Cultures, Communities, and Conflict: Histories of Canadian Universities and War 9781442662773

Citation preview

CULTURES, COMMUNITIES, AND CONFLICT Histories of Canadian Universities and War

This page intentionally left blank

Cultures, Communities, and Conflict Histories of Canadian Universities and War

EDITED BY PAUL STORTZ AND E. LISA PANAYOTIDIS

UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO PRESS Toronto Buffalo London

© University of Toronto Press 2012 Toronto Buffalo London www.utppublishing.com Printed in Canada ISBN 978-1-4426-4543-1

Printed on acid-free, 100% post-consumer recycled paper with vegetable-based inks.

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication Cultures, communities, and conflict : histories of Canadian universities and war /edited by Paul Stortz and E. Lisa Panayotidis. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-1-4426-4543-1 1. Universities and colleges – Canada – History – 20th century. 2. South African War, 1899–1902 – Canada – Influence. 3. World War, 1914–1918 – Canada – Influence. 4. World War, 1939–1945 – Canada – Influence. 5. Vietnam War, 1961–1975 – Canada – Influence. 6. Canada – Historiography. I. Stortz, Paul James II. Panayotidis, Euthalia Lisa LA417.7.C84 2012

378.00971

C2012-905643-X

University of Toronto Press acknowledges the financial assistance to its publishing program of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council.

University of Toronto Press acknowledges the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund for its publishing activities. This book has been published with the help of a grant from the Canadian Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences, through the Awards to Scholarly Publications Program, using funds provided by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.

Contents

Acknowledgments vii Introduction: History of Canadian Universities and War paul stortz and e. lisa panayotidis

3

1 Educating for War and Peace at Acadia University: The Great War Generation 26 barry m. moody 2 An Acute Yet Brief Bout of ‘returned-soldier-itis’: The University of Toronto’s Faculty of Forestry after the First World War 51 mark kuhlberg 3 ‘We must not neglect our duty’: Enlisting Women Undergraduates for the Red Cross during the Great War 71 linda j. quiney 4 Dancing into Education: The First World War and the Roots of Change in Women’s Higher Education 95 sara z. burke 5 Manly Heroes: The University of Saskatchewan and the First World War 121 james m. pitsula 6 ‘A stern matron who stands beside the chair in every council of war or industry’: The First World War and the Development of Scientific Research at Canadian Universities 146 james hull

vi

Contents

7 Canadian University Scientists and Military Technology: The Challenge of Total War, 1939–1945 175 donald howard avery 8 Academic Freedom in Wartime: The Canadian Experience in the Twentieth Century 202 michiel horn 9 Refugee Professors and the University of Toronto during the Second World War 227 paul stortz 10 Universities, Students, and the Conduct of War in Canada and Britain: A Comparative Perspective 253 paul axelrod and charles levi 11 War and the Concept of Generation: The International Teach-ins at the University of Toronto, 1965–1968 272 catherine gidney Contributors 295 Index

299

Acknowledgments

The field of the history of higher education in Canada is ever-expanding, with new topics and issues being studied through increasingly critical and interpretive investigation. Falling under the broad foci of sociointellectual and academic cultures, the university as a historical entity has opened widely to approaches and methodologies that have generated new understandings of negotiated forms of the individual and collective lived experiences of students, professors, and administrators, of identities and subjectivities, and of exchanges of knowledge and information. In this collection we turn our attention to strategies of analysing the complex interconnections between the people on campus and their mediated and contested social and academic worlds, and these in relation to the surrounding communities in which the university was situated. Inquiring into how the university responded to local, regional, and national agendas, we find that, in wartime, the university assumed explicit roles in the national and international effort – either of support or of leadership. The unusual circumstances of war in Canadian society thrust the university into a spotlight that it had rarely experienced. How the university dealt with such extraordinary events eschewed notions of complacency and naiveté that some contemporary viewers might have considered characteristic of the institution. Depending on the historical argument, temporal and thematic boundaries, and available research source material, through a close look at its activities and agents, the university is revealed to be a powerful organism for both the maintenance of continuity and a purveyor of change. This collection highlights the dialogic, capricious, contextual, and contingent relations among universities, outside communities, business, industry, and government. It strives to show how intellectual

viii Acknowledgments

agents and human dynamics reflected and informed social and political cultures on and off campus. Universities brought to the fore debates of economic, political, gendered, ethnic, and moral questions and constructions of the nation-state, and in myriad ways encouraged discussion of public and civic ideals and performances of citizenship and definitions of democracy that affect us to this day. Many of the arguments included in this collection centre on how the university utilized its considerable resources, how it grappled with critical ideas, and its level of success – or lack thereof – in shaping its research and its collegial, academic, and social practices for humanistic and applied outcomes. The university is nonetheless seen as an integral intellectual heritage in Canada that is ultimately difficult to ignore. This collection represents some of the latest critical scholarship on the history of universities in Canada, and we would first like to acknowledge the contributors for their thoughtful reflection and research. We would also like to thank Len Husband, acquisitions editor at the University of Toronto Press, for his expert guidance of the manuscript through to publication; Wayne Herrington, associate managing editor at the Press, for leading the editing stages of the collection; and Barry Norris for his careful copy editing. We also acknowledge the anonymous reviewers who provided insightful feedback. Gratitude is extended to the Don Harron family, who granted permission for the publication of the image in the Introduction. We would like to dedicate this book to the Canadian university men and women, students, professors, administrators, and staff, and their families who have ever gone to war on the battlefield or home front and who in various ways had their lives changed. Their sacrifices will never be forgotten. Paul Stortz E. Lisa Panayotidis

CULTURES, COMMUNITIES, AND CONFLICT Histories of Canadian Universities and War

This page intentionally left blank

Introduction: History of Canadian Universities and War paul stortz and e. lisa panayotidis

Uninitiated readers of the history of North American and European higher education may see universities as monolithic, stoic, and impenetrably bureaucratic – as immovable as the brick and mortar of which they are built. The field is replete with descriptive chronologies of impressive research accomplishments, rising student numbers, fruitful connections to community, rationed and accountable administrations, and expanding campuses reflecting ingenuity, prosperity, and physical grandeur. Over the past several years, however, hagiographic chronicles have given way to more argumentation and interpretation typical of methodologies of social histories. Analogous in size to mini-cities, universities are influenced by social, political, economic, and intellectual forces driven by contested motivations, interests, and behaviours of historical agents. Questions are asked about the marginalization of women on campus; internal political structures and discipline construction; evolving pedagogical, scholarly, and research practices; the public utility of knowledge over the decades; subjective connections of space to intellectual and social climates on campus; disputed definitions of ‘democracy’ as applied to the institution’s bureaucratic and intellectual evolution; student and professorial academic freedom; the formation of professorial and student identities – the list goes on. These inquiries help shape our evolving understanding of the capricious and interpretive socio-intellectual world we inhabit both on and off campus. The university is no longer faceless. As embodied in students, professors, administrators, and the staff of the institution, the protagonists subjectively construct the conditions in which they work. Revisionist and post-revisionist critical and theoretical reinterpretations of historical universities might help bridge the gap between books about universities

4

Cultures, Communities, and Conflict

that sit on the coffee table and those that are rigorously studied in the classroom and graduate seminars.1 Historiographical critiques2 and certain bibliographies on universities, students, and professors3 counter Whiggish claims of proud institutional heritages and reveal a multitude of critical approaches to university development. In-depth historical inquiries challenge the popular notion that universities, as homogeneous cloisters of intellectuals in large, faceless buildings, simply grant degrees. An efficacious strategy to peel away the historical nuances of the university is to study the institution under conditions and circumstances that were unusual to its standard operations. By approaching the historical university in environments that challenged its comfortable and familiar routines of teaching and research, one can further uncover the institution’s historical cultures and mandates. In moments of crisis, the university’s inner workings and intellectual and social activities, agendas, and lives can be more clearly understood, as can its lifeblood, existence, and purpose. One such challenging environment in which Canadian universities have had to operate is war. Bringing widespread social, political, and economic upheaval, war thrusts society into a cauldron of harried activity mixed with introspection and uncertainty. War is brutal, chaotic, and unpredictable. It disrupts communities, institutions, and governments, changes intellectual, social, political, and religious outlooks, strains resources, and re-envisions ideas of citizenship and nationhood. The university, with its intimate and integral links to the community, is susceptible to the vagaries and vicissitudes of drastically changed conditions. How are the understandings, meanings, and experiences of universities altered by their exposure to such conflagrations? War challenges the monolithic and often impenetrable image of the behemoth university and its social and intellectual cultures. During times of war, how did the historical actors on campus construct and experience negotiated intellectual and social interactions? Did the latitude for individual thought and action become less independent and autonomous in the face of increasingly constrictive and exacting mandates on the part of the university and government? What was war’s long-term impact on the university and society in promoting intellectual (for example, artistic and scholarly), social (the production of good citizens and an educated populace), and material (research in applied science) ‘advancement’? For the twenty-first-century historian, many works written during or shortly after the wars of the previous century serve as excellent sources

Introduction

5

of the effects, short and long term, localized and broad, of war on higher education. Some are practically both primary and secondary sources. Charles Franklin Thwing’s The American Colleges and Universities in the Great War, for example, offers an overview of the role of students in recruitment efforts, the system’s changing finances, and the promotion of science and scientific research on campus during the First World War. The lingering effects of the war, Thwing writes, were the legacy of the student soldier and the institutional strains of returning soldiers and the accompanying enrolment boom. Nonetheless the public, especially, began to see the university in clearer terms, regarding it as ‘worthy’ of its enduring stature. With its successful mobilization to help defeat the enemy, the university ‘[came] forth … with power increased and prestige augmented. The university has not only proved to be humanistic, but, what is far more important, human.’4 In a 1917 publication, British Universities and the War, university presidents and chancellors speak of the value of the university to both citizens and the state. Because of the war, the university has become ‘self-aware’: the vice-chancellor of the University of Liverpool states that ‘[t]he records show … how the Universities in Britain, old and new alike, have met the nation’s need … For the first time in [the universities’] history they have mobilised their whole strength. The nation has discovered Universities, and the Universities have discovered themselves.’5 To observers close to the time, however, the effects of the First World War on universities become murky, complicated by unreliable funding sources, devastated student numbers due to battlefield deaths, and intense political uncertainty left in the wake of total war.6 The two World Wars understandably were seen by contemporary scholars of universities as all-encompassing endeavours that changed the institution fundamentally. A host of other works since then has argued for the intense power of war in shifting university mission, practices, activities, environments, and cultures.7 During wartime, universities in Canada similarly revised their missions and mandates. Communities, families, and industry strove to retain at least a modicum of normality in daily living. For the university, however, with its more contained physical and spatial presence and its narrower scope of activity and purpose, nothing could remain normal. To what extent was the university a social and political microcosm of the larger community or, as immersed in unique cultures of research, teaching, and intellectual pursuit, did the university chart its own inimitable path in responding to war? The Canadian university’s response to twentieth-century war was a tangible and intellectual mobilization that

6

Cultures, Communities, and Conflict

highlighted the institution’s immediate practicability. The university often became an instrument in the promotion of national agendas, and its place in society as a whole fell under increased scrutiny. For example, a three-day series of meetings held in June 1939 at St Lawrence College in New York State indicated the rapidly changing nature of higher education in North America. Attended mostly by university professors and middle-level bureaucrats, businessmen, administrators, and consultants, the Conference on Canadian-American Affairs expressed a growing sentiment within higher education for intellectual and academic cooperation and communication between the United States and Canada, but the focus of discussion soon turned to a much larger subject of worldly significance. The image of the university as a sheltered, geographically inhibited entity was being eclipsed, many in attendance argued, by a new responsibility – namely, that the university should assume some leadership in international politics, trade, security, and defence.8 The conference, which occurred just a few weeks before the German invasion of Poland, reflected an evolving era for Canadian higher education. In the years before 1914 and in the interwar period up to 1939, the university was characterized by almost prosaic and complacent administrative and intellectual activity. In contrast, the First World War saw many universities become a vibrant and efficacious intellectual and military tool. And now, at the outbreak of the Second World War, universities again galvanized to assume a prominent role in international affairs, their campuses hotbeds of activity in student life, institutional operations, teaching, and research. No longer strictly academic institutions, Canadian universities became powerful, multifaceted organizations united by a common goal. As University of Toronto president Henry John Cody remarked in the 1939 President’s Report, the university was one of the oldest institutions in Western civilisation – surviving ‘dynasties and kingdoms and revolutions … it has adapted itself to the needs of changing ages.’ The university, he observed, is a ‘living organism.’9 The universities reaffirmed their integral academic and moral purpose by adapting their facilities, finances, administrators, staff, professors, students, and curriculum – indeed, their entire structure and function – to the contingencies of wartime. Henry John Cody often spoke of his university, the largest in the country, as mobilizing its ‘vast’ resources to ‘struggle against reaction, tyranny, and cruelty.’10 Throughout the war Cody argued that the university was a moral and energizing spiritual force, noting in the 1941 President’s Report, for example, that ‘[e]very man and woman, young and old, has a responsibility to make

Introduction

7

his or her special contribution to the crushing of the “evil things” against which we fight and to the reconstruction of a world of peace, justice, and brotherhood.’ To that end, Cody also commented about the presence of the Canadian Officers’ Training Corps (COTC) on campus, teaching staff and students seconded to ‘various combatant services or in special government departments,’ lecture halls transformed for military use, research work abruptly directed towards war-related technological advancement, the alteration of curriculum to promote military agendas and strategies, and the role of on-campus women’s organizations headed by the Red Cross and the Women’s War Service Committee. Cody remarked that ‘[a] spirit of earnestness and seriousness has pervaded the whole institution. There must be a few, if any, who do not now realize that this war is a struggle for life or death.’11 He wanted to see the bar raised on the mission of the contemporary university, a task he admitted was arduous but well within the spiritual and practical abilities and parameters of the university. Cody was not alone in his confidence in the university as a war machine. President Leonard S. Klinck of the University of British Columbia was equally enthusiastic about the university’s effectiveness in the war effort, claiming that its role was to safeguard the ‘ideals of sanity and tolerance [with] unprejudiced science and humanised scholarship.’12 According to historian James D. Cameron, St Francis Xavier University in Antigonish, Nova Scotia, ‘placed itself heart and soul behind the Allied cause … [the campus] was extensively militarized by the war effort not unlike the university’s response to war-time contingencies in 1914.’13 In 1948, L.G. Thomas, assistant professor of history at the University of Alberta, observed that ‘[w]ar is the negation of everything the university stands for, of everything the university seeks to preserve. War is destructive, the university is, or should be, creative … In a sense the university and war represent the eternal opposition of good and evil.’14 The First World War held more surprises for the Canadian public and universities than did the Second. Total war was foreign to the sensibilities of Canadians. Called to action in 1914, many on campus felt the fervour of responsibility and patriotism. University presidents called for their institutions to fight as a unified moral unit. University of Toronto president Robert Falconer exclaimed: ‘[t]his is the greatest of moral struggles. Are there to be free democracies who only need to police themselves against the force attacks of the barbarous? Or will force tower arrogantly above freedom and enslave intellect?’15 A wry and poignant satire in the University of Toronto’s student publication, Evening Blast (Figure 1),

8

Cultures, Communities, and Conflict

Figure 1: ‘How things have changed,’ Evening Blast (1916).

shows how routine and innocence were replaced by discipline and nightmares.16 With the ‘fate of nations … in the balance,’ the war rhetoric of the universities was majestic, hyperbolized, and proud. The institution was anthropomorphized. In 1918 Henry Marshall Tory, president of the University of Alberta noted: [The war’s] effects on the university was much like its effect on the many of the university men who went through the fiery furnace, seven times heated, and yet came back. They went in boys and they came out men, who had looked at death full in the eye. The university was six years old when the war broke out, a veritable academic infant; she emerged full grown, not in years, but in type of experience which, once in a generation, takes the place of mere lapse of time. She gained in those four years a poise and assurance that forty years of peace might not have brought. She had stood in the battle-line beside her older and slightly superior sisters of the east and of the older British world, and had made good.17

This collection is centred within the socio-intellectual and socioacademic history of higher education. A voluminous amount of literature

Introduction

9

discusses the history of war and warfare in Canada from a wide variety of political, economic, and military approaches, but we seek to explore the subjective and interpretive contexts and effects of war on the ideas, cultures, structures, and activities of a selection of Canadian Englishlanguage universities. One purpose of this collection on a particular aspect of the social history of universities is to challenge the stereotypes of the university as an elite ‘ivory tower’ divorced from the realities of regional or national life. As well, the ‘town and gown’ view of the university as an academic cloister or island radically distinct in character and values from the community that surrounds it, and the sense that the development of the Canadian university prior to the advent of the multiversity in the 1960s was homogeneous in its mandates, purposes, activities, and culture, are also drawn into question. The collection also challenges the notion that the university – or parts of it – although important, was not essential to a society or nation; that it fulfilled a supportive role only and was populated by intellectuals who demurely followed eccentric and idiosyncratic agendas. Universities were not always nor completely the paragons of morality their presidents avowed, but to ignore their continuing and deep historical impact on society is specious. This collection places the historical university in myriad contexts by asking about its potential to effect change. The university embodied uniquely vibrant social and intellectual environments, paradigms, spaces, and cultures that both reflected and helped produce constructions of Canadian citizenship, political and industrial practices, and community mores and values. The historical purview of this collection spans the Boer War, the First and Second World Wars, and the Vietnam War, as seen by participants on specific university campuses. The discussions and arguments resonate among each other, exploring the intellectual and academic practices, structures, and cultures of the university as negotiable, contingent, dynamic, and fluid. Barry M. Moody’s chapter, ‘Educating for War and Peace at Acadia University: The Great War Generation,’ starts off the collection by discussing the nuances of student and intellectual cultures at Acadia from the Boer War to the reconstruction period after the First World War. Moody contextualizes the participation of members of the university in social, emotional, intellectual, and especially religious campus cultures. Arguing that Acadia’s approach to the war was ‘infinitely … multilayered,’ Moody discusses the intransigent and contested Baptist-led evangelical social gospel influence that undergirded a social culture at the university that was variously imbued with romanticism and

10

Cultures, Communities, and Conflict

cynicism, hope and despair, jingoism and altruism. The sense of purpose on campus was extraordinarily personal, which provoked deeply ambivalent rationales of what the war was about and how and why the university should wage it. War is catastrophic and can provoke drastic changes in institutions. But Mark Kuhlberg’s chapter, ‘An Acute Yet Brief Bout of “returned-soldieritis”: The University of Toronto’s Faculty of Forestry after the First World War,’ disputes the notion that the First World War contributed to profound changes, at least in one particular faculty’s culture, programs, and policies. Kuhlberg looks at a young, small, and tightly knit academic unit at the University of Toronto and suggests that the war had immediate deep and horrific consequences for the student body. Although Forestry certainly pulled its weight during the war, much of the war’s severe and tragic effects ultimately were ephemeral. The experience of the returning student-soldier, replete with dreadful psychological trauma, stood in contrast to the sense in the faculty of business as usual later in the 1920s. Historically, war is seen intuitively as shattering lives and stressing institutions, but by 1930 the First World War was but a distant memory for many in the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Forestry. The lived experiences and identities of students strongly defined the university’s social atmosphere in time of both peace and war.18 The essential debates about the history of university students and war that focus on students’ involvement as officers and enlisted men and their sacrifice on the battlefield have been well documented. In both World Wars, the COTC was predominant on university campuses, signalling a new, temporary level of seriousness in student and intellectual cultures.19 During the wars, entire academic programs were revised drastically to accommodate students who left for the battlefield, and returning veterans, especially after the Second World War, were a major consideration when planning curriculum, registration, finances, and convocation policy.20 During the First World War, for example, acknowledging the need for the continued education of students who went overseas to fight, the University of Alberta instituted the ‘Khaki University,’ which, in the latter stages of the war, brought extended education to more than 50,000 soldier-students at army camps and hospitals in England.21 In many of the older histories, much of the literature on university students by default refers to men, with women usually mentioned only as ancillary to the core details. Since the 1970s, however, ‘revisionist’ methodologies in the scholarship on university history have led to more inter-

Introduction 11

pretive, thematic approaches that argue for the need for close analysis of the people and ideas behind the subjective social conditions on university campuses. As part of that change, female students have become of increasing interest to historical study – appropriately, since women now are the majority of students on campus, at least in the liberal arts and humanities. By the end of the twentieth century, women had a far greater voice in student and university operations, affairs, and culture than ever before. The historiography of female students, however, continues to investigate the patriarchal cultures on campus, which marginalized women. Lee Stewart’s ‘It’s Up to You’, Margaret Gillett’s We Walked Very Warily, and Ann Rochon Ford’s A Path Not Strewn with Roses22 are examples of a flood of scholarship about women in Canadian universities that concentrates on shifting notions of femininity as researchers uncover the subjective lives of women students, their sororities, and the complex struggles of women in higher education in the twentieth century. Students’ lives were culturally negotiated on campus among diverse cohorts according to factors such as age, past education, background, class, ethnicity, expectations, individual values, and programs and years of study, but gender clearly underlay much of the daily university experience. This was never truer than when the university went to war. Women students took up the home front ‘work of war’ by re-envisioning their educational studies to include new notions of femininity – and, by extension, masculinity. Essentialized identities and subjectivities were constantly recrafted. This gendered higher education is discussed, for example, in Ruth Roach Pierson’s work on women students during the Second World War and in an article with Nancy Kiefer, which concludes that, although war work was crucial for women university students, it yielded little sustained change.23 In comparison to peacetime contexts, scholarship on the history of women university students during war is slim.24 In this collection, however, both Linda J. Quiney and Sara Z. Burke illustrate the ways in which the rhetoric of late-nineteenth-century maternalist ideology, the hyperbolized language of war and patriotism, and concerns over coeducation tried to force women students into traditional and formal social roles in the name of war. In ‘“We must not neglect our duty”: Enlisting Women Undergraduates for the Red Cross during the Great War,’ Quiney studies three universities where women on campus were pressured to take part in supportive organizations, in particular the Canadian Red Cross. The appeals for their participation seemed a perfect fit for the students’ developing traditional ‘maternalistic’ character.

12

Cultures, Communities, and Conflict

Although women students’ voluntary labour, fundraising, and financial contributions were essential to sustaining Red Cross campaigns, as time went on the women strove to be involved on their own terms. An uneven pattern of service emerged where some groups of women students remained active in the larger programs while others felt the need to resign due to a reordering of educational priorities. Quiney concludes that women undergraduates did not ‘neglect their duty’; rather, they sought instead to reinterpret their place on campus, which involved a ‘more youthful and modern interpretation of patriotic support.’ In ‘Dancing into Education: The First World War and the Roots of Change in Women’s Higher Education,’ Burke takes a longitudinal view of undergraduate women students at five universities and whether the war had a lasting effect on promoting the acceptance of coeducation. The gendered practices and policies on campus between the late nineteenth century and the first decades of the twentieth century preclude the argument that the First World War had a deep impact on social and intellectual attitudes towards women students. Burke demonstrates that women students’ prominence and assertiveness before and during the war distressed many administrators and male students and prompted continued calls for academic segregation. Despite their participating in a host of wartime supportive activities, systemic social and cultural patterns of intransigent sexism against women undergraduates persisted. ‘Masculinity’ and ‘femininity’ are contentious gendered categories of social and cultural analysis. In ‘Manly Heroes: The University of Saskatchewan and the First World War,’ James M. Pitsula explores these highly interpretive concepts in relation to war, looking at how discourses quickly turned into contested ideas and practices of patriotism and chivalry. Rhetorical expressions of Medieval Revivalism in Britain prompted new considerations of ‘manliness’ on the university campus. Discourses about ‘honour’ and ‘gallantry’ in mobilizing the university for war did not occur without considerable and often heated debate. At the University of Saskatchewan, opposing views of the war centred on notions of duty that were vigorously countered by the university’s realizing the immediate and practical need to support fully a victorious campaign overseas. While some on campus argued that the university’s participation in the war was ‘the supreme test of manhood,’ the horrors that the student-soldiers met could not be simply glamorized or romanticized through broad expressions of ‘destiny’ and ‘glory.’ Although teaching and learning practices and experiences are rarely

Introduction

13

mentioned in historical studies on universities and war, larger issues of education for social change and ‘international well-being’ dominate many US studies, particularly those that focus on faculties of education. Some scholars suggested that the World Wars were a clear indication that the universities were failing abjectly to instil democratic and moralistic principles and that, accordingly, efforts to teach critical thinking in universities needed to be better supported.25 In Canadian universities, the social utility of the liberal arts in extraordinary wartime circumstances was questioned. Given the situation, programs seen as superfluous were cut back and others were accelerated to accommodate the overseas secondments of students; classrooms were occupied by the COTC and ancillary military and medical associations; and lecture and laboratory funding and supplies were reduced for all but the most important war-related courses. Universities also contributed to the war effort through the invention and refinement of scientific, technological, industrial, psychological, and military applications. Indeed, teaching was often subsumed to these demands – in some faculties and departments, research during wartime became the sine qua non of university activity. During the Second World War, the pure and applied sciences were reoriented to teach the new wartime technologies. Government, industry, and the larger universities initiated complex, time-consuming, manpower-heavy (the vast majority of academics doing wartime research were men),26 and costly research projects that, in varying degrees, saw impressive results on the battlefield. Many of the products of Canadian research, such as vulcanized rubber, radar and sonar, nylon, and treatment of motion sickness and post-traumatic stress disorders, had useful applications after the war as well. Later industrial or medical applications aside, work on chemicals such as mustard gas and botulinus toxins was undertaken in select university laboratories, mostly supported by government grants that were given innocuous names so as not to stir public curiosity. Wartime research became so important that it could transform the mandate of the university itself. With the end of the Second World War on the horizon and the university research machinery in full operation, couched by several pages of wartime accomplishments, President Cody of the University of Toronto proudly declared that ‘the word research everywhere resounds.’27 Despite the complaints of some academics that their own research programs had become sidetracked or marginalized, the university never hesitated to offer an extensive accounting of

14

Cultures, Communities, and Conflict

its development of theoretical and practical applications for war use. The research projects that were conducted during the Second World War had long-term effects on the university’s funding, profile, and social and physical environments and conditions.28 Yet, although the Second World War had a stronger impact on shaping Canadian university research and programs than any other war, James Hull offers an important reminder that debates about research were rife during the First World War as well. In ‘“A stern matron who stands beside the chair in every council of war or industry”: The First World War and the Development of Scientific Research at Canadian Universities,’ Hull suggests that, in fact, the momentum for the creation, organization, and implementation of research agendas, facilities, programs, and projects was already under way well before the war. The expansion of research facilities and the discourses of research shared among various academic, public, and private stakeholders was a firm confirmation of the perceived importance of research and scientific pursuits of years before. The long-term historical impact of wartime research on society and industry is both interpretive and variant. In ‘Canadian University Scientists and Military Technology: The Challenge of Total War, 1939– 1945,’ Donald Howard Avery demonstrates that the energy, money, and personnel involved in war research were substantial, and that the efficaciousness of research projects was a watershed in the academic and public acceptance of ‘big’ research in universities. In discussing the complex nature and products of the research projects, Avery highlights the large and well-coordinated efforts of the universities and government and the intricate involvement of formal professional and research associations and committees. The alliances among the university scientists and government researchers proceeded in conjunction and consultation with British and US academics and institutes. An impressive array was formed of research networks, contacts, and hierarchies of scientists in the Allied countries. Canada’s research prowess came of age with a new type of university scientist who, as a recognized producer of applied knowledge, helped entrench research as integral to society, government, and the university. When considering the basic functions of the historical university – teaching and research – the agent that comes to mind, especially in the latter activity, is the professoriate, which appears ubiquitously in university histories as helping to construct, implement, and guide institutional and academic policies. In society and the public’s imagi-

Introduction

15

nation, professors historically have been portrayed variously between the extremes of moral leaders, paragons of knowledge, and experts of policy, and irrelevant intellectuals best left to the claustrophobic confines of libraries and laboratories. In many histories, however, professors’ lives, their attitudes towards their work, and their personal and professional values, expectations, and motivations are glossed over or completely ignored. Recent research into the socio-intellectual identities of professors, ignited by the life-writing of women professors since the 1970s, attempts to unravel the inner workings of the academic life and to explore the subjective and mediated identities and positioning of scholars, researchers, and teachers.29 In this collection, an issue fundamental to a critical understanding of Canadian professors’ lived experiences during war is in the context of academic freedom. In ‘Academic Freedom in Wartime: The Canadian Experience in the Twentieth Century,’ Michiel Horn examines public perceptions and media constructions of the social place and intellectual role of the professor, especially when the professor was deemed to have transgressed the limits of his or her knowledge and professional responsibilities and thus risked offending community sensibilities, decorum, and mores. In wartime, when social and political standards of thought and expression are heightened, the public and professional expectations of the professor become concurrently more demanding. Horn looks at several wartime case studies that tested academic freedom. The utterances of professors, many of which would seem innocuous on the surface, were inflamed by agendas and passions in the media and members of society and government. What public statements are acceptable in delicate and troubled times, especially when discourses of patriotism are diffusive and hegemonic? Criticism of the British Empire and the wartime cause, especially by a community figure as prominent as a professor, was anathema to a Canada that was ‘fighting the good fight.’ The case of refugee professors in Canada before and during the Second World War represents another kind of academic freedom – not of speech, but of pursuit of livelihood and the protection of one’s own life. In ‘Refugee Professors and the University of Toronto during the Second World War,’ Paul Stortz focuses on refugee professors from Europe and their plight when looking for work in Canadian universities in the 1930s and early 1940s. The reaction of Canadian professors to the dire circumstances of their colleagues overseas was based on a complex combination of logic, economic and financial realities, moral

16

Cultures, Communities, and Conflict

considerations, university and community needs, and ethnic exclusivities and racism. Universities and professors ultimately failed to address adequately the egregious situation where a refugee professor’s plea for succour, if not rejected, could have avoided the death of the applicant who was left stranded in Europe. The University of Toronto hired at least twenty émigré professors between the rise of Nazism in Germany to the end of the war, but it was not always easy, and considering the circumstances, not enough. The collection continues with ‘Universities, Students, and the Conduct of War in Canada and Britain: A Comparative Perspective,’ by Paul Axelrod and Charles Levi. In line with the discussion of works on Western universities during wartime, such as Willis Rudy’s Total War and Twentieth-Century Higher Learning,30 Axelrod and Levi survey published material on how the two World Wars affected universities in Canada and Britain. Covering topics such as student life and mobilization, curriculum, research activity, and government involvement in university affairs, Axelrod and Levi highlight the myriad institutional similarities and differences in the breadth and penetration of wartime constraints and contingencies. Imbedded in the uncertain conditions brought on by war, universities in both countries strove to provide what they could with the available resources. The challenge was to find a way to support the war effort while remaining solvent and running efficiently and effectively. The final chapter brings the collection up to the 1960s, when national and international tensions during the Cold War were forcing change in society as well as in the university. Canada was undergoing a demographic boom, and Canadians were enjoying rising prosperity and heady feelings of nationalism – symbolized by the adoption of a new national flag in 1965 and the success of Montreal’s Expo 67 World’s Fair. Many people felt a refreshed turn in federal politics in 1968, and several commentators regarded Canada then as an optimistic, vibrant country. Displacing part of this energy, however, was growing discontent – seen in such developments as a coalescing Quiet Revolution in Quebec and labour unrest in some cities – over what was perceived as unequal social and economic development in Canada and elsewhere. As well, people began to voice their opposition to the perpetration of foreign wars at the expense of human rights. These protests also emerged from the universities, and radical social and intellectual cultures were evident on campuses in the latter years of the decade. While some students organized events aimed at garnering media and public attention,

Introduction

17

others chose quieter means or none at all. The range of engagement by professors was similarly diverse, with activist and pacifist stances on many campuses roughly reflecting the opinion of the general public about the Cold War.31 In ‘War and the Concept of Generation: The International Teach-ins at the University of Toronto, 1965–1968,’ Catherine Gidney addresses the galvanizing force of the Vietnam War on student protest movements. The percolating anger on campus towards political leaders and the ‘Establishment’ was vital in forging youth identities and experiences. ‘Teach-ins,’ however, were not uniformly embraced: debates arose about the actions and intentions of teach-ins as forms of education, protest, and propaganda. Gidney places the dichotomies that shaped sixties’ university protest movements – students versus authority, youth versus adults – under scrutiny, and problematizes the notion of ‘generation’ as a legitimate and effective category of historical analysis. In doing so, she offers for debate ‘two important and equally powerful aspects of the sixties: myth and historical experience.’ War shaped the experiences of people on Canadian university campuses in the latter years of the nineteenth century and into the twentieth century. As war affected Canadian society, the lives of administrators, professors, and students were interrupted and repositioned. During the Boer War, the World Wars, the Cold War, and, indeed, to this day, universities’ responses to industrial, political, and economic directives and circumstances have fluctuated between alacrity and resistance, reflecting the prevailing social mood and community and regional interests. Clearly, the university has proved in times of war to be sensitive and highly adaptable to the needs of national defence, but not without substantial debate about the nature and extent of Canada’s practical and moral role in dire international affairs. This collection places Canadian universities in extraordinary times. The historical picture, of course, is far from complete. Throughout the twentieth century, universities became increasingly ‘complex,’ if one is allowed to use such a contextual, comparative, and interpretive concept. Since the Second World War, the student body has become more multicultural, with an increasingly prominent and multifarious voice in university affairs. In larger numbers, women are enrolled in more programs and faculties, including the sciences and professions, as well as in the upper administrative ranks. The professoriate’s authority on campus as moral and religious leaders has waned, but it is still considered a fundamental arbiter of knowledge and intellectual leader. Academic

18

Cultures, Communities, and Conflict

disciplines have become more specialized, fragmented, and minute; administrative structures have developed along formal and departmentalized business-like models; and budgets have grown larger, more detailed, and more accountable. Research programs, especially in the sciences, have expanded in size and funding to the point of determining much of the public profile of universities. In the context of war, now and in the future, any of these characteristics of the modern English-Canadian university could be analysed and further expanded upon by a close look at French-Canadian institutions or the numerous newer universities that have been established in Canada over the past forty years. Universities’ approaches to the Korean War of the 1950s or the recent Iraqi and current Afghanistan war, as examples, as well as to the smaller but no less serious civil wars and uprisings that populate headlines seemingly on a daily basis, would be a welcome subject for further study. Indeed, historical research could be conducted on the approaches of universities and their students, professors, and administrators to wars in which Canada was not directly involved as a national focus but its citizens, industries, or peacekeeping forces played some role. As socio-intellectual and academic spaces and places devoted to the production, examination, and dissemination of ideas, universities have offered and will continue to offer critical understandings of why wars occur and how humans and their institutions respond to them.

NOTES 1 Some notable works on single institutions that set the foundation for the study of universities in Canada include A.G. Bedford, The University of Winnipeg: A History of the Founding Colleges (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1976); Michael Hayden, Seeking a Balance: The University of Saskatchewan, 1907–1982 (Vancouver: UBC Press, 1983); Michiel Horn, York University: The Way Must Be Tried (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2008); Hugh Johnston, Radical Campus: The Making of Simon Fraser University (Vancouver: Douglas & McIntyre, 2005); Hilda Neatby, Queen’s University: Volume I, 1841–1917, ed. Frederick W. Gibson and Roger Graham (Montreal; Kingston, ON: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1978); and James Pitsula, As One Who Serves: The Making of the University of Regina (Montreal; Kingston, ON: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2006). One of the most effective histories that ties in social, economic, and political developments at the university with socio-historical developments off campus is John G. Reid, Mount Allison University, Volume I: 1843–1914 (Toronto: University of

Introduction

2

3

4

5

6

7

19

Toronto Press, 1984). Studies of social and intellectual cultures and relations among several institutions include Paul Axelrod and John Reid, eds., Youth, University, and Canadian Society (Montreal; Kingston, ON: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1989); Catherine Gidney, A Long Eclipse: The Liberal Protestant Establishment and the Canadian University, 1920–1970 (Montreal; Kingston, ON: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2004); Michiel Horn, Academic Freedom: A History (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1999); A.B. McKillop, Matters of Mind: The University in Ontario, 1791–1951 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1994); and Paul Stortz and E. Lisa Panayotidis, eds., Historical Identities: The Professoriate in Canada (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2006). See, for example, Nancy Sheehan, ‘History of Higher Education in Canada,’ Canadian Journal of Higher Education 15, no. 1 (1985): 25–38; Paul Axelrod and John G. Reid, ‘Introduction,’ in Axelrod and Reid, eds., Youth, University, and Canadian Society, xi–xxx; and Paul Stortz, ‘Editor’s Introduction,’ Ontario Journal of Higher Education 1, no. 3 (1995). See two of the larger bibliographies related to higher education: Axelrod and Reid, eds., Youth, University, and Canadian Society, 343–68; and Stortz and Panayotidis, eds., Historical Identities, 381–412. Charles Franklin Thwing, The American Colleges and Universities in the Great War: 1914–1919 (New York: Macmillan, 1920), 251. See also Parke Rexford Kolbe, The Colleges in War Time and After: A Contemporary Account of the Effect of the War upon Higher Education in America (New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1919). Another work written during wartime is J. Hillis Miller and Dorothy V.N. Brooks, The Role of Higher Education in War and After (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1944). British Universities and the War: A Record and Its Meaning, with a Preface by Rt Hon H.A.L. Fisher, MP (President of the Board of Education) (London: The Field and Queen [Horace Cox], 1917), 20–1. See, for example, Paul J. Novgorotsev, Russian Schools and Universities in the World War, in Economic and Social History of the World War, gen. ed. James T. Shotwell (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1929), 133–239; for a comparative analysis that includes England, Germany, Scotland, and Prussia, see John Burnet, Higher Education and The War (London: Macmillan and Company, 1917). See V.R. Cardozier, Colleges and Universities in World War II (Westport, CT: Praeger, 1993). Cardozier writes that ‘[t]he war had significant impact on colleges and universities, the effects of which, in different ways, continued to be felt for years afterward.’ This is followed by a list of changes, including those related to universities’ financial conditions and to ‘academic concepts, the aims of education, the introduction of new programs and

20

8

9 10 11 12 13 14

Cultures, Communities, and Conflict curricula, the measurement of learning, the nature of teaching, administration, and changes to campus culture’ (211, passim). See also George Lynn Cross, The University of Oklahoma and World War II: A Personal Account, 1941–1946 (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1980). International studies deal with an extremely wide range of topics associated with universities and war. A selected collection includes George F. Zook, ‘How the Colleges Went to War,’ Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 231 (January 1944): 1–7; H.L. Donovan, ‘Observations of German Universities in the American War Zone,’ Peabody Journal of Education 26, no. 2 (1948): 70–5; R.D. Kollewijn, ‘The Dutch Universities under Nazi Domination,’ Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 245 (May 1946): 118–28; C. Sanders, ‘The Australian Universities and the War,’ History of Education Journal 2, no. 4 (1951): 111–18; E.B. Butler, ‘University Students, Staff, and Recurrent Grants, Pre-War and Post-War,’ Journal of the Royal Statistical Society, Series A (General) 125, no. 1 (1962): 118–43; and the more recent David Phillips, ‘War-Time Planning for the “Re-Education” of Germany: Professor E.R. Dodds and the Germany Universities,’ Oxford Review of Education 12, no. 2 (1986): 195–208; and Uri Cohen, ‘Conflict in Academia: The Hebrew University during the War of Independence, 1947– 49,’ Journal of Israeli History 22, no. 2 (2003): 96–129. A study of a particular service at the university – the library – is Marek Sroka, ‘The University of Cracow Library under Nazi Occupation: 1939–1945,’ Libraries and Culture 34, no. 1 (1999): 1–18, where the Nazis tried to subvert the intentions of the library for political gain. See Robin S. Harris, A History of Higher Education in Canada: 1663–1960 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1976), 339–50, for an outline of the conference based on A.B. Corey, R.G. Trotter, and W.W. McLaren, eds., Conference on Canadian-American Affairs: 1939 Proceedings. University of Toronto, President’s Report: June 1939 (Toronto: University of Toronto, 1939), 19. University of Toronto, President’s Report: June 1944 (Toronto: University of Toronto, 1944), 1. University of Toronto, President’s Report: June 1941 (Toronto: University of Toronto, 1941), 6. Harry T. Logan, Tuum Est: A History of the University of British Columbia (Vancouver: University of British Columbia, 1958), 139. James D. Cameron, For the People: A History of St. Francis Xavier University (Montreal; Kingston, ON: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1996), 257–8. L.G. Thomas, The University of Alberta in the War of 1939–1945 (Edmonton: University of Alberta, 1948), 5.

Introduction

21

15 Robert Falconer, University of Toronto, 29 September 1914, cited in McKillop, Matters of Mind, 254. 16 ‘How Things Have Changed,’ Evening Blast 87, no. 2 (4 December 1916): 1. The Evening Blast was the satirical publication of the University of Toronto’s Undergraduate Parliament, which morphed into the Students’ Administrative Council (now the University of Toronto Students’ Union). In contrast, see the parodies of student caricature in E. Lisa Panayotidis and Paul Stortz, ‘Visual Interpretations, Cartoons, and Caricatures of Student and Youth Cultures in University Yearbooks, 1898–1930,’ Journal of the Canadian Historical Association 19, no. 1 (2008): 195–227. 17 H.M. Tory, cited in W.H. Alexander, The University of Alberta: A Retrospect, 1908–1929 (Edmonton: University Printing Press, 1929), 22. 18 For works on student cultures, see Paul Axelrod, Making a Middle Class: Student Life in English Canada during the Thirties (Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1990); Gidney, A Long Eclipse, which analyses the lingering impact of religion among students and student associations in the twentieth century; and Charles Morden Levi, Comings and Goings: University Students in Canadian Society, 1854–1973 (Montreal; Kingston, ON: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2003), who explores the student experience of the University College Literary and Athletic Society of the University of Toronto. Urban and academic spaces as constructions and reflections of student activist cultures are examined in E. Lisa Panayotidis and Paul Stortz, ‘Intellectual Space, Image, and Identities in the Historical Campus: Helen Kemp’s Map of the University of Toronto, 1932,’ Journal of the Canadian Historical Association 15, no. 1 (2004): 123–52; and idem, ‘Contestation and Conflict: The Yearbook Torontonensis as an “Appalling Sahara,” 1890–1915,’ History of Education 39, no. 1 (2010): 35–54. The effect of war on student cultures is also discussed in A.B. McKillop, ‘Marching as to War: Elements of Ontario Undergraduate Culture, 1880– 1914’ (75–93); and Barry M. Moody, ‘Acadia and the Great War’ (143–60), both in Axelrod and Reid, eds., Youth, University, and Canadian Society. See also McKillop, Matters of Mind, chaps. 10, 18. 19 The COTC gets a considerable amount of attention in institutional histories that deal with the World Wars. A recent discussion can be found in Andrew Theobald, ‘Western’s War: A Study of an Ontario Canadian Officers’ Training Corps Contingent, 1939–1945,’ Ontario History 97, no. 1 (2006): 53–67. 20 For changes in universities partially brought on by returning students or veterans seeking to upgrade their education, see Peter Neary, ‘Canadian Universities and Canadian Veterans of World War II,’ in Peter Neary and

22

21

22

23

24

Cultures, Communities, and Conflict Jack Granatstein, eds., The Veteran’s Charter and Post-World War II (Montreal; Kingston, ON: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1998). Tim Cook, ‘From Destruction to Construction: The Khaki University in Canada, 1917–1919,’ Journal of Canadian Studies 37, no. 1 (2002): 109–43. Several international studies comment on the students as the lifeblood of the war effort. The White Rose Movement in Nazi Germany saw numerous student resisters to Hitler summarily executed, while in Japan in 1944, according to one study, 83 per cent of all kamikaze pilots were university students who carried with them a seeming ‘self-confidence [and] scientific sophistication.’ See Ben-Ami Shillony, ‘Universities and Students in Wartime Japan,’ Journal of Asian Studies 45, no. 4 (1986): 783. See also Béla Bodó, ‘Foreign Students in Nazi Germany,’ East European Quarterly 38, no. 1 (2003): 19–50; Geoffrey Giles, ‘German Students and Higher Education Policy in the Second World War,’ Central European History 17 (December 1984): 330–54; Phillopp Witkop, ed., German Students’ War Letters, trans. A.F. Wedd (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2002); and the contemporary Kurt D. Singer, ‘Norwegian Students Fight the War,’ Journal of Educational Sociology 18, no. 1 (1944): 22–8. Lee Stewart, ‘It’s Up to You’: Women at UBC in the Early Years (Vancouver: UBC Press, 1990), offers arguments related to ‘feminine’ cultures in the first half of the twentieth century. Margaret Gillett, We Walked Very Warily: A History of Women at McGill (Montreal: Eden Press, 1981); and Ann Rochon Ford, A Path Not Strewn with Roses: One Hundred Years of Women at the University of Toronto, 1884–1984 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1985). Nancy Kiefer and Ruth Roach Pierson argue that ‘[t]he programs that the women helped to establish worked against them in the end, for those programs reinforced their inferior status and popular conceptions of femininity’ (‘The War Effort and Women Students at the University of Toronto, 1939–1945,’ in Axelrod and Reid, Youth, University and Canadian Society, 178); see also Ruth Roach Pierson, They’re Still Women After All: The Second World War and Canadian Womanhood (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1986). See, for example, Jill Stephenson, ‘Girls’ Higher Education in Germany in the 1930s,’ Journal of Contemporary History 10, no. 1 (1975): 41–69, where, in 1930s Nazi Germany, the concept of intellectualism was antagonistic to femininity and the prevalent ideology was one of ‘womanliness’ as dictated by state directives. Other instructive works that study idealized perceptions of women in war include Christine Gledhill and Gillian Swanson, eds., Nationalizing Femininity: Culture, Sexuality, and British Cinema in the Second World War (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1996);

Introduction

23

Carolyn Gossage, Greatcoats and Glamour Boots: Canadian Women at War 1939–1945 (Toronto: Dundurn Press, 2001); and G. Haentjens, ‘Her Duty to Be Beautiful: Feminine Ideals in Magazine Advertising during World War II’ (MA thesis, Lehigh University, 1998). See also Barbara Young, ‘Vignettes of Medical School during the War, 1942–1945,’ Perspectives in Biology and Medicine 45, no. 3 (2002): 377–94, who recalls her experiences as a medical student at Johns Hopkins University. 25 The discussion in the United States about the leading role universities should play in the reconstruction of the West, not only of infrastructure but also in the dissemination of social democratic values, is included in many works written during wartime. See, for example, John Ulrec Nef, The Universities Look for Unity: An Essay on the Responsibilities of the Mind to Civilization in War and Peace (New York: Pantheon Books, 1943); William G. Carr and Mary Louise Mallam, ‘Effects of the World War on American Education,’ Review of Educational Research 13, no. 1 (1943): 13–20; Stanford University School of Education Faculty, Education in Wartime and After (New York: D. Appleton-Century, 1943); and George H. Hilliard, ‘Teachers Colleges and Post War Needs,’ Peabody Journal of Education 21, no. 2 (1943): 92–6. For the British case, see J.A. Stewart, Oxford after the War and a Liberal Education (Oxford: B.H. Blackwell, 1919). The effects of the Second World War also prompted debate over revisionist and cosmopolitan thinking in the liberal arts and education curriculum; see I.L. Kandel, The Impact of the War upon American Education (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1948). See also Roy Lowe, ed., Education and the Second World War: Studies in Schooling and Social Change (London: Falmer Press, 1992). 26 For studies of women scholars and researchers in wartime, see Marianne Ainley, ‘Gendered Careers: Women Science Educators at Anglo-Canadian Universities, 1920–1980,’ in Stortz and Panayotidis, eds., Historical Identities, 248–70; see also Despite the Odds: Essays on Canadian Women and Science (Montreal: Véhicule Press, 1990). An earlier text in the field of women in science in the United States is Margaret W. Rossiter, Women Scientists in America: Struggles and Strategies to 1940 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1982). Rossiter discusses the First World War in the larger schemata of the territorial and hierarchical marginalization of women in the university. Women scientists, Rossiter claims, were relegated to the traditional ‘women’s work’ in ‘war-related courses and training programs’ (121). 27 University of Toronto, President’s Report: June 1945 (Toronto: University of Toronto, 1945), 22.

24

Cultures, Communities, and Conflict

28 Internationally, too, the gradual predominance of university-based scientific research and programs, especially after 1945, was a conspicuous result. In ‘Physics in a University Laboratory Before and After World War II,’ Proceedings of the Royal Society of London. Series A, Mathematical and Physical Sciences 342 (1975), J.A. Ratcliffe recounts that, ‘[a]fter the war [physicists] had … to be become more professional, to use the best possible equipment and facilities, and to remember that society at large was interested in their results’ (464). ‘Permanent change of orientation and outlook’ of biologists in terms of becoming more high profile and involved in public affairs was a direct result of their work in the Second World War, claims J.W.S. Pringle, ‘Effects of World War II on the Development of Knowledge in the Biological Sciences, Proceedings of the Royal Society of London. Series A, Mathematical and Physical Sciences 342 (1975): 537–48. See also D.S.L. Cardwell, ‘Science and World War I,’ Proceedings of the Royal Society of London. Series A, Mathematical and Physical Sciences 342, no. 1631 (1975): 447–56; Joanne Abel Golman, ‘National Science in the Nation’s Heartland: The Ames Laboratory and Iowa State University, 1942–1965,’ Society for the History of Technology (2000): 435–59; Alexei Kojevnikov, ‘The Great War, the Russian Civil War, and the Invention of Big Science,’ Science in Context 15, no. 2 (2002): 239–75; J.S. Rowlinson, ‘The Wartime Work of Hinshelwood and His Colleagues,’ Notes and Records of the Royal Society 58, no. 2 (2004): 161–75; Leo B. Slater, ‘Malaria Chemotherapy and the “Kaleidoscopic” Organisation of Biomedical Research during World War II,’ Ambix 51, no 2 (2004): 107–34; Olga Elina, Susanne Heim, and Nils Roll-Hansen, ‘Plant Breeding on the Front: Imperialism, War, and Exploitation,’ History of Science Society 20 (2005): 161–79; Anna-K. Mayer, ‘Reluctant Technocrats: Science Promotion in the Neglect-of-Science Debate of 1916–1918,’ History of Science 43 (2005): 139–59; and Margery G. Ord and Lloyd A. Stocken, ‘The Oxford Biochemistry Department in Wartime, 1939-45,’ Notes and Records of the Royal Society 59 (2005): 137–43. An interesting look at how the Cold War stimulated university research – in particular, the earth sciences – is Ronald E. Doel, ‘Constituting the Postwar Earth Science: The Military’s Influence on the Environmental Sciences in the USA after 1945,’ Social Studies of Science 33, no. 5 (2003): 635–66. 29 See, for example, Stortz and Panayotidis, eds., Historical Identities. 30 Willis Rudy, Total War and Twentieth-Century Higher Learning: Universities of the Western World in the First and Second World Wars (London: Associated University Presses, 1991). 31 During the Cold War, professors at times fell under the surveillance by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police because of what the state saw as suspi-

Introduction

25

ciously radical and subversive academic thinking and practices. See Steve Hewitt, ‘The Professoriate and the Police during the Cold War,’ in Stortz and Panayotidis, eds., Historical Identities, 84–104. An interesting contemporary article about American professors and their moderate, ‘practical’ form of liberalism in comparison to interventionist politics is David J. Armor, Joseph B. Giacquinta, R. Gordon McIntosh, and Diana E.H. Russell, ‘Professors’ Attitudes toward the Vietnam War,’ Public Opinion Quarterly 31, no. 2 (1967): 159–75. For the United States, see also Noam Chomsky et al., The Cold War and the University: Toward an Intellectual History of the Postwar Years (New York: New Press, 1997); and Rebecca S. Lowen, Creating the Cold War University: The Transformation of Stanford (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997). Christopher Simpson, ed., Universities and Empire: Money and Politics in the Social Sciences during the Cold War (New York: New Press, 1998), discusses how the Cold War changed the nature of research, scholarship, discipline and boundary constructions, and academic cultures in universities. Jacob Neusner and Noam M.M. Neusner, The Price of Excellence: Universities in Conflict during the Cold War Era (New York: Continuum, 1995), discusses the challenges presented by activist social and political climates to traditional notions of the ‘ancient vocation’ of the universities, often forcing the primary purposes of ‘learning’ into the background. For Canadian student activism, see, for example, Sara Z. Burke, ‘The Berkeley of Sudbury: Student Radicalism at Laurentian University in the Sixties,’ History of Intellectual Culture 8 (2008/9): 1–15; Roberta Lexier, ‘“The Backdrop Against Which Everything Happened”: English-Canadian Student Movements and Off-Campus Movements for Change,’ History of Intellectual Culture 7 (2007); and James M. Pitsula, New World Dawning: The Sixties at Regina Campus (Regina: Canadian Plains Research Center, 2008). Some chapters in M. Athena Palaeologu, ed., The Sixties in Canada: A Turbulent and Creative Decade (Montreal: Black Rose Books, 2009), discuss activism on campus. Bryan D. Palmer, Canada’s 1960s: Historicizing the Ironies of Identity (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2009), examines unrest during the entire decade, including protests at Canadian universities.

1 Educating for War and Peace at Acadia University: The Great War Generation barry m. moody

In 1917 the parents of a young K.C. Irving, in an attempt to distract their son from his determination to enlist for service overseas, sent the future industrialist to Acadia University in Wolfville, Nova Scotia. Given the culture and general atmosphere of the institution, this proved to be entirely the wrong thing to do, and within months Irving, his resolve strengthened by his experience on campus, joined the Royal Flying Corps; he never returned to Acadia to complete his degree.1 If the Irving parents had attended the graduation ceremonies at the university the previous year and understood more of the ethos of their denominational institution, they might well have chosen another way of attempting to keep their determined son from the battlefield, for Acadia most assuredly was not the place to send him. In June 1916 the president of Acadia, the Rev. Dr George Cutten, delivered the Baccalaureate Sunday sermon dressed not in the academic robes typical of the place and occasion, but the khaki of an army uniform, symbolically and literally representing significant shifts that had taken place at the institution in the past quarter century. He told his large and appreciative audience, including the graduating class of that year, that ‘the call [for recruits] has been heard by her [Acadia’s] men, and they could not help responding to it, for the spirit which prompts the response is embodied in Acadia’s teaching … The struggle will bring us knowledge of the truth, making us free – free from oppression.’2 The president was really telling those assembled what many of them, especially the students, already knew: that the university had played a powerful role in shaping their attitudes about war in general, this war in particular, and, they hoped, eventually the longed-for peace that would follow the inevitable victory. Such a statement was both obviously true and simplistic on the one

Educating for War and Peace at Acadia University

27

hand and infinitely complex and multilayered on the other. The culture or atmosphere of the university, the ‘teaching’ of Acadia, both within and especially outside the classroom, and of the Maritime Baptist Churches that had founded and still controlled it, had indeed done a great deal to mould the views of the generation of students that would go off to war in the aftermath of its declaration on 4 August 1914. However, other forces also played their part in the shaping of this generation, creating a unique blend of perception and understanding that would propel many of these students into active service, both in the trenches of Europe and in aid of society at home and abroad. Founded in 1838 by the Regular Baptists of Nova Scotia, Acadia University was by Canadian standards already an ‘old’ institution, with a proud tradition and a solid academic standing.3 On the eve of the outbreak of war, its student body numbered 231, with 17 professors, making it one of the largest of the many Maritime institutions of higher learning.4 A liberal arts college, it offered programs in arts, science, theology, and a diploma in engineering. On the same campus, and fairly well integrated into the life of the university, were the affiliated Acadia Ladies Seminary and Horton Academy, a boys school, both under the guidance of the university’s board of governors, and infused with much of the same Baptist sentiment. Acadia’s student body was drawn almost exclusively from the Maritime region itself, predominantly but not exclusively from the rural Baptist families that had long sustained it, sending thither their young men and, since 1880, their young women. By 1914 women constituted approximately 25 per cent of the population of the university itself, a percentage that would shift dramatically upward as the war dragged on, before returning to pre-war proportions after 1918.5 While Acadia was no more prepared than the rest of Canada for the conflict that loomed before it, for a generation the institution had been, largely unconsciously, shaping the views of its students on the crucial issues that would confront them in the years ahead. Through classroom subjects, personal leadership, the influence of professors, campus organizations and activities, university traditions and values, and pervasive Baptist views, students were significantly influenced by their years at Acadia, an experience that conditioned their response to the crises they faced after the summer of 1914. Baptist Responses to the Boer War Despite their strong evangelical orientation, the Baptists6 of the Maritimes had no significant pacifist tradition to influence their response

28

Cultures, Communities, and Conflict

to war. During the Boer War (1899–1902),7 there had been strong, but not necessarily uncritical, support for the British confrontation with the Boer republics, and a number of Maritime Baptist sons served in that conflict.8 Clearly this clash, and the controversy that swirled around it, significantly influenced attitudes towards war, imperialism, and nationalism in the Maritimes, to some extent setting the stage for the larger conflict to follow. The war had been reported and discussed exhaustively in the denominational press, the Christian Messenger and Visitor, with a wide variety of views presented. Many of those students who would constitute the generation of 1914 were young children at the time, and while not understanding the complexities of the issues, nonetheless must have been exposed considerably to discussions in home and church concerning the conflict. Baptists of the Maritimes had no collective view on war itself, but throughout the months of conflict some expressed great concern over the use of force for conflict resolution, commenting how easy it is, at a distance, ‘to forget how barbarous, horrible and unchristian war really is.’9 The concept of the ‘just war,’10 so often debated in the Christian tradition, arose during this conflict to trouble the minds of the Baptists of the Maritime provinces in a way they had seldom been troubled before. The tension between the justness of the conflict and the pull of patriotism would remain with the Baptists, unresolved to the end. This debate of the ‘just war’ would continue within the denomination and at its institution of higher learning in the years ahead, and would play an important role in shaping the thinking of the Great War generation of Acadia students. From the beginning of the troubles in South Africa, considerable empathy was expressed for the citizens of the Transvaal. As one article, published even before the beginning of the conflict, commented, ‘[the Boers] are a hardy, brave and religious people, and it certainly seems they have a right, if anybody has, to realize their own ideals as to life and government in that bit of the great continent which they claim as their country.’11 Despite what was to follow, the Baptist press never quite lost its admiration for the Boer and his impossible position in the path of British imperialism on the march. The courage and tenacity of this rural people, confronted by ‘the determination of a handful of mineowning millionaires to seize [their country] for their own ends,’ continued to elicit the respect of Maritime Baptists for the duration of the conflict.12 Although sympathy for the Boers themselves was retained as long as the conflict lasted, there was a decided shift in the views expressed

Educating for War and Peace at Acadia University

29

about the president of the Transvaal, Paul Kruger. From initial sympathy, attitudes hardened as the war continued and the leader, as distinct from the people themselves, came to bear most of the blame for the tragedy.13 The differentiation between the leader as enemy and the people as victims would be repeated fifteen years or so later when Maritime Baptists faced a conflict far greater in magnitude and more immediate in its impact on them. If Maritimers expressed considerable ambivalence about the Boers, even more so did they reveal uncertainty concerning the larger issue of British imperialism. British policy in South Africa was openly and extensively criticized and the jingoism characteristic of many British newspapers condemned. Not surprisingly much of this criticism was couched in the language and concepts of the evangelical Christianity the Baptists practised, and in the class consciousness of the largely middle- and lower-class adherents of that denomination. It was the nonconformists, it was argued, not the Anglican aristocracy of Britain, nor even the Royal Family, that provided the real moral purity and leadership for the Empire.14 This same class consciousness was evident in the repeated criticism of British military leadership – ‘a soft seat for wealth and caste’ and ‘a great aristocratic social club.’15 Criticism, however, certainly did not extend to the common soldier, British or colonial: ‘The checks and reverses which the British arms have suffered have certainly not resulted from any lack of courage or soldierly qualities on the part of the troops and the subordinate officers.’16 Although Baptists remained somewhat uncomfortable with imperialism and war, they nonetheless in general embraced both in the months following the outbreak of hostilities. But Baptists never espoused an uncritical or unquestioning imperialism; they remained highly nervous in the presence of jingoism and excessive patriotic fervour. A note of racism was expressed in the unfolding world view of Maritime Baptists. Everywhere, civilization seemed to be advancing through the agency of the Anglo-Saxon, whether British or American, the war in South Africa being only the latest example. In spring 1900 the students and faculty at Acadia were given a lecture by prominent Baptist minister and alumnus (and future US senator) Charles Eaton on ‘Anglo-Saxonism, with specific reference to the struggle in South Africa,’ who argued that ‘Great Britain and the English race have been endowed with singular fitness for governing and assimilating subject peoples.’ The student newspaper, the Athenaeum, which reported Eaton’s address, also noted with approval the recent establishment of

30

Cultures, Communities, and Conflict

the Rhodes Scholarships, with the purpose of promoting ‘the unity and progress of Anglo-Saxonism, through the development of a young manhood of high intellectual, physical, social and moral worth.’17 The British Empire, representing the culmination of world history, would lead the world into a bright, new future, as God’s plan for the universe unfolded. The ‘sacred cause of liberty’ could be advanced only by the British and those of British descent. Britain’s defeat, her removal from her position of eminence in the world, would mean incalculable loss to everyone. ‘It would mean the weakening of the world’s greatest bulwark of political, religious and commercial freedom.’18 As critical as Maritime Baptists might be on occasion of war in general or of British policy or British leadership, the Empire, nonetheless, must still be upheld, for it was the course of ‘righteousness.’ If Maritime Baptists and Acadia students felt a strong pride in being part of the British Empire, there was also an observable and growing awareness of being Canadian. The press recorded every word of praise of Canadian troops by British generals and politicians, referring to ‘the glorious record of the Canadian troops.’19 ‘[T]he flower of Canadian manhood’ was being sent to fight alongside British regular troops, and their service stirred their fellow Canadians profoundly.20 To the end of the conflict Maritime Baptists remained highly ambivalent about the war: sympathetic to the Boers, but condemning their leadership; supporting the war effort, but questioning the wisdom of settling disputes in this manner; lauding the valour of the common soldiers, British and colonial alike, but highly critical of military leadership; voicing a strong sense of imperialism, but fearful of its consequences. Social Gospel and Evangelicalism before the Great War The Boer War brought Maritime Baptists face to face with the reality of a new, modern era, very different from the one from which this lowerclass, largely rural denomination had sprung and one with which these Maritimers were clearly very uncomfortable. Little in their collective past had prepared them for an event such as this, and they began the new century with a profound sense of unease and uncertainty. It would be these very mixed ideas, perceptions, and emotions that Maritime Baptists, and many Acadia students, would carry into the era that would see a far greater conflict than any could possibly have foreseen or even imagined. Although the Boer War in many respects can be seen as the precursor

Educating for War and Peace at Acadia University

31

of the greater conflict to follow, other forces were at work within the Baptist community, and specifically at Acadia University, that would play an even greater role in shaping the views of college students in the crucial second decade of the twentieth century. Foremost among these was the pervasive evangelical ethos of Acadia itself, which, despite general North American trends to the contrary, still exerted a profound influence on its students. From their beginning the institutions of learning in Wolfville had not been intended merely as places for the acquisition of book learning. Present in the design of Horton Academy and Acadia College was the expectation – in fact, the requirement – that they be vehicles for bringing young people to Christ, for deepening the Christian life of students, and ultimately for the enriching and strengthening of the denomination as a whole. Faculty, visiting speakers, fellow students, and returned foreign missionaries all played a role in fanning into existence the often-intense revivals that periodically swept the educational institutions in Wolfville.21 These religious upheavals provided the denomination with much of its leadership, cleric and lay, for nearly a century, including numerous foreign missionaries. The emphasis on Christian service thus became an established part of the life of Acadia, long before the ‘social gospel’ made its appearance near the end of the nineteenth century.22 At Acadia, this movement, which would have such a profound impact on the religious life of Protestant Canada and significantly alter perceptions of and approaches to social problems in much of the country, would build on the strong evangelical and revivalist tradition, creating a powerful combination of religious belief and social commitment. From the 1890s onwards, in classroom, dormitory, and lecture hall, Acadia students would explore the ramifications of Christianity as a social religion, ‘concerned … with the quality of human relations here on earth.’23 For more than a generation before the outbreak of the Great War, the students of Acadia debated the implications for the nation, the church, and the individual of a commitment to this social gospel and the transformation in values, attitudes, and lifestyles that such a commitment would demand. For these students Christian service and social service had come to be much the same thing, or at least so irrevocably intertwined as to prevent their easy distinction. In Matters of Mind: The Ontario University, 1781–1951, A.B. McKillop argues that the growth of the social gospel in that province entailed in general a turning ‘away from traditional evangelical concerns and towards the “spirit” of Christianity.’ For many Ontario students ‘evan-

32

Cultures, Communities, and Conflict

gelical piety had come to be seen as something of an embarrassing reminder of a stage of religion now superseded by modernity.’ In fact, ‘by the 1890s it was recognized that traditional evangelical religion and certain elements of college life were increasingly difficult to reconcile. The latter now introduced doubt, the exaltation of the intellect, and the removal of home restraints to students.’24 Although this may well have been true for certain Ontario colleges, the same cannot be said of Acadia, whose students took a very different route to the commitment to social service. If Acadia students saw a conflict between evangelical Christianity and modernity, it is not reflected in their letters home or in their university magazine or newspaper. Rather, for a great many, evangelical Christianity and personal salvation were the very doorway to service to humanity. Without the moral underpinnings of a personal knowledge of and commitment to Jesus Christ, it would be argued, how could one develop a sense of responsibility to and service for others? Social service and one’s personal commitment went hand in hand, and must do so. Coming from largely rural Maritime backgrounds, Acadia students in the decades after 1890 could study and be concerned about the problems created by rapid industrialization and urbanization, but such concerns could not be the driving force of their social commitment, since they could not readily identify with these problems. Nor, of course, could they take direct social action by establishing the settlement houses that were so much in vogue among university students in large cities elsewhere in North America and in Britain, although there was outreach into some neighbouring, poorer rural communities and in the small town of Wolfville itself. In courses in ethics, economics, and sociology, however, the problems of modern society clearly were being studied and presented to students within the context of Christian obligation and responsibility. As Richard Allen has observed, ‘[a]ll alike shared in the social guilt of an imperfect world, and the way from death to life, from the present social order to the Kingdom of God, lay through awakening the “social consciousness” and harnessing oneself to the social problem with the yoke of social concern.’25 The strength and clarity of the message, and the receptiveness of many of the students, can be seen in the lives of active service of many of Acadia’s graduates during this period. Although that was not seen as its primary function, the institution had produced missionaries (both male and female) and ministers for the denomination since its earliest days. Male and, since 1884, female graduates had also gone into other

Educating for War and Peace at Acadia University

33

professions that might be considered of service to humanity – teaching, medicine, the law, and government service, among others. Beginning in the 1890s, however, Acadia students and faculty sought more direct action in confronting the ills of society. A growing emphasis was placed on the social sciences – economics, political science, sociology – although those designations were not always used. As Robin Harris observes in his study of higher education in Canada, ‘there was one B.A. program, which, though entirely prescribed, revealed a thoroughly experimental approach to the curriculum. This was the course offered at Acadia … one which emphasized the unity of knowledge.’26 Acadia’s curriculum may have been more integrated, and rationalized, than some, but most of the same subjects were being taught in most other Canadian universities during this same period. These subjects, when combined with the continuing evangelical ethos and the growing emphasis on service, appeared to be leading Acadia students along a slightly different path. Certainly the college was propelling some of its graduates into more direct social action as early as the 1890s. Annie Marion MacLean, class of 1893, became Acadia’s first female graduate to earn a PhD (in sociology). She sought the solution to the social ills of North America by confronting the causes and consequences of societal problems through direct social action;27 others pursued the same ends through study and theorizing. Carl Dawson, class of 1912, moulded extensively by his Baptist background both at Acadia and at the University of Chicago, came to believe, as Marlene Shore has shown, that, in the academic study of society and its problems lay the potential solution to the many social ills that confronted North America.28 Through his work at McGill University, Dawson would play a key role in the establishment of sociology as a recognized discipline in Canada. Most Acadia students, of course, followed the paths of neither MacLean nor Dawson, but their concepts of service were nonetheless transforming forces in many lives. At Acadia the opposite situation from that at the University of Toronto, as described by Sara Burke, seems to have prevailed. Where at Toronto a growing tension seems to have appeared between the forces of evangelical and social Christianity, at Acadia they were in many respects aspects of the same force, between which there was little perceptible conflict.29 One recent graduate, writing to the student magazine in 1906 on the settlement houses being established by some universities, reflected this comfortable duality when he observed that ‘[m]en who have one hand in the hand of their Lord while the other is

34

Cultures, Communities, and Conflict

quieting the fevered pulse of oppressed mankind are the true reformers of all time. They are hastening the day when the Kingdoms of this world shall become the Kingdoms of our Lord and of his Christ.’30 In spring 1914, in the annual Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA) address at convocation, the Rev. J.H. McDonald, editor of the denominational press, the Maritime Baptist, argued that ‘[t]here never was an age when the call was greater for young men to go forth and right the wrong, and there never was an age, except the three years of Christ’s life, when more was being done to right the wrongs of the world than in the present. When a man goes forth to right the wrong he finds himself in the fellowship of the Son of God, for Christ ever stands by the side of every wounded man. This, the call to right the wrong, is the call to every educated man of today.’31 These examples and many more clearly show the continuing strong linkage at Acadia between service and personal commitment to Christ.32 The latter provided the moral foundation and direction for the former, and increasingly shaped the world view developing among Acadia students in the years before the outbreak of war. That same combination provided much of the impetus that carried the members of the university through the war years and propelled many of its young men into the trenches of Europe. Underlying and informing the view of obligation and the opportunity of social service was the growing conviction that human society could be improved, that progress could be made. Baptists had too strong a respect for sin, both personal and collective, to believe that perfection could ever be reached, individually or as a society, in this world. A growing conviction was evident that improvements could be made, that evils – personal, domestic, or international – could be defeated. Occasionally, as one would expect to find among young people, students’ hopes could be seen as naive idealism, as they appeared to believe that perfection was possible and ideally an attainable goal. Most, however, appear to have been motivated by a second definition of idealism: aspiring to or living in accordance with high standards and principles. Through human effort, under God’s guidance, the world could be made better, filled with and especially led by better people. These students might be idealists, but they were what one might term realistic idealists, or so at least would they have viewed themselves. They were led in this direction by the faculty and the culture of their university. In the years leading up to war, students were being exposed to ideas about world federation, international courts, and the promotion of world peace. Addressing one of the topics for the annual oratori-

Educating for War and Peace at Acadia University

35

cal contest in 1913, ‘Evidences of Design in History,’ one student argued that the way in which the world was unfolding was clear evidence of God’s plan for man. The object ‘of all civilized people’ should be world federation, a theme returned to frequently over the next few, tumultuous, years.33 To strive towards the unattainable goal of world perfection was the obligation of the Christian and the citizen. More than any other factor, this commitment to Christian service and world improvement would mould Acadia attitudes to war and peace and lead to high rates of enlistment and commitment in the coming conflict. Acadia and the Great War The outbreak of war brought a number of the issues and arguments of the past several decades to the surface as Acadia students attempted to articulate their response to a conflict beyond the comprehension of most. Recent alumni, current students of the university, and even some of the academy began enlisting almost as soon as war was declared, while those left behind grappled with the complexities of the issues that surrounded them. For the first two years of the conflict, there was remarkably little discussion about imperialism or the call of Empire. If what students expressed and wrote is any indication, patriotic fervour on the basis of British ties was not the main determining factor in their response to war. Although pro-British sentiment was undoubtedly strong in many parts of the Maritimes, overstating the region’s conservative, and imperialist, stance is too easy. In his classic military study of this period, In Defence of Canada, James Eayrs makes the surprising statement that ‘[l]ove of Britain was strongest in pockets of United Empire Loyalists scattered here and there throughout the Maritime Provinces and in the Eastern Townships, old-fashioned folk who had earlier fled the republicanism brought to America by the Revolution and whose regard for England would not have been seriously shaken had Edward VII been succeeded by George III.’34 Such a misreading of the basic nature of Maritimers does not advance at all our understanding of their response to the conflict they now faced. Certainly, within the dissenting tradition of the Maritimes was usually a decidedly pro-imperial tone, but it was never blindly uncritical. In articles in the Athenaeum, debates, and graduation orations at Acadia, empire is certainly mentioned, but it is not the predominant theme. ‘Duty,’ a sense of justice, feelings of world brotherhood, fear of militarism, excitement, Christian obligation and

36

Cultures, Communities, and Conflict

world view, as well as imperial sentiment were all part of the mix that shaped attitudes and motivated young men to enlist and young women to encourage them. Milton F. Gregg, class of ’17, later winner of the Victoria Cross, recorded his struggles over enlistment in fall 1914, with the pulls of home, Acadia, and someone ‘in Wolfville I cared for more than anyone else in the world’ (his future wife, Dorothy Alward, class of ’17) contending against the sense of duty and obligation, and adventure.35 Those who remained in Wolfville were more concerned with discussions of ‘Kaiserism,’ sentimental stories of life at the front, and bidding farewell to classmates departing for Europe, rather than imperialism.36 In those initial months of war, other themes were being discussed that seemed to attract more attention than imperialism. From the beginning of the war, romantic stories appeared in the student magazine of young men being sent off to war by their patriotic girlfriends, of wounded soldiers waking in hospital to find their fiancées faithfully nursing them, and accounts of patriotic concerts being organized by the women of the college; in other words, the traditional view of ‘women’s work’ in wartime seemed to prevail.37 One of the orations delivered at convocation in June 1915, however, sounded a different note, heralding a new departure in the thinking of some of Acadia’s students. In her speech on ‘Woman’s Part in the War,’ Evelyn Enid Smallman dismissed the traditional view that, in war, ‘men must work and women must weep.’ Rather, ‘[t]his is the first great war in which the voice of woman has had power to make itself heard, universally … During the last one hundred years, a radical change in women’s position, in its educational, legal, economic and social aspects, has given to woman a new sense of sex solidarity. She realizes that she belongs to the nation as well as do the men.’ The crisis created by the war was clearly linked in Smallman’s mind with the tradition of social service that had permeated her four years of study at Acadia: ‘As the European crisis is calling forth latent manhood, so also it is arousing true womanhood to duty and responsibility in the solution of world problems. The new social consciousness of the women has been sharpened to an eager demand on their part to be of practical use.’38 Nearly a year later, one of the recent Academy graduates, writing from France, emphasized the significance of what was happening. He noted the incredible changes that would overtake the world as the result of the war: Again necessity has broken time-honored customs. Women [sic] for a generation has sought her place in the world – man on every hand has

Educating for War and Peace at Acadia University

37

opposed her, demanding that she ‘make good’ while relentlessly denying her the opportunity. War necessity proved her golden opportunity …; loyally she answered the challenge; glorious has been her success … Having thus brought into man’s most infamous production some element of sanctification, can we deny that she would elevate less blackened spheres of his degenerate civilization? No! The days of speculation are past; woman has made good; she is entitled to the franchise … Into the fabric of civilization there shall be woven a new thread, a modifying, beautifying, harmonizing thread – the altruistic nature of a woman. This is a time of transition, the breaking up of the old, the ushering in of a new day – the advent of woman’s era.39

Clearly a number of Acadia students saw the enfranchisement of women in Canada as part of that process of change, brought on by the war, but more significantly as part of the solution to the problems about which the war had been fought. The war, the franchise, and the commitment to social change that had permeated their education were reflected in these views. As one graduating student in 1919, Vera Ogilvie, rhetorically asked, can women, armed with the vote, sit idly by and be ‘worthy of the human sacrifice on Flanders’ fields? … In the past it has been woman’s lot to deal with effects, to reform social conditions resulting from poor legislation. To-day, as Canadian women, we stand endowed with power to deal with the causes of evils that infect society – to prevent instead of cure them.’40 The war was not fought, then, to preserve a way of life, but to transform it. In this transformation women would be both agents of change and the recipients of the benefits of change.41 The view of war as transformer of society was reiterated in other areas of concern as well, some of them closely linked to the issue of the advancement of women in Canadian society. Almost from the beginning of the conflict, for the Acadia community mere military victory was never considered to be sufficient. The war itself had underscored some of the basic flaws in human society, and real victory could be achieved only when these had been dealt with and overcome. Through their course content, university clubs, public lectures, interuniversity and intramural debates, and student essays, Acadia students were exposed to and developed ideas about service and their response to war. Whether it was the issue of women’s rights, victory in Europe, or social reform, the underlying theme was the idea of service, the idea that had resonated through the halls of Acadia for the previous several decades. The role of the Young Men’s and Young Women’s Christian Associa-

38

Cultures, Communities, and Conflict

tions was critical at Acadia, where the combination of personal salvation and community service appeared to have been achieved more successfully than at most other institutions in Canada.42 Through frequent ‘Y’ meetings, Y-sponsored guest speakers, and especially the annual North American and later Canadian summer meetings of students, the call of service – social and eventually military – was sounded repeatedly. Every year, before and during the war, Acadia representatives, male and female, attended their respective international and then national conferences and returned to their institutions to report on their experiences and to endorse enthusiastically what they had absorbed there.43 The YM/YWCA continued to sponsor evangelistic services at Acadia, with an ongoing emphasis on personal salvation, but they also organized meetings and encouraged readings that focused on social service and commitment.44 At Acadia at least, these two strands of the students’ Christianity did not appear in conflict, but were in fact intricately intertwined, with personal salvation an essential ingredient in both. The war came to be seen as an extension of this concept of social service, as a means to an end rather than as an end in itself. Throughout the pages of the student magazine and in classroom essays and public debates, the theme of change, not continuity, as the result of the war was emphasized over and over: change in Canadian society, change in the British Empire, and change in the wider world. Only in this way could Acadia students make sense of the catastrophe that was engulfing and consuming their generation. Esther I. Clark (the future historian E.C. Wright) used the occasion of her graduation oration in 1916 to list the social ills that beset Canada – child labour, poverty, prostitution, ‘grafting politicians,’ alcoholism – and to call for the collective will to overcome them: ‘We who remain at home must see to it that this country for which our brothers are fighting is worth fighting for and worth winning the victory for. The call for us is to examine our individual and collective life and put forth every effort to improve it.’45 Striking a more pessimistic tone, fellow student and orator F.C. Manning did not see on the near horizon the immediate ushering in of a world of brotherly love. Even after the hoped-for Allied victory, it would take a renewed and restructured British Empire to achieve any permanent social progress. The old Empire, with its corruption and class structure, would have to be transformed: ‘the real British Empire is just being born!’ This will be accomplished by the returning soldiers, those who ‘will carry in their battle-scarred bodies the soul of the Empire.’ The same transforming influences would be seen in their

Educating for War and Peace at Acadia University

39

own country: ‘If Canada is to be delivered from political corruption and industrial exploitation, it will be through the agency of those who dare to act, not through the writers of magazine articles and newspaper diatribes.’46 Manning was one of the more than sixty Acadia students and graduates who died in the attempt to achieve such ideals. Although not sharing Manning’s pessimism, a student on active service the following year wrote home to Acadia of his hopes of a world federation. He expressed his fears that, if the Allies were not careful, they could easily replace German militarism with Allied militarism in the years after victory. Like Manning, E.D. MacPhee looked to a renewed British Empire for leadership in this field, with a greatly expanded role for the Dominions. Britain, which was not a democracy but an aristocracy before the war, would itself be transformed in the process. To the leaders would be entrusted the ‘the task of molding all parts of our farflung Dominions into one vast unit, with a common wealth, a common task, and a common creed of national morality and justice. This will be the forerunner and protégé of an international government which will establish machinery to insure against the recurrence of this great tragedy, and so establish it that no nation or coalitions of nations can upset it? [sic].’47 Clearly influenced by H.E. Hyde’s Two Roads, MacPhee argued for a parliament of all nations, which could inaugurate a new era of international relations. For many of Acadia’s students, then, the war would be the means to transform Canadian society, but it would also usher in a new world order, one in which the affairs of nations would be regulated and from which war as a decision-making process would be banned. Acadia students shared with many other Canadians this belief in the importance of sacrifice and the ability ‘to project their nation to a higher plane of conduct.’ In the case of the former, these feelings appear to have grown in the face of the carnage on the battlefields.48 Yet the cynicism and disillusionment portrayed in Robert Wohl’s study of this generation of British youth did not settle as harshly into the hearts of most of the Acadia students who gave voice to their feelings.49 Although a strong sense of British imperialism was not, of course, lacking entirely from the Acadia scene, it appears to have played a smaller part in shaping attitudes and responses than might have been expected. Surprisingly, there are few references in the student magazine linking imperialism and the war before mid-1916. In the poems, short stories, and news and opinion pieces, a reference to Canada’s role in the conflict – discussion of Canadian soldiers rather than imperial soldiers – was much more likely.

40

Cultures, Communities, and Conflict

Acadia students had a very strong identification with their own institution and province, as well as country, but apparently less association in their minds with things imperial. The Athenaeum, as well as the alumni magazine, the Acadia Bulletin, kept the Acadia family well informed about enlistments, promotions, casualties, and deaths, emphasizing the strong ties that bound the institution together intimately. These loyalties, more than those to the larger Empire, seem to have predominated, although the latter were never completely absent. As the war news worsened in the latter part of 1916, however, this seems to have changed somewhat. The shift was partially orchestrated by the president of Acadia himself, the Rev. Dr George B. Cutten. A graduate of Acadia, with a PhD from Yale, Cutten was an ordained Baptist minister, an avid sportsman, and a firm supporter of the war effort. Along with his presidential duties he became the chief recruiting officer for the province of Nova Scotia, eventually seeking leaves of absence from an increasingly reluctant board of governors to carry on his war-related duties.50 At the ‘khaki’ convocation of 1916, Cutten, not above a bit of showmanship in promoting recruitment, presented in absentia degrees to four students, calling their mothers forward to receive the degrees on behalf of their sons, who were already in military service. According to the alumni magazine, there was not a dry eye in the house. Not surprisingly, the president was dubbed ‘Fighting George Cutten.’51 Although, for the rest of the war, frequent appeals were made to support the mother country and imperialism, this theme never seemed to resonate with the Acadia community in the same way that Christian ‘service’ did, perhaps despite Cutten’s best efforts. However supportive of the Empire the Maritime Baptists might be, their reaction to the Great War, like that to the Boer War a decade and a half earlier, was never uncritical or unquestioning. The continuing emphasis on evangelical religion was more potent than appeals to imperialist sentiment in gaining recruits for the war effort. At Acadia and in many Baptist communities, recruitment assumed many of the trappings and much of the rhetoric of an evangelistic crusade. The venue, the speaker, the atmosphere, the emotion, and the phraseology all resonated with Baptists, for this was the powerful package that had driven revival meetings in the Maritimes for generations. They were used now in a powerful new way to summon recruits for another kind of battle. For example, as the Athenaeum recorded, Sunday, 12 March 1916, was ‘recruiting day’ in Wolfville. A military band led the parade to the Baptist Church, where the minis-

Educating for War and Peace at Acadia University

41

ter preached ‘an eloquent recruiting sermon’ to a large and supportive audience. At the end of the evening service, a ‘personal call’ for volunteers was made and a number of recruits ‘came forward.’ Terms such as ‘salvation’ were used in discussions of the future of the world and even of Germany, which would be great again once it had experienced ‘a new birth.’52 The evangelical experience and tradition of the Maritime Baptists and of Acadia University were being harnessed in the interests of war – with which few seemed to have had difficulty. Acadia and Reflections on Post-war Reconstruction As the war approached its end and the Allied victory appeared more certain, focus shifted from the conflict itself to a discussion of the aftermath. In all that was written during the last year of the war and the early months after its conclusion, there was no hint of a desire to return to the state of things before 1914. The opposite seemed to be the case, with repeated statements that all of this destruction of life and property, all the sacrifice and horror of the past four years, must count for, and mean, something. The war poems of John Bryce McKay summed up many of the feelings of this generation of students: I’ve marched in a daylight trance, With my boot hops drinking the muddy ooze From the blood-stained fields of France. And I’ve groveled low in the reeking dirt … But I’m thinking still of another time, – ’Tis the thought of my comrades too, – A thought of the time when the war is done, And of what we shall say and do. What of the days when the war is done, Dull, dreary, without this strife? God! Do you think we have fought for fun? We have fought that we might have Life! Life, and the freedom to tread again The path of a thousand goals; To speak our thoughts of the world and God As they burned in our war-born souls. Life, to build on a new-wrought plan, –

42

Cultures, Communities, and Conflict With Woman a builder too, – And to touch with the torch of our flaming hearts Old tasks, and to make them new!535

‘The path of a thousand goals’ – so many possibilities, endless possibilities, seemed to stretch out in front of this generation, having paid, as they felt, the price of making things new in the blood and sacrifice of the war years, the price paid in forfeited dreams and lives placed on hold. But the articulated dreams, it would appear, were primarily corporate, societal ones, rather than personal, although without doubt they possessed those as well. By the end of 1917 articles had begun to appear in the Athenaeum focusing mainly on the expected economic conditions and reforms of the post-war era. This emphasis on the economic aspects is not completely surprising, given the strong social gospel background of the institution and its students. As well, the focus on the economy may reflect the recent emphasis on economics as a subject, and particularly the role of the new professor of economics, A.B. Balcom. Hired in 1913, a graduate of Acadia (’07) and Harvard (’09), Balcom would remain at Acadia until his death in 1943, teaching both economics and sociology.54 The economic and social implications of demobilization, transformation of war industries into peacetime factories, and expanded immigration were being discussed in the classroom and the student newspaper. The ‘reconstruction’ (a word used with increasing frequency in 1918) of Canada, and the world, would be not only necessary but, according to one collegian, ‘inevitable.’ This would take great national and personal effort, it was argued, for Baptists never lost sight of the view that the collective will inevitably was made up of a combination of individual wills. Lest anyone should forget the necessity and cost of these economic reforms, the writer asked: ‘Are we at home going to be worthy of [the soldiers’] sacrifice?’ Whether by design or coincidence, this article was followed immediately by a full page write-up and picture of George B. Peck, class of ’19, who had recently died at Passchendaele.55 Sacrifice was seen not as an abstract idea, distant and remote, but as real and immediate, from within their own ranks, by their own classmates. Part of the economic reconstruction of the nation in the post-war era involved the reintegration of the returned soldiers into the fabric of Canadian society. The obligation owed to the men who had fought – especially those maimed and traumatized by the conflict – was the subject of a number of student articles and orations as the war neared

Educating for War and Peace at Acadia University

43

its end. In ‘Our Duty to the Returned Soldier,’ her oration at convocation in 1918, Jean Goucher did not retreat into sentiment and pathos but condemned them: ‘[U]nthinking sentimentalism will not solve the problem; scientific intelligence must be used … It required military experts to make our men disciplined and capable soldiers, and it will require experts to transform our soldiers into efficient civilians.’ The wounded and the gassed would require special facilities, training, and vocations, and society, through its government, had a moral obligation to provide them.56 That this was not merely student idealism but part of the ethos of the institution itself was made clear by a cash-strapped board of governors, which nonetheless voted at the end of the war that all men who served overseas would receive one year’s free tuition. Acadia was the first university in Canada to make such a move.57 Discussion and debate on campus about the fashioning of a new Canada and a new Europe also embraced unemployment insurance, ‘a legal living wage,’ government ownership of natural resources, municipal housing, industrial reconstruction, economics as the root cause of conflicts, the redistribution of wealth, and many more topics, as Acadia attempted not merely to come to terms with a new world, but also to have its graduates play a role in the new age.58 The annual intercollegiate debate in spring 1918 shed additional light on the thinking of some Acadia students about the issues raised, not by war, but by the ensuing peace. The debate, between Acadia and Dalhousie University, was on the proposition that the handing over to Germany by the victorious allies of territory equal to her pre-war possessions ‘would be in the interests of International Harmony.’59 In arguing for the compassionate treatment of a defeated enemy, Acadia speakers were not merely trying to win the debate for the side assigned to them; they were giving voice to ideas that appeared to be widely held by their fellow students, both during and immediately following the war. In the Athenaeum at least, little sense of hatred was expressed towards the German people themselves; even the common German soldier is often portrayed in sympathetic terms. In March 1917, ‘M.A.W.’ of the Ladies Seminary wrote a short story about compassion on the battlefield ‘[s]omewhere in France.’ It was about two seriously wounded soldiers, one German, one Canadian, as they talk while waiting for medical attention, comparing stories of life at home and showing each other pictures of their girls. The Canadian soldier holds his ‘enemy’ in his arms as he dies. Although fighting on opposite sides, the two do not appear to be very different at all.60 Acadia

44

Cultures, Communities, and Conflict

students did not appear to share as strongly the widely held Canadian view of ‘the Hun’ as a brutish foe.61 Although the essential unity of humankind – including Germans – is underscored in many student compositions, the same feelings were not held about the Kaiser and his officers, with their love of militarism and ‘might over right’ philosophy, just as the previous generation of Baptists had been able to differentiate between the pastoral Boer and the manipulative Kruger. Once the generals were defeated and the Kaiser was in exile, however, there appear to have been surprisingly few hard feelings at Acadia despite the lists of war dead and wounded. With a democratic government in place in Germany – with the people finally in control – that country could be incorporated once more into the international community. Indeed, the threat of ‘Bolshevism’ in Europe made such a move essential.62 As was true of so many Canadians, Acadia students emerged from the war much more consciously ‘Canadian’ and with a strong determination that that should mean something significant in the future. Canada now stood ‘before the world stamped unmistakably with the marks of nationhood. We have gained national consciousness.’63 Years after the event, Norman McLeod Rogers, class of ’19 and future cabinet minister in W.L.M. King’s government, recalled a moment in his wartime experience: [T]o me it seemed to symbolize a new era in our history. From a hilltop near Poperinghe, I saw a Canadian division begin its march to the Somme. In that division there were men from every province, representatives of every racial element in our population; yet as they filed past, their regimental bands played Canadian songs, and they marched with a proud consciousness that they belonged to the Canadian Corps. There in France, under the stimulus of a great emergency, the unity of Canada meant something it had never meant before … From this time forward, one could never doubt the existence of a Canadian national sentiment.64

This new nationalism, however, like the still-lingering imperialism, was by no means mere sentimentality or uncritical admiration. Building on their social gospel roots, Acadia students were well aware of the problems Canada faced, and the war seemed to have stirred them to an impassioned determination to create a better society, to rectify at least some of the wrongs, and to build a far stronger country. The titles of the ‘senior essays’ (the early equivalent of the honours thesis) from this immediate post-war period shed some light on their con-

Educating for War and Peace at Acadia University

45

cerns: ‘The Education of the Adult Immigrant’; ‘The Housing Problem’; ‘Adjustments of the Problems between Labour and Capital’; ‘The Placing-out System of Caring for Dependent Children’; and ‘Canadian Immigration in the 20th Century.’65 Their concept of service, shaped by the social gospel and given sharper focus by the war experience, would now help to mould their ideas on nationalism, and specifically Canadian nationalism. As one orator in 1920 declaimed, ‘[t]he only supremacy which our nation should seek is a supremacy of service, and that arouses among other nations no bitterness, no antagonism, and no jealousy. Nations have a right to exist only as they minister to universal human welfare. Patriotism today is a more sacred duty than ever – not the jingoistic, war-breeding kind, but patriotism inspired by the highest ethical ideals of conduct toward the rest of mankind and toward our own self-development.’ He was particularly critical of politics and big business: ‘To achieve success we must abandon outof-date prejudice, face the facts of today, and force political parties to get out of the ruts of the past forty years and initiate constructive legislation.’66 Conclusion As Acadia and its students entered the third decade of the twentieth century, the passion for reform, social service, and realistic idealism was maintained, but only for a while. Those views were, of course, never entirely absent from the institution, but the prevailing ethos changed as the decade progressed, or regressed – a victim of the economic stagnation of the Maritimes even in the pre-Depression period and of what was seen to be the morally corrosive influence of American consumerism and popular culture. Students who came of age in the war’s aftermath would develop along very different lines than their immediate predecessors. But for the generation of 1914, the strong commitment to purpose remained, a commitment shaped in large measure by the institution where they sought an education and by the war experience through which they had passed. Of course, for all that they wrote about their views during this period, one also needs to consider unspoken and unwritten thoughts that would sometimes confirm, sometimes contradict, the views recorded above. Even so, Acadia seemed to have developed a prevailing and pervading ethos for the war years, lingering into the 1920s, that sets this age apart from any other in the institution’s history. As with the numerous revivals at Acadia over the decades, the impact on some students was more profound, and more enduring, than

46

Cultures, Communities, and Conflict

on others, but the lives and views of many of those at Acadia were powerfully shaped by their experience. In significant ways, and quite unintentionally, the institution and the Baptist community itself shaped the generation that came of age immediately prior to and during the First World War to see the world in ways that would have been unimaginable to the generations that came before, and largely unintelligible to those that came later. The world crisis provided these students with the unique context in which their revivalist traditions, concepts of service, and social theory merged to provide the males with the impetus that drove them to enlist and the females with the conviction that the world, and along with it the role of women, could be transformed by the action of committed Christian thinkers and activists. But reasons for winning the war were only part of the challenge that this generation faced; they also developed a strong conviction that a lasting peace must be won as well. There was certainly little real sense that, for them, the ‘war’ was over in 1918; it had only just begun. Many of the surviving war generation seemed to feel that they must now live two lives, one for themselves and one for those of their friends and fellow students who had not returned from Europe. Both those lives would have to be lived in service to society, Canada, and the international community. Only in this way could any sense be made of the four years of bloodshed and terror. In the same issue of the Athenaeum that published obituaries of the last of Acadia’s men to die in Europe, a graduating student wrote about ‘Our Debt to Those Who Died for Us:’ He died in order that you and I might be happy and live peacefully in the country he called his; that we might realize the dreams he never can … He gave his happiness that we might be happy and his hope of children that our children might be clean and true … We may bring this country to the ideal he set for it only by giving it social standards worthy of the manhood he represented, by making our constitution such that it will be the very emblem of freedom and equality for all, and by rearing a race worthy of those who gave up the right to rear it, that we might enjoy greater facilities in making homes that could have been theirs.67

NOTES 1 Conversation by author with Acadia’s chancellor, Arthur Irving (son of K.C. Irving), 20 January 2007.

Educating for War and Peace at Acadia University

47

2 ‘Baccalaureate Sunday,’ Athenaeum 42, no. 8 (1916): 505–6. 3 See R.S. Longley, Acadia University, 1838–1938 (Wolfville, NS: Acadia University, 1938); Barry M. Moody, ‘Breadth of Vision, Breadth of Mind: The Baptists and Acadia College,’ in Canadian Baptists and Christian Higher Education, ed. George Rawlyk (Montreal; Kingston, ON: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1988); idem, ‘Acadia and the Great War,’ in Youth, University and Canadian Society: Essays in the Social History of Higher Education, ed. Paul Axelrod and John Reid (Montreal; Kingston, ON: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1989); and idem, ‘“The Trail of the Serpent”: The Appointment of a “Professor of Didactics” at Acadia College, 1883,’ in Historical Identities: The Professoriate in Canada, ed. Paul Stortz and E. Lisa Panayotidis (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2006). 4 The United Baptist Year Book of the Maritime Provinces of Canada, 1915 (Truro, NS: News Publishing, 1915), 57–8. 5 Moody, ‘Acadia and the Great War,’ 143–60. 6 The best overall study of the Baptists of the region is George Levy, The Baptists of the Maritime Provinces, 1753–1946 (Saint John, NB: Barnes-Hopkins, 1946). 7 See Carman Miller, Painting the Map Red: Canada and the South African War, 1899–1902 (Montreal; Kingston, ON: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1993), for one of the best assessments of Canada’s response to this conflict. 8 Barry M. Moody, ‘Boers and Baptists: Maritime Canadians View the War in South Africa,’ unpublished paper delivered at Canada and the Boer War Conference, Commonwealth Institute, University of London, 2000. 9 Messenger and Visitor, 15 November 1899, 4. 10 Paul Christopher, The Ethics of War & Peace: An Introduction to Legal and Moral Issues (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1994). 11 Messenger and Visitor, 4 January 1899, 1. 12 Messenger and Visitor, 21 February 1900, 2. 13 See, for examples, Messenger and Visitor, 19 September 1900, 1; idem, 28 November 1900, 5. 14 Messenger and Visitor, 21 June 1899, 5. 15 Messenger and Visitor, 29 August 1900, 1. 16 Messenger and Visitor, 10 January 1900, 1. 17 Athenaeum, April 1900, 203. The student magazine/newspaper is used extensively in this paper as reflecting a wide range of student, and sometimes alumni, views and opinions. Given the small student population, a remarkably large number of students contributed to the paper, a far higher percentage than perhaps would be found at larger institutions, or at least at Acadia at a later time. The paper was widely read, on and off campus. During the war years, there is no evidence of attempts by the university

48

18 19 20 21

22

23 24 25 26

27

28

29 30

Cultures, Communities, and Conflict administration or board of governors to censor the paper, although there was always a faculty ‘advisor.’ Messenger and Visitor, 4 July 1900, 1. Messenger and Visitor, 27 June 1900, 1. Messenger and Visitor, 7 November 1900, 1. See Barry Moody, ‘“a very hotbed of piety”: Acadia as Mission and Missionary,’ keynote address at 4th International Conference on Baptist Studies, Wolfville, NS, July 2006. See, for example, Richard Allen, The Social Passion: Religion and Social Reform in Canada, 1914–1928 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1971). See also Michael S. Boudreau, ‘The Emergence of the Social Gospel in Nova Scotia: The Presbyterian, Methodist and Baptist Churches and the Working Class 1880–1914’ (MA thesis, Queen’s University, 1991); Phyllis D. Airhart, ‘Ordering a New Nation and Reordering Protestantism 1867–1914,’ in The Canadian Protestant Experience 1760 to 1990, ed. George A. Rawlyk (Burlington, ON: Welch Publishing, 1990); and Samuel D. Clark, J. Paul Grayson, Linda M. Grayson, eds., Prophecy and Protest: Social Movements in Twentieth-Century Canada (Toronto: Gage Educational Publishing, 1975). Allen, Social Passion, 4. A.B. McKillop, Matters of Mind: The Ontario University, 1781–1951 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1994), 204, 214, 212. Allen, Social Passion, 16–17. Robin S. Harris, A History of Higher Education in Canada, 1663–1960 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1976), 125–6; see also the Acadia University Catalogues, 1890–1910. For contemporary views of Annie Marion MacLean’s role in the development of sociology, see Mary Jo Deegan, Michael R. Hill, and Susan L. Wortmann, ‘Annie Marion MacLean, Feminist Pragmatist and Methodologist,’ Journal of Contemporary Ethnography 38, no. 6 (2009): 655–65; Tim Hallett and Jim Jeffers, ‘A Long-Neglected Mother of Contemporary Ethnography: Annie Marion MacLean and the Memory of a Method,’ Journal of Contemporary Ethnography 37, no. 1 (2008): 3–37. Marlene Shore, The Science of Social Redemption: McGill, the Chicago School, and the Origins of Social Research in Canada (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1987), xiv–xv. Sara Z. Burke, Seeking the Highest Good: Social Service and Gender at the University of Toronto, 1888–1937 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1996), 30. Frank W. Patterson, ‘The University Settlement,’ Athenaeum 32, no. 8 (1906): 323.

Educating for War and Peace at Acadia University

49

31 Report on the YMCA address at convocation by the Rev. J. H. McDonald, Athenaeum 40, no. 8 (1914): 557–8. 32 This theme is reiterated almost constantly in the pages of the Athenaeum throughout these decades. See also the letters of an Acadia student, Esther Clark (later Wright), 1912 to 1916, in possession of the author; and Barry Moody, ‘Esther Clark Goes to College,’ Atlantis: A Women’s Studies Journal 20, no. 1 (1995): 39–48. 33 ‘Report on the annual oratorical contest, C.W. Robbins’s speech,’ Athenaeum 39, no. 3 (1913): 170. 34 James M. Eayrs, In Defence of Canada: From the Great War to the Great Depression (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1964), 12. 35 Public Archives of New Brunswick, Fredericton, Milton F. Gregg Papers, Box 4, ‘Notes’ [by Milton F. Gregg]. 36 See various articles, Athenaeum 41, nos. 1–8 (1914–15); Athenaeum 42, nos. 1–8 (1915–16). 37 See, for example, G. Paige Pinneo, ‘The Troubles of Blinks,’ Athenaeum 41, no. 2 (1914): 389–92; idem, ‘Patriotic Concert,’ Athenaeum 41, no. 3 (1915): 155–6. 38 Evelyn Enid Smallman, ‘Woman’s Part in the War,’ Athenaeum 41, no. 8 (1915): 482–7. 39 C. Kierstead Ganong, ‘The Dawn of a New Day,’ Athenaeum 43, no. 3 (1917): 162–5. 40 Vera Glisson Ogilvie, ‘Awake, Women of Canada,’ Athenaeum 45, no. 5 (1919): 290–1. 41 The Acadia Record (Wolfville, NS, 1952), graduates of the 1910s and early 1920s. The Acadia Record lists all the graduates of the university from its founding in 1838 until publication date, along with further degrees, publications, and career information. 42 See Burke, Seeking the Highest Good, 29–43. 43 Every fall, the Athenaeum carried reports from the young men and women who had attended the annual conferences. 44 See, for examples, Athenaeum 38, no. 2 (1911): 568, 573. 45 E.I. Clark, ‘Public Opinion,’ Athenaeum 42, no. 8 (1916): 565–8. 46 F.C. Manning, ‘The War and After,’ Athenaeum 42, no. 8 (1916): 572–5. 47 E.D. MacPhee, ‘The Federation of the World,’ Athenaeum 43, no. 4 (1917): 242. 48 Jeffrey A. Keshen, Propaganda and Censorship during Canada’s Great War (Edmonton: University of Alberta Press, 1996), 324. 49 Robert Wohl, The Generation of 1914 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1979), 93–5.

50

Cultures, Communities, and Conflict

50 Acadia University Archives [hereafter cited as AUA], Wolfville, NS, #1900.034, Minutes of the Board of Governors, 14 October 1917 to 3 April 1918. 51 Acadia Bulletin 5, nos. 4–5 (1916); AUA, Morning Chronicle (Halifax), ‘Memorable event in the history of Old Acadia,’ nd, clipping in papers of Annie (Allen) Crowell; Athenaeum 42, no. 8 (1916), picture opposite, 497. 52 Athenaeum 42, no. 5 (1916): 318–19; Athenaeum 42, no. 6 (1916): 400–1; Athenaeum 43, no. 4 (1917): 311. 53 John George McKay, Après la Guerre (Boston: Fort Hill Press, 1925), 37. 54 AUA, #1900.034, Minutes of the Board of Governors, 27 and 29 May 1913; Acadia Record (Wolfville, NS: Acadia University, 1953), 92. 55 WEP ’20, ‘Canada after the War,’ Athenaeum 44, no. 1 (1917): 25–6; ‘A National Thrift Campaign – A Peace Preparation for Canada,’ Athenaeum 44, no. 2 (1918): 88–92. 56 JRG [Jean Rettie Goucher], ‘Our Duty to the Returned Soldier,’ Athenaeum 44, no. 5 (1918): 272–7. 57 Acadia Bulletin 18, no. 9 (1919): 1. 58 See, for examples, AUA, #19000.258, Exam Papers, 1918–1919, especially those of economics and sociology. 59 Athenaeum 44, no. 3 (1918): 132–72. 60 MAW, ‘Somewhere in France,’ Athenaeum 43, no. 3 (1917): 150–1. 61 Keshen, Propaganda and Censorship during Canada’s Great War, 5. 62 DAG, ‘Bolshevism,’ Athenaeum 45, no. 5 (1919): 211–15. 63 HHT [Harold Hopper Titus], ‘The Challenge of Today,’ Athenaeum 46, no. 7 (1920): 517–21. 64 Norman McL. Rogers, ‘The Progression of Loyalties,’ Dalhousie Review 11, no. 1 (1931): 61. Rogers was also an observer at the opening sessions of the League of Nations in Geneva. 65 AUA, Acadia University papers, ‘Senior Essays.’ 66 HHT, ‘Challenge of Today,’ 518, 520. 67 CEG [Charles Enoch Grant], ‘Our Debt to Those Who Died for Us,’ Athenaeum 45, no. 2 (1919): 59–60.

2 An Acute Yet Brief Bout of ‘returnedsoldier-itis’: The University of Toronto’s Faculty of Forestry after the First World War mark kuhlberg

Without doubt the Great War exacted a terrible toll on Canadians. In the short term, the impact was profound. The loss of sixty thousand young lives was enough of a burden for the country to bear without also having to contend with the devastating mental and physical wounds suffered by thousands of returned veterans. In many ways the trauma made it seem as if, in the ‘here and now’ of wartime, the world had truly changed forever. Nevertheless historians are increasingly dubious that the First World War fundamentally altered the political, economic, or social direction in which the country was already moving. They now suggest that, although the profundity of the experience of the war might have accentuated a few developments that had been initiated prior to the conflict, it hardly had a transformative impact on the fledgling nation. David MacKenzie, in Canada and the First World War: Essays in Honour of Robert Craig Brown, presents an array of essays from leading historians in their fields who, in the main, argue that the country was not markedly different after the war than it had been before. Douglas McCalla, for example, contends that the conflict brought either temporary changes or reinforced patterns in the Canadian economy that had begun long before 1914, but it certainly did not effect a ‘vast transformation.’ Joan Sangster echoes this view when she examines women and the war, pointing out that the experience was not the turning point, as has been commonly believed, although it acted as a catalyst on forces that were already active. Likewise Rod Millard draws the same conclusion with regard to industrial research in Canada.1 The views offered by authorities writing about the history of higher education in Canada generally conform to this ‘continuum-not-trans-

52

Cultures, Communities, and Conflict

formative’ paradigm. To be sure, the war struck campuses across the country like a bolt of lightning. Its energy was felt most acutely among the student body, whose ranks were drained by the steady exodus of young men answering the call of duty. University halls and classrooms became noticeably empty – some schools feared, unnecessarily as it turned out, that they might have to shut down at least temporarily2 – and were soon replete with heartrending stories of the loss and wounding of former students at the front. In an effort to set the appropriate sombre tone on campus and to permit students to enrol in and drill with the Canadian Officers’ Training Corps (COTC), many universities cancelled evening dances and intercollegiate sports and ensured classes ended by mid-afternoon. A few other post-secondary schools had their worlds turned upside down by the war, but in a very different way. Most noticeable in this regard were faculties of medicine, which were not hit by declining enrolment but instead saw the transfer of their classrooms abroad. Many, including those at Queen’s University, the University of Western Ontario, Dalhousie University, and McGill University, sponsored and staffed – with both students and faculty – their own hospitals in Europe, often near the front. St Francis Xavier University did, as well, even though it had neither a medical school nor a nursing school. Other faculties of medicine were pressed to provide their junior students with the minimum training necessary to send ‘medics’ overseas. Nevertheless, in remarkably short order after the Armistice was signed, university campuses returned, by and large, to their pre-war state. Enrolment resumed its generally upward trajectory, sports and dances began again, and the conflict became an increasingly distant, albeit jarring, memory.3 The experience of the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Forestry shares this perspective. Founded in 1907, the first school of its kind in the country, the faculty’s establishment was an anomaly, as ‘managing’ woodlands was hardly a recognized profession at the time. Indeed fewer than a dozen foresters were practising in the Dominion when the Canadian Forestry Association was formed in 1900. These circumstances framed the agenda for the faculty’s first dean, Bernhard E. Fernow, who aimed to establish a school of unparalleled quality that employed the best professors and graduated relatively few but superb students. Moreover, he was determined to inculcate in his understudies a keen understanding that success in their careers would require perseverance and the utmost professionalism. Fernow tolerated neither students nor colleagues who did not strive for excellence.

The University of Toronto’s Faculty of Forestry

53

Fernow adhered to this approach for the first half-dozen years of the faculty’s existence, but the First World War would force him – and Clifton Durant Howe, who succeeded him as dean in 1919 – to alter it in a fundamental way. Numerous factors, not the least of which were Fernow’s presence and the values the faculty imbued in its students, drove undergraduates to enlist in disproportionately large numbers and to suffer more than their fair share of deaths and casualties. The faculty, struggling to deal with the losses, had little choice but to drop its uncompromising adherence to rigorous academic standards. Sometimes this was a relatively simple process, but often it involved going to remarkable lengths ‘to care for its own.’ The faculty bent the rules as far as it could to ensure that even the weakest student-veterans who were suffering from ‘returned-solider-itis,’ as the dean euphemistically put it on one occasion, received their degrees and were provided gainful employment. As a result of a unique set of circumstances, the faculty arguably was affected as deeply by the war as was any other postsecondary program in the country, and it was forced to take dramatic, if sometimes reluctant, steps to deal with the fallout from the conflict. In remarkably short order, however, once the dead had been memorialized and the veterans had completed their studies, the faculty moved on, with those at the helm raising the bar, for both students and professors, to its previously high level. Furthermore, during the 1920s, the Faculty still faced the same basic challenges that had plagued it prior to the war. In the end, the effects of the war, though severe and tragic, ultimately proved ephemeral. *

*

*

Bernhard E. Fernow boasted impressive credentials when he was named the first dean of the Faculty of Forestry at the University of Toronto, but he knew he had his work cut out for him. A native of Prussia and trained in its august forestry tradition, he had emigrated to the United States in the 1870s and become the New World’s first practising forester. Over the next few decades he was in the vanguard of the movement to lay the foundation for his profession in the United States, and he succeeded in establishing a division of forestry within the Department of Agriculture in Washington, DC, and a forestry school at Cornell University. Yet Fernow knew that the graduates of Canada’s first forestry school faced bleak job prospects. Although governments in both the United States and Canada had begun to express interest in

54

Cultures, Communities, and Conflict

undertaking forestry work, they had done little of substance to realize this aim. Not only did politicians and the general public regard the supply of trees as inexhaustible, they doubted the efficacy of forestry work and saw little value in investing funds to manage woodlands when they probably would not see a return in their lifetimes.4 Fernow also faced numerous obstacles at the University of Toronto. Despite having agreed in 1906 to establish a forestry school, the university’s decision had not been the result of a burning desire to introduce this relatively new subject to its curriculum. In fact, quite the opposite was true. When the idea of educating foresters had first been suggested, around the turn of the century, Queen’s University had already laid the groundwork for undertaking the endeavour by asking Fernow for his advice on the matter and by constructing a new edifice to house, inter alia, the new department. In 1901 the Ontario government had recognized the logic in Queen’s University’s request – Kingston was located in an area that boasted a long lumbering history – by granting it permission to establish a forestry school. Upon hearing of this development, the University of Toronto’s imperious president, James Loudon, resolved to have none of it. He launched a campaign to ensure that the forestry school ended up in Toronto, not because this was the best place for it but because he wished to deprive his eastern rival of a prize for which Queen’s had long been lobbying. In doing so, he also co-opted another suitor for the forestry school, the Ontario Agricultural College (OAC) in Guelph. Although it appeared eminently logical to train foresters at the OAC – it had been teaching courses in this field for twenty years and its students had helped establish plantations oncampus, Loudon ensured this did not come to pass.5 After Loudon moved on, however, the University of Toronto cooled to the idea of hosting a forestry school. A royal commission that had investigated the university’s affairs over the course of 1906 had recommended that Ontario establish a forestry school in Toronto because the University of Toronto was the ‘provincial’ university. Saddled with this responsibility, the university set out to fulfil this mandate using as few resources as possible. Unfortunately for Fernow, although he initially laboured under the illusion that the university had hired him to set up a world-class forestry school, with all the personnel and facilities he deemed necessary, he soon learned of the administration’s true intent. The Faculty of Forestry opened its doors in fall 1907 with fewer than half the teaching complement for which he had asked, and it was

The University of Toronto’s Faculty of Forestry

55

housed in grossly inadequate facilities for Fernow’s entire term as dean (1907 to 1919). To overcome these challenges Fernow was convinced that he needed to produce students who were few in number but unequalled in quality, and he mapped out a multipronged strategy to achieve this aim. When the faculty was preparing to admit its inaugural class of students, for example, he set its admission requirements well above those laid out by the university. Thereafter Fernow succeeded in further raising the standard to attract, as he explained in his 1916 Annual Report, ‘a better class of men’ (the faculty enrolled no women at the time, a subject about which more will be said below). He also believed that this strategy would draw older, more mature students to the faculty, which he regarded as essential if Canada’s silvicultural pioneers were to win converts. In Europe, in contrast, forestry graduates could cut their teeth while serving as apprentices in a profession that was widely practised and respected. Fernow knew his Canadian students would lack this opportunity, and would have to be as worldly as possible when they left his charge. He also insisted that they excel in their studies and demonstrate a work ethic in learning their trade such that they truly would merit being called ‘professionals.’ Although he occasionally threw a lifesaver to someone who fell temporarily by the wayside, pity the drifting student who did not heed his warnings. After noticing J.R. Chamberlin’s repeated absence from class without just cause in the fall of 1911, Fernow’s one-sentence ultimatum exemplified his ‘tough love’ mantra: ‘Will you please call on me and show cause why you should not be dismissed from the University for lack of attendance,’ the dean’s curt admonition read.6 Fernow designed and followed this demanding pedagogy to achieve one other central goal: to inculcate in his charges the feeling that forestry was a noble cause and that working in this field was an act of the highest public service. ‘Fernow believed passionately,’ his biographer writes, ‘that the professional forester acted as an agent of the state and developed policies for forest administration for the benefit of the public based on scientific principles. This was the German model of the civil servant, professionally trained and serving the greater interests of the state.’7 Although Fernow’s approach predictably took a heavy toll on the faculty’s student body – the school’s attrition rate usually hovered around forty per cent – he applied the same uncompromising standard to him-

56

Cultures, Communities, and Conflict

self and his staff members. For example, Fernow hired A.H.D. Ross as the faculty’s first lecturer in April 1907, but over the next half-dozen years became increasingly dismayed with Ross’s performance. Reluctant to dismiss Ross at a time when forestry professors were few and far between, Fernow eventually brought matters to a head in mid-1913 by bluntly informing him that he was persona non grata at the faculty. The reason, Fernow explained, was that Ross’s ‘work for the students is not satisfactory. As you may remember, I pointed this out to you a few years ago, and hoped that by an encouraging rise in salary your efforts might be stimulated to improve your teaching. I regret that the anticipation has not been realized.’ Within short order, Fernow saw to it that Sir Robert Falconer, the university’s president, showed Ross the door.8 Fernow’s modus operandi undoubtedly boasted a harsh edge – how many deans fire a colleague? – but the evidence indicates that he achieved his aim of graduating first-class foresters during the faculty’s formative years. Most of his students recognized the wisdom of his ways, and thoroughly appreciated him for it. ‘I go out into the world Doctor,’ Ernest H. Finlayson effusively praised Fernow not long after his graduation in 1912, ‘with respect and gratitude to you for all you have done for me and I trust that my work will prove me a worthy disciple of your teachings.’ It did. Finlayson, like nearly all the faculty’s graduates during these years, distinguished himself in his field, becoming Canada’s Dominion Forester in 1924 and serving in that capacity until his untimely death in 1936 (Finlayson, allegedly suffering from a psychological problem, disappeared during a blizzard in Ottawa, and his body was never found).9 And so, on the eve of the First World War, the faculty had overcome significant odds in establishing itself on the University of Toronto campus. Including Fernow, four full-time staff members taught its strictly undergraduate curriculum to a total of forty-odd students, and the program annually admitted an average of eleven young men. Moreover, this favourable professor-to-student ratio and the fact that the students took practically all the same courses at the same time during each of their four years fostered an intimate camaraderie among Fernow’s understudies. Their esprit de corps was also reinforced by their living and working side-by-side on their annual practicums. The result was a profound bond among all members of the faculty’s family, especially those in the same year. As forestry students wrote in the 1913 yearbook, ‘[w]e have studied together, scraped through Exams together, tramped, worked and slept together, have feasted and gone hungry together.’

The University of Toronto’s Faculty of Forestry

57

What was more, the faculty seemed set for significant growth, as the size of the freshman class for 1913–14 hit a high-water mark of eighteen.10 Unfortunately for the faculty, its unique characteristics made its students and graduates particularly vulnerable to the call to enlist when war came. Fernow’s success in portraying forestry as a ‘public service’ both attracted those who were motivated by working for ‘the greater good’ and instilled in his understudies a reverence for this ideal. ‘The forester is a patriot by profession, for his business is to provide for the future of the nation in peace time,’ the dean’s message in the class of 1918’s yearbook read, ‘but he is to be found as patriotic in war time, when the sterner demands on his citizenship call for sacrifices.’ In addition, the foresters’ skills were highly valued by the war effort. Their curriculum included core engineering subjects such as geometry and physics, which gave them the knowledge needed to direct field-gun operations (ironically, many ended up in the artillery even though they had done miserably in these courses). The same held true for the select few who served as some of the world’s first aerial bomber crews. R.A.N. ‘Reg’ Johnston, for instance, put his experience in the war to good use in peacetime, credited with piloting the first plane from which a forest fire was spotted and airlifting a crew to fight it. The faculty’s students also possessed the practical field skills needed of those who were sent to fight on the front lines – the young foresters, after all, had chosen a career path that would require them to live for prolonged periods under harsh conditions ‘in the bush,’ an existence that exemplified all the characteristics of rugged masculinity. These were the ‘manly’ traits that Canadians saw their soldiers both requiring and personifying during the war.11 Another factor drove the faculty’s students to enlist at a time when others may have dithered. While the university’s president, Falconer, was enthusiastically enjoining students to sign up – one student complained that Falconer was acting as a self-appointed recruiting officer – the critical influence on the forestry students was Fernow himself.12 Not only was he of Prussian descent, but he had fought – as an officer no less – in the Franco-Prussian War. Although he had become a ‘naturalized’ American in the early 1880s, he had not become a British subject because he expected to return to the United States upon his retirement in 1916. As a result, Fernow was caught squarely in the crosshairs of the hysterical ‘anti-Kaiser’ movement that erupted in Canada during the war. This was doubly true because of his position as someone who was paid from the public purse and held sway over a presumably impressionable group of young adult minds.13

58

Cultures, Communities, and Conflict

The zealous campaign to cleanse the Dominion of its German influences had immediate and profound implications at the University of Toronto. Tory and Grit politicians often locked arms to demand that President Falconer take summary action against the few professors whom he employed who were tainted by even the most tangential ties to Germany. Within a few months of the war’s outbreak, Falconer had succumbed to this pressure by removing three faculty members, but not Fernow.14 As a result, until the war ended four years later, Fernow was the object of a sustained campaign to remove him, an effort that plumbed the depths of human decency on more than one occasion. Opportunistic politicians capitalized on his vulnerability by calling for his dismissal. Dr Forbes Godfrey, the Tory Member of the Provincial Parliament for West York, referred specifically to Fernow when he decried in the Ontario Legislature in January 1915 that it was ‘dangerous’ when men of German background were ‘permitted to impart knowledge to the youth of this country. It is dangerous to the welfare of the British Crown.’ Godfrey charged that allowing the dean to remain at his post was particularly perilous because Fernow was ‘very familiar with the resources of the Dominion and he has a wealth of information at his command which would be regarded as somewhat valuable to the Kaiser.’ The attacks Fernow suffered behind closed doors were even more vitriolic. ‘Dear Old Furnuts,’ one piece of hate mail from an alleged ‘ex-student’ began: [h]ow’s the Frau and have you still managed to pull the fur over the Prixi’s eyes. We shoot men like you out here every day and you certainly look good to me. When I return I’ll give you a chance to win your wooden cross, you frankfurter you. If only some of your sausage friends 200 yds away from us would show some of that bluff which you have been getting away with at that faculty which I had the misfortune to attend, they would be pushing up daisies by now. Good bye you Kiel Canal.15

In response to these merciless calumnies, Fernow felt his best defence was to demonstrate his unequivocal loyalty to the Allies in a very public way. On a minor level he made concessions. Most important, he agreed to abide by a university-wide decision to drop German as a compulsory subject even though the nascent state of forestry in North America dictated that much of the contemporary literature was still

The University of Toronto’s Faculty of Forestry

59

available only in his mother tongue. Far more significant, however, was the sustained campaign he carried out to exhort his students to enlist. Repeatedly during the war, especially in its first few years, he delivered speech after speech to his charges that stressed their duty to ‘go and fight for Britain.’ As well, he ensured that, at worst, the university’s administration received the text of his addresses and that, at best, the press published them.16 The problem was exacerbated when Fernow, who turned sixty-five in 1916, tried to retire after decades of fighting to further the forestry movement in North America had left him enervated. As a replacement, Fernow felt he had found the ideal candidate in the person of H.R. MacMillan. Although MacMillan, whose name would become synonymous with Canada’s forest industry within a few decades, was interested in the position, Fernow was unable to lure ‘HR’ to Toronto. Consequently the dean had little choice but to continue waging his zealous campaign to push the faculty’s graduates and students off to war as he continued desperately to seek a qualified successor.17 The result of these forces acting in concert – the idea that foresters ought to perform their ‘public duty,’ the nature of their training, and the manner in which Fernow defended his presence at the faculty – was hardly surprising; by war’s end, nearly all the faculty’s students and graduates who were eligible had enlisted, and fifty-two of its fifty-five graduates had served at the front. Fernow repeatedly boasted about this exemplary level of commitment to the cause, but, as he noted in 1918, ‘[i]t is thus that the Faculty of Forestry has suffered perhaps more than any other by the call to arms.’ Fifteen graduates (nearly 30 per cent of the faculty’s former and present students) lost their lives, a rate that was roughly triple the estimate for the university as a whole. Fernow’s successor as dean, Clifton Durant Howe, remarked that ‘[t]he war has certainly made great havoc in forestry. The country could ill afford to lose such a large number of brilliant young men.’ Moreover, many of those who returned had been scarred physically or mentally in battle, and oftentimes both. Most troubling were those whose psyches had been deeply affected by their experiences on the battlefield, for their wounds often would not be immediately apparent.18 The war had an intense impact on everyone – staff, students, and alumni – associated with the faculty during this period, and they reacted in a number of predictable ways. Immediately upon the cessation of hostilities, for example, a natural impulse among the survivors was to remember their fallen brethren, and universities across the coun-

60

Cultures, Communities, and Conflict

Figure 2.1: The Faculty of Forestry’s plaque to commemorate students who perished in the First World War; it still hangs in the school’s hallway. Courtesy of the University of Toronto Archives, A65-0004/023 [27.4], Forestry Memorial Tablet, 10 December 1926

try erected memorials and other symbols to commemorate their losses. At the Faculty of Forestry, the new dean, Howe, saw to it that the fifteen students lost in the war were immortalized by a bronze plaque that bore their names and was hung in the school’s hallway (see Figure 2.1).19 But sometimes the desire to remember the dead exceeded the practical ability to do so. George E. Bothwell, for example, graduated from the faculty in 1913 and had headed off to Alberta to work for the Dominion Forest Service. He enlisted in the fall of 1915 and reached France by mid1916. At the Battle of the Somme, he led a successful attack and captured a German trench and its defenders. As he was moving the prisoners out, one of them shot Bothwell from behind with a concealed revolver, killing him. When it was suggested at the Forestry Club’s annual dinner in 1920 that the faculty create memorial medals to honour all their fallen classmates, Ernest Finlayson, who had graduated one year before

The University of Toronto’s Faculty of Forestry

61

Bothwell and been his boss at the Dominion Forest Service in Alberta, personally guaranteed that his colleagues out west would raise the money needed to establish a Bothwell Memorial Award. For more than two years, however, Dean Howe’s inquiries about the money to pay for the award were met with promises that it would be forthcoming. The matter became pressing because, in June 1922, Howe had already announced that the inaugural recipient of the award would be Gordon G. Cosens (who would later serve as the faculty’s dean from 1941 to 1947). The problem was that Finlayson’s profound commitment to furthering the forestry cause within the Dominion government – a devotion that has been suggested as the cause of his mental health issues during the 1930s – left him little time to do anything else, including fundraising. It was more than two decades later, ironically when the world was again engulfed in war, that the university’s administration decided to dip into its own pockets to pay for the first and only George E. Bothwell Memorial.20 A far more pressing problem for the faculty was to address the needs of soldiers who had returned from battle. Fernow had heretofore set an exacting standard for his students if they wished to graduate, but the war presented a major challenge to continuing this approach. The specific issue was the university’s general policy of granting students credit for one year of university if they had served overseas. Fernow certainly realized that his understudies had given the country invaluable service at a time of grave crisis, but he found it difficult to believe this was the best way to recognize their sacrifice. It meant, for example, that some students would metamorphose into foresters without having formally completed their studies. In addition, it provided inferior students a backdoor means of joining the profession. Those who had enlisted in their final year but whose poor grades made it unlikely they would have graduated were now guaranteed to do so. Fernow had little choice but to abide by the university’s policy, but he did all he could to safeguard the reputation of both the faculty and the forestry profession against this ‘special’ class of students whose competency he clearly doubted. Of those who received their diplomas in this way, he demanded that they recognize their collective deficiency by committing to supplement their educations. The manner in which Fernow spelled out his expectations to student John L. Simmons was typical of the approach he took. He brusquely informed Simmons, who had barely passed any of his courses, that the faculty had ‘reluctantly come to the conclusion in view of your enlistment that, although your

62

Cultures, Communities, and Conflict

record is poor, we may give you the degree honoris causa for you have hardly earned it by your work. I must advise you, however, that upon your return you ought deliberately to take another year to fit yourself for life work, for with your present equipment you will hardly be able to secure or hold down any position in the forest service, and we would hardly be able to recommend for such.’21 Although cases such as Simmons’s clearly did not tug at the dean’s heartstrings, others did – particularly those that involved veterans who returned from the battlefield mere shadows of their former selves due to physical and mental injuries. The Dominion government demonstrated only nominal interest in, and capacity for, addressing this problem. In marked contrast to its approach after the Second World War, when hostilities ended in 1918 the government provided merely meagre funding for facilitating the veterans’ reintegration into civilian life and their medical rehabilitation. Fernow dealt with a few of these situations, but as he retired in mid-1919, the task of reaching out to the faculty’s injured souls was left to his successor, Howe.22 Eric Druce was one of the many young Canadians who lied about their age to enter the service. At the age of sixteen years and eight months, he enlisted in the 90th Winnipeg Rifles in early 1916. After serving for the duration of the war, he returned to Canada and enrolled in the forestry school in the fall of 1919. Not only was Druce suffering from the mental trauma of his experiences at the front, he was also barely able to finance his studies, and his family was in no position to assist him in this regard. Howe, recognizing his understudy’s plight, urged the university administration to offer Druce its succour. In a heartfelt letter to registrar James Brebner in spring 1920, Howe described how Druce was a ‘boy of superior natural ability, but like so many others he is more or less subject to returned-soldier-itis, and suffers from an inability to concentrate himself upon his work.’ Howe’s advocacy on Druce’s behalf was well placed. The veteran took a year off from his studies to earn enough to pay for his schooling, and went on to distinguish himself in the forestry field over the next four decades.23 Druce’s case was a harbinger for Howe. H. Walter Crosbie, a native of Chatham, New Brunswick, had also entered the faculty in the fall of 1919 after being demobilized. He, too, was suffering from a lack of funding and the damage that the horrors of the battlefield had inflicted on him. Howe endeavoured to help Crosbie by supporting the latter’s application for financial aid to the university’s Memorial Loan Fund, which it had established to help veterans fund their educations. Howe

The University of Toronto’s Faculty of Forestry

63

pointed out that Crosbie was ‘inclined to be neurasthenic, undoubtedly due to his war experiences. It is very difficult for him to write an examination paper. He gets so excited that he trembles and perspires freely, and, of course, in that condition cannot really do himself justice.’ Like Druce, Crosbie would persevere. He graduated in 1923, and thereafter enjoyed a successful career with the Ontario government’s forestry service.24 On rare occasions, Howe was compelled to help a faculty member deal with the conflict’s impact over a prolonged period. After serving in the war, R.C. ‘Bob’ Hosie graduated from the forestry school in 1924, and Howe immediately hired him to be one of its teaching assistants. This marked the beginning of Hosie’s forty-two-year professorial career at the faculty. Yet, from the mid-1920s through the late 1930s, even though Howe continually lobbied the university’s administration to raise Hosie’s salary, Hosie was barely able to make ends meet despite supplementing his income, as nearly all the faculty’s staff did, by working for the Ontario government during the summer. Hosie’s financial problems were not a function of a profligate lifestyle. Rather, as Howe repeatedly explained to the university’s president, they were a product of Hosie’s more than three years of active duty. Howe described how, since returning from the battlefield, Hosie had suffered ‘fearfully from sciatica at times being confined to bed for several weeks.’ Hosie’s condition, and the lack of public medical insurance, had forced him ‘to borrow money to meet doctors’ bills and interest payments on his mortgaged house.’ Except for the years during the depths of the Depression, the university’s administration responded favourably to Howe’s requests.25 Although these stories reflect the typical situations with which Howe and the faculty had to deal because of the war, the tale of George W.U. Bayly stands as a poignant example of the extremes to which the foresters were willing to go to care for one of their own. A native of India, Bayly had attended the Royal Military College in Kingston, Ontario, McGill University, and the University of Munich before landing at the faculty in 1910. He had intended to apply his previous post-secondary credits towards earning his forestry degree in one year instead of the requisite four, but was told it would take at least two years for him to achieve this. Bayly’s plans were derailed, however, practically from the moment he wrote his first exam. From 1910 to 1913, he failed several courses and barely passed those for which he received credit; his overall average was well under 50 per cent. It was de rigueur for the faculty

64

Cultures, Communities, and Conflict

to defer granting a degree to students who fared as poorly as Bayly, and Fernow delivered this news to him in 1913. When war broke out the next year, Bayly enlisted, joining the 3rd Battalion.26 Bayly’s ghastly wartime experiences would scar him both inside and out, and fundamentally shape the next decade and more of his life. Howe summarized Bayly’s plight for the university’s administration in the late 1920s. ‘His skull was fractured in the second battle of Ypres,’ Howe wrote, after which he spent six weeks in hospitals, three weeks on leave and worked in a records office one month, when he was sent back to France. After three weeks there he went to pieces and it was discovered that his skull had not yet healed. He spent three months more in hospital, then was sent to the Officers’ Training School … He had just completed the course, when he went to pieces again. He was finally discharged to the Reserve Officers’ list and sent back to Canada. For the next four years he was subject to vomiting and dizzy spells. He is still subject to these, but at more infrequent intervals.27

Bayly’s debilitating condition became an issue for Howe and the faculty in 1924 for one simple reason; Bayly needed his forestry degree to be promoted to a higher rank in the provincial civil service. Howe had previously reviewed Bayly’s academic record with the university’s registrar, James Brebner, who offered a blunt and pessimistic assessment of the situation. Despite Bayly’s tragic story, Brebner felt that the faculty could not bend its rules far enough to accommodate this particular veteran. Even with the addition of one year’s worth of credits for Bayly’s overseas service, his deplorable academic record precluded him from having sufficient standing for graduating.28 Howe and the faculty, however, circled the wagons to protect their student. The dean and his colleagues agreed to tutor Bayly privately over the next three years – without extra remuneration – to allow Bayly to earn the credits he lacked. In early June 1927 he was granted the forestry degree towards which he had begun working nearly two decades – and several lifetimes – earlier.29 By the time the university conferred Bayly’s degree, the faculty had dealt with practically all its wartime issues. Bayly, was, in fact, one of the last veterans to graduate. Thereafter, Howe and other faculty members would be reminded only occasionally of the horror the conflict had inflicted on their new crops of foresters, usually when a discussion regarding a former student turned to a seemingly ‘inexplicable’ recur-

The University of Toronto’s Faculty of Forestry

65

ring nervous disorder. Charles H. Morse, for example, was one of the few students to earn the faculty’s six-year degree (which combined the forestry and arts programs), but by the time he received word of it in 1933, he was suffering so much from shell shock – Howe called it ‘the disease known as sleeping-sickness’ – that the magnitude of the accomplishment probably meant little to him.30 Yet for all the conflict’s pain and anguish, the forestry school nonetheless continued to thrive after the war. To be sure, the caustic antiPrussian campaign had forced the elimination of the program’s German language requirement, but this probably would have occurred in any event. Forestry enjoyed dramatic growth in North America in the decade after the war, a development that produced a steady supply of Canadian scholarship in the profession. In the aftermath of the war, Canada’s major forest companies hired scores of foresters to oversee the implementation of truly enlightened silvicultural initiatives. The Canadian Pulp and Paper Association had already formed a ‘Woodlands Section’ as early as November 1917. Likewise, provincial governments engaged dozens of foresters at this time. Although only a few had an opportunity to practise forestry in the field, many undertook research projects, leading to lively discussion about the state of forestry in Canada, founded upon an ever-increasing volume of empirical data. The faculty’s enrolment and adherence to academic standards also returned remarkably quickly to pre-war patterns and levels. The 1913–14 academic year had seen the largest freshman class (eighteen) and total student body (forty-seven), but during the conflict, first-year enrolment dropped precipitously to the low single digits and total enrolment bottomed out at nine in 1917–18. In 1919–20, however, the faculty set new records in terms of first-year enrolment (twenty) and total student body (forty-eight). The numbers dipped somewhat during the early 1920s, but by the late 1920s, first-year and total enrolment were averaging in the low twenties and more than sixty, respectively. Likewise, Dean Howe ensured that, although the faculty had lowered its standards to allow the veterans to ‘earn’ their degrees, this adjustment did not fundamentally or permanently affect the quality of its graduates. He did so by following his predecessor, Fernow, in demanding that his understudies and colleagues aspire to excellence. Attesting to his commitment to this agenda, the faculty’s student attrition rate continued to average nearly 50 per cent throughout the 1920s. Moreover, Howe was as inclined as Fernow had been to facilitate the firing of a colleague who failed to adhere to a code of conduct that was condu-

66

Cultures, Communities, and Conflict

cive to producing the best possible graduates. Consequently, nearly all the students who came through the forestry school in the war’s wake went on to enjoy stellar careers in their chosen profession, carrying out the crucial pioneering work and laying a strong foundation upon which future generations would build. Graduates often expressed their gratitude to Howe for having instilled in them such high standards, but the dean occasionally entertained doubts about the wisdom of unwaveringly enforcing such a strict code of discipline among his colleagues.31 Despite rising numbers of students, the post-war faculty faced some of the same challenges it had confronted before the conflict, especially with respect to the Ontario government’s continuing lack of interest in implementing meaningful forestry reforms. Initially, it appeared that, in the war’s wake, there might be a fundamental shift in politicians’ attitudes, particularly with the election of the reform-minded United Farmers of Ontario in 1919. But such hopes were dashed within a few years. Although the 1920s saw the provincial government hire many of the faculty’s graduates, they continued to be prevented from managing Crown woodlands. This grim reality reflected the electorate’s policy priorities: support for new infrastructure trumped support for silvicultural initiatives every time. The faculty also continued to wage an uphill battle at the university itself. The dean’s pleas for more space and staff almost always fell on deaf ears, which drove Howe to despair on more than one occasion. The only way he could convince the university’s administration to sit up and take notice was to resort to sly means. As a highly coveted silvicultural researcher, Howe received a string of enticing offers in the 1920s from employers who endeavoured to lure him away from Toronto. At the appropriate moment, he would dangle one of these propositions in front of the university’s senior administrators, who he knew could not stomach the thought of losing him to a rival institution. Concomitantly, Howe would lobby the country’s leading businessmen to support his cause, appeals to which they generally responded favourably. Only after taking these steps did Howe win tangible gains for his school.32 Finally, the faculty’s attitude towards admitting women spoke volumes about how the war had not transformed it. Because the conflict had caused male enrolment at the university to decline while female enrolment remained stable, women had increased their proportional representation on campus. Already facing many hurdles to gaining a university education, women, Fernow was convinced, should never become foresters, and he clung tenaciously to this view even during

The University of Toronto’s Faculty of Forestry

67

the war when meagre enrolment could have raised questions about the faculty’s viability. To one young woman who inquired in mid-1918 about employment prospects in the field, Fernow replied that ‘there are some occupations for which women are not specially fitted and forestry is one of them, at least in Canada, on account of the rough life in the woods which it entails.’ The faculty continued this policy until the early 1960s.33 Although forestry re-established itself in the 1920s on very much the same path it had trod before the war, one tragic footnote to the story remains. Just as the war was becoming a distant memory for faculty members, Dean Howe learned that his young charges might soon face the spectre of fighting in another overseas conflict. A.W. Bentley, class of 1921, wrote to Howe while on a vacation in Europe in the winter of 1932–33 to convey his observations of the events he was witnessing. While travelling through Belgium, Bentley was shocked to realize that ‘people there were absolutely convinced there was going to be war with Germany before the year was up. In fact all the civilians had gas masks issued to them and all the new frontier defences which had been built up in the past few years were partially [m]anned. There is no doubt,’ Bentley explained, ‘that the spirit and willingness to have another war exists in Europe and that the ordinary common people thoroughly believe that it is necessary. Whether this feeling is ever going to be changed remains to be seen, but there is no doubt that it will take very little to start things moving over there.’34 For those who had witnessed the Great War’s intense effects on the University of Toronto’s forestry school and were thankful they had waned quickly, this prognostication must have sounded gloomy indeed.

NOTES 1 See Douglas McCalla, ‘The Economic Impact of the Great War’; Joan Sangster, ‘Mobilizing Women for War’; and Rod Millard, ‘The Crusade for Science: Science and Technology on the Home Front, 1914–1918,’ all in Canada and the First World War: Essays in Honour of Robert Craig Brown, ed. David MacKenzie (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2005). 2 The only apparent exception to this pattern was the Faculty of Education at Queen’s University, but its disappearance had little to do with the war as it had become redundant in Ontario once the new College of Education had been established in Toronto; see D.D. Calvin, Queen’s University

68

3

4 5

6

7 8

9 10 11

Cultures, Communities, and Conflict at Kingston: The First Century of a Scottish-Canadian Foundation, 1841–1941 (Kingston: The Trustees of the University, 1941), 161. Ibid., 158, 160–76. See also Murray Barr, A Century of Medicine at Western: A Centennial History of the Faculty of Medicine, University of Western Ontario (London: University of Western Ontario, 1977), 258–9; P.B. Waite, The Lives of Dalhousie University, Volume One, 1818–1925, Lord Dalhousie’s College (Montreal; Kingston, ON: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1994), 226–7; C. Macmillan, McGill and Its Story, 1821–1921 (Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1921), 261; S.B. Frost, McGill University: For the Advancement of Learning, vol. 2, 1895–1971 (Montreal; Kingston, ON: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1984), 99–101; James Cameron, For the People: A History of St. Francis Xavier University (Montreal; Kingston, ON: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1996), 157–61; and the chapters by Sara Z. Burke and James Hull, in this volume. Andrew Denny Rodgers, Bernhard Eduard Fernow: A Story of North American Forestry (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1951), chaps. 1–6. See Mark Kuhlberg, One Hundred Rings and Counting: The University of Toronto’s Faculty of Forestry, 1907–2007 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2009), chaps. 1–2. Notes regarding forestry schools in North America and proposed forestry curriculum for the University of Toronto, University of Toronto Archives (hereafter cited as UTA), B72-0031, 3, 9, ca. 1903; B.E. Fernow to F.B. Robertson, 19 June 1909, UTA, A2004-0017, F.B. Robertson, 36; Fernow to J.R. Chamberlin, 21 November 1911, UTA, A2004-0017, J.R. Chamberlin, 7; University of Toronto, President’s Report for the Year Ending June 30, 1910, 13; idem, President’s Report 1911, 17; idem, President’s Report 1914, 20; and idem, President’s Report 1916, 24. Rodgers, Bernhard Eduard Fernow, 435–9. A.H.D. Ross to Fernow, 24 April 1907, UTA, A67-0007, B.E. Fernow, 1; Fernow to R.A. Falconer, 15 January 1908, UTA, A67-0007, B.E. Fernow, 3, Appointments – Faculty of Forestry; Fernow to Ross, 9 September 1913, UTA, A67-0007, B.E. Fernow, 28; Fernow to Falconer, 9 September 1913, UTA, A67-0007, B.E. Fernow, 28; Board of Governors Meeting, 24 March 1914, UTA, A1970-0024, 16; Fernow to H.H. Chapman, 25 November 1914, UTA, A72-0025, Letterbook, 190. E.H. Finlayson to Fernow, 14 May 1913, UTA, A2004-0017, E.H. Finlayson, all documents, 14. Torontonensis, 1913, 176. See James Pitsula, in this volume, for a discussion of the role of ‘manliness’

The University of Toronto’s Faculty of Forestry

12

13

14 15

16

17

18

19 20

69

in responses to wartime circumstances at the University of Saskatchewan during the First World War. Some universities reacted in diametric fashion to Toronto. At Mount Allison, for example, the school’s administration agreed to support students who enlisted but declared that it was ‘not wise for the officials of the University to act as recruiting agents in urging students to enlist’; John G. Reid, Mount Allison University: A History to 1963, Volume II: 1914–1963 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1984), 4. Michiel Horn has assessed the University of Toronto’s handling of German professors during the First World War in his Academic Freedom in Canada: A History (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1999), 41–6. See also Martin Friedland, The University of Toronto: A History (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2002), chaps. 22–3. Friedland, University of Toronto, 259–61. Toronto Globe, 15 and 16 January 1915; Toronto News, 15 January 1915; ‘ex-student’ to ‘Old Furnuts,’ Cornell University, Rare and Manuscript Collection, Carl A. Kroch Library, 20/1/561, 2, 32, ca. 1917; Falconer to Fernow, 30 January and 8 February 1915,UTA, A67-0007, B.E. Fernow, 34. Fernow’s speech was cited in the Toronto Globe, 16 January 1915; Falconer to Fernow, 22 June 1918, UTA, A67-0007, 47a; Falconer to Fernow, 13 November 1915, UTA, A67-0007, B.E. Fernow, 38. Fernow to H.R. MacMillan, 27 September 1917, 2 March, 18 April, and 22 December 1918, University of British Columbia Archives (hereafter cited as UBCA), H.R. MacMillan Personal Papers, 36, 4; G.C. Creelman to MacMillan, 9 May 1918, UBCA, H.R. MacMillan Personal Papers; J.H. White to MacMillan, 29 September, 2 November, and 20 November 1917, and 14 January 1918, UBCA, H.R. MacMillan Personal Papers, 36; MacMillan to Fernow, 24 February, 11 March, and 7 April 1919, UBCA, H.R. MacMillan Personal Papers, 6; Fernow to MacMillan, 1 March and 14 March 1919, UBCA, H.R. MacMillan Personal Papers, 6; Fernow to Falconer, 27 September 1917, UTA, A67-0007, B.E. Fernow, 58a. Torontonensis, 1918, 134; idem, 1920, 120; University of Toronto, President’s Report 1916, 24; Friedland, University of Toronto, chap. 22; C.D. Howe to W.L. Aiken, 8 October 1920, UTA, A2004-0017, J.D. Aiken, 1. Friedland, University of Toronto, chap. 23; C.B. Sissons, A History of Victoria University (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1952), 275. UTA, A2004-0017, G.E. Bothwell, 5, all documents; Howe to A.B. Fennell, 8 June 1922, UTA, A2004-0017, G.G. Cosens, 10; Howe to E.H. Finlayson, 20

70

21 22

23 24 25

26 27 28

29

30 31

32 33 34

Cultures, Communities, and Conflict November 1922, UTA, A2004-0017, G.G. Cosens, 10; [Howe] to Bursar, 23 February 1945, UTA, A2004-0017, E.H. Finlayson, 14, all documents. Fernow to J.L. Simmons, 19 April 1915, UTA, A2004-0017, J.L. Simmons, 38; Fernow to A.V. Gilbert, 19 April 1916, UTA, A2004-0017, A.V. Gilbert, 15. James Struthers, No Fault of Their Own: Unemployment and the Canadian Welfare State, 1914–1941 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1983), chap. 1. Howe to J. Brebner, 27 April 1920, UTA, A2004-0017, Eric Druce, 12, all correspondence. Friedland, University of Toronto, chap. 23; Howe to W.N. MacQueen, 31 October 1921, UTA, Graduate Records, H.W. Crosbie. Howe to H.J. Cody, 8 March 1934, UTA, A72-0025, Howe – Correspondence with President, University of Toronto 1934, 141; Howe to Cody, 14 February 1938, UTA, A72-0025, Howe – Correspondence with President, University of Toronto 1935–41, 1945, 141; UTA, A2004-0017, R.C. Hosie, 20, all files. UTA, A2004-0017, G.W.U. Bayly, 3, all documents. Howe to Brebner, 14 January 1927, UTA, A2004-0017, G.W.U. Bayly, 3. Howe to G.W.U. Bayly, 21 October 1919 and 10 November 1925, UTA, A2004-0017, G.W.U. Bayly, 3; Bayly to Howe, 30 October 1925, UTA, A2004-0017, G.W.U. Bayly, 3. Howe to Brebner, 14 January 1927; Memorandum for the Council of the Faculty of Forestry concerning the case of G.W. Bayly, 30 May 1927, UTA, A2004-0017, G.W.U. Bayly, 3; J.H. White to Bayly, 8 June 1927, UTA, A20040017, G.W.U. Bayly, 3; Howe to F.A. Mouré, 8 June 1927, UTA, A2004-0017, G.W.U. Bayly, 3. Howe to Fennell, 21 July 1933, UTA, A2004-0017, C.H. Morse, 31, all documents. In the early 1930s, Howe engineered the firing of W.N. Millar, one of his long-time colleagues, but the burden of having done so weighed heavily on his conscience; see Mark Kuhlberg, ‘“By just what procedure am I to be guillotined?”: Academic Freedom in the Toronto Forestry Faculty between the Wars,’ History of Education 31, no. 4 (2002): 351–70; idem, One Hundred Rings and Counting, 99. Kuhlberg, One Hundred Rings and Counting, chap. 3. Friedland, University of Toronto, chaps. 22–3; Fernow to E. MacRoberts, 8 June 1918, UTA, A72-0025, OFB – Legislation, 142. A.W. Bentley to Howe, 23 May 1933, UTA, A2004-0017, F.C. Boultbee, 5.

3 ‘We must not neglect our duty’: Enlisting Women Undergraduates for the Red Cross during the Great War1 linda j. quiney

In September 1914, as the new academic year began, the war in Europe dominated the discourse on Canadian university campuses. Before the war, the ‘student generation of 1914, university authorities, and the public were debating the sexual implications of the tango,’ but by December these debates had largely fallen silent. In his study of undergraduate life in Ontario universities, historian A.B. McKillop states that ‘the autumn of 1914 was no time to dance.’2 The war also gradually became central to the pages of undergraduate newspapers, which provide a rare window into campus life, despite both editorial and publisher’s bias. In this era they demonstrate that, although dancing and other social aspects of campus life did not disappear suddenly, in the undergraduate papers the onset of war appears to have engendered a more considered tone. Instead of the usual concerns of campus politics, sports, literary, and social events, the papers traced the increasing disruption of normal student life, including mounting reports of students who had signed up for military service followed by the ominous steady increase in the reports of student casualties of the war.3 By spring 1915 initial enthusiasm for the war that had been expected to be ‘over by Christmas’ had been absorbed gradually into the cold mud of Flanders and the carnage of the Second Battle of Ypres.4 Yet the propaganda mills endeavoured to sustain patriotic fervour, hoping to encourage popular support for the war effort. Able-bodied men had little doubt where their duty lay, with soldiering regarded as the highest form of masculine patriotic service. University men continued to respond, putting aside their studies for service to ‘king and country.’ For university women, however, patriotic service was more problematic, as gender dictated that their war necessarily would be fought on

72

Cultures, Communities, and Conflict

the periphery, far from the battlefields of Europe. Still, as Gwen Szychter finds for women in British Columbia, ‘the demand to be visibly participating was relentless.’5 Off campus, the leading women’s organizations quickly adapted to war conditions as affiliates of the National Council of Women (NCWC) recognized that, if the vote was key to women’s political influence, war service was a viable means by which to demonstrate patriotic responsibility. Women’s voluntary war efforts were rapidly transformed into a productive ‘war industry,’ generating goods and services that soon became as essential to the war as munitions and soldiers. Many women undergraduates, however, lived away from home, removed from their local women’s community of patriotic activities through churches and clubs. Unqualified for military nursing, the only official active women’s service, most undergraduate women were also too young to be considered for auxiliary nursing service as a St John Ambulance Voluntary Aid Detachment (VAD) nurse.6 At the same time, as the war plucked more and more young men from the campuses, the void was steadily filled with record numbers of incoming women students. As the conflict became increasing grave, campus women felt compelled to demonstrate their own patriotic support for the war effort even though their efforts during the academic year were more circumscribed;7 as a result, home-based VAD nursing, farm labour, and even munitions work evolved as summer commitments. Very early in the war, the Canadian Red Cross Society (CRCS) was particularly successful in harnessing the energy and resourcefulness of volunteer women at all levels of society to produce both monetary and material support for the war effort. The focus of this chapter is the means through which the CRCS successfully employed the university infrastructure, with the full approval of student groups, academic organizations, faculty, and administration, to elicit the voluntary assistance of women undergraduates in support of the war effort. With so many women students having fathers, brothers, and fiancés fighting overseas, Red Cross leaders were quick to recognize the university campus as fertile ground for women’s fundraising and other patriotic projects.8 The CRCS was not a ‘woman’s’ organization, but a male-directed auxiliary service society that drew on the leadership of mature women with the authority and influence to organize a vast range of patriotic services produced by other women at the community level.9 Eliciting the prevailing ideologies of gender and class, the CRCS called on

Enlisting Women Undergraduates for the Red Cross

73

women undergraduates to organize and operate campus programs as their patriotic obligation, using the undergraduate newspapers as their voice and forum. The wartime editions of the McGill Daily, Queen’s Journal, and the Varsity at the University of Toronto demonstrate the mechanisms the CRCS used to shape and harness the patriotic sensibilities of wartime women undergraduates. Although appeals were made to civilian male students, the women were expected to take the lead in CRCS campus activities. Their voluntary labour and financial contributions were particularly needed to sustain the Red Cross campus campaigns. Women on Canada’s university campuses responded to the CRCS’s call for patriotic service with enthusiasm. Employing a gendered language of war and patriotism, as well as a maternalist ideology, student newspapers reinforced the perceived expectations of a middle-class young woman’s wartime duty. These campaigns were successful in exploiting the dichotomy between traditional expectations of women’s service and the feminist aspirations that shaped the early development of Canadian women’s higher education. In examining the conflicting ideologies of women’s traditional public service, with a growing commitment to new educational opportunities that were still exceptional in this era, women undergraduates were not content to revisit the established framework of maternalist public service of earlier generations. This wartime cohort of university women instead constructed its own version of participation in the war effort that complied with, but challenged, prevailing social and Red Cross norms of the day.10 The Red Cross Call for Women’s Service In his history of the Red Cross, John Hutchinson argued that the Society was both the product and the progenitor of warfare.11 As mandated under the Geneva Convention in 1863, the Red Cross was created to provide medical relief in wartime to ‘sick and wounded soldiers and sailors and prisoners of war.’ The CRCS came into being in 1896 as an affiliate of the British Red Cross, and was incorporated in 1909. A decade later, in 1919, with the success of its wartime programs, the Canadian Red Cross Society was granted a permanent peacetime charter as an emergency and medical relief agency.12 In August 1914, however, the CRCS had a basic reserve fund of only $10,000 with which to launch its wartime activities.13 The organization had lain fallow since the end of the Anglo-Boer War, with no active fundraising in peacetime. The declaration of war brought all voluntary patriotic medical assistance and

74

Cultures, Communities, and Conflict

fundraising in Canada under the collective umbrella of a National Relief Committee to provide auxiliary assistance to Canadian military hospitals. In association with the Militia Department, the St John Ambulance, and later the War Contingents Association, the Canadian Red Cross became responsible for all fundraising for military medical assistance as well as for collecting and transporting ‘all material required for the hospitals.’ By the war’s end, the CRCS had raised and distributed some $35 million in money and materials. A surplus of $9 million remained in the bank to initiate the new peacetime program.14 Subsequently, Canadian women volunteers at home and abroad constructed a vast and complex system of services and medical support for the Canadian Expeditionary Force. By mid-1915, finding a Canadian woman not contributing in some manner to the Red Cross would have been difficult.15 Knitting became the ubiquitous image of women’s war work – a collective, patriotic voluntary activity that was characterized as a unifying element in the lives of Canadian women. It was at once positive, political, and activist. Yet the work of the CRCS women was far more complex and far-reaching than just the production and distribution of knitwear for wounded soldiers. With dual Canadian Red Cross operations in Canada and England, women workers organized fundraising projects and worked tirelessly in CRCS workrooms across Canada sewing hospital garments, manufacturing medical supplies, and preparing and packing foodstuffs for transport to hospitals at home and abroad. They also raised funds to equip, staff, and construct Red Cross recreational facilities in hospitals in Canada and overseas and to establish and operate Canadian Red Cross military hospitals abroad.16 Wherever women gathered in the community, the CRCS found opportunities to organize patriotic projects, and few would risk being branded as ‘slackers’ or as not ‘doing her bit’ for the cause. A gendered lexicon evolved aligning women’s patriotic efforts with the sacrifices of ‘the boys’ overseas. The 1914–15 academic year was barely under way before CRCS appeals began to appear in the pages of campus newspapers, with messages pointedly outlining the expected patriotic responsibilities of women undergraduates. The appeals urged contributions of both money and time to Red Cross projects, and evolved in three distinct phases. Initial optimism about victory reluctantly gave way to the acknowledgment of a longer, more costly conflict, occasioned by the harsh reality of the first casualties among the undergraduate recruits. The second and most intense period of campus patriotic fervour can

Enlisting Women Undergraduates for the Red Cross

75

be traced at the mid-war phase, in 1915 to early 1917. Finally, the warweary years of later 1917 and 1919 saw the notion of glorious victory having long dissipated into the despair of endless war. By this time patriotic enthusiasm was becoming difficult to maintain, with campuses dominated by women undergraduates and damaged young men who had returned bearing the scars, or disfigurement, of their wartime ‘adventure.’ During the war Red Cross appeals on campuses gradually developed a standard format to encourage active participation and monetary support from women undergraduates. The expectations of women’s patriotic contributions to the war effort were regularly linked to traditional gendered notions of women’s perceived responsibilities for community service through their ‘natural’ maternal inclinations. The language encouraging women’s CRCS work on campus also employed a gendered patriotism, equating the women’s efforts to soldiering. The initial organizational work and leadership fell to women faculty members17 and faculty wives, but over time the students gradually gained more control. As war-weariness set in, however, the students were increasingly chastised in the pages of the newspapers by members of the university hierarchy, apparently for being far less dedicated to the gendered expectations of their Red Cross commitments. In the case of Toronto’s University College, the president of the Women’s Undergraduate Association (WUA) rebutted the accusation of the college president, arguing that the women who had registered for Red Cross work were more than proving their commitment. She acknowledged, however, that the WUA had had less success than hoped for in recruiting new volunteers, but that the group was developing a new strategy to encourage a higher level of response.18 This might have been an indication of frustration with the endless war effort, a developing sense of independence promoted by the enlarged enrolment of women students, or a reflection of a maturing confidence in women’s own independent goals. The Women’s War on Campus During late September and early October 1914, the first wartime editions of the campus newspapers clearly demonstrated a heightened war atmosphere. Articles urging the men to sign up for campus drill exercises appeared alongside those promoting the newly formed women’s CRCS committees.19 The first Red Cross reports came out of the

76

Cultures, Communities, and Conflict

initial meetings of the various existing women’s undergraduate associations. As Judith Fingard found for Dalhousie University, these societies first appeared in the early twentieth century with the increasing numbers of women enrolling in university courses. Described as ‘an island of femininity in a male-dominated milieu,’ these exclusively female groups helped prepare women for the world beyond the university and for possible political activity in the future. They provided a forum for developing speaking and debating skills, much as the earlier women’s and church organizations had done for their mothers and grandmothers.20 The first attempts to interest women undergraduates in CRCS work emanated from their social organizations under the direction of mature women administrators or faculty members. At McGill, the first meeting of the Undergraduate Society for the women of the Royal Victoria College (RVC) was reported in the McGill Daily in October 1914 as having discussed ‘the question of Red Cross work.’ A student secretary was elected for the new group, while Miss Ethel Hurlblatt of the college faculty was to take charge. At the University of Toronto, the Varsity also reported that the first meeting of the Women’s Undergraduate Association of University College voted to create a voluntary war fund for the women to be ‘collected by means of a self-denial box’ set up in the Reading Room. At Queen’s University, the undergraduate women’s Levana Society was similarly noted in the Queen’s Journal in October 1914 as having had a special meeting ‘to discuss what share of the Red Cross work our Queen’s girls would do.’ A Kingston Canadian Red Cross Society representative, Miss Redden, attended the meeting to promote the cause, and the women voted to keep the work under the direction of the Levana Society on campus rather than the Red Cross organization in Kingston. The Journal reporter enthusiastically declared that ‘[w] e girls are proud to think that Queen’s has 50 men in service at the front and glad that we too can have some share in helping our country.’21 The CRCS used patriotic sensibilities to initiate its programs in support of the military medical services, encouraging women to assume the active voluntary role of non-combatant warriors on the home front. The gendered language of war was blatantly geared to accentuate women’s contributions as cheerleaders for the war effort. While men who drilled with the campus militia were praised as ‘self-sacrificing,’ women undergraduates were likewise described in the McGill Daily as ‘eager to rally round the Red Cross standard, and equip themselves to do a women’s part in the defence and aid of the Empire.’ In an editorial

Enlisting Women Undergraduates for the Red Cross

77

in a November 1914 issue of the Varsity, a women student cautioned her campus sisters that ‘we cannot afford to let the men outdo us in patriotism.’22 Unable to take up arms for their country, women undergraduates were seen to channel time, energy, and money to match the sacrifices of the men. At the University of Toronto, President Falconer’s wife, Sophia, called for less frivolity and more frugality among the women students and encouraged them to save their money for the war effort.23 A general meeting was held for women students in November 1914 at Convocation Hall to initiate Red Cross work on the campus. Addressed by President Falconer and a prominent local CRCS activist, Dr Margaret Patterson, the women were first called on to knit and sew for the men in hospitals overseas. The university provided a workroom equipped with materials and tools purchased from donated funds. A Miss Burriss reported that more than a hundred women were already enrolled in the Faculty of Education Red Cross program, a point presented as an example to all other women undergraduates. Additional articles in the same edition of the Varsity reinforced a similar message of women’s expected participation, describing Red Cross activities and appealing for increased donations to finance the necessary materials.24 In the first autumn of war, the CRCS appeals at the University of Toronto were relentless. Adelaide Plumptre, Superintendent of Supplies for the CRCS, was invited to the Faculty Wives’ Tea to address the women students on the necessity of Red Cross work. The ‘Letters to the Editor’ reinforced a message of economy for other student functions to redirect funds to CRCS work, noting that ‘the students themselves can bear no further expense this year.’ At Queen’s University the campaign was initially less aggressive. The Queen’s Journal simply noted the efforts of the Levana Society to produce Red Cross knitting and sewing, as well as their fundraising activities from the proceeds of the Levana Tea. In November 1914 a published report cited the dedication of faculty wives, who ‘certainly deserve great praise for the faithful service they are giving,’ reminding the ‘girls’ that ‘every spare minute counts,’ and leaving the somewhat contradictory impression that the ‘girls’ were less consistently productive than the women in charge.25 The McGill Daily also conscientiously reported on the progress of campus Red Cross work, publishing notices for the Society, including special instructions for knitting and sewing projects. Competition between universities was encouraged, with reports on the success of Red Cross projects on other campuses, while tongue-in-cheek items

78

Cultures, Communities, and Conflict

about the benefits of knitting as a study aid were a gentle reminder that women should not abandon their commitment to CRCS work during the exam period.26 In a study of University of Toronto women during the Second World War, Nancy Kiefer and Ruth Roach Pierson observe that women’s unpaid voluntary labour for the war effort was still regarded as a primary concern, helping to ‘preserve civilization and culture,’ recalling the contributions of women in the earlier conflict that had related directly to the Victorian ideology of women ‘on a pedestal.’27 By January 1915, with the realization that there would be no glorious ‘Christmas’ conclusion to the war, the campus papers voiced more ardently the need for women students’ ongoing dedication to Red Cross work. The McGill Daily published letters from abroad to reinforce the need for money and supplies for military hospitals as well as articles about the generosity of American universities in raising funds for the Red Cross.28 The CRCS also thanked the Levana Society in the Queen’s Journal for its contributions of funds and handcrafts for the hospitals.29 A published thank-you letter in the Varsity from the CRCS’s Adelaide Plumptre helped to reinforce the message to women at the University of Toronto. If any further encouragement was needed, an interview with an overseas CRCS representative also urged the women to branch out into the production of medical dressings for hospitals in France.30 The essential female role in ensuring the ongoing production of supplies and fundraising was reflected in the praise and encouragement that underscored these messages. Reports of CRCS activities on campus gradually became as commonplace in the student newspapers as items about sports and social events. This reflected the subtle encroachment of patriotic responsibilities on the regular routines of undergraduate life. By mid-February 1915, with looming exams occasioned by the shortening of the winter term during the war years, the Varsity noted that, although the workroom in the Department of Household Science building was closing down, the women were still expected to knit on their own time and send finished items to the Red Cross Committee.31 With a similar slowdown at Queen’s, the women were also encouraged to ‘roll at least one bandage’ a day, while reminded that ‘we can do so little compared to our soldiers. Let us not shirk the little responsibility.’ The women were chided because the ‘bandage-a-day’ goal was not being met. A later notice boasted, however, that Queen’s was ‘the only university that has an organized branch of the Red Cross Society’ estab-

Enlisting Women Undergraduates for the Red Cross

79

lished on campus, while other campuses had Red Cross workrooms only. The reporter boasted that ‘our girls are not behind in that spirit of which we hear so much.’ Moreover, the Queen’s staff was lauded for raising more than $100 to help finance CRCS materials for the ‘college girls’ of the RVC, and the Levana Society for raising the largest single Red Cross donation, well demonstrating that the Queen’s ‘girls’ were indeed living up to expectations.32 During the winter of 1914–15, CRCS activities at McGill were subsumed by news of the newly established McGill University Base Hospital overseas. Before the end of term, only one Red Cross campus fundraising tea was cited in the McGill Daily. When the newspaper published its first ‘War Supplement’ at the close of the academic year, a new ‘serious strain’ was noted among the RVC women. In apparently curtailing their usual social activities in response to a heightened sense of ‘responsibility in life and death,’ the ‘girls’ were demonstrating how they were learning the meaning of ‘Freedom and Honour and Sacrifice.’33 This patriotic rhetoric countered other, less flattering reports that implied women students did not always fulfil the gendered expectations of traditional voluntary service, while revealing some of the tensions that surrounded women’s commitment to higher education in the war era. The long lists of student casualties that filled campus newspapers in autumn 1915 were a further reinforcement of women students’ obligation to perform Red Cross patriotic work. A sense of ‘innocence destroyed’ prevailed among the Dalhousie University women of the war era.34 Notices of Red Cross initiatives were notably absent from the Queen’s Journal early in the second academic war year, and between 1915 and 1917 generally, only brief items about Red Cross work appeared in the Queen’s Journal, including notices of benefit concerts and of the proceeds of sports events donated to the CRCS. Little evidence suggested that Red Cross efforts were anything other than routinely successful. Events such as the Levana Tea in autumn 1915, with proceeds donated to the Red Cross, went ahead as scheduled, although many other annual university events were being disrupted or reorganized because of the war situation.35 By comparison, the University of Toronto began the 1915–16 academic year with a fevered rush of Red Cross organization by women students. Similar to McGill, the university established its own overseas military hospital, which now rivalled the CRCS for campus support.36 Yet the expectations of women’s participation in Red Cross activities

80

Cultures, Communities, and Conflict

Figure 3.1: Faculty wives at work, with students standing at right, Red Cross Library Workroom, University of Toronto campus, during the First World War. Courtesy of the University of Toronto Archives, A65-004/048-140-85

continued, and even increased, as imposed by staff and administration representatives. By this time, the WUA had assumed responsibility for the campus Red Cross program (see Figure 3.1).37 The women undergraduates in Toronto were called once again to Convocation Hall in October 1915 to be reminded of their patriotic obligations, first by the university president, then by Mrs Falconer. Ongoing commitment to support both the new University of Toronto military hospital project and the CRCS was expected. The women were cautioned to further demonstrate their patriotism by conserving their money and energies in eschewing all frivolous endeavours in support of the war effort. Mrs Hamilton, representing the CRCS, also urged the university women to become paid members of the Society since ‘they cannot give their lives as the men are doing in the trenches, but they can do their part in the fight for liberty.’ Mrs Hamilton appeared to speak for the state in declaring it was ‘the duty of the women not to put obstacles in the way of the

Enlisting Women Undergraduates for the Red Cross

81

men who wished to enlist.’ She expressed the concern that the students, like the mothers of male undergraduates, would try to persuade their brothers, boyfriends, and fiancés not to enlist. Just as the men had an obligation to fight, she proclaimed, Canadian women had a ‘duty’ to support the cause or risk being labelled a ‘shirker’ when ‘the future generation wished to know what she has done’ during the war. Thus, not only were the women considered to be negating their patriotic duty if they failed to follow the path of voluntary service established by their foremothers, they also risked censure from future generations as having negated their maternalist obligations. In this sense, Red Cross work became a signifier of respectable middle-class womanhood for the war generation. The women were then informed that the administration had sanctioned a campus-based campaign for the British Red Cross, with the goal of collecting $3,000. Banner headlines in the Varsity subsequently declared: ‘The University Expects Every Student to Do His Duty,’ requesting student canvassers as well as contributions.38 With male students becoming increasingly scarce, the larger responsibility for the collection devolved on the women. In autumn 1915 the appeals were equally unrelenting to students at McGill, where the women of the RVC were expected to undertake continued leadership in fundraising as well as the production of CRCS hospital supplies and other items for hospitalized soldiers. Senior students were delegated to instruct incoming students once the Red Cross workroom reopened in late October, teaching knitting, needlework, and bandage preparation. Those men who remained on campus were not expected to participate beyond contributing funds. On Red Cross Day in October, the women of the RVC were strategically stationed at entrances to campus buildings to collect subscriptions. Through the remainder of the term the McGill Daily routinely ran notices about the RVC Red Cross work, publishing a note of praise from the Montreal CRCS office for the quality of the work produced by the students. Regardless of the commendations, as the workroom was closing down for Christmas exams, complaints were published citing an apparent lack of enthusiasm on the part of the larger body of women undergraduates. Apart from a core group of dedicated RVC students, and similar to the earlier chastisement of women students at the University of Toronto, McGill’s women students were labelled ‘slackers,’ a term used to denote men who refused to fight for their country. The university women were then upbraided for ignoring an ‘opportunity of service’ to share in the ‘national burden.’39

82

Cultures, Communities, and Conflict

Regardless of the expectations, wartime women undergraduates at McGill no longer seemed to respond automatically to calls for their traditional voluntary, patriotic service. Similarly at the University of Toronto, the Varsity headline for December 1915 proclaimed: ‘College Women Lag in Organizational Work for Red Cross.’ Women students were accused of ‘doing practically nothing’ with regard to CRCS work in support of the University Base Hospital over and above the more than four hours per week they were expected to put in at the Red Cross campus workrooms. The president of the WUA responded in a letter to the editor agreeing that more could be done, and faulting the method of CRCS organization rather than a lack of patriotic enthusiasm on the part of the women. An article from Victoria College declared in defence that their women had not ‘been languishing,’ despite the distractions of exams and upcoming holidays, and promised a renewed vigour in the new term.40 Over the winter term, however, the Varsity was notably silent on the progress of the Red Cross initiatives, although no further complaints were published. In the new year the McGill Daily displayed continuing evidence of women’s waning interest, calling on students to complete any Red Cross projects they had pledged to finish over the holiday period. These requests were still being published in late January 1916. The CRCS organizers on campus increasingly expressed dismay about the ‘discouragingly small’ attendance of women for work sessions and bandage preparation. In February the niece of Minister of Militia and Defence Sam Hughes spoke to the women on the topic of ‘Are Women Patriotic?’ and there was a subsequent ‘encouraging’ resurgence of interest among women undergraduates, but soon after the McGill Daily also fell silent on the subject.41 Reconstructing Women’s Patriotic Service By 1916 women students appeared to be losing their initial patriotic enthusiasm for Red Cross campus programs based on traditional women’s activities of handcrafts and bandage preparation. As university undergraduates, these women already had the relative freedom their studies provided to take them out of the domestic milieu. Unable to participate through ‘active service’ like the military nurses and VADs, the women appeared unwilling to continue the same type of patriotic work their mothers and grandmothers had eagerly embraced during the Anglo-Boer War by donating endless hours to Red Cross projects.

Enlisting Women Undergraduates for the Red Cross

83

With the start of the 1916 fall term, however, a new proposal to establish a Red Cross Tea Room on the McGill campus sparked the social instincts of the women students despite the understood responsibility for the preparation and serving of the refreshments. The new Tea Room soon eclipsed all other mention of CRCS activities in the campus paper, and continued for the balance of the term. Patronized by students and faculty alike, the Tea Room became an ‘unqualified success,’ even attracting the patronage of the local Montreal population, and boasting a profit of over $350 in its first term of operation.42 A Tea Room was also established at the University of Toronto’s Victoria College but with less fanfare. The standard ‘Red Cross Teas’ also continued for the women students, often with the added attraction of a designated speaker. The university’s routine Red Cross work was ongoing with the addition of a workroom set up by the faculty wives in aid of the University Base Hospital. These activities also competed with the now ‘annual’ Trafalgar Day (October 21) collection in aid of the British Red Cross, having evolved into a major campaign throughout Toronto. It was heavily advertised in the Varsity as well as the city papers, further competing for funds with the Canadian Red Cross. In the midst of these increasing patriotic projects competing for the services of women students, autumn 1916 also brought the VAD program to the Toronto campus.43 Although not in direct competition with the CRCS, the VAD movement was an added distraction for the patriotic energies of women undergraduates, requiring training and practice, and presenting a further drain on their available time. Indeed the demands on the women students’ volunteer time were considerable by the fall of 1916. At one Tea the speaker urged women students to give at least one or two hours per week to the Red Cross workroom. Tweaking a patriotic nerve, she reasoned that this time was ‘nothing compared to the sacrifices being made by our men at the front.’ Similar emotional pleas were constantly conveyed to the women through the pages of the Varsity, with endorsements from ‘the Vets,’ who apparently regarded ‘knitting a most promising occupation for women’s leisure.’ The continuous pleas gave scant acknowledgment to the women’s academic pursuits, although the prominent health activist Dr Helen McMurchy combined patriotism with practicality at one Red Cross Tea. She noted the potential career opportunities the war had created for women graduates in the field of public health, particularly in outlying regions of the country.44 By 1916 the routines of campus war work were well established on

84

Cultures, Communities, and Conflict

the Toronto campus, and the workrooms originally commandeered by the faculty wives as a supply centre for the University Base Hospital were reassigned to the CRCS for the production of supplies for hospitals in France. With the scope of the war and military medical services relentlessly expanding, regular appeals were published calling for more women students to volunteer in hopes of extending the production hours. In March 1917 the Varsity reported that the women had contributed approximately two thousand hours of service to CRCS work during the academic year, producing some fifteen hundred pairs of socks and countless other handmade items. Regardless of their prolific contributions of time and energy, however, complaints about the women’s apparent disinterest in Red Cross work sessions were still being voiced. The message was unrelenting: ‘Be patriotic – We need everyone’s help.’45 The message was no less emphatic on other campuses by the winter of 1917. Relating his experiences with the Canadian Army Dental Corps overseas, one McGill professor told the women of McGill’s Delta Sigma Society that, without women’s support, ‘the war cannot be won.’ Equating their efforts to the fighting power of the military, Dr A.W. Thornton based his support for giving women the right to vote on their patriotic service. By the autumn term of 1917, however, all of Canada was warweary. In September McGill had more than two thousand men enlisted, including faculty, staff, students, and alumni, and the McGill Hospital boasted an established reputation in France. Women students now comprised the largest proportion of the McGill enrolment, and were constantly bombarded with imprecations ‘to signify their cooperation in the national and worldwide struggle.’46 The warden of Royal Victoria College, Ethel Hurlblatt, who had enthusiastically taken charge of the initial CRCS program in 1914, assumed a markedly different stance in October 1917. Hurlblatt, in noting that the men of the senior arts year had all but vanished, urged women students to fill the void by ‘maintaining the high standards of work and conduct’ associated with McGill. Rather than a plea for patriotic service, she implored them to live up to the ideals of those ‘pioneers of the past’ who had paved the way for their generation of women in higher education. She argued that women students had a duty to complete their own education and, no matter how worthy, they should not be tempted away by outside war service. Refuting the continuous demands that women devote ever more time and energy to patriotic service, Hurlblatt pleaded a different case: ‘our women stu-

Enlisting Women Undergraduates for the Red Cross

85

dents must take courage to work with greater zeal and purpose, and not mind if they make no great showing at present in patriotic work, and if they are unable to raise as much money as they would like to do for patriotic purposes. This is their time for preparation.’47 Hurlblatt argued that these intelligent, educated women were the future of the nation and that their energies were being squandered on traditional voluntary patriotic work. She reasoned for a far greater benefit to the post-war nation if the women completed their education to fill the leadership void that would result from the loss of so many educated young men. Almost revolutionary in her attitude, Hurlblatt envisioned the war as an opportunity to be seized by educated women, but feared they would be held back by outdated values and expectations. Assessing the overall response to this strongly voiced opinion is difficult, but little else appeared in the McGill Daily during the remainder of the 1917–18 academic year regarding women’s Red Cross activities. During the same period, at the University of Toronto, news in the Varsity of standard campus Red Cross projects was subsumed by articles about more enticing patriotic activities, such as women alumni serving overseas as VAD ambulance drivers and current undergraduates volunteering for farm labour as their summertime patriotic work. Nonetheless the paper continued to extol the value and history of the CRCS movement, and messages from President Falconer, who launched the now annual three-day fundraising campaign, urged generosity. The campaign previously had been organized by the Students’ Administrative Council, which unfortunately was ‘sadly disarranged’ by the enlistment of so many men, and the University Women’s Council was asked to step in, apparently due to the lack of any alternative plan. The campaign was subsequently extended to a fourth day, but the hopedfor collection of $3,000 still fell short by more than $1,000, although the final amount managed to exceed the previous year’s total by $500.48 With the end of the fundraising campaign, beyond brief notices about the ‘Patriotic Tea Room,’ the CRCS slipped from the pages of the Varsity and was eclipsed altogether in December 1917 with the urgency of the Halifax Explosion relief campaign. The first Varsity editorial of 1918 stated the obvious: the fourth year of war meant a fourth year of Red Cross work, with an ever-increasing need for hospital supplies, ‘but all of the novelty has worn off.’ Helpful suggestions were offered to the women undergraduates to ‘keep fit,’ in order to meet the continued challenging demands of voluntary patriotic labour, on campus and beyond, and to overcome the boredom of long, sedentary hours knit-

86

Cultures, Communities, and Conflict

ting and sewing. Echoes of McGill’s Ethel Hurlblatt could be detected in the acknowledgment of the unrelenting demands made on the college women ‘for service of all sorts and for leadership.’ A new message clearly was being articulated from within the women’s student leadership: ‘Disciplined academic work and the development of the power of thought alone can meet the need … Academic work is national service.’49 University women leaders were now openly expressing fears that demands on women undergraduates to perform the double duty of full-time studies and full-time patriotic service were taking a toll on their intellectual responsibilities. The emerging priority was to ensure that women graduates would be ready to take their rightful place as the leaders of post-war Canada. In a further patriotic gesture, a Varsity editorial of January 1918 urged women to embrace leadership roles by alleviating needless waste and extravagance. The author envisaged a regression in early 1918 to prewar habits of lavish entertainment, deploring that, ‘at every conference of the Red Cross itself, arrangements are not complete unless they include a banquet or reception.’ Ironically the next issue of the Varsity noted that the wife of the Anglican deacon on campus would hold a Red Cross Tea to launch another fundraising campaign.50 In chastising the Canadian Red Cross Society for its apparently hypocritical demands on women students to produce more efficiently for the war effort, both in services and conservation, while indulging in their own forms of waste and extravagance, the student voice was further demonstrating a backlash against the maternalist ideologies of traditional Red Cross volunteerism. Not surprisingly the most enthusiastic Red Cross volunteers on the University of Toronto campus in the winter of 1918 were the ‘freshettes,’ for whom patriotic work was still a novelty. Their meetings were noted regularly in the Varsity during the winter term, but news of their Red Cross activities quickly faded into the background following a brief fundraising campaign.51 In the Queen’s Journal, notices of CRCS activities were even less evident. The Levana Society appears to have kept up its regular programs, but with little fanfare, as students dutifully donated their evenings to knitting, sewing, and producing hospital supplies in the campus workroom or packed supplies at nearby CRCS headquarters in Kingston.52 Instead, new volunteer activities diverted the interests of Queen’s students and alumni, including VAD work and massage training that could lead to active work in local military convalescent hospitals. Although the Red Cross benefited from the largest

Enlisting Women Undergraduates for the Red Cross

87

share of collected funds, Queen’s women were also dividing their fundraising efforts among several other patriotic organizations. Unlike the student newspapers at McGill or Toronto, however, the Queen’s Journal gave no indication of boredom, war-weariness, or an overburden of services among the women undergraduates. In fall 1918 the academic term was overtaken by the arrival of the Spanish influenza epidemic on campuses across Canada and, with weeks of enforced closure, the universities fell silent on the progress of CRCS efforts. Before the epidemic hit, the Women’s Student Administrative Council at the University of Toronto had been calling for greater Red Cross participation, acknowledging ‘the truth of the criticism that women students have been negligent, in the past, in this regard.’ The Varsity published photographs of one of the two ambulances donated by the Council, in hopes of encouraging further donations. Before the epidemic, the university had been preparing for its annual campus-wide CRCS fundraising campaign and striving to organize and monitor general Red Cross work more efficiently than ever before. A Varsity report admitted that, the previous year, ‘the work was rather neglected,’ but this year the women were expected to give the designated two hours per week to patriotic work. Within days, however, the flu became a larger topic of concern, with all efforts devoted to alleviating the crisis, but then the university closed down for the duration. The Toronto campus was active again by 11 November, and CRCS teams were preparing to regenerate their programs. With the sudden news of the Armistice, however, reports of further Red Cross activities largely fell silent.53 The Varsity of 8 January 1919 published a final call for women to rally around Canadian Red Cross activities, arguing that the end of the war did not mean the end of the need, as men were still recovering in hospitals abroad and others had succumbed to illness or injury during the demobilization process. The women undergraduates were reminded that it was still their patriotic ‘duty … to relieve suffering’ and that ‘we must not neglect our duty’ to these men. Yet Red Cross captains reported a ‘lack of enthusiasm on the part of the women’ following the news of the Armistice, which usurped both the sense of urgency and the incentive for the women’s patriotic efforts.54 Conclusion Canadian university campus newspapers of the Great War era are testament to the continued and varied scope of Red Cross patriotic serv-

88

Cultures, Communities, and Conflict

ice women undergraduates provided over four long years of war. The papers also reveal a maturing independence of spirit among these women and a growing reluctance to be confined to the older, traditional models of women’s voluntary service established by earlier generations. The war did not produce a cohort of female pacifists on the campuses: their work for the Red Cross and other wartime initiatives remained constant, if at times uneven, throughout the conflict.55 Yet two aspects of the wartime relationship between the CRCS and women undergraduates are particularly evident. First, women’s dedication to Red Cross work was both imposed and expected as a gendered expression of patriotic war service, regardless of grumblings about an apparent lack of participation that surfaced at regular intervals during the war. Second, an evolving attitude of senior women academics culminated later in the war in outspoken declarations against the Red Cross Society’s domination of the women students’ time and energy despite the risk of a possible backlash against the affront to gender norms. Initially in the forefront of encouraging the students to organize and participate in Red Cross war work, these same academic mentors came to regard the CRCS as detrimental both to the future prospects of the women’s careers and ultimately to their value to the state as Canada’s post-war leaders. Their potential as future leaders arguably had come to outweigh their traditional maternalist values regarding model motherhood. As a voice and forum for campus opinion, the wartime student newspapers encapsulated how deeply the CRCS embedded its organization and ideologies in the university milieu, as enrolment steadily changed from primarily male to predominantly female.56 The CRCS had identified the university campus as a rich source of funds and an abundant pool of faithful, diligent, stationary female workers. With Red Cross leadership well connected to both the upper echelons of Canadian society and the university administration, the CRCS quickly became a feature of campus life. John Hutchinson has argued that ‘national Red Cross societies were useful vehicles for shaping the feelings of ordinary people’ with regard not only to enlistment but also to the duty of civilians to ‘do everything possible to support the national military effort.’ As a tiny microcosm of the national organization on the campuses, the CRCS used the medium of the undergraduate papers to remind women students that the men were fighting and dying for them overseas and that their ‘duty’ as women was to support them in this cause. As Hutchinson observed, the Red Cross helped to preserve ‘social inequities’ by

Enlisting Women Undergraduates for the Red Cross

89

promoting traditional conservative values of ‘deference and patriotism’ that in turn served to ‘justify and control women’s service as auxiliaries to the military medical establishment.’57 Yet, as time wore on, neither women students nor their academic mentors complied fully with this strategy. In addition to the blatant warnings of women academics that women students should not become involved in CRCS activities to the detriment of their studies, the students themselves also demonstrated some reluctance to participate in traditional women’s voluntary activities of knitting and sewing. Instead, they preferred the more interactive milieu of the student-run Red Cross Tea Rooms over standard fundraising and handcraft projects. Though hardly a radical statement, patronage of the Tea Rooms was nonetheless a more youthful and modern interpretation of patriotic support, combining fundraising with the social comingling of the sexes and an opportunity to organize and operate their own ‘business’ project independent of patronizing CRCS mentors or faculty wives. Although only a small fraction of a vast, international service organization engineered primarily by women, the Canadian Red Cross campus programs offer insights into a unique historical experience. The Red Cross, in the context of traditional expectations of women’s voluntary war service, sought to impose a prescribed standard of women’s patriotic service on the campuses, but these methods were not entirely successful in the immediate pre-suffrage years. Instead the students appear to have derived strength from their numbers and their own maturing sense of confidence and identity as intelligent, educated women with leadership potential by developing their own interpretation of patriotic responsibility. The wartime women undergraduates did not ‘neglect their duty’; they sought instead to interpret this ideal in a model of their own making.

NOTES 1 A version of this paper was presented at the bi-annual meeting of the Canadian History of Education Association, Laval University, October 2002. The author gratefully acknowledges the generous support of this research by the Hannah Institute for the History of Medicine through Associated Medical Services, Inc., Toronto. 2 A.B. McKillop, ‘Marching as to War: Elements of Ontario Undergraduate Culture, 1880–1914,’ in Youth, University, and Canadian Society: Essays in the

90

3

4

5 6

7 8

Cultures, Communities, and Conflict Social History of Higher Education, ed. Paul Axelrod and John G. Reid (Montreal; Kingston, ON: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1989), 75–6. For the academic years between September 1914 and April 1919, the primary sources for this chapter are the Queen’s Journal, McGill Daily, and the University of Toronto’s Varsity. All three universities were coeducational, with a sizable representation of women undergraduates along with wellestablished women’s campus organizations. The Second Battle of Ypres, which began on 22 April 1915, saw the first major toll of Canadian casualties, as well as the first instance of the use of chlorine gas as an offensive weapon by the Germans. See Desmond Morton, A Military History of Canada: From Champlain to the Gulf War (Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1992), 141; and Desmond Morton and Glenn Wright, Winning the Second Battle: Canadian Veterans and the Return to Civilian Life, 1915–1930 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1987), 7. Gwen Szychter, ‘The War Work of Women in Rural British Columbia: 1914–1919,’ British Columbia Historical News 27, no. 4 (1994): 8. Nurses selected for the Canadian Army Medical Corps were required to be fully qualified graduates of an accredited nursing school. This did not guarantee selection, for only 3,141 nurses were enlisted as lieutenants for the duration of the war. The VADs were casually trained nursing volunteers, certified and selected by the St John Ambulance and required to be at least twenty-one years old for service abroad. See G.W.L. Nicholson, Canada’s Nursing Sisters (Toronto: Samuel Stevens, Hakkert, 1975); and Linda Quiney, ‘Assistant Angels: Canadian Women as Voluntary Aid Detachment Nurses during and after the Great War, 1914–1930’ (PhD diss., University of Ottawa, 2002). ‘Shirley Gordon Interview,’ The Great War and Canadian Society Project (audio), Library and Archives Canada, A1 9903-0015. Institutional histories of Canadian university campuses in the war years offer few details about women’s war work. However, those that focus on women students provide some context for the culture of campus life from which volunteers for Red Cross and other medical-related work were drawn. Margaret Gillett’s We Walked Very Warily: A History of Women at McGill (Montreal: Eden, 1981), 94, gives a very brief biographical outline of Alice Lighthall, a Canadian VAD nurse in Britain and France and daughter of the eminent William Doux Lighthall, scholar and poet. Others include Anne Rochon Ford, A Path not Strewn with Roses: One Hundred Years of Women at the University of Toronto, 1884–1984 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1985); and Lee Stewart, ‘It’s Up to You’: Women at UBC in the Early Years (Vancouver: UBC Press, 1990). Stewart refers to veteran military nurses who entered the new, Red Cross–

Enlisting Women Undergraduates for the Red Cross

9

10

11 12

91

supported public health nursing postgraduate program in the post-war era, and briefly notes women’s voluntary work during the 1918 influenza epidemic, when part of the campus was converted to an emergency hospital (32–3, 39). See also Maureen M. Garvie and Jennifer J. Johnson, Their Leaven of Influence: Deans of Women at Queen’s University, 1916–1996 (Kingston, ON: Queen’s University Alumni Association, 1999). The most comprehensive analysis of the International Red Cross Society remains John F. Hutchinson, Champions of Charity: War and the Rise of the Red Cross (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1996). The literature includes Barbara Villy Cormack, The Red Cross Lady (Edmonton: Institute of Applied Art, 1960); McKenzie Porter, To All Men: The Story of the Canadian Red Cross (Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1960); Beryl Oliver, The British Red Cross in Action (London: Faber & Faber, 1966); and Caroline Moorehead, Dunant’s Dream: War, Switzerland and the History of the Red Cross (London: HarperCollins, 1998). The scholarship on women’s voluntary work on wartime campuses has been addressed primarily in conjunction with broader studies of wartime university culture. With regard to the medical aspects of voluntary work, see Ruby Heap, ‘Training Women for a New “Women’s Profession”: Physiotherapy Education at the University of Toronto, 1917–1940,’ History of Education Quarterly 35, no. 2 (1995): 135–58. One of the most comprehensive published primary sources for women’s voluntary participation in wartime medical services remains G. Oswald Smith, ed., University of Toronto Roll of Service, 1914–1918 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1921). Three essays in Axelrod and Reid, Youth, University, and Canadian Society, also address wartime campus culture: Judith Fingard, ‘College, Career, and Community: Dalhousie Coeds, 1881–1921’; McKillop, ‘Marching as to War,’ which takes students to the onset of the war and their initial reactions; and Barry M. Moody, ‘Acadia and the Great War,’ which is a gendered study of the war as it affected all aspects of campus life, including the depletion of male enrolment, the increasingly feminine environment on campus, and the significant representation of women graduates in post-war mission service. James Pitsula, An Act of Faith: The Early Years of Regina College (Regina, SK: University of Regina/Canadian Plains Research Centre, 1988), also briefly outlines the increasing female enrolment at the college and the patriotic fervour of all students. Hutchinson, Champions of Charity Canadian Red Cross Society, What the Canadian Red Cross Society Is Doing in the Great War: Being an Outline of the Organisation and Work of the Canadian Red Cross Society (Toronto: CRCS, [1918?]), 5, 6.

92

Cultures, Communities, and Conflict

13 Porter, To All Men, 37. 14 Canadian Red Cross Society, What the Canadian Red Cross Society Is Doing, 8, 53. 15 Linda Quiney, ‘“Bravely and Loyally They Answered the Call”: St. John Ambulance, the Red Cross and the Patriotic Service of Canadian Women during the Great War,’ History of Intellectual Culture 5, no. 1 (2005): 6. 16 Donna Fallis, ‘World War I Knitting,’ Alberta Museums Review (Fall 1984): 9, 10; and Canadian Red Cross Society, What the Canadian Red Cross Society Is Doing, 14. 17 In this case, women faculty members could be defined as regular paid staff members such as instructors or teaching assistants with additional roles of academic mentorship and social supervision. 18 Varsity, 15 December 1915, 2. 19 Queen’s Journal, 29 October 1914, 1; see also McGill Daily, 5 October 1914, 4. 20 Fingard, ‘College, Career, and Community,’ 38, 40. 21 McGill Daily, 10 October 1914, 1; Varsity, 23 October 1914, 3; Varsity, 30 October 1914, 2; and Queen’s Journal, 29 October 1914, 1. 22 McGill Daily, 10 October 1914, 2; and Varsity, 6 November 1914, 2. 23 President Falconer received a knighthood in 1917, and the couple thereafter became Sir Robert and Lady Sophia Falconer. 24 Varsity, 6 November 1914, 2; Varsity, 9 November 1914, 1, 3. 25 Varsity, 20 November 1914, 2; Varsity, 23 November 1914, 3; and Queen’s Journal, 23 November 1914, 5. 26 McGill Daily, 4 November 1914, 4; McGill Daily, 6 November 1914, 4; McGill Daily, 24 November 1914, 1; McGill Daily, 17 December 1914, 4. 27 Nancy Kiefer and Ruth Roach Pierson, ‘The War Effort and Women Students at the University of Toronto, 1934–1945,’ in Axelrod & Reid, Youth, University, and Canadian Society. 28 McGill Daily, 9 January 1915, 2; McGill Daily, 25 January 1915, 4. 29 Queen’s Journal, 11 January 1915, 4; Queen’s Journal, 21 January 1915, 4. 30 Varsity, 13 January 1915, 4; Varsity, 15 January 1915, 4. 31 Varsity, 12 February 1915, 1. 32 Queen’s Journal, 15 February 1915, 5; Queen’s Journal, 25 February 1915, 1. 33 McGill Daily, 3 February 1915, 5; McGill Daily, ‘Special War Contingent supplement,’ March 1915, 32. 34 Fingard, ‘College, Career, and Community’, 41. 35 Queen’s Journal, 22 November 1915, 1; Queen’s Journal, 30 November 1915, 5; Queen’s Journal, February–March 1916, various issues. 36 Several of the universities with established medical faculties constructed hospital units as part of the Canadian Army Medical Corps overseas.

Enlisting Women Undergraduates for the Red Cross

37 38 39

40 41

42 43

44 45 46

47 48 49

93

These hospitals were staffed with medical and nursing personnel who were either faculty or alumni of the universities. Among them were No. 3 Canadian General Hospital (CGH), McGill University; No. 4 CGH, University of Toronto; No. 6 CGH, Laval University; and No. 7 CGH, Queen’s University. Several universities also had mobile units called ‘Stationary Hospitals,’ including Queen’s, Laval, and the University of Western Ontario. See Andrew MacPhail, Official History of the Canadian Forces in the Great War, 1914–1919: The Medical Services (Ottawa: King’s Printer, 1925), 214–23. Varsity, 1 October 1915, 1, 3. Varsity, 6 October 1915, 1; Varsity, 18 October 1915, 4; Varsity, 20 October 1915, 1. McGill Daily, 20 October 1915, 1; McGill Daily, 25 October 1915, 2; McGill Daily, 26 October 1915, 2; McGill Daily, 29 October 1915,1; McGill Daily, 19 November 1915, 1; McGill Daily, 22 November 1915, 2. Varsity, 10 December 1915, 1; Varsity, 17 December 1915, 2. McGill Daily, 22 January 1916, 2; McGill Daily, 5 February 1916, 3; McGill Daily, 15 February 1916, 2; McGill Daily, 23 February 1916, 1. Until his forced retirement, Hughes was responsible for all wartime military organization. See Desmond Morton, A Peculiar Kind of Politics: Canada’s Overseas Ministry in the First World War (Toronto: University of Toronto, 1982), 87–9. McGill Daily, 6 October 1916, 3; McGill Daily, 23 October 1916, 2; McGill Daily, October–December 1916, various issues. Varsity, 36, 2 October 1916,1; Varsity, 6 October 1916, 1; Varsity, 16 October 1916, 1, 4; Varsity, 18 October 1916, 1. Both the CRCS and the St John Ambulance VAD organizations were part of the Emergency Relief Committee, and many women worked actively for both branches of patriotic service. Varsity, 17 November 1916, 1; Varsity, 8 December 1916, 1; Varsity, 11 December 1916, 1; Varsity, 13 December 1916, 4. Varsity, 25 February 1917, 1; Varsity, 14 March 1917, 1, 3. Dr Thornton was appointed first dean of dentistry at McGill in 1919. See McGill Daily, 1 February 1917, 3; McGill Daily, 8 February 1917, 4; McGill Daily, 20 February 1917, 4; McGill Daily, 1 October 1917, 2; McGill Daily, 6 October 1917, 3. Ibid. Varsity, 5 October 1917, 1, 2; Varsity, 10 October 1917, 1; Varsity, 19 October 1917, 1; Varsity, 22 October 1917, 1. Varsity, 14 November 1917, 1; Varsity, 30 November 1917, 3; Varsity, 12 December 1917, 1; Varsity, 14 December 1917, 1; Varsity, 11 January 1918, 2.

94

Cultures, Communities, and Conflict

50 Varsity, 14 January 1918, 2; Varsity, 16 January 1918, 1; Varsity, 21 January 1918, 4. 51 Varsity, 23 January 1918, 1; Varsity, 30 January 1918, 3. 52 Queen’s Journal, 12 October 1917, 4; Queen’s Journal, 2 November 1917, 3; Queen’s Journal, 9 November 1917, 3; Queen’s Journal, October 1917, various notices. 53 Varsity, 9 October 1918, 1; Varsity, 11 October 1918, 1; Varsity, 16 October 1918, 1; Varsity, 18 October 1918, 2; Varsity, 11 November 1918, 1. 54 Varsity, 8 January 1919, 2. 55 Fingard, ‘College, Career, and Community,’ 40–1. 56 Ibid., 41. 57 Hutchinson, Champions of Charity, 353.

4 Dancing into Education: The First World War and the Roots of Change in Women’s Higher Education sara z. burke

After the Great War the Toronto classicist Maurice Hutton looked back over his fifty years of teaching in a coeducational university. Assessing the state of coeducation in the 1920s, he regretted the craze for dancing and flirtation that seemed to characterize modern student behaviour. ‘How can it be otherwise,’ he noted, ‘when a certain percentage of young women frankly enter a university to have a good time and to dance three or four times a week in the pursuit of education; to dance themselves into education.’ The result, Hutton feared, was that male students were becoming less intellectual while women undergraduates were developing a precocious degree of social charm.1 To Hutton, as to other academics of his generation, the war had altered student life and created what Robert Falconer, president of the University of Toronto, had termed ‘a great gulf.’2 Many Victorian academics believed the impact of the Great War to be cataclysmic, and their writing evokes a wistful nostalgia for the university world they had known as undergraduates – a nostalgia mixed with distaste for the seemingly frivolous objectives of the flapper generation.3 As Hutton’s comments reveal, a number of contemporaries focused their discontent on the state of coeducation – the ‘general slackening of intellectual keenness’4 – accelerated by the overprominence of women during the war and the growing numbers of coeds who transformed Canada’s campuses after 1919. These accounts tell us much about the tensions of the 1920s on university campuses: the questioning and restlessness that characterized student behaviour and the often-bewildered reaction of older academics to the attitudes of modern youth. I argue, however, that the perceptions of contemporaries concerning the 1920s have the potential to distort our understanding of the pre-war period and, in particular, to

96

Cultures, Communities, and Conflict

magnify the impact of the First World War on the history of women’s higher education. That the war altered the universities is unquestionable; that the 1920s represented a period of change in women’s education is equally beyond doubt. Yet it is more helpful to explore the origins of those changes in the period immediately before the war than in the artificial changes the war produced in academic life. During the 1920s in Canada, young people themselves were self-consciously aware that they belonged to a new age, and some were eager to assert their independence by dancing to jazz music or smoking and drinking in public.5 But, as Joan Sangster maintains, this popular memory of 1914 as a watershed has become absorbed into our historical understanding, leading us to overemphasize shifts in gender and social structures by disguising the resilience of pre-war gender ideologies.6 For historians of women’s education, the 1920s are notable for two parallel developments: the emergence of a distinctly coeducational culture, which promoted an unprecedented degree of social contact between the sexes, and, simultaneously, the increased academic segregation of women within feminized programs such as social work, physiotherapy, and household science.7 In this chapter, I analyse the roots of these developments in the five Ontario universities that were coeducational by the turn of the twentieth century: Victoria University, which moved from Cobourg to Toronto in 1892, Queen’s University in Kingston, and University College of the University of Toronto, the three established men’s universities dating from the 1840s, as well at McMaster University, then located in Toronto (since 1930 the campus has been in Hamilton), and the University of Western Ontario in London, the two newcomers that opened coeducational arts faculties during the 1890s. I argue that the increasing social integration of undergraduate women, and the accompanying push towards academic segregation, is part of a larger pattern in higher education that pre-dated 1914. While the war may have given female students a temporary prominence on university campuses, it did not fundamentally redirect the existing course of women’s education in Ontario. Female Students in Wartime When the war broke out in August 1914, hundreds of male students and faculty enlisted and the campuses were given over to drilling for the Canadian Officers’ Training Corps. Consequently, women undergraduates assumed a new importance – although their actual numbers

The Roots of Change in Women’s Higher Education

97

did not increase during the war, the relative proportion of women to men rose quickly.8 Arts programs came to depend on female enrolment, and departments in the sciences, which attracted comparatively few women, were almost entirely depleted of students. Most of the normal business of undergraduate life was suspended, and female students in all five universities were expected to commit themselves to the relentless demands of war work. ‘When the War came, all this social side disappeared because the men had gone,’ one student at Toronto’s University College remembered, ‘and nobody felt very much like going ahead with things as they were.’9 A student at Queen’s had a similar memory of the war years: ‘It was a very difficult time to be a student. It wasn’t a happy time, you know, we didn’t have the usual happy times that students have.’10 Women undergraduates participated in the war effort through a variety of activities. In 1916 two buildings at Queen’s were turned over to a military hospital, and students visited and entertained the patients. They also volunteered their time to roll bandages and fundraise for the Kingston Red Cross.11 On the University of Toronto campus, a Red Cross workroom was established in the library, and women students, graduates, and faculty wives volunteered their time to sew and knit hospital garments, roll bandages, and make sphagnum moss dressings.12 McMaster women initially walked across the campus to the workroom at the University of Toronto, but in 1916 the Women’s Student Body decided to start its own Red Cross Society in McMaster Hall on Bloor Street. There, students sewed for the University Base Hospital and prepared Christmas boxes for the McMaster men at the front. At Victoria University, located on Queen’s Park Circle from 1892, the Women’s Literary Society ran a ‘Patriotic Tea Room’ in the ladies’ study to raise money, and students volunteered their time to the Red Cross, knitting socks and mufflers and packing overseas boxes. Women at Western were not numerous enough to establish their own society, but many students spent time at the London Red Cross workroom in the city.13 In 1917 and 1918 female students from Queen’s, Victoria, and Toronto’s University College worked as National Service Girls, later dubbed ‘farmerettes,’ helping to bring in the fruit harvest in the Niagara region.14 The war also provided unexpected opportunities for female students to take on responsibilities normally reserved for men. In 1916 women of the McMaster graduating class were hired as chemists in munitions factories at Nobel, Ontario. At Queen’s that year, for the first time, two women were elected to the executive of the Alma

98

Cultures, Communities, and Conflict

Mater Society, and one of them, Charlotte Whitton, a future mayor of Ottawa, became the first woman to be appointed editor of the Queen’s Journal.15 The bustle of war work masked significant debates concerning the behaviour of women students. In the tense wartime environment, administrators looked more critically at the privileges assumed by female undergraduates. Already wary of the freedom with which female students explored the city, university officials were determined to curb the extent of self-government in the women’s residences. Although the universities curtailed most formal social events for the duration of the war, women students continued to take part in coed activities both on and off campus. The women’s residences at Queen’s, Victoria, and University College all became focal points for controversy during this period, and by 1919 the three universities had introduced more systematic measures to keep young women under supervision. At Queen’s, the new dean of women, Caroline McNeill, spent the war years attempting to bring female students under control, and in particular to limit the power of student government within the residences and the women’s student association, Levana. McNeill had been appointed in 1911 to the position of advisor of women by the principal, Daniel Gordon, and by 1916 her title had changed to dean of women. In his report of 1910–11, Gordon had been critical of the current state of coeducation at Queen’s, pointing out that women were not integrated fully into the academic and social life of the university, that they lacked a central place on campus, and that they required guidance in selecting appropriate programs from among courses that were framed primarily for men.16 By 1917, in three women’s residences, students lived by a flexible set of self-governing rules, enjoying the independence of skating on the university rink, going to dances, and out on dates to Kingston’s theatres.17 In 1911 the senior female students had protested McNeill’s appointment, and throughout the war they continued to challenge her authority, maintaining that self-government was sufficient and that the role of dean of women unnecessary. Proud of their system of student discipline, the women asserted their right to monitor their own standards of behaviour within the residences. Mabel Roberts, who was involved in student government at the ‘Hen Coop’ residence between 1914 and 1917, remembered being warned by another student to dissociate herself from her dynamic friend, Charlotte Whitton. ‘[S]he thought that it’d drag me down a little bit to be with somebody so noisy and boister-

The Roots of Change in Women’s Higher Education

99

ous,’ Roberts explained. ‘I had to be a sort of a custodian of the conduct of the Queen’s girls and therefore I had to watch my own step, you see.’18 In the fall of 1917 Dean McNeill came into direct conflict with student committees in the residences over the issue of initiation. One of McNeill’s primary tasks was to reform student government, and, in the face of considerable opposition from the membership, she worked with the Levana executive to prepare a revised constitution, with a formalized list of regulations the student organization was to enforce.19 At Victoria College in Toronto, the chancellor, Nathaniel Burwash, shared Principal Gordon’s concern over the freedom of young female students. ‘I am told,’ Burwash had complained to the dean of residence, Margaret Addison, in 1911, ‘that students have gone to dances without a chaperone and to dances probably the character of which we know nothing, and have come in as late as 2 o’clock in the morning. These are matters which … should not be allowed in a well regulated college.’20 Addison, who had spent her own undergraduate years at Victoria during the meagre Cobourg days, defended self-government in the women’s residence, arguing that it ‘develops in the students a sense of individual responsibility both to the institution and to one another.’21 During the war, however, Addison began to have doubts about the strain put on young women by the intense social demands of a coeducational university. ‘They toboggan, and nearly break their pretty heads,’ she wrote in 1915, ‘they snow-shoe in the moon-light, and nearly break their dear hearts; while the band on the rink lures them out at least two nights a week. In vain I storm within, but nobody seems to sympathize with me much.’22 In 1917, in the dean’s report to the Victoria senate, Addison warned that women students were restless, ‘showing a wholesome dissatisfaction with many institutions which they have before accepted without query.’23 This impatient mood became more pronounced by the end of the war, and in early 1919 the Victoria students held mass meetings and successfully petitioned the administration to relax their residence rules to allow them to attend certain dance halls and restaurants in the city. In 1920 Addison’s title was changed from dean of residence to dean of women, in recognition that her supervisory role extended beyond the residences to all the female students at Victoria. By then Addison was favouring the idea of a separate women’s college, modelled on those of Oxford and Cambridge, which, she believed, could better foster academic autonomy among female students.24 Administrators at University College in Toronto expressed similar apprehensions during the war over the situation of female students.

100

Cultures, Communities, and Conflict

In 1916 the college appointed Margaret Wrong to supervise the behaviour of all women undergraduates off campus and in residence, a position that would evolve into that of dean of women in 1926. Wrong and her successors worked steadily to bring the conduct of female students under closer supervision; after 1918, for example, women were expected to adhere to a detailed list of regulations regarding boarding houses and sororities.25 Wrong’s appointment reflected the college’s ongoing efforts to control escalating turmoil within the women’s residence, Queen’s Hall. By the war years the residence had developed a reputation for loose behaviour and lax discipline – ‘the Queen’s Hall lot were thought to be rather gay,’ one dean of women later remembered.26 Rumours of cliques, aggravated by the growing rivalry of Greek-letter sororities, repeatedly surfaced among students. In 1914 the head of Queen’s Hall, Mrs John Campbell, had resigned her position following a dispute with the house committee over her authority, and management continued to deteriorate under her successor, Louise Livingstone.27 In January 1919 the situation reached a crisis point when the entire student house committee resigned after a confrontation with Livingstone over discipline. Maurice Hutton, the principal of University College, instituted more stringent regulations for residents, which in turn sparked a mass protest of women students. ‘The Insurrection of the Women,’ ran the Varsity caption in March, under a cartoon showing female students marching with banners.28 University College severed its affiliation with Queen’s Hall, which after 1919 became a University of Toronto residence, and established in its place two other women’s residences, Hutton and Argyll Houses. The protests of students received little sympathy from members of the wider university community who feared a complete breakdown of discipline among female undergraduates. ‘The love of pleasure and the license that are the aftermath of war are no small concern in the women’s residences of the University,’ Margaret Addison wrote in her report of 1919.29 In February a committee representing female faculty and administrators at both Victoria and University colleges sent an anxious letter to the president of the University of Toronto, Robert Falconer, urging him to take steps to curb social activities among students, and in particular to limit the attendance of women undergraduates at dance halls and downtown restaurants in the evenings.30 University administrators were uneasy that the war had promoted a new spirit of restlessness among women undergraduates, that their

The Roots of Change in Women’s Higher Education

101

sudden prominence in university affairs had stimulated unreasonable demands for self-government, and that the traditional limits of respectable conduct were being stretched and distorted. On one level post-war criticisms of women students reveal a superficial preoccupation with ankles and arms, and discussions of university life frequently refer to the startling changes in feminine appearance. This concern over dress, however, slipped into anxieties about overly assertive behaviour, and, by extension, into the assumption that coeds distracted male undergraduates from their intellectual work. At Western, English professor W.F. Tamblyn described the pre-war innocence of the activities in the women students’ room, ‘No. 6’: ‘In their retreat above, the ladies were still making fudge in 1913. But by 1921 back-hair was passing away to join the wigs of the eighteenth century. Flappers were flapping even in University halls.’31 In 1921 the Western University Gazette shared this disappointment: ‘It was the girls of years ago that gave its character to No. 6. Some came to study, some to dance or dream, but all to charm.’32 D.D. Calvin pursued a similar theme in his history of Queen’s University, recording aspects of student life ‘to which “1914” put an end forever.’ ‘Men and women students did not speak to each other in the College halls,’ he explained. ‘The women students were covered from neck to heel in “blouse and skirt.”’33 In these accounts, modern female students displayed a sense of worldliness unknown to their predecessors before the war, and changes in fashion became synonymous with more fundamental differences in morality and academic integrity. In his 1928 tribute to the ‘Golden Age’ of Toronto student life, the physicist W.J. Loudon recalled the first tiny group of female graduates from the convocation of 1886. ‘Take a look at those three Graces and compare them with the Furies of today,’ he urged. ‘I wonder what those three would say or do if they dropped, some night, down into Hart House when a dance was going on, or a swimming exhibition by the women students of the present day. They probably would fold their wings and fly away.’34 Yet despite their longer skirts, female students of the pre-war period had prompted similar criticisms from university administrators. While post-war observers tended to romanticize the experience of the early female graduates, a closer study of the first years of coeducation reveals that from the beginning opponents expressed a constant concern that women would corrupt the academic integrity of the men’s universities. An image capturing these tensions appeared in the 1918 commencement day coverage in the Varsity Magazine. The photograph

102

Cultures, Communities, and Conflict

Figure 4.1: Convocation procession, University of Toronto, published in the Varsity Magazine Supplement 1918. Courtesy of City of Toronto Archives. City of Toronto Archives, Fonds 1244, Item 369ET

accompanying the article shows a long procession of young women marching across the front campus to Convocation Hall at the University of Toronto; no male graduates are in sight (see Figure 4.1).35 This image of female ascendancy would come to symbolize the impact of the war on university life; for some, it was a visual reminder of the decay of academic vitality during the war years. Yet these fears were deeply rooted. In 1911, several years before the war, a student cartoonist at the University of Toronto named J.L. Sheard had foreshadowed just such a development. Sheard’s cartoon, ‘The Last Man,’ pictured a commencement day procession of women graduates – swanlike in their superiority – leading one hapless and enfeebled man with them as they swept their way on to Convocation Hall. The cartoon, which appeared in a collection entitled Varsity in Cartoon, was introduced by the editor’s comment: ‘Coy-Education – A Timid Forecast. Our artist in a moment of inspiration has depicted a class reception as seen by the prophetic eye.’36

The Roots of Change in Women’s Higher Education

103

Pre-war Patterns in Coeducation The early years of coeducation were marked by unsettled controversies. These debates survived the war intact, and continued to shape the experience of female undergraduates well into the 1920s. In all five universities the growth of women’s enrolment before the war prompted demands for greater recognition and improved accommodation, which, in turn, reopened earlier debates concerning the impact and desirability of university coeducation.37 As women students developed self-confidence in numbers, they challenged their peripheral role, asserting their right to be accepted as full members of the undergraduate body. By the early 1900s this process had formed a discernible pattern, particularly within the three original men’s universities: as women adopted a more prominent presence on campus, critics of coeducation increasingly called for separate forms of provision, in both academic and extracurricular programs. At Victoria, Queen’s, and Toronto’s University College, women students initially occupied an uneasy, ill-defined space on campus. They were newcomers entering in small numbers, immediately marked as different, kept apart from men outside classes, and forced to accommodate themselves as best they could to established traditions of male student culture. Although women at Victoria had been admitted without the overt opposition demonstrated at Queen’s and University College, at all three universities men treated early female students as guests rather than as fellow undergraduates. At Victoria, then still at its original location in Cobourg, the sight of women in classes initially excited what Acta Victoriana termed ‘great amusement’ among the male students. By the end of the 1880s, women were feeling sufficiently numerous to ask for a separate ladies’ room, a request that sparked some animosity among male students whose own application for extra club space had been denied the year before. ‘Of course it is necessary that our lady friends should have a department where they can gossip or make taffy, when not occupied with the arduous duties of college life,’ Acta Victoriana remarked sourly in February 1888.38 Women were not accepted as members of the students’ Literary Society, which, at Victoria, as at most nineteenth-century universities, formed the centre of undergraduate life on campus. In 1889 the female undergraduates formed a separate Ladies Literary Society. That same year they began contributing to Acta Victoriana, but it was not until 1894

104

Cultures, Communities, and Conflict

that women were permitted to serve on the editorial staff or to have representation on the Student Board of Control.39 During the 1890s some men at Victoria began to imagine that their female classmates were less amusing than they had seemed originally. Though women generally represented no more than 16 per cent of the student population, fears began to surface that they were appropriating the space and resources belonging to men. In 1898 Acta Victoriana reported that the numbers of women in the class of ’98 had caused concern among male students: ‘Even the faculty looked grave and talked of limiting the number of women students. The building, they said, was not planned with a view to being used as a ladies’ college.’40 At Queen’s the women students were given their own space, furnished through the goodwill of Principal Grant, on the third floor of the Arts Building. In 1881 the two women undergraduates then in attendance were invited – by means of one shy male student appointed a ‘committee’ – to attend the meetings of the Alma Mater Society, the student government association. Sensing ridicule, the women viewed this offer with distrust, and throughout the 1880s only a few female students attended the Society’s meetings. In 1888 Queen’s women formed Levana, which functioned both as a governing body for women students and as a literary society, sponsoring debates, lectures, and tea dances. Levana’s relationship with the Alma Mater Society was strained during the 1890s; women were never welcomed freely to the Society’s meetings, yet, as arts students, the women’s votes were needed to offset the power of the medical students. Female students were voting members of the Alma Mater Society, but aside from some public gatherings, they did not regularly attend meetings, clearly deciding that it was better to participate fully in their own society rather than play a peripheral role in the men’s organization.41 At University College the first nine women were welcomed by male students with polite formality,42 but by the fall of 1885 rumours began to circulate throughout the province that the men of the college were behaving in an ungentlemanly way, hooting and jeering at the female students when they appeared at lectures. Although these rumours were denied by the female students at the time,43 later reminiscences mention the men blocking access to the doors or loudly serenading the women with such songs as ‘My Darling Clementine’ as they entered class.44 As at Victoria, membership in the most prestigious student organization, the Literary Society, remained closed to women. In October 1888 the names of eighteen women were proposed for membership, but, as

The Roots of Change in Women’s Higher Education

105

the minutes recorded, ‘[t]he ladies did not receive the number of votes necessary for their election.’45 In response to this rebuff, in 1881 female students formed a separate Women’s Literary Society, which served as the representative student body for women until the establishment of the Women’s Undergraduate Association in 1914.46 Although women students at Victoria, Queens, and University College formed separate societies during these early years of coeducation, wherever their numbers carried weight they were neither marginalized nor isolated from the central concerns of university life. As their enrolment expanded, women ensured that they would participate collectively, and, similar to the women at McMaster and Western, they self-consciously modelled their own identity upon that of male undergraduates. ‘University undergraduates form a distinct class with special privileges and responsibilities,’ one female writer pointed out in 1899, ‘hence some name should be theirs which would distinguish them from students of other conditions.’ A member of the University College Women’s Literary Society made the point more explicitly: ‘We have often been accused of imitating the students of the sterner sex in all our enterprises.’ By the late 1880s male and female students came into more frequent contact with each other.47 Women at University College had an active social life, cheering on rugby games and attending dances and skating parties. They also were busy in their class meetings, often voting as a block in class elections,48 and participated along with men in the activities of various organizations, including the Classical Society and the Political Science Club. Young women at Victoria had a similar degree of freedom to pursue coed activities, such as class meetings, promenades, and concerts. In particular, evening skating parties on the rink behind the women’s residence gave men and women at Victoria frequent opportunities to socialize with students from University College. ‘I skated with some poor innocent today who thinks he knows me,’ one Victoria student wrote in her diary in February 1908.49 As at Victoria, the expansion of women’s physical boundaries at University College sparked resentment among male undergraduates, and the Varsity featured a growing number of debates concerning the desirability of coeducation, including open attacks on female students.50 During a major student strike at the college in 1895, University of Toronto officials were alarmed by the enthusiastic participation of female students, who attended mass meetings of the undergraduates off campus, and joined male students in boycotting lectures for three days. Following the strike the univer-

106

Cultures, Communities, and Conflict

sity councils approved new rules attempting to bring the behaviour of female students more closely under the supervision of the lady superintendent.51 Unlike the older men’s universities, Victoria, Queen’s, and Toronto, the new arts faculties of McMaster and Western were coeducational from the beginning, and women students did not have to confront established undergraduate traditions. This lack of tradition, combined with the comparatively low female enrolment at the newer universities, resulted in a more effective integration of women into undergraduate life before the First World War. In the absence of any pre-existing student culture at McMaster and Western, women could participate along with men in creating the first undergraduate clubs, literary societies, and newspapers.52 At McMaster the male and female students in the small arts program maintained a comfortable familiarity with each other, together attending end of term picnics, class rallies, ‘At Home’ socials at Moulton College, and evening meetings in the McMaster chapel. In sharp contrast to the exclusion of women from the literary societies at the older universities, the male executive of McMaster’s newly founded Lit made a special point of urging the women students to attend meetings. ‘The society needed the ladies, and, above all, the ladies needed the society,’ the McMaster Monthly reported in January 1892. Women also held positions on the executive of the class of ’94 – McMaster’s first – and by 1895 they were serving on both the Literary Society’s executive and the editorial board of the Monthly. In addition to their attendance at coeducational Lit meetings, female students at McMaster formed the Ladies Literary League, later the Women’s Literary Society, in 1894.53 During the club’s earliest years, barely enough women were enrolled to fill the executive positions, a problem the Monthly enjoyed describing: ‘The ladies’ parlor, two lady students, big arm chair by table empty. A grave and sedate member arises and nominates Miss M. as president. Other nominations. Mighty contest. Miss M. victorious. Gravely and president like she looks on the remaining four.’54 Similar to the women’s organizations at the larger universities, the Women’s Literary Society at McMaster was open to all female undergraduates, and served to promote women’s interests within the student body. By 1906 women’s enrolment had risen to twenty-nine, or 21 per cent of the total student enrolment, and female undergraduates had started a regular ‘women’s department’ in the Monthly.55 In contrast to Victoria, Queen’s, and University College, this tendency

The Roots of Change in Women’s Higher Education

107

towards early integration at McMaster was even more pronounced at Western, where the women possessed considerable influence among the small classes in arts. The first female students – far from being excluded – played a leading role in establishing undergraduate organizations. Arts women joined with the divinity students to found the Literary Society in 1896, women routinely served on the executive, and by 1900 female students were taking prominent roles in the Lit’s annual play, performed publicly in the Huron College hall.56 ‘Arts students were so few in number,’ Professor Tamblyn remembered, ‘that their section of the University was a sort of home circle, or a guild, bound tightly together. The Arts men and women and Huron men nearly all belonged to the “Lit” and attended fairly well.’57 In 1902 women students edited and produced Western’s first student newspaper, In Cap and Gown. After 1909, when the newspaper expanded and was renamed the Western University Gazette, women still maintained their key role on the editorial board.58 Originally handwritten and illustrated with coloured drawings, In Cap and Gown portrayed an irreverent view of college life that conveyed more social than academic interests: Some students spend their moments so It gives them intimation That when they’re through they’ll have the ‘co’ Without the education.59

Men and women had frequent opportunity to socialize outside classes, and students gathered together for tennis, sleigh rides, picnics, and what Jessie Rowat, the valedictorian of the class of ’06, referred to as ‘co-conversation’ in the college halls.60 Rowat’s role as editor of In Cap and Gown for two years required her to work closely with her male classmates, something she herself referred to mockingly in her scrapbook of student life: ‘Then she goes to college where … she meets many men – but cannot choose – Finally she graduates – and becomes J.R. B.A.’61 By the early 1900s informal coeducational cultures had developed within all Ontario’s universities, particularly at Western and McMaster, where the small numbers allowed men and women to socialize more easily. During the pre-war period, this degree of social interaction among male and female undergraduates provoked administrators to limit the extent of women’s self-government and to encourage the establishment of separate programs and facilities for female students.

108

Cultures, Communities, and Conflict

For many these steps were necessary if the social aspects of coeducation were not to overshadow the academic integrity of the universities or, as In Cap and Gown put it, to prevent students having the ‘co’ without the education. Increasing Segregation and Regulation In the years leading up to the First World War, members of the newly founded alumnae associations, who had campaigned earnestly to create residential space for women in the older universities, watched the activities of the young students with anxiety. ‘[T]here is a frivolous, pleasure-loving element attracted to a co-educational college,’ Maud Edgar told the Victoria Women’s Residence Association in 1908, ‘not for the sake of learning, but for the sake of pleasure, of excitement, of social gaiety.’62 While many of these older female graduates supported students’ demands for self-government, they also correctly recognized that their position within the universities remained fragile. After a quarter-century of coeducation in Ontario, the presence of women in the original men’s universities still was seen by many to be a makeshift arrangement, based on the demands of economy rather than the best interests of either sex. Coeducation attracted a growing number of women, and the idea of a separate college steadily gained momentum as enrolments climbed. In 1907 the senate of the University of Toronto established a special committee to explore the possibility of removing female students in arts from all of the federated colleges and placing them in a separate women’s college. After two years of investigation the committee recommended the complete segregation of women students within a separate residential and classroom building. The committee was chaired by George M. Wrong, a professor of history, whose daughter Margaret would later become dean of women at University College. In his report of 1909 Wrong confirmed all the fears articulated by opponents of coeducation a generation earlier: the presence of women, in fact, had feminized the system, causing men to abandon programs, such as modern languages, where women predominated. Men and women, Wrong maintained, had substantially different needs in higher education, and a women’s college would be able to offer courses, such as household science, specifically designed for women. Immediately grasping the fact that separate would not mean equal, despite the increased opportunities for female teaching positions,

The Roots of Change in Women’s Higher Education

109

women graduates and undergraduates from Victoria, University, and Trinity colleges (now affiliated with the University of Toronto) quickly organized an effective resistance to the plan.63 For university women, access to men’s programs, with all its drawbacks, had become a prized victory in the struggle for women’s rights, a connection that seemed obvious to observers at the time. ‘[T]hose women who are suffragists are also the lustiest of co-educationists,’ the Arbor noted in 1911, adding that, ‘also they seem often to be vegetarians.’64 During the immediate pre-war period, women undergraduates in Ontario asserted a new independence and, influenced by the revived movement for women’s rights, frequently challenged the limitations placed on them by their universities.65 ‘Co-education as it is at present is a mere farce,’ one University College woman wrote in 1913, arguing that the flowers and candy of dating rituals only thinly disguised the hostile barrier that separated male and female students.66 In November of that year the Women’s Literary Society of Victoria University held an angry meeting to discuss its dissatisfaction with the way the all-male Student Board of Control ruled in matters relating to the female students. The women passed a resolution demanding full control of their own affairs and requesting the administration to allow the formation of two separate student boards for men and women. Following this resolution, the Globe reported, with some excitement, ‘[t]he meeting placed itself on record as being in favor of “votes for women.”’67 In January 1914 the Women’s Literary Society at McMaster held a debate on women’s suffrage in which the judges decided in favour of the affirmative. ‘Woman is an individual,’ the editor of the women’s page argued in the next issue of McMaster University Monthly. ‘Individuality is her birthright; and so is the expression of this individuality.’ Similar to the female students at Victoria, McMaster women decided to exercise their rights in student government. In April the Women’s Student Body, which had been formed in 1910, passed a resolution demanding that women should have an equal voice in all matters affecting McMaster students: ‘that a woman’s vote count the same as a man’s – no more, no less.’68 The Toronto newspapers were alert to feminist activity among female undergraduates at the various universities in the city. In February 1914 the Toronto Star reported a ‘conspiracy’ on the busy College streetcar line. According to the conductor, a number of female students, wearing suffrage buttons on their coats, were systematically refusing the offer of men’s seats and preferring to stand on the crowded cars. ‘Hereafter Toronto suffragettes will be strap-hangers,’

110

Cultures, Communities, and Conflict

the Star concluded. ‘Evidently the new movement has had its beginning among the university women students.’69 After 1914 the tendency to contest restrictions was accentuated by the impact of the war, as female undergraduates gained an unprecedented degree of prominence in university life. The struggles for control within the women’s residences at Victoria, Queen’s, and Toronto’s University College represent the high-water mark for female self-government at Ontario’s universities. During the 1920s and 1930s university administrators increasingly would bring women’s residence life under closer supervision, and the new residences, such as Wallingford Hall at McMaster (1920), Ban Righ Hall at Queen’s (1925), and Whitney Hall at University College (1930), exhibited a more stringent form of regulation implicit in the ideal of in loco parentis.70 All five universities created the position of deans of women during or shortly after the war. Although these appointments acknowledged the rights of female students to resources and space, they also strengthened the universities’ ability to regulate young women.71 At McMaster, women living at Wallingford Hall were allowed self-government, but the authority of the dean to override those regulations was established clearly. At Western, women had experienced few limitations on their activities or their contact with male students until the appointment of Ruby Mason as the first dean of women in 1926 and the creation of residential accommodation at Alpha and Beta Houses after 1928. Similar to those of Caroline McNeill at Queen’s, Mason’s earliest measures were to enforce restrictions on women’s choice of boarding houses and to introduce more rules shaping the social interaction of female students. When Ban Righ Hall opened at Queen’s in 1925, Hilda Laird, the second dean of women, imposed much tighter restrictions than had previously existed at the old Hencoop or Avonmore residences.72 In the post-war period, the perception that coeducation had both weakened academic programs and promoted an excessive degree of social interaction prompted some administrators to renew the question of a separate college for female students. At Toronto, following the separate college controversy of 1909, two buildings were constructed that effectively separated male and female students outside of class: the household science building in 1913 and a men’s student centre, Hart House, in 1919. Women were not permitted into Hart House, and in the absence of other facilities the household science building became the focus of women students’ extracurricular activities on the Toronto campus. During the early 1920s at Victoria, the alumnae association again

The Roots of Change in Women’s Higher Education

111

discussed the possibility of moving female undergraduates into a separate college, and in January 1923 Acta Victoriana published two lengthy articles debating the case for and against coeducation.73 By December a committee of the board of regents had recommended that, in place of new residences for women, an entirely separate college be constructed in a location remote from the main building, where women could attend segregated lectures. This decision was prompted by the committee’s concern that the growing numbers of female students would aggravate the already inappropriate social relations between men and women on campus – what Acta Victoriana described as ‘stupid rowdyism.’ The recommendation, as Acta suspected, proved to be too expensive to pursue, but throughout the interwar period the question of segregating women was debated repeatedly at Victoria.74 In 1929 a senate committee recommended that the college reduce the numerical dominance of women by denying admission to first-year women with junior matriculation if they came from schools that offered senior matriculation. Although the proposal was never enforced, the discussion surrounding it reveals the enduring belief among administrators that coeducation was a problematic institution at Victoria.75 Conclusion Female enrolment in faculties of arts at Ontario’s universities climbed steadily after the First World War. More and more women began to see employment as an expected stage of their life, and universities provided female students an opportunity to prepare themselves for higher-paying positions.76 At the same time, however, the universities focused more on training women to work in areas that were identified as specifically feminine. By the end of the decade they offered a range of programs designed for women, including social service, physiotherapy, secretarial science, and librarian certification, as well as household science. Although women integrated more easily into the small classes at McMaster and Western, the three older men’s universities – Victoria, Queen’s, and University College – had cultivated an element of resistance to full coeducation since the 1870s. Within all five universities during the 1920s, men and women became more divided in their academic pursuits, even as a newly identifiable coed culture emerged that emphasized superficial social interactions through dating and dancing. As one contributor to the Rebel wrote in 1919, however, ‘[a]lthough

112

Cultures, Communities, and Conflict

there is ample opportunity for meeting in social functions, much of the intellectual activity which centres about the University is carried on entirely separately: literary, dramatic, athletic, historical and debating societies.’77 At Queen’s, male students criticized women in the Journal for lowering academic standards – flitting late into their classes like butterflies, one 1923 article charged.78 In 1920, at University College, women again failed to gain admission to the Literary Society, the central organization of the college, when the motion to admit female students was defeated in the face of vigorous opposition.79 During and after the war, female students continued to campaign for greater self-government, and administrators responded by more formally regulating their experience as undergraduates through the appointment of deans of women. Following their admittance in the late nineteenth century, undergraduate women increasingly contested the restrictions imposed upon them, and their demands for self-government were expressed frequently in the years leading up to the war. By 1914 university administrators were becoming concerned about the growing social interaction between male and female students, and the movement towards academic segregation was well under way. The tensions inherent to the presence of women in men’s universities continued to define the experience of female students during and after the war. Many contemporaries were dissatisfied with the state of coeducation in the 1920s, and looked back to the changes brought by the war for an explanation. The war accelerated, but did not create, the conditions that shaped the course of women’s education in that decade. In his classic 1935 study, The Strange Death of Liberal England, George Dangerfield warned that the political and social upheavals of the 1920s had to be interpreted in light of the turbulent years leading up to the Great War: ‘That extravagant behaviour of the post-war decade, which most of us thought to be the effect of war, had really begun before the War,’ he wrote. ‘The war hastened everything – in politics, in economics, in behaviour – but it started nothing.’80

NOTES 1 Maurice Hutton, ‘Fifty Years’ Retrospect,’ in The Sisters Jest and Earnest (Toronto: Musson, n.d.), 144. The political economist Stephen Leacock was more candid in his assessment of coeducation at McGill University: ‘It’s the women who have made our college life the bright, happy thing it

The Roots of Change in Women’s Higher Education

2

3

4 5

6

113

is – too bright, too happy. But men can’t study when women are around.’ Stephen Leacock, ‘On the Need for a Quiet College,’ in Stephen Leacock’s Laugh Parade (New York: Dodd, Mead, 1940), 298. Robert Falconer, ‘The War and Intellectual Development,’ in Idealism in National Character (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1920), 117. See also the analysis of A.S.P. Woodhouse: ‘Up to 1914, though danger signs were not wanting, a sober optimism prevailed … There was no widespread disposition to call foundations in question, in the political, the economic or the educational sphere … Then came 1914 and, as now appears, the Great Divide’; A.S.P. Woodhouse, ‘The Humanities – Sixty Years,’ Queen’s Quarterly 60, no. 4 (1954): 542–3, cited by A.B. McKillop, Matters of Mind: The University in Ontario, 1791–1951 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1994), 288. Jonathan Vance argues that, during the 1920s, many Canadians continued to articulate the ‘high diction’ version of the war as a Victorian conflict; see Jonathan F. Vance, Death So Noble: Memory, Meaning, and the First World War (Vancouver: UBC Press, 1997), 73–110. Vance’s argument is well supported by the essays in Falconer’s Idealism in National Character. Hutton, ‘Fifty Years’ Retrospect,’ 144. Cynthia R. Comacchio, The Dominion of Youth: Adolescence and the Making of a Modern Canada, 1920–1950 (Waterloo, ON: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2006), 1–15; Veronica Strong-Boag, The New Day Recalled: Lives of Girls and Women in English Canada, 1919–1939 (Toronto: Copp Clarke Pitman, 1988), 7–40; and James M. Pitsula, ‘Student Life at Regina College in the 1920s,’ in Youth, University, and Canadian Society: Essays in the Social History of Higher Education , ed. Paul Axelrod and John G. Reid (Montreal; Kingston, ON: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1989), 122–39. See also Cynthia Comacchio, ‘Inventing the Extracurriculum: High School Culture in Interwar Ontario,’ Ontario History 93, no. 1 (2001): 33–56. Joan Sangster, ‘Mobilizing Women for War,’ in Canada and the First World War: Essays in Honour of Robert Craig Brown , ed. David MacKenzie (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2005), 157–93. The theme of continuity over transformation runs through many of the contributions in MacKenzie’s collection of essays; see, for example, ‘Introduction: Myth, Memory, and the Transformation of Canadian Society.’ Similarly, Catherine Gidney has argued that liberal Protestant values, expressed by the moral regulation of students, continued to play a central role within English-Canadian universities between 1920 and 1960; Catherine Gidney, A Long Eclipse: The Liberal Protestant Establishment and the Canadian University, 1920–1970 (Montreal; Kingston, ON: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2004), 3–47.

114

Cultures, Communities, and Conflict

7 McKillop, Matters of Mind, 405–52; Alyson E. King, ‘The Experience of the Second Generation of Women Students at Ontario Universities, 1900-1930’ (PhD diss., University of Toronto, 1999), 72–122; Ruby Heap, ‘Training Women for a New ‘Women’s Profession’: Physiotherapy Education at the University of Toronto, 1917–40,’ History of Education Quarterly 35, no. 2 (1995): 135–58; and Sara Z. Burke, Seeking the Highest Good: Social Service and Gender at the University of Toronto, 1888–1937 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1996), 92–114. Dalhousie University provides a notable exception to this trend towards academic segregation. Judith Fingard states that Dalhousie offered very few specifically ‘female’ programs, and women students continued to be integrated into a male-oriented curriculum into the 1920s; Judith Fingard, ‘College, Career, and Community: Dalhousie Coeds, 1881–1921,’ in Axelrod and Reid, Youth, University, and Canadian Society. 8 McKillop, Matters of Mind, 275. 9 Agnes MacGillivray, transcript of interview, 22 November 1973, University of Toronto Archives (hereafter cited as UTA), B1974-0029. 10 Hilda Laird, transcript of interview, 31 May 1978; and Grace Kuehner, transcript of interview, 21 July 1978, Queen’s University Archives (hereafter cited as QUA), Oral History Project. 11 Lilyan Wiley, transcript of interview, 8 June 1978, QUA, Oral History Project; Queen’s Journal 41, no. 17 (December 1914); Queen’s Journal 42, no. 31 (February 1916); Hilda Neatby, ‘And Not to Yield’: Queen’s University, 1841–1917, vol. 1 (Montreal; Kingston, ON: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1978), 296–304; Maureen McCallum Garvie and Jennifer L. Johnson, Their Leaven of Influence: Deans of Women at Queen’s University, 1916–1996 (Kingston, ON: Committee on Women’s Affairs of the Alumni Association of Queen’s University, 1999), 19–21. 12 For a photo of the Red Cross workroom at the University of Toronto, see Linda J. Quiney, in this volume. Quiney discusses women’s work during the First World War at McGill University, Queen’s University, and the University of Toronto. 13 ‘An Afternoon at the Red Cross,’ Western University Gazette 10, no. 4 (March 1916): 23; Margaret Wrong, ‘War Work of University Women at Home,’ Varsity Magazine Supplement (1918): 133–4; Varsity 35, no. 16 (November 1915); McMaster University Monthly (October 1916): 27; McMaster University Monthly (November 1916): 78–9; ‘Victoria Women in War Work,’ Acta Victoriana War Supplement (1919), quoted in Barbara Ibronyi, Early Voices: Women at Victoria (Toronto: Victoria University, University of Toronto, 1984), 34; Linda J. Quiney, ‘“Bravely and Loyally They Answered

The Roots of Change in Women’s Higher Education

14

15

16 17

18 19 20 21 22 23 24

25 26 27

115

the Call”: St. John Ambulance, the Red Cross, and the Patriotic Service of Canadian Women during the Great War,’ History of Intellectual Culture 5, no. 1 (2005): 6–7. Margaret Kechnie, ‘“… this is not a paying job”: The Farmerette Movement in Ontario during the Great War’ (paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the Canadian Historical Association, Carleton University, Ottawa, June 1993). I am grateful to Margaret Kechnie for sending me a copy of this paper. See also Edith Alexander, ‘The University College Fruit-Pickers,’ University Monthly 18, no. 1 (1917): 21–7. ‘Chancellor’s Report to the Senate, 1916–1917,’ Canadian Baptist Archives (hereafter cited as CBA), Box 402, Sub Group A: Office of the Chancellor/ President, Series 5, McMaster University; Neatby, ‘And Not to Yield,’ 303. Neatby, ‘And Not to Yield,’ 301; McCallum Garvie and Johnson, Their Leaven of Influence, 10–11. May Penwarden, transcript of interview, 21 October 1977; Florence May Mooney, transcript of interview, 2 and 5 August 1978; Mabel Galt, transcript of interview, 3 August 1978, QUA, Oral History Project. Mabel Roberts, transcript of interview, 17 April 1978, 28, QUA, Oral History Project. Neatby, ‘And Not to Yield,’ 301; McCallum Garvie and Johnson, Their Leaven of Influence, 11–19. Quoted in Jean O’Grady, Margaret Addison: A Biography (Montreal; Kingston, ON: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2001), 127–8. Margaret Addison, quoted in In Memoriam: Margaret Addison, 1868–1940 (Toronto: Clarke, Irwin, 1941), 15. Margaret Addison to Charlotte, 30 January 1915, United Church Archives, Victoria University, Special Collections, Margaret Addison Papers. Quoted in O’Grady, Margaret Addison, 160. Ibid., 162–4, 188–92; Johanna M. Selles, Methodists and Women’s Education in Ontario, 1836–1925 (Montreal; Kingston, ON: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1996), 188–9. ‘Boarding Houses,’ 1918, UTA, University College, Dean of Women, B740011/001(7). Mossie May Kirkwood, transcript of oral interview, 27 March 1973, 35, UTA, B74-0020. ‘Queen’s Hall,’ Varsity, 18 February 1910; Minutes of Queen’s Hall House Committee, 1911–14, UTA, University College, A69-0011/022; ‘University College Queen’s Hall Constitution for the Self-Government Association, 1914,’ UTA, Office of the President, A67-0007/056; Mrs John Campbell to Robert Falconer, 4 June 1914, Robert Falconer to Mrs John Campbell, 8

116

28 29 30 31 32 33 34

35 36 37

Cultures, Communities, and Conflict June 1914, UTA, Office of the President, A67-0007/027; Varsity, 21 February 1919; Varsity, 24 February 1919; Varsity, 26 February 1919; Queen’s Hall, UTA, Office of the President, A67-0007/054. For a detailed analysis of the problems plaguing Queen’s Hall, see Charles Levi, ‘Phyllis Grierson, Margaret Ross, and the Queen’s Hall Girls: Intergroup Conflict among University College Women, 1910–21,’ Historical Studies in Education 12, nos. 1–2 (2000): 73–92. Levi argues that the tensions within the residence were accentuated by the university’s neglect of women students during the war years. ‘The Insurrection of the Women,’ Varsity, 24 March 1919. Margaret Addison, Dean’s Report (13 February 1919), quoted in Ibronyi, Early Voices, 37. Margaret Addison to Robert Falconer, 1 Feb. 1919, UTA, Office of the President, A67-0007/051a. William Ferguson Tamblyn, These Sixty Years (London, ON: London Printing & Litho., 1938), 75–6. ‘Past and Present,’ Western University Gazette Yearbook (1921): 5. D.D. Calvin, Queen’s University at Kingston: The First Century of a ScottishCanadian Foundation, 1841–1941 (Toronto: Hunter-Rose, 1941), 268–9. W.J. Loudon, Studies of Student Life, vol. 5, The Golden Age (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1928), 158–9. Although nostalgic about his own student days, Loudon is positive about the character of modern students and critical of those ‘who live in the Past’ by opposing all change in university life. D.R. Keys, ‘Commencement Day, 1918, University of Toronto,’ Varsity Magazine Supplement (1918), 81. J.L. Sheard, ‘The Last Man,’ in Varsity in Cartoon, ed. Stan Murray (Toronto: Bryant Press [1911?]). By 1892 there were 107 female students at University College (18.1 per cent of the entire population in arts and science), compared with 44 at Queen’s (17.6 per cent of the total population of 250), and 14 at Victoria (5.8 per cent of a total student body of 240). Following the federation of Victoria in 1892 and of the Anglican Trinity College in 1904, the numbers of women at the University of Toronto doubled over the next two decades: by 1911, well over five hundred women were attending classes, and female enrolment represented 34.4 per cent of the entire student body in arts and science. At Queen’s, 316 women were enrolled in arts and science by 1911 (36.9 per cent of the undergraduate population). Although McMaster’s enrolment continued to be low in the period before the First World War, women soon accounted for a quarter of the student population in arts; by 1911, for

The Roots of Change in Women’s Higher Education

38 39 40 41

42

43

44

45

46 47

48 49

117

example, there were 64 women out of a total enrolment of 232, representing 28 per cent of the students registered in arts. Western’s enrolment was the lowest: before the First World War, Western graduated no more than 34 women, and in 1911 67 men and only 12 women were registered in the arts faculty. McKillop, Matters of Mind, 141; Selles, Methodists and Women’s Education, 168; King, ‘Experience of the Second Generation,’ 325–6. Acta Victoriana 7, no. 8 (1884): 11; Acta Victoriana 12, no. 5 (1888), quoted in Selles, Methodists and Women’s Education, 166–7. Ibronyi, Early Voices, 11–19; Selles, Methodists and Women’s Education, 168–9; Acta Victoriana 18, no. 1 (1894). Acta Victoriana 71, no. 8 (1898), quoted in Selles, Methodists and Women’s Education, 172. Lynne Marks and Chad Gaffield, ‘Women at Queen’s University, 1895– 1905: A “Little Sphere” All Their Own?’ Ontario History 78, no. 4 (1986): 331–2; Neatby, ‘And Not to Yield,’ 208–10; McCallum Garvie and Johnson, Their Leaven of Influence, 8–9. E. Gardiner, ‘A Reminiscence,’ Sesame 1 (April 1897): 23; Varsity, 25 October 1884; Daniel Wilson to George W. Ross, 5 March 1885, 18 March 1885, 21 March 1885, Archives of Ontario (hereafter cited as AO), Records of the Ministry of Education, Series RG2-29-1-247. Educational Weekly 2, no. 47 (1885); Educational Weekly 2, no. 48 (1885); Daniel Wilson to George W. Ross, 23 November 1885, and Letitia Salter to Daniel Wilson, 23 November 1885, AO, Records of the Ministry of Education, Series RG 2-29-1-247. Jennie S. Hill to Mrs Digby Wheeler, 18 August 1923, Library and Archives Canada, Canadian Federation of University Women, MG 28 (I-96), vol. 8, file 8-39; ‘College Women,’ 6, UTA, Bessie Mabel Scott Lewis Fonds, B800033/001(06); Diaries of Bessie Scott, 1889–90, 1890–1, UTA, Lewis Fonds, B80-0033/001(03) and (04). Minutes, 26 October 1888, 467, UTA, University College Literary Society, A69-0011/002. I thank Charles Levi for bringing these minutes to my attention. ‘A Sketch of the Women’s Literary Society,’ Sesame 1, no. 2 (1898); ‘College Societies,’ Sesame 1, no. 1 (1897): 96–7. ‘Women or Girls?’ Sesame 1, no. 3 (1899), 1; ‘A Sketch of the Women’s Literary Society,’ Sesame 1, no. 2 (1898): 44; ‘College Women,’ 11, UTA, Bessie Mabel Scott Lewis, B80-0033/001(06). A.M. Chisholm to H.A. Clarke, 13 September 1893, Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library, A.M. Chisholm Collection. Kathleen Cowan, diary entry for 7 February 1908, in It’s Late, and All the

118

50 51

52 53

54 55

56 57 58 59 60

61

62 63

Cultures, Communities, and Conflict Girls Have Gone: An Annesley Diary, 1907–1910, ed. Aida Farrag Graff and David Knight (Toronto: Childe Thursday, 1984), 89. Varsity, 14 November 1885; Varsity, 2 March 1889; Varsity, 16 March 1889; Varsity, 16 February 1892; Varsity, 1 March 1892; Varsity, 8 November 1893. S.H. Blake to Oliver Mowat, 28 February 1895, UTA, James Loudon, B7200031/011(01); G.W. Ross to James Loudon, 9 July 1895, UTA, James Loudon, B72-0031/013(08); Minutes of University College Council, 29 August 1895, UTA, University College Council, A69-0016/001(02); Minutes of Joint Councils, 12 September 1895, UTA. For a discussion of women students’ participation in the student strike, see Sara Z. Burke, ‘New Women and Old Romans: Co-education at the University of Toronto, 1884–95,’ Canadian Historical Review 80, no. 2 (1999): 219–41. King, ‘Experience of the Second Generation,’ 198–231. McMaster University Monthly 1, no. 4 (1892); McMaster University Monthly 3, no. 2 (1893); McMaster University Monthly 4, no. 1 (1894); McMaster University Monthly 4, no. 3 (1894); McMaster University Monthly 4, no. 8 (1895); McMaster University Monthly 5, no. 1 (1895); McMaster University Monthly 9, no. 3 (1899); McMaster University Monthly 14, no. 3 (1904). McMaster University Monthly 1, no. 3 (1891). Ladies Literary League, Minutes (1899–1911), and Women’s Literary Society, Minutes (1911–22), CBA, McMaster University; McMaster University Monthly 14, no. 4 (1905): 187. Tamblyn, These Sixty Years, 26–9; Western University Gazette 5, no. 5 (1911); ‘After Six Years,’ Western University Gazette 7, no. 1 (1912). Tamblyn, These Sixty Years, 25–6. From 1912 to 1913, for example, E. Valerie Carrothers, a female graduate of the class of 1911, was editor-in-chief of the Western University Gazette. In Cap and Gown, [March 1904]. ‘Valedictory: Class of ’06,’ 1 June 1906, University of Western Ontario Archives (hereafter cited as UWOA), Jessie Rowat Fonds, B4257-8. See also In Cap and Gown, February 1904–March 1908, various issues; form letter from the Registrar, 31 August 1914, UWOA, Office of the President Fonds, vol. 1, series 1, General Correspondence (1914–15). ‘The Life and Journeys of One Jessie Rowat,’ 12 June 1908, UWOA, Jessie Rowat Fonds, B4257-8. The November 1904 issue of In Cap and Gown teased Rowat for her habit of having lengthy conversations with male students. Maud C. Edgar, ‘The Higher Education of Women,’ University Monthly 8, no. 7 (1908): 228. George Wrong’s notes and correspondence relating to a separate college for women, 1908–9, UTA, Ephemera, B83-1288; Minutes, 12 March 1909,

The Roots of Change in Women’s Higher Education

64 65

66

67 68

69 70

71

119

212–15, and 14 May 1909, 236–38, UTA, University of Toronto Senate; Separate College for Women, 1908–10, United Church Archives, Victoria University, General Material. For an examination of the separate college controversy, see Sara Z. Burke, ‘“Being unlike Man”: Challenges to Coeducation at the University of Toronto, 1884–1909,’ Ontario History 93, no. 1 (2001): 11–31. Murray Wrong, ‘Some Problems of the University of Toronto,’ Arbor 2, no. 7 (1911): 252. After 1910 the Canadian suffrage movement gained strength across the country for a variety of reasons, including the endorsement of the National Council of Women and the publicity given to the cause of women’s rights by the increasingly militant Women’s Social and Political Union in Britain. See Carol Lee Bacchi, Liberation Deferred? The Ideas of the English-Canadian Suffragists, 1877–1918 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1983), 30–4. Helen McMurchie, ‘What Is Wrong with Co-Education in the University of Toronto?’ Arbor 4, no. 4 (1913): 200. See also ‘Dissatisfaction with Co-Education,’ editorial, University Monthly 15, no. 9 (1914): 433–4. ‘“Vic” women object to man-made edicts,’ Globe, 29 November 1913. McMaster University Monthly 23, no. 5 (1914): 217; McMaster University Monthly 23, no. 7 (1914): 315, italics in original. This interest in feminism remained alive at McMaster after the war, and in December 1921 the McMaster Women’s Student Body sponsored a packed lecture by Mrs Pankhurst, the former British women’s suffrage leader, on her new campaign for the social hygiene movement; see ‘Chancellor’s Reports, 1922–23,’ and ‘Reports of the Dean of Wallingford Hall, 1921–22,’ CBA, McMaster University, Box 402 / Sub Group A: Office of the Chancellor/President, Series 5; McMaster University Monthly 31, no. 3 (1921): 126. ‘Student girls refuse to take man’s seat in car,’ Toronto Star, 24 February 1914. Alyson E. King, ‘Centres of “Home-Like Influence”: Residences for Women at the University of Toronto,’ Material History Review 49 (Spring 1999): 39–59; Gidney, Long Eclipse, 26–47. The creation of women’s residences extended the physical separation of female students from men’s activities on campus and, by introducing deans and residence heads, magnified the surveillance of women’s behaviour on campus. Yet the residences also functioned as centres of women’s influence within their universities, giving female students the opportunity to participate more widely in athletic and social activities and to campaign for further resources and self-government. See King, ‘Centres of “HomeLike Influence.”’

120

Cultures, Communities, and Conflict

72 ‘Wallingford Hall Regulations, Constitution of Organized Women Students in Wallingford Hall,’ CBA, McMaster University, Box 105 / Sub Group A: Office of the Registrar, file: Wallingford Hall, 1920–9; ‘Chancellor’s Reports, 1922–23,’ ‘Reports of the Dean of Wallingford Hall, 1920–23,’ CBA, McMaster University, Box 402 / Sub Group A: Office of the Chancellor/President, Series 5; Enid A. McGregor, ‘Wallingford Hall,’ McMaster University Monthly 30, no. 1 (1920): 3–5; W. Sherwood Fox to Ruby Mason, 17 April 1926, UWOA, Office of the President Fonds, Vol. 8, Series 2, Applications, Dean of Women (1926); W. Sherwood Fox to Ruby Mason, 22 Sept. 1928, UWOA, Office of the President Fonds, Vol. 11, Series 2, Dean of Women (1928–9); Laird, transcript of interview, 31 May 1978; Sybil MacLachlan, transcript of interview, 15 May 1978, QUA, Oral History Project; King, ‘Experience of Second Generation,’ 146–8, 256–7. 73 ‘The Case for Co-Education,’ and ‘The Case against Co-Education,’ Acta Victoriana 47, no. 5 (1923): 12–19. 74 Acta Victoriana 48, no. 3 (1923): 17; ‘Much Ado about Nothing,’ Acta Victoriana 48, no. 5 (1924): 26–9; ‘Heaven Helps Those Who …!’ Acta Victoriana 53, no. 2 (1928): 20–1; ‘Heresy: An Editorial,’ Acta Victoriana 54, no. 4 (1930): 23–4; ‘Co-Education: An Editorial,’ Acta Victoriana 59, no. 5 (1935): 31–3; ‘Les Femmes! Vivent-elles!’ Acta Victoriana 59, no. 6 (1935): 29–30. 75 Questionnaires sent to Victoria women by M.E.T. Addison, 7 October 1929, United Church Archives, Victoria University, General Material; Selles, Methodists and Women’s Education, 204. 76 McKillop, Matters of Mind, 425–33; Nicole Neatby, ‘Preparing for the Working World: Women at Queen’s during the 1920s,’ Historical Studies in Education 1, no. 1 (1989): 53–72. 77 M.G.R., ‘A Plea for Co-Education,’ Rebel 4, no. 3 (1919): 121. 78 Quoted in McKillop, Matters of Mind, 424. 79 Varsity, 24 November 1920. Women would not gain admittance to the Lit until its amalgamation with the Women’s Undergraduate Association in 1958. See Charles Levi, Comings and Goings: University Students in Canadian Society, 1854–1973 (Montreal; Kingston, ON: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2003), 93–5. 80 George Dangerfield, The Strange Death of Liberal England, rev. ed. (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1977), 14. I am grateful to Todd Webb for bringing this quotation to my attention.

5 Manly Heroes: The University of Saskatchewan and the First World War james m. pitsula

Two hundred and fifty-three students, five professors, four instructors, three lecturers, and fifteen members of the support staff of the University of Saskatchewan served in the armed forces in the First World War. Sixty-eight students and one professor were killed and more than a hundred wounded.1 In 1919 the university’s president, Walter C. Murray, said of these men: ‘They fought with a bravery and a divine disregard for self that will bring the flush of pride to cheeks of countless generations as they read the epics of their golden deeds … Today we are too near to their deeds to see them in the fullness of their grandeur.’2 Murray’s elevated language exemplifies what Paul Fussell has called the ‘system of high diction’ in use during the Great War: ‘Everyone knew what Glory was, and what Honor meant.’3 The discourse encoded an ideal of heroism in which manliness found its highest expression in the strength, courage, and sacrifice required of the soldier who was willing to die for his country. Thus Walter Murray, in 1916, seeking to console parents whose sons had enlisted, wrote: ‘To those who let their boys go with great reluctance, this grain of comfort may be given. That decision to take a man’s share in the greatest struggle of human history has done more than you think to make a man of your son. It was a great price for you to pay; it may be a greater price than he expected to pay; but he will be a better man for daring great things in a just cause.’4 An editorial in the Sheaf, the University of Saskatchewan student publication, echoed the sentiment in 1917: ‘Although we miss the men who have gone away from us more than we can say, we do not wish that they had not gone. They have brought honor to themselves and to their Alma Mater. They have proved themselves men.’5 The obituary of student William Dobie Beaton, not yet nineteen years of age when he

122

Cultures, Communities, and Conflict

was killed in action on 15 November 1917, stated: ‘Loved for the clean boyhood of him, for his ardent spirit, for his abiding sense of humor, and for the fact that although still a boy he was at the same time the truest man we shall ever know.’6 Manliness and Chivalry The identification of manliness with soldiering is problematic today, if only because both men and women now serve in combat roles in our armed forces. Even the word ‘manliness’ is not much heard any more. Perhaps this is because, as Harvey Mansfield suggests, ‘we are in the process of making the English language gender-neutral, and manliness, the quality of one gender, or rather, of one sex, seems to describe the essence of the enemy we are attacking, the evil we are eradicating.’ ‘Masculinity’ is the preferred term, and it is often taken to refer to attributes that are ‘constructed’ or ‘socialized’ rather than fixed in nature.7 But it is not only the word ‘manliness’ that has fallen out of favour, but also the entire system of high diction that put capital letters on ‘Duty,’ ‘Honour,’ ‘Glory,’ and other such terms. A barrier separates us from the generation of 1914. They seem to be talking a different language from the one we employ. When they speak of the First World War as a crusade for democracy and freedom, their meaning is clear enough. It is the same rationale that was used to justify the Second World War and the Cold War, and is still being mobilized in support of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. But when they slip into that other language, the discourse of ‘Honour,’ ‘Glory,’ and ‘Gallantry,’ we are at a loss. George W. Brown, lieutenant-governor of Saskatchewan, proclaimed at the outbreak of the First World War that Canada had to fight ‘to keep her escutcheon clean.’ Premier Walter Scott added that Britain’s entry into the war was necessary ‘to save her name from dishonour.’ To have stayed out would have meant ‘ever-lasting disgrace.’ ‘In the circumstances in which our Empire has been placed,’ Scott continued, ‘it is not only our duty but our very high privilege to show how heartily Canada enters into the conflict, how wholeheartedly our Dominion supports Great Britain in her hour of trial.’8 Marc Girouard, in The Return to Camelot: Chivalry and the English Gentleman, throws light on this now-antiquated style of rhetorical expression. He explores the nineteenth-century revival in Britain (and by extension among English-speaking peoples) of interest in the Middle Ages and chivalry. The revival had an impact on architecture (Colle-

The University of Saskatchewan and the First World War

123

giate Gothic style, for example), painting, literature, pageantry, and even social movements such as Christian socialism and the ‘muscular Christianity’ of the English public school. The novelist Sir Walter Scott and poet Alfred Lord Tennyson were leading practitioners, the latter in his Idylls of the King and other Arthurian poems. Although Girouard acknowledges that chivalry defies easy definition, he summarizes it as ‘the code of conduct evolved for the knights of the Middle Ages … The ideal knight was brave, loyal, true to his word, courteous, generous and merciful. He defended the Church and the wrongfully oppressed but respected and honored his enemies in war, as long as they obeyed the same code as he did. Failure to keep to accepted standards meant dishonor, to which death was preferable.’ This set of ideals and expectations informed the English gentleman’s code of conduct, which was propagated to the young ‘in a multitude of different ways, through advice, through example, through what they had been taught at school or by their parents, and through endless stories of chivalry, daring knights, gentlemen and gallantry which they had read or been told by way of history books, ballads, poems, plays, pictures and novels.’ When the Titanic sank on the night of 14 April 1912, the order went out, ‘Women and children first.’ Mrs Walter D. Douglas, having been helped into her boat, shouted to her husband, ‘Walter, you must come with me.’ ‘No,’ replied Mr Douglas, turning away, ‘I must be a gentleman.’ When the last boat had gone, the men left behind stood stoically on the deck. Samuel Guggenheim appeared with his valet, both in evening dress. ‘We’re dressed in our best,’ he explained, ‘and are prepared to go down like gentlemen.’9 Girouard shows how ideals of chivalry conditioned responses to the First World War. Germany was depicted as the ‘big bully … throwing his weight around all over the place.’ It had picked on ‘little Belgium,’ disregarding the treaty that guaranteed Belgian neutrality. A gentleman kept his word and protected the weak, and, therefore, Britain was duty bound to come to the aid of the violated nation. The war produced a spate of poems and other literary works, much of it couched in the idiom of chivalry, ‘either directly in terms of knights, vigils, Galahads and Holy Grails, or indirectly in terms of sportsmen and playing the game.’ Posters, postcards, statues, and memorial windows portrayed soldiers as crusading knights. Their cause was a holy one, signified by their upturned swords, which had the form of a cross.10 Allen Frantzen’s Bloody Good: Chivalry, Sacrifice and the Great War unfolds the analogy in detail, showing that it was just as powerful on the German side as on

124

Cultures, Communities, and Conflict

the British. He writes: ‘Setting off to defend the weak, uphold his king’s honor, and find glory in combat, the armored knight supplied a vigorous model for the modern soldier.’11 Canadians had many reasons to go to war in 1914: love of country; loyalty to the British Empire; international law that declared a colony at war when its mother country fought; Canadian national interests; opposition to German aggression; protection of the rights of small nations; respect for international agreements; defence of freedom and democracy, concern for the triumph of civilization over barbarism, religious fervour and the belief that God was on their side. But their response was also shaped by prevailing notions of manliness. The war was being fought not just for a good cause; it was also interpreted as the supreme test of manhood. Paul Maroney’s study of Ontario recruiting posters develops this theme. The volunteer was depicted as the ‘archetypical male,’ ‘ruggedly handsome … broad-shouldered and flat-stomached – the picture of healthy masculinity.’ The slacker, by contrast, ‘wrings his hands in dread and crosses his skinny legs … His whole persona, from his startled and fearful expression to his ultra-thin ankles and feet, bespeaks cowardice and indecision.’12 ‘It’s a man’s game this soldiering,’ an advertisement read. ‘The man’s game today is to fight for his native land. Play up fellows and play the game.’13 The First World War: ‘The axis on which the modern world turned’ The First World War was not just about clashing national interests and rival territorial claims. It also represented a massive ‘cultural mobilization,’14 and put to the test the moral and social code that was in place in 1914. The Edwardian world was essentially an extension of the Victorian. Despite marginal challenges from the intellectual and artistic avant-garde, most people subscribed to the dominant notions of respectability, ‘decency, the family, social and political order, and religion.’ Liberty was not the right to do as you wished; rather, it involved the balancing of individual freedom with social responsibility. Duty had priority over self-fulfilment, or, rather, self-fulfilment was thought to lie in the performance of duty. Field Marshal Sir Douglas Haig, commander in chief of the British Expeditionary Force in France, noted that ‘we were fighting, not only for ourselves and for our Empire, but for a world ideal in which God was with us. We were doing battle for a higher form of civilization, in which a man’s duty to his neighbour finds a place more important than his duty to himself, against an

The University of Saskatchewan and the First World War

125

Empire built up and made great by the sword, efficient indeed, but an efficiency undeterred by any sense of chivalry or of moral responsibility toward the weak.’ Civilization, to the generation of 1914, meant playing the game ‘according to the rules laid down by time, history, precedent, all of which amounted to the law.’ The sporting ethic translated into ‘guidelines for social intercourse as a whole.’ Good sportsmanship cultivated the manly virtues. ‘A gentleman,’ writes Harvey Mansfield, ‘is a man who is gentle out of policy, not weakness.’15 As the full disaster of trench warfare unfolded, horror replaced heroism and notions of noble sacrifice gave way to feelings of hopelessness in the face of senseless slaughter. Where the path of duty lay was difficult to discern. Chivalry, it has been said, died in the trenches. Irony, ‘which is one expression of sensibility at odds with its surroundings,’ became a dominant cultural mode of understanding. The First World War, argues Modris Eksteins, was a psychological turning point. It was ‘the axis on which the modern world turned.’16 It led to a ‘gargantuan crisis of authority,’17 and self-doubt entered the heart of Western civilization. It did not happen all at once or everywhere at the same time, but slowly and inevitably the values and language of 1914 faded away so that now they are ‘curiously archaic.’18 The University of Saskatchewan, the War, and the Bateman Controversy When war broke out in 1914, the University of Saskatchewan had been in operation for five years.19 The first group of buildings was completed, and the core faculties of Arts and Science and Agriculture were solidly established. A start had been made to the College of Law, and courses were being offered in civil engineering and pharmacy. Altogether, there were twenty-eight professors, two instructors, twelve lecturers, two directors of Extension Work, and four hundred and forty-five students.20 Of the latter, seventy-seven were women, seventy-five of whom were enrolled in the Faculty of Arts and Science.21 The war, however, brought expansion to a halt (the School of Engineering shut down entirely)22 and depressed enrolment. In 1916–17, for example, there were only two hundred and ninety-one students, forty-seven of whom were women. The following year, the number was back up to four hundred and seven (ninety-two women).23 After the war, expansion resumed, especially in the applied sciences and professional education. According to University of Saskatchewan historian Michael Hayden, this was the main

126

Cultures, Communities, and Conflict

impact of the war. It transformed the university from ‘an isolated outpost of nineteenth-century British culture’ to a Canadian university immersed in the life of the society that made it possible.24 In psychological terms the war had a devastating impact. Almost half the university men who enlisted died or were wounded during the years 1914–18. When the war started the university was not in session, which meant that students did not have the opportunity to respond as a collective body. Those who volunteered did so as individuals in their home communities.25 When the call came for a Second Contingent, classes were under way and the students were on campus. Reginald Bateman, professor of English, resigned his position and joined the colours. His enlistment, and more especially the reasons he gave for it, sparked an intense controversy that went to the heart of the meaning of the war. Born in 1883 in County Kerry, Ireland, Bateman graduated from Trinity College, Dublin, with high honours in modern literature.26 President Murray hired him as one of the four original professors in 1909 (the others were Edmund Oliver in history, Arthur Moxon in classics, and George Ling in mathematics). Immersing himself in the life of the academic community, Bateman organized a choral society, taught boxing lessons, and directed the literary club.27 When it came time to select official colours for the university, pennants in various combinations of colours were laid out for inspection. ‘There was a moment’s silence, and then Professor Bateman stepped forward and touched the green and white. “The Irishman has spoken. So be it,” said President Murray.’28 Murray was not in sympathy with Bateman’s enlistment, or at least the timing of it. He asked the officer in charge of recruiting in Saskatoon not to let him join the Second Contingent.29 Murray explained that Bateman was responsible for the instruction of two hundred and twenty students, who would be seriously inconvenienced if he left. Finding a suitable replacement would be impossible. The best the university could do was to hire a number of instructors, none of whom possessed Bateman’s experience and qualifications. As Murray noted, the Second Contingent had a surplus of men, all eager to get to the front. Surely Bateman could be spared and his departure postponed until the end of the school year. Murray made a similar plea on behalf of Louis Brehaut, professor of Greek and philosophy, who had enlisted at the same time as Bateman.30 But the president’s efforts were to no avail. Both men left, together with bursar J.E. Reaney and seventeen students. The members of staff were given a leave of absence and placed on half-pay (Reaney,

The University of Saskatchewan and the First World War

127

who was married, also received an allowance for the support of his wife.) The students were granted full credit for the year’s work, even though the term had scarcely begun when they enlisted. Murray elaborated his views on the significance of the war in a speech on 9 October 1914. ‘The question came to him,’ he said, ‘and required an answer: what has the university to say about the greatest event of modern times?’ There was no doubt about Murray’s support of the war. ‘The present conflict,’ he stated, ‘was a struggle on behalf of the weakest – it was a fight for the vindication of the principles for which a university must stand, and it was his belief that those who had gone to the front were fighting for the greatest cause for which men had ever given battle.’ Saskatchewan had a large number of recent immigrants from a wide variety of national backgrounds. In these circumstances, Murray thought it important to make a special appeal for tolerance and understanding. The feelings of Canadians of German or Austro-Hungarian origin deserved respect, but they in turn must respect the feelings of their fellow Canadians whose sympathies ‘just as naturally’ belonged with Britain and its allies. He said that the citizens of Saskatchewan might well adopt the motto, ‘Bear and forbear.’31 Murray gave a second speech on 11 October 1914. Speaking before the university’s branch of the Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA), he chose for his text, ‘Samuel hewed Agag in pieces,’ an incident from the Old Testament that illustrated the cruelty and violence of ‘rude times.’ Christ had shown a better way: ‘When one of them smote the servant of the high priest, Jesus touched the ear and healed it.’ The world, Murray urged, needed more healing and less hewing. In the years leading up to the war, military experts had maintained that the way to preserve the peace was to prepare for war by building up armaments. The folly of this way of thinking was now evident to all. Murray was of the view that competition among nations, if carried out under free trade and in the proper spirit, need not lead to war. In this respect he identified with Manchester liberalism,32 which attributed war to mercantilism. War was an aberration, not the norm. In a world that adhered to liberal principles, there would be no need to fight. Murray pointed to the British Empire. The colonies and dominions were governed with a light hand. Democracy and a degree of self-rule were allowed, where practicable. In return the colonies had rallied to the mother country in her hour of need. India, South Africa, Ireland, and Canada had all leapt to the colours. It was not so with the German Empire, whose colonies had been treated illiberally. Now, in revenge, they were indifferent to

128

Cultures, Communities, and Conflict

Germany’s plight. Just as liberalism had purchased racial harmony in Saskatchewan, so it was with the British Empire and, eventually, Murray hoped, the entire world.33 On Sunday, 25 October 1914, two weeks after Murray’s address, Bateman had his turn before the University YMCA. His remarks were a direct riposte to the president’s ‘more healing and less hewing’ message. ‘We hear much,’ Bateman said, ‘perhaps too much, at the present time of the horrors of war; I wish today to speak to you of its blessings.’ War was a permanent feature of the human condition, a fixed fact impervious to liberal philosophizing: ‘The Power Who manifests Himself to us in the phenomena of this Universe has apparently decreed that war should be the supreme test of both the nation and the individual.’ History taught ‘that once a nation ceases to struggle or to be prepared to struggle for its existence, once it loses its military spirit and the willingness to fight to the death, if need be, for its national honour, its greatness invariably declines, and its growth ceases.’ Nations might prove their excellence in a variety of ways – commerce, diplomacy, the arts, and so on – but war remained ‘the one supreme, the only entirely adequate test of a nation’s spiritual quality.’34 Without specifically mentioning Darwin, Bateman invoked the theory of evolution and survival of the fittest: ‘biologically, struggle and self-sacrifice by one generation on behalf of the next are the conditions of the perpetuation of the species.’ War tested the life force of a nation. ‘Readiness of war,’ Bateman averred, ‘is a token of national righteousness … [R]eadiness for war does not mean a national spirit of militarism and aggressiveness, the spirit which has so often proved the downfall of great military powers.’ The righteous nation did not incite quarrels, but if provoked, was ready to fight and win. War nurtured those virtues, which, in peacetime, had a tendency to wither and atrophy. Among them, Bateman counted ‘self-sacrifice, self-denial, temperance, hardihood, discipline, obedience, order, method, organizing power, intelligence, purity of public life, chastity, industry, [and] resolution.’ Should a nation fail to meet the test of war, its decline would surely follow. ‘Right,’ declared Bateman, ‘has not, indeed, always been might, but right has always tended to create might.’35 He warned the students against Murray’s liberal optimism: ‘Do not … be lulled into a sense of false security by talk of universal peace, or by assertions that the present war must be the last in human history; but determine that … you will do your part to make the nation to which you belong fit for its supreme test, the test of war.’ War was an

The University of Saskatchewan and the First World War

129

uncomfortable truth. However tragic, it had to be faced head on: ‘Such is apparently the law of human progress, and we must accept it as we accept other seemingly unpleasant facts of our existence; as we accept, for example, the fact of death. It is only by death that life is possible; it is only by struggle and self-sacrifice that national progress is possible.’36 War had a fundamental meaning for the individual, as for the nation. Quoting Tennyson, Bateman described war as ‘one of the greatest and grandest experiences which Destiny allows to man … To endure gladly the most severe labour and hardship, to grapple with a mortal foe in deadly strife, a strife without mercy and without remorse, to pass through Hell unterrified, to wrest one’s life by main force from the very jaws of death, and to do all this, not for pay, but for one’s country, this is, perhaps, the very climax of human endeavour.’ And if death came, it was not without its consolations: ‘We may not agree with Horace that such a death is “sweet and becoming,” but surely it is sweeter and more becoming than the majority of deaths which men are called to endure. Who would not rather die in the fullness of strength, with the shout of battle upon his lips, than succumb to the attacks of some disease which degrades the body and unhinges the mind.’37 The Horace citation was apt: the nineteenth-century medieval revival acknowledged chivalry’s debt to Greece and Rome. The knight was Achilles infused with Christianity.38 Without war, man would be a diminished species. He would lack ‘those high virtues which are realized to the full in war and war alone – courage and self-sacrifice – would be dead beyond all hope of resurrection. It was war that gave birth to the ideals of chivalry and honour; … It is the possibility of war … which makes our young men keep their bodies clean and strong, and their souls free from the lowest forms of selfishness.’ An age without war will perhaps be a Golden Age, Bateman concluded, ‘enjoyed by a spineless and emasculated race of beings, who have forgotten the meaning of the words courage, honour, and self-sacrifice.’39 The speech provoked a strong reaction. The Saskatoon daily newspaper (the Phoenix) labelled it ‘militarist superstition.’ War, it said, was not ennobling: ‘Is there no courage and self-sacrifice shown in humanity’s daily struggle with nature, with hunger, disease, dirt, ignorance and sin?’ The world could do without chivalry: ‘Advocates of war may talk superficially about the “survival of the fittest” and “the age of chivalry,” but the student of biology knows that the “age of chivalry” is a romantic dream and that … the ideal and the practice were far asunder.’40 The

130

Cultures, Communities, and Conflict

Phoenix detected in Bateman a hint of Prussian militarism – his speech might have come from the lips of the Kaiser. Rev. S.W.L. Harton, pastor of Wesley Methodist Church, devoted a sermon to Bateman. He said the speech had ‘cut him to the quick.’ Harton blasted war as ‘a horrible and an unmitigated evil.’ It amounted to ‘little but murder and suicide.’ He called upon Britain to lay down her arms, a gesture that he thought Germany would reciprocate. Following this apocalyptic ceasefire, the world would be transformed. A new type of human being, formed in Christ’s image, would rule the earth. It would be the era of ‘the Christ-race, a race that was neither “emasculated [n]or spineless”’ [Bateman’s words], but rather ‘the strongest race of men the world has ever seen.’41 The Phoenix responded with a second editorial, taking issue with both Harton and Bateman – the one was ‘all fight,’ and the other all ‘no fight.’ The practical course lay in the middle: fight, if the cause was just, but not for the sake of fighting. ‘Neither aggressiveness nor non-resistance is the gospel of today,’ the paper stated, ‘but a manly assertion of independence, and those principles of right and justice upon which the values of life are founded and the determination, if need be, to die in their defence.’42 J. Ross Macpherson, editor of the Sheaf, added his voice to the controversy.43 He accused Bateman of harbouring a ‘Viking-like thirst for glory.’ Students had registered for classes in good faith and paid their tuition, often at considerable personal financial sacrifice. Now they had been deserted, their course of studies disrupted. Bateman’s attitude was in the spirit of ‘I want what I want when I want it.’44 The editorial incensed many on campus, but Murray advised Bateman to let the matter drop. ‘The only thing that would induce one to appear in print,’ Murray wrote, ‘would be the fear that you might think this opinion representative of the University. I think, however, that you and Brehaut know us too well to believe any such nonsense.’45 Bateman’s speech was controversial, not because it linked manliness with soldiering (that was the commonplace view), but because he dissociated manliness from the conventional social and moral code. This code, Eksteins explains, ‘derived essentially from Christianity and parenthetically from humanism.’46 Bateman did not mention God or Christianity. He referred only to ‘the Power Who manifests Himself to us in the phenomena of the Universe’ and who ‘has apparently decreed that war should be the supreme test of both the nation and the individual.’ This does not sound like the Christian God. Bateman had been invited

The University of Saskatchewan and the First World War

131

several times to speak before the University YMCA but had declined, always giving the excuse that he had nothing to say.47 When he did speak, six days before he left Saskatoon for training camp, he threw caution to the wind. Murray had annoyed him, first, by trying to prevent him from enlisting and, second, by presenting what Bateman considered to be a sentimental version of the role of war in human affairs. Bateman was about to put his life on the line and felt he had the right to say what he thought. We know little of Bateman’s intellectual formation other than that his field of expertise was modern literature. However, as the Phoenix observed, German philosophy may have been an influence. In 1911 Frederich von Bernhardi published Germany and the Next War, which went through six German editions in two years and was widely known in the Anglo-Saxon world. Bernhardi, like other German intellectuals, depicted war as a ‘test of spirit, and, as such, a test of vitality, culture and life.’48 This is close to Bateman, who described war as ‘the one supreme, the only entirely adequate test of a national’s spiritual quality.’49 For Eksteins, Germany was the spearhead of modernism, while Britain, culturally and spiritually, was more rooted in the pre-war world that Bateman had already left. He was a doubter – a post-Christian man – who had disconnected himself from traditional moorings. This was too much for Saskatoon in 1914. Chivalry Restated Before the departure of its men destined for the Second Contingent, the university held a special ceremony. Each soldier was presented with a scroll inscribed with a farewell message: We, the President, Staff and Students of the University of Saskatchewan, while deploring that the sword has once more been drawn in international strife and war with all its horrors has inundated civilization, rejoice that honour rather than necessity has involved the British Empire in this gigantic struggle. It is with mixed feelings of admiration and regret that we bid farewell to you who, inspired by the highest ideals of the AngloSaxon race, have nobly sacrificed position and comfort, and are prepared to risk life itself in order to defend the cause of Right, to protect the Weak and to maintain the principles of Liberty and Justice. Our admiration is constrained by your noble action. Our regret is occasioned by thoughts of separation. We ask each man to accept from us as a token of lasting

132

Cultures, Communities, and Conflict

remembrance a Watch strapped to his wrist in a manner befitting the days of chivalry and may this be to you an incentive to emulate the valiant deeds by Arthur and his Knights of old.50

‘Right,’ ‘Liberty,’ and ‘Justice’ are capitalized. The sword is drawn, and the men set out to emulate ‘the valiant deeds by Arthur and his Knights of old.’ Arts student Miss Rella Brubaker fastened a watch on the wrist of each man, just as the lady fair gave a handkerchief or other token of remembrance to her knight as he rode to battle.51 In August 1915 a student at the front wrote to President Murray: ‘I thought you would probably be glad to hear of the erring sons from Saskatchewan, who wandered forth to find the Holy Grail.’52 Following the departure of the Second Contingent, the students who remained at the university continued their drill and rifle practice. Emmanuel College, the Anglican theological school affiliated with the university, formed a company in which every student at the college participated.53 The university organized a separate company for the arts, agriculture, law, and engineering students. Male students had the option of either military drill or physical training,54 but most chose the former. By late 1915 three companies were formally established as units of the Canadian Officers’ Training Corps (COTC).55 President Murray did not want the university companies to join the local Saskatoon regiment (the 105th), as Emmanuel College had done, because the city unit drilled in the evening when the students were supposed to be studying. He preferred to have them take their military training in the late afternoon after classes and just before the supper hour. Another reason to maintain a separate identity was that the students were away from campus during the summer, the very time the local militia was most active.56 The students were not the only ones to ‘form fours’ and embrace the military life. Murray described for Bateman the professors’ efforts at soldiering in the basement of Saskatchewan Hall (the university residence): ‘On Fridays the COTC … consisting of the valiant [Frank] Underhill, Major-General Eaton, Brigadier-General Morton, Commissariat-General Oliver, Inspector-General Sullivan, the Colonel of the Highland Brigade Smith and a humble private in the person of your correspondent are drilling in the presence of your belongings. We are moved to great military ardour by the inspiration of Brehaut’s typewriter and your bookcases.’57 Murray was forty-eight years old when the war broke out, just outside the eighteen-to-forty-five age range for

The University of Saskatchewan and the First World War

133

recruits. The rules were somewhat flexible, and he might have been accepted into the army, but, after giving the matter some consideration, he decided he could be of greater service at home.58 The second group of university recruits left Saskatoon on 5 April 1915. Headed by the 105th regimental band and accompanied by all the soldiers in training in the city, they marched from the campus to the CPR station, where they were given an enthusiastic send-off.59 The group included Sheaf editor Macpherson and R.C. Grant, the paper’s business manager. Both men received their BA degrees that year, graduating directly from the classroom to the trenches. They joined the McGill battalion, which was later broken up to reinforce the Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry. Other groups of students left the city in May 1915 and December 1915, also destined for the McGill companies and eventually the Pats (see Figure 5.1).60 In February 1916 the Western Universities Battalion was formed, a joint effort of the Universities of British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba. It was intended to enable university men from western Canada to fight as a unit, rather than being dispersed among a variety of different formations. President Murray took an active role in promoting the battalion, corresponding with students interested in enlisting and monitoring the efforts of recruiting agents. By this stage of the war, volunteers were hard to come by. The most ardent patriots had already enlisted, and with the pre-war recession having given way to a booming wartime economy, those who remained had their pick of high-paying jobs. Because of the toll of the war, University of Saskatchewan enrolment fell to 291 in 1916–17, down from 445 in 1914–15.61 Young men, especially the unmarried and able-bodied, were under intense pressure to join the colours. On the other hand, the Dominion government emphasized the importance of increasing agricultural production to feed the armies and civilians of the allied nations. Murray noted the few recruits from the College of Agriculture: ‘The parents are protesting very vigorously, and with a certain amount of reason. They say that it is very hard to get labour, and that these boys can do just as much for the empire by producing food as by firing bullets.’62 The mood on campus in 1915–16, as Murray described it, was an anxious one: The shadow of the war has been over the University during the past session. It has disturbed our studies, filled our minds with anxieties and taken away many of our best … hardly had registration begun last fall

134

Cultures, Communities, and Conflict

Figure 5.1: University of Saskatchewan Platoon #15, ‘D’ Company, First McGill University Company, 38th Battalion, Canadian Expeditionary Force, May or June 1915 (the battalion went overseas in summer 1915 to reinforce the Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry). Twenty-seven men signed the back of the photograph. Of the nineteen for whom information was available, two survived the war unscathed, ten were wounded, and seven were killed, three of them on the same day at the Battle of Sanctuary Wood. Courtesy of the University of Saskatchewan Archives. University of Saskatchewan Archives, Photograph Collection, B-91

before men became restless and began offering their services to different units. The restlessness became so evident that steps were taken to organize in conjunction with other Western Universities a Battalion and Field Ambulance … Then came the conflict between duty to king and duty to home, and many a boy took the harder course and faced responsibilities to dependants at home … Their first impulses were generous and unselfish, and after they had had opportunities to calmly think things out, they decided wisely, with very rare exceptions.63

The University of Saskatchewan and the First World War

135

Murray refrained from advising students to don khaki. On the other hand, he was a supporter of compulsory military service, a view that he announced publicly during the federal election campaign in December 1917.64 This broke his rule against involvement in party politics. As a consequence, he offered his resignation to the board of governors, but they rejected it. As one of the organizers of the Western Universities Battalion, Murray had some influence in the selection of officers, which he used to get Bateman out of the trenches. The latter was appointed officer commanding the battalion’s Saskatchewan Company (B Company), given the rank of major, and brought home to Camp Hughes, Manitoba, to train the fresh recruits. Bateman had mixed feelings about accepting the offer. On the one hand, he appreciated Murray’s efforts on his behalf, but, on the other, he felt badly about leaving his comrades. Upon his return to Canada to command B Company, he told Murray that he had not been ‘normal’ mentally. He had even contemplated various ‘crazy’ schemes to get back to the front, one of which was ‘to simply disappear and enlist under another name as a private in a battalion going to England shortly.’ After the initial relief at escaping the trenches, he had experienced ‘a very strong reaction, and when I heard my battalion had gone up to St. Eloi, my feeling that I should be with them was … strong.’ The ambivalence continued to the fall of 1916, when the Western Universities Battalion embarked for England. Bateman wrote Murray that he had grown very attached to B Company and ‘was very proud of having the command of it … Once a man gets there, I believe he should stay there until he is carried out.’65 This was the second time Murray tried to save Bateman, the other being when he tried to prevent him from enlisting in the first place. Bateman half-resented these efforts – something drew him to the trenches. During a visit to Saskatoon, Bateman was invited to address a group of returned soldiers. His speech on that occasion makes an interesting comparison with the one he gave in October 1914. His belief in the necessity of the war was the same, but the language he used was different. He avoided high-flown abstractions and spoke of daily life in the trenches. ‘Everybody at home expects a tale of glory and heroism, but the days of pomp and circumstance of battle are over, and it is only the ideals for which we are fighting that can dignify the mean and ugly reality of the present-day war.’ He dwelt on odd incidents – the breaking of a rum jar, for instance, which was deemed a greater calamity than the near-destruction of the trench, or the fight over a pot of jam, while ‘Fritz

136

Cultures, Communities, and Conflict

was generously spraying our line with shrapnel.’ There were moments of strange beauty: ‘I see the velvety blackness of the night, cut by streaks of light as the flares go up continually along the front, as far as the eye can see, then shed their weird radiance over the mysterious region of No Man’s Land, while every moving thing beneath their light lies still as death till darkness comes again to hide them from the searching eyes that never cease to scan the space between the trenches.’ What mattered most to Bateman was comradeship: ‘However much we appreciate the comfort of home and the kindness of friends here, the deepest thoughts of every returned soldier are now, and will ever be while the war lasts, with the boys they left behind them, “holding the line.”’66 Professor Edmund Oliver, a colleague of Bateman’s appointed to the faculty in the same year, had not yet been to the front. Their personalities could not have been more different. Bateman was as intense and introspective as Oliver was extroverted and ebullient. In physical appearance Oliver resembled a prizefighter.67 He taught history and economics until 1914, when he was appointed principal of the Presbyterian College affiliated with the university. Ordained as a Presbyterian minister, he was made chaplain of the Western Universities Battalion in 1916, and in that capacity addressed ‘A Preachment by the Padre’ to the troops. He began by comparing the war against Germany to the Greek war against the Persians – in particular, the battles at Marathon and Salamis, which had ‘banished forever the spectre of the Asiatic menace and gave Europe a chance to become European.’ Uplifted by their glorious victories, the Athenians had been able to achieve great things in art, politics, literature, and drama. Oliver believed, as did Bateman, that success in war enhanced, rather than diminished, peacetime endeavours. It manifested the high-spiritedness of a nation, unleashing its full energy and potential. Oliver referred also to the legend of Prometheus, the hero who stole fire from heaven and brought it down to earth, symbolic of the gift that created civilization and the arts. The gods subjected Prometheus to unspeakable tortures (not unlike those of Flanders), but out of the ordeal was born a beautiful new world. Prometheus ‘had made possible art and philosophy and science for the human race, and above all for the age of Aeschylus and Pericles.’ The war of 1914 held the same promise: ‘What a spectacle we now behold in Western Canada! Once again Athens goes forth to Marathon. The Muses march with Mars. The Universities have become militant. Geologists are forming fours. Philosophers rush from muster parades to revolver practice. Professors of Mathematics and English literature shout themselves hoarse at physical drill. Chemists are teaching bayonet exercises and the mysteries of

The University of Saskatchewan and the First World War

137

the Ross Rifle; and everybody is swallowing pecks of dust at Camp Hughes.’68 In the last part of his speech, Oliver moved from the classical age to Christianity. Jesus had said ‘I am come to bring fire on the earth.’ ‘His supreme message was a Cross. Salvation comes through Calvary, life through death, redemption through sacrifice, civilization through fire.’ Each man must resolve to walk in the footsteps of Christ, and to do so he had to make himself pure: ‘In our personal lives there must be good discipline and no slackness. We must live at attention. It is not enough to go forth to fight the foe without. We must go forth fighting the foe within. For both are hostile to the best in civilization and in life. In the political and moral life alike only the self-controlled and the self-governing will triumph. This means that only the clean can conquer … Today we are fighting for civilization, we are fighting for Christ. He fights best who keeps clean.’69 To vanquish the external enemy, one must first conquer the sin in one’s own heart: ‘Only the clean can conquer,’ an image not unlike the description of purity required by knights in the early thirteenth century.70 ‘The Great War,’ writes Annette Becker, ‘[was] seen by the faithful as an immense Good Friday.’71 Walter Murray adopted Passion imagery in a speech at Convocation Hall on 24 October 1915: ‘The darkness of this war is as nothing compared to the time when the Prince of Peace was not received by the Jews, but was turned over to the unbelievers to be cruelly tortured and crucified until even Nature felt the shock and there was darkness in the land. The darkness was followed by the dawn of resurrection of the Prince in power, might and majesty. The darkness of this period will be followed by a period when the spirit of peace will be enthroned with an irresistible power in the hearts of men … In His own good way and time He will bring out of this turmoil peace.’72 Oliver connected the war to Christian chivalry and the defence and enrichment of Western civilization. Bateman, by contrast, said that war itself was a blessing. The very act of fighting, displaying the qualities necessary to put one’s life on the line for one’s country, conferred greatness on both the nation and the man. War was the supreme test. The willingness to die was the ultimate sign of the life force. Bateman detached his praise of war from the Edwardian ethical code. Unlike Oliver, he was, in Eksteins’s terms, a modern man. Manly Heroes in No Man’s Land As the war progressed, another prominent point of view appeared in the pages of the Sheaf. In November 1914, a student who signed him-

138

Cultures, Communities, and Conflict

self ‘A.M.F., Arts ’18’ contributed an article, ‘The Romance and Reality of War.’ Although acknowledging the appeal to the imagination of ‘romantic tales of the heroes of the past, stories of the heroic deeds performed by the knights of old, the gallant actions of Nelson, legends of ancient heroes and traditions of Troy and Mycenae,’ the article questioned their relevance in modern times. A war destructive on a scale hitherto unimaginable was unable to sustain individual heroism. The author did not advocate withdrawing from the war, but, rather, expressed the hope that it would be the last one to be fought. From the ashes must arise a new international order: ‘From the present chaotic conditions of the world, from the blackened homes, from the widows’ and orphans’ tears, and the memory of those who have given their best blood for their empire shall arise a new era – a Christendom of Universal Peace.’73 ‘Peace Terms,’ published anonymously in February 1917, took a bolder stance. It derided the ‘past system of competitive armaments’ as a complete failure, and called for fundamental restructuring of the international system that put universal ahead of national interests and imposed a new code of international law.74 In April 1919 J. Cameron, the editor of the military news section of the Sheaf, reinforced these points. He maintained that the ‘the average returned man, and, above all, the average man who went overseas from our University, has seen quite enough of war.’ The ex-soldier ‘recognizes the waste, the futility, the absolute idiocy of the whole performance; and is quite of the opinion that there is something wrong with our boasted civilization when it allows nations to pursue a method of settling their quarrels, that would not be tolerated for a moment in the settlement of differences arising between smaller units of our body politic.’ If a solution were not found to make ‘a repetition of the holocaust of the last four years’ impossible, the men would have died in vain. As a first step, Cameron called for the abolition of the COTC at the university. ‘We trust that militarism is dead,’ he declared.75 The essay exemplified the liberal millenarianism that took hold in the later stages of the war, particularly after April 1917 when President Woodrow Wilson brought the United States into the conflict. The war was now ‘the war to end war’ and the ‘war to make the world safe for democracy.’ Cameron in 1919 was not yet ready to say that the slaughter of the trenches had been an unmitigated catastrophe. Rather, he called it a conditional disaster. All was not lost if the League of Nations succeeded in creating a new world order based on collective security

The University of Saskatchewan and the First World War

139

and the peaceful resolution of disputes. If it did not, disillusionment would be complete. In November 1928 Margaret M. Dickson of Riceton, Saskatchewan, complained to President Murray: ‘Surely if the Great War proved anything it proved the futility of war. Why in the name of common sense then continue training for war?’ She termed the COTC, which was still operating at the university, ‘the devil’s work’ and ‘diabolic scheming to wean our young men away from their Christian principles.’ ‘Why not seek to instill into them a love for all humanity,’ she urged, ‘that they may go forth from our University eager to labour for God and righteousness, prepared to serve, aye and even to lay down their lives if need be that Christ’s law of love may be shown to all, and the era of Peace ushered in.’76 Murray replied that he shared her ‘cordial hatred’ of war and was ‘extremely anxious to prevent our people the suffering and horrors of it,’ but he was of the view that a trained soldier had a better chance of survival in battle than an untrained one, and for this reason he supported the COTC. Participation, however, was strictly voluntary and, he hastened to add, the university also boasted a thriving branch of the League of Nations Society.77 Post-war liberal utopianism was already fading. Murray hedged his bets: by all means, support the League of Nations, but prepare for war just in case. Reginald Bateman, by contrast, believed in the inevitability of war. His Western Universities Battalion, however, never made it to the front. Upon arriving in England, it was converted into the 19th Reserve Battalion and used for reinforcements.78 Bateman might have stayed in England as an instructor, but chose instead to go to France with the 46th Battalion. This meant reverting to the rank of lieutenant, but he considered the demotion of small importance in light of his desire to get to the front. As he awaited transport across the Channel, he had news of a friend who had just been killed in battle, and he pondered his own fate. In a letter to his younger brother, he wrote: ‘No one yet has gone anywhere near solving the riddle of the unknown, and it may fairly be supposed that the human brain is at present incapable of tackling the problem successfully.’ ‘It may be,’ he continued, ‘that the perpetual struggle after a solution [would] in ages to come, result in the evolution of a brain which can find an answer to the riddle of life.’79 Ultimately, Bateman decided, it did not matter ‘what you believe about the supernatural if you base your actions upon a sane view of what experience has shown to be best,’ and this was ‘to get and give as much happiness as possible.’ When ‘abnormalities on a tremendous

140

Cultures, Communities, and Conflict

scale like the war cropped up,’ it was ‘the duty of every one to get to work and sacrifice … his own chance of happiness in order to restore a state of things where happiness is possible for others … Curiously enough, the highest happiness of which humans are capable seems to be found in the sacrifice of self.’80 Early in 1915 he had written Walter Murray: ‘I hope that we shall go to the front soon, and whatever happens there, I shall be quite contented, whereas if I had not been allowed to enlist, I think I should have been unhappy all my life.’81 Now, in April 1917, his mind was at peace: ‘I think there is no better way a man can die. It is comparatively seldom in the world’s history that a man gets a chance to die splendidly. Most deaths are somewhat inglorious endings to not very glorious careers. A war like the present gives a man a chance to cancel at one stroke all the pettiness of life.’82 On 2 September 1918, Bateman led his platoon in the capture of Dury, France, helping to break through the Hindenburg line. The next day, towards evening, he was resting at battalion headquarters, a dugout in a chalk quarry, when the enemy opened a barrage. An unlucky shell made a direct hit and Bateman was instantly killed.83 The news shocked the university.84 The board of governors passed a resolution mourning his passing: ‘Professor Bateman by his scholarship, his literary insight, his skill in teaching as well as by his manly qualities and his sympathy with all phases of the lives of his students raised the work of his department to a high pitch of excellence, and exerted over his students a strong and lasting influence for good.’85 The Sheaf eulogized his breadth of outlook, sincerity of character, and ‘true manliness.’ His death brought home, it said, ‘the horrors of war … its unmitigated insanity and criminal waste.’86 Bateman had not seen it that way. War, for him, was an unavoidable feature of the human condition, the supreme test of the vitality of nations and the highest fulfilment of manliness. Unlike Edmund Oliver, his fellow professor/soldier, Bateman was made controversial by his breaking with the moral and social code of 1914. His fault was that he praised war without mentioning Jesus Christ. Bateman put capital letters on Glory, Honour, and Duty, but for the ‘wrong’ reasons. He acted but he did not believe – that is to say, he did not believe in the religious and cultural underpinnings that were used to justify the war. Liberal internationalism has been tried and found wanting. In the 1990s alone, 2 million people died in Afghanistan, 1.5 million in the Sudan, and some 800,000 were butchered in Rwanda. Add to that a quarter of a million dead in Angola, 200,000 dead in Guatemala, 150,000

The University of Saskatchewan and the First World War

141

dead in Liberia, a quarter of a million dead in Burundi, 75,000 dead in Algeria, tens of thousands dead in the border war between Ethiopia and Eritrea, as well as the fighting in Colombia, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Chechnya, Sri Lanka, southeastern Turkey, Sierra Leone, Northern Ireland, Kosovo, and the Gulf War. The wars of the twentieth century took the lives of 62 million civilians and 43 million military personnel.87 By comparison, the death toll of 9 million in the First World War looks small. Liberal internationalism has failed to bring peace to the world. Glory and Honour are no longer embedded in the societal DNA. We roam a spiritual no man’s land, a world of child soldiers, women warriors, and religious suicide bombers, where the meaning of manly heroism is far from clear.

NOTES 1 World War I and the University of Saskatchewan Data Base, Archives of the University of Saskatchewan (hereafter cited as AUS). In addition, one woman student, Claire Rees, became a Volunteer Aid Detachment nurse. 2 ‘Report of the President, 1918–19,’ University of Saskatchewan, AUS. 3 Paul Fussell, The Great War and Modern Memory (New York: Oxford University Press, 1975), 21–2. 4 ‘Report of the President, 1915–16,’ University of Saskatchewan, AUS. 5 ‘Emmanuel College: Editorial,’ Sheaf 5, no. 2 (1917): 106–7. 6 ‘Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori,’ Sheaf 6, no. 2 (1918): 91–2. 7 Harvey C. Mansfield, Manliness (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2006), 1, 15. 8 ‘Regina farewells overseas contingent at patriotic concert in auditorium rink,’ Leader (Regina), 21 August 1914. 9 Mark Girouard, The Return to Camelot: Chivalry and the English Gentleman (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1981), 16, 7, 4–5. 10 Ibid., 282–3, 291. 11 Allen J. Frantzen, Bloody Good: Chivalry, Sacrifice, and the Great War (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004), 13. 12 Paul Maroney, ‘“The Great Adventure”: The Context and Ideology of Recruiting in Ontario, 1914–17,’ Canadian Historical Review 77, no. 1 (1996): 92–3. Maroney also notes the prominence given to ‘chivalric heroes’ and what he calls ‘anti-modern thought’ in recruitment campaigns (81). For an overview of the education and socialization of male youth in the years leading up to the First World War, see Mark Moss, Manliness and Mili-

142

13 14 15

16 17

18 19

20 21

22 23 24

25 26 27 28 29

Cultures, Communities, and Conflict

tarism: Educating Young Boys in Ontario For War (Don Mills, ON: Oxford University Press, 2001). Maroney, ‘“Great Adventure,”’ 88, 90. Jay Winter, Geoffrey Parker, and Mary R. Habeck, eds., The Great War and the Twentieth Century (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2000), 3. Modris Eksteins, Rites of Spring: The Great War and the Birth of the Modern Age (Toronto: Lester & Orpen Dennys, 1989), 130, 118, 191, 117, 120; Mansfield, Manliness, 14. Eksteins, Rites of Spring, 144, 219, 237. Modris Eksteins, ‘The Cultural Legacy of the Great War,’ in The Great War and the Twentieth Century, ed. Jay Winter, Geoffrey Parker, and Mary R. Habeck (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2000), 335. Winter, Parker, and Habeck, Great War and the Twentieth Century, 1. For the history of the University of Saskatchewan, see Michael Hayden, Seeking a Balance: University of Saskatchewan 1907–1982 (Vancouver: UBC Press, 1983). Still useful is A.S. Morton, Saskatchewan: The Making of a University (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1959). Shirley Spafford, No Ordinary Academics: Economics and Political Science at the University of Saskatchewan 1910–1960 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2000), though more limited in scope, is an in-depth treatment of one area of the university’s contribution to the social sciences. Hayden, Seeking a Balance, 76–7. ‘Report of the President, 1914–15,’ University of Saskatchewan, AUS. In 1917 women were 20 per cent of the university workforce (twenty-eight women in total). Only two were listed as instructors, but the number of women teaching at the university grew to fifteen in 1920. Victoria Lamb Drover, ‘A Place for Everyone, but Everyone in Their Place: The Inclusion of Female Students, Staff, and Faculty at the University of Saskatchewan, 1907–1922’ (MA thesis, University of Saskatchewan, 2009), 69. Hayden, Seeking a Balance, 127–8. ‘Report of the President, 1919–20,’ University of Saskatchewan, AUS. Michael Hayden, ‘Why Are All Those Names on the Walls? The University of Saskatchewan and World War I,’ Saskatchewan History 58, no. 2 (2006): 12. Ibid., 5; idem, Seeking a Balance, 82. ‘Professor R.J.G. Bateman,’ Sheaf 7, no. 1 (1918): 4–7. Morton, Saskatchewan, 73, 105. Ibid., 75–6. Walter Murray to Major Hill, 21 October 1914, AUS, J.E. Murray Fonds, MG61, E II C 27, Military Matters.

The University of Saskatchewan and the First World War

143

30 Brehaut did not get to the front. While still in training, he was diagnosed with dementia praecox and released from the army. He returned to teaching, but, too ill to continue, he resigned from the university in 1918. Hayden, ‘Why Are All Those Names on the Walls?’ 7–8. 31 ‘United province the ambition of President Murray,’ Phoenix (Saskatoon), 10 October 1914. 32 Carl Berger, The Sense of Power: Studies in the Ideas of Canadian Imperialism, 1867–1914 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1970), 240. 33 ‘Less hewing more healing is needed,’ Phoenix (Saskatoon), 12 October 1914. 34 Reginald Bateman, Reginald Bateman, Teacher and Soldier: A Memorial Volume of Selections from His Lectures and Other Writings (London: H. Sotheran, 1922), 129–30. 35 Ibid., 130–1. 36 Ibid., 132. 37 Ibid., 136. 38 Girouard, Return to Camelot, 61–2, 66. 39 Bateman, Reginald Bateman, 136–7. 40 ‘Militarist superstition,’ Phoenix (Saskatoon), 29 October 1914. 41 ‘Christians would be unarmed,’ Phoenix (Saskatoon), 2 November 1914. 42 ‘Bernhardi versus Tolstoy,’ Phoenix (Saskatoon), 3 November 1914. 43 Macpherson enlisted in spring 1915. He had a distinguished military career, perhaps the most distinguished of any of the University of Saskatchewan recruits. Rising through the ranks, he became a major and was appointed second in command of the Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry and was awarded the Distinguished Service Order. He was killed in action on 26 August 1918. Hayden, ‘What Are All Those Names on the Walls?’ 7. 44 Editorial, Sheaf 3, no. 2 (1914): 39. 45 Walter Murray to Reginald Bateman, 7 December 1914, AUS, J.E. Murray Collection, MG 61S1, A IV, 91 A-D. 46 Eksteins, Rites of Spring, 4. 47 Bateman, Reginald Bateman, 129. 48 Eksteins, Rites of Spring, 90. 49 Bateman, Reginald Bateman, 130. 50 ‘To the Representatives of the University Incorporated with the Second Canadian Contingent,’ Sheaf 3, no. 2 (1914). 51 ‘Varsity proves loyalty,’ Phoenix (Saskatoon), 31 October 1914. 52 Charlie Cameron to Walter Murray, 7 August 1915, AUS, J.E. Murray Collection, MG 61S1, A IV, 91 A-D.

144

Cultures, Communities, and Conflict

53 Sheaf 3, no. 3 (1914): 79. 54 University Council Minutes, 23 April 1915, University of Saskatchewan, AUS. 55 Walter Murray to Sir Herbert Ames, 31 December 1915, AUS, President’s Office Fonds, Series I: B124/1 General 1914–1917. 56 Walter Murray to Col. Steele, 9 October 1914, AUS, President’s Office Fonds, Series I: B124/1 General 1914–1917. 57 Walter Murray to Reginald Bateman, 7 December 1914, AUS, J.E. Murray Collection, MG 61S1, A IV 91 A-D. 58 David R. Murray and Robert A. Murray, The Prairie Builder: Walter Murray of Saskatchewan (Edmonton: NeWest Press, 1984), 91. 59 Sheaf 3, no. 6 (1915): 230. 60 Walter Murray to Capt. George C. McDonald, 8 May 1915, AUS, President’s Office Fonds, Series I: B124/1 General 1914–1917; ‘Deo et patriae,’ Sheaf 4, no. 3 (1915): 53–4. 61 ‘Report of the President, 1914–15’; ‘Report of the President, 1916–17.’ 62 Walter Murray to C.J. Mackenzie, 20 March 1916, AUS, President’s Office Fonds, Series I: B124/2, Organization, March 1916. 63 ‘Report of the President, 1915–16.’ 64 Murray and Murray, Prairie Builder, 102. 65 Reginald Bateman to Walter Murray, 15 October 1916, AUS, J.E. Murray Collection, MG 61S1, A IV, 91 A-D. 66 Bateman, Reginald Bateman, 139–40, 142. See also Bateman to Murray, 15 October 1916. 67 Shirley Spafford, No Ordinary Academics: Economics and Political Science at the University of Saskatchewan, 1910–1960 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2000), 21. 68 ‘A Preachment by Padre,’ Sheaf 5, no. 2 (1917): 71. 69 Ibid. 70 See, for example, the anonymous Ordene de chevalrie, which appeared in the early thirteenth century and which describes the initiation of men into the brotherhood of knights, framed within notions of cleanliness and purity; Frantzen, Bloody Good, 81–2. 71 Annette Becker, War and Faith: The Religious Imagination in France, 1914– 1930, trans. Helen McPhail (New York: Berg, 1998), 26. 72 ‘Dr. Murray Shows that Christianity Has Not Failed,’ Sheaf 4, no. 2 (1915): 52. 73 A.M.F., Arts ’18, ‘The Romance and Reality of War,’ Sheaf 3, no. 2 (1914): 74. 74 ‘Peace Terms,’ Sheaf 5, no. 2 (1917): 78. 75 J. Cameron, ‘Military,’ Sheaf 7, no. 3 (1919): 267–8.

The University of Saskatchewan and the First World War

145

76 Margaret M. Dickson to Walter Murray, 27 November 1928, J.E. Murray Fonds, MG61, E II C 27, Military Matters. 77 Walter Murray to Margaret M. Dickson, 6 December 1928, J.E. Murray Fonds, MG61, E II C 27, Military Matters. 78 E. Bristol to H.M. Tory, 2 March 1917, AUS, President’s Office Fonds, Series I: B124/1 General 1914–1917. 79 Bateman, Reginald Bateman, 144. 80 Ibid., 144–5. 81 Reginald Bateman to Walter Murray, n.d., AUS, J.E. Murray Collection, MG 61S1. 82 Bateman, Reginald Bateman, 146. 83 G. Bateman to Walter Murray, 22 October 1918, AUS, J.E. Murray Fonds, MG61, A IV 91, WWI, A-D. 84 ‘Professor R.J.G. Bateman,’ 4–7. 85 Board of Governors Minutes, 6 February 1919, AUS, University of Saskatchewan. 86 ‘Professor R.J.G. Bateman,’ 4. 87 Chris Hedges, War Is a Force that Gives Us Meaning (New York: Anchor Books, 2003), 13.

6 ‘A stern matron who stands beside the chair in every council of war or industry’: The First World War and the Development of Scientific Research at Canadian Universities james hull The Test Tubes of August As their students rushed to the colours in the summer of 1914, professors made their own surge to the laboratories. In Canada at least fifteen McGill University professors toiled on projects ranging from the mechanical properties of metals used in shells to the chemical composition of explosives. War work by McGill scientists in chemistry included poison gas defence as well as munitions manufacture and working around material shortages that in physics included the acoustical and electrical detection of submarines, navigation, and gun detection.1 Meanwhile, the country’s leading physicist, University of Toronto professor J.C. McLennan, worked on helium at the request of the British Admiralty. By 1917 he and others working in Hamilton and Calgary had developed a process for the economical recovery of helium from natural gas. Too late to be used in balloons and airships during the war, the research segued into an important Toronto specialty in lowtemperature physics investigations after the conflict.2 McLennan also assembled a team of University of Toronto researchers in England to do other scientific research for the Admiralty later in the war. Experimental work on nickel refining and copper-nickel alloy at Toronto went on in a context of intense public pressure over charges that Canadian nickel ore refined in the United States had found its way into German hands.3 Medical researchers at the University of Toronto did work on the physiology of wounds, blood transfusions, and diphtheria antitoxin, leading in part to the establishment of Connaught Laboratories in October 1917. This growing commitment to research in medicine and physiology would pay off spectacularly in 1922 with the discovery of

The Development of Scientific Research

147

insulin.4 Perhaps one of the most remarkable examples of the beating of pre-war research ploughshares into wartime swords came from the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Household Science. There, Professor Clara Benson not only trained young women for positions as technicians in munitions factories, but her research on analytical techniques in food chemistry was applied to the standardization of munitions production.5 These developments were not restricted to the older central Canadian universities. Scientists from the University of Alberta as well as those at Toronto and McGill worked on submarine detection and other military problems in acoustics. Just before the First World War, University of Alberta chemistry professor Adolph Lehmann began a program of research into the Alberta tar sands, hoping they might be of use as a feed stock, as coal tar had been at the start of the Second Industrial Revolution in Germany. With the outbreak of the war, this was reoriented into research on the sands’ usefulness as a source of materials for explosives. Further work on the sands by University of Alberta president H.M. Tory bore fruit after the war.6 A branch of the federal government’s Forest Products Laboratories was also established in Vancouver thanks to the Department of the Interior, the University of British Columbia, and the Imperial Munitions Board, the latter wishing to study the problems of using Sitka spruce and Douglas fir in the aircraft industry for war production.7 The new west coast university’s first Calendar noted that ‘[a]s the research arm of the Province it will be the policy of the University to place its resources for research at the service of the citizens and to disseminate such information concerning the application of science to the industries of the Province as may prove useful.’8 More modestly, the University of Manitoba’s assistant professor of civil engineering, R.W. Moffat, found himself assisting the war effort by doing tests for local munitions firms.9 Along with directly military-related work, Canada’s universities supported the economy through industry-related research efforts and other applied research. At the University of Alberta’s Chemistry Laboratory, ‘there have been provided special appliances for industrial and research work … By means of these such investigations may be carried on as the determination of the calorific power of coals, the chemical analysis of marls, clays, and minerals, testing the lubrication quality of oils, and testing asphaltum.’10 In 1914–15 research at the School of Mines at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario – effectively the science faculty there – included dairy chemistry, ongoing since 1907–8, partly

148

Cultures, Communities, and Conflict

in association with the Ontario Department of Agriculture; waste sulphite liquor research by J.A. McRae, lecturer in forestry, in association with the Forestry Branch of the federal government; and work on the Cobalt ore body in the Department of Mining and Metallurgy for the federal Department of Mines.11 The University of Saskatchewan cooperated with the Dominion Entomological Branch to conduct research on swamp fever, while the various prairie colleges of agriculture along with both dominion and provincial departments of agriculture cooperatively investigated the problem of wheat rust.12 *

*

*

Unsurprisingly the First World War has been seen as a major turning point in the history of research in Canada’s universities. Wartime developments were unquestionably significant. Most notably the organization in June 1916 of the Honorary Advisory Council for Scientific and Industrial Research – forerunner of the National Research Council (NRC) – provided a vehicle for both a limited degree of tangible support for university science research and a means for its further promotion. However, this development, while unquestionably wartime-related, overshadows the degree to which university science and engineering professors had already been engaged in research before the war, and does not capture the full dynamic by which such research had already claimed a place in academia. Since as early as the 1890s science and engineering professors had found that their professional ambitions and those of their students intersected with both fundamental changes in industrial production and an expanding federal state. Many of the institutional developments in the universities’ research infrastructure and organization had little direct relationship to the war. At a very practical level science generally, and applied science and engineering particularly, drew more favourable attention from those controlling government spending than did general operating grants to the universities. Research boosters within the universities, stressing a public service role for the professoriate, successfully used wartime rhetoric and priorities to accelerate and shape ongoing trends. Canadian universities shared in the growth of applied science that also characterized British and US universities during this period.13 The events leading to the wartime origins of the NRC were not set in motion by Gavril Princip’s gunshots. Phillip Enros has described how a ‘movement preaching the gospel of industrial research and attempt-

The Development of Scientific Research

149

ing to lay its foundations arose in Canada in the early twentieth century.’14 Although the actions and participation of those in government and industry were important, the roots of that movement can be found equally in the changes ongoing in the Canadian educational system. The call for research in industry in early twentieth-century Canada came in response to changes in the country’s industrial structure and practice: Canadian industry did more science as science-based manufacturing industries increased in importance. For industry, national and international competitiveness through the application of science to more efficient production could meet its needs as much as more politically contentious protectionism.15 If most wartime research in universities involved, not weapons systems development, but finding solutions to the problems of industrial production to support the war effort, it is because this represented a seamless continuation of pre-war activities. The Canadian experience, while distinctive, was not unique. At first glance, it might appear that the Canadian case was the British or American case either with a lag or in miniature replica. Closer attention, however, suggests that neither is quite true. Historians have situated the British case within a longer debate over the neglect of science in that country’s universities and society generally. D.S.L. Cardwell relates how Germany’s early military successes gave ammunition to those arguing that Britain lagged behind scientifically, a problem he lays at the doorsteps of British educational institutions. This led to the formation of a Department of Scientific and Industrial Research; as well, according to Cardwell, ‘in the terrible year 1916, the British educational system entered a period of urgent reform.’16 Cardwell also notes in passing, however, that, elsewhere in the English-speaking world – in particular the United States and Canada – universities had already embraced the German research model and established PhD science programs well ahead of changes that took place at Oxford University in 1917. Anna-K. Mayer’s more subtle analysis suggests, however, that it was not science per se but science as a technological tool that some in British universities resisted. At a rhetorical level, she notes, ‘[t]he military successes of Germany helped educationist commentators present education as a crucial national issue.’17 Daniel Worthington’s study of research at US universities during the Great War acknowledges that they had both physically and culturally prepared themselves for their wartime roles while still arguing that the war represented a critical change. Before the war, university research scientists worked in ‘an often hostile environment,’ and the war ‘helped

150

Cultures, Communities, and Conflict

institutionalize’ the universities’ research function, led to a ‘stronger commitment’ to research, and ‘legitimized’ research partnerships between university scientists and those in industry and government.18 In Canada, remarkably, it seems that the position of academics was more positive. In particular, a research function, intimately linked to the public role of the universities as was a host of cooperative and extramural research relationships, was well and widely established before the war. As in the US case, the war strengthened these relationships just as, in the British case, the war led to certain specific institutional evolutions in the universities’ relationships with government science. The Universities and Research before the War In an 1872 speech Queen’s College mathematics professor Nathaniel Fellowes Dupuis called for the inclusion of applied science in the curricula of Canadian universities, as such an education would improve students morally as well as ‘improve and beautify the world’19 As early as 1877 Professor James Loudon – later president of the University of Toronto – had lauded the German research ideal before the Canadian Institute, whose Canadian Journal was a favourite outlet for papers by Toronto professors.20 In 1895 W.L. Goodwin, head of the School of Mining and Agriculture in Kingston, confidently declared that ‘[s]cientific discoveries [are] organized by the great universities, scientific schools, and industrial corporations. Science and industry are at last wed.’21 Research was linked intimately to specialization while scientific research was equally divorced from the liberal arts. Smaller, newer, and strongly church-affiliated institutions all shared in these trends. The vice-president of St Francis Xavier College in Antigonish, Nova Scotia, the Rev. Jimmy Tompkins, offered the opinion that Catholic colleges could move forward only through ‘specialization and research.’22 The University of New Brunswick established ‘a laboratory for student work and research in physics and engineering’ in 1892 with the province adding a modest subvention the next year.23 Building plans for the new University of Saskatchewan included ‘opportunities for research by professors and students.’24 At the end of the 1903–4 academic year, Laval’s rector, O.-E. Mathieu, saluted ‘the great scientific progress of our times,’ recognizing the utility of experimental science and hoping that the university would ‘before long have the resources needed to give education in practical science’ to the extent merited.25 McGill boasted ‘of the expert information sought of the [botany] department

The Development of Scientific Research

151

by commercial firms from time to time.’26 As early as 1911 the Queen’s University annual report noted that teaching responsibilities hampered the ability of an otherwise qualified faculty to conduct and supervise research.27 Three years later Toronto engineering professor C.R. Young, reporting on the summer meeting of the Society for the Promotion of Engineering Education, noted that research was an important part of what made a good engineering instructor, though research should not crowd out attention to teaching.28 Historians looking at Canadian universities from a variety of perspectives have noted these changes. Douglas Francis has identified the positive intellectual climate for technology and technical education in pre-war Canada.29 A.B. McKillop, in his study of Ontario’s universities, observes that ‘an adjustment of universities to the conditions and requirements of industrial life was an essential ingredient in economic competition and development’ with no university ‘untouched by the province’s industrial revolution and the secular gospel of research.’30 Enros cites the universities’ increasing perception of themselves as public institutions, the growth of graduate studies, the increased place of science in the university, and financial concerns, as the internal reasons for interest in industry-oriented research. Jean Hamelin introduces his chapters on Laval in the early twentieth century with discussions of economic change and the relation of science, including science education and research, to that change.31 Marvin McInnis goes so far as to say that ‘Canada was arguably the most successful exploiter of the new technology of the Second Industrial Revolution,’ and he looks especially at the years of the so-called Laurier Boom (1897–1913).32 He presents data to suggest that the output of scientifically trained engineers from Canadian universities, which he sees as one of the most vital aspects of the economy’s success, was keeping pace with economic growth and development. One good marker of the rise of science-based industry in Canada is the eclipsing of civil engineering by electrical, chemical, and mechanical specialties that occurred roughly between 1908 and 1916.33 In Yves Gingras’ view, in response to demands from engineering and medicine, science teaching with a strong laboratory component established itself in Canadian universities in the last third of the nineteenth century. By the turn of the century the initial cohort of professor-researchers, trained abroad, had begun to reproduce itself, creating the first generation of Canadian-trained science researchers.34 Gingras makes the distinction that, although the role of science professors at Canadian universities at

152

Cultures, Communities, and Conflict

the turn of the century was that of teachers, their self-conception was that of researchers. Changing methods of teaching and changing expectations for university graduates came together around the turn of the century to expand the physical facilities available to conduct research. The BSc at both McGill and the University of Toronto required a research component – research sometimes good enough to be published in technical journals. That science education was necessarily more than book learning is reflected in the language of the University of King’s College Calendar, which spoke of the ‘provision of such research as would enable [students] to have a thorough training in Science.’35 The work of research students at McGill was ‘extremely useful, not merely because of its educational influence on the students themselves, but also because of the actual value of the information obtained.’36 In spring 1908, the senate of McMaster, still a Baptist college in Toronto, accepted a proposal for a new BSc program intended to ‘provide recruits for research and executive positions in Canadian industry.’ The new professor of chemistry, J.B. Tingle, published while at McMaster and insisted that his students ‘conduct original research under his supervision.’37 At Manitoba, the graduation thesis in engineering required either a design or original research.38 After 1890 the new Mount Allison University science professor, W.W. Andrews, also a publishing scientist, insisted that a research component be part of students’ education, and the new honours science course he instituted the following year involved both research and a thesis.39 Partly for nationalistic reasons and explicitly to encourage research, the University of Toronto began PhD programs just before the turn of the century, joined soon after by McGill and Queen’s. This was a research degree on the German model, with intensive science done as part of it. For example, Clara Benson (PhD 1903), one of the first two women to get a doctorate from Toronto, had her research published in the Journal of Physical Chemistry.40 McGill for its part gave a grant and leave of absence to botany lecturer Carrie Derick that she might pursue study and research in Germany; an internationally respected geneticist, in 1912 she would be appointed professor of morphological botany, the first female full professor at a Canadian university.41 If Canadian universities were to retain the best professors, they needed to acknowledge those professors’ desire to do research. Exemplifying this was Arthur Stanley MacKenzie, first as a Dalhousie physics professor and then as the university’s president. In a 13 April 1912

The Development of Scientific Research

153

address, he spoke on ‘Science and the State’ and the need for a federalprovincial-university partnership to produce the researchers needed by government. Although the existing physical plant provided facilities for at least a few science students, some of whose research gained publication, that summer MacKenzie had the satisfaction of seeing the cornerstone laid for a new science building with dedicated research space for chemistry and physics and honours students in those subjects.42 Masters of Science students had the option of submitting a thesis based on original work as partial fulfilment of the degree.43 Laboratory facilities were an increasingly necessary and expensive component to science, engineering, and medical education.44 At McGill, endowments from tobacco magnate Sir William C. Macdonald allowed the university to construct new buildings with research facilities in the physical and applied sciences.45 Canadian firms happily supported this trend. In 1893 Canadian General Electric helped equip the University of New Brunswick’s electrical engineering laboratory,46 while both Dominion Bridge and Canada Foundry assisted C.R. Young in the development at the University of Toronto of a testing laboratory for the strengths of materials, part of a popular ‘structural option’ he largely created.47 University of Toronto professor of mechanical engineering Robert Angus noted in 1910 that ‘various firms will … place some of their engines at the disposal of the [thermodynamics and hydraulics] laboratory for examination and research work.’48 University testing equipment allowed firms to obtain vital production or commercial-related information rapidly and universities and faculty members to receive small monetary supplements.49 Even a technologically sophisticated firm such as Shawinigan Water and Power drew upon academic engineering services for work beyond its own capabilities.50 Indeed, individual firms and university scientists established profitable relationships. Consulting united the professional and pedagogical interests of academic engineers, keeping them up to date with actual engineering practice while maintaining a strong utilitarian bent to engineering research. Research at Canadian universities before the war was not an obscure curiosity. Perhaps most famously, the great physicist Ernest Rutherford spent nine years at McGill, where his research included the important work on radioactivity with Harriet Brooks and Frederick Soddy for which he received the Nobel Prize in 1908.51 McGill had the advantage of one of the best-equipped physics facilities of any university in the world thanks to Macdonald’s largesse.52 Elsewhere in the university,

154

Cultures, Communities, and Conflict

research covered topics from the strengths of wood as a construction material to milk production to coal, the latter funded by the Grand Trunk and Canadian Pacific railways.53 J.G. MacGregor, first occupant of the first chair of physics in Canada – the George Monro Chair of Physics at Dalhousie (1879) – was a Scottishand German-trained researcher with a publication record at the time of his appointment. Using University of Edinburgh facilities during his summer vacations and then equipping a modest laboratory of his own, he continued his research and trained several students who themselves published scientific papers.54 Additional, albeit modest, expenditures on laboratory facilities by Dalhousie from 1894 were explicitly intended to ‘afford greater facilities for original research.’55 Faculty published in the Transactions of the Nova Scotia Institute of Science as well as in national and international journals, especially in the medical sciences.56 The University of Manitoba appointed its first six science professors in 1904. Frank Allen, professor of physics and crystallography, pursued a research program in optics, in particular visual perception. His colleague A.H. Reginald Bullet, professor of botany and geology, conducted research on mycology and argued evolution with the local clergy. Chemistry professor Matthew Archibald Parker found money each year to hire a promising graduate who could conduct research as well as act as a demonstrator. Swale Vincent, professor of physiology and zoology, continued at Manitoba his already-established research program in endocrinology. The new professors founded the Scientific Club of Winnipeg, which had as one of its aims the promotion of research and served as a forum for the presentation of members’ research results. Vincent, in particular, was able to create a research team, supported by small grants, around the university’s physiology laboratory.57 Organizational peculiarities, however, sometimes obscured the presence of research activities. Dr Maude Abbott, a distinguished medical researcher and one of the most important figures in the history of women and medicine in Canada, was nominally curator of the Medical Museum at McGill, but she was also a research fellow in pathology.58 University academics, in partnership with industry, accordingly came to recognize the need for a more formal organization of research.59 At the monthly dinner of the Canadian Manufacturers’ Association (CMA) at the Temple Café in Toronto on 25 April 1901, a hundred members gathered to discuss ‘Chemistry in Its Relation to the Arts and Manufactures.’ Joining them were Professors W.R. Lang and George M. Wrong of the University of Toronto, Professor W.H. Ellis of the School

The Development of Scientific Research

155

of Practical Science, and Professor Goodwin of the School of Mines at Queen’s.60 At the urgings of Ellis, a professor of applied chemistry, the meeting passed a resolution that the CMA form a Canadian branch of the British Society of Chemical Industry. After a canvass of Canadian chemists to gauge the level of interest and enthusiasm, Lang, a professor of chemistry, applied for section status for the branch. The section’s first official meeting occurred at the University of Toronto on 6 March 1901.61 As part of its task, the organization aimed to sell industry on the value of science – especially research science – and the employment of university-trained chemists and chemical engineers particularly. At the first Montreal meeting of the section, held at McGill just before Christmas 1903, Professor Lang urged members to convince private firms of the value of using university graduates to direct industrial processes.62 Lang had earlier spoken of the advantages of cooperative industrial research, and had recommended that Canadian industry endow graduate research fellowships.63 At virtually the same time, the CMA’s submission to the Ontario Royal Commission on the University of Toronto recommended that the same mechanism be found for fuller institutional support of industrial research. The CMA’s committee on technical education subsequently declared itself well pleased with the Royal Commission’s report – in particular, its acknowledgment of ‘the need for the University to consider how it might better aid the advancement of industrial research.’64 For the university, involvement in industry-oriented research would be part of the mandate given it by the Royal Commission to serve the practical needs of the country65 – needs that were being met through new programs in commerce, forestry, and engineering. The federal Royal Commission on Industrial Training and Technical Education noted the number of applied science and technical courses being offered by postsecondary institutions in Canada, attributing this to ‘the further application of science and scientific methods to all forms of production.’66 As in Germany, the United States, and Britain, calls in Canada for the organization of research were linked to calls for a national body for the development of scientific and technical standards. Seeing the need for a Canadian national standards research and testing laboratory, a committee of the Canadian Society of Civil Engineers was formed that included University of Toronto engineering professors John Galbraith and Peter A. Gillespie.67 Along with other university science and engineering professors, such as Toronto’s C.R. Young and McGill’s J.B. Porter and R.F. Ruttan, they led the standards movement that, during

156

Cultures, Communities, and Conflict

the First World War, formed what would become the Canadian Standards Association. Writing in the CMA’s magazine in 1913, paper chemist T. Lindsay Crossley argued that standardization, the development of Canadian scientific and technical personnel, and the importance of international markets all demanded a national effort and government involvement. He called for a Canadian bureau of chemistry to perform the needed role of coordinating the research that was being conducted across the country.68 The Honorary Advisory Council and Wartime Research The outbreak of the First World War thus found Canadian universities already involved with scientific industrial research. Indeed, science professors at several universities were bold enough to complain that teaching was straining the resources of time, space, and facilities that should be given over to research.69 Some commentators were alarmed that applied science was coming to dominate the universities to the detriment of both the humanities and pure science.70 Wartime exigencies would serve to provide further ammunition for the arsenal of research boosters who looked to address not just the immediate emergency but also long-term problems and opportunities.71 The superiority of German chemical industry and of industry-oriented chemical research at Germany’s universities was pointed out with increasing vociferousness. As the war entered its first winter, T.H. Wardleworth, director of the National Drug and Chemical Company and vice-chairman of the Montreal Branch of the CMA, drew attention to German chemical superiority. He suggested a long list of projects to ensure that, in future, Canada would not be caught unprepared and cut off from sources of chemical products.72 A.C. Macdonell made the same point in the House of Commons during the budget debate later that winter, and argued for a greater commitment by the universities to industrial research.73 Montreal industrialist A.T. Drummond sounded what would be a common theme for wartime research boosters when he pointed to the German government’s successful policy of linking universities to industry through support for and coordination of research. Drummond had communicated already with university heads, saying that ‘industry must go hand in hand with science’ and seeking some mechanism whereby academic scientific expertise could be tapped to solve manufacturing problems.74 As well, earlier in the year, he and Wardleworth had written to Sir George Foster, minister of trade and commerce, urg-

The Development of Scientific Research

157

ing the federal government to cooperate with the country’s universities in the field of scientific and industrial research. In May 1915 Foster met with representatives of the CMA and various Canadian universities, but this produced nothing concrete.75 The trigger for action might have come from the formation in Britain that year of the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research (DSIR). Gauging precisely the significance of this development is difficult, but the Canadian government might have feared that, if it did not act, Canadian universities would partner with DSIR, which would then become an Imperial rather than a purely British agency.76 Alternatively, Britain’s desire to deal with Canadian research at the level of a national agency might have been the final prod to set the federal government into action.77 At virtually the same time, a similar Imperial nudge helped bring about the creation of what later became the Canadian Standards Association. For whatever combination of motives, in June 1916 the federal government established the Honorary Advisory Council for Scientific and Industrial Research. University scientists and administrators made up the majority of members, who originally included J.C. McLennan and A.B. Macallum, physics and biochemistry professors, respectively, at the University of Toronto; R.F. Ruttan and Frank Adams of McGill; A.S. Mackenzie of Dalhousie; Walter C. Murray, president of the University of Saskatchewan; and, soon joining them, S.F. Kirkpatrick of Queen’s. The government gave the Council a broad mandate to identify, mobilize, coordinate, and promote research resources, although constitutional and political factors, as well as funding levels, constrained the methods with which the Council could execute this mandate.78 The Council adopted a number of mechanisms to promote research, including scholarships for graduate work in the sciences by Canadian students. Macallum informed Foster that ‘[t]he holders of these are supposed to carry on their work in some Canadian University, where the conditions are thoroughly suitable, and the accommodation ample, for such researches.’79 The Council’s associate committees also brought together scientists and engineers around a specific topic, which involved considerable numbers of highly qualified people in research projects at little cost. As well, the Council provided small assisted research grants to individuals, usually university science professors.80 As Gingras notes, the Council’s work not so much broke new ground as it ‘legitimized, in the name of national interests, the activities of those already engaged in research projects.’81

158

Cultures, Communities, and Conflict

In November 1916, Professor McLennan spoke at Toronto’s Empire Club on the topic ‘Science and Industrial Research in Canada,’ arguing that science was important not just to specific Canadian industries but also to the nation. Canada, he warned, had not fully realized the need to mobilize science to win the war. He also urged his audience to think ahead to the problems and opportunities of the post-war period: how would Canada earn the money to pay off its mounting war debt? To further develop industries around Canadian natural resources, he argued, science would provide an important part of the answer. The following month, and again in March 1917, Professor Macallum, the Honorary Advisory Council’s chairman, also spoke to the Empire Club, specifically about the Council, making pointed comparisons between Canada and Germany, Britain, and the United States, and sounding themes of efficiency, cooperation, and national progress.82 This rhetoric, critical as it was, must be interpreted with great care. Those who advanced such arguments and offered pointed national comparisons were self-interested and in pursuit of a focused agenda. Desirous of more government funding of research at Canadian universities, they tended to portray the existing situation in negative terms. Not all contemporaries saw the matter that way, however. Dr T.L. Walker, a federal government mining engineer, offered invidious comparisons between Germany and Canada with respect to scientific industrial research. He claimed that the Canadian mining industry was on a sound scientific footing that included good relations with university researchers and government scientists. While correct – in some respects more correct than the jeremiads of Macallum, McLennan, and others – Walker’s assertion was clearly also part of the attempt by the mining industry and the federal Mines Branch to head off the creation of a central federal government laboratory.83 Meanwhile trade and technical journals kept up a stream of mostly favourable comment on, and advice to, the new Council, which gives insight into how that body was perceived. In a February 1917 editorial on industrial research, the CMA’s journal listed Canada’s needs: trained researchers, in-house research by firms, and cooperation among firms and between industry and both university and federal laboratories. The partnership with academic and government science would be of special help to smaller firms.84 An editorial in Canadian Machinery and Manufacturing News also called for manufacturers to cooperate with the Council. The Pulp and Paper Magazine of Canada praised the Council’s wisdom in making use of existing research resources in Can-

The Development of Scientific Research

159

ada’s universities and elsewhere and lauded its plan for scholarships.85 Editorials in the Canadian Chemical Journal called for an enlargement of the Council to represent all branches of industry, stressed the Council’s roles in developmental rather than pure science, and favoured more funding for graduate work in science to increase the supply of research chemists in Canada.86 Notwithstanding its slender resources, the mere presence of the Honorary Advisory Council immediately became a significant part of the landscape of higher education in Canada as university scientists used it to press their own institutions for further internal funding of laboratory facilities. In 1917 Saskatchewan’s Walter C. Murray stated that ‘[t]he war has awakened the nations to the importance of scientific research,’ and the university’s annual report included a list of faculty publications.87 A discussion of graduate studies in McGill’s annual report included the context of the Council, the industrial significance of graduate science education, and the desirability of keeping the country’s best students in Canada. But, in order to cooperate with the Council and otherwise meet these laudable goals, more money would need to be devoted to research.88 The war years saw a variety of institutional developments at Canadian universities as they positioned themselves within the country’s evolving research infrastructure. In 1917 the University of Toronto began to receive annual grants from the Ontario provincial government for scientific and technical research.89 As well, attempts to set up a structure for engineering research in the university’s Faculty of Applied Science and Engineering (FASE) under the leadership of Dean W.E. Ellis were justified in terms of cooperation between university and industry and given a tremendous boost by wartime exigencies. Eventually, these efforts led to the organization of a School of Engineering Research within the FASE that, by 1917, was overseeing its first project, which related to constant voltage in electric current distribution systems, a topic of particular interest to Ontario Hydro. The FASE also conducted war-related research on munitions. As well, aeronautical engineering, which had begun to emerge out of specialized research work within mechanical engineering at both the University of Toronto and McGill, was greatly stimulated by wartime interests. In 1918 the FASE obtained Canada’s first wind tunnel for aircraft testing as part of an aerodynamics laboratory established the previous year by mechanical engineering professors J.H. Parkin and R.W. Angus.90 In Kingston Queen’s University established a Committee on Scien-

160

Cultures, Communities, and Conflict

tific Research in 1916, introduced summer research assistantships the next year, and, immediately after the war, endowed a research chair in physical science.91 M.J. O’Brien Ltd., a Kingston firm, used industrial processes developed by former Queen’s metallurgy professor S.F. Kirkpatrick and concluded an arrangement for access to Queen’s facilities under the direction of Professor C.W. Drury, but with its own staff and research funding. Queen’s identified this scheme, under which students found employment as research assistants, as a model for university-industry cooperation.92 Late in the war, the university’s principal noted the changed attitude towards the importance of research, and affirmed his institution’s commitment ‘to do her part in the nurture of scientific research.’93 In Montreal a broader attempt was made in 1917 to organize the harnessing of science to industry via a small subvention from the Chamber of Commerce for a laboratory to conduct research in industrial chemistry at the École Polytechnique. Although a wartime measure, it was not particularly war related in its activities; rather, investigations, directed by industrial chemist Louis Bourgoin and his partner PierrePaul LeCointe, looked at such topics as the effect of cold on asphalt paving, the sterilization of liquids with ultraviolet rays, and the use of asbestos in automobile brakes and acetylene.94 Separate developments within the federal government science bureaucracy led Ottawa to adopt a more aggressive position in the country’s scientific research system, one that notably included partnerships with the country’s universities.95 Various departments of the federal government had been financing university research indirectly before the war, particularly for the promotion of natural resources exploitation.96 In 1898, for example, a fisheries research station had been established under a board of management consisting of the federal commissioner of fisheries and a number of university professors. Its successor, the Biological Board of Canada, studied not just marine biology and fishing but also food processing. Many of the best university researchers in Canada, including both J.J. Macleod and James Collip of insulin fame, worked on Board projects.97 In 1910 McGill University participated – with the federal Mines Branch, American Zinc, Lead & Smelting, chemist Milton Hersey (a consultant based in Montreal), and consulting engineers of various US and Canadian firms – in a joint project on refining zinc ore.98 And, in 1912, the Experimental Farm Branch established a General Entomological Laboratory on the campus of the University of New Brunswick.99

The Development of Scientific Research

161

Forest products research provides perhaps the most outstanding example of university-government-industry cooperation and also of the complexities of the impact of the war on university research. McGill University’s Botany and Chemical Engineering Departments had begun to move into the area of pulp and paper research early in the century. Discussions between R.H. Campbell, of the federal forestry branch, and Frank Adams, McGill’s dean of applied science, led in 1912 to an agreement to establish the Forest Products Laboratories of Canada (FPL) on the McGill campus.100 FPL staff would give lectures to both chemistry and engineering students, and McGill would be represented on an FPL advisory committee. This was no novelty for the university: members of its Department of Railway Transportation were already sitting on an advisory committee with representatives of the various railways. Not surprisingly, cash-hungry university administrators viewed with evident pleasure the breakdown, already under way by the start of the war, ‘of the position that the Federal Government is debarred by constitutional restriction from associating itself in any way with any form of education.’101 John Bates, the FPL’s superintendent, took the position that, although the FPL, as a federal institution, could not get involved in education, it could provide an opportunity for university students to become acquainted with pulp and paper research and procedures. Bates himself gave a half-dozen lectures on pulp and paper making to fourth-year chemistry and chemical engineering students at McGill in spring 1915. Professor Ruttan offered the use of McGill facilities for the FPL’s chemical investigations, while a member of the university’s botany department expressed interest in cooperating with the FPL on the study of wood structure. In general, however, the temporary loss of personnel during the war brought original research at the FPL almost to a standstill and set back plans to improve its physical plant. After the war, the laboratories revived and forged successful formal partnership agreements with both the university and the Canadian Pulp and Paper Association that led in the mid-1920s to the establishment at McGill of the Pulp and Paper Research Institute of Canada. A final issue that had to be addressed was whether the Advisory Council should remain as a coordinating body or some other agency should emerge as the research arm of the federal government. At its spring 1918 meeting the Royal Society of Canada adopted a resolution urging the establishment of a Dominion Central Laboratory. A committee consisting of senior government and university scientists was struck to lobby for this. The Society of Chemical Industry joined this initiative,

162

Cultures, Communities, and Conflict

Table 6.1: Publishing Scientists at Ontario’s Universities, 1914–19

Research institution

Number of scientists conducting and publishing research

McMaster University Ontario Agricultural College Ontario Veterinary College Queen’s University University of Toronto University of Western Ontario TOTAL

5 18 3 45 95 10 166

Source: Philip C. Enros (comp.), Bibliography of Publishing Scientists in Ontario between 1914 and 1939 (Thornhill and Ottawa: HSTC Publications, 1985).

appointing a committee of its own that included a representative of the Canadian Society of Chemists. These committees, apparently led by University of Toronto chemistry professor Lash Miller, who had been appointed to both, put together a draft recommendation on the scope of the laboratories, which included establishing standards, identifying a cadre of research scientists, and conducting applied research and some pure research.102 The eventual outcome would be the establishment of the NRC laboratories on Sussex Drive in Ottawa. University academics thus enjoyed great success in shaping the Honorary Advisory Council and selling the idea that scientific industrial research should be promoted through the universities – or at least through university professors. Thus, well before the post-war NRC got its own labs it was funding research and post-graduate work at the universities. The latter would train both future pure science professors and industry research workers, a position reiterated by a post-war committee of the National Conference of Canadian Universities. By the wartime years, Canadian universities were the homes of research science. Using publication as a criterion for identifying scientists engaged in research, 166 academic scientists have been identified as conducting research during the war in Ontario alone (see Table 6.1). The actual impact of the war on university research varied. Rodney Millard argues that ‘[p]ure research … suffered during the war,’ but it is difficult to confirm this.103 In some cases work was disrupted; at Guelph, for example, Isabella Preston’s work on ornamental plants was shelved in favour of research on increased food production.104 At

The Development of Scientific Research

163

the University of Manitoba, the research work of some science professors ‘could not be advanced at the same rate as before.’105 In other cases research continued relatively unchanged, with a certain degree of specifically war-related research being carried out on campuses or by university academics working elsewhere. At McGill the situation differed from department to department. The testing of shell steel reduced the amount of research work conducted by the Civil Engineering Testing Laboratory, while the war increased the work of the Department of Chemistry in a number of ways. The war reduced the number of research fellows who could be appointed in mining engineering, but, making up for this in part, the Honorary Advisory Council funded a chemist, and research continued. Research work that continued in McGill’s School of Agriculture was unrelated to the wartime situation except perhaps for a stepped-up emphasis on increasing productivity.106 Elsewhere, however, most research reported by Canadian universities had little to do with the war. Research in botany at the University of Manitoba, for example, included work on ‘describing the Fresh Water Algae collected … on the recent Canadian Arctic Expedition.’107 Conclusion Wartime changes in the relations among universities, industry, and, especially, government with respect to scientific research should be re-evaluated in light of peacetime conditions. These issues were aired most fully in the hearings of the 1919 Parliamentary Special Committee Appointed to Consider the Matter of the Development in Canada of Scientific Research, chaired by London Member of Parliament Hume Cronyn.108 Among the government and university scientists who appeared before the committee as witnesses was the chairman of the Honorary Advisory Council, A.B. Macallum. He reported on the work of the Council, and argued that a National Research Institute would be both a place for the employment of researchers and an encouragement to the universities to produce more of them. Such an institute, he said, would be a home for the laboratory work of research guilds and would eliminate duplication of research efforts in Canada. R.F. Ruttan, director of McGill’s Chemical Laboratories, Advisory Council member, and founding member of the Canadian Engineering Standards Association, also testified, pointing out that a worldwide movement for scientific and industrial research existed, of which Canadian efforts were only a part. Canada’s first need, therefore, was for research personnel; these

164

Cultures, Communities, and Conflict

had to come from the universities. For this, the universities needed more funding not from the Dominion government but from provincial governments and private donations. Ruttan envisaged a system whereby the universities produced researchers, Dominion research laboratories would give them initial employment, and from this pool industry would recruit its research scientists. Dalhousie University president A.S. Mackenzie, another Advisory Council member, declared that, if education had been a federal responsibility, national pride would have stimulated a major research presence in one or more universities, as had been the case in other countries. The Council, he said, had rejected the model of decentralized laboratories in major manufacturing centres tied to local universities. This, he argued, would have been unworkable due to particularist bickering and duplication of effort. In the end, both university and government research science would continue on their own separate but related trajectories. What was the net effect of the war on university research? Writing in an interwar issue of the University of Toronto Quarterly, physicist J.L. Synge (nephew of the playwright J.M. Synge) offered the following delightful image: ‘In the eighteenth century Science was a playful girl who whispered of conic sections, putrefaction and refraction in the ears of bishops and marchionesses. Now she is a stern matron who stands beside the chair in every council of war or industry.’109 Certainly, wartime research provided a few more rhetorical arrows to the quiver of research boosters, though they were fighting a battle already won. The emergence of the Honorary Advisory Council and a regular system for government subvention of academic research was a noteworthy step in the path along which university science and engineering were already walking. Wartime developments likely influenced the timing of specific events such as the organization of the Toronto School of Engineering Research and Connaught Laboratories, but, whether disruptive or facilitative, the war’s effect on professorial research is probably impossible to judge quantitatively. The wartime stimulus to scientific industrial research in Canada generally, and to research in Canadian universities in particular, is, however, an established historiographic point.110 Millard, though briefly acknowledging pre-war activities, stresses that the effects of the war principally were the establishment of what would become the NRC and the raising of the profile of scientific research in importance, if not necessity, to national success in war and peace.111 McGill University’s historian argues that, because of the First World War, ‘for institu-

The Development of Scientific Research

165

tions of higher learning throughout the world the pace of research was greatly quickened. The goals were more clearly defined and the application of new discoveries was eagerly canvassed.’112 Yves Gingras sees the wartime founding of the Advisory Council as legitimating science professors’ ‘discourse on the importance of research … since it was now declared to be in the national interest.’113 Even those historians, such as Philip Enros and I, who have drawn attention to the extent of pre-war engagement with scientific industrial research in Canada, accept the importance of the events leading to the establishment of the Council.114 It may, however, be possible to take a bolder line. Historian Douglas McCalla has recently challenged the view of the First World War as a great transformation – particularly an industrial one – in Canada. The capacity for advanced manufacture already existed in this country, and Second Industrial Revolution industries were already being transformed as part of broader changes in North American industrial production before 1914. McCalla argues that ‘the war did not affect in any fundamental way trends in the structure of the economy [or] … the prime new technologies.’115 Canadian universities, and not just a few of them, had already embraced research ideals both rhetorically and practically. The training of scientific researchers and the conduct of research – including, crucially, scientific industrial research – were features of the pre-war response of Canada’s universities to the needs of the country’s extractive and manufacturing industries. Within the universities, students, professors, and administrators were involved with research in increasing numbers. With a growing emphasis on research, universities were becoming more public and, while engaged with their communities, also more national. The universities experienced the war they way they did because of those changes.

NOTES 1 Stanley Brice Frost, McGill University, vol. 2, For the Advancement of Learning, 1895–1971 (Montreal; Kingston, ON: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1984), 104–5. See also Jean-François Auger, ‘La recherche utilitaire dans les facultés de génie canadiennes: au service de l’industrie et du gouvernement, 1870–1950’ (PhD diss., Université du Québec à Montréal, 2004). 2 Rod Millard, ‘The Crusade for Science: Science and Technology on the

166

3 4

5

6

7

8 9 10 11 12 13

Cultures, Communities, and Conflict

Home Front, 1914–1918,’ in Canada and the First World War, ed. David MacKenzie (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2005). For the political context, see H.V. Nelles, The Politics of Development (Toronto: Macmillan, 1974), 348–61. Martin L. Friedland, The University of Toronto: A History (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2002), 264–5. For medicine generally, see Sandra Frances McRae, ‘The “Scientific Spirit” in Medicine at the University of Toronto, 1880–1910’ (PhD diss., University of Toronto, 1987), chap. 1. Ralph A. Bradshaw, ‘Clara Cynthia Benson,’ ASBMB Today, March 2006, 17; and Susan Bustos, ‘The Joy of Cooking, With Gunpowder,’ Inkling Magazine, 21 February 2007, http://www.inklingmagazine.com/articles/deadbakers-society. See Controller of Munitions Inventions, London, England to H.M. Tory, 12 April 1916, University of Alberta Archives, President’s Papers, RG3, 68-9/296; and H.M. Tory to S.C. Ellis, 7 April 1917, University of Alberta Archives, President’s Papers, RG3, 68-9/293; both are cited in Mary Clark Sheppard, ed., Oil Sands Scientist (Edmonton: University of Alberta Press, 1989), 92. For more on the University of Alberta during the war, see Rod Macleod, All True Things: A History of the University of Alberta, 1908–2008 (Edmonton: University of Alberta Press, 2008), chap. 3. ‘Reports of the Superintendent, Forest Products Laboratories of Canada,’ January 1917, Library and Archives Canada (hereafter cited as LAC), Forestry Branch records, RG 39, file 40567; see also Council for Scientific and Industrial Research, A Forest Products Laboratory for Australia (Melbourne: CSIR, 1916). University of British Columbia, Calendar, 1915–16 (Vancouver: University of British Columbia, 1915), 22. University of Manitoba, Reports of Board of Governors and President, 1917–18 (Winnipeg: University of Manitoba, 1918), 17. University of Alberta, Calendar, 1914–15 (Edmonton: University of Alberta, 1914). Queen’s University, Annual Report of the Principal, 1914–15 (Kingston, ON: Queen’s University, 1915), 36–8. University of Saskatchewan, The President’s Report, 1918–19 (Saskatoon: University of Saskatchewan, 1919). J.W. Westwater, ‘The Beginnings of Chemical Engineering Education in the USA,’ in History of Chemical Engineering , ed. William F. Furter (Washington, DC: American Chemical Society, 1980); Robert Fox and Anna Guagnini, ‘Britain in Perspective: The European Context of Industrial Training and Innovation, 1880–1914,’ History and Technology 2, no. 2 (1985):

The Development of Scientific Research

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

167

133–50; and Robert Bud and Gerrylynn K. Roberts, Science Versus Practice (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1984). Philip C. Enros, ‘The “Bureau of Scientific and Industrial Research and School of Specific Industries”: The Royal Canadian Institute’s Attempt at Organizing Industrial Research in Toronto, 1914–1918,’ HSTC Bulletin 7, no. 1 (1983): 14–26. Philip C. Enros, ‘The University of Toronto and Industrial Research in the Early Twentieth Century,’ in Critical Issues in the History of Canadian Science, Technology and Medicine, ed. Richard A. Jarrell and Arnold E. Roos (Thornhill, ON: HSTC Publications, 1983). D.S.L. Cardwell, ‘Science and World War I,’ Proceedings of the Royal Society of London, Series A, Mathematical and Physical Sciences 342 (1975): 447–56. Anna-K. Mayer, ‘Reluctant Technocrats: Science Promotion in the Neglectof-Science Debate of 1916–1918,’ History of Science 43 (2005): 139–59. For Germany, see Fritz Ringer, Toward a Social History of Knowledge (New York: Berghahn Books, 2000). Daniel Edward Worthington, ‘Advancing Scholarship in Wartime: The World War I Research Experience and Its Impact on American Higher Education, 1900–1925’ (PhD diss., University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 1997), 2. Nathan Fellowes Dupuis, Address Delivered at the Opening of the Thirty-First Session of Queen’s College, Kingston, ON, 2 October 1872, 9, as quoted in R. Douglas Francis, The Technological Imperative in Canada (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2009). Friedland, University of Toronto, 76. See also James Loudon, ‘The Evolution of the Physics Laboratory,’ University of Toronto Monthly 8 (January 1907): 42–7. W.L. Goodwin, ‘The Signs of the Times,’ Queen’s Journal (30 November 1895): 42, as quoted in A.B. McKillop, Matters of Mind (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1994), 167. See also University of Toronto, Calendar, 1881– 82 (Toronto: University of Toronto, 1881). Friedland writes that the creation of the School of Practical Science in Toronto was ‘to provide additional science facilities for University College professors’; Friedland, University of Toronto, 83. For agriculture, see, D.A. Lawr, ‘Agricultural Education in Nineteenth-Century Ontario: An Idea in Search of an Institution,’ History of Education Quarterly 12, no. 3 (1972): 334–57; and Clinton L. Evans, War on Weeds (Calgary: University of Calgary Press, 2002), 79. James D. Cameron, For the People (Montreal; Kingston, ON: McGillQueen’s University Press, 1996), 152.

168

Cultures, Communities, and Conflict

23 Richard A. Jarrell, ‘Science Education at the University of New Brunswick in the Nineteenth Century,’ Acadiensis 2, no. 2 (1973): 55–79. 24 University of Saskatchewan, The President’s Report, 1908–09 (Saskatoon: University of Saskatchewan University of Saskatchewan, 1909), 7. 25 Jean Hamelin, Histoire de l’Université Laval (Ste-Foy, QC: Les Presses de l’Université Laval, 1995), 117; author’s translation. 26 McGill University, Annual Report of the Governors, Principal and Fellows for the Year 1910–11 (Montreal: McGill University, 1911), 33. 27 Queen’s University, Annual Report of the Principal, 1910–11 (Kingston, ON: Queen’s University, 1911), 20. 28 Clarence Richard Young, ‘Present Tendencies in Engineering Education,’ Canadian Engineer 27 (1914): 151–4. 29 Francis, Technological Imperative, Part 1. 30 McKillop, Matters of Mind, 149. 31 Enros, ‘University of Toronto’; and Hamelin, Histoire, 115–16, where, tellingly, ‘Un nouvel âge industriel’ is discussed before ‘Au service de l’église et de la patrie.’ 32 Marvin McInnis, ‘Engineering Expertise and the Canadian Exploitation of the Technology of the Second Industrial Revolution,’ in Technology and Human Capital in Historical Perspective , ed. Jonas Ljungberg and Jan-Pieter Smits (Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005). Compare Robert Fox and Anna Guagnini, eds., Education, Technology and Industrial Performance in Europe, 1850–1939 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993). For the concept of the Second Industrial Revolution in a Canadian context, see Ian M. Drummond, ‘Ontario’s Industrial Revolution, 1867–1941,’ Canadian Historical Review 69, no. 3 (1988): 283–314; Craig Heron, ‘The Second Industrial Revolution in Canada, 1890–1930,’ in Class, Community and the Labour Movement: Wales and Canada 1850–1930, ed. Deian R. Hopkin and Gregory S. Kealey (St John’s, NL: Canadian Committee on Labour History, 1989); and Peter J. Wylie, ‘Technological Adaptation in Canadian Manufacturing, 1900–1929,’ Journal of Economic History 49, no. 3 (1989): 569–92. More generally, see James P. Hull, ‘The “Second Industrial Revolution”: The History of a Concept,’ Storia della Storiografia 36 (1999): 81–90. 33 J. Rodney Millard, The Master Spirit of the Age (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1988). 34 Yves Gingras, Physics and the Rise of Scientific Research in Canada (Montreal; Kingston, ON: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1991). Although this chapter largely excludes developments in the area of medical research, a similar story can be told there – see McRae, ‘“Scientific Spirit.”’

The Development of Scientific Research

169

35 University of King’s College, Calendar of the University of King’s College, 1913 (Halifax, NS: University of King’s College, 1913), 39. 36 McGill University, Annual Report, 1910–11, 69. 37 Charles M. Johnston, McMaster University, vol. 1, The Toronto Years (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1976), 87. 38 University of Manitoba, Calendar, 1909–10 (Winnipeg: University of Manitoba, 1909), 120. 39 John G. Reid, Mount Allison University: A History to 1963, vol. 1, 1843–1914 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1984), 188, 201–2. Andrews’s own experiments in plant growing allowed him to supply the Canadian Pacific Railway with celery for a number of years. 40 Friedland, University of Toronto, 184. 41 Margaret Gillett, ‘Carrie Derick (1862–1941) and the Chair of Botany at McGill,’ in Despite the Odds: Essays on Canadian Women and Science, ed. Marianne Gosztonyi Ainley (Montreal: Véhicule Press, 1990). For more on the pre-war contributions of women scientists in Canada, see Clara M. Chu and Bertrum H. Macdonald, ‘The Public Record: An Analysis of Women’s Contributions to Canadian Science and Technology before the First World War,’ in Ainley, Despite the Odds. 42 P.B. Waite, The Lives of Dalhousie University, vol. 1, 1818–1925 (Montreal; Kingston, ON: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1994), 208–12; and Dalhousie University, Calendar, 1911–12 (Halifax, NS: Dalhousie University, 1911), 7. 43 Dalhousie University, Calendar, 1915–16 (Halifax, NS: Dalhousie University, 1915), 10, 34–5. 44 Friedland, University of Toronto, 84. 45 Frost, McGill, 13, 64. 46 Raymond D. Findlay, ‘Electrical Engineering and Technology Education,’ in Electricity: The Magic Medium (Thornhill, ON: Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, 1985). 47 Applied Mechanics Reports and Estimates to April 1911, University of Toronto Archives, B78-0001. C.R. Young Papers, Young Correspondence. Box 05 File 04. 48 Robert W. Angus, ‘The New Laboratories of the University of Toronto for Steam, Gas and Hydraulic Work,’ Applied Science 22 (1910): 127–52, as quoted in Auger, ‘Recherche utilitaire,’ 99. See also p. 96 for a table on the range and scope of donations in kind from companies to the McGill Faculty of Applied Science in 1904. 49 McGill University, Annual Report, 1910–11, 40–1.

170

Cultures, Communities, and Conflict

50 See Canadian Society of Civil Engineers, Report of Annual Meeting (Montreal: CSCE, 1901), 39. 51 Frost, McGill, 37–8. 52 John L. Heilbron, ‘Physics at McGill in Rutherford’s Time,’ in Rutherford and Physics at the Turn of the Century, ed. M. Bunge and W. Shea (New York: Dawson, 1979). 53 McGill University, Annual Report, 1910–11; see also Auger, ‘Recherche utilitaire,’ 105–7. 54 Gingras, Physics, 28. 55 Minutes of the Board of Governors, vol. 4 (8 November 1892), 227, Dalhousie University Archives MS IS 4, as quoted in Gingras, Physics, 42. 56 Dalhousie University, Annual Report of the President of Dalhousie University, 1913–14 (Halifax, NS: Dalhousie University, 1914), 11–13. 57 Harry W. Duckworth and L. Gordon Goldsborough, ‘Science Comes to Manitoba,’ Manitoba History 47 (Spring 2004): 2–16. See also W.L. Morton, One University: A History of the University of Manitoba (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1957), who notes (67) that the new science incumbents were ‘devoted to research.’ 58 Maude Elizabeth Seymour Abbott, ‘Autobiographical Sketch,’ McGill Medical Journal 28 (1959): 127–52. See also Margaret Gillett, We Walked Very Warily: A History of Women at McGill (Montreal: Eden Press Women’s Publications, 1981). 59 A similar recognition existed in other countries – see Ringer, Toward; Michael Sanderson, The Universities and British Industry 1850–1970 (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1972); Roger Geiger, To Advance Knowledge: The Growth of American Research Universities 1900–1940 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986); and Robert Fox and Anna Guagnini, Education, Technology and Industrial Performance in Europe, 1850–1939 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993). 60 ‘Chemistry in Its Relation to the Arts and Manufactures,’ Industrial Canada 1 (May 1901): 253–8. 61 ‘The Society of Chemical Industry’ Industrial Canada 2 (January 1902): 195–6. For a retrospective look, see the Journal of the Society of Chemical Industry (July 1931): 27. See also Colin A. Russell et al., Chemists by Profession (Milton Keynes, UK: Open University Press, 1977). 62 Report of the meeting in Pulp and Paper Magazine of Canada 2 (January 1904): 13. 63 ‘A Neglected Factor in Canada’s Industrial Life,’ Canadian Machinery and Manufacturing News 6 (February 1910): 34.

The Development of Scientific Research

171

64 ‘Report of the Technical Education Committee,’ Industrial Canada 7 (October 1906): 216–7, as quoted in McKillop, Matters of Mind, 168. 65 Ontario, Royal Commission on the University of Toronto, Report (Toronto: King’s Printer, 1906). 66 Canada, Royal Commission on Industrial Training and Technical Education, Report, Part I (Ottawa: King’s Printer, 1913), 13. 67 ‘Report of Committee on the Establishment of Testing Laboratories,’ Transactions of the Canadian Society of Civil Engineers 27 (1913): 41. 68 T. Linsey Crossley, ‘A Canadian Bureau of Chemistry,’ Industrial Canada 13 (May 1913): 1335. 69 Gingras, Physics, 51–3. 70 J.K. Robertson, ‘Pure Science and the Humanities,’ Queen’s Quarterly 26, no. 1 (1918): 54–65. 71 For a good summary of how the universities’ research boosters used the war to promote their ideas – a continuation of what they had been doing before the war, see Millard, ‘Crusade for Science.’ 72 Theo. H. Wardleworth, ‘The Society of Chemical Industry in Canada,’ Industrial Canada 15 (December 1914): 493–5. A similar point was made in the editorial, ‘Research Necessary,’ Pulp and Paper Magazine of Canada 13 (15 September 1915): 475–6. 73 Canada, Parliament, House of Commons, Debates (23 February 1915), 377–8. 74 ‘Bureau of Industrial Research,’ Monetary Times 55 (3 December 1915): 24; A.T. Drummond, ‘Will Government Assist Research Work?’ Monetary Times 55 (3 December 1915): 26. 75 Wilfrid Eggleston, National Research in Canada (Toronto: Clarke Irwin, 1978), 2. 76 This was the suggestion of the Lamontagne Committee; see Canada, Parliament, Senate, Special Senate Committee on Science Policy, A Science Policy for Canada (Ottawa, 1973), 26. For the UK experience, see Andrew Hull, ‘War of Words: The Public Science of the British Scientific Community and the Origins of the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research, 1914–1916,’ British Journal for the History of Science 32, no. 4 (1999): 461–81; and Sanderson, Universities. 77 This is Eggleston’s interpretation; see Eggleston National Research, 3. Compare the Australian case: C.B. Schedvin, Shaping Science and Industry (Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 1987). See also James P. Hull, Ian D. Rae, and Andrew T. Ross, ‘The Development of Chemical Industries in Australia and Canada, 1850–1950,’ in Dominions Apart: Reflections on the Culture of

172

78

79

80 81

82

83 84 85

86

Cultures, Communities, and Conflict

Science and Technology in Canada and Australia, 1850–1945, ed. Roy MacLeod and Richard Jarrell (Ottawa: Canadian Science and Technology Historical Association, 1994). Education was assigned almost exclusively to the provincial governments by section 93 of the British North America Act. The federal government, however, could help to foster research at universities if that research was deemed to be relevant to the development of industry, exports, or natural resources under federal control. An important precedent was the Canadian Commission of Conservation (1909–21). See Michel F. Girard, ‘The Commission of Conservation as a Forerunner to the National Research Council 1909–1921,’ Scientia Canadensis 15, no. 2 (1991): 19–40. The NRC began as a committee of the Privy Council, chaired by the minister of trade and commerce, a field in which the federal government had authority under section 91(2) of the BNA Act. A.B. Macallum to Sir George E. Foster, 25 August 1917, as printed in Mel Thistle, The Inner Ring: The Early History of the National Research Council of Canada (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1966), 27. Eggleston, National Research, 26–7; Thistle, Inner Ring, 24. Yves Gingras, ‘The Institutionalization of Scientific Research in Canadian Universities: The Case of Physics,’ Canadian Historical Review 67, no. 2 (1986): 181–94. See J.C. McLennan, ‘Science and Industrial Research in Canada,’ in Empire Club of Canada, Toronto Addresses, 1915/16–1916/17 (Toronto, 1917): 275–87; A.B. Macallum, ‘The New Organization for Industrial and Scientific Research,’ in Empire Club of Canada, Toronto Addresses, 1915/16–1916/17, 320–6; and idem, ‘The Research Council and Its Work,’ in Empire Club of Canada, Toronto Addresses, 1915/16–1916/17, 475–90. See also Frank D. Adams, ‘The Work of the Advisory Council for Scientific and Industrial Research in Canada,’ Canadian Mining Institute Bulletin 61 (May 1917): 407–15. T.L. Walker, ‘Mining and Industrial Research,’ Canadian Mining Journal 37 (1916): 556. ‘The Problem of Industrial Research,’ Industrial Canada 17 (February 1917): 1152. ‘The Needs of Canada in Regard to Industrial Research,’ Canadian Machinery and Manufacturing News 19 (2 May 1918): 472; ‘S.O.S. – Science Our Servant,’ Pulp and Paper Magazine of Canada 15 (1 March 1917): 215–16. ‘The Advisory Council,’ Canadian Chemical Journal 1 (October 1917): 124; ‘The University and the Industry,’ Canadian Chemical Journal 1 (October 1917): 125; ‘Industrial Research Scholarships,’ Canadian Chemical Journal

The Development of Scientific Research

87 88 89 90

91

92 93 94 95

96 97

98

173

1 (November 1917): 148; ‘Training of Chemists for Industrial Research,’ Canadian Chemical Journal 1 (December 1917): 174; and ‘A Neglected Attitude towards Industrial Research,’ Canadian Chemical Journal 2 (November 1918): 276–7. See also the letter to the editor by L.E. Westman, ‘Industrial Research Scholarships,’ Canadian Chemical Journal 2 (January 1918): 9. University of Saskatchewan, Annual Report of the President, 1916–17, as quoted in Gingras, Physics, 57. McGill University, Annual Report, 1917–18 (Montreal: McGill University, 1918), 22–3, 73. Enros, ‘University of Toronto.’ Friedland, University of Toronto, 262. See also J.H. Parkin, ‘The Toronto Aerodynamic Laboratory,’ Bulletin of the School of Engineering Research 2 (1921). Philip C. Enros, ‘’The Onery Council of Scientific and Industrial Pretence’: Universities in the Early NRC’s Plans for Industrial Research,’ in Building Canadian Science, ed. Richard A. Jarrell and Yves Gingras (Ottawa: Canadian Science and Technology Historical Association, 1991). Queen’s University, Annual Report of the Principal, 1918–19 (Kingston, ON: Queen’s University, 1919), 19. Queen’s University, Annual Report of the Principal, 1917–18, as cited in Gingras, Physics, 58. Auger, ‘Recherche utilitaire,’ 128, 73. Stéphane Castonguay, ‘Naturalizing Federalism: Insect Outbreaks and the Centralization of Entomological Research in Canada, 1884–1914,’ Canadian Historical Review 85, no. 1 (2004): 1–34. Compare: ‘It was the First World War that induced the Canadian government to give official recognition to the utility of scientific research in the pursuit of political objectives’; Louise Dandurand, ‘The Nature of the Politicization of Basic Science in Canada: NRC’s Role, 1945–1976’ (PhD diss., University of Toronto, 1982), 10. Also compare M.E. Smith, ‘The Role of Federal Laboratories in the Technological Development of Canadian Industry,’ Journal of Canadian Studies 17, no. 4 (1982–3): 10–19, which does not fully appreciate pre-war developments. Enros, ‘University of Toronto.’ Kenneth Johnstone, The Aquatic Explorers: A History of the Fisheries Research Board of Canada (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1977), 77–98. See also Francis J. Toole, ‘The Scientific Tradition,’ in The University of New Brunswick, ed. Alfred G. Bailey (Fredericton: University of New Brunswick, 1950), 73–4. Eugene Haanel, Recent Advances in the Construction of Electric Furnaces for the Production of Pig Iron, Steel, and Zinc (Ottawa: Government Printing

174

99

100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114

115

Cultures, Communities, and Conflict Bureau, 1910); and McGill University, Annual Report, 1910–11, 42, both cited in Auger, ‘Recherche utilitaire,’ 137. Stephen Turner and Heather Molyneaux, ‘Agricultural Science, Potato Breeding and the Fredericton Experimental Station, 1912–1966,’ Acadiensis 33, no. 2 (2004): 44–65. R.H. Campbell to W.W. Cory, 11 April 1912, LAC, RG 39 v.252, file 329041. McGill University, Annual Report, 1910–11, 7. This material is from the L.V. King and Lash Miller correspondence, McGill University Archives, MG 3026, c.1, file #695, L.V. King papers. Millard, ‘Crusade,’ 309, asserts this without documentation. Edwinna Von Baeyer, ‘Isabella Preston, 1881–1896: An Explorer of the Horticultural Frontier,’ in Ainley, Despite the Odds, 220–35. University of Manitoba, Reports of Board of Governors and President, 1917–18, 10. McGill University, Annual Report, 1917–18. University of Manitoba, Reports of Board of Governors and President, 1917–18, 44. The following is based on the Committee’s Proceedings (Ottawa, 1919). J.L. Synge, ‘Science and Culture,’ University of Toronto Quarterly 5 (April 1936): 348–58. For a typical evaluation see Hamelin, Laval, 130–7. Millard, ‘Crusade.’ Frost, McGill University, 103. Gingras, Physics, 36. James P. Hull and Philip Enros, ‘Demythologizing Canadian Science and Technology: The History of Industrial R&D,’ in Topics on Canadian Business, ed. Peter Karl Kresl (Ottawa: Association for Canadian Studies, 1988). Douglas McCalla, ‘The Economic Impact of the Great War,’ in MacKenzie, Canada and the First World War.

7 Canadian University Scientists and Military Technology: The Challenge of Total War, 1939–1945 donald howard avery

During the Second World War, Canada was involved in an epic struggle against Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, and Imperial Japan, and for the second time in the twentieth century the country was forced to commit itself to total war. Between 1939 and 1945 millions of Canadians served in the armed forces or in the war economy. Others, as this chapter illustrates, made unique contributions through their involvement in Canada’s scientific war, which was carried out in conjunction with the country’s primary wartime allies, Britain and the United States. And within the context of alliance warfare, Canadian scientists often played a pivotal role. At the same time, they were forced to deal with the demands of a national security system that attempted to safeguard Canadian and Allied defence science secrets. Trying to reconcile these two priorities proved to be a challenging experience, at times with disastrous consequences. The focus of this chapter is on university scientists, either those who remained in their college laboratories or those who were seconded during the war years to Canada’s various defence science operations. These trends became widespread in 1940 with the enactment of the National Resources Mobilization Act, when the federal government was given authority to command virtually all of the country’s manpower, industrial, and scientific resources. As a result Canadian scientists, after almost two decades of isolation from military concerns, were once again expected to volunteer their expertise for the purposes of national defence. In administrative terms, the National Research Council (NRC) was given the task of organizing Canada’s defence science, with the obligation of creating sophisticated weapons for the Canadian and British armed forces. This included radar and proximity fuses, explosives

176

Cultures, Communities, and Conflict

and ballistics, chemical and biological warfare, medical research and aviation medicine, and atomic research and development. Throughout the war years, Canada’s defence science was conducted within the framework of alliance warfare, with emphasis on the development of major weapon systems. For the NRC – an organization that had suddenly been transformed into a defence research board responsible for meeting the needs of the Canadian armed forces and carrying out a number of joint projects with various British and US defence science organizations – these were uncharted waters. Responsibility for this challenging task fell upon the shoulders of acting NRC president Dean C.J. Mackenzie, who became the key coordinator of university scientists, the armed forces, the industrial sector, and Canada’s allies. Another integral part of his job was negotiating with British defence planners, which allowed him to appreciate major changes in the dynamics of alliance warfare that occurred after Pearl Harbor, when the United States became committed to total war.1 Although developing advanced weapon systems for the Canadian armed forces and its wartime allies seemed far removed from the NRC’s pre-war commitment to advance pure research, Mackenzie viewed this involvement in applied and operational research as both necessary and natural.2 In October, 1940, for instance, he noted that defence science was essentially ‘an engineering problem, because if developments have no chance of ending up in industrial and effective tactical use in the field, no scientist in war work is interested … The pure scientist becomes an engineer overnight … In a war of survival, we … work for today.’3 By 1943 the NRC itself had a scientific staff of 1,300, with hundreds of other university scientists carrying on war-related research in their laboratories or in the newly created laboratories of the three armed services.4 The number of university scientists directly involved with Canada’s defence research activities during the Second World War is difficult to determine since the level of participation varied from full-time commitment throughout the war years to a more episodic kind of association. Certainly scientists such as Frederick Banting, Otto Maass, Chambers Jack Mackenzie, and many others had extensive responsibilities with many different weapon systems, while others were connected with a specific type of research. In addition, preparing their university students for involvement in a range of science-related military functions was a common obligation, meeting the ever-increasing demands of Canada’s armed forces. Many continued this involvement during the

Canadian University Scientists and Military Technology

177

post-war years through the Defence Research Board, the NRC, or other federally funded programs, such as the chemical and biological weapons research facilities at Experimental Station Suffield, in Alberta, explosives and ballistic activities at Valcartier, Quebec, and the Chalk River nuclear energy plant in Ontario. What was the status of women university scientists in Canada’s military research operations during the war? In the weapons fields discussed in this chapter, their role was relatively minor, with some notable exceptions such as Gertrude Kalz, an active member of E.G.D. Murray’s Department of Microbiology at McGill University and a close confidant on many war-related matters. On the other hand the division of labour in university laboratories meant that women technicians were involved in many projects and assumed an important role in Canada’s scientific war.5 While US and British historians have explored the impact of the war on academic scientists extensively, very little has been written from the Canadian perspective.6 This chapter attempts to redress this oversight by exploring three important themes. First, it systematically demonstrates how certain groups of Canadian university scientists facilitated the development of important weapon systems that greatly assisted the country’s war effort. Second, it addresses the question of how the war changed research activity in Canada, notably through the interaction between university scientists and the federal government. And finally, it briefly assesses the challenges and risks of doing top secret research within Canada’s national security state. The Legacy of the First World War and the Interwar Years Between 1914 and 1918 Canadian academic scientists became aware, either as members of the armed forces or as wartime researchers, of the ways science could transform military conflict. Some might have shared the optimistic views of President W.C. Murray of the University of Saskatchewan that the First World War had ushered in a new era of scientific research: ‘The nations of the world today,’ he wrote in 1917, ‘have come to see what the scientists long preached, that in science they have the most potent of instruments for extending human power.’7 But others must have reflected on the fact that modern science had also created the powerful explosives and poison gases that were responsible for so much carnage on the battlefields of the Western Front; indeed, the more than one million casualties caused by the 124,200 tons of poison

178

Cultures, Communities, and Conflict

gases used by the various belligerents were a grim reminder of the horrors of modern warfare.8 In comparison to the Second World War, and despite some important wartime contributions through concerted effort, the role of Canada’s defence science during the First World War was limited, given its numbers and capabilities.9 Nor was Canada immune from the folly of using highly qualified scientists as combatants on the firing line, thereby wasting a valuable human resource. Indeed, one of the reasons for the official creation of the NRC by an Act of Parliament on 29 August 191810 was an attempt to mobilize more effectively Canada’s wartime scientific resources.11 During the interwar years, the NRC had varied fortunes, in part because many details about its operation still remained unresolved. One of these was whether the Council should have central laboratories based in Ottawa or scattered among the country’s major universities. Despite the endorsement of most university scientists and administrators, attempts to establish central laboratories were dealt a serious blow in May 1921, when the Senate rejected that section of the legislation. Nor did the situation improve during the next two years. Lack of leadership, underfunding, and poor morale prevailed until April 1923, when the Liberal government of William Lyon Mackenzie King finally decided to infuse new life into this once-promising scientific endeavour. One of the most important moves was the appointment that year of Henry Marshall Tory, president of the University of Alberta, as NRC president. Under Tory’s direction the NRC gradually began to provide some badly needed leadership and support for Canadian scientists. In 1935 Tory was replaced by another powerful figure who would shape the NRC in his own image: Major-General A.G.L. McNaughton, former chief of the general staff.12 Mobilizing Canadian Universities for War, 1939–40 Canadian defence science was virtually non-existent during the interwar years, since the Department of National Defence (DND) had neither the scientific manpower nor the financial resources to undertake even rudimentary investigations of weapon systems. Nor was the NRC, given its own underfunding, able to provide much assistance to DND, at least until after 1935, when McNaughton became president. As a result the Canadian armed forces were almost totally dependent upon data and equipment that the British government, usually through the

Canadian University Scientists and Military Technology

179

Committee for Imperial Defence, decided to share with the dominions. This cooperation was enhanced by mutual fears about how science in the Third Reich was being used by the Nazi war machine. At this stage, however, Canadian military planners were uncertain how the country would acquire essential forms of military technology or what role Canada would assume in any Commonwealth defence science system. During the late 1930s McNaughton tried to ensure that the NRC maintained close contacts with Canadian university scientists through its post-graduate scholarship bursaries for ‘brilliant students … in certain fields of science.’13 With the outbreak of war this meant military science. But McNaughton would not continue in this coordinating role. In September 1939 he was appointed commander of the First Division, and he remained overseas until 1943. His legacy, however, continued to influence the NRC throughout the war years. McNaughton also assumed an important role in shaping the response of Canadian universities to the challenges of modern warfare. On 16 September 1939 he issued a circular letter to the county’s university presidents stressing that short-term military manpower requirements should not take precedence over the longer-term importance of university students completing their educational requirements: ‘[O]wing to the possibility of the present war extending over a very long period and the need for … large numbers of well trained men in all branches of pure and applied science, including medicine, dentistry and agriculture[,] … [s]tudents … in these fields will serve their country in a most valuable way by continuing their university training until graduation, and … specially able students should be encouraged to continue their studies in all branches of science, especially along the lines required to meet national requirements as they develop.’14 McNaughton had high expectations of Canadian universities not only in undertaking important military research and development but also in providing the armed forces and vital war industries with the necessary specialists.15 The country’s university presidents shared this commitment. In October 1939, for instance, R.C. Wallace of Queen’s University, chairman of the National Conference of Universities, announced that his members were mobilizing ‘their scientific forces and gathering information on personnel experience and other pertinent data that would be useful.’16 Another of McNaughton’s immediate goals was to have Dean Mackenzie, his hand-picked successor, appointed acting president for the duration of the war. It was an excellent choice, since Mackenzie, or ‘C.J.’ as he was commonly known, had many qualities that made him an out-

180

Cultures, Communities, and Conflict

standing wartime science administrator: ‘He had an exceptionally clear mind on the essentials of administrative structure, and he was a keen judge of human capacity. He was eminently practical and yet a visionary too.’17 Mackenzie needed all these skills given his demanding and exhausting responsibilities. In trying to meet the multitude of wartime obligations, Mackenzie had a number of advantages. By 1939 the NRC had well-equipped laboratories in Ottawa and a professional staff of three hundred in the four Research Divisions who were, according to Mackenzie, ‘of high quality and of the proper active age group admirably suited for the demands of war research.’18 Another asset was the existence of various associate committees that brought scientific, industrial, and military experts together to assist the NRC’s regular staff as circumstances required.19 Then there was the program of extramural grants, which provided university scientists with thousands of dollars for war-related research, as well as a system of intermural projects whereby graduate students at Canadian universities obtained military deferments and graduate degrees for their war-related research. Professor Otto Maass, the influential McGill chemist who designed the scheme, described its merits in a 1943 letter to C.J. Mackenzie: ‘By giving the professors at universities post-graduate students to carry out useful war research these men have been ready to stay at universities and carry on at the same time some of their teaching duties … feeling they were useful in the war effort. As Director of Chemical Warfare and Smoke I can state that results of great importance have been obtained as a result of this extra-mural research carried out by post graduate students under the direction of the university staff.’20 Not surprisingly, given their size and diversity of academic disciplines, McGill and the University of Toronto were most involved with NRC-directed war projects. McGill responded to McNaughton’s circular letter by creating a War Advisory Board under the direction of C.F. Martin, dean emeritus of the Faculty of Medicine, and physicist David Keys.21 One of the Board’s first programs was to prepare a comprehensive inventory of the university’s manpower resources by circulating a detailed questionnaire about defence science potential. The response was tremendous: almost every faculty member, with the notable exception of economist Eugene Forsey, signified an enthusiastic commitment to the war effort;22 chemists, physicists, and medical researchers were particularly forthcoming.23 Of particular importance was the impressive wartime role assumed by Otto Maass as coordinator of Canada’s

Canadian University Scientists and Military Technology

181

explosives program, director of the chemical and biological warfare operation, and special assistant to NRC president C.J. Mackenzie.24 In a related initiative Grant Fleming, McGill’s dean of medicine, requested information about how each department ‘could assist in training technical workers for war service, and … what research work your Department could conduct to advantage.’ One of the most intriguing proposals came from Professor E.G.D. Murray, chairman of the Department of Bacteriology and Immunology, who set forth an elaborate outline of how his colleagues ‘can and should contribute importantly in the military and civil emergency: because of the danger of epidemics of bacterial diseases in massed troops, because practically all war wounds are infected wounds, because the necessary depressed standards imposed on civilians exposes them to epidemic bacterial disease, and because this Department comprises a well organized and highly trained, experienced staff; also the laboratory is well equipped.’ He also stressed the importance of preparing for the possible use of biological weapons by the enemy.25 University of Toronto scientists also responded to the patriotic bugle call. They decided, however, not to duplicate the McGill inventory model.26 Instead, they made plans to establish a Scientific War Service with the mandate ‘[t]o assist the Department of National Defence, other government departments and industry to solve problems which arise from war conditions; [t]o assist the acceleration of war-time production by aiding in the improvement of methods and equipment; [t]o give advice relating to the modification of specifications for materials or processes used in production; [and] [t]o assist in the selection and training of scientific personnel.’27 Individual university scientists at Toronto were also expected to make their own arrangements with either the NRC or the armed forces, and many seized this initiative. Psychologist E.A. Bott, for example, convinced DND officials of the importance of having effective IQ and aptitude screening tests for service personnel. Physicist Eli Burton created his own Sub-Committee on Physics Problems, which concentrated on ‘the development, production and use of [radio detection finder] apparatus for the various branches of war service,’ as well as sending ‘suitably qualified men for R.D.F. service in Great Britain.’28 Toronto chemists were also busy, especially in explosives and chemical warfare research. One of the most exciting projects, improving the process for manufacturing the explosive RDX, which would greatly enhance the effectiveness of artillery shells and aerial bombs, was carried out by George Wright’s research team.29

182

Cultures, Communities, and Conflict

The War Technical and Scientific Development Committee With the fall of France and the impending invasion of Britain, Canadians of all classes rallied behind the country’s war effort. One manifestation of this sense of solidarity and commitment was the large number of offers and gifts of money that poured into Ottawa. As a result, in July 1940, with the timely intervention of C.J. Mackenzie and Frederick Banting, who convinced J.S. Duncan, acting deputy minister for air, of the vital importance of funding Canadian defence science, the King government decided to channel some of the financial donations into scientific warfare research.30 On August 27 a new organization called the War Technical and Scientific Development Committee (WTSDC) was established by Order-in-Council with provision for an executive body composed of three scientists (Mackenzie, Banting, and Maass), five bureaucrats, and three businessmen.31 Subsequently more than $1.3 million would be allocated to the NRC on the basis of specific weapons projects but only after review by the Committee. Most of the twenty-one meetings of the WTSDC were dominated by Mackenzie, who would outline the merits of each project and how it related to secret scientific work in Canada, Britain, and the United States. In this endeavour, he was ably assisted by Maass, who provided more details about work carried on in university and industrial laboratories, and by Banting’s reports on various medical research projects. By the end of November 1940, WTSDC commitments totalled close to $900,000,32 while another $102,000 was allocated to an emergency fund on which Mackenzie could draw to fund secret and high-priority undertakings, such as the work of the NRC biological warfare committee.33 The creation of the WTSDC’s ‘Santa Claus’ fund also gave Mackenzie greater clout in dealing with universities, an advantage he soon exploited. On 20 August 1940 a circular letter was sent to all Canadian universities describing both the work of the Committee and the guidelines that had been worked out as a result of consultations among the NRC, DND, and university presidents ‘to determine what needs of these Services could be met by Canada’s scientific and educational institutions.’ According to Mackenzie, a consensus was reached on the following points: (1) The training necessary for men who would follow trades in the armed forces should normally be done in technical schools rather than in universities …

Canadian University Scientists and Military Technology

183

(2) It was observed that in Canada no university offers a course in which radio engineering is the primary subject … At present there is definite shortage of men with training in this field. (3) In view of the importance in the war effort of men trained in radio, the National Research Council was asked to obtain, if possible, from the officials of the Canadian universities, the names of their graduates who are now engaged in radio work in the United States in order that these men may be approached to serve at home or abroad if necessary. (4) It was agreed the training of graduate students in science should be continued, not only because there is a need now for demonstrators and research workers, but because the disruption of university work in Great Britain reduces the possibility of obtaining trained men from there and makes necessary the development of a substitute supply elsewhere in the empire.34

By the end of 1940 most Canadian university presidents felt they well deserved Prime Minister King’s praise for their ‘sympathetic and highly patriotic response’ to Canada’s war effort. But as the war dragged on they increasingly complained that their scientists were often working on NRC projects ‘without the knowledge of the head of the university by whom the professors were employed.’ The most serious grievance, however, was the prolonged secondment of key personnel, notably in the medical and engineering fields, and the tortuous process of returning these men to their academic jobs.35 In contrast, Toronto-based Connaught Laboratories substantially increased its scientific personnel – from 252 in August 1939 to more than 360 in 1942 – largely because of its important production of vaccines and antitoxins, the development of artificial blood products, and chemotherapeutic agents such as penicillin.36 Another project that brought university and NRC scientists together was the screening of applications to the Inventions Board, which had been established shortly after the outbreak of war. The Board’s executive committee consisted of C.J. Mackenzie (chair) and the deputy ministers of the army, navy, and air force. Its order of business was to assess the merits of specific proposals that previously had been reviewed by panels of specialists from science and engineering. By November 1941 more than seven thousand submissions had been examined, but only a few were regarded as having wartime relevance, a high rejection rate that was explained by NRC scientist S.J. Cook in a November 1942 memorandum to Lieutenant-Colonel Henri DesRosiers, deputy

184

Cultures, Communities, and Conflict

minister of defence:37 ‘Consideration of war inventions has its lighter moments. I recall that one man had a scheme to freeze the clouds and mount guns on them, but the Board was not very optimistic … Quite a few still have the idea that aeroplanes could be flown with sails instead of being powered with engines.’38 University Scientists and Allied Weapon Systems By 1941, according to the size and expertise of their faculties, most Canadian universities had been effectively mobilized behind Canada’s scientific war effort. Canadian university scientists were already providing valuable assistance to the armed forces and the war economy, and their contributions to the development of a number of important Allied weapon systems would be of special importance.39 Early Radar Research Preparing young scientists for war service was an important function for Canadian universities, but their major contribution was in developing new weapons. In 1940 this usually meant advanced radar equipment. Initially university scientists operated under the guidelines established by McNaughton on 30 September 1939, ‘favouring the use of existing facilities and teams of research workers … and definitely opposing any centralization of work in the [NRC’s] own laboratories.’40 This was welcome news to most university physicists. J.A. Gray of Queen’s University, for example, made it clear in a May 1940 letter to the NRC that he expected a $5,000 grant to support his short-wave radar research since there were, ‘as far as ordinary radio engineering is concerned[,] … few, if any, better equipped [laboratories] than ours.’ He also pointed out that his proposal for ‘ultra high frequencies’ had been endorsed by Ralph Fowler, Britain’s chief scientific liaison officer, as being ‘of the highest importance.’41 Gray got his grant, and his laboratory made a substantial contribution to microwave radar research during the next four years, in part because of the quality of his research team led by R.A. Chipman and the support he received from two former students, W.J. Henderson and H.M. Cave, who were key members of the NRC Radio Branch’s microwave program.42 The University of Toronto’s Eli Burton was an even more influential advocate of university-based radar research. Although not a great research scientist, Burton’s role as director of the McLennan Laboratory meant that his views carried much weight on campus, in Ottawa, and

Canadian University Scientists and Military Technology

185

even with British radar specialists. By the summer of 1941 Burton was supervising five major projects, including work on radar and communication sets used by the British and Canadian naval forces as well as the top-secret proximity fuse research of physicist Arnold Pitt. Both projects profited from Burton’s ready access to substantial funding through the McLennan Laboratory Research Fund and from the Viking Foundation, set up by Swedish industrialist Axel Wenner-Gren in 1940.43 This latter connection worked well until January 1941, when Wenner-Gren came under attack from the Financial Post and the Toronto Star because of his alleged pro-Nazi sympathies.44 Despite Burton’s attempt to refute charges that Wenner-Gren ‘might inadvertently get … secret information’ from the McLennan Laboratory, the university decided to distance itself from the Viking Foundation. Fortunately, grants from the NRC and the armed forces more than offset this loss of funding.45 A more serious problem facing the University of Toronto was the siphoning off of faculty physicists and engineers to the armed forces and their various research centres. In September 1942, for example, Burton reported that four of his colleagues – J.O. Wilhelm, C. Barnes, A.B. Misener, and D.S. Ainslie – had been seconded to the military.46 Nor was it easy to find qualified senior replacements. In April 1941, however, the university decided to counteract this academic outflow by offering the deanship of engineering to C.J. Mackenzie. It was an attractive offer: a salary of $12,000 per annum, with the appointment to take effect ‘whenever the war is over, or whenever you are free.’ While Mackenzie was flattered, he gracefully declined on the grounds that his first duty was ‘and must remain for the duration of the war to the National Research Council in its war effort and to Lieut. General McNaughton whose responsibility in that regard I assumed.’ He was also concerned that accepting a job with the university would prejudice his ‘standing as an independent and impartial’ adjudicator in dispensing wartime grants to the country’s university scientists.47 Indeed, many complaints already were being heard from the ‘outback’ universities that the large central Canadian institutions were receiving a disproportionate number of lucrative war projects. One of the most vigorous protests came from President Carleton Stanley of Dalhousie, who argued that his institution had been doubly jeopardized by wartime developments: it had been forced to undertake a large number of defence contracts, and it was experiencing serious financial problems.48 Stanley’s appeal elicited a sympathetic response from Mackenzie, who had good reason to appreciate the valuable contribution of Dalhousie’s scientists – particularly physicists J.H.L. Johnstone and

186

Cultures, Communities, and Conflict

W.J. Henderson, who had developed imaginative degaussing methods to neutralize German magnetic mines.49 As a result, a compensation package was arranged: Johnstone and Henderson were seconded to the Royal Canadian Navy’s Halifax Research Station in May 1942, while Dalhousie was compensated for the loss by a special grant of $1,200 a month for the two-year period.50 Physicists at the University of Western Ontario were another group involved in radar research, largely through the efforts of R.C. Dearle and his assistant G.A. Woonton, who were in the forefront of microwave research. Although Dearle received strong support from R.W. Boyle, director of the Physics Division, he was also critical of how the NRC awarded radar contracts.51 On the other hand, despite some impressive achievements, Western could not compete with the microwave research being carried out at McGill University. This was coordinated by J.S. Foster, one of Canada’s most prestigious physicists, who also maintained close contact with the Radiation Laboratory (Rad Lab), the nerve centre of US advanced radar research.52 For these reasons, during the spring of 1941, Foster was assigned to the NRC Radio Branch’s highest-priority job: helping to develop the GL IIIC fire control system, a task that required close liaison with Rad Lab scientists. His visit to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in March was a revelation in terms of both the enormous progress Rad Lab scientists had made in developing a precision gunlaying radar system and the backwardness, in contrast, of the Canadian and British efforts. After being exposed to this rarefied environment, Foster did not find it easy to return to his small McGill laboratory with its limited NRC budgets. He was, therefore, elated when in July 1941 an invitation came from Rad Lab head L.A. DuBridge to join the laboratory ‘and bring along any others who … were free to come.’ Foster’s departure for the green pastures of the Radiation Laboratory created a number of problems for Canadian radar research.53 In the first place McGill’s microwave and GL artillery projects were left somewhat in limbo since no one else had Foster’s scientific skills, drive, and administrative ability.54 Mackenzie was also concerned that Foster’s recruitment by the Rad Lab would be a catalyst in encouraging other talented Canadian scientists to gravitate towards American wartime research centres.55 The Proximity Fuse and the Atomic Bomb Canadian university physicists were involved with two other major

Canadian University Scientists and Military Technology

187

weapon systems: proximity fuses and the atomic bomb. Involvement with the proximity fuse began in June 1940, when a team of University of Toronto physicists under Arnold Pitt developed a unique approach to this revolutionary anti-aircraft technology system, which allowed shells to explode when they were relatively close to enemy bombers rather than requiring a direct hit. In short order it was integrated into a major Allied research effort that combined Canadian, British, and US scientific talents and industrial capabilities.56 Despite limited funds and a small-scale operation, Pitt’s team made a significant contribution to enhancing the accuracy and reliability of these devices at their Toronto laboratory and neighbouring test facilities. The awesome potential of these fuses was evident during the summer of 1944, when they were deployed against Japanese kamikaze pilots in the Pacific theatre and German V-1 rocket attacks on London. For security reasons, however, the achievements of Pitt’s team received little or no public recognition.57 Another important contribution was the role Canadian nuclear scientists assumed in the US Manhattan Project, which eventually developed the atomic bomb. During the summer of 1942, Canada became an aspiring member of the nuclear club with the establishment of the Anglo-Canadian nuclear laboratory at the Université de Montréal. In part, this project was driven by Britain’s desperate attempt to retain its precarious nuclear partnership with the United States and, in part, by the King government’s recognition of the advantages of being involved with this revolutionary technology. While the Montreal laboratory never really fulfilled its original promise largely because of the United States’ determination to retain full administrative control over the Manhattan Project, it provided a unique training ground for a number of Canadian nuclear physicists, chemists, and engineers. Over a threeyear period, these young men were able to interact with an outstanding group of British, Free French, and European refugee scientists in Montreal as well as to visit Los Alamos, New Mexico, and other Manhattan Project laboratories. They were also fortunate that the Anglo-Canadian nuclear venture concentrated on the development of the heavy water plutonium reactor, a technology that would form the basis of Canada’s post-war ‘peaceful’ nuclear industry. C.J. Mackenzie assumed a major role in assembling the Canadian team and monitoring its members’ education. In 1942, in an attempt to recruit George Volkoff, who previously had studied with J. Robert Oppenheimer, a key scientific administrator of the Manhattan Project, he sent the following message to the University of British Columbia:58 ‘An

188

Cultures, Communities, and Conflict

important and internationally known group of scientists, about twenty in number, are coming from Great Britain and will be located in Canada … I am anxious to assemble a team of our most brilliant younger workers so that when they join the group above[,] Canada’s contribution will be appreciable … [E]veryone agrees that Dr. Volkoff is one of the best in Canada.’59 Mackenzie’s other prize candidate was Harry Thode, a radio-chemist from McMaster University, who was highly regarded for his work with Nobel laureate Harold Urey on the separation of isotopes and the use of mass spectroscopy. Younger, less-established Canadian scientists such as J. Carson Mark, Phil Wallace, and Leo Yaffe were also recruited to assist division and team leaders.60 By the end of the war, notably after the September 1945 establishment of the heavy water pilot plant at Chalk River, Ontario, Canadian nuclear scientists individually and collectively enjoyed an impressive reputation for innovative and important research. Many of these projects were joint ventures between Atomic Energy of Canada Limited and selected universities.61 Explosives and Chemical Warfare Despite claims that the Second World War was a physicists’ war, Canadian chemists also made major contributions to the Allied war effort through their involvement with explosives such as RDX and DINA. Canada’s contribution to Allied chemical warfare planning and development was equally important, notably after the establishment by the Canadian and British governments of the 700,000-acre Experimental Station Suffield in Alberta in spring 1941.62 Each of these ventures followed a similar pattern. First, urgent requests were sent from British defence officials for Canadian assistance. Then, while the British initially provided the essential scientific information and core researchers, within a year Canadian scientists were in charge. Another important aspect of these projects was Otto Maass’s ability to work closely with US chemists in both the explosives and chemical warfare fields. Certainly, tripartite cooperation by Canadian, British, and US chemists was essential for the development of RDX. Although it had been discovered during the First World War, the strategic use of this powerful explosive (known also as cyclonite or hexogen) was not achieved until 1943 after an extensive research and development program.63 By the fall of that year, large-scale production of RDX Type B was under way at the sprawling Eastman complex in Kingsport, Tennessee, which supplied vast quantities of this wonder explosive to the Allied armed forces.

Canadian University Scientists and Military Technology

189

Above all, as part of the expanded Allied war effort, these enhanced explosives were used in the massive bombing of German cities. The Canadian research agenda was initiated by Maass, who, while on a self-appointed mission to England in June 1940, became fascinated by the potential of RDX as a ‘super-explosive.’ Upon his return to McGill he mobilized his colleagues James Ross, Raymond Boyer, Charles Winkler, and Robert Nicholls into a special RDX research team. In addition he convinced George Wright of the University of Toronto to carry out his own RDX experiments and eventually to become the driving force behind the joint Canada-US program.64 The RDX saga demonstrates how the war changed scientific career patterns in Canada. For example, in 1939 George Wright was a relatively obscure chemist at the University of Toronto; in 1941 he became an RDX research ‘star’; and in October 1942 he was appointed chairman of the new NRC Research Sub-Committee on Explosives.65 As an important scientific-military administrator, Wright was expected to carry out a variety of functions, the most demanding of which was to coordinate Canadian research in the fields of explosives and propellants with work being done in Britain and the United States. For his wartime service, in 1945 the United States awarded Wright the Medal of Freedom.66 In contrast, chemist Raymond Boyer was not so fortunate: in 1946 he was convicted of violating the Official Secrets Act for providing RDX information to Soviet espionage agents. Chemical Warfare Many explanations can be cited as to why poison gas was not deployed strategically during the Second World War. Each side believed that its adversary would use this weapon if an advantageous situation emerged or a deadly new gas was suddenly discovered. For most of the war, chemical munitions were essentially improved versions of the major gases of the previous global conflict. This included choking gases such as chlorine, phosgene, and chloropicrin, as well as blood gases, with hydrogen cyanide and cyanogen chloride being the most common. In a separate category were the vesicant or blistering weapons: mustard gas and its derivatives, sulphide mustard, nitrogen mustard, and mustardlewisite.67 All of these agents would be analysed, produced, stockpiled, and tested by Canadian chemists during the war years. Most of this research was coordinated by the army’s Directorate of Chemical Warfare and Smoke, both in its own facilities and in university laborato-

190

Cultures, Communities, and Conflict

ries through NRC-administered grant programs. Chemists at McGill, Toronto, Queen’s, and Western investigated the potential of new war gases such as ‘Z’, ‘W,’ and ‘KL-16,’ as well as enhancing the casualty potential of mustard gas. These gases were subsequently tested in a variety of delivery systems: mortar and artillery shells, bombs, aerial sprays, and toxic smoke weapons.68 In the chemical warfare field, the scientific team at Experimental Station Suffield consisted of experienced British chemists along with a number of prominent Canadian scientists such as University of Toronto chemist H.M. Barrett, who was appointed superintendent of research,69 and Major J.C. Paterson of the Royal Canadian Army Medical Corps, who was named head of the physiological and pathological section.70 Most candidates for Suffield jobs were interviewed by a special NRC selection board, with Maass making the final decision usually after consultations with prominent university chemists such as George Wright and ‘Andy’ Gordon of Toronto, Christian Sivertz of Western, and T. Thorvaldson of the University of Saskatchewan.71 Another of Maass’s functions was the distribution of extramural grants to university chemists, engineers, and medical researchers involved with chemical warfare. He was particularly insistent that other universities adopt the McGill model, which allowed promising graduate students to focus on problems of chemical warfare while completing their dissertations. This strategy also kept these young researchers out of the clutches of the National Selective Service.72 In financing these grants Maass initially drew from the WTSDC’s ‘Santa Claus’ fund. In 1940 the WTSDC allocated more than $119,000 to thirty-four chemical researchers, including those working in both explosives and gas projects.73 In 1947 Maass was awarded the US Medal of Freedom for his contributions to the Allied chemical warfare effort and received the personal congratulations of General William Porter, his wartime partner, who praised Maass’s contribution to making Canadian and US chemical and biological warfare activities ‘so close that they have been practically one, and the results certainly have been good.’74 Life Sciences and Biological Weapons University life scientists were also involved with various aspects of Canada’s war effort, notably through the NRC Associate Committee for Medical Research. Created in 1938 through the combined efforts of General McNaughton and Sir Frederick Banting, this organiza-

Canadian University Scientists and Military Technology

191

tion sponsored and monitored a range of defence medicine projects.75 Research initiatives in the field of aviation medicine, primarily based at the Banting and Best Department of Medical Research at the University of Toronto, were of particular importance, as was vaccine production at Connaught Laboratories.76 The challenge facing another group of university medical researchers was how to protect Canada from a biological weapons attack. In some ways this menace was closely related to the chemical warfare threat since both forms of warfare were regarded as morally abhorrent and contrary to international conventions. Yet there were also significant differences. Unlike most poison gas developments, biological warfare research was secret and hidden, its practitioners shadowy and self-conscious. Most were medical researchers, not chemists, and committed professionally to saving, not taking, lives. And their weapons included some of the world’s most terrifying diseases: bubonic plague, typhus, typhoid, dysentery, yellow fever, tularaemia, brucellosis, anthrax, and the deadly botulinum toxin.77 Nobel laureate Banting was the catalyst for developing Canada’s embryonic defensive biological weapons program. Between 1938 and his death in February 1941 Banting sought to convince Canadian and British military officials that Germany was preparing to launch a deadly biological weapons attack and that the British Commonwealth required both defensive measures and a retaliatory capability.78 It was not until the summer of 1942, however, that the Canadian system took form under the leadership of McGill bacteriologist E.G.D. Murray and a select number of university and government scientists.79 During the next three years Canada’s biological weapons planners at the NRC and the Directorate of Chemical Warfare and Smoke developed a number of important facilities and programs. A secret organization, the M-1000 (C-1) Committee, served as the central coordinating agency both in directing Canadian research programs and in establishing close relations with British and American scientists. As well, biological weapons research and testing facilities were established at Suffield and at Grosse Île, Quebec. Above all, Guilford Reed’s biological weapons laboratory at Queen’s University was the key research centre under a secret arrangement negotiated with Principal Wallace in April 1942.80 By the end of the war Canadian bacteriologists, biochemists, and veterinarians had made a number of significant contributions to the Allied biological weapons effort.81 On the defensive side a unique version of the botulinum toxoid (A & B strains) could have been used to immunize

192

Cultures, Communities, and Conflict

Canadian troops if intelligence reports about possible use of biological weapons by the Germans had materialized during the June 1944 D-Day landings. In addition the joint US-Canadian project at Grosse Île produced an effective vaccine against rinderpest, a deadly animal virus. Another Grosse Île operation produced virulent anthrax spores that were subsequently analysed by Canadian researchers at Suffield and by their American counterparts at Camp Detrick, Maryland, who were making plans for the mass production of an anthrax retaliatory weapon. These biological weapons linkages would continue during the Cold War. Professor E.G.D. Murray, chairman of the C-1 Committee, assumed a crucial role in shaping and directing Canada’s wartime biological weapons program. This became a full-time job after June 1943 when McGill president Cyril James reluctantly agreed that Murray be assigned to the Directorate of Chemical Warfare and Smoke for the duration of the war. As a result Murray spent most of the next three years either in Ottawa, visiting C-1 research and testing facilities, or attending policy meetings in Washington, DC. His heavy administrative schedule meant that Murray had virtually no time for to be involved with his own Department of Bacteriology and Immunology or independent research projects. Moreover, given the tight secrecy surrounding this weapon system, Murray could not discuss his activities with friends or family. In fact, his important wartime achievements were not publicly acknowledged until September 1947, when he was awarded the US Medal of Freedom ‘as a member of the Joint United States-Canadian Commission and later as Chairman of the Committee for Direction of Biological Warfare Research in Canada.’82 Conclusion The Second World War was a unique global conflict: ‘[W]aged on the back of industrial and technological resources, the terrifying wonder weapons produced by the scientists on both sides, and the mushroom clouds soon to rise over devastated Japanese cities brought home to everyone the military and economic potential of scientific research.’83 In contrast to the First World War, the global conflict of 1930–45 required massive numbers of scientists to create and produce new weapons and operational techniques.84 Significantly, Canada did not become merely a source of scientific materiel and human resources to be mined at will by British and US defence officials, but rather developed its own unique wartime and military research programs.

Canadian University Scientists and Military Technology

193

Although many actors were in this drama of mobilizing Canadian science for war, the role of Canada’ scientific mandarins was of special importance. Highest on the list was Dean C.J. Mackenzie, acting president of the National Research Council, who was involved in all aspects of Canada’s defence science efforts. In turn he was assisted by the indefatigable Otto Maass of McGill, who coordinated the country’s chemical and biological warfare programs as well as supervising important work in the explosives field. At the next level a group of scientists such as Eli Burton and J.S. Foster (radar), Arnold Pitt (proximity fuse), George Wright (RDX), Andy Gordon (chemical weapons), E.G.D. Murray (biological weapons), and the Canadian cohort at the Montreal nuclear laboratory directed specific weapon systems. For most university scientists the end of the war meant a departure from government service and a return to their campus laboratories and the world of pure science. But the experiences of the war were not easily forgotten. Many remembered the war years as a time of excitement and opportunity, when, through their work in advanced weapon systems, they had played in the scientific big leagues. McMaster’s Harry Thode, a prominent member of the Montreal-based Anglo-Canadian atomic team, recalled the exhilaration associated with his own collaborative research: ‘You couldn’t go into the laboratory without some new scientific discovery being made each day, each week, each month … and there would be scientists from all over the world.’85 On the other hand, McGill’s E.G.D. Murray, who spent almost three years directing Canada’s biological weapons program, had mixed feelings about his wartime secondment: ‘[T]he war set me back 5 years & I shall have difficulty in catching up, if ever I do so.’86 At the same time, Murray and many of his wartime colleagues continued their involvement with defence science after 1945 as members of specialized committees of the newly formed Defence Research Board.87 During the post-war years, as scientists increasingly moved between the world of state-directed research and the university laboratory, a ‘new’ type of university scientist began to emerge. This situation was vividly described by the famous American physicist Isidore Rabi: ‘The whole picture changed as a result of government money … It became no longer a matter of the department or the university. Each professor who was any good wore a knapsack, he could travel anywhere.’88 For Canadian scientists unprecedented opportunities were available to accept lucrative positions in the rapidly expanding research centres in the United States or contracts from the US military-industrial-academic complex.

194

Cultures, Communities, and Conflict

The Second World War, for better or for worse, ushered in a new age in state-university relations. These changes were most evident in the massive mobilization of university scientists in the elaborate defence science system created by General McNaughton, C.J. Mackenzie, Otto Maass, and many others. Nor did the view that scientists were an asset for national security purposes change after 1945, as evident in the linkages between the Defence Research Board and Canadian universities.89 This wartime legacy was aptly summarized by Dean Mackenzie: ‘In the six years of war, Canadian science and technology[,] led by the initiative of the NRC, had come of age. By war’s end, its standing was high among scientists in our countries and, of most importance, was recognized at home.’90

NOTES 1 Donald Avery, The Science of War: Canadian Scientists and Allied Military Technology during the Second World War (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1998); Williamson Murray and Allan Millett, eds., Military Innovation in the Interwar Period (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996). 2 Cited in Wilfrid Eggleston, National Research in Canada: The NRC, 1916–1966 (Toronto: Clarke-Irwin, 1978), 186. 3 Ibid., 173–4. 4 Yves Gingras, Physics and the Rise of Scientific Research in Canada (Montreal; Kingston, ON: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1991), 71–2. 5 For more information on the relationship between Murray and Kalz, see Donald Avery and Mark Eaton, The Meaning of Life: The Scientific and Social Experiences of Everitt and Robert Murray, 1930–1964 (Toronto: Champlain Society, 2008); Marianne Gosztonyi Ainley and Catherine Millar, ‘A Select Few: Women and the National Research Council of Canada, 1916–1991,’ Scientia Canadensis: Canadian Journal of the History of Science, Technology and Medicine 15, no. 2 (1991): 105–16. Because of the complexity of the subject and limited space, a detailed analysis of how defence-related research affected all Canadian universities during the Second World War is beyond the purview of this chapter. As well, a comprehensive discussion of the important subjects of military medicine and wartime nutritional research and whether defence-directed research enhanced or deterred the work of Canada’s university scientists between 1939 and 1945 also must be left to other scholars. 6 Nathan Reingold, ed., The Sciences in the American Context: New Perspectives

Canadian University Scientists and Military Technology

7

8

9 10 11

12

13 14

15

16

195

(Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1979); Everett Mendelsohn et al. eds., Science, Technology and the Military, 2 vols. (Boston: Kluwer Academic, 1988); Roger Geiger, Research and Relevant Knowledge: American Universities since World War II (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993); and Stuart Leslie, The Cold War and American Science (New York: Columbia University Press, 1993). For the British experience, see Guy Hartcup, The Challenge of War: Britain’s Scientific and Engineering Contributions to World War Two (New York: Palgrave, 1970). University of Saskatchewan, Annual Report of the President, 1916–17, cited in Yves Gingras, ‘The Institutionalization of Scientific Research in Canadian Universities: The Case of Physics,’ Canadian Historical Review 67, no. 2 (1986): 191. Edward Spiers, Chemical Warfare (London: Macmillan, 1986), 13–33; L.F. Haber, Poisonous Cloud: Chemical Warfare in the First World War (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1986), 39–137; Tim Cook, No Place to Run: The Canadian Corps and Gas Warfare in the First World War (Vancouver: UBC Press, 1999). See the chapter in this collection by James Hull which discusses university/government research before and during the First World War. Eggleston, National Research, 8, 12, 34, 53–8. Michael Pattison, ‘Scientists, Inventors and the Military in Britain, 1915–19: The Munitions Inventions Department,’ Social Studies of Science 13, no. 4 (1983): 521–68. Ralph Estey, ‘The National Research Council and Seventy-Five Years of Agricultural Research in Canada,’ Scienta Canadensis 15, no. 2 (1991): 117–43; John Swettenham, McNaughton, 2 vols. (Toronto: Ryerson University Press, 1968). Avery, Science of War, 42. McNaughton did insist, however, that all such students participate in Canadian Officers’ Training Corps programs at their universities; A.G.L. McNaughton to H.J. Cody, 16 September 1939, Library and Archives Canada (hereafter cited as LAC), Papers of the National Research Council (hereafter NRC Papers), vol. 46, file 17-15-9-2,#1. National Defence officials were also adamant ‘that action be taken to prohibit the appointment of medical students of the services other than medical … and that it be ensured that those who are now attending medical courses may complete their studies’; H. DesRosiers to W.S. Fox, 25 October 1939, University of Western Ontario Archives (hereafter cited as UWOA), President W.S. Fox Collection, box 6. R.C. Wallace to Sidney Smith, 18 October 1940, University of Manitoba

196

17 18 19 20 21

22

23 24

25

26 27

28 29 30

Cultures, Communities, and Conflict

Archives (hereafter cited as UMA), box 57, file 23; Wartime Diary of C.J. Mackenzie (Mackenzie Diary), 30 October 1939, LAC. Eggleston, National Research, 122; see also Mel Thistle, ed., The MackenzieMcNaughton Wartime Letters (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1975). By 1939 the NRC provided $30,000 for scholarships and another $150,000 for extra-mural research grants; Eggleston, National Research, 119–25. C.J. Mackenzie to Sidney Smith, 23 June 1943, UMA, President’s Papers, box 57, file 5. Otto Maass to C.J. Mackenzie, 23 October 1943, LAC, NRC Papers, vol. 46, 17-15-9-2, # 1. A.G.L. McNaughton to Dean C.F. Martin, 24 October 1939, LAC, Papers of the NRC, vol. 46, 17-15-9-2, # 1; Cyril James to J.C. Meakins, 5 September 1941, McGill University Archives (hereafter cited as MUA), Cyril James Papers, vol. 93. In keeping with his anti-war position, Forsey suggested that his talents could best be used ‘in helping in the preservation and extension of democracy and liberty within Canada’; Eugene Forsey to David Keys, 19 September 1939, MUA, Cyril James Papers, box 40, file 170. Record of responses from McGill faculty, MUA, Cyril James Papers, box 40, file 170. Otto Maass to C.F. Martin, 10 October 1939, MUA, Cyril James Papers, box 40, file 170. Maass’s wartime role as special assistant to Mackenzie did create some controversy among the faculty at McGill; David Keys to Eli Burton, 8 December 1939, MUA, Cyril James Papers, box 39, file 167. Grant Fleming to Heads of Departments, 11 September 1939, E.G.D. Murray to Grant Fleming, 14 September 1939, LAC, E.G.D. Murray Papers (MG 30-B-91), vol. 1, F-File War Service. Avery, Science of War, 46–7. E.A. Allcut to H.J. Cody, 22 June 1940, University of Toronto Archives (hereafter cited as UTA), H.J. Cody Papers, vol. 45. The University of Western Ontario also appointed a War Service Advisory Board that included faculty, staff, and students to ensure that ‘each person could devote himself with the greatest effect’; Circular Letter, October 1939, UWOA, President W.S. Fox Collection, box 6. E.A. Bott to C.F. Martin, 13 January 1940, UTA, H.J. Cody Papers, box 40, file 167. A.R. Gordon to H.J. Cody, 5 October 1940, Public Archives of Ontario, H.J. Cody Papers, file 7. Forty-four corporations contributed to the Fund, with Bronfman’s, Eaton’s, International Nickel Company, Canadian Pacific Railway, and Consolidated Mining & Smelting providing 78 per cent of the total ($1,050,000).

Canadian University Scientists and Military Technology

31 32 33

34 35

36

37

38

39

40 41 42

197

Most of the other corporate donors were mining companies. F.T. Rosser, ‘The History of the Sir Frederick Banting Fund,’ 1 October 1960, 1-4, LAC, NRC Papers, Frederick Banting Papers, vol. 1. Ibid., 6–8, 9. S.P. Eagleson to B.G. McIntyre, 1 October 1940, LAC, NRC Papers, 88-89/046, vol. 48, file 4-59-14. Mackenzie funded the secret M-1000 biological warfare project out of this fund until the Department of National Defence assumed responsibility for this work in August 1942. Mackenzie Circular to the Presidents of Canadian Universities, August 20, 1940, UMA, President’s Papers, box 57, file 5. W.L.M. King to H.J. Cody, 24 July 1940, UTA, H.J. Cody Papers, vol. 46; W.E. Gallie to H.J. Cody, 19 May 1942, and H.J. Cody to Major-General C.F. Constantine, District Officer Commanding Military District No. 2 (Toronto), 29 October 1942, UTA, H.J. Cody Papers, vol. 49. R.D. DeFries, ‘Process of the Work of the Connaught Laboratory, Session 1941–1942,’ UTA, H.J. Cody Papers, vol. 49. See also Paul Bator, Within Reach of Everyone: A History of the University of Toronto School of Hygiene and the Connaught Laboratories (Ottawa: Canadian Public Health Association, 1990). C.J. Mackenzie to Captain G.M. Hibbard, Chief of Naval Equipment and Supply, Royal Canadian Navy, 15 May 1942, LAC, NRC Papers, vol. 17, file 32-1-13; Inventions Board, Report for April 1942, LAC, NRC Papers, vol. 17, file 32-1-13. Cook found this latter suggestion similar to the joke ‘that Mussolini had designed a new type of truck, with only one speed forward and three speeds in reverse’; S.J. Cook to Henri DesRosiers, 11 November 1942, LAC, NRC Papers, vol. 17, file 32-1-13. S.J. Cook to H.J. Cody, [n.d.], UTA, H.J. Cody Papers, vol. 49, By January 1941, sixty-five members of Toronto’s faculty had enlisted for active service, while another five were involved in wartime administrative duties. In addition, ‘large groups in the departments of chemistry, medical research and psychology … [were] engaged in specific war problems’; H.J. Cody to E. Lyman, Chairman, Committee in Cooperation with National Defense Agencies, Northwestern University, 4 January 1941, UTA, H.J. Cody Papers, vol. 46. A.G.L. McNaughton to R.C. Dearle, 30 September 1940, LAC, R.C. Dearle Papers, vol. 3. J.A. Gray to R.W. Boyle 29 May 1940, and R. Fowler to J.A. Gray, 20 August 1940, LAC, Gray Papers. Gray served as a member of the NRC’s Sub-Committee on Physics Prob-

198

43

44 45

46

47 48

49 50

51

52

Cultures, Communities, and Conflict

lems and on its liaison Sub-Committee. He also took great pride in that sixteen of his physics research assistants were carrying out important war research. Eli Burton to J.A. Gray, 24 November 1943, LAC, Gray Papers; J.A. Gray to R.C. Wallace, 12 March 1943, LAC, Gray Papers; W.J. Henderson to J.A. Gray, 16 May 1944, LAC, Gray Papers. Eli Burton to H.J. Cody, 15 August 1940, UTA, H.J. Cody Papers, vol. 49; S.J. Common to H.J. Cody, 2 January 1941, UTA, H.J. Cody Papers, vol. 49; Eli Burton to C.E. Higginbottom, 10 June 1941, UTA, H.J. Cody Papers, vol. 49. Financial Post, 7 January 1941; Toronto Star, 6 January 1941. N. Hunter to H.J. Cody, 22 January 1942, UTA, H.J. Cody Papers, vol. 50. Between 1940 and 1943 the Foundation provided $25,000 to assist geophysical research in the physics department, with much of the money being used to pay the salaries of two physicists, to purchase equipment worth over $10,000, and to maintain the special laboratory at 49 St George Street; see ‘Report of Eli Burton,’ 1943, UTA, H.J. Cody Papers, vol. 60. Toronto’s engineering faculty was hard hit, losing key people such as T.R. Loudon, professor of applied mechanics. Eli Burton to H.J. Cody, 3 September 1942, UTA, H.J. Cody Papers, vol. 58; C.J. Mackenzie to H.J. Cody, 3 January 1943, UTA, H.J. Cody Papers, vol. 6. See also ‘The Story of Radio Training at the Department of Physics … from April 1940 to 1 July 1942,’ UTA, H.J. Cody Papers, vol. 49, Burton file. H.J. Cody to C.J. Mackenzie, 16 April, 7 June 1941, and C.J. Mackenzie to H.J. Cody, 9 June 1941, ‘Report of Eli Burton,’ vol. 50. Carleton Stanley to R.L. Ralston, 19 June 1940, and C.J. Mackenzie to Carleton Stanley, 21 June 1940, LAC, NRC Papers, 87/88/104, vol. 69, file 32-60-1. J.H.L. Johnstone to R.G.L. McNaughton, 5 September 1939, LAC, NRC Papers, 87/88/104, vol. 69, file 32-60-1. W.B. Lewis, ‘George Hugh Henderson, 1892–1949,’ Obituary Notices of the Royal Society 7, no. 19 (1950): 155–66. C.J. Mackenzie to H.W. Armstrong, 16 August 1943, LAC, NRC Papers, 87/88, 104, vol. 69, file 32-60-1. R.C. Dearle to R.W. Boyle, 29 January 1940, 8 May 1940, and 26 October 1940, LAC, R.C. Dearle Papers, vol. 3. Dearle was particularly annoyed when his requests for an NRC research grant and Klystron oscillators from the US-based Sperry Gyroscope Company were rejected; R.C. Dearle to C.J. Mackenzie, 2 November 1940, and Mackenzie to Dearle, 6 November 1940, LAC, R.C. Dearle Papers, vol. 3. W.E.K. Middleton, Radar Development in Canada: The Radio Branch of the National Research Council of Canada, 1939–1946 (Waterloo: ON: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 1981), 40.

Canadian University Scientists and Military Technology

199

53 Cyril James to C.J. Mackenzie, 19 March 1941; Mackenzie to James, 22 March 1941; N. Shaw to Cyril James, 7 July 1941; J.S. Foster to A.G. Shenstone, 2 August 1941; J.S. Foster to Norman Shaw, 26 September 1941, all in MUA, Cyril James Papers, vol. 94, Department of Physics Files. 54 In July 1942 the NRC provided some assistance to McGill’s beleaguered physics department by buying out some of the teaching time of N. Shaw, W.H. Watson, and F.R. Terroux; N. Shaw to F.C. Wallace, 30 July 1942, MUA, Cyril James Papers, vol. 94, Department of Physics Files. 55 C.J. Mackenzie to E.L. Bowles, LAC, NRC Papers, 88/89, S-25-4-31. 56 C.C. Gotlieb, P.E. Pashler, and M. Rubinoff, ‘A Radio Method of Studying the Yaw of Shells,’ Canadian Journal of Research 26, no. 3 (1948): 167–98. 57 Report of OSRD London Mission Activities in the Field Of Proximity Fuses for Shells, Bombs and Rockets, National Archives and Records Administration (Washington, DC, 1945), Papers of the Office of Scientific Research and Development (OSRD), box 37. See also Ralph Baldwin, The Deadly Fuze: The Secret Weapon of World War II (London: Jane’s Publishing, 1980). One of the major concerns of the Royal Commission on Espionage (1946) was that Soviet spies had managed to obtain top-secret documents about the Allied proximity fuse research; see Avery, Science of War, 203–55. 58 Dr George Volkoff, interview by author, Vancouver, 8 June 1982. 59 C.J. Mackenzie to Gordon Shrum, 13 November 1942, LAC, NRC Papers, vol. 283. 60 Dr J. Carson Mark, interview by author, Los Alamos, NM, 15 November 1993; idem, ‘A Maverick View,’ unpublished recollections, in possession of author. 61 The NRC was responsible for Chalk River until 1951; a new Crown corporation, Atomic Energy of Canada Limited, subsequently assumed this role; Robert Bothwell, Nucleus: The History of Atomic Energy of Canada Limited (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1988). 62 Avery, Science of War, 122–50. 63 The chemical name for RDX is cyclotrimethylennetrinitramine or cyclonite; prior to the atomic bomb, RDX was the world’s most powerful explosive. Ibid., 106–21. 64 John Edward, interview by author, Montreal, 8 March 1994. 65 Biobibliography of Publishing Scientists in Ontario between 1914 and 1939, compiled by Philip Enros (Thornhill, ON: 1985). 66 Letterbooks of Professor George Wright, 15 January 1941–October, 1942, UTA; George Wright to Otto Maass, 8 August 1941 and 20 August 1941, LAC, NRC Papers, vol. 106, file 4-C-9-28, #1; World’s Who’s Who in Science (Chicago, 1968), 1827. 67 Spiers, Chemical Warfare, 62, 68; Robin Ranger, The Canadian Contribution to

200

68

69

70

71 72

73 74 75

76

77

78 79 80

Cultures, Communities, and Conflict

the Control of Chemical and Biological Warfare (Toronto: Canadian Institute of International Affairs, 1976), 23–87. C.B. Carter, Porton Down: 75 Years of Chemical and Biological Research (London: Her Majesty’s Stationery Office, 1992), 30–55; Avery, Science of War, 122–50. Otto Maass to E.L. Davies, 19 September 1941, LAC, Department of National Defence Records, Directorate of Chemical Warfare and Smoke, C-5017 (microfilm), HQS 4354-33-3. C.J. Mackenzie to Hon. J.A. Mackinnon, Chairman, Committee of the Privy Council on Scientific and Industrial Research, June 2, 1941, LAC, NRC Papers, 4-C-9-19; ‘Minutes of the Second Meeting of the Inter-Service Board,’ 2 July 1941, Directorate of History, Department of National Defence, 745.043, D3. Otto Maass to Andy Gordon, 2 June 1941, LAC, NRC Papers, 4-C-9-19. In January 1942 thirty-eight McGill students were given exemptions because of their ‘special research work’; Brigadier-General E. de B. Panet, DOC, M.D. #4, to Secretary, Department of National Defence, 11 January 1942, C-5016, HQS 4354-5-4-1. F.T. Rosser, ‘Banting Fund,’ LAC, NRC Papers, Frederick Banting Papers, vol. 1. William Porter to Otto Maass, 10 November 1947, MUA, Otto Maass Papers. Terrie Romano, ‘The Associate Committees on Medical Research and the National Research Council and the Second World War,’ in Jarrell and Gingras, Building Canadian Science. Between 1939 and 1941 the NRC allocated over $150,000 for aviation medical research with more than half going to the University of Toronto; C.J. Mackenzie to H.J. Cody, 7 May 1941, UTA, H.J. Cody Papers, vol. 49. Donald Avery, ‘Canadian Biological and Toxin Warfare Research, Development and Planning, 1925–1945,’ in Biological and Toxin Weapons, Research, Development and Use from the Middle Ages to 1945: A Critical Comparative Analysis, ed. Erhard Geissler and John Moon (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999). Michael Bliss, Banting: A Biography (Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1984), 254–98. E.A. Flood, ‘Otto Maass, 1890–1961,’ Royal Society Biographical Memoirs 9 (1963): 183–204. The Queen’s biological warfare laboratory was located in the top floor of the Pathological Building until 1954, when it was moved off campus as a distinct government laboratory. Major General J.V. Young, Master General

Canadian University Scientists and Military Technology

81

82

83

84 85 86

87

88 89

90

201

of Ordnance, Memorandum for Colonel R.L. Ralston, Minister of Defence, Defence Research Board, Kingston, LAC, Department of National Defence, C-5018, HQS 4354-33-1. On 25 July 1945 Murray submitted his resignation as chairman of the C-1 Committee to Otto Maass. Predictably, he recommended Guilford Reed as his successor. E.G.D. Murray to Otto Maass, 25 July 1945, LAC, Department of National Defence, HQS, 4354-33-17. Office of the Military Attaché, United States Embassy, to E.G.D. Murray, 9 September 1947, UWO Archives, E.G.D. Murray Collection; E.G.D. Murray to Colonel Williamson, 11 September 1947, UWO Archives, E.G.D. Murray Collection. See also Donald Avery, ‘The Canadian Biological Weapons Program and the Tripartite Alliance,’ in Deadly Cultures: Biological Weapons since 1945, ed. Mark Wheelis, Lajos Rózsa, and Malcolm Dando (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2006). David Cassidy, ‘Controlling German Science, I: U.S. and Allied Forces in Germany, 1945–1947,’ Historical Studies in the Physical and Biological Sciences 24, part 2 (1994): 197. Solly Zuckerman, Scientists and War: The Impact of Science on Military and Civil Affairs (New York: Harper & Row, 1967), 113. Dr Harry Thode, interview by author, Hamilton, ON, 15 May 1982. Murray also noted that McGill’s Department of Bacteriology and Immunology had finally regained its momentum ‘after its wartime prostration;’ E.G.D. Murray to Robert Murray, 17, 24 November 1946, UWO Archives, Robert Murray Collection. With the creation of the Defence Research Board in December 1945 under Director-General Omond Solandt, the NRC was able to return to its focus on civilian science. See D.J. Goodspeed, A History of the Defence Research Board of Canada (Ottawa: Queen’s Printer, 1958); and C.E. Law, George Lindsey, and David M. Grenville, Perspectives in Science and Technology: The Legacy of Omond Solandt (Kingston, ON: Queen’s Quarterly, 1995). John Rigden, Rabi: Scientist and Citizen (New York: Basic Books, 1987), 203. In 1945 Mackenzie became the official president of the NRC, a post he retained until the early 1950s, when he became president of Atomic Energy of Canada Limited. Although nominally retired in 1961, Mackenzie continued to influence Canadian science policies during the 1960s. C.J. Mackenzie, cited in Thistle, Mackenzie-McNaughton Wartime Letters, 146–8.

8 Academic Freedom in Wartime: The Canadian Experience in the Twentieth Century michiel horn

Although it may be accurate to say that the first victim of war is truth, academic freedom surely ranks high on the list. A key objective of scholarship and scientific research is to foster disinterested and balanced examination, description, and discussion of phenomena and events in the hope that this will get us as close to the truth as human beings can manage. In wartime, however, the qualities that scholars ought to pursue do not fit the prevailing policy and mood. If it has any possible military applications, scientific research disappears under a cloak of secrecy. Scholarship in the humanities and social sciences faces a different problem. Many people, influenced by a one-sided and officially censored presentation of the news and its background, come to hold a view of events that has no room for shades of grey. They inhabit a world in which white confronts black, in which ‘our’ side is clearly right and ‘their’ side just as clearly wrong. The recognition that an issue is complex, permitting ambivalence about its significance, turns out to be inconvenient and unpopular when put into words. An effort to weigh the evidence scrupulously and to assess both sides of an issue fairly in print is apt to seem unpatriotic and disloyal. Interpretations of the past and present that challenge the received wisdom are unwelcome, and those who express them may face threats to their employment or their freedom. Under these circumstances most academics fall in line willingly or stay silent. A small handful, persisting in their peacetime habits of mind and expression, get into trouble. During the twentieth century Canada was involved in two major and several minor wars. As the century began, thousands of Canadian volunteers were fighting in South Africa as part of the British Empire’s effort to subdue the two Afrikaner republics in that region. Although

Academic Freedom in Wartime

203

the Boer War was controversial at the time, far better remembered today are Canada’s participation in the First and Second World Wars. Participation in the Korean War (1950–3), the Gulf War (1991), and the war over Kosovo (1999) was on a much smaller scale; as a consequence, these conflicts did not engage Canadians to anywhere near the degree of the two World Wars, and did not produce the same official effort to get Canadians to see and understand the war in a single dominant way by means of propaganda and censorship. Not surprisingly, then, academic freedom in Canadian universities was most at risk during the two World Wars, and it is the period of these two conflicts that is the focus of this chapter. Another conflict, though not a war in the conventional sense, also proved hazardous to academic freedom. The Cold War that developed soon after the end of hostilities in 1945 had an inhibiting effect on freedom of expression in the universities and outside them. Vigorous opposition to the established political and economic order, or to the configuration of international affairs, could prompt charges of sympathy for communism as well as threats to employment – charges and threats that many academics were just as happy to avoid.1 *

*

*

During the first half of the past century, academic freedom in Canada came to be understood generally as the freedom to teach, carry on research, and publish findings, in written or spoken form, without interference or institutional hindrance. This idea originated in the post1815 German universities and was adapted by the research-oriented universities that took shape in the United States after the Civil War. Within Canadian universities, academic freedom was accepted widely by 1950 in principle if not invariably in practice. Outside the universities the acceptance of this notion was still incomplete. Even before the end of the nineteenth century, some professors had sought to extend the principle of academic freedom to cover professorial freedom of expression in the larger world. This has been called academic free speech, and was strongly associated with the influence of the universities in Britain. The notion did not enjoy wholehearted support, however, even within Canadian universities, and outside them resistance to it continued, especially when the views expressed were at odds with conventional wisdom. Politicians and church leaders were apt to object to academic free speech when it touched on controversial

204

Cultures, Communities, and Conflict

subjects – so were many private citizens. Perhaps surprisingly, a good many newspaper editors shared in such objections, especially during wartime. Few Canadian controversies surrounded academic freedom during the two World Wars. This is not because the expression of dissent as to the purposes and prospects of either war met with a measure of tolerance if not acceptance. The reason was, rather, that few professors questioned these. Academics might have had more scope to express their views than did other groups of employees, but in wartime, at least, they tended, like other Canadians, to be herd animals, and during both World Wars the academic herd was strongly patriotic. Indeed the few professors who got into trouble did so not because they opposed participation in the wars or questioned their fundamental purpose, but because their support was thought to be too critical or insufficiently patriotic. Half a dozen instances illustrate the point and offer some scope for analysis. Platon Reich A sessional lecturer in German at Trinity College, which was federated with the University of Toronto, Platon Reich was briefly at the centre of controversy in October 1914. Reich was a British subject of Moravian (Czech) origin who had studied in Germany, Belgium, and the Netherlands. As he had been in Europe when war broke out in August, he must have seemed to the editor of the Varsity, the student newspaper at the University of Toronto, to be an ideal subject for an interview. He did not disappoint. ‘Though the British cause seems to be perfectly just,’ Reich said, ‘upon examination there arises a complete case for Germany, which the Germans uphold in all honesty and sincerity.’ He went on to say that the conflict between Britain and Germany was rooted in mutual distrust between their peoples, fostered by the press of both countries, and in the belief the Germans held that Russia and France had been preparing ‘to crush their country.’ Reich thought that Britain, France, and Russia ultimately would win the war, ‘but at a terrible expense’ and without achieving all their objectives. Germany would lose territory in the east and west, however, and the German people might depose the Kaiser in order to establish ‘a limited monarchy or a republic.’ Under a more efficient government, the Germans would ‘work doubly hard for the attainment of Germany’s greatness.’ The end of the war, then,

Academic Freedom in Wartime

205

would begin a renewed struggle that would probably lead to another war. ‘Only one thing can save Europe and that is the abandonment of the practice of forming alliances for the economic federation of the whole continent with a common coinage.’2 As analysis and prediction this was amazing, even brilliant: the assessment of someone deeply informed about the subject. But, two months into the war, Reich’s assertion that the Germans believed as strongly in their cause as the British did in theirs troubled some Canadians. By what right did the heathen worship false gods? Among those who objected was the editor of the Mail and Empire, the Conservative morning newspaper in Toronto, who may have been inclined to think the Germans must know that they were wrong and even wicked. He also objected to Reich’s prediction that an honourable peace would involve compromise: ‘No remark could show more clearly the propensity of a certain type of university professor to embrace views with which the Canadian people will have nothing to do … It is a war to the death, and will not end until one side or another is put out of the war.’3 The title of the editorial in the Mail and Empire, ‘Another OpenMinded Professor,’ suggests that the editor did not regard open mindedness as a virtue. A war was on, after all. One letter writer wondered whether ‘our universities are so pervaded with agnosticism and German “culture” that they cannot distinguish between right and wrong.’4 A member of the University of Toronto’s board of governors, the intensely patriotic Colonel Reuben Wells Leonard, mistakenly believing Reich to be employed by the university, urged President Sir Robert Falconer to dismiss the man.5 The editor of the Varsity defended Reich against charges of disloyalty, stating he had performed a public service in pointing out that Germans believed in their cause, would fight tenaciously, and would be difficult to defeat. The Varsity’s editor was right. But the message was widely unwelcome. By October the confident faith of the British in an early victory – ‘home by Christmas’ – had faded as a result of the German advance into Belgium and northern France, but this advance actually hardened anti-German resolve. The determination to fight the war until victory had been won gained strength from propaganda casting the Germans as bloodthirsty brutes who murdered, raped, and pillaged their way through innocent Belgium. Some of these atrocity stories were based in fact; most were not.6 But reviling the enemy and lying about him is as old as warfare itself. The increasingly anti-German mood in the fall of 1914 did no serious

206

Cultures, Communities, and Conflict

damage to Reich’s career, as Trinity’s board of governors renewed his teaching contract in mid-November. Several professors with German nationality were less fortunate. The University of Toronto employed three of them, Paul Mueller and Bonno Tapper in the Department of German, and Immanuel Benzinger in Semitic languages. Mueller and Tapper had been in Canada long enough to regard it as their home, but that did not help them. They became targets for harassment by provincial legislators, newspaper editors, and several members of the university’s board of governors led by Sir Edmund Osler, bank president, Conservative Member of Parliament for Toronto West, and a bigot where Germans were concerned. Despite efforts by President Falconer and the chairman of the board of governors, Sir Edmund Walker, to protect the three men, by the end of 1914 they had effectively been hounded into submitting their resignations.7 A similar fate overtook W.A. von Lubtow, like Reich a member of Trinity’s German Department, but unlike him a German national. Knowing that Lubtow, who had studied in England for several years, deplored the German violation of Belgian neutrality and hoped that Germany would be defeated in the West, Provost G.S. Macklem hoped to keep him on staff. Once Osler wrote to Macklem that it was ‘unwise and unpatriotic’ to maintain Lubtow, however, his days were numbered. In late December 1914 he resigned rather than suffer dismissal, and left for the United States.8 O.D. Skelton The year 1917 was deeply discouraging for the Allies. Since the war began, many hundreds of thousand men had been killed or wounded, with no end in sight. The collapse of the Russian Empire early in the year and the possibility that it would withdraw from the war, the failure of the Allied armies to break through the German lines, and the increasingly parlous circumstances of the French army – some units were in open mutiny by the early summer – conjured up the spectre of defeat. The entry of the United States into the war gave some cause for hope, but it was clear that American military strength would not be felt in Europe before 1918. The capture of Vimy Ridge in April 1917 was a source of national pride in Canada. The heavy casualties suffered there, however, intensified the need for replacements. Recruitment on a voluntary basis was proving inadequate to the purpose, leading the government of Sir Rob-

Academic Freedom in Wartime

207

ert Borden to commit itself to a policy of military conscription and to seek the formation of a bipartisan Union government that would adopt that policy. Not a few Canadians disagreed that conscription was either necessary or desirable. French Canadians were largely opposed; so were many industrial workers and farmers, as well as many of the people who had come to Canada from central and eastern Europe during the preceding quarter-century. The leader of the Opposition, Sir Wilfrid Laurier, believed that conscription would be divisive and would undermine the effectiveness of the non-military war effort. Heavily dependent on votes in Quebec, and under attack in that province by Henri Bourassa and others for doing too little to protect the rights of French Canadians in Canada and especially Ontario, Laurier refused to enter a coalition government committed to conscription. When Borden introduced the Military Service Act in June 1917, Laurier proposed instead that the matter be put to the electorate in a referendum.9 Australian voters had narrowly defeated a plebiscite on this issue in October 1916. This was probably sufficient reason for Borden’s government to reject the idea and instead to create the conditions under which the return of the Union government was assured. The government accomplished this by means of two blatantly pro-government pieces of legislation, the Wartime Elections Act and the Military Voters Act,10 as well as a promise (subsequently broken) to farmers that farm workers would be exempted. A coalition consisting of Conservatives and proconscriptionist Liberals crushed the Liberal Party, 153 seats to 82 (62 of them in Quebec), in an election held on 17 December 1917. (Three days later a second referendum on conscription in Australia went down to defeat by a larger margin than in 1916, very probably confirming Borden in the belief that his judgment had been sound.) The Queen’s University political economist Oscar Douglas Skelton, an admirer (and future biographer) of Laurier, shared his subject’s distaste for the introduction of conscription for military service without a prior referendum, fearing that it would seriously divide Canadians.11 Although Skelton wisely did not commit his opposition to conscription to print, he stated his views openly within the university. This offended some of his colleagues. Like many English Canadians, they joined Borden in seeing conscription as necessary to resist the Germans and secure victory. Those who held this view were apt to regard opposition to conscription as evidence of a lack of patriotic zeal, disloyalty to the Empire and Canada, even lukewarmness to the cause of Western civi-

208

Cultures, Communities, and Conflict

lization itself. Skelton’s views became well known in Queen’s circles, and led a prominent and wealthy alumnus, James Richardson, to seek to oust him. The political economist heard about this in early January 1918 from his friend, G.Y. Chown, registrar and treasurer of Queen’s. Chown reported that Principal Bruce Taylor had not only resisted the pressure but had managed to persuade Richardson that his attempt was inappropriate.12 ‘The position which the Principal took is the only one that could be expected from Dr. Taylor or from a Principal of Queen’s,’ Skelton responded, ‘but I am glad he took it with such firmness and tact that he was able to make a man as narrow-minded as Richardson see the error of his ways.’13 Richardson, it turned out, was not the only threat to Skelton’s position at Queen’s. The university’s chancellor, James Douglas, indicated that he was having second thoughts about a $500,000 matching-grant donation to the university so long as Skelton remained on the faculty. Douglas took a dim view of what he saw as ‘pacifism.’ In a January meeting in New York, Douglas’s son Walter conveyed the financier’s view ‘that if a professor was out of touch with the prevailing sentiment on a great public & patriotic issue he ought to resign.’ Taylor demurred: ‘It would be a perilous thing to treat every great political issue as a determining factor in university life.’14 Fortunately for Skelton, Taylor managed to hold Douglas to his pledge of financial support while resisting the pressure to get rid of Skelton. Later Taylor wrote to a friend at McGill University: ‘Influences inside … [and] outside the University were trying to force the resignation of a Professor, whose views on the conscription question I thoroughly disagreed with.’ But Taylor had resisted, he said, because ‘liberty of utterance for every honest opinion’ was essential: ‘Queen’s is going to be a place of freedom so long as I have anything to do with it.’15 Skelton’s own comments on the attempt to force his resignation state very clearly the issues involved as they appeared to a senior academic early in the century. Faculty members should ‘abstain from one-sided or partisan discussion in the classroom,’ and should speak publicly ‘only after giving careful & scholarly consideration to the subject and in a moderate & reasoned fashion,’ he wrote to Chown. In times of crisis, furthermore, professors should try to avoid criticizing the government. Within these limits, though, they should have the right to state their views, especially if their education and experience made them ‘more familiar than the average man’ with issues that came before the pub-

Academic Freedom in Wartime

209

lic. However, he recognized the problem professors and the institutions employing them faced, and he wondered whether he might not be freer to write ‘as editor of a weekly than as professor in a university.’ He pointed out that the effort ‘to keep one eye on truth … and the other on the interests of the institution … tends to make one intellectually cross-eyed.’16 Rarely if ever has the tension between academic freedom and the university’s need for financial support been more graphically described. Walter Barnes Although it received a small grant from the provincial government, Queen’s was a private university very largely dependent on the largesse of private donors. The University of British Columbia (UBC), however, was, like the University of Toronto, dependent on government. Neither type of institution could afford to ignore criticism of its faculty, though they might deal with it in different ways. In the spring of 1918, UBC historian Walter Barnes got into trouble. Barnes, an American and a former Rhodes Scholar, had come to UBC from the University of California at the beginning of 1917 to replace Mack Eastman, who had joined the Canadian Expeditionary Force. His contract was renewed for the academic year 1917–18. In late April 1918, though, President Frank F. Wesbrook received a letter from one Ernest G. Thatcher charging the historian with having said that ‘the Germans are not to blame for this war,’ that they accused the British of ‘similar atrocities with which they are charged,’ that the violation of Belgian neutrality had many precedents, and that ‘the only reason why Britain won’t accept the German peace terms is because they want to totally crush Germany & get all her boundless commercial wealth.’ The letter writer was outraged: ‘In the States a professor giving such teaching … would be very promptly dealt with & it is a disgraceful thing that in a Canadian university … such pro-German propaganda should be permitted.’17 Almost a century later, it is no longer controversial to say that all of the major European Powers shared responsibility for the war or to speculate about the role that the violation of Belgium’s neutrality played in bringing Britain into the conflict.18 In 1918, however, after almost four years of bloody war and the effects of relentless propaganda and thoroughgoing censorship,19 few if any English Canadians would have entertained for a moment a suggestion of fault on the British side or

210

Cultures, Communities, and Conflict

the notion that Germany and its allies were not solely to blame for the war. The secretary of the board of governors, S.D. Scott, wrote in reply to the angry letter that it had been decided in January not to renew Barnes’s appointment, which was due to end on 31 May 1918, but that an inquiry would be held all the same.20 Explosive as the charges were, why bother with an inquiry, given that the teaching term had ended and Barnes would be leaving UBC’s employ within six weeks? The reason was probably that Wesbrook knew the minister of education, John D. MacLean, to be in possession of a similar letter and to be interested in the case. Ever since the provincial Liberals, several of whose Members of the Legislative Assembly had opposed the creation of UBC a few years earlier, had got into office in 1916, they had shown a disconcerting readiness to meddle in the university’s internal affairs and to criticize its budget.21 If some professor had been spreading pro-German propaganda, it was safest to meet the issue head on and thereby demonstrate to MacLean and the Liberal government that the university did not implicitly condone such unpatriotic talk by seeming to ignore it. The inquiry by the board of governors took place on 27 May 1918. Four students, one a returned soldier, testified that Barnes’s teaching and his comments on the war were unexceptionable. Barnes himself said he believed ‘that the war had been forced upon the Germans by their own rulers and not by the Allies,’ and that ‘while he thought it his duty as a scientific teacher to mention the German point of view, he undertook to show that the cause of the Allies was a just one.’22 After some discussion, the board ‘agreed unanimously that … the charges against Mr. Barnes were not proven,’ and so informed MacLean.23 Barnes left for the United States soon afterwards, his name presumably cleared. But an examination of the archival record leaves a couple of loose ends. Before Thatcher wrote to complain about Barnes’s teaching, there had been no discussion at all of his reappointment or replacement. No indication appears in the records of the president’s office or the board of governors of any decision to end his contract with the university. If he returned at all, Mack Eastman was not expected back from Europe before his demobilization at the end of the war. And in the spring of 1918 who knew when that might be? Moreover, the man who succeeded Barnes, Walter Sage, was not appointed until the fall, several months after Barnes’s departure. It is difficult to escape the inference that the decision to cut him loose was made on the spur of the moment, prompted by the charges against

Academic Freedom in Wartime

211

him. Whatever Barnes actually said, Wesbrook may have thought that anyone injudicious enough to speak about the war so as to lead to complaints ought not to be kept on staff. Perhaps the controversy that briefly attended Barnes’s appointment – the Vancouver Sun had attacked the appointment of an American to teach Eastman’s courses, and a Sun staff writer had argued that ‘only a British subject is fit to teach British history to British boys in British universities’24 – played a retroactive role. In the end, though, we do not know for certain why Barnes’s contract was not renewed or whether his case involved an infringement of academic freedom as understood then or since. What we do know is that heterodox interpretations of the war and its causes were unwelcome. Edward R. Adair The Skelton and Barnes affairs attracted little public attention. More than twenty years later, however, a highly public storm surrounded the McGill University historian Edward R. Adair. No stranger to controversy, in 1937 Adair had offended Roman Catholics by criticizing the Church’s role in the civil war raging in Spain. And in October 1938 he had taken issue with Britain’s policy at Munich of dismembering Czechoslovakia to appease National Socialist Germany.25 But the irritation these contributions to public debate had caused was minor compared with the commotion that followed Adair’s assessment in November 1939 of recent Polish history. Speaking to the Rotary Club of Montreal, Adair offered six reasons for Germany’s defeat of Poland two months earlier. The first five dealt with the military and domestic situations; as for the sixth, however, Adair offered the opinion that the Poles seemed to have trusted in the guarantee given to them by British prime minister Neville Chamberlain, a guarantee that he described as ‘a desperate attempt on [Chamberlain’s] part to save his face and to save the prestige of his foreign policy and that of the Conservative Party.’ As men like Winston Churchill and Lloyd George had warned, Poland could be saved only if Britain formed an alliance with the Soviet Union. ‘This warning Mr Chamberlain was stupid enough to ignore,’ Adair continued, ‘and the inevitable happened. Russia made her own arrangements with Germany and Poland fell.’26 With the benefit of hindsight this seems to be fair comment. At the time, though, many disagreed. The attack on Adair that followed was effectively led by the editors of the Montreal Star and the Gazette, and

212

Cultures, Communities, and Conflict

focused on the historian’s audacity in criticizing the British prime minister and his foreign policy. The Star’s editor charged Adair with having given aid and comfort to the enemy: ‘We yield to nobody in our defence of freedom of speech, but we are equally insistent that such freedom, when it is allowed to degenerate into license, ceases to be either a virtue or a right.’ Five days later the editor approvingly quoted a point made in a sermon by the rector of Montreal’s Church of St James the Apostle: ‘Anything that tends to offend good taste and good judgment, and work against the best interests of the majority, is a violation of free speech.’27 The Gazette’s editor took a different line: ‘Nobody has ever suggested that Mr. Adair’s opinions would be bad for Canadians to hear, or that the loyalty of Montreal would be shaken by the discovery that this eminent thinker does not approve of the Republic of Poland or the Prime Minister of Britain.’ But another issue needed to be considered: ‘This is a war of morale. We have reason to believe that already the unity of the German nation is cracking under Nazi tyranny.’ Adair’s regrettable remarks would ‘encourage the German people to support Hitler.’28 It is not known where the editor obtained his fanciful insight into German public opinion – quite possibly he was simply looking for a club to use on Adair, whose speech was, in part, an ‘I told you so’ to those, including the editors of both the Gazette and the Star, who had championed Britain’s policy of appeasing Nazi Germany. Adair was not without his defenders, but his detractors were more numerous. There were demands that he be dismissed or disciplined. Principal Lewis Douglas said nothing, although, believing that ‘the issue was responsibility during time of war,’29 he thought that Adair should have kept his views to himself. But Douglas had already resigned the principalship and would shortly return to his native United States. His successor, F. Cyril James, had not yet taken office. Chancellor Sir Edward Beatty was a likely spokesman at a time when one principal was making way for another, but he also held his peace. In response to a letter from President Carleton Stanley of Dalhousie University, who had urged Beatty not to heed demands for Adair’s dismissal, Beatty wrote: ‘You may be assured that no one is excited up here about Professor Adair’s indiscreet speech … It was an unwise speech to make, is harmful to the University, and has created anxiety as to the quality of teaching at McGill,’ but no one at the institution was proposing to silence or dismiss him.30 Adair wisely drew no further attention to himself, and after a while the press lost interest in the issue.

Academic Freedom in Wartime

213

Frank H. Underhill Less than a year after the Adair incident at McGill, the University of Toronto’s board of governors adopted a very different attitude towards the historian Frank H. Underhill. McGill did not receive government support, and its endowment income was unaffected by what its professors said; its board needed to worry only about the sensibilities of private donors who might reduce their largesse in response to a professorial utterance. The close proximity of Queen’s Park shaped a very different reality for the University of Toronto, which was financially dependent on the Ontario government and legislature. Premier Mitchell Hepburn had in early 1940 criticized his fellow Liberals in Ottawa, led by Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King, for not taking the war effort seriously enough.31 The leader of the Ontario opposition, George Drew, and the party he led, yielded nothing to Hepburn in their criticism of King and their vociferous British patriotism. If the University of Toronto should be seen to harbour disloyal elements, this might affect its income. Questions about Underhill’s loyalty to the British Empire had cropped up for more than a decade. Since returning to Toronto from the University of Saskatchewan in 1927, the historian had repeatedly drawn attention to himself with trenchant commentary on both recent history and current events, and he had often been denounced in the pages of the Toronto dailies. His name had been on the agenda of the university’s board of governors more than a dozen times, and its president, Sir Robert Falconer, and his successor in 1932, Canon Henry J. Cody, had repeatedly urged Underhill to tone down his views – especially his critical attitude towards British foreign policy and his assertions of Canada’s North American destiny – or even to suppress them altogether.32 By 1939 several board members, believing that Underhill was undermining the provincial government’s financial support for the institution, wanted him to go, but so long as Cody was unwilling to recommend it, Underhill’s tenure was safe. This changed, however, after a talk Underhill gave on 23 August 1940 at the Couchiching Conference in Geneva Park, Ontario, on ‘A United American Front.’ At the time neither the historian nor most of those listening to him thought that the speech was likely to raise eyebrows. Underhill welcomed the agreement on continental defence that had recently been signed at Ogdensburg, New York, by President F.D. Roosevelt and Prime Minister King, describing it as an important morale booster for

214

Cultures, Communities, and Conflict

the embattled British nations, and more particularly for Britain herself, then under German attack from the sky. However, Underhill went on to say that the agreement signified that Canada now had ‘two loyalties, the old one to the British connection involving our backing up of Britain, and the new one to North America involving common action with the United States.’33 Both would persist, the historian continued, but over time our ties with Britain would weaken while those with the United States would strengthen. Anodyne as these remarks may seem today, their appearance in the Toronto dailies caused a storm that almost blew Underhill out of his job. The suggestion that, over time, Canada’s ties with Britain would weaken proved highly unwelcome: the Battle of Britain was raging over what most English Canadians still regarded as the mother country. Some editors and readers regarded Underhill’s remarks as defeatist. The suspicion that he might well be right about the future of Canadian relations with Britain and the United States did not help him. In wartime, comforting prevarications are often more palatable than uncomfortable truths. The Toronto Telegram, whose editor had previously attacked Underhill for his criticism of British foreign policy, was particularly hostile in its response to his remarks. But even the liberal-minded Toronto Star, usually a staunch defender of academic free speech, stated that, if the historian had been quoted accurately, he had chosen ‘a most inopportune’ time to speak: ‘With the Empire at war for the preservation of democracy and Canada herself wholeheartedly in that war with all the resources she can command,’ he should have kept his own counsel.34 It was to the Star that Underhill replied, complaining that the newspaper reports of his speech had misquoted and misrepresented him. Aware that the press coverage would trouble President Cody, the historian sent him a copy of his letter to the Star, adding that he could refer Cody to many well-known people ‘who heard what I said and did not find in my remarks the undesirable qualities which the Toronto editors have so characteristically uncovered.’35 Underhill’s record of provocative expression predisposed Cody and members of the board to assume the worst, and at a 12 September meeting the board unanimously agreed to dismiss Underhill because of both the recent incident and his record over the preceding thirteen years. Before taking action, however, the board postponed the matter to the next meeting, pending a report and recommendation from Cody and an opinion from Hamilton Cassels, the university’s solicitor.36

Academic Freedom in Wartime

215

When the board met again four days later its members had before them a letter from Cassels opining that, absent a verbatim account of Underhill’s remarks, it was unwise to dismiss him for making them. Cassels also believed that earlier statements could not be made grounds for dismissal. But if the board thought it ‘undesirable’ to maintain Underhill because ‘the interests of the University and perhaps the welfare of the students might suffer,’ it could give him notice effective 30 June 1941 or pay him his salary to that date in lieu of notice.37 According to the University of Toronto Act (1906), although professors held their tenure during the pleasure of the board, they could not be dismissed without a recommendation to that effect by the president.38 And Cody, who had been receiving letters both supporting and attacking Underhill, was not ready to make that recommendation. As a consequence the board could not act and the chairman, Rev. D. Bruce Macdonald, informed the press that the case was closed.39 Was it? Several people were eager to keep it open, among them the editor of the Telegram, C.O. Knowles, and a handful of members of the board of governors, led by the engineer Balmer Neilly. Under such pressure, Cody reassessed Underhill’s record during the fall and by midDecember concluded that the outspoken historian was more trouble than he was worth. At a special board meeting on 19 December Cody said Underhill had been told repeatedly that a faculty member at a provincial university ‘must, in the substance, manner and opportuneness of his public statements, impose upon himself … restraints demanded by the grave responsibility which inheres in the teaching office and by the recognition of his responsibility for the welfare of the institution in which he teaches.’ Underhill had been unwilling or unable to accept such restraints, and his public statements had ‘aroused widespread misunderstanding of and indeed hostility to this institution.’40 Cody went on to say that professors at the University of Toronto enjoyed ‘a full measure of academic freedom and in teaching,’ but that those who used partisan language justifiably prompted the fear that their teaching might be ‘so marked by bias as to interfere with its truth and fairness.’ The university had suffered financially for keeping him, Cody concluded, and it would certainly suffer criticism if it let him go. ‘We have had recurrent trouble over him … ever since he became a member of the staff; we shall probably have trouble over him … if he has to leave. Which trouble is it better to face?’ To this question, Cody gave this answer: ‘I believe it is in the best interests of the University that his services be dispensed with, and I so recommend.’41

216

Cultures, Communities, and Conflict

Two weeks later a three-man committee of the board headed by the chancellor, the venerable Sir William Mulock, met with Underhill to induce him to resign. Underhill declined, and quickly acquainted colleagues and friends with his plight. Many of them sprang to his defence, among them two fellow historians who had entered the Ottawa public service, Hugh L. Keenleyside and John W. Pickersgill. Keenleyside, who was employed in the Department of External Affairs, told his chief, O.D. Skelton, and Prime Minister King about his efforts on Underhill’s behalf. Skelton’s response may have owed something to his own experience at Queen’s almost a quarter-century earlier. He endorsed Keenleyside’s action, adding that not one member of the Toronto board seemed to have ‘the slightest appreciation of the meaning of the liberty about which they yap so loudly when it is a question of Europe and not of Canada,’ and that he could think of ‘nothing more stupid or unnecessary than this action at the present time.’42 What troubled Keenleyside, Pickersgill, and, we may assume, Skelton, as well as King, was not merely or even primarily the threat to Underhill’s position or the interference with academic free speech, but the possible negative fallout that Underhill’s dismissal might have in the United States. This possibility was stated perhaps most cogently by J. Bartlet Brebner, a Canadian-born historian teaching at Columbia University. In a letter to University of Toronto economic historian Harold Adams Innis, which Innis passed on to Cody, Brebner wondered ‘whether there is much general recognition in Toronto of how serious an effect [the dismissal] would have down here … Above all, can Canada risk widespread dissemination of extracts from the Canadian press charging Underhill with the sin of being pro-American?’43 Writing directly to Cody, Keenleyside adopted a similar line. Pickersgill’s course was rather more circuitous but probably even more effective. Knowing that King’s relations with Hepburn were too frosty to permit a direct approach to the premier, Pickersgill enlisted the help of Charles G. Power, minister of defence for air, who was on good terms with Hepburn. Asked to suggest discreetly that Underhill’s dismissal might have an adverse effect on US opinion, with the request that Hepburn convey this message to Cody, Power took a much more direct approach, stating that Pickersgill had asked him to say that King was concerned. Neither Pickersgill nor King was happy about this when they learned about it later, but Pickersgill got the impression that King ‘was not displeased that Power’s telephone call had probably saved Underhill’s job.’44

Academic Freedom in Wartime

217

At a board meeting on 9 January 1941 Cody read the telegram he had received from Keenleyside and told the board of Hepburn’s concerns, which had been conveyed to him by Provincial Secretary Harry Nixon. The board resented this outside pressure but nevertheless refrained from forcing the issue, and postponed a decision about firing Underhill. When the matter reappeared on the agenda on 26 June, and former premier Howard Ferguson moved that Underhill’s services be dispensed with, Cody announced that he was withdrawing the recommendation he had made six months earlier to dismiss the historian and now recommended ‘that no action be … taken to dismiss him.’45 Chancellor Mulock pointed out that nothing could be done without Cody’s approval. All the same, Ferguson’s motion passed by seven votes to four. Three months later, when Balmer Neilly asked why the board’s wishes had not been carried out, Mulock, apparently convinced that Cody would not change his mind again, recommended that the matter be dropped. Underhill’s biographer writes: ‘The majority of the members consented. So, finally, ended the Underhill case.’46 Underhill kept his job, but he knew that he had come close to losing it. That he was still employed was the result of influence exerted by well-positioned friends and of intervention on his behalf by two levels of government. The irony that in this case a professor’s academic freedom was secured by means of interference with the university’s autonomy was not lost on some observers, among them Underhill’s colleague Donald Creighton.47 University autonomy, it is worth noting, may be a necessary but is not a sufficient condition for the maintenance of academic freedom. Governing boards and executive heads have on occasion undermined or stifled that freedom far more effectively than any outside agency has been capable of doing. Underhill’s prominence had helped him, too. A comment made by his friend Louise Parkin was accurate: ‘It is lucky that F.H.U. is “news” – otherwise he would have been disposed of quietly.’48 But Underhill also knew that he might not always be so fortunate. A year after his speech at the Couchiching Conference he told an old friend that he intended to keep out of trouble in the future. ‘This is unheroic, but I am now past fifty years of age.’49 Henceforth he steered clear of controversy. Frank R. Scott A member of McGill University’s Faculty of Law, active in the League

218

Cultures, Communities, and Conflict

for Reconstruction (LSR) and in the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF), the social democratic party that had been founded in 1932–3 and of which he would become national chairman in 1942, Frank R. Scott had been well known to the media since the early 1930s.50 Like many other members of the LSR and CCF, in the fall of 1939 Scott had opposed Canada’s making anything more than an economic contribution to the British war effort. The collapse of France in spring 1940 convinced him, however, of the great threat Nazi Germany and fascist Italy posed to Britain and to democracy, and he had become a strong supporter of the war. This did not mean he closed his eyes to certain Canadian realities. Among these Quebec’s position within the country loomed large. Scott, who had been born and raised in Quebec City, was fluent in French and English and had friends and acquaintances in the French Canadian community. In late 1941, for reasons that had little to do with military necessity and much to do with the attitudes of large sections of the English-Canadian population and with political infighting, the issue of conscription re-entered Canadian public affairs.51 The result was a referendum, held on 27 April 1942, in which the King government asked Canadians to release it from its pre-war pledge not to conscript manpower for overseas military service (conscription for home service had come into effect with the National Resources Mobilization Act, passed in June 1940). That the pledge had been made chiefly to mollify French-Canadian opinion was a fact largely and conveniently overlooked. The outcome of the referendum was predictable. The eight English-speaking provinces voted in favour; most of Quebec, and French-speaking Canadians generally, voted against. In an article entitled ‘What Did No Mean?’ in the June 1942 issue of the Canadian Forum, Scott undertook to explain why French-speaking Quebecers had voted the way they did. The ‘yes’ vote required little analysis, he wrote. Even though the question asked only whether the government should be released from its pledge, those who voted ‘yes’ would mostly support a more resolute war policy, including conscription for overseas service. ‘It is the “no” vote which should be studied and weighed, because a misunderstanding of this vote, and action by the government based on that misunderstanding, could easily result in grave peril to our country. No man in his senses, even if he is willing to sacrifice the whole future of Canada as a nation in order to increase her present war effort, could wish to take a step which would immediately divide our forces and so weaken the national will.’52 Yet

Academic Freedom in Wartime

219

that is what some Canadians, most of them English speaking, were already doing. Scott asked English Canadians to consider that the non-British peoples in the British Empire did not seem to appreciate the blessings of empire as much as the British had been taught to believe they did. He cited the Irish, Afrikaners, and South Asians as examples. British rule over these peoples had a good deal to do with the matter. How did this relate to Quebec and the referendum? ‘The large “no” vote was a protest not against the war, but against the idea of imperialism.’ Many English Canadians had not yet made up their mind whether they were fighting as inhabitants of a British colony or of one of the nations united in opposition to fascism. ‘It is the continuing element of colonialism in Canada’s war effort, real or apparent, that is causing so much trouble.’ The more Canada moved away from the tradition of offering troops for Britain to use where Britain wanted them, as in the dispatch of troops to doomed Hong Kong in late 1941, the easier it would be to bridge the gulf between Quebec and the rest of Canada: ‘All that Quebec means by the “no” vote is that she does not wish her children to die for any country other than their own. This is nothing very startling.’53 Scott’s argument echoed those that had been appearing in the Quebec press,54 and he received several appreciative responses from French Canadians. English Canadians, on the other hand, mostly reacted negatively to Scott’s assessment of French-Canadian – as well as EnglishCanadian – attitudes to the war. By the summer of 1942, it was easy to forget that, almost three years earlier, Canada had gone to war essentially because Britain went to war, and hard to acknowledge that French Canadians were bound to take a different view of this than English Canadians did. And it was all too easy for the latter group to accuse the former of not pulling its weight. Even some liberal-minded people attacked Scott. His friend and fellow CCF-er Eugene Forsey, formerly of McGill’s Department of Political Economy, wrote a critical letter to the Canadian Forum charging Scott with sowing division.55 The Winnipeg Free Press, the foremost Liberal journal in the country, claimed editorially that the article was ‘advocacy, subtle and skilful, of the case for a limited contribution to the war.’56 In the course of three articles published in the late summer and fall of 1942, B.K. Sandwell, editor of the Toronto-based weekly Saturday Night, accused Scott of failing to recognize that the war was ‘a struggle between democracy and tyranny’ from which only one side could emerge victorious.57 The reaction to Scott’s article in the Conservative press was considerably more hostile.58

220

Cultures, Communities, and Conflict

The incident led McGill’s principal, F. Cyril James, to ponder the meaning of academic freedom in wartime and to sketch his thoughts on the need for a ‘clear statement of university policy’ on this subject. In draft notes for his 1942–3 report he wrote that it was ‘vitally important’ to maintain ‘academic freedom of speech,’ while at the same time recognizing that, for the duration of the war, the federal government had ‘necessarily restricted … the limits of legality.’ Furthermore, ‘all things that are lawful are not expedient.’ Faculty members should ‘use wisdom and judgment above average.’ To express ‘mere hypotheses’ or opinions that disturbed public morale was ‘highly undesirable.’59 This did not go far enough for James’s secretary, the redoubtable Dorothy McMurray, who had been in the principal’s office since the days of Sir Arthur Currie, principal from 1920 to 1933, and who had long been critical of Scott. She advised James against saying anything about academic freedom unless he could say something ‘really convincing enough to silence our critics.’ In her view this meant dealing with Scott, whose involvement in politics she deplored. She did not think it would be easy to muzzle him, and she recognized that the board of governors might not want ‘to force a Frank Scott issue.’ But they surely ought to do something. ‘They could summon him before the full Board. Nothing much has been heard from Underhill … since the Board of Governors there at least scared him. He hasn’t published a controversial statement since, has he?’60 In the event, James thought better of including a discussion of academic freedom and the wartime limits on it in his report. As for the board, if it discussed Frank Scott’s article at all, no such record found its way into the minutes. The Press and Academic Freedom Like some university professors, some journalists and newspaper editors see themselves as champions of free speech. There is exaggeration in both self-assessments, and never more so than when Canada is at war. As we have seen, newspaper people often took a very critical view of the exercise of academic free speech in wartime. Even in times of peace, Canadian newspaper people did not always appreciate the exercise of academic freedom and free speech. Some newspapers, such as the Toronto Star, the Ottawa Citizen, the Winnipeg Free Press, Saturday Night, and, more ambiguously, the Toronto Globe and Montreal’s Le Devoir, offered support to professors who spoke their

Academic Freedom in Wartime

221

minds, even when editors did not agree. Others, among them the Montreal Star, the Gazette, the Mail and Empire and its successor, the Globe and Mail, the Telegram, the Winnipeg Tribune, and the Vancouver Sun, often translated disagreement with the expression of professorial opinion into assertions that professors ought not to speak or write controversially, especially about issues of current interest and concern. In discussing the furor that had followed Adair’s Montreal speech in November 1939, President Carleton Stanley of Dalhousie expressed disappointment over the Gazette’s response to the historian’s comments, adding, ‘[a]ll I ask … is that the journalists allow the academic folk the same freedom which the journalists demand for themselves.’61 He knew this was not necessarily easy. Late in 1938 he had debated the issue of academic freedom with the editor of the Telegram, C.O. Knowles, on the national network of the CBC. Knowles had taken a line that challenged the ability of academics to speak about current affairs or recent history. Academic freedom was undesirable, Knowles said, if it allowed professors to speak publicly on issues of current interest. The prestige they enjoyed meant that when they got things wrong they did real harm. They should stick to timeless truths and leave current events to journalists and politicians: ‘If our universities are to become hotbeds of propaganda, melting pots of half truths, and home for the propagation of idle political theories, then Time must pass the universities by and Truth must settle in other halls unmarked by this taint. The way to keep the standards of our universities high … is to regard truth as more desirable than unlimited academic freedom.’62 Stanley had experienced no difficulty in exposing the flaws in Knowles’s position, especially his belief in the existence of ‘timeless truths’ that professors should safeguard while avoiding commentary on current affairs. But he had not changed Knowles’s mind. The editor was still angry at a comment Frank Underhill had made some weeks earlier about the Munich agreement, signed by Britain, France, Germany, and Italy in late September, which effectively had compelled Czechoslovakia to cede the Sudetenland to Germany. In a CBC radio program about the US elections in early November, Underhill had quipped in passing that Britain, committed to a policy of meeting Germany’s ‘reasonable demands,’ seemed incapable of doing anything other than giving away the territory of other countries. A supporter of appeasement, Knowles took issue with Underhill’s failure to grasp the wisdom of British foreign policy, and concluded by writing, ‘[i]s it any part of the essential liberty of expression which should belong to a University that its

222

Cultures, Communities, and Conflict

underlings … should promulgate false charges against a partner in the British Commonwealth of Nations?’63 Some of the hostility that Knowles and the Telegram showed to Underhill in the aftermath of the address at the Couchiching Conference may have harked back to Knowles’s annoyance with the historian two years earlier. Is it possible, too, that the annoyance was intensified if Knowles subsequently realized that appeasement had been a mistake and that Underhill might have been right to ridicule Chamberlain’s foreign policy? We are rarely grateful to those who show up errors in our assessments, especially when we fancy ourselves as experts. More important, though, was the view of newspaper owners and editors that in time of war everyone should pull together towards the common goal: victory over the hated enemy. Undoubtedly advertisers and readers helped to shape that attitude. Whether somebody who expressed an aberrant opinion might be right, or whether it expressed a well-informed point of view, mattered less than the supposedly negative effects on public morale of expressing it. Opinions that challenged the dominant view were unwelcome because they seemed likely to undermine what ought to be a united front. This did not mean that editors expected everyone to agree on every detail in the conduct of the war, but they drew the line at opinions they thought might weaken the war effort. In this they reflected government policy as well as what they understood to be public opinion. ‘There is a war on’ was a slogan that kept people from publicly expressing doubts or venturing unorthodox points of view. It also proved useful in slapping down people who challenged the received wisdom. Conclusion The constraint on academic freedom that patriotism entailed was little resented in the universities. University people, including administrators, board members, and faculty members themselves, were concerned not only to support the war effort loyally but also to prevent hostile criticism that the expression of unorthodox views by professors might bring to the universities that employed them. This helps to explain why the number of incidents involving academic freedom at Canadian universities during the two World Wars was so small. Professors were wise to keep their opinions to themselves unless their views accorded with the prevailing patriotic mood. Most did precisely that. Does this have implications for the present? The current action in Afghanistan has not engaged Canadians to any great extent. Indeed,

Academic Freedom in Wartime

223

responses to it, though not to the soldiers taking part in it, are increasingly negative. Nor has the ‘war on terrorism’ so far been able to arouse patriotic fervour of the kind that was evident, especially in English Canada, during the two World Wars. Neither action has generated the kind of propaganda that is needed to help construct a ‘sacred’ cause. That might change, but it does not seem to be close at hand. Until it does, these conflicts will little affect academic freedom or free speech. Only when a war becomes a patriotic crusade that passionately involves the great majority of Canada’s dominant ethnic group (or groups) will academics rediscover that speaking out with anything less than uncritical support may land them in hot water.

NOTES 1 Michiel Horn, Academic Freedom in Canada: A History (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1999), 185–219. 2 Varsity, 11 October 1914. 3 ‘Another open-minded professor,’ Mail and Empire (Toronto), 16 October 1914. 4 Letter to the editor, Mail and Empire, 19 October 1914. 5 James G. Greenlee, Sir Robert Falconer: A Biography (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1988), 203. 6 Martin Gilbert, The First World War: A Complete History (Toronto: Stoddart, 1994), 41–3. 7 Greenlee, Sir Robert Falconer, 206–11. 8 Horn, Academic Freedom in Canada, 44–5. 9 Oscar Douglas Skelton, Life and Letters of Sir Wilfrid Laurier, vol. 2, 1896– 1919, ed. David M.L. Farr (Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1965), 187–92. 10 Robert Craig Brown, Robert Laird Borden: A Biography, vol. 2, 1914–1937 (Toronto: Macmillan, 1980), 100–1. 11 Terry Crowley, Marriage of Minds: Isabel and Oscar Skelton Reinventing Canada (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2003), 63. 12 G.Y. Chown to O.D. Skelton, 8 January 1917 [sic], copy, Library and Archives Canada (hereafter cited as LAC), MG30, D33, O.D. Skelton Papers, vol. 1, Teaching Correspondence. 13 O.D. Skelton to G.Y. Chown, 9 January 1917 [sic], copy, LAC, MG30, D33, O.D. Skelton Papers, vol. 1, Teaching Correspondence. 14 Notes of interview with Walter Douglas, 11 January 1918, copy, LAC, MG30, D33, O.D. Skelton Papers, vol. 1, Teaching Correspondence, R.B.T.

224

Cultures, Communities, and Conflict

15 Bruce Taylor to John Macnaughton, 14 January 1918, copy, LAC, MG30, D33, O.D. Skelton Papers, vol. 1, Teaching Correspondence. 16 Skelton to Chown, 9 January 1917 [sic], copy. 17 Ernest G. Thatcher to Frank F. Wesbrook, 23 April 1918, University of British Columbia Archives (hereafter cited as UBCA), President’s Office, D IV A 7/2, vol. 8. 18 See Niall Ferguson, ‘The Kaiser’s European Union: What if Britain Had “Stood Aside” in August 1914?’ in Virtual History: Alternatives and Counterfactuals, ed. Niall Ferguson (London: Picador, 1997). 19 Jeffrey A. Keshen, Propaganda and Censorship during Canada’s Great War (Edmonton: University of Alberta Press, 1996), 67–79. 20 S.D. Scott to Ernest Thatcher, 10 May 1918, copy, UBCA, President’s Office, D IV A 7/2, vol. 11. 21 Michiel Horn, ‘Under the Gaze of George Vancouver: The University of British Columbia and the Provincial Government, 1913–1939,’ BC Studies 83 (Autumn 1989): 34–41. 22 Board of Governors, Minutes, 27 May 1918, UBCA. 23 S.D. Scott to J.D. MacLean, 31 May 1918, copy, UBCA, President’s Office, D IV A7/2, vol. 11. 24 ‘A matter of history,’ Vancouver Daily Sun, 17 January 1917, UBCA, D II, B 6/2, S. Mack Eastman Papers, vol. 1, newspaper clippings file; Donald Downie, ‘The poisoning of sacred springs or the neutralization of learning,’ Vancouver Daily Sun, 19 January 1917, UBCA, D II, B 6/2, S. Mack Eastman Papers, vol. 1, newspaper clippings file. 25 Horn, Academic Freedom in Canada, 145. 26 Montreal Star, 14 November 1939. 27 ‘A graceless exhibition,’ Montreal Star, 15 November 1939; ‘A misrepresentation of fact,’ Montreal Star, 20 November 1939. 28 ‘Nazis capitalize on Adair speech,’ Gazette (Montreal), 22 November 1939. 29 Michael Perceval-Maxwell, ‘The History of History at McGill’ (unpublished paper read to the James McGill Society, 2 April 1981), 31, McGill University Archives (hereafter cited as MUA). 30 Edward Beatty to Carleton Stanley, 27 November 1939, Dalhousie University Archives (hereafter cited as DUA), MS2-163, B48, Carleton Stanley Papers, Correspondence. 31 John T. Saywell, ‘Call Me Mitch’: The Life of Mitchell F. Hepburn (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1991), 436–47. 32 R. Douglas Francis, Frank H. Underhill: Intellectual Provocateur (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1986), 78–108. 33 Frank Underhill, ‘A United American Front,’ LAC, MG30, D204, Frank H. Underhill Papers, vol. 19, Writings 1940.

Academic Freedom in Wartime

225

34 ‘An ill-timed address,’ Toronto Star, 31 August 1940. 35 Frank Underhill to H.J. Cody, 1 September 1940, with attachment: Underhill to the editor, Toronto Daily Star, 1 September 1940, copy, University of Toronto Archives (hereafter cited as UTA), President’s Office (PO), A72003/001(03). 36 Board of Governors, Minutes, 12 September 1940, UTA. 37 Hamilton Cassels to the Chairman of the Board of Governors, 16 September 1940, copy, UTA, PO, A72-003/001(03). 38 On the nature and meaning of tenure at the University of Toronto (and at most other Canadian universities) in the first half of the twentieth century, see Horn, Academic Freedom in Canada, 288–90. 39 Toronto Star, 17 September 1940. 40 H.J. Cody, confidential statement, n.d. [19 December 1940], UTA, PO, A72003/001(03). 41 Ibid. 42 Hugh L. Keenleyside, Memoirs, vol. 2, On the Bridge of Time (Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1982), 108. See also H.L. Keenleyside to W.L.M. King, 7 January 1941, LAC, MG26, J13, W.L.M. King Papers, vol. 336. 43 J. Bartlet Brebner to H.A. Innis, 10 January 1941, UTA, PO, A72003/001(01). 44 J.W. Pickersgill, ‘The Decisive Battle for Academic Freedom in Canada’ (unpublished paper, n.d.), 15; I am indebted to the late Escott Reid for making a copy of this paper available to me. 45 Board of Governors, Minutes, 26 June 1941, UTA. 46 Francis, Frank H. Underhill, 127. 47 Donald Creighton, ‘The Ogdensburg Agreement and F.H. Underhill,’ The Passionate Observer: Selected Writings (Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1980), 139. 48 Louise Parkin to Frank Scott, 9 January 1941, LAC, MG30, D211, F.R. Scott Papers, vol. 29. 49 Frank Underhill to Murray G. Lawson, 20 August 1941, copy, LAC, MG30, D204, Frank H. Underhill Papers, vol. 5. 50 Sandra Djwa, The Politics of the Imagination: A Life of F.R. Scott (Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1987), 130–57. 51 J.L. Granatstein, Canada’s War: The Politics of the Mackenzie King Government, 1939–1945 (Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1975), 201–20. 52 F.R. Scott, ‘What Did “No” Mean?’ Canadian Forum 22 (June 1942): 71. 53 Ibid., 72–3. 54 For example, François-Albert Angers, ‘Why We Shall Never Accept Conscription for Overseas Service,’ in French Canadian Nationalism: An Anthology, ed. Ramsay Cook (Toronto: Macmillan, 1969).

226 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62

63

Cultures, Communities, and Conflict

Eugene Forsey, letter to the editor, Canadian Forum 22 (August 1942): 141. ‘Those who render disservice,’ Winnipeg Free Press, 2 July 1942. [B.K. Sandwell], ‘The Front Page,’ Saturday Night, 10 October 1942. Djwa, Politics of the Imagination, 202–4. [F. Cyril James], ‘Academic Free Speech,’ n.d., MUA, RG2, Principal’s Office, c.85/2202. [Dorothy McMurray], comments on ‘Academic Freedom of Speech,’ n.d., MUA, RG2, Principal’s Office, c.85/2202. Carleton Stanley to Edward Beatty, 29 November 1939, copy, DUA, MS2163, B48, Carleton Stanley Papers, Correspondence. C.O. Knowles, ‘Academic Freedom’ (typescript of broadcast, 18 December 1938 over the national network of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation), passim, LAC, MG30, D211, F.R. Scott Papers, vol. 1, Academic Freedom file. ‘Comment that isn’t so emanates from university,’ Telegram (Toronto), 19 November 1938.

9 Refugee Professors and the University of Toronto during the Second World War1 paul stortz

Throughout the 1930s and early 1940s President Henry John Cody of the University of Toronto was inundated with hundreds of letters from graduate students, aspiring academics, out-of-work scholars, and professors from universities within Canada and elsewhere seeking possible research and teaching positions. Despite a chronically constricted job market – between 1935 and 1945 Canada’s largest university, which employed five hundred professors, lecturers, and associates, hired only twenty to thirty new people per year2 – the letters of inquiry were nonetheless hopeful. Scattered among them was a different kind of request, imbued with an acute sense of urgency. One such letter, dated 1935, contained the story of Richard Brauer, assistant professor at the University of Berlin, who, upon Hitler’s coming to power, was summarily dismissed by the Prussian minister of education for being Jewish. He recounted that ‘the German anti-Jewish laws of 1933 made it impossible for me to get any other position in Germany … all my relatives have felt the persecution of the Nazi government, some have been in concentration camps.’ In a 1938 letter from the University of Vienna, Dr Max Lederer sought academic asylum after having been asked to leave his post as professor of philology in the Austrian ministry of education. Professor Dr Friedrich Engel-Janosi, in a letter to George Wrong, professor emeritus in history, wrote that ‘I have lost my position as a professor of Modern History at the [University of Vienna]; … I am not allowed to use any archives and libraries in Germany any longer. So it is impossible for me to continue my scientific work and earn my livelihood there. I ask you if there is no opening for Modern History at your University?’ On standard letterhead, Janosi’s home address in Germany is crossed out.3 Letters chronicled the violent ongoing social and political change

228

Cultures, Communities, and Conflict

in Europe and a German nation redefining its citizenship. A document forwarded to President Cody in 1938 tells the story of Professor Carl von Seemann, of the Organic Chemistry Department at the University of Munich, who, writing to an acquaintance, recounts that ‘I am half Jewish and therefore have no possibilities whatever in Germany.’ Evicted from his home, ‘I’d be grateful,’ von Seeman continues, ‘if you could find any possible place where I might continue my work.’4 In 1939 Cody received a note from London, England: ‘I am a German refugee, 41 years old, born in Berlin, a surgeon, and specialist for diseases of kidney and bladder. I had to leave Germany as quickly as possible to avoid the concentration camps.’ Dr Ernst Pakuscher, a judge at the German Court of Appeal and affiliated with the University of Berlin, wrote Cody in 1938 that the ‘German universities [are] now in the course of dissolution.’ A renowned international scholar of social politics in Vienna was dismissed in March 1938 simply ‘as a result of political events (non-Aryan).’ Karl Bloch, a refugee professor of romance philology expelled from the University of Vienna, was in exile in London and, according to his cousin Irene Granovsky in Canada, needed a job ‘right now.’ Bloch will work for free at low rank, she wrote, imploring Cody to ‘rescue our family from a living death … [The] fate of the whole family rests with this decision.’5 The University of Toronto faced a grievous problem that involved the very survival of intellectual colleagues, and tested stereotypical claims that institutions of higher learning were oases of reason, morality, and critical objectivity. The record of discrimination, anti-Semitism, and immigration policy of this period challenges claims of historical multiculturalism in Canada, but among academics a smouldering moral tension emerged of altruism versus the practical considerations of personal and institutional resource allocation. Agents, intellectuals, and leaders in higher education were not impervious to socio-economic constraints and presiding community values even in the face of colleagues’ atrocious circumstances. Letters of desperation and tragedy written by displaced European scholars barely reflected the total disruption of academic and professional life in Nazi Germany. Numerous intellectuals were identified for segregation and persecution because of Jewish traits or backgrounds. Professors’ reputed capacity to reason publicly against emergent government policies of racial and social purity, and the threat posed by their macroanalysis of society, made them a target.6 Working as civil servants within institutions that since the late 1920s had become in out-

Refugee Professors and the University of Toronto

229

look and practice ever more anti-Semitic, the universities themselves, with few exceptions, faced large-scale faculty dismissals and closures of entire departments and institutes.7 Throughout the 1930s a common response in Germany, Austria, and Czechoslovakia to the new social, political, and intellectual order was to leave the community or the continent altogether. An estimated 28 per cent of all university professors in the Third Reich were dismissed, perhaps two-thirds of them Jewish.8 How aware was the University of Toronto of the seriousness of the plight of refugee professors?9 The university was certainly ready to meet considerable wartime demands, reflected in swift changes to curricula, programs, and research mandates. It was perceived as an institution important not only for its tangible contributions to the war effort but also as a weapon for a higher moral purpose. Revealing his theological background and practise as a Church of England clergyman of high standing, throughout the war President Cody asserted that the university was a sanctuary of spiritual goodness and promoter of social progress. In 1941 he wrote that ‘[t]he universities are citadels of freedom; they cannot remain open in lands where freedom and justice have perished. Europe under the Nazi repression is practically now void of any real universities. Universities are the homes and guardians of those spiritual, moral, and intellectual values.’10 Such sentiments were echoed by other members of the university and the media.11 Throughout the 1930s the situation of refugee professors became increasingly desperate, testing laudable moral ideals. In his President’s Reports, Cody mentioned the importance of professors as ‘agents for the discovery and dissemination of truth,’ upon whom ‘the real importance and worth of a university depends.’12 At the administrative level, however, the official line on appeals from refugee professors was cautious and muted. Between 1935 and 1945 numerous requests for academic positions from refugee and non-refugee applicants alike were met with claims by Cody or a department head that, because of the Depression or the war, hiring was frozen. By 1945, within this clandestine culture of hiring, the University of Toronto nevertheless had managed to hire, with little fanfare, twenty refugee European lecturers and professors, at least half of whom were Jewish and almost all of whom were men:13 Eric E.F. Baer (chemistry), Richard D. Brauer (mathematics), Peter H. Brieger (fine art), Theodore Eschmann (medieval studies), Hermann O.L. Fischer (chemistry), Jean Manfred Grosheintz (chemistry), Herta Hartmanshenn (German), Bernard Haurwitz (physics), Karl Helleiner (political economy), Leopold

230

Cultures, Communities, and Conflict

Infeld (applied mathematics), Walther Heinrick Kohl (physics), W. Kohn (mathematics), Gerhart M.A.B. Ladner (medieval history), Bruno Mendel (Banting and Best Medical Research Department), Egbert Munzer (political economy), H.J.U. Rubin (comparative law), Aleksander Rytel (pharmacology), Robert Schnitzer (Connaught Laboratories), Carl von Seeman (Connaught Laboratories), and Alexander Weinstein (mathematics).14 The twenty refugees represented approximately 8 per cent of all hirings in the ranks of professor, associates, lecturers, or assistants between 1935 and 1945. This list, adding to the previously claimed number of refugee professors in the University of Toronto and Canada,15 comprises professors, Privatdozenten (private lecturers associated with a university), and individuals involved in full-time professional teaching, research, or scholarly activity in higher education before emigrating to Canada. Many emigrating professors who were not offered positions in more secure universities in continental Europe received help from professorbased initiatives working with the High Commissioner for Refugees of the League of Nations, the Notgemeinschaft Deutscher Wissenschaftler im Ausland, the Federation of University Women in England, or in various private and voluntary relief committees, both denominational and non-denominational, and large US philanthropies.16 Through the sponsorship of individuals and organizations, many of the professors who escaped to Britain17 or the United States worked in universities on temporary assignments, yearly fellowships, or, if fortunate enough, in longer-term and tenured positions. The relief organization in England that caught the eye of a group of professors at the University of Toronto was the overworked Academic Assistance Council, formed in 1933 and later named the Society for the Protection of Science and Learning. Founded by professors in London through a network of committees in colleges and universities, the Society acted as a clearinghouse for academic scholars, taking on significant responsibility for exiles. It placed refugee professors in universities and helped subsidize their salaries for the first year or two, or found gainful employment for them off campus until they could secure faculty positions in Britain or elsewhere.18 Many petitions from refugee scholars sponsored by the Society made it to Cody’s desk. The Canadian Society for the Protection of Science and Learning Based directly on the British model, the Canadian Society for the Protection of Science and Learning was organized in spring 1939. William

Refugee Professors and the University of Toronto

231

Stewart Wallace (see Figure 9.1) helped create the Canadian organization and rapidly became a major force in its operations. A decorated First World War veteran, he was a history and English professor who wrote the first major history of the University of Toronto, a founder of the Canadian Historical Review, and in the 1930s and 1940s served as university librarian and honorary editor of the Royal Society of Canada’s annual publications.19 In the formative stages the Society was given overwhelming acceptance by its mother organization. Its members sought counsel from colleagues in the academic community, researchers in public and private industry, and bureaucrats and politicians in Ottawa. Questions were posed back and forth on structure, procedure, composition, and mission. Preliminary meetings in March 1939 of the organization committee included a small group of Fellows of the Royal Society of Canada in Toronto chaired by A.G. Huntsman (biology) and V.E. Henderson (pharmacy and pharmacology); rounding out the group were E.F. Burton (physics), C.T. Currelly (archaeology), J.R. Dymond (zoology and director of the Royal Ontario Museum of Zoology), J. Ellis Thomson (mineralogy and petrography), George Wrong (history), and W.S. Wallace himself. A 27 March meeting reported on communication with outside academics, scholarly associations, and research institutions, with the hope of drawing up an official list of Society officers. Cody’s donation of $100 helped jumpstart the Society.20 The Society’s formal launch came on 3 April 1939 in the Debates Room of Hart House, on the University of Toronto campus. Forty-three people attended, most of whom were well-known university scholars and department heads. The Society’s goals, it was explained, were ‘to raise funds to bring to Canada, and to support for a limited period, carefully selected refugee scientists and scholars who are able to make a definite and valuable contribution to Canadian life. The object of the Society is primarily humanitarian; but its intention is also to bring to Canada outstanding scientific specialists in fields in which Canada is not fully equipped.’ The principles of the Society, enshrined in an appeals brochure sent out shortly after the meeting to solicit for subscriptions, were tripartite: ‘(1) There must be no displacement of Canadian scholars and scientists; and the advancement of Canadian students must not be blocked; (2) All research workers brought in and attached to Canadian universities … must be supernumerary; (3) If, at the end of a reasonable period, such research workers have not been absorbed on their merits into Canadian economic or academic life, the Society must be understood as having discharged its duty towards them … Cana-

232

Cultures, Communities, and Conflict

Figure 9.1: William Stewart Wallace, university librarian, historian, and convenor of the Canadian Society for the Protection of Science and Learning. Courtesy of the University of Toronto Archives (UTA a1978-0041/22 [67])

Refugee Professors and the University of Toronto

233

dian scholars and scientists cannot be indifferent to the tragic fate of their colleagues … who have, in many cases, lost all but life itself.’21 The attendees appointed a governing body that included Sir Frederick Banting, Harold Innis, and an impressive list of leaders in higher education, among them Cody, Sir Robert Falconer (Toronto), L.S. Klinck (University of British Columbia), Sidney Smith (then of the University of Manitoba), Carleton Stanley (Dalhousie), G.J. Trueman (Mount Allison), W.A.R. Kerr (Alberta), and Sherwood Fox (Western) – all told, dozens of professors at the University of Toronto and elsewhere and the presidents or principals of sixteen Canadian universities.22 The Royal Society of Canada was deemed the best place to begin soliciting for donations and support, as it had already formed a committee to provide relief for refugee intellectuals months before, but had agreed to pass the torch.23 From March to September 1939 Wallace and other members of the organizing committee were inundated with responses from professors and university administrators, public and private researchers, professionals, librarians, archivists, magistrates, politicians, and industrial and community leaders. The committee worked tirelessly throughout the months following the launch to send out circulars and respond to inquiries. The membership and mission were confirmed in a spirit of optimism and energy, and a meeting on 27 April centred on the need to form the crucial refugee selection committee. W.S. Wallace was acclaimed secretary and another Wallace, Principal R.C. Wallace of Queen’s University, became chairman of the overriding council.24 As the summer progressed the Society’s objectives were firmed up, and processing got under way of the increasing number of applications from refugee professors. Subscription forms asking for donations were posted and preparations made to bring out the Society’s first refugee, Karl Helleiner, a displaced Austrian scholar. Helleiner would become the feather in the Society’s cap and, after 1940, its raison d’être. His case was indicative of the sheer amount of paperwork concerning each applicant that had to be exchanged among Society members, the refugee, the university administration, the Department of Mines and Resources (Immigration Branch) in Ottawa, and the British Society in London.25 Indeed, the handling of Helleiner’s case including hiring and support spanned the heights of the summer of 1939 to the Society’s end in 1946. Successfully brought to Canada by 1941 Helleiner was attached to the University of Toronto’s Department of Political Economy as an honorary lecturer; he would remain at Toronto for the rest of his academic career.26

234

Cultures, Communities, and Conflict

In the fall of 1939 the Society assisted in the cases of two more professors. The dean of studies at St Francis Xavier University in Antigonish, Nova Scotia, sought to land Egbert Munzer, a German economist and philosopher, on whose behalf Wallace communicated with the university, Britain, and Ottawa between November and December to prepare Munzer’s papers for immigration. With Wallace’s assistance, Munzer taught in Antigonish for three years followed by Toronto for another three years. A scientist, Aleksander Rytel, who was head of pharmaceutical research at Wola Hospital in Warsaw, received funding from the Society in 1940 for two years until he left for a research position at a Montreal hospital.27 Not all efforts were successful. Two professors considered for relief – Professor Kalmus, a refugee from Czechoslovakia, and Professor Engel-Janosi of Vienna – were not, in the end, offered support. Kalmus decided to look for other employment opportunities in Canada, while Engel-Janosi, formerly a professor of modern history at the University of Vienna, was caught in a tangle of Canadian immigration policies and US funding agencies, and remained working in the United States.28 Growing Failure By the fall of 1939 Secretary Wallace had become the kingpin of the Society, and would remain so for the rest of its existence. An impressive $6,600 was raised, mostly from professors, by 1941, but that was to represent the apex of the financial reserve.29 Branches of the Society were established at Mount Allison, Dalhousie, McGill, Ottawa, Queen’s, McMaster, Manitoba, Alberta, and UBC, with Toronto remaining the de facto nerve centre for the nationwide initiative. These developments, however, belied a problem that from the start was to plague the Society’s efforts: the effect of the war on university operations and the daunting volume of work involved in securing relief for refugee professors. Early on Wallace privately admitted to R.C. Wallace that the British Society was ‘badly disorganized.’ In a bout of frustration, he declared that the best course of action might be to return all the collected money and disband the organization.30 Considering the Society had existed for only a few months, Wallace’s pessimism might have seemed premature, but the paperwork was overwhelming, and government, the university, and society at large were by then narrowly focused on the war. Only six people attended the Society’s meeting on 14 September 1939. Wallace suggested that a questionnaire be distributed to all subscribers

Refugee Professors and the University of Toronto

235

and members asking if the Society should continue to solicit money and seek other refugee candidates. Extrapolating from the surviving responses, many of which came from academics at the University of Toronto, 36 votes were for ‘yes’ and 54 for ‘no.’ Given Toronto’s changes brought on by wartime operations, which included rationing of resources and funding, the results could not have heartened Wallace. Among the simple ‘no’s were those of Cody himself and other founders of the Society.31 The Society thus was appealing to hardened ears. Although a second pledge drive raised a considerable amount of money, it soon became as difficult to raise funds as to raise interest. In 1940 a letter to Innis from W.H. Martin (chemistry) included a cheque for $20 and a message: ‘This is the last payment I intend to make. So much water has gone over the dam since the plan was conceived that my attitude is now different. An injustice to a few scholars through exile is now dwarfed by greater catastrophes to millions.’ Yearly subscriptions plummeted to zero in 1942, followed by a mere $100 in each of 1943 and 1944.32 Yet the plight of professors under Nazi rule remained, and Wallace continued to receive letters recounting pain and distress. The Vatican’s librarian and archivist, Cardinal Mercati, requesting relief for a history professor in Turin, wrote that the refugee scholar was of ‘Hebrew origin,’ but baptized, and ‘[i]t is a pity that a scholar, so well endowed and so skilfully prepared … should be so reduced to inactivity and to misery.’33 Cody, too, remained well aware of the situation, and drafted a resolution for the National Conference of Canadian Universities annual conference in 1940. After consulting with overseas contacts, Cody told the assembled members that ‘fellow academicians’ of the University of Cracow in Poland had gathered for a lecture by a German government representative but refused to sign a document recognizing the legality of the German aggression and occupation: ‘All the Polish professors … 160 in number, left the hall in protest only to find lorries awaiting them at the door. They were all arrested, deported to Germany, and interned in a Nazi concentration camp … and the University was closed for the first time since its foundation [in 1364].’34 Out of twenty refugee professors the university hired between 1935 and 1945, during the war years the Society helped to secure positions for just five: Helleiner, Kohl, Ladner, Munzer, and Rytel. Yet Wallace continued to spend most of his time fielding inquiries from stranded refugees – most of whom were men; he heard little about women professors looking for assistance35 – and helping to secure the well-being of internees in Canadian camps. The Society had become virtually a

236

Cultures, Communities, and Conflict

one-man operation by 1942, and local university committees formed across Canada slowed their operations or folded entirely. In April 1943 Wallace decided to return any leftover subscribers’ money, and in February 1944 he recommended to R.C. Wallace that the Society surrender its charter. Cut free from Society responsibilities, in March Helleiner sent the Society a handwritten letter saying, ‘[i]f I may use a Canadian colloquialism, thanks a lot.’ Wallace reported back that the Society was ‘in a sort of suspended animation,’36 and, an afterthought, the charter was finally surrendered in spring 1946. The Society’s Sisyphean struggle was over. The Social and Intellectual Response to the Society Initial reaction to the establishment of the Canadian Society for the Protection of Science and Learning was swift. Between March and September 1939 expressions of support were numerous. Expository and thoughtful letters to the Society included variations on being sympathetic to the cause.37 Some letters, however, demonstrated a more subdued reaction. They indicated socio-intellectual tensions in the university and society that were to enervate the Society’s momentum. Here the ideal met the practical and humanitarianism met economic reality. Apparently, the full situation, as described by a refugee professor, of the ‘many misfortunes, disorders and very much hate’ in Germany was not fully understood. A librarian at Queen’s University, asked sarcastically: ‘[Has] Science and Learning [dripped] piteously into the UofT and ask to be protected … [?]’, a comment that spoke to interdisciplinary and inter-university rivalry among the academic communities in Canada, to the Toronto-centrism of higher education in Canada (and the reason Wallace asked R.C. Wallace of Queen’s to be president of the Society), and to an underestimation of the seriousness of the crisis.38 Several responses mentioned the overlapping objectives of the Society with those of other committees or organizations, noting that the British Society was providing relief for refugee scholars and that the Royal Society of Canada, the Canadian National Committee on Refugees and Victims of Political Persecution, and the Canadian Jewish Committee on Refugees were also working on the problem. Many letters equated the duplication of cause with the unnecessary expenditure of energy and resources at a time of governmental and university financial constraint. Many people also alluded to the ‘heavy burden’ of trying to raise private money.39

Refugee Professors and the University of Toronto

237

A constant concern was encapsulated in the Society’s first governing principle: that refugee professors chosen must not encroach on the employment opportunities of Canadian graduates and unemployed scholars. Vociferous outcries over displacing Canadian candidates for academic positions came from various quarters. Cody himself noted to O.D. Skelton, the under secretary of state for external affairs, that ‘one cannot have too many’ refugee professors as long as it would not ‘seriously interfere with … providing for the advancement of our own younger men.’ The newspapers noted the role of the Society in a positive light, but emphasized that no Canadian academics or workers would be usurped by the relief effort.40 Little evidence exists of the internal politics at the University of Toronto about the hiring of refugee professors. Harold Innis’s views were well known, however, and he was able to keep Helleiner unpromoted until his death in 1952. Innis told Cody that ‘the present arrangement for the solution of refugees [was unsatisfactory],’ and he warned that the university was in danger of forgetting about the importance of securing men who could help it through expertise and knowledge: ‘The [selection] committee is apt to be guided by the immediate humanitarian problem without thoroughly appreciating the ultimate humanitarian problem as to how successfully an appointment will conform to [departmental interests].’41 A founding qualification for allowing a refugee professor into Canada was the refugee’s potential contribution to academic knowledge bases and his ability to assimilate – to ‘fit into’ – Canadian society and academe. The Society’s meagre resources made determining a particular candidate’s worthiness difficult, as several letters make clear. A professor at Dalhousie Law School noted the ‘danger in getting unsuitable men,’ and asked what safeguards were in place ‘to insure that men of competence will come … and fit into our life.’ J.R. Dymond, a founding member of the Society, wrote to the director of science service in the Department of Agriculture in Ottawa that the Society must ‘take into account not only … personal qualities and training, but … also … the niche into which they may fit in this country.’ Coming from one of the Society’s major organizing figures in the days of early optimism, the comment reveals the underlying feeling of helplessness that prevailed almost from the start.42 On selection criteria, the Society’s own draft constitution noted only that ‘the selection of personnel, if based … on fitness, is a very difficult matter … [It should be] based on ability, age and suitability for fitting into the new environment.’43

238

Cultures, Communities, and Conflict

Science professors were preferred to those in the liberal arts or humanities. Cody helped secure refugee Hermann Fischer’s permanent position at the University of Toronto by noting that Fischer had brought with him his famous father’s ‘unique’ collection of chemicals and chemical library. In another case, W. Gallie, dean of surgery at the university, unimpressed with an application by a refugee researcher, wrote to Cody that the ‘university would gain nothing by inviting him here.’44 In a letter to the Society, J.L. Synge, who was on a research trip to Princeton University, recounted a remark by Albert Einstein. A refugee himself, Einstein, when referring to an émigré colleague in need of work, said that ‘no university could be expected to take on a man of fifty.’ A refugee professor, it seemed, had to be faultless, even in in meeting the challenge of ageism.45 Professional territorialism also could preclude the hiring of refugee professors. One letter to the Society cautioned that the Canadian Medical Association ‘has recently pronounced against the admittance of foreign medical doctors’ due to the overabundance of recent graduates. The message continued that the policy of the Dominion government was not to admit foreign medical men, and that such professionals ‘are employing all kinds of subterfuges in order to get into Canada … [A] useful plan [would be] to attach the foreigners to universities … at minimum salary and let them work out their own salvation.’46 Anti-Semitism and the Refugee Professor What exactly did it mean to ‘fit in’? Several letters to the Society reveal pockets of anti-Semitism in Canadian society, as well as the notion that the ‘suitability’ of a refugee candidate was more complicated than his potential economic or scholarly contribution. Canada in the 1930s was a volatile and sensitive country experiencing large-scale financial stress. The radical international political ideologies of communism and fascism were starting to have an impact. Community and social class animosities easily flared. In such an environment, minority interests could be misunderstood or ignored. Canadian society was not averse to the discrimination of Jews, who made up the majority of European professors seeking asylum in Toronto.47 The situation of the Jewish people in Europe was often ignored – itself discriminatory in its ignorance – and fuelled by a media that underreported domestic events in Germany.48 A member of the Fisheries Research Board of Canada, for example, admitted to the ‘complexity’

Refugee Professors and the University of Toronto

239

of selecting refugee scholars, but ‘I do not think your Committee would be wise to limit itself to Jews. There will probably be Czecho-Slovakian refugees, and … those of other nationalities to care for.’ The British Society itself advised its Canadian counterpart to remain ‘non-political and non-sectarian’ so that relief efforts could target not only Jewish professors but displaced scholars from all parts of Europe. Indeed, Karl Helleiner, the professor whom the Society had supported the most, was a Roman Catholic (although his wife was Jewish).49 In some communities the Depression had long ingrained the need to protect the few jobs available. Wallace was constantly worried about the kind of publicity the Society would receive and the public’s reaction to such press. The role of the universities in admitting Jewish professors was closely scrutinized. Anti-Semitism and the rise of radical intellectual leftist politics50 were a dual-edged sword. ‘I could scarcely believe my eyes,’ wrote F.J.A. Davidson to Cody in 1935, ‘when I read in to-day’s [Toronto Star] that Karl Marx is to be taught … by a Jew … [T]he University harbours a C.C.F. Club, Student League, Young Communist League, Worker’s Party, Friends of the Soviet Union and the Student Peace Movement … But this teaching of Marx in the University is the last straw.’ Cody replied by assuring Davidson that ‘the Jew is a graduate of our own University, not a communist … In no part of this University are the instructors seeking to make disciples of Karl Marx.’51 In the early 1940s the panic over the proposal to admit refugee Jewish students at the expense of hundreds of Canadian applicants – one mother wrote vitriolically to Cody protesting the admittance of these German ‘creatures’ – did not help an already tense atmosphere off campus. Cody’s official response was that the university was acting in a ‘truly British and Christian fashion,’ which, although not anti-Semitic and surely altruistic, was nonetheless a perspective historically not always conducive to promoting Jewish interests in Canada.52 Indeed, callousness towards the plight of the Jewish people was palpable. A column in the Toronto Star quoted A.R. Gordon, a member of the Society, as stressing that ‘no special favouritism’ should be expressed towards any group of refugee professors ‘though we recognize the separate hardship the Jews have to bear.’ A letter from the Department of Mines and Resources in Ottawa noted that, ‘[h]owever we may deplore, and be personally unaffected by it, we must recognize … [that] the danger in Semitizing … our institutions … is a danger of raising antisemitism from a latent to an active public factor that may get out of control.’ In contrast to such views, one respondent at the National Research Coun-

240

Cultures, Communities, and Conflict

cil applauded the establishment of the Society as an effort to ‘prevent bigoted … or ignorant action impeding the advance of science and learning in this country.’ In many comments on the Society the discussion reverted to what the refugees could contribute to Canada.53 Anti-Semitism also encumbered bringing foreign intellectuals to French Canada. The rector of the Université de Montréal, Oliver Maurault, noted that the institution encountered difficulty in offering relief to a refugee scholar because of the ‘feeling of internal protection due to the [provincial] employment crisis,’ elaborating that, in this ‘embarrassed economic situation … xenophobia is very keen in Montreal.’ A faculty member at McGill University recounted that the Department of Genetics was unsuccessful in providing aid for refugee professors: ‘[I]t is very up-hill work. Perhaps it is a little harder here than elsewhere in view of the strong anti-Semitic reactions of the French Canadian.’54 A. Norman Shaw, director of the Macdonald Physics Laboratory at McGill University, advised against depriving Canadian graduates of academic jobs when finding places for refugee professors, writing that, ‘in the domain of physics there are at present several able men who have positions far below what they are capable of holding, and also others who have no permanent position at all. Among these, those who are Jewish are having particular difficulty … [We] must face the fact that prejudice against foreigners and also against Jews exists.’ In response, A.G. Huntsman, chairman of the Society’s organizing committee, wrote that ‘[t]he Jewish aspect of the matter is a very difficult one … [A]ny foreigner has to face prejudice, and apart from that it is very difficult to fit him in.’55 The controversial use of physiognomy – inferring character or personal attributes from physical appearance – has long been a tool of discrimination. The editor of Toronto’s Financial Post wrote to Cody about an unemployed colleague who ‘is what they call Non-Aryan which from his looks seems extremely unlikely.’ The term ‘Jewish’ had vague connotations and was little understood in various communities. Cody and the Society often received letters requesting succour for someone identified as a ‘Jew,’ but to ascertain if this distinction was for informative, supportive, or discriminatory purposes is difficult. While Cody himself considered the Jewish people a ‘race’ or a particular candidate ‘Jewish by blood,’ many academics remained unconvinced of the correctness of this popular usage. Griffith Taylor, chair of the University of Toronto’s Geography Department in the 1940s, who published a number of important articles on race, ethnicity, and demography, argued that the

Refugee Professors and the University of Toronto

241

term ‘Jew’ was a ‘man-made [condition],’ and it referred to a religion only.56 Intellectuals were not impervious to stereotyping. In a 1942 letter to the board of governors, Samuel Beatty, dean of the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Arts, noted that, despite community protests, almost all the staff was ready to welcome Jewish students. Beatty avowed ‘to try on them Canadian standards and methods of study and more generally to insinuate the Anglo-Saxon approach to life.’ After studying the background of a released internee looking to be admitted into a Canadian university, H. Wasteneys, head of the Department of Biochemistry at the University of Toronto and an attendee of the first meeting of the Society in 1939, exclaimed: ‘What a German he is!’ In archival records, anti-Semitic remarks by professors at the university are only sporadic at best, but they reveal a definite degree of prejudice among a few academics. Writing to Innis, Frank B. Kenrick (chemistry) commented on how well a research assistant was faring, noting that ‘he has none of those qualities of his race which some people find distasteful.’57 Immigration: Institutionalized Racism The general reaction of the federal government to the Society was tepid. Perhaps on the basis of political exigencies and the fact he ‘may have heard it all before,’ when asked to attend the 3 April 1939 organizational meeting, Prime Minister King sent impassive regrets. Indeed, as the war progressed, the government forgot about the Society and took an increasingly distant attitude towards refugee professors. In February 1943 the commissioner of income tax at the Department of National Revenue wrote to Wallace about his suspicions over the funds raised to support Helleiner: ‘It seems strange that a man of Dr. Hell’s [sic] evident capacity should be obliged to depend upon the bounty of your Society for his livelihood at a time when every person is so busy and … that your Society has been unable to find some gainful occupation for Dr. Helleiner.’58 In contrast to the non-committal attitude of the federal government at large, the Department of Mines and Resources, Immigration Branch, was hostile to the Society almost from the start, and Immigration authorities played an instrumental part in the Society’s eventual failure. In None Is Too Many, Abella and Troper note three important aspects of the contribution of the Immigration Branch to anti-Semitism and discrimination in Canadian society in the 1930s and 1940s: the patently

242

Cultures, Communities, and Conflict

low profile of the Immigration Branch in Ottawa; the discriminatory and anti-Semitic attitude of director Frederick Charles Blair towards applicants – Blair insisted that the Society include the racial origin of each refugee applicant – and the ‘economically self-serving’ nature of Canada’s immigration policy. All of these factors combined to make the work of the Society extremely difficult if not ultimately impossible.59 Once the war started, with shifting social and economic government priorities, immigration procedures became more Byzantine, painfully slow, and discriminatory. On the very day of Canada’s declaration of war, Wallace wrote to R.C. Wallace outlining the difficulty in dealing with the Immigration branch, especially at a time when preliminary arrangements were being made to select refugee candidates for support. Blair remained largely silent on the Society’s efforts to bring over Helleiner and Czech biologist Kalmus.60 After August 1939 character, allegiance, and loyalty became important criteria in the selection of refugees as well as for people working near sensitive wartime research projects, particularly at Toronto and McGill. The term ‘enemy alien’ became more widely used, and Wallace and Cody were constantly forced to prove that the Society was not harbouring refugee spies. Blair cautioned Wallace in late September 1939 that if Kalmus, whose relief paperwork the Society was preparing, was still in Czechoslovakia, it would now be ‘impossible to get him out under war conditions.’ Blair added that the Austrian Helleiner, who was being processed by Immigration, could be considered an enemy alien and possibly detained. Naturalization granted by the secretary of state was equally inflexible – in contrast to the United States, where refugee professors were automatically granted citizenship upon entry into the country, Canada required five years of residency closely monitored by a supervisory agency or accredited sponsor.61 The government machinery in Ottawa seems to have landed fully on the side of an exclusionary policy.62 Blair imperiously oversaw admittance down to the individual case. In a facile explanation of Immigration’s obstinacy in allowing refugee scholar Leopold Kohr into the country, Blair suggested that his admittance would open the floodgates to other people – that Kohr’s entry into Canada ‘would be followed almost immediately with an application to save the other members [of his family] from Germany … [This will] not solve the family’s difficulties.’63 Overshadowing such rationale by an institution or individual, however, was the comment by the wife of a member of the Dutch Parliament in a speech to the Conference of Churches in Toronto in 1943.

Refugee Professors and the University of Toronto

243

Describing how Jews fled to Holland before the war to escape persecution under Hitler, she told the audience that ‘[my husband and I] decided to take care of as many Jewish [orphans] as we could. By 1940 were [were] looking after 1,500 … Jewish children … Then in 1940 Holland is invaded and we [fled] … and Canada gives us great hospitality … [b]ut … Canada would not let me bring [any] of [the Jewish] children with me … Don’t you know now these children may be all dead! There are nice people here in Canada … [b]ut you don’t realize what cruelties you have been doing.’64 Conclusion How does one approach the history of the Canadian Society for the Protection of Science and Learning without moral introspection? Many Canadian communities in the 1930s and 1940s were under financial and social stress. The time was characterized by rapid change, from the relatively politically and economically stable 1920s to the upheaval of the Depression, to the outrage of Nazism, to the silver lining of reconstruction. Throughout the war Leopold Infeld noted that the atmosphere in Toronto was ‘sad and depressing. The heavy clouds under which we all lived began to lift only when Germany was beaten.’65 Anti-Semitism and discrimination intensified throughout these uncertain years, as people felt comfortable with others in the community of similar outlook, religion, language, ethnicity, and, in some cases, appearance and ascribed personal characteristics. The university was susceptible to these effects. Institutions of higher education in the middle part of the twentieth century were not islands; they were attuned to the vagaries and vicissitudes of off-campus turmoil. Supposedly objective, critically minded intellectuals succumbed to the crassness of the utilitarian argument that the refugee professor must be a perfect fit in society, industry, and the university. Altruistic agendas towards refugee professors were at times severely compromised. The problem of refugee professors revealed inner tensions in academia. At the University of Toronto, to avoid protest, throughout the 1930s President H.J. Cody likely ensured that the hirings remained discreet. As an avowed friend of the Toronto Jewish community,66 Cody saw offering succour to Jewish intellectuals as a personal spiritual mission. Genuine expressions of humanitarianism, however, were rare. Once the Society drew public attention to the trials of refugee professors, the issue became sociopolitically volatile. Anti-Semitism was

244

Cultures, Communities, and Conflict

expressed overtly in only a few instances, but the decisions of some professors not to support the Society, or to stay mute, are a matter of important historical debate. The wartime scarcity of resources tested individual and collective moral character. The vice-chairman of the board of governors of Dalhousie University wrote to Wallace in frustration, asking for guidance on how to deal effectively with the complicated issue of refugee professors: ‘Frankly, I find it difficult to know how to do my duty in the midst of such misery and conflicting needs.’67 The perceived importance of certain forms of knowledge further politicized the issue, with the Society apparently more interested in the scientists and mathematicians than in the scholars of languages, the classics, the liberal arts, and the humanities among those who were suffering from the same overseas pogrom. When forced to choose, the university preferred men of a particular discipline and research, and, not coincidentally, so did society at large. As a microcosm of Canadian society academia was characterized by contextual and shifting identities brought on by uncertainty. In its pursuit of ‘truth’ and ‘knowledge,’ the professoriate, fundamentally Anglo-Saxon and Christian in its cultures and discourse, had broadly laudable goals. During this time intellectualism, as embodied in the professorial staff at the university, represented a particular paradigm of reason that nevertheless was not immune to illogic and personal or professional bias à la hegemonic thought off campus. When circumstances demanded it, many professors upheld the value system of the community in which they lived. For professors as for other members of society, an easier and expedient response lamentably could too often be discrimination and anti-Semitism expressed towards academic nomads whose lives were constantly under threat on the European continent.

NOTES 1 This chapter is a revised version of ‘“Rescue Our Family From a Living Death”: Refugee Professors and the Canadian Society for the Protection of Science and Learning at the University of Toronto, 1935–1946,’ Journal of the Canadian Historical Association, New Series 14 (2003): 231–61; and ‘Refugee Professors and the University of Toronto, 1935–1945,’ paper given at the Canadian History of Education Association Conference, Vancouver, 1998. I would like to acknowledge the Social Sciences and Humanities Research

Refugee Professors and the University of Toronto

2

3

4 5

6

7

8

245

Council of Canada for providing research funding into the academic cultures of the University of Toronto and other universities up to the midtwentieth century. These figures were calculated using the statistical tables in the appendices of issues of the University of Toronto President’s Report. They do not include the federated colleges Victoria, Trinity, and St Michael’s. University of Toronto Archives (hereafter cited as UTA), Office of the President (hereafter cited as OP), a68-0006/041/02, Box 040; University of Toronto, Thomas Fisher Rare Books Library (hereafter cited as RB), William Stewart Wallace Papers, MS-31, Box 27, 15 April 1939. Dr Carl von Seeman to Dr Mendel, 11 December 1938, UTA, OP, a680006/037/04. Dr Eduard Muhsam to H.J. Cody, UTA, OP, a68-0006/040; UTA, OP, 043/06, 19 July 1939; UTA, Dr Ernst Steiner, 22 November 1938, Political Economy, a76-0025/009/20; and UTA, OP, 042/02, 29 June 1939. Claus-Dieter Krohn, Intellectuals in Exile: Refugee Scholars and the New School for Social Research, trans. Rita Kimber and Robert Kimber (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1993), 12; Norman Bentwich, The Rescue and Achievement of Refugee Scholars: The Story of Displaced Scholars and Scientists, 1933–1952 (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1953); Krohn, Intellectuals in Exile, 14. Herbert A. Strauss, ‘Jews in German History: Persecution, Emigration, Acculturation,’ in International Biographical Dictionary of Central European Émigrés 1933–1945, vol. 2, The Arts, Sciences, and Literature, ed. Herbert A. Strauss et al. (Munich: K.G. Saur, 1983), 18; and [anonymous], Displaced German Scholars: A Guide to Academics in Peril in Nazi Germany During the 1930s, Studies in Judaica and the Holocaust 7 (San Bernardino, CA: Borgo Press, 1993), 1–2. An instructive overview of the fate of academics in Nazi Germany is found in Strauss et al., International Biographical Dictionary; see especially Horst Möller, ‘From Weimar to Bonn: The Arts and Humanities in Exile and Return, 1933–1980’; and Herbert A. Strauss, ‘The Migration of Academic Intellectuals,’ both in vol. 2. See also Strauss, ‘Jews in German History,’ 25; Max Weinreich, Hitler’s Professors: The Part of Scholarship in Germany’s Crimes against the Jewish People (New York: Yiddish Scientific Institute, 1946); and Avraham Barkai, ‘Jewish Life in Its German Milieu,’ in German-Jewish History in Modern Times, vol. 4, Renewal and Destruction, 1918–1945, ed. Michael A. Meyer (New York: Columbia University Press, 1998), 51–2. One study puts the figure of professorial displacements at 45 per cent of the total number of university positions in Germany; see Bentwich, Rescue

246

9

10 11 12 13

14

15

Cultures, Communities, and Conflict

and Achievement; Strauss, ‘Jews in German History,’ 24–5; idem, ‘Migration of the Academic Intellectuals,’ 67–77; and Bernt Engelmann, Germany without Jews, trans. D.J. Beer (Toronto: Bantam Books, 1984), 38–58. For the purposes of this chapter I use the definition of ‘refugee’ in the 1951 United Nations Geneva Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, which characterizes as such a person someone who suffers persecution and out of fear has been forced from his or her homeland. University of Toronto, President’s Report, 1940–1941, 19; see also idem, President’s Report, 1941–1942, 17. For example, see UTA, OP, a68-0006/042/05, 20 November 1939; Saturday Night Magazine, 19 September 1942. University of Toronto, President’s Report, 1935–1936, 23; idem, President’s Report, 1937–1938, 1. Appointed in 1936 Herta Hartmanshenn was the only woman refugee professor hired at the University of Toronto during the period this chapter covers. Women made up only a tiny percentage of the total professorial refugee population, as attested in Strauss et al., International Biographical Dictionary. See also Sibylle Quack, ed., Between Sorrow and Strength: Women Refugees of the Nazi Period (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), especially the chapters that deal with the occupations and professions of women émigrés, 215–82, 289–324. These individuals were identified through cross-analysis of archival sources in the UTA and RB, University of Toronto President’s Reports and Calendars, and various biographies, bibliographies, and indices, including the International Biographical Dictionary. Although the list includes Leopold Infeld, he was not a refugee from Nazi oppression as were the other professors. Rather, Infeld felt the strain of anti-Semitism in Polish society (‘Jewish students were beaten on campus’), and left the continent for a better academic prospect in Cambridge in 1934; after a brief return to Poland he left for overseas in 1936. See UTA, Department of Graduate Records, a73-00026/167/04; UTA, People Files, ‘Infeld’; Dorothy Howarth, ‘Worked with Einstein: Dr. Infeld Writes Book about Great Physicist,’ Telegram (Toronto), 7 January 1939; and Michiel Horn, Academic Freedom in Canada: A History (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1999), 203–4. In previous studies, the number of refugee scholars estimated to have been admitted to Canada has been too low – see Lawrence D. Stokes, ‘Canada and an Academic Refugee from Nazi Germany: The Case of Gerhard Herzberg,’ Canadian Historical Review 57, no. 2 (1976): 150; Irving Abella and Harold Troper, ‘Canada and the Refugee Intellectual, 1933–1939,’ in The Muses Flee Hitler: Cultural Transfer and Adaptation, 1930–1945, ed. Jarrell C.

Refugee Professors and the University of Toronto

16

17 18

19

20

247

Jackman and Carla M. Borden (Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1983), 259; Horn, Academic Freedom in Canada, 166; and Irving Abella, ‘Presidential Address: Jews, Human Rights, and the Making of a New Canada,’ Journal of the Canadian Historical Association 11, no. 1 (2000): 6. European committees, set up by professors, included the Comité des savants and Foyer Henri Heine (France), the Academisch Steunfonds (the Netherlands), and the Comité international pour le placement des intellectuel réfugiés (Switzerland). See Strauss, ‘Migration of Academic Intellectuals,’ 72–3; Krohn, Intellectuals in Exile, 24–9; Bentwich, Rescue and Achievement, 15; and Gerhard Hirschfeld, ‘German Refugee Scholars in Great Britain,’ in Refugees in the Age of Total War, ed. Anna C. Bramwell (London: Unwin Hyman, 1988), 155. Numerous international agencies existed with various commitments of assistance for refugees, such as the Office of the League of Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, the Red Cross, and the British Coordinating Committee for Refugees. Almost half of all German university and college academics emigrated, first to Britain; Hirschfeld, ‘German Refugee Scholars in Great Britain,’ 153. By 1938 the Society found permanent work for 550 academics in 38 different countries; see Bentwich, Rescue and Achievement, 97; John Hope Simpson, The Refugee Problem: Report of a Survey (London: Oxford University Press, 1939), 189; and Claudina M. Skran, Refugees in Inter-War Europe: The Emergence of a Regime (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995), 200. One study includes a Society numerical chart of permanently and temporarily placed refugee scholars in the various countries up to June 1938 – the figure for Canada was six; see David Zimmerman, ‘“Narrow-Minded People”: Canadian Universities and the Academic Refugee Crisis, 1933–41,’ Canadian Historical Review 88, no. 2 (2007): 294. This number is much higher if one counts all refugee professors placed by independent agencies or foundations, by Cody, or by a department head in Toronto (and possibly elsewhere) up to 1945. ‘Dr. W.S. Wallace, Canadian Historian,’ Globe and Mail, 11 March 1970; W. Stewart Wallace, A History of the University of Toronto, 1827–1927 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1927); ‘William Stewart Wallace,’ Proceedings of the Royal Society of Canada, Series 4, 7 (1970): 157; ‘W. Stewart Wallace, 1884–1970,’ U of T Bulletin, 2 April 1970, p. 4; ‘Wallace,’ Proceedings, 156. See also The Canadian Who’s Who, vol. 5 (Toronto: Transcanada Press, 1949–51), 1028. 22 March, 24 March, 5 April 1939, UTA, OP, A68-0006/037/03; 30 March 1939, UTA, OP, File 02, A68-0006/037/03; ‘To Toronto Fellows of the Royal Society of Canada,’ 8 March, UTA, Political Economy, A76-0025/010/01.

248

Cultures, Communities, and Conflict

21 ‘An Appeal on Behalf of … The Canadian Society for the Protection of Science and Learning,’ n.d., RB, MS-31-27; ‘An Appeal on Behalf of The Canadian Society for the Protection of Science and Learning,’ n.d., UTA, B65-0029/001. 22 ‘Meeting April 3rd,’ circular letter sent to all Fellows of Royal Society of Canada outside of Toronto, n.d., RB, MS-31-28. 23 29 March, 4 April 1939, RB, MS 31, Box 28. 24 W.S. Wallace to R.C. Wallace, 10 November 1939, RB, MS-31, Box 27; W.S. Wallace to R.C. Wallace, 20 April 1939, RB, MS-31, Box 27. 25 Wallace noted that the logistics of approaching people and organizations for help to secure a single refugee was a ‘long and tedious process’; W.S. Wallace to Cleghorn Thomson, 5 July 1939, RB, MS-31, Box 28. 26 5 July 1939, RB, MS-31, Box 28; January 1940, RB, MS-31, Box 28; 2–11 December 1939, RB, MS-31, Box 27; 8 December 1939, RB, MS-31, Box 27; W.S. Wallace to Deputy Minister, Dept. of Sec. of State, 6 October 1941, RB, MS-31, Box 27. 27 Murray Ballantyne, ‘The Late Egbert Munzer: A Tribute,’ Canadian Journal of Economics and Political Science 15, no. 3 (1949): 409–11; 9, 17, 22, and 24 November 1939, 4, 12, 16, 20, 19 December 1939, 6 January 1940, RB, MS-31, Box 27; ‘Canadian Society for the Protection of Science and Learning,’ 24 November 1939, UTA, B65-0029/001. 28 In response to a letter from the Society regarding Engel-Janosi, Chancellor Howard P. Whidden of McMaster University remarked on 2 December 1939 that there’s ‘nothing here … for him … How sad these cases are’; RB, MS-31, Box 27. 29 10 January 1941, RB, MS-31, Box 27; UTA, Canadian Society for the Protection of Science and Learning (herafter cited as CSPSL), b65-0029, Box 001. 30 30 October 1939, RB, MS-31, Box 27; 8 September, 18 October 1939, RB, MS-31, Box 28. 31 UTA, B65-0029/001, 14 September 1939; 13 October 1939, RB, MS-31, Box 26; ‘Canadian Society for the Protection of Science and Learning,’ n.d., RB, MS-31, Box 27. 32 RB, MS-31, Box 27 passim; W.H. Martin to Harold Innis, 21 October 1940, RB, MS-31, Box 28; Peter Sandiford to Harold Innis, 15 October 1940, RB, MS-31, Box 28; L.F. Goodwin to Harold Innis, 9 February 1940, RB, MS-31, Box 28; UTA, CSPSL, n.d., B65-0029/001. 33 9 March 1940, RB, MS-31, Box 27. 34 15, 29 February 1940, UTA, OP, A68-0006/043/06. 35 W.S. Wallace to Dorothy Turville, President of the Canadian University Women’s Federation, 23 September 1940, RB, MS-31, Box 28; W.S. Wal-

Refugee Professors and the University of Toronto

36

37 38

39

40

41 42

43 44 45

249

lace to T.E. Matthews, Registrar, McGill University, 7 November 1940, RB, MS-31, Box 27. In a letter to the British Society in spring 1940, the chair of the Montreal committee wrote, ‘I suppose there are far fewer women refugees than men’; Chairman of Montreal Committee to Esther Simpson, 5 March 1940, RB, MS-31, Box 27. W.S. Wallace to R.C. Wallace, 11 March 1942, RB, MS-31, Box 28; UTA, CSPSL, b65-0029; Wallace to R.C. Wallace, 25 February, 7, 12 April 1943, RB, MS-31, Box 28; Wallace to R.C. Wallace, 24 February, 10 March, 23 March 1944, RB, MS-31, Box 28. See March–September 1939 passim, RB, MS-31, Boxes 27, 28. Dorette Calef to Cairine R. Wilson, 26 May 1939, RB, MS-31, Box 26; Dr Ernst Steiner, 22 November 1938, UTA, Political Economy, a760025/009/20; E.C. Kyle to Wallace, 23 January 1941, RB, MS-31, Box 27. See Irving Abella and Harold Troper, None Is Too Many: Canada and the Jews of Europe, 1933–1948 (Toronto: Lester & Orpen, 1983), 44–5, 57–8; G.W.H. Norman to J. Ellis Thomson, 31 March 1939, RB, MS-31, Box 28; J.J. O’Neil to A.G. Huntsman, 1 April 1939, RB, MS-31, Box 28; 30 March, 1 April 1939, E.G. Young to A.G. Huntsman, RB, MS-31, Box 28; R.C. Wallace to A.G. Huntsman, 1 April 1939, RB, MS-31, Box 28. W.H. Alexander to W.S. Wallace, 28 March 1939, RB, MS-31, Box 28; W. Sherwood Fox to W.S. Wallace, 28 March 1939, RB, MS-31, Box 28; Sidney Smith to A.G. Huntsman, 5 April 1939, RB, MS-31, Box 26; H.J. Cody to O.D. Skelton, 19 May 1938, RB, MS-31, Box 28; ‘Toronto dons to find posts for refugees,’ Globe and Mail, 19 July 1939; and ‘Will help refugees find Canadian posts,’ Toronto Star, 11 August 1940. Christopher Helleiner, interview by author, 28 March 1999, Halifax, NS; Harold Innis to H.J. Cody, 30 June 1939, UTA, OP, A68-0006/044/04. G.F.C. to W.S. Wallace, 20 June 1939, RB, MS-31, Box 28; H.T. Gussow to A.G. Huntsman, 5 April 1939, RB, MS-31, Box 28. See also F.C. Blair to W.S. Wallace, 17 July 1939, RB, MS-31, Box 28; J.R. Dymond to W.A. Clemens, 4 April 1939, RB, MS-31, Box 28; J.R. Dymond to J.M. Swaine, 4 April 1939, RB, MS-31, Box 28. The draft outline is found in RB, MS-31, Box 28, typed on carbon, n.d., no author. H.J. Cody to Fernand Rinfret, 14 November 1938, UTA, OP A680006/038/05; W. Gallie to H.J. Cody, 17 May 1938, RB, MS-31, Box 28. J.L. Synge to A.G. Huntsman, 27 February 1939, RB, MS-31, Box 26. T.F. McIlwraith also mentioned age as a general factor in hiring at the university: At ‘43 or 44 … I do not know whether [the candidate] would have the enthusiasm of a younger man’ (4 July 1941, UTA, OP, A68-0006/051/02).

250

46

47

48

49

50

51 52

Cultures, Communities, and Conflict

An example of age as a factor in hiring at the University of Toronto can be cited from as far back as the early 1930s when Erwin Panofsky, then in his early forties and at an American university, was not considered for the position of art historian; see E. Lisa Panayotidis, ‘The Department of Fine Art at the University of Toronto, 1926–1945: Institutionalizing the “Culture of the Aesthetic,”’ Journal of Canadian Art History 25 (2004): 100–22. A.G. Nicholls to A.G. Huntsman, 5 April 1939, RB, MS-31, Box 28. W.S. Wallace to H.C. Cooke, 20 November 1939, RB, MS-31, Box 27. See also 2 May 1940, RB, MS-31, Box 26, where the opposition of the Canadian Medical Association to refugee medical scientists was considered ‘strong.’ Discrimination against Jewish people and immigrants in Canada during the 1930s is well documented. See Irving Abella and Franklin Bailystock, ‘Canada,’ in The World Reacts to the Holocaust, ed. David S. Wyman (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996); Donald H. Avery, Reluctant Host: Canada’s Response to Immigrant Workers, 1896–1994 (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1995); Gerald Tulchinsky, Branching Out: The Transformation of the Canadian Jewish Community (Toronto: Stoddart, 1998); and idem, Canada’s Jews: A People’s Journey (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2008). Of note, however, is that some organizations, constituencies, and individuals made considerable effort to try to help refugees. For example, the reaction of Canadian Christians to Nazi policies was far from monolithically apathetic; rather, it could be zealous and determined when energized by multifarious religious agendas and doctrines; see Jonathan J. Durance, ‘“Will No One Heed Their Cry?” Canadian Christian Responses to the Nazi Persecution of the Jews, 1938–1939’ (master’s thesis, University of Calgary, 2011), for a judicious discussion of the efforts of the Canadian National Committee on Refugees and Victims of Political Persecution to assist European refugees after the German Kristallnacht pogrom in November 1938. Laurel Leff, Buried by the Times: The Holocaust and America’s Most Important Newspaper (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005). Canadian media as well may have been underreporting the crisis. Sydney Smith to A.G. Huntsman, 28 March 1939, RB, MS-31, Box 28; Strauss, ‘Migration of Academic Intellectuals,’ 75; files, 30 March 1939, RB, MS-31, Box 27; files, 27 March 1039, RB, MS-31, Box 28. Michiel Horn, The League for Social Reconstruction: Intellectual Origins of the Democratic Left in Canada, 1930–1942 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1980). 1 October 1935, UTA, OP, A68-0006/021/01. W.J. Deadman to H.J. Cody, 24 November 1942, 19 March 1943, UTA, OP,

Refugee Professors and the University of Toronto

53

54

55

56

57

58

59

251

A68-0006/054/01; 1943, UTA, OP, A68-0006/054/01, Box 59/09; ‘Section V,’ n.d., UTA, A76-0025/010/22, Political Economy. Toronto had a broad admission policy towards Jewish medical students; see W.P.J. Millar, ‘“We wanted our children should have it better”: Jewish Medical Students at the University of Toronto, 1910–51,’ Journal of the Canadian Historical Association 11, no. 1 (2000): 109–24. Andrew Gordon, ‘Sir Robert first to … bring in foreign scientists,’ Toronto Star, 20 July 1939, UTA, Graduate Records, A73-0026/121/76; Department of Mines and Resources to J.R. Dymond, 31 March 1939, RB, MS-31, Box 28; C.C. Macklin to A.G. Huntsman, 28 March 1939, RB, MS-31, Box 26; R.W. Boyle to A.G. Huntsman, 28 March 1939, RB, MS-31, Box 28. 27 March, 1 April 1939, RB, MS-31, Box 28; Oliver Maurault to W.S. Wallace, 21 April 1939, RB, MS-31, Box 28; Department of Genetics to A.G. Huntsman, 4 April 1939, RB, MS-31, Box 28. A. Norman Shaw to A.G. Huntsman, 3 April 1939, RB, MS-31, Box 28; Huntsman to Shaw, 6 April 1939, RB, MS-31, Box 28. See also D.A. Keys to A.G. Huntsman, 30 March 1939, RB, MS-31, Box 26. Alexander Brady to Reginald Coupland, 3 September 1941, UTA, A760025/013/11, Political Economy; F.S. Chalmers to H.J. Cody, 12 December 1938, UTA, OP, A68-0006/036/03. See also H.J. Cody to A.P. Coleman, 22 April 1941, UTA, OP, A68-0006/045/04; H.J. Cody to Judge Lovering, 28 October 1940, UTA, OP, A68-0006/045/02; H.J. Cody to Richard Myers, The War Amputations of Canada, 21 January 1943, UTA, OP, A680006/057/09; and Griffith Taylor, ‘Aryan, German, Nordic, Jew,’ reprinted from the University of Chicago Magazine, November 1935, A68-0006/024/02. 7 October 1942, UTA, OP, A68-0006/057/09; 31 March 1942, RB, MS-31, Box 28; ‘Mr. Chairman,’ n.d., RB, MS-31, Box 28; handwritten to unspecified recipient, ca. October 1940, RB, MS-31, Box 26; Michael Bliss, Banting: A Biography, 2nd ed. (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1992), 100–1, 252; F.B. Kenrick to Harold Innis, n.d., UTA, A76-0025/010/22, Political Economy. W.S. Wallace to Diamond Jenness, 18 May 1939, RB, MS-31, Box 27. On King’s reaction to the new Canadian National Committee on Refugees and Victims of Political Persecution, see Abella and Troper, None Is Too Many, 45–6; and Durance, ‘“Will No One Heed Their Cry?,”’ 109–112. See also 27 March 1939, RB, MS-31, Box 28; W.S. Wallace to R.C. Wallace, 11 March 1942, RB, MS-31, Box 28; 5 February 1941, UTA, CSPSL, b65-0029; W.S. Wallace to R.C. Wallace, 25 February, 7, 12 April 1943, RB, MS-31, Box 28. F.C. Blair to W.S. Wallace, 12 April, 29 September 1939, RB, MS-31, Box 28; Abella and Troper, None Is Too Many, 5–9 passim; 5 July 1939, January

252

60 61

62 63 64

65 66 67

Cultures, Communities, and Conflict

1940, RB, MS-31, Box 28. See also Ninette Kelley and Michael Trebilcock, The Making of the Mosaic: A History of Canadian Immigration Policy (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2000), chaps. 6 and 7. 1, 8 September 1939, 18 September 1940, RB, MS-31, Box 28; 16 September 1939, RB, MS-31, Box 26. 29 September 1939, RB, MS-31 Box 27; W.S. Wallace to Karl Helleiner, 2 October 1939, RB, MS-31 Box 27. See also Abella and Troper, None Is Too Many; John Bryden, Deadly Allies: Canada’s Secret War, 1937–1947 (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1989); Steve Hewitt, The RCMP’s Secret Activities at Canadian Universities, 1917–1997 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2002); and Horn, Academic Freedom in Canada. See also Cody to Coleman, 12 October 1939, UTA, OP, A68-0006/041/04; UTA, OP, A68-0006/041/04, Box 042/04; 24 September 1941, UTA, OP, A68-0006/041/04, Box 049/03; and 4 October 1940, RB, MS-31, Box 28. 23 June 1941, UTA, OP, A68-0006/045/04; 15 June 1940, RB, MS-31, Box 26. F.C. Blair to W.S. Wallace, 17 July 1939, RB, MS-31, Box 28. The Toronto speech is cited in Rev. A.E. Cooke, ‘Canada and the Refugees (address at ‘The Sunday Evening Forum,’ St John’s United Church, Vancouver, 1943), Victoria University Archives (University of Toronto), Pam d809.c2c6. See also 13 November 1939, RB, MS-31, Box 26; 27 November 1939, RB, MS-31, Box 27. ‘As I See It,’ Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, February 1965, 10. Masters, Henry John Cody, 216–18. J.C. Webster to W.S. Wallace, 27 March 1939, RB MS-31, Box 28.

10 Universities, Students, and the Conduct of War in Canada and Britain: A Comparative Perspective paul axelrod and charles levi

Historians of higher education seldom undertake research that spans national borders, and this is certainly true of the subject of the two World Wars. Yet this is an especially rich topic for comparative work since so many nations, particularly in the British Empire, were profoundly affected by these earth-shattering events. In both wars, universities in Britain and Canada that had styled themselves as loyal imperial institutions were compelled to confront the experience of war and to meet explicit war requirements. Students who enlisted in the armed services were most deeply touched by the two wars, but those who took up or continued their university studies also experienced the wars’ consequences. University facilities, the curriculum, and extracurricular life all bore the impact of the hostilities. This chapter, drawing from published studies, compares these experiences in Britain and English Canada. The secondary literature – institutional histories, memoirs, and regional and case studies – offers an array of insights into this subject. Drawing from a significant body of disparate and relatively unfamiliar sources, the narrative that emerges provides an overview of the student encounter with war in the first half of the twentieth century. Preparing Campuses for War Declared on 4 August 1914, the war that would become the First World War was widely expected by the British to be ‘over by Christmas,’ and university campuses were caught up in the excitement of a grand crusade. In fear of missing the last great ‘adventure,’ students and staff signed up in large numbers. By 1915 two-thirds of the student body

254

Cultures, Communities, and Conflict

at Oxford had enlisted.1 The population of Cambridge dropped from a pre-war norm of 3,000 to 575 students (mostly female) by 1916.2 King’s College in London saw 300 students enlist by 1915.3 The British government did not introduce conscription for overseas service until 1916, so with respect to manpower planning for war the universities were ahead of the state. Cambridge had been on guard since 1859, when it formed its first volunteer rifle corps.4 Even smaller universities, such as Durham, had active Officer Training Corps (OTC) at the beginning of the war.5 By 1916 some six thousand officers had been trained by the OTC in British universities.6 Beyond the personnel issue the British army commandeered many university buildings for war work, mustering, and hospital use.7 As the historian of the University of Birmingham opines, ‘there is much to suspect that in 1914 the government attitude towards the universities and their work was lackadaisical.’8 Michael Sanderson notes that it was not understood that ‘for a long war the scientific officering of the industrial army was as important as that of the combatant troops.’9 By 1915 British military and state officials were realizing that the war would be a long one, and the military was baffled by the rapid shift from mobile campaigns to trench warfare. Initially unprepared for this new form of combat, the army and state acknowledged that new expertise would be required. The policy solution now became state aid to university and improved technical education, as well as better links between industry and higher education.10 The perceived need to link industry and education had been one of the factors driving the expansion of British universities in the nineteenth century, as new civic universities were founded to supply industry with trained personnel.11 In the early 1900s, however, these universities had moved away from science to a more ‘balanced’ curriculum, perhaps to be more attractive to students. Before the war Oxford, for its part, had largely neglected science.12 The universities, therefore, were reserves of possible expertise but not necessarily designed for the needs of the state and military. While the state was coming to appreciate the possibilities of the university, university professors were lobbying for a ministry of ‘science and industry’ to better organize university research. These initiatives bore fruit in 1916 with the creation of the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research (DSIR). The DSIR would grant research scholarships and fellowships to staff and students who demonstrated original contributions ‘to the advancement of science, technology, economics or

Universities, Students, and the Conduct of War

255

commerce.’13 In tandem with the DSIR, the British government, after the introduction of conscription, introduced the ‘reserved occupation scheme’ to assure that scientific staff and promising research students would not be forced to enlist. The Royal Society was placed in charge of evaluating the claims of academics.14 Among the students, faculty, and graduates who enlisted, the casualties were extensive. As of June 1916, 825 ‘Oxford men’ had lost their lives, and hundreds more had been injured or ‘invalided.’ By war’s end some sixteen thousand Cambridge members (past and present) had been to war, and three thousand were dead, wounded, ‘missing,’ or held as prisoners of war.15 The Canadian government entered the First World War with no specific policies on how to mobilize manpower or the resources of the universities for the war effort. As elsewhere, most people expected it would be a short war and that Canada’s contribution would be in the form of voluntary military enlistment.16 This attitude is reflected in certain ‘business as usual’ decisions made by individual universities. The University of British Columbia (UBC), for example, continued purchasing books and engaging staff for its scheduled opening in 1915. The war postponed the university’s move to Point Grey, but the new campus opened as planned.17 Queen’s University was able to carry out a fundraising campaign during the war that brought in $500,000.18 The universities offered their services quickly when the war broke out,19 but there was some confusion over what they could actually do. The National Conference of Canadian Universities met in 1915 and struck a committee to harmonize military matters, especially training, on campus. The committee suggested that physical training be replaced by military training.20 Individual universities that did not have Canadian Officers’ Training Corps (COTC) organizations quickly attempted to set them up, providing a pool of drilled soldiers who became vital replacements after 1916.21 Some Canadian universities were also forced to give up their facilities to help the war effort. Queen’s and Dalhousie University, for example, offered some building space for military hospitals for invalided soldiers22 – in Queen’s case, in order to help the university balance its books. Canada’s private universities found that, as registration numbers fell, so did revenues. Notwithstanding its recent fundraising campaign, Queen’s considered closing, as did Mount Allison University.23 Both Dalhousie and Acadia had difficulty with their budgeting, although Acadia was able to solve its problem by reducing staff.24 The

256

Cultures, Communities, and Conflict

pressures flowing from the war thus raised concerns about the financial sustainability of privately funded institutions, but provincially funded universities also had revenue issues. UBC, for example, was forced to scale back its curriculum planning.25 Although there was recognition that the universities were contributing to the war effort, there was no outlay of federal funding to assist this contribution apart from payment for services offered, such as the rent paid to Queen’s. One of the realities of student life was the expectation to enlist for military service. Indeed, large numbers of students volunteered at the outset: 300 at Queen’s by spring 1915, 83 at Dalhousie by the beginning of 1915, and 56 at very young UBC by September 1915.26 By the end of the war, some universities essentially were cleaned out of male students. Dalhousie could report only a dozen men of military age in its arts and science courses by 1917, one-third of Mount Allison’s student body had disappeared by 1916, and in Ontario there was an overall crisis in enrolment, especially in professional faculties.27 Engineers were especially in demand, and the University of Saskatchewan discovered by 1916 that all of its engineering students and staff had enlisted, effectively closing that school until the end of the war.28 Of course, these early enrolments, combined with the brutality of the Great War, led to large numbers of student casualties. Three hundred and sixty-three McGill students and graduates died, as did 78 from UBC, 66 from Saskatchewan, and 82 from Alberta.29 Although the numbers at these Western universities were small, the universities themselves were small institutions; for example, Alberta’s total enrolment in 1914 was 439 students, so the 82 dead represented approximately 20 per cent of an average year’s student body. In British universities the Great War also caused some significant curricular changes. The needs of the war effort led to a call for less Latin and Greek and more emphasis on modern languages (to produce more effective translators and spies) and modern literature (so those translators and spies would know something about the contemporary world).30 King’s College inaugurated chairs in Spanish and Portuguese, and Sheffield established departments of Russian and Spanish.31 The war, as well, changed the career aspirations of ‘many men’ who witnessed machines in action for the first time and thus became interested in science and engineering.32 At Oxford, especially, the war boosted the stature of scientific research to previously unknown levels.33 The war also led to serious discussions in Britain about instituting the PhD degree, chiefly to draw American scholars to the island instead of to

Universities, Students, and the Conduct of War

257

Germany.34 Other scholars also received benefits from the war. Women were increasingly sought after as students in order to maintain revenues at universities whose male students had departed. At Cambridge there was a preponderance of women in the classrooms during the war, and at Oxford they were able to use their dominance to leverage concessions from the university. In 1916 women were admitted to Oxford’s medical faculty on an equal basis with the men. And in 1920, in the immediate aftermath of the war, Oxford passed its ‘women’s statute,’ which admitted women to formal membership in the university.35 As Willis Rudy notes, the demands of the war also lowered academic standards in British universities. Cambridge, for example, introduced a policy in 1916 that gave students who enlisted in the army academic credit towards a degree. And students who spent at least six months in the military ‘would be automatically excused from important examinations’ upon their return to the university.36 Universities asked the government to authorize a more flexible wartime degree, which was instituted. It allowed shorter programs combined with some form of national service. Some universities also began accepting students (boys) at age sixteen, so that they could complete their studies before enlisting. The war had some clear effects on the extracurricular life of British students. The Oxford Union shut down its activities for the duration, and its premises hosted an officers’ mess.37 Cambridge, as well, had problems maintaining activities when so many of its students were either training for war or overseas. The St Bernard Society of Queen’s College, for example, tried bravely to carry on its meetings until 1917, ‘with diminishing frequency and small attendances, despite the presence of the cadets.’ The sports clubs at Queen’s College as well ceased functioning in 1917.38 In Canada the Great War had a significant impact on both the curricular and extracurricular lives of students. With the enlistment of so many male students, women were more visible than ever on most campuses, although, notably, as A.B. McKillop observes for Ontario, while ‘the relative proportion of women increased dramatically, their numbers did not.’39 The programs and professions in which women specialized (modern languages, liberal arts, and the social services) endured, while those in which men were concentrated were at risk, and in some cases cancelled because too few students were enrolled. Applied science and engineering at the University of Toronto diminished significantly; and at Dalhousie virtually every area was affected; because of their relevance to war service, medicine and dentistry were the only

258

Cultures, Communities, and Conflict

faculties that remained ‘near normal.’ Female academics also became somewhat more evident on campus. Queen’s University, for example, appointed its first woman to the staff in 1917, and the number of women appointed at the University of Toronto during the war also increased.40 As in Britain, academic standards in all likelihood declined in Canadian universities as male students were rushed through programs or given academic credit for completing something less than the full traditional course requirements. At the University of Toronto in February 1915 – before the end of the academic year – a special convocation was held for some fifty students who were headed overseas. Subsequently ‘a certain measure of academic credit was given to all students … going on active service’; in the Faculty of Arts, returning soldiers thus were able to complete a four-year program with only three years’ study.41 Initially the war had little impact on students’ extracurricular life. But, as it continued, the war dampened the mood on campus and diminished traditionally extensive athletic and social programs. In some parts of the country intercollegiate sports were suspended, though intramural athletics continued; students got their physical activity through military drill, which was required.42 Because so many men were absent, women participated, frequently for the first time, in certain extracurricular activities. They were elected to office in traditional male-dominated organizations, they edited campus newspapers, and, at Mount Allison, from 1916 to 1918, women valedictorians addressed Convocation.43 In the wake of the war a significant number of female graduates of Acadia and other Canadian universities were inspired to undertake social service and mission work at home or abroad.44 For students on the home front the war years were disruptive and angst-ridden; consequently, as McKillop notes in Ontario, when conscription was imposed in 1917, ‘student life was once more granted a sense of direction.’45 For many, purposefulness replaced aimlessness and, notwithstanding the danger, or perhaps because of it, students individually and collectively felt a sense of potential engagement that many on campus had yet to experience. Preparing for War Again With respect to its state of preparedness, Britain learned a number of lessons from the experience of the First World War. When war broke out again in 1939, attempts were made to restrict the chaotic draining

Universities, Students, and the Conduct of War

259

of the universities that had taken place in 1914. As Sanderson notes, ‘few supposed that the war could be waged without the universities.’46 Although two-thirds of eligible Oxford students volunteered for war service in 1939 before the government had even called for such action, few were allowed to enlist immediately. Most were assigned to officer cadet training, and science and medical students were instructed to stay in school and finish their degrees.47 Because of the age stipulations of the British at the beginning of the war, most arts students could study for at least two years before being eligible for military service.48 As well, fewer professors departed university service, although some were redeployed by the state into government and industry positions. Oxford, for its part, decided it would carry on its academic mission ‘as far and as long as possible,’ and maintained an enrolment of 1,500 to 2,000 undergraduates throughout the war.49 The universities were better prepared for war, too. At the University of Hull, for example, defensive trenches had been dug in September and October of 1938 at the time of the Munich crisis, and by May 1939 the university had made effective war-contingency plans. At the outbreak of war the university moved to nearby Cottingham to allow the municipal offices to transfer to the safer university campus. Although the move lasted only two weeks, it reflected a new realization of the effects of war. Birmingham, as well, took steps to prepare against the potential of air attack. At some campuses the lives of students were more disrupted. The London School of Economics relocated to Cambridge for the duration of the war, the University of Liverpool moved some of its classes to college campuses in Wales, and King’s College in London saw its facilities dispersed to Bristol and Glasgow until 1942.50 Canadian universities, too, were somewhat better equipped physically and psychically for the new war than had been the case in the previous conflict. McGill, for example, set up a War Service Advisory Board in September 1939,51 and UBC similarly ‘prepared’ through air raid drills and coastal defense plans.52 At Manitoba, the Canadian Army leased student residences at Fort Garry as a barracks for men in training, forcing students to seek alternative accommodation. At the end of the 1940 academic year, the campus became a drilling centre for new recruits.53 The British approach to the Second World War involved much better manpower planning than in the First. Universities, from the outset of the war, were expected to have military training on campus for male students, involving three to seven hours a week under the super-

260

Cultures, Communities, and Conflict

vision of army instructors. These military training programs helped keep enrolment levels up. As well, universities were used to training individuals who had already enlisted in the army, air force, and navy. Cadets in training were counted as students. These policies made it possible for Britain to continue university enrolments at three-quarters of the pre-1939 level. Enrolments in science and technology went up but liberal arts registration went down. According to Rudy, ‘physically fit’ male students studying in the arts, literature, law, or divinity could anticipate being ‘mobilized for the army once they reached the age of eighteen.’ This was a major disincentive for students to enrol in these programs. The public universities such as Manchester, Sheffield, and Southampton were especially affected by wartime demands, quickly creating courses in radio physics, navigation, and marine engineering. Under these circumstances, universities ran the risk of becoming vocational schools – students in radio studies accounted for at least one-half of those receiving bursaries in 1941 – but, as Rudy notes, the universities had ‘little choice’ in the matter.54 As did the First World War, the Second changed the relative position of women students on British campuses as their numbers climbed. As with men, women did not have total freedom in their choice of courses. They were allowed to remain in university for three years or until they turned twenty-one, and they were permitted to study ‘only in departments that were in some way related to “national service.”’ This included teaching, so that women were able to study in the liberal arts as a route to this vocation. But after completing university, they could be ‘assigned to whatever work the Ministry of Labour considered to be in the national interest.’55 The war also led to some changes in curriculum and teaching methods. Foreign-language instruction again took on importance, with courses in Russian and Arabic being offered at the University of London, and government employees took courses in East European Studies and Oriental and Asian Studies. Such initiatives were designed to qualify students to work as ‘army interpreters and army intelligence officers.’56 Student life continued as best as it could. The Oxford Union, closed in the First World War, stayed open in the Second, but debate topics were censored.57 Most student life, as expected, was centred on the immediacy of war. And this war, unlike the First, was less lethal to the university student, or so it appears from available statistics. While the official historians of Oxford and Cambridge have not published statis-

Universities, Students, and the Conduct of War

261

tics on war deaths in their histories, some glimpses of them are available elsewhere. At King’s College, Cambridge, 107 ‘kingsmen’ died in the Second World War as opposed to 174 in the First, even though ‘there were actually more of them on active service’ between 1939 and 1945 than in the earlier conflict. At Merton College, Oxford, 46 were killed, ‘fewer than half the number lost in the first.’58 Similar figures could be extrapolated for Oxford and Cambridge as a whole. King’s College London had 158 student casualties in the Second World War compared with 239 in the First, and Birmingham lost 120 ‘undergraduates, graduates and members of staff’ compared with 175 a generation earlier.59 In Canada, McKillop observes, after the First World War the universities ‘began to enter the public consciousness’ as sources of human resources, a change that was important when the Second World War began. The outbreak of the war did not come as a surprise to Canadian universities, and infrastructure was already in place to manage it. The National Conference of Canadian Universities (NCCU) – already in existence for twenty-eight years, its membership consisting of Canada’s university leaders – appears to have moved rather seamlessly from a discussion group to an active participant in the coordination of war policy. Indeed the existence of the NCCU made state coordination of university policy largely unnecessary. The Canadian military saw the universities as the source of a ‘trained domestic army of engineers, scientists, dentists, and doctors.’60 Although there was a small rush of enlistments after war was declared, the universities were encouraged to remain open and functioning, and the NCCU managed, in coordination with the Wartime Bureau of Technical Personnel, to ensure that the needs of the country were met. At the same time, however, as large numbers of staff volunteered for war service, it became difficult for some universities to maintain reasonable class sizes, even with the drop in student enrolment.61 Henry John Cody, president of the University of Toronto, lamented the shortage of medical and engineering staff, and reported that ‘our department of psychology is being shot to pieces.’62 The Second World War saw a larger number of Canadian student enlistments but fewer casualties than did the First. This was largely because of the high percentage of Canadian soldiers who were in support operations and the long delay between a student’s enlistment and active war service. Enlistments also were spread out over a longer period because of saner manpower planning strategies. Still, 298 McGill graduates or students died in the Second World War, as did some 200 from Saskatchewan, and 156 from Alberta.63 Fifty-two men who had

262

Cultures, Communities, and Conflict

trained with the contingent of the University of Western Ontario COTC also perished.64 As in the First World War, women increased their proportionate presence on Canadian campuses in the Second, and were awarded 28.6 per cent of all undergraduate degrees in 1945 compared with 21.3 per cent in 1939. Women studied mainly in the arts, but other subjects attracted them as well – the number obtaining the Bachelor of Science degree rose from fifty-one in 1941 to ninety in 1945.65 Mandatory military training was not considered ‘proper’ for women, and their contribution to the war, on and off campus, took a different form. When the war began, Faculty Wives’ associations began organizing women’s work. At the University of Toronto women were anxious to proceed further, and an experimental training detachment of the Canadian Red Cross was approved for the university in November 1940. As a result of this, women were placed in ‘uniform.’ As well as Red Cross training, women at the university received ambulance training, including motor mechanic work. By 1942 this training was made compulsory for all women on campus.66 Other campuses watched the Toronto experiment carefully. Queen’s University women formed a voluntary service corps in 1941 with Red Cross and motor mechanics work, and women at McGill received emergency ambulance and first aid training.67 At UBC, women received nursing and first aid work, but also did more traditional sewing and knitting for the war effort. Similar activities took place in Alberta and Saskatchewan, and at the University of Manitoba war work ‘was also instituted for all female students who were “voluntarily” to spend three hours per week receiving instruction in skills designed to prepare them for service in a national emergency.’ This requirement was made compulsory in September 1942.68 While women students were being egged on to voluntary service, increasing levels of compulsion were suggested for male students. By maintaining stringent admissions criteria, the universities ensured that they could not be used as a haven for people escaping the war – indeed, in 1940 the NCCU declared that all male students were to perform compulsory military training on campus, and all universities fell in line with this policy.69 Nonetheless, as the war dragged on there was a nagging sense in the minds of several government personnel officers, and at least two university presidents, that the continued operation of arts and social science faculties during a time of crisis was not useful. This led to proposals in 1942 that the arts faculties at Canadian universities

Universities, Students, and the Conduct of War

263

be suspended for the duration of the war. This incident by now has taken on the colour of a twice-told tale, and there are several perceptions of it. Frederick Gibson, in his volume on the history of Queen’s, points out that, by 1942, the arts faculty was the only one in the university not directly contributing to the war effort, and Canada was, in this regard, out of step with policy in the United States and Britain. There was a need to ‘disarm public opinion’ by making some sort of report or decision on the issue. The NCCU called a conference on the question, at which social scientists, led by Harold Innis, made a spirited defence of their subjects. The federal government, meanwhile, was perplexed as to how the subject had come up, and in January 1943 declared that it had no plans to curtail liberal arts, although they might be ‘rationed.’ With that assurance, proposals to eliminate arts training were defeated.70 There are other perspectives on this controversy. Stanley Frost declares that the discussions in 1942 and 1943 were not a public relations exercise or a misjudgment in policy, but an honest reaction to government confusion over manpower needs.71 Michael Stevenson, from the perspective of outside academia, tells a different story. He says that a number of non-university officials and observers were critical of student deferments, and that this led to a 1943 study as to whether undergraduates were enrolling in certain programs to extend their deferments and avoid war service. Mobilization boards, especially, were involved in this criticism. Ignoring the January 1943 theatrics, Stevenson focuses on a more important meeting in August 1943, at which Associate Deputy Minister of Labour Arthur MacNamara told the NCCU that student manpower should be ‘maximized’ by preventing young people from entering university. MacNamara also called for individual petitions for deferment instead of blanket rules, especially for arts students. The NCCU resisted this, and MacNamara had to concede, suffering criticism from the mobilization bureaucracy.72 After 1944 universities had to report the availability for war service of male students in the lower half of all non-essential classes, and 3,600 students in the 1944–5 academic year were so reported nationwide.73 The directive was implemented unevenly, however, and did not always mean that the students had to leave university. At Queen’s, for example, of fifty-one students who were reported for service, only twenty-one were asked to withdraw from studies.74 Discussions in 1945 to mobilize another four thousand students, including the lower half of those in science faculties across the country, were rendered moot by the end of the war in Europe,75 but had the war continued the universities might have become as bereft of

264

Cultures, Communities, and Conflict

students as they were in the latter years of the First World War. Some academics became distressed by the pervasive utilitarian culture gripping Canadian campuses during the war. Principal William C. Graham at United College said that the decline in arts enrolment ‘very definitely had been accelerated by propaganda emanating from the Dominion government agencies encouraging students to take technical studies in preference to arts courses.’ This constituted ‘an encroachment upon intellectual freedom’ that ‘was very close to being fascistic.’76 In Britain, as it became obvious that the Allied powers eventually would win the war, public opinion makers and civil servants turned their minds to post-war reconstruction and the idea of a planned society. This planned society, many said, would require an enlarged university system. It would also require a flattening of Britain’s class structure and an end to the domination of Oxbridge over the whole system of higher education.77 This point was made most fervently in two books published in 1943: A Student’s View of the Universities, a Marxist perspective by Brian Simon of the National Union of Students, and the more influential Redbrick University, by a professor writing under the pseudonym of Bruce Truscott.78 Redbrick claimed that the newer universities of England were suffering from low status and poor students, and lacked the patronage of the better schools and philanthropists – a situation that the war had worsened. What was needed was a system that reduced the advantages of Oxbridge and provided equal facilities, especially residential facilities, to all universities. This would require tremendous increases in state aid.79 Indeed, Truscott noted that, in the Second World War, military expenditure had exceeded expenditure on universities by a factor of 3,000 to 1.80 Truscott called for eleven equal national universities, as part of a national system of education. Indeed, a 1944 education act in Britain provided just such a system at the elementary level.81 As Robert O. Berdahl summarizes it, their common experience of the Second World War promoted a systematic response by universities, and hence a ‘university system.’82 British students subsequently received more post-secondary educational opportunities, but the class system was not diminished significantly by this development. The war also had a significant impact on university development in Canada. The most immediate effect was the doubling of enrolments to some 80,000 between 1944 and 1947 as a result of the adoption of the Veterans Rehabilitation Act, which paid the tuition and a significant part of the living costs of returning servicemen and women seeking a university education.83 Half of the nearly 54,000 veterans who attend

Universities, Students, and the Conduct of War

265

university under the Act took degrees in the arts, although professional education in such fields as engineering, commerce, medicine, and law also expanded. As one engineer asked, ‘Where would I have been if there hadn’t been a war?’84 Women retained their minority status in university during and after the war, but their presence in some male-dominated professions did increase. Women rose from 4.8 per cent of graduating medical classes in 1944 to 8.3 per cent in 1948, while the percentage of women chemists and metallurgists rose from 3.5 to 10.2 per cent over the same period, and in Ottawa women were ‘being scooped up by an expanding civil service.’85 Full educational and occupational equality for women was scarcely imagined, let alone achieved, but the shortage of trained professionals created opportunities that would otherwise have eluded them. Although overall participation rates in higher education grew only gradually in the two decades following the war, the profile and perceived importance of universities to Canada’s national development were strengthened in the wake of the war. The contribution of academics to applied military research enhanced the universities’ image; so too did the post-war veterans aid program, which was Canada’s first major post-secondary education student assistance scheme. F. Cyril James, the principal of McGill and president of the NCCU, claimed in 1950 that ‘education – and particularly University education – is of fundamental importance to the welfare, and indeed, to the existence of Canada as a nation,’86 a perspective reinforced by the report of the Massey Commission on National Development in the Arts Letters and Sciences in 1951.87 Both during the war and in the era of growth that followed, government and the public supported the demonstrably utilitarian aspects of research and teaching over the (allegedly) esoteric aspects of academic life.88 Conclusion If universities aspire to scholarly detachment from the affairs of everyday life, the illusion that this is possible in wartime quickly dissipates. Higher education in Britain and Canada was deeply affected by the demands of the two World Wars, but the scope and texture of that impact varied. In the physical damage that some institutions suffered in the First World War and through the elaborate relocation plans they implemented in the Second, British universities were most directly and severely struck by the crises. As well, their students, alumni, and fac-

266

Cultures, Communities, and Conflict

ulty suffered the greatest casualties. The moderation and containment of campus social and extracurricular life in both wars reflects the sobering effect of the hostilities on student life in both countries.89 Overall, with the traumatic experience of the First World War behind them, British and Canadian universities were better prepared for the outbreak of the new war. Rather than encouraging, or even permitting, an indiscriminate rush by students and faculty to enlist in military service, the universities (subjected to government oversight) sought to maintain academic programs and research, particularly in the applied sciences, that were perceived to serve the countries’ wartime needs best. The social sciences and humanities fared less well, though they did survive. And to the degree that the wars were cast as ideological struggles between totalitarianism and democracy, the world of ideas, in which the arts are steeped, had palpable pertinence that resonated through the post-1945 Cold War period and beyond. In both Britain and Canada, war directly and indirectly affected women’s campus experiences and prospects for educational advancement. The disappearance of so many men from campus allowed women to achieve unprecedented recognition in coeducational universities, which led to some new occupational possibilities. But women would wait at least another generation before securing and sustaining anything approaching equality of treatment and opportunity in universities, the professions, and the workplace. Much remains to be learned in Canada and elsewhere about the impact the wars and higher education had on each other. While the subject of scientific research has received considerable attention, a number of interesting historical questions remain unexplored. What effect did the wars have on university teaching? How did the experience of those in professional education compare with that of people in other academic areas? How were male students who did not enlist in the armed services perceived and treated on campus? What, indeed, motivated others to sign up?90 To what extent, and in what ways, did student (and faculty) resistance to the wars manifest itself? Comparisons of the Canadian and British experiences (and those of Australia and New Zealand) with the US experience would be enlightening, as would research into the comparative wartime experiences of Frenchand English-Canadian academics and students. Finally, how have more recent wars (Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan) influenced campus organization, culture, and student life? War, evidently, endures, as do the historical questions it invariably provokes.

Universities, Students, and the Conduct of War

267

NOTES 1 Brian Harrison, ed., The History of the University of Oxford, vol. 8, The Twentieth Century (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994), 9. By 1918, ‘virtually all’ students were in uniform. 2 Christopher N.L. Brooke, A History of the University of Cambridge, vol. 4, 1870–1990 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), 331. 3 F.J.C. Hearnshaw, The Centenary History of King’s College London: 1828–1928 (London: George G. Harrag and Company, 1929), 460. This number reflects an unknown percentage of the student body because it is unclear whether Hearnshaw was referring to part-time, full-time, theological, or any other of the myriad divisions of the student population of King’s. 4 Brooke, University of Cambridge, 334. 5 C.E. Whiting, The University of Durham: 1832–1932 (London: Sheldon Press, 1932), 221. 6 Willis Rudy, Total War and Twentieth-Century Higher Learning: Universities in the Western World in the First and Second World Wars (London: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press and Associated University Presses, 1991), 24. 7 Michael Sanderson, The Universities and British Industry: 1850–1970 (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1972), 217. 8 Eric Ives et al., The First Civic University: Birmingham 1880–1980: An Introductory History (Birmingham, UK: University of Birmingham Press, 2000), 175. 9 Sanderson, Universities and British Industry, 218. 10 Neil Daglish, ‘“Over by Christmas”: The First World War, Education, Reform and the Economy: The Case of Christopher Addison and the Origins of the D.S.I.R.,’ History of Education 27, no. 3 (1998): 322–4. 11 The new ‘Red Brick’ or ‘civic’ institutions, created in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, were the Universities of Birmingham, Bristol, Leeds, Liverpool, Manchester, and Sheffield. 12 Daglish, ‘“Over By Christmas,”’ 320. 13 Sanderson, Universities and British Industry, 234–5; Daglish, ‘“Over By Christmas,”’ 327, 330. 14 Ives, First Civic University, 160. 15 Rudy, Total University, 19. 16 Robert Craig Brown, Robert Laird Borden: A Biography, vol. 2 (Toronto: Macmillan of Canada, 1975), 1. 17 William C. Gibson, Wesbrook and His University (Victoria, BC: Morriss Printing, 1973), 91–8, 128. 18 Frederick N. Gibson and Roger Graham, Queen’s University, Volume II,

268

19 20 21 22

23 24

25 26 27 28 29

30 31

32 33 34

Cultures, Communities, and Conflict

1917–1961: To Serve and Yet Be Free (Montreal; Kingston, ON: McGillQueen’s University Press, 1983), 17. A.B. McKillop, Matters of Mind: The University in Ontario, 1791–1951 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1994), 254–5. Gwendoline Evans Pilkington, Speaking with One Voice: Universities in Dialogue with Government (Montreal: History of McGill Project, 1983), 12–13. McKillop, Matters of Mind, 268. Hilda Neatby, Queen’s University, Volume I, 1841–1917: And Not to Yield, ed. Frederick N. Gibson and Roger Graham (Montreal; Kingston, ON: McGillQueen’s University Press, 1978), 299; P.B. Waite, The Lives of Dalhousie University, vol. 1, 1818–1925 (Montreal; Kingston, ON: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1994), 233–4. Neatby, Queen’s, 299; John G. Reid, Mount Allison University (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1984), 12. Waite, Lives of Dalhousie, vol. 1, 233; Barry M. Moody, ‘Acadia and the Great War,’ in Youth, University, and Canadian Society: Essays in the Social History of Higher Education, ed. Paul Axelrod and John G. Reid (Montreal; Kingston, ON: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1989), 145. Gibson, Wesbrook, 115. Neatby, Queen’s, 296; Waite, Lives of Dalhousie, vol. 1, 224; Gibson, Wesbrook, 133. Waite, Lives of Dalhousie, vol. 1, 225; Reid, Mount Allison, 10; McKillop, Matters of Mind, 275, 280. W.P. Thompson, The University of Saskatchewan: A Personal History (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1970), 99. Stanley Brice Frost, McGill University, vol. 2 (Montreal; Kingston, ON: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1989), 101; Harry T. Logan, ‘Tuum Est’: A History of the University of British Columbia (Vancouver: Mitchell Press, 1958), 69; Michael Hayden, Seeking a Balance: The University of Saskatchewan, 1907–1982 (Vancouver: UBC Press, 1983), 83; Walter Johns, A History of the University of Alberta, 1908–1969 (Edmonton: University of Alberta Press, 1981), 54. George Haines IV, Essays on German Influence upon British Education and Science (Hamden, CT: Archon Books, 1969), 175–6. Hearnshaw, King’s College, London, 465–6; Arthur W. Chapman, The Story of a Modern University: A History of the University of Sheffield (London: Oxford University Press, 1955), 283–4. Sanderson, Universities and British Industry, 239. Harrison, University of Oxford, 14–15. Chapman, Story of a Modern University, 295; Harrison, University of Oxford, 6.

Universities, Students, and the Conduct of War 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50

51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58

59 60 61

269

Brooke, University of Cambridge, 332; Harrison, University of Oxford, 13–14. Rudy, Total War, 31. Christopher Hollis, The Oxford Union (London: Evans Brothers, 1965), 133. John Twigg, A History of Queen’s College, Cambridge: 1448–1986 (Woodbridge, UK: Boydell Press, 1987), 320–2. McKillop, Matters of Mind, 275. Waite, Lives of Dalhousie, vol. 1, 233; Neatby, Queen’s, 303; Friedland, Toronto, 255. University of Toronto Roll of Service 1914–1918 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1921), xiv. Reid, Mount Allison, 9; Waite, Lives of Dalhousie, vol. 1, 224. Hayden, Seeking a Balance, 81; Johns, Alberta, 57; Reid, Mount Allison, 10. Moody, ‘Acadia and the Great War,’ 152–4; Diana Pedersen, ‘The Call to Service,’ in Axelrod and Reid, Youth, University, and Canadian Society, 201–2. McKillop, Matters of Mind, 290. Sanderson, Universities and British Industry, 339, 346. Harrison, University of Oxford, 167–9. Brooke, University of Cambridge, 506–7. Sanderson, Universities and British Industry, 341; Godfrey Elton, The First Fifty Years of the Rhodes Trust (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1955), 163–4. Ives, First Civic University, 178; Brooke, University of Cambridge, 507; Gordon Huelin, King’s College, London: 1828–1978 (Leeds, UK: W.S. Maney and Sons, 1978), 81; Rudy, Total War, 66–7. R.C. Fetherstonehaugh, McGill University at War: 1914–1918, 1939–1945 (Montreal: Gazette Printing, 1947), 128; see also Rudy, Total War, 67. Logan, ‘Tuum Est,’ 138. J.M. Bumstead, The University of Manitoba: An Illustrated History (Winnipeg: University of Manitoba Press, 2001), 102. Rudy, Total War, 70–1. Ibid., 70. Ibid., 79–80. Harrison, University of Oxford, 180. L.P. Wilkinson, Kingsmen of a Century: 1873–1972 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981), 357; G.H. Martin and J.R.L. Highfield, A History of Merton College, Oxford (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997), 340. Huelin, King’s College, London, 99; Ives, First Civic University, 281. McKillop, Matters of Mind, 264, 522, 528. Frost, McGill, 221; Logan, ‘Tuum Est,’ 146; P.B. Waite, The Lives of Dalhousie University, vol. 2, 1925–1980 (Montreal; Kingston, ON: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1998), 106–8.

270

Cultures, Communities, and Conflict

62 D.C. Masters, Henry John Cody: An Outstanding Life (Toronto: Dundurn, 1995), 271. 63 Featherstonehaugh, McGill University at War, 119; Hayden, Seeking a Balance, 184; Johns, Alberta, 195. 64 Andrew Theobald: ‘Western’s War: A Study of an Ontario Canadian Officers’ Training Corps Contingent, 1939–1945,’ Ontario History 98, no. 1 (2006): 65. 65 Jeffrey A. Keshen, Saints, Sinners and Soldiers: Canada’s Second World War (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2004), 149. 66 Nancy Kiefer and Ruth Roach Pierson, ‘The War Effort and Women Students at the University of Toronto, 1939–1945,’ in Axelrod and Reid, Youth, University, and Canadian Society, 164–74. 67 Kathryn Bindon, Queen’s Men, Canada’s Men: The Military History of Queen’s University, Kingston (Kingston: Eastern Typesetting, 1978), 85–6; Featherstonehaugh, McGill University at War, 152. 68 Logan, ‘Tuum Est,’ 142–3; Hayden, Seeking a Balance, 185; Johns, Alberta, 198–9; Bumstead, University of Manitoba, 97. 69 Pilkington, Speaking with One Voice, 25–6, 28. 70 Gibson, Queen’s University, 206–8, 210–12. 71 Stanley Brice Frost, The Man in the Ivory Tower: F. Cyril James of McGill (Montreal; Kingston, ON: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1991), 111–12. 72 Michael D. Stevenson, Canada’s Greatest Wartime Muddle: National Selective Service and the Mobilization of Human Resources during World War II (Montreal; Kingston, ON: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2001), 52–3, 59–61. 73 Ibid., 64. 74 Bindon, Queen’s Men, 114. 75 Stevenson, Canada’s Greatest Wartime Muddle, 64. 76 Bumstead, University of Manitoba, 99. 77 Robert O. Berdahl, British Universities and the State (New York: Arno Press, 1977), 71, 83. 78 Brian Simon, A Student’s View of the Universities (London: Longmans Green, 1943); Harold Silver, ‘The Universities’ Speaking Conscience: “Bruce Truscott” and Redbrick University,’ History of Education 28, no. 2 (1999): 173–4, 178. 79 Silver, ‘Universities’ Speaking Conscience,’ 175, 180–1, 185. 80 Bruce Truscott, Redbrick University (London: Faber and Faber, 1944), 39. 81 Berdahl, British Universities and the State, 71. 82 Ibid., 47. 83 Peter M. Neary and J.L. Granatstein, eds., The Veteran Charter and Post World War II Canada (Montreal; Kingston, ON: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1997).

Universities, Students, and the Conduct of War

271

84 Keshen, Saints, Sinners and Soldiers, 275, 277. 85 Ibid., 149, 192. 86 Peter Neary, ‘Canadian Universities and Canadian Veterans of World War II,’ in The Veterans Charter and Post-War Canada, ed. P. Neary and J.L. Granatstein (Montreal; Kingston, ON: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1998), 138. See also David M. Cameron, More than an Academic Question: Universities, Government and Public Policy in Canada (Montreal; Halifax: Institute for Research on Public Policy, 1991), 46–7. 87 Paul Litt, The Muses, the Masses, and the Massey Commission (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1992), 146–66. 88 Paul Axelrod, Scholars and Dollars: Politics, Economics, and the Universities of Ontario, 1945–1980 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1982), 18–26. 89 For a discussion of the de-radicalizing effect of the Second World War on student politics in Canada, see Paul Axelrod, ‘The Student Movement of the 1930s,’ in Axelrod and Reid, Youth, University, and Canadian Society. 90 See, for example, Mary Georgina Chaktsiris, ‘The Varsity Man: Manhood, the University of Toronto and the Great War’ (MA thesis, University of Toronto, 2009), https://tspace.library.utoronto.ca/bitstream/1807/18091/1/Chaktsiris_Mary_G_200911_MA_thesis.pdf.

11 War and the Concept of Generation: The International Teach-ins at the University of Toronto, 1965–19681 catherine gidney

To think of the late 1960s North American university is to invoke the spectre of war in Vietnam. Although the counterculture gave shape to 1960s youth culture, and Canadian student activists gave voice to a host of concerns from the undemocratic nature of the campus to its Americanization, it was opposition to the war in Vietnam that united otherwise politically diverse individuals and campus groups. In the process, the focus on Vietnam, an external war, shifted to the ‘war within.’ A war that divided North American society became recast as the ‘war against the young,’ an understanding that was particularly prevalent on the university campus.2 The late 1960s is not the only period in which youth have been defined by war. Indeed, international conflict has shaped and reshaped the lives of students, faculty, and administrators as well as the culture of the university. During the two World Wars, students enlisted en masse while buildings, equipment, and intellectual resources were placed at the disposal of the government.3 Wartime imagery continued to resonate in the post–First World War peacetime environment, reflected in the presence of the Canadian Officers’ Training Contingent (COTC), in physical training (a transmutation of military drill), in remembrance services, and in the construction of monuments and memorial buildings.4 In reaction to war, peace movements appeared in the 1930s and again in the late 1950s.5 Moreover, presidents who had themselves served overseas during the Great War helped ensure their universities would be open to the veterans of the Second World War, and later used the language of battle to bolster their institutions in the 1950s, bringing the rhetoric of the Cold War to the campus by championing the liberal arts as a bulwark against communism.6 During the 1960s protests

War and the Concept of Generation 273

against the Vietnam War arose in part as a reaction against the close ties that had developed between universities and defence initiatives during the World Wars.7 War, then, was a consistent influence on the lives of Canadian university students during the first three quarters of the twentieth century. War has also played a central role in shaping our understanding of youth experience and identity. In their attempt to understand and impose order upon the experience of youth, sociologists and historians have drawn on the concept of generation. This concept itself developed at least in part out of the carnage of the Great War. The idea of generational revolt that had been developing through the second half of the nineteenth century crystallized by the end of the century, historian Robert Wohl argues, ‘into a cluster of attitudes that can be called the ideology of youth.’ Wohl notes that the most important generational theories appeared between 1910 and 1933, themselves the products of ‘the idea of the generation of 1914.’8 The use of the concept of generation in the twentieth century by contemporaries as well as by later social scientists has resulted in a number of fixed categories: the lost generation of the 1920s, the greatest generation of the 1940s, and the silent generation of the 1950s. The idea of generational identity, and of youth versus the establishment, became particularly pronounced and divisive in the late 1960s – seen not exclusively, but certainly most forcefully, in the issue of Vietnam. Although each of these formulations of generation is usually considered on its own, taken together they reveal a pattern in which each has been forged in the face, or in the shadow, of war. Vietnam was not their only focus, but the teach-ins held at the University of Toronto from 1965 to 1968 were shaped by its spectre. Those teach-ins – particularly the most successful one in 1965, which focused partly on Vietnam – provide a useful means to examine the traditional dichotomies associated with the sixties: students versus authority, youth versus adults. My central purpose is not to describe these events per se but to raise a very specific issue: the problem of using ‘generation’ as a category of historical analysis. Although I briefly examine the origins, reception, and decline of the teach-ins, I focus on the debate that emerged about their purpose: were they to be employed for education, for protest, or for propaganda? The reception of the teach-ins within the university reveals the complexity of generational relations, illuminating both the division within generations and intergenerational cooperation. At the same time, the declining success of the teach-ins points to the limits of such cooperation, and suggests that the Vietnam

274

Cultures, Communities, and Conflict

War spoke to, and helped unify, diverse groups on campus in a way that other events and topics could not. In the late 1960s generational thinking resonated particularly strongly. Student activists emphasized a binary opposition between students and authority, and, more broadly, between youth and the establishment, epitomized in the slogan ‘never trust anyone over thirty.’9 Essays in new left publications in the late 1960s, for example, pitted students against ‘the university’ as represented by presidents and administrators. For their part, faculty could fall on either side depending on the arguments being made.10 Contemporary analysis of the period reinforced the idea of the university as a site of generational revolt. For example, in his 1975 analysis of the youth movement in Canada, Kenneth Westhues acknowledged the participation of many older people but essentially categorized the conflict within the university as between youth (including young professors) and the administration. He wrote of the activism and protests of the times as the ‘collective solidarity’ of a ‘generation of young Canadians.’11 Although some sociological studies cast doubts on a generational gap in values between youth and their parents,12 commentators on the times continue to rely upon similar characterizations. Writing of the United States, sociologist Rebecca Klatch notes that academics interested in the concept of generation often draw on the theoretical work of Karl Mannheim. Yet she argues that, although Mannheim identified the existence not only of generational identity but also of intragenerational conflict, much of the US literature on the period has used his theoretical insights to explore only the phenomenon of a seemingly united 1960s youth generation.13 This has also been a trend within much of the English-Canadian literature on the times. Myrna Kostash assumes there was a ‘sixties generation,’ and characterizes the university as composed of ‘restless faculty and [a] restive administration.’14 Cyril Levitt underscores the youthfulness of the new left, describing it as composed of ‘an activist vanguard of the baby boom generation.’15 Doug Owram, in Born at the Right Time, assumes the ‘generational identity’ of the baby boom, and equates the counterculture and university activism of the 1960s with this cohort.16 Yet research on a variety of different topics is beginning to show the problematic nature of characterizing the late 1960s solely as a moment of ‘youth’ or as a period in which ‘youth’ formed a united generation. Indeed, historians and sociologists elsewhere are beginning to point to divisions among student activists of the new left during the

War and the Concept of Generation 275

period, as well as among students more generally.17 Equally, they have pointed to the role older activists played in the social movements of the 1960s.18 Providing a more encompassing interpretation of the 1960s, Arthur Marwick argues that the period was marked by the appearance of a variety of subcultures that interacted with each other, producing ideas that permeated and transformed society. Change became not only accepted by much of mainstream society but often anticipated by those in authority.19 Such rethinking has also occurred in the context of Quebec. François Ricard demonstrates that an older generation born in the 1920s and 1930s, which he classifies as ‘frustrated reformers,’ welcomed the social upheaval that occurred as the first baby boomers reached adolescence, and used this historical moment to take action. In doing so, he argues, it was they who were the ‘agents’ of the Quiet Revolution.20 More recently, while not focused on the question of generation, several Canadian studies have uncovered some of the ties between activist faculty and students and divisions within their respective cohorts.21 This new literature, then, brings into question the use of the concept of generation as the dominant means of understanding the phenomenon of the 1960s on the university campus. The teach-ins held at the University of Toronto in the late 1960s provide an instructive means by which to probe the usefulness of the concept of generation. Indeed, they stemmed directly from the escalation of US involvement in Southeast Asia, an event which helped crystallize the idea of generational division. Teach-ins originated in the United States as a corollary to the sit-in – a form of non-violent protest used by members of the civil rights movement – which became a popular tactic on university campuses in the 1960s.22 The teach-in was intended to educate individuals about the issues at hand in order to facilitate both political awareness and political action. Concerned about the increased US presence in Vietnam, faculty and students at the University of Michigan organized the first teach-in in March 1965.23 More than three thousand people participated, and in the next couple of months faculty and students across the United States organized more than one hundred teach-ins.24 In late spring, US academics, joined by some Canadians, held a conference at the University of Michigan to determine how to follow up the success of the teach-ins. Among the suggestions was one from Charles Hanly, professor of philosophy at the University of Toronto, to hold an International Teach-in at Toronto.25 Such activism was not unknown on North American campuses: students have always protested periodically against what they perceived to

276

Cultures, Communities, and Conflict

be unfair rulings by their university administrations.26 Students became more organized in the 1920s and 1930s, however, with the creation in Canada of groups such as the Student Christian Movement (1921), the National Federation of Canadian University Students (NFCUS, 1926), and the Canadian Student Assembly (1938), and, in the United States, of the National Student Federation of America (1925) and the American Student Union (1935).27 Some of these organizations remained active in the post-war period, but in the 1960s student movements became forces to be reckoned with through the creation of more radical groups such as, in the United States in 1960, Students for a Democratic Society and the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee and, in Canada in 1964, the Student Union for Peace Action and the Union générale des étudiants québécois. In that year, too, students renamed the NFCUS the Canadian Union of Students, signalling their intention to create a more activist national body.28 Despite the public presence of such groups, the number of campus activists was always relatively small. For the 1930s Paul Axelrod estimates that roughly 5 per cent of students participated regularly in these types of organizations. Similar work for the 1960s has yet to be undertaken in Canada. In the United States, however, estimates suggest that activists constituted less than 5 per cent of the student population, though the more moderately involved constituted about 20 per cent.29 The four teach-ins held at the University of Toronto in the mid- to late 1960s thus form part of a larger tradition of campus activism. Each event – their topics covered, in order, ‘Revolution and Response,’ ‘China: Coexistence or Containment,’ ‘Religion and International Affairs,’ and ‘Exploding Humanity: The Crisis of Numbers’ – was a major undertaking. The first, in 1965, was both the largest and best documented, and provides a good example of the scope of these events. Over the course of the summer and early fall of that year, Professor Hanly chaired a committee of twenty-seven faculty and students from an array of departments. It included prominent faculty such as Kenneth McNaught (history), Peter Russell, Abraham Rotstein, and Melville Watkins (political economy), and Chandler Davis (mathematics), as well as Matthew Cohen, a graduate student in political science.30 To gain wide support, the teach-in had an honorary board that included Claude Bissell, president of the University of Toronto; Murray Ross, president of York University; Northrop Frye, principal of Victoria College; J. Tuzo Wilson, a senior scientist at the University of Toronto; and Escott Reid, principal of Glendon College, York Univer-

War and the Concept of Generation 277

sity.31 These men were not simply figureheads. The 1965 teach-in cost $35,000. Organizers raised at least half of the funds through a two-dollar entrance fee. They raised an additional three thousand dollars at the event by passing around a hat. However, Bissell, and other administrators also helped seek out the funds necessary to support the event.32 After the first teach-in, organizers created the International Forum Foundation to initiate and financially support projects similar to the teach-in.33 The high cost of the 1965 teach-in was due to the slate of international figures brought in. For example, a session on ‘Revolution and the Citizen’s Moral Responsibility’ consisted of Professor Staughton Lynd, a long-time peace activist and member of the Yale history department; Lord Fenner Brockway, a Labour peer and chairman of the British Council for Peace in Vietnam; and George Grant, professor of religion at McMaster University. The session on Vietnam included Professor Robert Scalapino, of the political science department at the University of California, Berkeley, and a prominent spokesman in support of American policy in Asia; Mike Myerson, a graduate student at Berkeley; William Worthy, an American correspondent in Prague; Phuong Margain, secretary general of the cabinet of Cambodia; and Nguyen Phu Duc, a former South Vietnamese delegate to the United Nations. In all, five such sessions were held in Varsity Arena, with each followed by a question period. Two were also followed by 250 small seminars, many led by faculty or graduate students, for more in-depth discussion.34 This latter endeavour was in keeping with the aim of the American teach-ins to promote discussion and awareness. But the holding of seminars also fit the beliefs of student activists who saw large lecture halls and the inaccessibility of professors as part of an emerging multiversity that placed students’ educational needs second to professors’ research goals. Although held at Toronto, organizers envisioned the event as reaching well beyond university and city limits. The organizing committee wrote sympathetic academics and students at other universities, encouraging them to hold teach-ins at the same time. Indeed, on the same weekend, students and faculty at fifty universities across Canada and in parts of the United States developed their own teach-ins, receiving some of the Toronto sessions by radio or telephone hook-up. Organizers at one such event at the University of British Columbia, for example, established a live feed from Toronto to listen to speeches by the representatives of the US State Department, the Saigon government,

278

Cultures, Communities, and Conflict

and the National Liberation Front.35 In subsequent teach-ins, organizing committees continued to attempt to reach a broader audience. In 1966 twenty universities coordinated with the University of Toronto. Radio hook-up occurred through Ryerson Radio, CJRT-FM, which expanded the range of the contacts in the United States to as far away as Boston, New York, and Washington.36 The format and scope of the subsequent three teach-ins matched that of 1965. Of the four, however, the one in 1965 gained the most attention and had the greatest turnout. Contemporaries estimated that six thousand people attended the sessions in Varsity Arena.37 Moreover, through telephone and radio hook-ups, the teach-in was said to have reached more than a million people. Interest in the teach-ins later declined, but the 1967 event still attracted more than three thousand while that in 1968 garnered three hundred volunteers and a listening population of half a million.38 Much debate arose at the time about the aims and purpose of the teach-ins: were they meant to be educational, or a form of protest, or merely propaganda? When Charles Hanly returned to Toronto to carry on the initiatives of American academics, he envisioned the International Teach-in not as the protest event that teach-ins had become in the United States, but as an educational event. During the summer and fall of 1965, Hanly set out his own vision in numerous forums. American teach-ins, Hanly contended, had provided a forum for American academics to criticize their country’s foreign policy. In Toronto, Hanly wanted to set the foreign policies of countries currently in conflict ‘against one another in debate.’ The purpose was to provide ‘balance and objectivity’ along with ‘free, open and searching discussion.’ As a place of impartiality, Hanly argued, the university could provide the setting to encourage both greater public analysis of world problems and the development of alternative approaches that might lead to some resolutions. The aim of the teach-in, for Hanly, was to aid in ‘the work of creating a more rational, peaceful world in which men resolve their differences and hostility by means of negotiations around the conference table rather than on the battlefield.’39 The term ‘teach-in’ was thus appropriate, he declared, because even though it was not a protest event, it was an intellectual exploration.40 At least some students supported this educational approach. An editorial in the University of Toronto student newspaper, the Varsity, applauded the decision of the Students Administrative Council (SAC) to endorse the teach-in on the grounds that, ‘if any group at some future

War and the Concept of Generation 279

time attempts to turn the October teach-in into a protest event, SAC will have dissociated the student population of this university from such action. SAC is on record as supporting the educational nature of this teach-in,’ the editorial continued, ‘and those who might wish to distort this purpose cannot be identified with the expressed sentiments of the student government of this university.’ The Varsity editors that year saw the teach-in as a starting point out of which protest could develop. As one editorial stated, ‘protest is not possible without information, and until this teach-in took place such information was unavailable in such a dramatic form.’ Now, the editorial continued, ‘a challenge to act has been presented.’41 Thus, in the early years of the teach-in, at least some students supported the emphasis on a strictly educational event. Not all faculty or students on the organizing committee endorsed this approach. Abraham Rotstein and Mel Watkins, for example, maintained that, despite attempts to tame the teach-in, by its very nature it embodied an element of protest. ‘The technology is the loudspeaker, the radio hookup and the mass student audience,’ they proclaimed. ‘These are “hot” media, particularly in the university environment where serious messages are in print and the audience is expected to keep quiet and take notes. An atmosphere of live instant reaction – including protest – is inherent in the medium and could not be eliminated no matter how careful the political balance among the speakers.’ ‘Only rigor mortis,’ they argued, ‘could have eliminated the general sense of protest surrounding the teach-in.42 This tension between the aims of education and protest appeared in particular in the first two teach-ins. The University of Toronto did not officially back the 1965 teach-in, but it did have the support of university administrators. To maintain that support and to avoid potential disruption, extra university and city police were placed on duty to keep order around the arena. RCMP officers provided security for diplomats. Within the arena organizers used ushers and marshals to control crowds. Moreover, they required that the questions posed after each session be pre-approved by an ‘editorial board.’43 Organizers, however, could not stop students from chanting during sessions, rising for spontaneous ovations, or jeering certain speakers. Similarly, despite the attempts by the organizing committee to pre-select questions from the floor, some questions turned into tirades.44 Protest was particularly evident when, after pressure from Robert Scalapino, organizers suddenly dropped Berkeley graduate student Mike Myerson from the session on Vietnam. Myerson had been invited to explain the Hanoi govern-

280

Cultures, Communities, and Conflict

ment’s position. Scalapino, who had only recently learned of Myerson’s inclusion in the program, refused to debate him on the grounds that he was not an accredited representative of North Vietnam. Enraged by the committee’s actions, a handful of students circulated a statement through the audience regarding the incident and heckled Scalapino during his speech. Continuing their protest the next day, students held a sit-in during one of the sessions. Fearing such a disruption, organizers alerted police, who quickly removed the protestors. The session continued without further interruption.45 The following year, organizers attempted to avoid even such limited forms of protest. They posted marshals at the microphones to keep order and to eliminate outbursts. Police and marshals also looked out for potential disruptions, resulting in some ‘suppressive measures.’ As the Varsity reported, campus police, on the advice of marshals, tore down a display of the Canadian Conference for Amnesty of Political Prisoners in Portugal – which had permission from the teach-in committee to display material – and also prohibited Bill Spira, Toronto secretary of the Committee to End the War in Viet Nam, from circulating petitions.46 While some students and faculty applauded the element of protest accompanying the first two teach-ins, others saw it in a more negative light – as a turn to propaganda. One student decried ‘the metamorphosis from teach-in to protest,’ the teach-in’s having ‘failed in its purpose of fair, thoughtful ferreting out of controversial issues.’47 Another student castigated all those who ‘had the audacity to call’ the teach-in ‘an unbiased and academic adventure.’48 Father Robert Madden, CSB (Congregation of St Basil), a professor of English at St Michael’s College, wrote of the 1965 teach-in that those participating in the final session treated the previous four sessions as if they had been a trial rather than a teach-in, with the United States found guilty of unjustifiable intervention in Vietnam.49 Such sentiments were not limited to the 1965 event. One disappointed student wrote of the 1966 teach-in on China that, rather than being presented with an objective picture of the issues, the audience was instead ‘bombarded with highly subjective political tirades … and feelings of antagonism toward the United States were deliberately fostered and exploited by principal speakers.’ Moreover, she was disturbed by the crowd mentality of students who cheered and clapped at every anti-American remark.50 Whether the teach-in was propaganda, protest, or education, at least some faculty thought the event was an awakening for their students.

War and the Concept of Generation 281

Abraham Rotstein and Mel Watkins wondered: ‘Could these be our own laconic and withdrawn students?’51 Similarly, Paul Fox of the Department of Political Economy stated in the November 1965 issue of Canadian Forum: ‘We get so used to criticizing the present generation for not being interested in anything significant that this kind of hungry response to an intellectual feast ought to be noted when it happens.’52 Did the teach-in have the desired results? Donald Evans, of the Department of Philosophy at Toronto, wrote: ‘I look back on the Teach-in with mixed feelings. It was a unique success as a venture in public education concerning international affairs, but it was not a first step toward peace in Vietnam. As a venture in amateur diplomacy, it was a failure.’53 Similarly, Fox commented that discussions did not get very far and he doubted the teach-in had changed anyone’s mind. Yet he considered the educational purpose a success. According to Fox, it had opened ‘up the real world to the minds of a young generation.’54 Part of the decline of the teach-in can be attributed to the later topics. ‘Religion and International Affairs,’ the topic of the 1967 teach-in, was, according to its student organizers, Jeffrey Rose and Michael Ignatieff, important because the world’s current struggles were ‘moral and religious in nature.’55 Neither that topic, however, nor the 1968 teach-in on the population explosion captured the imagination of students to the same extent as had the first two teach-ins.56 In 1965 the focus had been on revolution, and especially on Vietnam, but the later teach-ins seemed to diverge from issues of specific concern to the student movement. Moreover, as the sixties progressed, the educational approach of the teach-in grew increasingly out of step with the more radical orientation of some student leaders. Already, in 1965, cutting-edge radicals were voicing concerns that would be echoed several years later. Arthur Pape, who was working for the Student Union for Peace Action Vietnam project in Montreal, argued that the teach-in was worthwhile but becoming institutionalized and co-opted. The Toronto teach-in, he argued, had minimized debate and was more akin to a conference than a teach-in. Its lack of small discussion groups paralleled the existing format of university learning – a predetermined program rather than one developed by those who wanted to learn. Moreover, he argued, ‘[o]riginally, it was hoped governments would represent themselves. After months of negotiations only Cambodia was willing to appear officially. This refusal by governments of all ideological types to defend their policies in a public academic forum should have been a subject of discussion, but was not.’ Nor would the committee explain the circum-

282

Cultures, Communities, and Conflict

stances surrounding the Scalapino-Myerson fiasco. The result, Pape argued, was that ‘the International Teach-In tended to in essence retreat back into the ivory tower from which the original teach-ins tried to escape.’57 This view was not without merit. In 1967 University of Toronto president Claude Bissell explained the evolution of the teach-ins this way: ‘A group of young members of staff, graduate students, and undergraduates … undertook to transform the teach-in as it had developed in the United States and converted it from a protest movement into a process of education.’58 Indeed, in his memoirs, he wrote: ‘Those of us who worked on the Teach-In had a sense of buoyant satisfaction. We had, so we believed, harnessed the energies of the university in the cause of general enlightenment. It was also a source of satisfaction that we had given a potentially disruptive technique a serious academic setting.’59 Although not a common view in 1965, by 1967 Pape’s arguments had begun to appear in student newspapers. A 1967 article in the University College Gargoyle, for example, argued that ‘the International Teach-In has become a campus institution, which is a long way from the protest movement from which it arose.’60 The Varsity, which only two years earlier had supported the educational emphasis of the teach-in, now criticized attempts at ‘submerging protest into education,’ and advocated the need to unite intellectual content and commitment.61 Similar comments appeared the following year. As one commentator ironically noted in 1968, whereas in the United States the teach-in ‘appears archaic, irrelevant, even discredited,’ at the University of Toronto it was still alive.62 The teach-ins thus bridged a period of noticeable change both in the student movement and in student-administration relations. Whereas in 1965 student leaders were optimistic about the possibility of enacting change, by 1968 many had become disillusioned. Of the last teach-in, one commentator wrote: ‘The events of the weekend, the Teach-In and the anti-war demonstrations, for those who went to both, perhaps was [sic] one of the most significant of their lives … It brought a feeling of great humility and a feeling of hopelessness. It brought a feeling of great anger and of unbearable sadness.’63 Such disillusionment led to a hardening of positions, evident in deteriorating relations between student leaders and administrators. Doug Owram recounts that, ‘in the formative years of student protest during the mid-sixties, the University of Toronto was relatively peaceful.’ Indeed, he argues, ‘studentadministration relationships remained genteel.’64 By 1969 this relationship had polarized as student radicals incited,

War and the Concept of Generation 283

and administrators dealt with, constant confrontation at meetings and the disruption of student and university events.65 Bissell wrote in his memoirs that, in 1966 and 1967, he was optimistic about maintaining a working relationship with students, one which took seriously students’ concerns about university issues. His optimism ‘was based on the existence of the traditional entente cordiale between administrators and students.’ But, on returning to Toronto in September 1968 after a one-year leave of absence, Bissell found that the ‘entente cordiale had disappeared.’66 The deterioration of student-administration relations, students’ disillusionment with their ability to enact change, and the increasing perception of the educational approach of the teach-in as irrelevant all help to explain the decline of the teach-ins. The vast amount of energy required to organize them also became less sustainable over the years. Moreover, a noticeable shift in the intellectual justifications could be seen by the late 1960s. Hanly believed that the university could and should ‘provide neutral ground for the intensive analysis of current world problems in public.’67 By the late sixties the view of the university as a place of objectivity and impartiality was being replaced by claims about the imbedded biases within Western institutions and thought. Activism, not impartiality, came to be seen as a more honest position. The debate over the teach-ins as education, protest, or propaganda illustrates the existence of divisions among students and faculty over the aims and results of the teach-ins. It also brings into question the use of the concept of ‘generation.’ Although large numbers of students attended the teach-ins, especially the one in 1965, they were not always in agreement over the purpose of the events. This was similarly the case with faculty. Intragenerational conflict, then, was a feature of the teachins. Yet so too was intergenerational cooperation. This pattern appears clearly in an examination of the 1965 organizing committee.68 Of the twenty-seven faculty and students listed, I have confirmed the date of birth for twenty-four. Of these, only four were under age twentyfive, nine were between twenty-five and thirty-five, and eleven were older than thirty-five. If one includes the three administrators from the honorary board, the number of those over age thirty-five rises to sixteen, or 55 per cent of the known committee. Moreover, if one divides the organizing committee into the traditional 1960s categories of those under and over age thirty, then more than 70 per cent of the organizing committee was over thirty, a rate that rises to 75 per cent with the inclusion of the honorary board.

284

Cultures, Communities, and Conflict

It appears then, that, in the mid-sixties, a committed group of moderate activists cut across generational lines to plan, develop, and sustain four large-scale teach-ins. Even if one includes graduate students and young faculty as part of the youth revolution, it is clear that at least the more moderate events of the sixties were also supported by older members of the community.69 Such findings would not be surprising to many who lived through the events of the time. Commentators have noted the role of academics in organizing teach-ins in the United States, and have also pointed to the common values of students and some faculty in the late sixties. Yet despite the involvement of faculty, the time was perceived as one of ‘youth revolt,’ as sociologist Seymour Martin Lipset noted in 1971 – an idea that continues to hold sway.70 The broad age range of the 1965 organizing committee thus fits with a revisionist literature that suggests links between the 1950s and 1960s, and that argues that the power of reform in the 1960s arose from broadbased support rather than just the radicalization of students. Further research is needed to understand how support for change developed, particularly within the English-Canadian university. The teach-ins suggest, however, that support was drawn from members of the old left, the new left, as well as politically active and concerned citizens who came of age between the 1930s and 1960s. If the teach-ins illustrate unity within and between generations, they also show division. These events did galvanize students, faculty, and even administrators, bringing them together to help educate the university community on the political events of the day. By their very nature – containing people of radical and of moderate beliefs – these were only temporary unions. Moreover, the Vietnam teach-in may well have drawn the most attention because it spoke more broadly to the concerns of the university community. However, while the event united many, much variation in beliefs and outlook ultimately would create divisions over the usefulness of the teach-ins. Moreover, the teach-ins did not unite the whole community. Some students and faculty voiced criticism of, or opposition to, the teach-in, from the perspective of both the left and the right. The teach-ins thus suggest multiple layers to the relationships among and between students, faculty, and administrators in the 1960s. Students and faculty were divided among themselves as to whether the teachins were educational, protest, or propaganda. Such divisions within a student or faculty cohort not only raise questions about assumptions of generational consensus but also demand that we examine the extent

War and the Concept of Generation 285

and forms of generational division. Moreover, the teach-ins invite us to question how we are to understand an event organized by students and faculty, and supported by the administration, during a period that frequently has been defined primarily in terms of intergenerational conflict. The use of the term ‘generation’ is, of course, not bereft of utility. In the 1950s and 1960s newspaper and magazine reports, commentators on youth, and students themselves used the term generation in their search to impose unity upon, or give identity to, the youth of the time.71 Moreover, ‘generation’ evokes a Zeitgeist, a feeling or sense of the times often held by the culture at large; as such it can offer a powerful image, a defining interpretation, of a historical period. Robert Wohl, examining the ‘generation of 1914,’ notes the way in which cohorts prior to, during, and after the war all took on the mantle of that generation for themselves, in the process subtly changing its meaning.72 As a result the term became evocative but mythical. Similarly, in his survey of the literature and poetry of the Great War, Paul Fussell argues, ‘at the same time the war was relying on inherited myth, it was generating new myth, and that myth is part of the fibre of our own lives.’73 Zeitgeists, or the myths of the time, themselves need to be analysed. At the same time, since 1914, the ideas of generational identity and intergenerational conflict have become increasingly common. What was once a tool of contemporary explanation or a means of creating identity and making sense of the world has become a tool of historical analysis. Rather than questioning the use of generational terms, historians and sociologists have too often accepted, even reimposed, them as ‘natural categories.’ The imposition, and adoption, of the idea of generational identity became common in the twentieth century in part because of the emergence of an adolescent culture. And that culture was shaped particularly by war. The generation of 1914, the lost generation, the greatest generation, the silent generation, the baby boom generation – each was forged from the experience of or reaction to war. For youth through much of the twentieth century war was a formative experience. The 1960s was no exception. The Vietnam War, though not the only shaping force of the period, cast a long shadow – one that lingers to the present. It has also provided images, both real and mythical, that place youth at the centre of the war experience – either as young men off to war or, more commonly on campuses, as young men and women protesting war. That image of youth, forged at least partially out of war, helped cement the belief in generational identity.

286

Cultures, Communities, and Conflict

Robert Wohl noted that ‘the generation of 1914 was an idea.’74 One can say much the same of the ‘sixties generation.’ Indeed, David Farber goes so far as to say that youth itself ‘was an idea or image as much as a real thing.’75 There is no doubt that student radicals, along with the size and ideals of the vanguard of the baby boom generation, were a driving force in the cultural transformation of the period. The focus on intergenerational conflict and ‘student revolt’ is an important part of the sixties story. Yet it also overshadows other important dimensions of radical activity on the university campus. Arthur Marwick argues that, while young Americans gained the most attention during the 1960s, social and cultural change was accepted because of the broad-based spirit of reform among society at large.76 Concern about the escalation of war in Vietnam galvanized a broad section of the university community. It neither united all students (or faculty or administrators) nor divided all students from faculty or administrators. In our analyses of the sixties, we need to include, in addition to a generational approach, an examination of intragenerational division and intergenerational mobilization. And we need to analyse, and distinguish between, two important and equally powerful aspects of the sixties: myth and historical experience. Only then will we gain a fuller picture of the process by which the broad cultural and social transformations of the 1960s occurred.

NOTES 1 My thanks to Paul Axelrod, Rusty Bittermann, Michael Boudreau, Michael Dawson, and the editors of this collection for their comments on earlier versions of this chapter. 2 Richard Poirier, ‘The War Against the Young,’ Atlantic (October 1968), cited in ‘Preface,’ Student Power and the Canadian Campus, ed. Tim and Julyan Reid (Toronto: Peter Martin, 1969), ix. 3 See, for example, A.B. McKillop, Matters of Mind: The University in Ontario, 1791–1951 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1994), chap. 11, 18; and the essays by Barry M. Moody, ‘Acadia and the Great War,’ and Nancy Kiefer and Ruth Roach Pierson, ‘The War Effort and Women Students at the University of Toronto, 1939–45,’ in Youth, University, and Canadian Society: Essays in the Social History of Higher Education, ed. Paul Axelrod and John G. Reid (Montreal; Kingston, ON: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1989). For the almost universal wholehearted commitment of American

War and the Concept of Generation 287

4

5

6

7

8

9

university resources to the war effort during the Great War, see Carol S. Gruber, Mars and Minerva: World War One and the Uses of the Higher Learning in America (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1975). Patricia Vertinsky and Sherry McKay, eds., Disciplining Bodies in the Gymnasium: Memory, Monument, Modernism (London; New York: Routledge, 2004). Paul Axelrod, Making a Middle Class: Student Life in English Canada during the Thirties (Montreal; Kingston, ON: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1990); Catherine Gidney, ‘Poisoning the Student Mind? The Student Christian Movement on the University of Toronto Campus, 1920–1965,’ Journal of the Canadian Historical Association, New Series, 8 (1997): 153, 159–60. Peter Neary, ‘Canadian Universities and Canadian Veterans of World War II,’ in The Veterans Charter and Post-World War II Canada, ed. Peter Neary and J.L. Granatstein (Montreal; Kingston, ON: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1998); Catherine Gidney, A Long Eclipse: The Liberal Protestant Establishment and the Canadian University, 1920–1970 (Montreal; Kingston, ON: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2004), 86–8. Belief that the universities were part of the military-industrial complex was common among student activists. See Martin L. Friedland, The University of Toronto: A History (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2002), 526. Although social and political theorists used the concept of ‘generation’ in the nineteenth century, Karl Mannheim notes that it was utilized mainly to understand historical development or progress – ‘measurable intervals in history’ – marked roughly by thirty-year spans separating parents and children. Wohl argues that throughout the nineteenth century young intellectuals came to see their ideological struggles as those of a younger generation against an older one. See Karl Mannheim, ‘The Problem of Generations,’ in Essays on the Sociology of Knowledge, ed. Paul Kecskemeti (London: Routledge, 1952), 286; Robert Wohl, The Generation of 1914 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1979), 2–3, 204, for the quote see 205. There is a large sociological literature on the concept of generation. For a general introduction to the topic, see Anthony Esler, Generations in History: An Introduction to the Concept (Williamsburg, VA: A. Esler, 1982). For this literature as applied to the Canadian context, see Cynthia Comacchio, ‘Introduction,’ The Dominion of Youth: Adolescence and the Making of Modern Canada, 1920 to 1950 (Waterloo, ON: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2006); and Dominique Clement, ‘Generations and the Transformation of Social Movements in Postwar Canada,’ Social History 42, no. 84 (2009): 361–87. See, for example, Seymour Martin Lipset, Rebellion in the University (Bos-

288

10

11

12 13 14 15

16

Cultures, Communities, and Conflict

ton: Little, Brown, 1971), 31, 172; and David S. Churchill, ‘SUPA, Selma, and Stevenson: The Politics of Solidarity in mid-1960s Toronto,’ Journal of Canadian Studies 44, no. 2 (2010): 38–9. See Julyan Reid, ‘Education for What?’ in Reid, Student Power and the Canadian Campus; David Zirnhelt, ‘A Student Manifesto: In Search of a Real and Human Educational Alternative,’ in Student Protest, ed. Gerald F. McCuigan with George Payerle and Patricia Horrobin (Toronto: Methuen, 1968), 58; and C.W. Gonick, ‘Self-Government in the Multiversity,’ in The University Game, ed. Howard Adelman and Dennis Lee (Toronto: Anansi, 1969). Zirnhelt included most faculty as part of the establishment while Gonick thought that many faculty, like students, lacked power within their own institutions. The media also reinforced the notion of a generation gap, particularly in relation to the counterculture. See, for example, Stuart Henderson, ‘Toronto’s Hippie Disease: End Days in the Yorkville Scene, August 1968,’ Journal of the Canadian Historical Association, New Series, 17, no. 1 (2006): 218. Kenneth Westhues, ‘Inter-Generational Conflict in the Sixties,’ in Prophecy and Protest: Social Movements in Twentieth-Century Canada, ed. Samuel D. Clark, J. Paul Grayson, and Linda M. Grayson (Toronto: Gage, 1975): 402. A flurry of generational theorizing occurred in the late 1960s and early 1970s as observers attempted to understand student revolt. See, for example, Kenneth Keniston, Young Radicals; Notes on Committed Youth (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1968); and Lewis S. Feuer, The Conflict of Generations: The Character and Significance of Student Movements (New York: Basic Books, 1969). See Paul Anisef et al., Opportunities and Uncertainty: Life Course Experiences of the Class of ’73 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2000): 41–2. Rebecca E. Klatch, A Generation Divided: The New Left, the New Right, and the 1960s (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999), 4. Myrna Kostash, Long Way from Home: The Story of the Sixties Generation in Canada (Toronto: Lorimer, 1980), xvii. Cyril Levitt, Children of Privilege: Student Revolt in the Sixties, a Study of Student Movements in Canada, the United States, and West Germany (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1984). Doug Owram, Born at the Right Time: A History of the Baby-Boom Generation (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1996), preface, chaps. 8, 9. Owram acknowledges that large numbers of youth were indifferent or opposed to the radicalism and counterculture of the 1960s. See also James M. Pitsula, As One Who Serves: The Making of the University of Regina (Montreal; Kingston, ON: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2006), 283; and idem,

War and the Concept of Generation 289

17

18

19

20

21

New World Dawning: The Sixties at Regina Campus (Regina: Canadian Plains Research Center, 2008). See, for example, Van Gosse, ‘A Movement of Movements: The Definition and Periodization of the New Left,’ in A Companion to Post-1945 America, ed. Jean-Christophe Agnew and Roy Rosenweig (Oxford: Blackwell, 2002): 278–9; Todd Gitlin, The Sixties: Years of Hope, Days of Rage, rev. ed. (New York: Bantam Books, 1993); Carl Boggs, ‘Rethinking the Sixties Legacy: From New Left to New Social Movements,’ in Breaking Chains: Social Movements and Collective Action, ed. Michael Peter Smith (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 1991), 51; Klatch, Generation Divided, 3–4; Paul Lyons, New Left, New Right, and the Legacy of the Sixties (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1996), 3; and Beth Bailey, ‘From Panty Raids to Revolution: Youth and Authority, 1950–1970,’ in Generations of Youth: Youth Cultures and History in Twentieth-Century America, ed. Joe Austin and Michael Nevin Willard (New York: New York University Press, 1998), 199. For analysis of the divisions within the women’s movement in the United States, see Nancy Whittier, Feminist Generations: The Persistence of the Radical Women’s Movement (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1995), 17. For Canada, see Nancy Adamson, ‘Feminists, Libbers, Lefties, and Radicals: The Emergence of the Women’s Liberation Movement,’ in A Diversity of Women: Ontario, 1945–1980, ed. Joy Parr (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1995), 253–6, 271–2. Maurice Zeitlin early on demonstrated the alliance between political generations in his study of the revolutionary politics of Cuban workers; see Revolutionary Politics and the Cuban Working Class (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1967), chap. 9. Amy Swerdlow, ‘“Not My Son, Not Your Son, Not Their Sons”: Mothers against the Draft for Vietnam,’ in Sights on the Sixties, ed. Barbara L. Tischler (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1992), 163. Arthur Marwick, The Sixties: Cultural Revolution in Britain, France, Italy, and the United States, c. 1958 – c. 1974 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), 11, 13, 19, 542, 806. François Ricard, The Lyric Generation: The Life and Times of the Baby Boomers, trans. Donald Winkler (Toronto: Stoddart, 1994), 81–2. See also Clement, ‘Generations and the Transformation of Social Movements,’ 367–8. See, for example, Hugh Johnston, Radical Campus: Making Simon Fraser University (Vancouver: Douglas and McIntyre, 2005), 130, 257, 284, 294, 313–14; Jean-Philippe Warren and Julien Massicotte, ‘La fermeture du département de sociologie de l’Université de Moncton: histoire d’une crise politicoépistémologique,’ Canadian Historical Review 87, no. 3 (2006): 474, 479; Pitsula, As One Who Serves, 288, 293; Roberta Lexier, ‘“The Backdrop against

290

22

23

24

25

26

27

28 29

Cultures, Communities, and Conflict

which Everything Happened”: English-Canadian Student Movements and Off-Campus Movements for Change,’ History of Intellectual Culture 7, no. 1 (2007): 14. Members of the civil rights movement adopted the technique of the sit-in from Mahatma Gandhi’s efforts to achieve Indian independence. Its use by college students can be dated to February 1960, when four black students in Greensboro, North Carolina, staged a sit-in at a local Woolworth’s where the lunch counter was reserved for white patrons. See Marwick, Sixties, 204. In the first few months of 1965, President Lyndon Johnson increased the US presence in Vietnam, sending ground troops to the South and authorizing sustained air strikes against the North. The largest teach-in occurred at Berkeley. Organized by members of the free speech movement, it was held for thirty-six hours, had an attendance of up to twelve thousand at any given talk, and an overall attendance of thirty thousand. The teach-in at the University of Michigan was followed up by a National Teach-In, in Washington, DC, on 15 May 1965. See Louis Menashe and Ronald Radosh, eds., Teach-Ins: USA. Reports, Opinions, Documents (New York: Praeger, 1967), 119–20; Tom Wells, The War Within: America’s Battle Over Vietnam (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994), 19–23, 30; Marwick, Sixties, 541–2. Charles Hanly, ‘The Toronto Teach-In,’ Canadian Forum (September 1965): 130–1. For the impact of the 1965 teach-in on solidifying activism in Toronto, see Churchill, ‘SUPA, Selma, and Stevenson,’ 56–60. Sara Z. Burke, ‘New Women and Old Romans: Co-education at the University of Toronto, 1884–95,’ Canadian Historical Review 80, no. 2 (1999): 219–41; and J. Angus Johnston, ‘Student Activism in the United States before 1960: An Overview,’ in Student Protest: The Sixties and After, ed. Gerard J. DeGroot (London: Longman, 1998), 12–16. Paul Axelrod, ‘The Student Movement of the 1930s,’ in Axelrod and Reid, Youth, University, and Canadian Society, 216–18; Johnston, ‘Student Activism in the United States before 1960,’ 17–20. Owram, Born at the Right Time, 218–22; Johnston, ‘Student Activism in the United States before 1960,’ 24–5. The numbers vary by organization. On some campuses the Student Christian Movement attracted up to 10 per cent of the student population while the Canadian Student Assembly estimated it attracted at best 2 per cent; see Axelrod, ‘Student Movements of the 1930s,’ 218–19, 222. For the United States, see Kenneth Keniston, Young Radicals: Notes on Committed Youth (New York: Harcourt, 1968), 298; and Leonard L. Baird, ‘Who Protests:

War and the Concept of Generation 291

30

31 32

33

34 35

36 37

38 39

40

A Study of Student Activists,’ in Protest! Student Activism in America, ed. Julian Foster and Durwald Long (New York: Morrow, 1970), 124. Kenneth McNaught, Conscience and History: A Memoir (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1999). Although not listed as part of the organizing committee, McNaught remembers the participation of undergraduate students such as Rosie Silberman (Abella), now Supreme Court justice, and Michael Ignatieff. Hanly, ‘Toronto Teach-In,’ 131. Funding for the 1965 event came from a number of granting agencies: the Laidlaw Foundation, the Atkinson Foundation, the Varsity Fund, and the federal government. See Editorial, ‘Teach-in Expense for Students,’ Varsity (29 September 1965), 4; Claude Bissell to R.F. Chisholm, 1 October 1965, University of Toronto Archives (hereafter cited as UTA), A75-0021, Box 39, File: ITI; Paul Fox, ‘Teach-In: Education or Propaganda,’ Canadian Forum (November 1965): 172–3. The 1967 teach-in cost $40,000, an amount raised through donations; see Jeffrey Rose and Michael Ignatieff, eds., Religion and International Affairs: International Teach-In (Toronto: Anansi, 1968), iii. The foundation could provide tax-deductible status for contributions. See Brief Submitted to Claude Bissell by Charles Hanly, UTA, A75-0021, Box 83, File: IFF. Paul Carson, ‘Organizers Confident Teach-in Will Succeed,’ Varsity (4 October 1965), 5. Fox, ‘Teach-In,’ 172–3. For examples of participating universities, see Dalhousie University Newsletter, 4–10 October 1965; and ‘BC Universities’ Teach-in,’ Ubyssey (7 October 1965), 11. ‘Radio Hook-up to Increase Teach-in Range,’ Varsity (12 October 1966), 3. Fox, ‘Teach-In,’ 172–3. Based on student enrolments for 1965, the event may have garnered the interest of up to 26 per cent of the population. Because the teach-in was open to the general public, the exact number of student attendees remains unknown. Paul Carson, ‘ITI Stresses Religious Commitment and Vietnam Issue,’ Varsity (23 October 1967), 1. Hanly, ‘Toronto Teach-In,’ 130–1. One commentator noted the struggle within the teach-in committee as to the direction the teach-in should take and that the moderate view advocating an educational approach won out. See Fox, ‘Teach-In,’ 172–3. Carson, ‘Organizers Confident,’ 5. In the United States, organizers of, and participants in, the teach-ins were split from the beginning over their aims as dialogue or protest. Anatol Rapoport, a key organizer of the first teachin at the University of Michigan and of the National Teach-In in Wash-

292

41 42

43 44 45

46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56

Cultures, Communities, and Conflict

ington, DC, argued that, to gain credibility and visibility, dialogue with the Lyndon Johnson administration and the inclusion of its position was important. He did not see this as antithetical to protest but as an attempt ‘to convert the monologue of protest into a dialogue of confrontation.’ See Anatol Rapoport, ‘Dialogue or Monologue?’ in Menashe and Radosh, Teach-Ins, 176. Editorial, ‘SAC Is Wise to Endorse Teach-in,’ Varsity (24 September 1965), 4; editorial, ‘Teach-in Only a Beginning,’ Varsity (12 October 1965), 4. Abraham Rotstein and Melville H. Watkins, ‘Communication in a New Key,’ Canadian Forum (November 1965): 174–5. See also Fox, ‘Teach-In,’ 172–3. Carson, ‘Organizers Confident,’ 5. Rod Ritchie, ‘Teach-In Proves Peaceful in ’66,’ Varsity (17 October 1966), 1. Hanly previously had announced that Scalapino was not responsible for Myerson’s absence, but Scalapino had made similar comments before, condemning the teach-in at Berkeley in May 1965 for its anti-intellectualism and what he perceived as the participation of unqualified speakers. Myerson, national head of the DuBois Clubs of America, was a participant in that teach-in. Scalapino did, however, participate in the National Teach-In in Washington (as a substitute for McGeorge Bundy, who had to pull out) as defender of the position of the Johnson administration. For Scalapino’s activities in the United States, see Menasche and Radosh, Teach-Ins, 4, 119. For the Canadian teach-in, see ‘Myerson Dropped as “Unaccredited,”’ Varsity (13 October 1965), 1; Robert Madden, ‘Education or Propaganda,’ Canadian Forum (November 1965): 173–4; and Heather Mitchell, ‘Protest Loses Out,’ Varsity (12 October 1965), 2. Ritchie, ‘Teach-In Proves Peaceful in ’66,’ 1. John Wright, ‘We Were Betrayed,’ Varsity (13 October 1965), 4. For a similar comment, see Mary Kennedy, ‘Exercise in Futility,’ in the same issue. F.C. Clarkson, ‘Yours “Sincerely,”’ Varsity (18 October 1965), 4. Madden, ‘Education or Propaganda,’ 173–4. Sheila Egan, ‘Charges Teach-In Unobjective,’ Varsity (21 October 1966), 4. Rotstein and Watkins, ‘Communication in a New Key,’ 174–5. Fox, ‘Teach-In,’ 172–3. Donald Evans, ‘Appendix: The Diplomacy of a Teach-in,’ in Revolution and Response, ed. Charles Hanly (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1966), 140. Fox, ‘Teach-In,’ 172–3. Kingsley Joblin, ‘The Third International Teach-In,’ Victoria Reports 17 (December 1967): 22–4. Paul Carson, ‘No Title,’ Varsity (23 October 1967), 5; Manny Gordon,

War and the Concept of Generation 293

57 58 59

60 61 62 63 64 65

66 67 68

69

70 71

‘Teach-In Topic – “Religion and International Affairs” Fails to Arouse Interest as Conference Approaches,’ Gargoyle (11 October 1967), 1. Arthur Pape, ‘Teach-In as Institution,’ Canadian Forum (November 1965): 178. Bissell, quoted in Joblin, ‘Third International Teach-In,’ 22–4. Claude Thomas Bissell, Halfway Up Parnassus: A Personal Account of the University of Toronto, 1932–71 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1974), 125. Gordon, ‘Teach-In Topic,’ 1. Editorial, ‘Teach-in: Dry Instruction,’ Varsity (23 October 1967), 4; editorial, ‘Committed Instruction,’ Varsity (23 October 1967), 4. Thomas S. Martin, ‘International Teach-In: Year Four,’ Canadian Forum (December 1968): 199–200. Larry Haiven, ‘ITI: Great Anger and Sorrow,’ Varsity (28 October 1968), 3. Owram, Born at the Right Time, 293–4. Ibid., 295–6. For events at Toronto, see also Friedland, The University of Toronto: A History, chap. 36; and Charles Levi, ‘Sex, Drugs, Rock & Roll, and the University College Lit: The University of Toronto Festivals, 1965– 69,’ Historical Studies in Education 18, no. 2 (2006): 188. Bissell, Halfway Up Parnassus, 126, 130. Hanly, ‘Toronto Teach-In,’ 130–1. This is the only year for which I discovered a list of members of the organizing committee. My thanks to Charles Hanly and Alan Thomas for their help in determining dates of birth. This finding needs to be tested further to see how applicable it is generally. However, the leaders of the Canadianization movement, Robin Matthews and James Steele, born in the early 1930s, similarly fall within the older activist category. For the Canadianization movement, see Jeffrey Cormier, The Canadianization Movement: Emergence, Survival, and Success (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2004). Lipset, Rebellion in the University, 31, 38; David Farber, The Age of Great Dreams: America in the 1960s (New York: Hill and Wang, 1994), 156. For example, Karine Hébert has demonstrated that the use of the term ‘generation’ was common among students at McGill University and the Université de Montréal in the 1950s, although more prevalent at the former, where students were influenced more strongly by American culture. Similarly, Roberta Lexier’s work on student activists at the Regina Campus of the University of Saskatchewan shows that, in retrospect, some former students viewed their involvement in campus protest through the lens of generational identity. In the international context, Maurice Zeit-

294

72 73 74 75 76

Cultures, Communities, and Conflict

lin illustrates the powerful ways in which Cuban workers understood themselves and their history in generational terms. See Hébert, ‘Between the Future and the Present: Montreal University Student Youth and the Post-war Years, 1945–60,’ in Cultures of Citizenship in Post-war Canada, 1940– 1955, ed. Nancy Christie and Michael Gauvreau (Montreal; Kingston, ON: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2003), 180–1; Lexier, ‘Student Activism at the University of Saskatchewan, Regina Campus, 1961–1974’ (MA thesis, University of Regina, 2003), 21, 30; Zeitlin, Revolutionary Politics and the Cuban Working Class, 217. Wohl, Generation of 1914, 2–3. Paul Fussell, The Great War and Modern Memory (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1975 [2000 reprint]), ix. Wohl, Generation of 1914, 2. Farber, Age of Great Dreams, 58. Marwick, Sixties, 542.

Contributors

Donald Howard Avery is professor of history (emeritus) at the University of Western Ontario and a consultant in the fields of conflict studies, health security, and arms control. His 1998 book, The Science of War: Canadian Scientists and Allied Military Technology during the Second World War, was runner-up for the prestigious John A. Macdonald Prize. His manuscript, ‘Pathogens for War: Biological Weapons, Canadian Life Scientists and North American Biosecurity,’ is being prepared for publication by the University of Toronto Press. Paul Axelrod is professor in the Faculty of Education at York University. He has written widely on the history and politics of schooling and higher education. His books include Making a Middle Class: Student Life in English Canada during the Thirties; The Promise of Schooling: Education in Canada, 1800–1914; and Values in Conflict: The Universities, the Marketplace and the Trials of Liberal Education. Sara Z. Burke is associate professor in the Department of History at Laurentian University. Her current research focuses on the entrance of women into higher education and the formative years of university coeducation in Canada. She is the author of Seeking the Highest Good: Social Service and Gender at the University of Toronto (University of Toronto Press, 1996). Catherine Gidney is adjunct professor in the History Department at St Thomas University. She is the author of A Long Eclipse: The Liberal Protestant Establishment and the Canadian University, 1920–1970 (McGill-

296

Contributors

Queen’s University Press, 2004), as well as numerous articles on university student culture. She is currently working on a book manuscript titled, ‘Tending the Student Body: Youth, Health, and the Modern University.’ Michiel Horn, FRSC, is professor emeritus and university historian at York University and a senior fellow of Massey College in the University of Toronto. His books include The Dirty Thirties, The League for Social Reconstruction, Becoming Canadian, Academic Freedom in Canada, and, most recently, York University: The Way Must Be Tried. During the past decade he has translated both fiction and non-fiction from Dutch to English, notably the concentration camp diary of David Koker. He has won the Milner Memorial Award of the Canadian Association of University Teachers for ‘distinguished services to the cause of academic freedom.’ James Hull is associate professor of history at the University of British Columbia’s Okanagan Campus. He is also an affiliate of the University of Toronto’s Institute for the History and Philosophy of Science and Technology, and editor-in-chief of Scientia Canadensis, the journal of the Canadian Science and Technology Historical Association. His historical research has focused on the borderland between science and technology, including such topics as applied chemistry, engineering education, industrial research, technical standards, and the roles of scientific rhetoric and technical expertise in municipal governance in Canada. Mark Kuhlberg is associate professor and director of the MA program in the History Department at Laurentian University; he is also adjunct professor in the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Forestry. In his research field of forest history, he has published a book, One Hundred Rings and Counting, and numerous articles and book chapters. For more than a decade he has worked for First Nations in northern Ontario, preparing historical reports to substantiate their timber and flooding claims, and he sits on the boards of various forest history and forestry organizations. Charles Levi has a PhD in history from York University and a Masters in Information Studies from the University of Toronto. He is currently

Contributors

297

employed as an archivist in the Collections Development and Management unit of the Archives of Ontario. He has previously published articles in Ontario History and Historical Studies in Education. His book, Comings and Goings: University Students in Canadian Society, was published by McGill-Queen’s University Press in 2003. Barry M. Moody is a native of Nova Scotia, where he was raised and received his early schooling. After receiving a BA (Hons.) in history from Acadia University in 1967, he pursued graduate work at Queen’s University, completing his PhD in 1976. He began his teaching career at Acadia in 1970, where he has taught ever since, also serving for a number of years as head of the Department of History and Classics. He has published extensively on the history of Acadia, as well as on eighteenth-century Nova Scotia. He is currently completing a history of the town of Annapolis Royal, 1749–2010. E. Lisa Panayotidis is associate professor in the Faculty of Education at the University of Calgary. Her main research interests are latenineteenth and early twentieth-century visual cultures and notions of spatiality and the body, particularly as they are exhibited in higher educational contexts. Her work has recently been published in the Journal of the Canadian Historical Association, History of Education (UK), and History of Education Review (Australia and New Zealand). She is co-editor of Historical Identities: The Professoriate in Canada (University of Toronto Press, 2006). James M. Pitsula is professor of history at the University of Regina. His publications include As One Who Serves: The Making of the University of Regina (2006) and, more recently, For All We Have and Are: Regina and the Experience of the Great War (2008). Linda J. Quiney teaches Canadian and medical history at the Department of History and the Centre for Teaching and Learning Technologies at the University of British Columbia. Her research interests focus primarily on women’s wartime voluntary efforts in nursing and medical services during the First World War. She has published on the work of Canadian volunteer nursing in the Great War, as well as on the contribution of women’s wartime voluntary efforts to the achievement of a peacetime mandate for the Canadian Red Cross in 1919.

298

Contributors

Paul Stortz is associate professor in the Department of History at the University of Calgary. His research interests are in the history of universities and in academic and intellectual cultures in the west. He is co-editor of Historical Identities: The Professoriate in Canada (University of Toronto Press, 2006) and the peer-reviewed journal History of Intellectual Culture.

Index

Abbott, Maude, 154 Abella, Irving, 241–2 Abella, Rosie Silberman, 291n.30 academic freedom: case studies concerning, 204–20; history of, 203–4; and the press, 204, 205, 211–12, 213, 214, 215, 216, 219–22; in wartime, 3, 15, 24–5n.31, 202–23. See also professors and professoriate academic standards (wartime lowering of), 53, 65, 257, 258 Acadia University: Acadia Bulletin, 40; and the Acadia Ladies Seminary, 27, 43; administrators at, 47–8n.17; Athenaeum, 29–30, 35, 40–1, 42, 43, 46, 47–8n.17, 49n.43; and the Boer War, 9, 27–31, 40; curriculum, 33; economics at, 32, 33, 42; female students at, 27, 32–3; and the First World War, 9–10, 26–7, 28, 35–46, 255; and Horton Academy, 27, 31; and Maritime Baptists, 9–10, 27–35, 40–1, 46; and post-war reconstruction, 41–5, 46; recruitment of students at,

40–1; sociology at, 32, 33, 42; and student enlistment, 26, 27, 35–6, 46; and the YM/YWCA, 37–8; and war as extension of Christian service, 31, 35, 36, 37–8, 40, 45. See also names of individual administrators, professors, and students Acta Victoriana (University of Toronto), 103–4, 111 Adair, Edward R., 211–12, 221 Adams, Frank, 157, 161 Addison, Margaret, 99, 100 American Student Union, 276 administrators (university): in the 1960s, 272, 274, 277, 279, 282–3, 284, 285, 286; at Acadia University, 47–8n.17; and the CRCS, 72, 76, 79–80, 81, 88; deans of women, 98–100, 108, 110, 112, 119n.71; enlistment of, 126–7; and female students during the First World War, 12, 98, 99–101, 105, 107, 109, 110, 111, 112; female, 17, 76, 100; and the Honorary Advisory Council/NRC, 157, 178, 183; at McGill University, 161; at Mount

300

Index

Allison, 69n.12; and recruitment of students, 69n.12; and refugee professors, 229, 233; on the role of the university in wartime, 5, 6–7, 179, 183, 229, 272, 274; at the University of Toronto, 54, 59, 61, 62, 63, 66, 79–80, 81, 99–100, 105, 109, 111, 229; and wartime academic freedom cases, 205, 206, 208, 209–11, 212, 213, 214–17, 220, 221, 222. See also names of individual administrators and institutions Afghanistan, 18, 122, 140, 222–3, 266 age (as factor in hiring), 238, 249–50n.45 agriculture (subject of study), 54, 148, 150, 179; at McGill University, 163; at the University of Saskatchewan, 125, 132, 133 Ainslie, D.S., 185 aircraft production and testing, 147, 159 Alberta tar sands, 147 Allen, Frank, 154 Allen, Richard, 32 Andrews, W.W., 152, 169n.39 Angus, Robert, 153, 159 anti-Semitism, 227–9, 238–44, 246n.14; and use of physiognomy, 240. See also Nazism Arbor (University of Toronto), 109 Athenaeum (Acadia University), 29–30, 35, 40–1, 42, 43, 46, 47–8n.17, 49n.43 atomic bomb, 186–8 Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd., 188, 199n.61, 201n.89 Australia, 207, 266 Axelrod, Paul, 276

Baer, Eric E.F., 229 Balcom, A.B., 42 Banting, Frederick, 176, 182, 190–1, 233 Baptists (Maritime), 9–10, 27–35, 40–1, 46. See also Christianity Barnes, C., 185 Barnes, Walter, 209–11 Barrett, H.M., 190 Bateman, Reginald, 126, 128–31, 132, 135–7, 139–40 Bates, John, 161 Battle of Passchendaele, 42 Battle of the Somme, 60 Bayly, George W.U., 63–4 Beaton, William Dobie, 121–2 Beatty, Edward, 212, 241 Becker, Annette, 137 Belgium, 67, 123, 205, 206, 209 Benson, Clara, 147, 152 Bentley, A.W., 67 Benzinger, Immanuel, 206 Berdahl, Robert O., 264 Biological Board of Canada, 160 biology: after 1945, 24n.28; biological weapons, 176, 177, 181, 182, 190–2, 193, 197n.33, 200n.80; microbiology at McGill University, 177, 181, 191, 192, 201n.86; Queen’s University biological warfare laboratory, 200n.80. See also names of individual biologists Bissell, Claude, 276, 277, 282, 283 Blair, Frederick Charles, 242 Bloch, Karl, 228 Boer War, 9, 17, 27–31, 40, 73, 82, 202–3 Bolshevism, 44 Borden, Robert, 206–7

Index botany: at McGill University, 150–1, 152, 161; at the University of Manitoba, 154, 163 Bothwell, George E., 60–1 Bott, E.A., 181 Bourassa, Henri, 207 Bourgoin, Louis, 160 Boyer, Raymond, 189 Boyle, R.W., 186 Brauer, Richard, 227, 229 Brebner, J. Bartlet, 216 Brebner, James, 62, 64 Brehaut, Louis, 126, 130, 143n.30 Brieger, Peter H., 229 Britain: British universities and academic freedom, 203; British universities and the First World War, 5, 16, 148, 149, 150, 158, 253–5, 256–7, 258–9, 260; British universities and the Second World War, 14, 16, 258–61, 264, 265–6; Canadian views on British imperialism, 15, 29–30, 35–6, 38, 39–40, 76, 122, 124, 127–8, 207, 213–14, 219; comparison of British and Canadian universities in wartime, 253–66; curriculum planning at British universities, 254, 256–7, 260; and refugee scholars, 230, 236, 239, 247n.17; and the sciences, 148, 149, 150, 155, 157, 182, 254–5, 256, 260, 266. See also weapons: university scientists and Allied weapon systems British Society of Chemical Industry, 155 Brockway, Fenner, 277 Brooks, Harriet, 153 Brown, George W., 122

301

Brubaker, Rella, 132 Bullet, A.H. Reginald, 154 Burke, Sara, 33 Burton, Eli (E.F.), 181, 184–5, 193, 231 Burwash, Nathaniel, 99 Calendar (University of British Columbia), 147 Calvin, D.D., 101 Cameron, James D., 7 Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC), 221 Canadian Engineering Standards Association, 163 Canadian Expeditionary Force, 74, 134 fig. 5.1, 209 Canadian Forestry Association, 52 Canadian Forum, 218–20, 281 Canadian Historical Review, 231 Canadian Institute, 150 Canadian Manufacturers’ Association (CMA), 154–5, 156, 157, 158 Canadian Medical Association, 238, 250n.46 Canadian Officers’ Training Corps (COTC), 10, 13, 21n.19, 52, 96, 195n.14, 255, 272; at the University of Saskatchewan, 132, 138, 139; at the University of Toronto, 7; at the University of Western Ontario, 261–2 Canadian Pacific Railway, 154, 169n.39 Canadian Pulp and Paper Association, 65, 161 Canadian Red Cross Society (CRCS), 7; and female students, 11–12, 71–89, 97, 262; history of, 73–4; Tea Rooms, 83, 85, 89

302

Index

Canadian Society of Chemists, 162 Canadian Society of Civil Engineers, 155–6 Canadian Society for the Protection of Science and Learning, 230–44, 247n.18 Canadian Standards Association, 156, 157 Canadian Student Assembly, 276, 290n.29 Canadian Union of Students, 276 Cardozier, V.R., 19–20n.7 Cardwell, D.S.L., 149 Cassels, Hamilton, 214–15 casualties: of the First World War, 40, 46, 53, 59–61, 71, 74, 79, 90n.4, 121–2, 126, 134, 141, 177–8, 206, 255, 256, 261, 265–6; of the Second World War, 260–2, 265–6; student, 46, 59–61, 71, 74, 79, 121–2, 126, 134, 255, 256, 260–2, 265–6 Cave, H.M., 184 Chalk River nuclear energy plant, 177, 188, 199n.61 Chamberlain, Neville, 211, 212, 222 Chamberlin, J.R., 55 chemistry: chemical warfare, 176, 177, 181, 188–90, 191, 193; and the CMA, 154–5, 156; at Dalhousie University, 153; at the École Polytechnique, 160; female chemists, 265; at McGill University, 146, 160, 161, 163, 180, 190; at McMaster University, 97, 152, 188; at Queen’s University, 147, 190; and the standards movement, 156; at the University of Alberta, 147; at the University of Manitoba, 154; at the University of Saskatchewan, 190; at the University of Toronto, 147,

157, 162, 180, 189, 190, 197n.39, 228, 229, 238, 241; at the University of Western Ontario, 190; wartime research in, 146, 147–8, 152, 154–5, 156, 159, 160, 180, 188–90. See also names of individual chemists ‘China: Coexistence or Containment’ (University of Toronto teach-in), 276, 280 Chipman, R.A., 184 chivalry, 12, 122–4, 125, 129, 131–2, 137, 141; Ordene de chevalrie, 144n.70 Chown, G.Y., 208 Christian Messenger and Visitor, 28 Christianity: and anti-Semitism, 239, 250n.47; and chivalry, 123, 129, 137; and the concept of ‘just war,’ 28; and criticism of war, 28, 139; influence of Maritime Baptists at Acadia University, 9–10, 27–35, 40–1, 46; invoked in wartime speeches, 137, 140; manliness dissociated from, 130–1, 140; professoriate as fundamentally Anglo-Saxon and Christian, 244; tension between evangelical and social Christianity at the University of Toronto, 33; YM/YWCA, 34, 37–8, 127, 128, 131; war as extension of Christian service, 31, 35–6, 37–8, 40, 45 Churchill, Winston, 211 civil rights movement, 275, 290n.22 Clark, Esther I. (E.C. Wright), 38 Cody, Henry John: and academic freedom case of Frank H. Underhill, 213, 214–17; and refugee scholars, 227, 228, 229, 230, 231, 233, 235, 237, 238, 239, 240, 242, 243, 247n.18; on research, 13; on

Index the role of the university, 6–7, 229; on University of Toronto faculty and staff in wartime, 197n.39, 261 coeducation. See under women Cohen, Matthew, 276 Cold War, 16, 17, 24n.28, 24–5n.31, 122, 203, 266, 272 Collip, James, 160 Committee for Imperial Defence, 178–9 communism, 203, 238, 239, 272 Conference on Canadian-American Affairs, 6 Connaught Laboratories, 146, 164, 183, 191, 230 conscription, 206–7, 208, 218–19, 254, 258. See also enlistment; recruitment; soldiers Cook, S.J., 183–4, 197n.38 Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF), 218, 219, 239 Cosens, Gordon G., 61 Creighton, Donald, 217 Cronyn, Hume, 163 Crosbie, H. Walter, 62–3 Crossley, T. Lindsay, 156 Currelly, C.T., 231 curriculum planning: at Acadia University, 33; at British universities, 254, 256–7, 260; at Dalhousie University, 114n.7; and female students, 114n.7, 257–8; at the University of British Columbia, 256; at the University of Toronto, 54, 57, 229; in wartime, 6, 7, 10, 19–20n.7, 23n.25, 57, 229, 253, 256, 256–8, 260 Currie, Arthur, 220 Cutten, George, 26, 40 Dalhousie University: and aca-

303

demic freedom case of Edward R. Adair, 212, 221; and the Canadian Society for the Protection of Science and Learning, 233, 234, 237, 244; chemistry at, 153; female students at, 76, 79, 114n.7; and the First World War, 43, 52, 79, 255, 256, 257–8; hospitals, 52, 255; physics at, 152–3, 154, 185–6; and scientific research, 152–3, 154, 157, 164, 185–6; and the Second World War, 185–6, 233, 234, 237, 244; and student enlistment, 256 Dandurand, Louise, 173n.95 Dangerfield, George, 112 Darwin, Charles, 128 Davidson, F.J.A., 239 Davis, Chandler, 276 Dawson, Carl, 33 Dearle, R.C., 186, 198n.51 Defence Research Board, 177, 193, 194, 201n.87 Department of Mines and Resources, 148, 239, 241 Department of National Defence (DND), 178, 181, 182, 197n.33 Department of Scientific and Industrial Research (DSIR), 157, 254–5 Derick, Carrie, 152 DesRosiers, Henri, 183–4, 195n.15 Devoir, 220–1 Dickson, Margaret M., 139 Dominion Central Laboratory, 161–2 Dominion Entomological Branch, 148 Dominion Forest Service, 60, 61 Douglas, James, 208 Douglas, Lewis, 212 Douglas, Walter D., 123 Druce, Eric, 62–3

304

Index

Drury, C.W., 160 DuBridge, L.A., 186 Duncan, J.S., 182 Dupuis, Nathaniel Fellowes, 150 Durham University, 254 Drew, George, 213 Drummond, A.T., 156 Dymond, J.R., 231, 237 Eastman, Mack, 209 Eaton, Charles, 29–30 Eayrs, James, 35 École Polytechnique, 160 economics (subject of study): at Acadia University, 32, 33, 42. See also names of individual economists Edgar, Maud, 108 Eksteins, Modris, 125, 130, 131, 137 education: curriculum planning in wartime, 6, 7, 10, 16, 19–20n.7, 23n.25, 229, 253, 256, 257–8, 260; Faculty of Education at Queen’s University, 67–8n.2; Faculty of Education at the University of Toronto, 77; lowering of academic standards in wartime, 53, 65–6, 257, 258; teach-ins, 17, 272–86; teaching and learning in wartime, 12–13, 19–20n.7, 84–5, 86, 179, 183, 190, 195n.14, 200n.72, 259, 260, 266. See also professors and professoriate; students; universities Einstein, Albert, 238 Ellis, W.E., 159 Ellis, W.H., 154–5 endocrinology: at the University of Manitoba, 154 Engel-Janosi, Friedrich, 227, 234 engineering, 148, 151, 153, 155–6, 157, 164, 260, 261, 265; at Aca-

dia University, 27; enlistment of engineers, 256; at McGill University, 155, 159, 161, 163; radio, 183, 184–6; at the University of Manitoba, 147, 152; at the University of New Brunswick, 150, 153; at the University of Saskatchewan, 125, 256; at the University of Toronto, 57, 132, 151, 153, 155, 159, 164, 185, 198n.46, 257, 261 enlistment: and Acadia University, 26, 27, 35–6, 46; and Dalhousie University, 256; of professors and administrators, 121, 126–7, 131, 135, 140, 197n.39, 259; during the First World War, 26, 27, 35–6, 46, 53, 56, 61–2, 64, 69n.12, 84, 96, 121, 126–7, 133–5, 253–4, 257; during the Second World War, 197n.39, 259, 261; of students, 26, 27, 35–6, 46, 53, 57, 59, 61–2, 64, 69n.12, 71, 84, 96, 121, 126–7, 133–5, 253–4, 256, 257, 259, 261, 266, 272. See also conscription; recruitment; soldiers Enros, Phillip, 148–9, 151, 162 table 6.1, 165 Eschmann, Theodore, 229 Evans, Donald, 281 Evening Blast (University of Toronto), 7–8, 21n.16 Experimental Station Suffield, 177, 188, 190, 191, 192 ‘Exploding Humanity: The Crisis of Numbers’ (University of Toronto teach-in), 276, 281, 282 explosives, 175–6, 177, 181, 188–9, 193, 199n.63 Falconer, Robert, 7, 56, 57–8, 77, 85, 92n.23, 95, 100, 205, 206, 213, 233

Index Falconer, Sophia, 77, 80, 92n.23 Farber, David, 286 Ferguson, Howard, 217 Fernow, Bernhard E., 52–6, 57–9, 61–2, 65–6, 67 Financial Post, 185, 240 Fingard, Judith, 76, 114n.7 Finlayson, Ernest H., 56, 60–1 First World War: and Acadia University, 9–10, 26–7, 28, 35–46, 255; aftermath of, 10, 41–5, 46, 53, 59–67, 125–6, 158; and American universities, 5, 148, 149–50; Battle of Passchendaele, 42; Battle of the Somme, 60; and British universities, 5, 16, 148, 149, 150, 253–5, 256–7, 258–9, 260; and Canadian nationalism, 44–5; the capture of Vimy Ridge, 206; and Canadian universities, 6, 7–8, 9–10, 11–12, 14, 16, 26–7, 28, 35–46, 51–2, 53, 56–67, 69n.12, 71–89, 90n.3, 95–102, 108–12, 121–41, 146–50, 156–65, 177–8, 204–11, 253, 255–6, 257–8, 259, 261, 262, 265–6; Canadian views on British imperialism during, 35–6, 38, 39–40, 76, 122, 124, 127–8, 207; casualties of, 40, 53, 71, 74, 79, 90n.4, 141, 177–8, 206, 255, 256, 261; and changes in women’s higher education, 12, 95–112; and the concept of generation, 273, 285, 286; criticism of, 204–11; enlistment during, 26, 27, 35–6, 46, 53, 56, 61–2, 64, 69n.12, 84, 96, 121, 126–7, 133–5, 253–4, 256, 257; female students and the Red Cross during, 11–12, 71–89, 97; ‘high diction’ in use during, 121, 122; and ideals of chivalry, 123–5,

305

129; as ‘just war,’ 28; munitions production and research during, 72, 97, 146, 147, 159; Second Battle of Ypres, 64, 71, 90n.4; scientific research at Canadian universities during, 5, 14, 146–65, 177–8; and the University of Saskatchewan, 12, 121–2, 125–41, 148, 157, 177, 256; and the University of Toronto, 7–8, 10, 53, 56–67, 73, 75, 76, 77, 78, 79–81, 82, 83–4, 85–6, 87, 90n.3, 95, 96, 97, 98, 99–100, 101–2, 110, 146–7, 157, 158, 159, 162, 164, 204–6, 257, 258; veterans of, 5, 10, 38, 42–3, 51, 53, 61–5, 83 Fischer, Hermann O.L., 229, 238 Fleming, Grant, 181 Ford, Ann Rochon, 11, 90n.8 Forest Products Laboratories (FPL), 147, 166 forestry: forest products research, 65, 147, 148, 158–9, 161; and patriotism, 57; at the University of Toronto, 10, 51–67 Forsey, Eugene, 180, 196n.22, 219 Foster, George, 156–7 Foster, J.S., 186, 193 Fox, Paul, 281 Fox, Sherwood, 233 Francis, Douglas, 151, 217 Frantzen, Allen, 123–4 free speech. See academic freedom Frye, Northrop, 276 Friedland, Martin L., 167n.21 Frost, Stanley, 164–5, 263 Fussell, Paul, 121, 285 Galbraith, John, 155 Gallie, W., 238 Gargoyle (University of Toronto), 282

306

Index

gender. See ‘manliness’/masculinity; women generation (as category of historical analysis), 17, 273–5, 283–6, 287n.8, 288nn.10, 11, 293–4n.71 George, Lloyd, 211 Germany, 123, 131; anti-German sentiment, 57–8, 65, 205–6; Nazism, 16, 20n.7, 22n.21, 22–3n.24, 175, 179, 211, 212, 218, 227, 228, 229, 235, 243, 246n.14; post-war views on German soldiers, 43–4; and the sciences, 147, 149, 150, 152, 155, 156, 158, 179; universities in, 149, 150, 152, 155, 156, 203, 227, 228. See also professors and professoriate: refugee professors during the Second World War Gibson, Frederick, 263 Gidney, Catherine, 113n.6 Gillespie, Peter A., 155 Gillett, Margaret, 11, 90n.8 Gingras, Yves, 151–2, 157, 165 Girouard, Marc, 122–3 Globe, 109, 220 Globe and Mail, 221 Godfrey, Forbes, 58 Gonick, C.W., 288n.10 Goodwin, W.L., 150, 155 Gordon, Andy (A.R.), 190, 193, 239 Gordon, Daniel, 98, 99 Goucher, Jean, 43 Graham, William C., 264 Granovsky, Irene, 228 Grant, George, 277 Grant, R.C., 133 Gray, J.A., 184, 197–8n.42 Great Depression, 63, 229, 239, 243 Great War. See First World War Gregg, Milton F., 36

Grosheintz, Jean Manfred, 229 Guggenheim, Samuel, 123 Gulf War, 141, 203 Haig, Douglas, 124–5 Hamelin, Jean, 151 Hanly, Charles, 275, 278, 283, 292n.45 Harris, Robin, 33 Hartmanshenn, Herta, 229, 246n.13 Harton, S.W.L., 131 Haurwitz, Bernard, 229 Hayden, Michael, 125–6 Hearnshaw, F.J.C., 267n.3 Hébert, Karine, 293–4n.71 helium, 146 Helleiner, Karl, 229, 233, 235, 236, 237, 239, 241, 242 Henderson, V.E., 231 Henderson, W.J., 184, 186 Hepburn, Mitchell, 213, 216, 217 Hersey, Milton, 160 history: academic freedom of historians in wartime, 209–17, 221–2; generation as category of historical analysis, 17, 273–5, 283–6, 287n.8, 288nn.10, 11, 293–4n.71; historiography of female students, 10–11, 96; at McGill University, 211–12; professors in university histories, 14–15; of universities, 3–5, 11, 12–13, 253, 254, 260–1; of universities in Canada, 4, 5–18, 31–2, 51–2, 71, 90n.8, 101, 125–6, 148, 151, 164–5, 231, 257, 258, 261, 263; at the University of British Columbia, 209–11; at the University of Saskatchewan, 126, 136; at the University of Toronto, 108, 213–17, 227, 230, 231, 276. See also

Index names of individual historians Honorary Advisory Council for Scientific and Industrial Research, 148, 156–65 Hosie, R.C. (‘Bob’), 63 hospitals (university): Dalhousie University, 52, 255; Laval University, 92–3n.36; McGill University, 52, 79, 84, 92–3n.36; Queen’s University, 52, 92–3n.36, 97, 255; St Francis Xavier University, 52; University of British Columbia, 90–1n.8; University of Toronto, 79, 80, 82, 83, 84, 92–3n.36, 97; University of Western Ontario, 52, 92–3n.36 Howe, Clifton Durant, 53, 59, 60, 61, 62–6, 67, 70n.31 Hughes, Sam, 82, 93n.41 humanities, 11, 156, 202, 238, 244, 266 Huntsman, A.G., 231, 240 Hurlblatt, Ethel, 76, 84–5, 86 Hutchinson, John, 73, 88–9 Hutton, Maurice, 95, 100 Hyde, H.E., 39 Ignatieff, Michael, 281, 291n.30 Imperial Munitions Board, 147 In Cap and Gown (University of Western Ontario), 107, 108, 118n.61 industry: industrial research, 51, 148, 154–5, 156–65, 254–5; Second Industrial Revolution, 147, 151, 165 Infeld, Leopold, 229–30, 243, 246n.14 Innis, Harold Adams, 216, 233, 235, 237, 241, 263 insulin (discovery of), 146–7, 160 Inventions Board, 183–4 Iraq, 18, 122, 266 Irving, K.C., 26

307

Italy, 175, 218, 221 James, Cyril, 192, 212, 220, 265 Japan, 175, 192; Japanese kamikaze pilots, 22n.21, 187 Johnson, Lyndon, 290n.23, 291– 2n.40, 292n.45 Johnston, R.A.N. (‘Reg’), 57 Johnstone, J.H.L., 185–6 ‘just war’ (concept), 28 Kalmus (Czech biologist), 234, 242 Kalz, Gertrude, 177 Keenleyside, Hugh L., 216, 217 Kenrick, Frank B., 241 Kerr, W.A.R., 233 Keys, David, 180 ‘Khaki University.’ See under University of Alberta Kiefer, Nancy, 11, 22n.23, 78 King, William Lyon Mackenzie, 44, 178, 182, 183, 187, 213, 216, 218, 241 King’s College, London, 254, 256, 259, 261 Kirkpatrick, S.F., 157, 160 Klatch, Rebecca, 274 Klinck, Leonard S., 7, 233 Knowles, C.O., 215, 221–2 Kohl, Walther Heinrick, 230, 235 Kohn, W., 230 Kohr, Leopold, 242 Korean War, 18, 203, 266 Kostash, Myrna, 274 Kosovo, 141, 203 Kruger, Paul, 28–9 Ladner, Gerhart M.A.B., 230, 235 Laird, Hilda, 110 Lang, W.R., 154–5

308

Index

Laurier Boom, 151 Laurier, Wilfrid, 207 Laval University, 92–3n.36, 150, 151 law, 260, 265; at Acadia University, 33; at Dalhousie University, 237; at McGill University, 217–20; at the University of Saskatchewan, 125, 132; at the University of Toronto, 230 Leacock, Stephen, 112–13n.1 League for Reconstruction (LSR), 217–18 LeCointe, Pierre-Paul, 160 Lederer, Max, 227 Lehmann, Adolph, 147 Leonard, Reuben Wells, 205 Levi, Charles, 116n.27 Levitt, Cyril, 274 Lexier, Roberta, 293–4n.71 liberal arts: as a bulwark against communism, 272; and post-war reconstruction, 23n.25; vs. the sciences, 150, 238, 244, 260; in wartime, 13, 238, 244, 257, 260, 263; and women, 11, 257, 260 Lighthall, Alice, 90n.8 Lighthall, William Doux, 90n.8 Ling, George, 126 Lipset, Seymour Martin, 284 Livingstone, Louise, 100 London School of Economics, 259 Loudon, James, 54, 150 Loudon, W.J., 101, 116n.34 Lynd, Staughton, 277 M.J. O’Brien Ltd., 160 Maass, Otto, 176, 180–1, 182, 188, 189, 190, 193, 194, 196n.24, 201n.81 Macallum, A.B., 157, 158, 163

Macdonald, D. Bruce, 215 Macdonald, William C., 153 Macdonell, A.C., 156 MacGregor, J.G., 154 MacKenzie, Arthur Stanley, 152–3, 157, 164 Mackenzie, Chambers Jack (C.J.), 176, 179–80, 181, 182–3, 185, 187, 193, 194, 201n.89 MacKenzie, David, 51 Macklem, G.S., 206 MacLean, Annie Marion, 33 MacLean, John D., 210 Macleod, J.J., 160 MacMillan, H.R., 59 MacNamara, Arthur, 263 MacPhee, E.D., 39 Macpherson, J. Ross, 130, 133, 143n.43 Madden, Robert, 280 Mail and Empire, 205, 221 magnetic mines, 186 Manhattan Project, 187–8 ‘manliness’/masculinity, 11, 12, 71, 121–5, 130, 140, 141; and chivalry, 12, 122–4, 125, 129, 131–2, 137, 141; dissociated from Christianity, 130, 140; ‘manliness’ vs. ‘masculinity,’ 122 Mannheim, Karl, 274, 287n.8 Manning, F.C., 38–9 Mansfield, Harvey, 122, 125 Mark, J. Carson, 188 Maroney, Paul, 124, 141n.12 Martin, C.F., 180, 235 Marwick, Arthur, 275, 286 Marx, Karl, 239 Mason, Ruby, 110 mathematics, 244; at Queen’s College, 150; at the University of Sas-

Index katchewan, 126; at the University of Toronto, 229–30, 276 Matthews, Robin, 293n.69 Mathieu, O.-E., 150 Maurault, Oliver, 240 Mayer, Anna-K., 149 McCalla, Douglas, 51, 165 McDonald, J.H., 34 McGill University, 63, 262, 265, 293–4n.71; administrators at, 161; agriculture at, 163; botany at, 150–1, 152, 161; chemistry at, 146, 160, 161, 163, 180, 190; engineering at, 155, 159, 161, 163; female students at, 73, 76, 79, 81–2, 83, 84–5, 86, 90n.3, 112–13n.1; law at, 217–20; McGill Daily, 73, 76, 77, 78, 79, 81, 82, 85, 87; medicine at, 52, 79, 84, 92–3n.36, 154, 180, 181, 191; microbiology at, 177, 181, 191, 192, 201n.86; and the NRC, 180–1, 186, 190, 199n.54; physics at, 146, 153, 180, 186, 199n.54, 240; and refugee professors, 234, 236, 240, 242; scientific research at, 146, 147, 150–1, 152, 153–4, 155, 157, 159, 161, 163, 164–5, 177, 180–1, 186, 189, 190, 191, 192, 193; sociology at, 33; student casualties, 256, 261; War Service Advisory Board, 259; wartime academic freedom cases, 208, 211–13, 217–20. See also names of individual administrators, professors, and students McInnis, Marvin, 151 McKay, John Bryce, 41–2 McKillop, A.B., 31–2, 71, 151, 257, 258, 261 McLennan, J.C., 146, 157, 158 McLennan Laboratory, 184, 185

309

McMaster University: in the 1960s, 277; and the Canadian Society for the Protection of Science and Learning, 234, 248n.28; chemistry at, 97, 152, 188; female students at, 96, 97, 105, 106–8, 109, 110, 111, 116–17n.37, 119n.68; McMaster Monthly, 106, 109; scientific research at, 152, 162 table 6.1, 193 McMurchy, Helen, 83 McMurray, Dorothy, 220 McNaught, Kenneth, 276, 291n.30 McNaughton, A.G.L., 178, 179, 184, 185, 190, 194, 195n.14 McNeill, Caroline, 98–9, 110 McRae, J.A., 148 medicine: at Acadia University, 33; at Dalhousie University, 52, 255; discovery of insulin, 146–7, 160; effect of war on faculties of, 52; at Laval University, 92–3n.36; at McGill University, 52, 79, 84, 92–3n.36, 154, 180, 181, 191; at Queen’s University, 52, 92–3n.36, 97, 255; research in, 146–7, 154, 176, 181, 182, 190–2, 200n.76; and St Francis Xavier University, 52; at the University of British Columbia, 90–1n.8; and university laboratories, 151, 153; at the University of Toronto, 79, 80, 82, 83, 84, 92–3n.36, 97, 146–7, 191, 200n.76; relevance in wartime, 179, 195n.15, 257–8, 259, 265; at the University of Western Ontario, 52, 92–3n.36; women in, 154, 265 Mendel, Bruno, 230 Millar, W.N., 70n.31 Millard, Rodney, 51, 162, 164 Miller, Lash, 162

310

Index

mining, 147–8, 158; nickel refining, 146; School of Mines at Queen’s University, 147–8, 155; zinc ore refining, 160 Misener, A.B., 185 Moffat, R.W., 147 Montreal Gazette, 211–12, 221 Montreal Star, 211–12, 221 Morse, Charles H., 65 Moss, Mark, 141–2n.12 Mount Allison University: administrators at, 69n.12; and the Canadian Society for the Protection of Science and Learning, 233, 234; enrolment levels in wartime, 255, 256; female students at, 258; and recruitment of students, 69n.12; research component at, 152 Moxon, Arthur, 126 Mueller, Paul, 206 Mulock, William, 216, 217 Munzer, Egbert, 230, 234, 235 Murray, E.G.D., 177, 181, 191, 192, 193, 201nn.81, 86 Murray, Walter C.: and the Bateman controversy, 126, 128, 130, 131, 132–5, 140; and scientific research, 157, 159, 177; views on war, 121, 127–8, 137, 139 Myerson, Mike, 277, 279–80, 281–2, 292n.45 National Conference of Canadian Universities (NCCU), 162, 179, 255, 261, 262, 263, 265 National Council of Women (NCWC), 72, 119n.65 National Drug and Chemical Company, 156 National Federation of Canadian University Students (NFCUS), 276

National Research Council (NRC): establishment of, 148–9, 162, 163, 164, 172n.78, 178; during the interwar years, 178; and McGill University, 180–1, 186, 190, 199n.54; during the post-war years, 176–7, 199n.61, 201nn.87, 89; during the Second World War, 175–6, 179–85, 186, 189, 190, 191, 193, 194, 196n.18, 197–8n.42, 198n.51, 239–40; and the University of Toronto, 180, 181, 184–5, 189, 190, 200n.76 National Resources Mobilization Act, 175 National Selective Service, 190 National Service Girls (‘farmerettes’), 97 National Student Federation of America, 276 Nazism: in Germany, 16, 175, 211, 212, 218; and libraries, 20n.7; notions of femininity in Nazi Germany, 22–3n.24; reaction of Canadian Christians to, 250n.47; refugees from Nazi oppression, 227, 228, 229, 235, 243, 246n.14; and science, 179, 185; student resisters to, 22n.21. See also anti-Semitism Neilly, Balmer, 215, 217 Nicholls, Robert, 189 Nixon, Harry, 216 Ogilvie, Vera, 37 Oliver, Edmund, 126, 136–7, 140 Ontario Agricultural College (OAC), 54, 162 table 6.1 Ontario Department of Agriculture, 148 Ontario Veterinary College, 162 table 6.1

Index 311 Ontario Hydro, 159 Oppenheimer, J. Robert, 187 Osler, Edmund, 206 Ottawa Citizen, 220–1 Owram, Doug, 274, 282, 288n.16 Pakuscher, Ernst, 228 Panofsky, Erwin, 249–50n.45 Pape, Arthur, 281–2 Parker, Matthew Archibald, 154 Parkin, J.H., 159 Parkin, Louise, 217 Passchendaele, 42 Paterson, J.C., 190 patriotism, 45; and academic freedom, 202, 204, 206, 208, 210, 222–3; on campuses, 7, 35–6, 74–5, 78, 181, 183; discourses of, 11, 15, 71, 73, 74, 75, 79; and female students, 11, 12, 36, 71–88, 97; and foresters, 57; and Maritime Baptists, 28, 29; and masculinity, 12, 71 Patterson, Margaret, 77 Peck, George B., 42 pharmacy/pharmacology, 231, 234; at the University of Saskatchewan, 125; at the University of Toronto, 230 PhD degree, 33, 149, 152, 256–7 philosophy: at the University of Saskatchewan, 126; at the University of Toronto, 275, 281 Phoenix, 129–30, 131 physics: after 1945, 24n.28; at Dalhousie University, 152–3, 154, 185–6; at McGill University, 146, 153, 180, 186, 199n.54, 240; at Queen’s University, 184, 197–8n.42; Second World War as a physicists’ war, 188; at the University of Manitoba, 154; at the University of New

Brunswick, 150; at the University of Toronto, 57, 146, 157, 164, 180, 181, 185, 187, 198n.45, 229, 230; at the University of Western Ontario, 186. See also names of individual physicists Pickersgill, John W., 216 Pierson, Ruth Roach, 11, 22n.23, 78 Pitt, Arnold, 185, 187, 193 Plumptre, Adelaide, 77, 78 political economy: at McGill University, 112–13n.1, 219; at Queen’s University, 207–8; at the University of Toronto, 229, 230, 233, 276, 281. See also names of individual political economists Porter, J.B., 155–6 Porter, William, 190 Power, Charles G., 216 Preston, Isabella, 162 Princip, Gavril, 148 Pringle, J.W.S., 24n.28 professors and professoriate: in the 1960s, 272, 274, 275, 276–7, 278, 279, 280–1, 283, 284–5, 286, 288n.10; academic freedom in wartime, 3, 15, 24–5n.31, 202–23; and anti-German sentiment, 57–8, 65, 205–6; and anti-Semitism, 227– 9, 238–44, 246n.14; enlistment of, 121, 126–7, 131, 135, 140, 197n.39, 259; female, 15, 142n.21, 152, 258; as fundamentally Anglo-Saxon and Christian, 244; refugee professors during the Second World War, 15–16, 227–44; as researchers, 151–3, 156, 165; in university histories, 14–15; university scientists seconded to the military, 185, 186; waning authority of, 17; wartime role of, 15, 175. See also names of individual professors and institutions

312

Index

proximity fuses, 175, 186–7, 193 psychology (subject of study): at the University of Toronto, 181, 197n.39, 261 Quebec, 16, 207, 218–19, 275 Queen’s University: academic freedom case of O.D. Skelton, 206–9, 216; arts faculty of, 263; biological weapons laboratory, 191, 200n.80; and the Canadian Society for the Protection of Science and Learning, 233, 234, 236; chemistry at, 147, 190; Faculty of Education at, 67–8n.2; female students at, 73, 76, 77, 78–9, 86–7, 90n.3, 96, 97–9, 101, 103, 104, 106, 110, 111, 112, 116n.37, 262; female professors at, 258; and forestry, 54; Levana Society, 76, 77, 78, 79, 86, 98, 99, 104; mathematics at, 150; medicine at, 52, 92–3n.36, 97, 255; and military deferments for students, 263; physics at, 184, 197–8n.42; Queen’s Journal, 73, 76, 77, 78, 79, 86, 87, 98, 112; political economy at, 206–9; School of Mines, 147–8, 155; scientific research at, 147–8, 151, 152, 157, 159–60, 162 table 6.1, 179, 184, 190, 191, 200n.80; and student enlistment, 256. See also names of individual administrators, professors, and students Quiet Revolution, 16, 275 Rabi, Isidore, 193 radar research, 175, 184–6, 193 Radiation Laboratory (Rad Lab), 186 Rapoport, Anatol, 291–2n.40 Ratcliffe, J.A., 24n.28

RDX. See explosives Reaney, J.R., 126–7 Rebel (University of Toronto), 111–12 recruitment, 124, 141n.12, 206–7; and students, 5, 26, 40–1, 57, 69n.12, 133. See also conscription; enlistment; soldiers Red Cross. See Canadian Red Cross Society (CRCS) Reed, Guilford, 191, 201n.81 Rees, Claire, 141n.1 refugees (during the Second World War): and Britain, 230, 236, 239, 247n.17; female, 246n.13, 248–9n.35; refugee professors at the University of Toronto, 15–16, 227–44, 246nn.13, 14, 247n.18; refugee professors in the US, 242; ‘refugee’ defined, 246n.9; refugee students, 239; responses to refugee scholars, 236–44 Reich, Platon, 204–6 Reid, Escott, 276–7 Reid, John G., 69n.12 religion: at McMaster University, 277; ‘Religion and International Affairs’ (University of Toronto teach-in), 276, 281. See also Christianity research: 1919 parliamentary committee on the development of scientific research, 163–4; expansion of research programs since the Second World War, 18; forest products, 65, 147, 148, 158–9, 161; Honorary Advisory Council/NRC and wartime research, 148, 156–63, 164, 175, 176, 178, 179–80, 181, 182, 183, 184, 185, 186, 189, 190, 191, 193, 198n.51, 199n.54, 200n.76;

Index impact of war on, 148–50, 161, 162–3, 164–5, 177; industrial, 51, 148, 154–5, 156–65, 254–5; medical, 146–7, 154, 176, 181, 182, 190–2, 200n.76; professors as researchers, 151–3, 156, 165; scientific research at Canadian universities before the First World War, 147, 148, 149, 150–6, 165; scientific research at Canadian universities during the First World War, 5, 14, 146–50, 156–65, 177–8; scientific research at Canadian universities during the Second World War, 13–14, 24n.28, 175–7, 178–94; scientific research at Dalhousie University, 152–3, 154, 157, 164, 185–6; scientific research at McMaster University, 152, 162 table 6.1, 193; scientific research at McGill University, 146, 147, 150–1, 152, 153–4, 155, 157, 159, 161, 163, 164–5, 177, 180–1, 186, 189, 190, 191, 192, 193; scientific research at Queen’s University, 147–8, 151, 152, 157, 159–60, 162 table 6.1, 184, 190, 191, 200n.80; scientific research at the University of Alberta, 147, 178; scientific research at the University of British Columbia, 147, 187–8; scientific research at the University of Manitoba, 147, 152, 154, 163; scientific research at the University of Saskatchewan, 148, 150, 157, 159; scientific research at the University of Toronto, 146–7, 152, 153, 155, 157, 158, 159, 162, 164, 180, 181, 184–5, 187, 189, 190, 191; scientific research at the University of Western Ontario, 162 table 6.1,

313

186, 190; secret, 175, 177, 182, 185, 187, 189, 191, 192, 202; wartime chemical, 146, 147–8, 156, 159, 160, 161–2, 163, 180, 188–90 ‘Revolution and Response’ (University of Toronto teach-in), 276–80, 281, 284, 291n.32 Ricard, François, 275 Richardson, James, 208 Roberts, Mabel, 98–9 Rogers, Norman McLeod, 44 Rose, Jeffrey, 281 Ross, A.H.D., 56 Ross, James, 189 Ross, Murray, 276 Rossiter, Margaret W., 23n.26 Rotstein, Abraham, 276, 279, 281 Rowat, Jessie, 107, 118n.61 Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP), 24–5n.31, 279 Royal Commission on Industrial Training and Technical Education, 155 Royal Flying Corps, 26 Royal Military College, 63 Royal Society of Canada, 161, 231, 233, 236 Rubin, H.J.U., 230 Rudy, Willis, 16, 257, 260 Russell, Peter, 276 Rutherford, Ernest, 153 Ruttan, R.F., 155–6, 157, 161, 163–4 Rytel, Aleksander, 230, 234, 235 Sanderson, Michael, 254, 259 Sandwell, B.K., 219 Sangster, Joan, 51, 96 Saturday Night, 219, 220–1 Scalapino, Robert, 277, 279–80, 281–2, 292n.45

314

Index

Schnitzer, Robert, 230 sciences: 1919 parliamentary committee on the development of scientific research, 163–4; in Britain, 148, 149, 150, 155, 157, 158, 254–5, 256, 260, 266; domination of applied science, 156; and establishment of a Dominion Central Laboratory, 161–2; female scientists, 23n.26, 147, 152, 177, 254, 262, 265; in Germany, 147, 149, 150, 152, 155, 156, 158, 179; gravitation of Canadian scientists towards American research centres, 186, 193; Honorary Advisory Council/NRC and wartime research in, 148, 156–63, 164, 175, 176, 178, 179–80, 181, 182, 183, 184, 185, 186, 189, 190, 191, 193, 198n.51, 199n.54, 200n.76; and industrial research, 51, 148, 154–5, 156–65, 254–5; life sciences and biological weapons, 190–2; publishing scientists at Ontario’s universities, 1914–19, 162–3; and relationships between Canadian universities and firms, 147, 150–1, 153–4, 155, 158, 160; science professors as researchers, 151–3, 156, 165; science as a ‘stern matron,’ 164; scientific research at Canadian universities before the First World War, 147, 148, 149, 150–6, 165; scientific research at Canadian universities during the First World War, 5, 14, 146–50, 156–65, 177–8; scientific research at Canadian universities during the Second World War, 13–14, 24n.28, 175–7, 178–94; scientific

research at Dalhousie University, 152–3, 154, 157, 164, 185–6; scientific research at McMaster University, 152, 162 table 6.1, 193; scientific research at McGill University, 146, 147, 150–1, 152, 153–4, 155, 157, 159, 161, 163, 164–5, 177, 180–1, 186, 189, 190, 191, 192, 193; scientific research at Queen’s University, 147–8, 151, 152, 157, 159–60, 162 table 6.1, 184, 190, 191, 200n.80; scientific research at the University of Alberta, 147, 178; scientific research at the University of British Columbia, 147, 187–8; scientific research at the University of Manitoba, 147, 152, 154, 163; scientific research at the University of Saskatchewan, 148, 150, 157, 159; scientific research at the University of Toronto, 146–7, 152, 153, 155, 157, 158, 159, 162, 164, 180, 181, 184–5, 187, 189, 190, 191; scientific research at the University of Western Ontario, 162 table 6.1, 186, 190; scientists as combatants, 178; Second Industrial Revolution, 147, 151, 165; and the standards movement, 155–6, 157; and university laboratories, 147, 150, 151, 153, 159; university scientists and Allied weapon systems, 175–7, 178–94; university scientists seconded to the military, 185, 186; in the US, 148, 149, 150, 155, 158; vs. the liberal arts, 150, 238, 244, 260; wartime chemical research, 146, 147–8, 156, 159, 160, 161–2, 163, 180, 188–90. See also individual scientific subjects and scientists

Index Scientific Club of Winnipeg, 154 Scott, Frank R., 217–21 Scott, S.D., 210 Scott, Walter (Saskatchewan premier), 122 Scott, Walter (writer), 123 Second Battle of Ypres, 64, 71, 90n.4 Second Industrial Revolution, 147, 151, 165 Second World War: aftermath of, 62, 264–5; and American universities, 14, 23n.25; and British universities, 14, 16, 258–61, 264, 265–6; and Canadian universities, 6–7, 10, 13, 15–16, 78, 175–7, 178–94, 211–20, 227–44, 253, 259, 261–6; casualties of, 260–2, 265–6; criticism of, 196n.22, 204, 211–20; and Dalhousie University, 185–6, 233, 234, 237, 244; enlistment during, 197n.39, 259, 261; refugee professors during, 15–16, 227–44; scientific research at Canadian universities during, 13–14, 24n.28, 175–7, 178– 94; and the University of Toronto, 6–7, 13, 15–16, 78, 180, 181, 184–5, 187, 189, 190, 191, 213–17, 227–44, 261, 262; veterans of, 62, 264–5, 272; and war inventions, 183–4; and the WTSDC, 182–4, 190 Shaw, A. Norman, 240 Sheaf (University of Saskatchewan), 121–2, 130, 133, 137–8, 140 Sheard, J.L., 102 Shore, Marlene, 33 Simmons, John L., 61–2 Simon, Brian, 264 Sivertz, Christian, 190 Skelton, Oscar Douglas (O.D.), 206–9, 211, 216, 237

315

‘slackers,’ 74, 81, 124 Smallman, Evelyn Enid, 36 Smith, Sidney, 233 social sciences, 202, 262, 263, 266, 273; at Acadia University, 33 Society of Chemical Industry, 161–2 sociology: at Acadia University, 32, 33, 42; at McGill University, 33. See also names of individual sociologists Soddy, Frederick, 153 soldiers: and ‘manliness,’ 121–41; post-war views on German soldiers, 43–4; scientists as combatants, 178. See also casualties; chivalry; conscription; enlistment; recruitment; veterans Spanish influenza epidemic, 87, 91n.8 Spira, Bill, 280 Sroka, Marek, 20n.7 Stanley, Carleton, 185–6, 212, 221, 233 Steele, James, 293n.69 Stevenson, Michael, 263 Stewart, Lee, 11, 90–1n.8 St Francis Xavier University, 7, 52, 150, 234 St John Ambulance, 74; Voluntary Aid Detachment (VAD), 72, 83, 85, 86, 90n.6, 90n.8, 141n.1 Student Christian Movement, 276, 290n.29 students: enlistment of, 26, 27, 35–6, 46, 53, 57, 59, 61–2, 64, 69n.12, 71, 84, 96, 121, 126–7, 133–5, 253–4, 256, 259, 261, 266, 272; enrolment levels in wartime, 65, 255–6, 259, 260, 263–4; female, 10–12, 17, 27, 32–3, 36–7, 38, 66–7, 71–89, 95–112, 125, 141n.1, 257, 258, 260, 262,

316

Index

265; as lifeblood of the war effort, 22n.21; and the lowering of academic standards in wartime, 53, 65–6, 257, 258; medical, 195n.15, 259; military deferments for, 180, 263; and recruitment, 5, 26, 40–1, 57, 69n.12, 133; refugee, 239; returning student-soldiers, 5, 10, 38, 42–3, 51, 53, 61–5; student casualties, 46, 59–61, 71, 74, 79, 121–2, 126, 134, 255, 256, 260–2, 265–6; student life in wartime, 6, 16, 71, 95, 98, 101, 256, 257, 258, 259, 260–1, 266; student movements in the 1920s and 1930s, 276, 290n.29; student activism in the 1960s, 17, 272–86, 293–4n.71; teaching and learning in wartime, 12–13, 19–20n.7, 84–5, 86, 179, 183, 190, 195n.14, 200n.72, 259, 260, 266. See also names of individual students and titles of student publications submarine detection, 146, 147 swamp fever, 148 Synge, J.L., 164, 238 Szychter, Gwen, 71 Tamblyn, W.F., 101, 107 Tapper, Bonno, 206 Taylor, Bruce, 208 Taylor, Griffith, 240–1 teaching. See education; professors and professoriate teach-ins (at the University of Toronto): ‘China: Coexistence or Containment,’ 276, 280; and the concept of generation, 273–5, 283– 6; cost of, 277, 291n.32; decline of, 273–4, 281; ‘Exploding Humanity: The Crisis of Numbers’ (last teach-

in), 276, 281, 282; origins of, 275–6; reception of, 273, 278–82, 283, 284–5; ‘Religion and International Affairs,’ 276, 281; ‘Revolution and Response’ (1965 teach-in), 276–80, 281, 284, 291n.32 Telegram, 214, 215, 221, 222 Tennyson, Alfred, 123, 129 Thatcher, Ernest G., 209, 210 Thode, Harry, 188, 193 Thomas, L.G., 7 Thomson, J. Ellis, 231 Thornton, A.W., 84 Thorvaldson, T., 190 Thwing, Charles Franklin, 5 Tingle, J.B., 152 Titanic, 123 Tompkins, Jimmy, 150 Toronto Star, 109–10, 214, 220–1, 239 Tory, Henry Marshall, 8, 147, 178 Troper, Harold, 241–2 Trueman, G.J., 233 Truscott, Bruce, 264 Underhill, Frank H., 213–17, 221–2 United States: American universities in the 1960s, 275, 277, 278, 282, 284, 290n.24, 291–2n.40, 292n.45; American universities and academic freedom, 203; American universities and the First World War, 5, 148, 149–50; American universities and the Second World War, 14, 23n.25; attack on Pearl Harbor, 176; civil rights movement, 275, 290n.22; Conference on Canadian-American Affairs, 6; entry into the First World War, 206; gravitation of Canadian scientists towards research centres

Index in, 186, 193; Manhattan Project, 187–8; refugee professors in, 242; and the sciences, 148, 149–50, 155, 158, 182; student movements of the 1920s and 1930s in, 276. See also weapons: university scientists and Allied weapon systems Université Laval, 92–3n.36, 150, 151 Université de Montréal, 187, 240, 293–4n.71 universities: in the 1960s, 17, 272–86; in Britain, 5, 14, 16, 148, 149, 150, 253–5, 256–7, 258–61, 264, 265–6; Canadian universities and the First World War, 6, 7–8, 9–10, 11–12, 14, 16, 26–7, 28, 35–46, 51–2, 53, 56–67, 69n.12, 71–89, 90n.3, 95–102, 108–12, 121–41, 146–50, 156–65, 177–8, 204–11, 253, 255–6, 257–8, 259, 261, 262, 265–6; Canadian universities and the Second World War, 6–7, 10, 13, 15–16, 78, 175–7, 178–94, 211–20, 227–44, 253, 259, 261–6; Canadian universities and post-war reconstruction, 10, 41–5, 46, 53, 59–67, 125–6, 158; comparison of British and Canadian universities in wartime, 253–66; curriculum planning in wartime, 6, 7, 10, 16, 19–20n.7, 23n.25, 229, 253, 256, 257–8, 260; effects of war on, 4–8, 10, 12, 13–14, 15, 16, 17, 19–20n.7, 23n.25, 51–2, 53, 59–60, 65–7, 95–6, 102, 112, 125–6, 148–50, 161, 162–3, 164–5, 177, 194, 243–4, 253–66; enrolment levels in wartime, 65, 255–6, 259, 260, 263–4; in Germany, 149, 150, 152, 155, 156, 203, 227, 228; history of, 3–5, 11, 12–13,

317

253, 254, 260–1; history in Canada, 4, 5–18, 31–2, 71, 51–2, 90n.8, 101, 125–6, 148, 151, 164–5, 231, 257, 258, 261, 263; inter-university rivalry, 236; lowering of academic standards in wartime, 53, 65–6, 257, 258; as microcosm of society, 5, 244; relationships between Canadian universities and firms, 147, 150–1, 153–4, 155, 158, 160; relationships between Canadian universities and government, 7, 13, 14, 16, 54, 150, 153, 156–64, 172n.78, 177, 181, 182–4, 193–4, 208, 209, 210, 213, 217, 254, 263–4, 265, 266, 291n.32; perceived as monolithic and sheltered, 3, 4, 6, 9; since the Second World War, 17–18, 24n.28; in the US, 5, 14, 148, 149–50, 266, 275, 277, 278, 282, 284, 290n.24, 291–2n.40, 292n.45; wartime role of, 6–7, 9, 13–14, 17, 23n.25, 149–50, 179, 184, 255. See also names of individual institutions; professors and professoriate; students University of Alberta, 7, 8; and the Canadian Society for the Protection of Science and Learning, 233, 234; female students at, 262; ‘Khaki University,’ 10; and scientific research, 147, 178; student casualties, 256, 261; and the Western Universities Battalion, 133 University of Berlin, 228, 229 University of Birmingham, 254, 259, 261, 267n.11 University of British Columbia, 7, 255, 259, 262; in the 1960s, 277–8; academic freedom case of Walter

318

Index

Barnes, 209–11; Calendar, 147; and the Canadian Society for the Protection of Science and Learning, 233, 234; curriculum planning at, 256; scientific research at, 147, 187–8; student enlistment and casualties, 256; and the Western Universities Battalion, 133 University of California, Berkeley, 277, 290n.24, 292n.45 University of Cambridge, 254, 255, 257, 259, 260–1; Oxbridge, 264 University of Guelph, 162 University of Hull, 259 University of Liverpool, 5, 259 University of London, 260 University of Manchester, 260, 267n.11 University of Manitoba, 259, 262; botany at, 154, 163; and the Canadian Society for the Protection of Science and Learning, 233, 234; chemistry at, 154; endocrinology at, 154; engineering at, 147, 152; physics at, 154; and the Western Universities Battalion, 133 University of Michigan, 275, 290n.24, 291–2n.40 University of Munich, 228 University of New Brunswick, 150, 153, 160 University of Ottawa, 234 University of Oxford, 253–4, 255, 256, 257, 259, 260–1; Oxbridge, 264 University of Saskatchewan: agriculture at, 125, 132, 133; chemistry at, 190; COTC at, 132, 138, 139; engineering at, 125, 256; female students at, 262; and the First World War, 12, 121–2, 125–41, 148,

157, 159, 177, 256; mathematics at, 126; pharmacy at, 125; scientific research at, 148, 150, 157, 159; Sheaf, 121–2, 130, 133, 137–8, 140; student activists at, 293–4n.71; student casualties, 121, 256, 261; and the Western Universities Battalion, 133. See also names of individual administrators, professors, and students University of Sheffield, 256, 260, 267n.11 University of Southampton, 260 University of Toronto: 1895 student strike, 105–6; in the 1960s, 17, 272–86; Acta Victoriana, 103–4, 111; administrators at, 54, 59, 61, 62, 63, 66, 79–80, 81, 99–100, 105, 109, 111, 229; and anti-German sentiment, 57–8, 65, 205–6; and the Canadian Journal, 150; and the Canadian Society for the Protection of Science and Learning, 230–44, 247n.18; chemistry at, 147, 157, 162, 180, 189, 190, 197n.39, 228, 229, 238, 241; COTC at, 7; curriculum, 54, 57, 229; engineering at, 57, 132, 151, 153, 155, 159, 164, 185, 198n.46, 257, 261; Evening Blast, 7–8, 21n.16; Faculty of Education at, 77; and the First World War, 7–8, 10, 53, 56–67, 73, 75, 76, 77, 78, 79–81, 82, 83–4, 85–6, 87, 90n.3, 95, 96, 97, 98, 99–100, 101–2, 110, 146–7, 157, 158, 159, 162, 164, 204–6, 257, 258; female students at, 66–7, 73, 75, 76, 77, 78, 79–81, 82, 83–4, 85, 86, 87, 90n.3, 95, 96, 97, 98, 99–100, 101–2, 103–6, 108–9, 110–12, 116n.37; household sci-

Index ence at, 78, 108, 110, 147; scientific research at, 146–7, 152, 153, 155, 157, 158, 159, 162, 164, 180, 181, 184–5, 187, 189, 190, 191; and the Second World War, 6–7, 13, 15–16, 78, 180, 181, 184–5, 187, 189, 190, 191, 213–17, 227–44, 261, 262; forestry at, 10, 51–67; Hart House, 101, 110, 231; history at, 108, 213–17, 227, 230, 231, 276; mathematics at, 229–30, 276; medicine at, 79, 80, 82, 83, 84, 92–3n.36, 97, 146–7, 191, 200n.76; and the NRC, 180, 181, 184–5, 189, 190, 200n.76; philosophy at, 275, 281; physics at, 57, 146, 157, 164, 180, 181, 185, 187, 198n.45, 229, 230; political economy at, 229, 230, 233, 276, 281; psychology at, 181, 197n.39, 261; refugee professors at, 15–16, 227–44, 246nn.13, 14, 247n.18; St Michael’s College, 280; and student enlistment, 53, 57, 59, 61–2, 64; and tension between evangelical and social Christianity, 33; Trinity College, 204–6; University College, 96, 97, 98, 99–100, 103, 104–5, 106, 108, 110, 111, 116n.37, 167n.21, 282; University of Toronto Act (1906), 215; University of Toronto Quarterly, 164; Varsity, 73, 76, 77, 78, 81, 82, 83, 84, 85–6, 87, 100, 101–2, 105, 204–5, 278–9, 280, 282; Victoria College, 96, 97, 98, 99, 103, 104, 105, 106, 109, 110–11, 119n.67, 276; wartime academic freedom cases, 204–6, 213–17; Women’s Undergraduate Association (WUA) of University College, 75, 76, 80, 105, 109, 111, 112. See

319

also names of individual administrators, professors, and students University of Vienna, 227, 228, 234 University of Western Ontario: and the Canadian Society for the Protection of Science and Learning, 233; chemistry at, 190; COTC at, 261–2; female students at, 96, 97, 101, 105, 106, 110, 107, 111, 117n.37; In Cap and Gown, 107, 108, 118n.61; medicine at, 52, 92–3n.36; physics at, 186; scientific research at, 162 table 6.1, 186, 190; student casualties, 261–2; War Service Advisory Board at, 196n.27; Western University Gazette, 101, 107 Urey, Harold, 188 Vance, Jonathan, 113n.3 Vancouver Sun, 211, 221 Varsity (University of Toronto): in the 1960s, 278–9, 280, 282; and debates concerning coeducation, 100, 101–2, 105; ‘The Insurrection of the Women,’ cartoon, 100; interview with Platon Reich, 204–5; ‘The Last Man’ cartoon, 102; and the mobilization of female students during the First World War, 73, 76, 77, 78, 81, 82, 83, 84, 85–6, 87 veterans: of the First World War, 5, 10, 38, 42–3, 51, 53, 61–5, 83; of the Second World War, 10, 62, 264–5, 272 Vietnam War, 9, 17, 266, 272–4, 275, 277, 279–80, 281, 284, 285, 286, 290n.23 Viking Foundation, 185 Vincent, Swale, 154

320

Index

Volkoff, George, 187–8 von Bernhardi, Frederich, 131 von Lubtow, W.A., 206 von Seemann, Carl, 228, 230 Walker, Edmund, 206 Walker, T.L., 158 Wallace, Phil, 188, 191 Wallace, R.C., 179, 233, 234–6, 242 Wallace, William Stewart, 230–1, 232 fig. 9.1, 233, 234, 236, 241, 242, 244 War Contingents Association, 74 War Technical and Scientific Development Committee (WTSDC), 182–4; ‘Santa Claus’ fund, 182, 190 Wardleworth, T.H., 156 Wasteneys, H., 241 Watkins, Melville, 276, 279, 281 weapons: atomic bomb, 186–8; biological, 176, 177, 181, 182, 190–2, 193, 200n.80; casualties caused by poison gases, 177–8; chemical warfare, 176, 177, 181, 188–90, 193; explosives, 175–6, 177, 181, 188–9, 193, 199n.63; magnetic mines, 186; munitions production and research during the First World War, 72, 97, 146, 147, 159; proximity fuses, 175, 186–7, 193; university scientists and Allied weapon systems, 175–7, 178–94 Weinstein, Alexander, 230 Wenner-Gren, Axel, 185 Wesbrook, Frank F., 209, 211 Western Universities Battalion, 133, 134, 135, 136, 139 Western University Gazette, 101 Westhues, Kenneth, 274 Whitton, Charlotte, 98–9

Wilhelm, J.O., 185 Wilson, J. Tuzo, 276 Wilson, Woodrow, 138 Winkler, Charles, 189 Winnipeg Free Press, 219, 220–1 Winnipeg Tribune, 221 Wohl, Robert, 39, 273, 285, 286, 287n.8 women: in the 1920s, 95–6, 101, 103, 110–11, 112; academic segregation of, 12, 96, 99, 107, 108–11, 112, 114n.7; Acadia Ladies Seminary, 27, 43; coeducation, 11, 12, 90n.3, 95–112, 112–13n.1, 114n.7, 266; deans of, 98–100, 108, 110, 112, 119n.71; effect of female students on curriculum, 114n.7, 257–8; enfranchisement of, 37, 109–10, 119n.65; enrolment of, 11, 17, 66–7, 76, 84, 88, 96–7, 103, 108, 111, 116–17n.37, 125, 257, 260, 262, 265; and extracurricular activities, 258; ‘farmerettes,’ 97; female administrators, 17, 76, 100; female professors, 15, 142n.21, 152, 258; female refugees, 246n.13, 248–9n.35; female scientists, 23n.26, 147, 152, 177, 262, 265; female students at Acadia University, 27, 32–3, 258; female students at British universities, 257, 260; female students at Dalhousie University, 76, 79, 114n.7; female students at McGill University, 73, 76, 79, 81–2, 83, 84–5, 86, 90n.3, 112–13n.1; female students at McMaster University, 96, 97, 105, 106–8, 109, 110, 111, 116– 17n.37, 119n.68; female students at Mount Allison University, 258; female students at Queen’s Uni-

Index versity, 73, 76, 77, 78–9, 86–7, 90n.3, 96, 97–9, 101, 103, 104, 106, 110, 111, 112, 116n.37, 262; female students at the University of Toronto, 66–7, 73, 75, 76, 77, 78, 79–81, 82, 83–4, 85, 86, 87, 90n.3, 95, 96, 97, 98, 99–100, 101–2, 103–6, 108–9, 110–12, 116n.37; female students at the University of Western Ontario, 96, 97, 101, 105, 106, 107, 110, 111, 117n.37; feminism, 73, 109–10, 119nn.65, 68; historiography of female students, 10–11, 96; knitting as women’s war work, 74, 77–8, 81, 83, 86–7, 89, 97, 262; and the liberal arts, 11, 257, 260; in medicine, 154, 265; and maternalist ideology, 11, 73, 75, 88; and notions of femininity and propriety, 11–12, 22n.23, 22–3n.24, 111, 262; nursing as women’s war work, 72, 82, 90n.6, 90–1n.8, 141n.1, 262; on-campus women’s organizations, 7, 22n.23, 75–6, 77, 78, 79, 80, 85, 86, 87, 90n.3, 97, 98, 99, 104, 105, 106, 109; and the Red Cross, 11–12, 71–89, 97, 262; and Red Cross Tea Rooms, 83, 85, 89; response of administrators

321

to female students, 12, 98, 99–101, 105, 107, 109, 110, 111, 112; selfgovernment of female students, 98–101, 107, 108, 110, 112; wartime role of, 11–12, 23n.26, 36–7, 38, 46, 71–89, 90–1n.8, 91n.10, 97–8, 141n.1, 177, 262; YWCA, 37–8 Woodhouse, A.S.P., 113n.2 Woonton, G.A., 186 Worthington, Daniel, 149–50 Worthy, William, 277 Wright, E.C. (Esther I. Clark), 38 Wright, George, 181, 189, 190, 193 Wrong, George M., 108, 154, 227, 231 Wrong, Margaret, 100, 108 Yaffe, Leo, 188 Yale University, 277 York University, 276–7 Young, C.R., 151, 153, 155–6 Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA), 34, 37–8, 127, 128, 131 Young Women’s Christian Association (YWCA), 37–8 Zeitlin, Maurice, 293–4n.71 Zirnhelt, David, 288n.10 zoology, 154, 231