pages including a thirtyfive-page introduction. It seems odd that despite the fact that a halfsalary from Memorial enabled him to work in libraries in London and Paris, Hunter makes no mention of the college or of Newfoundland in the book. At that stage he was perhaps a little ashamed of the very minor academic league in which he was trying to build a reputation.50

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The arts side of the curriculum harboured a more consistently productive scholar in the person of Allan Fraser. From the mid19305 on the history professor contributed articles to Roundtable, the Canadian Journal of Economics and Political Science, the Canadian Journal of International Affairs, and the Canadian Historical Review. His major work was inaugurated in 1941, when he requested leave in order to prepare a historical and political survey of Newfoundland, "under the direction of the Royal Institute of International Affairs." Sabbatical leave at half-pay, extended to sixteen months, eventually produced the manuscripts which became the historical sections in the important 1946 publication edited by R.A. MacKay, Newfoundland: Economic, Diplomatic and Strategic Studies. Overlapping with this undertaking was Fraser's commission from the Newfoundland government to compile (with clearance to examine secret documents) a running record of the country's war effort - which, however, has never been published.51 There were more active researchers among the scientists. Horace Faull, Jr stayed just two years after coming from Harvard, but long enough that his paper on interhalogen compounds (Journal of the American Chemical Society] was the first publication to result from chemistry research at the college.52 Fred Sleggs actively pursued biological investigations in collaboration with colonial authorities, producing several scientific pamphlets, including Preservation of Fish by Salting and his magnum opus, Observations on the Economic Biology of the Capelin.53 After Sleggs a greater light shone in fisheries research when Wilfred Templeman held the chair (1936-44). This Bonavista scientist and MUG graduate had already begun a methodical investigation of the lobster while on the faculty at McGill. At Memorial his superb articles continued to appear: "Eggs and egg-laying," "Hatching postures and habits," larvae, tagging, washing of berried lobsters.54 At that stage Templeman seemed caught in the claws of a single species, but he then moved from Homarus americanus into studies of other commercial species, including capelin and dogfish.55 William Rees-Wright, a clergyman-scientist who succeeded Sleggs and Templeman briefly in the late 19408, continued the early tradition of biology as the strongest science. He was the first person to present the president (in 1950) with a National Research Council grant application to sign, and three months later (they reviewed things faster then) he was awarded $1,100 for a limnological investigation of Avalon peninsula rivers and ponds.56 By standards of the 19905 this record of respectable scholarly research and writing seems rather meagre for a faculty involving several dozen people over a quarter-century. The primary emphasis

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was on teaching, however, as seen from the large number of contact hours discussed in chapter 4. Whereas research poses questions and revels in uncertainty, a teaching institution tends to take knowledge as fixed and given and to require of its students the acquisition of this knowledge. Thus the relative absence of inquiry accorded well with a spirit of regimentation, order, and benevolent paternalism. In the research that was accomplished, it is not surprising to see a stress upon marine studies begin to emerge. "The wholesome sea is at her gates," the poet said of Canada, "her gates both east and west."57 For Newfoundland, we can add: and north and south. As Memorial grew more mature in the following decades, the cold ocean environment would remain the major field of research. REMEMBERING MEMORIAL

What did that generation of students, when it thought back consider most significant in the varied, youthful, and sheltered experience which Memorial had given them? The discipline, multiplicity of rules, paternalism, and manipulation they barely noticed and did not resent. Those interviewed stressed most strongly the value of the learning experience, the impact of faculty personalities, and important friendships gained and kept. In the checklist for interviews the question, what was the most interesting thing that happened while you were at Memorial, was inserted after about half an hour, when memories were primed. The range of responses was very wide and instructive. About one-sixth of respondents made no answer at all. Nothing struck them as particularly interesting. They remembered student days as following an even tenor, basically boring. These were St John's residents who lived at home and for whom the Memorial College experience was a continuation of unchallenging adolescence, with little training in responsibility or other than academic development. At the other end of the scale were those whom Cyril Poole's light hearted writings have recently made familiar in Newfoundland literature — talented but gauche and naive young folk from unsophisticated outports. For them, college life was intimately bound up with being away from home and in the city — their first elevator, movie, stop sign; everything was interesting. The range of responses was as follows:58 (i) Uplifting exposures, approximately 20%; (2) Special links with faculty members, 20%; (3) College ceremonies, 20%; (4) Nothing particularly interesting, 15%; (5) Social events connected with college, 10%; (6) Friendships, 5%; (7) Miscellaneous, 10%. In the group that mentioned uplifting, broadening experiences,

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some referred to aspects of the college program such as biology and Shakespeare, music appreciation voluntary classes, special speakers who spellbound assemblies, formative experiences in public speaking, or exercising authority among one's peers, like the student who, employed as a prefect, surprised himself by successfully quelling noise in the library. Others remembered the impact of all the various accents or awestruck exposure to modern technology. At the war memorial on 11 November, Newsmen were there taking pictures, and they were using flash bulbs. That was the first time I had the experience of somebody taking a picture with flash bulbs, I remember the flash of light and the bulb coming out and breaking in the street... In Clarenville we changed trains from the Bonavista branch line to the main train. ... I was starving ... I didn't know that people ate on a train. I was sitting there, and one of the stewards from the dining car - in white coats in those days, the stewards - he walked by and stopped ... took me up to the dining car and gave me supper ... It's like getting on an elevator, you know. You want somebody on the second floor. Numbers like 200, 300, 400 didn't mean anything. You didn't know that 200 was the second floor ... I remember getting on and saying which floor is 214 on, and they would look at you ...59

Individual links with members of the faculty were very important. Everyone who had been to tea with Paton and his sister, or gone to the theatre with them, mentioned it in the interview. A member of the very first class cherished the empathetic poem which Paton wrote for her. In early June, the college year almost over, Anna Taylor awakened at 3:00 A.M. and "decided it would be a fine morning to see the sun rise over the ocean." Her diary tells the story. "I dressed and crept out of the house and walked up Signal Hill ... The mist disappeared in the blinking of an eye and I saw a lot of little sailing craft going out the narrows. Old Sol was fiery red." When she got home at breakfast time, the family was in an uproar. The constabulary had been given a missing daughter's bulletin, they were almost about to drag the Waterford river, etc. "I went up to my classes, I told John Lewis Paton about my adventure ... I knew he would understand and appreciate ... When I went into my Latin class later, there was a note sitting on my desk addressed "To the sunrise princess": Blessed is the man that waketh What time the new day breaketh, But tenfold joys his bosom fill, Who views the dawn from Cabot Hill. And thereby hangs a tail — or more precisely a Taylor.6"

145 Spirit

Not all of the memorable faculty encounters were praiseworthy. One student remembered being flunked, she thought, in revenge for having embarrassed the professor. Another story featured the enigmatic Sleggs. One of the woman students "confided in me that Mr Sleggs liked to hold her hand and guide the scalpel in dissecting. It seemed to me that this deserved investigation. I would watch for the right moment and suddenly appear behind Mr Sleggs with an urgent question [Did he take it well?] I don't believe he did. I can't read Mr Sleggs' mind but I know that at the end of the year the honour grade was 70 and he judged me worthy of a 6g.6' The Hunters were very memorable, usually for positive reasons. Some students recalled the pleasure of their society at the soirees they hosted at home "en francais." Then Newfoundland students had the opportunity to maltreat two languages while treating themselves to refreshments. Ian Rusted tells a story about Hunter at his most characteristic - authoritative, but effectively promoting the students' welfare. The professor made a bargain with Rusted to excuse him from certain French assignments, if he would quit two or three of the hockey teams he played for and buckle down to more serious work.62 For others, the most vivid memory might be registrar Mansfield characteristically cheering bruised or discouraged students with "Many a good cook has thrown a burnt cake out the kitchen window"; caretaker Cook in the corridor imitating foreign-language bellows issuing from a classroom; Fraser's large number of colour-coordinated outfits — the boys said he had a dozen, but the girls counted seventeen. They remembered the perfect circles Hatcher drew on the blackboard, and his equally perfect courtesy and kindliness; how education professor George Hickman earned the greatest plaudit of all: "Students flock to him and never suffer a repulse"; how Organ shushed them to silence in her library; how they admired Gillingham in academic robes perched on the edge of his desk like a great teutonic crow while the class wondered what he was reciting.63 Those whose strongest recollections were college ceremonies recalled the unveiling of the motto, the dreaded inquisition, graduation with all the speakers launching out into the deep amid gales of oratory, and the sombre, black-robed processions to occasional funerals and every Armistice Day remembrance service.64 Then there were events deliberately staged to mix the students outside classes women with men and, what was just as volatile, premeds with engineers. There were hikes, picnics, summer school exhibitions, banquets. Which was the most interesting? "I think the socials probably. They didn't call them dances in those days. We had socials ... all the girls went and all the boys went. The girls were all given programs

146 A Bridge Built Halfway

and they had about twelve dances on them. Whoever got their name in first for the last dance was the boy who took you home."65 Proving there is no accounting for taste, one student remembered a quite different kind of party. "The only activity I was involved in was working around the college on Saturdays ... We built trenches, City Council sent up leaves and we would fill the trenches with leaves, bury them ... dug up trees on Halliday's Farm and brought them out and planted them by the college."66 Some "most interesting" events in the miscellaneous category belonged to the time between terms, for example, the trip of those two young men who explored the Arctic with Captain Bob Bartlett. No one had an easier, yet risky, method of raising funds to finance future studies than Carl Howse (1932). Just before the end of his last term a German flying boat on its way to Europe landed at Holyrood. The Newfoundland government announced that special $1.50 airmail stamps would be printed for this flight only and sold in limited quantities. A stamp collector in a small way, Howse scraped together a few dollars and joined the line-up at the post office, skipping biology class to do so. He bought eight of these special stamps, two blocks of four. When a friend visited him at Carbonear that summer, Howse exhibited the stamps and "discovered for the first time that I had a block of stamps with an inverse surcharge so I advertised them ... the first night I had an offer of $200 and the offers went on - $300, $400, up to $800 - locally in Newfoundland." On the strength of these bonanza stamps for which Howse had paid $12, he borrowed $400 and went off to Canada for further studies. "When I got to Halifax I put them in the Bank of Nova Scotia safety deposit box and let the manager know." Anticipated income from the stamps paid the full winter's tuition and board. Howse advertised in the specialist stamp-collecting journals, finally accepting $1,250 from Ginn and Company in London. A subsequent inquiry at the Newfoundland post office found that some of the stamps had been wrongly printed on purpose, then sold by accident to ordinary collectors. Some people went to jail over it. Howse went to Dalhousie.67 If informants could have responded with complete candour, perhaps the theme of missed opportunities and failed attempts would emerge as quite significant — alongside intellectual stretching, great encounters, and lucky windfalls - in the strongest memories of college life. Bill Giles (MUG 1929) recalled the joys of motoring. "I remember one outstanding trip ... to Bay Roberts to see the cable terminus that was there at that time. [Did the whole college go?] Oh no, this would

147

Spirit

be a very small group from the physics class and we went in private cars. A bunch of us went in Herbert Chapman's car ... had about four or five punctures on the way back. We got back about 4 A.M. ... unfortunately, we didn't have any of the girls with us."68

CHAPTER 7

The Socioeconomic Background, 1925—50

Come all you good people I'll sing you a song About the poor people how they get along; They'll start in the Spring, finish up in the Fall, And when it's all over they have nothing at all, And it's hard, hard times. (Newfoundland folk song) The quarter-century 1925—50 was one of the most difficult, most unstable periods in Newfoundland's history. Affairs went through several well-defined stages. There was first a slide into bankruptcy and dictatorship, followed by a series of attempts, mostly ineffectual, to redress serious faults and injustices. Then came the exhilaration of returning prosperity and renewed optimism. The fact that this happiest third stage was triggered by the calamity of global war underscores how dismal the time really was. The postwar period saw the acquisition by MUG of additional facilities after a time of severe overcrowding had come and gone. Long-range planning efforts were repeatedly frustrated and there was, in general, great uncertainty. The young college struggled towards maturity in a context of largely unfavourable political, economic, and social conditions. DECLINE The years before 1933 saw a transition from hope and expectation to very nearly complete despair. Newfoundland's population (290,000 in 1935) grew by less than 1% per year. Natural growth was held down by emigration that ranged between 1000 and 1,500 persons per year.1 Following World War i both the United States and Canada began to restrict the entry of Newfoundlanders. 2 This

149 Socioeconomic Background, 1925—50

seriously impeded out-migration in the 19305, and necessitated the sharing of the national income among a larger number of people than would have been necessary, had North Sydney and Boston remained open. A positive feature of so many emigre islanders was the fact that gifts and cash were sent back home by those who had successfully established themselves abroad. During the three years 1927-29 the total of money orders paid out, which originated in the USA and Canada, was $2.8 million. By 1933, however, the rate of remittances had dwindled to just $250,000 per year; hard times in Newfoundland were made worse by hard times on the mainland.3 In the economy, diversification continued. The two major twentieth-century innovations, the paper mills at Grand Falls and Corner Brook, by 1933 were daily producing 1,100 tons of newsprint.4 Their forest operations required a large workforce (3,000 men) for short bursts of activity between autumn and early spring. The iron mines on Bell Island gave year-round employment to about 2,2oo.5 In 1928 the first shipment of lead/zinc concentrate was sent from Buchans, where a clean company town of sixty houses and two churches foreshadowed an important new urban development for central Newfoundland.6 Another mining area (for fluorspar) was opened up in 1933 at the tip of the Burin peninsula.7 From 1930 on the great depression that was wrecking western economies began seriously to reduce the demand for Newfoundland's products. Although the Buchans mine decided to double production and ride out the poor conditions, and the Grand Falls mill continued in full production, the Corner Brook mill was forced to implement layoffs and short time which cut the usual scale of payroll benefits in half.8 At Bell Island iron ore exports dropped from 1.6 million tons in 1930 to 0.2 million three years later.9 The fishery, employing about 40% of Newfoundland's workers, was in very bad shape. Through the 19208 there was some modernization and mechanization, particularly the growing use of gasoline engines inshore.10 But the backbone of the fishery, the traditional salt cod trade, was broken. Catching, processing, and marketing continued all the old ways, increasingly inefficient in comparison with the strongly government supported, imaginative, and innovative rival fisheries of Iceland, Norway, and even southern Europe. Newfoundland had permitted "its most important source of employment and income to develop into a dinosaur."11 The general slump in prices and trade had a devastating effect on the economy as a whole. Total fish exports of $16 million in 1929 declined to $6.5 million in 1932. A quintal of dried cod had been valued at $9; it dropped to $4-5o.12 With the difficulty of moving

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newsprint and minerals and the disaster in the fishery there was a 22% drop in total export earnings between the late 19208 and 1Q33-13 A severe enough blow in any well-rounded economy, for one so very trade-dependent it meant ruin. Some social indicators continued to show progress through the 19208. The number of schools in the colony increased from 1079 to 1141 during 1921-28, the number of children in attendance from 80% to 85% of the age group. Secondary education was not popular was not even possible in a good many places. In 1930 just 282 students passed the grade eleven examinations (with about one-quarter of them entering Memorial that autumn). 14 Important advances were made in health services. The number of hospitals nearly doubled as new institutions opened at St John's (St Clare's, Grace Maternity), Twillingate, Buchans, and Corner Brook.15 But TB still raged, and surveys in isolated communities found an alarming incidence of dietary diseases, with up to 20% of local populations affected by beriberi. The International Grenfell Association launched a school lunch program in parts of northern Newfoundland and Labrador in 1930. "The children were gradually induced to eat vegetables and even to like them (with the exception of tomatoes)."16 A colony-wide survey linked general debility from wasting diseases to the high infant mortality rate of over one hundred per thousand births. This tragedy was caused by poverty: "Its prevention is an economic rather than a medical problem."17 Economic conditions at the outport level now entered a stage of acute crisis. In 1932 only half of the supplies advanced at the start of the season were paid for when it closed. Merchants were restricting credit and reclaiming gear in order to settle debts. Ordinary families fought a "losing battle with prices, starvation, disease ... Ranks of the destitute fishing families were joined by those who could not make a living in the woods, in the mines or Abroad."18 To wards the end of the following winter - this is the most famous statistic of the depression in Newfoundland - about 90,000 people, one-third of the whole country, were being kept barely alive by means of a scanty ration ("dole") of provisions from the government. The administration charged with finding a way through these difficulties was increasingly unable to cope. Through the 19205 revenue fluctuated in the $8-11 million range, but expenditures stayed around $13 million as St John's tried to reduce the railway debt, keep that service going, bear the burden of pensions and other costs related to World War i, and promote modernization, even if it had to be done with borrowed money. A manageable debt of $43 million in 1920 grew to an unmanageable $99 million in 1931, when interest

151 Socioeconomic Background, 1925—50

charges swallowed up nearly two-thirds of ordinary revenue.19 Severe retrenchment became necessary. Between 1931 and 1934 the number of civil servants was cut from 3,200 to 2,500. Salaries and pensions were cut, branch railway lines abandoned, 300 of Newfoundland's 800 post offices closed. Half the street lights in St John's were extinguished in 1932, in order to save $34,ooo.20 That year saw widespread disorder and violence, unprecedented since the murderous religious quarrels of a half-century earlier. The resentment of the people came to a head over complaints about the skimpiness of relief rations. In a mass demonstration in February by the unemployed of St John's, Prime Minister Squires was roughed up and windows were broken. Protest reached a highpoint during 4-7 April. A huge crowd paraded to the Colonial Building for the House of Assembly opening, became unruly, overwhelmed the thirty police on guard, and thoroughly wrecked and ransacked the building. No one was killed, but two of the police were hospitalized. For the following several days the capital teetered on the edge of anarchy, with liquor stores and Chinese restaurants especially coming under attack. That summer a mass demonstration against Squires' acting successor H.A. Winter resulted in similar rioting. Thirty were arrested, five police seriously injured. In Carbonear-Spaniard's Bay in October mobs blockaded the railway, manhandled members of the local relief committee, organized a robbery at one merchant's establishment, and forced another to issue $3,ooo-worth of relief supplies. "It was incidents like this which greatly undermined the faith of the middle class in the Government's ability to continue to govern and maintain law and order."21 In that sad spring of 1932 Newfoundland's first order for tear gas went off to Toronto, trench helmets were brought from Britain, and additional men were hurriedly added to the i5o-strong Constabulary.22 An apparently imminent breakdown of law and order, the widespread misery, and the government's growing insolvency, finally persuaded the authorities to give up. After staving off bankruptcy by ever-narrowing margins at six-month intervals through 1931 and 1932,23 the government acquiesced in bankers' proposals for avoiding default by accepting, at a price, British assistance. The price was surrender of self-rule. Dominion-style democracy came to an end when a special Commission of Government, appointed on British authority, was installed in power for an indefinite period in 1934. Thus "Newfoundland's ship of state was salvaged ... where her crew would be landed was left an open question."24 According to one persistent investigator of this collapse, poverty was the main reason. As a result of economic problems and mismanagement, especially in

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the fishery, the country's inadequate personal incomes and shrunken tax base proved "too small to maintain the instruments of a sovereign state, a minimal level of social services, and the interest payments on a large and inflexible national debt which was mainly held abroad."25 DESPAIR The 1932-33 riots and the decision to abandon democratic selfgovernment mark the lowest ebb in the colony's fortunes. For the rest of the decade the Commission of Government maintained an apparently optimistic fagade. In reality, however, the conditions remained grim. The monthly average number of people subsisting on relief never fell below 31,000 to the end of the 19308, and the 85,000 on the dole in March 1938 was just slightly below the terrible record of five years earlier.26 Perhaps no one starved. In 1935 there were suspicions about the deaths of a mother and four children at Howley. The intestines were sent to Halifax for examination. The finding was they had not starved, exactly, but in a weakened state they had died from "ingesting impure sulphur."27 It was hard to take reassurance from this. For several years the principal issue of public concern - and the chief focus of riots in St John's and other places — was the miserable scale at which the dole was set, the infamous six cents per person per day. One of the commissioners explained that, since employment incomes were so low, relief had to be even worse. Otherwise: "Complete collapse of the social structure."28 Partly from necessity, therefore, and partly from ideology, formerly hardy people were forced into decrepitude, cowed and beaten. Weakened by rickets and beriberi, they were then carried off by diseases like tuberculosis, in regard to which the 1937 death rate of 207 per 100,000 was hardly better than igio's 292.29 The colony was plagued by death rates from poverty-related diseases: for tuberculosis, 200% higher than in Canada; for influenza/bronchitis/pneumonia, 110% higher; for infant mortality, 50% higher; and for congenital malformations, 40% higher.30 It did not help that the outport homes of the majority — although "sturdy, functional, comfortable" — were in communities made hazardous by the absence of the most elementary health precautions. A 1934 report on Upper Island Cove found that sewage from homes at the top of the hillside passed through the water table from which homes nearer the shore drew water. Most Newfoundlanders lived on similarly sloping ground. The children, the report said, "universally intelligent," lacked underwear and shoes.31 A 1935 survey of schools found 20% unfit for use, 85% with

153 Socioeconomic Background, 1925-50

no books for general or reference reading. Twenty-five % of the usual (6—15) age group (14,000 children) had not attended for even one month in that school year.32 Civil disturbance did not cease with constitutional revision. In the winter of 1935 leaders of the unemployed and the working class, now joined by middle-class leaders like Joey Smallwood, repeatedly harangued mass meetings of a thousand and more. The Commission had decreed that brown flour, more healthful than white, must be used in filling grocery orders paid from the dole. "You men in the outports have got to live on this cattle-feed that they give you for flour while the men in St. John's have not got to take it... they have got the fighting spirit."33 After a winter of petitions, parades, and misunderstandings, a huge mob marched to the Colonial Building to be met by baton-swinging police who intimidated the crowd by mercilessly beating the leaders. The police at least were learning something. There was another riot downtown that night. Those charged with conspiracy to riot were eventually found not guilty in a jury trial.34 There was a prison crisis nevertheless, as the normal peacetime jail population of three hundred (1930) nearly doubled. By 1938 the number of police (336) was up by 124% from six years earlier.35 The following year a foreign journalist's seven-week visit to Newfoundland - which the authorities in St John's tried but failed to prevent — revealed stark truths to the public whose opinion the Commission valued most. Morley Richards' stories, carried on the front page of the London Daily Express, implied that, in coming to Newfoundland, he had stepped back into the Middle Ages. He found one-quarter of the people living on the dole, and another one-quarter equally close to starvation. "Bitter and open discontent" racked the colony, the government was "apprehensive of riots and disorder." He quoted from the diary he kept on outport visits. "Saw naked children, talked to women from other side door because they had no clothes."36 Many other outsiders, too, whose duty it was to learn about conditions in Newfoundland, did not admire what they found. The Amulree royal commissioners found the people easy-going and lawabiding, but with a "marked absence of any community spirit." They were unprogressive, sometimes unprovident, with a "child-like simplicity when confronted with matters outside their own immediate horizon."37 "With the possible exception of Russia and a couple of the Balkan States," wrote Thomas Lodge (Commission of Government 1934-37), I doubt whether there is any purely white community in the world on such a low cultural level or where complete ignorance of anything outside the daily task is so widespread."38

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The Commission of Government tried to provide beneficial, reformist administration, but it became evident that memos and minutes carefully drafted in St John's — sometimes by persons not very familiar with the colony - could not really save Newfoundland. Some plans went awry. A plan to de-denominationalize schooling was soon abandoned. The island's resources did not give nearly as good scope for agriculturally-oriented land resettlement as was hoped. Inadequate attention was paid to the fishery. Not until the dangerous plight of the empire in the 19408 inspired a drive to organize food supplies globally, were beneficial marketing rules for the fish trade put into place and enforced. Other plans worked splendidly. The Ranger Force, inaugurated in 1935, improved relief administration and general policing in rural Newfoundland. An imaginative cottage hospital scheme was developed; it was well-suited to the scattered rural population and included a manageable system of registration and prepayment. Eight such outposts were opened during 1936-37, and nine more in the 19405; not to mention the characteristic Newfoundland expedient of the hospital ship Lady Anderson, which from 1934 on carried out a continuous round of visits to harbours on the southwest coast.39 Against unreasonable opposition the Commission took up the antiberiberi, brown flour crusade, originally fostered by the Grenfell Association, and made this more beneficial but unpopular food mandatory for dole recipients in 1934-40 A daily supply of milk to school children in St John's began in 1936, replaced two years later by an issue of cocomalt, a warm drink at recess time right across the country.41 The state's having to intervene in this manner for the sake of basic nutrition should not blind us to the fact that Newfoundland's economy was actually developing quite well. Measured by gross value of production, fishing ceased to be the leading industry during the 19305 and was actually only fifth in 1939. The figures then were (in $million): forestry, pulp and paper, 14.9; manufacturing (except paper), 9.6; mining, 8.9; agriculture, 8.0; fishery, 6.9. The total value of all goods production had more than doubled in real terms since 1921. Goods production per capita (in 1939 dollars) had risen from $84 to $160, while in the Maritimes the increase was much less (although at a higher level), from $237 to $252.42 Despite these figures, our impression of Newfoundland as suffering more poverty in the 19308 than during the previous decade is probably correct. One reason for this is the fact that larger industrial organizations insisted on taking a large part of the wealth produced as profits (often for foreign capitalists) and reinvestments. Another is the structural anomaly which made the majority of the people dependent upon

155 Socioeconomic Background, 1925-50

the weakest of these industries. While the growth rate for all goods production had been 2.3% per year since 1911, there was a great discrepancy between sectors. Forestry/paper did the best, growing at nearly 9% overall. The fishery rate was negative at — 2-3%.43 Income distribution was a problem as obvious as it was basically inflexible in a society oriented to free enterprise. In the forestry sector, for instance, factory jobs were among the best-paid in all Newfoundland, but a forest worker received worse than starvation wages and was kept in "abject and oppressive servitude" for as long as he stayed in the lumber camp: "Struggle as he may his day's work gives him little if anything over the cost of his board ... Employers should not be permitted to take the benefit of men's time for little more than the cost of boarding them, while their families at home, insufficiently clad and fed, are kept from downright starvation by Government dole."44 Such was the conclusion of the report by Gordon Bradley, following his official 1934 inquiry into employment conditions in the lumber woods. In capitalist Newfoundland, however, such sentiments could not be uttered. At the request of the paper companies the report was never made public. What is a fair standard of living, Bradley had asked. It should include adequate clothing, food, and housing, "reasonable educational facilities and some measure of the amenities of life ... Anything less classifies the workman as a mere beast of burden in whom animal life must be maintained that he may labour. It is to be regretted that the history of our own country for the last 300 years or more, and today, points to this classification being the accepted view in controlling circles."45 DEFENCE

The coming of World War n finally raised Newfoundland to a higher level of prosperity, from which it has never again so disastrously declined. In 1940 10% of the male workforce aged between eighteen and sixty had already enlisted in the various Newfoundland, British, and Canadian forces open to them.46 First Ottawa, then Washington, discovered Newfoundland's strategic utility. Large-scale construction projects for foreign military bases began in late 1940 and lasted through the war. Canada spent $65 million on these facilities, the United States $112 million. By late 1942, 20,000 civilians were working on the bases. The dole lists, except for the sick and disabled, were completely cleared.47 Under these lucrative circumstances government revenue, which had been $9 million in 1934 and $13 million in 1940, shot up to $24 million in 1942 and $33 million in ig45.48 Expenses did not mount nearly so quickly and large surpluses,

156 A Bridge Built Halfway

unknown in Newfoundland public finance since before the First World War, began to accumulate. Spending on education, welfare, and public health, frozen at $3.7 million in 1937, was $18 million (inflated dollars) in ig4g.49 After twelve years of careful management, the public debt in 1946 stood at just half of what it had been in the last days of Newfoundland independence. During its fifteen-year rule the Commission built 555 new schools and renovated 264. The first legislation to make attendance compulsory (and also free) to age 14 was implemented in 1942. In the spring of 1949 75,000 children attended 1,187 schools. Since 1921 the average size of school had grown from forty-five to sixtythree pupils, while the number of pupils per teacher improved from thirty-five to thirty-one.50 During 1936-46 the commission added 1000 hospital beds for a total of 2400. The war on TB — heralded by the 1938 expansion of the St John's sanatorium from one hundred to three hundred beds and stepped up in the 19405 through the addition of a second sanatorium in Corner Brook and the floating X-ray clinic Christinas Seal, which visited harbours beyond the reach of the hospital network — began to pay off. Deaths per 100,000 from this disease declined from 207 in 1937 to 100 in ig49.51 Since 1935 the population had been increasing at an average rate of over 1% per year, the fastest growth since the i88os. In 1945 87% of those over ten years old could read and write, up from 79% ten years before. There were now twenty-six places with more than 1000 people, and one-third of the population lived in urban areas. (By the standards of the first federal census (1951) Newfoundland was 43% urban, the same as New Brunswick, compared with 55% in Nova Scotia and 62% in Canada as a whole.)52 Many observers have thought it highly significant that from 1941 to 1945 the country experienced a friendly but large-scale occupation by 30,000 foreign troops. The locations of their major bases - St John's, Argentia, Gander, Botwood, Stephenville - meant that fully one-quarter of Newfoundlanders lived for several years close to strangers with their different standards and lifestyles.53 A transition in popular values seems to have occurred at this time, with more stress laid upon the material, the modern: "the North American way of life, with all its extravagance, speed, confidence, and vulgarity ... Newfoundland would not quickly forget this taste of the good life."54 With the return of peace the people were once again consulted on their own affairs. When the National Convention considered the future in 1946-47, and especially in the famous 1948 referendum campaigns, was it this americanization of popular values

157 Socioeconomic Background, 1925—50

that tipped the scales in favour of Newfoundland's accepting confederation with Canada? The structure of the economy continued to evolve along the lines laid down earlier. The 1945 census revealed that women now comprised about 14% of the workforce. Primary industries employed 47% of the workers, secondary industries (manufacturing, power, construction) employed 16%, services 38%. The comparable figures for the Maritimes around the same period were 28%, 25%, and 45%.55 Although the national income had more than doubled during the war, Newfoundland at about $300 per capita (1947) was still a long way behind Canada with over $800. In resource output in 1950 just under half the value came from forestry/paper, 29% from the fishery and 25% from mining. But the fishery had to feed twice as many mouths as the other two industries together. About 70% of national income came from exports, so that Newfoundland was still very much at the mercy of uncontrollable international market forces.56 The slim majority of Newfoundland voters who opted for confederation with Canada in 1948 may have been wise in tying their fragile socioeconomic system to a well-developed welfare state and a more diverse, therefore financially more stable, economy. The country's share of salt cod landings in the northwest Atlantic — still the best bellwether of the economy - had declined from 50% in 1920 to 37% on the eve of World War n (and would be 18% in 1954). At the end of March 1949 the number of able-bodied persons supported by relief payments from the government - practically nil in 1945 - was suddenly substantial again at 39,000 or 12% of the population.57 STAGES OF C O L L E G E DEVELOPMENT

Socioeconomic and political developments left their mark on the principal stages in the history of the college. The first period, roughly 1925-32, began as a time of relative prosperity and innovation. The 1920 revision of the Education Act had given the country's government a modern department through which to exert some public and secular supervision over church-run systems. Interdenominational teacher training began on a regular basis. By mid-decade the Normal School had a splendid new building and was associated with a comprehensive junior college bearing the proud name of a small nation's sacrifice. During Memorial's first few years, the increase in the numbers of students and faculty members reflected health and optimism in society generally.

158 A Bridge Built Halfway

From about 1930, however, a time of discouragement and depression began to set in. Despite obvious needs, growth slowed to a standstill. No more new programs were adopted after preengineering and household science in 1930—31. The 1931 decision to add a new wing at Parade Street was the last sign of rising expectations. By the time this wing opened the worldwide depression, particularly through the decline in the price offish, had hit Newfoundland hard. Unemployment rose steeply. The dole ceased to be an individual disgrace and became a national one. Starting in 1931, the students began cancelling traditional events - such as the Christmas banquet diverting the money to relief funds instead. Fifteen male students joined the special police that helped to handle the chaotic and ominous aftermath of the April 1932 riot at the House of Assembly. "College notes" honoured them and editorialized against disorder.58 At this stage Memorial might well have closed down entirely. Scrambling to meet debt payment deadlines, the Newfoundland government in 1931—33 cut in half its spending on education. There were severe budget cuts and pay reductions for everyone and Normal School was abolished. Compared with the need to maintain elementary schooling for the sake of basic literacy, the junior college seemed a desirable but nonessential frill. Its operating grant was reduced to nil. Although the main theme of this chapter is the extent to which Memorial was related with and dependent on the society that surrounded it, on this occasion it proved to be something of an ivory tower, luckily elevated above the dire struggles of Newfoundland's people and institutions. Just as the colonial regime looked abroad for financial aid — to the British exchequer — so, too, the college called for extra help from the Carnegie Corporation and was not disappointed. All the figures are given in chapter 9. More than anything else it was the flow of American funds which kept the college in operation, when the natural outcome of Newfoundland's own circumstances would have dictated at least a prolonged shutdown. In this one important respect Memorial was able to move out of step with the general tenor of socioeconomic developments at home. As Newfoundland gave up self-government and President Paton took his second retirement, Memorial entered its second stage — not of growth, but of persistence. Social conditions dictated program decisions. Household science at the college became part of a concerted official drive to improve nutrition in desperate times. The college kitchens provided leadership by switching over to brown flour.59 In supporting land settlement schemes and the campaign for small-scale agriculture, college spokespersons supported the Com-

159 Socioeconomic Background, 1925-50

mission of Government's impulses to reform. The suppression of the 1935 Bradley report (cited above) may have restricted general awareness of how bad conditions were in the lumber camps far removed from the public eye, but the college was in touch with things like that. When the president's office was negotiating with International Paper at Corner Brook over possible summer jobs for students, a recent graduate happened to be passing that way and sent a terse but plain telegram: "Board $40 work $65 would not advise fellows to come."60 For a brief time in the mid-19305 third-year courses in some of the arts/science subjects were offered, to serve recent graduates who in happier times would have gone on to finish Canadian degrees, but who now could not afford to do so. The island became more confining. In some years, hard-won scholarships to Maritime universities went unused because the superior students to whom they were awarded could not afford to cross Cabot Strait. Desperate socioeconomic conditions across the island affected the college chiefly through the rural students. Particularly numerous in the teacher-training department, they were noted among many smug "townies" for a bewildering variety of odd accents, awkward manners, and - more attributable to the depression - poor physique, weak lungs, and threadbare clothing. Table 6 in chapter 2 presented evidence of their widespread ill-health. And these young folk with bad teeth, poor eyes, etc. were the cream of the colony's rural youth, daughters and sons of the most favoured and fortunate outport families. Urban youth were on the whole much healthier, but we must not think of their towns and cities in terms of the aseptic modernity familiar in the 19905. The wife of one British commissioner who came to live in Newfoundland during the period found St John's "just a dirty foul-smelling slum."6' The quarter-century's most intense experience, and the one with the greatest impact upon college life, was the Second World War. Seeing it coming, a faculty meeting in spring 1939 sent inquiries to Halifax in order to find out what the institutions there were doing about organizing officer training corps.62 Directly after the fall of France (1940), Hatcher informed the Board that several requests to organize a cadet corps had been made, and that students were keen "to give whatever national service they can." After three weeks consideration, the Board's executive recommended - if the commissioner for defence should approve — "a system of compulsory training be introduced, and a Cadet Corps, formed this year."63 Medical examination of 120 men naturally took some time, but "this important innovation in the life of the College has been brought about without

160 A Bridge Built Halfway

a dissentient voice and the men themselves are keen to get busy. Similar steps are being taken to organize the women students for physical training, ambulance and other auxiliary work."64 The board approved the spending of $1,200 for uniforms and boots for a squad of 140 cadets. A faculty advisory committee was established, with Edward Powell (teacher training) as convener. From October 1940 there was physical training for one period per week, and a two-and-a-half-hour parade at the Church Lads Brigade armoury Friday evenings. First-year students did arms drill and machine gun practice; seniors added infantry section leading. Only six students were excused as medically unfit — "we were all required to do this, all who could ... hear thunder, see lightning, and stand up."65 An equivalent program for female students was established in the second half of 1940-41. St John's physician Nigel Rusted put on a first aid course, and Helen Lodge (education) took them all for physical training. Because of the military/auxiliary training, the decision was taken that for the duration no college teams would be entered in athletic leagues with fixed schedules. "Students accepted this decision loyally."66 Unlike several Canadian universities, however, Memorial apparently gave no consideration to extending academic credit for its war-related activities.67 A variety of other resolutions were taken as Memorial was placed on a wartime footing. The Board announced that any professor who enlisted would be reinstated in the same position on his return, and active service would count for seniority, "as if he had continued teaching." In a 1941 Saint Patrick's Day showdown, factions among the faculty, the students, and some parents wrestled over the question whether some of the troops in town should be invited to a college social.68 College expertise and equipment were made available to those engaged in constructing American and Canadian bases in the country, and students found lucrative summer jobs. The institution was incorporated into the St John's air raid precautions network. Engineering students manned the hose attachments with the request - unavailing - to refrain from turning on the water until after a fire had started. By 1943 the Royal Canadian Navy had access to the chemistry laboratory for testing the drinking water produced by the varieties of cranky, oily machinery on their various small warships, which were beginning to cluster in the North American harbour that was closest to the U-boats. Meanwhile, Memorial became the nerve centre of the Canadian Legion Educational Services (CLES) in Newfoundland.69 The most serious effect of the war was the loss of the gymnasium, for this curtailed important activities, including the physical side of

161 Socioeconomic Background, 1925—50

military training. Large, roomy spaces seem to hold a fatal attraction for military planners. They want to fill them with desks, bunks, equipment. A first request from the Royal Canadian Navy, to take over the whole college for an officer training school, was parried.70 This was the second time that Memorial narrowly escaped being closed. In 1941, however, the navy had an urgent need for hospital accommodation until its own building plans matured. The Department of Public Health suggested that Memorial could perhaps provide space for the July-September period. The Board was willing, Hatcher explained to Commodore Leonard Murray, RCN: the RCN could have the gymnasium, the household science laboratory, the women's common room and lavatory and four other minor rooms; no patients with infectious diseases were to be admitted; the college would refrain from using any hot water, but the hospital should increase the supply by installing an automatic gas heater.71 This request was the most important opportunity yet for Memorial to take an active part in the war. Naturally, construction plans were delayed, and soon after the 30 September deadline for vacating the premises the RCN asked permission to stay on for a further period. This was quickly agreed. At the end of winter the RCN was ready to move out, but the Commission of Government now advanced the pressing necessity for a merchant marine hospital and space to accommodate "civilians who might be injured in the event of an enemy attack on this town."72 It was another two years, therefore, before Memorial's athletes regained access to the basketball and badminton courts, or female students had the use of the lavatory again. This must be some kind of a record. The intimacy of these arrangements gave some Memorial students their strongest wartime memories. "When I came back in 1942 we had no gym ... all that end of the building was taken over; it was out of bounds to us. The rest of the building was out of bounds to the inmates, but they used to get out, and we'd see foreign seamen with bandages and on crutches, hopping around the corridors."73 What other impact did the Second World War have? When copies of the 1942-43 college calendar were put in the mail, Newfoundland censorship stopped them because they had the appearance of that class of magazines to which wartime regulations denied postal service.74 The college grounds were the scene of Canadian army fifeband concerts on some pleasant summer evenings. Inside it might not be so pleasant — as Lloyd Shaw reported on one summer school affair: "Mr Cook's desire to keep plenty of hot water for the hospital in the College, made the Assembly Hall last evening something like a stokehold."75 At the end of the war Hatcher reported that 302

162 A Bridge Built Halfway

former students - a greater number than the average 19308 annual registration - had joined up with Newfoundland or allied forces and seen service near and far around the threatened globe. Twenty-nine were dead or presumed killed, including a graduate/airman missing in the skies over Burma.76 Despite the tragedies and curtailments, Hatcher had earlier summoned up enough enthusiasm to say that war had a beneficial effect: "In liberty-loving countries the university is apt to be more highly regarded in wartime than in times of peace ... source of scientific ideas and devices or of trained minds for use in the national fight for freedom ... guardian of those cultural values which seem to be more precious when threatened."77 The brief interlude between the end of the war and the granting of a university charter in 1949 makes a fourth and final period in the college history. The social and political conditions continued to interact powerfully with Memorial's affairs. Modelling its regulations upon those at institutions in Canada, Newfoundland offered generous support to veterans who wanted to continue their education.78 One result was that ex-service personnel made up almost 20% of Memorial's enrolment during the period 1945-48. A registration of over four hundred meant that the assembly hall had to be partitioned into separate classrooms.79 Allan Gillingham found the first year's experience successful "on the whole." Although some of the thirty veterans that year registered a month late, this defect was remedied by a general "seriousness of purpose ... the gloomy prediction that these men would soon fall by the wayside has so far not been fulfilled. On the contrary, once they settle into the routine of study - this sometimes causes difficulty they are much steadier and consistent in attitude than is the average student. They have, in fact, a wholesome tonic effect on the student body."80 He urged that Memorial's entrance rules should not be eased for this special category of student. They needed sound high school preparation or would likely become discouraged doing university work. The approach the college took was more lenient. In those years the veterans had first claim for admission; regular standards required six successful grade-eleven subjects, but veterans were routinely admitted with fewer.81 The veterans gave great leadership in the college while they were there. They were assigned a common room of their own which was also the headquarters for an ex-servicemen's club with all-college, alldiscipline unity and a spirit that for once eclipsed that of the engineers. With their maturity and experience, and in the privacy of that common room, they quietly broke the ban on smoking in the college,

163 Socioeconomic Background, 1925—50

a fact that the administration gracefully accepted. Scenes from Shakespeare, as acted by members of Hunter's English classes, were never so uproarious, riveting, or racy, as when the veterans did them. Although attending with generous government assistance, they were not merely recipients of handouts. At the end of the academic year 1946-47 the veterans' club expressed its gratitude for the help and encouragement they had received from Memorial with a $100 donation for the library. Hatcher, responding, found this generosity "in line with the fine contributions which veterans have made to the general life of this institution during the past two years."82 Other aspects of college life were returning to normal. The merchant marine hospital closed in 1944. Uniforms and boots which the cadet corps had acquired were retailed to the students at low prices. The Board approved the allocation of half of the $400 thus realized for athletic uniforms.83 In the fourth year of peace there were still quite a few veterans working their way through the college program, or unfortunately failing to do so. Hunter, as acting president, analysed the mid-year examination results. The toughest course was Physics 3, with an alarming 70% failures. Hunter isolated two reasons. First, the engineering timetable called for Physics 2 in the first year of the program, Physics 3 in the third. "In the intervening year many lose their grasp of the subject." Also, among the sixteen who failed, many were "servicemen who on demobilization attended special matriculation classes in circumstances not conducive to thorough grounding."84 Other aspects of postwar conditions in Newfoundland also impinged on college destinies at that time. Though the need for more space had long been evident and expressed, it was not until the United Services Organization (uso) recreation complex next door became surplus to other requirements, that the problem of college crowding was finally eased. The main reason why Memorial was able to acquire extra space at this time (summer 1948) was that it was extremely cheap. Many plans for expansion, for full university status, and for sorely needed residence facilities had, from the mid-war period on, always been postponed by the Commission of Government.85 Yet the war had brought about an economic transformation which eased Newfoundland's traditional debt load, then removed it entirely, and gave the colonial government a healthy and growing surplus for the rest of the decade. The government failed to provide Memorial with a residence or to approve any other plans, if the increase in spending were to be more than minimal, because they felt insecure in their mandate to spend the country's savings.86

164 A Bridge Built Halfway

In some respects the proper context for the understanding of Memorial's first quarter-century is by no means confined to Newfoundland. The college was an expression in miniature of a humane/scientific tradition familiar across the English-speaking world. In curriculum and policy decisions, in the organization of college life, and in the general spirit of paternalism and control, patterns were copied from Canadian examples, which in turn were based (not too accurately) on what British standards were supposed to be. United States philanthropy stepped in to keep the college going when the financial crisis at home might have resulted in its discontinuance. Two outstanding features of the junior college experience, depression and war, were global phenomena. The Newfoundland context is of extreme importance as well. The founding of the college was brought about by social changes improved schooling and literacy, and a growing middle class creating pressure for higher education as an avenue of advancement. Memorial was one among several mid-19208 manifestations of optimism and modernization. Its student body became a microcosm of Newfoundland society, reflecting religious and class divisions and geographical dispersion, though not always in fair proportions. Increasingly, the teachers, too, spoke with one of the island accents. The earliest research efforts tended to concentrate on Newfoundland topics, especially on the fishery, so direly in need of rescue from its "doleful dumps." In manipulating the town and gown relationship, as will be seen in the next chapter, the college administrators genuinely tried to make their school of service to the whole country. The economic disasters of the 19305 affected the development in two ways. The expectations of significant growth in the numbers to be enrolled were long disappointed, and the hard-pressed government was forced to be ungenerous in its support. It would be a mistake to say that the college with its stress upon uplifting thoughts, the beautiful, and the true was out of step with the life-and-death subsistence struggle of the average family. Newfoundland society was quite complex and just as naturally harboured a fortunate few pursuing higher education, as it buffeted the working-class majority clinging to life - but not much dignity - through exceedingly hard times. The social preoccupation with survival, and the government's fixation on the problem of debt, together frustrated the institution's natural impulse to expand. After prolonged uncertainty and distress, military investments from outside finally boosted the economy again, and the return to peacetime produced a situation where scholarship might again flourish. In the highly peculiar situation of Newfoundland politics, how-

165 Socioeconomic Background, 1925—50

ever — its re-descent into colonial status — growth still had to be postponed. The Commission of Government felt that its authority was too temporary and shaky for it to invest the country's savings in establishing a university which, by North American standards, was long overdue. Nothing shows more clearly how Memorial College was drastically affected by political as well as socioeconomic developments, than the way its future was held hostage to the Commission's constitutional infirmity.

CHAPTER

8

Gown and Town(s): Newfoundland, St John's, Canada and Memorial College

Boxes were devised on the model of the seaman's chest which could be unloaded from a steamer into an open boat and take a sea or two without letting in any water. (Plans for a travelling-library service to the outports, 1928) REGRET WE HAVE NO DUMPY LEVEL AVAILABLE

(Entire phonogram message, Memorial president to Atlas Construction, Gander, as all Newfoundland joined in building the wartime bases).

Through a tangle of economic uncertainties and constitutional experimentation, the college interrelated with three distinct societies: St John's, Newfoundland, and eastern Canada. The links were weaker in proportion as the distance was greater. Beyond those three overlapping circles lay the two larger English-speaking countries of the United States and Britain. Their institutions also had an impact, though it was very much less. For London or Boston the Newfoundland college was decidedly peripheral. But in Twillingate, Truro, or even Toronto, by the 19308 it periodically entered into the normal awareness of well-informed people. Memorial's impact at home was strengthened by deliberate extension activities and public relations undertaken with a purpose. The relationship with the Newfoundland government was quite close, with distant outport communities much weaker and sometimes difficult. In curricular developments and the experiences of faculty and students, Memorial was a well-integrated part of the Canadian college system.

167 Gown and Town(s) RELATIONS WITH ST J O H N ' S

"From the first the trustees laid down as a policy that the College must offer hospitality freely to any venture that might be described, even elastically, as educational."1 Under that rubric, numerous debates, concerts, art exhibits, meetings, and public lectures were held at Parade Street, which became more and more a conveniently central location as time passed and the city expanded. Then the college was tremendously lucky to obtain government approval (1931) to start construction of a new wing that nearly doubled its size.2 This occurred just a few weeks before a debt-interest crisis at mid-year which foreshadowed the utter collapse of public finance and put an end for several years to all ambitions for the expansion of institutions, no matter how badly needed. The gymnasium in the new wing quickly became a popular facility with city sports groups. Memorial made good blocks of time available. The arrangement which the St John's senior basketball league had through the 19308 was typical. The league paid $2 for each game played at MUG and guaranteed the good behaviour of players and spectators. "Must have janitor," Hatcher noted, "Also no smoking." From 1932 on members of the general public were admitted to the college library. They were permitted to read there but not borrow, and they paid the same $1 annual fee as the students.3 Outdoors the playing field was also in demand. It was usually made available without charge for soccer, field hockey, or baseball. Users were asked not to litter or damage shrubs and flower beds. In 1940 the organizers of an all-Newfoundland agricultural exhibition in three nearby buildings requested two days' use of the field for judging cattle, sheep, and swine. They promised there would be no serious damage to the turf. The college granted this use, provided that the Newfoundland defence force, which used the field for drill, did not need it on those particular days.4 Events needed to be at least moderately dignified before college accommodation could be used. In July 1949 the Canadian Legion brought a circus to town and installed it on Memorial's field with the permission of the Departments of Education and Public Works. The college Board strongly objected, pointing out that the circus caused a good deal of distraction for the summer school. The following summer, therefore, the Legion was denied permission to use the field for the Bill Lynch show travelling its circuit from Nova Scotia. Then an industrial fair was scheduled nearby and Premier Smallwood begged the use of the college grounds for some installations. The Board agreed. No one had mentioned, however, that rides and

i68 A Bridge Built Halfway

amusements were part of the program. The Legion officially complained when this show was staged where theirs was banned. The new university senate took note of the "harmful effects upon the prestige of the University which cannot fail to have followed from the use of the playing field for the purposes of a circus."5 The most important city functions in which Memorial provided leadership and accommodation were library service and dramatics. Through the efforts of Memorial's promoters some funds flowed from the Carnegie Corporation for Newfoundland's first public library services, initially in St John's, later in other parts of the island. When the estate of W.G. Gosling provided 1800 volumes as the basic collection in the city's first public library, it was Memorial which took charge of the books in the interim. Students volunteered for work parties to bring the books into proper storage in the college basement.6 Alfred Hunter was chairperson of the Newfoundland public libraries board for fifteen years. A typical board in that period had up to one-quarter of its membership drawn from the college.7 In the whole of St John's the most impressive physical monument to any of the early college activists is the A.C. Hunter branch of the public library on three floors of the Arts and Culture Centre at the edge of the new university campus, headquarters today for the entire provincial system. From 1937 on Memorial, with its three-hundred-seat assembly hall, was home to the city's leading amateur theatrical troupe, the St John's players. It was very prudent of them at the first organizational meeting to invite Albert Hatcher to become honorary president. Helen Lodge of the teacher-training department was the group's secretary when she officially made this request. In accepting the invitation, Hatcher offered general hospitality to the group.8 Under this patronage, the St John's players had access to the assembly hall for public performances and to the stage for rehearsals and professional development. In the fifth year of this affiliation the dramatic society received permission from the Board to have its own carpenters and electricians make improvements to the facilities: new curtains, valance, and portable switchboard for the lights.9 During the postwar euphoria, plans were drawn up for a new assembly hall/library building. By that time the St John's players were so fully part of the college scene that their representative was one of only three people to whom the blueprints circulated. It was never built, so they made do with the Parade Street assembly hall as it grew shabbier, then rejoiced with MUG over the larger hall acquired as part of the uso annex in the late 19408. Strangers to higher education, passing along Merrymeeting Road, could have been forgiven if they glanced over and said, I don't know anything about Memorial College

169 Gown and Town(s)

but there is the headquarters of the St John's players. Their many successful dramatic performances, plus Memorial's own plays and the swelling size of the student body, probably explain a change in nomenclature when the new campus was designed: from "assembly hall" to "little theatre." Some college interactions with St John's concerned public affairs. Allan Fraser, history professor, served on the wartime St John's housing commission, which developed plans to transform the city's physical appearance and pattern of property ownership, and he later won election to city council (1943—45) to help ensure that the transformation took place. Memorial frequently hosted uplifting debates and lectures, but one suspects that it was the enthusiastically received entertainments which firmly cemented the relationship with the general public — from the first college production, Professor Pep, starring Paddy Duder, through Lady Precious Stream (St John's players, 1945, with an international cast starring Hal Holbrook (later of Hollywood, then Fort Pepperrell), to numerous other plays and glee club performances (with fudge sold at intermission by household science students). When the city was not being invited into the college, student troubadours sometimes continued to build friendships by performing in other venues. George Whiteley mentioned a band formed by some of the earliest students. Our little jazz group was strictly small time, just a few boys having fun. Bob MacLeod, my old friend, was well educated musically ... could play anything, banjo, Hawaiian guitar, church organ. He and I probably started the group ... About eight of us, piano, mandolin, guitar, violin, sax, drums and so on. We gathered at someone's home and practiced. In those days, church groups and others would hold sales or fairs; handicrafts, knitted goods, cooked food, jams and jellies, a rousing affair. There would be a program of some sort. Local people would sing, some very good, others terrible ... We would put on our act: play and sing Moonlight and Roses, If You Knew Suzie, Sweet Adleline and so on. No great pitch but lots of enthusiasm.10 OUTREACH

In the history of Memorial college and university an easy mistake to make would be to think that extension efforts only began in the 19508. That was when, after several earlier proposals had failed, a department with that name was established. Extension work had, however, been stressed from the very beginning. The first extension work consisted of evening classes of non-credit

170 A Bridge Built Halfway Table 18 Night Courses, 1932-33 Subject

Eight lectures in history Eight lectures: science pathfinders Household science Beginning German Navigation Dietetics Pharmacy Glee club Farm/garden study group

Average Attendance 40 30 16 7 8 18 12 50 15

courses. Paton was "ever on the watch for what might be useful to somebody and at the same time put the College on the map." In his own words, at the official opening, "To make the College of service to the general public implies more than the indirect benefits derivable through the students ... It is direct service which will popularize the institution. This the College proposes to introduce, not in the sweet bye and bye, but in the living present.11 From the very beginning there were six to twelve subjects offered each winter. In 1933, for example (the third year that night-course teachers worked without remuneration),12 there were the following offerings: By 1936-37 chemistry for nurses, a teachers' seminar, economics, accountancy, English, blueprint reading, and workshop mathematics had been added; total enrolment was 445.13 Memorial, however, was not breaking new ground, for in that interwar period it was common for Canadian universities in urban settings to organize this type of program.14 The end of the war boosted evening classes. Fifteen operated in the first postwar academic year. Except for the larger than usual number of subjects offered, this was a typical year. Instructional duties were about equally divided between college professors and others recruited from off-campus; the fees were calculated on the basis of the number of students enrolled and the honoraria paid, so that the overall program was self-sustaining. And, "Of course classes not infrequently petered out, especially after the hockey season started."15 The interesting "teachers' seminar" of the 19308 illustrates how evening classes directed at the adult population of St John's could become transformed into an effort to reach the whole country. Begun

171 Gown and Town(s) Table 19 Night Courses, 1945-46 Subject

Latin German Philosophy Chemistry Physics Art

Layout for boiler makers Blueprint reading Workshop mathematics Astronomy Accountancy Accountancy Principles of government Folk dancing Navigation

Instructor's Fee

Number of students

Instructor

30 25 20 20 25 30 26

Ashley (MUG) Gillingham (MUC) Fitzpatrick (MUC) Maddock (MUC) Long (MUC) Wilson (MUC) Dooley

$105 $87.50 $70 $70 $88.50 $105 $91

31 37

Noel Bishop

$108.50 $141

11 35 35 26

Hatcher (MUC) Hyslop Hudson Fraser (MUC)

$38.50 $175 $122.50 $77

6

H. Brinton and S. Godfrey (MUC) Parrott

$24

in 1934, the seminar was basically a series of refresher courses and professional development sessions for practising teachers. Highlights in a typical year (1937-38) were a display of modern French art, an exhibition of social studies project work by the teachers-in-training, and series of lectures on the teaching of art, history, and geography by Memorial faculty members. After one further year the seminar at the college was discontinued and replaced by weekly broadcasts to teachers, directed by the Department of Education with assistance from Memorial's teacher-training department.16 From these various aspects of outreach arose the first proposal to have a college extension department. Representatives of the Departments of Education and Natural Resources and of the Board of Governors met in 1937 to discuss the matter. Without abandoning the long range plan, they found it not feasible at present.17 The college governors then decided to do something on their own. The subcommittee struck to plan the new department estimated first-year costs at $10,000.l8 The whole plan was fourfold: rural schools were to be oriented more towards economic development, adult education facilities were to be improved, technical training was to be developed, and there was to be an extension department at the college. Funding for Memorial's part of the scheme was sought from the previously

172 A Bridge Built Halfway

generous Carnegie Corporation, with which Shaw and Hatcher had already carried out preliminary discussions in ig3g.19 The approach was not successful. Meanwhile, consideration was being given to Newfoundland's needs for vocational education. The engineering professor, S.J. Hayes, advised against linking a comprehensive vocational institute with Memorial, particularly because it should serve a lower age group. Drawing another Canadian parallel, he thought that Memorial should develop short courses and correspondence offerings in technical subjects, as was done at Nova Scotia Technical College. Newfoundland could produce the equivalent of the Nova Scotia correspondence courses for $5,000. An additional $2,000 would provide short courses in mechanical trades and prospecting, if the college borrowed instructors from industry and Bell Island.20 A Canadian expert was then brought in to survey the scene in person. Fletcher Peacock, Director of Education in New Brunswick, came in July 1940 and spent almost a week making enquiries in St John's at the invitation of Newfoundland authorities. He found that the most pressing need in Newfoundland's system was for vocational education, that would lead to more productive development of the colony's resources. Unlike Professor Hayes, he viewed Memorial as the keystone in any development. Vocational high school courses should be developed at St. John's "in connection with Memorial University College with its central and commanding site, both physically and in the minds and hearts of the people. Memorial is in a peculiar and very real sense the property of all." The college would need new shops for mechanics, agriculture, forestry, fisheries, and commerce. Graduates of the vocational/technical high schools to be established in outport areas would flock into Memorial, and "who can say how soon the increased wealth, enlarged culture, and quickened ambition of the people would demand that the College become a full fledged university giving degrees not only in arts but in science, agriculture, forestry and commerce?"21 Peacock recommended that an extension department be developed at Memorial as an "integral part of the Vocational program." Looking back at Peacock's ideas fifty years later, confidence in them is not increased by his description of Memorial as "happily affiliated" with Mount Allison, St. Francis Xavier, Dalhousie, and McGill. There is no mention of engineering or of Nova Scotia Technical College, the firmest affiliation of all and the one most pertinent to the technical thrust of his recommendations. Official plans were formulated after this survey had been well

173 Gown and Town(s)

digested. Whereas Peacock had stressed Memorial as the capital of a vocational training empire, the secretary for education was much more cautious. He merely proposed a survey of vocational/technical training needs and the organization of vocational classes at St John's, linked not to the university college but to operations such as the docks, machine shops, garages, woodworking establishments, and the government farm.22 By 1943 planners at Memorial were ready with a specific extension curriculum. Short courses could be up to two months in duration, offered in November-December, JanuaryMarch and March-May. They would be of three distinct kinds: i cultural (literature, social studies, music, art, games); 2 economic (resources, trade, capital, cooperation - organized in study groups); 3 vocational (for men: fishing, farming, husbandry, forestry; for women: nutrition, health, handicrafts). Space for the director's office and one classroom should be found downtown. Hostel facilities to accommodate out of town students coming for eight weeks at a time were an essential part of this plan, which was apparently elaborated by Alfred Hunter. Hatcher commented that the Board of Governors had already authorized the creation of such a department in 1939. "The onset of the War was one reason ... why the plan has not yet materialized."23 For the rest of the college period neither the hostel nor the extension department materialized. In H.A. Winter's important memorandum of April 1944, which proposed to raise Memorial to university status, the commissioner recognized that "an Extension Department is urgently needed to enable the College to serve the country as a whole and to give nation-wide leadership." Although a vocational education program seemed "outside the accepted scope of a university ... there is no good reason why it should not be included if that should best suit our peculiar needs."24 After the war had ended, things seemed hopeful for a while. The faculty produced yet another detailed plan: 1 Supplementary courses, first in St John's, later in other locations as well, with the following regulations: admission to literate young adults, both sexes, thirty at a time accommodation in a residence managed as a cooperative core courses "cultural and spiritual" - history, literature, music, nature study, etc. three six-week sessions per year tuition paid in cash, kind, and labour. 2 "Study groups" across Newfoundland, intended to foster civic spirit by the

174 A Bridge Built Halfway discussion of concrete problems and to lead to community action when possible. The groups would be sponsored by Memorial and normally led by local teachers ("often MUC graduates whose calibre is known").

The annual cost was estimated at $7,000 for salaries plus $6,000 for space and operating costs - $13,000 which would increase to $15,000 when the initial ten study groups reached the full complement of fifty. In addition, there was of course the cost of residence facilities at the college, furnished and equipped.25 It was the cost, perhaps especially the residence accommodation, which disqualified all the various extension schemes in the eyes of the penny-pinching Commission of Government. Everyone certainly approved of the idea. Not until the late 19508, however, was the first director of extension named. The program eventually inaugurated by S.J. Colman stressed community development, humane studies, and economic/social advances. In his initial papers he viewed extension at Memorial as starting virtually from scratch. He ignored, as many later commentators have also done, the long history of outreach stretching back to Paton, who stepped ashore in St John's in 1925 and organized that very first term evening classes in English, art, economics, and navigation.26 The navigation school was a special, persistent - and very Newfoundlandish - aspect of Memorial's outreach programs. From the very beginning college organizers had noted how absurd it was for a maritime country not to have the means of qualifying its own people in advanced seamanship. Up to 1926 the closest place to study for a master's ticket for ocean-going vessels was Halifax. That was to change. Partly in response to pressure from Paton, Prime Minister Monroe announced that on steamships operated by the Government Railway Commission, preference would in two years time be given to properly qualified men.27 Classes for working seamen - very sparsely attended atfirst- began. In about 1930 the school relocated from Parade Street to the Morris Building on Queen Street, and Captain John Whelan replaced William Major as instructor. The usual timetable was three evenings per week. Classes were small - for example, an average attendance of eight in 1933-34 - but the men were highly motivated by the direct connection between these studies and employment or continued employment. Of the staff at the college, Hatcher took the greatest interest in navigation school. He was one of the few who understood the trigonometry on which celestial navigation was based, and he had previously devoted the best years of his life to similar instruction in the Royal Naval College of Canada. He made sure that navigation

175 Gown and Town(s)

was consistently offered at the summer schools, so that teachers could both teach the subject to their pupils and be qualified to assist seagoing people in their home outports. Up to December 1935 fifty-four students had received certificates as masters or mates at the Memorial Navigation School.28 The war brought an expansion of the merchant marine as well as a greater turnover from casualties in the ranks of seafarers. The navigation school grew from an average enrolment of about fifteen (1937) to twenty in 1940 and fifty-nine in 1941. Hatcher reported that successful students were going directly into the Royal Canadian Navy or the merchant marine.29 By 1944 A.G. Parrott was instructor, and the school moved to larger quarters at Pope's furniture factory. In some Canadian university histories large fires spark ruin or, more commonly, rededication. In its whole quarter-century, however, the best Memorial can provide is an early morning fire on the second floor of the Pope Building (240 Water Street, near McBrides Hill) on 8 May 1946. Starting in the navigation school, the fire left the structure standing, but everything was blackened, books belonging to Captain Parrott and the students were water-damaged, and the school's portfolio of navigational charts was destroyed. Within three days better quarters had been secured on the top floor of the Columbus Building, Duckworth Street.30 Developments closely linked to the special features of a navigation school, and the upheaval in Europe, led almost to the development of a full fledged faculty of engineering a quarter-century before in fact such a faculty was established. In 1948 a highly interesting proposal was submitted by Alex Berzinsh, a chemical engineer (and refugee from Latvia) in Corner Brook. He provided information about an entire navigation school in Germany, whose equipment marine engines, boilers, and other technical apparatus — was due to be dismantled and removed from the British occupation zone as a potential war asset. A resolution was carried that the Board "strongly endorsed" the proposal to acquire this equipment. Hatcher, whose sabbatical tour had carried him to Harvard, was consulted there. "As for the navigation school and the Baltic gear," he wrote from Massachusetts, "It may be the kind of thing the Ottawa Government should support... Our own navigation school has done pioneer work, but perhaps it should soon be placed under other direction."31 The president's strange reluctance to promote his mathematicsoriented navigation school to a fully-fledged marine technical institute was not needed to dampen enthusiasm for the project, for it was killed as a result of one of the first diplomatic chores which Ottawa

176 A Bridge Built Halfway

performed for Newfoundland after confederation. In July 1949 the Department of External Affairs informed the provincial government that after certain enquiries in Germany, "Advice has .been received that the transfer of the School to Newfoundland is not considered desirable or practical."32 One special aspect of Memorial's outreach was the "College notes," published regularly, often weekly, in the St John's Daily News. The first president apparently thought it would be prudent for a somewhat controversial new institution to build interest and support by publishing its proceedings. The tradition then begun was maintained through the 19305 and 19408. A typical "note" had seven to nine items about debates and college clubs, evening classes, musical entertainments in assembly, special lectures, gifts to the library and "books of the week," the exploits of Memorial College teams (they usually lost), and the further triumphs of former students, who may have left Parade Street but never left it behind. No theme was more constant in college assemblies or the newspaper notes than the achievement of Newfoundland-bred scholars, of whom all could be proud. In a three-month period in 1931, for instance, readers were encouraged to share pride in Chesley Howell's scholarship at McGill, Jessie Mifflin's becoming president of the Mount Allison debating society, Edith Moore's winning a Royal life saving society award, and Wilfred Templeman's heading his invertebrate zoology class at University of Toronto. Consistent over decades, these notes must have won many friends, or at least interested bystanders. Scholarship was presented as a serious business, yet fun to pursue. News carefully selected and well packaged is a tremendous advertisement.33 Although Memorial's attempts to monopolize newspaper discussion of its doings could not be one hundred percent successful, the scale of scandal was small. This account has nothing to rival the famous episodes of bickering and tension which make the histories of some Canadian universities so much more appealing to read now than to live through then: no mass resignation with or without clandestine interception of mail, no presidential breakdowns, no politically motivated witchhunts against radicals on the faculty. Nevertheless, not all the correspondence received or printed in the daily press could be called fan mail. During the first few years of MUC'S existence St John's journalistnaturalist Arthur English made a series of attacks: letters to the president, letters to the press. He especially found fault with various aspects of the program in science. In Francis Bruton's edition of Cormack's Narrative of a journey across the island of Newfoundland in 1822, praised and promoted by the college, he counted first fifteen,

177 Gown and Town(s)

eventually sixty-three mistakes. When Sleggs began publishing the results of his fisheries research, English pronounced it empty of value. The fact that Sleggs had previously spent some time investigating prairie rodents at the University of Saskatchewan gave the critic the opportunity to get off his best line. "In the name of decency," he wrote, "keep Sleggs locked up or send him back to Saskatoon to further experiment upon the anal glands of the gopher."34 Other controversies had more substance. One erupted when Allan Gillingham assigned essays, in German of course, in which the task was to imagine the German navy's triumphant cruise in British waters after the conquest of England. This was not timely in the spring of 1940. The Evening Telegram editorialized against his lack of judgment. Gillingham apologized. If he had not been a native son of Newfoundland, calls for his resignation would no doubt have been more forceful.35 Alfred Hunter was the next faculty member to incur public displeasure. In 1943 Michael Harrington, a brilliant former student now turned broadcaster, delivered a public speech criticizing the Commission of Government for having inhibited Newfoundland's recovery from the depression. "Their mismanagement," he asserted, was "every bit as deliberate as the former anti-settlement laws in its eventual purpose to hinder rather than to help."36 This was an expression of Newfoundland nationalism, the extreme variety that considered the Commission of Government an English imposition, and England as hostile. Hunter, whose secret flaw was his British birth and breeding, found fault with Harrington for imputing such motives to the Commission. The two then exchanged antagonistic letters to the editor, broadsides which climaxed when Harrington called his former professor a "biased bystander."37 During the 1949 transition from college to university, Memorial itself came under direct attack. First "jc" wrote from McGill that the St John's college, where he regretted having spent time, was a "standing joke up here," operated by "a bunch of old maids." One sole letter appeared in the Alma Mater's defence, then a barrage of several agreeing with jc. "A great deal was done that should not have been done, and a great deal was left undone, and what the College needs more than anything else is a good hard-hitting President, such as the type found in some of the American Colleges."38 The wartime bases had perhaps made people more conscious of American examples, and the Newfoundland college was made to suffer in comparison. Given its usually difficult circumstances, the outreach of the college was impressive. Navigation school, night classes, and the summertime efforts aimed at the teaching corps could have led to a well-rounded

178 A Bridge Built Halfway

extension program, if only funds had been found. Some good plans were certainly developed, but these had to wait until the late 19505 for implementation. In the newspapers the college generally had a strong reputation. The principal thing to notice about the little gusts of controversy that sometimes blew up, was how few and scattered they were. Adroitly burnishing its image with the skillful "College notes," advertising made believable in the guise of news, the college was almost immune to public criticism. Old maids or not, Memorial's administration handled its public relations very well. RELATIONS WITH N E W F O U N D L A N D

At the level of the colony as a whole, Memorial made a point of being of service to various departments of the government, to private organizations, and to educational/intellectual progress in general. College representatives often provided educational leadership for all of Newfoundland through bodies established by the Department of Education. The important 1934 commission of enquiry into the curriculum, for example, had among its ten members Vincent Burke as the ranking Roman Catholic (and chairperson), Hatcher (mathematics) as the leading United Church educator, and Organ, the other college mathematics instructor.39 The college was also well represented on the Council of Higher Education. From 1939 to 1948 the Council membership of thirty-three usually included, in addition to Memorial's President ex officio, another eight or nine drawn either from the faculty or from the Board of Governors.40 Through most of this period Hatcher was convener of the CHE subcommittee on art.41 The college had its due share of weight in determining what the emerging pattern of education would be, except in the vital respect of what public resources would be available. Alfred Hunter offered some thoughtful suggestions on proposed changes in the Department of Education in 1939. He criticized the denominational system for providing no share of governance in educational matters for atheists, non-Christians, or for anyone who was not an Anglican, Catholic, Salvation Army, or United Church adherent. It was not wise to give supervisory control of the few nondenominational institutions which had emerged — composite schools in some of the company towns, Memorial and its summer school and adult education programs - to a board dominated by church appointees who might well object on principle to even the existence of such institutions. The draft bill provided a superior council of six - four representing the major denominations, plus the two leading educational bureaucrats. Hunter recommended it be enlarged to nine, with the additional

179 Gown and Town(s)

members representing nondenominational education, organized labour, and the interests of business and the professions. These radical notions were discussed at the highest level in the Department of Education and quickly rejected.42 From 1934 on Memorial became the agency charged with preparing the country's teachers. Of approximately 3,700 who passed through Memorial in its first quarter-century, it is estimated that at least 1600 employed in the teaching profession the skills they had gained. This was of course the most valuable service the college performed for the Department of Education, and the most important avenue whereby college values percolated through its students into ordinary homes and families. The college cooperated with practically all agencies of the Newfoundland regime. Paton had wanted to combine marine biology in the college with research for the Department of Marine and Fisheries, but government funding for the research side of the plan was never generous or secure. Establishment of a colonial fishery research station at Bay Bulls (1931) seemed an encouraging sign: "We are hoping through the application of science to our cod and lobster and other marine products [to] rescue the country from its present doleful dumps."43 The Fishery Research Commission, which existed in 193034 while part funding for the Bay Bulls operation was forthcoming from the Empire Marketing Board, always included the president of Memorial in its membership.44 The college related to many other departments as well. The Secretary of the Newfoundland Fire Patrol (Department of Natural Resources) thanked Paton for his 1930 broadcast on conservation during "Save the forest" week. Newfoundland customs bowed to pressure from Memorial and teachers' meetings, in deciding to exempt from duty all imported books valued under $2. Hatcher volunteered two students to catalogue specimens for the Newfoundland Museum; later the college took over safe custody of the whole collection when the museum was closed as an economy measure during the depression. Whenever government had a problem with language - Latin mottos, reading thanks received after some Italian seamen were rescued, censoring mail received and sent by German internees during the Second World War - they naturally looked to the college.45 Only occasionally did political statements emanate from campus. In November 1930 someone attacked "late hours in the stores" through the medium of "College notes." Late hours began on the first of that month, but only after 10 December, it was argued, would pre-Christmas business justify them. "This is a case of the tyranny of

i8o A Bridge Built Halfway

a minority. A few acquisitive people whose god is gain ... This year must be the end of this stupid and noxious enslavement of youth." "Youth" apparently meant here the store clerks now occupied until nine or ten at night in the interests of the merchants. The "Notes" supported the notion of a shop assistants' union and called upon the House of Assembly to legislate. This tirade, apparently triggered by a drop in attendance at evening classes, had no effect and was not repeated the following year.46 The college does not seem to have become identified with any particular position on the famous public questions of the Labrador boundary, the switch to the Commission of Government, or the American and Canadian military base leases. A 1941 debate topic - "Now is the opportune time for the return of Responsible Government" - shows a civic-minded but objective interest in an important colonial political issue.47 Memorial took no side in the wrangle over confederation, although Allan Fraser published studious papers which advocated the restoration of responsible government before any serious bargaining took place with Canada. In 1948 he was one of several prominent citizens who intervened on the side of responsible government in the public debate between the first and second referendum votes. The previous year summer school had debated the proposition, that Newfoundland would be economically better off under confederation than under responsible government. Both the judges - the majority of whom were college faculty and the audience voted that responsible government had won.48 Private organizations in the country felt free to call upon the college for assistance. In 1930 the Newfoundland adult education association proposed a joint program for correspondence/radio courses at the grade twelve level and perhaps higher. The experiment was launched the next year with senior matriculation courses in Latin, mathematics, and the history of civilization.49 The Royal Institute of International Affairs (RIIA, Newfoundland branch) had the closest of affiliations with Memorial. Three of Memorial's teachers and three governors were among the eleven charter members, and the official branch library was in the reading room at Parade Street. Memorial and its library was also home for a time in the 19408 to the records and archives of the Newfoundland Historical Society.50 As time passed, the college grew more effective in reaching out to establish its presence and provide assistance in distant outports. Teacher training was an important connector and had an influence in communities generally as well as in school. One evening at the 1928 summer school the whole group met to discuss the travelling library service then being inaugurated with a $5,000 grant from Carnegie Corporation. Some of the practical research connected with

181 Gown and Town(s) Table 20 Memorial Outreach by Radio, 1935 Date

Broadcast

22 March 29 March 5 April

Debate, Old Memorials versus MUG literary/debating society Music, scenes from Macbeth and a physics lecture After two songs, "A day in the life of a student" - poetry, Daphne Pratt - mathematics, Oliver Smith - chemistry, Betty Wood - surveying, Tom Mews - teacher training, Marg Sansom Music, Macbeth, and a talk by Allan Gillingham Music, talk by Hatcher Music, Hunter Colman (biology) on Schubert with musical selections Eraser on a new deal for India Organ on the library, death of a student, success of Old Memorials Frecker on engineering Baird on household science, news, and farewell Summer school introduction, Lodge on "education for health"

12 April 19 April 3 May 10 May 17 May 24 May 31 May 14 June 19 July

this project might have been necessary only in Newfoundland. "Boxes were devised on the model of the seaman's chest which could be unloaded from a steamer into an open boat and take a sea or two without letting in any water."51 From these beginnings twenty-seven public libraries came into existence across Newfoundland by ig4g.52 Memorial grew up with radio carrying its voice into remoter parts. After an anonymous friend paid the fee for a dedicated telephone line to the transmitter, the first radio broadcast from the college occurred on 9 November 1929. Jack Hogg, professor of chemistry, spoke about Humphrey Davie. The broadcast reached as far as Trinity Bay. By 1935 adjustments to this new communications technology produced a sustained extension program of broadcasts from the college all spring and summer, carried on station VOGY. The menu was an interesting mixture of culture and information, with some entertainment — the kind of programs familiar in assemblies — now available to everybody.53 Radio also carried the teachers' seminar mentioned earlier. And all through the 19405, Fraser, the historian, could be heard weekly following the Doyle news bulletin, interpreting the international news of the twentieth century's most momentous decade. Many and varied were the college acquaintanceships. Radio made it possible for a Memorial figure like Fraser to become known across Newfoundland without ever leaving St John's. Hatcher built up a loyal following, too, especially among teachers who experienced the

182 A Bridge Built Halfway

summer schools he ran, and more particularly among those he weaned on mathematical puzzles. Numerous in his preserved correspondence are the letters where one must look at sketches on the back in order to make out what was troubling the writer.54 "An elastic ball falls from a height of twenty inches. On each rebound it rises to a height of one-half the distance through which it has just fallen. What is the total distance through which it moves?" In the autumn the president might be pleased to approve an adjustment of the schedule in household science, so that the Trinity South community fair could have Edna Baird to judge its pastries, preserves, and bottled foods.55 When the Lonsdale cup (British empire games) was melted down in 1935 so that smaller replicas could be permanently given to all the white dominions, Memorial was honoured, on behalf of Newfoundland, to give one of these replicas a secure home. It has not been seen since.56 Although Memorial was conscious of the need to multiply and smooth its contacts with all the scattered small villages of Newfoundland, it was not always well organized for the purpose. So the Board of Governors apparently thought in 1945, when Burke directed one of his infrequent reproofs at the college president. The Board understood that neither Hatcher nor Vice-President Hunter would be present before the beginning of term for interviewing new students (he said "pupils") and their parents. Concerned at the "disproportionately high percentage of students from the city over those from the outports," the Board thought it "essential that everything possible be done to attract the outport student." Paton, wrote Burke, had always personally reassured parents about leaving their adolescents in the wicked city. Recent abandonment of this routine "has raised questioning in important quarters." Hatcher answered from Wolfville, where he and his Nova Scotiaborn wife had begun spending holidays and would later retire. He defended his regular practice, which was to be on campus ten days before the start of term. The vice-president would be there a week earlier. Paton had a smaller number of students. Until about ten years previously Hatcher used to meet every student on arrival. Now he was satisfied to complete the job within the first few days of term. This unavoidable weakening of the president's personal touch was well compensated for by institutional improvements: an advisor system, a students' handbook, a dean of women, a library orientation program. Closing this statement of self-defence — uncustomarily vigorous in the context of Hatcher's usual relations with the governors he pointed out that Canadian colleges required little or no teaching

183 Gown and Town(s)

from the person appointed principal, whereas at Memorial "your President carries one of the heaviest teaching loads."57 As the system of scholarships developed, it became commonplace to recognize that outport students had greater expenses than those from the capital city. When Gerald S. Doyle, well-known merchant, initiated awards for preengineering students in 1943, two stipulations were that there should be three out-of-town winners for every two from St John's, and the award to a rural scholarship holder would be three times that for a city recipient. One of the steps which the giant Canadian firm Imperial Oil took in order to become a better corporate citizen of the new country it had discovered, was to offer scholarships with a similar but even greater discrimination between town and bay. At the end of the college era, four of eight entrance scholarships preserved this wise distinction.58 SCHOLARSHIP

Calvert C. Pratt Workmens' Protective . . Association Imperial Oil King George V

OUTPORT

ST JOHN*S

STUDENT

STUDENT

$400 „. f3oo

$100 ., $100

$500 $300

$100 $100

Although outport spokespersons sometimes expressed the suspicion that Memorial was not doing all it should to help their young people succeed in college studies, the chief tendencies of the quartercentury were ever closer connections and a growing monopoly by Memorial over the higher education ambitions of all Newfoundland. George Earle, the first from Fogo who ever came to study at Parade Street, wrote that some of the simple folk in his home village thought that two further years of learning after grade eleven would surely teach one all there was to know in the world. "I s'pose you knows it all now," a friend greeted him when he returned with the Memorial diploma earned. "I s'pose you can even talk shart-hand now." Earle "obliged him with a Latin verse and he went on his way amazed and pleased."59 R E L A T I O N S W I T H CANADA

A third society with which Memorial College interrelated, though much less comprehensively than with Newfoundland and St John's,

184 A Bridge Built Halfway

was Canada. From the time that the first summer session for Newfoundland teachers was organized (1917) with help from the principal of Truro Normal School and Newfoundland educators participated in the 1922-23 discussions of university federation in the maritime provinces, Newfoundland higher education evolved within the orbit of Canada's college system. Two particular restrictions must be noted. The special relationships that were forged were not with the whole vast country of Canada, but with educational interests in the Dominion's eastern part. In the scattering of Memorial graduates seeking to complete their degrees, none went further west than Toronto and London, Ontario. Also, it was a one-way relationship. Very few Canadians were ever appointed to the faculty at Memorial, and Canadian students were virtually unknown there. Nevertheless, Newfoundlanders knew eastern Canada well as visitors and students. Interesting relationships developed. Dalhousie University in Halifax gave all sorts of advice to the new Newfoundland college as it was starting up — on registration procedures, curriculum, student organization, etc. So many ex-Memorials flocked to campuses in the Maritimes that corners of Newfoundland culture emerged there. In some years the final playoffs in the Maritime provinces intercollegiate soccer league resembled nothing so much as a practice session for Memorial's first and second line squads of one or two years earlier. Montreal was another place where Newfoundland interests intersected. Billy Hatcher wrote to explain to Paton in 1927 that there was both a Newfoundland club of Montreal and a Newfoundland student society on the McGill campus - neither to be confused with the McGill Alumni Association which existed in Newfoundland itself. "The aims and results of the Memorial College, even after this short time, have been well spoken of here."60 And chapter 4 has already described the flow of Newfoundland scholars with Canadian qualifications back to teach at Memorial, something which naturally produced an institution that tended to follow the mainland model. Ties with Canada were close enough that big Newfoundland stories sometimes broke on the mainland, as when Lloyd Shaw, just promoted from Memorial's teacher-training department to become secretary (Deputy Minister) for education, was quoted by the Charlottetown Patriot as saying that "the Commission of Government seeks to wipe out denominational schools." Prince Edward Island took this observation from a native son quite equably when it appeared in the newspaper there. But carried to St John's in a Canadian Press wire story, it created an uproar. After two days of hubbub

185 Gown and Town(s)

everyone — Shaw, the Canadian Press, the Charlottetown newspaper - issued corrections. The particle "not" had been omitted; Shaw really had said the Commission of Government was not seeking to wipe out, etc.61 The Canadian organizations with which Memorial interacted tended to be educational, but not exclusively so. When the Maritimes division of the Canadian National Institute for the Blind launched a big fund drive in 1928, the appeal was actually directed at all four Atlantic jurisdictions including Newfoundland. The list of patrons for this effort included Paton and Prime Minister Walter Monroe, as well as the three maritime Lieutenant-Governors and the presidents of Acadia, Dalhousie, and Mount Allison.62 Weather reporting from Memorial was also internationally organized. Canadian authorities supplied the instruments, a Newfoundland grant paid the student observers, and the reports went by wire to Toronto. By 1933 there was also a contract to supply monthly statistics for the Evening Telegram. The depression caused the government to drop its meteorology grant, but $50 per year from the newspaper enabled the college to continue paying a student morning and evening for risks taken on the roof where the instruments were installed. Eventually, the Canadian Department of Transport found frequent changes in observers at the Memorial College station inefficient. Towards the end of the 19305 the St John's reporting station was shifted elsewhere, although meteorology in the college physics program continued to benefit from maximum and minimum thermometers and a Fortin barometer, permanently loaned by Canada.63 Oddly enough, Memorial never belonged to the Canadian Council of Universities. Newfoundland and the college were, however, fully involved and integrated with various movements in the maritime provinces, such as the movement for university federation in the early 19205 (see chapter i) and the Central Advisory Committee on higher education that came out of it. In 1932 the "Common examining board of the Maritime provinces & Newfoundland" came into operation. The work of this confederated bureaucracy, which set school-leaving standards, regularly associated leading Newfoundland educators with those of the other jurisdictions. This meant that every autumn, when committees met to set next year's examinations, there was always one person from Newfoundland, probably from Memorial, in each committee of four. For example, at a November 1944 meeting in the Province Building in Halifax64 there were the following participants:

i86 A Bridge Built Halfway DISCIPLINES

COMMITTEE INCLUDED

Social studies Modern foreign languages

Fraser, MUC (chair) Frecker, Newfoundland Department of Education Maddock, MUC Lear, MUC Gillingham, MUC Hatcher, MUC Lodge, MUC

Physics-chemistry Biology, geology, etc. Latin Mathematics English

Each following summer larger committees - the markers - would gather for sessions lasting several weeks, usually in Nova Scotia. In each subject several prominent Newfoundland teachers, along with their counterparts from the Maritimes, would work with those who set the examination to determine how well this year's crop of Atlantic young people, treated as a single population, had fared. Not just their experience of higher education, but their whole upbringing had prepared the largely middle-class Newfoundland students of 1925—50 for intimate involvement with North America. Oral history informants were asked about the origin of non-Newfoundland newspapers which they read in their own homes while growing up. Half the replies mentioned British newspapers, 27% Canadian papers, and 20% American. A similar question on the origin of radio programs produced: Britain 38%, United States 34%, and Canada 25%. Did you have close relatives living outside Newfoundland? Ninety-five percent of respondents answered that they did. Where were these uncles, aunts and cousins, occasionally grandparents or siblings, located? The answers showed the decline of links with the old country and the growth of important personal connections with the United States and Canada as a result of intra-North American migrations since the i88os. The percentage of respondents who had close relatives abroad was: United States, 46%; Canada, 37%; Britain, 12%; Belgium, 1%; Holland, 1%; South Africa, 1%; Australia, 1%; and New Zealand, 1%. It is evident that the college did not inhabit an ivory tower, aloof from the concerns of the wider society. Important relationships in the immediate vicinity of St John's were easily nurtured. Aside from the provision of better-trained teachers, the college actually had little general impact across the colony before 1950. Initiatives in navigation, household science, and public libraries, however - along with

187 Gown and Town(s)

various plans for full-fledged extension work — show that the intention generously to serve national needs was sincere, although frustrated. Memorial was actually better known in some parts of Canada than in many Newfoundland outports, as its students were forced to travel to the mainland to complete their studies. Many were moulded by an emerging Atlantic regionalism. The skillful shaping of public relations projected a favourable image by press and radio, until commentators who knew the institution well began, while staying under cover, to hurl abuse at it at the very end of the college era. Had the college become too much part of the educational establishment to be attacked without the protection of anonymity?

CHAPTER 9

Governance

It seems a pity that this Government, which is after all only a caretaker government, should try to poke its finger so frequently and so deeply into our pie. (Registrar Monnie Mansfield to Hatcher, 9 December 1948)

The governing body appointed by the Newfoundland administration, while facilitating the college's existence and guiding developments, was far removed from the daily life of the college. Originally the "Board of Trustees," it was reorganized and enlarged after 1936 as the "Board of Governors." The president was the intermediary through whom Board decisions took effect. Boards depended upon the president's advice; the relationship was almost always one of mutual regard. Besides the important personnel policies outlined in chapter 4, other key issues which the Board handled through the period concerned finances and status. POLICY-MAKERS

The "trustees" were in the first place stewards of valuable grants from the Carnegie Corporation of New York, without which the NormalMemorial idea could not have been realized. The five original trustees — the founders of the university — were Vincent Burke (deputy minister), the superintendents of Newfoundland's three major school systems (William Blackall, Levi Curtis, and Ronald Kennedy), and the colonial Minister of Education (Arthur Barnes, until he lost that office in 1924, then W.S. Monroe). The 1927 Education Act basically maintained this structure and embedded the college trustees within a new bureaucratic creation, the "Bureau of Education." From 1927 on it was this bureau, headed by the prime minister, which had

18 9

Governance

the mandate to "maintain worthily" the university college and the "normal or Teacher-Training School," appoint professors and other staff, and administer the grading of teachers, adult classes, night and summer schools and school libraries.1 The bureau held its first meeting on 5 November 1927. Besides Burke, Kennedy, Curtis, Blackall, and Monroe, it had five other members, chosen so as to maintain denominational representation and balance. Although officially the full bureau held power, the trustees apparently acted as an executive which met regularly and made decisions that were later rubber-stamped by the larger body. One has to say "apparently" because a full set of trustees' minutes is not available. The minutes of a dozen or so meetings, however, are scattered haphazardly among Hatcher's office files. They show that the trustees during the 1928-35 period had a businesslike approach; they certainly took decisions. Brian Dunfield - the most gifted Newfoundland public servant of his generation, also pressed into Memorial's service as an evening lecturer in economics, and eventually chief justice - nevertheless observed in 1935 that he found the governance of Memorial College chaotic. Since the inauguration of the Commission of Government, he said, the Bureau of Education no longer existed. In spite of this its executive, the Board of Trustees, carried on. The Carnegie Corporation was their chief source of funds. These benefactions were sent directly to Vincent Burke, who banked them himself.2 This rather casual way of running a college was rectified with the passage, on 27 November 1935, of "An Act for the Government of the Memorial University College." Its ten pages, twenty-eight sections and six annexes, testify to the new regime's thorough rationalization of a system which had been working well enough. "There shall be a Board to be called the Board of Governors of the Memorial University College, which shall be a body corporate, with power to sue and be sued and to hold, take and dispose of property of any kind ..."3 In December the new Commissioner for Home Affairs and Education, former Prime Minister Frederick Allderdice, recommended the membership which was duly gazetted on 7 January 1936. The members were: J. Boyd Baird, W.J. Browne, Dr. Vincent Burke, Lieutenant Colonel T. Burton, Raymond Gushue, Charles Hunt, Arthur Mews, Lieutenant Colonel W.F. Rendell, Alain Frecker, I.J. Samson, Lloyd Shaw (General Superintendent of Education [Deputy Minister], ex-officio). At the Board's first meeting on 11 January Burke was elected chairman, Mews secretary, and Browne vice-chairman, while Samson and Baird were the other two members of the five-person executive.

190 A Bridge Built Halfway

There was a good deal of continuity between the Board of Governors, 1936—1950, and the trustees of the previous decade. An inner committee of five still possessed the greatest influence. Curtis, Kennedy, and Blackall all retired around 1935. Succeeding superintendents inherited their position on the Board, and the mandate to keep Memorial on the track over the tricky trestles of denominationalism. Burke was of course the strongest link in the chain of continuity. Although removed from the deputy minister's position with the coming of the Commission of Government, he continued in the department as Director of Adult Education; he also continued to chair the group which moulded the future of an institution which he more than anyone had helped to bring into being.4 The others on the Board who were particularly familiar with Memorial were Frecker, a former engineering professor, and Lloyd Shaw, brought from the mainland to be the first professor of teacher training in 1934, but within a year translated upwards into Burke's old job. Raymond Gushue also appears in this list with his first important appointment at Memorial. A talented graduate of Dalhousie Law School practising at St John's, he was in the late 19308 a member of Dalhousie's governing board as well as of Memorial's.5 He appears again as one of the original regents in 1950 and, of course, as the new-broom president appointed, when Hatcher retired, sternly to shape the institution into a university. According to the terms of the 1935 act, new boards of governors took office every three years at New Year (1936, 1939, 1942, 1945, and 1948). Quite apart from the continued presence of Burke, there was a considerable degree of stability (both personal and organizational) that made for consistent policies during this latter phase of the college era. The chief directors of the four school systems, now including the Salvation Army, were always board members. In the 1939 reorganization the only new appointments to the Board were Fred Emerson and Herbert Pottle. The following year there was a proposal from the Old Memorials Association that a person they might nominate (not to be a staff member of the college) should be, by law, added to the Board. The Board agreed to recommend this to the Commission; then it seems to have been entirely forgotten.6 Again in 1942 the Board consisted mostly of the old guard (Burke, Shaw, Browne, Baird, Frecker, Samson, and Mews of the 1936 Board, plus Emerson and Pottle continuing). The executive consisted of Burke and Mews, still chairman and secretary; Newfoundland's Secretary for Education ex officio in accordance with the 1935 legislation; Browne and Emerson as elected members. Following the deaths of two board members, during 1943—44 Solomon Whiteway and Ralph

igi Governance Andrews — both former professors of teaching training at NormalMemorial -joined the Board.7 In 1945 the Board continued with eleven members. Frecker was now there ex officio as Secretary for Education. Burke was still in the chair. The four new members were the Salvation Army representative (Major W.C. Browne), the Reverend I.F. Curtis, J.W. Morris, and Wilfred Templeman, who had just gone into research full-time after an eight-year teaching stint at the college.8 Not until the first university Board of Regents was named in 1950 was there a definite break with the past. Of eleven regents named in 1950, only Frecker continued from the previous Board of Governors, while Gushue came back to the governing body after a ten-year absence. The other members were new.9 Up to that time, however, there had been strong continuity in the group that set college policy, best exemplified by the amazing administrative longevity of Vincent Burke. Members of the various boards of trustees and governors stayed very much in the background in the life of Memorial. Although particular ones might appear at an occasional assembly, to most students and many faculty they were practically unknown. Even their meetings were usually held off campus, more likely than not in whatever office Burke was occupying at the time. The frequency of board meetings tended to increase somewhat over time, rising to an annual average of sixteen - more in the winter than the summer half of the year - in the mid-19408.10 In 1947 the Board began developing its own secretariat by appointing Paul Winter as secretary. (He became bursar and comptroller at the same time.) He recalled that handling board business was not so easy then as it became later with the advent of photocopying: That was a very time consuming job, secretary of the Board ... That was before the days of these duplicators ... I worked overtime every weekend and [my secretaries] had to do exactly the same ... In the present time, the secretary of the Board would make a copy of the minutes and in a few minutes time would have copies for each of them. Not in those days — so I can picture now as secretary going around the table and passing out a copy of the minutes of the previous meeting, one copy to each two men. That would mean that the secretary had to duplicate those minutes six times ...11

It is possible that the administrative effort to control the college from above became more strenuous as time went on, and that it was appreciated less. During Hatcher's sabbatical, 1948-49, Mansfield reported to him in Vancouver. She was avoiding hostilities with Hunter, she said, they were both on their best behaviour. The faculty

192 A Bridge Built Halfway

was holding frequent meetings to discuss pensions and newly proposed terms of employment. "Red tape is growing longer and longer and less and less attractive. I pine for the good old days when the College, under the direction of its President, went its own sweet way and accomplished a great deal of good work with very little fuss or interference. It seems a pity that this Government, which is after all only a caretaker government, should try to poke its finger so frequently and so deeply into our pie."12 RELATIONSHIPS

In the delivery of higher education services in Newfoundland Memorial's Board was the interface between political authorities, who provided legitimacy and cash, and the college staff, who interacted with students. With regard to the first of these relationships - from the trustees/governors up to the regime that ruled Newfoundland - the Board always had its recommendations approved except in two respects, and those the most vital. Proposals for expensive building projects were routinely quashed, and requests for operating funds always reduced. These two features of the relationship became so familiar that it is perhaps not accurate to conclude that the Board was really restricted by them. Only on one occasion perhaps, towards the end of the college era, did the colonial authority use its power of the purse to meddle seriously in Memorial's affairs. The other relationship, from the trustees/governors down to president, faculty, and staff at MUG, was dynamic and much more fluid or changeable, depending upon the issues and personalities involved. Almost the only contact of the governing board with the college was through the president as official conduit. The relationship with president Paton was in mosost respects a happy one. The infant Board of Trustees was exhilarated - and rightly so - when in 1925 it secured one of the foremost English headmasters of that generation to head the new effort in St John's. Paton advised the Board on staffing, curriculum, fees, even landscaping, and admission standards. The Board was generally happy to adopt his advice on matters of policy and to leave in his hands the various details of college life and work. Their prize catch gave the trustees some difficulty, however, when he transformed advice given in private - but not quickly followed into a war of words in the public press. Paton possessed, besides a thrusting confidence born of full experience, also a reformer's zeal. As Hunter once observed, saints are notoriously hard to live with. Burke and company found they had a tiger by the tail, when they

193 Governance

introduced into Newfoundland educational circles this English hero of impeccable reputation - an all round teacher who did not doubt he knew what was best in every discipline, if not the details, then certainly the general approach and pedagogy. As far as is known, no controversy poisoned relations between Paton and the Board of Trustees more than the dispute over teaching standards in art. The initiative in fomenting a quarrel came from the president's side. During Paton's third summer school (1928) the Evening Telegram carried an interesting polemic, "How to Teach Art", in conjunction with the regular summer school notes. The art item is presented as "from a contributor", but it seems clear that Paton was the author. The article said that Memorial's summer school had taught art for three years, always paying no attention to the syllabus and examination standards laid down by the Council for Higher Education. One needs to keep in mind that the dominant members of the CHE were the same people who made up the college Board of Trustees. Probably in previous discussions they had refused to accept Paton's advice to modify the curriculum in art and turn away from the old approach. Here Paton appealed to the public as a greater expert. As regards "the prescribed syllabus and examination," he wrote, "Instead of educating a feeling for beauty, they strangle it ... We must make a start on new lines. That is what the Summer School sets itself to do, and in spite of stolid obstruction, will continue to do."13 An important part of Paton's campaign, probably planned over a full winter, was a summer school display of children's art (ages five to fourteen). Five days later the newspaper carried an invitation, again anonymous, for everyone interested to come and visit the summer school during a two-day at-home. Among various spectacles, "There will be an exhibition of children's art in England with a few samples of C.H.E. by way of contrast." The central notion in this controversy was that the official Newfoundland syllabus promoted mere rote copying and tracing of designs, whereas Paton sided with the progressives who encouraged school children to use art as a means of self-expression. Paton's employers replied to his charges as publicly as he had levelled them. Next week's Telegram carried an item from an (unnamed) Newfoundland educator, "Comments on C.H.E. resented." This piece attacked the summer school scribe on three grounds. First of all, the membership of the CHE should not have been called "pundits" - this term and others were "gratuitous insults." Secondly, the criticism of the prescribed art syllabus was expecting unreasonably high standards. Brighton, where the marvellous children's art originated, was a "compact municipality of 125,000," nearly

ig4 A Bridge Built Halfway

half the population of all Newfoundland. It was an art centre with schools that were well funded, highly organized, and "well graded ... everything needed is at hand and London is within easy reach ..." Thirdly, these summer school experts complained too much. The previous year the complaint was that navigation was not generally taught throughout the island, this year they picked on art. The criticism was not constructive, rather impudent. "Those who attend Summer School should not be influenced to despise the Council. Loyalty forbids ... I should like to suggest that Art should find expression not only through the fingers and tongue but in our lives and conduct."14 This accusation of unethical conduct did not make Paton give up his campaign to have the art syllabus reformed. It was presumably this quarrel with the CHE and the trustees which made Paton refer in private correspondence to the possibility that he might be fired. A woman friend in England, in a letter written at the end of winter (year not given, 1929?) says, "I cannot imagine anything more improbable than that you should be 'sacked', to quote your own word." Paton had apparently submitted his resignation in early March. Since all we have in the Paton correspondence is letters he received, no copies of his own messages, the point at issue must remain obscure. Soon his British correspondent was able to note with satisfaction that Paton would be staying at Memorial after all: "Unless the authorities are brainless, they must know when the right man is at the wheel." She thought the whole struggle a "stiff piece of work" and unconvincingly cast all the blame for it upon the Newfoundlanders. Their problem was that they were "not Britishers, any more than are Canadians, in their principles."15 Paton's running fight with the Board continued in the summer of 1929. Summer school, uplift for teachers, seemed to bring out his strongest reforming instincts, and he opposed tooth and nail some of the settled ways of doing things. In August he received a reprimand from one of the trustees. Blackall was perhaps selected to try belling this cat because, being English himself, less suspicion of intercultural animosity or bias could arise. "My heart aches to write this note," he began. Blackall had visited the summer school open house that Sunday. He thought the exhibition there well organized, but his happiness was shattered during Paton's remarks by a "deliberate jibe at the C.H.E." Paton wrote him an answer. As usual, we do not know what it was, but we know Blackall's reaction." Yr. letter is a declaration of war; you are undertaking a crusade against what you consider the sins of the C.H.E., and everyone - friend or foe - who seems to block yr. way is to be smitten. Is it not required of us that our means shall be as noble as our ends, think you?" The council had given in and

195 Governance changed the syllabus for art, Blackall wrote, so now each school could propose its own program and standards. Blackall criticized Paton for lack of tact both in struggle and triumph. "Innocent people don't like to have epithets of ridicule hurled at them, especially in public places, and even this friendly worm turns. I have had 3 or 4 unhappy days. I am now going to try to forget them. Yours as ever."16 So far as one can tell, the governing board handled itself very well in its quarrels with the president. They recognized a leader of great value in their famous Englishman and submitted the somewhat stodgy Newfoundland system to his reformist assaults, while not being misled by the irritation Paton could cause into terminating a relationship that was essentially beneficial. After 1933 Memorial's trustees/governors had a less brilliant, less difficult principal to contend with. Albert Hatcher, unlike Paton at the time of his appointment in 1925, was not spoiled by expectations of diffidence or the ingrained habit of command. He certainly seemed humbly grateful when, on 25 March 1933, he replied to the Board's written invitation of eleven days earlier to become the second president: [I] "wish to express (i) my regret at the prospect of his leaving us, (2) my sense of the great honour you do me in asking me to take his place, and (3) my acceptance ... I would attempt, to my capacity, to carry out your policies along the sound line laid down so truly by Mr. Paton ... Your obedient servant." In an attached memorandum, however, Hatcher showed that he had his own agenda. He needed a clear understanding on the relations between the college and Normal School — he forbore to observe that Paton had rather failed in this area, by permitting a certain lack of cordiality and co-operation to spring up between the two institutions. Hatcher feared "lack of efficiency under divided control." He also needed information on what responsibility the Department of Public Works had for care of the building.17 Hatcher and the governors began their long association with a quarrel over his salary. The Board's offer was that his $3,750 stipend as mathematics professor and vice-president would go to $4,000, although reduced by 10% for the duration of the depression. Hatcher countered by asking for $4,500, which was not agreed to. The following year the Board improved their proposal by offering Hatcher rentfree accommodation in the college-owned house that he occupied. He would still need to pay the fixed sum of $ 150 per year to Royal Trust, managers of the property, for taxes and upkeep. Hatcher preferred to have the higher salary of $4,500 and to pay the full annual rent for his residence. The matter simmered during 193435, and the following summer — two years after his initial appoint-

196 A Bridge Built Halfway

ment - the two parties were still exchanging notes about it. At the beginning of the 1935-36 academic year Hatcher received two and a half pages of legal advice from lawyer Raymond Gushue, whose letter of 11 September was his first intimate involvement in Memorial's affairs and foreshadowed his activities in the 19505. Gushue reviewed all of the Burke-Hatcher correspondence, recognized that his client had been paid at the $3,600 rate originally offered, but tortured the facts until he found that the trustees had de facto accepted Hatcher's $4,500 request ($4,500 less 10% equals $4,050, less value of house $450 equals $3,600). But he pulled this house value of $450 out of thin air and it is not even easily divisible by twelve. The flimsily supported conclusion was: "The offer made by you at the time of your appointment has been accepted and you have been carrying on under the terms agreed upon ever since." Reviewed dispassionately a half-century later, this seems an unedifying dispute pursued beyond stubbornness into the realm of stupidity, and not to the new president's credit.18 This first disagreement between Board and president soon flowered into the incredible saga of Hatcher and his house. This story begins in 1928. Paton had a pair of adjoining residences built about five minutes walk from the college. The substantial but unpretentious duplex was at 8-10 Newtown Road (later renumbered 44-46). Paton and his sister lived at number 46, and the Hatchers - Albert, Emma, and young Charles, eleven at the time — moved into number 44, paying rent to Paton. On leaving St John's, Paton generously gave the two houses to the college, which turned them over to Royal Trust to manage. A fisheries research scientist moved in where the Patons had lived. When he prepared to move out again in the summer of 1937, Hatcher offered the property to Reginald Harling, Memorial physics professor, returning from sabbatical leave in California. Royal Trust, however, accepted a bid from a family named Wilson. It seems that the Hatchers, particularly Mrs Hatcher, did not relish the prospect of the four young Wilson children noisily romping about beyond the thin wall which separated the two houses and tearing up their half of the backyard. Hatcher appealed to the Board of Governors to prevent that lease. "I may be forced to leave a property which I have occupied and considerably improved for nearly 9 years." While officially regretting that Hatcher was inconvenienced in his residence, the Board declined to interfere with management decisions made by Royal Trust. Unbelievably, at the end of August 1937 the president's family could be seen moving from 44 Newtown Road with all their baggage and a burden of resentment, too, slamming behind them

197 Governance

the screen door which was one of the improvements they had made to the property.19 Hatcher's inability to arrange this matter to his own convenience suggests a limit to the amount of influence he had with the governors at this period. During the next few years Hatcher had several home addresses and provided no model of domestic stability for any student who may have tried to keep track of where he lived. The Hatchers were first at 106 LeMarchant Road, then on Forest Road. In early 1942 Hatcher requested the Board to provide him with a residence by renting 12 Bonaventure Avenue ($100 monthly). Once again the Board was unaccommodating. The same request the following spring met with a similar rebuff.20 Meanwhile the Hatchers had passed their most peripatetic year yet. They stayed for a time with the president's brother Charles on Spencer Street near the college. Over the winter they boarded with the Lovett-Janisons at 34 Bonaventure Avenue. In the spring Hatcher gave one month's written notice to break this arrangement. Coming as it did neither at the end nor the middle of a month - notice was given on 13 March for room and board to terminate 13 April - this suggests a quarrel, which is easy enough to imagine when two families shared common facilities, especially the kitchen.21 In April the Hatchers were at 66 Cochrane Street for a few days, then moved to their most elite address yet, the government-owned Newfoundland Hotel. The president pulled strings with the Board of Governors to be permitted to prolong his stay there until the end of the college year. A board member undertook to have the Commissioner for Education arrange it.22 So the Board was helpful on this occasion, but what did they think of their chief officer whose domestic affairs were in such disarray? Mercifully perhaps, they did not say. Meanwhile, Hatcher wrote to Royal Trust, asking to be informed should either 44 or 46 Newtown Road become vacant. When familiar old number 44 indeed became available on i June, before Hatcher was prepared to take it, the Royal Trust/Board combination for once made things easy for him, and he was permitted to lease the property starting 15 July. The Hatchers spent that summer in Wolfville, Nova Scotia. Faithful Sandy Cook, the college caretaker, undertook to do some cleaning and painting and to move things in for the president. Thus the Hatchers entered another decade of residence back at the same old stand. Perhaps the Wilsons no longer conducted their noisy lives - presumably much worse in anticipation than reality - on the other side of that thin partition; perhaps the children had just grown

ig8 A Bridge Built Halfway

up. At any rate, there were no further complaints from the president's family back in the president's old residence, no complaints from their side that is. Going over college accounts in 1947, the Newfoundland Government auditor noted that at mid-winter Hatcher, "tenant in one section of the double dwelling comprising the J.L. Paton Donation," owed rent arrears of $720.23 Although Hatcher's difficulties on the home front probably undermined somewhat his standing with successive boards who found themselves saying no to these personal requests, it is nevertheless quite clear from the records that they depended upon his advice on all important matters of college administration and development. Innovations in teacher training, the absorption of education into the mainstream of the college curriculum, reactions to World War n, plans for a new wing and for residence facilities, and important personnel decisions (the teacher-training post always excepted) were routinely made by the Board on the president's advice. One informant understood that when the Board delayed adopting a sick leave plan sorely needed by the asthmatic chemistry professor, Fred Maddock, Hatcher marched into a meeting at which he wanted the matter settled generously, with his resignation in his pocket. The one person interviewed who was present at the meeting, however, recalls no such threat.24 Perhaps the president did not need to use it. Any one of Hatcher's well-organized annual reports will illustrate the wide range of advice which he gave from his lengthy years of experience and involvement, advice which the Board then followed as well as the Commission of Government's financial apron strings would permit. His third report, typical of many, shows how farsighted were his concerns, when his attention was elevated from daily administrative matters to the longer prospect. This 2,2oo-word submission (1936), after recording the year's developments, closed with a list of the principal needs: improvements to the building and grounds; equipment, particularly a grand piano; program development in art; a publicity fund; a college radio station; a hostel for outport students (a perennial recommendation); special lectures for the public; and one year of nonacademic study for adults.25 It seems that the governors trusted and relied on Hatcher as a college administrator. If they had found him wanting in any important respect, surely he would not have been president of Memorial, college and university, for nineteen years. They sometimes felt, however, that they had to provide direction to him. They resolved in January 1936 to tell the president to close the college on Tuesday, the 28th, as a mark of respect for the late king.26 A less meddlesome (or less loyal) Board would have allowed him to think of it for himself.

199 Governance

From September 1946 the president's salary range was set at $4,000$5,500, with Hatcher at the penultimate level ($5,100) on that scale. This was combined with a sweat-shop schedule - "said salary was to include all bonuses, and extra payments for lectures and the supervision of the summer school." He was to be paid on a twelve-month basis with one month's vacation.27 Discipline was again enforced in June 1948, as Hatcher prepared to leave St John's on a long delayed sabbatical year. When Burke learned that the vice-president also planned to be out of town, spending the summer in Conception Bay, he wrote to Hatcher to say that he should either arrange for Hunter to stay in town for the summer, or himself postpone the sabbatical until September.28 Although Hatcher sometimes won his skirmishes with the Board, he certainly learned how to take no for an answer in the requests he submitted over the years. He was perhaps listened to less attentively than his predecessor had been; he was less exotic, therefore less respected, and he had domestic difficulties. It was on the whole again a beneficial relationship on both sides, whereby the Board had less reason than before to fear that their servant would upstage, defy, or condemn them in public. How refreshing and relaxing, from the Board's view, to have a president who really meant it when (schooled in naval etiquette) he ended most of his official letters, "I have the honour to be, the Board's obedient servant."29 The link with the president, prima donna or dutiful, was usually the only means of communication between the governing body and the college. In 1938 the Board took the decision to create a faculty council: the president, vice-president, heads of departments, registrar, librarian, and other such faculty members as might be appointed from time to time. A combination of senate and faculty association, this body thereafter played an insignificant role in the governance of Memorial. It submitted program modifications, on which everyone was agreed, and several detailed plans for physical expansion or the acquisition of residence facilities, which were ignored because of costs. In the long-term history of the institution, however, the secretary of this organ ("Secretary of Faculty") emerges as a potential speaker or representative of the generality of instructors. Tall, courtly Allan Gillingham — who had inherited Paton's teaching schedule in classics and German - was the first secretary of faculty. When he headed a subcommittee which, backed by the president, "interviewed" the Board on the need for higher salaries, the results were apparently inconsequential yet suggestive of another relationship, namely, of the bargaining system which was to develop thirty years later when the faculty was much larger.30

200 A Bridge Built Halfway FINANCES

The most important matter with which the trustees/governors grappled was the financing of the college. From the beginning Memorial was a public institution, operated as part of the regime's Department of Education. This made it unlike privately-owned universities in the Maritimes, while it shared certain features with "land-grant" universities in the United States and with provincially-operated universities in western Canada. This is probably why - after Newfoundland joined Canada and a blueprint for university expansion was desired - a model and expert advice (the Newton report) was sought at the University of Alberta rather than among more traditional academic partners such as Dalhousie University. Memorial's first governors had the problem that, although the college was publicly directed, Newfoundland political authorities were slow to accept the full financial implications. Table 21 shows the Newfoundland government's spending on postsecondary teaching through the 19208, 19308, and 19408. The total annual spending of $17,000 in the late 19205 shrank to nothing in 1933. Only in 1937 sixteen years after Normal School opened, twelve years after Memorial - did the colonial government begin to vote a grant which provided the major part of the college's revenue needs. The amount remained modest, rising from $47,000 in 1938-39 to $60,000$70,000 ten years later. An important question arises: If at first the Newfoundland government did not take the chief financial responsibility for the young institution, then who did? Appendix 11 shows revenue and expenditure figures for several years scattered through the period; the total cash flow rises from around $50,000 in 1929 to $135,000 in 1948. Studying the revenue side we see (table 22) that within a few years of Memorial's establishment funds from the Carnegie Corporation represented a greater proportion of college finances than did support from government. Carnegie records show that in the years 1924-38 a total of us $293,000 was given to assist the Newfoundland junior college. Twelve percent of these funds were for special purposes, such as the scholarship fund, library, and art; the bulk came in general operating grants which rose from $15,000 per year in the mid-19208, to $20,000 and then $25,000 annually, as the collapse of Newfoundland public finance undercut government support.31 The worst years were 1932 and 1933. When the 1932 budget had to be severely cut, Burke as Deputy Minister presided over the crippling of schools in Newfoundland. Normal School would close permanently at Christmas, he wrote

Table 21 Newfoundland Government's Financial Commitment to Postsecondary Institutions, 1922-49 (in thousands of dollars) Fiscal yr. beginning:

1922

1923

1924

1925

1926

1927

1928

1929

1930

1931

1932

1933

1934

1935

Dept. Ed. total MUC Conversion to univ. Normal School Summer School(s) Dalhousie Univ. Total post-sec. % of Dept. Ed.

837

840

836

878 10

893 10

924 10

932 10

987 10

1025 10

761 6

509 nil

518 nil

717 5

956 5

8 2

8 —

7 —

7 —

7 —

7 1

7 —

7 —

7 —

6 —

2 —

nil —

—

— 5

10 .01

8 .01

7 .01

17 .02

17 .02

18 .02

17 .02

17 .02

17 .02

12 .02

2

0 0

5 .01

10 .01

Fiscal yr. beginning:

1936

1937

1938

1939

1940

1941

1942

1943

1944

1945

1946

1947

1948

1949

Dept. Ed. total MUC Conversion to univ. Normal School Summer School(s) Dalhousie Univ. Total post-sec. % of Dept. Ed.

1057 5

1126 32

1284 38

1454 38

1532 38

1663 38

1895 42

2371 42

2966 30

3310 38

3538 46

3663 65

4116 60

4442 70 2Q

5

7

8

9

9

9

9

10 .01

39 .03

46 .04

47 .03

47 .03

47 .03

51 .03

9 5 56 .02

13 5 48 .02

15 5 58 .02

15 5 66 .02

5 70 .02

10 70 .02

10 109 .02

Source: Warren, 48. Department of Education, annual Reports

202 A Bridge Built Halfway Table 22

Percentage of Memorial College Revenue from Principal Sources Source

1925

Nfld. Government (Depts of Education and Public Works) 53 Carnegie Corporation 39 Tuition Fees 8

1929

1932

1936

46 40 14

12 67 17

27 47 26

to the Prime Minister, and "The vote for the MUG under these proposals, is entirely eliminated. The College authorities desire to endeavour to carry on without the Legislative vote until conditions improve depending on the Carnegie Foundation subsidy and the students fees — by reducing somewhat the operations of the institution and by inviting the staff to accept some reduction of salary." "I think we shall be able to manage it somehow," wrote Hatcher.32 In the whole financial history of Memorial to 1990 there was no more worrisome crisis than the complete loss of the Department of Education operating grant in the early 19305. A more optimistic development around the same time saw Memorial begin to attract significant gifts from its friends. By 1935 there were three trust funds: one consisting of $10,000 which Paton had collected from various sources, the interest devoted to scholarships and loans; a Carnegie gift of $7,500 for grants to deserving students; and $2,500 left by Dr Francis Bruton for summer school scholarships. In addition, there was Paton's duplex on Newtown Road which he had given to the college when he returned to England and from which an annual income of $500 was expected.33 The emergency began in 1931 and persisted for six full years. With Carnegie's stepped-up support due to end in 1937, the Board in the spring of 1936 decided to send Burke to New York to make a plea for continued support directly to Dr F.P. Keppel, president of the philanthropic organization. Burke was back by 21 April, reporting that he had found Carnegie headquarters quite sympathetic. As well as discussing Memorial's financial plight, he had explored the possibility that Newfoundland college staff might participate in the Carnegie teachers' annuity scheme. While awaiting the result of this application, the governors warned Hatcher that with Carnegie support due to cease at the end of June, times worse than any yet could be approaching. A reduction of staff, or salaries, or both, might well become necessary.34 The decision in New York was to provide sustaining funds to Memorial for one final year. The powerful philanthropic corporation then entered into diplomatic negotiations with the governments of

203 Governance

Great Britain and Newfoundland, encouraging colonial authorities to take over financial responsibility for the college. Keppel, planning a trip to England for a congress of empire universities, asked the Dominions Office whether the Commission of Government could take over services financed in Newfoundland by the Carnegie Corporation. "The question at issue is the financial backing of the Memorial University College which has been dependent since its foundation on the Carnegie Corporation" — which perhaps put the matter too strongly, but not by much. P.A. Clutterbuck, infamous in recent historical writings as largely responsible on the British side for edging Newfoundland into confederation, was asked to determine what these services were. His findings presented details of Carnegie's generosity since 1924 and concluded that since the worst of the depression had lifted, "The Newfoundland Government has made itself responsible for adult education and has resumed a share of the cost of the Newfoundland Memorial College. It is presumably the Carnegie Corporation contribution to this that they would like the Government to take over."35 By February 1937 it was all arranged. Carnegie's large subvention that year was its last, it being "understood that in future the maintenance and operation of the College will be undertaken by the Government and no future demands made upon the corporation in that connection."36 From this time on funds at the college could not be expended as freely as they had previously been. Carnegie's diplomatic initiative encouraged London to be looking over the shoulders of the Commission of Government, as they supervised Memorial's governing body looking over the shoulders of the president and staff. For example, there was a flurry of transatlantic telegrams in May 1938: the Newfoundland Governor asked the Dominions Office to approve a supplementary vote of $2,000 for the college; London replied "should be grateful for information as to cause" of excess spending; the Governor provided details of problems which had accumulated, i.e., proceeds from fees had been overestimated, Organ's leave necessitated a staff replacement, a cushioning balance of Carnegie funds was now fully spent, similar bad planning will be avoided in future, etc.37 From 1937 on, then, when colonial authorities accepted financial responsibility - by boosting the Department of Education vote for the junior college by 300% in one year — they exercised more restraining influence and more control over what the Parade Street scholars were doing. Now the Board, backing the college, had to be more cunning and inventive in its financial management. The faculty desired a pension plan; the Board was supportive; but the Commissioner of Finance wrote that no such plan could be implemented without an

204 A Bridge Built Halfway

increased government grant. Burke, ever the builder, undertook to explain to the Commissioner how it could be done within the regular annual allotment (in the early 19405) of $47,000.s8 Two years later a proposed annuity scheme was still being discussed. H.A. Winter, the Commissioner for Education, was willing to consider a $10,000 budget increase for this and other purposes. But the Commissioner of Finance, Ira Wild, insisted that total spending (including $4,000 for a pension scheme following Burke's careful plan for siphoning off funds from other purposes) would have to stay under the same ceiling as the previous year, $51,000. A subcommittee was named to revise all of the college's financial plans, bring the total down to that limit, and report in four days.39 It was apparently this exercise which encouraged the Board of Governors to try in the spring of 1943 to define the financial relationship between college and commission. Winter joined the board when they considered the question: What was meant by treasury control in relation to Memorial's budget estimates? "When a certain sum under a properly prepared estimate of requirements had been submitted to, and approved by the treasury, and the Board proceeded to spend the money, did the treasury have the power, where the expenditure did not exceed the total sum approved, to interfere with the educational operation of the institution?" With no vote taken, the Board expressed its opinion that treasury control meant that the commission could interfere only in cases of over-expenditure of the sums approved.40 The forecast scenario, over-expenditures bringing increased surveillance, was not long in developing. By the spring of 1947 there was a sheaf of unpaid bills totalling over $14,000 - quite a backlog, equal to about one-third of the annual colonial grant for the college. Stewart Godfrey, the recently appointed bursar, "advised the Secretary that he had been unable to clear up these outstanding bills chiefly because of insufficient funds at the Bank; for months past it had been a choice of either paying the bills (or) meeting the monthly payroll." How had this unfortunate turn of affairs come about? There were two contrasting explanations. Some of Memorial's critics in Commission of Government circles thought that the college administration was entirely too lackadaisical. Memorial's champions, however, understood the situation in its historical context. The trouble really began in the fiscal year 1944—45. At that time, through careful management and in order to accumulate funds for the eventual introduction of a pension plan, a surplus of $10,870 had been built up. This was fine until the Commission of Government, noticing the healthy balance, reduced the 1944 vote to $30,000 from the previous year's $42,000. This disastrous reduction, "because of a

205 Governance

temporary surplus, had been a crippling handicap ... Lack of sufficient funds in subsequent years had carried over from year to year culminating in the well nigh impossible position three years later."41 The Board's 1947 budget request was $59,000 (significantly up from $46,000) plus $14,338 to clean up old debts going back to the spring of 1946. By June the Government had countered: the regular grant could probably rise to $50,000 and the additional sum to clear the books could be provided on condition that tuition fees were raised by one-third, from $75 to $100. The best articulated and most evenly divided debate that the old Board of Governors ever held then followed. Arguments against raising the fees included the observations that calendars and application forms with the $75 information were already printed and distributed, and that some students — assessed for special fees as well as regular tuition - already paid $120 per year. Curtis said he was opposed to any increase while Memorial remained merely a college. It was moved (Frecker-Templeman) to accept the government's offer under protest. The vote of members present was 3-3. Emerson, who had left the meeting, was reached by telephone. He voted no. The matter was tabled for further consideration.42 In early summer the Board had to face up to the superior authority of the colonial government. The commissioners of finance and home affairs/education were named to consider certain aspects of Memorial's administration. One idea they discussed, but did not officially put forward, was that new enrolments should be limited to a level which could be financed from the additional fees they brought. They had the good sense, or political acumen, not to insist upon this proposal, the implementation of which "would involve turning down students and risking debarring them from higher education. It is felt that such action would be open to serious criticism." The suggestions which were passed on to the Board of Governors - "instructions" might almost be the word - were far-reaching enough. "Commission must insist, as a condition of continuance of Government grants, that procedures set up by the Board to avoid financial commitments being made in excess of financial resources will be strictly adhered to." For 1947-48, in addition to a regular grant of $50,000, special assistance of an additional $14,500 was offered subject to the approval of the Commonwealth Relations Office in London, and the following conditions: students' fees must increase from $75 to $ i oo per year after one year's notice, to take effect in the fall of 1948 the board must devise economies that would scale down their spending budget for 1947-48 by $9,000 to the $50,000 voted the $14,500 was for one year only, not to be reflected in future estimates

2o6 A Bridge Built Halfway the regular staff of the college should be on duty for the annual summer school, the administrative work of the college being henceforth organized on a twelve-month basis.43

On 12 August the Board of Governors "reluctantly accepted and approved" these conditions. Students could always be expected to absorb huge fee increases with little effective protest, but what about getting the college staff to work through summer school without the extra payments to which they had been accustomed? The usually equable Miss Mansfield did not appreciate the communication she received from the college board. "If it is proposed to increase my work by one fifth," she wrote the president, "without a corresponding increase in salary, I beg to protest strongly."44 Let her protest indeed. As table 21 shows, while the sustaining Department of Education grant rose by 23% from $46,000 two years earlier to $60,000 in fiscal 1948-49, the previous year's special assistance was not repeated and a separate vote for the summer school had been eliminated. Besides the potential, finally realized, for serious government affront to college autonomy through financial controls, two other indications emerge from a study of Memorial's funding in its first quarter-century. One is, of course, growth. By 1949, government support for the academic operation had increased by six times (in constant 1925 dollars about four times) from the niggardly $17,000 supplied in 1925. The college cash flow increased by a factor of four. In the transition year from college to university (1949-50) payroll costs were $76,000 plus an additional $6,400 for summer school. A somewhat informal bookstore operated by the registrar and the bursar was handling 150 different texts and other items for resale. The sales volume of $3,300 in 1944 grew to $5,000 in 1949. The college annually ordered another $20,000 worth of supplies and equipment from up to forty different firms, not including orders for the library. The bursar, backed up since 1947 by an assistant bursar and a confidential clerk, operated fifty-three general revenue and expense accounts and forty-two outstanding loan accounts totalling $10,400, while also holding trust funds totalling $65,ooo.45 The principal finding is what an economical, even parsimonious, operation it was during that first quarter-century. The government permitted the Carnegie Corporation to carry the main burden of financing the college for as long as decency permitted, and even a few years beyond that. The collapse into colonial bankruptcy in the early 19305 forced the government to cancel for a time even the pittance it had been contributing to operating expenses. Only from

207 Governance

1937 on was the Newfoundland college at last financed by Newfoundland funds. For several years after 1941 foreign military activity made Newfoundland prosperous. Unemployment disappeared for a while, and the government debt was retired, while revenues soared to 150% of expenditures.46 One notes now how careful the undemocratic Commission of Government had been not to squander or even spend the surplus wealth of the country which accumulated throughout the 19408. Although Memorial and other enterprises could have been fostered much more generously, the commission continued its hardnosed attitude, by reducing the colonial grant in order to force the college to spend its savings in 1944 and forcing Memorial to absorb the summer school within the scope of regular operations as its price for retiring the debts accumulated up to 1947-48. The policy of investing generously in postsecondary education came with the first provincial government after confederation, not before. Prior to 1949 Memorial was always made to skimp and scrape along. In 1936 the Board of Governors received a request for $500 for library books. Impossible.47 In 1940 they agreed on the importance of establishing an extension department but of course the Newfoundland Government would not provide the $10,000-$ 15,000 of additional funds needed. This important initiative had to be postponed for fifteen years.48 The Board sometimes battled for more resources; at other times it followed the government's cue in keeping purse strings taut. In 1947, the year of bad debts, Whiteway offered the unfriendly observation that the college could operate with two fewer professors; and the Board — while it recognized the scientific value of the proposal - was unable to approve the president's request for a mere $150 for a summertime collection of botanical specimens.49 One of the professors from that period recalled how little support there was for her instructional activities. "We had very little office space ...just a desk in a room". Did the college give her the help she needed in getting things duplicated, correspondence, postage, typing assistance? "No assistance of any kind at that time. I don't know if we even had a duplicator."50 STATUS The last great policy issue — not part of day-to-day administration — with which Memorial's governors grappled was the question of full degree-granting status. The institution started in 1925 as a classic compromise - "university college" was British nomenclature, but the

208 A Bridge Built Halfway

program was that of an American junior college, a stepping-stone between secondary school and senior undergraduate years. The early 19308 saw some steps taken towards achieving greater stature, with third-year courses in some of the core subjects. Through the 19405 there was recurrent interest in the subject; numerous plans were put forward and even approved; and legislation was drafted. It was decided to raise Memorial to university status, carrying the other city colleges with it. Another false start. Basically, the unpopular and weakly-based Commission of Government was reluctant to make the financial commitment or any binding commitment for the future. The return of democracy in the national convention showed that public opinion strongly favoured what timid government withheld. The first major decision in the new Newfoundland after April 1949, was the raising of Memorial to the rank of a degree-granting institution. At the start, Memorial junior college was not a frustrated university. Kennedy, Curtis, Blackall, and the other planners recognized that fortune had favoured them in permitting the organization of even so modest an institute. Students were retained past second year for the first time in 1931-32, capping the development of an engineering diploma program which exactly mirrored that at a half-dozen maritime universities. The following year Paton organized courses beyond the usual second-year offerings in an impressive array of subjects: mathematics, English, history, classics, German, biology, economics. At the meeting of the Carnegie advisory committee that fall (in Dalhousie University Library) Burke explained the reason. It was because the great depression, shrinking Newfoundland incomes, had put it beyond the usual capacity of Memorial's graduates to go on to the mainland to finish their degrees. He then asked if the maritime universities would extend the existing affiliations by admitting into their senior year Memorial students who did well in five such thirdyear courses. Cross-examined by Dalhousie's president, Burke admitted that the Carnegie Corporation did not favour this departure from the junior college idea. Acadia's representative made some reassuring statements. Mount Allison pointed out that it would be difficult to arrange honours degrees, and doubted that Newfoundlanders thus prepared could qualify for the degree in just one additional year of study. Still anxious to accommodate Newfoundland, the assembled university leaders concluded by assuring Burke "that students would be given credit for the courses taken in so far as they corresponded with courses in the individual University. The matter of the granting of a degree was left open."51

2og Governance

It may have been that dose of discouragement which prompted Hatcher three years later to place an item concerning the theory of junior colleges on the advisory committee agenda. Memorial's president led off an inconclusive discussion with a prepared statement on three possible approaches: the junior college could be seen as a complete instrument for cultural uplift, an end in itself; it could form a link between school and degree-level studies; it could be a seed intended later to grow into a full university. By now it seemed obvious that the third option was where the Newfoundland experiment was heading. Hatcher said that this kind of junior college was the most difficult to regulate and plan for.52 Should Memorial give a full degree, he asked in his annual report three years later. Until it did, Newfoundland remained more backward in higher education than Tasmania. He would welcome the elevation and status, if three conditions were met: popular demand for it should be insistent; Memorial's degree should equal in value or surpass those of other institutions; and the change should be made only "if some compensation can be found for the wider experience now enjoyed by those of our graduates who proceed abroad."53 Two years later he put the question to faculty council. If Memorial were to offer a complete undergraduate program, what new courses need be devised, what additional space, teachers, etc., found? Replies came in from several faculty members, some quite detailed. Allan Gillingham, a graduate of McGill and Oxford, foresaw a cultural loss for the students: A student granted a degree by the M.U.C. would not have entered into living contact with the civilization of more progressive and advanced countries ... When I look back at the last two years of my own undergraduate days, I remember how vivid was the impression of the St. Lawrence River, and of Montreal and other Canadian cities on one who had never been outside the Narrows. Travel abroad and contact with another civilization seems to me essential to the educated man. Against that... [a Newfoundland university would] retain within the country a greater number of better educated graduates.54

From the second year of the war, when world tragedy made Newfoundland richer, the question of Memorial's status was usually the subject of agitated discussion. In 1941, 1944,1945, and 1946 separate initiatives were taken towards university status. All came to nothing. The Board of Governors showed consistent, strong leadership in seeking the advance they wanted. A resolution of 5 December 1941 named a subcommittee to interview the Commissioner of Education

2io A Bridge Built Halfway

and discover whether the government had a policy concerning the possibility of Memorial's becoming a degree-granting institution and, if so, when? No very definite answer was forthcoming. Two years later Burke initiated a board discussion of full university status. The consensus was that a great deal needed doing first. A committee was appointed "to take up this matter definitely, giving attention to all details which should be considered." Having consulted with Hatcher, Hunter, and the Commissioner for Education, the committee reported favourably. It was then decided formally to request the Commission to grant a university charter enabling Memorial "to confer such literary honours, degrees and diplomas as are usually granted by universities, and to work out a definite policy for integrating and promoting general and higher education in Newfoundland."55 The Board met enthusiastically that same week with the president, vice-president, and faculty council at the college. Burke gave a historical lecture on this occasion which he obviously expected would become historic itself. It recapitulated part of this work's first chapter. He said that the 1893 creation of the Council of Higher Education was the first step towards a University of Newfoundland. In 1913 through the joint efforts of various church boards of examiners, Newfoundland's senior associate examination (senior matriculation) was accepted by Canadian universities as equivalent to their first year arts. Then came the satisfaction and successes of the 19205, etc. It seemed that they would have their island university before victory in Europe. In April the education commissioner (H.A. Winter) strongly supported the proposal. The legal requirement, a charter, was very simple. The president estimated additional faculty costs at $9,000 after three to four years. A new wing on the building, at a cost of $300,000, was needed with or without the new status, and would in any case be included in Newfoundland's reconstruction program. Having a university would give a much needed boost to the supply of teachers in the country. "The existing system of summer schools is an unsatisfactory expedient necessitated largely by the lack of sufficient accommodation at the college itself." Also, practically no recruits to the teaching profession were being drawn from Newfoundland's largest and best schools in Corner Brook, Grand Falls, and St John's. The well-skilled urban young were simply not attracted into teaching - a university could help change that situation. University studies would become cheaper and more available for everyone. The sparse population in Newfoundland should not be used as an argument against a university. Nova Scotia had seven universities for one-half

211

Governance

million people; New Brunswick had three. "We have one half-university. To ask for the other half can hardly be called unduly ambitious ... In my opinion - which I know many share - the Memorial College is out of place in the picture. It is neither fish, fowl nor good red herring. It goes too far or does not go far enough." In their anxiety to attract sufficient numbers to Memorial, Winter thought, its sponsors had set the age limit for entrance and the educational standard too low. The result robbed the St John's colleges of their sixth forms and reduced them to the level of high schools. Furthermore, Memorial seemed to have existed too much apart from them and from the whole community, when there should be close association and continuity. Instead of surmounting and crowning the whole educational edifice, Memorial had been added as a higher, rather incongruous wing. There was now an opportunity to reshape the secondary-postsecondary structure into a harmonious whole.56 Before April was over the commission had approved the university proposal in principle, "subject to further examination of the scheme as a whole and of the financial implications." The "scheme as a whole" was illuminated in a five-page memorandum by Winter in June. His discussions with Hatcher, Burke, other governors, and members of the Council of Education revealed two contrasting views on the fate of the college. Some thought MUG should preserve its identity and become one of several colleges (along with Saint Bonaventure's, Prince of Wales, etc.) affiliated with the new University of Newfoundland. Others thought that Memorial should itself become the university. "M.U.C. would cease to exist in its present form and functions ... This view is more in line with the original idea of the founders." Hatcher had six degree programs in mind: B A, B A with education or library science; BSC, BSC with engineering or household science. Twenty subjects over four years was the plan, the Canadian norm. They looked forward to future degrees in nursing and pharmacy.57 The commission requested more precise financial estimates. Winter supplied these at the end of July. His earlier estimates now seemed a little low. Capital outlay for a new wing was about $350,000, equally necessary for the junior college or a university. Up to $200,000 should be allowed if residence accommodation was to be acquired. "I do not regard this as essential, and up to now these visitors seemed to have found accommodation without much trouble; but it may make for greater efficiency to have them under one or two roofs, as is done in most Canadian universities." Annually recurring costs for expansion to a university came to about $110,000. This included $10,000 for additional faculty members; $20,000 for scholarships; and an addi-

212 A Bridge Built Halfway

tional $30,000 expenditure in the grants made to pupil teachers (assuming that the university would accommodate on average 320 such students). If the St John's church colleges were to be affiliated for the teaching of first-year courses, their additional costs for staff and equipment would come to $50,000. "If this seems high, I would reply that in my opinion nothing better could be done for higher education in Newfoundland than to restore the colleges to their old status or beyond - to the level of the English senior school leaving certificate. This is something to be desired apart altogether from the university question."58 A dispatch to Britain sought approval in principle for a "national university,"59 while Newfoundland leaders began to have second thoughts. The debate droned on. In February the Board of Governors sought to dislodge the jam by a resolution demanding (respectfully) full status at once. The new Commissioner for Education, AJ. Walsh, sent down some suggestions on how it could be done. Additional space was not strictly necessary. Using facilities already available in the city colleges and by exploiting the idea of affiliation, this was the way to go. All the institutions, Memorial included, could hope for perhaps $ 10,000 extra annual funding for modest expansion and improvement. He asked the Board "for a definite plan to raise status of the M.U.C. with provision for including the city colleges."60 Next, Burke got busy and by the middle of April, after studying a new University of Alberta charter, drafted an "act respecting the University of Newfoundland." The dropping of "Memorial" from the name reflected the wartime resurgence of support for the church colleges and therefore for the idea of affiliation. This act, which was never passed, provided governance through a Board of Regents, Senate, and Convocation. There would be no compulsory religious tests and nothing would be done to "render it necessary or advisable, with a view to academical success or distinction, that any person should pursue the study of any materialistic or skeptical system of logic or mental or moral philosophy."61 Burke's document dropped into the limbo of laws never passed, although Commissioner Walsh did his part to keep up the pressure. When commemoration of Newfoundland's war effort was being discussed that fall, he submitted: "It is likely that this matter will arise from time to time and I wish to suggest that commissioners may keep in mind in this connection that the Memorial University College was erected as a Memorial following World War i. A new wing may be considered a fitting Memorial which can be of service to the whole country particularly if the status of the college is raised to that of a university."62 In February 1946 Burke was instructed to meet with

2ig Governance Hatcher, Hunter, and the professor of education to start on a definite plan of expansion, yet another one, but presumably more definite than the previous efforts. Burke passed on his ideas about the way Memorials should function when it began granting degrees. It then must widen its scope to include extension work, sharing benefits "in a real way" with communities away from St John's. New subjects needed development- philosophy, commerce - and teacher training, as of old, must be given high priority. "It is through the Teacher that the influence of the University will be most directly radiated throughout the land."63 The Commissioner for Education brought the matter back to the Commission of Government for consideration in June. The 1944 dispatch to the Secretary of State, seeking approval in principle, had never been answered. He now had in hand the most detailed set of plans yet - covering new courses, additions to staff and equipment, etc. - prepared by the college faculty. Aside from adding an extension to the building, the capital outlay for an increase in status would be about $32,000. By the fifth year of university operation the increase in recurring expenditures would reach $40,000, one-third of which would be offset by an increase in income from tuition fees. The number of students would go from 350 to 500, reflecting "moderately prosperous circumstances in this country"; the Board of Governors had agreed to a steep fee increase to $125 per student, designating one-fifth of the new fee for a greatly enlarged bursary fund. He urged a quick decision in favour of the proposal, immediate provision of $50,000 for the services of an architect, and a beginning of construction in the spring of 1Q47.64 It was this memorandum which brought matters to a head and finally wrung from the government a decision not to proceed with the university project. The recurrent costs seemed the greatest drawback. Walsh was back later in the summer, reminding the commission that a decision on enlarging the building had not been taken. The long term (reconstruction) plan provided $600,000 for this purpose. President Hatcher had informed Walsh that Memorial would be unable to accept students in excess of the 365 in attendance in 1945-46. The largest summer school yet was currently in session - 530 students and it had been found necessary to rent an elementary school to accommodate the overflow. Once again he recommended the familiar $50,000 for the preparation of plans and other preliminary work, perhaps thinking in the back of his mind that once the Parade Street building had its eastern extension, little time would elapse before a proper university was installed there.65 Setbacks resulting from financial timidity did not make the univer-

214 A Bridge Built Halfway

sity idea go away. The Memorial governors' finance committee, while fighting to prevent a paring down of their budget request in March 1947, also determined to make a further attempt at achieving full university status. That very year - the 4501)1 anniversary of Cabot's discovery of Newfoundland - seemed a very appropriate time.66 In the national convention, the prospect of a university was one of the very few subjects on which there was widespread agreement.67 Still following up the idea of erecting one Memorial on another, Hunter, as acting president, held some exploratory meetings with the Newfoundland Great War Veterans' Association. Inflation and ambition had made the putative cost of a full university larger since the last time it was estimated. Leaving aside the cost of construction "which the Commission of Government has already assumed responsibility for" - the faculty was now of the opinion that the initial capital outlay for laboratory equipment and other supplies would be about $50,000, and that other recurrent extra costs would grow from $40,000 in university year one to about double that in year five. The principal new programs to be added to Memorial's syllabus, given these figures, were in law and commerce.68 Later that academic year the faculty council became more precise about its intentions. A university should provide twenty-course degree programs in arts, science, and education. Four preprofessional programs - engineering, medicine, dentistry, and agriculture would retain their diploma status, feeding students into the carefully crafted affiliations with Nova Scotia Technical College and Dalhousie and McGill Universities. A Bachelor of Science in household science should eventuate within two years of the new charter; and within five years, they hoped to see a program in law, perhaps an LLB; a degree or diploma in commerce; and a library science diploma with either the BA or BSC New subjects in the core offerings would include psychology, the long-delayed marine biology, and a severe test for the stability of a nondenominational institution philosophy.69 Just as Memorial's achievement of a significant place in Newfoundland education marked the 19305, so an apparently endless debate on the prospects of its becoming a full-fledged university characterized the scene in the 19405. The planners' logjam - ambitions blocked by cost — was broken only by a constitutional revolution. The first great stride taken towards the modernization of the country by the new provincial regime was to legislate the long sought charter (13 August 1949). Two years later the influential Newton Report fired the last salvoes in the battle thus won. A modern state needs a university: to superintend the constantly rising standard of general educa-

215 Governance

tion; and to provide facilities and skilled personnel to do scientific research for the development of its natural resources. Quite small jurisdictions, some less sovereign than Newfoundland, had their own university: Hong Kong, Malta, Alaska, Iceland, Prince Edward Island. Newfoundland was "therefore justified in raising the Memorial College of Newfoundland to the status of a university. Objectors who say the province cannot afford it are closing their eyes to a modern trend which cannot be ignored without imposing an arbitrary handicap on the development of the country. Education is an essential social service, and a system of education without a university is an incomplete structure incapable of accommodating the needs of an active community."70 Lofty considerations like these, freshened and stiffened by Newfoundland nationalism, had always been part of the debate, along with mundane considerations of bricks and mortar, salaries and pensions. A former Memorial student, finishing up a graduate degree at University of Toronto, had written a decade previously that he was glad to know his little college would soon be granting its own degrees. "Perhaps the greatest boon the university ... would bring to the country is to keep educated men and women at home to devote their services to the interests of Newfoundland. With that will come a belief in the possibilities and potentialities of their country and a growing conviction that their country has an identity and a future. If such a university can but change the prevalent query, 'what are they going to do with Newfoundland?' to 'what are we going to do with our country?' then it will have repaid all the efforts of its founders."71 The chief factor which delayed Memorial's accession to full university status was financial. Also, we saw some friends of higher education tended to oppose a Newfoundland university because its creation would remove the spur to travel, with all its broadening influence. The students would stay at home and stay narrow. On the other hand, "While it may be contended that travel has some educational value," wrote Ralph Andrews, "it is doubtful Sackville, N.B. and Wolfville, N.S. have anything better of a cultural nature to offer than has St. John's."72 Stuart Godfrey thought it was basically nationalism which enabled this and other objections to be finally overcome. Memorial was an important symbol of a people's unity: "Newfoundland's way of putting aside their differences, ethnic and religious, and presenting a common identity of Newfoundlanders. A new nation ... Sure it might have been cheaper to award a thousand scholarships to some people there. There wouldn't have been the recurrent expen-

216 A Bridge Built Halfway

ditures or the capital. But it wouldn't have brought people together. It wouldn't have cultivated that sense of identity."73 In the long-term history of university development in the Atlantic region, the iSoos saw degree-granting institutions growing out of high school programs (Mount Allison, Saint Francis Xavier, King's); while in the twentieth century they tend to come from junior college operations: University College of Cape Breton, University of Prince Edward Island. Memorial was the initiator of this second trend. Whatever its advantages and disadvantages, democratic benefits and parochial drawbacks, the university harbour to which preconfederation boards of governors had tried to navigate had at least been glimpsed from far at sea. Memorial University, thought its first Dean of Arts and Science, was a "monument to qualities of mind and character possessed by Vincent Patrick Burke, to his enthusiasm, patience, perseverance and, above all, vision and imagination. Most people were still only beginning to accept the notion of a junior college when he was already thinking in terms of a university."74

CHAPTER 1O

Affiliations at Home and Abroad

If education in the city is at a low level, that of the outport will suffer, and vice versa. The future of Small Point is bound up with that of Carbonear, a man from Burnt Head will teach in a St. John's college, and enlightened thinking in Holyrood may mean better times for Fortune Bay. (Albert Hatcher, Memorial Times, 1946)

Memorial College had three different types of affiliation with other academic institutions. Its links with the Newfoundland Normal School (1921—32) and with the Department of Education teachers' summer schools (1926-46) were the most intimate and important of the three. While the university college had a higher status, the other operations were usually larger in numbers of students served. Memorial therefore often appeared to be the tail wagging a Normal or summer school dog. Both operations were fully absorbed into Memorial during the college period. The second type of affiliation - looser but essential as Memorial found its place in the existing educational scene - was with institutions that were completely independent, but with which relations were so close that curriculum decisions at one institution required full knowledge and agreement about what was being offered at the other. Church "colleges" in St John's and Nova Scotia Technical College in Halifax come into this category. Thirdly, there was a wide range of academic partnerships abroad, particularly in Canada. Through these affiliations Memorial could set its academic standards and prepare its students' long-term success.

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A Bridge Built Halfway

NORMAL SCHOOL

Normal School was established soon after the enabling legislation, an amendment to the Education Act, was passed in 1920. Planners of the new institution were aware that they were entering a phase familiar in the three Maritime provinces since the establishment of their teachertraining institutions 50-65 years earlier.1 The need for better-educated, more highly qualified teachers had been generally recognized for some time, as explained in chapter i. Perseverance had finally paid off. Solomon Whiteway, with a quarter-century of teaching experience in Newfoundland schools, including several recent years in charge of teacher training at Methodist College, was appointed principal of Normal School. How very deliberate and well-orchestrated the whole development was, is shown by the first duty assigned to him: that of attending Columbia University in the winter of 1920—21, in order to strengthen his skills and improve his credentials. Part of Whiteway's program of studies at the New York headquarters for progressive education was a course in the organization of teacher training. He returned with a B sc degree in pedagogy and in autumn 1921 began work with the first Normal School class of twenty students in the Church of England Synod Building in St John's.2 During the next eleven and a half academic years, just over one thousand students enrolled in Normal's rather fragmented pattern of instruction (see appendix 12). The program lasted four months, with new classes registering each September and January. The courses taken comprised:3 teaching methods in general, with special instruction in seventeen different subjects; the science of education, including developmental and educational psychology; school organization, management and law; library methods; the history of education; supervised observation in a model school; practice teaching. Whiteway quickly recruited part-time instructors to assist him in art, music, physical education, and general methods. In 1924, when the Normal School moved into the splendid new building erected for it and only later renamed Memorial, the first full-time assistant (Betty McGrath) was added to the staff. Registration rose that fall to fiftytwo students, the largest yet. The arrival of Memorial in the same building both assisted and complicated the institutional existence of Normal School. In most matters each operated independently of the other; they had separate budgets and timetables, different students and standards. Normal School became slightly subordinate, as indicated by the official letterhead of the late 19205: Memorial University College and Normal School/President: J.L. Paton/Principal of the

219 Affiliations at Home and Abroad

Normal School: S.P. Whiteway. The Normal School now had access to a larger pool of potential instructors, and Whiteway himself gave some lectures in the university college. At first the mutual assistance was friendly, casual, and easily arranged. During Memorial's fourth academic year, however, the need for a firmer and more reliable scheme was apparently felt. Negotiations produced a Board of Governors' minute in April 1929 to the effect that Memorial would try to provide Normal with nine periods per week of instruction in science and mathematics.4 As was customary then, the entire student body of "War Memorial University College" paraded in cap and gown to an Armistice Day service that November. "College notes" said that in previous years, the Normal School had always joined in the solemnity, but "this year we were sorry not to have them with us."5 This public admission represented an escalation of a quarrel or misunderstanding between the two divisions at Parade Street. In January a special meeting of trustees was called to discuss the instructional services that Memorial provided to Normal. Although Paton invited Whiteway, the latter did not come. Paton explained that the college had not fulfilled its obligation to cover nine periods weekly. Chemistry was the problem; it was "impossible" for Professor Jack Hogg to add anything further to his regular college workload of thirty-one periods plus labs. Two weeks later the trustees finally brought Whiteway and Paton together. Whiteway said that assistance from the college had now dwindled to four periods in mathematics and one of nature study.6 Trustee Rev. Levi Curtis suggested that additional instructors should be hired. One important cause of the strain that developed between Memorial and Normal School was the meagreness of their budgets, which prohibited the hiring of additional personnel. Paton went on record, however, in seemingly blaming Normal and its leadership for the distance that had developed. For example, in a public notice welcoming the new Normal class of January 1930 there was an obvious sting in the tail: "We shall make them welcome to our music, our games, our societies. How we should like, some of us, to join them at their P.T. and cookery classes."7 If Whiteway had been more of a publicist, we would have his words to weigh and could reach a better-informed conclusion. We do note, however, that 1928-30 were precisely the years when Paton went to war with the Council of Higher Education, that is, with Newfoundland's leading educationists. Since Whiteway was one of that group, Paton may have thought it less essential to get along smoothly with him.8 The whole history of Normal School comprised twenty-three semesters which drew up to eighty-six students at a time, usually

220 A Bridge Built Halfway

recent high school graduates, into a semblance of preparation for the teaching profession. Appendix 12 shows that about two-thirds of these prospects were women. This helped even out the sexes in the Parade Street building, since the college student body was generally weighted in the opposite direction. Drawn overwhelmingly from outport areas of Newfoundland, Normal School students tended at first to be awed and intimidated by their new surroundings. About the time that they became acclimatized, their short semester was over and they were replaced by another green group. Both Normal School as an institution and its student body were seen as subordinate and inferior to the college proper. Governmental budget-slashing exercises in 1931 and 1932 produced a decision to phase Normal out of existence. The class which graduated at Christmas 1932 - sixty-five in number and the third largest yet — was the final one. Whiteway was pensioned (aged about sixty), while Helen Lodge, the only other full-time staff member, was absorbed into the Memorial College staff.9 Educational leaders used the hiatus caused by desperate finances to rethink the training of teachers. Hatcher, the newly appointed President of Memorial, wrote in the summer of 1933 that, when the task were resumed, "We do not intend a separate institution divorced from (I use the verb advisedly) the University College." Instead, teacher training would be brought within the college curriculum, and matriculation would be required, as it was for other Memorial students. This was the situation from September 1934 on, when teacher training was resumed and integrated within the college offerings (see chapter 3). The integration of the student bodies was encouraged as well: "We encourage the T.T. students to mix as much as they can with the others. They wear gowns and so on."10 SUMMER SCHOOL

With another in-house institution Memorial had a longer and even closer affiliation than with Normal School. This was the summer school. Experiments in July 1917 and July 1918 provided the prototype and spur for the creation of Normal School, just as Normal foreshadowed and triggered the founding of the university college. Memorial University (since 1950) is the culmination of a modernizing process, the fourth in a series of operations devoted to higher education, each of which was further developed than the previous one. Appendix 13 summarizes summer school development during the Memorial College period. Organizationally, there were three stages. During the summers 1926-35 Memorial, with little designated fund-

221 Affiliations at Home and Abroad

ing, conducted schools which combined for a brief four weeks in July the academic and professional aspects which were kept so distinct in the Memorial/Normal School wintertime dichotomy. The next phase, another precise decade, 1936—45, saw the colonial Department of Education as the official sponsor of the school. Memorial remained the principal location and provided also the administration and much of the instruction. The length of the school session was now five weeks. From 1946 on the summer work was officially retitled "session" rather than "school." In addition to the teacher-training effort, full university credit courses were now offered, necessitating an extension of the session to six weeks. The first Memorial summer school attracted 126 students - more than double the number which had registered at the college in the previous winter. The program offered eleven courses: six academic (chemistry, physics, English, Greek, Latin, and mathematics), one professional (science of education), one vocational (navigation), and three cultural (art, music, nature study).11 Paton's enthusiasm and effectiveness in inspiring Newfoundland teachers is well illustrated by the handling of this last subject. To teach the nature study — and concentrate on what could be learned outdoors, rather than in books or in a laboratory - Paton recruited an Englishman five years older than himself, Francis Bruton, who had retired around the same time from Manchester Grammar School. Bruton was a rich prize. He had taught modern languages at Manchester for nearly thirty-five years and had also been in charge of student teachers, nature study, and the museum.12 One of many splendid things about Bruton was that he came to work in the first four Memorial summer schools without any pay, crossing the ocean at his own expense. He put the summer school crowd through some of their most interesting and valuable activities — "nature rambles" — promoting delight in slugs, snails, and everything that sang or swam. They did botany too. When Bruton was finished, nothing was a weed; everything had a name. An instructor with his enthusiasms was bound to carry his Manchester nickname with him wherever he went: Birdie Bruton. Another valuable volunteer from those early days was Gordon Hatcher, brother of Memorial's mathematics professor and a Protestant school supervisor from Quebec. He came for about fifteen consecutive years to teach school organization and child psychology, asking just his expenses in making the trip from Sherbrooke, later from Montreal. The majority of summer school instructors were from the college staff, or even students, and similarly taught more for love than remuneration.

222 A Bridge Built Halfway

Paton as publicist used weekly notices in the newspapers to keep the public informed of what was being accomplished or attempted. These notes are full of vigour. "The Summer School cannot claim, like the Rotarians, that their's is the greatest movement in the history of the human race. It was born under a more modest star - or shall we say Stars and Stripes?" This 1928 note continued by announcing that Bruton had arrived with his newly published edition ofCormack's Journal. Not only that, but he had a free copy to give to each of the 140 teachers registered. Already on the Monday evening following Thursday's opening, there would be a summer school concert for the public. "All proceeds go to our scholarship fund, so we want a crowded house." At the end of July, there were reports of a "Midstream tea and Bowring Park bonfire" and an up-coming "at home" featuring library displays, children's art, Bruton's flora and fauna, and John Mennie with chemical experiments. "Gordon Hatcher will test intelligence. To save our personal susceptibilities and avoid all risks of libel actions, he undertakes to communicate the results privately."'3 When Hatcher, as president, assumed the responsibility for protecting Memorial and all its varied interests, one of the necessary measures was to defend the summer school against cost-cutting decisions such as had already consigned Normal School to oblivion. His memorandum of 23 April 1934 to the Secretary for Education was an important document and an effective one. The new Commission of Government should continue the summertime tradition, he urged, for four reasons. It improved Newfoundland's teachers, promoted neglected topics such as nature study, navigation, scouting, and gardening, and put new ideas into circulation, while Summer school's social contacts, "to which we pay much attention, make this month a bright spot in the often grey life of a teacher."14 From 1936 on the Department of Education took over administrative responsibility. Summer school realized two benefits: it now had a separate budgetary appropriation, and qualified public servants could be easily seconded to instructional duties.15 Otherwise this change in sponsorship made little difference, since Memorial's administration continued to organize it, using mainly college facilities.16 Denominationalism began to enter into planning considerations, with registration quotas, in proportion to population, for Church of England, Roman Catholic, United Church, Salvation Army, Pentecostal, and "other" categories.17 1938 school was the last one devoted exclusively to the professional and academic strengthening of the teaching corps. Registration came to 404 students: Roman Catholic 116, United Church 112,

223 Affiliations at Home and Abroad Table 23 Summer School Courses, 1938 Subject

Psychology Primary methods English Arithmetic Health Social studies Nature study General science Household arts Art

Seminar on management Navigation Scouting Guiding

Number of Students

182 299 274 148 265 121 121 50 46 62 51 16 32 48

Number of Sections 2 4 6

2 6 4 4 2 2 2 1 1 1 1

Church of England 144, Salvation Army 28, Seventh Day Adventist 2, Pentecostal i, and Congregational i. Those with prior teaching experience numbered 239 (59%); 61% were women. Gordon Hatcher was there again. This time he instructed in badminton as well as intelligence-testing and other aspects of psychology, and also regaled the students with hair-raising stories of his automotive exploits in descending the Matapedia valley, the most beautiful but most dangerous part of the route from Quebec into New Brunswick. The school opened in the assembly hall at 7:30 one warm evening. There were several welcomes, and President Hatcher gave his usual lyric tribute to summer school's logo-symbol, the oar - "Useful for other purposes as well as its own ... Does work in Co-operation with others."18 Eleanor Mews announced that everyone would be singing, and before the evening ended they made their first attempts at the "Ode to Newfoundland." A typical assortment of courses was offered (table 23)In addition to the courses, there were extracurricular activities at the rate of almost one per day for the five-week duration of the school - two visits, one garden party, four entertainments, two sports events, three dances, one guide enrolment ceremony, the traditional nature ramble, one hike, four picnics, eleven special lectures, and four assemblies. Only one student was injured, playing soccer. Lloyd Shaw determined that the Department of Education was not liable for hospital costs.19 An innovation in 1939 was the awarding of university credit for

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some of the summer school work. Memorial's faculty council was consulted and agreed with the proposal. The arrangement in most subjects was to begin the credit course (maximum of two at a time) in the summer, continue it by private study over the winter, and take the examination in the spring. Science courses required two summer schools. The circular sent to the country's teachers explained the conditions of eligibility: one needed to be twenty-seven years old, with five years experience as a graded teacher.20 In the early 19408 summer schools began to proliferate. Roman Catholic authorities had always operated a teacher-training program of their own, interlocked in a friendly manner with that offered at Normal/Memorial. An aspect of this insistence upon a Catholic environment for at least some of the training was the 1936-39 attendance of Presentation and Mercy order teachers at summer schools conducted at Mount Saint Vincent College in Halifax. With this experience to guide them, the two convents co-operated in 1940 in establishing a summer school of their own in Newfoundland. Then foreign troops and construction workers began to pour into St John's and the available supply of accommodation was soon taken up. The Department of Education therefore decided to decentralize the summer school. In 1942 two summer schools were held, one at Memorial and one at Petries on the west coast. For the next three summers two more locations were added. The biggest summer school(s) ever, those in 1945, saw 307 students registered in St John's, 85 at Carbonear, 45 at Bonavista, and 24 in Petries. When accommodation and travelling conditions in the country returned to normal after the war, the experiment with regional summer schools was quickly discontinued. It was thought to have been only "moderately successful," because the "quality of facilities found in St John's was not available" in other centres.21 For 1946, Memorial proposed to extend its usual two-semester program with a summer school longer than was customary (six weeks), so that work for university credit could be properly accommodated. This was partly because of the extra pressure on college facilities expected from returning veterans, but also a natural extension of what had been begun in 1939. The Department of Education was glad to receive this plan and requested Memorial to include teachertraining courses in the program so that the departmental summer school could be phased out. From 1946 on official terminology for the July-August effort styled it the summer "session" of the college, and it was no longer intended exclusively for teachers. Another innovation in the 1946 summer school made it seem as if Memorial were finally beginning to develop a new program, the first

225 Affiliations at Home and Abroad

since household science and engineering were introduced at the beginning of the 19308. Three courses on librarianship were offered, and a specialized group of four working librarians attended. The instructor found that those students who were already Memorial graduates benefitted the most. With so few students, librarianship could not be a viable discipline, and it only briefly entered winter time offerings at the college.22 The summer schools were an extremely important part of Memorial's service to the country, particularly in the numbers they influenced. The leading scholar of Newfoundland's educational development concluded that these institutes provided four great advantages for parochial outport teachers: they were brought into contact with prominent leaders of their profession, from Newfoundland or abroad; they were introduced for the first time to a valuable range of cultural, social, and recreational activities which they could adapt for the simpler scenes of their regular labours; they were given "opportunities to improve in appearance and deportment"; and probably most important - they were encouraged by growth in knowledge and appetite for more.23 Hatcher, the closet poet, could wax quite lyrical and rhetorical in discussing these exercises of which he was the chief organizer. One feature of summer school, as he saw it, was diversity. In students: "From rocky island and sheltered cove, from safe harbours and windy headlands; they are serious men and cheerful women, handsome youths and pretty girls." The instructional staff also was a "mixed grill... no two just alike." His other theme was unity. Summer school helped to overcome the distinction between the city and a thousand scattered outports and to raise cultural levels generally. "If education in the city is at a low level, that of the outport will suffer, and vice versa ... A man from Burnt Head will teach in a St. John's college, and enlightened thinking in Holyrood may mean better times for Fortune Bay. We all face the same future, perilous or splendid, we must stick together."24 Summer school had a spirit all its own, complete with symbols, camaraderie, methodology, even martyrs. Bruton, the great advocate of outdoor education and the nature ramble, died before he could come back to Newfoundland for the 1930 school. In a ceremony that summer a beech tree in his memory was planted in Bowring Park by Governor Sir John Middleton. Thereafter, part of the nature ramble program was a ceremony at the Bruton tree with the full complement of summer school saying in unison, Because we live in a beautiful land; because we wish to know

226 A Bridge Built Halfway and to teach its wonders of plant and flower, of insect and bird, of rock and star, of sea and soil; because he has helped us to know and to love all things of Nature; therefore we cherish in gratitude the memory of Francis A. Bruton.25 ST JOHN'S COLLEGES Memorial's relationship with certain other institutions was absolutely vital to the existence of the college in the early years. These were the church-operated "colleges" (residential high schools) located in St John's. They had to restructure their programs drastically to make way for the new operation. The grade-twelve syllabus which the colleges gave up teaching in 1925 became the first year of the two year junior college program. There were six of these institutions: United Church (later Prince of Wales) College; Bishop Feild and Bishop Spencer Colleges for Church of England students; and Saint Bonaventure's, Saint Bride's (Littledale), and Mercy Convent for the Roman Catholics. The Catholics were slower than other denominations fully to trust interdenominational Memorial. Small grade-twelve classes were maintained in their schools until iggg.26 Paton tactfully consulted the local headmasters on the standards which Memorial was establishing in the subjects they used to teach. For example, he sent some of the mid-year 1926-27 examination papers over to the principal of Feild College, R.R. Wood, to see whether he would judge them "sufficiently difficult." Wood trusted Paton's judgment, but feared that after he left, "There may be a President of the Memorial College in whose judgement and integrity we cannot feel the same confidence ... I do so want the Memorial College to avoid the reputation which so many of the minor Universities on this side have"27 In developing a separate awareness, Memorial had to combat the long-standing identification of its students with the important traditions represented by the other colleges. The first pass lists, published in the newspapers, identified students with reference to the schools in which they had completed grade eleven. Through 1926 and 1927 Memorial's athletes continued to play on sports teams representing Saint Bonaventure's, Bishop Spencer, etc. In the fall of 1927, Paton complained that these high school sports events were interfering with activities at the university college, and the city's educators agreed that

227 Affiliations at Home and Abroad

graduates of the various schools would no longer be eligible to play for the old team.28 By 1934, when Memorial fully absorbed Normal School, it had carved a niche for itself as the source of teacher training and of senior matriculation work (grade twelve). During the following decade, however, some of the denominations began to undermine this achievement. The Roman Catholics had never fitted fully into the system, Frecker explained, because half the teachers in Roman Catholic schools belonged to religious orders. They therefore had fewer education students at Memorial than the other denominations and divided their special grant from the government equally between those at Memorial and pupil-teachers whom they continued to prepare at the Catholic colleges. The policy was always that candidates, especially those from the outports, should do part of their training at Saint Bonaventure's or Saint Bride's. "We feel very strongly that a year or two in the environment, disciplinary, cultural and religious, which these institutions offer, is a very essential part of the training of Catholic teachers."29 By 1938 this attitude had led to the establishment of a so-called "professional grade twelve" at Saint Bride's College, designed chiefly for young women intending to become teachers.30 Church authorities steered all young prospective teachers with no experience into this program or a similar one at Saint Bonaventure's College. The most promising of these pupil-teachers were then selected to join hardened veteran teachers as they returned from the classroom to attend Memorial's program.31 Then in 1942 even the superior corps of Catholic education students was withdrawn from Memorial with an amazing explanation or pretext being given. The Archbishop informed the Department of Education of a sudden emergency. Twenty young women living at Littledale, but students at Memorial, could no longer reach the university college. "As you are aware, in previous years the Teachers were brought back and forth by bus, and similar arrangements had been made for this year. At the last moment, however, the bus driver announced that he had gone out of business and the Sisters have been unable to secure another bus. Since taxis were too expensive, and accommodation near Memorial was out of the question" - he proposed an official affiliation between Memorial and Saint Bride's College so they could continue their studies without having to travel. This proposition, to which there was obviously much more than meets the eye, was on the Board of Governors' agenda, and supported by President Hatcher, in October. The scheme was approved. Under

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the affiliation, three Memorial professors spent one morning a week each at Littledale. Littledale's own staff taught music, art, literature, and some of the psychology.32 This affiliation left Memorial without any of the Catholic girls that is, without about one-quarter of the potential class of teachersin-training. The next defection was of United Church students, again apparently for unworthy and petty reasons. After one year as impresario of teacher training at Memorial, Ralph Andrews was called back to higher departmental service in the spring of 1943. To replace him, the Board of Governors selected Philip Hanley. Because Hanley was a Roman Catholic the United Church — previously thought the most flexible of the protestant denominations - decided to reestablish its own separate teacher-training program.33 Ralph Andrews, formerly both student and professor at Memorial College, in his book discusses the alarming fragmentation of teacher training, while leaving some key motivations to be glimpsed between the lines. In 1943-44, when the program was at its lowest ebb, Memorial had as teacher candidates only the Church of England prospects and Roman Catholic men, a total of sixty-six students, as compared with ninety-eight three years earlier. If the Church of England authorities should now decide to withdraw their students from Memorial and place them in an affiliated college, then Newfoundland's valuable new tradition of nondenominational teacher training, building since 1917, would be virtually defunct. "I decided to do what I could to prevent this and to restore some semblance of order out of the chaos."34 Everyone, including the Roman Catholic authorities, was alarmed at the turn which events had taken. Frecker, who had been promoted to Secretary for Education and was therefore more or less in charge of this tangle, wrote to his Archbishop: "The Memorial U. College problem must be solved to the mutual satisfaction of all concerned. The United Church people do not seem anxious, just now, to solve any problem. It is rather the other way around."35 One of the leading United Church educators of the 1940'$ offered an explanation forty years later: It is necessary to recall that the systematic position of The United Church of Canada ... was a sustained resistance to the sectarian system of education, anywhere, any time. The Roman Catholic Church was an even more ardent devotee of that system. When Philip Hanley, a Roman Catholic, was appointed as Head of Teacher Training, the United Church reacted strongly because ... the Roman Catholics were getting the best of both worlds; one of its number was given the principal educational post governing all denominations; and that officer as a Roman Catholic was bound to favour in theory and practice

229 Affiliations at Home and Abroad Table 24 Three-Year Program for Theology Students, Courses in the Queen's Memorial Affiliation, 1939 Credit at Both colleges Taught at Memorial Taught at Queen's First year

Second year

Third year

English 1 Greek 1 History 2 or 3 Latin 1 Greek 2 Latin 2

Credit at Queen's Only

Old Testament history

Old and New Testament (1) Church history (1) 324 Old & New Testament (2) Church history (2)

Doctrine (1) Christian morals (various other courses)

the sectarian quality of education, especially as endorsed by the Roman Catholic authorities.36

Cool heads prevailed. It certainly helped that Hanley was promoted within the year to an executive position in the departmental hierarchy and was replaced as Memorial's professor of education by a non-Catholic, George Hickman. United Church pupil-teachers then returned from Prince of Wales College. Meanwhile, important interdenominational bargaining went on behind the scenes and produced a reconstituted unity cloaked in the language of disarray. The church leaders agreed on the terms of the Education (Teacher-Training) Act of 1944. It provided that every denomination with 10,000 or more adherents in the country would have its own schools, boards, and examiners. Section five listed all the certified training institutions: Memorial, the Church of England College, several Catholic colleges and training schools, Prince of Wales (for United Church and Presbyterian pupil teachers), and the Salvation Army's main school in St John's.37 Interpretation: the churches were willing to patronize Memorial's teacher-training program, provided their right to do otherwise was clearly spelled out in law. Meanwhile, Memorial had in 1939 negotiated terms of affiliation with Newfoundland's oldest postsecondary institution, Queen's College. This was an eighty-year old theological seminary at which there were always a few young men preparing for the Church of England ministry. The two colleges agreed to accept for credit the successful completion of certain of each other's courses (table 24). Hatcher pointed out to the principal of Queen's that "A student successfully

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completing the first year course would be eligible for the first year standing of the Memorial University College. He would not be eligible for the second year diploma until the end of the third year at Queen's when he would have credits in five further subjects."38 During 1944-47 a fully articulated scheme of affiliations with local institutions was worked out. All the planners kept in mind that Memorial's status might soon be raised to that of a full-fledged university. It was felt by some that denominational colleges should be empowered to give university credit courses. Roman Catholic authorities pressed hardest for this. They proposed that in the eventual charter for a Newfoundland university, full affiliation should be provided for denominational colleges, "which may set up University Departments, teach any or all subjects of the University Courses and have such courses recognized by the National University." The commissioner for education had misgivings: "The future existence of the institution would be threatened ... a National University could well aim to bring students from denominational colleges together for their courses, and give them opportunity to know and respect each other without denominational bias. This will not be fully possible if denominational colleges have the right to give university courses in their own institutions ... Universities usually affiliate with institutions of equal rank and not with secondary schools such as denominational colleges."39 The denominations became more careful of and quarrelsome about their particular interests than they had been in the 1920-25 period when interdenominational higher education was first launched. If denominational colleges could offer university courses by meeting certain standards, who would decide what these standards were and when they were met? Commissioner A.J. Walsh recommended that these requirements should be agreed between the university senate and the college. If no agreement could be reached, then the Government should be able (politically) to settle the matter. "I feel that settlement of this question is essential for the success of a University as a National Institution in this country. Any decision to establish it as an independent unit not integrated in any way with the existing colleges would result in failure to secure for it the support of all sections of the country which is necessary for its success."40 In 1947 the Department of Education's powerful executive officers proposed finishing touches to the affiliation agreement which had settled the crisis caused by the Methodist withdrawal three years earlier. The new charter should not disturb the well-established affiliations of Memorial with Queen's College and Saint Bride's. In addition, it should contain these clauses.

231 Affiliations at Home and Abroad 1 To qualify for affiliation, an institution must have a separate, well-equipped department to accommodate its university students. 2 Its staffmust have qualifications not less than those of the university faculty members. 3 The university will set all examinations. 4 The affiliated institution can instruct in philosophy, including psychology, and in history, including the history of education, in all four years of an undergraduate program. 5 In other subjects the affiliated institution can gain approval to give instruction through negotiation with the university senate, subject to the approval of both governing bodies. 6 If enrolled at an affiliated institution, a student can take up to one half of the number of courses required for the university degree.

True to the Newfoundland tradition of weighty interdenominational compromises, all these regulations passed directly into law in the various clauses of the Memorial University Act of 13 August 1949, section 57, with the sole exception that subsection 2 referred to the standard of instruction rather than the qualifications of teachers.41 U N I V E R S I T I E S ABROAD

Memorial had important relations also with senior institutions in foreign countries. Their recognition and accreditation was necessary in the early years if a viable college was to emerge in St John's. Through these links the Newfoundland junior college dovetailed its program with those offered at other places, smoothed the path for its graduates to go on in their studies, and gained friendly advice. There was a certain degree of partnership with institutions in England and the United States, but it was on the mainland of Canada that Memorial found its closest allies and models. In matters that concerned program development and the careers of students, Newfoundland higher education was several decades ahead of confederation in assuming that Canada was not a separate country. In higher education Newfoundlanders had not always gravitated towards Canada; throughout the nineteenth century Britain seemed the more natural partner. For example, the description of the Jubilee scholarship in the 1892 Education Act provided that the student was to use the prize for two years of study "at some British University."42 Soon after the turn of the century, however, the regulations were changed so that Jubilee-winners could pursue their studies at an (approved) British or colonial institution. Canada was doubtless the colony in mind. Two developments triggered this change in New-

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foundland's orientation. One was the growing maturity of universities in eastern Canada, which now offered the consistent and high-quality programs for which Newfoundlanders previously had had to look further afield. The other and more specific development was the regular operation, after October 1897, of a rail and passenger ferry service linking western Newfoundland with Cape Breton. This made the Newfoundland railway an eastern extension of the Intercolonial (later Canadian National) communication system. Links now became closer and cheaper with the Maritimes than with any other country. By the time of World War i, when Newfoundland's education leaders decided to provide certain elements of a curriculum beyond grade twelve, the lectures they planned were based on second-year programs in the Maritimes. "This will enable many of the young people of the colony to secure university training who, under the old regime because of the expense of attending a Canadian university for four years, were completely divorced from it."43 The point to notice is the assumption, in 1917, that the natural place for a Newfoundlander to look for university studies was in Canada. The closeness of the links was demonstrated by Nova Scotian assistance in staffing the first interdenominational summer school in Newfoundland (1917); Blackall's attendance at the 1923 national education conference in Toronto; and Newfoundland's intimate involvement in the 1922-24 movement for university federation in the Maritimes. The thinking behind the proposals which treated the Atlantic region as a single unit, despite international boundaries, was discussed in chapter i. Memorial's most important British affiliation was with the University of London. Except for a brief interruption during World War i, when Dalhousie University filled in, the College of Preceptors at London had been setting and marking the external examinations of Newfoundland schools ever since the 18908. When Memorial took over grade twelve, it inherited this external examination, which may have helped the new college to establish a proper standard of instruction. Another result was that students were kept in suspense as to their previous year's achievement. "The main criticism that I remember now," said one student from that period, "was the fact that it took so long to get the results from Britain." We would "go back the ist of September and find that the results wouldn't be available until say the last week of September."44 Memorial suffered this indignity during its first four years. Finally, in 1929-30, the Council of Higher Education turned over to the college the full responsibility for the senior matriculation examination of its own first-year class, as well as for the small number of other grade-twelve candidates from across

233 Affiliations at Home and Abroad

Newfoundland. "One result must be welcome to all concerned," noted Paton. "Whether they succeed or fail we are able, this year, to give you within a week after the last paper was taken up, the results of the examination."45 Despite his English connections, Paton encountered insuperable difficulties when he tried to win recognition for Memorial in the old country. Late in 1926 he was still attempting to have his institution listed in the year book published by the Universities Bureau of the British Empire. He was told that information on a college not under the aegis of a university could not be published.46 Memorial's early calendars had this to say about affiliations: "Students graduating from the Memorial University College will proceed with the status of third year students to those universities of Canada, the United Kingdom and the U.S.A. with which affiliations have been established. The list of these affiliations, which already (1928) includes the universities of the maritime provinces of Canada, as well as Toronto, Harvard and Columbia, is being enlarged."47 It was well on into the 19305 before they were able to add that the "Joint Matriculation Board of the northern universities of England has agreed to recognize first year courses of this college for admission Pro tanto." Pro tanto means "of such value," or perhaps, "to a certain extent." These Latin tags are not really meant to enlighten speakers of barbaric languages. What is significant although half-hidden here is the fact that, while Memorial's two-year graduates went straight into third year on the mainland of Canada, in these northern English universities students from Memorial's first year might not even be admitted. Although Memorial's aspirations received a much cooler reception in Britain than in North America, links were never broken. The magnificent Rhodes scholarship regularly attracted some of the college's very strongest graduates to studies at Oxford University. A few other old girls/boys also crossed the ocean in that direction for further studies, motivated perhaps by family or imperial interests. In the postwar period, a flood of veterans made it much more difficult to win places at the two medical schools which traditionally provided training for Newfoundlanders, Dalhousie and McGill. Several of Memorial's Roman Catholic premeds therefore wound up in Dublin, and Hunter as acting president worked to increase the flow of admissions to English universities.48 The story of Memorial's affiliations with institutions in the United States can be just as briefly told. The Newfoundland junior college could not have come into existence when it did without the financial backing from the Carnegie Corporation. The initial support for the university college was parlayed into successful requests that the gen-

234 A Bridge Built Halfway

erous Americans extend their help to other Newfoundland activities, for example, to library services, adult education, and the teachers' summer school. The attempt which Paton made to attract also Rockefeller Foundation support did not succeed.49 Official requests for recognition of the program were not made to universities in the United States until the third year of operation. The response of Harvard University was that they would be willing to admit promising students on the same terms as those with other backgrounds, all cases being decided on their individual merits. Columbia University gave a much better undertaking. Memorial's students would be admitted with Columbia credit pending for their previous work. If they succeeded well in New York, "they will eventually be given substantially full credit for the work they had done in St. John's."50 No other American universities were approached. Of all Memorial's links and affiliations with the world of Canadian universities, no relationship was more sustained or more important than that with Dalhousie University in Halifax. Indeed, one of Paton's first actions upon accepting the presidency in 1925 was to write for advice to the registrar at Dalhousie. What information did Dalhousie request on their student's application form? Must an arts undergraduate take history in first year? The previous experience with Newfoundlanders who went to Dalhousie directly from the school system was that students "whose ambition is sufficiently great to induce them to come here for their education, can generally make up in quality what they lack in quantity."51 Dalhousie also provided a copy of its students' council constitution — "I hope it will be of some service to you in your efforts to draw up a scheme of self government for your students" - while King's College provided the English address where academic gowns could be purchased for $3.00 less than it cost to have them made locally. In negotiations concerning the recognition of Memorial's courses, a special wrinkle in Dalhousie's case was to make sure that Newfoundland students were prepared to enter the medical school on an equal footing with Dalhousie's own premeds. In 1927— 28, for example, Memorial had to add more qualitative analysis and organic chemistry to its offerings, while steering students away from languages, in order to match changes decided upon in Halifax.52 Just as Halifax was something like Newfoundland's other capital, so Dalhousie was its other university and educational mentor. In 1917-18, a year of unrestricted submarine warfare, Dalhousie assisted by grading external school examinations when it seemed unsafe to send them as usual across the now perilous ocean. When his first experience of Newfoundland science, or Newfoundland students, drove the chemistry professor into a nervous breakdown dur-

235 Affiliations at Home and Abroad

ing Memorial's first term, Dalhousie quickly assigned one of its graduate students to take over temporarily. The Halifax institution took seriously its responsibilities to the Atlantic region, including Newfoundland. In 1937, when planning scholarships for students out of grade eleven, Dalhousie first intended to include Newfoundland as one of the eligible regions, then feared that that might be seen as raiding Newfoundland for students who would otherwise go to Memorial. Dalhousie's president wrote about this semblance of trespass to Hatcher, who replied "I should be glad for our promising boys and girls to get all help possible."53 In the last few years before confederation, Dalhousie even received financial support from the Newfoundland government. The initial request for funds was in 1938 and it was repeated four years later when Dalhousie's president and dean of medicine visited St John's. They explained to the Newfoundland authorities that, whereas the annual enrolment of Newfoundlanders in medicine and dentistry had averaged ten during 1923-38, it had now risen to twenty-two. The Commission of Government, they proposed, should either make an annual grant to help sustain the Halifax teaching operations, or give $150,000 to endow a "Newfoundland chair of public health" in Dalhousie's School of Medicine. From the St John's bureaucracy emerged a memorandum strongly favouring a positive response — from Raymond Gushue, former Dalhousie student, later Memorial president, and at one time simultaneously a member of both boards of governors. From 1942 on, the places for Newfoundland students were protected by a $5,000 annual subvention. It was raised to $10,000 in 1948, despite mutterings about the fact that New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island - whose students also did dentistry and medicine at Dalhousie — were not giving similar support.54 Memorial's affiliation with another college in Halifax was in a way even closer than that with Dalhousie. This college was the Nova Scotia Technical College. "Tech," as it was known, is the successful example of rationalization and prevention of overlap in the fragmented world of Atlantic region colleges. During the period around 1920 this public institution was given a revamped governing body which included the presidents of all undergraduate institutions which agreed to offer preengineering programs that would prepare their students to complete degrees at the one campus in Halifax. By 1925 universities in Nova Scotia, plus Mount Allison across the border in New Brunswick, were offering three years of very similar preengineering programs and sending their students on for a final two years at Tech. Memorial opted into this arrangement. Its first preengineering students went

236 A Bridge Built Halfway

on to Halifax in the fall of 1932, and affiliation was officially granted by the Nova Scotia Council of Public Instruction in May 1933. For the next forty years Memorial's engineering offerings dove-tailed with the program at the Technical College, and a Memorial representative assisted in governing that distant institution.55 Most postsecondary institutions in the Maritimes gave Memorial graduates full credit for their two years' work in St John's. This was arranged through a blanket affiliation accepted in 1926 by the Central Advisory Committee on Higher Education, a body to which the Newfoundland junior college belonged.56 The only unfriendly place was Fredericton. When the Chancellor of the University of New Brunswick reviewed Memorial's program, he found the first-year syllabus "rather disappointing." The chief deficiencies were elementary calculus, logic, and psychology - at his university a half-year's work was done in each of these disciplines. Rather vaguely, New Brunswick pledged itself to accept any Memorial student who "makes a good standing" in both of the years at St John's. "I realize that this is not quite so definite as you may wish but possibly may be acceptable to you for the present at least."57 Since so many other institutions were happy to receive its students, this rebuff had no effect upon Memorial's development — except that, when graduates pooled their knowledge of Canada, they tended to think there was nothing between Mount Allison and Montreal. Another major affiliation was with McGill University. This was not the case of a nearly ready-made partnership such as was found in the Maritimes, but rather a relationship that had to be coaxed and nurtured. It did not bloom fully until the 19405. McGill was certainly in the first group of Canadian universities from which Memorial sought automatic acceptance of its graduates. The original request of January 1926, however, was answered generally in the negative, although the Newfoundland premeds soon qualified for advanced standing and McGill was flexible enough to relax its rules in particular cases.58 The 19308 then saw affiliations with McGill's Macdonald College, as Memorial developed new programs in household science and agriculture, but these affected very few students. A few of Memorial's engineering graduates had always preferred Montreal to Halifax, even though the way was made smoother for them at Nova Scotia Technical College. This situation changed after negotiations in 1940— 42. Memorial adjusted the chemistry taught in its preengineering program, until McGill was able to agree (November 1942) that the Newfoundlanders could automatically be accepted into third-year in the civil, electrical, and mechanical engineering streams. Students proposing to take a degree in chemical, mining, or metallurgical

237 Affiliations at Home and Abroad

engineering would still have to complete a few additional courses. At the same time there came the most important acceptance of all McGill's agreement that Memorial students who completed two years of arts or pure sciences would be admitted to the third year of the general course in those subjects.59 Thus Memorial by perseverance finally won from McGill the accreditation which the maritime universities had more generously, more easily extended fifteen years earlier. Relations with McGill were always closer than they appeared in official documents because of the personal connections. Memorial's most enthusiastic foreign boosters were in Montreal. One was Billy Hatcher, the president's brother. John Mennie was another McGill chemist, previously on the Memorial faculty, who, when addressing the Newfoundland club on the McGill campus, excelled himself, "spoke highly of the M.U. College," and "went over big."60 Hatcher, too, it must be remembered, was a McGill alumnus. Of all the universities in the world, McGill was the leading one when it came to providing advanced studies for Old Memorials before they came back to join the teaching faculty at Parade Street. The University of Toronto, the reputation of which was second only to McGill's in those years, also fell into line fairly well. Paton was keen on this; he submitted the Memorial program outline to Toronto and McGill even before approaching the maritime universities. In January 1926 the University of Toronto's Arts Faculty Council decreed that students from Memorial's second year could enter "without condition to the third year of the Pass Course." Difficulties arose, however, in more specialized programs. In 1933 Toronto finally rejected Memorial's request for advanced standing in the combined arts-medicine specialty, because the combination was treated as an honours course, for which Toronto required an honours matriculation (grade thirteen) unobtainable in Newfoundland. They similarly required honours standing of any candidates in medicine. Since Memorial's syllabus was similar to the Toronto pass course, "I regret that it is not possible ... to grant to your students the same consideration as is granted by McGill and Dalhousie with respect to admission to advanced standing in medicine."6' Newfoundland was in touch with or involved in many Canadian activities. When Paton consulted widely about the establishment of marine biology as a discipline at Memorial, one of his British experts advised him that any research done in Newfoundland "should be under the general direction of the investigations controlled by Dr. Huntsman at Ottawa."62 When looking for a working model of a less bookish school curriculum, Paton picked upon his protege Ralph Andrews — who was teaching in Amherst, Nova Scotia, anyway — to

238 A Bridge Built Halfway

check out in that province the "idea of self activity of the pupil functioning in the actual environment - applied to health, fisheries, agriculture, co-operation ..."&B Newfoundland educators had links to the continent through the Canada and Newfoundland Education Association, and even before the 1948 referendum votes the Secretary for Education (Alain Frecker) attended the first conference of Canadian provincial ministers of education held in Quebec City in 1947-64 Numerous features of the pre-iQ5o experience kept turning the attention of Newfoundlanders towards Canada and away from other parts of the world. A faculty member who was planning sabbatical leave in 1948 originally decided upon studies in Edinburgh. She ended up choosing Toronto so that she could retain the Newfoundland cost-of-living bonus.65 Through a network of valuable links and affiliations Memorial - and the whole Newfoundland secondary/postsecondary/teacher-training effort for which it held the general proxy — was warmly welcomed within the ranks of Canadian institutions of higher education. All the scholarships generously extended to draw some of the better Memorial students on to further studies were funded by institutions in the Maritimes.66 Newfoundland's being a foreign country was entirely disregarded. Meanwhile, although Newfoundland remained in the empire, educational links with Great Britain were of only little importance. This was underlined during a 1933—34 debate over the country's proper orientation. A royal commission on the curriculum was provided with expert advice from an English educator brought over for the purpose. He thought Newfoundland schooling should generally be made over in the image of England.67 Those who resisted his advice cleverly appointed Memorial's Alfred Hunter as their champion. He, too, had impeccable old country credentials - Oxbridge degree, teacher training from Borough Road College, experience at various levels in England from elementary to sixth form. Hunter thought the elitism of the English system was not suitable for emulation but rather a "condition to be ashamed of." Keeping teacher training separate from university studies was "reactionary and fundamentally bad." And the visiting expert failed to appreciate Newfoundland's "continental affiliations": "Necessity for the colony's higher education to 'dovetail' with offerings in Canada and the United States seems to have been overlooked ... The assimilation of the work of the M.U.C. to that of an English secondary school is erroneous & misleading ... The work of the M.U.C. begins in fact where the course of an English

239 Affiliations at Home and Abroad

secondary school pupil leaves off. But the really important point is that our work is not to be thought of in terms of an English school but in terms of a Canadian university."68 An "old boy" network also linked Memorial's administration to the campuses of eastern Canada. An intimate knowledge of each other's business was common to all the educators from Macdonald College to Parade Street. It was not unusual, for example, for a letter to arrive in St John's from a friendly faculty, saying that Dalhousie's professor Coffin had complained to McGill's professor Maass that Memorial's students were turning up in Halifax with too much quantitative chemistry in relation to the physical chemistry they knew.69 Newfoundland's premier remembered Nova Scotia's premier from joint student days at Dalhousie. "You were a year or two ahead of me in law."70 When an ex-Memorial student registered at Mount Allison, Professor "Jimmy Willie" Cohoon accepted her quickly and without question into his advanced courses in classics. He had never met Allan Gillingham, he told her, but knew him well through all the splendidly grounded students that regularly came to Sackville from Gillingham's classes in St John's.71

CHAPTER 1 1

After MUC

I was there and I saw you walking up and down, but you were so smartly dressed I never thought you were a Newfoundlander. (Audrey Stirling's reception in Truro, Nova Scotia, 1929)

Graduates from Memorial constituted the main interface between the college and the various societies with which it interacted. One, two, or, in cases of an interrupted program, perhaps a dozen years after entering the Newfoundland college students ended their studies there. They were more mature, more knowledgeable, less prone to religious bigotry — but still short of a university degree. Many entered the workforce directly. Of those who had gained the full junior college diploma, a great majority went abroad for further study. Where did they go? What does this reveal concerning social-intellectual links between preconfederation Newfoundland and other countries? If they went away, did they ever return? Did their advanced education become a lifetime benefit to the home community, or did it tend rather to draw them away to other parts of North America or the world? What impact did their participation in Newfoundland's first venture in general postsecondary education have upon their lives and careers? FURTHER STUDIES OF MUC STUDENTS

Information about what happened to students after graduation without which the impact of Memorial University College could be only very imperfectly judged - is derived primarily from oral history sources. Before 1949, the year in which the university charter began drastically altering the scope and pattern of academic ambitions, 893

241

After MUG

students had graduated. By random selection — every fifth name was taken - a 20% sample was chosen for study. Information gathered from these people about themselves and their classmates gives us some idea of what they experienced after MUG. Of the 178 people in the sample, fifty (28%) were women. Of the ninety, however, who are known to have pursued further studies outside Newfoundland, only nineteen (21%) were women. Either girls of that generation were less ambitious than boys, or families bearing the main financial burden of higher education were more willing to make sacrifices for sons than for daughters. "We couldn't afford to send me to medical school," recalled a woman who graduated in 1932. "My father had a good position but the salary was very low, we just couldn't afford it, if I was a boy perhaps yes."1 We gathered good information on 105 persons in the sample of 178. The percentage of those who went abroad for further studies (90 students) seems quite high, 86%. Reviewing the record of these ninety students, one finds a total of 123 enrolments in foreign universities. Some individuals studied in several institutions, earning two or three degrees (see table 25, page 247). The location of the foreign universities chosen by the students reveals a good deal about Newfoundland's international social and intellectual links in the decades just preceding confederation. The figures represent the choices and movements of Newfoundland students seeking higher education outside their own country from the 19205 to the 19408. They will surprise readers who may have thought that Britain's oldest colony was still culturally in thralldom to the old country and to British institutions. Instead, it is clear that Newfoundland had already swung into the Canadian orbit in matters of higher education.2 The proportions are 82% of the experiences on the mainland of Canada, 10% in the United States, and 8% in Britain. Newfoundland's invasion of the Canadian academic world — a very natural process, encouraged by geographical and political affinity and by the maturity and elaboration of Canadian institutions - was taken in good part by all concerned. Border-crossing formalities were not onerous. On just one occasion, in 1936, Memorial's Board of Governors was drawn to meddle in international diplomacy. The president reported that some Newfoundland students finishing their programs at Canadian universities did not dare to come home "because of the fact that they might be shut out" on attempting to reenter Canada. It was decided that the Commissioner for Home Affairs should be asked to reach an arrangement with Ottawa that graduates of Canadian universities could return to Canada "without question"; nothing more was heard of this concern.3 Memorial gradu-

242 A Bridge Built Halfway

ates proceeding to the mainland for the first time reported a high degree of ignorance about conditions in Newfoundland, but they recognized that they carried an equally heavy burden of ignorance about Canada. Fortunately, the Newfie joke had not yet been invented, making its appearance only at the end of our period as a by-product of the war. Halifax, since it was relatively close and possessed a cluster of institutions, was the Newfoundlanders' major foreign schooling capital. The residence at Pine Hill Divinity Hall was much larger than was necessary to accommodate the small enrolment at that United Church seminary. Often a good proportion of the young men from Newfoundland, whether enrolled at Dalhousie, Technical College, Pine Hill or even Roman Catholic Saint Mary's, lived there together. "Seems almost an Old Memorial Residence," Gordon Cowan wrote in 1931.4 Arthur Butt, a Pine Hill theology student later in the decade, remembered the Newfoundland soccer team. In league play against teams officially representing Saint Mary's, Dalhousie, and Pine Hill, the Newfoundlanders won the championship. You must have been proud of yourselves? he was asked. "The Newfoundlanders ... were good footballers. That was our team, that was our sport... I always went to practice early in the mornings. Get up before daylight at Pine Hill, walk to Dalhousie campus, practice for an hour, come back and have a quick shower and get into the prayer room just as they started prayers."5 Brian Edwards remembered the same tradition ten years later. Although Dalhousie was beginning to play Canadian football, soccer was still a high-profile sport. Even when Dalhousie won the championship, Newfoundland still triumphed, for the majority of the team "and certainly the best players were all Newfoundlanders." They often starred in other arenas as well. In one Gilbert and Sullivan extravaganza put on by the Dalhousie glee and dramatic society in the late 19405 the lead soprano and lead tenor were both Newfoundlanders, as was the society president that year.6 The other major concentration of Newfoundland students in Halifax was at the Dalhousie women's residence, Sheriff Hall. Their connection with the old college in St John's was particularly strong while Paton remained president, since he sent them all Christmas presents. What a joyful surprise, wrote one of the young women, when they "saw, piled up on the antique table in the hall, a column of parcels from Moirs - addressed to us Newfoundland students." At first they thought it was advertising from that Halifax candy company; it turned out to be gifts from Lewis and Mary Paton.7 The warden of Sheriff Hall reported that her Newfoundlanders overdid bridge playing at

243

After MUC

first, overcame it later, but always remained as a group too clannish, except for one particular student who, however, played practical jokes and was "decidedly erratic."8 Claude Howse wrote from the Pine Hill residence that he agreed about the clannish part. The change from Memorial to Dalhousie was not all improvement. "We aren't in personal touch with our Professors ... We miss that." He found "little college spirit, and the little groups which know one another hang together and tend to form units having little or nothing to do with outsiders ... This is as true of the Newfoundlanders as it is of anybody else." He was having difficulty in maintaining the habit of vigour which Paton strenuously exemplified. "I go in before classes and open every window but then some students come in, feel a little draught on their heads, and close them all again."9 While sticking together for companionship, the Newfoundlanders made the transition to Canadian colleges quite easily. "Life at King's is very much like that at the Memorial College," wrote a 1932 graduate. "Practically the same organizations exist and social life is very similar," although "various branches of athletics are of a somewhat higher standard."10 Memorial graduates fared very well not only in opera, soccer, and bridge, but also in serious academic pursuits. They were after all a select group, having deliberately and expensively undertaken third- and fourth-year studies several hundred miles from home. The less studious or less highly motivated were still in Newfoundland. Claude Howse testified that he found the general attitude to studies in Halifax more casual than at Memorial. "Not 5% take their studies seriously until about a month before Exams, then it's work day and night cutting down on sleep and recreation."11 Some of the brightest Newfoundland students were coached and encouraged by particular faculty members, impressed with their abilities. J.N. Gowanloch, head of biology at Dalhousie and a member of the Biological Board of Canada, started Wilfred Templeman as an undergraduate "on a piece of fundamental research work on the codfish"; and he proposed George Whiteley for a survey of Lake Athabasca which introduced the young fish biologist to many new freshwater species as well as to the extent of Canada.12 Bill Hampton, eventually PHD McGill, discovered that he was a born researcher soon after switching from the general to an honours undergraduate program. He broadcast his enthusiasm everywhere. "I shall never forget," wrote Paton, "the letter which he wrote me when he was first set on in the labs of Dalhousie to penetrate one of Nature's secrets."13 Shared academic values, as well as interest in some of the same students, brought Memorial and its Canadian partners into very close

244 A Bridge Built Halfway

relations. Hatcher became just as bold about asking for what he wanted in Halifax as he did in St John's. "Times are hard," he wrote to the president of King's College in 1936, "and it occurs to me that if I could say that your scholarship had a value of $100 a year instead of $50 a year, it might be easy to get a suitable person." King's obligingly adjusted its award.14 In return, Memorial was expected to be frank in handling very sensitive enquiries. When Moses Morgan 1935 graduate, later Memorial's fifth president - was planning further study in Halifax to finish his degree, he wrote to King's College seeking accommodation there. The bursar sent Hatcher a discreet letter. "Although I have no violent objection to receiving descendants of the Hebrew race, we have been free of the problem to date and there seems to be a feeling that we should remain so as long as possible." He wanted to know whether the young Newfoundlander was, as his name indicated, Jewish? Hatcher, not reproving him for religious bigotry - perhaps not thinking it improper - replied merely: "We do not discriminate against Welshmen."15 The intimate relationship between Memorial and the Maritime universities was strongly expressed during the winter of 1942, when a bad fire at Mount Allison University destroyed a men's residence and killed four students.16 In the wake of the disaster Mount Allison's Board of Regents sent out a circular letter asking for assistance. Memorial's Board considered this request, and resolved, "that whereas during the fire at Mount Allison certain ex-students of the M.U.C. suffered financial loss; ... Secretary be instructed to write the Commissioner for Home Affairs and Education, asking him whether it is his wish that the Board of Governors vote as a grant-in-aid money for the purpose of assisting such ex-students of the College in continuing their studies as may be in need." When Commissioner A.J. Winter communicated his approval, it was decided to send an official expression of sympathy and $500 to the students' assistance fund at Sackville - for male students, formerly at Memorial, who lost "clothes etc." when the residence burned.17 Some campuses in Quebec and Ontario also had their share of former Memorial students. Montreal's version of the Pine Hill residence was United Theological College - "a very splendid place to stay - there are at least 20 Newfoundlanders here" (1929).l8 Through the 19308 McGill had a Newfoundland club holding regular meetings. In 1934 it established a committee in charge of welcoming each autumn's batch of fresh arrivals - "showing them around, helping them dodge the Customs and Immigration officers, helping them to straighten out their courses." Jim Horwood asked the Memorial

245

After MUC

students' council to send him in the spring the names of those intending to come to Montreal that fall, so that the McGill club could correspond with individuals and make firm contact before they even left the island.19 Not surprisingly, it was the students who went on to Canada's largest universities in Quebec and Ontario who most expressed a nostalgia and preference for Memorial's small size and sometimes family atmosphere. For example, when Ethel King (1929) wrote from Royal Victoria College, Montreal, to say thanks for her Christmas chocolates, she mentioned the news that Memorial was to build a new wing. "Congratulations on the Baby's new tooth. But that's another baby that is growing up all too soon. Soon it's going to be a big over grown giant like this place with no more personal touch than McGill has. I'm glad I was there in the lap stage."20 The further from St John's, the less certain was the granting of advanced standing for work done there. In 1926 Helena McGrath the first student to complete second-year work at Memorial — went on to the University of Toronto, hoping to enter the third year honours program. She telegraphed to Paton that she had encountered a bad road block. The initial response was that for honours she would have to go back into first year: "IF SUCH THE CASE MIGHT AS WELL HAVE REMAINED AT HOME. THOUGHT THAT ADVISE YOU AT ONCE AS QUESTION NOT YET FINALLY DECIDED. WOULD BE UNFORTUNATE

PRECEDENT WHAT CAN BE DONE." Later she was able to explain that the matter was satisfactorily settled. She was admitted to second-year honours, which was fine, for even Toronto's own students could not switch from second-year pass to third year-honours. Once around that difficulty things greatly improved. By November she was writing enthusiastically that history was fascinating. She had joined a club that sang German songs and had on the list quite a few of the numbers sung last year in Newfoundland. The accompanist, however, "isn't nearly as good" as Bob MacLeod. And the city was big, sprawling, complex. "It's an awful nuisance to go anywhere here. Every place seems so far away from every other place."21 Students on the mainland often reported meeting people with very hazy or no knowledge at all of Newfoundland and conditions there. One, studying library science at McGill, wrote about a project assigned to her class. As an exercise in building a special collection, books had to be selected for each province. Newfoundland was included as a province, "much to my disgust. But I've got the others in my class much better educated than before they knew me." They now realized that Newfoundland i was no province, 2 was just as free

246 A Bridge Built Halfway

as Canada, 3 was Britain's oldest colony, 4 had its own government, its own flag, "and the crowning glory, to Library students, its own 'Who's who'."22 Often the students did not have to go as far as central Canada to find innocent, friendly ignorance about Newfoundland. When precocious Audrey Sterling went to Nova Scotia Normal School in 1929, she found herself ignored. Having written ahead to her boarding house, she expected to be met at Truro's railway station. "I got off the train ... walked up and down and I couldn't see anyone, and finally I got a taxi and went to the boarding house ... When I got to the door Beulah answered, and I said ... someone was supposed to have met me, and there wasn't anyone there. Beulah looked at me. My, she said, I was there and I saw you walking up and down, but you were so smartly dressed I never thought you were a Newfoundlander."23 The ten percent of former students who went to the United States for further study can be divided into two groups. The small contingents at Harvard and Columbia consisted of individuals who were very deliberately acquiring or strengthening credentials for teaching back at the old campus on Parade Street. The other students in the United States were scattered from Boston to Minnesota. It was usually several years after being at Memorial that students arrived at these various places — part of a pattern of moving and working around the North American world. Although it is hard to imagine, Americans often knew less about Newfoundland than the average Canadian. In the mid-1950s Kay Kennedy (MUG 1932) sandwiched a summer course at the famous Oceanographic Institution at Woodshole, Massachusetts, between two winter terms at Saint Francis Xavier. At a lobster boil on the beach one evening, one of the other students was boasting she could tell where anyone came from after hearing them talk. "Well, I said, where did I come from? She said, say a few more words now and then I'll tell you. So I said something else and she said, you're from England ... No, I'm from Newfoundland but you don't know where that is I bet. And she said it's over there near England ... she was thinking of it as being so near to England that I had an English accent."24 One of Paton's correspondents found that after two years of parttime study at Fordham University, an official there objected that her academic papers were not in order. She hoped Vincent Burke would be making one of his annual trips to see the Carnegie Corporation, so that he could settle the matter. In the meantime, "I do not think it would hurt some American Registrars to take a few lessons in manners."25 Others professed to find American manners and customs

247

After MUG

Table 25 Places of Further Study by Memorial College Graduates, 1926-48 (random sample) Country

Institution

No. of Experiences

Canada

Dalhousie Acadia Mount Allison Nova Scotia Technical College Pine Hill Divinity Hall Mount Saint Vincent King's College Saint Francis Xavier Maritime School of Social Work University of New Brunswick McGill University of Toronto Queen's University of Western Ontario Saint Augustine's Seminary (Toronto) [Memorial after 1949]

28 13 13 7 3 3 2 2 1 1 8 14 2 2 1

United States

United Kingdom

Harvard Boston University Columbia Massachusetts Institute of Technology Catholic Univ. of America (Washington) North Carolina Indiana Minnesota Oxford London Durham Edinburgh British Inst. of Engineering Technology (correspondence) Aberdeen

[8] 3 2 2 1 1 1 1 1 4 3 1 1 1 1

very much to their liking. Jack Nickerson reported from Princeton University in 1928: "Ultimately I hope to acquire a PHD, a 'fat' salary, a Yankee accent, and, perhaps the most important, a good golf score."26 Table 25 makes it clear that North America is where these Memorial

248 A Bridge Built Halfway

graduates fitted into the global academic society. Britain's oldest colony had obviously seen most intellectual links with the old country broken by 1925. The Rhodes scholarship drew some of the very strongest scholars to Oxford University, but other than that, fewer than 5% patronized institutions in Great Britain. Those that did found a somewhat difficult transition academically. Gertrude Facey (1929) thought the University of Durham was homey in scale - only 450 students - but rather challenging in the standards expected. Her Memorial Latin was better than required, but she was "barely up to scratch" in English, French, history, and religious knowledge.27 Ethel Brinton (1928) was nearly lost for a while at the huge University of London. "It took me quite a year I would say to find my way about in the large libraries and also in the department... [Did the other students look upon you as a foreigner?] No, they didn't... They took for granted that I'd grown up in England. Until they discovered it and then, of course, a number of them said, Newfoundland, where is that?"28 Although none happened to be in the random sample of 20% of the graduates, there was the very occasional student who ended up elsewhere than in Canada, the United States, or Great Britain. For example, young men preparing for the Roman Catholic priesthood might study in Rome. In 1937 Joe O'Brien wrote to Hatcher from the Collegio Irlandese, Via Santi Quattro. The lectures were in Latin and Italian. Fortunately, he had done classical languages at St John's. "I find my work at Memorial coming in directly. As for history, we see many of the places we studied about."29 After 1950 Memorial began granting its own degrees, so that undergraduates no longer needed to disperse across North America and into distant corners of other continents. The Newton report of that period recognized that the former system had some advantages. "Young men who have grown up in the comparative isolation of Newfoundland benefit by experience in other places and return with a broadened outlook. True, a number of them may be permanently lost to the mainland, but an exchange of talents between provinces also has its advantages."30 There was indeed a permanent brain drain. Roughly four students out often who went abroad for higher education remained abroad for the major portion of their careers. It was also true, however, that being abroad strengthened a Newfoundland student's sense of nationality, place, and dedication. "When we were students at Dalhousie," Moses Morgan remembered the 19305, "a small group of us had formed a Newfoundland Society and the object of that was to persuade Newfoundland students at Dalhousie to go back to Newfoundland to help develop the province."31

249

After MUG

SUBSEQUENT CAREERS

What was the impact of Memorial's students in the societies where they settled? The majority of them never left Newfoundland. Many were teachers who added the benefits of their preparation - in academic subjects, child psychology, and school management - to the country's school systems. Others who did not pursue studies beyond the two-year diploma level became homemakers, businessmen or a frequent outcome — public servants. During the 19305 a certificate from Memorial replaced completion of grade eleven as a basic qualification for many Newfoundland government posts. The most accomplished students, those who completed one or more degrees abroad, had an interesting range of careers from which to choose. The available information on the choices they made — how many librarians there were, how many lawyers etc., and whether they practised in Newfoundland or elsewhere - is given in appendix 14. Table 26 is a summary of their choices of occupation. The largest category, the intelligentsia, was composed chiefly of college teachers, mainly at Memorial itself. (Most of the many Newfoundland elementary and high school teachers who trained at the college did not contribute to these statistics, not having studied abroad). Those in the health professions included far more physicians than nurses. In the public service categories, on the other hand, the several subgroups listed were approximately of equal size. The 5% in engineering careers contrasts sharply with the roughly 15% who chose this program from the mid-19308 on (table 11). Memorial's scholastic records show that engineers succeeded rather poorly in their studies; this table now indicates a significant bleeding out of this professional stream during the student years. In the sample which produced table 26, about 25% were women. The proportion for whom homemaking became a major career, however, was only 8%. This indicates that female graduates who achieved a degree were quite serious about finding employment for their skills and learning outside the home, that they persevered and were successful in doing so. As is to be expected, many of the most successful, most noted Newfoundlanders of the mid-century period came from the slim registration lists of Memorial College. Memorial-trained teachers soon dominated the whole profession in Newfoundland. Memorial graduates also made their contribution in postsecondary institutions scattered across North America from the University of Arkansas (Pine Bluff) to Vancouver community college and to Queen's, Acadia, and Dalhousie universities — in addition to the large number of scholars

250 A Bridge Built Halfway Table 26 Careers Chosen by Memorial Graduates Who Studied Abroad Profession

Percentage

Intelligentsia (college and school teachers, 44 librarians, writers) Health professions 19 Religious leadership 11 Engineering 5 Science/research 5 Public service (government, educational and 5 hospital administration, politics) Homemaking* 4* Business 3 Law 3 *Another 4% of the graduates initially chose some other career, then switched permanently into homemaking within ten to fifteen years.

who formed the backbone of Memorial's own faculty through the 19408 and 19505. The academic group contained the doyen of eastern Canadian fisheries researchers, a future head of Queen's College (St John's) and a future president of Memorial University.32 Those first classes are also notable for producing splendid communicators. Among the writers were the authors of Yarns from Pigeon Inlet, House of Hate, Northern Seas, Hardy Sailors, Be you a Library Missionary, Miss?, of the famous song "Squid-jiggin' ground" and biographies of Margaret Duley and EJ. Pratt. There was the translator of Mexican novelist Augustin Yanez, various radio personalities including the second "Barrelman" - who later was editor of the Evening Telegram, and the founder of the Grand Falls Advertiser. There was a Roman Catholic bishop and many elected members of legislative bodies from the national convention on. Among the small number of lawyers, one became chief justice (trial division) of the Nova Scotia Supreme Court.33 Finally, did they ever return? After they knew the marvels of the mainland, was there then scope in Newfoundland's simpler society for their skills and energy? The opportunities that existed and the fact that Newfoundland was home, drew about six out of ten to live the major portion of their lives back home. The proportions varied greatly among the professions (table 27). Teachers and other members of the intelligentsia were the most likely to find a niche in Newfoundland. Their expertise was apparently needed for the modernization of the country and certainly for the slow development of

251

After MUC

Table 27 Brain Drain? Rate of Return to Newfoundland of Memorial Graduates Who Studied Abroad Practised Chiefly in Career Newfoundland Elsewhere (%) (%) Intelligentsia Health professions Religious leadership Engineering Science/research Public service Homemaking Business Total

77 50 44 25 63 50 0 100 59%

23 50 56 75 37 50 100 0 41%

Memorial itself. One might have thought that engineers would also show a tendency to return, but in the rather small sample from which this table is derived, they did not. The other categories least likely to return were the pastors of the various faiths - who much more likely served in Canada than in exotic missions - and home-making women who married abroad and took up residence in their husband's homeland. ALUMNI Links between the little college in St John's and its first two decades of graduates seem to have been particularly close. The dedication of one 1929 graduate was only an extreme manifestation of a familiarity and affection that many experienced. Graduation day, Paddy Duder wrote a year later, was nerve-racking but stirred fond memories. Feeling "inestimable sadness at leaving such a splendid bunch of fellow-students and such a likeable staff, I simply couldn't leave the college - I came day after day and read in the Library or plagued Miss Mansfield for something to do - and then stayed for the Summer School."34 The year before the first wave of supergraduates came back to begin assuming faculty positions was when the Old Memorial's Association (OMA) was organized. A January 1932 open letter in the newspapers helped to inaugurate the organization and made it clear that the purpose was far from frivolous. The purpose of the OMA was "not for pleasure at the table, or tables, or on the floor" - dining, games, and dancing - "but in thinking high thoughts for Newfoundland and working that they might be put into effect."35

252 A Bridge Built Halfway

Starting that autumn there sometimes appeared a separate column from the Old Memorials alongside the regular "College notes." The first one, in September, exhorted every graduate to promote close relations between "town and gown." Good works had alreadyv begun. Members of the group had acted as playground attendants that summer; now they were getting down to work to establish the first public library in St John's and calling for donations of books. This project brought former and current students together to work, preparing shelves and storage space for what eventually became the Gosling library collection, in one of the basement rooms at the college.36 Soon an Old Memorial study group had been formed, meeting from time to time to discuss Newfoundland affairs. In early 1935 their main concern was City Hall's refusal of a loan from the Commission of Government.37 The OMA intervened with the mayor, as well as with the Auditor-General and the Commission. That year they also launched an enquiry into the conditions of labour in St John's, an enquiry reminiscent of, perhaps triggered by, muck-raking journalism in the United States and the investigation of price spreads in Canada by H.H. Stevens, Minister of Trade and Commerce in the Bennett government (1930-35). The secretary of the study group wrote to the Commission of Government about the poor conditions in some St John's work places. Factory employees were paid strictly by the day. When the factory closed - for example at Christmas - a day's pay was deducted from the weekly wage. Delivery men were sometimes required to work until 1:00 A.M. Sunday morning. Some offices were dark, overcrowded, poorly lit, badly ventilated. Store employees were expected to work overtime during busy seasons without extra pay. They urged the government to undertake a thorough and definitive investigation.38 Eventually this alumni group took up with college authorities the joint task of keeping in touch with former students. "It was an excellent idea to send out that letter to all your past students just recently," Bob MacLeod wrote in 1938 from Kapuskasing, where the paper industry had temporarily taken him from Newfoundland. A dependable OMA Bulletin began in 1939—40. It reported who had been married among former students or faculty members, and to whom, without saying why. It retailed other alumni news, identified the association executive, and contained uplifting editorials, news items, and notes on coming events.39 The Second World War scattered those who needed a regular fix of news about Memorial more widely. In January 1944 one graduate wrote from the "Central Mediterranean force," where he was serving in the Canadian army, to complain that all he had received from the

253

After MUC

college recently was a Christmas card. Two years earlier there had been a circular letter full of news. "Many of us in this area as in England would appreciate some such reminder of what is now being accomplished."40 Although further studies and foreign careers dispersed a good many Memorial College students, there still remained a solid group who kept up links not only with the college administration and leaders of the alumni movement, but even with the current crop of callow youth passing through Parade Street a generation behind them. When the first student newspaper was being planned in 1936, the secretary of the OMA wrote to promise cooperation, some copy for the first issue, and a meeting to discuss further particulars. Even at the end of the college period - when larger numbers began to dilute family feeling — current and former students showed they were still of one blood. Literally. A former student, now seriously ill, appealed for a blood supply so that he could have the operations he needed. The Students' Representative Council first made ad-hoc arrangements, then set up a regular system, calling for blood donations from the students so that they would have a reserve on hand for present or past college members, or for transfer to the hospitals in case of emergency. "Done entirely on the students' initiative," Hunter recorded with gratification, "this testifies to the prevalence of a wholesome spirit among them."41

CHAPTER 12

An Overview — Past and Present

That's another baby that is growing up all too soon. Soon it's going to be a big over-grown giant like this place with no more personal touch than McGill has. I'm glad I was there in the lap stage. (Ethel King, 1929, dubious about the news that Memorial planned to add a new wing to the building) In recommending the degrees to be conferred today the Senate maintains well the standard for which the Memorial University College has been so often praised abroad and perhaps criticized at home. (President Albert Hatcher addressing his i7th annual convocation, the first for newly-chartered Memorial University of Newfoundland, 3 June 1950)

The 1925—50 record of Memorial University College relates to three important themes. It is, first of all, the opening chapter in an institutional success story. Memorial University has eclipsed many older institutions while growing into the Atlantic region's largest university.1 The second theme is the Canadian connection. Memorial always enjoyed the closest of contacts and cooperation with the network of colleges and universities in the eastern provinces of the dominion next door. In matters concerning higher education in Newfoundland, the preconfederation decades were not pre-Canadian. This fact does not diminish the importance of the third theme — Memorial as a reflection and example of important developments in Newfoundland society and public life. The key decisions in founding the university college and establishing its procedures were made by Newfoundland authorities very much for Newfoundland reasons. The establishment of Memorial College and its frustratingly slow growth through depression and war, is a case study in the modernization of New-

255

A*1 Overview

Table 28 Some Measures of University Development, 1925, 1950, 1985 1925-26 Number of full-time students Percentage from Newfoundland Number of major buildings Number of full-time faculty average no. of degrees Apparent nationality (arts, science & education) percentage from Nfld. - from rest of Canada - from USA - from UK - from rest of world Approx. no. of full-time staff Number of degree programs Revenue in $ thousands Percentage from govt. grants Expenditures in $ thousands Percentage for payroll costs Student govt. revenue

57 100 1 6 1.7

33 0 17 50 0 2

1949-50 307 99 2 26 1.7

77 8 4 12 0 6

1985-86 10,552 93 26 863 2.6

21 33 17 20 10

1,256

26 3 none 134(1948) 101,000 38 84 63 53 96,000 50(1929) 135 74 76 78 $713,000 $4,000 —

foundland, the forces which promoted and the conditions which impeded it. !925> 195°'!9 8 5 Immersed in the problems and progress of the first quarter-century, one tends to see it as a story of success. Comparison with the years that followed, however, reveals 1925-50 in a more modest light. Table 28 shows that in a great number of important aspects - number of students, faculty, buildings, and programs, and the level of financing - there was a much higher growth rate after 1950 than before. During the period following the university charter - and especially after the 1961 move to a new campus — Memorial often had years when the growth rate was between 50% and 100%. In the years before 1950, however, the average rate was in the range of 12% to 15%. In seven of those twenty-five years (see appendix 15), the number of students registered was actually less than the previous year. In those many facets of college life better appreciated through qualitative rather than statistical measures, early Memorial had a

256 A Bridge Built Halfway

record to be proud of. At the 1946 memorial service held in St John's after Paton died in England, Hatcher gave a valuable summary of Memorial's history. The university college was founded in 1925 with no traditions, very slender resources, and an absence, he said, of the full measure of popular support that it now enjoyed. It had to build a program that fitted in with academic life on the neighbouring continent, and as a national Newfoundland foundation it had to integrate itself into the local educational milieu. "None of this was quite familiar to Mr. Paton." The first president nevertheless overcame all the problems by his zeal, eagerness, and "remarkable" personal qualities. Paton built up, in addition to the obvious requirement - a sound and respectable program for full time students - also evening and summer school programs, a navigation school, and a scholarship/loan fund. Since the depression and war intervened - the problems these brought being handled by the less mercurial but no less resolute second president - Paton did not live to see the completion of a university establishment. Such a charter as was finally achieved in August 1949 had been the aim, however, from early on. Hatcher recalled one of the vivid images that his predecessor would use in his generally futile struggles with the guardians of the public purse: "A two-year college is, for some of its graduates at any rate, like a bridge built half-way across a river."2 Memorial had many successes. One was attracting a highly representative, though small, fraction of the potential student body from across Newfoundland. Facilities were cramped but well used, the college offering "hospitality freely to any venture that might be described, even elastically, as educational."3 The faculty were about as well qualified as one could hope for in a junior college: about 1.6 degrees per person, on average, when joining the staff. The place sometimes deserved its reputation of being run by "a bunch of old maids," but governance at the policy-making level was businesslike, dedicated, and even innovative (e.g., in the early introduction of sabbatical leave). Above all, those who predicted that Newfoundland's fractured Christianity could never cooperate in a sensitive educational venture were proved wrong. The idea of a single society, a nation, triumphed over religious particularism. Hunter thought that Memorial represented a process whereby "sectarian suspicion and animosity" were replaced by "the unity of the spirit in the bond of place."4 Equally, Memorial had many failures. Nationalism run rampant produced too marked a preference for hiring Newfoundlanders. Inbreeding meant parochial insularity for as long as students stayed at

257 An Overview

Parade Street. At college the daily round seems to have been a highly regimented tyranny. Some would say that petty paternalism was redeemed by high ideals. Others would always prefer freedom, both as an end and as a means to maximum human development. For several years in the 19405 policy/administrative channels were clogged with a variety of expansion plans, most of them entirely futile. The aptness of one scholar's descriptor for the Commission of Government era - "apotheosis of the bureaucrat"5 - is underlined by this tiresome phase in the administrative history. The major failing of the college was its inability to attract many students. As 1950 dawned, nevertheless, an interesting if miniature and incomplete university was in operation on the heights of downtown St John's. Registration that year, totalling 307 students, was smaller than it had been since 1944-45. The group included just four demobilized servicemen. The usual 30% were women. Important issues for the professors and planners were the growing predominance of vocationally-oriented over general students, the very low success rate among engineers, the transition to degree programs, and the workload of the teaching staff. Jack Ashley held the 1949-50 record with twenty-one hours (German and classics), followed closely by three female professors, each with twenty.6 Well-entrenched traditions carried the institution around a twelvemonth cycle with scarcely a break. Soon after the regular students departed in late May, teachers flocked in from the elementary and high schools. The 1950 summer session was the twenty-fifth consecutive gathering. Its fifteen instructors were drawn from the ranks of Memorial faculty and the best qualified teachers in the city colleges. There was the usual nature ramble at Bowring Park and the traditional ceremony at the Francis Bruton beech tree. "Because we love this land of ours ..." they all intoned, a larger group than that of the winter session.7 Close on the heels of summer session came the survey camp at Harbour Grace for students entering second-year preengineering. After two weeks' practice in the use and adjustment of instruments, field procedure, and note keeping, they repaid local kindnesses by doing the layout survey for a new children's playground.8 When the engineers got back to town it was time for fall term to begin. The first regular assembly would hear about some of their exploits, new faculty members would be introduced, Fraser would deliver the shopworn history of the cap and gown, and President Hatcher would announce his usual campaign to greet each new student personally before September was out. In the years following the junior college period standards of academic seriousness and practised accomplishment remained. A good

258 A Bridge Built Halfway

deal else about Memorial changed beyond recognition. By 1985 fulltime enrolment had skyrocketed to 10,500, or 181 per 10,000 of Newfoundland's population. This was a far cry from the 13.2 per 10,000 which the old college achieved in its peak year, 1946—47. Inevitably, much of the human touch was lost. Now no one met all the students. There was no stadium nearer than Halifax that could even have held them all. On posted lists of marks they were just numbers. New programs had multiplied. No longer subservient to the mainland, the engineering faculty now gave its own degrees. A Faculty of Medicine had emerged and carried off the city's largest general hospital to a showpiece corner of the new campus. There were degrees also in business administration, nursing, physical education, social work, music, pharmacy, and fine arts. The last of these was located at the university's second campus in Corner Brook, developing since the early 19705. Education was a large program and the core faculties of arts and science stayed strong. Research now vied with teaching as the institution's main aim. Achievements were particularly impressive in marine biology and other life sciences, geology, language, folklore, and ocean engineering. Many traditions had been outgrown. Survey camp was now a one-week experience, and for the civil engineering stream only, held on campus. The proportion of Newfoundlanders on staff had shrunk from three-quarters to one-fifth. Even in the music school nobody had ever heard the Memorial song. Neither on campus nor in Bowring Park was any memory preserved of where the Bruton tree stood. CONFEDERATION

The second important theme is the intimate relationship of the Newfoundland college with the Canadian university world. In the 19208 and 19305 an international border separated Newfoundland from Canada. The distinction was emphasized by the difficulties of communication across Cabot Strait and by prolonged diplomatic confrontation over the Labrador-Quebec demarcation boundary, settled in Newfoundland's favour in 1927. Despite the fact that they lived in different countries, many social ties linked Newfoundlanders and Canadians. It has been repeatedly evident throughout this history that Memorial junior college grew up within the family of Canadian academic institutions. When the Carnegie Corporation took an interest in helping to reorganize and assist higher education in the maritime provinces, the founding of Memorial was one of the few positive results. On

259 An Overview

procedures, timetabling, student government, and numerous other matters, Memorial consulted and often followed patterns familiar on the mainland. The Newfoundland college adopted a Canadian curriculum. The closest affiliations were with Dalhousie, McGill, and Nova Scotia Technical College. All the institutional awards available to support further study — except the Rhodes Scholarship — were donated by universities in the Maritimes. It is not surprising that over 80% of Memorial graduates who studied further after Parade Street did so in Canada. It is an ironic fact that in the decades following confederation Memorial's connections with universities in other parts of Canada became much less intimate than they were during the junior college period. As the Newfoundland university developed, it became less dependent on partnerships and affiliations westward. Whereas up to 1949 students had to go abroad to Canada to obtain even a first degree, they later could earn one, two, or more degrees without leaving St John's. The offshore island was more closely integrated with Canadian higher education when it was a foreign country. Of some importance in this connection is the fact that the second and most influential president, Albert Hatcher, himself created personal links between the island colony and the British part of the continent. A native of Moreton's Harbour, he was a graduate of Methodist College and of McGill University with two degrees. The old-boy network, which in the 19805 was still weighty in the governance of universities, seems to have been even more powerful in the pre-igso period. Hatcher's network comprised McGill (where a younger brother became a faculty fixture and information conduit), Victoria, Lennoxville, and Halifax (all places where he taught before returning to Newfoundland), and other Canadian centres. These links, along with Memorial's preference for hiring its own graduates, produced a staff on which two-thirds of the faculty members had degrees from Canada. During the period 1925—50 overseas partners were also found in other countries besides Canada. The first president was imported from the north of England. His network of connections was just as English as Hatcher's was Canadian, though not so university-oriented. Consequently several key faculty appointments before 1933 went to British scholars. Paton was flexible, had his eye on the main chance, and was learning all the time. In his attempt to establish a strong marine biology program at Memorial, with research that would be of practical benefit to the Newfoundland economy, he consulted fisheries research people in Halifax and the Biological Board of Canada as well as marine research centres in the old country. If British universities had accepted students from Memorial's two-

260 A Bridge Built Halfway Table 29 The 1948 Confederation Issue: Memorial University College Graduates Contrasted with All Newfoundland Favoured Constitution Responsible govt. Confederation Commission of Govt.

Memorial Graduates (Oral History) in % 33 55 11

Newfoundland Vote (I June 1948) in %* 45 41 14

*Noel, Politics, 257

year program for advanced standing in their own degree patterns, affiliations across the ocean might have become quite important. But they did not. There were important differences between the British and North American systems after all, and Memorial was in the other camp. Special relationships in the United States consisted of a friendly understanding with Columbia University which permitted a handful of Newfoundland educators to go there to hone their teacher-training skills; and the crucial generosity of the Carnegie Corporation in helping to establish the Newfoundland junior college and underwriting its operations in the 19305 when the depression prevented the colonial government from doing so. So the Canadian pattern greatly predominated over other foreign influences in Memorial's first quarter-century. This is not to say that Newfoundland had an outside model imposed upon it. Instead, the record shows how very natural it was for Newfoundland's academic leaders - who thoroughly controlled the whole development - to take approaches often very similar to those of mainland Canadian educators with whom they were in close contact. There were also, of course, some important non-Canadian characteristics in the life of Memorial: the relatively high proportion of women in core program teaching posts; a pass mark of 40% not 5o%;9 and always and ever, the very narrow path along which college administrators tiptoed through the minefields of denominational privilege and suspicion. When confederation with Canada finally became a practical issue in Newfoundland politics, one might have thought that Memorial graduates who had studied in that country and then returned might lead opinion strongly in a continentalist direction. Although the question deserves some detailed study which is not possible here, there are some indications this was not the case (see table 29). Such MUG graduates seemed to have inclined towards Canada and confederation only slightly more than the country at large.

26i

An Overview

MUG IN THE CONTEXT OF NEWFOUNDLAND'S DEVELOPMENT The most important context within which to see Memorial College is that of the economic, political, and social conditions in Newfoundland at the time. Newfoundland is a small northern country where relative scarcity of resources limits population size, and renders more problematic achievements of civilization and culture which may be normal in southern climes. Newfoundland has indeed developed along lines very similar to those of neighbouring jurisdictions, but usually on a delayed schedule and with greater difficulty. The establishment of the university college was one in a long series of developments which reflected and promoted the modernization of this interesting, distinct society. In the nineteenth century some key steps in Newfoundland's modernization were the development of representative and then responsible government, water and sewage services (without full municipal government) for St John's, and a railway line linked by ferry to Canada's Intercolonial Railway and completed a decade later (1897). The feuding of religious groups in the mid-i8oos was finally quelled by a bargain that ensured balanced representation in all important aspects of public affairs. In no aspect was the bargain felt to be more crucial than in schooling. At the turn of the century iron-ore mining, and then the manufacture of paper in Grand Falls, began to diversify the previously fishery-monopolized economy. In the twentieth century the modernization continued, reinforced by nationalism. The increasing length of time since the great migrations produced a people less Irish or British, more North American and more Newfoundland. The First World War gave a special boost to unity. Newfoundland as a nation was symbolized by the commemorative battlefield park at Beaumont-Hamel in France. There a symbolic caribou tops the rise overlooking a multitude of graves in military order and takes from the air the scent of slaughter, sacrifice, and pride. At home, the rigid educational denominationalism of the late 18oos softened into a willingness to experiment with cooperation in higher forms of education. In addition to such willingness — best typified by the more cooperative attitude adopted by the Roman Catholic church during E.P. Roche's archbishopric - socioeconomic changes were underway. By the 19205 the growth of industry and of the middle class, along with improved literacy and communications, had strengthened the demand for college training at home, to the extent that the New-

262 A Bridge Built Halfway

foundland state was moved to do something about it. "War Memorial University College" was an important step towards enabling Newfoundland to produce its own corps of leaders, with advanced knowledge and highly-polished skills for various walks of life. It turned out that the times were not propitious for launching an ambitious educational venture. Newfoundland headed in the mid19205 into a long period of penury, upheaval, and despair. Through the 19305 the fishery failed to provide decent livelihoods. The great depression undermined prosperity in other economic sectors as well. Working-class families had to accept relief on an unprecedented scale, while widespread social bitterness exploded into an unrest that threatened the rule of law. Overcome by debt, the self-governing state was replaced by a bureaucratic regime, the installation of which happened to coincide with a similar diminution of democratic practice in several other western countries, such as Germany. The 19405 saw prosperity return, but social values entered a period of instability and flux, and constitutional/geopolitical uncertainty persisted. If these were such hard, hard times, how is it then that Memorial College — a new and unfamiliar frill for a socioeconomic system in dire straits — managed to survive? Carnegie Corporation intervention is only part of the answer. For the rest it is necessary to recognize that the Newfoundland state, while financially precarious, has in the twentieth century always been well organized. For example, onethird of the people were assisted by transfer payments from the government at the depth of the depression. For the time it was a remarkable achievement, not of socialist ideology but of humane values and administrative competence. Few other jurisdictions matched this record (certainly not Canada, prior to the 1945 introduction of family allowances). Often the services which Newfoundland authorities were able to provide were not very elaborate: a dole of only six cents per day, a national university with no degrees. Their range, however, was quite comprehensive - a framework waiting for improvements to be fitted in. Though battered by untoward events, Newfoundland continued modernizing. In the same period in which the university college took root there was heard the spreading clatter of outboard motors through the inshore fishery and an industrializing "hum on the Humber," as papermaking transformed the west side of the island. There were resolute and successful campaigns against beri-beri and tuberculosis, the establishment of the cottage hospital system, including an enlightened early form of health insurance, and of a fisheries research station. When a world-class air field was developed at Gander under combined local, British, and Canadian auspices, New-

263 An Overview

foundland — favoured by the geography of air communication — was fully current with the state of the art, following no one's example. In the 19405 compulsory elementary education was implemented, industry-wide marketing of saltfish was finally imposed, and the junior college was elevated to university rank just as Newfoundland voters opted for a social welfare system better developed than any they could afford themselves, and called it confederation. Most of these innovations represent deliberate, highly purposive attempts by Newfoundland's leaders to reorganize and improve life in their country. As modest as the junior college project was, its establishment was preeminent among modernizing measures in its potential for shaping the future, both of individual lives and of society in general. Although the Memorial project remained low key during the period 1925-50, it nevertheless provided a foundation sufficiently firm that the ambitious postconfederation regime could build upon it in turn its own major legacy and monument.

From the beginning Memorial related more comprehensively to the society it served than did any other university in eastern Canada. That was because it expressed national rather than narrower, sectarian concerns. The usual Canadian pattern had become public schools but, very likely, colleges guided by the religious impulse. In Newfoundland the pattern was reversed: the schools were run by the churches, but the emerging university was a secular and a public institution.10 In his parting speech, the first president gave this idea grandiloquent expression: "A University, as we conceived it" in 1925, said Paton, "was the reaching out of a community towards the fulfillment of its higher life and planning ... the fulfillment of those higher mandates without which there is no progress ... We regard a University foundation as the nation's answer to the call of the future."11 Through the 19305 and 19405 innovation and achievement were twinned with frustration and disappointment. The university college attracted only a small clientele. Only a miniscule portion of the target age group ever enrolled. It took forever to rise from the lap stage. Lack of demand helped to weaken campaigns by successive boards of governors for increased budgets and facilities. Despite these discouragements and despite its isolation from other postsecondary institutions, the college persisted with stubbornness, if not elegance, until it came under a new government of a new province that was willing to unlock the national savings which the Commission of Government had hoarded. Then policies of social transformation were

264 A Bridge Built Halfway

adopted in which the search for agents of change and progress laid great stress upon secondary and university learning. Since the 19205 this small college, like Newfoundland itself, had weathered a very difficult passage. With the 1949 granting of a university charter, institutional affairs began to look more promising. True to the nautical oratory which was natural in the country - and doubly bound to greet any organization whose motto was "Launch out into the Deep" - the poet in 1950 hailed the new pennant which Memorial then unfurled for the first time:12 From out these halls and classrooms old, Women and men these five and twenty years, Have sailed their course amidst the world's dark fears, ... The craft is launched on wisdom's boundless deep, ... The sheepskin's at the peak, the future calls, While the half-century on the quarter falls Swiftly away ...

Appendixes

1 Estimated Number of Newfoundland Students Pursuing Higher Education Abroad, 1895-1945 2 An Occupational Income Scale (Proxy for General Socioeconomic Class Structure) for Newfoundland in the 19405 3 The Haunted Lab, by A.R. Scammell 4 Memorial University College Faculty, 1925-50 5 Faculty Salaries for Selected Years, 1929-49 6 Academically Outstanding Students 7 Presidents of the Students' Representative Council 8 The Most Active Student Leaders 9 The Memorial College Song 10 Student Aid Funds, 1925-49 11 MUG Operating Budget (Revenue and Expenditures) for Selected Years, 1925-49 12 Enrolment at the Normal School, 1921—32 13 Teachers' Summer Schools in Newfoundland, 1917-50 14 Careers and Places of Residence for Memorial College Graduates Who Studied Abroad 15 Enrolment History of Memorial University College

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APPENDIX 1

ESTIMATED NUMBER OF NEWFOUNDLAND STUDENTS PURSUING HIGHER EDUCATION ABROAD, 1895-1945

Estimates of the number of Newfoundlanders studying abroad were necessary for two reasons. We needed to see whether a growing demand during the decades before 1925 encouraged the school superintendents to continue pressing for facilities at home; and whether, in the years leading up to the university charter of 1949, a similar demand was indicated by the fact that students were now going abroad to finish the degrees which they began in St John's. There was no register of Newfoundland students abroad, so that the estimates had to be pieced together from various sources. They are probably accurate within 10% to 20%. First, an indication of the relative importance of Canadian, British, and other destinations for foreign study was calculated from the biographies of 11 oo individuals drawn from the five volumes of Who's Who in Newfoundland (1927—61). The full decade by decade count is given in my article, "Students abroad." The distribution is as follows: Percentage of students

Year

in Canada

1890 1895 1900 1905 1910 1915 1920 1925 1930 1935 1940 1945

28 29 34 39 50 61 59 57 64 70 70 70

in other countries

72 71 66 61 50 39 41 43 36 30 30 30

Secondly, registration information was collected from a number of Maritimes institutions that habitually received students from Newfoundland: Dalhousie, Acadia, Saint Francis Xavier, NS Technical College and Mount Allison. The Who's Who information

268 Appendixes showed that these colleges drew on average about 40% of the Newfoundland clientele. Therefore it was possible to calculate as follows:

Year

1890 1895 1900 1905 1910 1915 1920 1925 1930 1935 1940 1945

Number of students at 5 universities in Canada

8 15 12 7 28 30 48 47 75 71 112 219

Estimated total students in Canada

22 40 32 19 76 81 130 127 203 192 302 590

Estimated number of students abroad

77 140 96 48 152 130 221 229 325 269 423 826

Students abroad as percentage of students in Canada

350 350 300 250 200 160 170 180 160 140 140 140

APPENDIX 2

AN OCCUPATIONAL INCOME SCALE (PROXY FOR GENERAL SOCIOECONOMIC CLASS STRUCTURE) FOR NEWFOUNDLAND IN THE 19408. Several simple steps were taken to establish Newfoundland's class structure during the quarter-century period of Memorial University College. An occupational class scale was constructed, based upon income as reported in the detailed 1945 census. This report is far superior for every statistical or interpretive purpose to the only other census (1935) taken in the period. The 1935 document lists only 37 male and 18 female occupations with total earnings; the figures cover only 78,000 male workers, even though there were between 12,000 and 20,000 more in that depression-wracked work force. The 1935 table gives the "total number in selected occupations ..."; the 1945 report provides a mass of carefully tabulated information. The 1945 census lists 260 occupations in 16 groupings, and it provides such depth of detail on incomes that, when there is only one worker in a particular category, the income of that individual is sometimes reported as the average for the group. For the purposes of this study the male occupations in this tabulation were first ranked according to income and then divided by common-sense into four occupational classes. The highest paid occupations comprised 12 categories of professionals, including accountants, doctors, and eight professors, the St John's wholesale merchants, and proprietor-managers in the manufacturing industry. The next level - termed here "upper middle-class" occupations - consisted of 19 categories of workers in "manufacturing and mechanical" (paper makers, machinists, foremen); additional professionals and managers of more modest means; and the highest paid operatives in the transportation, construction, and utility industries. The lower middle class included many construction trades: plumbers, painters, and glaziers; foremen; metal workers; several transport categories such as teamsters, truck drivers, and longshoremen; and, occupying the same pay-range, the lowest-paid professional occupations, including 317 clergymen. These allocations left chiefly lumbermen, common labourers, and 31,000 fishermen to be termed lower-class occupations. The greatest difficulty was encountered in trying to decide where best to draw the line between lower-middle-class and lower-class jobs. The decision was made to extend the lower-middle class down far enough on the income list so as to include carpenters and telephone linemen. It was thought that the degree of skill and even theoretical knowledge required by these occupations justified a ranking higher than lower class, even though the fact that they were often outdoors in bad weather, doing work which involved a degree of risk, depressed their wages in the 19405 in Newfoundland (probably everywhere) to a mere one-fifth of the average income of a physician or

270 Appendixes surgeon. Including, then, as lower-middle class, those occupations with an average income in 1945 of between $900 and $1500, it became debatable whether coopers and independent shoemakers should be left in the lower class. Since their average incomes were close to those of mining labourers and janitors, it seemed reasonable to do this.

Sample Ranking of Newfoundland Occupations Male Occupations

Physicians and Surgeons Proprietary and Managerial - Manufacturing Accountants Manufacturing and Mechanical - Papermakers Proprietary & Managerial - Retail Managerial - Government Service Captains, mates, pilots Construction electricians Clerical - bookkeepers Manufacturing & Mechanical - Metal Mechanics Clerical - office clerks Light & Power - Boiler firemen Miners Truck Drivers Construction carpenters Longshoremen Transportation - sailors Labourers Lumbermen Fishermen Household workers

Number

102 339 362 242

1970 271 383 525 449

1487 1955 358

1337 1744 4479 1503 1161 8592 6996 30,951 148

Average Income ($)

4721 2903 2506 2382 2033 1969 1628 1610 1571 1411 1349 1247 1178 1096 966 919 897 727 666 553 475

Source: Government of Newfoundland, Census 1945, Ottawa: Dominion Bureau of Statistics, 1949, 156-66.

APPENDIX 3

THE HAUNTED LAB.

(After Reading Pope's "Rape of the Lock") by A.R. Scammell

(1930 The college clock has chimed the midnight hour, And night is reigning in her fullest power. The soaring moon is shining from on high, And all the spirits of the lower sky Hover around in all their bright array, To guard the college till the break of day. 'Tis midnight in the lab: I do not mean That room where Mr. Harling rules the scene; Nor do I speak of that ill-smelling den Where dwells Professor Hogg and hydrogen. There let the chemist with his test-tubes play, And juggle formulas and poise and weigh, Another branch of science is my theme, Which Mr. Sleggs will echo as supreme. The place is silent now; not long before Students had entered by that very door. Not many hours have passed beyond our ken Since curious specimens of Phylum i o, Female and male, were gathered here to learn About the nervous system of the worm. Tomorrow afternoon, on eager feet. Another class of freshmen here will meet; Will sit in judgment on a fish or flea, And ply the scalpel with inhuman glee. Not with more joy did ever doctor gloat, Removing tonsils from his victim's throat; To feel the patient helpless in his power, Than these young students at the proper hour Joy in their hearts, and on their lips a jest, Banish all thoughts of pity from the breast, Plunge pin or forceps in their victim's side, And smile with pleasure at the crimson tide. But now, these young biologists have gone And, till the sun returns with early dawn Night reigns supreme, and ghostly shadows flit,

272 Appendixes Around the stools where they were wont to sit. A wandering moonbeam entered through the glass, And, lighting up the window as it passed, Touched here a microscope, then danced away To rest upon a small dissecting tray. But hark! A wail bursts forth upon the night, So fraught with misery, despair, and fright, That every little crayfish in the place Drew in his claws to hide his frightened face; So terror-stricken was the hapless worm That, pale with fear, he thrice essayed to squirm, While even the little fish within the tank Could feel a sinking feeling as they sank. Where had that doleful wail its primal source That had such power, such overwhelming force To chill the blood, to paralyse the brain, And waken terror in the stoutest frame? Again the moaning comes upon the ear, Resembling in its tone the frenzied fear Of panting stags who hear the huntsman's hail, The hounds' deep baying as they strike the trail; Or, like the tortured shriek, the cry of woe Of some lost spirit in the world below, Caught in the toils upon the Stygian Shore, And doomed to punishment for evermore. Horror of horrors - in that inner room Whence seems to issue forth that wail of doom, A deed of dreadful note was rashly done, Which puts to shame all others 'neath the sun. For there some members of the feline race, Being imprisoned for a little space, Were then confined within a wooden chest, And deadly fumes of ether did the rest. See, now a ghostly band in dread array Starts from the room, and slowly wends its way Into the lab with more than earthly grace, And quite at home as if they knew the place. Never did human eyes such forms behold To make the marrow freeze, the blood run cold; Never did brain of man in slumber deep,

273 Appendixes When dreams and nightmares punctuate his sleep, Not even the drunkard, blessed with second sight, E'er sees such forms as on that wintry night Met in the lab where they had been decoyed, By man imprisoned and by man destroyed. Some of the cats, their whole appearance showed, Had walked in life the straight and narrow road; Had chosen good - to evil, said "Begone!" And round those cats a heavenly halo shone. Others there were, alas, whose slouching gait And downcast mien, proclaimed a harder fate. "What were their crimes?" we ask, in tones of dread; And e'en Biology must shake its head. Despite the many wonders it has shown, The moral code of cats is yet unknown Whether they took the nine obnoxious lives Of other cats, to get their pretty wives; Or goaded to despair by rival swain, They wore upon their brows the curse of Cain, We do not know; our knowledge ends in this That erring cats are barred from heavenly bliss; That these we see had unrepentant died And where such sinners go their souls reside. Two cats we notice, of the tabby kind, One glides in front, the other walks behind, Between them others march of various hue Ranging from green to black, from black to blue. The leader jumps upon a microscope, And, gazing at the others ere he spoke, Upraised a ghostly paw, with pride he said "Look on your leader, Cats," and look they did. "Brothers and comrades of the feline race, Governed by stringent laws of time and place, Know ye the reason why we meet tonight In this dread room where students find delight? If there be one of you at all in doubt Concerning what this meeting is about, Put up your paw, as students often do When teachers try to teach them something new." No paw was raised: The speaker then went on To ask a question of the waiting throng. -

274 Appendixes "Did you smell anything before you died?" And with a mighty oath the cats replied. Then spoke the tabby: "It's my firm belief The cause of all our woe and all our grief Was that same odor that we know so well, Which sent some souls to heaven, and some to hell. And, (here the speaker seemed to swell with pride), I want to say that just before I died I learnt the name of that which struck us down And left our widows mourning in the town. Professor Sleggs, our great arch-enemy, Remarked to someone whom I couldn't see, "I cannot find the Ether, Mr. Lear." And Mr. Lear said, "Mr. Sleggs, it's here." That one word Ether filled my soul with dread, And lodged itself forever in my head." The speaker paused; then vivid streaks of light Shot from his blazing eyes into the night. With loud appeal, with wild distorted face, He calls for vengeance on the human race: "Ye cats who perished at the hands of man, Shall we endure this insult to our clan? Shall we be sold and bartered in the street, That engineers may have bon-bons to eat? And then the price — this fires indeed my choler For one whole cat he only paid a dollar: Insults like these are heaped upon our heads, By teachers, lab assistants, and pre meds. What had we done to merit such a fate? What crime did we commit against the state; You know the answer, friends; our lives they take Without a cause, their loathsome lust to slake. A month, a week ago, we lived our lives Surrounded by our children, and our wives, Loved and were loved; but now, behold us here Severed by death from those we hold most dear. Cats! Comrades! Countrymen! I ask you now To make with me a great and solemn vow, To swear eternal vengeance on mankind, And wreak that vengeance with impartial mind. Refuse them quarter; one and all condemn. Did they have mercy when we cried to them?

275

Appendixes

Reserve your choicest tortures for those cads, Who wear a lab coat and indulge their fads Making experiments on frogs and rats, Preparing Ether and dissecting cats!" He spoke; the audience rocked with wild applause, And cheered its leader with uplifted paws. Then spoke a tabby with a business mind — "When shall we start this war against mankind? By what devices can we lure each brute Into our power?" The other cats were mute. Not so their leader: He, with fiery zeal, Prepares to make reply to this appeal; Draws up his form as far as he can reach, And clears his windpipe for another speech. Alas, 'twas not to be, for fate combats The best-laid schemes of mice and men - and cats! Just at this point one member of the throng, Whose paw was cramped from sitting still so long, Knocked from the bench with swift and sudden jar A bottle filled with E-T-H-E-R. Down on the floor with startling crash it fell, And from it rose the old familiar smell. One whiff they took; once more they felt the pain As recollection flooded every brain. A sudden, swift paralysis of fright, The glare of staring eyeballs in the night; Revenge forgot, regardless of their vow, They took to flight without a single "meow"; And as they fled, there floated through the lab. The chuckling of the crayfish and the crab.

APPENDIX 4

Memorial University College Faculty, 1925—50 (by year of appointment)

Name

Previous Activity

1925-26 Principal, Normal School 1920-32 1 Solomon Whiteway 2 Eliz. McGrath (later Conroy) Part-time, Normal School

Principal Subject(s), Years1

4 Albert Hatcher 5 Alfred Hunter 6 Muriel Hunter 7 George O'Sullivan 8 Jack Nickerson

Graduate studies, Dalhousie Univ.

1926-27 9 Helen Lodge

Newfoundland schools

Sex

Nationality3

2

M

N

1

F

N

1

M M

Registrar, Library 192532

Retired High Master, Manchester Grammar School, UK Prof. Natural Sci., Bishop's U Lennoxville, PQ Term appt., Cambridge U Prev. taught Iowa, NY Fresh graduate, Dublin

3 John Lewis Paton

Degrees at Appt2

Classics, German 1925-33 Mathematics 1925-52 English, French 1925-50Spanish, art 1925-40 Chemistry, physics 1925 Fall Chem., physics 1926 Winter-Spring

2 3 1

Education 1926-50-

B

M F

N B A

2

M

B

1

M

C

2

F

N

Principal

Degrees

Name

Previous Activity

Subject(s), Years'

at Appt2

Sex

Nationality3

10 John Mennie 1 1 David Travers 12 Fred Sleggs 13 Reginald Stephenson

Term appt., U Western Ontario

Chemistry 1926-29 History 1926-27 Biology 1926-33 Physics 1926-28

4 ? 1 1

M M M M

C ? B B

Geology 1927-30 History 1928 WinterSpring

3

M

B

?

F

N

Fresh graduate, Edinburgh St John's (?)

History 1928-50Biology (botany) 1928-33

1 ?

M F

B ?

Science teacher, United Church college St John's Headmaster United Church college

Physics 1929-30 1

M

B

1

M

B

1927-28 14 Herbert Baker 15 Emilie Fraser

1928-29 1 6 Allan Fraser 17 Mrs Philip Knowling 1v929-30 ISA. Chatwood 19 Jack Hogg

?

Oceanographic Institute, Lajolla, Calif. Shirley Institute, Manchester, UK

Seconded from Nfld. govt. Prev. part-time Normal School

Chemistry, physics 192831

Name 1930-31 20 R.T. Harling 21 Thomas Winter

1931-32 22 Simone Avis 23 J. Horace Faull.Jr. (Joe) 24 Paul Lovett-Janison 25 Helena McGrath 26 C.A.D. Macintosh 27 James Murdoch

1932-33 28 Grace Penney 1933-34 29 Edna Baird

Principal

Degrees

Previous Activity

Subject(s), Years'

at Appt2

Sex

Nationality3

Teacher, Geo Dixon sec. school, Birmingham, UK Prev. employed on Humber project and in NJ, Connecticut

Physics 1930-43 2

M

B

2

M

N

Vacation in Huesca, Spain Graduate studies, Harvard Science teacher, Bishop Feild Coll. Prev. taught summer schools 1927-29 Stadacona mines, Rouyn, PQ Prev. part-time Normal School (St John's entrepreneur)

French, Spanish 1931-32 Chemistry 1931-33 Chemistry 1931-42 Classics, English 1930-33 Engineering 1931-34 Art 1932-37

1 2 1 2 1

F M M F M

B A B NM C

I4

M

B?

?

Household sci. 1932-33

?

F

?

Post-graduate studies, Johns Hopkins, Baltimore

Household sci. 1933-502

F

NM

Engineering 1930-31

Principal Subjects ), Years'

Degrees at Appt2

Sex

Nationality3

Biology 1933-36 Classics, German 1933-47 Latin 1933-34 Music 1933-39 Mathematics, Library 1933-50-

3 2 1 ?

M M F F

B NM NM N

1

F

NM

Engineering 1934-35 Music 1934-40

2

M

N

1

M

N

38 Georgina Summers

Prof, at St. Mary's U, Halifax Prev. part-time Normal (St John's entrepreneur) Prof, at Prince of Wales college, Charlottetown St John's

1 1

M F

C NM

/935-36 39 Rudolph "Paddy" Duder

Rhodes scholar, Oxford U

English, French, German 1935-47 Engineering 1935-41 Biology 1935-40

2 2

M M

NM C

1

F

NM

Name

Previous Activity

30 John Colman 31 Allan Gillingham 32 Ethel King 33 Eleanor Mews 34 Sadie Organ

Fresh PH D, Harvard Rhodes scholar, Oxford CHE office, St John's St John's Prev. part-time librarian, MUC

1934-35 35 Alain Frecker 36 Charles Hutton 37 Lloyd Shaw

40 S.J. Hayes 41 Kathleen Kennedy (later Fraser)

? New B sc, St. Francis Xavier, Antigonish, NS

Education 1934-35 Latin 1934-45

Degrees

Principal Name

Previous Activity

Subject(s), Years

at Appt2

Sex

Nationality3

42 Edward Powell

Central Park School, Lachine, PQ

Education 1935-42

3

M

C

Prev. taught at Cheloo U (China), then 6 yrs at Acadia Lecturer, McGill

Physics 1936-37 Biology 1936-44

2 3

M M

C NM

?

Education 1937-38 Acting Librarian 1937-38 Mathematics 1937-38 Art 1937-40

2 2 1 1

F

A

F M F

N ? C

Chemistry 1939-40 Education, English 1939-

3

M

C

50-

2

F

N?

Art 1940-43 Music 1940-49

1

[I]5

F F

C ?

1936-37 43 H.W. Harkness 44 Wilfred Templeman 1937-38 45 A.M. Kent 46 G. LeGrow 47 J.L. Ryan 48 Elizabeth Smith / 939-40 49 Byron Adams 50 Mary Fitzpatrick

1940-41 51 Margaret Howe 52 Marguerite Jennings

? ? ?

Fresh PH D, McGill ?

? ?

1

Name

Previous Activity

Principal Subject(s), Years1

Degrees at Appt2

Sex

Nationality3

53 Eli Lear

Nfld. Dept. of Natural Resources

Biology Jan. 1941-50-

1

M

NM

1941-42 54 Stan Carew

Wabana iron mine

2

M

N

55 Edward Doyle

Arichat, NS

Engineering May 194150History, social science 1941-42

2

M

C

2

M

NM

2 2 2

M F M

NM

26 1 1 2

F F

NM

; 942-43 56 Ralph Andrews 57 Jack Ashley

Nfld. Dept. of Education Civilian employee, Cdn. army, St John's

58 Marguerite Dubois 59 Fred Maddock

Prev. taught at Mt. Allison U Doctoral candidate, McGill

Education 1942-43 Classics, German 194250English, French 1942-43 Chemistry 1942-48

1943-44 60 Dorothy Carnell 61 Margaret Halley 62 Philip Hanley 63 Bernard Long

St John's St John's School supervisor, Burin-Fortune Fresh MS c, Dalhousie

Chemistry 1943-46 Latin 1943-46 Education 1943-44 Physics 1943-50

M M

C NM

N N NM

Principal

Degrees

Name

Previous Activity

Subject(s), Years'

at Appt2

Sex

Nationality3

64 Dorothy Wilson

Mount Allison

Art 1943-46

1

F

C

1944-45 65 Ethel Brinton 66 George Hickman 67 Chalmers Smith

Teacher at Spencer Coll., St John's Nfld. teacher RCAF (Halifax)

English, French 1944-50Education 1944-50Biology 1944-47

1

F

2 3

M M

NM NM C

1946-47 68 Jack Facey

Recently demobilized, Royal Navy

Engineering, mathematics 1946-50Geography 1946-50Household science 1946-

1 1

M M

N N

1 1

F F

? NM

M F

N ?

69 Harold Goodridge 70 Dorothy Keeping

Recently Governor's secretary, Nfld.

71 Marion Peters 72 W.G. Rowe

Aluminum Co. of Canada, Wakefield, PQ ?

Chemistry 1946-49 Education, English 194650-

1

73 Shirley Thompson

?

Art 1946-50-

—

?

47

Name

Previous Activity

Principal Subject(s), Years'

1947-48 74 Cater Andrews 75 J.A. Cochrane 76 Allison O'Reilly (later Feder)

Fresh PH D, Univ of Toronto St John's Fresh M A, Univ of Toronto

Biology 1947-48; 1951Latin 1947-50 English 1947-50

1948-49 77 Jack Blundon 78 Ada Green 79 Ronald McDougald 80 Rev. W. Rees- Wright

Nfld. teacher and supervisor ?

Prev. taught Egypt, army, Brit, schools Church of England clergy (UK)

Mathematics, engineering 1948-50Library 1948-50Chemistry 1948-49 Biology 1948-50-

Degrees at Appt2

Sex

Nationality3

3 1

M F

NM N

2

F

NM

2 2 1 2

M F M M

NM [N]7

B B

Principal

D€&T€@S

Previous Activity

Subject(s), Years'

at Appt2

81 George Cameron

Prev. taught UNB (2 yrs)

Chemistry 1949-

82 David Pitt

Doctoral candidate, U Toronto

English 1949-

83 Audrey Ralph

Nfld. fisheries research station, St John's

Chemistry 1949-

Name

Sex

Nationality3

2

M

C

2 1

M F

NM N

1949-50

Notes: 1 Years shown for the university college period up to 1950; 1950- indicates continued after 1950. 2 No. of degrees at time of appointment, when first listed in the college calendar. 3 A American, B British, C Canadian, N Newfoundland, NM Nfld., graduate of Memorial. 4 Certified art master, Board of Education, South Kensington, UK 5 Licentiate Royal Academy of Music (LRAM). 6 1 yr. shy of BSC, McGill. 7 Born in Boston, raised in Newfoundland.

Faculty Salaries, for Selected Years, 1925—49 (in $Canadian)

President Professor

Male Female

Associate

Male Female

Assistant

Male Female

Lecturer

Male Female

1925

1933

1936

1942

[5000] 3500

3600 2700

4500 2000-3000

3000-3600

2600

2600-3000

[1500]

Registrar

1500-2000

1600

2000-2400

1949 min.-increment-max. (cost of living bonus) 4000 3600 2880

200 100 100

5500 (360) 4000 (360) 3200 (270)

3200 2560

75 60

3500 (360) 2800 (270)

2800 2240

75 60

3100 (360) 2480 (270)

2400 1920

75 60

2700 (360) 2160 (270)

APPENDIX 6

ACADEMICALLY OUTSTANDING STUDENTS

The following table lists those students who graduated from MUG and who won two or more awards to assist their further university studies. The awards referred to in the table are the following: Acadia: 1927-30 one year's fees; 1931—40 two years' fees. From 1941 separate scholarships were offered in Household Economics and Arts & Science. E.H. Charlton engineering scholarship: $500, awarded only in 1931 and 1932. Dalhousie: 1929-41, $200 for one year. From 1942 on there were three scholarships Arts & science $200, dentistry $400, premedicine $375. Jubilee: $500 per year for two years. 1926 was the last year when the old regulations, giving the scholarship for the result of senior matriculation examinations, were in effect. Starting in 1927, the scholarship went to the student graduating from Memorial University College with the best academic record. King's: 1934-38, $100. From 1946 on, $150. Memorial University College scholarships: 1-4 awarded annually, value not specified. From 1946, known as the John Lewis Paton scholarships. Mount Allison: two years full tuition fees, initial value total $200. After 1929 there were two scholarships - one giving full fees for two years, the other half-fees for two years. Mount St Vincent: $175, began in 1932. Rhodes: £400 per year for three years. Memorial University College graduates who won the Rhodes scholarship were: 1928 Roy Clarke 1929 Kevin H. A. Marshall 1930 Allan Gillingham 1931 John Bryett Watson 1932 R. Duder 1933 Gordon Cowan 1934 A.L.C. Hawco

287 Appendixes 1935 H.B. Mayo 1936 J.T.F. Howley 1937 J.B. Ashley 1938 M.O. Morgan 1939 F.A. O'Dea 1940 D.A. Darcy 1941—6 (in abeyance) 1947 Herbert B. Morgan 1948 A.H. Dunfield, J.R. Wood The value of the British pound in Canadian dollars was: 1930, $4.83; 1940, $4.45; 1946, $4.24. The value of the Rhodes scholarship therefore declined during the period from about $5,800 to about $5,000. University graduates association scholarship: $300 per year for two years, awarded only in 1929 and 1931. Student (graduation year) Ruth Baggs (1945) William J. Carroll (1946) Oswald K. Crocker (1944) Harold J. Clarke (1930) H. Coish (1936) Gladys Cook (1932) D.A. Darcy (1937) R. Duder (1929) Jessie B. Fennimore (1941) James B. French (1940) Harold V. French (1941)

Scholarships

Value

Mount Allison

two years' fees ?

MUC

Dalhousie MUC

Acadia (Arts & Science)

$200 ?

MUC

two years' fees ?

Jubilee

$1000

Dalhousie Mount Allison

$200 two years' fees p

MUC

Jubilee Dalhousie Jubilee Rhodes (1940) MUC

$1000 $200 $1000 $5400 ?

$5700 Rhodes (1932) Acadia (Home Economics) two years' fees ? MUC Jubilee Dalhousie Acadia (Arts & Science) MUC

$1000 $200 two years' fees ?

288 Appendixes

Student (graduation year) Nancy Frost (1927) Alan Gillingham (1926) Harry S. Granter (1941) Robert D. Hatcher (1943) Leonard C. Hawco (1930) Genevieve Hearn (1939) J.T.F. Howley (1931) Gladys Martin (1939) Muriel B. Matthews (1940) Cherry Maunder (1939) H.B. Mayo (1934) James L. Miller (1945) Eric David Morgan (1948) Herbert B. Morgan (1937) Moses O. Morgan (1935)

H.J. Robbins (1939)

Scholarships

Value

Acadia

one year's fees ?

MUC

Jubilee (senior matric.) Rhodes (1930) Jubilee Dalhousie Jubilee Dalhousie (Arts & Science) Mount Allison (not accepted) Rhodes (1934) Mount Saint Vincent MUC MUC

Rhodes (1936) Mount Allison MUC

Mount Allison "B" MUC

Acadia MUC

Dalhousie MUC

Rhodes (1935) Acadia (Arts & Science) MUC

Jubilee King's Dalhousie Rhodes (1947) Jubilee Dalhousie King's Rhodes (1938) Dalhousie MUC

$1000 $5800 $1000 $200 $1000 $200 two years' fees $5600 $175 ? ? $5600 two years' fees ? two years' half-fees ? two years' fees ? $200 ? $5600 two years' fees ? $1000 $150 $200 $5200 $1000 $200 $100 $5400 $200 ?

289 Appendixes

Student (graduation year) Margaret I. Robertson (1936) Jean M. Stirling (1934) S. Noel Tibbo (1938)

Scholarships

Value

King's

$100

MUG

?

Jubilee King's Acadia

$1000 $100 two years' fees

MUC

?

APPENDIX 7

PRESIDENTS

OF THE STUDENTS

REPRESENTATIVE COUNCIL 1927—28

Chesley Howell

1928-29

Robert F. Dove

1929-30

Claude K. Howse

1930-31

Gerald Marshall Drover

1

1

93 ~3

2

1

932~33 1933-34

Ralph Lush Hawkins James Douglas Higgins Rex Renouf

1934-35

Henry Thomas Renouf

1935—36

Frederick Cover

1936—37

George William Clarke

1937-38

Walter Corbett Hudson

1938-39

Samuel Harris LeGrow

1

939-40 1940—41

Lloyd Soper George Boniface Condon

1941—42

Robert MacLellan

1942-43

Brian Higgins

1943-44

Wesley Hutchings

1944-45

Joseph Mary Quigley

1945-46

William Cohen/John Henderson

1946-47

Milton G. Green

1947-48

Allan Noseworthy

1948—49

Allan Noseworthy

APPENDIX 8

THE MOST ACTIVE STUDENT LEADERS

The list names those who held four or more positions of responsibility in special interest student organizations, or were members of the Students' Representative Council and at least two other student executives. Source: MUN Calendars and the Cap & Gown, 1928—29 to 1949—50. Abbreviations: OMA Old Memorials Association; SRC Students' Representative Council. Charles Abraham - member editorial committee Cap 6f Gown 41-2 & 42-3; president dramatic group 42-3; editor Cap & Gown 45-6. Jean Allen - member editorial committee Cap & Gown 42-3; SRC 43-4; secretary premed society 42-3 & 43-4. Ruperta Angel - captain women's basketball 36-7; secretary SRC 3 7-8; captain women's field hockey 36-7 & 37-8. Douglas Baird - member hiking committee 36-7; president athletic union, business manager Cap & Gown 8c treasurer SRC 37—8. Daphne Barnes - treasurer dramatic group & member business committee Cap &" Gown 40-1; treasurer dramatic group, president literary society, convenor international relations club & member SRC 41-2. Margaret Barron - manager glee club 35—6; captain women's ice hockey & member SRC 36—7. Mundon Bishop - secretary engineering society 35-6; editorial committee The Memorial Times & treasurer SRC 36-7. Ethel Brinton - member SRC 27-8 & 28-9; i st vice-president OMA, 39-40. Frances Brown - member dramatic group executive & editorial committee Cap 6f Gown 40-1; secretary dramatic group & member business committee Cap &? Gown 41-2. Margaret Butt - secretary SRC 30—1; secretary science club 31-2; captain women's field hockey 30—1 & 31—2; secretary OMA 34-5. Henry Carter - dramatic group; committee member 39-10 & president 40-1 & 412; business manager Cap 6? Gown 40-1 & 41-2; member SRC 41-2. Ruby Case - member dramatic group committee & associate editor Cap £sf Gown 39-40; secretary dramatic group, secretary international relations club & editorial committee Cap £sf Gown 40-1. Jane Clouston - member international relations club executive 42-3; secretary dramatic group & member SRC 43-4. Clara Cochius - president chess club, secretary hikers' club & dramatic society committee, 32-3; secretary SRC 33-4.

292 Appendixes Bill Cohen - member business committee Capfc?Gown 41-2; honorary president SRC 45—6; advisor to business manager Cap &f Gown & vice-president pre-med society 46-7. Margaret Conroy — assistant manager glee club 34-5; captain women's basketball & secretary SRC 35-6; member hiking committee 36-7. Richard Crewe - Cap & Gown: editorial committee 46-7 & editor 47-8; SRC: assistant treasurer 47-8 & treasurer 48-9. Jackson Drover - captain basketball 32-3; captain association football & hockey, secretary athletic union, 33-4. Howard Drover - member SRC 28—9; captain rugby football 27-8; captain basketball 27-8 & 28-9. Dick Duder - vice-president engineering society, member hiking committee and The Memorial Times 36-7; president engineering society & editorial staff Cap & Gown 378. Elizabeth Evans - secretary science club & member SRC 36-7; secretary dramatic group & associate editor Cap & Gown 37—8; member OMA committee 40—1. Majorie Godfrey - secretary dramatic society 35—6; president glee club & secretary SRC 36—7. Milton Green - secretary engineering society 44-5; SRC: member 45—6 & president 46-7. Ruth Halfyard - secretary athletic union, secretary dramatic group & drama club 389; secretary SRC 39—40. Michael Harrington - vice-president literary society 34-5; president literary society, editor The Memorial Times 8c member editorial staff Cap & Gown 35—6. Thomas Harris - member arts & science club executive 39-40; member editorial committee Cap &f Gown, convenor international relations club & president literary society 40-1. Ralph Hawkins - captain rugby football 30—1; captain basketball & president SRC 312. Brian Higgins - secretary engineering society & member business committee Cap & Gown 41-2; president SRC & athletic officer engineering society 42-3; president engineering society, president athletic union & member SRC 43-4. James Higgins - dramatic society & magazine committees, president SRC 32—3. Edgar House - secretary athletic union 29—30; member SRC, captain association football, captain hockey, 30—1; executive OMA 33-5. Chesley Howell - president SRC, president science club, secretary chess club, 27-8. James Howley - president poetry society 1931-2; president literary society, secretary chess club, vice-president stamp club 1932-3; editor magazine committee 1931-2 & 1932-3. Michael Howley - editor in chief CapfcfGown 42-3; chairman literary society & member SRC 43-4. Wesley Hutchings - member editorial committee Cap fcf Gown & president studentteachers' society 42-3; president SRC 43—4; president arts & science society 44—5.

293 Appendixes Boyd King - secretary engineering society 42-3; president engineering society & member SRC 44—5. James Leahey - captain association football & captain hockey 31—2; president athletic union 31—2 & 32—3. Harold Lilly - engineering society: secretary 45—6 & president 46—7; SRC: member 46-7 & 47-8. Robert MacLellan - vice-president engineering society, editorial committee Cap & Gown & member SRC 40—1; president SRC 41-2. Elspeth McNaughton — convenor international relations club, secretary dramatic group & member SRC 42-3. Bert Mayo - secretary science club 1932-3; member SRC, editor Cap & Gown & president study group movement 33-4. June Miles - secretary arts & science club & member business staff Cap & Gown 467; member SRC 47-8. Frances Norris - secretary athletic union & secretary glee club 37-8; president glee club & secretary SRC 38-9. Kenneth Oakley - secretary study group movement 37-8; treasurer SRC, treasurer pre-med society & member business staff Cap fcf Gown 38-9. Francis O'Dea - master of hikes 33-4; captain basketball 34—5; treasurer SRC & business manager Cap & Gown 35-6. Douglas Newbury - member SRC 46—7 & 47-8. Allan Noseworthy - SRC: member 46-7 & president 47-8 & 48-9. Richard Pardy - member SRC 46-7 & 47~8. Joseph Quigley - member business committee Cap &7 Gown 42-3; vice-president engineering society 43-4; president SRC 44-5. Harry Renouf — president literary society 33-4; Cap &7 Gown committee 33-4 & 345; president SRC 34—5; OMA executive 37-9. Gladys Richards - member business committee Cap & Gown 44-5; president dramatic group, secretary arts & science club & member SRC 45—6. Margaret Robertson - captain women'sfieldhockey, secretary citizenship study group, member SRC, 35-6. John Ryan - treasurer SRC 44-5; business manager Cap & Gown 45-6; president athletic union, 3 semesters 46-7. Arthur Samson - magazine & dramatic society committees 32-3; Cap 67 Gown committee & president science club 33-4. George Seviour - member business committee Cap & Gown 44-5; SRC: member 456 & treasurer 46-7. Elinor Soper - secretary SRC 32-3; captain women's field hockey 32-3 & 33-4; captain ice hockey 33-4. Lloyd Soper - president literary society 38-9; editor Cap 67 Gown & president SRC 3940; OMA: committee member 42—3, president 43-4. Charles Strong — secretary citizenship study group 38-9; president literary society & member SRC 39—40; advertising/business staff Cap &7 Gown 37—40.

294 Appendixes Irene Sharpe - member business committee Cap & Gown 45—6; secretary premed society & member SRC 46—7. Paul Taylor - member business committee Cap £5? Gown 45-6; SRC: assistant treasurer 46—7 & treasurer 47—8. Ted Tuff - secretary engineering society & member business committee Cap &? Gown 40-1; member editorial committee Cap & Gown & SRC 41-2; president engineering society 42-3. Genevieve Winter — member arts & science club executive 39-40 & 40-1; secretary SRC 41-2; editorial committee Cap & Gown 41-2. Betty Wood - secretary SRC, captain women's field hockey, basketball & ice hockey, 34-5-

APPENDIX g

THE M E M O R I A L COLLEGE SONG

First published in the Cap and Gown 1941, page 24. Lift up your voices, lift them up Our College to extol, Whose doctrines practised through the years, Our thoughts and acts control; Within whose walls fresh clear-eyed youth In quest of knowledge rove; Through whose corridors walk honoured ghosts Of cov'nants sealed above. Memorial! Memorial! To you our voices rise! Memorial! Memorial! Her name write 'cross the skies! Memorial! Memorial! From darkness help us rise! Look down our Alma Mater, Our Mother wise and kind, And we - your sons and daughters With steadfast heart and mind Stand strongly in the path you set To Honour, Courage, Freedom's light, And with one voice we firmly pledge To keep your Shield of Honour bright! Memorial! Memorial! We rally at your call! Memorial! Memorial! On you may blessings fall! Memorial! Memorial! Your honour above all! So firmly guard the things for which Was reared this fitting fane, That men who fought - for freedom died, Might not have died in vain; That, under God, youth might advance

296 Appendixes In faith, and never cease To strive for progress, and advance To build a world of peace. Memorial! Memorial! Strong may thy children be! Memorial! Memorial! To keep our country free! Memorial! Memorial! Thy name be liberty! M.E.M.

APPENDIX 1O

Student Aid Funds, 1925—49

Fund

Date Estab.

Bruton scholarship

[1930]

Original Value

2618

Rev. L. Curtis bequest

G.S. Doyle scholarship 1946 Flintcote (Nfld.) Ltd. donation T.R. Job bequest Kellogg Foundation fund 1943

Fannie McNeil and H.J. Crowe memorial fund(s) Hector and Fannie McNeil memorial fund

Value in March 1949 ($) Remarks

1320

$2500

5000

14 162 2917 149

318 4220

English colleague of Paton, F.L. Bruton taught in 4 Nfld. summer schools 1926-29, edited Cormack's journal for the schools, died 1929. Somewhat belying Curtis' great contributions to ecumenism, these funds provided assistance only to students of United Church persuasion. To assist engineering students

Following a preliminary contact by Flight Lieutenant M.B. Donaldson, RCAF, Hatcher applied for and received grant to assist medical students. Originally two separate funds, for different purposes, amalgamated by accident.

Fund

Date Estab.

Original Value

Value in March 1949 ($)

Remarks

5147

F.M. O'Leary scholarship loan fund J.L. Paton scholarship

1925

J.L. Paton donation

1933

?

29

20710

J.L. Paton bequest St John's Rotary Club silver jubilee loan fund "Students' aid fund"

1947

2813

13903 3280

1934?

6000

7826

Calvert C, Pratt scholarships

1945

$30,140

?

Built up over the years with proceeds from theatricals, concerts, fudge, etc., plus annual interest on MUG securities The donation was the duplex at 44-46 Newtown Road, managed by Royal Trust. Building up in 11 donations, 1947-50, to reach $5088 in June 1950. This fund was very likely derived from one of MUC'S greatest mysteries, an anonymous $6000 donation (of Canadian securities) received in 1934, for scholarships. Established with the full profits from the 1940-43 construction of six British minesweepers at Monroe, Trinity Bay (by Steers Ltd.). For the children of veterans.

Source: Statement at 31 March 1949, HP file "Doyle scholarship (general) prior to 1951"; CNS, MF 133 (C.C. Pratt).

A P P E N D I X 11

MUG Operating Budget (Revenue) for Selected Years 1925—49 (in Dollars)

Nfld. Dept. Education: Normal School Memorial college general meteorology Summer school(s) Nfld. Dept. Pub. Works Utilities Caretaker(s) Maint., ins., cleaning Total Nfld. Govt. Carnegie Corporation general grant library, equipment exchange on us funds Students' fees Sales to students (net gain) Interest Miscellaneous Total Revenue - in current $ - in constant 1925 $*

1925

1929

1932

7,100

7,100

2,091

10,000

10,000 603

nil

1936

1944

1948

5,000

30,000

60,000

5,000 4,271?

12,660

2,000 960

2,177 1,104 1,603

2,356 1,490 864

20,060

22,587

6801

14,271

15,000

20,000

25,000

[3,000]

50 6,946

26,000 8,000 3,835 9,476 958

38,060 38,000

296 33

1,115

49,912 49,000

56,185 68,000

24,987 5,348 3,745 7,119

13,674

52,945 65,000

58,872

84,987

19,441 115

49,129

145 20

43

78,593 134,159 79,000 103,000

"Constant dollar calculation based upon the Canadian consumer price index, M.C. Urquhart, editor, Historical statistics of Canada, 2nd edition, Ottawa: DSS, 1983, series K 8-18.

300

Appendixes

MUC Operating Budget (Expenditures) for Selected Years 1925—1949 (in Dollars) (cont.)

Salaries: Regular staff/faculty Cost of living bonus Student bursaries/assts. Visiting/evening instrs. Summer school Navigation school Survey camp

1929

1932

1939

1944

1948

$33,878

32,527

43,570

47,769 4,425 760 2,517

80,059

375 1,985 4,110

Gen. administration Travel

4,423

532

7,575 1,716 321 2,180

515

4,387

3,868

762

876

2,360

Dept. admin./supplies Art

105

16

Biology Chemistry Education Engineering/geol. Household science Music Physics Library

545

279

Saleable stock (net cost) Furniture Equipment Evening classes Summer school Navigation school Survey camp Janitor's supplies Miscellaneous Dept. Public Works: Caretaker(s) Cleaning Utilities

226

180

14 140

1,338

596

830

414

428

554 381

1,495

1,087

260

6 465

32

1,357

1,526

2,527

780

1,904

1,192

644

353

536 2,304

2,117

7,218 969 810 527 557 417

1,923

481

1,384

1,490

2,177

2,356

156

28,113

est. 5000 3,745 1,443 5,348

301 Appendixes

Repairs/maint. Insurance Misc. Total

7929

1932

1,538

449

5,095

525

416 350

580

50,024

51,734

1939

57,938

1944

1948

84,570 134,922

APPENDIX 12

Enrolment at the Normal School, 1921—32 (23 half-year terms) Women

Men

Total

Number of Class Groups

Sept.-Dec. 1921 Jan.-June 1922 Sept. 1922

Jan. 1923 Sept. 1923

Jan. 1924 Sept. 1924

Jan. 1925 Sept. 1925 Jan. 1926 Sept. 1926

Jan. 1927 Sept. 1927

Jan. 1928 Sept. 1928 Jan. 1929

Sept. 1929 Jan. 1930

Sept. 1930 Jan. 1931

Sept. 1931 Jan. 1932

Sept.-Dec. 1932

41

11

26 21 30 25 34 22 39 20 58 22 56 40 37 19 47

23 19 18 18 18 19 18 20 28 10 21 16 23 12 18

537

292

(65%)

(35%)

20 7 39 23 37 36 52 35 49 40 48 43 52 41 57 40 86 32 77 56 60 31 65

2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2

Totals:

1026

23 terms 16 terms

829

Sources: RO file "Normal School"; Nfld. Dept. of Education, Report 1924-5, 15.)

APPENDIX 1 3

(Teachers') Summer Schools in Newfoundland, 1917—50 Under Year

auspices of

Registration

Remarks

1917 1918 1926 1927

Dept. of Edn. Dept. of Edn.

314 200 126

Four weeks

1928 1929 1930 1931 1932 1933 1934 1935

MUC

MUC

236 281 362

1936

Dept. of Edn.

314

1937 1938 1939

Dept. Dept. Dept.

349 404 403

1940 1941 1942

Dept. Dept. Dept.

441 454 (240)

1943

Dept.

1944 1945 1946

Dept. Dept.

MUC MUG

Four weeks Special Carnegie Corporation support of $4000

MUC

140 160

MUC MUC MUC MUC MUC

MUC

438 461 515

Plus another 131 students in a separate Roman Catholic summer school organized by the teaching orders Lengthened to five weeks. Still chiefly organized by MUC; Ed. Dept. supervisors often taught classes

Students could begin univ. courses, finish them with a second summer (if in science) or a winter's private study. Max. of two univ. subjects.

One school at MUC and one at Petries. St John's enrolment limited -- wartime conditions At MUC, plus regional schools at Petries, Bonavista, Carbonear Same four locations Same four locations First MUC summer "session," courses for univ. credit. Lengthened to six weeks.

304 Appendixes

Year

Under auspices of

Registration

1947 1948 1949 1950

MUC MUC MUC MUN

512 567 585 349

Remarks Overflow at Holloway School

Plus a separate departmental school held at Prince of Wales college, St John's

Sources: HP, annual series of "Summer School" files.

A P P E N D I X 14

Careers and Places of Residence for Memorial College Graduates Who Studied Abroad Career

Practised chiefly in: Quebec-Ontario USA

Other

Intelligentsia college teacher school teacher librarian journalist/writer Health physician nurse Science/research Public Service govt. administration educational/hosp. admin. politics

H'/s1

7 2 1

1V2

1

2

1

V2

\l 2 /2

1

7

1

5 I3

2V2

'//

Location Outside Nfld,

Newfoundland Maritime provs.

2

1

V2 '//

2

1 1 1 '//2

'//2

Unknown

Career

Practised chiefly in: Newfoundland

Maritime provs.

Law

1

1

Business Engineering

2 1

Religious leadership

3 V2

Home-making4

Quebec-Ontario

USA

CMtfr

Location Outside Nfld,

Unknown

2

1 1 1

1

Unknown

4

1

2

Totals

47 V2

9 V2

7 V2

V23

3

2

11

1

2 V2

Notes: 1 The notation "V2" indicates approximately Haifa career (15-20 years) spent in this location, preceded or followed by an equally important period somewhere else. 2 Mexico. 3 United Kingdom. 4 All women. In another three cases, women who initially embarked on another career (shown) switched into full-time home-making within 10-15 years.

A P P E N D I X 15

Enrolment History of Memorial University College Third Graduates

First

Second

Teacher

year and

year

year

Training

special

Total

6 6 4 6 13 16 32 31 35 27 58 53 29 62 21 94 19 99 19 94 17 98 13 95 19 95 13 66 45 107 31 124 30 Third yr. Special 45 8 37 7 46 6 Third yr. Fourth year 37 39

57 69 78 93 111 137 158 192 1671 220 272 2551 263 266 282 2541 262 264 2541 297 364

1925-26 1926-27 1927-28 1928-29 1929-30 1930-31 1931-32 1932-33 1933-34 1934-35 1935-36 1936-37 1937-38 1938-39 1939-40 1940-41 1941-42 1942-43 1943-44 1944-45 1945-46

1 20 19 19 20 31 41 34 40 39 41 35 40 52 40 41 43 41 52 43 55

50 35 48 61 76 77 79 106 82 81 140 121 97 90 121 81 93 97 80 110 142

1 28 26 26 22 44 47 55 50 54 50 51 53 58 50 62 55 59 63 49 68

1946-47 1947-48 1948-49

68 78 64

287 226 196

94 127 81

1949-50

16

175

83

973

2,751

Totals

'Registration lower than the year before (in 7 of 25 years).

434 3971 3291

3071

5,782

This page intentionally left blank

Notes

ABBREVIATIONS

CE CNS DO GM JLP

HP

HP/go—40 HP/Sept. 43 HP/33-43 MUC

MUNFLA

Church of England archives, St. John's Centre for Newfoundland Studies, MUN Library Dominions office records in the Public Record Office, London Board of Governors minutes, Board of Regents office, MUN S.J. Carew, editor, J.L.P.: a Portrait of John Lewis Paton by his friends (St John's: MUN Paton College, 1969) Hatcher papers. These are part of the files from the president's office of the university. They are not in the public domain, although ultimately destined for deposit in a university archive and fully accessed for this project. Hatcher papers, expanding file "Letters (general file) 1930—40" Hatcher papers, expanding file "Letters AGH to September 1943" Hatcher papers, expanding file "Letters 1933-43" Memorial University College project records deposited with MUN Folklore & Language Archive Memorial University of Newfoundland, Folklore and Language Archive

gio Notes to pages 4-8 PANL PANS QC PP

RC RO RR TM uc

Provincial Archives of Newfoundland and Labrador Public Archives of Nova Scotia Queen's College archive, St John's Paton papers in CNS, MUN Library. Similar to the Hatcher collection (HP) mentioned above, these also are part of the president's office files and not in the public domain. Roman Catholic archives, St John's Registrar's office records, MUN Board of Regents' records, MUN Board of Trustees' minutes, HP file "Trustees to 1935 (incl.)" United Church of Canada archive, St John's

CHAPTER ONE

1 Census of Newfoundland 6f Labrador 1921, xxii—xxiii; MacKay, Newfoundland, 161. 2 Barnes, "The History of Education in Newfoundland," 144; Burke, "History of Catholic education," RC box 107—19; Education acts of Newfoundland and Labrador and related legislation, 2, 27-19. An 1891 special commitee recommended establishing a normal school for one year's professional training. Nfld. House of Assembly, Journal 1891, Appendix, 455. 3 Church of England, Report of the Schools under Church of England Boards (1893); Andrews, Integration, 21. 4 MacLeod, "Students abroad," 172—92. 5 Curtis in the The Newfoundland Quarterly (March 1905), 11. 6 G.R. Parkin to Andrew Wilson, 6 April 1911, RC box 106—17; uc> R£~ port of the Public Schools of Newfoundland under Methodist Boards, 1912, 12. 7 RC box 106-17. 8 Blackall to Hatcher, from Annapolis Royal, 14 July 1936, HP/3O—40. 9 Superintendents of education to E.P. Morris, 23 July 1914, uc, Methodist schools report (n. 6) 1914, 6-7. 10 Evening Telegram, i September 1914, i. 11 uc, Methodist schools report (n. 6), 1914, 7 and 1915, 12. See also CNS, Collection 57 (Barnes), file 4, Barnes-Blackall memorandum for the Amulree commission, 16-17. 12 uc, Methodist schools report (n. 6) for 1913, 114; 1917, 13; 1918, 9— 10; Report of the schools under RC boards 1914, viii.

3ii

Notes to pages 8-15

13 F.X. Doyle was the instructor; uc, Methodist schools reports (n. 6) for 1917, 14; 1918, 10. 14 Barnes, 156; Church of England school report (n. 3) 1905, ix. 15 Andrews, Integration, 60. 16 Andrews, 71—2; uc, Methodist schools report (n. 6) 1918, 11. 17 Newfoundland Department of Education, Report 1919-20, 6; uc, Methodist schools report (n. 6), 1917, 10-12 and 1918, 10-11. 18 Dept. of Education Report 1922-3, 117-18. 19 Rowe, The Development of Education in Newfoundland, 100. 20 Record of 24 June meeting, RC box 106-16. 21 Howley to Burke 2 September 1914, RC box 106—16. 22 Burke to Howley 8 September 1914 and Blackall to Howley 11 September 1914, RC box 106—16. 23 Blackall to Roche 23 March 1915, RC box 107-19. 24 Minutes of 4 October 1915, RC box 107-19. 25 Retreat message 1916, RC box 107—29, file ge. An unexpected indication of Newfoundland's consciousness of Canada thirty years before political union is the fact that Roche's message has an important section on confederation. Persistent rumours indicated it could become a serious question in either the short or long term. Impressed (and disheartened) by Canadian crises like the Manitoba schools struggle, the new archbishop said Newfoundland Catholics must insist absolutely on safeguarding denominational schools and avoid Canadian-style confrontations and weakness. Forwarned is forearmed. 26 Daily News, 13 July 1920, 3. 27 Held in Halifax 7 July, 24 October, and 12 December 1922. For a good general discussion of the whole movement and its limited outcomes, see articles by Reid: "Mount Allison College," and "Health, Education, Economy." 28 Original plan of 74 sections, 12 December 1922, later whittled down to 56, said to be modelled upon the federated University of Toronto (RC box 107—22). 29 Roche to McCarthy 14 October 1922, RC box 107—22. Halifax Herald 24 October 1922, 8. 30 RC box 107—22: Tompkins to Roche 16 November 1922, and copies of correspondence Tompkins sent on to St John's - H. Carr (St Michael's) to Tompkins 13 May 1922; M.F. Fallen (London) to Tompkins 20 December 1922; N. McNeil (Toronto) to "Father John" 11 February 1922. 31 H. Smith to Tompkins 22 May 1922; H. Bucknell to Tompkins 25 May 1922; R. Gautheron to Tompkins 20 May 1922. RC box 10722.

312 Notes to pages 16—20 32 McCarthy-Roche correspondence, January 1923; Roche to DiMaria, 23 February 1923. RC box 107—22. 33 Roche to Kennedy, 10 May 1922, RC box 107-19. 34 Interview with Kay Hanley, St John's, 22 November 1982. 35 uc, Methodist schools report (n. 6) 1918, 11. 36 uc, Methodist schools report (n. 6) 1919, 10-11. 37 Cited in Bellows, "The foundation of Memorial university college 1919-25." 538 Daily News 24 February, 8 and 11 March 1919. Julia Salter Earle proposed the clubrooms; other suggestions were anonymous. W.B. Grieve was chairman of the War Memorial Committee, succeeded by W.G. Gosling. PANL, PS/B/g (7). 39 Burke from Teachers' College, Columbia University, to the editor, Evening Telegram, 14 April 1919, 5. 40 Roche to Burke 29 December 1919, RC box 107-19. 41 Committee report presented 7 January 1920, signed by A.J. Harvey, acting chairman and JJ. McKay, honorary secretary. Bellows, 6. The national memorial (Duckworth Street) took almost as long to erect as the Normal School building, unveiled i July 1924. It cost about $25,000 (Smallwood, Book of Newfoundland, i, 245). Other war remembrances were four battlefield parks overseas, and a July i st Memorial day that is Newfoundland's own. 42 Patriotic Association to the Executive Council 15 March 1920, CNS, Collection 57 (Barnes), file 5. 43 Colonial secretary to Burke, secretary, War Memorial Committee, 13 April 1920, ibid; Bellows, 6-7; "Wayfarer" in the Daily News 20 December 1972. Costs for the building were amalgamated and covered as one of twenty-three items for which $6 million were borrowed in 1922: "Normal School $400,000." Amulree report, 248. A more standard type of memorial was also erected in St John's; it cost over $20,000 and was unveiled i July 1924. Evening Telegram, 3 July 1924, 8. Smallwood, Book of Newfoundland, i, 245. 44 "Praise to God."; Blackall to Hatcher, 17 February 1937, HP/3O-4O; Bellows, 7. 45 The synod building was the former Spencer College. Andrews, Integration, 87, 89. 46 Newfoundland Dept. of Education, Annual report 1922—3, xiv, 27, 121—2. 47 The other speakers were Prime Minister Monroe, Whiteway, Burke, and Curtis. (The RC Superintendent, Ronald Kennedy, did not speak, presumably because Deputy Minister Burke officially represented that church.) Newfoundland's Normal School, preparing teachers since 1921, was presented in the context of earlier develop-

313 Notes to pages 20-5 ments in the Maritimes: NS [1855], PEI 1856, NB 1870. Nfld Dept of Education Report 1924-5, 184-6. 48 There were six representatives from NS, two from NB. After settling the Newfoundland matter the meeting recommended a large grant to Dalhousie to retire its $100,000 (medical school) debt. RC box 107— 22. 49 Blackall to Hatcher from Annapolis Royal, 9 July 1934, HP/3O—40. 50 The nationality of the principals of the major St John's colleges at the time was: St. Bonaventure's (1920—25) Brother Rev. J.E. Ryan, Irish; Methodist College (1904-27) Samuel Harrington, British; Bishop Field College (1915-34) Ralph R. Wood, British; Bishop Spencer College (1920—21) A.M. Richards, British — 1922—52 Violet Cherrington, British (St. Bonaventure's Adelphian 1925, 36; Encyclopedia of Newfoundland and Labrador, i, 195, 411; n, 841; Andrews, Integration, 94). The name they chose, "University College," was also very British, although the reality of the new institution was not. By 1900 there were a dozen or so university colleges in England and Wales. They taught a full undergraduate program, but were not independent. For example, the students of University College Nottingham (founded 1881) qualified for University of London degrees. Memorial, offering just the first half of a four-year degree program, followed the American junior college model. Thanks to George Story for raising the significance of this nomenclature. Newton, The Universities & Educational Systems of the British Empire, xix—xxiv, 49—50, 112. 51 Graham and Phythian, The Manchester Grammar School 1515-1965, 96—102. 52 Paton declined, as he was too busy organizing Newfoundland. Editor, Encyclopedia Britannica (London) to Paton, 25 September 1925, PP box i. 53 It is possible that Paton came to their attention a few months earlier. Carew, in Nine Lives of Paton College 6, says that Curtis vacationed in Britain in 1924 and discussed Paton's possible appointment with Sir Michael Sadler. This information is not confirmed in any of the documents. Since the source contains numerous errors, the most spectacular being a photograph of the wrong person (same surname though), it should be discounted. 54 The Manitoba Free Press, 13 April 1925, i; 15 April, 2; 21 April, 4; and 23 April 1925, 4. 55 Burke to Paton c/o Major F. Ney, Winnipeg, 6 May 1925, PP box i. 56 Undated plan in PP box i. 57 R.R. Wood to Paton 5 and 8 August 1925, PP box i. 58 Roche's pastoral letter, 22 February 1925, RC box 107—33; RC section in Bureau of Education, Annual report, 1927-8, 65-6. See also 154.

314 Notes to pages 25—9 59 Barnes to Paton from Bay Roberts, 19 October 1925, PP box i. 60 L.M. Russell to Paton, from Boswell, BC, 2 June 1925, PP box i. 61 Census of Newfoundland and Labrador 1945, i; Alexander, "Newfoundland's traditional economy," 63. 62 Alexander, ibid; Thornton, "The problem of out-migration," 32-3. Canada consistently drew somewhat larger numbers of Newfoundlanders than the United States did. MacKay, Newfoundland, 132 gives these figures for Newfoundlanders in the two countries: Year

Canada

USA

1910/1 1920/1 1930/1 1940/1

15,000 23,000 26,000 26,000

9,000 13,000 24,000 21,000

63 Census of Newfoundland and Labrador 1921, xix—xx. 64 Neary, Political Economy of Newfoundland, 10. 65 Percy Janes, House of hate (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1970), 11. 66 Census of Newfoundland and Labrador 1921, xviii-xxiii. 67 Veltmeyer, "The Capitalist Underdevelopment of Atlantic Canada," 21. 68 Census of Newfoundland and Labrador 1921, xxii. 69 Alexander, "Canadian regionalism," 49. 70 Alexander, "Development and dependence," 14—17. 71 Alexander, "Newfoundland's traditional economy," 15; Neary, Political economy, 15. 72 Alexander, "Newfoundland's Traditional economy," 70—1, has an impressive list of the failed projects for 1905-34: Marconi stations; several prospects of coal and oil production; peat fuel; cold storage plants; several unrealized ideas for pulp and paper, especially the never-built Gander proposition; glue and fertilizer; a Labrador railway; a cereal mill; untapped lead/copper deposits and a giant transshipment port in Placentia Bay. 73 Neary, Political Economy, 17-18. Hiller, "The origins of the pulp and paper industry," 62-4. 74 O'Flaherty, The Rock Observed, 112. 75 Census ... 1921, xxi—xxii; Alexander, "Development and Dependence," 17. 76 Alexander, "Newfoundland's Traditional economy," 66-68; Smallwood, The New Newfoundland, 91, 101-3. 77 Census ... 1921, xxi-xxii. 78 Veltmeyer, "Underdevelopment," 22.

315 Notes to pages 2Q-35 79 Alexander, The Decay of Trade, 1—2. 80 i88os: Newfoundland $72, Maritimes $133, Canada $192; 1920: Newfoundland $84, Maritimes $237, Canada $306 (all values in 1936 Canadian dollars). Alexander, "Economic growth," 58—60. 81 Alexander, "Literacy & economic development," 115. He points out higher rates of illiteracy, however, in Italy (48%), Spain (56%), and Russia (72%). 82 Alexander, "Literacy & economic development," 111—13; Alexander, "Political economy," 33. 83 Leyton, O'Grady and Overton, "Violence and popular anxiety," 344-60. 84 Newfoundland royal commission 1933, Report, 47, 63; Noel, 130. 85 Alexander, "Development & dependence," 18; O'Flaherty, The rock observed, 114. 86 Noel, Politics in Newfoundland, 269—70. 87 Rowe, A History of Newfoundland and Labrador, 355. 88 Leyton, "Violence," 350—60. This is not exactly what another historian had in mind when he wrote, "In case of fishery failure or destitution from any cause, the safest place to be was near some merchant." (Rowe, A History of Newfoundland, 354, citing Keith Matthews). 89 Quoted in Neary, Political economy, 25—6. 90 Brown, "The public finance of medical and dental care," 211. 91 Paton, "Newfoundland," 398. 92 Elliott, "Newfoundland politics in the 1920*8," 199. 93 McCann, "Culture, state formation and the invention of tradition," 99-

94 Noel, Politics in Newfoundland, 131. 95 Rowe, History of Newfoundland, 394. 96 Ibid., 395-8. 97 Noel, Politics in Newfoundland, 180—1. 98 Population in 1921, as "Bay of Islands," i, 349; 1921 Census, xviii. 99 Encyclopedia of Newfoundland and Labrador, i, 282-3. 100 1921 Census, xxii-xxiii. 101 Rowe, History of Newfoundland, 367-8. 102 Smallwood, The New Newfoundland, 125. 103 Amulree report, 248. 104 HP file "Crowe and Curtis scholarships." C H A P T E R TWO

1 "... about the nervous system of the worm." The poem is in ScammeH's Mirrored moments, 30-4. See appendix 3. 2 The best general account of the period is by Noel, Politics in Newfound-

316 Notes to pages 35-46 land. For economic developments, see the articles by Alexander, especially "Economic growth," 47—76. On the 19405 see MacLeod, Peace of the continent. 3 At both McGill and McMaster, for example, registration dropped in the mid-ig3os (Frost, McGill, 2:259; Johnston, McMaster University, 2:41). Dalhousie's enrolment declined by 23% between 1935 and 1940 (Axelrod, "Moulding the middle class," 87). Queen's and Mount Allison, like Memorial, levelled off. (Gibson, To serve, 2:92; Reid, Mount Allison University, 2:140). 4 Ommer, "Highland Scots migration," 215. 5 "College notes," St John's Daily News, 29 October 1932. See also MacLeod, "Students abroad," 184 (table 6). 6 The districts of St Barbe (northern peninsula west of St Anthony), where only 52% of the population over ten years could read in 1901, and Fortune, Burgeo, and LaPoile (South coast), where the figure was 56% to 57%. Alexander, "Literacy and economic development," 123-57 Olive Field Dawe to M. MacLeod, 23 May 1983. 8 Interview with Allan Gillingham, St John's, 12 July 1983. 9 Interview with A.C. Lloyd Hudson, St John's, 13 January 1983. 10 Interview with A.R. Scammell, St John's, 6 November 1982. In his recent autobiography, Fred Rowe (Lewisporte) reports that this exclusion of outporters greatly lessened from the time of his student days in the mid-19305. See Rowe, Into the breach, 55, 75—80. 11 Harold Loder to M. MacLeod [February 1983]. 12 Interview with David Pitt, St John's, 18 October 1982. 13 A. Frecker to the Secretary of the MUN Board of Regents, 6 January 1951, RR file "Appointments 1948-51." 14 Leonard Miller to the Commissioner for Public Health and Welfare, 12 June 1944, PANL, GN 38, 83-4-1, file 7. 15 Interview with Stuart Godfrey, Ottawa, 3 May 1983. 16 Interview with M.O. Morgan, St John's, 21 September 1984. 17 Interview with A.R. Scammell, St John's, 6 November 1982. 18 Interview with Kathleen Hanley, St John's, 29 November 1982. 19 H.D. Rosenberg to M. MacLeod, 12 August 1983. 20 Interview with Horace Hall, Saint John, NB, 2 October 1983. World War n then intervened, no awards being made in 1941-46. The first two decades of Rhodes awards, however, do not show precise alternation among Newfoundland's major denominations and their colleges.

317 Notes to pages 46—7

Year Recipient Affiliation

1904 1905 1906 1907

Herbert Bond Penney Winter

1908 1909 1910 1911 1912 1913 1914 1915 1916 1917 1918 1919 1920 1921

Mitchell Higgins Tait Fox Curtis Hayward Crawford Forbes Hollett Knight Browne Guy Ashbourne Young

St Bonaventure's (RC) Methodist Coll. (Methodist) St Bonaventure's Bishop Feild Coll. (Church of England) Meth. Coll. St. Bon's Feild St. Bon's Meth. Coll. Meth. Coll. St. Bon's Meth. Coll. Meth. Coll. St. Bon's St. Bon's Meth. Coll. Meth. Coll. St. Bon's

(Department of education, Annual report 1919-20, 38.) 21 Interview with M.O. Morgan, St John's, 21 September 1983. 22 Interview with Margaret Sanford, Vancouver, 16 October 1983. 23 For example, at Mount Allison in 1928-29, women constituted 36% of the students: postgraduates, seniors, juniors, sophomores, freshmen, and special students (Mount Allison Calendar 7929—30, 120—30). At Dalhousie in 1930-31, 28% were women (Axelrod, "Moulding the Middleclass," 87). 24 The Commissioner for Home Affairs and Education to the Commission of Government, 17 February 1944, PANL, GN 38, S 3—1—1, file 925 Hunter as Acting President sent the Board of Governors a pessimistic analysis, in which he pointed out that the percentage of women in the core program of the junior college (excluding education, engineering, third year, and special students) had dropped from 46% in 1941 to 14% in 1948 (Hunter to Burke, 20 October 1948, RR file "Professorships for MUG"). A meeting of the Central Advisory Committee of the Maritime Provinces and Newfoundland was due to follow in a few weeks' time. Hunter proposed that the question of the declining proportion of women students should be aired: "not but

318

Notes to pages 47—51

what I should rejoice if mixed colleges ceased to exist, but if a college is 'co-educational' it should have a balance between the sexes." The president of Mount Allison replied that it should be an interesting discussion, since at his institution the number of women was on the rise (Hunter to W. Flemington, 20 October 1948, and reply, 25 October, HP file "Central advisory committee 1948"). 26 Harry Clarke may hold the record for the most interestingly varied program of interrupted studies. A native of Dunfield, Trinity Bay, he completed the CHE intermediate examination (grade ten) in 1929. Thereafter: 1929—30

Taught at Dunfield

1930

Summer school at MUC

1

Taught at Lockston, Trinity Bay

930-32

1

932-33

completed grade 11, St Paul's School, Trinity

1933-34

taught at Lockston

1934-39

taught at Dunfield

1939-40

MUC (full year of teacher training)

1940—42

taught at Port Union

1942-43

taught at Gander

1943-44

taught at Grand Falls

1944-46

taught at Bell Island

1941-45

MUC Summer schools

1946—47

MUC (arts and science "A")

1947-75

Principal, St Thomas elementary school, St John's

1947-49

taught at MUC Summer schools

1950

Acadia University summer school

19505

evening courses at MUM, and two MUN degrees, BA (Ed) and BA (English major).

(Source: Paula Clarke interview with Harry Clarke, St John's, 3 July 1985.)

27 28 29 30

Interview with Rev. A.S. Butt, Glovertown, NF, 13 March 1983. Interview with A.C.L. Hudson, St John's, 13 January 1983. Interview with Iris Power, St John's, 24 November 1982. Interview with Jack Facey, MUN, 17 November 1982; Reid, Mount Allison University, n, 188. 31 Interview with Kathleen Hanley, St John's, 22 November 1982. 32 See photographs of girls' ice hockey teams, courtesy of Gertrude Facey Rees (1928) and Betty Christian Parsons (1938). Women's hockey became quite popular in Canada from about 1900 on (Wise and Fisher, Canada's Sporting Heroes, 46, 53, 186). The women's team

319 Notes to pages 51-8

33 34 35

36

37

38 39 40 41 42 43 44

at McMaster University, 1920, is shown in Johnston and Weaver, Student days, 38. Axelrod, "Moulding the Middle class," 111-14. Dept. of Education, Annual report 1925-6, 150. Interview with Audrey Stirling Norman, Kingston, ON, 5 May 1983. Blishen, "Construction & use," 519-31; Kahl and Davis, "A comparison of indices," 317—25; Tuckman, "Social status," 71—4; Treiman, Occupational prestige in comparative perspective. Reid, Mount Allison University, n, 447, uses the scale constructed by Blishen: about 350 male and female occupations, using data from the Canadian census 1951. What Reid's "Group i, 2, 3" etc. signify is not apparent in the book. Since Blishen's scale ranks jobs using a formula composed of income and years of schooling — and therefore excludes wealthy merchants of no particular education from the top class - it was not appropriate for Newfoundland. Axelrod, "Moulding the middle class," takes a more thoughtful approach than Reid, including a long note (23) which describes how he constructed his own occupational scale. The scale has again seven categories: professional, business, supervisory, white collar, skilled, semi- and unskilled, and farming/fishing. It would have been possible and easy to use this for the students at Memorial, and I was tempted to do so, but the range of incomes included in each grouping dissuaded me. In Newfoundland in 1945, for example, professionals ranged from male physicians ($4721, the top of the list) to female librarians ($882) and teachers ($712) - which means that persons in the professional category were spread across more than 90% of the range from highest to lowest income. Since income is a very important consideration when students are trying to scrape together funds to cover tuition and other expenses, I decided a scale based on income alone was the most significant and revealing. See, however, table 10. A.C. Hunter to Rev. W. Rees-Wright, 16 August 1948, HP file "Appointments 1948." Interview with Rev. R. Humby, Dayspring, NS, 14 August 1984. Interview with Ian Rusted, St John's, i February 1983. Interview with Leslie Harris, St John's, 28 June 1983. Allan Gillingham to M. MacLeod, 19 February 1983. Interview with Canon George Earle, Topsail, NF, 25 January 1983. The transition in the western world generally — which is the proper context for understanding these developments in Newfoundland is well described in Jarausch, The Transformation of Higher Learning 1860—1930; see especially the editor's summary essay, 9—36. Details for Canada are copiously supplied in Harris, A History.

320

Notes to pages 59-70

45 MacLeod, "Prophet with honour," 29-36. CHAPTER THREE

1 2 3 4

5 6 7 8 9 10 11

Burke to Paton, 6 May 1925, PP Box i. CNS, Newfoundland Memorial College [Prospectus 1925]. O'Flaherty, 142. A. Wilson, secretary of CHE, to Paton, 8 February 1926, PP Box i. One influence at work here was the sixth form program at Manchester Grammar School, with which Paton was so familiar. It embraced divinity, classics, German, French, Spanish, English, mathematics, chemistry, physics, history, and economics (Manchester Grammar School, Prospectus for 1923-4, Classical, 50-2; Modern, 54-5). Paton to A. Barnes (Colonial Secretary), i March 1929, HP file "Fishery research 2." Encyclopedia of Newfoundland and Labrador 11, 168—9. Paton to W.K. Spencer, Ipswich, England, undated, PP Box i, file of Paton drafts. Templeman to Hatcher, 18 April 1944, HP file "Appointments 1944." Minutes of 19 and 25 February 1938, GM 139, 143. H.J.B. Gough report, 10 August 1938, HP file "Summer School 1938 (general)." A.G. Macpherson, "The Early Development of Geography," 4.

12 Gillingham to Hatcher, 21 June 1946, HP file "Appointments 1946."

13 Burke to R.U. Pearce, Rockefeller Foundation, undated, PP box i. 14 Paton, "Beginning of university education in Newfoundland," CNS, "College notes," vol. i. 15 Scammell, "If—," 13. 16 An early indication of perceived need was the 1917 announcement by the CHE that all the courses for first- and second-year preengineering were available in Newfoundland. The plan was that candidates would have to go on for the third year to one of the regular Maritime universities, then finish the degree at NS Technical College (CHE, Short Syllabus, 1917, 17-26). 17 The governors of NS Technical College agreed to MUG'S affiliation in December 1932; officially granted by the NS Council of Public Instruction in May 1933 (MacLeod, "Students abroad," 178, 180—1). 18 Hatcher to Paton, 14 August 1931, PP Box 3. 19 Interview with Myles Doody, Halifax, 12 August 1983. 20 Carew to Hatcher [1945], HP file "Reports survey camp"; Daily News, 12 September 1931; Hugh Anderson interview with Jack Facey, St John's, November 1985. 21 Interview with Edna Baird Stephenson, St John's, 2 October 1982.

32i

Notes to pages 70-7

22 Vincent Burke, who was promoted sideways to head adult education, hired Alice Dickie in 1936; MacLeod, "Prophet with honour," 31; Overton, "Brown flour and beriberi." 23 F. Emerson to Hatcher [1945-6?], HP file "F.R. Emerson." 24 Hunter paper, 24 September 1948, RR file "Professorships for MUG." 25 But see the letter from W.W. Blackall to Hatcher, 15 September 1935, in which he indicates that the closing of Normal School had more to it than met the eye. It was "not on account of the financial depression - that was a camouflage - but in order that the retiring and pensioning" of Whiteway might be secured (HP/SO—40). 26 Memorial University of Newfoundland, Jubilee Year Book, 125. 27 Andrews, Integration 322; Johnson, "Teacher Training," 71. 28 TM, 3 October 1934. 29 Proposed grants in memo from L. Shaw, secretary for education [1936], HP file "Mem. Coll. teaching training dept." 30 A.G. to Hatcher, 16 September 1937, HP/3O-4O. 31 Minutes of 7 December 1948, GM 343. 32 1921 Census, xxi. 33 Hatcher to Hon. Commissioner for Natural Resources, HP file "Agriculture." 34 W.H. Brittain to Hatcher, 26 April 1937, Ibid. 35 For example, MUG Calendar 1938—9, 8. 36 Report on use of Arts teaching material, October 1936, HP file "Art." 37 D. Alexander, "Collapse of the saltfish trade," 263. 38 Paton to George Russell (AE), HP file "Biology (JLP)." 39 President of UNB to Hatcher, 12 November 1935 and Hatcher to General Manager Anglo-Newfoundland Development Company, 12 February 1936 (HP/30—40). 40 S.J. Hayes to Hatcher, 17 February 1939, HP file "MUC estimates 1939-40." 41 Ernest Roze to A. Frecker, 23 February 1949 and reply, 11 March 1949, RR file "Matters considered by Board." 42 Newton, Memorial University, 35, 44; Bailey, The University of New Brunswick, 87—91. In 1967 President Taylor thought of developing a program in paper technology until the paper companies said they needed only 1-2 new graduates per year. A natural history of everyday life, 407-408. 43 Faculty report [June 1946], PANL, GN 38, 53—1—2, file 5. 44 Gillingham, "Memorial," 4-13. The Newfoundland Historical Society has a copy of this rare item (file M.U.C.). 45 H.A. Winter, memo for 19 June 1944, PANL, GN 38, S 3-1-1, file 9. 46 Faculty report [June 1946], Ibid., S 3-1-2, file 5. 47 In 1951 the university followed up this opening by establishing a full

322 Notes to pages 74—84

48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55

56 57

58

program - two full and two half-courses (classification, book selection, administration, and reference) — in librarianship. They were dropped from the Calendar after 1955-56. Another interesting omission from Memorial College offerings was commerce, very popular at Dalhousie. In 1939 the Board of Trade proposed there should be an eighteen-month course, embracing accounting, company law, insurance, taxes, etc. The Secretary for Education favoured two years, with a link if necessary to other universities, and acquired the B COMM syllabus from McGill - correspondence of February and April 1939 in HP file "M. Coll (extension suggestions)." Newton thought that the greatest needs for new disciplines in arts and science were philosophy and psychology to be added to the half-courses given in teacher training, fine arts, and physical education — not yet taken very seriously" (Robert Newton, Report, 29-33). Interview with Rev. Arthur Butt, Glovertown, NF, 13 March 1983. L. Hollett to Hatcher, 11 November 1947, HP expanding file "Miscellaneous." Interview with Alvin Samson, Vancouver, 16 October 1983. Father M.F. Dinn (North River, Conception Bay) to Hatcher and reply, 17 and 19 February 1936, HP/3O—40. Annual report for 1937—38, 3—4, HP file "President's annual reports 1934-1937-" Mansfield to Hatcher in Vancouver, 9 December 1948, HP/Sept. 43. Hunter, Gillingham, and Organ to Hatcher, 3 November 1941, HP/ 30-40. The paper "Some thoughts on the future of the college," found in the Hatcher papers file of that name, was undated, but must surely be the one Hunter transmitted to the president with his letter of 27 October 1943 (HP/Sept. 43). Hatcher's comments, handwritten and unpolished, in HP/Sept. 43. Hutchins deprecated education that was "debased by empiricism, misled by the idea of progress in intellectual matters and by vocationalism and the ideal of student adjustment." See Devane, Higher education, 72—3. Preface to "Report of the Faculty on new courses ... etc." [June 1946], PANL, GN 38, 83-1-2, file 5. CHAPTER FOUR

i Correspondence in PP box i, file for March 1926. An interesting example of a foreign agent is S.T. Harrington of Malvern Wells, UK. He was involved in interviewing and hiring on behalf of MUC in 1928 and 1931. Originally English, he had been at Methodist College in

323 Notes to pages 84-9

2 3 4

5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12

13

14 15

1904-27, no doubt met Paton in St John's, and acted as his agent after retiring to Worcester. Encyclopedia of Newfoundland, 2:841. Paton to Teachers' Agency, 11 July 1925, PP, box i. Malcolm MacLeod, "The Presidents of Memorial University College." An older brother, Gordon, followed a career in teaching and educational administration in Quebec, capped when he became superintendent of Lachine Protestant schools. A younger brother, Bill, was professor of chemistry at McGill 1921-57 (MacLeod, "The Presidents of Memorial University College"). R.L. Andrews, Integration, 177, 228, 235. See also Hatcher papers at MUN, President's Office, file "Appointments 1934." See HP files "Appointments 1942," "Appointments 1943." Correspondence in PP, box i. Interview with Edna Baird Stephenson, St John's, 25 September 1982. Baird to Paton, 2 December 1931, PP box 3. St John's Daily News, 18 May 1939, 5. Board of Governors minutes in MUN Board of Regents office, minutes of 6 March 1944 (15). Some Canadian universities took the opposite approach and tried to avoid hiring too many of their own graduates. This was the case, for example, at Mount Allison — where nevertheless a sizeable portion of those willing to come for very low salaries were those who knew and liked the institution already (Reid, Mount Allison University, 2:134-6). At the University of Saskatchewan in 1945, 73% of faculty were Canadian-born, 37% natives of that province (Hayden, Seeking a balance, 189—90). The 1938—39 Calendar shows an average of 1.9 degrees for professors in the faculty of arts and sciences, quite comparable to MUC. Teachers in Dalhousie's professional faculties had more credentials: dentistry, 2.7 degrees on average; law and medicine, 2.8 (x-xix). Another issue concerning qualifications arose at Memorial in 1947, when one of the governors proposed all new appointees should have teacher training and previous teaching experience. General agreement was expressed, fuller discussion deferred, and no decision taken. Minutes of 22 May 1947, GM 181. Burke to Paton, 6 May 1925, PP box i. To fill out this partial history of history at MUC: In July 1925 Blackall had recommended Bucknell from St Francis Xavier. Paton said: "We are having trouble over our History Professor, the candidate appointed having withdrawn" (to Registrar, Dalhousie, 11 July 1925, PP box i). Correspondence from Rev. Leo Harvey, UNB, 3 May 1926 and 21 May 1927, PP, boxes i & 2. Gilbert Tucker, who inquired

324 Notes to pages 89-93 about the post in 1927, may not have been considered because his letter came from "The Deanery, London, Ontario." PP box 2. Gushue to Committee on appointments 7 July 1953, HP file "A.M. Fraser." Alain Frecker understood that the history professor was to be a Roman Catholic. See his "most Rev. E.P. Roche 1874-1950," !9316 Harrington to Hogg [undated], PP box i. S.J.M. Avis to Harrington and to Paton, August 1931, PP box 3. Jewish scientist: Harry Ark to Paton, from Brooklyn, 23 August 1930, PP box 3. 17 Marie-Teresa Turner to Paton, 28 April 1933; telegram concerning Edith Mackinder 27 May 1933, HP file "Staff applications to 1933." 18 Gillingham to Paton, 28 March 1933, HP file "Staff applications to 1933." Interview with Ethel King Wood, Belleville, ON, 4 May 1983. Minutes of 23 September 1938, GM 171. 19 Jim Flynn interview with Brian Edwards (MUC 1948), St John's, 2 February 1983. 20 Daily News, 17 July 1928, 5. 21 Hatcher to Thompson, 5 June 1936, HP/Sept. 43. Thompson's previous letter had suggested that if being a woman prevented Miss Frost's appointment he would be willing to be named professor in charge of biology at the college, she to be associate professor and do the bulk of the work. 22 Hatcher to the secretary of the Board of Regents, 9 August 1950, RR file "Appointments 1948—51." 23 The $8 bought 5 reproductions. Hatcher kept papers concerning the incident in a separate envelope marked "private." HP/Sept. 43. 24 Minutes of 29 March and 15 October 1940, GM 253, 279. Muriel. Hunter to Hatcher, 29 October 1940, HP file "Board of governors 1940." 25 GM 491. RR, Minutes of 26 May and 15 June 1950. Secretary, Board of Regents, to Hatcher, 16 June 1950, RR file "Considered by Board of regents." Terms and Conditions (1959}, article 18. 26 Minutes of 4 June 1942, 29 March, 5 and 6 April, and 18 June 1943, GM 407, 457, 461-3, 471. 27 Reid, Mount Allison University, 2:136. Gibson, Queen's University, 2:344. 28 The worst perhaps concerns the woman, wife of another faculty member, who after teaching (German) for 11 years, 8 of them without salary, was made a probationary lecturer when her husband died. Allowed to continue teaching for nine years beyond the regular female retirement age of 60, she then had to beg for charity, because neither her volunteer period nor her postretirement years were considered pensionable (Fingard, "Gender and inequality," 687-703). 29 There is one case, which probably does not qualify as a horror story.

325 Notes to pages 93-6 Louise Whiteway, BA (Mount Allison), MA, PHD (Columbia 1943— Philosophy of education) began working at the college in 1939 as a marker in English. She was 38 years old. She became special library prefect (honorarium $500) two years later, but aspired to a regular academic position. In 1947 she put her case to the president: she had been waiting for a teaching post now for eight years. She hoped that expansion of the education curriculum would produce a requirement for her specialty. She could do the usual things done in the Maritimes - a semester in the history of philosophy ("quite factually to accomodate the interdenominational situation") plus a semester of psychology; and assist in English. Hatcher had to answer that new staffing plans were delayed but she could continue as before. Dr. Whiteway (Miss Whiteway in board minutes) thought this suggestion "unfair to myself and unworthy of the College." The trifling, temporary library work which was offered by Organ in 1941 "I undertook in a temporary spirit, supposing it the stepping stone to a better position that it would have been in any college of ordinarily liberal policy ... As an individual with her way still to make in the world, economically and professionally, I shall be glad if you can extend to me an opportunity of teaching. If this is not within your power I would wish then to push the revision of my case with the Board." Her plea produced a modest pay increase, but we never see her name in the faculty list. Her specialty was not wanted, indeed it was probably avoided. There is no evidence about her temperament for teaching. This is therefore no obvious case of sexist discrimination, but perhaps a relationship where more was hoped on one side than ever intended on the other. Correspondence in HP file "Appointments 1947"; GM 493. See MUN Gazette, 11 March 1982, 7, following Whiteway's death that January. 30 Paton to Stephenson, i December 1928, PP box i, file "Drafts." Stephenson to Paton, 11 December 1928, PP box 3. 31 TM, minutes of 15 May 1930. Baker to Paton, 10 June 1930, PP box 32 33 34 35

36 37 38 39

3Burke to Hatcher 20 October 1934, TM. Minutes of 17 August 1943, GM 475. Masters, Bishop's university, 140. Burke to Hatcher, 29 October 1935, HP file "Trustees to 1935." Hunter to Pottle, 11 March 1949, Board of Regents records at MUN file "Staff salaries 1949-50." Minutes of i April and 7 November 1942, GM 389, 433. See HP file "M.U. faculty salaries 1949—51." Hunter to Pottle, 11 March 1949, RR file "Staff salaries 1949-50." Frost, McGill University, 2:85, 125, 240; Reid, Mount Allison University,

326 Notes to pages 96—100

40 41 42 43

44 45 46

47 48 49 50 51 52

53

54 55

56

57

2:91, 243; Gibson, Queen's University, 2:148, 444 n. 10; Hayden, 111-13, 192. Newfoundland, Census of Newfoundland and Labrador 1945, 156-8. See also appendix 2. Marion Peters Scott to H. Anderson, 20 November 1985. Hanley to Roche 23 August 1949, RC box 107—21. Hunter to Paul Winter, secretary of the Board of Regents, 29 November 1950, RR file "Staff salaries 1949—50." Document of 31 January 1930 attached to letter from the Secretary, Board of Governors, to H.S. Knight, i September 1948, RR file "Sick leave benefit scheme." Minutes of 13 July 1943, GM 473. R.T. Harling to Hatcher, 7 January 1936, HP file "M.U. faculty sabb. leave prior to 1951." Minutes of 10 February 1939, GM 203. Hunter to Burke, 10 January [1949] and Hatcher to Paul Winter, 18 February 1950, RR file "Sabbatical leave." H.A.E. Commissioner Pottle to Secretary for Education, 16 July 1948, GM 294-5. Thompson, The University of Saskatchewan 191; Gibson, 148. Reid, Mount Allison University, 2:136, 245. Already by 1925 faculty at Cambridge (Paton's alma mater} could take leave one term in six, at a fixed rate (Statutes fcf ordinances, 34). Minutes of 5 June 1937, GM 105. Gillingham to Hatcher, 30 May 1944, HP/Sept. 43. Minutes of 12 April 1938, GM 153. Pension documents of 13 and 23 September and 11 December 1944, Provincial archives of Newfoundland and Labrador, GN 38, S 3-4-1 file 7. Frost, McGill University, 2:125, 137, 231. By the end of the 19305 many Canadian institutions had done what Bishop's did (and MUG had also considered), joined the Teacher's Insurance and Annuity association of America (Masters, 141). MUN (Pensions) Act, 13 May 1950, RR file "MUN Pensions act." Newton report 1951, 81—2. The MUN plan still had three deficiencies. It was still voluntary; contributions were forfeited under certain conditions; and there was no portability to other Canadian universities. Marion Peters Scott to H. Anderson, 20 November 1985. Jim Flynn interview with Brian Edwards, St John's, 2 February 1983. See also HP file "Appointments 1942." Secretary for Education to Board of Governors, 7 June 1948, RR file "Terms and conditions of appointment." Reply 2 July 1948, RR file

327

58 59 60

61 62

63 64 65 66 67 68 69

70 71

Notes to pages 100—8

"Sick leave benefit scheme." Long's initiative on behalf of faculty in letter of 12 April 1948 to the Board, RR file "MUG faculty." Paul Winter to Hunter, 20 July and 20 August 1948, HP file "Board of Governors 1948 (secretary)." Anderson, Chemistry at Memorial, 15—17. Hunter to Hatcher, 14 December 1949, HP/Sept 43." Report of board committee on sick leave, 9 February 1951, RR file "Terms & conditions of appointment." Executive meeting, 16 October 1936, GM 57. Teaching loads document in HP file "Bursar 1949-50." The average 20 periods (of 45 minutes each) was about the same workload as at Mount Allison (Reid, Mount Allison University, 2:244). Teaching loads policy, 20 March 1950, RR file "Outstanding from Board of governors." Pottle to Secretary for Education, 16 June 1948, GM 294-5. Hunter paper dated 24 September 1948, RR file "Professorships for MUG." See Hickman to Hunter, 15 December 1948, HP file "Plan for professorships 1948." For example, at McGill since 1920. See Frost, McGill University, 2:1245, 201—2. Newton report, 74. See minutes of 19 December 1936 and 11 April 1939, GM 69, 209; and applications for assistant bursar 6 November 1946, HP file "Appointments 1946". Mennie to Paton, January 1926, PP, box i. Hatcher to Hunter, 12 February 1949, HP file "Hunter 1948-9." CHAPTER F I V E

1 Duley, Cold Pastoral, 187. 2 MUC Calendar 1944-5, 5-6 • 3 Secretary of the SRC, List of socials planned for 1947-8, HP file "SRC 1945-5 !•" Interview with Nigel Rusted, St John's, 7 April 1983. CNS, "College notes," 15 October 1932. Interview with Ruby Knill, Vancouver, 16 October 1983. Summary of 1934-5 assemblies in HP file "Assembly 1934-8." Faculty minutes index (September 1944), HP file "Reports (various)." For 1946-7 schedule, see HP file "Assembly 1944-9." 9 Fabian O'Dea to Hatcher, from St Michael's college, 31 January 1937, HP/3 0—40.

4 5 6 7 8

328 Notes to pages 108—20 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21

22 23 24 25 26

27 28

29 30 31 32 33 34

"College Notes" in the Daily News, 26 March 1932. Menu in possession of Nigel Rusted. See HP/Sept. 43. Cocoa: see CNS, "College Notes" (28 March 1931). Elections: St. John's Daily News, 6 June 1931. Interview with Stuart Godfrey (1932), Ottawa, 3 May 1983. "College Notes" in Daily News, 15 June 1935, 5. Duley, 233. Paton, "On graduation day/to the leaver," Carew, J.L.P., 2. HP file "President's annual report 1938-9." Rev. T.B. Darby to Paton, 9 February 1927, PP box 2. Earle, "A Quick Look Back," 8. J.B. Gilliatt to F.R. Emerson, July 1942, GM 143. See also Paton correspondence with J.W. Williams and E.A. Charlton, April-June 1928, PP box 2; and S.J. Hayes to Hatcher, 3 May 1939, HP file "M college (extension suggestions)." Minutes of 12 May 1941, GM 329. Interview with Ian Rusted, St John's, i February 1983, Evening Telegram, 3 September 1938, 7. Jim Flynn interview with Brian Edwards, St John's, 2 February 1983. Some of these letters on letterhead of the Norcross-Bartlett expedition, PP box 3 and HP/Sept. 43. Daily News, 7 May 1932, 10. For example, Michael Harrington in 1936—7, invited back tuitionfree after a particularly strong contribution to college life as member of the SRC, yearbook editor, promoter of the first student newspaper and reinvigorator of a weekly MUC column in the St John's Daily News. Interview with Michael Harrington, St John's, 15 January 1985. Hunter to Burke, 23 March 1949, RR file "Matters considered by board." The presidents are listed in appendix 7. In 1956 the SRC changed its scheme of representation to i per 100. The following year the present organization, Council of the Students' Union, was founded. MUN, Jubilee Yearbook, 133-4. Appendix to annual reports for 1934-5 and 1937-8, HP files "Pres. reports." D.J. Morris, secretary to Hatcher (undated), HP file "Student societies 1936-7-" Professor Pep: Interview with Audrey Norman, Kingston ON, 5 May 1983. Charm school: CNS, "College Notes," vol. 2. PP box i, Paton drafts (undated). HP file "Glee club." See "Jennie" to Paton, 19 March 1930, PP box 3; and CNS, "College Notes," 24 January 1931.

329

Notes to pages 121—7

35 HP file "Memorial Times." 36 First two issues of the [Muse], 11 December 1950 and 12 February 1951. HP file "Memorial Times." 37 Interview with Betty Parsons, Hantsport NS, 16 August 1983. For 1928 championship, see Bureau of Education, Annual report 1927— 8, 154-538 CNS, "College Notes," vol. 2. 39 Report of the Athletic Union, 7 March 1934, HP file "Athletics." 40 Interview with George LeGrow, Gander NF, 12 March 1983. 41 Minutes of 11 June 1935, TM. 42 Treasurer's report 1935-6 (F. O'Dea?), HP file "SRC 1936—44." 43 Board of Governors to Secretary of Faculty, 2 June 1948, RR file "MUG faculty." 44 W.C. Hudson, President of SRC, to Hatcher, i April 1938, HP file "SRC 1936-44-" 45 Margaret Halley, Secretary of SRC, to Hatcher, 19 March 1941, HP file "SRC 1936-44." 46 R. Garland (MUG 1942) to M. MacLeod, 3 September 1987. 47 HP file "Supervisory committee — prior to 1946." 48 Faculty minutes index (September 1944), HP file "Reports (various)." 49 See E.W. Hutchings to Hatcher (1944 undated) in Ibid.; Hunter draft of discipline committee report for 1944—5, HP n^e "Supervisory committee — prior to 1946." CHAPTER SIX

1 Note dated 10 December 1929, PP box 3. 2 E.G. White and Margaret Butt to Hatcher, 6 November 1934, HP file "Old Memorial's Association 1933—5." 3 Interview with Gwen Monk (MUC 1929), Kingston ON, 4 May 1983. 4 Hatcher to Elinor Clark, Secretary of SRC, and reply, 16 and 29 January 1948, HP file "SRC 1945-51." 5 HP file "Summer session 1948." Air raid precaution regulations mimeographed in 1942 used a different terminology, referring to "Men's" and "Girl's" common rooms. CNS, Collection 38 (Hatcher). 6 Earle, 9. Paton even brought with him an English schoolmaster's tendency to reinforce intellectual with physical stimulation. Sadie Organ recalled he would press his finger into one's shoulder if there were errors in translation. Sometimes he struck the students. One young woman he slapped on the wrist — "Unfortunately she had turned her wrist watch face down and what I had seen was a shower of glass. Suddenly Mr Paton saw it too. 'Did I do that?' he asked. A feeble 'Yes sir' came from the student. 'Take it off and give it to me.'

33°

7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20

21

22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32

Notes to pages 127—35

said Mr Paton, his ruddy face ruddier than ever. We all studied our textbooks with increased care. No apology was uttered but the room was filled with his regret. After a few days the mended watch was ceremoniously handed back accompanied by a note and a box of chocolates" (Jubilee Yearbook, 93). George Hampton to Paton, 21 October 1925, PP box i. Gillingham to Hatcher, 16 March 1940, HP file "Miscellaneous." See absence slip (February 1946) in HP expanding file "Miscellaneous." Announced 20 November 1946, HP file "Assembly." Interview with Rev. A.S. Butt, Glovertown NF, 13 March 1983. Interview with Olive Field Dawe, New Minas NS, 16 August 1983. Interview with Nancy Frost Button, New Melbourne, Trinity Bay, 11 March 1983. Interview with Allison Feder, St John's, 2 November 1983. Interview with Audrey Norman, Kingston ON, 5 May 1983. Betty Conroy to Paton undated [1931—2], PP box i. "College Notes," Daily News, 12 November 1932. JMH toJLP, 4 May 1931, PP box 3. Thomas Rose to Hatcher, 25 February 1936, and reply, 2 March, HP/ 33-43Crib Sheet 25 May 1938, HP/Sept. 1943. Special student: correspondence with W.P., September 1941, HP expanding file "Miscellaneous." Committee report in HP file "Supervisory committee — prior to 1946"; Hatcher to Chairman, 30 October 1943, HP file "Bd. of Governors 1943-" Minutes of 2 November 1943, GM 489. Letters to M. Mansfield dated 4 November 1943, HP file "Supervisory committee - prior to 1946." GM 491 and correspondence in HP file "Board of Governors 1943." Porter, Below the bridge, 72-3. Gibson, Queens University, 2:76. Frost, McGill University, 2:219. Report of the discipline committee for 1943-4, HP file "Supervisory committee — prior to 1946." Minutes of 6 March 1944, HP file "Reports (various)." Officer of the day instructions, HP file "Supervisory committee - prior to 1946." Suggestions to honorary presidents of societies, undated. HP file "Miscellaneous." Hunter, draft of committee report for 1944-5, HP file "Supervisory committee - prior to 1946." Daily News, i June 1935.

33i

Notes to pages 136-42

33 CNS, "College notes," i October 1932. 34 Apparently another Paton, or Manchester Grammar School, practice. In February 1929 Bill Hampton wrote to Paton that the circulating letter, having been delayed elsewhere, had finally arrived at Pine Hill residence. PP box 2. He did not say if different groups of students added to it as it travelled. 35 Cap and Gown 1941, 24. 36 Blackall to Hatcher, 17 December 1941, HP/Sept. 43. Daily News, 17 January 1942, 4. 37 Muriel Matthews to Hatcher, from Mount Allison, 27 January 1942, HP/3O—40. Daily News, 14 February 1942, 8. Since the 1943 Cap fcf gown (no) gives us the additional clue that MEM was an education student of 1939-40, one suspects that Marguerite McDonald of Deer Lake was the song's principal author. 38 Minutes of 22 April 1938, GM 157. See also HP, 4 files "Loan fund grants in aid" covering 1933—50. 39 See President to Douglas Newbury, 4 June 1948, HP file "Loan fund 1947-8." From 1949 the documents begin to show a responsible person to be named as surety, rather than the insurance requirement. From 1951 a designated application form was available. 40 Minutes of 6 April and 10 May 1943, GM—463, 467. HP files "Loan fund." 41 HPfile"Doyle scholarship - prior to 1951." 42 Minutes of 26 June 1939, GM 225. Since there was nothing sexy in the offending yearbook, the items complained of were likely an objective essay about euthanasia, and an imaginative short story "Reincarnation," in which a zealous military officer is likened to a Spanish inquisitor and is shot in the back by one of his own men (Cap & gown 1 939, 38, 5°-5i)43 Minutes of 6 March 1937, GM 85. Hatcher to W.R. Howley, n May 1933. HP/33-43. 44 Duley, Cold pastoral, 187. 45 T.M. Mitchell to Paton, 2 June 1926, PP Box 2. 46 Ches. T. Howell to Paton, 29 January 1931, PP box 3. 47 Hatcher to Sadie Organ, 3 April 1940, HP file "M. + ruColl library 1936-49," and Magazine Digest, issues of January-April 1940. 48 President to chief of police, 3 December, and reply, 20 December 1940, HP/3O—40. 49 Hatcher to CNR, Ottawa, 21 May 1937, HP/September 1943. 50 Hunter to Paton, n October 1931, PP box 3. Board of Governors, executive meeting, 6 March 1937, GM, 85. 51 Some record of this assignment is found in PANL, GN 38, 83—1—1, files 3 and 9. See also Commissioner, Home Affairs and Education, to

332

Notes to pages 142—9

commission 22 October 1942 and 21 February 1944. Eraser's study, a 45o-page typescript, is in PANL, P4/ig. The whole project was funded by the Carnegie Corporation to a total of $7,750. C.R. Fay of Cambridge thought Fraser's contribution "quite superior and constituted the best part of the book." See correspondence in RR file, "Salary scales 1951-2." 52 Journal of the American Chemical Society (1934), 522—6. 53 Report of the Newfoundland Fishery Research Commission (1933). 54 Usually in the Journal of the Biological Board of Canada. See HP files "Pres. annual reports," 1934—41. 55 Encyclopedia of Newfoundland and Labrador, n, 170. 56 Rees-Wright to Hatcher, 23 January and 8 May 1950, HP file, "Biology prior to 1952." Janet Halliwell to M. MacLeod, 4 December 1987. D.C. Mortimer, senior archival officer, National Research Council, to M. MacLeod, 14 December 1987. 57 J.A. Ritchie, "There is a land" (1920), in Dictionary of Canadian quotations and phrases, 815. 58 The University of Saskatchewan's historian put a similar question to a larger but less randomly chosen sample of former students there and found somewhat different responses. Students of the 19205 emphasized new friendships, classes, social life, and association with professors. In the 19305 the stress upon professors and classes had lessened somewhat (Hayden, 185-7). 59 Interview with Ernest Decker, Sydney NS, i August 1984. 60 Interview with Anna Taylor, Wolfville NS, 14 August 1984. 61 Alan Gillingham to MacLeod, 9 February 1983, and interview, St John's, 12 July 1983. 62 Interview with Ian Rusted, St John's, i February 1983. 63 These memories and many others are detailed and discussed in my unpublished paper "The human face of higher education." 64 Marion Peters to Hugh Anderson, 20 November 1985. 65 Interview with Betty Parsons, Hantsport NS, 16 August 1983. 66 Interview with Carman Button, New Melbourne, Trinity Bay, 11 March 1983. 67 Interview with Carl Howse, Odessa ON, 4 May 1983. 68 Interview with Bill Giles, Montreal, 5 May 1983. CHAPTER SEVEN

1 Alexander, "Newfoundland's Traditional Economy," 63. 2 MacLeod, Nearer than neighbours, 37-9. 3 Smallwood, The New Newfoundland, 111—12. MacKay, 72. 4 Paton, "Newfoundland: Present and Future," 395.

333 Notes to pages 149-54 5 Amulree report, 75—6. 6 Encyclopedia of Newfoundland and Labrador, i, 282—3. 7 Ibid., n, 232. 8 Amulree report, 142—52. 9 MacKay, Newfoundland, 71-2. 10 MacKay, Newfoundland, 68—9. 11 Alexander, "Development and dependence," 15-16. 12 Overton, "Brown flour & beriberi," 15. MacKay, Newfoundland 71—2. 13 Alexander, "Newfoundland: Traditional economy," 77-8. 14 1921 Census, xxii—xxiii. Smallwood, The New Newfoundland, 124—5. McAllister, The First 15 years, 30—3. 15 Brown, "Public Finance of Medical and Dental Care," 213—215; Encyclopedia of Newfoundland and Labrador, 2:871. 16 Overton, "Brown Flour and Beriberi," 13. 17 Ibid., 14. 18 Ibid., 15-18. 19 Alexander, "Newfoundland's Traditional Economy," 75-6; Amulree Report, 47, 63; Chadwick, 129-30; Elliott, "Newfoundland Politics in the 1920'$," 185. 20 Overton, "Brown Flour and Beriberi," 15. Leyton, "Violence," 457-62. 21 Leyton, "Violence," 384—457. 22 Ibid., 466-76. 23 MacLeod, Nearer than Neighbours, 48—9. 24 Neary, Newfoundland in the North Atlantic World, 43. 25 Alexander, The Decay of Trade, 1—2. 26 Noel, Politics, 242. 27 Leyton, "Violence," 578. 28 Lodge, Dictatorship in Newfoundland, 234. 29 O'Flaherty, The Rock Observed, 114. Godfrey, Human rights, 128. 30 Alexander, "Development and dependence," 18. MacKay, 171. 31 Godfrey, 209. 32 McCann, "The educational policy," 207. 33 Joey Smallwood addressing the sealers at the Majestic Theatre, 5 March 1935, Leyton, "Violence," 550-1. 34 Leyton, "Violence," 538-60. 35 Ibid., 487. Overton, "Brown Flour and Beriberi," 16. 36 Leyton, "Violence," 619-22. 37 Amulree report, 77—8. 38 Memo of 25 January 1935, quoted in Noel, Politics, 237. 39 Neary, Newfoundland, 52; Brown, "Public Finance," 215, Encyclopedia of Newfoundland, n, 872; Rusted, It's devil deep. 40 Overton, 19.

334 Notes to pages 154-160 41 42 43 44 45

46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58

Encyclopedia of Newfoundland, i, 166-7; n > 872. Alexander, "Economic growth," 58—60. Ibid., 62. Neary, "The Bradley report," 204, 213. Ibid., 194-5, 208. A more sophisticated way of saying the same thing is the theory of the industrial reserve army, created by industrialization and modernization, and required for capital accumulation. Veltmeyer, "Capitalist Underdevelopment," 28—31. Leyton, "Violence," 625. MacLeod, Peace of the continent 2, 8—12. Ibid., 10. MacKay, Newfoundland, 527. Noel, Newfoundland, 265. Godfrey, Human Rights, 113. Chadwick, Newfoundland, 130, 195. McAllister, The First jj Years, 32, 46. McCann, 212. CNS, Ship's file CHRISTMAS SEAL. Rowe, History, 416, 518. Godfrey, Human Rights, 128. 1945 census, 1—2, 91. Veltmeyer, 21. MacLeod, Peace of the continent, 42-4. O'Flaherty, The Rock Observed, 146-7. *945 census, 132—45. Veltmeyer, 22. Alexander, "Collapse of the saltfish trade," 252, 263; The Decay of trade, 44. Alexander, "Development and dependence," 17. Godfrey, Human Rights, 47. CNS, "College notes," 28 November 1931; 20 February and 16 April !932-

59 60 61 62

63 64

65

66 67

Ibid., 14 January 1933. Cable from Templeman to Paton, 4 July 1928, PP box 2. Lady Hope Simpson in 1934, quoted in Neary, Newfoundland, 48. S.J. Hayes to S. Ball at NS Technical College, and reply, 5 and 14 April 1939. See also response from Rev. Bro. Lannon at St Mary's. HP/3O—40. Hatcher to Burke, 9 July 1940, HP file "Military training." Minutes of 3 August 1940, GM 269. Hunter "authorized by the President" to the editor, Evening Telegram, 9 October 1940, HP file "Military training." See Evening Telegram, 8 October, 6; 10 October, 3. Interview with D. Pitt, St John's, 18 October 1982. See also Minutes of 18 November and 16 December 1940, GM 281, 295. Powell to Hatcher, 27 January 1942, HP file "Military training." Report for 1940—1, HP file "Pres. annual reports." These were, however, compulsory. Mainland institutions that succumbed to the wartime atmosphere and gave academic credit for

335 Notes to pages 160—3

68 69

70

71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85

military training included Mount Allison (Reid, Mount Allison University, 2:153), Queen's (Gibson, 181), and McMaster (Johnson, McMaster University, 2:93). Minutes of 15 June 1940, GM 263. [Gillingham] to Hatcher, 8 March [1941], HP file "SRC 1936—44." Air Raid Precautions (ARP): Carew to Hatcher, 11 March 1942, CNS, Collection 38 (Hatcher). Royal Canadian Navy (RCN) water: Capt. E.G. Simms to Hatcher, 17 June 1943, 1^/33-43. Canadian Legion Educational Services (CLES): reports in CNS Collection 38 (Hatcher). Minutes of 15 June, 2 October, 25 November 1940, GM 263, 276, 285. The emergency committee to repulse the first attack by Canadian forces comprised Hatcher, Hunter, Templeman, Lovett-Janison, and Harling. See Hunter "Memorial University College," 8. Tucker, The Naval Service, n, 126. Murray-Hatcher-Burke correspondence, 15—23 July 1941, HP file "Naval hospital." Minutes of 11 October 1941 and 6 March 1942, GM 351, 379. Arthur Mews to Hatcher, 26 March 1942, HP file "Naval hospital." Interview with David Pitt, St John's, 18 October 1982. Assistant censor Newfoundland posts & telegraphs to Hatcher, 8 October 1942, HP/33—43. Minutes of 6 July 1942, GM 415. Shaw to Hatcher, 7 July 1942, HP/33-43Wing Commander Arthur J. Samson. Opening assembly 20 September 1945, CNS, "College notes," vol. i. Report for 1941-2, HP file "Pres. annual reports." Commissioner for home affairs and education to Commission, 17 November 1943, ibid. Bernice Morgan, "Some events in our history," Jubilee Year Book, 86. Undated draft [Spring 1946], HP file "Veterans." J.A. Cochrane, Director, Civil re-establishment, to Commissioner, 28 January 1947, PANL, GN 38, 83—1—2 file 3. J.R. Wood, President, to Hatcher 15 May 1947, and reply to incoming President, Clive Forbes, 4 July 1947. HP file "Veterans." Hatcher to Burke, 17 January 1946, HP file "Board of governors 1946"; GM 143 (4 December 1946). Hunter to Burke, 23 March 1949, RR file "Matters considered by board." Full details on the history of physical plant at the old college - the 1925 showpiece building, new wing in 1932, many frustrated plans for residence accomodation, and acquisition of the uso annex postwar - are contained in my unpublished paper, "Parade Street campus: the home of Memorial University College 1925—50," deposited

336

Notes to pages 163—171

in the Memorial University library, Centre for Newfoundland studies, 1988. 86 Peter Neary makes it clear that the Newfoundland government's postwar thriftiness was part of a British-Canadian understanding that Newfoundlanders should be encouraged to look to Canada, rather than Britain, for future partnership and financial aid (Newfoundland, 231—2). CHAPTER EIGHT

1 Hunter, "Memorial University College," 6. 2 Evening Telegram, 15 September 1932, 11. MUC report for 1932, HP file: Carnegie advisory committee 1932." 3 J. Higgins, secretary-treasurer of the Senior basketball league, to Hatcher, and reply, 9 and 12 April 1934. HP file, "Athletics." Library report [1932], HP file, "M. Coll. library 1931-5." 4 J.C. Crosbie to Hatcher and reply, both 3 April 1940, HP file, "Board of governors 1940." 5 RR file, "Matters considered by Board of regents." 6 Encyclopedia of Newfoundland and Labrador, n, 571. CNS, "College Notes," 22 October 1932. 7 For example, during the 3-year term 1947—9 there were Hunter, Hatcher, Fraser, Burke, and the college librarian, Sadie Organ. HP file "Public libraries board 1947." See also CNS, Collection 7 (Hunter). 8 Lodge to Hatcher and reply, 6 and 13 October 1937, HP/3O—40. 9 Minutes of 6 October 1942, GM 423. E.P. Conroy, President, St John's Players, to Hatcher, 27 January 1943, HP/33—43. 10 G.C. Whiteley, Jr to M. MacLeod, 14 November 1983. 11 Hunter, "Memorial University College," 6-7. Official opening 22 September 1925, CNS, College Notes, vol. i. 12 "MUC notes," Daily News, 29 October 1932. 13 See reports in HP file "Evening classes 1933—8." 14 McGill and McMaster had similar programs, for example, as did the universities in Saskatoon and Kingston ON. Mount Allison, in a rural corner of southeastern New Brunswick, did not. Frost, McGill University, 2:296; Johnson, McMaster University, 2:91; Thompson, The University of Saskatchewan 121; Gibson, Queen's University, 172, 248; Reid, Mount Allison University, 2:145. 15 See reports in HP file "Bursar 1944-6"; GM 153, 173. Hockey: Hunter, 7. 16 HP file "Pres. annual report 1938—9." 17 Minutes of 5 June 1937, GM 105.

337

Notes to pages 171—6

18 Minutes of 27 October, 20 November and 29 December 1939, GM 229, 231, 241. 19 Commissioner HAE to Commission, 9 January 1940, PANL, GN 38, 83—1—1, file 12. Minutes of 30 January 1940, GM 243. 20 S.J. Hayes to Hatcher, from Toronto, 6 July 1939, HP file "M. Coll. (extension suggestions)." 21 PANL, GN 38, 83-1-1, file 8. 22 L. Shaw, memo on vocational training, 12 May 1941, GN 38, 83—1—1, file 8. See also HP file "Education in Nfld. (notes by Peacock)." From that time on vocationally-oriented education followed a course of development quite separate from Memorial's. A big postwar effort to assist the economic reintegration of veterans was carried on without reference to the college. Subsequently there was the creation of Newfoundland's College of Trades and Technology at the same time as the university moved to its new campus in the 19605. 23 Plans undated [1943?], HP file "M. Coll. (extension suggestions)." Hatcher comments 27 October 1943, HP/Sept. 43. 24 Commissioner HAE to Commission, 14 April 1944, PANL, GN 38, 83-1-1, file 9. 25 Report of the faculty on new courses, additions to staff, equipment, etc., June 1946, PANL, GN 38, 83—1—2, file 5. 26 Chairman of the Board of Regents to Miller, 13 March 1952, RR file "Dr. Raymond Miller." 26 Evening Telegram, 26 September 1925, i and 9 January 1926, i. 27 Monroe to Paton, 25 September 1926, PP box 2. 28 V.P. Burke, Director of adult education to Commissioner HAE, 10 December 1935, PANL, GN, 83—1—2, file i. 29 1941—2 report in HP file "Pres. annual reports 1938—9." Captain Parrott's salary was increased in 1942 from $25/week to $30. Rent for the two rooms was $5o/month. GM 445, 467. See also report of 6 March 1937 in HP file "Evening classes 1933-8." 30 Daily News, 8 May 1946, 3. Parrott to Hatcher, 11 May 1946, HP file "M. Coll. navigation school (general)." GM 115. 31 Hatcher to Hunter, 12 February 1949, HP file "Hunter 1948—9." RR file "Flensberg navigation school." 32 The documents are in RR file "Flensberg navigation school." 33 Daily News, 7 February, 14 and 21 March, and 12 April 1931. Most of the college notes are conveniently collected in several scrapbooks in the Centre for Newfoundland Studies, Memorial University library. A fuller discussion of this material, and of the following controversies, is available in my unpublished paper, "Making friends and ene-

338 Notes to pages 176—80

34

35

36 37 38

39 40

41 42 43

44 45

46

mies: the public relations of Memorial University College 1925—50," deposited in the Centre for Newfoundland Studies, 1988. See correspondence of Arthur English with Paton, Francis Bruton, and Harold Thompson, PP boxes 2 and 3. HP file "BiologyQLP)." Daily News in 1932: 26 January, 3; 28 January, 4; i February, 3; 2 February, 10; 6 February, 5. Evening Telegram, 1932: 2 February, 6; 15 March, 6, 10; 19 March, 6, 12; 22 March, 7. Evening Telegram, 30 May 1940, 6; Daily News, 31 May 1940, 12; 5 June 1940, 4. Also in June 1940 (fall of France). Gillingham was the subject of a report to the police for remarks he made during a social visit. "He tried to stress the great strength of Germany in that the average British family was three as against the average German family of eight, and he felt that Germany would be at her peak in 1942. He also stressed the cleverness and brains of the German people." PANL, GN 13, box 38, file 60. Thanks to Gerhard Bassler for this interesting reference. Daily News, 27 October 1943, 5. Ibid., 30 October; i, 5, and 6 November 1943, 4. Harrington & Hunter: Daily News, 27 October 1943, 5; 30 October, i, 5 and 6 November 1943, always page 4. JC and others: St John's Sunday Herald 23 October 1949, 6; 6 November, 5; 13 November, 34; 20 and 27 November, both page 6. HP file "Royal commission." In 1940—2 Gillingham, Hunter, Lovett-Janison, Lodge, Burke, Emerson, Frecker, and Pottle. In 1946—8 Hickman, Hunter, Lodge, Andrews, Brown, Burke, Curtis, Emerson, and Hanley. PANL, GN 38, 83-2-2 file 12 and 83-1-2 file 5. HP file "CHE(art)." Hunter to L. Shaw, General superintendent of education, 8 March 1939, PANL, GN 38, 83-1-2 file 4. J.H. Orton to Paton, 2 January 1925, PP box i. Paton to C.J. Allen, Director of the marine biological station at Plymouth, England, 14 November 1932, HP file "Staff applications to 1933." HP file "Fishery research i." Fire: L.R. Cooper to Paton, 23 May 1930, PP box 3. Duty: A. Mews to Paton, 11 March 1932, ibid. Museum: Hatcher to W.J. Walsh, 17 January 1934, HP/33—43. Languages: Dunfield to Paton, 25 November 1927, PP box 2; Dept. of Marine and Fisheries to Paton, 17 January 1930, PP box 3. CNS, "College Notes" vol. 2 (8 November 1930, November and December 1931).

339 Notes to pages 180-5 47 Qc> Queen's College Club minute book, 2 October 1941 (QC). 48 John Courage, Bob Horwood, and Thomas Rex upheld the affirmative, Bill Hunt, David King, and George Walters the negative. HP expanding file "Miscellaneous." See also Neary, Newfoundland, 322. 49 Elizabeth Howley, Hon. sec. Newfoundland Adult Education Association to Paton, 9 April 1930; Blackall to Paton, 17 October 1931. pp box 3. 50 In view of Memorial's manifold Canadian connections, it is worth noting that the Newfoundland RIIA was directly chartered by Chatham House in London (similar to the Scottish branch) and had no link with the Canadian institute until 1949. See HP file "RIIA (Nfld. branch)." Historical society: secretary of the public libraries board to Hatcher, 25 March 1942, HP/3O—40. 51 Evening Telegram, 30 July 1928, 5. 52 Noel, Politics, 265. 53 Hogg: CNS "College Notes" vol. i. Station VOGY: HP file "Broadcasts 1935-" 54 Correspondence from Mollie Maynerd, Rita Kent, others, in HP/33— 4355 Fair secretary to Hatcher, 27 September 1938, HP/3O-4O. 56 J.H. Clancy (St John's amateur athletic association) to Hatcher, 9 March 1935, HP file, "Athletics." Jeannie Howse interview with Doug Eaton, 13 August 1986. 57 Burke-Hatcher exchange, 28-31 August 1945, HP file "Board of governors 1945." 58 The others were the junior jubilee, Longshoremen's Protective Union, Dalhousie, and McConnell (for McGill) sholarships. List by P. Hanley, RC box 107—21. See also correspondence in HP files "Doyle scholarships" and "Imperial Oil scholarships." 59 Earle, 8. 60 W.H. Hatcher to Paton, 11 April 1927, PP box 2. 61 Archbishop Roche to Alderdice, 20 August 1935, RC box 107-20. See also Daily News, 22 August 1935. 62 W.M. Orr to Paton, 21 May and 18 June 1929, PP box 2. 63 The origin (ca 1900) of Newfoundland-Canada meteorological cooperation is discussed in M. MacLeod, Nearer than neighbours 14—23. Harling report on meteorological work, 26 January 1934; Canada Dept. of Transport to Hatcher, 3 October 1939; HP/3O-4O. See also minutes of 23 March 1934, TM. 64 HP file "Common examining board 1941-5."

340 Notes to pages 189—97 CHAPTER N I N E

1 Newfoundland, Education Act 1927, Part I, in Acts of the General Assembly of Newfoundland (St John's, 1927), 134—41. CNS, Collection 57 (Barnes), file 4. 2 The other members of the 1927-34 Bureau of Education were assistant superintendents of the Roman Catholic and Church of England systems (T.J. Flynn, I.J. Samson); Major R. Tilley of the Salvation Army; Rev. T.B. Darby, director of the Methodist Home; and Rev. J. Brinton. Dunfield, Secretary for Justice, to Secretary for Education, 19 July 1935, Andrews, Integration, 218-19. 3 Newfoundland, Memorial University College (governors) Act, section i. 4 Alderdice to Commission, 18 December 1935, PANL, GN 38, 83—4—1, file 7. Newfoundland Gazette, 7 January 1936, GM la. 5 Gushue to Hatcher, 19 May 1937, HP/3O-4O. 6 Commissioner for Education to Commission, 5 January 1939, PANL, GN 38, 83-1-1 file 2. Minutes of 17 January 1939 and 15 June 1940, GM 191, 265. 7 Minutes of 19 February 1942 and 7 September 1943, GM 373, 477Commissioner H.A. Winter to Commission, 12 January 1944, PANL, GN 38, 83—1—2, file 2. 8 See GN 38, 83-4-1, file 7. 9 See Board of Regents membership in RR file "MUG faculty": (ist meeting 23 May 1950 — Walsh, Bowring, Frecker, Gushue, Halley, Macpherson, Mercer, Rowe, Winter, and (elected by Convocation) Nigel Rusted and Claude Howse. 10 E.g., 47 meetings from September 1942 to August 1945. See GM; PANL, GN 38, 83-4-1, file "MUG." 11 Interview with Paul Winter, St John's, 5 December 1985. 12 Mansfield to Hatcher, 9 December 1948. 13 "How to Teach Art," Evening Telegram, 21 July 1928, 4. 14 Evening Telegram, 28 July 1928, 10; and 31 July 1928, 8. 15 Annie A. Selbie to Paton 14 March and 22 April (year not given), pp Box i, file "Undated." 16 W.W. Blackall to Paton, i and 3 August 1929, PP Box 3. 17 Hatcher to Burke, 25 March 1933, RR file "G.A. Winter." 18 Seven items of correspondence from 14 March 1933 to 12 September 1935 in RR file "G.A. Winter." 19 The board supported Royal Trust in buying from Hatcher storm windows, doors, and screens which he had installed ($89.50), but did not advise purchasing the window blinds as well. See correspondence of July 1937 in HP file "Board of Governors 1937." See also GM July—September 1937, 111, 113.

341

Notes to pages 197-202

20 Board minutes of 19 February 1942 and 29 March 1943, GM 375, 459. 21 Lease dated 18 August 1942 and other items, HP/Sept. 43. 22 I.J. Samson to Hatcher, 8 April 1943, HP/Sept. 43. G.S. Doyle to Hatcher, 27 April 1943, HP/33—43. 23 Minutes of 10 May 1943, GM 465; Alex E. Cook to Hatcher, 10 August 1943, HP/Sept. 43. Newfoundland Auditor-general to Chairman, Board of Governors, i March 1947, RR file "Minutes of previous meetings." 24 Paul Winter, secretary to the Board of Governors. 25 Hatcher to Burke, 3 March 1936, HP file "President's annual reports 1

934-7-" 26 Minutes of 24 January 1936, GM 5. 27 Chairman, Board of Governors to S.R. Godfrey, Honorary bursar 31 March 1947, RR file "Chairman Dr. Burke." 28 Burke to Hatcher, 21 June 1948, HP file "Board of Governors JanJune 1948." 29 Regular formula observed in Hatcher's correspondence with Governors and Regents, learned in the RON where it disclaims any intention of disobeying orders no matter how pointed the letter's message might be. See examples in RR file "Appointments 1951-52." 30 Other members of the delegation were Harling and Mansfield. They negotiated/discussed salaries, cost of living bonus, and pensions. Minutes of 3 November 1941, GM 359. See also minutes of 12 March 1938, GM 147. 31 Total Carnegie donations to Newfoundland in 1924—40 were: Adult education association Jubilee guilds Public libraries board Memorial university college 1924 estab. of junior college 1928-37 general support 1926 library service, isolated areas 1927 summer school 1930 equipment 1930 scholarship fund 1932 art teaching material 1932 books for college library 1938 music study material

$19,500 4,000 2,000 75,000 185,000 5,000 4,000 7,500 7.500 5,000 3,000 1.325

(Source: John Reid, "Health, education, economy," 81—2.)

32 Burke to Alderdice, 20 October 1932, TM; Hatcher to Andrews, 12 January 1933, Andrews, Integration, 154.

342

Notes to pages 202—7

33 Included in the $10,000 was a mysterious sum of $6,000 anonymously donated in 1933 (the year Paton retired). "A man should feel in his heart before he feels in his pocket," Paton once wrote, "and when he gives, it should be incognito" (Carew, J.L.P., 53). It is impossible to say whether this sum was from Paton himself. At the memorial service for him in May 1946, Burke said he could now mention what he could not before, that Paton gave "at least $20,000 towards a fund for promising students" (Daily News 6 May 1946, 8). The secret $6,000 arrived in a form one might not expect of a retired English headmaster: Nova Scotia, Winnipeg, Calgary and Ottawa Valley power bonds bearing interest between 4 l/2% and 6%. Burke to Hatcher, 19 June 1934. TM. See also Andrews, 218-19, and minutes for 30 March 1937, GM 97. 34 Minutes of 21 and 28 March and 21 April 1936, GM 2oa, 21, 23, 33. W.J. Browne to Hatcher, 30 March 1936, HP file "Board of Governors 1936." 35 G.J.F. Tomlinson to Tait and Clutterbuck, 21 June 1936. Note from Mr. Pitblado, 8 September 1936. P.A. Clutterbuck to N.R. Trentham, 21 September 1936. Public records office (UK), Dominions office 35/5o6/N.no5/3. (Thanks to Philip McCann for this reference.) 36 Minutes of 8 February 1937, GM 79. 37 Telegrams 97, 135 and 104, PANL, GN 38, 83—1—2, file 4. 38 Minutes of 8 February 1940, GM 249. 39 Special meeting of 9 October 1942, GM 425-7. 40 Minutes of 4 March 1943, GM 451. 41 Minutes of MUC board finance committee, chaired by F. Emerson, held in Emerson's office 19 March 1947, RR file "Chairman Dr. Burke." 42 Knight joined the ayes to the Frecker-Templeman motion. Brown, Curtis, and Whiteway were opposed, and eventually also Emerson. Minutes of 16 June 1947, GM 187. 43 Commissioners of Education and Finance for the Commission, with draft letter to Burke, 10 July 1947, PANL, GN 38, 83—1—2 file 3. 44 Minutes of 25 August 1947, RR file "Faculty salaries on 12-month basis." Mansfield to Hatcher, 25 September 1947, HP file "Miscellaneous." 45 Morris-Knight-Templeman memorandum to Frecker, Deputy Minister of Education, 24 March 1950, RR file "Bursar & Asst. bursar." 46 In 1942, the peak year for Canadian and American base construction, Commission of Government revenue was $24 million, and spending $16 million. See MacLeod, Peace of the continent, 10—15. 47 Minutes of executive, 4 March 1936, GM 13. 48 An attempt was made to interest the old sponsor, the Carnegie Corpo-

343

49 50 51

52

53 54 55

56 57

58 59 60

61 62 63 64 65

66 67

Notes to pages 207—14

ration, in funding this development. Minutes of 30 January 1940, GM 243. GM 189, 191. Interview with Ethel Brinton, St John's, 29 March 1983. Meeting of 11 November 1932, HP file "Carnegie advisory committee 1932." The junior college discussion had become appropriate for that forum since a second one had been established in the region — Prince of Wales College of Charlottetown - since 1932. Advisory committee meeting of 8 November 1935, HP file "Carnegie advisory committee 1935-" Annual report for 1937—8, 4—5, HP file "Pres. reports 1934—7." President to Faculty Council, 15 January 1940, and Gillingham's response 30 January, HP file "M Coll. degree courses." "This policy to include a scheme of affiliation with the city colleges and such other institutions as the Board of Governors may approve from time to time." Minutes of 25 February and 6 March 1944, GM 9, 13. H.A. Winter, Proposal to grant MUG university status, 14 April 1944, PANL, GN 83—1—1, file 9. Secretary, Home Affairs and Education, memo of 28 April 1944, and H.A. Winter to the Commission, 19 June 1944, PANL, GN 38, 83-1-1, file 9. Secretary's memo 7 July and H.A. Winter's memo to the Commission, 25 Juty i944> ibid. Memorandum from the acting secretary, 4 August/27 July 1944, ibid. The Board's resolution was made on 19 February 1945. See A.J. Walsh to board chairman, 9 March 1945, HP file "M Coll degree courses." Draft act in RR file "G.A. Winter." Commissioner for Education to the Commission, 24 September 1945, PANL, GN 38, 83—1—1 file 6. Burke to Hatcher, 22 February 1946, HP file "Board of Governors 1946." A.J. Walsh's memo for the Commission, 6 June 1946, PANL, GN 38, 83-1-2 file 5. Commissioner, Home Affairs and Education, HAE to Commission, 7 August 1946, ibid. A fuller account of various building plans, including projects for residence accommodation - and how they were partly satisfied by the acquisition of the United Services Organization annex in 1948 — is contained in my unpublished paper, "Parade Street campus." Finance committee minutes, 19 March 1947, RR file "Chairman Dr. Burke." Higgins put all the usual arguments in favour of the increased status

344 Notes to pages 214-19

68 69 70

71 72 73 74

that Memorial sought: good permeates downward, culture needs a home, promote understanding of Newfoundland problems, etc. He also struck one novel note, revolution. "It is true we assist a certain number of students to go to Canada, but only to a small proportion of students is assistance granted. Consequently we have a large body of earnest students, whose educational and cultural development is a matter of great importance, to the future of this country, frustrated at the most important time of their lives ... I myself view the existence of a large number of frustrated students with apprehension. We do not want a disgruntled semi-intelligentsia." Debates of the National Convention, 22 May 1947. "On behalf of Hunter to Major F.W. Marshall, HP file "GWVA." Faculty council committee report 1948—9, HP file "M Coll degree courses." Newton, 5. In November 1949 Alfred Hunter proposed to the Minister of education that there should be an official inquiry into the decision to establish the university, without saying why he thought so. Hunter to Hefferton, 17 November 1949, CNS, Collection 18 (Hefferton). H.S. Granter to Hatcher, 9 June 1943, HP/33—43. On Andrews' article in the Newfoundland Quarterly (December 1945), see Integration, 327. Interview with Stuart Godfrey, Ottawa, 3 May 1983. A.C. Hunter in Carew, ed., The Nine Lives of Paton College, 3—4. CHAPTER TEN

1 See Newfoundland Dept. of Education Report 1924—5, 184—6. 2 Clipping "First Interdenominational Normal School," MUC project files. 3 MUC Calendar 1931—2, section "Normal School." 4 See minutes of 18 January 1930, TM. 5 CNS, "College Notes," vol. 2 (16 November 1929). 6 Minutes of 18 January and i February 1930, TM. 7 "College Notes," vol. 2 (18 January 1930). 8 Actually, there is one utterance of Whiteway's but this was long after the Normal-Memorial struggle was waged and in the softening circumstances of a service marking Paton's death. In Whiteway's tribute there was no sign of rivalry or disagreement. He praised Paton as a genius who was always working, and told a story from 1929—30 illustrating Paton's abrasive directness. The college had been agitating for two additional wings to be added to the building, but the Prime

345 Notes to pages 219-23

9 10 11 12 13 14 15

16

17 18

Minister announced at a luncheon that just the western extension would be built. When it was Paton's turn to speak, his first words were, "A bird cannot fly with only one wing." St John's Daily News, 4 May 1946, 7. "First Interdenominational Normal school," MUC project files. Quoting Albert Hatcher in Andrews, Integration, 154-6, 196. Rowe, The Development of Education, 132—3. Ian Bailey to M. MacLeod, i August 1985. Evening Telegram, 5 July 1928, 7; and 28 July 1928, 10. HP, file "Summer school 1934." In 1939, for example, seven supervisors from the Department of Education taught in summer school. They were paid $125 each while forfeiting a month of annual leave. Nancy Frost and Eli Lear from the Department of Natural Resources were paid slightly less for continuing the famous nature study classes. Sandy Cook and J. Hanlon, public utilities employees, received honararia of $10 each. Commissioner of Education to Commission, 15 August 1939, PANL, GN 38, 83—1—1 file 2. The size of summer school clientele sometimes necessitated also borrowing other locales as well. For example, in 1935 the Presentation and Mercy convent teaching sisters were gathered in one location for lectures from instructors who came over from Memorial. Sr. M. deSales to Hatcher, 31 May 1935, HP file "Summer school 1935." Andrews, Integration, 235. Notes for opening address, 5 July 1937, HP file "Summer school 1937." It was at about this time that someone connected with Summer school (Isaac Newell) expressed admiration for the oar in a more fully finished form. Emblem of freedom and a stalwart race That never lay in rowlock, never threw The wind-blown beauty o'er an ocean's face Nor cut in silver shreds of moonlight, blue And unimagined depths of solitude. Symbol of hope and man's dominion still; Type of a suent line that will not break Though sea and tempest bend it to their will, While from the deep wisdom and life we take. This ritual is written in our blood, Deeper than death, stronger than love or hate Or elemental things or ship or flood:

346

Notes to pages 233—30

'Launch out into the deep, and challenge fate, 'Til knowledge fill her promised magnitude.' See HP file "Summer school 1940." 19 HPfileson Summer school 1938 - "general" and "letters to the staff." 20 Hatcher to Shaw (General Superintendent of education), 11 March 1939, and Shaw's circular to teachers, 22 March 1939, HP file "Summer school 1941." 21 Frecker to Archbishop Roche, 5 June 1940, RC box 107—19. F.W. Rowe, Development of Education, 132—3; Dept. of Education Annual Report 1944-5, 33-4722 Hatcher to Burke, 27 December 1945, HP file "Board of Governors 1945," and Frecker to Hatcher, 19 January 1946, HP file "G.A. Frecker (1946)." See HP files on summer session 1946: "general" and "reports." 23 Rowe, The Development of Education, 134. 24 Hatcher, foreword written for Memorial Times, HP file "Summer session 1946 (gen)." 25 Tree planted 8 July 1930. See HP file "Summer school 1940." 26 Andrews, Integration, 117, 132. 27 R.R. Wood to Paton, 27 December 1926, PP box 2. 28 Evening Telegram, 30 August 1926. J.C. Hogg to Paton, 24 and 28 October 1927, PP, box 2. 29 Frecker to L. Shaw, i August 1936, RC box 107—20. 30 There were 25 students in this class by 1940. St Bride's itself set and marked their examinations. Ralph Andrews remarked that they often came on to Memorial afterwards more mature and better prepared than other new students. Andrews, Integration, 255. 31 Circular to all priests, 1942, RC box 107-21. 32 Roche to Frecker, 22 September 1942, Andrews, 279-80; minutes of 6 October, 26 November, and 11 December 1942, GM 421, 437, 441. 33 According to discussion with George Hickman, St John's, 12 March 1987. The selection of Hanley was made in early April 1943. Within 3 weeks Herbert Pottle dropped the United Church bombshell. Andrews, 283. 34 Andrews, Integration, 285. 35 Frecker to Roche, 23 January 1944, RC box 107-19. 36 H.L. Pottle to M. MacLeod, 18 April 1987. Pottle also stressed, "Not one whit of aspersion against Hanley is intended. I found him an honest and insightful colleague." 37 RR, file "Mun Acts 1927-65." 38 Hatcher to Rev. E. Simpson, 7 February 1939, and see also other correspondence on the subject January-March 1939 (QC).

347 Notes to pages 230-6 39 Memo by executive officer, RC, with observations by the Commissioner of Education, June 1946, and other documents in PANL, GN 38, 83— 1-2, file 5. Besides St Bride's, the other college with a Grade 12 program was Prince of Wales, initiated in 1945, "to be concluded by a Nova Scotia examination ... I don't know how it will affect us." (Hunter to Hatcher, 11 July 1945, HP file "Hunter 1929-49"). 40 Commissioner, Home Affairs and Education, to Commission, 6 June 1946, PANL, GN 38, 83-1-2 file 5. 41 Hanley to Roche, 29 May 1947, RC box 107—21, and attachment found in box 107-20. 42 Education Act 1892, section 85, RC box 106—16. 43 Barnes, "History of Education," 157—8. 44 Interview with Jack Blundon, St John's, 21 January 1983. 45 Andrews, Integration, 137. The fact that the success rate went up from an average of 50% in the previous four years to 61% when MUG first graded the senior matriculation papers, did not seem to generate any particular concern about standards. 46 Alex Hill, Secretary of the Universities Bureau to Paton, 27 October 1926, PP Box 2. 47 MUG Calendar 1928—9, 6. 48 Jack [Hann] to Hatcher, 31 October 1948, HP/Sept. 43." 49 M. Macneill, Dalhousie's registrar, to Paton, 28 January 1926, HP file "Universities (affiliation) 1925-39." 50 A.L. Jones (Director, Columbia University) to Burke, 22 November 1927; C.H. Moore (Dean, Arts & Science, Harvard) to Burke, 25 November 1927, HP file "Universities (affiliation) 1925—39." 51 Paton to Registrar at Dalhousie, 11 July and response, 15 July 1925, PP box i. 52 A.S. MacKenzie, President of Dalhousie, to Paton, 18 May 1926, and R.L. Nixon, Bursar at King's, to Paton, 3 August 1925, PP box i. Registrar at Dalhousie to Paton, 20 July 1927, PP box 2. 53 C. Stanley to Hatcher, 8 February, and reply, 22 February 1937, HP/SO—40. 54 H.A. Winter's memo, 30 September 1942, PANL, GN 38, 83—1—1 file 3; and H.W. Quinton to Commission of Govt., 4 March 1947, ibid., 83-1-2 file 3. 55 Memorial's president until 1947, thereafter the leading engineering professor. See HP files "Nova Scotia Technical College" and MacLeod, "Students abroad," 180-1. 56 G.S. Trueman to Paton, 11 November 1926, PP box i, and 21 October 1927, HP file "Universities (affiliation) 1925—39." 57 C.C. Jones to Paton, 8 March 1926, HP file "Universities (affiliation) 1 925-39-"

348

Notes to pages 236—42

58 One particular case concerned E.G. White, admitted to third year commerce after two years at MUC, after a double exchange of correspondence in September-October 1927. See correspondence between Hatcher and R.M. Sugars, Director, McGill School of Commerce, HP file "McGill Univ. 1926-46." 59 Correspondence in HP file "McGill Univ. 1926—46," especially Hatcher to McGill Principal F.C. Brown, 21 October 1942 and reply from T.H. Matthews, Registrar. See also Minutes for 23 December 1942, GM 445. 60 Pat Duder to Paton, 7 December 1930, PP box 3. 61 Documents in HP file "Universities (affiliation) 1925—39." 62 Paton to Arthur Barnes, i March 1929, HP file "Fishery research." 63 Paton to Andrews, 8 May 1933, Andrews, Integration, 157. 64 Archbishop Roche alerted Frecker to news reports of his participation at the meeting which were subtle pieces of pro-confederation propaganda. Roche to Frecker, 30 August 1947, RC box 107-19. 65 Hunter to Burke, 10 January [1949], RR file "Sabbatical leave." 66 The first to be established (by 1929) were an Acadia University scholarship, two to Mount Allison and one to Dalhousie. By the time of confederation there were also Mount Saint Vincent and King's College scholarships, and a second one for Acadia. Surprising absences from this list are Saint Francis Xavier and Saint Mary's. Not so surprising: UNB. See MUC Calendars, 1928—9, 10; 1929—30, 13; and 1949— 50, 24-25. 67 The English expert was C.A. Richardson. His visit and the political/ social implications of his October 1933 report are discussed in McCann, "The educational policy of the Commission of Government," 202—4. 68 Hunter draft, 21 October 1933, CNS, Collection 38 (Hunter). 69 Billy Hatcher to Bert, 10 May 1933, HP/Sept. 43. 70 Squires to Rhodes, 9 October 1929, PANS, manuscript group 2 (Rhodes papers), vol. 654, folder 182, letter 40984. 71 Interview with Joan MacLeod, Truro NS, 16 August 1984. CHAPTER ELEVEN

1 2 3 4 5 6

Interview with Kay Hanley, St John's, 22 November 1982. More fully explored in MacLeod, "Students abroad," 172—92. Minutes of 5 June 1936, GM 43. Gordon Cowan to Paton, 9 November 1931, PP box 3. Interview with Rev. A.S. Butt, Glovertown NF, 13 March 1983. Eileen Cantwell, Brian Edwards, and Frank Bursey. Jim Flynn interview with Brian Edwards, St John's, 2 February 1983.

349 Notes to pages 242-50 7 Muriel to Paton, 10 January 1929, PP box 3. 8 Margaret Lowe to Paton, 6 June 1928, PP box 2. 9 Claude Howse to Paton, 22 November 1931, PP box i, file of incomplete letters. 10 Edgar House to Paton, 23 January 1932, PP box 3. 11 Claude Howse to Paton, 20 March 1932, ibid. 12 Gowanloch to Paton, 23 January 1929, ibid. 13 Undated testimonial (1930?), PP box i, file of drafts. See also MacLeod, "Prophet with honour 29—36. 14 Hatcher to Rev. A.H. Moore, 27 May 1936, and reply, 6 June, HP file "King's College Scholarships (1936—48)." 15 R. Nixon to Hatcher and reply, 3 and 8 July 1935, 1^/33-43. 16 Reid, n, 157-66. 17 Minutes of 30 December 1941 and 19 January 1942, GM 367, 369. This was not the first Canadian tragedy to which Newfoundland responded by designating certain assistance for its own people who were involved. After the great 1917 explosion there was actually a colonial rehabilitation/repatriation mission sent right into the ruins of Halifax. See Malcolm MacLeod "Helping, unheeded," 65-8. These events indicate Newfoundland's strong sense of identity and its connections with the rest of the Atlantic region in preconfederation days. 18 Pat Duder to Paton, 13 October 1929, PP box 3. 19 Jim Horwood to Hatcher, 2 April 1934, 1^/33-43. 20 Ethel King to Paton, 16 January 1930, PP box 3. 21 Helena McGrath to Paton: cable 27 September 1926; letters 23 October and 11 November PP box 2. 22 Angela White to Paton, 31 March 1929, PP box 3. 23 Interview with Audrey Norman, Kingston ON, 5 May 1983. 24 Interview with Kay Hanley, St John's, 22 November 1982. 25 Helen Deane to Paton, 17 June 1930, PP box 3. 26 Nickerson to Paton, 28 September 1928, PP box 2. 27 Facey to Paton, 2 February 1930, PP box 3. 28 Interview with Ethel Brinton, St John's, 29 March 1983. 29 O'Brien to Hatcher, 6 December 1937, HP/3O-4O. 30 Newton, 36. 31 MUN Gazette, 26 August 1981, supplement p. 6. 32 Pine Bluff: Reginald Perry (MUC 1927); Vancouver: Ruby Mayo Knill (1941); Fisheries research: Wilfred Templeman (1928); Queen's: Canon George Earle (1933); MUN president: Moses Morgan (1935). 33 Ted Russell (1929); Percy Janes (1944); George Whiteley Jr (1927); Jessie Mifflen (1929); Arthur Scammell (1931); Allison O'Reilly Feder (1943); David Pitt (1944). Yanez: Ethel Brinton (1928); Barrel-

350

34 35 36 37

38 39

40 41

Notes to pages 250—7

man: Michael Harrington (1936); Advertiser: Laura Cantwell Blackmore (1929); RC: Rev. Richard McGrath (1930); Chief Justice: Hon. Gordon Cowan (1929). Duder to Paton undated (1930?), PP box i, file "undated." Open letter from Charles H. Johnson (MUC 1931), Daily News, 29 January 1932, 4. Daily News, 24 September 1932. William Gosling was mayor of St Johns 1916—21. When the colonial government offered a badly needed $500,000 for slum clearance and other improvements, the city refused the loan "on grounds that the Commission wanted complete jurisdiction over all city expenditure until the loan had been repaid." Melvin Baker, "In Search of the New Jerusalem," 28. CNS, MF 154 (Old Memorial's Association Study Group). Sadie Organ to W.J. Carew, 10 May 1935, PANL, GN 38, 85-1-1 file i. MacLeod to Hatcher, 30 January 1938, HP/3O—40. OMA Bulletin, series i, numbers i and 2 (January and March 1940), HP file "Old Memorial's Association 1933-35." R.F. Horwood (MUC 1932) to Hatcher, 16 January 1944, HP/Sept. 43. Audrey Dawe, Secretary Old Memorial's to editor, Memorial Times, 8 October 1936. Hunter, annual report for 1948—9, 13, HP file "Reports 1948-9." CHAPTER T W E L V E

1 1985—86: full-time students, 10,552; part-time, 4632. Dalhousie was the second largest: full-time 8154; part-time 1839. Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada, Directory of Canadian universities 1986—7, 45, 101. 2 Daily News, 2 May 1946, 3, 7. 3 Hunter, "Memorial University College," 6. 4 Ibid, 7. 5 Noel, Politics, 221. 6 The women were Ethel Brinton (French, Spanish), Helen Lodge (psychology, child psychology, speech, education, primary methods), and Audrey Ralph (chemistry, all labs). Teaching loads document in RR file "Staff salaries 1940—50." See also Hunter to W. Flemington, 20 October 1948, HP file "Central advisory committee 1948"; and Hunter to Burke, 23 March 1949, RR file "Matters considered by board." Registration figures for 1949-50 are in HP file, "Statistics." 7 Report by Director A.M. Fraser, RR file "G.A. Winter." 8 S. Carew to President, 18 November 1950, RR file "G.A. Winter."

351 Notes to pages 260—4 9 One recommendation of the Newton report (1951) was to switch from the traditional 40% pass mark to the system which had become almost universal in Canada: pass 50%, second class 65%—79%, first class 80% or over (Newton, 48). 10 Another sign of the great significance of the state in Newfoundland was the fact that at the time it joined Canada, it was unique among provinces in having most of its hospitals owned and operated by the government (Brown, 215). One needed to go as far west as Manitoba to find another fully public university that was meant to serve the whole population, as Memorial was. 11 Jubilee, 4. 12 Harrington, "Ad universitatem Memorialem, novae (1925-1950)," The modern magi (St. John's: Cuff, 1985), 20.

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Bibliography

ARCHIVAL SOURCES

Memorial University of Newfoundland (MUN) Board of Regents office: Minutes of the Board of governors 1936—50; Board of Regents records 1950—52 Debates of the National Convention (documentary collection in process of preparation for publication, 1990, edited by Michael Harrington and James Hiller) Folklore and language archive. Tapes, transcripts and documents deposited during the Memorial college history project, and other materials concerning the history of the university Library, Centre for Newfoundland Studies (CNS), archive, collections A. Barnes, G. Butt, C.C. Pratt scholarship committee, S. Carew, S. Hefferton, R. Gushue, A.G. Hatcher, A.C. Hunter, F. Maddock, MUN Jubilee Committee, MUN Old Memorial's Association study group, and J.L. Paton President's office. Office files from the regime of J.L. Paton 1925—33. Not in the public domain although ultimately destined for deposit in a university archive, and fully accessed for this project (housed in the CNS); Office files of A.G. Hatcher, President 1933-52. As with the Paton collection, these papers are not (yet) in the public domain. Registrar's office. Students' records 1925—50. Non- University Sources

Church of England archive, St. John's. Directorate of History, Canadian forces headquarters, Ottawa Admiral Leonard Murray papers.

354 Bibliography Newfoundland Historical Society, St John's: Various files. Provincial archives of Newfoundland and Labrador: Departments of education, health, and public works, 1920-50 Allan M. Fraser papers GN 13/38/60 GN 38, 83-1-1, S3-1-2, 83-2-2, 83-4-1 & 85-1-1 P4/1Q

Public Archives of Nova Scotia Murdock D. Morrison papers Edgar Rhodes papers Queen's College archive, Memorial University campus, St John's Principal's correspondence; Queen's College club minutes. Roman Catholic archives, Archbishop's palace, St John's Boxes 106—16 and 106—17; Boxes 107—19 to 107—33. United Church of Canada archive, St. John's ORAL HISTORY

Interviews (by the author unless otherwise indicated) Ralph Andrews, St John's Jack Ashley, St John's Laura Blackmore, Grand Falls NF Jack Blundon, St John's Ethel Brinton, Ottawa (interview in St John's) Gwen Earle Brokenshire, St John's (interviewer Jeannie Howse) Rev. Arthur 8. Butt, Glovertown NF Grace Butt, St John's Carman Button, New Melbourne NF Nancy Frost Button, New Melbourne NF Joe Carroll, St John's (interviewer Susan Hart) Harry Clarke, St John's (interviewer Dr. Paula Clarke) Myrtle Cummings, St John's (interviewer Jeff Budden) Olive Field Dawe, New Minas NS Ernest Decker, Sydney NS Gregory Devereaux, Avondale, NF Miles Doody, Halifax NS Canon George Earle, Topsail NF Brian Edwards, St John's (interviewer Jim Flynn) Hans Epstein, Saint John NB

355 Bibliography Jack Facey, St John's J. Horace Faull, Jr, Cambridge MA Allison O'Reilly Feder, St John's Helena McGrath Frecker, St John's Rev. David Genge, Saint John NB Bill Giles, Montreal Allan Gillingham, Berwick ME Clara Cochius Gillingham, Berwick ME Stewart Godfrey, Ottawa Harold Goodridge, St John's Hon. Charles Granger, St John's Cyril J. Greene, St John's Jean Diamond Guildford, Halifax NS Dorothy Cramm Hall, Saint John NB Horace Hall, Saint John NB Alice Dickie Hampton, Stewiacke NS Kathleen Kennedy (Fraser) Hanley, St John's Michael Harrington, St John's Leslie Harris, St John's George Hickman, St John's Vernon Hiscock, Wolfville NS Jim Horwood, Ottawa May Temple Horwood, Ottawa Robert Horwood, Ottawa Carl Howse, Odessa ON Lloyd Hudson, St John's Rev. Reuben Humby, Dayspring NS Raymond Ivimey, St John's (interviewer Jeff Budden) Phyllis Gardner Kennedy, Halifax NS Marianne Mayo Knill, Vancouver BC George LeGrow, Gander NF Harold Loder, Glovertown NF Joan Stevenson MacLeod, Truro NS Frederick G. Martin, St John's (interviewer Susan Hart) Jean Woodman Matheson, Saint John NB H.B. Mayo, Manotick ON Jessie Mifflen, St John's Gwen Baird Monk, Kingston ON Moses Morgan, St John's Helen Moore Nesky, Wells ME J.W. Noel, St John's (interviewer Susan Hart) Audrey Stirling Norman, Kingston ON Clayton Oldford, Halifax NS

356 Bibliography Elizabeth Christian Parsons, Hantsport NS E.S. Peters, St John's C.M. Pinsent, Clarenville NF Iris McGrath Power, St John's David Pitt, St John's David Richards, Montreal Paul Richards, St John's Vincent Rossiter, Ottawa Senator Fred Rowe, St John's Ian Rusted, St John's Nigel Rusted, St John's Alvin Samson, Vancouver BC Margaret Andrews Sanford Vancouver BC Edith Moore Sautter, Greenfield MA (interview in Wells ME) Arthur Scammell, St John's Daisy Richards Scammell, Montreal Jean White Scott, Wolfville NS Walter Simms, Corner Brook NF Hon. J.R. Smallwood, St John's Eileen Cantwell Stanbury, St John's Edna Baird Stephenson, St John's Anna Taylor, Wolfville NS Wilfred Templeman, St John's Judith Moore von Sicard, Birmingham, England (interview in Wells ME) George Whiteley, Jr, West Chester PA (interview in St John's) Hon. Gordon Winter, St John's Paul Winter, St John's Ethel King Wood, Belleville ON Rev. Shirley Wood, Belleville ON Correspondence Jack Angel Ian Bailey Faith Rusted Bayley J. Cockayne Hon. Gordon Cowan Clarence Crummey Edward Doyle Dorothy Cameron Jackson Elizabeth Evans Jenks H.R. Garland Janet Halliwell

St John's Manchester Grammar School Oakville ON Acadia University Halifax NS Toronto Truro NS North Sydney NS St Catharine's ON Chester Basin NS Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council, Ottawa

357 Bibliography Robert Hatcher Audrey Ralph Lee Elizabeth Mennie D.C. Mortimer Florence O'Neill-Hutchison Reginald Perry H.L. Pottle Gertrude Facey Rees Horace Rosenburg Marion Peters Scott William Strong Margaret Hogg Upham Rhyna Curtis Vatcher

Halesite NY St John's Montreal National Research Council, Ottawa Ottawa Pine Bluff AR Ottawa Worthing, Sussex, England Ottawa Atlanta GA Wassaic NY Woodstock CT Kingston ON

SECONDARY SOURCES

Higher education Anderson, Hugh J. Chemistry at Memorial 1925-1961. St John's, 1988. Andrews, Ralph L. Integration: and Other Developments in Newfoundland Education 1915-1949. St. John's; Cuff 1985. Ashley, Eric. Universities: British, Indian, African. London, 1966. Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada. Directory of Canadian universities 1986—7. Axelrod, Paul. "Moulding the Middle Class: Student Life at Dalhousie University in the 1930*5." Acadiensis (Autumn 1985): 84-122. - Scholars and Dollars: Politics, Economics, and the Universities of Ontario 1945-80. Toronto; University of Toronto Press 1982. — "The student movement of the 19305." In Youth, University and Canadian Society, ed. P. Axelrod and J. Reid, 216-46. Axelrod, Paul and John G. Reid. Youth, University and Canadian Society: Essays in the Social History of Higher Education. Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press 1989. Bailey, Alfred G., ed. The University of New Brunswick. Fredericton: University of New Brunswick 1950. Balsom, Don. "Teacher Training in Newfoundland: A Look Back". Paper written for Education 6007, Memorial University, 1989. Barnes, Arthur. "The History of Education in Newfoundland." D. Ped. thesis, New York University, 1917. Bellows, Brother G.R. "The foundation of Memorial University College 1919—1925." Newfoundland Quarterly (Spring 1975): 5—9. Blishen, B.R. "Construction and Use of an Occupational Class Scale." Canadian Journal of Economics and Political Science (1958); 519—531.

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360 Bibliography — "Prophet with Honour: Dr. William F. Hampton, Newfoundland scientist, 1908—1968." Newfoundland Quarterly (Summer 1985): 29—36. - "Students Abroad: Pre-Confederation Educational Links between Newfoundland and the Mainland of Canada." Canadian Historical Association, Historical papers: Montreal 1985, 172—192. Slightly revised version of "College in Canada," Newfoundland Quarterly (Summer 1983): 10-19. — Papers deposited in the Centre for Newfoundland studies, 1988: - "The human face of higher education: Memorial University college staff, 1925-1950" (90 pp.) — "Making friends and enemies: public relations at Memorial University College, 1925-1950" (25 pp.) - "Memorial College: pantheon" (the founding trustees) (7 pp.) — "Parade Street campus: the home of Memorial University College, 1925-195°" (30 PP-) - "The presidents of Memorial University College" (35 pp.) Macpherson, Alan G. "The Early Development of Geography as a 'Subject of Instruction' and the Origins of the Department of Geography at Memorial University of Newfoundland, 1947-1963." Paper written in 1983. Magazine Digest (Toronto), 1940. Manchester Grammar School. Prospectus for 1923—4. Mansbridge, Albert. "One Whose Light Shone." InJ.L.P., ed. S.J. Carew, 64-8. Masters, D.C. Bishop's University: The First Hundred Years. Toronto: Clarke, Irwin 1950. Memorial University of Newfoundland. Jubilee Year Book. [St. John's, 1975]. Memorial University College. "College Notes" (clippings). 5 volumes. Centre for Newfoundland Studies. - Calendars 1926-49. — The College Mag. (1930) and Cap and Gown (1931—49), yearbooks. Methodist Church. Report of the Public Schools of Newfoundland under Methodist Boards, 1900-1925. Moody, Barry M. "Acadia and the Great War." In Youth, University &f Canadian Society, ed. P. Axelrod and J. Reid, 143-60. Morgan, Bernice. "Fifty years at Memorial." MUN Gazette (24 July 1975): 8. - "Founding of a College." Evening Telegram (3 April 1979): 26A. Neilson, W.A.W. and Chad Gaffield, eds. Universities in Crisis: A Medieval Institution in the 2ist Century. Montreal: Institute for Research on Public Policy 1986. Newfoundland, Department of Education. Annual report, 1920—50. Newfoundland, House of Assembly. Journal 1891 (Report of the special committee on education, 11 Februrary 1891, Appendix, 447-456). Education Act 1927. Memorial University College (governors) Act 1935.

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Trease, Geoffrey. A Whiff of Burnt Boats. London, 1971. Treiman, Donald J. Occupational Prestige in Comparative Perspective. New York, 1977. Tucker, Gilbert Homan. The Naval Service of Canada; Its Official History II. Ottawa: The King's Printer 1952. Tuckman, J. "Social Status of Occupations in Canada." Canadian Journal of Psychology (1947): 71-4. United Church of Canada. Report of the Public Schools of Newfoundland under United Church Boards, 1925—49. Urquhart, Malcolm Charles Historical Statistics of Canada, 2nd edition. Ottawa, 1983. Veysey, L.R. The Emergence of the American University. Chicago, 1965. Warren, PJ. "Financing Education in Newfoundland." Ph.D. thesis, University of Alberta, 1962. Who's Who in and from Newfoundland. 1927, 1930, 1937, 1952, 1961. Willis, John. A History of Dalhousie Law School. Toronto, 1979. Wise, Sydney F. and Douglas Fisher. Canada's Sporting Heroes. Don Mills ON, 1974.

Twentieth Century Newfoundland Alexander, David. Atlantic Canada and Confederation: Essays in Canadian Political Economy. Comp. E. Sager, L. Fischer, and S. Pierson. Toronto: University of Toronto Press 1983. — "The Collapse of the Saltfish Trade and Newfoundland's Integration into the North American Economy." In Newfoundland in the iqth and 2oth Centuries, ed. J. Hiller and P. Neary, 17-39. — The Decay of Trade. St John's, MUN 1977. - "Newfoundland's traditional economy and development to 1934." Acadiensis (Spring 1976): 56—78. - "Peripheral Country, Peripheral Provinces; an Historical Consideration of Atlantic Canada and Confederation." St. John's: Maritime History Group 1977. Amulree Report. See Nfld Royal Commission 1933. Baker, Melvin. "In Search of the New Jerusalem: Slum Clearance in St. John's 1921-1944." Newfoundland quarterly (Fall 1983): 23-35. Brown, Malcolm C. "The Public Finance of Medical and Dental Care in Newfoundland - Some Historical and Economic Considerations."Journal of Social Policy, 10, part 2 (April 1981): 209-27. Brym, Robert J. and R.J. Sacouman, eds. Under development and Social Movements in Atlantic Canada. Toronto, 1979. Caves, R.E. and R.J. Holton. The Canadian Economy. Cambridge, MA, 1959.

363 Bibliography Chadwick, Gerald William St. John. Newfoundland: Island into Province. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press 1967. Elliott, R.M. "Newfoundland Politics in the igao's: The Genesis and Significance of the Hollis Walker Inquiry." In Newfoundland in the igth and 2oth centuries, ed. J. Hiller and P. Neary, 181-204. Encyclopedia of Newfoundland and Labrador, St John's, NF, 1981 (vols. i, 2) Frecker, G.A. "Most Rev. E.P. Roche, 1874-1950." The Centenary of the Basilica Cathedral of St. John the Baptist (June 1955), 187—201. Gilmore, William C. "Law, Constitutional Convention, and the Union of Newfoundland and Canada". Acadiensis (Spring 1989): 111—26. Godfrey, Stuart. Human Rights and Social Policy in Newfoundland 18321982. St John's: Cuff 1985. Hiller, James. The Newfoundland Railway 2881-1949. St John's, 1981. - "The origins of the pulp and paper industry in Newfoundland" Acadiensis (Spring 1982): 42-68. - and Peter Neary, eds. Newfoundland in the iqth and 2oth centuries: Essays in Interpretation. Toronto, 1980. Lewis, Jane and Mark Shrimpton. "Policy-making in Newfoundland during the 19405." Canadian Historical Review (1984): 209—39. Leyton, E., W. O'Grady and J. Overton. "Violence and Popular Anxiety: A Canadian Case." Paper written in 1986. Lodge, Thomas. Dictatorship in Newfoundland. London, 1939. McAllister, R.I., ed. The First 15 Years of Confederation. St John's: Dicks [1965]P. McCann, "Culture, State Formation and the Invention of Tradition: Newfoundland, 1832-1855," Journal of Canadian Studies (spring/summer 1988): 90—100. MacKay, R.A., Newfoundland: Economic, Diplomatic and Strategic Studies. Toronto, 1946. MacKenzie, David Clark. Inside the Atlantic Triangle: Canada and the Entrance of Newfoundland into Confederation 1939—1949. Toronto, 1986. MacLeod, Malcolm. "Helping, Unheeded: Newfoundland's Relief Effort and the Historiography of the Halifax Explosion, 1917." Nova Scotia Historical Review (1982): 65—8. - "Labrador for Sale - 27% off." Newfoundland Quarterly (Fall 1979): 13— 14. - Nearer than Neighbours: Newfoundland and Canada before Confederation. St John's, 1982. — Peace of the Continent: The Impact of Second World War Canadian and American Bases in Newfoundland. St John's: Cuff 1986. — "Subsidized Steamers to a Foreign Country: Canada and Newfoundland, 1892—1949." Acadiensis (Spring 1985): 66—92. Mannion, J.J., ed., The Peopling of Newfoundland (St John's, 1977).

364 Bibliography Neary, Peter. "The Bradley Report on Logging Operations in Newfoundland 1934: A Suppressed Document." Labour (Fall 1985): 193—232. — Newfoundland in the North Atlantic World 1929—1949. Montreal: McGillQueen's University Press 1988. — ed. The Political Economy of Newfoundland 1929—72. Vancouver, 1973. Newfoundland. Census of Newfoundland and Labrador, 1901, 1911, 1921, 1935, 1945Newfoundland. Report of the Newfoundland fishery research commission. St. John's, 1933. Newfoundland Royal Commission 1933. Report. London, 1933. Noel, S.J.R. Politics in Newfoundland. Toronto, 1971. O'Flaherty, Patrick. The Rock Observed. Studies in the Literature of Newfoundland. Toronto, 1979. Overton, James. "Brown flour and beriberi." Paper written in 1988. Paton, J.L. "Newfoundland: Present and Future." International Affairs, 13 (May-June 1934): 394~4°9Porter, Helen. Below the Bridge. Memories of the South Side of St. John's St John's; 1979. Rowe, Frederick W. A History of Newfoundland and Labrador. Toronto: McGraw-Hill Ryerson 1980. Rusted, Nigel. It's Devil Deep Down There. St. John's, 1985, 1987. Smallwood, J.R. The New Newfoundland. New York, 1931. Thornton, Patricia A. "The Problem of Out-migration from Atlantic Canada 1871—1921: A New Look." Acadiensis (Autumn 1985): 3—34. Veltmeyer, H. "The Capitalist Underdevelopment of Atlantic Canada." In Underdevelopment and Social Movements in Atlantic Canada, ed. R.J. Brym and R.J. Sacouman, 17—35. Yetman, Derek. Riches of the Earth: The Story of Buchans. St John's, 1986.

Index

Abraham, Charles, 291 Academic freedom, 94-5, 140 Academic rank. See Faculty Academic standards, 77-81, 116-17,347 "45 Acadia University, 37, 84 Act for the Government of the Memorial University College (1935). l89 Adams, Byron, 280 Admissions policy, 49-50, 162 Adult education. See Evening courses, extension programs, summer school Advertiser, The (Grand Falls), 250 Agriculture, 28; curriculum, 72-3; demonstration farm, 73; land settlement, 73; school in practical agriculture, 73 Alabama, 9 Allderdice, Frederick, 189 Allen, Jean, 291 Alumnae, alumni, 135, 251-3; blood donations; 253; careers, 249-51, 305-6; circular letters,

136, 253, 331 n34; Old Memorial's Association, 190, 251 American Association of University Professors, 84 Amherst, Nova Scotia, 237 Amulree Commission, 30 Anderson, Hugh, Illus. 19 Andrews, Cater, 282 Andrews, Margaret (Mrs Sanford), 31, 46, 317 n22 Andrews, Ralph, 190-1, 215, 228, 237-8, 281 Angel, Jack, 113 Angel, Ruperta, 291 Anglo-Ecuadorian Oilfields Ltd, i i 2 Anglo-Newfoundland Development Company, 31 Antigonish, Nova Scotia, 14, 15, 39, 69 Antisemitism, 44—5, 89-90, 244 Armistice Day, 219 Art, 64-5, 92, 178; controversy over teaching, 193—5. See also Fine arts Ashley, Jack, 257, 281 Assembly, 128. See also Memorial College traditions

Asthma, 100—i Atlantic Guardian, 76 Atlantic region, 187, 235, 349 ni7; ferry link since 1897, 232; institutions, 216, 254 Attendance. See Discipline Avalon, southern, 38 Avis, Simone, 89, 278 Baggs, Ruth, 287 Bailey, Ian, 345 ni2 Baird, Douglas, 291 Baird, Edna (Mrs Stephenson), 69—70, 85-6, 109, 182, 278 Baird, Gwen (Mrs Monk), 105 Baird, J. Boyd, 189 Baker, Herbert A., 62, 94, 277 Barnes, Arthur, 8, 12, 18-19, 21, 25, 188 Barnes, Daphne, 291 Barren, Margaret, 291 Bartlett, Bob, 113, 146 Bases, military, 155-7, 166, 177 Bay d'Espoir, 112 Bay Roberts, 146-7 Bell Island, 28, 111-12, 123 Bennett, J.R., 18 Beriberi. See Newfound-

366 Index land social conditions (health) Berzinsh, Alex, 175 Be You A Library Missionary, Miss?, 250 Biology. See Curriculum; marine biology, 142 Bishop Feild College, 4, 24, 41, 111 Bishop, Mundon, 291 Bishop's College (Lennoxville, Quebec), 84 Bishop Spencer College, 4. 50 Blackall, William, Illus. i, 6, 9, 10—11, 19-21, 33-4; Memorial University College trustee, 135, 188, 194; quarrel with Paton, 194-5; in retirement, 136—7 Blake, Gertrude, Illus. 4 Blundon, John, 102, 283 Board of Governors, 72, 83, 86, 92-3, 100—2, 131—2, 137-8, 160—1, 167, 171, 182, 241 Board of Regents, 191, 340 ng Board of Trustees, 189, 192 Bonavista Bay, 27, 38-9, 224 Bowring Park, 109, 225 Boy Scouts, 112. See also teacher training Bradley report, 155, 159 Brandon, Manitoba, 22 Brighton, England, 193 Brigus, Conception Bay, 58, 68, 69 Brinton, Ethel, 248, 282, 291 Brown flour, 154 Brown, Frances, 291 Browne, Major W.C., 191 Browne, W.J., 189 Bruton, Francis A., 84, 176, 202, 221, 225, 297; memorial tree, 109, 226, 257

Canadian National Railways, 141 Canadian Press, 184 Canadian universities, 84, 87-8. 93. 95-6. 98-9. 103, 128, 170, 176, 182; little disorder at, 133. See also individual institutions Cap and Gown. See Student life (publications) Cape Breton, 28 Cape Race, 17 Carbonear, 31, 151, 224 Caretaker, 103 Carew, Stan, 69, 77-8, 281 Carnegie Corporation of New York, 13, 79, 99, 208; art collection, 74, 92; financial support, 66, 158, 172, 180, 188, 200, 233, 341 031; negotiations with Britain and Newfoundland, Calver, Victor, Illus. 9 Cambridge University, 202—3 Carnell, Dorothy, 281 15. 84 Carroll, William J., 287 Cameron, George, Carter, Henry, 291 283 Carter, W.S., 21 Campus, 25, 105, 355 Case, Ruby, 291 n8s; assembly hall, 120; Catholic Educational construction, 18-21; Council, 11 enlargement, 213; Cats, 273 gymnasium, 167; landCensorship. See scaping, 105, 146; refit Paternalism for drafting room, 68; residence, 174, 211, 243 Centennial Hall (school), St John's, 56 n65; uso annex, 163 Central Advisory CommitCanada, Government of, tee, 20—i, 22, 208, 236 175 Change Islands, 44 Canada and NewfoundChannel, 72 land Education Association, 238 Chapman, Herbert, 147 Canadian Council of Edu- Charlottetown Patriot, 184 Charlottetown, Prince cation, 22 Edward Island, 14 Canadian Council of UniCharlton, E.H., 286 versities, 185 Chatham, N.B., 14 Canadian Legion, 167 Chatwood, A., 67, 277 Canadian National InstiChemistry, 64, 78-9, tute for the Blind, 185

Buchans, 32, 111 Bucknell, Professor H., !5 Budget. See finances Building. See campus Bureau of Education, 188 Burin Peninsula, 149 Burke, Vincent, Illus. i, 7, 8, 10, 11, 16, 17, 20-3, 33-4, 61, 178; Chairman, Board of Governors, 182, 189-91, 204, 208, 216; Director, adult education, 190; trustee, 89, 188, 192 Bursar, 103 Bursaries. See Financial aid Burton, Lt.-Col. T., 189 Business administration, 213, 258,322 n47 Butt, Margaret, 291 Butt, Rev. Arthur, 48-9, 56, 77, 128, 242 Button, Carman, 332 n66

367 Index 84-5, 142. See also Curriculum Christian, Elizabeth (Mrs Parsons), 332 n&5 Christmas Seal, clinic ship, 156

Church of England, 4, 26, 44—6, 120; Board of Examiners, 72; Church Lads Brigade, 160 Citizenship study groups. See clubs Clarenville, 48, 144 Clark, Dorothy, Illus. 4 Clark, Jean, Illus. 4 Clarke, George William, 290 Clarke, Harold J., 287 Clarke, Harry, 318 n26 Classics. See Curriculum Clouston, Jane, 291 Clubs, 119; citizenship study groups, 119; glee club, 64, 74; glossary club, 119; international relations club, 74; literary society, 113; student (program) societies, i19—20 Clutterbuck, Peter A., 203 Cochius, Clara (Mrs Gillingham), 291 Cochrane, Mrs J.A., 282 Cohen, William, 290, 291 Coish, H., 287 Cold ocean studies, 142-3 Collective bargaining. See Faculty organization College life, 105-25; banquets, 108, 120, 124, 158; bookstore, 206; emphasis on teaching, 141—3; one family, 129; refreshments, 109; romance, 85, 92, 118-19, 134, 147; schedule, 105-11; spirit, 126—47. See also Student life College mag, The. See student life (publications) "College notes," 176, 222, 252, 337 n33

College of Fisheries, 59 Collegio Irlandese, 248 Colman, John, 95, 279 Colman, S.J., 174 Columbia University, 8, 84, 218, 234 Commerce. See Business Administration Commission of Government. See Newfoundland Government (1934-49) Common Examining Board of the Maritime Provinces and Newfoundland, 60, 185 Conception Bay, 38, 78 Condom. See Discipline Condon, George Boniface, 290 Confederation, 35, 99-100, 156-7, 180, 258-60, 245, 311 n25, 348 n64 Confederation building, 65 Congregational church, 24 Conne River, 112 Conroy, Margaret, 292 Cook, Alexander (Sandy), 103, 129, 145, 161, 197 Cook, Gladys (Mrs Richards, Mrs Raynes), 287 Cormack's Narrative (1822), 222 Corner Brook, 31, 39, 69, 75, 111, 175, 258; TB sanatorium, 156 Cost of living "bonus," 96, 285 Council of Higher Education, 4-7, 11-12, 33-4, 61, 66, 178, 193, 210, 219, 232 Cowan, Gordon, 242 Crawford, Ms, 9 Crewe, Richard, 292 Crocker, Oswald, K., 287 Crowe, H.J., 297 Curriculum, 6—7, 21, 56-7,60-82, 113-15. 117; programs: additional programs proposed, 74-7, 211-14;

arts/science, 66; cultural activity, no; education, 47-9. 54. 7-2, 104; elective courses, 80; household science, 50, 69-70, 91; pre-agriculture, 72-3; pre-dental, 66; pre-engineering, 47, 50, 68-9, 77-8, 111-12, 117-18; pre-medicine, 47, 50—1, 66; third year courses, 66—7, 112, 159 Curriculum subjects: biology, 61-2, 91; chemistry, 97, 103-4; classics, 63; drawing, 68; economics, 63; English, 68, 80; geography, 65—6; geology, 50, 62-3, 94; German, 61, 90; Greek, 61; history, 61, 63, 87-9, 231; mathematics, 60, 67-8, 80, 91; mechanics, 68; nature study, 63, 221; physics, 163; political science, 63-5; Spanish, 64-5; surveying, 61 Curtis, Rev. I.F., 191 Curtis, Rev. Levi, Illus. i, 9, 11, 17, 20, 33, 188, 219; bequest, 34, 297; hiring J.L. Paton, 22, 89 Daily Express (London), 153 Dalhousie University, 37, 40,49,51, 52, 54,63-4, 68, 93, 190; affiliation, 66, 234; model and advice, 84, 96, 102, 118, 184; Newfoundland government support for, 201; Newfoundland students at, 69, 76, 77, 146, 242; students' organization, 118; timetable, 102 Dances. See Student life Darcy, D.A., 287 Dean of Women, 91. See also Mansfield

368 Index Death: of graduates in war, 161-2; of J.L. Paton, 109; of F. Maddock, 101; of students, 107-9; of students' fathers, 53 Debating. See Student life Debt: government, 30, 150—1, 156; fishermen's, 150 Decker, Ernest, 332 ntjC) Deer Lake, 31 Dentistry, 54 Dickenson, Ethel, 8 Di Maria, Rev. Peter, 15 Discipline, 123-5; attendance, 127-8; cheating, 130; church registration, 138; compulsory games, no; condom affair, 131-3; drunkenness, 124; failure in studies, 129-30; pilferage, 124, 133; smoking, 134; social control, 127-34; "supervisory committee", 124, 133—4. $ee a^° Student life Domestic science. See Curriculum (household science) Dominion status, 31 Donaldson, Flight Lt M.B., 297 Doody, Myles, 320 nig Dove, Bob, Illus. 9, 113, 290 Doyle, Edward B., 281 Doyle, Gerald S., 183, 297; news bulletin, 181 Dramatics. See Student life Drover, Chesley, 51-2 Drover, Gerald Marshall, 290 Drover, Howard, 292 Drover, Jackson, 292 Dubois, Marguerite, 281 Duder, Dick, 292 Duder, Rudolph (Paddy),

86, 120, 131, 251, 279, 287 Duley, Margaret, 109, 139. 250 Dunfield, Brian, 189 Dunfield, Mrs Brian, 107

English, Arthur, 176 Enrolment, 36—7, 258, 307, 350 ni Ether, 275 Evans, Elizabeth, 292 Evening courses, 169-71; attendance, 170; Earle, Canon George, instructors, 97; subjects, 111, 183 74, 170-1 Edinburgh, 40 Evening Telegram, The, 95, Education. See Teacher 121, 177, 185 Examinations, 106; marks training, normal school posted, 109 Education, denominaExploits River, 28 tional, 3-5, 7-12, 24-5, 44, 69, 72, 95, 154, 178, Ex-servicemen's club, 230. See also Schools 162-3 Education, Newfoundland Extension courses and programs, 24, 169, Dept. of, 171, 178 171-8, 180, 190, 207. Education, physical, 258 See also Evening courses Education, vocational, Extension lectures (1914172, 337 n22 Education Act: 1920, 157; 7), 6-7 1927, 188; 1944, 229 Extra-mural work. See Extension Edwards, Brian, 112, 242 Edwards, Captain Facey, Gertrude (Mrs William, 112 Rees), Illus. 10, 248 Elective courses. See CurFacey, Jack, 282, 318 n30 riculum (programs) Emerson, Fred, 136-7, Facilities. See Campus Faculty, 276-84; dismiss190, 205 Empire marketing board, als, 93-5; nationality, 83-6; Newfoundland i?9 preference, 85-6; Employment conditions: promotion, 93, 102-3; leave, 98—9, 100—01; penqualifications, 86-8; sions, 99-100, 203;rank ranks, 102-3; recruiting, and promotion, 102—3; standard terms, 97-8; 83-6,89-91,93; religious affiliation, 23, salaries, 95—7, 285; 44, 87-90; turnover, workloads, 101—2 103-4; women, 86, 90—3, Encyclopedia Britannica, 22 257, 285. See also EmployEngineering: achievement ment conditions of students, 117—18, Faculty organization: 249-50; engineering faculty council, 103, 199, seminar, 68—9; faculty, 62, 101; pre-engineering 209; meetings, 133-4, 191-2, representations society, 119—20, 124; to the Board, 95-6, 99, survey camp, 69. See also 199; secretary, 199 Curriculum (programs) Faull, J. Horace, Jr, 142, England, 62, 193, 231, 278 259

369 Index Fees, 123—4, 202, 205, 213 Fennimore, Jessie B., 287 Ferry, 232 Field, Olive (Mrs Dawe), 41, 128 Finances, 200-7, 299—301 Financial aid (to students), 34, 51, 183, 202, 222, 231, 286, 297-8; loans, 137-8, 202; pupil-teacher grants, 71—2. See also Rhodes Fine arts appreciation, 64, 74, 258 Fire, 175 Fisheries Research Station, 91, 179 Fishery. See Newfoundland economy Fish stick, 59 Fitzpatrick, Mary, 280 Flat Islands, Bonavista Bay, 48 Flintcote Limited, 297 Fogo, 38-9, 56, 183 Fordham University, 246 Forestry, 74-6 Fort Pepperrell, 122 Fortune Bay, 58 Fraser, Allan, Illus. 6, 8, 16, 63, 107, 181, 186, 257' 277. 33 ! 151; in politics, 169, 180; religion, 89; scholarship, 142; snappy dresser, 145; teacher, 129 Fraser, Emilie (Stirling), 8, 89, 277 Frecker, Alain, 75, 186, 189, 205, 227, 228, 279 French, Harold V., 287 French, James B., 287 Frost, Nancy (Mrs Button), 91, 288 Furneaux, Ms, 9 Gambling. See Discipline Gander, 262-3

Garland, Billy, 107 Garland, Isabel, Illus. 4 Garland, R., 329 n46 Gautheron, R., 15 Geography. See Curriculum Geology. See Curriculum Giles, William, 146-7 Gillingham, Allan, Illus. 7,41,65-6, 76, 79, 86, 90, 98-9, 145, 162, 177, 186, 199, 209, 239, 279, 288 Glee club. See Clubs, music Glossary club. See Clubs Godden, Charlie, 122 Godfrey, Marjorie, 292 Godfrey, Stuart, 43, 103, 204, 215 Goodridge, Harold, 65-6, 282 Gosling, W.G., 168 Cover, Frederick, 290 Government grants, to pupil teachers, 71-2. See also Finances Gowns, academic. See Memorial College traditions Graduates' careers, 240-51 Graduation, 106, 109 Grand Falls, 27, 250 Granter, Harry S., 288 Green, Ada, 283 Green, Milton G., 290 Gushue, Raymond, 196; Dalhousie graduate, 235; member, Memorial Board of Governors, 189; President, Memorial University of Newfoundland, 89, 94 Guy, W.G., 85 Gymnasium. See Campus Halfyard, Ruth, 292 Halifax, Nova Scotia, 69, 242-4

Hall, Horace, 316 n2o Halley, Margaret (Mrs Long), 281 Hampton, William, Illus. 9, 58-9, 243 Hanley, Philip, 228, 281 Harbour Grace, 27, 69 Harkness, H.W., 280 Harling, Reginald, Illus. 6, 196, 271, 278 Harrington, Michael, Illus. 11, 121, 177, 292, 328 n26 Harrington, Samuel, 89 Harris, Leslie, 319 n4i Harris, Thomas, 292 Harvard University, 84, 234

Harvey, Gladys, Illus. 15 Hatcher, Albert, Illus. 6, 19, 62, 73, 75, 77, 79-82, 91—2, 104, 1 2 1 , 124, 136-8, 159, 161-3,

l68, 172, 177, l8l, 195, 2O2,

2 1 7 , 22O,

244, 254,

256, 257, 259, 276;

becomes second president, 127-8,195;career in Canada, 79, 84; dealing with complaints, 72, 78, 130-1; illness, 101; relations with Board of Governors, !75- 195-9; residence, 195-8; salary, 195, 199; teacher, 68, 145 Hatcher, Charles (President's brother), 197 Hatcher, Charles (President's son), 196 Hatcher, Mrs Emma, 92, 196 Hatcher, Gordon, 84, 221 Hatcher, Robert D. (President's nephew), 288 Hatcher, William, 84, 184, 237 "Haunted Lab, The," 35, 44,271-5

37° Index Hawco, Leonard C., 288 Hawkins, Ralph Lush, 290, 292 Hayes, St Glair J., 112, 124, 172, 279 Hearn, Genevieve, 288 Henderson, John, 290 Hickman, George, 102, 145, 229, 282 Higgins, Brian, 290, 292 Higgins, James Douglas, 290, 292 Higgins, W.A., 18 History, 61; subject of bargain with Roman Catholic church, 87-9, 323 ni5_ See also Curriculum Hogg, Jack, 180, 219, 271, 277 Holbrook, Hal, Illus. 10, 169 Home economics. See Household science Homemaking, 249 Horwood, Jim, 244-5 Hospitals, 150, 351 nio; RCN, 160—1; merchant marine, 161, 163; ship Lady Anderson, 154 House, Edgar, 292 Household science, 7-9 House of Hate, 250 Howe, Margaret, 280 Howell, Chesley, 139, 176, 290, 292 Howell, Grace, Illus. 15 Howell, Lloyd, 108 Howley, James, 292 Howley,J.T.F., 288 Howley, Rev. Michael. See Roman Catholic church Howley, Michael, 292 Howse, Carl, 146 Howse, Claude, 243, 290 Hudson, A.C.L., 316 ng Hudson, Walter Corbett, 290 Humby, Rev. Reuben, 319 039 Hunt, Charles, 189 Hunter, Alfred, Illus. 3,

6, 70, 96-7, 119, 168, 177, 182, 191, 238-9, 253, 256, 276; acting President, 85, 101, 117; college planner, 79-81, 102; disciplinarian, 69, 125, 128, 131-2, 134, 139-40; human after all, 192; Professor of English, 44, 77, 163; Professor of French, 145; scholar, 141 Hunter, Mrs Muriel (Steele), Illus. 6, 74, 92-4, 145 Hutchings, Wesley, 242, 290 Hutton, Charles, 8, 90-1, 279

Keppel, F.P., 202 King, Boyd, 292 King, Ethel (Mrs Wood), 245, 254, 279 King, Matty, 56 King's College (Nova Scotia), 7, 243-4 Knowling, Mrs Philip, 277 Kremlin, 105

Labour, 252 Labrador, 40 Lady Anderson, hospital ship, 154 Law, 54, 66, 76 Lawrence, Muriel, 122 Leahey, James, 293 Lear, Eli, 186, 281 LeGrow, George, 123, 280 Iceland, 27, 113 LeGrow, Samuel Harris, Imperial College of 290 Science and Technology, Lench, J.R., 107 84 Librarian, 102-3 Imperial Oil, 183 India, 65 Libraries, public, 166, 168, 180, 252 Insurance, 138 Library, college, 74, 91-2 International Grenfell Library science, 76—7, Association, 150, 154 225, 245, 322 n47 International Paper ComLilly, Harold, 293 pany, 111 Literacy. See NewfoundInternational relations. land social conditions See Clubs Loder, Harold, 316 n i l Ireland, 87 Lodge, Helen, 71, 93, 160, 168, 220, 277 Jennings, Marguerite, 280 Lodge, Thomas, 153, 185 Job, T.R., 297 Johns Hopkins, university London, Ontario, 14 Long, Bernard, 95, 100, and hospital, 70 102, 281 Johnston, Ruby, Illus. 11 Lonsdale cup, 182 Jubilee scholarship. See Lovett-Janison, Paul, Financial aid Illus. 6, 197, 278 Lowe, Edison, 121 Kean, Madeline, Illus. 4 Loyalists, 26 Keeping, Dorothy, 282 Lynch, Bill (shows), 167 Kellogg Foundation, 297 Kennedy, Kathleen (Mrs Fraser, Mrs Hanley), 16, McCarthy, Rev. Edward, 51, 92-4, 246, 279 14 McDonald, Marguerite, Kennedy, Ronald, Illus. i, 16, 33, 188 33i 037 Macdonald College, 70, 73 Kent, Alice, 90, 280

371 Index McDougald, Ronald, 78-9, 283 McGill University, 62, 65, 66, 177; affiliation, 236—7; Memorial boosters at, 184, 237; Newfoundland students at, 58, 69, 77-8, 84, 90. See also Macdonald College McGrath, Elizabeth (Mrs Conroy), 23, 89, 218, 276 McGrath, Helena (Mrs Frecker), Illus. 6, 245, 278 McGrath, Iris (Mrs Power), 318 n2g Macintosh, C.A.D., Illus. 6, 278 MacKay, R.A., 63, 142 MacLellan, Robert, 290, 243 MacLeod, Bob, Illus. 9, 245, 252, 169 MacLeod, Malcolm, Illus. 19 McNaughton, Elspeth, 293

McNeil, Fannie, 297 McNeil, Hector, 297 Maddock, Fred, 84—5, 100—i, 103, 186, 198, 281 Maddock, Joan, Illus. 15 Maddox, Elizabeth, 8 Magazine Digest, The, (Toronto), 140 Major, William, 174 Manchester Grammar School, 22, 221 Mansfield, Monnie, Illus. 6, 8, 78-9, 86, 91, 103, 145, 188, 191, 206, 251; Dean of women, 131 March, Rev. John, 14 Maritime provinces, 6; universities, 208—9; university federation 13-15, 20, 87 Maritime University of

Canada and Newfoundland, 14 Markland, 69 Marshall, Brenda, 107 Martin, Edgar, Illus. 15 Martin, Gladys, 288 Massachusetts, 59 Matthews, Muriel, 137, 288 Maunder, Cherry, 288 Mayo, H.B. (Bert), 108, 288, 293 Mayo, Ruby (Mrs Knill), 327 n6 Medicine, 54, 61-2, 76; Faculty of, 258. See also Curriculum Memorial, war, 17-19, 214 Memorial College traditions, 145—6, 257-8; assembly, 51-2, 107-8; Bruton tree, 109, 225-6, 257-8; cenotaph ceremony, 109, 144; gowns, 107, 127; inquisition, 108; motto, 107; no yell, 136; picnics, 109; song, 126, 136-7,295-6 Memorial times. See Student life Memorial University Act (1949), 231 Memorial University of Newfoundland, 263; charter, 210, 254, 264; development to 1985, 254-8; pensions act

(195°). 99-lo°;tradi-

tions forgotten, 137, 258 Mennie, John, 103, 222, 237, 277 Mercy Convent, 224 Meteorology, 185, 339 n63 Methodist Church, 4, 26, 34.45 Methodist College, 4, 41 Mews, Arthur, 189 Mews, Douglas, 107 Mews, Eleanor (Mrs Jarrett), 223, 279

Mews, Kathryn, 107 Mews, Olive, 103 Middle Cove, 109 Middleton, Gov. Sir John, 225 Mifflin, Jessie, 176 Miles, June, 293 Miller, James L., 288 Mining. See Newfoundland economy Monroe, Walter, 19, 174, 185, 188 Moore, Edith (Mrs Sautter), 176 Moreton's Harbour, 85 Morgan, Eric David, 288 Morgan, Herbert B., 288 Morgan, Moses O., 244, 248, 288 Morris, Edward, 6, 28 Morris, J.W., 191 Morrison, Rev. James, 14 Mount Allison University, 37,40,41, 50, 52, 55, 68, 84, 93, 239, 244; Newfoundland students at, 77 Mount Pearl, 109 Mount Saint Vincent College, 224 Murdoch, James, 8, 90-1, 278 Murray, Leonard, RCN, 161 Muse, The. See Student life (publications) Music, 64, 258; appreciation, 144; Carnegie collection, 74; concerts, 120; glee club, 74, 107, 102. See also Fine arts National Research Council, 142 National University of Ireland, 15 Nature study. See Curriculum Navigation, 8; school of, 17. 174 Neary, Peter, 326 n86

372 Index tion, 344 n67; 1948 New Brunswick, 71, 172, referendum votes, 211 Newbury, Douglas, 293 112-13. $ee a^so Debt, Confederation Newell, Issac, 345 ni8 New England, 104 Newfoundland Quarterly, 5 Newfoundland College of Newfoundland railway, Fisheries, 59 28, 39 Newfoundland Constabu- Newfoundland ranger force, 154 lary, 140-1, 151, 153 Newfoundland economy, Newfoundland social conditions, 26-33, 35-46, 75. 149. 157; agricul148-57; civil unrest, ture, 28; diversification, 151-3, 158; class struc27-32, 149; fishery, 27, ture, 29-30, 53-4, 29, 48, 62, 113, 149-50, 269—70, 164, 269-70; 154; forests, 155; health, 31, 42, 150, 152, incomes, 96-7, 155, 156; literacy, 29, 39, 269-70, 319 n37; 156; modernization, manufacturing, 28; 254-5, 261—3; nationalmining, 28, 149; outside ism, 31, 215, 256, 261; investment, 28; prosperpopulation, 26-7, 37-8, ity, 29-30, 262; 45, 58, 148, 156, 314 structure, 29, 157 n62; poverty, 71-2, Newfoundland Govern152-3; relief, 30, 150, ment (to 1934): Department of Education, 12, !52-3. !55. 157; ruralurban antagonism, 40-4, 32, 206; Department of 316 mo; starvation, 152; Justice, 97; Department supply of physicians, 66, of Marine and Fisheries, university participation, 62, 179; Department of 36, 58; urbanization, 27, Public Works, 195; 156; values, 156—7. See executive council, 18 also Hospitals, Schools Newfoundland GovernNewfoundland studies, ment (1934-49), 35. 61, 63 151-2, 177, 262; constituNewton report, 76, 100, tion, 163-5; finance, 99; 103, 214, 248 home affairs and educaNickerson, Jack, 135, tion, 99, 102, 188, 192, 276 209, 221, 222, 241—2; Normal school, 12-13, and land settlement, 18-20, 48, 70-2, 157, 73; natural resources, 184, 188, 195, 200, 218, 171; public health, 42, 302 70, 161; record of war Norris, Frances, 293 effort, 142 Northern Seas, Hardy Newfoundland Historical Sailors, 250 Society, 180 Norway, 27 Newfoundland Law SociNoseworthy, Allan, 290, ety, 76 Newfoundland Museum, 293 Notre Dame Bay, 41, 48 i79 Nova Scotia, 8, 84, 211; Newfoundland politics: model for Newfound169; national conven-

land, 5, 61, 235—6; no model, 71 Nova Scotia Normal School, 246 Nova Scotia Technical College, 77, 138-9, 172; affiliation, 68 Nursing, 76, 258 Oakley, Kenneth, 293 O'Brien, Joe, 248 O'Dea, Fabian, 108 O'Dea, Francis, 293 Old Memorials Association, 252. See also Alumnae, alumni O'Leary, F.M., 298 Oral history, 16, 41-4, 55-7.74. 77. 123, 128-9, 134, 143-7, 186, S32 1158 Organ, Sadie, Illus. 6, 77, 79, 86, 91, 98, 140, 145, 178, 203, 279 O'Reilly, Allison (Mrs Feder), 129, 283 O'Sullivan, George, 103, 276 Oxford University, 5, 13, 108, 233 Pacifism, 95 Parade ground, 18 Parade Street, 32 Pardy, Richard, 293 Parrott, A.G., 175 Paternalism, 125, 137, 257; censorship, 138, 140; faculty members as honorary presidents of student societies, 134. See also Financial aid Paton, John Lewis, Illus. 6, 22-5, 31. 73. 75. 83. 85. 87, 89, 94, 98, 105, 113, 129-30, 139, 174, 233, 242, 276, 329 n6, 344 n8; almost fired, 194; "bridge built halfway," 256; curriculum innovations, 61-2,

373 Index 69-70; death of, 256; gifts to Memorial University College, 202, 198, 298; personality, 51-2; poet, 109-10, 135-6, 144-5; Pre' Newfoundland career, 22; relations with Board of Governors, 192-5; retirement, 158, 195, 263, 342 n33; teacher, 67, 182 Paton, Mary, 51, 144 Patriotic Association, 17 Peacock, Fletcher, 172 Penney, Grace, Illus. 4, 278 Pentecostal Church, 44-5 Permanent marine disaster fund, 31 Peters, Marion (Mrs Scott), Illus. 15, 19, 78, 97, 282 Petries, 224 Pharmacy, 54, 74, 76, 258. See also Extension Philately, 146 Philosophy, 212, 231 Physics. See Curriculum Pigeon Inlet, 56, 250 Pilferage. See Discipline Pilot, Canon William, 4, 9 Pine Hill Divinity Hall, 49> 77. 242-3 Pitt, David, Illus. 14, 283 Placentia Bay, 38-9 Poetry: by Harrington, 264; by Newell, 345 ni8; by Paton, 109—10, 135-6, 144-5; by Scammell, 67-8, 271-5 Police. See Newfoundland Constabulary, Newfoundland Ranger Force Political debate, 18-19, 179 Political Science. See Curriculum Poole, Cyril, 143 Pope, Alexander, 44, 271 Porter, Helen, 132

Portugal, 27 Pottle, Herbert, 190 Powell, Edward, 84, 160, 280 Pratt, Calvert C., 298 Pratt, Daphne, 291 Pratt, E.J. (Ned), 250 Pre-agriculture. See Curriculum Pre-medicine. See Curriculum Presbyterian Church, 26, 44-5 Presentation convent, 224 President's residence, 196-8 Prince Edward Island, 184-5, 216, 235 Prince of Wales College, Charlottetown, 63-4, 84 Prince of Wales College, St John's, 49-50, 229. See also United Church College Princeton University, 135 Professional studies, debate over stress, on 79-82 Promotion. See Faculty Psychology, 231 Queen's College (St John's), 4, 111, 120, 229 Queen's University (Kingston, Ontario), 93 Quigley, Joseph Mary, 290, 293 Radio, 31, 121, 180, 181, 250. See also Doyle, Gerald S. Ralph, Audrey, 283 Random Island, 74 Rees-Wright, Rev. W., 78-9, 142, 283 Referendum of 1948. See Confederation Registrar, 102-3, 128 Rendell, Lt.-Col. W.F., 189

Renouf, Henry Thomas, 290, 293 Renouf, Rex, 290 Research and scholarship, 62, 66, 141-3, 164, 258 Responsible government issue, 180, 260 Rhodes scholarship, 5, 6, 33, 46, 90, 108, 248; winners, 286-8, 317 n2o Richards, Gladys, 293 Richards, Morley, 153 Richardson, C.A., 348 n&7 Robbins, H.J., 288 Robertson, Margaret, 289, 293 Roche, Rev. Edward. See Roman Catholic church Rockefeller Foundation, 66 Roman Catholic Church, 8—16, 26, 44-6, 114; Archbishop Howley, 10—11, 16; Archbishop Roche, 10—12, 15-16, 17, 25, 88-9, 227, 261; preparation of teachers, 224; representation on Memorial faculty, 23, 87—90; willingness to cooperate, 9—16 Rose, Thomas, 130 Rosenberg, Horace D., 316 nig Rotary Club, St John's, 298 Rothney, Gordon, 89 Rowe, Professor William G., 282 Royal Canadian Navy, 160, 175; hospital at Memorial University College, 161 Royal Indian Navy, 65 Royal Institute of International Affairs, 142, 180 Royal Naval College of Canada (Halifax, Esquimalt), 79, 84, 174

374 Index Royal Trust, 196 Royal Victoria College, 245 Russell, Ted, 56 Rusted, Ian, 145 Rusted, Nigel, 107, 160 Ryan, J.L., 280 Ryan, John, 121 Sabbatical leave, 93, 98-9, 141-2, 199. See also Employment conditions Sackville, New Brunswick, 141 St Anthony, 49 St Bonaventure's College, 4, 78, 122-3, 227 St Bride's College, 4, 227 St Francis Xavier University, 14-5, 37, 63-5 Saint John, New Brunswick, 14 St John's: Memorial's relations with, 167-71; public library, 168; slum, 159; students from, 38, 40-3 St John's College (Maryland), 79-80 St John's East (electoral constituency), 89, 112-13 St John's players, 168 St Michael's College (Toronto), 14 St Patrick's Day, 106-7, 120 St Pierre, 40 Salvation Army, 27, 44-5, 48, 190 Samson, Alvin, 322 n5o Samson, Arthur, 293 Samson, I.J., 189 Scammell, Arthur, 35, 41, 43-4,60,67-8,271-5 Scholarships and bursaries. See Financial aid Schools: commission of enquiry into the curriculum (1934), 178;

denominational, 95; elementary, 3, 4, 32, 48, 150, 152-4, 156. See also Education Acts; education, denominational Senior associate, 25 Seventh Day Adventist Church, 44-5 Seviour, George, 293 Sewage. See Newfoundland social conditions (health) Sex education, 139 Sexton, Frederick, 21 Sexual harassment, 140-1, 145 Sharpe, Irene, 293 Shaw, Lloyd, 84, 172, 189, 279; Secretary (deputy minister) of Education, 161, 184, 223 Shillington, England, 40 Simms, Jean, Illus. 15 Slattery, Brother J., 4 Sleggs, Fred, Illus. 6, 62, 140, 142, 145, 177, 271, 277 Smallpox. See Newfoundland social conditions Smallwood, Joseph R., 153. 167 Smith, Chalmers, 282 Smith, Elizabeth, 280 Smith, H., 15 Smoking, 162-3, 167. See also Discipline Social work, 258 Soper, Elinor, 293 Soper, Lloyd, 290, 293 Sparkes, Madeline, Illus. 9 Sports. See Student life "Squid Jiggin' Ground," 43. 250 Squires, Richard, 31, 151 Staff, nonacademic, 102-3 Staffing, 22-4, 83-104 Status: "university college," 207; degree grant-

ing, 76-7, 81-2, 116, 173, 207—16, 230, 263, 344 n7o Stephenson, Reginald J., 84, 85, 94, 277 Stevenson, Joan (Mrs MacLeod), 348 n7i Stevenson, May, Illus. 9 Stirling, Audrey (Mrs Norman), 129, 240, 246 Stirling, Jean M., 289 Straight Shore, 38-9 Strollers, 123 Strong, Charles, 293 Student Life: bridge, 134; debating, 119; discipline, 127-34; drama, 120; elections, 109, 123, 125; employment, 111-13, 159—60; living arrangements, 110; memories, 143-7; no cafeteria, no; schedules, 106-13; sex> 139-41; socials (dances), 106-7, 118-19, i34> 145—6; sports, 51, 118, 121-3, 163, 167, 222,

226, 242; student government, 118, 123-5; student publications, 120—i, 253. See also Clubs, discipline Students: academic achievements, 43, 114-8; age, 46-50; geographical origins, 38—44, 182; interrupted program of studies, 47-9, 318 n26; motivation, 55-7; numbers attending, 255, 307, 350 ni; religious affiliation, 44—6; sex, 46-52, 220; social class, 52-5; special students, 66-7, 114, 131; studying abroad, 33, 267-8 Students' representative council, 50, 106, 123-5, 133. 253- See also Student life

375 Index Studies. See Curriculum Studies, interrupted, 48-9, 318 1126 Summer schools, 65, 106, 161, 206, 303; Department of Education, 210; experimental (1917, 1918), 8—9; Memorial summer "session," 167, 224; the oar, 223, 345 ni8; subjects, 74, 193; traditions, 109. See also Art, Nature study. Summer session. See Summer schools Summers, Bill, 121 Summers, Elizabeth, Illus. 4 Summers, Georgina, 279 Surveying. See Curriculum Spain, 27 Spanish. See Curriculum Spanish flu epidemic (1919). 9 Tasmania, 209 Taylor, Al, 121 Taylor, Anna, 144-5 Taylor, Paul, 294 Teachers' Agency (New York), 84 Teachers Insurance and Annuity Association of America, 100 Teaching profession, 47-9, 225, 249 Teacher training, 42; boy scouts, 72; curriculum, 218; girl guides, 72; seminar for teachers, 72, 119, 170; See also Curriculum (education) Technical education, 18 Templeman, Wilfred, 62, 91, 142, 176, 191, 205, 243, 280 Terms and Conditions of Employment, 93 Theology, 66, 139, 229

Thompson, Harold, 91 Thompson, Shirley, 282 Tibbo, S. Noel, 289 Timetable, 23, 101-2, no; Saturday classes, 61 Tompkins, Reverend JJ-, 14 Toronto, 237-8, 245 Travers, David, 89, 277 Truro, Nova Scotia, 141, 240, 246 Tuberculosis: X-ray ship Christmas seal, 156. See also Newfoundland social conditions (health) Tuff, Ted, 294 Twillingate, 130 United Church College, in United Church of Canada, 34, 45, 48-9, 228; Queen's Road Church, 109 United Kingdom Government, Secretary of State for Dominion Affairs, 99, 203 United Kingdom Superannuation Act (1935). 99 United Services Organization (uso) annex. See Campus United States, 246, 247, 260 United Theological College, Montreal, 244-5 Universities Bureau of the British Empire, 233 University College of Cape Breton, 216 University federation. See Maritime provinces University of Alberta, 76, 200 University of Cambridge, 15 University of Durham, 248

University of Leiden, 17 University of London, 66, 94, 232, 248 University of New Brunswick, 75-6, 96 Universite de Paris, 15, 87-8 University of Prince Edward Island, 216 University of Saskatchewan, 84, 177 University of Toronto, 16, 84, 245; affiliation, 66, 237 University of Western Ontario, 91 University status. See Status Upper Island Cove, 152 Veterans, 47, 69, 127, 162-3 Victoria University of Manchester, 84 Walker (Hollis Walker) inquiry, 1924, 31 Walsh, Albert J., 212, 230 Walwyn, Governor Sir Humphrey, 65, 121 War, 155-7 Western Newfoundland, 38-9 Whelan, Captain John, 174 White Bay, 49 White, E.G., 348 n^8 Whiteley, George, Jr, 169, 243

Whiteway, Evan, 107 Whiteway, Louise, 324 n29 Whiteway, Solomon, 8, 19-20, 63, 71, 89, 190, 218, 276, 321 n25 Whiteway, William, 4, 207 Wild, Ira, 204 Wilson, Dorothy, 282 Windsor, Nova Scotia, 13 Winnipeg, Manitoba, 22

376 Index Winter, A.J., 244 Winter, Genevieve, 294 Winter, H.A., 151, 173, 204,210 Winter, Paul, 103, 191 Winter, Thomas, 278 Wolfville, Nova Scotia, 69, 182, 197 Women at Memorial: discrimination, 50-1, 9!-3> 96-7; hockey, 51, 122; position on faculty,

90—3; representation in student body, 46-7, 317 n25; war program, 160; See also Faculty (women) Women, status of, 31, 51-2, 70; in the workforce, 157 Wood, Betty, 294 Wood, R.R., 226 Woodshole Oceanographic Institute, 246

World War n, air raid precautions, 160; cadet corps, 130, 159-60; effects on Memorial: !32' !59-63. !73> !79> 252; enlistments, 161—2 Wornell, Shirley, Illus. 3 Wright, Evelyn, 8 Yanez, Augustin, 250 YMCA, 69, 107