Mount Allison University, Volume II: 1914–1963 9781487580445

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Mount Allison University, Volume II: 1914–1963
 9781487580445

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MOUNT ALLISON UNIVERSITY : A HISTORY, TO 1963 VOLUME II : 1914-1963

JOHN G. REID

Mount Allison University: A History, to 1963 VOLUME II: 1914-1963

Published for Mount Allison University by University of Toronto Press Toronto Buffalo London

© University of Toronto Press 1984

Toronto Buffalo London Printed in Canada Reprinted in 2018 ISBN 0-8020-3397-0

ISBN 978-1-4875-8134-3 (paper)

Canadian Cataloguing in Publication Data Reid, John G . Gohn Graham), 1948Mount Allison University : a history, to 1963 0-8020-3396-2 (v. 1). - 0-8020-3397-0 (v. 2). Mount Allison University - History . I. Title.

ISBN 1.

All photographs are from the collections of the Mount Allison Archives.

FRONTISPIECE: Campus Evening. Oil painting by E.B. Pulford, 1950. From the

collection of the Owens Gallery, Mount Allison.

Contents

PART THREE 8 The Great War and Its Aftermath: 1914-1923 9 Changes in Prospect: 1923-1931 57 10 Weathering the Storm: 1931-1941 108

3

PART FOUR 11 Reappraisal: 1941-1948 163 12 Church and State: 1948-1957 220 13 The Challenge of Complexity: 1957-1963 14 Conclusion 352 364 365 TABLES 18-36 439 APPENDIX 459 BIBLIOGRAPHY 463 INDEX TO VOLUME II 48 3 ABBREVI.'\TIONS NOTES

282

.

·-

Ben Church Hicks, member of

OTC,

with captured German gun,

. "'

1921

.

" .,



Freshman initiation, 1919 : the 'Nurse-Maids' parade

University debating team, 1926 : K.A . Parker, A.W. Trueman, C.T. Bruce

Ladies' college buildings, including Hart Hall extension, opened

1920

James Marshall Palmer

J. Noel Brunton.

George Johnstone Trueman

Mary Mellish Archibald Room, in Memorial Library, opened 1927

Memorial Library, opened 1927

Ladies ' college lawn drill, 1931

Ladies' college dining room, late 1920s. Principal W.C. Ross and members of his family are at front right.

New science building (later Flemington building), opened 1931

Chemistry class in progress in the new science building, 1930s

Memorial Library reading room, about 1932

University hockey, 1931: W.S. Godfrey (top left) is the coach.

Academy fire, r March 1933

Centennial Hall, after the March 1933 fire

'Old lodge,' after the March 1933 fire

Centennial Hall, as rebuilt and reopened, 1934

Fourth academy, opened 1934

Convocation, sprmg 1937

Academy cadets' drill, 1930s

Men's residence fire, 16 December 1941

Convocation, May 1944. Left to right, R.P. Bell (recipient of honorary degree), N.A. Hesler (chairman, board of regents), W.G. Clark (lieutenant-governor of New Brunswick), G.J . Trueman (president), M.G. Fox (recipient of honorary degree)

Laying of cornerstone of Trueman House, May 1945 . Left to right, W.M. Tweedie, G.J. Trueman, C. McCoull, B. Gould, C. Chatterton, A. Wheeler, C.A. Fowler, W.T.R. Flemington, N.A. Hesler, H.E. Bigelow, D. W. Maclauchlan

Trueman House under construction, 1945-6

Trueman House, opened 1946

D.G. MacGregor

F. W.W. DesBarres

H.E. Bigelow

A. C. Cuthbertson

W.M. Tweedie

S.W. Hunton

Constance Young

W.T.R. Flemington

The Yeomen of the Guard, Fawcett Hall, 1946

A prominent visitor, November 1949: Lord Beaverbrook with, left to right, N.A. Hesler, W.M. Tweedie, Rev. D .F. Hoddinott

Veterans' housing: Normandy Hall, opened 1946

Allison Gardens (left foreground) and the campus, 1950s

Convocation, spring 195 r

Between classes, 19 53

Faculty members and a distinguished graduate, October 1953 : Senator Muriel McQueen Fergusson with, left to right, Allan MacBeth, Lawren P. Harris, C.A. Baxter, Howard Brown

The first Marjorie Young Bell Fellows, 1955 . Front row, left to right: Alex Colville, D.G.G. Kerr, Geoffrey Payzant, Doris Runciman, A.J. Ebbutt. Back row, left to right: C.F. MacRae, D.H. Williamson, Philip Lockwood, W.B. Cunningham, W.B. Stallworthy, J .A. Tuck

A call for silence: the first Mount Allison forum, 13 February 1954. At table, left to right: N.A. Hesler, W.T.R. Flemington, H.W. McKiel, W.B . Cunningham

The campus, r954

The first Mount Allison Canadian football team to enter league play: New Brunswick champions, 1956

Prime Minister Diefenbaker enters the 1959 spring convocation, preceded by Angus J. McQueen, moderator of the United Church of Canada.

Bigelow and Bennett Houses under construction, 1958-9

The Avard-Dixon building (left, opened 1959), with two older buildings: Hart Hall (in rear) and the president's cottage (right)

The physics and engineering building, opened 1959

The athletic centre, opened 1961

W.T.R. Flemington in Fawcett Hall



Alex Colville and his mural in the athletic centre, opened 1961

Windsor Hall, opened 1963

D.W. MacLauchlan

R.P. Bell

D.A. Cameron (left), and W.S.H. Crawford

Frank West

Herbert Tucker

H.W. McKiel

Roy Fraser

Tweedie Hall, with Alex Colville mural depicting the history of Mount Allison

8

The Great War and Its Aftermath: 1914-1923

For Mount Allison, in the midst of the summer vacation of 1914, the Great War began quietly. Despite the war news and patriotic urgings that quickly assumed prominence in the local press, there was little reason to expect that the life of the three institutions would be seriously disrupted. It was true that James McKee, the new professor of chemistry, failed in his first attempt to leave Ireland en route for Mount Allison when the vessel on which he had expected to embark was commandeered for war service, but he quickly found another passage and arrived only a few days late for the opening of term on 19 September.' Student attendance was affected only slightly. The ladies' college opened to its customary large enrolment. The academy was less well off, with its enrolment of 150 being the lowest since 1908, but its principal was undisturbed. While blaming 'the scarcity of money due to the uncertainty caused by the war' for the decrease, Palmer informed his counterpart at the Acadia Collegiate Academy that 'our attendance is better than I had reason to think it would be.' At the university, the undergraduate enrolment of 152 was only five fewer than the previous year's record total. 3 As yet, there had been few enlistments of students in the armed forces: several of the university's graduates had enlisted, but in October the Argosy could count only three who would otherwise have been current students. The importance of the war was not lost upon the editors of the Argosy, who commented that 'the few weeks preceding the opening of College were undoubtedly the most eventful in the history of our Empire,' and yet in the editorial columns this subject had to take third place behind an article in praise of the graduates of 1914 and one announcing the integration of the ladies' college magazine, Allisonia, into the Argosy. 'We look forward with confidence,' concluded the editors, 'to a very successful year.' 4 For the time being, at least, it was to be business as usual at Mount Allison. 2

4 Mount Allison University Not that there was any lack of support for the war, and for the Allied cause. At Mount Allison, as among Canadian Methodists generally, misgivings arising from pre-war pacifism were soon quieted by the notion of the war as a defensive struggle against the might of Prussian militarism. In September 1914, in contrast with the resolutions condemning war in general which had hitherto been passed regularly by successive general conferences, the Wesleyan gave prominent place to a letter from the general superintendent, S.D . Chown, praising this particular war as just and honourable as part of 'a world struggle for liberty against military despotism,' and urging all eligible Methodists to enlist. 1 The same approach was taken by W.M. Tweedie, invited by the Argosy in December to contribute an article on 'Germany and the War.' Referring to the Kaiser as the 'Prussian War-Lord,' Tweedie argued that 'the cause of human freedom, as English-speaking peoples understand freedom, is at stake.' As yet, however, there was no absolute condemnation of the German people. Tweedie in particular - whose friendships formed in Heidelberg during the 188os were to survive not just one but two world wars - was unwilling to make any such sweeping pronouncement, insisting instead that in Germany 'the common citizen' had little influence upon the aggressive proclivities of the country's rulers. 6 Nor, on the matter of recruiting and enlistment, was Mount Allison prepared to prescribe to its students what their duty might be. A lengthy discussion by the executive committee of the board of regents on 24 November resulted in an agreed policy 'that in the event of a public meeting being held our students were free to attend it and if students volunteered for active service no obstacle would be thrown in the way of their enlisting, but that it was not wise for the officials of the University to act as recruiting agents in urging students to enlist. ' 7 During these early days, although the impingement of the war upon the Mount Allison institutions was clear enough, the attitudes and actions that would give rise to the notion of 'total war' lay still in the future. The most obvious manifestation of the war's influence on Mount Allison was the enrolment of virtually all of the male students of the university for military training on campus. The initiative was taken by the students themselves at a general meeting shortly after the beginning of the 1914-15 year, which called unanimously for the formation of an officers' training corps. Endorsing the resolution, the Argosy's only regret was that Mount Allison had not been the leader in this movement, since training was already under way at Dalhousie, UNB, McGill, Queen's, and the University of Toronto. Some students took the widespread view that the war would soon be over, and so believed that the training corps represented their only chance to don

5 The Great War and Its Aftermath: 1914-1923 a uniform. The Argosy's reasoning was different, and offered a more accurate premonition : The impression is gaining ground that the struggle now being waged in Europe is likely to be long and tedious. Many students who would like to respond to the call of the Empire wish to finish the college year upon which they have entered. A course of systematic training during the winter months would make such men valuable additions to a regiment in the spring.'

The students' request was quickly approved by the board of regents, and conversations followed between Borden and the minister of militia, Colonel Sam Hughes. 9 The only major difficulty was the lack of a suitably equipped drill hall, but - as the university had been hoping for several months government assistance was obtained to supply this need. On 21 January 1915, Borden was able to inform his correspondent Raymond Archibald that 'we have our Lingley Hall Gymnasium now ready for occupation and our students begin drill tomorrow, with a contingent of 140 stalwart officersin-the-making. ' A week later, the Tribune estimated that the number receiving training had grown to 160, clearly including a number of academy students as well as two professors - Wheelock and McKee - who served as officers. Captain Allison Borden, a Mount Allison graduate of 1903 and now a regular officer, was posted from Halifax to assist in the contingent's organization. During the spring of 1915, the activities of the corps expanded beyond the confines of Lingley Hall. Route marches were held, and fields and barnyards searched for German spies, although according to the Argosy the only victim of this last exercise was a trainee who tore his trousers through 'not having learned to navigate barbed wire entanglements (alias fences) without disastrous results.'" By early May, having had the inspiration a few days before of a visit to Sackville by members of the 22nd Battalion - the famous 'Vandoos, ' then stationed in Amherst - the corps was ready for inspection by Josiah Wood, lieutenant-governor of New Brunswick, assisted by Captain Borden. Following a mock attack on the ladies' college, all 139 who had taken part were declared efficient. 13 The first months of the training corps' existence, in common with the beginnings of most efforts at amateur soldiering, had had their comical moments. One such moment that nearly had tragic consequences came when an unwary student in the university residence stepped out of his room while members of the corps were using a water pitcher for target practice in the corridor. 14 Yet for many of the trainees, the Mount Allison officers' training corps was a prelude to 10

11

6 Mount Allison University

service on European battlefields, where soldiering would be anything but comic. In the spring of 1915, however, the full scale of the prolonged and brutal conflict which the First World War would become was not yet apparent. By the residents of the Mount Allison ladies' college, the mock attack of 10 May was enjoyed as an entertainment rather than regarded as a warlike manoeuvre: 'it was insinuated,' reported the Tribune, 'that under other circumstances they might have received the invaders with open arms.' 15 For the women students, one of the most recent effects of the war had been a retrenchment of their already limited freedoms. A letter from the ladies' college faculty to the women students' council in April warned of the dangers posed by 'the existing conditions in Amherst, resulting from the presence there of a large number of soldiers.' Henceforth, no ladies' college student would be permitted to visit Amherst except while chaperoned by a teacher, and there were to be no visits there at all on weekends. The students' council, on behalf of the university women, voted to accept the same restrictions. 16 At the same time, the potential of modern warfare to diversify, rather than restrict, the roles fulfilled by women in society at large did not go unnoticed. The alumnae prize essay for 1915 was written by a ladies' college student from Summerside, PEI, Annie Metherall, on the prescribed subject, 'Woman's Place in War - Past and Present.' For the first time in this war, the essay argued, 'woman ... [has] the power to make men realize that she has at least reached the place where her intelligence demands the attention and respect of all': as wives and mothers, women had always shared the agonies of the battlefield, while in modern armies they also had their own uniformed branches and, in the Serbian army, were even taking their place in the trenches alongside the men. As members of the Red Cross, and increasingly in taking over the essential industrial occupations vacated by the men, Metherall suggested, women had proved their worth, to the point where political enfranchisement must soon follow. And once that had been achieved, the way might be open to a new international order in which 'the women of the coming centuries may not have to face a situation like the one which confronts us to-day.' Written in early 191 5, the essay was a perceptive appraisal of social changes which were indeed in the making throughout the industrialized nations involved in the war, even though the optimistic conclusion would prove less securely founded. 7 There was optimism too in the annual report presented by Borden that spring. 'Notwithstanding the financial stringency and the counter-attraction of the war,' he announced, 'the past year has been one of the most successful in the history of the university.' A financial surplus of some $583, although 1

7 The Great War and Its Aftermath: 1914-1923

modest in amount, was the first for many years, and was sufficient to prompt the immediate expansion of the faculty by the addition of a professorship in biology and an associate professorship in classics. 18 The latter position filled by J. W. Cohoon, a specialist in Greek literature and a graduate of the University of Toronto who had recently completed his post-graduate training at Princeton University - did not represent an extension of the curriculum. It was rather designed to relieve A.O. Smith of part of his teaching load in view of his uncertain health: during the spring of 191 5, David Allison had had to return for several weeks as a replacement for Smith, and with Cohoon's assistance it was now hoped that Smith could enjoy more time for leisurely private study than he had been able to find during his fortyfour years of full-time teaching. 19 The chair in biology was entirely new. Although biology had long been taught in a general way by professors specializing in other science disciplines, the new professorship was a result of the pre-war endowment campaign, and the first incumbent was Russell Garton, a bacteriologist from Connecticut who was completing postgraduate work for Princeton. There were also two other faculty appointments made in the spring of 1915 with effect the ensuing fall. R.B. Liddy, Hart Massey professor of psychology and logic, had obtained BA, BD and PH D degrees at the University of Toronto. The Argosy welcomed him as 'a professor whose education is a complete Canadian product,' and as 'an inspiration to the native student, who is beginning to feel it no longer necessary to obtain the stamp of a foreign University upon his degrees. ' Also a popular appointment was that of H.E. Bigelow, who returned from the United States to his old position as professor of chemistry. The additions at this time not only enhanced the quality of the faculty, in that all were highly qualified by post-graduate training, but also brought the number of professors to 16. The optimism publicly professed by Borden, as he announced the expansion of the faculty in his annual report, was equally evident in private. 'While we are hemmed in in these Maritime Provinces by a multiplicity of small colleges,' he reflected to Archibald in April, 'and the field seems to be limited, I have a growing confidence that at Mt. Allison, building on good, solid educational lines, and giving such attention as we are giving to moral values, we shall have one of the strongest of our Maritime Colleges.' Had the First World War come to an end during the summer of 1915, it would have had few lasting effects upon Mount Allison, other than having brought about an unusual year in the life of the campus. 20

21

22

1}

Events in France and Belgium, however, were ensuring that the end of the

8 Mount Allison University war was far away. On 10 March 1915, at Neuve Chapelle, British infantry broke through the German lines for the first and only time of the war, but were unable to exploit the gap before German reinforcements arrived to close it. In the following month, at the second battle of Ypres, it was the Germans' turn to launch an initially successful attack, only to be repulsed by Canadian and other allied forces in bitter and bloody fighting. 14 These battles, and others during this spring of 1915, made it clear that the war on the western front would not result in the rapid movements which both sides had confidently expected, but instead would resolve itself into a prolonged struggle in which defensive weapons would predominate. The enormous cost of such warfare in terms of human life was soon evident at Mount Allison, as it was throughout all of the belligerent nations. The Argosy of October 1915 - the opening issue of the 1915-16 year - carried the first in what was to be a long series of obituaries of Allisonians who had died at the front. Gordon V. Boone, a graduate of I 9 I I, had been killed by shrapnel in April; Vernon C. Elderkin of the class of 1912 had been killed by a shell explosion in May; Arthur Mackay had died of spinal meningitis 'somewhere in France.' 11 By May 1917, while paying tribute to the valour of the Mount Allison students and alumni who were spending themselves in the national cause, Borden in his annual report was speaking of the 'awful losses' sustained through the repeated battles taking place on 'that wavering line between Switzerland and the North Sea, blazing death and desolation ... .' 26 By the time the war ended, 73 from Mount Allison had died. 27 The real beginning of large-scale enlistment in the forces by Mount Allison students had been in the summer of 191 5. The results were immediately seen in the reduction of student numbers; enrolment in the 1915-16 year dropped to 134. As the university opened in September 191 5 it was no longer possible to pretend that it was 'business as usual,' and the Argosy was quick to comment upon the changed circumstances in its first issue of the year: Never before in the history of our University, have such conditions obtained as are in evidence to-day. The tramp of platoons and the word of command are heard on the campus, in place of clashing yells, and the referee's whistle. The Residence, once crammed to its doors, sends back a hollow echo from rooms whose former occupants are 'somewhere in France,' and the occasional hilarity of midnight gatherings is saddened by the thoughts of those who might have been here.••

The Argosy's editorial went on to explain and defend the decision of Mount Allison - apparently taken through a vote at a general student meeting,

9 The Great War and Its Aftermath: 1914-1923

although no precise record has survived - to withdraw from intercollegiate athletics in view of 'the incongruity of engaging in public sports at such a time, where our old companions are suffering and dying for us.' Mount Allison's withdrawal had been criticized in the Dalhousie Gazette as a manoeuvre to avoid fielding a weak football team, although the resulting dispute between the two magazines led at least to a partial abandonment of this accusation. 19 Instead of intercollegiate competition, an interclass football league was organized during the fall of 1915, and this more limited sphere was characteristic of sports at Mount Allison throughout most of the war. There were occasional exceptions, as when a Mount Allison hockey team triumphed by 20 to 3 over Acadia in February 1917, with the proceeds going 'for patriotic purposes. ' 30 A year later, two hockey games were arranged a visit from a UNB team, and an away match with Acadia - again with the aim of raising money for war uses. The visit to Wolfville was also justified by the students' athletic association on the ground that the introduction of conscription in October 1917 had 'done away with the responsibility of enlisting.' The faculty, which had to give its permission if the trip were to take place, was not easily convinced, but eventually agreed on strict conditions, including a stipulation that all intending players have their parents' permission. 3 ' In general, for the duration of the war, intercollegiate sport was - at Mount Allison as at other Canadian universities - an exceptional rather than a regular activity, and it was significant in October 191 5 that the Argosy's normal monthly feature on athletics was replaced by a regular 'Overseas Column. '3 For those male students who remained at Mount Allison, the officers' training corps continued to be a major activity. Almost completely reorganized in the fall of 191 5, after most of the previous year's members had enlisted, the corps had a normal strength of about 75 for the next two years. Under the command of Wheelock until 1917, and then under that of Bigelow, its members drilled and attended lectures - one hour a week of the latter and three hours of drill - on basic elements of infantry training. 33 Yet there was no doubt that the life of the university was affected at least as much by the absence of those students who had departed for the forces as by the activities of those who were still in attendance. The trend towards enlistment continued throughout the fall of 191 5 and in the succeeding years. On 4 October 1915 the Tribune reported that student numbers had been reduced already by at least seven enlistments since the beginning of term just over two weeks before; by the turn of the year, fully one-third of the student body had gone, with a number of other volunteers rejected because they were physically unfit or underage. 34 When the university opened in Septem1

10 Mount Allison University

her 1916, only 104 students were enrolled - the smallest total since 1903 and in 1917 there was a further slight decline to 102. In the summer of 1916, Borden declared to the New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island Conference that 'a larger proportion of the students of Mount Allison had enlisted in the service of the Empire than from any other College in Canada.' The claim itself would be difficult to substantiate; but the magnitude of the Mount Allison students' response to the call for recruits was beyond doubt. 35 Clearly, there were important practical results to be expected from such an exodus, in addition to the feeling of emptiness in the college buildings which the Argosy had noted in October 191 5. One effect was a shortage of teachers at the academy, which had normally relied on university students employed to teach part-time. Together with the similarly caused shortage of potential full-time teachers, this prompted J.M. Palmer to remark in late 1916, that 'it is exceedingly difficult to obtain men for teaching purposes and indeed for any work so many having gone to the Front. ' 36 Another result was to decrease the proportion of male students at the university. At no time would it have been true to say that the campus was dominated by women, for there were always sufficient enrolments in the male-dominated science and engineering programmes to offset the large proportions of women enrolled in arts, but in the fall of 1917 and 1918 women constituted more than 40 per cent of the overall student population. In the arts programme, and especially in the upper classes where all the male students were likely to be of military age, women comprised an unprecedentedly large portion of the attendance: in the fall of 1916 they accounted for 20 of the 32 students in the junior and senior years, and half of the overall arts enrolment of 82; in both of the following two years they formed a majority of the arts students. This was a temporary situation, as the influx of veterans in 1919 restored the majority of male students. While it had lasted, however, the increased influence of women in student activities had been apparent. Each of the convocations of 1916, 1917, and 1918, for example, was addressed by a woman valedictorian - Aida McAnn of Moncton, Marguerite Jonah of Sussex, and Helen Plummer of Hartland, respectively - while in Halifax on 30 March 1917 Mount Allison defeated Dalhousie in the first women's intercollegiate debate to be held in the Maritime provinces.J7 One of the clearest results of the loss of so many students to the war was a considerable financial strain upon the university. The loss of student fees was not the only financial difficulty of these years: persistent inflation, especially in the prices of food and coal, ensured that the residence was run at a loss, while the uncertainties of the war led to the non-payment of many subscriptions outstanding from the financial campaign of 1911-13. Of sub-

11 The Great War and Its Aftermath: 1914-1923

scriptions totalling nearly $195,000, Borden reported to the board of regents in 191 7, only just over half had been paid. J8 Yet the loss of income from fees was the clearest and most pressing problem. Already by the end of the 191 5-16 year, estimated Borden in his annual report, diminishing receipts from students had cost the university $14,500. Within that figure were included both tuition and boarding fees, so that it was partly offset by reductions in the expense of providing board to resident students, but the fact was that the previous year's small profit had been turned into a loss of well over $4000. 39 There was good reason to fear the consequences of a new series of annual deficits, especially as the university's debt remained disturbingly large: it was estimated at over $115,000 in November 1917. Thus, when the board of regents launched an appeal for donations in the Wesleyan in late 1916, with the exhortation that Maritime Methodists should not 'let Mount Allison be crippled through the patriotism of her sons,' the sense of crisis was real. 40 It was real enough, in fact, to prompt suggestions that the university should be closed for the duration of the war. The Argosy first reported rumours of such a measure in late 1915, rightly dismissing them as unfounded. Just over a year later, however, closure was seriously proposed in a letter to Borden from Josiah Wood, who was still treasurer of the institutions and lieutenant-governor of New Brunswick. As he informed the university senate in May 1917, Borden was not prepared to accept Wood's suggestion, for he believed that it would involve 'a disorganization of the faculty and school from which it would take long to recover. '• None the less, retrenchments in certain parts of the university's operations were already under consideration. In late 1916, following an approach by representatives of the Canadian Hospitals Commission, the executive committee of the board of regents was prepared to recommend that the academy should be rented to the commission for use as a military convalescent hospital, with the academy students to be accommodated in the university residence. As well as fulfilling a patriotic duty, the arrangement would have filled the residence and would have eliminated the cost of operating the two buildings, but it came to nothing when the commission unexpectedly cancelled its plans. • Another form of possible cutback, considered in early 1917 although soon afterwards abandoned, was a proposal to unite the theological colleges of the various Maritime colleges. In this case, Mount Allison was not sympathetic: Borden, for his part, believed that it would cause disruption without bringing about significant benefits, but he agreed to discuss the matter with the faculty all the same. 43 A year later, in May 1918, the senate returned again to the matter of partial closure, this time in the context of the likely 1

2

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Mount Allison University

effect upon enrolment of the newly introduced conscription of nineteenyear-olds. 'Whether it shall be necessary to eliminate some departments,' remarked Borden sombrely, 'in order to effect a saving, the Board of Regents will have to decide. ' 44 In fact, the end of the war came soon enough to forestall such retrenchments, and by comparison with the drastic measures which had been envisaged between 1916 and 1918, it might seem that in this respect Mount Allison had escaped from the war lightly. Even in straightforward financial terms, potentially disastrous shortfalls were avoided by virtue of a number of unusual arrangements. The Educational Society of the Methodist Church, for example, which already gave an annual grant to Mount Allison amounting in a normal year to about $5000, declared in 1916 that henceforth any amounts raised for the society in the eastern conferences in excess of those raised in 1915-16 would be given directly to Mount Allison in addition to its grant. In each of the following two years, a sum of somewhat more or less than $1000 was raised through this provision. 41 In early 1918, at the suggestion of Raymond Archibald, an 'Alumni Loyalty Fund' was launched, aimed at prompting alumni to give annual donations. While it was only after the Second World War that such contributions would regularly bring in large amounts to the university's funds, the raising of over $1100 in 1918 helped to relieve the financial stress of that time. 46 A further expedient which helped to ensure survival was an unprecedented degree of cooperation between universities. At a national level, the Conference of Canadian Universities, which had had its first conference in 1911 as a prelude to the British Empire universities' conference of the following year, began in 1915 to hold annual meetings and to act as a liaison between the universities and the federal government on such matters as the effects of conscription upon student enrolments. 47 Of more immediate financial import to Mount Allison were cooperative measures agreed by the institutions of the Maritime provinces, at a meeting held in Truro on 22 February 1916 to discuss 'the serious diminution ... [of] income which the colleges are suffering.' After establishing that tuition fees at the various institutions were at approximately the same level of $4 5 per student per year, the meeting, attended by representatives from Acadia, Dalhousie, King's, Mount Allison, St Francis Xavier, and St-Joseph, decided upon a general increase to $60. After some demur from the University of New Brunswick, which in turn delayed the increase at Mount Allison - as Borden commented to President A.S. Mackenzie of Dalhousie, 'we stand in quite close relation to them' the measure was implemented in the fall of 1916. 48 The prospect of a fee increase of 33 per cent was not a happy one, especially as Mount Allison

13 The Great War and Its Aftermath: 1914-1923

chose that same year to declare in an article published in the Busy East magazine that no able student should be discouraged from attending by financial difficulty, and that 'probably nowhere in the world is education of so high a standard so well within the reach of all classes of people as it is here in the Maritime Provinces. ' 49 All the same, in an emergency it was better that a necessary increase should be made in cooperation with the other universities than with the possibility of unrestrained competition. By means of these measures of wartime cooperation, the university's finances were kept from collapse, and indeed a surplus of almost $5000 was reported in each of the years 1916-17 and 1917-18. At the ladies' college, meanwhile, attendance had been affected but little by the war, and surpluses were achieved in three of the four war years. The new principal, Hamilton Wigle, appointed in 1917, believed that the war had even helped his institution: 'many parents, whose boys were in peril at the front, seemed to think that their daughters might be called upon to take a part in the world's re-establishment, and consequently did all they could to give them a liberal education. ' 50 A related tendency had been evident at the academy, where attendance declined somewhat during the middle years of the war, but then rose to pre-war levels in 1917-18 as women students sought training in the commercial college. 'Large numbers,' commented Palmer, 'have gone out from this department to fill positions in banks and business houses formerly occupied by males.' As a result, the academy showed a profit of almost $2000 for that year, and a net surplus of some $3665 during the four years of the war.5' Taken overall, the accounts of the three institutions showed a surplus of $8554.91 for the period between June 1914 and June 1918. Given these figures, then, surely the First World War, apart from the undoubted losses in terms of human life, was a prosperous time for Mount Allison? On closer examination, it becomes clear that such an assessment would be unrealistic. First of all, the university's apparent profits of 1917 and 1918 were achieved only because wholly exceptional sources of funding were tapped to disguise what would otherwise have been substantial losses: the sources included the church and alumni donations discussed above, and also special gifts from individuals which amounted to $6000 and almost $4000 respectively in these two years. The university itself acknowledged its dependence upon these donations in its report to the general conference of 1918, when it declared that only 'the generosity of friends of Mount Allison' had made possible 'the meeting of all current expenses, and also the meeting of some very pressing loans that otherwise would have greatly embarrassed the institution. ' 52 Yet it was also true that the real cost of the war to the university could not be measured simply by adding up totals on

14 Mount Allison University

balance sheets. It might more accurately be expressed in the fact that the strains of the war had wiped out whatever gains had been made in the fundraising campaign of 1911-13 and had left the university to face, as soon as the war ended, exactly the same problems as had been so pressing before, except that they were now aggravated by several more years of enforced neglect. The university's debt, for example, stood inJ une 1918 at almost $113,700: it was the same, within a hundred dollars, as it had been in 1912. The construction of a new science building, one of the chief goals of the prewar campaign, had been under active consideration when war had broken out: an architect had been employed, and as late as September 1914 detailed plans had been under discussion by faculty members in the science disciplines. Two months later, the project was indefinitely postponed because of the impossibility of raising additional funds in wartime; by the time Borden referred once again to the need for the new building in his annual report of 1916, the inflated cost of construction materials had put its realization even further out of reach. n Also urgently needed, according to Borden, was a new library to replace the overcrowded room in Centennial Hall which currently served that purpose. 'We are waiting,' he observed hopefully, 'for some generous friend to present us with a Science Building and Library.' 14 The wait would be long. In the meantime, even the existing physical plant was deteriorating as financial exigencies prompted the postponement of maintenance work: in 1922, the report of W.S. Learned and Kenneth C.M. Sills, commissioners of the Carnegie Corporation of New York investigating the state of educational institutions in the Maritimes, remarked that 'the buildings and equipment of the university are seriously defective.'ss Also earmarked for improvement through the proceeds of the pre-war campaign had been faculty salaries. Minor increases had been made during the first year of the war, and in May 1917 all full-time salaries were raised once again: the president would now be paid $2000 in addition to the use of the president's cottage, while senior professors would receive $1600 and others varying amounts ranging downward to $1100. Although no doubt welcome to the recipients, such increases hardly compensated for the effects of wartime inflation. They certainly did not improve Mount Allison's competitive position in relation to other universities, and even though loyalty to the institution prevented departures in some cases, the problem of attracting and retaining able professors was obviously unresolved. 'One of our men,' remarked Borden to a correspondent in November 1918, '[has] refused an offer of a position in another college in which he was promised over twice the salary that we are able to give him. ' 16

15 The Great War and Its Aftermath: 1914-1923

Despite apparent financial surpluses, therefore, serious underlying damage was being done to Mount Allison by the effects of the First World War. The best that could be hoped for was that the university would find itself facing all the same difficulties which had already been acute in 191 1. The worst that could happen - and as long as the war lasted, the worst was necessarily feared - was that the university would have to be closed altogether. Given this predicament, it is not surprising that ambivalent attitudes began to become apparent in regard to the ways in which the war was affecting the life of the university both financially and otherwise. In all the official pronouncements of the university, care was taken to emphasize that wartime problems were being accepted in a spirit of cheerful patriotism, as in Borden's annual report for 1917: It looks as though the colleges of Canada would still have to continue their work with depleted numbers. Nearly every man in our college has been drilling during the year in the officers' training corps, and of these nearly twenty have already donned the King's uniform - thus practically every man of military age and physical fitness has enlisted. The colleges of Canada that are thus so loyally training soldiers and preparing patriotic, self-sacrificing citizens, deserve the best that their country can give them."

The pride taken in the contributions of Mount Allison students to the war effort, and in their courageous conduct on foreign battlefields, was also stressed in the university's publications. The Argosy carried frequent articles written by or about former students now on active service, as well as running its regular 'Overseas Column.' The Mount Allison Record, a magazine jointly inaugurated by the alumni and alumnae societies in December 1916 with the aim of encouraging all former students to support the institutions, also focused regularly on those Allisonians, both male and female, who were serving overseas. 'Mount Allison's contributions to the war,' commented the Record in early 1917, 'will in the future be one of her priceless traditions .. .. ' 18 There is no doubt that this pride was genuine, and that when H.E. Bigelow wrote in the Halifax Chronicle of service 'nobly and loyally given' he represented the view of the Mount Allison community as a whole. 19 Yet in the minds of faculty members the pride was inevitably tempered by the knowledge of the dangers to which the university was being exposed by the large-scale enlistment of students. While the university and the alumni association jointly employed B.J . Porter, minister in Parrsboro, as a 'field secretary' to scour the Maritimes for potential students each wartime summer

16 Mount Allison University

from 1915 onwards, a cautious attitude was taken towards the recruitment by the forces of students on campus. In February 1917, for example, when presented with an army request to recruit at the university, a faculty meeting was willing only to authorize 'a personal appeal to individuals. ' 60 Nor were decisions to enlist necessarily met with approval. One former student recalled that when he and several others enlisted in 191 5 none of the faculty, except for W.G. Watson, came to say goodbye: 'they were almost angry with some, I think. ' 61 Clearly there were more mixed feelings at this time than were publicly apparent. Another aspect of war conditions that was capable of arousing conflicting viewpoints was the role of the officers' training corps. In the earlier years of the war, the main point of contention was whether academic credit should be given for membership of the corps: a number of different regulations were successively approved and repealed by the faculty in 1915 and 1916, before the final decision was taken on 19 October 1916 to reduce by five marks the pass mark in any course, and the mark necessary to obtain second or first division standing, in the case of students attending 75 per cent of training corps drills. 62 Later in the war, the possibility of imposing compulsory drill upon all fit male students was discussed on several occasions. Despite the urgings of Bigelow, who expressed the fear in December 1917 that there would soon otherwise be no training corps - clearly the introduction of conscription had cooled students' enthusiasm for voluntary drill the measure was not adopted. When the matter was forced to an issue at a meeting on 8 May 1918, the faculty was evenly divided over a motion to abolish drill altogether. The question was deferred until the fall, and was never in fact taken up again. 63 This issue was not unique to Mount Allison, having been discussed at length by the Conference of Canadian Universities in 1916 and 1917 without any definite recommendation coming forth. Similarly, the existence of mixed feelings towards the enlistment of students was also characteristic of other institutions than Mount Allison. The task of contributing to a patriotic cause while attempting to meet the cost, not only in terms of life and limb but also in terms of the serious and possibly lasting damage being caused to the university, made conflicting emotions impossible to avoid. 64 Not all significant developments at Mount Allison during these years were directly related to the war. At the ladies' college, it seemed for a short time that the first woman principal might be appointed. G.M. Campbell, who had struggled with increasing difficulty to assert his control over this large and diverse institution, resigned during the summer of 1915 amid reports

17 The Great War and Its Aftermath: 1914-1923

of a substantial financial loss in the preceding year. 61 He had no immediate successor, although Borden was named as temporary principal, and continued to hold that position until June 1917. Since he was also president of the university, Borden was effectively only a part-time head, and Annie Sprague, who had succeeded Emma Baker as vice-principal in 1913, was therefore named 'associate Principal for the time being.' Sprague, the daughter of the dean of theology, Howard Sprague, and a Mount Allison graduate of 1898, had studied mathematics at Radcliffe College before returning in 1903 to teach that subject at the ladies' college. 66 Now forty-six years old and qualified both academically and by experience in teaching and administration, her conduct as associate principal was sufficient within a few months to raise doubts as to whether the conventional practice of appointing a male principal should be continued. One influential member of the board of regents, Josiah Wood, was quoted in the board's minutes as 'being inclined to favor for several reasons the appointment of a Lady Principal. ' 67 Tradition, however, prevailed in the end. Wood, who chaired the selection committee, argued his point strongly, but was eventually outvoted, as he later recalled, 'on the ground of their [sic] being so much outside work in connection with the ladies college that a lady could not very well attend to.' The committee's eventual decision, despite reservations entered by Wood into his report as chairman, was once again to draw a principal from the ranks of the ministry. Accordingly, Hamilton Wigle was appointed with effect from the summer of 1917. 68 A native of Ontario and a graduate of Victoria University, Wigle had served as a minister in the prairie provinces, where he had been the first president of the Saskatchewan Conference, and more recently in Amherst and Halifax. The Argosy welcomed his appointment particularly because of his 'deep and sympathetic interest' in the welfare of the students; his tenure as principal would extend for the next eight years. 69 There were changes too in the faculty of theology, prompted by the death of Annie Sprague's father, the dean of the faculty, on 29 October 1916 at the age of seventy-two. Howard Sprague's term as dean had lasted only eight years, but his association with Mount Allison went back much further, to the time when he and Josiah Wood had comprised the first graduating class of the college in 1863. Within the church and especially within the New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island Conference, he had been active in a variety of roles as well as that of pastoral minister: a ministerial colleague observed at his funeral that 'there is scarcely an elective office of honor which he has not filled. ' 70 The confidence which Sprague thus commanded among the congregations of the region was put to practical use during his years as dean of theology, when he successfully mediated between a faculty

18 Mount Allison University

imbued with liberal doctrines and a constituency which tended to be more conservative. In later years he had had other difficulties to face. Competition between Mount Allison and the Wesleyan Theological College in Montreal, for example, for the enrolment of probationary ministers from Newfoundland, had become sufficiently acute by early 191 5 that complaints had been lodged with the central authorities of the church, although apparently with little effect.7' Later in 1915, the faculty of theology was seriously affected by the problems arising from student enlistment in the armed forces. Theological students showed no less desire to join in the war than did their colleagues in other faculties - indeed, it has been estimated that some 90 per cent of the Methodist clergy who served during the war did so as combatants 72 - but their individual decisions to enlist were often preceded by profound soul-searching. In his report on the year 1915-16, Sprague noted that the number of students had been reduced by enlistments from 26 to 14, and that all had been 'so disturbed by conflicting motives that in many cases it was almost impossible for them to study.' 73 Amid the difficulties of wartime, as in the theological disputes of past years, Sprague's quietly purposeful management of the theological faculty had continued despite his ill health. He could not easily be replaced. As dean, in fact, Sprague was not replaced. For two years no dean was appointed, and then in 1918 Borden was named to the position. As at the ladies' college between 1915 and 1917, Borden's other responsibilities took priority over this duty, and thus the faculty of theology continued without a full-time dean.7 4 As Allison professor of systematic theology, Sprague was succeeded by John Line. Line was a native of England who had gone as a probationary minister to Newfoundland, and thence to the University of Toronto, from which he had graduated in arts before taking his theological training at Victoria. He came with an already high reputation as a scholar and theologian, and his strong belief in the social interpretation of Christian doctrine reinforced the modernistic theological bent of the faculty. 71 In the years immediately following Sprague's death, however, the theological faculty faced not only questions of theology but also questions as to its continued existence. The suggestion in early 1917, which had originated from Acadia University, that all Maritime theological departments should merge, was discussed by the faculty in May, although it went no further. In the following November, the board of regents discussed reducing the number of faculty members in theology as a wartime economy measure, but again no action resulted.7 6 In part, the survival of the faculty without serious retrenchments was probably the result of a timely bequest of over $6000 from the will of Lillian Massey-Treble, the first half of which was received

19 The Great War and Its Aftermath: 1914-1923

for the use of the theological faculty in the same month of November 1917.77 Wartime conditions had put the faculty on a precarious footing, all the more so because of the untimely death of Sprague. In March 1917 came another death which, like that of Sprague, removed a link with Mount Allison's more distant past: that of A.D. Smith, at the age of seventy-three. Like Sprague, Smith had grown up in Newfoundland, although he had spent his earliest childhood in Bermuda. Graduating from Mount Allison in 1867, he had returned to join the faculty four years later, and until 1915 had taught continuously as well as serving as secretary of the senate. Smith belonged to a generation for which post-graduate training and a wide experience of great centres of learning had not been essential qualifications for university teaching. His formal study had been at Mount Allison only, and the obituary published by the Saint John Globe commented that 'during the last twenty-five years it is doubtful if he was ever outside of the town of Sackville. . .. ' 78 Certainly he was locally famous as much for his knowledge of local history and genealogy as for his classical erudition. A student of his later years recalled that 'he was a human encyclopaedia, who boasted that in the many long years he had been at Mount Allison there was only one student whose name and family genealogy he did not know.' 79 Yet his effectiveness as a teacher of the classics was also evident in the recollections of his former students. One of them was Borden, who declared at Smith's funeral that he spoke 'not merely in any official position ... [but] rather as one of the boys of other days who sat at his feet with growing wonder at his splendid erudition and appreciation of his fine qualities of heart and soul. ' 80 Alfred Smith's teaching career was, by the time of his death, the longest in the history of Mount Allison; but it was for the quality rather than the length of his service that his loss was mourned in 191 7. There were also other changes in the faculties of the Mount Allison institutions during the war years, and changes in curriculum. At the ladies' college, John Hammond retired in the spring of 1916 as professor in the art department. At seventy-three years old, however, he did not altogether discontinue his work at the Owens Museum, and was active for many years as professor emeritus. Nor was he replaced as professor, although teaching of art continued under other instructors. 81 As one experienced department head retired, shortly afterwards another returned: J .N. Brunton became once again an instructor in the conservatory in 1917, and in the following year resumed his old position as director. 81 Also in 1917, the ladies' college announced the formation of a new department of physical education, in which all fit students were henceforth required to take two hours of physical

20

Mount Allison University

training per week. In itself, sports and gymnasium work were nothing new at the ladies' college, but it may well have been the practice of military drill at the university that had prompted this new systematization. 83 At the university itself, curriculum changes during the war included the introduction for the first time of courses in modern history and sociology. Both were introduced in 1916 and both showed in their content the influence of the war. R.B. Liddy's course in sociology, optional as a half-course for senior year students in the arts programme, dealt with 'the nature of Sociology and the development of society with special reference to Democracy - its early beginnings, the perils that beset it, the ways in which it may be safeguarded.' F.W.W. DesBarres' course in modern history, optional in the junior year, concerned the rise and fall of absolutism in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries: the Record commented that 'it is particularly appropriate that a course on such a subject should be given at this time. ' 84 Yet in matters affecting faculty and curriculum, the war years were not characterized by extensive changes, other than those connected with the war itself and those enforced by death or resignation. It was not surprising that this should be so, for ever since the war had been recognized in 191 5 as the tortuous struggle that it was, it had been clear that the war itself, and the efforts of the institutions to surmount the difficulties created by it, must for the time being absorb the energies that might otherwise have been devoted to academic experimentation and improvement. Even throughout most of 1918 there was no indication of any approaching end. In the spring of the year, in fact, the university closed two weeks earlier than usual, in order to allow students to take up summer war work in factories and on farms. The ladies' college and the academy did not follow suit, although the students of the ladies' college collectively declared their intention to seek farm work. At the academy, Palmer was sceptical, expressing doubts in a letter to David Allison as to how many students of any of the institutions would actually spend the summer on war work. He may well have been right, but as a gesture the early closing had been supported by both the faculty and the students of the university. 8s When the institutions reopened in the fall, the academy and ladies' college opened to increased enrolments. So too did the university, where 121 students registered. Even so, W.M. Tweedie, who was the registrar, saw no reason for great optimism in a letter written in early November: Our upper classes have been pretty well depleted of men by the war. Only those 'unfit' remain. In the Freshman class, of course, they are not so apt to be of military age. But those that are and many others (on account of the later uncertainty) are

21 The Great War and Its Aftermath: 1914-19.23 giving up College entrance. However, we got a fair group this autumn - more than we had really expected."

By the time Tweedie wrote, the other two institutions were also encountering difficulties, because of the influenza epidemic then sweeping across North America. The ladies' college had been the hardest hit, and was forced temporarily to close. Throughout early October, the local press had carried accounts of the epidemic in New England, and its spread into the Maritimes, through adjoining Albert County, and into the Sackville area. By 11 October the public schools of Sackville were closed, and the ladies' college - where a number of students had taken ill in the overcrowded residence - put in quarantine. It was Thanksgiving weekend, and a costume reception on the Friday evening went ahead as planned; but then quarantine restrictions were applied, and on the .23rd the ladies' college was closed. 87 Hamilton Wigle later recalled the episode as 'the panic caused by the Floo,' and there is no doubt that reports of numerous deaths caused by influenza elsewhere had caused an exaggerated fear of the possible dangers. The university was virtually unaffected by the epidemic, while the academy had only mild cases and even at the ladies' college there were no fatalities although many students were affected. 88 What was certain was the disruption caused to all three institutions. J.M. Palmer noted shortly before the closure of the ladies' college that because quarantine regulations prevented women students from coming to the academy 'our Shorthand Department was completely wiped out'; the university attempted at first to provide special lectures in the ladies' college for university women students, but even this had to be abandoned when most of the students left for home on the 23rd; the effects upon the ladies' college were obviously most severe of all, and Tweedie commented that the decision to close, while necessary, had been 'most unfortunate, since they had the largest attendance on record - over 200 boarders in this first term. ' 89 In normal times, the epidemic might have been regarded as an annoying but minor episode. Coming when it did, after four years of coping with the war, at a time when the academy and the ladies' college were showing signs of renewed health based in both cases on a growing demand for education for women, but when the situation of the university was still precarious, it could not be taken so lightly. Yet despite fears that many students would be permanently lost because of the influenza outbreak, there is no evidence that this actually occurred. The ladies' college was reopened on 8 November, and not all students immediately returned: the Argosy noted that a reception held that night was remarkable for 'the fact that the number of boys present far exceeded the

22 Mount Allison University number of girls. ' 90 But that was understandable, given that classes were not due to resume until the following Monday, the 11th. In the event, very little work was done on that day, for it marked the end of the war. For several weeks, the newspapers had described Allied advances, and had speculated on the possible terms of an armistice. As late as 8 October, however, the Sackville Post had carried the headline, 'The End is Not Near Yet,' on an account of munitions production in Canada. Tweedie, on 3 November, saw no reason to expect any immediate change in the war footing of the university. 9' It was ironic, therefore, that the first rumours of the armistice which reached Sackville on the afternoon of the 7th - were premature. Mount Allison students joined others parading through the town to the sound of church bells, only to have the celebrations dampened first by rain and then by the news that the war was not yet over. 91 When the church bells rang again, at 5: 30 on the morning of the II th, there was no mistake. 'In a few minutes,' commented the Argosy, 'the whole [university] residence seemed to be in action. . .. The jubilations thus begun lasted through the day and far into the night.' The town and the institutions joined in a celebration that began with an outdoor religious service on the college grounds, continued with a parade through the streets in which Mount Allison students carried a banner inscribed with the names of the 53 students and alumni known at that time to have died in the war, and ended with a bonfire in the ladies' college park at which the Kaiser was burned in effigy. 93 The changes that peace would bring to the world were as yet impossible to predict. So too were those that would occur at Mount Allison, as the Argosy pointed out in its first peacetime editorial: For the first time in the college experience of the general mass of students now in our universities there is peace in place of war. The students of to-day in the Maritime Colleges have engaged in no intercollegiate sports. They know but little of many of the pre-war activities. During the present year of course the conditions in the colleges will not be greatly changed but might it not be wise to make some preparation for the adjustment to the new order?••

The Great War was over, and its aftermath about to be reaped. In some respects, planning for the end of the war had begun long before. A later assessment of the ways in which Canadian universities had met the dilemmas caused by the return of forces veterans as students, delivered to the National Conference of Canadian Universities by Brigadier-General H.F. MacDonald in 1942, stressed that there had been no coordinated ap-

23 The Great War and Its Aftermath: 1914-1923

proach in 1918 and that 'the hysteria of victory prompted a mistaken policy of scattering degrees and academic and professional standing in return for service in the forces. ' 91 The lack of coordination between universities was a fact, but Mount Allison was at least one institution where the principle of academic credit for veterans had been established early in the war. On 19 November 1915, at the instance of two members of the faculty of theology Sprague and Watson - the general faculty of the university had agreed that a student who had enlisted while a freshman on either the BA or B sc course should be allowed three subjects out of the twenty required for the degree. A sophomore would be allowed four, a junior five, and a senior would be allowed to graduate provided that no more than six subjects were required. The only stipulations were that the subjects allowed must be approved by the faculty in each individual case, and that no matriculation subject should be included. 96 These regulations undoubtedly reduced considerably the academic content of degrees awarded to veterans, and during the Second World War the view was widely held at Mount Allison and elsewhere that this had been a mistake. It certainly was not, however, a hastily adopted policy. During the later years of the war, the obligations of Mount Allison towards returning soldiers were frequently stressed in official statements such as Borden's annual reports. Closely connected was the more general question of the part to be played by the universities, and by Mount Allison in particular, in the rebuilding of Canadian society when peace returned. There Borden felt able to return to an old theme: 'the cultured product of our Christian Colleges,' he declared in May 1918, 'will be as much needed in the period of reconstruction that will follow the War as men are needed today to carry a gun. '97 Such a view of Mount Allison's post-war role presupposed, however, that the university would be adequately equipped, and the damaging effects of several years of an exhausting war in turn ensured that any attempt at post-war planning would necessarily include an effort at the reconstruction of Mount Allison itself. A further theme that had emerged strongly in the later phases of the war was the desirability of suitable permanent commemoration of Mount Allison's war effort. The Argosy had called upon the university in March 1917 to preserve archival and photographic records to commemorate both the flavour of campus life as it had been during the war and the contributions of Allisonians overseas, and thus to 'keep forever in the mind and before the eye of coming generations of students the part that Mount Allison has been able to play in the great game of Empires. ' 98 A similar concern was shown by the Record when it appealed two months later for 'mementoes of the war' to be sent to the university, and at least one collection of pieces of German uniform and equipment was

24 Mount Allison University

received, gathered at the battles of Vimy Ridge and Lens by John Hensley, a former engineering student who was killed in action soon afterwards. 99 Other war trophies were acquired after the armistice, notably a German field gun which stood for many years outside the university residence, and a Fokker aircraft which was displayed in the Lingley Hall gymnasium until destroyed when that building burned down in early 1921. ' Yet the notions of planning for Mount Allison's post-war efficiency as an educational institution and of planning for the war to be commemorated were not necessarily separate. As early as February 1917, the Mount Allison Record had advocated that the construction of a Memorial Library would be a contribution to the fulfilment of both purposes, and the proposal was again put forward in the Record immediately after the armistice. There was no doubt that a modern library building was needed, as each of the university and the ladies' college libraries - which were of similar size, the university collection having some 14,000 volumes and the ladies' college 12,000 - were crowded into a small space, and reading room accommodation was severely limited. To consolidate the collections, to provide study space, and if possible to provide endowment funds for continuing acquisitions were the aims of the fund-raising campaign launched early in 1919 for the proposed Memorial Library. The campaign was not a success in terms of the amount sought. Originally intended in November 1918 to raise between $30,000 and $60,000 for 'a convenient, fireproof library building,' the decision to include library endowment funds within the target figure resulted in the amount being raised to $75,000 in March 1919 and to no less than $150,000 in the following month. Especially as the intention was announced in the Wesleyan of raising the entire sum on the single day of 15 April, failure was undoubtedly assured in advance. None the less, some $30,000 was subscribed and although the actual construction of the library did not take place until 1927, it would stand thenceforth as the war memorial that had first been envisaged in 1917. The provision of a new library, although originating in a recognition during the war of the need for post-war planning, thus took several years to be realized. The arrival of veteran students, on the other hand, was not long delayed. The first four, in fact, were disabled veterans who were at the university by early 1918. A year later there were 18, all but four being former students, and in the fall of 1919 the number rose to 45. Together with the 25 returned soldiers attending the academy, they made up a large group among the students of the institutions. The large attendances at all three institutions at this time, however, were not accounted for solely by the addition of any one group. The relaxation of the tensions and uncer00

101

102

103

10 •

25 The Great War and Its Aftermath: 1914-1923

tainties of the war, and the temporary economic prosperity that flowed from the return of industry and commerce to peaceful pursuits, were among the factors that combined to produce a total attendance of 81 5, including 186 at the university: the largest enrolment in its history. 10 s Inevitably, overcrowding was the result. At the university residence, single rooms were hastily converted into doubles, while parts of the building that had been closed off during the war were reopened. 106 It was ironic that the university should have exchanged the problems arising from a lack of students for those of excessive numbers, but the eventuality had not been entirely unforeseen. To the extent that the crowded conditions were caused by the return of veteran students, they were obviously temporary in nature. Furthermore, the decline of the Maritimes into economic depression after the spring of 1920 would also tend to reduce the numbers. Nevertheless, the need for more adequate facilities at Mount Allison had been clear during the war, and yet attempts at planning had left the university inadequately prepared to meet the demands put upon it in late 1919. The large attendance in itself was cause for optimism; the practical difficulties which it raised gave cause to reflect upon the deep-seated weaknesses which had been recognized even before the war and which remained unresolved. For the students of the post-war era, the crowding of the residential and other buildings was a major influence upon everyday living. For no group was this more true than for the university women, since the residential accommodation in the ladies' college was especially overtaxed. On 19 and 20 September 1919, the executive committee of the board of regents met in special sessions to try to find a solution, but failed to do so; suggestions that off-campus houses should be purchased came to nothing when a number of suitable properties were found to be unavailable. Eventually the situation was relieved when Borden agreed temporarily to move out of the president's cottage to provide space there for several students. When the full board of regents met in late October the problem of overcrowding was the first major item on its agenda, and the result was a resolution in favour of a separate residence for the university women students. 107 In itself, this proposal was not new, since the idea of a university women's residence had first been suggested in the early years of the century. At this time, financial restrictions had presented a major obstacle, and the only distinctions made between ladies' college and university students had been those which accompanied the granting of 'student self-government' to the university women in 1912, and the subsequent housing of the university students in the brick annex rather than in the main part of the ladies' college. Now that problems of

26 Mount Allison University

space had revived the notion of a separate residence, it could safely be admitted that the existing system had not always worked well. To the ladies' college students, the university women were a privileged group; and yet the university women themselves, living in the ladies' college, continued to be subject to annoying restrictions. They were liable, for example, to be reprimanded for such misdemeanours as 'reclining in unsuitable attitudes on the [ladies' college] grounds,' or missing meals - 'such a proceeding,' remarked Annie Sprague in her capacity as dean of women in 1916, 'was not at all healthful. ' Moving to a separate residence would not remove all restrictions, but it would help. The question was where the women's residence should be established, and how. Writing to Archibald in early November 1919, Borden was inclined to favour the construction of a new building. Desirable as that might be, it was too expensive to be practical, and later in the month two downtown hotels - the Brunswick House and the Ford House - were inspected. Whether because of the condition of these buildings, or because of reluctance among the students to accept the inconveniences of a residence off the campus, no action resulted, and the executive committee of the board was able in early 1920 only to pass yet another resolution on the 'pressing, immediate, and imperative' need for the residence. ' 09 By August of that year, however, it was clear that another large enrolment was imminent, and that action could no longer be postponed. Accordingly, the decision was taken to rent the Ford Hotel for three years as a university women's residence known as 'Allison Hall.' Together with a new stone extension joining Hart Hall to the main ladies' college building - they had hitherto been joined only by a small enclosed corridor popularly known as 'the hyphen' - which opened in early 1921, the new arrangement promised more spacious accommodation for both the university women students and those of the ladies' college. The Argosy commented in October 1920 that the university women were now 'comfortably situated.' The fall of 1920 was, in fact, notable also for another unprecedented development: the appointment of the first woman faculty member at the university. After graduating from Mount Allison in 1918, Helen C. Plummer had taught high school science for a year before taking the MA degree in physics at Columbia University. Her appointment as lecturer in physics could not be said to have begun a continuous tradition at Mount Allison, for it was only for a single year; not until 1925 would another woman lecturer be appointed, and it would be eight years more before a woman would enjoy professorial status."' None the less, Plummer, who later became a school principal in Gagetown, New Brunswick, had 108

110

27 The Great War and Its Aftermath: 1914-1923 altered for the first time the hitherto exclusively male composition of the university faculty. The post-war era, therefore, saw changes that prompted the emergence of the university women students as a more distinctive group. Another distinctive and influential group was the substantial body of veteran students. The First World War veterans, at Mount Allison and elsewhere, had a less dramatic effect upon student life than did their counterparts after the next world war. A major reason for this difference lay in the nature of government assistance offered to veterans of the respective wars. Government-sponsored loans were initially offered after the First World War to disabled veterans only, and although they were later made available to all veterans who had begun a course of study before enlisting, there was no incentive provided for those who would be entering university for the first time. This approach contrasted with that taken in 1945, when grants were offered in order to encourage all veterans to seek further education. Despite the urgings of the Conference of Canadian Universities, therefore, and despite remission of tuition fees by some individual universities, the majority of the First World War veteran students were those returning to resume studies interrupted by the war. At Mount Allison, the principles of financial concessions to all veterans and of academic incentives to veterans who were not former students were discussed on various occasions during 1919 and 1920, but without any action. Of the 45 veterans enrolled at the university in the fall of 1919, there were 19 who had not been students before enlisting; this was a substantial minority, but a minority none the less. Neither the numbers nor the background of the veteran students, therefore, were the same as those of the middle and late 1940s. 112 In other ways, however, the First World War veterans closely resembled their later counterparts. Their varied, and often harrowing, experiences of war had given rise, in many of the veterans, to a profound scepticism of the comfortable conventions of peacetime living. As R.M. Palmer, a veteran student at Mount Allison, wrote in early 1920, 'this experience of seeing things in the raw has caused men to shun the vain pretence and narrowmindedness so common in everyday life.' Whether applied to the university, to the church - 'the returned soldier looks at the minister with scrutinizing eyes,' wrote a veteran student at Trinity College, Toronto, in an attack on officially organized religion reprinted by the Argosy in May 1919 - or to society as a whole, the veterans were seldom in any mood to tolerate conventional wisdom. 11 } Yet on their seriousness as students, and high academic standards, all were agreed. As was to be expected in the wake of a conflict

28 Mount Allison University

as intense and protracted as the war had been, there were some who returned with shattered nerves, and others for whom the transition to the life of a student could not be accomplished easily or suddenly. In general, however, the Record was well justified when it commented in 1920 that 'they [the veterans] are, with few exceptions serious minded, men of one purpose to complete their work as soon as possible and to make up for the years lost. ' 114 This combination of serious-mindedness with scepticism made the veterans on occasion formidable critics of the university and of Canadian society at large, a tendency which they shared with the theological students. The Methodist Church had supported the war not just loyally but with passionate zeal. Given the previous Methodist espousal of pacifism, in fact, it would have been inconceivable for the church to have supported a war other than on the ground of defending Christian values. 'Methodists,' as one historian has remarked, 'could fight only a holy war.' 111 Hence the extraordinary number of Methodist ministers who fought as combatants. Going to war, however, did not imply that the old ideals had been given up. On the contrary, believed many Methodists, the war would end with the inauguration of a new era in which Christian virtues, and in particular the tenets of the social gospel, would prevail. 'The wrongs which we see, even in Canada,' had declared the aspiring minister W. Fraser Munro in his valedictory address at Mount Allison in 191 5, 'the evils we condemn and deplore, these we must tear root and branch from our national life.' 116 The 191 8 general conference, the first since the early days of the war, took up these notions in earnest. The report of the committee on social service and evangelism and that of the committee on the church, the war, and patriotism, both adopted by the conference, committed the church to radical reforms in the direction of social and economic equality. The latter committee cited 'the undying ethics of Jesus' in demanding 'nothing less than a transference of the whole economic life from a basis of competition and profits to one of co-operation and service. ' 11 7 It was soon clear from the columns of the Argosy and from the published statements of members of the theological faculty that the programme adopted by general conference had aroused widespread discussion at Mount Allison. During 1919 articles appeared in the Argosy on such topics as 'Socialism and Economic Evolution' and 'Representative Government in Industry,' while at convocation in May of that year the valedictorian G. F. Skinner had harsh words both for the excesses of the Bolsheviks in the Russian Revolution and for economic abuses current in Canada. 'The despotism of the mob in Russia,' he declared, 'found its origin in the despotism of the autocrats.

29 The Great War and Its Aftermath: 1914-1923 Canada must remove the tyranny of the capitalists and thus prevent a similar reaction.' 118 A similar concern for the economic implications of Christian belief were manifested in other contexts. In January 1920, for example, the theological society heard a paper from the Sackville minister and member of the board of regents H.E. Thomas on 'the Twentieth Century Minister,' in which Thomas identified 'the problem of Democracy in the Industrial realm' as one of the prime concerns of a modern clergyman, and declared further that 'the minister is blind who does not see growing emphasis placed upon social betterment.' 119 Also heavily influenced by the social gospel was the Student Christian Movement, which reached Mount Allison in late 1920. Arising out of secessions from the existing YMCA and YWCA organizations at various Canadian universities, the SCM was formally inaugurated at a national conference in Guelph in December 1920. Mount Allison had already been visited by a Maritime representative of SCM, L.S. Albright, whose article in support of the new movement appeared in the Argosy in December. By that time, although the Mount Allison YMCA had voted against joining scM, a smaller 'Volunteer Band' had voted to send a theological student, George Rackham, to the Guelph conference. Following his report, and discussions within the YMCA and YWCA groups lasting until March, agreement was reached to unite all Christian societies at Mount Allison into a new Student Christian Association, affiliated with SCM. The Student Christian Association continued throughout the early 1920s to be a strong and active student society. In many respects, it took on the functions of the old YMCA and YWCA as a social club, providing less formal surroundings for students to meet than prevailed at the official ladies' college receptions. It was also, however, a link with the new post-war evangelism of the national Methodist Church, typified by such preachers as Ernest Thomas and Salem Bland, who called for the evangelization of society on the basis of the life and moral precepts of Jesus. At the end of 1922, no fewer than 25 Mount Allison delegates (nine university men, six university women, and ten from the ladies' college) attended the national SCM conference in Toronto at which the adherence of the movement to Christian socialism was reaffirmed on the basis of a study programme drawn up by Ernest Thomas. The same concerns were evident among members of the faculty of theology. John Line, for example, who had been closely associated with the Student Christian Association from the start, taught economics and constitutional history in the faculty of arts as well as being professor of systematic theology. His colleague C. C. Delano, who had originally come to Mount Allison as a wartime replacement for J. W. Cohoon in classics and had stayed on to teach Greek in both the arts and theology faculties after 120

121

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Cohoon's return from military service, looked forward in an Argosy article of 1922 to the time when Christian socialism would 'introduce and maintain a safe and sane system of social improvement, without the overthrow of existing governments, through the working of the principle of divine unselfishness in the hearts of men. ' At Mount Allison in the post-war era, therefore, the faculty of theology and the Student Christian Movement ensured that current trends in Canadian Methodism were known and discussed. The issue which aroused the most controversy, however, was not that of Christian socialism as such, but the related question of pacifism. With the ending of the war - which from the point of view of the Methodist church had been a war to destroy militarism as represented by the aggressive Prussians - and the inauguration of the League of Nations, the way was clear for a revival of the condemnation of war which had characterized the Methodist Church before the war. Among the earliest of Canadian Methodist proponents of pacifism was Joho Line, who declared in a speech in late 1921 at Sunny Brae, near Moncton, that he favoured international disarmament and advocated that 'the church must aim to get rid of war. No lesser aim is Christian.' He was supported on this occasion by Henry Harvey Stuart, the prominent New Brunswick social reformer and Farmer-Labour politician. 123 Yet while the pacifist principle was one lesson that could be drawn from 'the war to end all wars,' it was not the only one. The Conference of Canadian Universities in Quebec in 1920, at which no Mount Allison delegate attended, was addressed by representatives of the army who argued that military training in the universities was essential to national defence even in peacetime, and offered financial assistance for those universities which would permit COTC programmes to be maintained. " 4 At Mount Allison, the training corps had been immediately disbanded at the war's end, but the university was visited in May 1920 by an army officer, Colonel Sparling, who offered government subsidies for the heating and lighting of the gymnasium, and the services of a drill sergeant, if a COTC unit were formed. On this basis, and with faculty approval of the addition of five marks in each course taken by students adjudged at the end of the year to have been efficient members of the corps, the unit was formed under the command of the newly arrived assistant professor of engineering, Frank West. 111 From the beginning, student opinion on the reinstitution of coTc and on the mark incentives offered to trainees, was divided. A student meeting held on 6 October 1920 produced 40 recruits for the training corps, and an Argosy column on campus events declared that the drills and weekly parades held during the rest of the month demonstrated that 'altogether the Canadian 112

31 The Great War and Its Aftermath: 1914-1923 Officers Training Corps promises to be a fine success.' A month later, the same column was still optimistic of the corps' success, but the editorial in the same issue was more critical. 'We do not propose here to question the wisdom of preparation for war,' wrote the editor before going on to do so: 'when again the College Campus resounds to the tramp, tramp of the COTC we seriously ask whether we are keeping before us that true goal for an ideal nation when "Robed in universal harvest up to either pole she smiles, Universal ocean softly washing all her warless Isles." ' 126 The first questioning of the coTc had come from veteran students who were unwilling to submit to squad drill and felt the five-mark credit to be discriminatory. This matter was soon resolved, however, when the faculty voted to award the five marks to returned men enrolled in the COTC whether or not they attended drills, and several of the protesters apparently thereupon decided to join the corps. More serious in its opposition was a petition presented in late October by a group described in the faculty minutes as 'seventeen returned men, and a few others most of them theological students,' who objected on principle both to the formation of the corps and to the award of the five marks credit. At the faculty meeting of 21 October, a long discussion took place in which the petitioners were strongly supported by John Line; the result was the passing of a compromise motion proposed by Tweedie, regretting that the petition had not been presented before the formation of the corps but urging its authors to 'acquiesce in the movement, which is not at all intended to foster war-like ideals.' 127 The petitioners refused to be content with the faculty's reply. Four weeks later, led by George Rackham - himself both a theological student and a veteran, having served overseas with the 85th Battalion, Nova Scotia Highlanders - they were reported by Borden to have renewed their opposition to the training corps. They did not prompt any further action, as their second protest was indefinitely tabled at the faculty meeting of 18 November. Their views were no doubt remembered, however, in the winter and spring of the following year, when the faculty debated the possibility of making military training compulsory for all students. The number enrolled in the coTc unit had risen to 80 at its height in late 1920, but then dwindled to 45 by mid-February, with an average attendance of 25 at parades. According to West, only compulsory training would preserve the unit as a worthwhile venture, and at a faculty meeting on 24 March he was supported by Colonel Sparling, who noted that such training was already compulsory at UNB and Nova Scotia Technical College. Sparling also revealed that in future COTC members were to be paid, at the same rate as members of the militia, and hinted at government assistance in the provision of a drill hall - an attractive

32 Mount Allison University prospect in view of the burning of the Lingley Hall gymnasium less than two months before. Even so, the faculty refused in April to approve compulsory training and, as West had predicted, the corps functioned with a much reduced membership for the next two years. 128 The issue of compulsory training was not yet entirely resolved, and in the 1923-4 and 1924-5 years, a form of compulsion was introduced amid renewed protests from theological students, when students were obliged to select either COTC training for academic credit, or a non-credit physical training course. In February 1925, however, both courses were made voluntary once again, following the resignation of West as commanding officer, and the Mount Allison coTc thereupon lay dormant until the late 1930s. The long controversy over COTC, especially as it involved the veterans and the theological students, was a revealing one in terms of student opinion during the post-war era. It did not show that all students, or even a majority, were proponents of pacifism, any more than the success of the scM showed that the majority were Christian socialists. What these developments did show, however, was that the great questions facing all Canadian Methodists during those years - whatever their answers might be - were of concern to Mount Allison students and sometimes divided them one from another. Not that students were divided on all issues. After the war, as before it, unity was readily found in support of Mount Allison teams in intercollegiate competition, whether in sports or in other activities such as debating. The end of the war came too late to allow the resumption of intercollegiate football, but on 7 February 1919 intercollegiate hockey was resumed when Mount Allison defeated Acadia by 8 to 4 in front of 400 spectators in the Dorchester rink. Football returned in the fall of that year, although some Allisonians must have wished that it had not. Losses to St Dunstan's in Charlottetown, to Acadia at home, and finally by 30 to nil to UNB on a murky afternoon in Fredericton, prompted the Argosy to warn sternly that 'athletics ... are not a sort of necessary evil, an encroachment on studies and something that must be tolerated only out of deference to the energetic tendencies of useful blood.' They were, rather, 'a necessary phase of college life bringing to those who participate a reward in physical development as well as the cultivation of those powers of courage, discipline and endurance that mark the real athlete; and, in the advertisement they give, amply recompensing the college that encourages them. ' That being so, the hockey season can have given little comfort, as heavy defeats were suffered at the hands of both UNB and Acadia. It was left to the women's basketball team to salvage some shreds of honour by defeating Dalhousie twice and 129

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33 The Great War and Its Aftermath:

1914-1923

Acadia once. ' 3 ' All in all, the post-war years were not distinguished by great success in the major sports, although there was some improvement in 1921-2, when both the football team - coached by W.S. Godfrey, one of the best players of the pre-war university side - and the hockey team came close to winning Maritime championships. •i Perhaps, though, the succession of poor results in sports contributed to the enormous popularity of intercollegiate debating at this time. The first postwar debate involving a Mount Allison team was held in the Fredericton Opera House on 21 March 1919, with the Mount Allison team successfully sustaining the resolution that all Canadian railways should be nationalized. The high point of enthusiasm was reached in the spring of 1922, when both the men's and the women's debating teams ended their seasons by defeating teams from Acadia. 'For a large number of Mt. A. men,' commented the Argosy report of the men's debate on Canadian immigration policy in Fawcett Hall on 29 March, '[the debate] is the most significant of all the intercollegiate events.' The assessment was certainly borne out by the wild rejoicing which greeted Mount Allison's victory, and according to the leader of the team, Ross Flemington, it was not only the students who were elated: 'the profs were just as excited as the rest of us. Dr. Borden couldn't say a word. He just grasped my hand and shook and smiled and Prof. Line whooped and hollered .... ' 133 With the Eurhetorian Society also flourishing, these were vintage years for debating at Mount Allison. They were also productive years for the Argosy. Perhaps showing the influence of the veterans - Ross Flemington, for one, who was assistant editor-in-chief in 1920-1 and editor-in-chief in 1921-2 -the magazine forcefully represented student views on a variety of issues, and also developed its role as a reporter of university news by inaugurating a weekly campus newspaper in 1922. Some of the matters that the Argosy addressed were old concerns. The continuing requirement for an oration to be delivered by each student prior to graduation was wearily denounced in an editorial of April 1920: 'each year this event takes the joy out of the Senior's life and each class in its turn is loud in proclaiming its unreasonableness -yet the ORATION goes on.' 134 Also an old chestnut was the matter of allegedly bad food in the dining hall, although in this case the Argosy was surprisingly lenient to the university authorities. Although there was widespread agreement among students in the fall of 1920 that standards had been allowed to fall in the kitchen - one freshman confided to his diary in October that 'the fish we had for dinner at noon was rank and the milk for breakfast yesterday was sour,' while Ross Flemington's mother suggested to him that the only way 2

34 Mount Allison University

to produce an improvement might be to boycott the dining hall - an editorial in April 1921 was content to suggest that bad table manners were the real cause of indigestion. is Perhaps standards had risen in the intervening months. A further issue that had had a long history in the Argosy was that of the initiation of freshmen, which had already by the end of the war undergone yet another cycle of restriction and re-emergence: a severe initiation in 1916 had resulted in a unanimous resolution of the student body in the following spring to abolish all harassment of freshmen. 136 After the war, however, the custom revived once again and the initiation of September 1920 can only be described as having been brutal and degrading: among the hazards to which freshmen were exposed was a series of electric shocks administered by an interrogator at a mock court, using a wireless telegraph key. Whether through this or some other procedure, as was revealed in the following May in response to questions asked in the university senate, two freshmen had suffered 'physical harm.' The Argosy, also in May, commented that these aspects of initiation were 'objectionable and offensive to the saner part of the student body,' and applauded the decision of the student council to abolish hazing: 'in our humble opinion,' the editorial concluded, 'the time is long overdue for us to lessen our much over developed class spirit and to emphasize a college spirit.' The principle of initiation was not abandoned as such in 1921 - the hierarchical structure of the student body was still too strong for that - but the excesses of the previous year were certainly avoided. 37 Where the Argosy on occasion took issue strongly with the status quo of the university was on the disciplinary restrictions which supposedly safeguarded the moral welfare of the students. The annual presentation of a 'college play,' for example, although an innovation of pre-war days, continued to be subject to close regulation, as in 1916 when three professors Hunton, DesBarres, and H.W. McKiel - were appointed by the faculty as official censors of that year's production of 'Sweet Lavender.' It was, in fact, as recently as in 1910 that the general conference of the Methodist Church, on a motion proposed by W.W. Andrews, had relaxed its previous policy of condemning all attendance by Methodists at theatrical productions. ' 38 The Argosy remained protective of student drama for some time afterwards. When an item in the Mount Allison Record suggested that the 1919 college play, entitled 'The Varsity Coach,' had been more popular than edifying, it drew a sharp rebuke from the Argosy for its failure to recognize 'the work and sacrifice of those who are responsible for the production of the college plays from year to year.' Any remaining doubts as to the propriety of student dramas were evidently soon dispelled, as the 1921 play entitled 'Strongheart' - was given faculty permission to tour Nova Scotia 1

1

The Great War and Its Aftermath:

35

1914-1923

after the college had dosed, and made eight successful stops between Truro and Yarmouth. }9 Some of the Argosy's greatest scorn was reserved for the ladies' college receptions, held regularly and still advertised in the ladies' college calendar as promoting 'a healthy development of the social nature. ' 140 In reality, those days of thirty years before when topic receptions had been welcomed, as a relief from the stultifying formality of the previous receptions, were long gone. Now it was the topic receptions themselves that were described in the Argosy of March 1921 as offering 'a living example of the truth that the rules of society often become impediments rather than helps.' The editorial remarked on a widening social gulf between the ladies' college and the university residence, created by tbe lack of informal contacts. A few months later, the gossip column was more direct when it contrasted the faculty view of receptions with the student view: ' D - Bore.' 141 Even the university women, despite some relaxation of regulations in October 1920 when the Allison Hall students had presented the faculty with a statement that they should not be subject to restrictions not also placed upon male students, were governed by rules which hindered formal contacts with their male colleagues. They had been conceded the right to attend the movie theatres without special permission, although not in male company unless chaperoned and in a party of not less than ten. Men and women students might walk together to and from lectures, but a request 'that the young ladies and gentlemen be permitted to have ice cream etc. together in the afternoon' had been quickly and decisively rejected. 142 To the awkwardness created by these restrictions, there was one solution that occurred to many of the students of the post-war era, and the Argosy remarked in April 1921 that '[the] question asked in many different ways amounts to this, "How soon will we be allowed to dance?" 'On this issue, however, despite an optimistic prediction that a convocation dance might be held that same spring, the advocacy of the Argosy was to no avail, just as a vote taken by the Eurhetorian Society had made no headway during the previous fall. Still, in November 1921, the board of regents was discussing dancing as a disciplinary matter: 'alleged dancing of the girls in the Ladies' College and in Allison Hall.' They took no action on the allegation, but neither did they admit the possibility of permitting organized dances to be held. 14 ) As a guardian of student interests, therefore, the Argosy was not always as effective as its editors would have preferred, but it was undoubtedly vigorous in its efforts. As a news publication, it became more effective than ever before, with the introduction of the Argosy Weekly in the fall of 1922. The newspaper was not at first intended entirely as a substitute for the 1

36 Mount Allison University existing Argosy. The best of the literary contributions which had hitherto comprised rather less than half of the monthly Argosy- essays, poems, short stories - would continue to be published in magazine form, an issue being produced three times each year. The first issue of the weekly warned, however, that this publication would be reserved for contributions 'of a high order,' and implied that preference would be given to essays on current events written by professors and alumni. Each month, a literary edition of the weekly would be produced in order to allow students themselves to contribute. In practice, the new arrangement did not work quite in this way. The number of literary issues in the first year was soon reduced from seven to five, because of 'pressure of news every week,' while the tri-annual magazine never flourished : issues were published intermittently until 1931, but the magazine never achieved consistency in either form or content. In reporting the news of the campus, however, the weekly had obvious advantages. Its coverage was more comprehensive and more topical than that of the monthly Argosy could ever have been. In the early morning of 2 February 1923, for example, the Argosy Weekly appeared a day ahead of schedule in order to carry an account of the defeat of UNB in the opening hockey game of the season, played the previous night. According to an approving editorial in the Saint John Globe, this was 'the greatest "scoop" known in the history of Maritime college papers.' In the wake of the First World War, the interests and concerns of Mount Allison students were diverse; the new weekly newspaper reflected that diversity more intensely than had been possible before. ' 44 Diversity of interests was also accommodated by curriculum changes adopted at the university during the post-war years, although there was one important exception to the movement towards greater choice for students. The exception was in law, courses in which field had been given at Mount Allison since 1895 under an affiliation arrangement with Dalhousie. With effect in 1924, Dalhousie resolved in 1921 that it would accept credits in professional courses in law only from recognized law schools, and that existing affiliations would be discontinued. Accordingly, in 1922, the Mount Allison courses in contracts and torts - which had been taught by part-time lecturers - were abolished, although the existing half-year courses in constitutional history and international law were continued within the arts curriculum. ' 4 ' That curriculum, along with the BSC curriculum, since 1919 had allowed for wider choice by the student than before. The first two years of the BA course were little changed, prescribing work in Latin, English, mathematics, another ancient or modern language, and a science. In the junior and senior years, though, all courses were now optional, instead of the previous structure by

37 The Great War and Its Aftermath: 1914-1923 which a language was compulsory in the junior year, as were half-courses in logic, psychology, ethics, and evidences of Christianity. These four courses continued to be offered, the first three now under the rubric of philosophy and evidences of Christianity restored to its former status as a full-year course, but all were now optional. In the B sc programme the tripartite structure - consisting of the advanced science, the non-classical, and the engineering approaches - was dropped and a single curriculum adopted. The first two years stressed work in English, mathematics, and languages, along with at least one science subject in each year and engineering options for those working towards the engineering certificate. In the final two years, all courses were optional, with those offered concentrating naturally on science and engineering, but also including options in history, languages, and social science. The change was more marked in science than in arts, since the science curriculum had previously been the more rigidly structured, but in both programmes the student now enjoyed considerably more latitude than before. 146 Two years later, a further possibility was made available to science students at Mount Allison: the undertaking of post-graduate study. In this, as in the move towards more elective subjects in undergraduate curricula, Mount Allison was following a trend already apparent at the larger Canadian universities. 147 The Master of Science degree introduced at Mount Allison in 1921 was not necessarily a research degree, although a thesis could be substituted for one of the five courses to be taken. The MSC requirements differed from those of the MA in that they specified that work for the degree must be done in residence at the university and must be taken according to a course of study approved in e·ach particular case by the general faculty. It was apparently another two years before the discrepancies were recognized, but in 1923 the MA regulations were revised so as to include these additional requirements. Although the MA was still distinct from the MSC, in that the thesis was compulsory, the regulations approved during the early 1920s were clearly aimed at ensuring that both degrees were genuinely advanced postgraduate qualifications. 148 Since the curriculum changes of the post-war years, both at undergraduate and post-graduate levels, had a particular effect upon the teaching of science, their success obviously depended upon the strength of the faculty in science subjects. The changes coincided, in fact, with the arrival at Mount Allison of several science professors whose careers would eventually be comparable in length and distinction with those of the generation - Hunton, Tweedie, and Borden were its chief representatives - which had so changed the faculty of the university during the mid-1880s. The McClelan School of applied

38 Mount Allison University science had already established a· tradition of continuity. J. W. Crowell, professor of civil engineering, had been with the school since 1905, while Bigelow, the dean of the school, had just arrived to teach both in pure and applied science in 1911. H. W. McKiel, professor of mechanical engineering, had joined the school in 1913; a graduate of Queen's University, he also taught geology. The first major post-war change in the field of engineering came in late 1919, when Crowell retired for reasons of health. He was replaced by Frank L. West, a civil engineer who was a graduate of Mount Allison and had subsequently studied at McGill before serving overseas during the war. Both West and McKiel would teach in the McClelan school for more than forty years, as well as holding senior administrative positions in the university, and their influence upon the teaching of engineering at Mount Allison was powerful throughout that time. In the pure sciences, meanwhile, a series of short-term appointments was made during and after the First World War, except in chemistry, which chair Bigelow continued to hold while being dean of applied science. Then in 1921, the chair of biology was taken over by Roy Fraser, a graduate of the University of Toronto and of the University of Kansas who had since worked both as a pathologist and as a medical researcher. Under his direction, the department of biology at Mount Allison would develop over the next three decades as a centre of pre-medical training, in affiliation with the Dalhousie medical school. A year later came Donald G. MacGregor as professor of physics, a native of nearby Amherst, a graduate of Dalhousie, and a former Rhodes scholar. The Argosy commented in October 1922 that 'Mr. MacGregor has already thrown himself enthusiastically into the work of his department and it is with confidence that we predict for him a successful year.' The forecast was accurate in all but length, for MacGregor's career at Mount Allison would span no fewer than forty-two years. ' 49 Yet while it is clear in retrospect that the post-war appointments brought a new stability to the teaching faculty in science subjects, this was not selfevident at the time. Indeed, the ability of Mount Allison to maintain a faculty of high quality was still necessarily causing concern. In the spring of 1920 the campus was visited by members of the Massey Foundation Commission on Methodist schools in Canada. Established by the executors of the estate of Hart Massey, and chaired by Massey's grandson, Vincent Massey, the commission was concerned primarily with secondary education: with the approval of the church board of education, it set out to conduct a critical examination of the educational and administrative standards prevailing at Methodist schools throughout Canada. IS The commission's mandate thus brought it to Mount Allison primarily to examine the academy and ladies' 0

39 The Great War and Its Aftermath: 1914-1923 college, but the close connections among the three institutions made it inevitable that the university should also come under its scrutiny. The result was a resounding call for better terms and conditions of work for the faculty. The commission first commented that the stabilizing of the university's debt at$ 11 5,ooo, while preferable in itself to the incurring of additional liabilities, had been achieved 'largely at the expense of the teaching staff, whose salaries are quite inadequate.' The normal professorial salary, the report went on, had recently been raised to $2000, but should be further increased by at least $500. Furthermore, the variety of courses offered by a faculty which was still small had the inevitable effect of overburdening some staff members: We found, for instance, that one professor teaches philosophy of religion, systematic theology, economics and history of doctrine. The Faculty expressed the opinion that the staff should be enlarged so as to make possible extension of work in economics and in modern history, as well as a division of the large freshman classes in English and mathematics.'"

The professor selected by the commission as its example of an overworked faculty member, though not named, was John Line, whose varied responsibilities in both arts and theology made him an apt choice. The commission was especially concerned that the important field of economics was necessarily underdeveloped at Mount Allison because of Line's other duties. When the report mentioned English and mathematics, it referred by implication to Tweedie and Hunton, and these two long-serving professors undoubtedly provided the clearest examples of the penalties imposed by the university's chronic financial troubles upon those professors who chose to dedicate their careers to its service. Both had come to Mount Allison in the optimistic days of the 1880s, with exceptional qualifications. Both had taught with great distinction. The long succession of honours students in mathematics whom Hunton had sent on to successful post-graduate careers spoke for itself, while Tweedie had inspired and sometimes awed his students by what Raymond Archibald called 'the keenness and coldness of his intellect. ' 112 Both had had opportunities to leave Mount Allison for other appointments, and both had stayed. 'At one time,' wrote Tweedie in 1918 recalling the approach made to him six years before on behalf of the new University of British Columbia, 'I had a considerable temptation to go out to B.C., but decided not to leave my old associations.''ll Yet as student numbers had grown, Hunton and Tweedie had had to continue to bear the sole responsibility for the teaching of the two basic subjects studied at some level by every student. Never generously paid, they had been prevented especially

40 Mount Allison University

since the financial crisis of 1911 from receiving salary increases commensurate with their seniority and experience. Research and study trips, which in Tweedie's case had taken him in earlier days to the major universities of Britain and Germany, had become impossible. Their contributions to the university had been prodigious, and continued so even now, by 1920, when each had served well over thirty years. But the cost to their own professional development and personal wealth could not be calculated. The university owed them much. The university also owed to itself the recognition that it should not continue to depend upon the willingness of its professors to accept large responsibilities for small recompense, for such servants as Hunton and Tweedie had necessarily to be regarded as rare. The point was not lost on Borden. Although restricted by the limited success of the financial campaign of 191 1-1 3 and then by the financial strains of the war, he had attempted while president to raise salaries and add new faculty members as best he could. To Archibald in 1919, he professed some satisfaction in the knowledge that 'the amount paid out for salaries has been nearly doubled since I came to this side of the campus.' Borden well knew, however, that more was needed. Appealing for financial support in 1920 to the president of the Carnegie Corporation of New York, he selected the matter of faculty salaries as the clearest single indication that 'in fact our whole work at Mount Allison has reached a time of crisis. ' 114 The post-war years saw significant developments in curriculum, particularly in science, and the recruitment of young faculty members accordingly; but these changes had a certain tenuousness which could only be removed if the university's deep-seated problems were resolved. The Massey commission also had other comments that deserved to be pondered at Mount Allison. Reflecting generally upon the Methodist secondary educational institutions of Canada, the report noted with concern that there was little coordination or effective control exercised by the church - despite the financial assistance given to the institutions from church funds - and suggested that the church should either assume direct authority over the schools or else withdraw its support. 155 As for curriculum, the commission objected to the prevalence in Methodist secondary schools of what it called 'pot-boiler subjects': music, art, elocution, manual training, agriculture, household science, and commercial education were all examples, it contended, of subjects all too often taught only because they were financially profitable. The result was a 'vicious circle' by which students crowded the institutions to take these subjects, necessitating expansion of facilities, which in turn incurred great expense and made it all the more necessary to attract

41 The Great War and Its Aftermath: 1914-1923

students in the profitable fields, thus starting the cycle over again. 'What at a distance may appear as one institution,' the report complained, might therefore be revealed on closer inspection as 'a cluster of half a dozen academies, colleges, schools, departments or conservatories.' That description was clearly intended to apply to Mount Allison among other institutions, and for all of the schools the commission had a solution to propose. All teaching, it suggested, should be directed according to three vocational principles: the pupils would fall into the categories of, first, boys who were prospective farmers, secondly, girls who were prospective housewives, and thirdly, boys and girls who wished to prepare themselves for a business career. What had hitherto been the 'pot-boiler subjects' would not be abolished, but would be given only as appropriate to one or more of the vocational categories of pupils. Along with a heavy emphasis on providing all pupils with instruction in 'general culture,' citizenship and Christian values, these vocationally directed programmes would ensure a consistent and distinctive role for the Methodist secondary schools. ' 16 These recommendations of the Massey commission had the merits of being both logical and radical. Had any serious and effective effort been made to enforce them, they would have caused enormous controversy at Mount Allison, centring on the question of whether the particular circumstances and history of the academy and ladies' college entitled these institutions to special treatment. An attempt was in fact made by the board of education to make some progress towards implementing the principles embodied in the report through a 'Commission of Nine' appointed in 1921. Most of the work of this body was apparently conducted by its secretary, George Johnstone Trueman, who had recently resigned as principal of Stanstead College to become full-time assistant secretary of the board of education. In April 1922 Trueman presented the board with the report of the commission of nine, which adopted it with little modification. Among the recommendations was the application of the Massey commission's principles to the academy and the ladies' college, along with certain more specific proposals also derived from the Massey report. The academy, for example, was urged to put more of its teaching in the hands of full-time teachers rather than university students. Both institutions, and the university, were advised to remove barns and stables from the campus which had been built over the years to accommodate farming operations in connection with the dining halls; the institutions should also, the report contended, provide for better coordination of business management through cooperation between the three heads and through the appointment of a common business manager. ' 17

42 Mount Allison University

Some of these proposals were implemented. In the summer of 1920, even before the publication of the Massey report, an architect from Cambridge, Massachusetts, was consulted on the future development of the campus. The resulting plan was an ambitious one, including proposals for the reconstruction in stone of both the academy and the ladies' college, and the addition to the university of a science building, a library, new residences, and a central heating plant. As an immediate measure, the plan recommended the relocation of the unsightly farm buildings, and this proposal was carried out in 1924. The consolidation of the farming operations of the three institutions at that time, and the relocation of the buildings on the site of the actual farm land somewhat more than a mile westward of the main campus, was also a step in the direction of greater coordination of the business affairs of the institutions. ' 18 Yet as for the more major recommendations of the Massey report on curriculum matters, the proposals of the commission of nine lacked the coercive power that the Massey commission had deemed essential if the Methodist education system were to be rationalized. In part, this reflected the fact that there were greater issues facing the board of education at the time. In 1921, after negotiations had proceeded intermittently for some eighteen years, agreement was reached on a basis of union of the Methodist, Presbyterian, and Congregational churches in Canada. The formation of the United Church would obviously have fundamental implications for the Methodist educational institutions, and until it was clear what those implications would be, it was possible that changes made before union would have little significance. More immediately, however, the fact was that the church had little real power to impose changes upon the academy and the ladies' college, even if it had had the inclination. Neither institution depended on a church grant - the grant from the educational society went each year to the university - and each was profitable. The post-war influx of students to the ladies' college created a profit of over $10,000 in the year 1919-20, and although the figure declined in each of the next two years (to $7321 in 1921 and $4058 in 1922) the institution was clearly healthy enough. 'Since the Great War,' declared the ladies' college calendar of 1921, 'a new impulse has seized the young women of our land ... .'' 59 The academy, meanwhile, recorded increased profits in successive years, from $3404 in 1920, to $3630 in 1921 and $5480 in 1922. 160 The two institutions were well placed, therefore, to regard the recommendations of the commission of nine as suggestions to be accepted or rejected as they saw fit; the result was that few major changes were made that could be traced back to that commission's influence or to the original principles of the Massey report, although the academy did add in 1922 a

43 The Great War and Its Aftermath: 1914-1923 variant of its matriculation course described as a 'vocational course supplying a good English education with practical aids for farmers, traders and artisans.'161 The academy, under the shrewd and jealous care of Palmer, was on reasonably firm ground. As an academic high school, specializing in matriculation subjects, it drew students from throughout the Maritimes (and a few from elsewhere) whose parents wished them for whatever reason to attend a boarding school. The commercial college also drew students from throughout the region for training in bookkeeping, business practices, stenography, and related skills, with an especially strong contingent each year from Sackville itself and the immediate area. As long as these two constituencies held firm, the academy would prosper. At the ladies' college, however, the warnings of the Massey commission might well have been considered more carefully than apparently they were. While the commission's definition of 'pot-boiler subjects' would have been hotly disputed, and rightly so in view of their historical development at Mount Allison, its portrayal of the 'vicious circle' of expansion was disturbingly apt. Indeed, it recalled the comments of Borden eighteen years before, when he had admitted that the expansion of the ladies' college was a risky matter. Despite the prosperity of the early 1920s, the ladies' college had serious weaknesses that were only gradually becoming apparent. A tendency was already emerging by which the work of the professional schools of music, art, and household science was becoming sufficiently advanced to merit the offering of degree programmes rather than only those courses leading to ladies' college diplomas. The introduction of the MUSB degree had been one such indication, and the introduction of the BSC in home economics in 1924 would be another. Given that the literary work of the ladies' college was now seriously curtailed by the large numbers of women students who preferred to enrol in the BA course of the university, the continuation of the trend towards degree courses might well leave the ladies' college more dependent than ever before on its role as a finishing school, and thus disturbingly vulnerable to economic fluctuations in the region. Whether or not the Massey report suggested a better prospect for the future - and this was an arguable point, since the recommendations would certainly have cut down the size of the ladies' college drastically if implemented - its contents certainly bore thinking about. For all that, the fact remained that at the time the Massey report was published it was the university, of the three institutions, that had the most obvious troubles. The Massey report had six specific recommendations for the university: salary increases for professors, the most urgent; additions to faculty; a comprehensive scheme for future extensions; a new science build-

44 Mount Allison University

ing; a women's residence; and a new library building. None was a surprise, for all reflected needs which had been identified at least ten years before. The women's residence and the campus plan had been attended to between the time of the commissioners' visit in the spring of 1920 and the publication of their report in the following year. The other four matters had one characteristic in common: they required large amounts of money which, except for the $30,000 collected for the Memorial Library in 1919, the university did not have. Efforts to supply the need were not lacking. Repeated approaches to the Carnegie Corporation of New York, for example, were made between September 1920 and June 1921, but these failed to bear fruit, since the corporation was on the point of initiating a complete review of the policies governing its grants in the Maritime region. 16' One source of funding that was successfully drawn upon was the 'Methodist National Campaign,' held in early 1920. Of $750,000 set aside for colleges from the proceeds of this connexional campaign, Mount Allison's share was $80,000. By early 1922, some $73,350 had been received, much of which was put towards the paying off of debt; by June 1922, the debt had been reduced to just over $73,000. 16 J While the results of the national campaign were encouraging, the sum allocated to Mount Allison was obviously inadequate as a basis for any real effort to solve the university's difficulties. Accordingly, the decision was taken by the board of regents in May 1920 that the university would itself launch a campaign for $500,000. 164 Ultimately set for the week of 7-14 February 1921, the campaign was the most elaborately organized fundraising effort ever mounted at Mount Allison. Under the general chairmanship of the Sackville businessman Frank B. Black, it was preceded by the distribution of letters and brochures which described Mount Allison as 'among the great Christian Colleges of Canada,' and posed the question, 'shall Mount Allison retain her place?' The Maritime region was divided into six zones, centred on Sackville, Saint John, Charlottetown, Yarmouth, Halifax, and Sydney, while local 'group leaders' were appointed in other towns. The Mount Allison Record promised that the campaign would be 'carried aggressively into all quarters of the constituency of Mount Allison'; the local press gave strong support, the Tribune declaring that 'whether we admit it or not we are all secretly proud of the million dollar plant now owned by the Mount Allison institutions'; the Argosy announced the 'keen desire on the part of the student body to be of some material benefit in the big campaign.' 161 On 19 January 1921, some 170 local organizers converged on Sackville to attend a pre-campaign rally, and the Record estimated that

45 The Great War and Its Aftermath: 1914-1923 some 6000 volunteers would be at work during the week of intensive campaigning. 166 Yet success was not achieved. On 12 February, the second last day, local organizers received telegrams from S. D. Chown, general superintendent of the church, to the effect that the campaign was in danger of failure unless they redoubled their efforts. Subscriptions of some $260,000 were ultimately received, of which about $140,000 had been received a year later. 167 The amount was by no means negligible, for after $100,000 had been set aside for endowment, there was still enough left to carry out renovations to the science building as well as to build a new gymnasium and skating rink. 'We are finding the income from our Campaign an immense relief,' commented Borden in March 1922. 168 Like its predecessor of 19u-13, however, the campaign had ended indecisively: it had raised enough to stave off any immediate crisis, while not realizing enough to put an end to the university's major deficiencies. The Record admitted to feelings of 'mingled disappointment and encouragement'; it expressed disappointment that greater support had not come from church members, although acknowledging that in the wake of the Methodist National Campaign 'circumstances ... were hopelessly against the appeal. ' 169 There was another factor that all agreed was partly responsible for the campaign's falling short of its objective: the return of economic depression to the Maritime region. The Argosy in particular concluded that 'the psychological effect which the real and imaginary "hard times" had upon conditions generally did much to cool the ardor of many who under less adverse conditions would have been enthusiastic. ' 170 The post-war boom had come to an end in the Maritimes, as elsewhere in North America and in Great Britain, in the spring of 1920. Decline in the prices of national resource commodities such as timber, coal, and agricultural produce, and lack of demand for manufactured products, were phenomena by no means confined to the Maritimes. Yet this region also suffered from other difficulties which complicated the depression and made rapid recovery impossible. The resurgence of protectionism in the United States during the early 1920s had an adverse effect on traditional resource exports, while the reduction of Canadian tariffs on such commodities as coal and pig iron had made Maritime products in these industries increasingly uncompetitive in central Canadian markets. The removal of favourable railway freight rates on goods travelling to central Canada was a further blow to Maritime industries, while the ownership of many of those industries by central Canadian interests led to many closures of 'branch plants.' The result, as one historian has remarked,

46 Mount Allison University

was 'the virtual collapse' of the Maritime economy. 17 1 The flaws which had begun to be apparent in the industrially based prosperity of the region during the first decade of the twentieth century had now contributed to a basic economic decline which would not easily be reversed. It was characterized by out-migration on a massive scale, and the effects of this trend, together with the other results of the onset of the depression, were reflected at Mount Allison in changes in the composition of the student body. The number attending the university held steady until 1922, when it fell to 163, and then in the following year to only 146. At the same time, the university's traditional rural constituency was particularly hard hit, and the proportion of students from small communities declined steadily from 4 5. 3 per cent in 1920-1 to only 29.3 per cent in 1927-8. 172 Given this economic background, it was hardly surprising that the Mount Allison campaign had not been a success, especially in the rural Methodist congregations from whom much had been hoped. One observer, the minister's wife in Andover, New Brunswick, noted that a campaign bulletin had suggested a minimum contribution of $50 over two years and commented that 'they are certainly setting a pace which the cts [circuits] cannot keep up with. 'in The campaign had indeed set a hard pace, not only in regard to the donations expected, but also in terms of Mount Allison's own plans. It had witnessed, in fact, the revival of expansionist rhetoric. For the Record, for example, what was at stake was 'the long delayed programme of expansion,' while the Tribune predicted that Mount Allison might have four thousand students within twenty-five years. ' 74 Borden himself, writing in the Wesleyan a few days after the initial decision had been made to hold the campaign, had set the tone : The future never looked more promising for Mount Allison nor the opportunities greater. When Sackville becomes the Capital of the United Maritime Provinces and Mount Allison the one institution owned by the United Methodist and Presbyterian Churches of Eastern Canada, conditions will obtain by which Mount Allison should become the great educational centre for Eastern Canada.'"

Borden's optimism was commendable and, given that he was starting a financial campaign, appropriate. His reference to the possibility of Maritime union was topical, since it was only three months since the Busy East magazine, published in Sackville, had taken up the call for regional unity. As a manifestation of the movement for progressive reform which was currently gaining strength in the region and, spurred by the frustrations born of economic dislocation, would shortly emerge as the Maritime Rights move-

47

The Great War and Its Aftermath:

1914-1923

ment, the suggestion of Maritime union had a strong appeal to Borden as a veteran proponent of the progressive ideals of the social gospel. 176 Whether the result of Maritime union would have been to make Sackville the capital of the region was, of course, open to question. Borden's reference to church union was also topical, although again his interpretation of its likely results was debatable. When the basis of union was agreed in October 1921, it left no doubt that there would be rationalization of educational institutions: 'the policy of the [United Church] shall be the maintenance of a limited number of thoroughly equipped Colleges ... and in furtherance of this policy amalgamation shall be effected as soon as possible in localities where two or more Colleges are doing the same class of work. ' 177 Since the Presbyterian Church had its own theological college in Halifax, at Pine Hill, the question would be whether an amalgamated institution would be established in Sackville or in Halifax. Borden, privately, was well aware of this likely dilemma.178 So too was W.G. Watson of the Mount Allison faculty of theology, who complained to George Trueman of the board of education on 10 November 1921 that the Presbyterians had already begun a campaign to have the arts work of Mount Allison absorbed by Dalhousie College and the theological work by Pine Hill. 'I think,' he warned, 'that we had better take steps to checkmate these wily Scotchmen. ' 179 For the time being, and until church union was effected, this issue inevitably remained unresolved. The Mount Allison board of regents contented itself on 16 November 1921, shortly after the basis of union had been agreed, with appointing a committee to explore possible means of cooperation with the other uniting churches. 180 Once union was accomplished, however, the matter would have to be faced. Borden's Wesleyan article of May 1920, therefore, contained simplistic predictions of the possible results of complex developments. But it was a campaigning piece, and Borden well knew that he was oversimplifying. There were other questions, though, that were raised not only by this article but by all the expansionist pronouncements that accompanied the financial campaign. Did Mount Allison really seek to be 'the great educational centre for Eastern Canada'? If so, what did this imply in terms of its relationships with the other institutions of the region? If not, then what was the real mission of Mount Allison, the ideal that would give the university its purpose and its direction? Borden had become president at a time when Mount Allison had professed to be a major national institution, and had aspired to unbounded growth. He, ever the realist, had attempted to limit somewhat the scale of these hopes: Mount Allison, according to his prediction of 1911, would be a national institution in the sense that its role would be to supply cultured, Christian men and women for the Canadianization of the domin-

48 Mount Allison University

ion, but it was not necessary for this purpose that the university should be large. That vision, which had implied a particular vision of the role of the Maritime region within Canada, had miscarried by 1920. The indifferent success of the fund-raising campaign of 1911-13 had been one setback; the stress and strain of the war had been another. Furthermore, by the end of the war the western provinces of Canada had developed to the point where the talk of Canadianization as a missionary endeavour by those in other parts of the dominion was outdated. Indeed, the dynamic frontier society of the west, with its cultural 'melting pot,' was now frequently held up as an ideal by comparison with which the older and more homogeneous character of the Maritimes was found wanting. 181 In 1911, Borden's view of Mount Allison's future had been a bold vision; but after the war, as Borden himself knew, it was no longer a practical proposition. Rather, in so far as the 1920-1 campaign had any central theme, it was just the reverse of that of the pre-war years. The national role was not stressed: despite some statements to the effect that Christian education was needed in order to save Canada from the opposite evils of Bolshevism and unbridled capitalism, it was Mount Allison's service to the Maritime provinces that was most heavily emphasized, and the campaign organization was largely centred in the Maritimes. 181 Expansion, however, was the avowed aim, and the virtues of the small college found little countenance in campaign literature. Yet if Mount Allison were to be an expanding university serving the Maritimes, the inevitable result would be competition with the other institutions of the region. Over the past ten years, Borden had been prominent in his support of efforts at cooperation between Maritime institutions, especially in the matter of coordinating fees. The suggestion that Mount Allison might become the pre-eminent university of the region, even when made in the heat of the campaign, was hardly likely to advance that cause. Not only, therefore, was the 1920-1 campaign only partially successful, but it also revealed considerable confusion as to the nature of Mount Allison's future role. It was late in 1921, some months after the financial campaign, that Mount Allison was visited by William S. Learned and K.C.M. Sills, commissioners of the Carnegie Corporation of New York. The Carnegie Corporation had already given major grants to Maritime institutions, the largest being $500,000 awarded to Dalhousie in 1920 for endowment of chairs in medicine. In order to arrive at a more consistent policy for dealing with the various institutions, however, and with the encouragement of the colleges themselves and the

49 The Great War and Its Aftermath: 1914-1923

government of Nova Scotia, the corporation decided upon a detailed investigation of education in the region. Learned, assistant secretary of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, and Sills, president of Bowdoin College, Maine, departed for the Mari times in October 1921. 18 J When their report was published seven months later, its chief recommendation was that all the English-language institutions of higher education in the region should be centralized in a single university to be located in Halifax. 18 ◄ The commissioners' radical proposal was based on a critical assessment of the educational needs of the region, which had led them to the belief that 'to seek to perpetuate present arrangements ... is foregone defeat.' Small endowment funds, underpaid faculties, poor library collections, and inadequate physical facilities were all too typical of the Maritime colleges, and especially those under denominational control. Academic standards were also held back, the commissioners found, by competition among the colleges for students, which led to the admission of some who were inadequately qualified. While agreeing that the standards of the best students were very high - the academic record of Hunton's honours graduates in mathematics was singled out as an example - the report concluded that the Maritime colleges as presently constituted were not able to maintain general standards on a par with those prevailing elsewhere in Canada and in the United States. 185 As for Mount Allison itself, the report was largely factual, with praise for the faculty, described as 'a competent, well-prepared group.' The major criticism was of the physical facilities. Of all the university's buildings, the men's residence was declared to be 'the one adequate structure'; the commissioners also praised the Owens Gallery, while noting that it belonged to the ladies' college rather than to the university. If the university were to remain in Sackville, they went on, the minimum requirements would be the addition of a library, a science building, and a new women's residence to replace the Ford Hotel. The commissioners also commented on the interrelationships of the Mount Allison institutions, in a general regional context: It must be said that all of these schools except Dalhousie and, to a smaller degree, St. Francis Xavier, strike one as something other than genuine colleges. They are more properly collegiate institutes. This is due to the fact that they are embedded in secondary organizations that divide the attention and the interest. This arrangement is so familiar to the Nova Scotian that he does not appreciate its weakness. Actually it is quite impossible for either Mt. Allison or Acadia, each sharing its campus with a 'Ladies' Seminary' as large as itself or larger, and fulfilling an important place in the popular mind, ever to become the distinctive college organization that

50 Mount Allison University it could be if it stood alone. Being thus part seminary, part academy, the 'college' acquires from the general bulk a false importance that it cannot inwardly substantiate, and its own nature is in turn concealed.•••

As the university had embarked upon its great period of expansion in the late nineteenth century, so at the same time its primacy over the other two institutions had been affirmed. The fact that even now it remained the smallest of the three institutions in terms of student attendance gave weight to the observations of Learned and Sills. 187 The commissioners considered three possible solutions to the general problems of higher education in the Maritime region. The first, for each college to specialize in certain subjects after the freshman year and thus to differentiate itself from the others, they rejected as impractical. The second, for Dalhousie to be developed to the exclusion of the other institutions, would be condemned by public opinion outside of Halifax. The third possibility, and the one which Learned and Sills espoused, was for each institution to move physically to Halifax and there to establish its own campus as a constituent college of the new 'University of the Maritime Provinces.' Or, since Dalhousie might be called upon to give up its buildings and endowments to the new university, the commissioners suggested that 'Dalhousie University' might be another suitable name for the federated body. Whatever the name, it would be modelled, with adjustments, on the University of Toronto or the University of Oxford. While it would still be a small university in modern terms, the commissioners hoped that it would be able to hold its own in the national and international context of higher education. 188 The Learned/Sills proposal met with a favourable response at Mount Allison. During their visit to Sackville in the fall of 1921, Learned and Sills informed Borden in general terms of the likely contents of their report, whereupon he set about ascertaining the opinions of regents and alumni. It was soon apparent that in so far as the scheme was perceived as involving the absorption of the other colleges by Dalhousie it would be strongly opposed, and it was apparently one of the Mount Allison board members who gave the Canadian Press agency an account of the proposal in these terms on 21 December 1921. Much to Borden's embarrassment, it was given full coverage in the Herald the following day. 189 The commissioners' suggestion that the federated university might bear the name 'Dalhousie' also aroused controversy when it became public in 1922. 190 Tactless as that particular suggestion may have been, however, the fact was that the Learned/ Sills report had skilfully steered a course between the loose federation which

51 The Great War and Its Aftermath:

1914-1923

had been characteristic of the University of Halifax forty years before, and the strictly unitary character which had prevailed in the 'university consolidation' schemes that had occasionally been discussed during the intervening years. If Mount Allison moved to Halifax, it would enjoy all the advantages of a large university while still preserving its own identity as a college. Nor would Sackville be entirely abandoned, since the academy and ladies' college would remain there and would take over the stone buildings vacated by the university. At a time when the university was searching for a purpose and an ideal, might it not be that participation in this new and remarkable venture would supply that need? One who thought so was George Johnstone Trueman, one of those to whom Borden turned for advice. In his letter to Borden of 21 December 1921, Trueman gave a favourable account of the federated University of Toronto, and especially of the progress of Victoria University since it had entered the University of Toronto in 1892. The prosperity of Victoria contrasted, in his opinion, with the disadvantages encountered by Queen's and McMaster as a result of their decision to remain independent. Trueman foresaw strong opposition to Mount Allison's proposed move to Halifax, but feared that the alternative would be that Mount Allison would 'gradually drop behind and become a third-rate institution.' While admitting that a city environment held moral dangers for students, he refused to regard this as a conclusive argument: The proper place for a secondary college is a rural town, or the open country, but the place for a university is near a city. The city is becoming increasingly the centre of the nation's life. It is a University in itself with its lectures, its social organizations, its music, its great preachers, its distinguished visitors, its parliaments, its opportunities for social study.•••

Trueman's letter concluded by favouring explicitly the federation scheme, and it had a strong influence on Borden, who shortly afterwards described it as a 'statesmanlike document.' Excerpts from it, together with other letters favouring federation, were published in the Wesleyan, the Tribune and the Mount Allison Record. Borden, in fact, confided to Raymond Archibald in March 1922 that his consultations with alumni had left him 'surprised at the unanimity with which they approve of the consolidation plan. ' 191 The board of regents also responded favourably, resolving in May 1922 that it would 'sympathetically consider' the federation scheme, and dispatching representatives to the respective church conferences in the region, each of which in turn endorsed the board's action. 193 Borden, who by now had become a

52 Mount Allison University convinced proponent of the scheme, thereupon led the Mount Allison delegation to a special conference of Maritime universities and colleges in Halifax on 7 July 1922 and drew applause from his audience when he declared that 'if satisfactory arrangements can be made for carrying out the plan, ... we of Mount Allison would be disposed to enter into some Confederation scheme. ' 194 So far, the tide had flowed strongly in favour of the Carnegie scheme. Writing to Learned on 27 May 1922, Borden professed himself still surprised at the 'unanimity of sentiment' that continued to prevail at Mount Allison. Inevitably, however, opposition began to develop. By the following December, Borden informed Learned that 'some of our local Sackville interests are stirring themselves to work up an agitation against the movement. ' 191 He may well have had in mind the article contributed to the Argosy in that month by C. C. Avard, graduate of Mount Allison and publisher of the local Tribune. Questioning both the financial feasibility of the plan and the educational advantages of a large university, Avard feared that this 'visionary plan proposed by philanthropic Americans' would result in the abandonment of Mount Allison's distinctive traditions for no good reason. Avard might have added, though he did not, that the removal of the university would have a damaging effect upon the economy of the town. For almost twentyfive years he had laboured in his editorials to convince Sackville residents that the university was an asset to the town, and none had a better right than he to oppose the scheme that threatened to move it to Halifax. 196 On the board of regents too, scepticism became evident after the initially favourable vote. H.E. Thomas, Methodist minister in Sackville, and one of the Mount Allison delegates to the Halifax Conference inJ uly 1922, carefully distinguished between the approval in principle which Mount Allison had given to the scheme and the financial and political difficulties which would result from any serious effort to implement it. When the conference reconvened in October, Thomas returned to the financial question, and wondered whether or not the effect of the federation would be to make higher education more widely available in the region: Will we fling the door open, giving the poor girl or boy the privilege of education that will determine the course he hopes to pursue? If I so thought, I would sacrifice a great many things to bring it about. There is a fear in the background of my mind that perhaps it will not do that. '97

In the following month, there was further questioning of the feasibility of the federation scheme, when F.B. Black, newly elevated to the rank of

53 The Great War and Its Aftermath: 1914-1923 senator, reported as chairman of the regents' federation committee that there would be major hidden expenses involved in the move to Halifax: he estimated the cost at $1. 5 million for each college. Black also doubted whether the federated institution would be able to find adequate operating funds and concluded that 'a central University without sufficient funds will not do as good work as the smaller universities are now doing.' 198 These were not points to be lightly dismissed, especially as several of the other institutions indicated one by one that they would not join the federation. The University of New Brunswick had reacted with hostility to the Learned/Sills report on the ground that its recommendations applied to Nova Scotia rather than to New Brunswick. Two UNB delegates, including Chancellor C. C. Jones, were induced to attend the universities' conference in Halifax in October 1922, but in reality there was little chance that the provincial, tax-supported University of New Brunswick would agree to become a constitutent college of a university located in a neighbouring province. Its rejection of the plan was formally declared in January 192 3. 199 More damaging was the withdrawal of Acadia University in the following month. Acadia's initial response to the federation proposal had been surprisingly favourable, given the institution's consistent refusal to participate in previous schemes for university union: President G.B. Cutten indicated to Learned his own support for the plan in late 1921, and confidently expected that he could overcome resistance from his Baptist constituency. During 1922, however, Cutten became convinced that the Carnegie scheme amounted in practice to an attempt by Dalhousie to absorb the other colleges, and in the absence of his personal advocacy the Acadia board of trustees voted on 16 February 1923 to withdraw from any further discussions. Also expected by this time was a similar decision by St Francis Xavier. Inspired by the strong support given to the Carnegie scheme by the university's vice-president, J .J. Tompkins, the St Francis Xavier faculty had given a favourable vote in January 1922. In October, however, opposition from the Roman Catholic hierarchy led the university's board of governors to suspend its participation in the Halifax conferences; the rejection of the scheme was confirmed in a message from Rome on 1 5 May 192 3, by which time Tompkins had been removed from his position at the university to become parish priest of Canso. 101 These withdrawals from the Carnegie scheme threatened its success not only because each represented a step away from the comprehensive federation envisaged by Learned and Sills, but also because it was unlikely that a university not including all the denominational colleges would be awarded the federal and provincial government support for which the commissioners

100

54 Mount Allison University

had hoped. Yet still the proponents of the plan persevered. Borden, following the final session of the Halifax conference on 12 December 1922, joined the presidents of King's and Dalhousie in presenting a draft constitution for the federated university to the Carnegie Corporation in New York, and in January the corporation responded by formally offering to contribute three million dollars towards the expenses the scheme would entail. 103 A further necessary condition was fulfilled in April 192 3, when the Methodist board of education, after hearing a report from Borden, gave its support and specified that this support would continue even if the scheme could not be carried out in its entirety: 'this Board still approves of the general scheme of Federation, and considers it desirable that as many as possible of the Maritime Universities should be brought together, provided satisfactory terms of Federation can be arranged, and adequate financial support secured. ' Hopes were still being entertained, in fact, that Baptists and Roman Catholics might yet be incorporated into the federated university: President A.S. Mackenzie of Dalhousie assured Learned in February 1923 that there were influential Baptist laymen in Halifax who disagreed with the action of the Acadia board, while Learned himself expressed the conviction that 'a strong Catholic college will ultimately develop in Halifax and thus complete the organization and further make it possible to secure state aid for the central institution. ' Dalhousie and King's, the latter institution's campus largely destroyed by a disastrous fire in 1920, were firm for the plan. At Mount Allison, opposition had developed since the first favourable response, but no attempt had yet been made to reverse the approval of the scheme given by the board of regents in 1922, and when H.E. Thomas and F.B. Black made such an attempt in October 1924 they were defeated, albeit only by 11 votes to 9. At the end of May 1923, writing to Learned, Borden confided that his optimism was unaffected even by the possibility that only Dalhousie, King's, and Mount Allison would proceed: 'I do not see why your statesmanlike plan for the educational future of our Maritime Provinces may not in part be brought about and a strong and homogeneous group be made up of the three federating institutions. ' 106 202

204

201

There was also another reason for Borden's optimism: the appointment of a successor to him as president of Mount Allison whom Borden himself described to Learned as 'a very interested and intelligent advocate of the federation scheme. ' 107 The successor was George Johnstone Trueman. Borden had first submitted his resignation in 1919, but had been prevailed upon to withdraw it. By late 1921, over seventy years old and in uncertain health, he was in no mood to accept a further indefinite postponement, although

55 The Great War and Its Aftermath : 1914-1923 agreeing to serve until the summer of 1923. There was talk that he might be replaced by another minister, A.M. Sanford, a Nova Scotian and a Mount Allison graduate who was currently principal of Columbian College, a small Methodist institution in New Westminster, British Columbia. Yet when Josiah Wood reported to the board of regents on behalf of the presidential selection committee, Trueman's was the only name he brought forward, and the appointment was immediately made. Expressions of surprise in the Toronto press that a layman should be appointed were answered in the Wesleyan with the accurate reminder that Presidents Inch and Allison had both been laymen: the appointment of Trueman had confirmed the principle that the selection of a lay president was the norm rather than the exception at Mount Allison. 108 The only real surprise in Trueman's appointment, in fact, was that he should have consented to leave his position at the church board of education so soon after accepting it in 1920. For a graduate of Mount Allison who was also a native of the nearby village of Point de Bute, however, there were obvious personal attractions. After twelve years at Stanstead College and three in Toronto, Trueman returned to the Maritimes in 192 3· 109 For Borden, retirement was the culmination of a thirty-eight-year career as a senior administrator at Mount Allison. He had arrived to head the ladies' academy at a time when the expansion of the late nineteenth century was only beginning to gather force. Together with Mary Mellish Archibald to whom he paid tribute once again in his last annual report in 1923 - he had endeavoured with considerable success to channel that expansion in ways that would not compromise the academic character of the institution. Borden had first been considered as a candidate for the presidency of the university in 1891 but had been passed over, presumably on grounds of his inexperience in a university context. To his friend Raymond Archibald, he expressed some regret in 1919 that he had not become president as a younger man : 'I think I could have had things in a different state if I had been appointed twenty-eight years ago when my name was first mentioned in that connection.' As it was, his term of office had been dominated by financial crises, by war, and now by economic depression. And yet Borden, while the university narrowly survived these threatening circumstances, had not lost the progressive bent which had characterized his early career as a preacher of the social gospel. By 1923, his vision of Mount Allison's future was not that which he had enunciated in 1911: nor, realistically, could it have been. Instead, he foresaw an important role for the university as a constituent part of the larger federated institution to be established in Halifax. Borden's long experience was not entirely lost to Mount Allison, for 210

56 Mount Allison University in May 1923 he was appointed to a four-year term as chairman of the board of regents. Apart from that, however, he was now free to take his retirement, growing apples in summer at his home at Avonport, Nova Scotia, and wintering in his wife's native Bermuda. His leisure was as well deserved as it had been laboriously earned. For Mount Allison, the retirement of Borden was one of several changes during the early 1920s that severed links with the institutions' past. In May 1922, the resignation of Josiah Wood as treasurer was accepted, forty-six years after he had succeeded his father in that position. He was succeeded in turn by S. W. Hunton, assistant treasurer for many years. Wood remained a member of the board of regents until his death in 1927. As one of the two first graduates of the college, as a benefactor, and as a mature counsellor of the institutions, his influence upon Mount Allison had been profound. Also in 1922, news was received from Regina of the premature death of W.W. Andrews at the age of sixty-three. Andrews's career at Mount Allison had ended in 1910, and yet his tireless and imaginative efforts on behalf of the university had not been forgotten. J Another reminder of past eras at Mount Allison - a physical one - had disappeared in early 1921 when the Lingley Hall gymnasium had burned, just one day after the sixty-sixth anniversary of the building's inauguration on 30 January 1855. As the tangible and the personal links with Mount Allison's beginnings dwindled, however, so a historical sense of the earlier years began to develop. A proposal first made in 1916 led to the first Founder's Day observance on 29 October 1919, held in Fawcett Hall and at the grave of Charles Allison, and the custom was continued annually thenceforth. 1! During the turbulent years of the Great War and the post-war period, it was well to put current events in perspective by remembering the past. Historical sense or not, however, the fact was in 1923 that the future prospects for Mount Allison were prospects of change. 211

212

21

21 •

2

9

Changes in Prospect: 1923-1931

George Johnstone Trueman, who in 1923 became the fifth president of Mount Allison, resembled his predecessors in several important respects. Like all of them, he was a native of the Maritime provinces; in common with Pickard and Inch he was a New Brunswicker, Allison and Borden having been Nova Scotians. Like all of them, he was a Methodist; in common with Allison and Inch he was a layman, Pickard and Borden having been ministers. Like all of them, he had close prior associations with Mount Allison; in common with Inch and Borden he was a Mount Allison graduate, Pickard and Allison having graduated from Wesleyan University and then spent several years in other capacities at Mount Allison before becoming president. In other respects, however, Trueman was exceptional. He was the first president to have held a position outside of the Maritimes at the time of his appointment, and it was now fifteen years since he had left the region to become principal of Stanstead College. He was the first president to hold an earned doctoral degree: his PHO had been granted by Columbia University in the field of education in 1920 after the submission of his thesis on educational funding in Quebec.' Trueman's experience outside of Mount Allison and outside of the Maritimes was thus more extensive than had been true of any of his predecessors. Yet as a native of the small farming community of Point de Bute, located on a ridge overlooking the Tantramar marshes, he was also the first president whose personal roots were in the immediate vicinity of Sackville. Trueman's wide professional experience, and his deep personal affinity with Mount Allison and its surrounding district, did not always go well together, for the combination proved capable in the early years of his presidency of causing him serious dilemmas. The resolution of these personal ambiguities, however, was the key to a sustained and conscious effort to resolve the ambiguities which still characterized the

58 Mount Allison University university itself. While Trueman's vision of Mount Allison's future role ultimately failed to be realized, in the face of changing economic and social conditions, many of its elements were sufficiently strongly established to ensure that his influence upon the university would continue to be evident long after his death. Trueman's inaugural address as president was delivered in Fawcett Hall on 18 October 1923. Earlier in the proceedings, he had been formally invested by Borden, who was now chairman of the board of regents, and welcomed on behalf of the faculty by Hunton, the most senior professor. Since both Tweedie and David Allison - now eighty-seven years old - were also present, Trueman spoke to an audience that included four of those who had been members of faculty when he had entered Mount Allison as a freshman thirty years before. In the interim, his career had been spent as a theorist and practitioner in several phases of educational work, and it was professedly as a 'student of education' that he began his remarks by stressing the importance of recent developments in the social sciences. Through research in human psychology, it had become possible to evaluate the educational needs of each individual: 'every person,' Trueman maintained, 'has a right to the kind of education that will make him happy and efficient, physically, economically, socially, morally and intellectually.'• The study of human society, meanwhile, had made it possible also to shape education so as to serve social as well as individual purposes: 'the social aim, so much talked of today, seems the most comprehensive to this generation. One who is socially efficient must be able to earn a good living for himself and his family, and have something left for the activities that are carried on by the community.' In themselves, as Trueman was well aware, these observations were abstractions. If they were to have any meaning for Mount Allison, they must be grounded in more fundamental principles and then applied to the particular circumstances of the university. For Trueman, the essential purpose of education, and its justification, was to be found in Christian morality. And for him, as for other leading Methodists of his day, Christian morality was not concerned primarily with individual behaviour - although that was important too - but rather with social progress, with 'the uplift of the [human] race in every way.' It was this principle that enabled Trueman to begin to draw some practical conclusions. With the idealism characteristic of the social gospel, he believed that there could be no contradiction between individual fulfilment, to which each person had a right, and the social improvement which was the Godgiven aim of the human race. On the contrary, individual happiness de-

59 Changes in Prospect: 1923-1931

pended upon the extent to which a person's particular abilities were directed into a life's work that contributed in some way towards human progress, and any occupation was capable of fitting that description if it was the one most appropriate for the individual. From this, Trueman drew several conclusions in his address. First of all, he refused to recognize any distinction between 'liberal' and 'vocational' education, and rebuked those who had tried to make such a division. All education, by his definition, was vocational in an entirely literal sense, as it was the preparation of the individual to answer the divine call to serve the human race. All education was also liberal, as it must necessarily provide cultural as well as technical knowledge. In the case of engineering students, for example, Trueman specified that the provision of courses in liberal arts was not only desirable but was also vocationally useful: 'it is found that the men who learn to appreciate literature, to understand history, to know human nature, to work with their fellowmen for the uplift of the race, that these men when given also technical training become the leaders in their professions.' A second conclusion drawn by Trueman from his view of the purpose of education was the notion that all educational institutions were participants in a common enterprise, and one in which the university should take the lead. 'A university,' Trueman declared, 'should be the educational centre of its constituency.' In particular, it should recognize that many of its graduates entered some branch of the teaching profession, and ensure that they were 'acquainted at least with the principles of educational psychology and sociology.' Furthermore, the university must exert its influence in favour of 'progressive measures' to improve the quality not only of the high schools from which it drew most of its students, but also of the public school system as a whole. That Trueman was prepared to practise what he preached was shown in the ensuing years in a series of public statements on such issues as the deficiencies of rural schools in New Brunswick and the need for vocational schools as an alternative to conventional high schools. 3 There was also a further conclusion that Trueman drew at some length from his statements on the purpose of education, and one which had special relevance to Mount Allison since it concerned the particular function of universities. Trueman's view of the roles and responsibilities of university graduates in society was not in itself egalitarian, for he believed that social progress depended upon effective leadership and that institutions of higher education should identify and train the prospective leaders. Universities, therefore, had a right to be selective in admitting students, and Trueman took pains to refute the notion that such selection was alien to a democratic

60 Mount Allison University

society provided that appropriate criteria were used. What was essential, however, was that the criteria must only be concerned with the students' ability to profit intellectually and morally from higher education : In a country like Canada, people of ability come from every group. In these Provinces, especially, a much larger per cent than usual of the population is of good ability, and the available wealth is generally low. This creates a serious problem, for if the greatest possible progress is to be made, the higher schools of learning should be open for all who can enter them. In other words, whether a student gets a university education or not should depend on his ability, ambition, and character, and not upon the family income.

Trueman thus expressed that abhorrence of discrimination in education based on wealth which was characteristic of him and of his conception of Mount Allison's social purpose. His feelings were all the stronger for being founded on his own experience. As a boy, Trueman had attended the village school in Point de Bute and had not had access to a full high school education. At the age of eighteen, on borrowed money, he had taken a six-month course at the provincial normal school, and had then spent two years as the teacher at the superior school in Upper Sackville, while at the same time studying privately to fulfil Mount Allison's matriculation requirements. Even after he had entered the university his progress was slowed by the persistent weakness of his eyesight, and it was only after enforced intervals spent teaching and working on his father's farm that he had finally obtained his BA degree in 1902, at the age of thirty. Trueman never forgot these early struggles, and his greatest ambition for Mount Allison was that it should provide opportunities for those students placed at a disadvantage by residing in a rural area, where schools were inadequate, or simply by lack of money. 4 As Trueman indicated, and influenced again by his own personal experience, he considered that the problem of affording equality of opportunity was especially acute in the Maritime provinces, as a result of the economic difficulties faced by the region. It was this perception that led him to another essential element of his view of the particular mission of Mount Allison: It is the boast of our Maritime universities that they have served the world. Our men can be found by the hundreds leading the industry, filling the pulpits, and teaching in the schools and colleges of the United States and Central and Western Canada. We are proud of the success our men and women have achieved in competition with a continent, but in the glamour of this success we may have failed to realize our responsibility here at home. Certainly in the long run our ability to keep

61 Changes in Prospect: 1923-1931 up strong educational institutions and train men for service at home or elsewhere, will depend on our industrial success, and upon our schools and churches. One may therefore say without fear of being accused of narrowness that our Maritime Colleges must first serve these Provinces. They must set to work to further Maritime Province industry, to uplift our Maritime schools, and to man with men of devotion and power our Maritime pulpits.

For Trueman, the purpose of all education was to facilitate progress towards a society based on Christian moral principles, and to enable individuals to find themselves through participating in that great endeavour. The distinctive purpose of education in Maritime universities, however, including Mount Allison, was to give particular attention to the social progress of the region itself. Trueman's reflections on education were informed by modern developments in social science, and infused with the precepts of the social gospel. Yet through all, and most evident in his stress upon the university's responsibility to train future leaders for the Maritime provinces, there was a strong conservative bent. It was not the conservatism of undue circumspection - although Trueman himself was fond of remarking, as he did in his inaugural address, that 'it is in the nature of the races that settled these Provinces to move cautiously' - but rather reflected the conviction that progress in the Maritimes must come as the result of the organic development of the unique form of society that already existed in the region, and not through any process of internecine struggle. Trueman was aware that Maritime society was not homogeneous. This recognition of ethnic differences, for example, was shown in his consistent support of the nearby Universite St-Joseph as an institution serving the particular needs of the Acadians of New Brunswick. 5 Such diversity, however, did not change in his view the fundamental community of interest among the peoples of the region. His own Yorkshire ancestors, as he often remarked, had lived at Point de Bute for five generations, and he saw no need for the obscuring of such traditions by the 'melting-pot' effect so often cited with approval during these years in western Canada. 6 Indeed, Trueman hoped that the long traditions of the region could provide a framework for the resolution of social and economic difficulties, especially if fostered and strengthened by the universities. Some years later, in 1930, he sounded this theme clearly in a letter to the president of the Carnegie Corporation, F.P. Keppel, suggesting that Mount Allison might make an effective contribution in the field of rural economics: Our farmers are almost without guidance and are being driven to the wall in the

62 Mount Allison University economic struggle .... Mount Allison is in the centre of a rich agricultural section, settled by old Yorkshire, Scottish, and New England families. Of our million people, at least seven hundred thousand depend mainly on the soil for their subsistence. The Universities have done nothing for the farmers, and our contact with them has been mainly to take from them their sons to prepare them for other jobs and other countries, and to collect money from them to carry on our work ... . If the University is the intellectual centre of the country, it should not be too conservative, too highbrow, or too aloof to attack the problem, on the solution of which depends the possibility of the continuance of these fine old farm homes all through our land. It seems to me that Mount Allison from her situation and her traditions is the University in the Maritimes that should lead in thinking and experimenting and teaching in this field.7

In the mind of Trueman, therefore, the ideals of the social gospel were tempered by the belief that the future welfare of the Maritime provinces depended upon the region's ability to draw strength from its own roots, cultural and spiritual as well as economic. That the dynamic element of his thinking should rely upon this concept of organic growth was the characteristic that clearly differentiated Trueman from other Methodist intellectuals who had started from the same principles as he had. Trueman's friend and colleague, John Line, for example, was one of those who moved steadily after the First World War towards the conviction that the original social gospel movement had been too optimistic in assuming that gradual reform could ever bring about a Christian society. Instead, Line and others declared in 1936, Christianity must be seen as a revolutionary creed: one which must 'picture God as judging the world and taking sides,' and one which believed that 'crisis and catastrophe, no less than continuous growth, belong to God's way in history.' 8 For Trueman, however, in the deliberately limited context of the Maritime provinces, there was no reason to regard strife and division as the preconditions for the accomplishment of Christian social goals. The real precondition, he believed, was the freeing of those energies and abilities which already existed in the region, created by cultural developments spanning many generations. And the means of releasing those forces, to work for the benefit of the region and all of its people, was education. The notion that the inseparable purposes of Mount Allison were to provide a Christian education and thereby to serve in particular the people of the Maritime provinces was not new. Such, indeed, had been the goals with which the college had begun. As restated by Trueman in 1923, however, they did not imply that the institution would not change. Rather, the op-

63 Changes in Prospect: 1923-1931

posite was true. Trueman's insistence that Mount Allison must serve the Maritimes first, while reaffirming an old principle, was a decisive shift away from the concept that had prevailed during the late nineteenth century and before the First World War, when the university had sought a national role. That the university must serve the region effectively in the light of modern economic, educational, and religious conditions implied changes of a practical nature, and the months that followed Trueman's assumption of office saw a number of departures that clearly bore the marks of the new president's influence. Some of these were purely administrative, such as the consolidation of the three adjoining farms of the institutions under a single manager, A.J. Colpitts. 9 Others related more directly to the avowed purposes of the university. At a faculty meeting in February 1924, for example, Trueman pointedly enquired why evidences of Christianity was no longer a compulsory part of the undergraduate degree programmes in arts and science it had been made optional along with all other junior and senior year courses in 1919 - and declared that 'students in a Church College should be brought to consider the subject of religion.' There was opposition in the faculty, and particularly from Hunton, to any return to compulsory religious instruction, but eventually a new half-year course in 'religious knowledge' was introduced, which included study of Christianity in a comparative religious context and aimed to enable the student to 'co-ordinate his beliefs with the facts and principles with which his scientific and other studies have made him familiar.' The faculty stopped short of imposing outright compulsory attendance at this course, but the calendar noted that all students were 'expected' to take it in one of their last two years. ' In his first annual report, in May 1924, Trueman was hopeful that the new course, along with other encouragements, would improve the quality of religious life among the students. He added too that 'there is not on the faculty one professor who speaks lightly of religion.' Not all, he implied, were active church members, but without exception they were 'interested in religion, and in sympathy with the Church.' Also directly related to the concerns expressed by Trueman in his inaugural address was the introduction of courses for university credit through correspondence and summer school. First advanced by Trueman in a speech in Saint John on 6 March 1924, this proposal was quickly carried into effect: the first summer school began in the following July, while correspondence courses were instituted in the fall. As its full title implied, the Maritime Summer School was intended to be regional in scope, and was the first of its kind in the Maritime provinces. It was designed in part for ministers who wished to study towards a BA or BD degree, and in part for students of 0

11

12

64 Mount Allison University

Mount Allison or other universities who had to make up for courses failed during the regular year. Most of all, however, the summer school was for teachers. Matriculation courses were offered in mathematics and languages for those not yet qualified to begin university work, while a range of courses in mathematics, science, social science, languages, and history was provided for degree credit. 'Practical courses' for teachers were also given in educational psychology, sociology, administration of education, and educational method, while a special course was available for kindergarten and primary teachers. 13 The 1924 summer school was experimental, and the university took no financial responsibility for it. Trueman later recalled that 'they gave me the use of the buildings and told me to run the school if I wished to do so, but that I would be responsible for it financially and any loss would be my own'; he had, in fact, already taken the precaution of ensuring that several faculty members were willing to teach courses without remuneration, should costs exceed the proceeds of tuition fees. 14 In the event, the experiment was successful, as the six-week session drew an attendance of 55. Most were teachers, as expected; they came from many parts of the region - 34 from New Brunswick, 16 from Nova Scotia, two from Prince Edward Island - and there were also three from the United States. Some had not attended university before, but there were others who had attended Dalhousie, UNB, Acadia, and St Francis Xavier, and several who had attended Mount Allison. 1 s In the succeeding years, attendance mounted to 89 in 192 5 and to 132 in 1926, while several of the students also continued their studies by correspondence between summer schools. Trueman had commented to the board of regents in his annual report in May 1924 that the new arrangements would be 'an attempt to bring the University within the reach of a larger group,• and his hopes were proven to be well founded. 16 That annual report of 1924 concluded with a series of comments on the prospects for Mount Allison's future, in which Trueman promised vigorous efforts to widen the university's constituency and to cooperate with all other institutions, whether educational or religious, that were 'working for the uplift of humanity and bringing in upon earth the Kingdom of God.' As he also recognized, however, there was one major question that was unresolved and bore directly upon these matters: whether or not Mount Allison University would remain in Sackville. 17 Trueman had come to Mount Allison in 1923 as a professed supporter of the Carnegie federation scheme, and in the interim he had not changed his mind. Yet in his inaugural address there were hints that his views were not as firm as they once had been. His comments upon the matter of federation were brief and balanced, identifying the advantages of the larger, centralized university while noting that there

65 Changes in Prospect: 1923-1931 were many in the region who had yet to be convinced of its merits. When he turned to speak of Mount Allison, his tone was warmer: Mount Allison is a university small in numbers of students and professors, but great in the character and scholarship of the men and women she has sent out. On this campus, in this little country town, swept by the winds of restless Fundy, our students will not find the modern equipment of a great university, nor the experience of life as seen in Montreal, Toronto or Halifax. But here they can achieve success in the classroom, acquire habits of industry and concentration, and catch something of the inspiration that comes from direct contact with great leaders.''

Trueman's personal dilemma was already perceptible in these remarks, and was clear enough to prompt the president of the Carnegie Corporation, Keppel, to write to him in January 1924 - immediately after reading the text of the address - as to 'just how your mind is working with reference to educational federation. ' 19 Trueman's reply was avowedly that of 'a Sackville man and one whose people have lived in this vicinity for a century and a half,' as he admitted that on the one hand 'I would dislike to see the University moved away,' while on the other 'I see no great future for the institution except in the federation with other colleges. ' This was not merely a personal dilemma. Although made especially acute for Trueman by the conflicting conclusions suggested by his own reasoning and emotions, its roots lay deep in the history of Mount Allison. From the time when the college had been proposed in the late 1850s up until the demise of the University of Halifax in 1881, it had consistently sought to serve a regional constituency and to do so if possible as a college within the framework of a larger university. For some thirty years after the University of Halifax had failed, this concept of Mount Allison had been reversed, as the college became a university and aspired towards continuing growth and a national status. The financial crisis of 1911 had cast doubt upon the notion that Mount Allison could ever become a great, multi-faculty institution, and the turbulent events of the ensuing decade had prevented any sustained reappraisal of its role, despite the strenuous efforts of Borden. Now, and especially since Trueman had so strongly emphasized in 1923 Mount Allison's responsibilities to the Maritime region, the matter had to be faced. That Mount Allison must serve the Maritimes first was, for the time being at least, decided. The question was whether it could best do so by accepting the Learned/Sills report and moving to Halifax, or by remaining in Sackville. The arguments in favour of removal to Halifax were still essentially those advanced by Learned and Sills in their report. A federated university in 20

66 Mount Allison University Halifax would be large enough to offer a full range of undergraduate and post-graduate courses at a high standard, while the proposed collegiate structure would ensure that the individual identities of the federating institutions would not be lost. Even more important, as the political campaign for Maritime rights gathered strength during the early 1920s, was the argument that the federation scheme would give equal opportunities to Maritime students as compared with those offered by the federated universities of Ontario and the west. 'Father Jimmie' Tompkins had stressed this aspect in writing to Learned in April 1922 when he had declared that what was at stake was 'justice for the Maritime Provinces in matters educational.' A. Stanley Mackenzie, president of Dalhousie, similarly observed in a letter to Trueman in the spring of 1926 that 'even the Western Universities, which are so much newer, have already gone way beyond us,' and argued that only the federation scheme offered any prospect of righting the balance." If these were the major positive arguments in favour of the scheme, there were also considerations that tended in the same direction by shedding doubt on the ability of Mount Allison University to survive and prosper in Sackville. The fall of 1923 had seen undergraduate enrolment at Mount Allison decline to 146, the lowest peacetime enrolment since 1912. Although understandable in the context of the economic depression then prevailing, and reversed in 1924 by virtue of 'a vigorous canvass for students' conducted by H.W. McKiel and Ross Flemington - now a teacher at the academy - this trend illustrated once again the vulnerability of attendance levels to economic pressures. There was also the matter of competition from other institutions, which would presumably intensify if canvassing for students became a normal practice. And even if Mount Allison could survive as an independent university, it remained questionable whether academic standards would be maintained or whether the university would, as Trueman himself had feared in his letter to Borden in late 1921, 'gradually drop behind and become a third-rate institution. '•i To be sure, these pessimistic arguments could be, and were, countered by similarly questioning assessments of the practicability of the federation scheme. From the beginning, there had been questions as to whether adequate funding would be available. The Carnegie Corporation had offered to contribute $3 million towards removal expenses, whereas F.B. Black had estimated that it would cost each institution no less than $1. 5 million to move to Halifax and rebuild there. The chances of obtaining government grants for the central university were obviously not great, in view of the withdrawal of Acadia and St Francis Xavier. Even if a central institution were established, therefore, there was doubt as to where its operating funds 22

67 Changes in Prospect: 1923-1931 would come from, and this point was developed at length by H.E. Thomas, now editor of the Wesleyan, in an editorial of May 1925. The most pressing need, Thomas argued, was for higher education in the Maritimes to be made more widely available regardless of wealth and social class. 'To many persons,' he concluded, 'the determining factor in the scheme of Federation will be that it does not make cheaper the cost of higher education, but rather increases its cost, making it more than ever a matter of class privilege. To many this will continue to present an insuperable barrier.' The financial uncertainties also cast doubt upon Mount Allison's own prospects as ;i college within the federation, for a convincing argument could be made that by moving to Halifax in these circumstances Mount Allison would weaken its financial position at the same time as it would weaken the support of its alumni by repudiating its traditional association with Sackville. In due course, it might simply cease to exist, except perhaps as the name of a hall of residence on the Dalhousie campus. Trueman recalled later, in the draft of his unpublished history of Mount Allison, that various attempts to win reassurance on these points from Halifax supporters of the federation scheme had met with scant response: he had been 'led to believe that Dalhousie did not expect that Mount Allison would develop a separate campus with ample space for playing fields, gymnasium, and the development of her individuality as a College. ' s Yet these were negative arguments. They could not easily be dismissed, for if proven justified they would imply that all that Mount Allison had stood for in the past, and all that Trueman had envisaged in his inaugural address, would be brought to nothing by the federation scheme. Learned and Sills, however, had been convinced that the existing state of affairs could not continue - 'to seek to perpetuate present arrangements .. . is foregone defeat' - and neither could their warning be dismissed lightly. 26 Furthermore, Learned and Sills had provided an opportunity for a great act of creativity, a radical solution to the region's educational difficulties. To reject their advice was one thing; but for Mount Allison to reject it for purely negative reasons, without there being some identifiable reason in favour of the university's continuation in Sackville, and some assurance of its ability to survive there, was much more difficult. It was obvious that the withdrawal of Acadia and St Francis Xavier had harmed the scheme's chances of success, but the federation of Dalhousie and King's was quickly agreed none the less, and took effect in the fall of 192 3. 27 If Mount Allison were to join these two federated institutions, and if either a Baptist or a Roman Catholic college were added on the basis of support from members of those denominations in Halifax, it was possible that the larger federation might yet be brought 2•

2

68 Mount Allison University

about. Whatever Mount Allison's ultimate decision might be, there would be strong conflicting pressures. There was also another important factor to be considered, however, and one which necessarily postponed the decision, although it did not stifle debate, on the federation question. This was the matter of church union. When the Mount Allison board of regents resolved on 19 October 1923 that it would take no further action on the federation proposal 'until the Church Union scheme had been finally disposed of,' the postponement caused no surprise. Learned and Sills themselves had recognized that the two issues were bound up together, and had commented that the union of the Presbyterian and Methodist denominations would work in favour of university federation since it would almost certainly lead to the union of Mount Allison's faculty of theology with the Presbyterian college at Pine Hill. 28 The implication that the united theological college would necessarily be located in Halifax would have been hotly contested by many Methodists and particularly within the faculty of theology at Mount Allison, but all agreed that there could be no question of having two United Church theological colleges in the Maritimes. In the meantime, it was clearly reasonable that Mount Allison's final response to the federation proposal should be deferred, and there was no suggestion that the postponement was in itself a measure directed against federation. In recommending the deferral on behalf of the board's federation committee, B.C. Borden had recognized that 'the Carnegie Corporation consider Mt. Allison as the key to the development of the whole scheme,' and this statement by a known supporter of the federation proposal was duly adopted by the board and entered into the minutes. 29 Another strong advocate of the Carnegie scheme was John Clarence Webster, graduate of Mount Allison in 1882, and a distinguished surgeon who had retired in 1920 to his family home in Shediac and henceforth devoted much of his time to the study of Maritime history. Mount Allison's approval of the principle of university federation had been hailed by Webster as showing 'a spirit of enterprise and liberal-mindedness,' and had prompted him in 1922 to endow a five-year series of lectures in Canadian history at his old university. 30 In October 1923, following the board's postponement of its final decision on federation, he predicted confidently to President A.S. Mackenzie of Dalhousie that Mount Allison would readily consent to move to Halifax once church union had been settled. He anticipated opposition from Senator Black, and from 'the grocers and other shop-keepers' of Sackville, but refused to regard this as any real threat. 'Trueman believes,' he

69 Changes in Prospect: 1923-1931

informed Mackenzie, 'that the great majority of the men of influence among the Methodists will favour Federation.' 31 For the moment, though, church union was the most pressing issue. As early as March 1922, Borden had wondered whether an interim arrangement might be made for cooperation with Pine HillY That nothing had been accomplished along these lines was partly the result of the general uncertainties arising from the university federation scheme, but also reflected the mutual wariness of the two sides. At Mount Allison, there were suspicions that Presbyterian College was working in concert with Dalhousie - which still drew more than half of its students from the Presbyterian denomination despite its non-denominational constitution - to absorb the Methodist constituency, so that Mount Allison would effectively disappear. W.G. Watson, of the faculty of theology at Mount Allison, was especially indignant at what he termed 'the aggressiveness of these longheaded Presbyterians,' and for him the only proper solution was 'that Pine Hill should come here, and that it ought to be made quite clear that Mount Allison will be the Institution of the United Church.' 33 In Halifax, not surprisingly, the opposite view prevailed. In a letter of April 1922, for example, A.S. Mackenzie quoted a prediction by the principal of the Presbyterian College, Clarence MacKinnon: 'if church union went through and if Mount Allison came to Halifax, it would become the college, not only of the Methodists but also of the Presbyterians, and ... thus all the supporters and adherents of Dalhousie would switch over to Mount Allison as the college of the new religious body, and thus ... Dalhousie would practically be snuffed out at that time. ' 34 Cited by Mackenzie as evidence of the sacrifices that Dalhousie would have to make in the event of university federation, this statement was an extreme interpretation of the possible results of the union. Nevertheless, it illustrated that the stakes were too high to allow any precipitate action on either side. It was certainly widely assumed, as it had been by Learned and Sills, that the future theological college of the United Church would be in Halifax, and widely questioned whether the other faculties of Mount Allison University would then be able to survive in Sackville. Perhaps the nearest approach to a disinterested observer at Mount Allison - disinterested because there was no thought of removing the academy from Sackville even if the university should go -was J.M. Palmer, and he was sure that the theological faculty would indeed move to Halifax. 'Whether it would be wise,' he went on in a letter to Raymond Archibald in February 1924, 'to attempt to continue the Arts and Engineering here with the Theological Department in Halifax is a matter of grave doubt.' More partisan was H. E. Thomas,

70 Mount Allison University

who declared at a meeting of the executive committee of the board of regents a few months later that 'he deplored the attitude of mind of some Mt. Allison men, who seemed ready to give up without a struggle Mt. Allison's right to become the Eastern Theological school of the United Church.'JS The union of the Methodist, Presbyterian, and Congregational denominations was finally brought about in June 192 5. The Congregational church was not large in the Maritimes, having less than 3000 adherents in 1921 as compared with the 105,000 of the Methodists and the 177,000 of the Presbyterians- and virtually all of these Congregationalists joined the United Church. The Methodists also entered the United Church almost unanimously, but not so the Presbyterians. In the Maritimes as elsewhere, bitter disputes arose among Presbyterian congregations, and within congregations, as to whether church union was not a betrayal of the Calvinist traditions of Presbyterianism. By 193 1, the year of the first Canadian census after church union, there were almost 194;000 United Church adherents in the region. There were no continuing Congregationalists and only 308 Methodists, but more than 80,000 continuing Presbyterians, of whom well over half were from Nova Scotia.36 This division was reflected in Sackville, where, as a prospective United Church minister was informed in 1936, 'comparatively few Presbyterians came into the United Church and the great body of the United Church is therefore of Methodist origin.' Among those who did join the United Church were three of the four Mount Allison faculty members who had been Presbyterians, the exception being the biology professor Roy Fraser, who remained a lifelong Presbyterian.37 One other former Presbyterian who favoured church union was William C. Ross, head of the Presbyterian boys' school at Pictou. As Pictou County proved to be one of the strongest areas of continuing Presbyterian support, Ross's position soon became untenable, and by May 1925 he was applying to move to the Mount Allison academy, bringing with him a number of pupils. Accordingly, he was added to the academy staff that summer, and in September the first Maritime Conference of the United Church passed a resolution noting his transference with 'interest and sympathy,' and commending the Mount Allison academy to all congregations as the boys' school of the United Church in the region.}8 Yet at Mount Allison there had been considerable private discussion before Ross had been accepted at the academy. There was no doubt that he was personally welcome, but a lengthy debate had taken place in the executive committee of the board of regents in which the question of the future of the university was again brought to the fore. According to Palmer, as principal of the academy, the complicating factor was 'the fact that some Presbyterians were inclined to advocate the

71 Changes in Prospect: 1923-1931

centralization of secondary schools in Sackville to the exclusion of the university'; the committee eventually agreed that Ross would be welcomed to Mount Allison on the understanding that this action did not imply a commitment to removal of the university. 39 With uncertainty and mistrust thus obtruding into the issues arising from church union, there could be no doubt that Mount Allison's relationship with Pine Hill should be clarified as soon as possible. A preliminary meeting had already been held in Halifax in late February 1925 between representatives of the two institutions. In November, at its first meeting after the formal inauguration of church union, the Mount Allison board of regents named its negotiating committee. Headed by Trueman, and also including Palmer, Watson, and two of the clerical members of the board of regents, the delegation travelled to Halifax to begin discussions on 30 December. 40 The session was unexpectedly successful, for in that one day the outlines of the eventual settlement were privately agreed: the theological college of the United Church in the Maritimes, according to the provisional agreement reached, would be at Pine Hill; but the arts and science college of the church would be Mount Allison. 4 ' There were many details of the proposed arrangement still to be worked out, and the assent of the governing boards of both institutions had yet to be obtained, as well as that of the general council of the United Church. None the less, the advantages for both sides were clear. The suggestion that the Presbyterian college should move its work to Sackville had been rejected both on account of the inadequacy of Mount Allison's buildings and facilities to accommodate such an addition, and because of the likely resentment that would be aroused among Halifax former Presbyterians. Amalgamation at Pine Hill, on the other hand, would allow continuing use of the site and buildings there, where there was 'ample room for growth,' and the faculty would be augmented by the transference of two of the Mount Allison theological professors, Watson and Line. Mount Allison, on the other hand, would still carry on some theological work, since prospective ministers taking arts courses there would be able to take theological courses in their final year and thus gain credit for a year at Pine Hill. Most important of all for Mount Allison, however, was the assurance that it would now enjoy the full support of the United Church for its own operations. There were two aspects to this support. First of all, that grants should continue to come to Mount Allison from the church, just as they had before church union. Writing on 2 January 1926 to J . W. Graham, the secretary of the Methodist board of education to whom he had formerly been assistant, and now secretary of the board of education of the United Church, Trueman

72 Mount Allison University

put strong emphasis upon this point: 'unless we are given some assurance that our Arts work will be [financially] supported by the United Church, we shall not give up any of our theological work without a fight to the finish.' Trueman knew that Graham was sympathetic to Mount Allison's claim, and he was not disappointed, for shortly afterwards Graham informed him that an annual grant of at least $10,000 was likely for Mount Allison. 4 ' Secondly, the support of the United Church was needed by Mount Allison in the matter of student attendance. 'The Pine Hill men assert,' read the report of the Mount Allison negotiating committee, 'that if we make this compromise they will throw themselves whole heartedly behind our secondary schools - the Academy and the Ladies' College - that they will do all they can to induce people to send their children to Mount Allison for work in Arts and Science, and to have these three institutions recognized as the natural place to which people of the United Church in these Provinces would send their children.' Also agreed had been the principle that Sackville should be the location every year of the Maritime Conference. H The strong implication of the entire agreement was that Sackville would also continue to be the location of Mount Allison University. The agreement of 30 December 1925 was formally endorsed by the two institutions in the following February, and later in the year by the general council of the United Church. In the fall, Watson and Line departed for Halifax, along with eight students. 44 Yet the new arrangement was not universally welcomed. Clarence MacKinnon, who was to continue as principal at Pine Hill, saw every reason in a letter to Trueman in January 1926 to hope that it would be 'another of these happy measures that have so wonderfully knit the uniting churches together _' 4 s F. W.W. DesBarres, a member of the Mount Allison faculty of theology, took a different view, as he later recalled: Dr. Trueman was cajoled by the wiley [sic] Clarence MacKinnon into thinking the generous and unselfish thing to do was to make a present of our Theological Department to Pine Hill. This would be a magnificent gesture and would earn, for the Methodists, the gratitude of the whole United Church. Dr. Trueman swallowed the bait and was so carried away by the noble and self sacrificing picture of himself that he failed to see he was not only giving away the most vital part of Mt. A. but also forfeiting the finest opportunity for building up a really great United Church in the Maritimes.••

At Dalhousie University, an entirely different version prevailed. Writing to

73 Changes in Prospect: 192.3-1931

Morse Cartwright of the Carnegie Corporation in early March 192.6, A.S. Mackenzie described Mount Allison's agreement with Pine Hill as• a rather politic move,' aimed at making it possible for Mount Allison to remain in Sackville and at the same time recruit students from former Presbyterian families. While professing that he himself had no wish to impute 'ungenerous motives' to Mount Allison, Mackenzie noted that he had been upbraided by a prominent alumnus of Dalhousie for having 'allowed Mount Allison to double-cross you and grab your Presbyterian supporters. ' 47 The triumph of the wily Clarence MacKinnon over the gullible Trueman, or a cynical ' grab' by Mount Allison for the traditional constituency of Dalhousie? Both of these interpretations had some evidence to support them, yet both fell short of explaining the real significance of the accord between Pine Hill and Mount Allison. DesBarres was not alone in his opinion, and there were some who expressed it less charitably than he : Trueman informed F.P. Keppel on 17 February 192.6, less than two weeks after the agreement had been ratified by the Mount Allison board of regents, that some board members were already having second thoughts and that from other supporters of Mount Allison he was 'receiving some very bitter letters. ' 48 There was evidence too that Trueman's understanding of the agreement differed somewhat from that of MacKinnon. During their correspondence in early 192.6 - after the provisional agreement had been made, but before its ratification by the respective boards - MacKinnon went to some lengths to avoid any outright statement that Mount Allison should remain in Sackville other than temporarily. When, for example, he wrote in late January that 'Sackville is rapidly finding its way into the heart of the Presbyterian section of the United Church,' it was to the academy and ladies' college that he referred specifically, before going on to warn that if any conflict of interest should arise between Mount Allison University and Dalhousie 'it would not be possible to keep the discussion of Federation any longer in abeyance.' For MacKinnon, the question of Mount Allison's possible removal to Halifax remained open. •9 On the other hand, there were apparent grounds for the misgivings expressed by Mackenzie and his colleagues at Dalhousie. By requiring the full support of the United Church for its arts and science work, Mount Allison was undoubtedly attempting to safeguard and possibly expand its existing constituency. There was already a substantial minority of Presbyterian students at Mount Allison - 2.2.. 3 per cent in 192.3, as compared with the 62. .6 per cent of Methodists - and since the Presbyterian students formed the largest denominational group of English-speaking students in the region, there was a large target for any attempt at recruitment. This was certainly

74 Mount Allison University

a prospect enjoyed by the Tribune newspaper, which in late February 1926 concluded a leading article on the Pine Hill-Mount Allison agreement by suggesting that 'the fine work that is done at Mount Allison will become more widely known and doubtless more students will be attracted to Sackville.' Clarence Webster, who believed that the arrangement with Pine Hill represented the repudiation of federation in favour of 'a strategic gain' for Mount Allison, had harsher words. For him, the whole episode had shown Mount Allison's motives to be 'sordid and unworthy,' and its actions dictated by the overweening personal ambition of Trueman. 50 Trueman's attitude, in reality - and all agreed upon his strong personal identification with the Pine Hill arrangement - had remained undecided almost until the end of 1925. He knew that the issues of church union and university federation were closely tied together. His personal preference was for Mount Allison to remain in Sackville. But there were two major obstacles to be overcome before that emotional attachment could be transformed into a conclusive determination. First, Mount Allison must have a realistic chance of survival in Sackville. That could be assured by the support of the United Church which was made a condition of the agreement with Pine Hill. In itself, however, that was not enough. It was also necessary to grapple with the larger question of Mount Allison's place in the Maritime region, and do so in the context of the ambivalent legacy which had been left to the university by its nineteenth-century past. Could Mount Allison find its true role as that of a small, rural, church college? Or would continuing independence imply destructive competition with the other institutions of the region, and put the Maritimes at a permanent educational disadvantage by prompting the failure of the federation scheme? As Trueman reflected in his annual report in May 1925, 'we shall have to study the question in the light of the past, try to visualize conditions in these Provinces as they will be fifty years from now, and make the wisest decision of which we are capable. 'si As the year went on, opposition to the federation scheme hardened in Sackville and among the former Methodists of the region. Even among the Mount Allison faculty, which had originally favoured the scheme by a clear majority, only the scientists now retained their enthusiasm. 52 Still Trueman was undecided, commenting to J. W. Graham on 12 December 192 5 that 'I see the advantages so clearly both of going to Halifax and of remaining here. 'n By the time he wrote again to Graham, however, less than three weeks later, he had reached a conclusion: We at Mount Allison ... have about concluded that all the colleges should centre in Halifax for graduate and professional work, but should continue to give Arts and

75 Changes in Prospect: 1923-1931 pre-professional courses in our smaller centres. I have made up my own mind about this, after much study of the question, and am not likely to change my view until the experiment is fairly tried. That will make it too late to secure Carnegie money. The money, I trust, will become available for the graduate and professional schools in Halifax."

Trueman's mind had been made up by the fruitful visit to Pine Hill on 30 December 1925, but not only because the agreement concluded there had

made it possible for Mount Allison to remain in Sackville by providing for United Church support. That was one consideration, but there was also another. The agreement to transfer the theological faculty to Halifax symbolized a more general repudiation of the concept of Mount Allison as a large, multi-faculty institution. Instead, limitations upon the university's growth must be accepted as an affirmation of the particular role to be played by Mount Allison in serving the educational needs of the Maritime provinces. This theme was stressed by Trueman in both private and public statements during the winter and spring of 1926. To MacKinnon in early January, he advocated the retention of arts and pre-professional work 'here in the smaller community where we can sift out our students, give them special attention, and send the fit to the big centre,' adding that 'this plan also works in well with our Academy and Ladies' College. 'H In the Halifax Chronicle later in the month, he suggested again that the centralization of professional and graduate schools was compatible with the retention of small colleges in various parts of the region: 'larger numbers of students will attend these local centres than would go to a distant city. ' 16 Writing to Keppel in February, Trueman was willing to commit himself to a specific limitation of student numbers, suggesting a maximum of four hundred. In April he repeated this estimate to Mackenzie: 'I believe that there is a place for the small rural college and if it limits its attendance to about four hundred students, and confines its work to Arts and the preparation for professional courses, I think it can make a fine contribution to the life of the larger community.' 17 It was not lost on the proponents of university federation that before he had become president of Mount Allison Trueman had supported the Carnegie scheme on the grounds that a university was best located in a city. 'How a man could recede from this position except for unworthy reasons,' commented J.C. Webster, 'is beyond my comprehension.' 18 In part, the answer lay in the local and denominational opposition to the federation scheme, which had become sufficiently strong by late 1925 that it could not be ignored. The reasoned opposition of critics such as Thomas and Black

76 Mount Allison University had always carried weight, while in general Trueman reflected to Keppel in February 1926 that 'our people are conservative and one cannot lead faster than others will follow.' 59 Yet, be that as it might - and when Trueman resorted to blaming the conservative tendencies of Mount Allison's constituency it was usually in order to justify a decision which he himself had already taken - the plain fact was that Trueman had changed his mind. Later in 1926, he admitted as much to Keppel: 'I am not an out and out federationist, although I was when I was living in Toronto in close touch with Victoria. While I may explain that fact by saying that in the interim I have had additional experience and am now in a better position to judge, I am not unconscious of the influence of my old home surroundings and family friendships of five generations. ' 60 When Trueman had declared himself in favour of federation in 1921 he had been far removed from his rural origins. He had not lived in the Maritimes for some thirteen years, and had recently begun a new career as a church administrator in Toronto with every intention of remaining there. Although his diary reveals that at times he found city life perplexing, 61 his fascination with the cosmopolitan texture of the city had shown clearly in his advice to Borden on the federation scheme. The Trueman who returned to his home as president of his old university was a different matter, for he was confronted not only with his own conflicting emotions but also with the pressing social and economic exigencies of the Maritime region in the 1920s. It was no longer possible, as it had been when Trueman had left for Stanstead in 1908, to argue that the future of the region lay in uninterrupted growth as an industrial region of Canada. It was possible to hope, as Trueman did in his inaugural address, that Maritime industries would recover from their current difficulties and that prosperity would then return. But for him this would depend on a recognition that the region was still predominantly rural, and that its future welfare depended in great measure on the maintenance of a system of education that took account of that fact. Trueman knew from his own experience that, even during the days of industrial prosperity in the late nineteenth century, the chance of self-advancement had not come easily to young people in rural Maritime communities. Now, in the early 1920s, the economic depression affecting industrial areas of the region was also producing severe dislocation in rural communities, and resulting in out-migration on a massive scale. Even at Mount Allison, although overall student numbers recovered quickly from the absolute decline of the years 1922-4, the proportion of rural students continued to decline until 1928. 62 In these circumstances, it was clearly debatable whether the removal of all institutions of higher education to a single urban centre

77 Changes in Prospect: 1923-19p

would result in the more effective meeting of the region's needs, regardless of the academic advantages that might accrue. Yet Trueman admitted too that post-graduate institutions of the highest quality were needed if young graduates were to be retained in the region. Hence the suggestion that these should be developed in Halifax, while the undergraduate colleges remained where they were. In that way, he wrote in the Chronicle in January 1926, it would be possible in the Mari times ' not only [to] do our share in advancing human learning, but by thorough examination and development of our own resources, bring about such economic conditions as will enable this country to support an increasing and contented population. ' 6 ) Trueman's use of the term 'this country' to refer collectively to the Maritime provinces recalled the statement in the Wesleyan editorials of 1861, which had preceded the foundation of the Mount Allison college, that 'Eastern British America is our home' and that 'our love for our common country' was essential to the justification of the college proposal. 64 Then, as now, Mount Allison aimed to serve a primarily rural population in such a way as to combat the tendency to out-migration from the region. Trueman believed, as had Humphrey Pickard at that time, that it should do so as an avowedly small institution, although he also shared Pickard's dilemma as to how Mount Allison could best maintain its own identity while none the less associating itself with the other institutions of the region in a cooperative relationship. The view of Mount Allison which he developed in early 1926 was his answer. It implied a rejection of the notion that Mount Allison should be a large university in a dominion-wide context, and also abandoned the possibilities, enunciated at different times by Borden, that it should be a small university playing a national role, or that it should be an expanding university serving the Maritime region. Instead, Mount Allison would be a small, regional institution. More accurately, it would consist of the three institutions - the university, the ladies' college, and the academy - and each of them in its own way would offer an inexpensive, church-related education. Significantly, a brochure published in 1926 under the title of The Two Million Dollar Educational Plant of the United Church, Sackville, N.B. described each of the three institutions and went on to list all the resident students without distinction between university students and others. Attached was a map showing the wide distribution of the home communities of the students throughout the Maritimes and Newfoundland: the emphasis was not upon the institutional status of Mount Allison, but rather upon the regional constituency to which it offered its varied educational services. 61 Learned and Sills had commented that the presence of secondary institutions on Maritime campuses tended to produce 'collegiate institutes' rather than gen-

78 Mount Allison University

uine institutions of higher education. 66 Their recommendation, university federation, was one logical solution. Trueman's was also logical, although exactly the opposite: to make a virtue of such 'collegiate institutes' on the ground that, when combined with centralized post-graduate schools in Halifax, they represented the best possible answer to the particular needs of the region. An important question, however, remained to be clarified. How far were Trueman's personal views on Mount Allison's future development also those of the university as a whole, and particularly of the board of regents? When the board approved the proposed agreement with Pine Hill, in a special session on 4 February 1926, it also took the related step of deciding to proceed with the building of the Memorial Library at an estimated total cost of $150,000 for building and endowment. Construction was started during the ensuing summer on a site facing the academy across Main Street, adjoining the ladies' college, and close to the university science building. The site was in fact the one on which the science building had first been raised as the initial college structure in 1862. 67 Although the library was a long-standing project, having first been planned in the late stages of the First World War, and although a portion of the necessary funding had been raised in the immediate post-war years, the decision to proceed was inevitably interpreted widely as an indication that Mount Allison had not only abandoned the federation scheme but had returned to an expansionist philosophy. Such was certainly the impression of Webster after conversations with several board members. 68 Trueman, for his part, observed to Mackenzie, correctly, that the Mount Allison board had not yet made any formal decision on the federation question, and that all options therefore remained open at least in theory; the library could conceivably be used by the academy and the ladies' college even if the university were ultimately moved to Halifax. Trueman well knew that such an eventuality was now unlikely, and that it would not have his own support; he admitted to Mackenzie that 'our Board would be almost unanimous in voting down the federation scheme,' and that 'the opinion is fairly general both on the Board and among our friends outside that the federation scheme is indefinitely postponed.' 69 He also knew, however, that a formal vote against federation at this point, before the board had been induced to accept the notion of limitations upon Mount Allison's future growth, would indeed be tantamount to returning to a policy of unrestrained development. Thus, in the spring of 1926, conflicting impressions were gained from Mount Allison by those interested in the federation question. Webster, for example, believed that Trueman was exercising 'a subtle influence' by cov-

79 Changes in Prospect: 1923-1931 ertly manipulating 'the various factions in the Board' so as to induce them to reject the principle of federation without himself having to oppose the scheme openly. Keppel, on the other hand, took the opposite view: ' it looks to me as if poor Trueman is not going to be able to deliver his Board, and is a little afraid to say so. ' 70 During the summer, however, Keppel and several colleagues from the Carnegie Corporation toured the Maritimes and held meetings at the several universities. At Mount Allison, meeting on 16 July with Trueman, Black, Palmer, and certain other members of the board of regents, their conclusion was that federation might yet be approved 'in a modified form.' 71 Trueman had already suggested to the board, in his annual report in May, the merits of limiting Mount Allison's size and curriculum while cooperating in the development of graduate and professional schools in Halifax. This would imply, he had warned, that Mount Allison must 'give up all idea of ever becoming a University in the strict sense of the term, and confine the work to a limited number of students in Arts and Pure Science, and in preparatory courses for Engineering, Medicine, Theology, and other professions.' 71 By November, he was ready with a specific proposal, and broached it to Keppel in a letter written the week before the board was due to meet on the 25th. If adopted, the plan would commit Mount Allison to restricting its student numbers, to giving up all postgraduate instruction, and to coordinating its degree programmes with those of Dalhousie, to the extent of adopting common examinations if necessary. Trueman also suggested that eventually common degrees might be given by a federated non-teaching university, 'under some such name as the University of Eastern British America. ' 73 The name chosen by Trueman for the possible non-teaching university showed once again the extent to which his proposal was a conscious return to Mount Allison's original identity, for it was derived from the title of the Methodist conference under the authority of which the Mount Allison college had first been created. The substance of the proposal also recalled a previous phase in Mount Allison's history: it closely resembled the ill-fated University of Halifax. Still, it was not yet adopted. The results of the meeting of 25 November 1926 were encouraging but inconclusive, as the outgoing board of regents - the new board, taking office at the beginning of 1927, was to include several former Presbyterians as a result of church union gave general approval but left detailed discussion to its successor. It was on 19 April 1927 that approval was eventually obtained. As adopted by the board, the plan for the central, non-teaching university was left open 'for determination later.' On all other points, Mount Allison declared itself ready to enter into a formal scheme of cooperation with Dalhousie, King's, and

80 Mount Allison University other colleges if possible. While implying the abandonment of the original Carnegie commission plan for a larger federation, this 'less ambitious plan of federation' involved common matriculation requirements, uniform tuition fees, and common examinations. Mount Allison would give up its postgraduate degrees, restrict its undergraduate enrolment to 400, and support the building up in Halifax of professional and graduate schools.74 It was with satisfaction and relief that Trueman conveyed the results of the meeting to Keppel: We were able to make our Board understand in a way that they never seemed to realize before that it takes a great deal of money to do University work, and that Mount Allison's place in the scheme of education will be that of a small Arts college. Our success in making this clear to the members of the Board accounted for the unanimous vote given the resolutions."

Trueman had cause for satisfaction. Whether the 'less ambitious plan of federation' would be realized, and whether the creation of the non-teaching University of Eastern British America would follow, remained to be seen. These were matters that now depended upon the response of the other institutions. What had already been achieved was agreement at Mount Allison as to what the character of this one university should be, thus resolving the ambiguities which had existed ever since the financial crisis of 1911 had brought to an end the phase of unbounded expansionism. In itself, this did not mean that all difficulties were solved. The inadequacies of the existing physical facilities, for example, urgently demanded attention. The limit of 400 students did not represent an immediate curb, as the undergraduate population of Mount Allison was only 240 in 1926--7, and would be allowed to rise towards the anticipated maximum during the late 1920s. Problems of overcrowding would inevitably arise. Now, however, there was a finite goal to be reached, and a framework within which the operations of the university would then be stabilized. In all probability, this could not have been accomplished had it not been for the stimulus to radical thought that had been provided by the related influences of the Carnegie scheme and church union, for without these pressures the deliberate limitation of curriculum and student numbers would almost certainly have remained inconceivable. Yet in determining the direction in which Mount Allison had now turned, the personal influence of Trueman had been crucial. The view of Mount Allison that now prevailed was very much his personal ideal. None of its elements - the small size, the rejection of institutional aggrandizement, the church relationship, the complementary nature of the three institutions,

81 Changes in Prospect: 192.3-1931 the rural setting, or the regional constituency - was original to him. It had been Trueman, however, always conscious of his own Maritime background, who had been able to combine the elements into a coherent vision. Mount Allison could now proceed, with more modest ambitions but with a renewed sense of purpose. While the federation question had been under discussion, other changes had also been in the making. In particular, the mid-192.os saw a number of modifications of the university curriculum, including some that were imposed, or at least stimulated, by circumstances outside of the departments concerned. The removal of the faculty of theology had implications for the arts curriculum, since the theological professors had also taught certain other subjects. John Line, as well as being professor of systematic theology, had been professor of commerce and economics: in 192.6 he was replaced in the latter capacity by Norman Guy, a minister and a Mount Allison graduate, who had spent the previous four years as a graduate student in economics at Harvard. Guy was also to assist with the teaching of sociology, previously the sole responsibility of R.B. Liddy. The change could be expected, therefore, to result in more thorough teaching of social science, and this was confirmed by the expansion of the curriculum in both economics and sociology, to include such new aspects as the history of economic theory, the theory and practice of banking, labour organization, and programmes of social reform. 76 Also connected with the removal of the theological faculty was the appointment of the first specifically designated professor of history. F.W.W. DesBarres had taught courses in history for several years while professor of church history in the faculty of theology. Now, while his colleagues Watson and Line moved to Halifax, DesBarres stayed at Mount Allison partly to give 'pre-theology' courses to potential ministers who would attend Pine Hill after graduation, and partly to teach history in the regular arts programme. 'Human Progress from the Stone Age to Modern Times' was the ambitious title of the first-year course now introduced, while three more advanced courses were to be offered in successive years on various aspects of European history from the Reformation to the First World War.77 Changes in the fields of education and engineering were responses to circumstances outside of the university. Instruction in education had begun in 192.3 with a single course in educational psychology taught by Trueman. Although additional education courses had been offered at the Maritime Summer School, it was not yet necessary for graduate teachers in the Maritime provinces to have taken professional training at university: in Nova Scotia, for example, they could qualify through a four-week training course

82 Mount Allison University

at the provincial normal school after graduation. In 1926, this procedure was abolished by the province of Nova Scotia in favour of university-level instruction, and the result at Mount Allison was the hasty introduction in that year of four more education courses, including supervised teaching practice, and their inclusion as options in the junior and senior years of the BA programme. For the most part, the instruction was given by faculty members who also had other responsibilities - Trueman, Liddy, and Guy - although one full-time professor of education was added to the faculty. The alternative, commented Trueman to J. W. Graham in early 1927, would have been the loss of 'half our senior class' to other universities. 78 Changes in the McClelan School of engineering were prompted by the decision of McGill University in 1926, with effect in September 1927, that it would no longer accept engineering students who had not completed work equivalent to one year in arts; to comply with the new regulations, while still giving adequate professional training, implied in practice that three years were needed for the engineering certificate. Nova Scotia Technical College, in consultation with its affiliated institutions, thereupon adopted similar requirements, and in 1926 the new certificate programme was put into effect at Mount Allison. The change was welcomed at Mount Allison in that it was a move towards a more humanistic education for engineers, as opposed to a purely technical one.79 Nevertheless, it brought certain difficulties. Since the University of New Brunswick continued to offer a four-year engineering degree, many students who might otherwise have attended Mount Allison were unwilling to invest five years in their training. In the fall of 1926, only seven students enrolled as freshmen in the McClelan School, as opposed to 27 the previous year. 80 Numbers recovered in the ensuing years, but the adoption of the three-year certificate did not bring any surge of expansion. At the same time, the additional arts requirements, like the addition of education courses, put more strain upon the existing faculty of the university. It was a strain that was not easily borne: in his annual report in the spring of 1926, Trueman had estimated that the average weekly teaching load of a Mount Allison faculty member was already over twenty hours. 81 The cost of additional burdens in terms of academic standards would obviously be considerable. Not a result of outside pressure, but rather the product of the success of the Massey-Treble School within the ladies' college, was the introduction of the BSC degree in household science in 1924. A cooperative venture between the two institutions, the new programme relied upon the Massey-Treble School for courses in general household management, dietetics, clothing, and cooking - and the Owens Gallery for those in 'applied design' - while

83 Changes in Prospect: 1923-1931 the university provided the related work in science and social science, as well as in languages, Engish literature, and history. The new programme had much in common with the existing two-year 'normal and dietetics' diploma course, and was introduced to supply the demand for degree work on the part of successful graduates of the two-year course. Hitherto, explained the Record, 'many of our cleverest and most ambitious teachers have gone to Columbia and Cornell and remained south of the line. ' 81 The BSC in household science was quickly successful in terms of students enrolled, having its first graduate in 1925 and four more in 1927. From that time onwards, the degree was regularly awarded. The Bachelor of Music degree, by contrast, had had only one graduate since its inception before the First World War, and that one as long ago as 1917. Nevertheless, the degrees offered in music and household science, both arising from departments of the ladies' college, necessarily raised the question of the relationship between the two institutions, or rather of the nature of the distinction between them. In 1921, the Massey commission had objected to the proliferation of 'pot-boiler' subjects at Methodist secondary schools, and had recommended that the curricula of the schools should be simplified. The secretary of the 'commission of nine,' charged with making specific proposals arising from the Massey report, had been Trueman, then assistant secretary of the Methodist board of education. The commission of nine had duly recommended the application to the ladies' college - and to the academy - of the principles contained in the Massey report, but with little practical result. In fact, given the extent to which the ladies' college depended for its enrolments on subjects outside of a normal secondary school curriculum, it was hardly likely that it would willingly make any radical changes along these lines. The ladies' college, despite its large annual enrolments, was in a fragile condition. The stone addition to Hart Hall which had been completed in 1920 had cost over $50,000; some $20,000 of that sum had been covered by accumulated surpluses, but the remainder had been financed through incurring debt, and thus represented a continuing burden. At the same time, the number of resident students had fallen sharply in the early 1920s, reaching as low as 163 in 1923-4, as opposed to a peak of 222 in 1920-1. Accordingly, a loss of over $2500 was recorded by the ladies' college in the spring of 1924. For an institution that had been profitable for many years this was, as Wigle remarked in his annual report, 'somewhat humiliating. ' 83 The finance committee of the board of regents was willing to go further, declaring in its report of October 1924 that 'the impression seems quite general that the [ladies'] College is not keeping up to its old time standard

84 Mount Allison University

as the leading school of its kind in Canada. ' 8 ◄ The question of whether the fall in the number of resident students was owed to a decline in standards, or to factors outside the control of the institution, was debatable. Economic conditions undoubtedly played a part. So too did the establishment of the separate university women's residence at the Ford Hotel, for the boarding fees of the university women had been a substantial source of revenue for the ladies' college. By 1925, the number of university women had outgrown the Ford Hotel, which held only 4 5 students, and a serious effort was made by Wigle and supporters of the ladies' college to have them return to be housed in the ladies' college annex. After considerable discussion, however, the principle of the separate residence was retained, and a larger Sackville hotel - the Brunswick House - was rented in the summer of 1925, and subsequently purchased by the university. Holding 68 students, it now assumed the name of Allison Hall, and was intended to house the university women until a new residence, described by one sceptic in the Argosy as 'the mythical women's residence,' could be built. 81 Thus there was no relief for the ladies' college from this quarter, and Wigle had some justification for maintaining that financial losses were inevitable and should not be taken as an indication that the institution had declined. In a letter to the chairman of a special investigating committee of the board of regents in late 1924, he had further pointed out that the number of female academy students (those enrolled in commercial programmes) boarding at the ladies' college had fallen since its peak in the post-war period, so that this too had contributed to the fall in the overall number of boarders. 86 When the special committee reported to the board of regents in May 192 5, Wigle was vindicated in his main contentions that recent years had seen exceptional financial strains imposed by circumstances beyond the control of the ladies' college, and that the educational standards of the ladies' college had not declined. However, the report noted that the buildings and equipment of the institution had suffered from inadequate maintenance, and also suggested that the financial management of the boarding accommodation and the dining hall could have been more efficient. In conclusion, the report refused to make 'any recommendation of a specifically condemnatory character,' but its underlying implication that considerable changes were desirable was sufficient to prompt the resignation of Wigle. 87 Yet there was more to these developments than appeared in the committee report. The report went to some length to avoid personally impugning Wigle, and the board of regents showed a similar concern by inviting him to serve another year as principal before departing - as he did, to return to pastoral work - in the summer of 1926. 88 What was really at issue was not the personal financial

85 Changes in Prospect: 1923-1931 stewardship of Wigle, nor even the matter of the existing educational standards of the ladies' college, but rather the question of whether the institution could or should continue in its current form. Divisions of opinion became apparent when the process of selecting Wigle's successor began. One possibility was to appoint a new principal to administer the institution along traditional lines, although Trueman, who was a member of the selection committee, was determined that the chosen candidate must at least be an experienced teacher rather than a minister brought directly from other church work. 89 The more radical course, however, and one that had Trueman's support, was to reform the ladies' college along the lines suggested in the Massey report, so that it would be purely a secondary school for girls. Trueman argued in his annual report for 1926-7 that the present ladies' college was 'both a secondary school and a ladies' college,' since students in household science, music, and fine arts were often mature in years and in some cases were matriculated students working towards degrees. That they were subjected to the irritating disciplinary regulations of the ladies' college, which were designed primarily for younger students, was one problem; another was that the university had to pay higher salaries to instructors in degree programmes such as household science than were normally paid to ladies' college teachers, thus causing anomalies within the ladies' college. As posed by Trueman, the question was as follows: 'Should Mount Allison bring all work in advance of matriculation under the University, or is there some other better way to deal with the situation ?' 9° Closely associated with the argument for radical reform of the ladies' college was a renewal of the call, which had gone unheard in 1917, for a woman principal. This, remarked Trueman in January 1926, would be 'a natural development. ' 91 It was one that was not yet to come about, despite a favourable vote in principle by the board of regents in the following May. When W. C. Ross was appointed principal at that time for a one-year term, a condition of the decision was that, one year hence, 'in the opinion of the Board it would be preferable to employ a Lady Principal for the Ladies' College.' A year later, however, Ross was reappointed on a permanent basis. 91 The appointment of Ross represented a defeat for those who would have preferred to see a radically reformed ladies' college put under the direction of a woman, with those enrolled in the more advanced ladies' college programmes being given the status of university students. Instead, no reforms had been made, and the ladies' college was continued in its existing form; it remained to be seen whether the difficulties that had emerged during the early 1920s would prove to be isolated problems or heralds of worse things to come. There was no question of the personal capabilities of Ross. A

86 Mount Allison University minister he was, like all of his predecessors except for J.R. Inch, but he was also an experienced teacher. Taking up residence in the ladies' college with his wife and three young children, he was soon successful in creating an atmosphere of informality in which some of the more restrictive disciplinary regulations were relaxed. He also proved to be a tireless campaigner in the cause of recruiting students, no doubt all the more effective because he was a former Presbyterian and thus could represent the claim of Mount Allison to serve a United Church constituency rather than only the former Methodists. Ross also had the good fortune to take over the direction of the ladies' college at a time when the worst effects of the economic depression of the early 1920s were giving place to a limited degree of prosperity, based largely on industries related to production of primary resources and on a temporary construction boom. 93 Yet at an institution where, as Ross himself noted in his first annual report, 'the greater proportion of our students is taking cultural rather than literary subjects,' any renewal of the hard times might pose insuperable difficulties. 94 In the meantime, the ladies' college prospered. By 1928-9, Ross was able to report 'a record year' with 451 students registered, including 194 in residence, as compared with 150 in residence and a total enrolment of 347 two years earlier. 9 ' All the departments shared in the increase, although there was especial evidence of vigour in the conservatory. In part, this was due to the arrival of Harold Hamer in October 1927 to teach organ and choral work. A twenty-seven-year-old Englishman from Leeds, Hamer now began a long career of service to the conservatory, and in the earlier years his talents combined with those of Brunton, still director of the conservatory, to ensure high standards of both teaching and performance. The two were responsible, for example, for the revival of the notion of local examination centres in 1930: this concept had been introduced to Mount Allison by Brunton prior to the First World War, but had not been taken up again after the war. It now became an important part of the conservatory's efforts to find and develop the talents of potential musicians throughout the region. 96 Another feature of the conservatory's activities during these years was regular radio broadcasting. The first experiments in this medium had been in 1924, when a small studio had been established in the conservatory for direct broadcasting. Two years later, a more satisfactory arrangement was made by which concerts could be transmitted by telephone line to Moncton to be broadcast by the more powerful equipment of radio station CNRA. The first such occasion on 26 November 1926 was described in her diary by Victoria Ross, wife of the principal:

87 Changes in Prospect: 19.23-1931 We tried out an experiment tonight in broadcasting a concert direct from Beethoven Hall. Mr. Victor George, an engineer from c.N . R.A. Moncton, set the stage with a weird assortment of wires, draped heavy curtains around it and one by one our star pupils in music and oratory were lured within to do their stuff. It all seemed so amateurish and primitive, we turned on the radio in the Common Room with misgivings. The whole school was gathered there to share what was a thrill, for the program was coming to us beautifully from the Moncton station . .,

Also flourishing during the late 19.20s was the school of art, under the direction - in fact, though not yet in name - of Elizabeth McLeod. McLeod had studied with John Hammond, and had joined the teaching staff of the Owens Gallery while still a student, in 1895 . A member of the Royal Canadian Academy since 1916, she taught design, painting, and art history. She had also undertaken advanced study in New York, and in 19.29 had the pleasure of writing the commentary in the New York art magazine Design on a two-page display of designs by her Mount Allison students, based on the views of small organisms they had seen through the microscopes of Roy Fraser's biology laboratory. 98 No professor of art had been appointed to succeed Hammond, and it was not until 1930 that McLeod was given the title of department head. Yet she, together with four other staff members, ensured the vigour of the Owens Gallery in its teaching of both fine and applied arts. Ross, in his first report in 19.27, was well justified in concluding that 'the Art Department is in excellent hands, and in good condition. ' 99 The prosperity of the late 19.20s, both at the ladies' college itself and more generally, provided an encouraging setting for the celebrations held in September 19.29 to mark the seventy-fifth anniversary of the opening of the female branch of the Wesleyan Academy, from which the ladies' college had sprung. Despite heavy rain, Fawcett Hall was filled on the afternoon of 18 September with alumnae and other guests attending the anniversary service. They included former students who had travelled from Great Britain, the United States, and each province of Canada. There were even two survivors of the original student body of 1854: Charlotte Dixon Hart and Isabella Richardson Bowser. Naturally, there was much reminiscence and celebration of past achievements, and this was reflected in addresses delivered by prominent alumnae both at the service and at the dinner that followed in the ladies' college dining hall. Sarah Shenton Gronlund recalled in the afternoon that some 900 graduates had gone out from the various diploma courses over the previous three-quarters of a century and that probably more than 5000 young women all told had been students at some time. Maud Maxwell

88 Mount Allison University

Vesey, in the evening, stressed the quality of the education they had received. 'Mt. Allison is on the road,' she remarked, 'to a wider destiny as measured by the standards of today, but she can never be more successful than she has been in the past. ' ° Coming on the verge of a decade during which economic conditions would impose extraordinary strains upon the ladies' college, resulting in its virtual collapse as an institution, this was a poignant reflection. 10

The university, by 1929, was making strenuous efforts to cope with the consequences of the decision to remain in Sackville. The immediate consequences were twofold. First, the decision itself - and the associated restriction of the university's future growth - had to be consolidated and defended. Secondly, measures were needed in order to ensure that the university could not only continue in Sackville but do so without relaxing its academic standards. Neither of these tasks was likely to be easy. The first, the consolidation of the decision taken in the spring of 1927, soon brought serious difficulties, as Mount Allison's 'less ambitious plan of federation' was quickly rejected both by Dalhousie University and by the Carnegie Corporation as being too loose to be the basis of a genuine federation. The formal response of the Dalhousie board of governors was dated 16 September 1927, and did not dismiss the Mount Allison proposals in themselves, but expressed willingness to discuss them at some future time; it refused, however, to regard them 'in any way as involving the general conception of federation.' The Carnegie Corporation similarly resolved that the proposals did not carry out 'either the letter or the spirit' of the federation scheme. W.S. Learned, co-author of the original scheme, was more forthright when writing privately to Keppel: Mount Allison's plan appeared to him to be 'a remarkable camouflage of an attempt to have one's cake and eat it.' For 'these feeble institutions' of the Maritime provinces, Learned believed, the only possibility of a prosperous future lay in a union in Halifax, at least for all courses above the sophomore year. ' There could be no doubt that the rejection of the Mount Allison proposals by the Carnegie Corporation was final, and that any measures of cooperation with Dalhousie would now be negotiated piecemeal rather than form part of a general accord. At a meeting of the central advisory committee of the Carnegie Corporation - a body founded in 1924, composed of representatives from Maritime universities and governments, to advise the corporation on the progress of the federation scheme - Trueman confirmed in April 1928 that the federation scheme was now unfeasible as far as Mount Allison was concerned. The rejection of Mount Allison's proposals had a 101

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10 }

89 Changes in Prospect: 1923-1931

number of serious implications. The most obvious was the blocking of the particular measures proposed, although these could still be pursued - as they were in 1929 and 1930 - separately from the question of federation. Also regrettable from Mount Allison's point of view was the implied exclusion of any remaining possibility that the university would receive financial assistance from the Carnegie Corporation, even though the corporation's offer of a subsidy of $3 million for federating institutions remained open until I July 1929. That Mount Allison would not now participate in the funding was no surprise, however, at least to Trueman, who had advocated in January 1926 that the Carnegie funding should be devoted to building up professional and graduate schools in Halifax. '04 The most serious question raised for Mount Allison by the rejection of its proposals was a more general one: could the agreement within the university itself as to its future course now survive? Trueman was fully prepared to admit that the specific measures of cooperation that had been proposed would have led only to a loose federation. He wrote to Mackenzie on 17 November 1927, two days after the Mount Allison board of regents had taken formal notice of the rejection, that in themselves the proposals 'did not amount to a great deal,' but represented 'a friendly gesture and an earnest expression of our desire to co-operate to the fullest extent with you.' Writing to Keppel on the following day, he undertook once again to seek cooperation with Dalhousie and suggested that the rejected proposals still comprised 'the way the Universities are likely to follow if there is to be any federation ... .' 101 Trueman was still convinced; the question was whether the board of regents and the faculty would remain equally committed to the notion of a small Mount Allison now that this resolve could no longer be solidified by a formal agreement with other institutions. Matters were soon complicated further by the development of strains within the relationship between Mount Allison and Pine Hill. Minor skirmishes took place in 1927 and 1928 over the status of final-year arts students at Mount Allison who proposed to study for the ministry. The agreement of 1926 had specified that such students would obtain credit at Pine Hill for one year's theological training taken while completing the BA course at Mount Allison. In late 1927, an amendment was proposed by Clarence MacKinnon by which such students would be listed in church records as attached to Pine Hill rather than Mount Allison, even though resident in Sackville. When this was refused by Mount Allison, MacKinnon went on to suggest in early 1928 that these students should take their final year in Halifax, returning to Mount Allison only to graduate. 106 In more placid times, these suggestions would have been unexceptionable as matters for

90 Mount Allison University

debate. In the early years of an agreement that had so recently been controversial at Mount Allison, they inevitably revived old resentments. Suspicions were further fuelled when John Line announced that he would leave Pine Hill to take up a position in the theological faculty of Victoria University in the fall of 1928. This removal had apparently been initiated by an approach from Victoria, so that Pine Hill could not realistically be blamed. Nevertheless his departure - and he was not immediately replaced - meant that only one former Methodist remained on the Pine Hill faculty, and that there was renewed reason to suggest that Mount Allison's own faculty of theology had, in effect, been abolished in favour of Pine Hill rather than merged to create a new entity. As early as April 1928, soon after Line's intention had become known, Trueman confided to J. W. Graham that the damage might be serious. You of course will have heard that Line is moving to Toronto. This breaks up the arrangement we had with Pine Hill and puts many of our people on edge. I suppose one cannot blame Victoria, but she could have done nothing more effective to disturb the situation here at the present time. The general feeling on our staff is that we should strike at once for the Theological College to come to Mount Allison where it belongs. I see difficult days ahead before full adjustments are made, but I shall stand strongly for the present arrangement till we have given it a fair trial. '07

Any immediate attempt to have Mount Allison repudiate the agreement with Pine Hill, however, was discouraged by another factor: Mount Allison was about to ask the Maritime Conference of the United Church for its support in running a fund-raising campaign. No matter how modest were the stated aims of Mount Allison for the future, the decision to remain in Sackville necessarily implied the raising of large amounts of money for endowment funds and new buildings. The advice of Learned and Sills might be ignored in a general sense, but their strictures upon the inadequacies of Mount Allison's physical plant and equipment were unquestionably justified, and were becoming all the more so as student numbers rose towards the 400 level. The Memorial Library had opened in June 192 7, at a ceremony held in conjunction with the Maritime Conference of that year, and undoubtedly helped to relieve overcrowding. ' 08 Yet residential facilities at the university were fully taxed, and the accommodation of the women students in the Brunswick Hotel was obviously unsatisfactory as a permanent solution. Also a temporary measure had been the building of a small biology annex in 1923, to relieve overcrowding in the science building, and new laboratory and classroom facilities in science were urgently needed. 'I dislike

91 Changes in Prospect: 1923-1931 the idea of going out for money intensely,' wrote Trueman to Graham in January 1928; but there was no realistic alternative. •09 There were also other long-standing problems that made a financial campaign desirable. Faculty salaries were inadequate and workloads excessive. So they had been for many years, and improvements during the 1920s had been minimal. In 1926-7, the highest non-presidential faculty salary had been $2800 and the lowest $2400; these compared, for example, with a standard salary of $4000 for the theological professors at Pine Hill. ' As student numbers increased, so did the stress of teaching. To some extent, this problem was offset by the appointment of recent graduates as instructors and lecturers, particularly in science subjects, but the number of professorial appointments was not increased either in 1927 or 1928, despite rising enrolments."' Increased endowment funds were clearly needed in order to ensure a sufficient number of adequately paid faculty members. More generally, endowments were also needed in order to balance the university's annual budget. Until the library had been built, the income on the funds subscribed for its construction had been used for this purpose. Not only was this no longer possible, but the eventual cost of building the library exceeded available funds by over $30,000, not helped by the bankruptcy of the main contractor before the work was finished. This amount was now assumed as debt. In the 1927-8 year, the university showed an alarming operating deficit of just over $u,ooo. The finance committee of the board of regents tersely observed that 'the immediate need of increased Endowment is obvious.' The Mount Allison campaign was approved by the Maritime Conference in June 1928: according to the United Churchman, the periodical that had replaced the Wesleyan after church union, the news of the appeal was 'enthusiastically received. ' 11 } Planning began during the fall of 1928 in preparation for a concentrated effort between 27 January and 3 February 1929, with the target set at no less than one million dollars. From this sum were to be built a women's residence, a science building, and a new classroom and laboratory building for the academy. Also included were repairs to the ladies' college. Finally, $400,000 was to be added to endowment. 114 It was an objective worthy of a time characterized, according to the United Churchman, by a 'jubilant spirit' throughout the Maritimes, caused by the return of economic prosperity. 115 Yet it proved to be too high. By May 1929, just over $440,000 had been subscribed in all, and further subscriptions obtained in the following year amounted to less than $40,000. Furthermore, by April 1930, only some $164,000 had been paid in cash, and as the depressed 1930s began unpaid subscriptions were clearly of limited value. 116 As early as in 10

112

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its issue of February 1929, the Mount Allison Record admitted disappointment with the results of the campaign, although refusing to acknowledge defeat; the campaign, it declared, was 'uphill work, and it should not be.' 117 According to Trueman, writing in the Record in April, the campaign had shown 'that in the main a person's interest in Mount Allison is in inverse ratio to his ability to give.' 118 Certainly his own efforts to solicit large subscriptions from wealthy potential donors both in the Maritimes and in central Canada had had disappointments, although almost $150,000 had been raised from these 'special names.' One possible subscriber who refused to be persuaded-although after a dogged pursuit by Trueman he did eventually promise to donate $25,000 at some time within five years - was the leader of the federal Conservative party, R. B. Bennett. Although he was not himself an alumnus, Bennett's two sisters had attended Mount Allison, and his brother Ronald Bennett was a resident of Sackville and a member of the campaign executive committee. To Trueman's request, first broached in the spring of 1928, that he should personally finance the construction of the proposed women's residence, Bennett had a brusque reply: 'as for your suggestion that I should build a dormitory at an expense of about $150,000, I can only thank you for the compliment.' 119 The most favourable results from the campaign, in relation to the amounts to be expected, were those from the student body and from the town of Sackville. The student campaign raised over $13,000 and was described in the Argosy as 'an unprecedented success. ' In the town, the appeal was strongly supported in the local press, and organized by the publisher of the Tribune, C.C. Avard: although the objective of $50,000 was not reached, over $36,000 was raised. Most disappointing were the results of the church campaign, through which alumni donations were also channelled. The quotas for each presbytery in the Maritime Conference had been set deliberately high, so as to leave a 'margin of safety.' Thus the combined quotas amounted to over one million dollars, and there was no realistic expectation that the church campaign by itself could achieve this figure; but if success were to be achieved, a substantial proportion of the quotas would have to be gathered. By May 1929, only some 18.0 per cent had been reached, or a total of $217,415. In part, this shortfall was accounted for by deficiencies of organization: virtually no canvassing took place in Newfoundland, for example, where the target figure was just over $u5,ooo. The real failure, however, had been in Nova Scotia, where intensive campaigning had taken place and yet only 14. 3 per cent of the projected total had been realized. In some presbyteries the proportion was much lower, including the wealthy presbytery of Halifax, 120

121

93 Changes in Prospect: 1923-1931

which contributed only 10.7 percent of its projected figure of over $135,000. In New Brunswick, the totals were proportionally much higher, although still far short of what had been hoped: the proportion achieved of the overall target was 29.3 per cent, with individual presbyteries ranging from the 16.9 per cent of St Stephen to the 69.2 per cent of Woodstock. The presbytery of Prince Edward Island raised some $24,000, or 24. 7 per cent of its projected total. Only in three presbyteries had the results of the campaign exceeded one-third of what had been hoped, and only Woodstock had raised over half of its quota.,., The campaign had been intended as a means of consolidating Mount Allison's position in Sackville and of making it possible for the university to function as the small, regional institution it had resolved to be. Now that the campaign had been less than successful, and given the strains in the relationship with Pine Hill that had been obscured but not resolved while the campaign had been under way, the agreement on Mount Allison's future role would inevitably be threatened once again. If the decision of 1927 were to be defended, it could only be by downplaying the failure of the campaign and stressing that a substantial sum had been raised nevertheless. Trueman, in the Record of February 1929, maintained that 'in a general way one can say that one-half of the objective is assured.' 123 In May, as chairman of a special committee of the board of regents on future policy, he reported the committee's recommendation that although no new buildings could be immediately constructed on the basis of the campaign, the subscriptions were sufficient to allow substantial repayments of debt and the addition of four new faculty positions. These conclusions were endorsed by the board. 124 Privately, however, the notion of Mount Allison as a small church college in Sackville had come under attack from two directions during the winter and spring of 1929. As early as in the meeting of the executive committee of the board of regents on 13 February, C.C. Avard - always an advocate of a greater Mount Allison, and fresh from his own success in the Sackville fund-raising campaign - drew one possible conclusion from the failure of the church campaign: The secretary [Avard] suggested the advisability of Mount Allison becoming independent of the United Church. Either the United Church must get behind Mount Allison in a very real way or Mount Allison will be obliged to make an appeal to a broader constituency. "'

An entirely different conclusion was drawn by those who had favoured the

94 Mount Allison University Carnegie federation scheme, and particularly by President Mackenzie of Dalhousie, who assessed the results of the Mount Allison campaign in a letter to Keppel in May : There is no doubt that the Mount Allison people realize that their campaign was a failure . The wealthy Unionists in this City would do nothing for them, and I think that is true of the people of means in the Unionist Church in all of the Maritime Provinces. Again, I think it is a fair statement to make that the old Presbyterians now in Union are not happy over the situation. I believe it would not be difficult to stir up a schism in the Union Church over the matter. So many of the proponents of federation feel that a little group of interested local men around Sackville have killed federation. They have the votes to do so, but not the influence to carry Mount Allison by itself against the apathy of so many of the Union Church. " 6

It was now possible that the issues raised by chµrch union and university federation would be fought over once again, and that the settlements of 1926 and 1927 would fail to endure. Yet endure they ultimately did. No matter what talk there might be of a Mount Allison set free from the bonds of its church affiliation and thus able to reach a greater destiny, the fact was that the existing financial conditions, in the wake of the half-successful fundraising campaign, precluded any radical departures towards that goal. This was even more true as the depression of the 1930s deepened. Although the question of disaffiliation from the church was not dead, it would have to await the advent of more prosperous times before it could be seriously discussed. The reopening of the federation debate was a more immediate possibility. Mackenzie predicted in his letter to Keppel in May 1929 that Clarence MacKinnon would soon raise the matter again, and he was right. 127 At the meeting of the board of regents later in the same month, a lengthy discussion took place on the federation question, during which a motion in favour of specifically reaffirming the proposals of 1927 was withdrawn in favour of one which endorsed the continuation of undergraduate work in Sackville but called upon the board of education of the United Church to form a commission to recommend possible measures of cooperation with Dalhousie and King's. The minutes recorded that it had been recognized that 'there was a division in the United Church in regard to the matter,' and that the proposed commission was an attempt to heal the dispute. The motion was unanimously carried. 128 Among those who had initiated the idea of the commission was MacKinnon, and in his mind it was a means of reopening the discussion of federation. Meeting in Halifax the following week with two visiting officials

95 Changes in Prospect: 19.23-1931

of the Carnegie Corporation, R.M. Lester and Morse A. Cartwright, he urged them to consider extending the duration of the corporation's offer of funding for removal of Mount Allison to Halifax. According to Cartwright's memorandum of the meeting, MacKinnon and certain other United Church members of Halifax were sure that the United Church commission would recommend either that Mount Allison move completely to Halifax or that only a junior college should be retained in Sackville. MacKinnon's appeal, however, which was made with the encouragement of Mackenzie, was without avail: Lester and Cartwright showed no inclination to reconsider the expiry date of the Carnegie Corporation's offer, and their attitude was confirmed by Keppel on their return to New York. 119 They were, in fact, unwilling that the corporation should take any further active interest in the situation of Mount Allison. Lester remarked on the basis of a visit to Sackville on 4 June that 'Mt. Allison seems to be shouting to keep up its courage in the midst of a most unfavourable situation,' and that, with the exception of the new library and the men's residence, 'the plant seems ready for the scrapheap.' On 18 June in New York, Lester and Keppel agreed that if Mount Allison should ask the Carnegie Corporation for aid in completing the financial campaign, it should be refused. 130 The United Church commission never met, for the failure to interest the Carnegie Corporation in its possible, recommendations had destroyed its raison d'etre in the minds of those who had most strenuously urged its creation. Attempts were made by the board of education during the summer of 19.29 to find suitably eminent members for the commission, but when none were found to be available the project lapsed. One of those approached was Walter Murray, prominent United Church layman and president of the University of Saskatchewan, who was unable to serve on the commission but suggested that Mount Allison might be developed into a university exclusively for women. Apart from this possibility, which was quickly dismissed by Trueman as one that had already been suggested by MacKinnon to the board of regents and rejected, no other ideas were forthcoming as a result of the proposal for the commission. The executive committee of the board of education eventually deferred indefinitely, in May 1930, the appointment of a commission, and the suggestion was made instead that Mount Allison and Dalhousie should explore between themselves what measures of cooperation might be feasible. Committees were duly appointed by both universities, but with little practical result. •i• By the summer of 1930, it was clear that the vision of Mount Allison's future role that had been advocated by Trueman and endorsed by the board of regents in 19.27 had survived. It had done so narrowly, and somewhat

96 Mount Allison University

weakened by the controversies of the intervening years, but it had survived nevertheless. It did not in itself solve all of the university's difficulties, especially since the campaign had fallen short of its objective. There had been short-lived rejoicing in September 1929, when it was announced that the will of H. Marshall Jost, a wealthy former Methodist of Guys borough, Nova Scotia, contained bequests to Mount Allison that might ultimately amount to as much as $400,000. One of the conditions, however, was that these funds should not become available until three years after J ost's death, and by that time the estate had been largely depleted by the stock market depression that began with the 'crash' of late 1929. Mount Allison eventually received nothing from the Jost estate, and yet it was on the strength of this bequest that the construction of the new science building was authorized in May 1930. 'F A large burden of debt was thus assured. Faculty salaries also remained relatively low. In early 1931, Trueman admitted that Mount Allison salaries were still between $1200 and $1500 less than at Pine Hill: 'our professors,' he added, 'are having a hard time to live on their income and keep up necessary appearances.' Four months later, an Argosy editorial noted that R.B. Liddy was leaving to take up an appointment at the University of Western Ontario and commented that 'every year we seem to be losing strong members of the University Faculty. While all of us joy to see New Science Buildings, etc., these structures in themselves are no guarantee that our college is progressing. ' B Another unwelcome result of financial stringency was the raising of tuition fees. Fees in the basic arts programme rose between 1927 and 1931 from $17 per subject per year, thus amounting to $85 for most students, to $26 per subject or a total of $130. While this fee was only slightly higher than the level charged by Dalhousie and King's ($125) and was offset as far as possible by bursaries and part-time employment allocated to needy students, such a rapid increase was obviously unpalatable for a university that prided itself upon offering access to education to students from families of limited income. It also meant that Mount Allison's fees were now considerably higher than those of the state-assisted University of New Brunswick, which stood at $84 in 1931-2. ' 34 The decision to remain in Sackville, therefore, did not absolve Mount Allison from difficulties, some of which would be capable, if not resolved, of calling into question the characteristics of high academic standards and social responsibility which the university, and its president in particular, was anxious to preserve. At the same time, there were other aspects of the newly emerged concept of Mount Allison that had been more firmly secured. The failure to have the proposals of 1927 adopted as the basis for interuniversity cooperation had meant the loss of an opportunity to formalize 1

97 Changes in Prospect: 1923-1931 Mount Allison's new resolve. Nevertheless, there was more inter-university cooperation in the region now than ever before. The central advisory committee, of which Trueman had been secretary since its inception in 1924, continued to offer a regular forum for discussion between representatives of higher education institutions and governments throughout the region. One of its projects was a common examining board, launched under Trueman's chairmanship in 1931 as an effort to standardize matriculation examinations throughout the Maritimes and Newfoundland. Although weakened by lack of support from the government of New Brunswick, this was a real and lasting measure of cooperation. 131 Lasting change had also been accomplished within Mount Allison, in that institutional aspirations had been scaled down in a way that would have been inconceivable during the period of expansion of the late nineteenth century. The transference of the faculty of theology to Halifax was one obvious break with the past. The severe curtailment of post-graduate studies was another. Although Mount Allison had made no formal agreement to abandon the giving of Master's degrees, as it had offered to do in 1927, few such degrees were now awarded: only seven in the decade from 1927 to 1936, as opposed to 33 in the previous decade. 136 The limitation of undergraduate enrolment to 400 was a further important innovation, and was reaffirmed by Trueman in his report of May 1929. 137 For some, these restrictions might be unpalatable necessities, acceptable only in so far as they served the purpose of keeping Mount Allison in Sackville. For Trueman, however, whose personal conversion away from the Carnegie scheme had been crucial in determining Mount Allison's course, the essential justification for Mount Allison's existence was and remained that it should serve its constituency as a small, rural college. The Mount Allison that entered the 1930s had changed, in fact, in a number of ways from that of the early years of the previous decade. The intervening years had seen the removal by death of several of those who had been leaders of the institutions in earlier eras. B.C. Borden died at the age of seventyeight in July 1929, just two months before the seventy-fifth anniversary celebration of the ladies' college which he had done so much to build. As David Allison had died in early 1924, there were now no living former presidents of the university. 138 Nor was there a living representative of the first graduating class, since Josiah Wood had died in May 1927. Wood continued to be commemorated at Mount Allison, however, both in the name of the chair in classics that he had endowed in 1886, and in the series of Wood Lectures he had founded in 192 5. To be given by lecturers 'of high standing and exceptional ability,' the Wood Lectures were intended to em-

98 Mount Allison University

phasize 'all those virtues which have long been recognized as the very basis of the highest type of citizenship'; the first series of lectures was delivered on the theme of 'Citizenship' in 1926 by Wood's former colleague in the senate of Canada, Sir George E. Foster. Thenceforth the lectures were delivered at varying intervals by individuals prominent either in the academic sphere or in public life. )9 Another major break with the past was the retirement in 1930 of James Marshall Palmer as principal of the academy, at the age of sixty-nine. Palmer had been in ill health for some time, and three years earlier he had had to take a six-month leave of absence. Even so, his resignation in 1930 was unexpected. Palmer had just celebrated the completion of fifty years as a teacher, and thirty-six of those years had been spent as academy principal at Mount Allison. The academy in 1894 had been in a parlous state, following a dispute between Palmer's predecessor and the board of regents over the future of the commercial college, and its demise would not have been surprising. Under the care of Palmer, it had not only weathered the storm but had consistently prospered both as an academic boarding school for boys and as a commercial school serving the community at large. As principal, Palmer had never sought to evade controversial issues either within the school, where he was a strict disciplinarian, or in defending the academy from encroachment by the other two institutions, and at times he had been involved in vehement disputes. In his later years, however, his status as a successful teacher and administrator, and as a shrewd advocate of the interests of the Mount Allison institutions as a whole, had been unquestioned. During the period of his retirement, spent in Toronto, he would continue as a member of the board of regents. In the meantime, the president of the alumni society, J. Howard Alcorn, spoke for all at Mount Allison when he expressed a sense of 'personal loss in the knowledge that Dr. Palmer is no longer the Head of that unit of Mt. Allison known as the Academy.' It was a measure of the length of Palmer's service that his successor, Ross Flemington, was the son of one of his former pupils at the academy. Flemington, thirty-two years old at the time of his appointment, would be a quite different principal from his predecessor both in point of his youth and the flamboyance of his personality. His would be the task of guiding the academy through a decade that would again bring difficult times. For several weeks before his formal appointment as academy principal in July 1930, Flemington had been travelling throughout Prince Edward Island in an effort to recruit students for all three institutions. Similar work had been undertaken by William Ross and by W.S. Godfrey- newly appointed as 'student pastor and field secretary' - elsewhere in the region. Despite 1

140

141

142

99 Changes in Prospect: 1923-1931 fears that the onset of economic depression would cut into enrolments, almost 900 students were in attendance for the 1930--1 year. 143 Of those, 395 were university undergraduates. Now that the anticipated enrolment of 400 had almost been reached, the increased size of the student body accounted in itself for certain changes. For one thing, the men's residence could no longer hold all the male students and, like the women students several years before, a number were accommodated in the Ford Hotel, purchased by the university in 1929 and renamed 'The Lodge.' Others were placed in 'the Bowser house,' a private house near the campus purchased by the university in the same year. 144 In October 1929, the Argosy noted the increasing tendency for students to form clubs composed of those from particular areas, such as the Pictou County club and the Prince Edward Island club. The editors felt obliged to deliver an admonition: A few years ago all Mt. A. students were a compact body, now they are beginning to be spread over the campus and town, and the spirit of fellowship, though just as strong, finds a tendency to seek an outlet in the smaller, more intimate, groups. No longer can all Mt. A. men meet in Eurhetorian Hall. It will not hold them. Perforce they must seek smaller divisions - and in these we see the 'homeland' clubs. May the members be loyal to their clubs, but also let them remember they are essentially Mount Allison men and women.'"

Yet not all of the changes in student life had been the product of greater numbers. As the 1920s had gone on, a tendency towards secularization had become evident, and a growing resistance to the regulation of students' lives according to the moral and spiritual prescriptions of the church. One instance in which the increasing numbers reinforced changes in attitude was in the matter of attendance at daily chapel. In his annual report in the spring of 19 31, Trueman admitted that the practice of recording chapel attendance had been quietly discontinued three years before, as the chapel in Centennial Hall could no longer accommodate all of the students. The change was reflected in the regulations included in the 1931 calendar, which contained only a vague statement that 'all students are expected to attend Divine Service on Sunday and daily prayers in the college chapel,' instead of the previous definite requirement. 146 The abandonment of the enforcing of compulsory chapel, however, had not solely resulted from the small size of the chapel, but had also been influenced by the refusal of students to comply with the regulation. In early 1926, the number of permissible absences during the year had been raised to thirty. But in the following autumn the matter was raised once again by a committee of students formed for the purpose in the

100 Mount Allison University men's residence, and on 18 November a general meeting of students declared itself in favour of voluntary chapel attendance. That evening a student representative appeared before the faculty, although succeeding only in prompting the appointment of a committee to examine the question. ' 47 One anonymous correspondent of the Argosy was not satisfied, and two days later his letter was quoted by the editors with guarded approval: the notion of close relations at Mount Allison between faculty and students was, the writer suggested, 'an interesting legend,' belied by the lack of attention paid to students' opinions on such issues as 'scholastic work, dancing, chapel, [and] social regulations. ' 148 For all that, the era of compulsory chapel, which had only endured in fact since 1913, was all but over. As the Argosy's correspondent indicated, the matter of dancing was also causing contention during the mid-192os. A student petition reached the board of regents in October 1924, requesting that the ban on dancing should be lifted in favour of 'social dances ... , under Faculty supervision,' but it was quickly dismissed. ' 49 Some students obviously responded by transferring their social activities off campus, as in the case of the women students deprived of privileges for a week by their students' council in late 1925 after being seen dancing in the Tantramar tea-room. s When W.C. Ross became principal of the ladies' college in 1926, however, the advocates of dancing found a staunch ally. Despite the pessimism expressed in the Argosy in November, there was also support among the faculty of the university, led by the most senior member, S. W. Hunton. With student opinion strongly in favour of a change, the faculty as a whole was finally persuaded at a joint student-faculty meeting in mid-January; a month later, on 12 February, the university gymnasium was the scene of the first dance to be held at Mount Allison. 'P It earned the university a denunciation by the local Baptist minister in his sermon the following morning, but all who had been present agreed that it had been a great success. Victoria Ross recorded in her diary that 'faculty and students were dancing together, the orchestra was excellent, the gym. artistically decorated and the chaperons, the Bigelows and ourselves, can thank the boys for every consideration.' The Argosy too was pleased: 'the Mount Allison Dance proved more conclusively than any number of arguments or theories could have done, that college students . . . are not always to be regarded with suspicion; that when occasion occurs they are men and women, responsible and sincere.''" None, however, was more enthusiastic than Hunton. Unlike the younger faculty members, who soon discovered the pleasures of dancing, Hunton confessed in the Record later in 1927 that he was unable to 'teach my old legs these new tricks.' All the same, he had attended every dance held so far, and confided on one occasion 1 0

101 Changes in Prospect: 1923-1931 to Victoria Ross that the two most notable contributions made to Mount Allison by her husband had been, in his opinion, 'the [introduction of] Vesper Services and his assault against the dance prohibition.' n There were also other controversies during the years over changing ways of life among the students. In the spring of 1929, concern over the use of expletives in the college play, 'The Patsy,' led to censorship of certain phrases by order of the executive committee of the board of regents before a proposed tour of the region was allowed to proceed. 114 Longer-drawn-out was the investigation of complaints in late 1930 that too much freedom was being allowed to ladies' college students in matters such as smoking and going out in the evenings: a board of regents commission of enquiry eventually vindicated Ross and his staff, and commented favourably on 'the modern conception of a wider and saner liberty which both sexes demand. ' 111 Amid all of these discussions of the personal freedom of students, however, there was relatively little evidence of controversy over wider social and political issues, as compared with that which had taken place during the post-war years. In part, this reflected the general weakening of the social gospel movement during the later 1920s, as the Christianization of social relations proved to be a more difficult task than the post-war optimists had imagined. The preoccupation with church union, and the series of defeats for the temperance movement in several provinces in the middle of the decade, also had their effect upon the pursuit of social goals by former Methodists and Presbyterians. ' 16 At Mount Allison, there were also particular changes. The influence of the veteran students after the war was obviously limited to a few years. The transfer of the faculty of theology to Halifax removed another group of students who had been in the forefront of debates over issues involving social morality. This was not to say that either religious belief or political discussion was absent. Yet both were less ardent than they had been. For the editor of the Argosy, writing in 1928, this was characteristic of Canadian universities of the time, and differentiated Canadian students from their European counterparts: 'there is little organisation about a campus to connect the [Canadian] student closely with the political current of his country.' As for religious observance, Trueman in his annual report in 1929 was prepared to admit that times had changed, but refused to blame the students. 'The young people in the University,' he remarked, 'do not seem as interested in religious meetings as the older generation were, but they are honest, straightforward, outspoken, and anxious to make a success of life.' 117 In the Maritime provinces during the 1920s - the brief prosperity of the later years of the decade notwithstanding - young men and women had to be concerned over their own economic status after graduation, and the 1

102 Mount Allison University political idealism of the post-war years was all the more difficult to maintain in these circumstances. According to statistics compiled in 1920 on the occupations and locations of 194 graduates of the previous four years, most had already left the region in order to find employment or undertake further study. Although Mount Allison still drew some 85 per cent of its undergraduates from the Maritime provinces, and over 90 per cent from the traditional constituency including the Maritimes, Newfoundland, and Bermuda, the majority of these graduates of the late 1920s - 103, or 53. 1 per cent - were now located outside of that area, and only 88 (45 .4 per cent) were living in one of the three Maritime provinces. A large proportion 60, or 30.9 per cent - were located elsewhere in Canada, including 49 in Quebec or Ontario, while 36 (18.6 per cent) were in the United States. The remaining seven were scattered in various other parts of the Americas or Great Britain. The occupations of the graduates were not entirely clear from the table compiled in 1930, since no fewer than p were still engaged in further study: the representation of ministers and engineers in the table was presumably diminished accordingly, while no doctors or lawyers appeared at all. Most striking, however, was the fact that fully a third of the graduates 65 of the 194-were now teachers. Seventeen were classified as being engaged in 'business,' 16 in the insurance field, and 15 were already working as engineers; eight were chemists, only seven were clergymen, while the remaining 1 5 were divided among a variety of other occupations or were women who were classified as 'married.' Mount Allison in this period was evidently making its most significant contribution to the field of education; but the problem of retaining trained and able Maritimers within the region still had not been solved. 18 Faculty members, meanwhile, also had their own concerns. By the fall of 1930, as one clear result of the financial campaign, the faculty had been considerably expanded. There were now 15 professors, including the president, and four appointments at the newly introduced rank of assistant professor. In addition there were several part-time lecturers, instructors, and assistants - 12 were listed in the calendar for 1930-1 - and the head of the Massey-Treble School of household science was also included in the university faculty as head of the department of home economics. In 1930 the Massey-Treble School had a new head, in the person of Doris Runciman, and she was only one of several who began lengthy careers at Mount Allison in this year. Others included Herbert Tucker (who replaced Guy as professor of economics), Arnold C. Cuthbertson (assistant professor to Bigelow in chemistry), and Albert Trueman (assistant professor to Tweedie in English). Runciman and Trueman were former Mount Allison students who had pur1

103 Changes in Prospect: 1923-1931

sued further study outside Canada - Runciman at Columbia University and Trueman at Oxford - while Tucker and Cuthbertson had obtained their doctoral degrees respectively from the Hartford Seminary, in Connecticut, and from McGill. 159 Even when expanded, however, the faculty was not yet large enough to cope easily with the number of students now attending the university. At a meeting in April 19 3 1, as part of its consideration of a major committee report on the future policy of the university, the faculty adopted the resolution that 'the teaching load per instructor at Mount Allison is considerably greater than the average load in other Colleges of similar size and rank, and it is felt that steps should be taken as soon as possible, to bring it more in conformity with usual practice. 160 The faculty report on future policy represented a new departure in consultation within the university. During the pre-war era when there had been few professors, such individuals as Hunton, Tweedie, and Andrews had naturally and informally exercised a profound influence upon all academic matters. As the faculty grew, more formal procedures developed. For the first time in 1924, for example, the board of regents provided that the university president must confer with concerned heads of departments upon prospective faculty appointments. 161 During the deliberations over university federation, there had been full discussions in meetings of faculty at various crucial stages, but no resolutions of opinion had been sought or offered. The most that had been done had been the request by Trueman in March 1927, while the limited federation proposals had been under discussion, for individual faculty members 'to submit in writing their views and suggestions.'161 In October 1930, however, Trueman invited the faculty to present a report in the following spring on the directions to be followed by Mount Allison for the next twenty years, and the result was the committee report on future policy. ' 63 As finally adopted by the general faculty, it covered a wide variety of issues, ranging from the need for more effective cleaning and maintenance of classrooms to matters of broader scope such as the possible expansion of the education department to include 'a two or three department Model School.' Some of the recommendations were immediately implemented as being within the faculty's jurisdiction. These included the adoption of a new graded system of degrees, introducing four levels of distinction up to 'summa cum laude, • and the acceptance of certificates from the new Common Examining Board for matriculation purposes. Others were referred to the board of regents, which took action only in regard to the proposed equalization of the length of the two terms: instead of a short first term from late September to Christmas, and a longer second term lasting until May, the formal break between terms would now come in late January.

104 Mount Allison University The more general observations of the faculty, including those concerning teaching loads, reduction of class size, and teacher training facilities, were left for future consideration, and the constraints that were imposed upon the university by economic circumstances as the 1930s went on ensured that the consideration actually given was minimal. For the first time, however, the faculty had acted as a body on matters beyond immediate academic or disciplinary decisions, and that in itself marked a change that might be obscured during the difficult years ahead, but could not be cancelled altogether. 164 In 1930 and 1931, the effects of the depression were already being felt. For the time being, student numbers at the university did not fall, and were thus maintained at just under 400. One student of the time recalled that in these years before the full extent of economic dislocation was apparent there were many of her contemporaries who went to university because they could not find employment, and thereby kept up attendance levels. 161 At the ladies' college, however, this was not so, and the first department to feel the strain was the school of fine arts. In March 19 31, William Ross admitted that he was perplexed by the falling attendance which would result in a loss of fees of about $1000 from fine arts students, and suggested to the executive committee of the board of regents that the solution might lie in a greater emphasis upon 'Commercial Art.' Elizabeth McLeod, later in the year, preferred the notion that Mount Allison should try to place its art students as teachers in the public schools of New Brunswick: 'we hope,' she informed Trueman, 'to do in art what the Mount Allison Household Science Department is doing in its line.' The household science school, of course, had gone beyond the confines of the ladies' college to offer a degree course, and the faculty in the first draft of its policy report suggested that the art school might indeed follow suit by offering a degree in fine arts. Ultimately, the faculty resolved that this should not be done 'at present,' but the consideration of this possibility was an early indicator of the fact that economic circumstances might well force substantial changes upon the ladies' college. 166 An indicator of financial strains to come at the university was the steady decline in the level of funding from the board of education of the United Church, as the church's own revenues declined. Originally set at $10,000 in 1926, the grant had been reduced by 1931 to $7650; by 1933 it was just over $5000. 167 This decline, together with other factors, including the servicing of a $92,000 bank loan taken out on the strength of the Jost bequest to cover the construction cost of the science building, led to a deficit of over $4300 for the university in the 1930-1 year. At the same time, the amount of the university's debt was again reaching alarming proportions: over $200,000

105 Changes in Prospect: 1923-1931 in June 1931. Trueman's comments in his annual report in that year were sombre. 'There is no possibility,' he warned, 'of balancing the budget this year. The tuition fees do not meet more than one-quarter of the cost, and an increase in the number of students does not and cannot solve the difficulty.' Provincial government funding might provide relief it it were available, and Trueman wondered in his report why Mount Allison should not enjoy such support when many other Canadian universities did. 168 For the time being, though, there was nothing to be done but to put up with debts and deficits. As Trueman well knew, the depression posed a particular threat to Mount Allison's claim to offer opportunities to students of limited means, and to serve in particular a rural constituency. It was essential, he had declared in his annual report in 1930, that more bursaries be provided 'to enable the right type of young people to attend college from homes where the family budget is already under severe strain,' and that some way should be found 'to relate the work of the University more closely to the lives of our own people, especially those in rural communities.' It was in this context that he explored briefly with the Carnegie Corporation that spring the notion that Mount Allison might launch a research and teaching programme in rural economics, but received little encouragement for what he admitted to be a vaguely defined proposal. 169 The challenge of direct service to rural constituents would be put to Mount Allison again during the 1930s, in the context of the extension programmes successfully developed by St Francis Xavier University. In the meantime, the assumption that had underlain Mount Allison's decision to remain in Sackville had been that, as well as offering to all its students the benefits that arose from a small enrolment, it could serve in particular as a means of entry to the various levels of education for those who had not the means or the inclination to attend a large urban university. In the years from 1927-8 to 1930--1, the number of undergraduates from small communities in fact almost doubled at Mount Allison, and the proportion of such students rose from 29. 3 to 36.2 per cent. 170 The question was whether this situation could be continued in a period of economic crisis and financial stringency for the university. The United Churchman was optimistic. In its editorial of 30 September 1931 - entitled 'the colleges and the depression,' but focusing particularly on Mount Allison, as behoved a periodical published in Sackville - it expressed sympathy for those young people unable to attend university because of lack of money. Yet, it believed, those who wanted a university education badly enough would find a way. 'The era of luxuries is about over,' the editorial declared, 'and the era of living in the essential is about to begin.

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If difficult times brings this about in student life the students of the present day may yet say with the psalmist, "It is good for me that I have been afflicted." ' 171 There was optimism too among Mount Allison alumni. Under an energetic new president, J. Howard Alcorn, and with the services of W.S. Godfrey as a travelling field secretary, the alumni society formed ten new local chapters in the Maritimes in the 1930-1 year. Since Alcorn himself was a resident of New Haven, Connecticut, he also fostered the development of alumni associations in the United States, particularly in Connecticut and in New York. In the spring of 1931, an unprecedented measure of cooperation between alumni and alumnae was brought about in the form of a federated council to coordinate the activities of the two associations. As a means of channelling support to Mount Allison, financial or otherwise, the former students' associations were now undoubtedly more effective than at any time in the past. 17 A symbol of faith in Mount Allison's future, and an occasion for public celebration, was the opening of the new science building on 2 1 October 19 3r. Regardless of the financial problems caused by the untoward fate of the Jost bequest, the new building provided enormously improved facilities for science study. Together with a new central heating plant, also opened in the fall of 19 3 1, the building represented, according to the headlines of a special edition of the United Churchman, the beginning of a new era for Mount Allison. Built of local red and olive sandstone in a 'tudor' style similar to that of the Memorial Library, the science building stood on a site formerly occupied by the garden of the president's cottage, adjoining Centennial Hall. Although it contained a large auditorium, the dedication ceremonies had to be concluded in Fawcett Hall, after a brief religious service in the open air, because several hundred were on hand for the occasion; they heard speeches from H.E. Bigelow and Roy Fraser, as heads of the two departments, chemistry and biology, that were to be housed in the new building. Both scientists, in their different ways, declared that it was not the building itself that should be celebrated but rather what it might represent in the future. Fraser addressed himself in particular to the interdependence of science and religion, and drew what the United Churchman described as 'prolonged and approving applause' for a ringing denunciation of biological warfare as a perversion of God-given knowledge, while Bigelow commented that 'the vital part was not the building and equipment, but young men and women of ability and brains and capacity to work, who would make good use of them. ' 173 The point was well made, and timely. Mount Allison over the previous decade had faced prospects of change, and changes had come about. The science building, like the Memorial Library before it, was ma2

107 Changes in Prospect: 1923-1931

terial evidence of the decision to remain in Sackville where the university had begun, and yet it did not represent a commitment to unlimited expansion, adding building to building. Nor could it, given the prevailing economic climate. Even the plans that had been embodied in the financial campaign of 1929, for a women's residence and for a new academy building, would now necessarily be deferred. 'It looks to me,' remarked Trueman to J. W. Graham in September 19 3 1, 'as if we might have some difficulty for the next few years. ' 174

10

Weathering the Storm: 1931-1941

'All of the universities in Eastern Canada are small. Being used to hard struggling they are weathering the economic storm with strength unimpaired.' Trueman's optimistic assessment of the effects of the depression of the 1930s on higher education in the Maritimes was delivered on I 3 February 1933 in a programme transmitted by the New York radio station WJZ, to which he had been invited by the well-known broadcaster Lowell Thomas.' That the Maritime universities were accustomed to coping with hard times was unquestionably true: in this region, the depression had begun in 1920 and continued with only short periods of relief throughout the inter-war years. Whether their strength would indeed survive unimpaired, however, would remain a matter of doubt as long as the depression lasted. For Mount Allison, the difficulties of the period between 1931 and 1941 were compounded by a disastrous series of fires which ensured that all three of the institutions would have to struggle for survival in an unfavourable financial climate. The university faced an especially perplexing dilemma as it attempted to discharge its chosen social role as an institution offering opportunities to students, particularly those from rural areas, who came from families of limited income: as the number of such potential students increased because of economic dislocation, so the financial ability of the university to accommodate them was diminished. Furthermore, the university also had to face the question of whether this concentration upon widening access to formal academic education was in itself sufficient to meet the needs of the region at a time of profound economic crisis. Certain other universities, notably St Francis Xavier, devised means by which they could serve the community more directly, and during the late 1930s Mount Allison came under pressure to follow this example. The Second World War did much to relieve the economic condition of the region, but its advent did not solve

109 Weathering the Storm: 1931-1941 the problems that had accumulated at Mount Allison during the 1930s. Mount Allison might weather the storm, but it would not do so unchanged or unscathed. Not that all was gloom on the campus. At no time during the 1930s would that have been true, and never less so than in the early part of the decade when it was still possible to believe that economic difficulties might soon be resolved. From the evidence in the Argosy, in fact, the depression was not a prime topic for discussion during 1931 and 1932, either in general terms or in relation to the situation of the university. Interest in current affairs - and an editorial of early 1932 commented that 'the average college student of the times is becoming more and more interested in political subjects' was much more evident in the field of international relations, and was especially focused upon the question of disarmament. The attempts of the League of Nations to initiate an international conference on disarmament had been making slow progress since 1925, but in February 1932 the conference finally met in Geneva. In the previous November it had been the subject of an Argosy article by F.W.W. DesBarres, professor of history and faculty adviser of the International Relations Club, in which DesBarres had issued a challenge to his readers: 'Have the students of our colleges who, in the nature of the case have such a tremendous stake in this business, some opinion in regard to the outcome of this conference, and if so, is there not some way by which it may be given voice?' 3 As DesBarres was well aware, Mount Allison had been one of the universities sending a delegate a few weeks before to a meeting of the 'student movement for disarmament,' held in Muskoka, Ontario, and addressed by speakers who included Agnes MacPhail, the first woman member of parliament in Canada, who had subsequently been Canadian delegate to the League of Nations Assembly and had served on the League's disarmament committee. 4 Following the Muskoka conference the Argosy under the editorship of two pre-theology students, Herbert L. Pottle and F. Ward Cook, mounted a lengthy campaign to arouse student interest in disarmament. On 14 November 1931, for example, they cited reports of the technological development of weaponry, and declared that, if the Geneva conference should fail, it would 'place on imperishable record our inability to cope with the monster of our own creation. ' 1 That the newspaper was successful in arousing discussion of this and other international issues was shown by the holding in December of a well-attended 'model assembly of the League of Nations.' This first such event to be held intramurally at Mount Allison - although Mount Allison delegates had attended intercollegiate model assemblies held in rotation at various Maritime universities since 1928 - had 32 student participants and 1

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was adjudged by the Argosy to have been 'a great success. ' 6 Nevertheless, even those at Mount Allison who were most committed to disarmament as a solution for international conflict were also aware of the forces that would ultimately destroy their movement. In his editorial of 13 February 1932, greeting the beginning of the Geneva conference, Ward Cook admitted to doubts: We have believed in the power of youth to change the existing order of things. We believe it needs changing. We believed youth could change it. But as we have watched Mussolini harnessing the youth of Italy to the Fascist chariot, Hitler duplicating his efforts in Germany, the youth of China and Japan shedding each others blood, a patriotic maiden of Japan assassinating one of her greatest men of peace, and all the youth of the world ready to don uniform in spite of professions of pacifism, we are inclined to be pessimistic.'

The Argosy campaign for disarmament was its most sustained on any subject since the newspaper had begun nearly a decade before, and it marked a greater emphasis upon matters of general public interest than had been evident for several years. Yet as the winter and spring of 1932 went on, it was clear that such sombre topics were being displaced in the minds of many students by the progress of one of Mount Allison's most successful sporting seasons. The year had started out with a disappointment, when the football team failed to wrest the New Brunswick intercollegiate championship from a heavier and more experienced UNB side in a two-game series, despite the efforts of the players under their coach, Ralph 'Bui' Lister, and despite the pressure of 600 noisy Mount Allison supporters at the second game in Fredericton. 8 Three months later, however, the defeat was avenged by the hockey team by a score of 4-1 at Mount Allison; by forcing a 2-2 tie in the return match in Fredericton on 11 February, Mount Allison made sure of the New Brunswick title. The real excitement came as a result of the Maritime championship game, played against St Francis Xavier in Truro on 4 March, and won by 3-0. When the news reached the campus at eleven o'clock on that Friday night, the enthusiasm was enough to prompt an attempted invasion of the ladies' college by about a hundred of the male students of the university. Although the 'howling hordes' - so described by Victoria Ross - were turned back by the forbidding figures of Annie Sprague and other members of the resident faculty of the ladies' college, the affair was not finally laid to rest until an apology had been offered at a general meeting of the university students four days later. 9 Still Mount Allison teams continued to prosper in intercollegiate competition. In men's basketball, Mount Allison

111 Weathering the Storm: 1931-1941 defeated UNB in Fredericton to take the New Brunswick championship, and they would go on in early April to take the Maritime title by defeating the Nova Scotia champions, Acadia, by a wide margin in Sackville. In the meantime, the women's basketball team had also defeated Acadia in a Maritime final, by a narrow margin in Halifax, 1°. The men's and women's debating teams also emerged victorious in their only intercollegiate debates of the year. The men, led by Ernest P. Weeks, successfully upheld the resolution 'that the relief of those unemployed because of the depression has been better dealt with in Great Britain than in the United States,' at the expense of Acadia; the women defeated Dalhousie when the team led by Minnie Carr opposed the proposition that 'the British Empire should agree to co-operate in protecting all members of the League of Nations against external attack.' As an Argosy columnist remarked, '1932 has seen the Garnet and Gold rise to the top of the mountain of Intercollegiate activities. ' After the last basketball game had been played, attention shifted to another campus event, described in an Argosy headline as 'the crowning victory of the year.' It was a victory of a different kind: the production of Gilbert and Sullivan's H.M.S. Pinafore by the Mount Allison Choral Society, directed by Harold Hamer. Opening in Fawcett Hall on 22 April, the production was a joint venture of faculty and students, and it was enthusiastically received both by the audience and by the Argosy's guest critic, J.N. Brunton. 'The whole performance,' remarked Brunton, 'was characterized by sparkle and vivacity,' and he had especial praise for Ward Cook, Albert Trueman, and others who played lead roles.'} This was the first effort to present light opera at Mount Allison - or opera of any kind, for that matter - and Hamer had expressed the hope in the previous week's Argosy that it would not be the last. He was not disappointed, for the success of H.M.S. Pinafore led on to a production of The Mikado in the following year and to others throughout the 1930s. Not only for Mount Allison but also for the town of Sackville, the annual Gilbert and Sullivan opera, under Hamer's direction, became a firmly established tradition. Musical and dramatic productions; sports and debating; the international relations club: all continued throughout the 1930s as popular interests among Mount Allison students, and were given frequent coverage in the pages of the Argosy. The newspaper also continued to fulfil its traditional role of defending student interests, whether against the 'perpetual quizzing' of toofrequent tests, against their own colleagues who took out library books without signing a card, or (as in the case of a columnist in late 19 31) against over-use of textbooks originating in the United States rather than Canada. ' 4 11

11

112 Mount Allison University By the fall of 1932, however, the effects of the depression were more clearly evident. An editorial of 5 November observed that many students were paying their way only through money earned from part-time employment, or as sales agents for items ranging from stationery to peanuts: 'this year, particularly, since Old Man Depression has been let loose, many novel ideas have been introduced.' The editorial congratulated those whose entrepreneurial spirit was enabling them to free themselves from restriction by economic forces, but that was not its major thrust. Most of those who worked on the campus, and especially those working in the dining-room, had to get up early in the morning and even miss class time in order to keep their commitments. They paid a high price both in their academic performance and in terms of nervous strain, and the Argosy suggested that it was up to the university to consider these hidden costs to the student before idealizing the notion of the student working a way through college. 15 The Argosy editorial raised a valid point, and one that was to present itself in various forms at Mount Allison during the 1930s. The university attempted consistently throughout the decade to maintain itself as a small college accessible to able students regardless of their social and economic background, and consciously discharging a social responsibility owed in particular to the people of the Maritime provinces. But at what cost? And who paid the cost? Although bursary funds were made to go as far as possible, the financial predicament of the university necessarily limited the aid that could be offered in this form. The alternative, and it was adopted each year during the 1930s, was to offer part-time employment. Yet if this meant that needy students were penalized both academically and in terms of their health, through being overburdened, the cause of social justice was but little advanced. This was all the more true of students from rural backgrounds who, as Trueman pointed out in 1934 in the context of matriculation requirements, might already be less well prepared than those who had had the opportunity to attend urban high schools. 16 For students from the immediate local area, the difficulties were less, for they could save money by living at home. In September 1932, Trueman reported to the executive committee of the board of regents that 'more students from the town were attending the University than ever before. It was estimated that 40 would attend from Sackville and Amherst.' Among the Amherst students was Dean P. Crawford, later head of the physics department at Mount Allison, who recalled that he was one of up to 20 who commuted daily by train from the nearby Nova Scotia town, and added that for him this was the only way he could have afforded to go to University. 17 Encouraging as it was to have students from the surrounding area, however, for a university that purported

113 Weathering the Storm: 1931-1941 to serve a regional constituency there was no easy answer to the question of how to promote equal opportunities for students. Furthermore, the financial difficulties of the university itself also bore upon its ability to function as had been intended during the more prosperous times of the late 1920s. The limitation of student numbers to 400, for example, was adhered to in practice throughout most of the 1930s, but the principle of limitation was difficult to defend within the university when the recruitment of more students could provide relief in the form of increased receipts from tuition fees. In his annual report in 1931, Trueman had pointed out that tuition fees only paid one-quarter of the university's costs, and had argued that an increase in numbers would do little to balance the budget. Late in the following year, however, he acknowledged to the manager of the Sackville branch of the Royal Bank - who had complained that the university's overdraft had gone well beyond its authorized credit - that 'all of my own energy and that of the staff was used during the summer in bringing a large student body to the University. It is only in this way that we could secure sufficient funds to pay our interest and keep things going.' 18 Trueman was not implying that enrolment had risen. It had, in fact, declined slightly to 390 in the fall of 1932. Yet with vigorous canvassing for students under way each summer by agents and faculty members of all three institutions, and the likelihood strengthened of competition with other universities for the available students, critics of Mount Allison might well find grounds on which to contend that it was not living up to the idealistic pronouncements of 1926 and 1927. At worst, the possibility existed that Mount Allison would fail to serve its constituency adequately, in that the social and geographical origins of students would range less widely because of economic conditions, while at the same time its efforts to recruit students might contribute to a lowering of academic standards and thus debase the quality of higher education in the region. Without necessarily going to that extreme of pessimism, these were the hard questions that would have to be asked and answered at Mount Allison as the 1930s went on. In the earliest years of the decade, however, the dilemmas had not yet become acute. David MacAulay, an eighteen-year-old from the Cape Breton village of Port Morien when he arrived at Mount Allison as a freshman in 1930, recalled that varied social background and a strong desire for education were much in evidence at the university during his student days: Although some people will say that in those days the University was for the rich only, ... this I don't believe because I go back to my own colleagues of those days, and most of the ones who came from around where I did, they didn't come from

114 Mount Allison University affluent families at all, because in the village that I lived in - and there must have been about I suppose 12 to 1 5 of us in University at the time - there were only two professional men in the village, ... the doctor and clergyman ... , and the rest were people that were coal-miners, fishermen, my dad a blacksmith, then other people might run a grocery store or something like that. I don't think it was for the privileged, it was for those who were really bent to go and get themselves an education.••

A related point was taken up by Trueman in his New York radio broadcast of February 1933. There were benefits for all students in attending a small college, he observed, because there were fewer distractions in a small community, but the greatest advantages were for those who came from 'small villages and the open country.' Many such young people would not have chosen to attend university at all if only a large institution were available, and many of those who did go 'would have been lost, balked in their purpose, [and] failing to make the adjustment, would have returned home, branded as failures.' At small Maritime colleges, however, they had the chance to develop their skills and self-confidence in congenial surroundings, and eventually to become 'ready and able to take a leading place in the graduate or professional school, or in business, industry, or politics. ' Trueman was inclined on occasion to acknowledge the influence of the Scottish tradition on his educational thinking; and for David MacAulay, the desire for education that animated his contemporaries in Port Morien - and their parents - was 'the old Scotch instinct. ' There was substance in the parallel. The notion of universities that strove, as one Scottish scholar has remarked, 'to neutralise the inequalities of scholastic and family backgrounds,' in order to serve a poor but eager constituency, was common to both Scotland and the Maritimes. Also, Trueman's advocacy of strong, central graduate and professional schools to be developed in Halifax recalled unsuccessful efforts made in Scotland in the middle and late nineteenth century to combine the continuation of the traditional Scottish general arts degree with the development of central research schools, so as to accommodate modern scholarly standards without losing the educational virtues of the universities as they were. In Scotland, the ideal of undergraduate education as widely diffused and general in scope had been weakened by the introduction of more specialized courses. Nor did Trueman's belief that small Maritime colleges could serve the same purpose go unchallenged. The McGill Daily commented unfavourably on his New York broadcast, which had been heard in Montreal, as a plea for spoon-feeding of students : the products of such a college would be ill equipped, the Daily maintained, to 10

11

11

u5 Weathering the Storm: 1931-1941 meet the competitive demands of 'the battle of life' after graduation, when 'their every need in the business world will have to be settled by their own initiative.' The Argosy did not agree, but then its definition of success was rather different from that of its McGill counterpart: A great many outstanding North Americans were educated in the small institutions of the Provinces-by-the-sea. They are outstanding because they have reached success - not only financial but general. They were successful because they learned how to win 'the battle of life,' in most cases, we make bold to say, in their early training at a small college. There they learned to face problems corporately and individually, and having learned well how to solve them have been successful and victorious in 'the battle of life.',,

At Mount Allison in the early 1930s, there was a substantial measure of agreement on what the university's role should be. Whether the university could fulfil that role successfully, and whether it would still seem to be an appropriate role as the economic depression stretched on in later years, were matters that had yet to be put to the test. The month of March 1933 was a disastrous one for Mount Allison. It began with the burning down of the academy on the afternoon of the I st. Beginning on the top floor shortly after 3:oo, the fire took little over an hour to spread throughout the building, assisted by a stiff northeast wind, and by evening the wooden structure was razed to the ground. Only a small metal safe and the kitchen refrigerator survived in the building itself, although some of the contents of the ground floor were rescued: the resident students, and Ross Flemington, his family, and other resident faculty members lost most of their possessions. One class, in fact, had been playing basketball in the university gymnasium, and so were left with only vest and shorts. None the less, no lives had been lost, and Flemington and his staff worked quickly to make arrangements to continue the work of the school. By 10:00 in the evening, all the students had been dispersed to temporary accommodation elsewhere on the campus, while classroom space had been arranged in Centennial Hall. 24 The next day classes met as usual. Also meeting on that Thursday was an emergency session of the executive committee of the board or regents, at which further plans were made. The university wom~n had immediately volunteered to vacate their quarters in Allison Hall - the old Brunswick Hotel - and move back to the ladies' college, so that the academy could use Allison Hall as a residence. This measure was confirmed by the executive committee, and the teaching space in the basement of Centennial

116 Mount Allison University Hall was supplemented by other classrooms in the old science building. No decision was taken to rebuild the academy, but it was widely assumed that rebuilding would soon begin, and so the board of regents resolved at a special meeting in April. Pending reconstruction, the academy would face serious inconvenience, but it was able to carry on. 11 The cause of the academy fire was never satisfactorily established. Early reports in the local press blamed an electrical fault in the attic, and this was the explanation advanced by Trueman in an article in the Saint J oho Telegraph-Journal a few days later. Yet the electrical system of the academy, while old, had recently been overhauled. James Marshall Palmer, who probably knew the building better than any other person, consistently refused to believe that the electrical wiring had been responsible, and urged that the possibility be faced that the fire may have been deliberately set. 16 Whether or not this was true, however, the academy fire soon had to be considered in a larger context. In the early morning hours of 17 March, both Centennial Hall and the old science building were burned by fires that were generally assumed from the beginning to be the work of an incendiary. The fire in the old science building - or 'old lodge,' as it was familiarly called - was first noticed at 3:oo in the morning. By the time firefighters arrived on the scene, Centennial Hall was also in flames. By dawn the old lodge had been destroyed entirely, while Centennial Hall was left as an empty shell. Once again, no lives had been lost, but the damage was great. The financial reckoning would come if and when rebuilding was begun. In the meantime, arrangements were made for displaced classes to be held in other university buildings. Then there was time to reflect, as the Argosy did on 18 March, on the great discontinuity caused by the sudden loss of three buildings in a single month. The academy and Centennial Hall (or 'Stone College,' as it had often been called to distinguish it from the first, wooden, college building) dated from the 1880s. The Centennial Hall fire not only destroyed the building itself but also many of the university's records, kept in the various administrative offices. It also destroyed the Black Memorial Chapel. As for the old lodge, its contents were more modern - much equipment was lost from the physics and engineering departments - but the building was the original college structure, dating from 1862. Since then it had undergone several changes of function before being given over entirely to physics and engineering when the new science building opened in 1931. Now it was, as the Argosy remarked, 'nothing but a smouldering smoking mass of debris. ' 7 No charge was ever laid in connection with the university fires of 17 March 1933, although a full police investigation was carried out. All were agreed that the fires resulted from a criminal act, and some believed that the 1

117 Weathering the Storm: 1931-1941

academy fire had probably been the work of the same arsonist. No evidence was ever found, however, of any such direct connection. It seems probable that the academy fire and the university fires were separate incidents, although it may well be that the academy fire provided the impulse for the setting of the university fires just over two weeks later. Naturally, and justifiably, there was general alarm over the likelihood that an arsonist was at large, and possibly one with a grudge against Mount Allison. On the morning of the two university fires, the president's cottage and the ladies' college had been saved from sparks carried by a swirling wind by the stationing of students on the rooftops to douse cinders. After the fires, the complement of night watchmen was strengthened. As a longer-term precaution, a sprinkler system was installed in the ladies' college during the summer of 1933. Given the wide publicity the fires had received and the obvious vulnerability to fire of the wooden ladies' college structure, the chairman of the board of regents, R.C. Tait, was almost certainly correct when he remarked to Trueman that the absence of a sprinkler system 'under present conditions ... would probably mean the closing of the Ladies' College. ' 28 A recommendation by the insurance company Douglas, Rogers Ltd that a similar system should be installed in the men's residence was rejected on grounds of economy, and presumably on the assumption that the stone residence was a fire-resistant building. This would prove in later years to have been a costly decision. 9 _ The whole day of 17 March 1933 was occupied by the task of cleaning up after the fires. Trueman recorded tersely in his diary that 'that day contained 21 hours of activity.' 30 On the next day, a Saturday, the executive committee of the board of regents met once again to review the damage. No decisions were taken except to set up a committee to consider the question of rebuilding. A week later, the committee presented its report, recommending that a stone academy building should be constructed on the site of the old academy, and that Centennial Hall should be rebuilt according to a new design, using the original foundation and whatever could safely be used of the original walls. The old science building would not be rebuilt. Instead, the engineering department would be housed on the newly finished third floor of the new science building, while the physics department would be accommodated on the second floor of Centennial Hall, in space created by the elimination of the Black Chapel and the old university library from the new plans. The building programme was endorsed by the full board of regents at a special meeting on 17 April. 31 Construction thereupon proceeded quickly, although not without difficulties. The first conflict arose over the commissioning of two Halifax architects to take charge of the projects, C.A. Fowler to design the new 2

II8 Mount Allison University academy and A.R Cobb the new Centennial Hall; it was felt by some that at least one of the commissions should have been awarded in New Brunswick. Both architects, however, had worked before for Mount Allison and Fowler had been an energetic supporter of the institutions as chairman of the federated council of alumni and alumnae, a fact which the executive committee agreed should be taken into consideration, 'other things being equal.' What the minutes did not record was that each of the two architects was expected to return a portion of his fee to the institutions in the form of a contribution to the rebuilding fund: this proviso was conveyed to Cobb by Trueman in a letter of 1 8 April. 32 The fact was that in these times of extreme financial strain, Mount Allison depended upon the willingness of its graduates and friends to donate their services or at least offer them at exceptionally low cost. If professional services of high quality were not obtained by this means, the only alternative was to accept the cheapest possible estimate, and to take the risks involved. Such was the course of action taken when tenders were opened for the construction of the two new buildings. The lowest tender, by a margin of some $9000, was that of the Stewart Construction Company of Sherbrooke, Quebec. The building committee was 'very much disappointed,' according to Trueman, that the lowest bid had come from outside the Maritime provinces; it none the less felt obliged to accept the Stewart Company's tender, although stipulating that Maritime firms should be given preference in subcontracting and that Maritime materials and labour should be used as far as possible.JJ In justifying the selection of a contractor from outside of the region Trueman argued, reasonably, that Mount Allison accepted donations from other parts of Canada and so could hardly exclude non-Maritime firms from tendering for its construction contracts. 34 • In the event, despite criticism from New Brunswick in particular on the failure to keep business within the province, it was not this point that became most controversial. Rather, it was the low wages paid by the construction company to local workers. When awarding the contract, the university decided against specifying a particular wage scale, on the ground that this matter was best left to the contractor.JS This decision was soon regretted, when the Stewart Company offered a rate of only 1 5 cents an hour to its workers on the Mount Allison contract. Although prevailing unemployment ensured that workers could be found even at that rate, considerable resentment was aroused and was soon taken up by members of the church. The minister of Portland United Church in Saint John, H .A. Goodwin, following an interview with the secretary of the New Brunswick Federation of Labour, wrote on 20 June to inform Trueman that in Saint John even government relief work was paid at the rate of 30 cents. Already, in fact, the matter had been discussed by

119 Weathering the Storm: 1931-1941

the Maritime Conference, meeting in Sackville earlier in the month. Among the resolutions presented to the conference by its committee on evangelism and social service, and adopted by conference on 9 June, was a general condemnation of 'unjust pressure on wage-earners and consumers for the sake of ensuring returns on capital investment,' and the United Churchman, normally a supporter of Mount Allison through thick and thin, commented on the irony of the situation: It seemed like a veritable thrust of reality that, just about the time these resolutions [of the committee on evangelism and social service] were up for consideration a company of workmen from the new Mount Allison buildings should have approached some members of the Conference to assist them in their protest against ·the low wages that had been offered them. The wages offered were fifteen cents an hour, a wage that would furnish bare subsistence to a single man, but would be hopelessly inadequate for a married man. Here was a real social problem right at the very door. The moral of it is, probably, that no Christian institution should submit any contract to competition without inserting a fair wage clause. Otherwise the company that is willing to take the lower cost out of the laborer has an advantage over a more conscientious company and the institutions employing them become indirectly involved in the very process of exploitation that the Conference resolutions condemn.••

On motion of W. G. Watson and Clarence MacKinnon, the conference referred this question to a special committee of conciliation, which approached the contractor to urge that higher wages be paid and succeeded in winning the concession that workers would be paid 20 cents an hour after they had worked for one week at the lower rate. 37 The university, meanwhile, defended itself on the ground that the Stewart Company had paid higher wages on previous contracts in the Maritimes - at Prince of Wales College in Charlottetown and on the Union Station in Saint John - so that it had a right to be surprised by the lower scale adopted by the company on the present contract. 38 Writing privately to Goodwin, Trueman also pointed out that wages in Sackville had never been comparable with those in Saint John. Nevertheless, he was prepared to admit that the university had been at fault. 'It is altogether too bad,' he declared to Goodwin, 'that the Company has not paid better wages and more or less humiliating to those of us who, in spite of all we can say, have to take a considerable part of the blame. Of course everybody is wise after the event, and we should have had a minimum wage clause in the contract. ' 39 Mount Allison soon had its buildings, and had them quickly. The new Centennial Hall was put into use on 6 November, and the academy shortly afterwards. Both were officially opened on 19 January 1934 at ceremonies

120 Mount Allison University that included a special convocation. One of the honorary degree recipients was William Ryan, a minister who was a hundred years old and had attended the academy during the 1850s. He was obviously one of very few present who could clearly remember all three of the previous academy buildings. 4 0 It was possible now to have a more cheerful outlook on the fires . They were, one member of the board of regents remarked, 'a blessing in disguise, and Mount Allison has now two buildings of which we are all proud. ' 4 • Yet the cost had been very great. In part, it was measured in terms of the loss of historical continuity represented by the destruction of two of Mount Allison's oldest buildings, and the near-destruction of a third. In part, it was measured in terms of the unfavourable public attention focused on Mount Allison by the disputes accompanying reconstruction. In a time of profound economic depression, an institution that professed to serve the Maritime region and do so in a Christian way thereby assumed responsibilities that went beyond the direct function of educating students, and serious allegations had been made that by that standard Mount Allison had been found wanting. At the same time, the financial constraints that had led to the unquestioning acceptance of the lowest tender for the rebuilding projects were still acute. They were, in fact, much more so after reconstruction had been completed, and the cost of the fires had to be measured also in terms of the further financial coils in which Mount Allison was now enmeshed. Even before the fires, the debts incurred through the building of the new science building and the central heating plant had had a depressing effect upon the financial health of the institutions, while low interest rates and declining stock values reduced the value of the endowment fund. As early as October 19 31, the finance committee of the board of regents had called for 'the most rigid economy,' including cutbacks in staffing and pay reductions. In the following February, reductions were made in the wages of some 32 of Mount Allison's 79 non-teaching employees, averaging almost 1 5 per cent for those affected, although representing a reduction of only 9. 1 per cent of the total monthly outlay on wages, since lower-paid workers were not affected.42 University faculty members were next: their salaries were reduced by 5 per cent in June 1932, followed by a further 10 per cent reduction a year later, and 5 per cent in 1934. At least, however, they did not have to accept a salary cut of 20 per cent in one instalment, as did their counterparts at the ladies' college in the fall of 1932. 4 } Even these drastic measures, while helping to reduce the university's annual deficit substantially in the 1932-3 year and that of the ladies' college slightly, could not begin to cut into the large debts now carried by these two institutions. In November 1933, F.B. Black announced to the board of regents that the uni-

121 Weathering the Storm: 1931-1941

versity debt stood at $347,000, and that of the ladies' college at $51,000. A more favourable indication was that the Carnegie Corporation had recently made a grant of $125,000 to Mount Allison for endowment in chemistry, and was willing that this should be applied temporarily against debt. On the other hand, the cost of rebuilding the academy and Centennial Hall had yet to be taken into consideration. The reconstruction of Centennial Hall was entirely covered by the insurance payments received in respect of the old Centennial Hall and the old lodge, which amounted to $83,000. The new academy, however, cost over $125,000, as compared with the insurance of $47,000 on the old building. Special donations helped to make up some of the difference, but by June 1934 the academy-which before the fire had been the only one of the institutions to be free of debt - had outstanding loans to the amount of nearly $46,000. 44 During the spring and summer of 1934, a number of measures were taken in an attempt to solve financial problems. One of the first decisions made by the board of regents at its meeting on 2 3 May was to take the detailed administration of the endowment fund out of the hands of the finance committee, and turn it over instead to the Central Trust Company of Moncton. This was partly in response to criticism by a special committee of the board of the way in which payments on mortgages held by the university had been allowed to lapse, and henceforth a more rigorous policy was to be pursued. 41 At the same meeting, new financial by-laws were adopted, including the establishment of a reformed finance committee including Trueman, S. W. Hunton - who had had much experience of administering the endowment fund during his years as treasurer of the institutions - and four members of the board who were qualified by their business experience. R.C. Tait, chairman of the board, was also president of the Central Trust Company; N .T. Avard, secretary of the board, had extensive business interests in Amherst; Senators F.B. Black and Clifford W. Robinson were respectively president of the New Brunswick Telephone Company and president of the New Brunswick Wire Fence Company among other industrial presidencies and directorates. 46 The new finance committee met for the first time in July 1934. Among its first actions was to institute a review of Mount Allison's relationship with the Royal Bank, as a result of which the bank was found to have given favourable treatment to the institutions in the past, and so its services were retained. Another measure, taken two years later on the suggestion of the university auditor, was the adoption of advance budgeting, a practice which had apparently not previously been followed. 47 Yet much of the committee's time, in its early months, was taken up by the consolidation of debts through the mortgaging of the land and buildings of the institutions for $400,000.

122 Mount Allison University The enabling legislation for the issue of bonds to this amount had passed through the provincial legislature in the preceding spring, and in September the bonds were conveyed to the Central Trust Company for public sale, and were soon fully subscribed. 'Nothing that has been done at Mount Allison for many years,' commented the Tribune 'has so focused attention on the local educational institutions and so united Allisonians everywhere than [sic] the bond issue of $400,000 on their Alma Mater.' 48 The issuing of mortgage bonds was an obviously appropriate response to the accumulating debts of the institutions. Indeed, there was little choice, for it was evident that continued reliance upon bank loans would soon be impossible. The bond issue, however, was not a solution to financial problems but rather a temporary reprieve. The bonds committed Mount Allison to an expenditure of $20,000 annually for interest payments, until they matured in 1954. In the meantime, as long as financial conditions remained as they were, there was no possibility of establishing a sinking fund for the eventual repayment of the mortgage. Furthermore, the bond issue did not consolidate all of the institutions' debts. In June 1935, for example, the university's bank loan and overdraft still amounted to almost $163,000. It was true that most of that sum was theoretically covered by outstanding subscriptions from the financial campaign of 1929, but the value of such pledges was now doubtful indeed. 49 Worst of all, all three institutions continued to be plagued by deficits, and in 1933-4 that of the university grew to the thoroughly alarming level of $24,600. In the following year it fell to somewhat less than $17,000, but that was still a potentially disastrous shortfall if it were continued in future years. 10 The fires of 1933 had not created these difficulties. None the less, the rebuilding of the two buildings had exacerbated the problems that already existed and had precluded any possibility of a quick or easy solution to them. Now that so much had been expended - both financially and in terms of time and energy - in recovering from the strains imposed by the fires, Mount Allison still had to face the year-to-year drain of recurring deficits. 'The deficit of the University is disturbing me a great deal,' commented Trueman in a letter to R.B. Bennett in November 1934, 'but I do not yet see how we will get clear of it.' 51 Of the three institutions during the mid-193os, the greatest financial losses by far were those of the university. Yet the university was not necessarily the most vulnerable to the dangers posed by the economic depression. In a gloomy report to the board of regents in November 1932, William Ross had observed that at the ladies' college 'the majority of the courses offered are considered to belong to the luxury class. ' 12 The tendency towards this

123 Weathering the Storm: 1931-1941 perilous situation was not new, having been recognized even before the turn of the century as a danger against which the ladies' college must guard. As the 1930s went on, it became increasingly clear that the institution could no longer attract students in numbers sufficient to justify the diversity of its existing operations. In May 1933, Ross reported that the ladies' college had 434 students. Of those, however, 278 were non-resident, many of whom had only the most tenuous of connections with the institution, perhaps taking weekly music lessons or forming part of local school parties taking classes in the household science laboratory. Of the 156 resident students although precise figures were not published - the majority were students of the other institutions, either university women or commercial students from the academy. Of the total of 434, it is likely that not more than 50 were actually resident students of the ladies' college. SJ Thus, while the return of the university women to live in the ladies' college building in March 1933 made it possible for deficits to be kept to manageable proportions, the problems faced by the ladies' college were not solely financial. The real question was whether the institution, as presently constituted, could provide any useful service to its constituency. This question was addressed in 1933 and 1934 by a special committee appointed by the board of regents, and including all three heads of institutions, two ladies' college alumnae, and five other members of the board. Following consultation with Margaret Addison, chairman of the secondary education committee of the United Church and a former dean of the women's residence at Victoria University, the committee reported in May 1934. Its major recommendations were governed by the assumption that 'women today must be prepared to earn a livelihood, even as men do,' and that there must therefore be a shift away from purely 'cultural subjects' to those that would combine cultural and vocational significance. The conservatory and the art school, therefore, should concentrate more upon normal courses: the conservatory, for example, could continue to award soloists' diplomas to a few outstanding performers, but its chief function should be to train 'leaders of the people's music.' Household science, the committee advocated, should be taken over completely by the university, and this was quickly carried into effect. As the future salvation of the ladies' college, however, the committee put heavy emphasis upon the redevelopment of courses leading to matriculation. Large numbers of women were now attending university, while matriculation was also the minimum entry standard for an increasing number of occupations, including teaching. Demand, therefore, should not be lacking, and the report also noted that 'many of our rural communities are out of reach of high schools and both girls and boys are

124 Mount Allison University compelled to live away from home to get a high school education.' Given suitable coordination in some subjects with the courses offered in the academy, the committee saw no reason why the ladies' college should not become an academic school of high quality. It also endorsed the related principle that 'there should be a lady at the head of a Ladies' College. 'H Following an address to the board of regents by Addison in connection with the presentation of the committee's report, the various recommendations were quickly adopted. Shortly afterwards, during that same meeting of 23 May 1934, William Ross offered his resignation as principal of the ladies' college, with effect not later than the summer of 1935. 51 The timing of Ross's resignation, which was formally tendered and accepted in the following October, had been made inevitable by the adoption of the notion of a woman principal. Yet contrary to rumours which quickly became current, it represented neither disagreement with the committee's recommendations, nor an acceptance of responsibility for the decline of the ladies' college since the prosperous days of the late 1920s. Ross, who was himself a member of the committee, had anticipated its major conclusion in his report in November 1933: There was a time when the Ladies' College registration was practically all in academic work. In the development of other departments, we somehow lost our claim upon girls of high school age. With several of the departments which have been developed now veering towards the University, we might well try to recapture the department which marked the founding of this institution.'•

Indeed, the only complaint that Ross later made about the committee's report was that, in his view, it had not gone far enough in transferring departments to the university. If the conservatory and the art school were to be taken over by the university as the household science department had been he believed that the ladies' college would have a clear chance of succeeding as an academic school. s1 As for reflections upon Ross's discharge of his duties, there had undoubtedly been criticism of the ladies' college in recent years. 18 The truth was, however, that in 1926 Ross had been given a task that would have been difficult at the best of times and was made impossible by the economic depression. His appointment had represented the rejection for the time being of a scheme similar to that now being adopted, and thus a last attempt to preserve the ladies' college as a large and diverse institution. That the attempt had miscarried was not a personal failure on the part of Ross, but rather a personal tragedy in that he had seriously impaired his health through con-

125 Weathering the Storm: 1931-1941

sistent and dedicated efforts to succeed in a position in which success was unattainable. That this was already widely appreciated in the fall of 1934 was made clear by representations made to members of the board of regents after his resignation had been made public. Amid charges that Ross was being unjustly treated because he was a former Presbyterian, it was suggested by Trueman that he be given a year's commission, starting in the summer of 1935, to study ways in which Mount Allison might extend its work in adult education.s9 The need for such a study was genuine, and Ross's family home in Pictou was conveniently close to St Francis Xavier University, where innovative adult education work was being carried on under the direction of Moses Coady. The appointment also helped to avoid a recurrence of conflicts related to church union. 'Church Union is a success,' remarked Trueman to R.C. Archibald in September 1935, 'but the old loyalties persist, and endless tact and courtesy is the price of peace. ' 60 Most of all, however, the appointment recognized the obligation owed by Mount Allison to Ross for his resolute sustenance of a losing battle over a ten-year period. Ross was succeeded by Constance Young, the first woman principal of the ladies' college. A graduate of Mount Allison and a former Presbyterian from Kentville, Nova Scotia, Young had taken a Master's degree in education and psychology at Columbia University and had then gone on to churchrelated educational work in both Canada and the West Indies. She arrived in Sackville in late July 1935 . 61 Young's success in her new position would depend largely upon whether she was able to assert the distinctiveness of the ladies' college as one of the three institutions, in the face of suggestions that all pre-matriculation work should be concentrated in the academy and all post-matriculation courses in the university, along the lines successfully followed at Acadia in 1926, when the Acadia ladies' seminary and collegiate academy had been combined while the departments of music, art, and home economics had been added to the university. 61 It soon became clear that her chief concern was to develop the pre-matriculation courses of the ladies' college so as to enable the institution to function as a girls' boarding school. Accordingly, in February 1936, on her recommendation, the executive committee of the board of regents authorized the use of the new title of 'School for Girls. ' 63 The school for girls was not at first intended to replace the ladies' college. Instead, the ladies' college would operate as a loose federation consisting of the school for girls, the conservatory, and the art school, now renamed 'the college of art.' By 1937, however, with the conservatory and the art school continuing to show annual deficits, further reform was inevitable. On recommendation of the university faculty, the two departments

126 Mount Allison University were integrated into the university, and the school for girls stood alone as the remaining portion of the former ladies' college. 64 For the conservatory and the art school, these were years of change in more than a purely administrative sense. Integration into the university meant that the two departments would be subject to the regulation of the university faculty and senate, and this presented greater difficulty than in the case of home economics, which had had a flourishing B sc degree programme since the late 1920s. None the less, the conservatory had its Bachelor of Music degree, which in 1933 had had its first graduates - Gwendolyn MacDonald and Dorothy Swetnam - since 1917, and by 1937 seven more degrees had been awarded. The conditions of the conservatory's inclusion within the university, as defined by the faculty, were that the Bachelor of Music programme should continue and that the conservatory should also continue to offer a course in history and appreciation of music as an option for BA students, as well as introducing a selection of half-courses in subjects ranging from musical theory to choral work. 61 As for the art school, the condition of its acceptance into the university was the introduction of a programme leading to the degree of Bachelor of Fine Arts. In this, Mount Allison innovated. There were art departments at several other Canadian universities - including Acadia - but within the BA framework. There were precedents in the United States for the BFA degree, notably at Yale, Princeton, and Cornell, but Mount Allison was the first Canadian university to adopt it. 66 The four-year degree offered a balance of theoretical and practical subjects, and alternative specializations in the last two years in either the fine arts themselves, stressing drawing and painting, or in 'public school art teaching.' The two-year diploma course in applied art also continued. Thus, the teacher training element of the art school's tuition was strengthened, while its more traditional function of training practising artists was also safeguarded. 67 Associated with curriculum changes were changes in staffing. At the conservatory, Noel Brunton retired as director in 1936, to be succeeded by Harold Hamer, but continued his long career of service to Mount Allison as professor of piano. Added to the faculty in the same year was Ethel Peake, who came to Mount Allison from the Toronto Conservatory to become head of the vocal department. The conservatory also received assistance in 1936 from the Carnegie Corporation, in the form of a 'music set' - a large electric gramophone, some nine hundred records, and a library of musical scores and books. 68 Meanwhile, in 19 35, the art school had acquired its first professor since the retirement of John Hammond - still active now in his ninety-second year - in the person of Stanley Royle. Royle was an English

127 Weathering the Storm: 1931-1941

portrait and landscape painter, who had recently taught at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design, and he came to Mount Allison with confidence that he would 'induce students to come to Mount Allison and that our building and equipment ... [would] enable him to build the school up to the highest level. '69 Royle's ambition, in which he would have the assistance of Elizabeth McLeod and the other members of the existing staff of the art school, was a necessary one. The only opposition among the university faculty to the integration of either fine arts or music had been on grounds of economy : that the two departments were not profitable and had no endowment funds . With the university already troubled by large deficits each year, it clearly could not afford to retain either as a continuing burden. It was in this context in early 1939 that Trueman admitted privately to J.M. Palmer that the new arrangements would necessarily be subject to revision 'until we find out whether the Music and Art departments can be made to pay their way.' 70 Neither department as yet had an assured future; but they had at least survived the wreck of the ladies' college. The school for girls was based on the former academic department of the ladies' college, although here too there were changes in both staff and curriculum. One notable retirement was that of Annie Sprague, whose service to the ladies' college had spanned thirty-two years since her arrival as a teacher of mathematics in 1903. Twenty-two of those years she had spent as vice-principal, and there had been times when she might reasonably have expected to be considered for the higher position. The tradition of a male head had persisted, however, until now, and Sprague had to be content with seeing one of her former students appointed as the first woman principal. With her retirement, and with the resignation of the English teacher and ladies' college dean Mary Hessell to return to her native England, the staff of the school for girls had a different aspect from that of its predecessor, although there were also other teachers who stayed. The curriculum was now avowedly that of a high school, based on the Nova Scotia grades IX to XI and thus leading to university matriculation.7' The decision to concentrate upon a high school curriculum had been foreshadowed in the findings of the university special committee in 1934, after its consultation with Margaret Addison, and had been confirmed by the inclinations of Constance Young. It was a bold one nevertheless, given the small numbers of students who had taken such courses during the last years of the ladies' college. Only eleven students in total had attained matriculation certificates from the ladies' college during the years from 1933 to 1935 , while the Mistress of Liberal Arts course had had a single graduate in 1933 and none since.7 The school for girls would have to be built up virtually from nothing, and in the 2

128 Mount Allison University

1936-7 year there were only 14 full-time students taking academic courses. Two years later, the number rose to 30, and to 41 in the year after that. Furthermore, with the assistance of rent paid by the university for the use of the facilities of the music, art, and home economics departments, Young was able to report a balanced budget by the spring of 1939.73 The experiment was still fragile, but it had made a useful start. The effort to enable the school for girls to survive and prosper obviously depended upon its ability to establish a distinctive character both among the Mount Allison institutions and among the other high schools of the region with which it would have to compete for pupils. At Mount Allison, the school for girls necessarily had close links with both the academy and the university. It shared the old ladies' college buildings with the university women, although having self-contained quarters in Hart Hall: the rest of the ladies' college was henceforth the university women's residence and, like its off-campus predecessors, was named Allison Hall. 7• With the academy, the school for girls had much in common, since both were offering high school courses in the Nova Scotia pattern. The school for girls did not itself teach science subjects, so that its students customarily studied physics, chemistry, and biology at the academy. Another link was the residence in the school for girls of some of the female students of the commercial college: among the older commercial students there were objections to living among high school pupils, and some boarded instead in Allison Hall, but by 1939 there were still 16 commercial students at the school for girls.7l Apart from these specific connections, however, the two pre-matriculation schools operated separately and with rather different philosophical bents. The school for girls was consciously influenced by the 'progressive' schools that had grown up during the inter-war period, particularly in Great Britain and the United States. During the summer of 1936, Constance Young visited schools in Britain and was quoted by the Tribune on her return as commenting that 'there is a strong feeling abroad that the character of education must change if it is to fit men and women to bring order out of a disordered world. ' 76 The principle that was most fundamental to the school for girls was the notion that education should enable a pupil to exercise self-discipline, rather than have either discipline or learning imposed by a higher authority. Consequently, although the school had some of the trappings of a conventional girls' private boarding-school - such as school uniforms - much freedom was given to the students both individually and collectively through their student council. 'Her philosophy was' recalled one student of Young, 'that, ... as young people, we had to learn responsibility and we couldn't learn to take responsibility in cocoons, and she gradually dropped the rules

129 Weathering the Storm: 1931-1941 that seemed pointless to the girls. ' 77 In teaching, too, the school was governed by the assumption that the initiative of the student must be fostered. 'The teaching methods are designed,' the calendar declared, 'to lead students to think intelligently, not to memorize facts.' Nor was competition encouraged between students. On the contrary, starting in 1936, courses were introduced - modelled on those at the Dalton school in Massachusetts - which stressed research work by the individual student at her own pace, rather than class recitation in which students would vie with one another.7 8 Also characteristic of the progressive movement was a pronounced emphasis upon creative activity in sport and the arts. Thus, for example, the calendar professed that the one major aim of dramatics teaching was the production of plays by the students, such as the play entitled 'Beausejour' that was written by students of grades x and XI and presented at the closing exercises in May 1938.79 The new directions taken by the school for girls did not escape without criticism. It was unlikely that they would, since even the more limited relaxation of discipline in the ladies' college had raised strong objections earlier in the decade. By September 1937, J.M. Palmer was reporting to Ross Flemington that he had heard allegations of undue laxity of discipline at the school for girls, and worried whether this might hinder the academy in its efforts to recruit female students for the commercial college. Yet he also indicated that he had heard more favourable reports from other sources, and notably from Mary Elizabeth Bell, a veteran teacher of piano in the conservatory who had praised the new regime at the school for girls. Furthermore, Young had strong support from the board of regents, which in October 1936 had voted that she should be 'enthusiastically supported' in her efforts 'to organize a Girls' School along the lines of the so-called Progressive Schools.' 80 Quite apart from the merits or otherwise of Young's plans, the task of firmly establishing the school for girls could only be accomplished if the school had a character that clearly differentiated it from other high schools, and thus induced parents to send their children there. The founding of a progressive school was one way of attempting to secure the continuation of girls' secondary education at Mount Allison. The academy faced the same need to create a distinctive character and here again an answer was consciously arrived at by the head of the institution. Flemington, like Young, looked far afield for his model, but it was an entirely different one. For Flemington, the future of the academy as a private boys' school could best be safeguarded by adopting the characteristics of the English public school. Hence, his own title was changed from 'principal' to 'headmaster,' former pupils were referred to as 'Old Boys,' and a line from Sir Henry Newbolt's poem Vitae Lampada was adopted as the school motto:

130 Mount Allison University 'play up! play up! and play the game.' 81 Flemington's notion of what the academy might become may well have originated during his stay in Great Britain as a member of the Royal Flying Corps during the First World War, and have been strengthened when Newbolt visited Mount Allison to give a reading during Flemington's own student days in 1923. 82 His views were reinforced when he revisited Britain in the summer of 1935, on a tour of schools sponsored by a number of members of the Sackville community at the prompting of N.A. Hesler, president of the local industrial firm Enamel and Heating Products Ltd. On his return, Flemington wrote to thank Hesler and professed himself especially impressed by the way in which successive generations of boys from the same families attended English public schools. 'This has never been true of the Academy in the way it should be,' he observed, 'but I feel that it is one way in which a more definite permanency can be given to the school than it has had. ' 8} The academy during the 1930s was a prosperous school. Student numbers were well maintained, and deficits avoided in most years. The commercial college continued to attract students from the local area and beyond, despite a temporary fall in attendance because of economic circumstances in 1933 and 1934, while the traditional concentration upon matriculation courses in the academic department ensured that the academy would not suffer from the handicap of being perceived as offering 'luxury' courses. Indeed, more than once, Flemington's optimistic reports to the board of regents during the early 1930s when the ladies' college was in decline provided rare moments of relief in meetings that were otherwise gloomy. 84 To be sure, Flemington had his battles to fight. In 1932, for example, he successfully defended the continuation of the academy cadet corps in the face of criticisms from the Maritime Conference to the effect that it was a warlike organization. 85 Less effective was his campaign during the late 1930s to obtain separate endowment funds for the academy. In 1936, Mount Allison received a bequest amounting to some $300,000 from O.E. Smith of Halifax, who had been a student of the academy and not of the university. However, Flemington's argument that the academy should have at least a substantial share of the income from the donation was not accepted by the finance committee of the board of regents, except for the vote of a small annual sum to pay the salary of one teacher in the commercial college. 86 On the matter of endowment, Flemington continued his advocacy. In his annual report of 1936, he had remarked that 'in looking back over the years I cannot find a single instance of any endowment funds ever being allocated by the Board to the Academy,' and over the next three years he argued that a portion of any funds raised in a planned centenary appeal in

131 Weathering the Storm: 1931-1941 1940 should be used for buildings and endowment for the academy. 87 By implication, he recognized the dangers that still threatened the continuing existence of both the academy and the school for girls, despite the fact that both were prospering in their different ways during the late 1930s. First, as private schools in the midst of a developing public school system in the Maritimes, they faced competition and a shrinking constituency. The number of rural areas that were out of reach of a high school was diminishing, and therefore the two schools had increasingly to rely on those parents who were prepared to pay for the privilege of sending their children to be educated in a particular environment. Secondly, the notion of a private institution operating on a more or less exclusive basis in competition with a public system did not have deep roots at Mount Allison. Both the academy and the ladies' college had endeavoured in the past to supplement the public system either by providing academic courses for those whose place of residence made it difficult for them to attend a public school, or by offering instruction in subjects not covered in the public system. Whether the two institutions could now successfully change their characters so as to function as direct alternatives to the public schools remained to be seen. Furthermore, student attendance at the university had grown during the inter-war years to the point where it easily exceeded the combined enrolments of the academy and the school for girls. At the end of the First World War, the university had been the smallest of the three institutions. Twenty years later, it was by far the largest. It was conceivable that the time might come when the two secondary schools would be seen as mere historical survivals, of little relevance to the major task of providing university education. That time was not yet, but Flemington's efforts to obtain endowment funds were an accurate indication that the academy's survival, like that of the school for girls, might come to depend on the extent to which it had its own resources independent of those of the university. The university itself was also forced to make retrenchments in order to cope with the circumstances of the mid-193os. In January 1936, Trueman sent a circular letter to all heads of departments in which he expressed the hope that, with help from the interest received from the O.E. Smith bequest, faculty salaries might be restored to the level at which they had been prior to the third and most recent reduction. This was duly done later in the year. 88 Yet Trueman also envisaged drastic economies, made all the more urgent by the adoption of the practice of advance budgeting: From now on the Regents expect me to present a statement each May indicating

132 Mount Allison University probable income and expenditure and showing a balanced budget. I know of no way to increase the income, and do not know how to lower the expenditures except by giving fewer courses and reducing the size of the Faculty. The Department of Teacher Training might be closed, honour courses dropped or given in a limited number of departments, assistant professors in such fields as Classics, English, Modern Languages and one or more of the Sciences might be asked to resign. In their places, where absolutely necessary, competent instructors on a small salary, engaged with the understanding that they hold the position for one year or at most two, might be appointed.••

If these Draconian measures were put into effect, the results would be both tragic and ironic. They would be tragic not only for the personal damage done to those faculty members affected but also because of the sharp decline in academic standards that would inevitably follow . They would be ironic because to rely upon the recruitment of young faculty members on shortterm appointments would be to return to the predicament in which the university had found itself before the First World War, when low salaries had made it impossible to induce new professors to stay beyond a very few years. In the interim, a nucleus of long-term faculty members had been created, and the turnover of teaching staff kept to manageable proportions. It seemed now as if that stability was likely to be jeopardized. In the event, in the summer of 1936 the faculty reductions were not as severe as had been feared . The education department was not closed, although one of its professors, C.A. Baxter, was retained only by being appointed for a year to take the place of Charles A. Krug, professor of philosophy, who was going on study leave. The brunt of the cutbacks was borne by modern languages : one professor, W.H . Trethewey, left the department to take an appointment at Victoria, while a French assistant was also made redundant. 9° Further retrenchments were, for the time being, avoided; but during the 1930s, in contrast with earlier eras of the university's history, faculty members at Mount Allison could not count upon security of tenure to compensate for their low salaries. None of the younger faculty members, however, would have such long experience of the vicissitudes of life as a Mount Allison faculty member as did the two septuagenarians who retired during the mid-193os: S.W. Hunton, who completed fifty-one years as professor of mathematics when he retired in 1934, and W.M. Tweedie, who retired three years later after fifty years of teaching English. Each of them had come to Mount Allison as a young scholar after studying overseas as a Gilchrist scholar. Together with A.D . Smith and W.W. Andrews, they had for many years carried most of

133 Weathering the Storm: 1931-1941 the university teaching at Mount Allison. In more recent years they had been the senior members of a larger faculty, while still teaching at every level from first-year introductory courses to the guidance of honours students. Successive generations of students had seen them in different ways. The young mathematician who trained a succession of honours students for distinguished post-graduate careers became the white-haired 'Daddy' Hunton. Tweedie, who came as a radical scholar known for his keen mind and acerbic comments in class, was known to later classes as a benign figure noted for his red book-bag referred to either simply as 'P.T.' (for Professor Tweedie) or - obscurely but affectionately - as 'Old Scabbo.' Over half a century, they had become mythical as well as real-life figures, as legendary stories clustered around them. One American educational historian has remarked that 'if such a remembered teacher spent his life at a small college, he was forever being credited with refusing offers from the big schools. ' 9 ' And so it was - and truthfully so - with Hunton and Tweedie. They were also credited with characteristics popularly supposed to go along with the subjects they taught. Hunton, for example, was renowned, along with veteran professors of mathematics elsewhere, for rubbing equations off the blackboard faster than any of his students could take notes. Similarly, the story was frequently told that a certain student found it impossible to decipher Tweedie's comment written at the end of his returned essay. When he complained about this, Tweedie struggled to read his own script, and finally replied: 'it says that I cannot read your writing.' The story may well be true; and yet the identical story was told of H .J. C. Grierson, professor of English at Aberdeen University from 1894 to 1915. 91 Hunton and Tweedie were not alone, of course, in being commemorated in story and legend. Other long-serving faculty members also gathered distinctive reputations: Harold Bigelow, for example, for his absent-mindedness; Donald MacGregor for his graphic demonstration of the laws of gravity by jumping off his desk; Roy Fraser for his meticulous avoidance of germs, whether by never touching a door-handle or by wearing a face-mask during outbreaks of colds or influenza; 'Jimmie Willie' Cohoon for his shyness; and so on. 9 l Also known for his shyness in the classroom, as well as for the quality of his lectures on current world events, was F. W.W. DesBarres. He too retired from full-time teaching during the mid 1930s - in 1936- although during the Second World War and even afterwards he returned from time to time to teach both history and theology courses, and so was not by any means lost to the university. Yet Hunton and Tweedie, by virtue of their long service, stood in a unique position, apart from the rest. Hunton's fiftieth anniversary at Mount Allison was celebrated by the award to him of an

134 Mount Allison University honorary degree of LLD, and by the endowment of a scholarship fund in his name by alumni of the university. His actual retirement a year later was more quietly marked. 94 Tweedie in 1937 also received an honorary degree, and was honoured at an alumni banquet on 17 May. After receiving a presentation from the hands of two of his former students, Winthrop Bell and Frank Parker Day, he began his response with the pawky wit that was characteristic of his later years: 'retiring after fifty years seems to be no simple and easy matter. I shall not do it again. ' 9 i Nobody would do it again. Those who remained on the faculty, and those who arrived to join it, faced different prospects than had Hunton and Tweedie at earlier stages in their careers. They did not face greater demands, but they faced different demands. They also had different opportunities. During the 1930s, the criteria for recruitment of faculty members became more rigorous in terms of formal qualifications: in January 1936, Trueman indicated that henceforth any new faculty member appointed as a department head must hold the PHD degree, and in the same month the Argosy commented on the fact that ten members of the faculty now had that degree. 96 At the same time, some of the more traditional, if informal, considerations for the appointment of new faculty members were being set aside. A conscious effort was now made to avoid excessive representation of Mount Allison graduates on the faculty. The practice of recruiting the university's own graduates had grown up less as a deliberate policy than in the interests of finding qualified persons who were prepared to accept low salaries, and since Trueman's arrival as president there had been relatively few Mount Allison graduates appointed. 'Mount Allison has been criticized in the past for inbreeding,' Trueman observed in 1936 to one Allisonian who enquired about the chair in history, 'although I do not think she deserved it'; in any case, he went on, the university now intended to look further afield for its teaching staff. 97 Nor, in recent years, had membership of the United Church been a major factor in faculty appointments. Trueman agreed in 1937 with an applicant for the assistant professorship of English that United Church connections might conceivably be considered in choosing between otherwise equally qualified candidates, but declared also that 'we have disregarded this almost entirely in the past, not even knowing to which Church many of our candidates belong. '98 This did not imply, however, that the criteria were entirely academic, or that atheists and agnostics would be welcome on the faculty. Not only was this a Christian university, but its professors were also expected to participate in the life - including the religious life - of the community in which it was situated. There was a strong preference too for male applicants, in all de-

135 Weathering the Storm: 1931-1941 partments other than home economics, music, and art. The only exception to this was Georgie M. Wall, assistant professor of Latin, and while defining in late 1935 the qualities expected in the new professor of history, Trueman clearly implied that no further appointment of a woman was contemplated: We must have for the position a young man who has a good personality, able to express himself clearly and attractively on the public platform, and with that fire which will enable him to draw students to himself and interest them in his work. Since Sackville is a small town we must also have on our staff men who are interested in the community life, politics in the larger sense, the Church, the public schools in other words we want a man who can be a citizen as well as a professor.••

Appointment to the faculty at Mount Allison, therefore, was not decided by unrestricted competition on academic grounds. None the less, by the mid-193os the principles had been established that Mount Allison graduates could not expect preferential treatment, and that any successful candidate must be highly qualified by post-graduate education. Given the increased emphasis upon a research degree as a qualification for faculty appointment, it is not surprising that the 1930s also saw a quickening of research activity among the faculty. Faculty members were expected to be teachers first and foremost, and their teaching loads were heavy enough to leave but little time for systematic research, but in certain departments research activity went forward nevertheless. This was especially true in science subjects. The department of chemistry, under Bigelow's direction and with the assistance of Arnold Cuthbertson from 1930, quickly gained recognition outside of the university, both for the effectiveness of its faculty members as scientists and for the research performance of their honours graduates. A later study of the origins of North American scientists (defined as those listed in the 1944 edition of American Men of Science) showed that Mount Allison's record in graduating 12 science students between 1924 and 1934 who went on to scientific careers was, in proportion to the overall number of graduates of the university, the fourth most productive in Canada and the thirtieth in North America; and the chemistry department's production of future scientists consistently outstripped that of the other science departments. 'Bigelow's students,' commented F.P. Keppel of the Carnegie Corporation after a visit to Mount Allison in the summer of 1932, 'have made excellent records, both in Canadian universities and as National Research Council fellows.' The result of Keppel's favourable verdict was an allocation of $12 5,ooo from the corporation to the university for endowment in chemistry. Bigelow was, he informed Keppel, 'astounded and delighted'

136 Mount Allison University at this grant, which restored his spirits and those of his colleagues after the disappointment over the Jost bequest. To Frank Parker Day earlier in 1932 Bigelow had confessed that a school textbook he was then writing 'is in fact a pot-boiler. The times are hard!' Times would remain hard, but at least with the assistance of the Carnegie grant the chemistry department was able to afford the resources to enable Bigelow and Cuthbertson, and their students, to continue research and publication throughout the decade. Also active in research, in the field of bacteriology, was Roy Fraser. One of his papers, based on research carried out during an epidemic of infectious jaundice at the ladies' college in 1931, had been influential in his election in 1932 as a fellow of the Royal Microscopical Society, and other papers followed in the course of the decade. Fraser complained in 1938 that his activities were being restricted not only by a heavy teaching load but also by lack of funds with which to buy equipment and supplies, but the commitment of his department to research was clear, particularly as he considered an interest in research to be an essential attribute of the pre-medical students in whose training he was especially interested. One facility that was not yet generally available to Mount Allison faculty members was sabbatical leave. During the 1930s, however, the university began to give some assistance to those who wished to take leave for research purposes. Despite vigorous opposition on the executive committee of the board of regents, Trueman succeeded in 1937 in establishing the principle that the difference between a professor's salary and that of a less experienced one-year replacement could be given in aid of an approved leave project. The pioneer was Arnold Cuthbertson, who departed for Cambridge in the 1937-8 year to carry on research in the chemistry of polymerization. Two years later, Donald MacGregor spent a year of study leave at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. ' 03 Such leaves still involved considerable financial sacrifice for the faculty member involved, and from the university's point of view any leave of absence continued to be more favourably considered if fully covered by an external grant. Yet Mount Allison scientists were now able on occasion to arrange limited funding from the university for this purpose. ' 04 In the humanities and social sciences, research and publication was slower to develop at Mount Allison. In 1936, in response to a query from the University of Toronto Quarterly, Trueman rather vaguely declared that 'I do not think anything has been published by the staff of Mount Allison during the year beyond occasional papers in scientific journals .... ' s During the late 1930s, however, this situation changed. Even in earlier years, in the field of classics, J. W. Cohoon had been privately engaged in translating and 100

101

10 •

10

137 Weathering the Storm: 1931-1941 editing the works of the Greek orator Dio Chrysostom for the Loeb Classical Library. The first volume appeared in 1932, the second in 1939. Cohoon, in his self-effacing way, was undoubtedly one of Mount Allison's finest scholars, and yet even he was forced by the pressure of his teaching load to relinquish his task to a scholar from the University of Pennsylvania after only half-completing the third volume. The loss was not only Cohoon's, but also that of the university, for it represented the frustration of a significant work by a member of faculty. 106 Another productive scholar was G.F.G. Stanley, who joined the faculty in 1936 to replace DesBarres as professor of history. In the same year, Stanley published his The Birth of Western Canada: A History of the Riel Rebellions to favourable reviews. As well as reorganizing the teaching curriculum of his department to include Canadian history for the first time, he continued during the pre-war years to publish articles in that field. ' 07 As for research in the social sciences, Herbert Tucker - professor of economics and sociology, and dean of the faculty of arts since 1937 - responded to a government enquiry in late 1940 by stressing once again the heavy teaching responsibilities of the Mount Allison faculty. 'It seems to me,' he continued, 'that the Mari times offer considerable scope in socio-economic subjects but generally speaking a great deal of field work would be required and this is expensive.' Among the projects that Tucker would have liked to see undertaken at Mount Allison were studies of the socio-economic structure of Maritime fisheries and of 'marsh land economics,' and herein perhaps lay the germ of future work in Maritime studies at Mount Allison. 108 For the time being, however, these ambitions had to remain unfulfilled. The division of Mount Allison's departments into two faculties in 1937, which had occasioned the appointment of Tucker as dean of arts and that of H. W. McKiel as dean of science, was an indication of the increasing complexity of the academic work done by the university during the 1930s, as well as a direct result of the absorption of the departments of home economics, music, and art. 109 So too was the beginning in 1938 of the differentiation of 'faculty council,' an assembly of department heads called for consultation by the president, from general meetings of faculty. ° Complexity of a different kind was indicated by the limited redevelopment of graduate studies during the 1930s. Mount Allison's proposal of 1927, in connection with discussion of the Carnegie federation scheme, that it should no longer give post-graduate degrees, had not met with formal recognition either from the Carnegie Corporation or from other universities. None the less, during the ensuing years, Mount Allison severely restricted its offering of Master's degrees, and only seven were awarded in the decade from 1927 11

138 Mount Allison University to 1936, as opposed to 33 in the previous decade.'" There was, however, a steady if small demand for post-graduate instruction, in many cases from teachers attending summer school. Up until 1932, most of these potential students were directed to Dalhousie, but the beginnings of a change of policy came late in that year when it became clear that Acadia University now intended to establish a summer school offering MA courses. Accordingly, in the summer of 1933, Mount Allison responded to this competition by advertising graduate instruction for 'a limited number of students' in the field of education. m As the decade went on, other departments began to offer Master's degrees, although still in small numbers. In early 1938, the faculty and senate adopted new and more demanding regulations for both the MA and M sc degrees, prescribing at least one academic year in residence, or four summer schools, and introducing the possibility of comprehensive examinations for some students. 113 The university had thus moved some way back towards the notion of offering instruction at post-graduate level, and it had also recognized during the 1930s that research and scholarly activity on the part of faculty members was deserving of more encouragement than it had hitherto received. Neither of these developments, however, altered the essential responsibility that the university acknowledged: to function, within the constraints imposed by economic circumstances, as a small, undergraduate institution. As the 1930s went on, the task of circumventing economic constraints became increasingly difficult. In early 1936, in a speech delivered at the Saint John YMCA Forum, Trueman reaffirmed his belief that a university should be open to those students capable of profiting from higher education regardless of their wealth or social status. 'Methods should be found in this country,' he declared, 'to enable worthy students who lack financial means to attend the higher seats of learning.' Despite this public commitment, however, he admitted privately that Mount Allison's bursary funds could not cope with the demands now put upon them, and that it was no longer true that no able student was turned away. 114 What the university could and did do was to minimize this tendency as much as possible by awarding financial assistance strictly on grounds of need. Although a slight distinction was maintained between scholarships and bursaries, in that a scholarship denoted outstanding academic ability, the policy of Mount Allison from 1935 onwards was to offer aid only to those who 'could not possibly come to the University without such financial help.' In response to an enquiry in the summer of 1939, Trueman defended this practice on the explicit ground that 'otherwise, they [financial awards] defeat their own purpose for such

139 Weathering the Storm: 1931-1941 things are certainly established in order to equalize educational opportunities. I hope, therefore, that Mount Allison may never give scholarships to leaders in class on that basis only, but only when those leaders need scholarships and bursaries in order to attend.' 111 Direct financial aid was only one of the expedients adopted at Mount Allison during the depression years in order to assist students to attend. Part-time work was regularly offered in the dining hall and kitchen of the men's residence, in the library, and elsewhere on campus. Such opportunities were apparently made more easily available to male students than to women, although there were secretarial positions available for female students, and also telephone duty in the women's residence. 116 Also given were fee discounts in certain circumstances : the old practice of a 20 per cent discount on tuition fees for the children of ministers, for example, was revived during the 1930s and applied to the clergy of all denominations. 'You will see, of course,' wrote Trueman to one beneficiary of the scheme, 'how important it is to a Church College that it has the support of the Church Ministers, and you will understand that it is good business on our part to be generous to the sons of the Ministers.' 117 On occasion too, payments in kind were accepted on students' accounts, usually in the form of agricultural produce from parents farming in the immediate vicinity of Sackville, which could be used in the university dining halls, or in one case in the form of bread from an Amherst bakery. This principle clearly could not, however, be extended far afield, and Trueman declined a proposal in 1937 to institute a policy of accepting fox pelts for the fees of students from Prince Edward Island. 118 Thus there was a variety of ways in which students could be assisted, and different forms of aid were often combined in particular cases to provide individuals with enough to enable them to pay their way. In some cases, unpaid accounts were simply left uncollected on the strength of promises that the student would pay whenever able to do so. This practice was used especially for the benefit of the theology students, and in fact was applied routinely to all potential theological students sent by any presbytery of the United Church. 'Scarcely one of the Theological students,' Trueman observed in early 1937 to the secretary of the church board of Christian education, 'is paying his bills here.' 119 Such allowances were also made, at Trueman's discretion, for other students, despite the fact that the whole practice was contrary to the stated policy of the board of regents. Even the board, however, expressed willingness in November 1935 to let its regulations be set aside in deserving cases. At that time, the combined balance of student accounts due at the three institutions amounted to over $40,000, including a total of nearly $26,000 at the university, and the uncollected

140 Mount Allison University accounts were a constant source of concern to the financial managers of the institutions throughout the decade. 120 None the less, some flexibility was maintained in the interests of allowing the university to continue to fulfil its educational mission. Yet there was also another motivation involved in the effort to facilitate student attendance at Mount Allison: the desire to avoid the worse financial evils that would arise from a steep decline in enrolment. The university succeeded throughout the 1930s in avoiding such a decline. Throughout the first half of the decade, except for a temporary reduction to 377 in the 1933-4 year, undergraduate enrolment stayed between 390 and 400. The second half of the decade then saw an increase, to a maximum of 4 55 in 1937-8; much of the rise waSJdue to the inclusion in the university attendance rolls of students in the newly absorbed departments of home economics, music, and fine arts. True~an continued to adhere to the concept of limited enrolment, although the figure he now used as a maximum was 500 rather than 400. 'My own idea,' he remarked in 1937, 'and one which I believe is shared by the Regents, is to keep Mount Allison a small college . ... ' During these years, however, the price even of maintaining existing enrolments was systematic canvassing for students, often in competition with the other institutions of the region. The most effective recruiter of students for Mount Allison was undoubtedly W.S. Godfrey, student pastor and field secretary from 1930 to 1936, whose tireless advocacy of the university during his travels throughout the Maritimes provoked spirited protests from such other institutions as Dalhousie, King's, and UNB -which regarded such canvassing as 'poaching' - and earned him equally enthusiastic praise at Mount Allison. m Competition for students between Maritime universities was inevitable during the 1930s, although professedly regretted by all. What was more damaging to Mount Allison than the reality of competition was the persistent allegation that the university's academic standards were being lowered in the interests of student recruitment. Carleton Stanley, the president of Dalhousie University, for example, wrote privately to J.C. Webster in 1937 on the case of a student required for academic reasons to leave the medical course at Dalhousie. 'He is obviously ... ,' wrote Stanley, 'a victim of bad preparation at Mount Allison .... Fraser, I know, is a good man in biology. But what can he do when Mount Allison accepts, wholesale, unmatriculated students!' 123 The matter of 'conditioned' entrance - students admitted to university without having completed matriculation, on the understanding that they would make up their remaining matriculation subjects during their first year - had been controversial for many years. Learned and Sills had commented unfavourably on the practice in their report of 1922, and dis121

141 Weathering the Storm: 1931-1941 cussion had continued intermittently since. ll 4 All could agree that conditioned entrance was undesirable, but profound disagreement existed as to whether any particular universities had higher standards than others, and whether the acceptance of conditioned students was not a necessary evil. Mount Allison consistently denied during the 1930s that its admission practices differed significantly from those of the other institutions of the region. In 1933, for example, the Carnegie Corporation central advisory committee formed a subcommittee to discuss the matter, and the conclusion of W.M. Tweedie, who represented Mount Allison at its meeting, was 'that the Mount Allison requirements were practically the same as those referred to by members of other Universities'; at a meeting of the full committee in the following year this view was sustained by Trueman in a sharp exchange with Stanley. 11 1 At the same time, Mount Allison was prepared to reduce the number of its conditioned students, and Trueman declared before a further meeting in December 1936 that the number had already substantially decreased. " 6 To meet criticisms that had focused jointly on matriculation standards and recruiting methods, Mount Allison also discontinued a previous practice of offering scholarships to able and needy students before the results of their matriculation examinations were known. 117 Yet the fact was that at Mount Allison, and particularly in the view of Trueman, conditioned entrance was not wholly condemned. Rather, it was regarded, like financial assistance to students who would otherwise have been unable to attend university, as an effective means of equalizing opportunities when applied in appropriate cases. One of the fundamental tenets of Trueman's concept of the small, rural college was that higher education was not exclusively for the intellectually brilliant or for the well-prepared. Many of those who were not well prepared in terms of matriculation subjects were the victims, he believed, of inadequacies of the high school system in the region, especially in the rural areas. He too, as he reminded Carleton Stanley in a letter of March 1934, had faced that situation when he was a boy, and he reaffirmed the contention already advanced in his annual report in the previous year that 'in this sparsely settled country, any system that denies opportunity to those who have not been able to attend good high schools .. . is wrong.' 118 Trueman also believed that the economic depression put a further responsibility upon the universities of the Maritimes. While accepting that students must have a certain minimal ability to benefit from higher education, he argued both privately and publicly that purely academic criteria for admission must be tempered by consideration of social realities. In late 19 35, he addressed the central advisory committee on this question:

142 Mount Allison University The Secretary [Trueman] did not agree with some of the previous speakers when they said that the University was only for students of very high intellectual qualifications. He felt that there was a place in the University for the student of moderate ability. Whatever might be the ideal condition we had to face the fact today that large numbers of the students who complete high school courses have nothing to do. The only schools open for them here are the Normal School, thP. Agricultural College and the University. If we had in these Provinces what they have in Europe, numbers of schools giving work in advance of the high school in various fields, many of these students might be looked after outside of the University, but as conditions are here, students who have not yet decided what they wish to do in life, who have no work, and who wish to go on with the study of cultural and other subjects, should be admitted into the University."•

Such a view of the role of the university carried obvious dangers. At worst, it could be a rationalization for low academic standards, especially when combined with Trueman's interventions on behalf of students, particularly freshman students, who were finding their courses difficult. At least two faculty members - Fraser and Trethewey - felt obliged to put up stiff resistance to such approaches during the mid-193os. '} At best, Trueman's view of entry criteria implied the introduction of a moralistic element into what other universities clearly considered as a purely academic matter. The same could be said of Mount Allison's use of financial aid to assist students in need. The importance of non-academic criteria for financial assistance - even though academic achievement was one of the criteria, need and the ability to work hard were the others - combined with the wide powers of discretion implied by the practice of combining different forms of aid to ensure that a moral question also entered largely into these decisions. Trueman himself exercised the final authority over decisions on student aid, assisted by the respective deans of the men's and women's residences, who were expected to be familiar with the work habits and moral character of each returning student, or by the field secretary in the case of first-year students.'}' Similar attention was given to moral considerations in matters of discipline. In the summer of 1937, for example, Trueman counselled the dean of women, Marion Machum, to temper justice with mercy when deciding whether an insubordinate student should be allowed to return: 'Mount Allison must make itself of service to all kinds of people, and unless the person is absolutely bad, or continually disobedient, I do not see how we can absolutely refuse to take them. '•P It was a paternalistic system, and one that in many respects gave Trueman enormous moral power over the students. Nor was he averse to reminding 0

143 Weathering the Storm: 1931-1941 them of that power, whether in the course of the personal interviews that he conducted periodically with each student, or by admonitions such as the one sent to a theological student in 1937 that the acceptance of his undated note in place of payment of his account was 'a favor and not a business proposition. '•B Yet it was also a system that was consciously designed to combat social and economic pressures that Trueman believed to be manifestly unjust. By the end of the decade, he had concluded that only government intervention could ensure genuine freedom of access to higher education. In a radio address in November 1940, for example, he called for the institution of 'national scholarships' to provide equal opportunities. At present, he went on, the 10 per cent of high school graduates who went on to university were drawn from the 25 per cent of homes that had the highest incomes, so that 'a grave injustice is done the majority, and a serious loss inflicted on society.'•H During the 1930s, however, when neither federal nor provincial government support was available for Mount Allison or its students, a paternalistic approach based on Christian social morality was one way of limiting the extent of that injustice. It was not entirely successful, as Trueman indicated in response to an enquiry from the Canadian Press in 1937 when he admitted that increasing numbers of students had had to discontinue their studies for financial reasons. 'JS Furthermore, in so far as Mount Allison professed to serve a rural constituency, its success in doing so apparently declined significantly during the 1930s. By the 1938-9 year, the proportion of students from small communities had fallen to 29. 3 per cent of the overall number of Maritime provinces students, as compared with 36.2 per cent eight years earlier, while the proportion from cities and towns with populations of over 10,000 had risen from 19.6 to 27.7 per cent. Thus, the depression years saw a considerable shift away from Mount Allison's traditional role in that respect. Nevertheless, throughout the 1930s, the consistent efforts made by the university to give equal access to all able students were effective in so far as scant financial resources allowed them to be. Mount Allison, as Trueman remarked to the incoming freshman class in the fall of 1937, was 'neither a private nor a provincial university, but was established and is controlled by the Christian Church.' J6 To discharge the social responsibilities conferred by that status during a period of profound economic depression was the difficult task attempted by Mount Allison during these years. 1

Yet the success of Mount Allison in its efforts to fulfil those social responsibilities could not be, and was not, solely judged on the basis of its endeavour to provide freedom of access to formal academic education. Another

144 Mount Allison University model had been provided in the Maritimes by the extension department of St Francis Xavier University, which had begun in the early 1930s to sponsor 'study clubs' in communities throughout eastern Nova Scotia, devoted to the solution of local social and economic problems and leading in many cases to the foundation of cooperative enterprises, in such forms as retail stores, marketing organizations for fish and farm products, and credit unions. Such developments were encouraged and promoted by the leaders of the extension movement, and notably by Moses Coady and J.J. Tompkins, whose work in both cooperative endeavours and adult education had predated the formal inauguration of the extension department. The Antigonish Movement, as it was soon known, represented a direct effort by a university to induce social improvement through community self-help, and in it educational and socio-economic goals were inextricably bound up together. 'J7 The success of St Francis Xavier University in this field ensured that other Maritime universities which professed social goals would face comparisons with the Antigonish model. So it was at Mount Allison. The Maritime Conference, throughout the 1930s, kept a close and critical eye upon the way in which its educational institutions responded to the exigencies of the depression. In 1934, for example, it commented upon the 'crying need' for more sociological training for candidates for the ministry, whether at Mount Allison or at Pine Hill. 1 J8 Three years later, Mount Allison was specifically attacked in the conference for its failure to provide leadership in adult education and in the cooperative movement. The attack was deflected by Ross Flemington, who was present at the conference session in which a motion regretting the lack of direction from Mount Allison was put forward by the committee on evangelism and social service. In an impromptu speech, Flemington enumerated the steps that had already been taken by Mount Allison in the field of adult education - including consultations with other universities, with the Canadian Association for Adult Education, and with the government of New Brunswick - and reported to Trueman that he had had the conference applauding enthusiastically before he had finished . He had also argued 'that Adult Education was not synonymous with Co-operatives but that it went into every interest of life . .. .' Accordingly, the resolution was amended to one of satisfaction in Mount Allison's activities in adult education, and hope for further developments in the future. 'J 9 Successful as Flemington's intervention had been, however, it did not alter the substance of the question raised by the social service committee. The strong underlying assumption of Mount Allison's decision in the late

145 Weathering the Storm: 1931-1941 1920s to remain in Sackville rather than move to Halifax had been that the university would be fulfilling its social role simply by virtue of so doing, in that it would be ensuring greater equality of access to formal education. The notion that the university should actively extend its functions into the wider community for the purpose of bringing about social change was not contradictory to that assumption, but neither did the two necessarily go together. In a time of economic depression, the effectiveness of any university in promoting equal opportunities was necessarily weakened, as was true at Mount Allison. But an even more serious danger was the possibility that in the absence of direct social action, the university might damage the regional community by training its most able young people for entry into a narrow range of professions and for careers that might well take them, and their talents, away from the Maritime provinces. Trueman, for example, had remarked to Keppel in 1930 that 'the Universities have done nothing for the farmers, and our contact with them has been mainly to take from them their sons to prepare them for other jobs and other countries, and to collect money from them to carry on our work. ' It was much less difficult to diagnose the problem, however, than to find a cure. Mount Allison could already point to one innovation in adult education, the Maritime Summer School, which continued to flourish during the 1930s, although no longer the only academic summer school in the region. Like the extension department, which concentrated exclusively upon correspondence courses, the summer school's courses were aimed primarily at teachers and ministers who required university credit courses for their professional qualifications. In 1936 a new element was added to the summer school in the form of three non-credit lecture series in 'community leadership,' and in the following year a full two-week course in community leadership was offered during summer school, including courses of lectures on group leadership in adult education, public libraries, public health, weaving, and community singing. This venture was successful, with 26 participants whose enthusiasm was, according to Trueman, 'at white heat.' An attempt to build upon the experience of 1937, however, went awry in the following year. Despite an expanded programme, including a lecture course in credit unions and cooperatives given by the United Church minister Nelson MacDonald, who had played a leading role in the cooperative movement in Nova Scotia, only six participants attended the course. In a letter soon afterwards to Muriel Lutes, a resident of Moncton and a member of the national executive of the Canadian Association for Adult Education, Trueman observed with some asperity that not one United Church minister had 140

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attended the course, except for those invited as lecturers. At the following year's summer school, community leadership lectures were again reduced to being a small and informal part of the overall programme. 143 The community leadership course had been an effort to complement the academic emphasis of the Maritime Summer School by introducing a new element of direct community service. Yet it had failed, and by 1939 Trueman was driven to admit in his report to the board of regents that 'no great progress has been made at Mount Allison in the field of Adult Education. ' 144 What had gone wrong? During the earlier years of the decade, Mount Allison had shown but little inclination to become active in adult education outside of the formal academic sphere. When Trueman had corresponded with Keppel in 1930, his idea had been to institute a programme of regular university teaching and research in rural economics rather than to imitate the initiatives of St Francis Xavier, and even that notion had had to be put aside in the absence of adequate financial .resources. As the interest of the Maritime Conference in the Antigonish experiments had grown during the ensuing years, Mount Allison had responded intermittently. The commissioning of W.C. Ross to investigate adult education in 1935 was one such expression of interest, but Ross was prevented by ill health from finishing his task. In the following year of 1936-7, C.A. Krug, professor of philosophy, investigated adult education methods in Great Britain and Scandinavia, with the aid of a fellowship from the University of London, sponsored by the Carnegie Corporation. While he was away, increasing pressure was brought to bear upon the university by the conference and its members. In Prince Edward Island especially, United Church ministers such as J. W.A. Nicholson, Arthur Organ, and L.E.G. Davies had joined with their Roman Catholic counterparts in the cooperative movement, and looked to Mount Allison to support their work. 14 s The 1936 conference went so far as to appoint a committee on adult education, under Trueman's chairmanship, but when reminded of this appointment in February 1937 by a letter from A.W. Guild, minister in Ross Bay, Nova Scotia, Trueman had to confess that the committee had never met and that he had in fact 'forgotten all about [it].' 146 From that point on, prompted by reminders from individual ministers and then by the criticism expressed at the 1937 conference, Trueman and Mount Allison began to explore adult education more actively, with the community leadership course being one result. Trueman's personal reaction to the conference debates in 1937 was that it would be foolish and costly for Mount Allison to attempt to duplicate the efforts of St Francis Xavier; instead other directions should be explored, such as the community lead-

147 Weathering the Storm: 1931-1941

ership course - in which Krug played a leading role in 1937 and 1938 on the basis of his year of experience in Europe - and the further development of handicraft training through the Mount Allison art school and of the music teaching already available through the local centres operated by the conservatory. ' 47 The local music centres continued to be successful, and instruction in handicrafts was also extended through the 'Mount Allison Handicrafts Guild' under the leadership of Elizabeth McLeod, although a scheme which Trueman had been exploring since 193 5 in conjunction with F. Maclure Sclanders of the Saint John Board of Trade - to bring an experienced weaver from Scotland to give instruction in 'cottage crafts' - failed to come to fruition in the absence of provincial government funding. Even in so far as these efforts in music and art were successful, they were limited in scope, and they failed to resolve two difficulties that became even more clear with the failure of the community leadership course in 1938. First of all, Mount Allison did not have the money to mount a large-scale programme of direct service in the field of adult education. The St Francis Xavier programme had had funding from the Carnegie Corporation, and it was equally unlikely either that Mount Allison would obtain similar subsidies from the corporation or that a scantily financed scheme could succeed. ' 48 Secondly, Mount Allison University had traditionally concentrated upon offering formal academic courses, and to shift away from that emphasis would inevitably be a slow and uncertain task. ' 49 Consequently, while small-scale attempts continued at Mount Allison to enter directly into the adult education field - a Mount Allison 'school of the air,' for example, was launched on radio station CKCW in the spring of 1939, although the intention of following it up with the organization of study groups in communities near Sackville was forestalled by the outbreak of the Second World War' 10 - a different approach now began to predominate. In 1937 Fletcher Peacock, a graduate of Mount Allison and a lifelong friend of Trueman, had been appointed director of educational services for the province of New Brunswick, with special responsibility for coordinating programmes in adult education. Peacock came to his task with extensive experience, for he had been the first director of vocational education for the province, between 1918 and 1926, and then had been the first director of the vocational school in Saint John. 'P In meetings with representatives of New Brunswick universities, Peacock made clear his hope that a comprehensive system of adult education could be developed in the province. At the first such meeting, on 22 April 1937, he suggested that each university should specialize in certain fields . Mount Allison, for example, 'might be interested in extending its work in Fine Art, Music, Handicrafts, etc. ' ; with

148 Mount Allison University this suggestion, Trueman expressed agreement, except for the qualification that each university should also take especial responsibility for its own immediate district. ' 12 Peacock's notion of a comprehensive system did not stop at the universities, but also embraced the network of vocational schools in the province's major centres, and a new 'Youth Training Program,' inaugurated under the joint sponsorship of the federal and provincial governments in 1937 and offering vocational and handicraft training for men and women in both rural and urban areas throughout the province. 'SJ Within this provincial system, Mount Allison could function as one participant among many, rather than attempting to mount a large-scale adult education programme of its own, and it was on that understanding that Mount Allison's first director of adult education - H.P. Gundy, assistant professor of English - was appointed on a part-time basis in early 1939. ' 14 Adult education would soon be disrupted at Mount Allison, in New Brunswick as a whole, and more generally, by the outbreak of the Second World War. Yet the depression years had yielded important insights on the nature of Mount Allison's educational role in this and other respects. Mount Allison entered the 1930s as a university with the express purpose of providing an easily accessible education to students, primarily from the Maritime provinces, who would attend regardless of wealth or social class. The university, in accordance with its Christian principles, would thus alleviate social injustices by providing equality of opportunity for able individuals. The economic depression raised serious questions as to whether this concept might not be na·ive. First of all, Mount Allison's financial problems made it impossible to offer sufficient financial assistance to enable students to attend regardless of their social background. Strenuous and partially successful efforts were made to make the best use of what funds were available, but the real solution could only lie either in greatly increased endowment, or as Trueman suggested, in state aid for potential students. Secondly, the social and economic conditions in the region in the 1930s demanded more from educational institutions than the formal instruction that they had traditionally offered. St Francis Xavier was one university that took energetic action to supply this need. Mount Allison's efforts at direct community service were neither wholehearted nor successful, and yet once again it was government assistance - in the form of Fletcher Peacock's reformist regime in New Brunswick - that provided a likely solution. Within the framework of a comprehensive, government-planned system of schools offering instruction in the various communities, Mount Allison could feel free to do what it had always done best: to function as a small, residential, undergraduate

149 Weathering the Storm: 1931-1941 university with a moral commitment to the service of the regional community thereby. The 1930s had revealed, therefore, that the concept of Mount Allison enunciated during the previous decade, particularly by Trueman, had grave flaws when confronted by adverse economic conditions. The lesson drawn by Trueman had been that if Mount Allison wished to continue to play its traditional but difficult role as neither a private nor a public institution, but a Christian one, it would have to return to its old practice - the one that had prevailed until the prosperous years of the late nineteenth century - of working closely with the state, and particularly with the provincial governments of the region. In so far as this implied simple cooperation with government departments of education, and with administrators such as Peacock, it was readily accomplished. Funding was a different matter. State assistance to students was one possibility, but it would clearly take time to enact. Provincial funding for denominational universities was another possibility, but an attempt by Trueman to prompt a joint approach to the New Brunswick government by Mount Allison and the Universite St-Joseph had come to nothing in early 1937, owing to divisions within the board of regents as to whether government funding might not imply an unhealthy degree of government control. 111 Be that as it might, Mount Allison was rapidly approaching the time when a decision would have to be made as to its future development. Unless some new source of funding were found, the university might be forced to abandon its effort to remain a Christian college in the sense it now professed, and choose instead between becoming an exclusive private institution or renouncing the church connection to become a public one. Church funding could do little to solve the problem, for the difficulties encountered by the United Church board of Christian education during the 1930s were such that its annual grant to Mount Allison had fallen by 1937 to only $3670. 116 Provincial funding was far off at best, in view of the conflicting views of board members and the uncertain reception that any application would face even if it were pressed forward . The answer adopted by the board of regents in November 1937 was to attempt yet another fundraising campaign, to coincide with the centenary in 1940 of the laying of the foundation stone of the first academy. S1 Such campaigns had had limited success in the past; but much would depend upon this one. 1

The financial campaign of 1940, however, never in fact took place, for reasons that were already in the making in 1937. The European crisis which was to lead to the Second World War had been gathering throughout the

150 Mount Allison University 1930s. Along with the social dislocation induced by the depression, it had not gone unnoticed by the students of Mount Allison, although in the early years of the decade the number of those who involved themselves in active study of these issues was not always large. In late 1932, the International Relations Club was joined by a corresponding organization concerned with social reform, the Undergraduate League for Social Reconstruction. Launched with the aim of finding radical solutions to current socio-economic problems, the ULSR was likely according to the Argosy to become 'a potent influence on student thought and action.'1S 8 Yet just over two years later, an Argosy editorial lamented the lack of radicalism - carefully distinguished from the desire for revolution - among Mount Allison students, as manifested by the small attendance both at the ULSR and the International Relations Club: each organization averaged an attendance of only twenty at its meetings, and there was much overlapping between the two. The editorial admitted that it was not the business of a university to make either 'radicals or conservatives' of its students. 'We do say, however,' it concluded, 'that there is need for a quickened interest in the recognized problems of our age, and that a radical mind is preferable to an apathetic one. ' s9 The Argosy's admonition had no doubt been influenced by the newspaper's failure a few weeks before to elicit a strong statement of student opinion on questions of war and peace by means of a questionnaire. Only 34 had responded of a student body of nearly 400, and although the answers received showed a strong pacifist bent, they were clearly too few to give any real indication of student opinion. None the less, student interest in current events, whether domestic or international, proved during the ensuing years to be capable of rekindling. Visits in 1935 and 1936 by King Gordon, a Christian socialist lecturer and former faculty member of United Theological College in Montreal, produced vigorous debate both for and against socialism as a political creed at home and abroad. Gordon's speeches, declared the Argosy, 'burst like a bombshell in our midst ... .' Later in 1936, in November, began a fortnightly series of lectures on current events by G.F.G. Stanley, under the sponsorship of the scM. The turn-out of students to these Saturday afternoon meetings was described by the Argosy as 'phenomenal,' while the International Relations Club - now incorporating the ULSR - was also flourishing. 'There are definite signs of life emerging this year,' the Argosy editor observed with satisfaction: 'a resuscitation of student interest seems to be taking place. ' The interest was sustained, at least to judge by debates in the Argosy on subjects ranging from the Antigonish Movement to the defects of the League of Nations. By October 1938 the 1

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Argosy editor, Kenneth Homer, was prepared to argue that the entire character of the student body at Mount Allison and elsewhere had changed: It has been gratifying to note the interest taken by Mount Allison students in the present political disturbances throughout the world. Most of them are well informed on all phases of the situation and groups may be found almost everywhere discussing the various aspects of the many problems confronting the statesmen of the world . . . . The influence of student opinion is becoming greater as people are finally beginning to realize that the day of the flask-toting, uke strumming, moving picture, rah rah boy is long since over. Our colleges and universities are filled with men who feel keenly the present problems and who are resolved to do their part in helping to find satisfactory solutions for these problems.••,

In the following month came an opportunity for Mount Allison students to give practical expression to the concerns upon which Homer had remarked. Following an approach to Trueman by a New York lawyer, Albert F. Coyle, on behalf of three young refugees from Germany, a general meeting of the students on 29 November called upon the government of Canada to relax immigration restrictions in such cases, and voted to contribute to defraying the expenses of refugee students at Mount Allison. Welcoming the vote, the Argosy regarded it as representative of a feeling 'that although it was all very well to denounce in high sounding phrases certain injustices that are taking place in the world today, it would be more to the point if something more definite and concrete could be done to express our stand on these matters.' Similarly, in presenting the matter to the immigration branch of the federal government, Trueman had remarked a few days earlier that 'it is of no use for us to express sympathy with the Jews of Germany and roll out denunciations of Hitler unless we are prepared to take some of these people into our own country and give them actual help.' 164 Eventually, however, the scheme came to nothing, as Trueman changed his mind on the basis of advice received from the director of the Immigration Branch, F.C. Blair. Blair's opposition was based on a variety of grounds, including personal suspicion of the 'unscrupulous' Coyle, and the possibility that his clients wished to enter Canada only because quota regulations prevented them from entering the United States, or that they were in reality German spies. He also refused to accept that they would come only as students: 'it is absolutely unthinkable that any Jew who got into Canada as a student would think of leaving Canada at the end of his college term.'' 61 Whether because he accepted these arguments, or because he conceded to Blair's

152 Mount Allison University

pressure - his letter to Coyle simply observed that he did not wish 'to cause the [Immigration] Department any difficulty' - Trueman informed Coyle in late December that the three refugees would not be admitted to Mount Allison. 166 The students' resolution, which had originally had his support, thereupon quietly lapsed, and with it lapsed Mount Allison's opportunity to make a small but effective contribution to a humanitarian cause. One refugee from Germany who was already at Mount Allison was Gustav Frederick Hubener, who had joined the faculty as professor of Germanic languages and literature in 1937. Forty-eight years old when he arrived at Mount Allison, Hubener had been professor of English at the University of Bonn since 1930, but had faced the prospect of persecution under the Nazi regime, not only because he was an evangelical Christian but also because of his intention to marry an Australian, Jean Hamilton, a lecturer in his department. In late March 1937 C.A. Krug, on study leave in London at the time, wrote to Trueman to propose bringing the two to Mount Allison, following conversations with Hamilton and with Vincent Massey, Canadian high commissioner to London, and the poet John Masefield. Further powerful support was enlisted in the person of the historian Arnold Toynbee, whose advocacy was sufficient to win a special grant from the Carnegie Corporation to pay the first two years of Hubener's salary. Massey's influence was no doubt enough to prevent opposition from the immigration branch. 167 Accordingly, Hubener and Hamilton arrived to take up their positions in the fall of 1937 - Hamilton as a 'tutor' in modern languages - and were married shortly afterwards. Since both were highly qualified both academically and by professional experience and publication, their addition to the faculty was a welcome compensation for the weakness in modern languages teaching that had been brought about by faculty cutbacks in 1936, although Gustav Hubener's career was tragically cut short by his death from leukaemia in September 1940 at the age of fifty-one. ' 68 By that time, Canada and Germany were once again at war, and for Mount Allison students debate on the merits of armed conflict had given place to a renewal of the pursuits of war. As had been true twenty-five years before, one of the most conspicuous signs of war was the organization of the COTC unit. Never formally disbanded, the unit was re-formed in early 1939. By the time of its first inspection in late March, it had a strength of some 60 students under the command of Waldo McCormack, gymnasium instructor in the academy and commander of the academy cadet corps. The Argosy welcomed the reappearance of coTc, provided that it was conducted on a volunteer basis, although noting also that 'there are many who feel that such a movement has no place on a university campus.' After war had been

153 Weathering the Storm: 1931-1941

declared on 10 September 1939, there were no more such arguments, although the Argosy did go to some lengths on 14 October to stress that COTC membership as yet remained voluntary and that its members were 'in no way under active service. ' 169 Evidently no compulsion was required, as the unit quickly doubled its strength of the previous year. The Argosy editor, W.B. Sawdon, suggested that the giving of academic credit for coTc examinations would lead to an even larger enrolment and in early November this policy, which had caused much controversy when first advocated during the First World War, was quickly and easily adopted by the faculty. 170 Also in the fall of 1939, the Mount Allison COTC acquired a new commanding officer in the person of Frank Parker Day. A Mount Allison graduate of 1903 and a veteran of the First World War, Day's academic career had been cut short by severe arthritis and he had returned to live in Sackville. Despite the effects of his illness, he continued to command the COTC unit until the spring of 1941. 171 Compulsory membership of the coTc for all fit male students was introduced in the fall of 1940, in the wake of discussions during the summer between federal government representatives and the National Conference of Canadian Universities. Mount Allison, however, did not follow the national pattern, in that no distinction was made between nonacademic 'military training' and the COTC course given at most universities only to a limited number of members selected as potential officers. At Mount Allison, all were to be on the same footing, and on that basis the COTC contingent rose to a strength of 180 students during the 1940-1 year. 172 The mobilization of the campus through the coTc was an obvious result of the war, but it was not the only one. As during the Great War, the signs were more evident in the second year of the war than in the first. Initially, 'business as usual' would have been just as appropriate a slogan as it had been in 1914, as the government of Canada urged that students would best serve the patriotic cause by returning to university to finish their studies. The Argosy was sure that 'when the call for greater service comes Mount Allison men will not draw back,' but in the meantime life could go on much as before. ' 73 Yet not entirely so. During the winter of 1940, a war-related controversy broke out arising from the existence of two competing national organizations of Canadian students. The older of the two, the National Federation of Canadian University Students, was a loosely structured body that concentrated upon maintaining contacts between students of the various universities by arranging exchange visits and circularizing information between campuses. The Canadian Student Assembly had been founded in 1937 at a Winnipeg conference sponsored by the national SCM and attended by six Mount Allison students. Its purpose was broader in scope, involving the

154

Mount Allison University

active pursuit of national unity, improvement of political and economic democracy, and the widening of access to higher education. As a compromise measure in late 1939, the students of Mount Allison decided at a general meeting to send one delegate to the national meeting of the NFCUS and two to the CSA, both scheduled to take place during the Christmas vacation. 174 When the two Mount Allison delegates - Angus MacLellan and Lorne Bell - returned from the CSA meeting at Macdonald College, near Montreal, they denounced the organization as 'subversive' and recommended that Mount Allison immediately withdraw from membership. Most of the delegates, they reported, had shown their opposition to Canadian participation in the war, and the entire conference had been 'definitely Anti British, Anti-war and Anti all those principles which form the basis of our ties with the British Empire.' C.A. Krug, who had attended the conference as an invited speaker on methods of improving university education and had withdrawn in protest before the meetings ended, went further by attributing the prevailing attitudes to Nazi and Soviet sympathizers whose intent was the 'moral sabotage' of the national war effort. 171 Krug's allegations attracted national attention, and a counter-attack from other conference speakers that was applauded some weeks later by an editorial in Saturday Night magazine. The historian A.R.M. Lower, for example, believed that the sentiments of Krug and the other critics of CSA were 'frankly still colonial: they had not discovered that Canada is a nation and must act as a nation, not as a colony with no will of its own. ' 176 Lower's verdict, however, did not commend itself either to the Argosy or to the 400 Mount Allison students who voted on 1 5 January 1940 to withdraw from the CSA. The national executive of that organization contributed to the strength of feelings aroused by issuing a statement to the effect that the students had been 'railroaded into their decision' by 'dictatorial means' employed by Krug and the two delegates, a charge angrily denied by the Argosy. According to editorials in successive weeks, the real issue was not Canadian nationality but Nazi aggression and the duty of Canadian students to put themselves 'wholeheartedly behind the nations of the Empire in an effort to establish freedom once again.' The newspaper found it hard to believe that, as CSA reports implied, in the whole country only Maritime students and a minority of those from McGill supported Canada's war effort, and it commended the action of Mount Allison in withdrawing its membership. 177 If nothing else, the incident had given the students of Mount Allison the opportunity to express collectively their views on Canada's participation in the war, and it was a chance they accepted with enthusiasm. The war also had more prosaic results during this first year. The midyear examinations held in January 1940 produced an unusually high failure

155 Weathering the Storm: 1931-1941

rate, and the faculty went on record at a special meeting on 8 February as believing that 'the main reason for this was lack of hard work, and that the war might be to some extent responsible for this, making it difficult for students who are facing the question of their own duty to concentrate on the immediate tasks connected with their University work. ' 178 The pressure to enlist, while not yet as acute as it would be in the following academic year, was already evident, and in the fall of 1940 student numbers were significantly affected. Despite the enrolment of a slightly larger freshman class than in the previous year, the overall attendance dropped from 428 to 391, reflecting enlistments among the upper classes. 179 There were also enlistments among the faculty. The academy had already seen several teachers depart in late 1939, including both McCormack and Flemington, who had joined the New Brunswick Rangers under the command of Frank West of the McClelan School of engineering. Flemington, who would finish the war as chief Protestant chaplain of the Canadian army, was replaced by the senior teacher L. Ross Glenn as acting headmaster. In 1940 the university, which had already lost the services of West, was affected by the further enlistments of both Krug - who also joined the New Brunswick Rangers and G.F.G. Stanley, who was attached to the Militia Training Centre in Fredericton. To replace Stanley, F. W.W. DesBarres came out of retirement, assisted by Ella Smith, an honours graduate of both McGill and Oxford who was living in Sackville at this time. Krug was replaced once again by C.A. Baxter in a temporary capacity. 180 For both students and faculty, campus life changed in the second year of the war. The institution of compulsory COTC training was accompanied by the suspension of intercollegiate sport. It was not long before the faculty received complaints that there was 'nothing to relieve the routine of university classes, COTC lectures, and military drill,' but no concession was made except to encourage the development of intramural sport. Accordingly, a track and field meet was organized for mid-October, and competitions proceeded in various sports during the year among the eight platoons of the COTC. Some variation was provided in late October and early November by two rugby games between the Mount Allison coTc and the North Nova Scotia Highlanders, who were stationed in Amherst - one game was won by each side - and similar fixtures were arranged in other sports, culminating in a successful track and field contest in the spring which was won by the COTC in competition with several service units from different parts of the Maritimes. In general, however, intramural contests predominated. 181 The ban on intercollegiate sport applied equally to women as to men, and provision was also made for war-related tasks to be performed by women

156 Mount Allison University students as a counterpart to the compulsory COTC duties of the men: from the fall of 1940 onwards, most women students were engaged in activities ranging from knitting and sewing to taking courses in first aid and motor mechanics. 182 Further evidence of the mobilization of the university for war was the presence on the campus during 1941 and 1942 of successive groups of 50 or so radio technicians from the Royal Canadian Air Force, who came for short courses in electronics given primarily by Donald MacGregor and Dean Crawford of the department of physics. Although the purpose of the courses was secret at the time, they comprised theoretical instruction given as a preliminary to practical training in radar technology. 183 Thus, with virtually all students carrying on war work in addition to their academic studies, and with air force personnel continually present as well, Mount Allison by 1941 was visibly a university at war. As had been true also during the First World War, the war years saw the imposition of severe financial and administrative strains upon Mount Allison. Yet the sources of these difficulties were not the same now as during the earlier conflict. Enlistments during the Second World War, while enough to affect student numbers somewhat, never presented as great a threat to the functioning of the university as had those of 1915, 1916, and 1917. What the war did mean was that there was no obvious way of attempting to remedy the financial problems that had become so evident during the 1930s. Considerable efforts had already been devoted by September 1939 to the planning of the centennial campaign, including the appointment of Frank Parker Day as campaign director. 184 The day after war was declared, however, Day strongly recommended to the executive committee of the board of regents that the campaign should be indefinitely postponed, and his advice was taken. At the next meeting of the full board of regents the decision was seriously questioned, but by that time the postponement had been publicly announced and the campaign office closed. No centenary celebration would take place in 1940, other than the issuing of a special historical issue of the Argosy in March, and no financial campaign would take place. 181 The institutions were thus left to continue with a debt that was estimated by the finance committee of the board to amount in October 1940 to over $618,000, or just $22,000 less than the value of the general endowment fund. 186 Obviously, even more stringent economies than before would be necessary if Mount Allison were to survive the war. Earlier in 1940, plans had been presented to the board of regents for retrenchments in spending on such items as repairs to physical facilities, scholarships and student employment, electricity consumption, and funding for faculty members to travel to con-

157 Weathering the Storm: 1931-1941

ferences. Reductions in faculty salaries were avoided, since these were 'already low enough,' but other ways were sought of reducing expenditure in this area. Following the death of Hubener, for example, no replacement was appointed: a decision described by Trueman in October 1940 as 'a war measure. ' 187 For Trueman personally, the continuation of Mount Allison's formidable financial burden was a bitter disappointment, for he had pinned his faith upon the 1940 campaign as a way of obtaining relief. In a letter written in late 1936 to the Montreal industrialist A.O. Dawson, he had confided that 'in the natural order of events I will not be in my present position at Mount Allison longer than five or six years and this gives us just time to raise such a [centenary] fund. I am exceedingly anxious to leave Mount Allison free of debt and shall not consider my work properly finished unless this is possible. ' 188 Trueman's aim was now beyond his reach and, aged sixty-seven at the time of the outbreak of war, he was left with the prospect of spending the last years of his period of office engaged in a hard struggle to prevent further erosion of the university's position. Nor was he helped by a series of personal setbacks during the early years of the war. His wife had been a partial invalid since a household accident in the summer of 1939. He himself was seriously ill with double pneumonia during the following winter, and spent six weeks in hospital in Toronto before returning in April 1940 to a boisterous welcome from the assembled student body as he drove across the campus to the president's cottage. Then in September came news of the death in action of his adopted son, Alec Trueman, as a fighter pilot in the Battle of Britain. 'So things go on,' he commented to one correspondent shortly afterwards, 'becoming harder perhaps as we get older, and yet as we get older our faith should be stronger and our outlook brighter. ' 189 In the following year of 1941, however, came another blow which by its tragic results added to Trueman's personal burden - and brought grief to the entire Mount Allison community - while at the same time enormously aggravating the financial predicament of the university. In the early morning hours of 16 December 1941, the men's residence burned to the ground, taking the lives of three students - Frederick Farrar, Joseph Fraser, and Melvin Green - in the fire itself, and a fourth - James Creelman MacDonald - who died later of injuries received in jumping from a top-floor window. The fire had started at about 1: 15 a. m. in the basement and had spread rapidly up the main stairwell despite the strenuous efforts with hoses and chemical fire extinguishers of the residence dean, C.A. Baxter, and several of the residents. Even the arrival of the Sackville fire brigade was of no avail, and by 2 :oo the blaze had reached its height, with cinders showering the

158 Mount Allison University town. Most of the residents had left the building by that time, either by way of fire escapes or through windows. For residents of the lower floors, escape through a window presented little difficulty. For those on the upper floors it was achieved, if at all, only at great risk to life and limb. Ambulances were called from Amherst to take the injured to the Highland View Hospital, while at 3 :oo a roll-call was held in the university gymnasium. The roll-call gave the first indication that lives might have been lost, although at the time hopes were still entertained that the missing individuals had simply disappeared in the general confusion and would still be found. Eleven hours later, when the executive committee of the board met in the early afternoon to assess the damage, the magnitude of the disaster had become more clear. The chairman of the committee, J. L. Dixon, spoke for all present when he observed that the meeting was being held 'under the most tragic circumstances ever experienced at Mount Allison. ' 19° There were many questions to be asked in the wake of the fire, some of which would never find conclusive answers. How had the fire started? From the first, there was a strong body of local opinion that held that it must have been deliberately set. The Tribune strongly argued that it had been the work of an enemy saboteur. While no evidence was ever found to support this theory, it had an understandable appeal to people still shocked by the news of the Pearl Harbor bombardment just over a week before, and was made all the more plausible by the fact that virtually all the residents of the building were either coTc members or RCAF radio technicians. Furthermore, there had been two unexplained fires in the early morning of the 13th at the Sackville munitions factory of Enamel and Heating Products Ltd. 191 Yet, enemy agent or local incendiary, there was no clear proof that arson was to blame. In January, in fact, a coroner's jury, deliberating on the death of Joseph Fraser, came to the conclusion that the fire had started accidentally through unknown circumstances. The verdict was severely criticized by the Tribune, but equally strongly sustained in a subsequent letter to the Sackville Post from the foreman of the jury. ' 9 ' The real basis for the theory that the fire had been set was the speed with which it had spread, leading to the speculation that fire-inducing chemicals had been used. It was true that the building had been regularly examined by fire inspectors and found satisfactory, so that the general expectation had been that any fire that did break out would make slow progress. There had been one inspection, however, that had given a different impression : that carried out by T.H. Higginson on behalf of the Automatic Sprinkler Company in 1933. Higginson had warned that the interior of the residence 'could be classed as quick-burning construction,' and had accurately foreseen the course of the 1941 fire :

159 Weathering the Storm: 1931-1941 All parts are intercommunicating and are subject to one fire loss. The draft hazards are heavy as an open stairway in the centre of the building exposes all parts so that if a fire should occur in any one part smoke and fire would be communicated to all floors at the same time.,.,

Thus, while it is possible that the residence fire was criminally caused, as many local observers continued to believe, the speed with which the blaze had spread did not in itself rule out an accidental beginning. Beyond that it is impossible to go with certainty. That such a warning had been given eight years earlier was tragically ironic. According to Trueman's recollection, it had been discounted at the time because not strongly pressed by the insurance companies concerned, and the idea of installing a sprinkler system had ultimately been abandoned in 1934 on grounds of cost. Although it was true, as Trueman argued both privately and publicly as he defended the university against press suggestions of negligence in the days following the fire, that other inspection reports had confirmed the conventional belief that the building would burn slowly, that decision of 1934 had had terrible consequences. •94 All that, however, was now in the past and could not be changed. What was not yet clear was how the university would cope with the crisis that had been thrust upon it. The loss of the men's residence, for a predominantly residential university, was clearly a serious setback. It was all the worse because of the parlous financial situation of the time, and because the residence had been under-insured. The insurance on building and contents came to only $149,000, whereas wartime inflation meant that its replacement cost would be double that or more. Ironically, at the very time when the building burned, an insurance committee under the chairmanship of Norman A. Hesler - president of Enamel and Heating Products Ltd and a member of the board of regents since 1939 - had been investigating the possibility of raising insurance coverage on all of the Mount Allison buildings. The recommendation of the insurance agents Douglas, Rogers Ltd were received by Hesler on 27 December, eleven days after the residence fire. ' 95 Throughout the 1930s, Mount Allison had faced financial difficulties arising from economic conditions. With difficulty, it had weathered the storm. Now, after the double setback of the cancellation of the financial campaign of 1940, and the residence fire of 1941, the future was uncertain once again.

11

Reappraisal: 1941-1948

The Mount Allison residence fire of December 1941 was, in itself, an event of great import in the history of the university, because of its tragic results. It also marked a turning-point in Mount Allison's development, for it brought about a situation in which the survival of the university depended upon a searching reappraisal of its goals and functions. Furthermore, the years that followed the fire were years of exceptional circumstances, and these too had their effects upon the character of Mount Allison. The Second World War increasingly impinged upon the life of the university, particularly in view of the increasing use of conscription for home defence and ultimately for overseas service, and prompted an unprecedented degree of government influence. When the war ended Mount Allison, in common with every other Canadian university, saw its enrolments greatly increased by the influx of returning veterans. The veterans made their presence felt not only by their numbers but also by their high academic standards and by their intolerance of restrictions imposed by university rules and regulations. The period during which the veterans' influence prevailed - reaching a peak in 1948 comprised only the immediate post-war years, and yet many of the resulting changes were long-lived. Also contributing to the formative effects of this era was the retirement of G.J. Trueman and his succession as president by W.T.R. Flemington in 1945. This change coincided with a growing criticism of the traditional characteristics of Mount Allison, during which even the church relationship was seriously brought into question. The fire of 1941 was followed by a period in which heavy demands were put upon Mount Allison. Important changes necessarily took place, and quickly. In the days that followed the fire, however, immediate problems banished all thought of long-term change. For those who had died there was nothing to be done, except for the task of informing the bereaved families; the four

164 Mount Allison University victims of the fire were commemorated at a special service in the Sackville United Church on 1 February 1942, attended by the entire student body.• Of the injured, most had been taken to hospital in Amherst, where - with the exception of James Creelman MacDonald - they recovered from injuries resulting in the majority of cases from jumping from the upper floors of the burning residence. The services of both the ambulance crews and the attending doctors were given without charge, thus bearing out the statement made by the mayor of Amherst, Martin J. Kaufman, in his letter of sympathy to Trueman on 18 December, that in Amherst the university was regarded not so much as an institution on the other side of a provincial boundary line, but rather as one 'in which we have a direct interest and ... which has made a great contribution to our educational and cultural life. ' The fire also had the effect of confirming the close relationship of Mount Allison and the town of Sackville, for within three days of the fire an appeal for emergency accommodation for students had produced offers of no fewer than 13 7 rooms in private homes. 3 The real problem of residential accommodation did not have to be faced until the students returned in January, and by that time a partial solution had been found in the acquisition of the Brunswick Hotel. Rented by the university as a women's residence during the late 1920s, and then temporarily used as headquarters for the academy after the fire of 1933, this hotel was now purchased outright and served as a men's residence for the next seventeen years. It was known to its residents, usually affectionately, as 'the Barn.' Thanks to the tireless efforts of the university carpenter, Job Sears - described by the Argosy shortly afterwards as 'our Leonardo da Vinci' it was quickly furnished with desks and bookcases. 4 The Brunswick Hotel was deemed capable of accommodating from 65 to 70 students, although in the first weeks of 1942 it was reputed to have held closer to 100. Even so, there was still another hundred to be billeted in the town. s A further difficulty lay in the disposition of the RCAF radio mechanics, who had also been living in the destroyed residence, and this was solved by the removal of the female academy students - those attending the commercial college from their existing accommodation at Allison Lodge, the old Ford Hotel. While the airmen moved into the lodge, the commercial students were redistributed among various other buildings, including the president's cottage, now vacated by Trueman in favour of a house he had recently had built just off the campus. 6 Thus, makeshift arrangements had been completed for the housing of all the students, although it was clear that only the building of a new men's residence would enable the university once again to have a genuinely residential character. 1

165

Reappraisal:

1941-1948

At first, there were strong suggestions that to maintain the traditionally residential pattern of student housing at Mount Allison might not be worth the expense of rebuilding, especially in view of the goodwill created in the town by the billeting of students in lodgings. At the meeting of the executive committee of the board of regents on 19 December 1941, the accommodation of students in private homes was cited as the practice of 'many other universities,' and a decision on rebuilding was postponed.7 By the time the executive committee met again two weeks later, the principle of rebuilding had been accepted, but it was recognized that to raise funds for the purpose would be no easy task. An attempt to gain assistance from the federal ministry of defence in the form of having temporary army-style buildings constructed for residential use - on the ground that the residents of the old building had all been members either of the coTc or the RCAF - had been quickly refused, and further approaches to the federal government during the spring would bring no further progress. 8 A more likely scheme was that proposed by two Fredericton alumni, W.J. West and his law partner R.B. Hanson, at the time the leader of the federal Conservative opposition: a residence fund of $100,000 could be raised, they suggested, by approaching 1000 well-to-do alumni to donate $100 each. The executive committee agreed that this effort should go forward, although leaving to the alumni the responsibility for it. 9 Yet the fact was generally recognized that preparations to rebuild would be completed neither rapidly nor easily. After inspecting the ruins of the old residence, the architect C.A. Fowler recommended that the surviving portions of the walls should be dynamited and that the site 'should be grassed over next spring until such time as we re-build.' His advice was taken. Another significant indicator was the proposal advanced to the board of regents later in 1942 by the chairman of the finance committee, Senator C.W. Robinson, that the remaining insurance money from the residence - a little over $100,000 after the purchase and furnishing of the Brunswick Hotel - should be used to reduce the university's debt. This suggestion was rejected following strong opposition from both Trueman and Hesler, who were convinced that the sum must be regarded as a building fund . But even they held out no hopes that reconstruction of the residence was imminent. In the meantime, protection of the existing buildings from fire was necessarily given immediate attention. One concerned parent informed Trueman in January 1942 that he had heard from his daughter that 'many of the girls in Allison Hall continued to be fearful. ' They had reason to be. Not only had the men's residence fire raised the possibility that an incendiary was at large, to whom the wooden Allison Hall - the former ladies' college - would 10

11

12

166 Mount Allison University be especially vulnerable, but also an inspection carried out earlier in the month, in connection with revision of the university's insurance coverage, had revealed a number of potential fire hazards in the building. The practice on the top floor of tying electrical wires around the iron pipes of the sprinkler system obviously jeopardized whatever safety value the system had, and in another part of the building cans of floor wax and polish had been left uncovered with saturated rags in them and piles of paper nearby. 'We have had several experiences,' the inspector reported, 'where these conditions have caused spontaneous combustion. . .. ' As the report obviously demanded, action was not long delayed: by the end of the month measures had been taken to eliminate these hazards and to install a new fire escape for Allison Hall. Furthermore, a building superintendent was appointed on a part-time basis, in the person of C.D. MacDonald, assistant professor of engineering. ' 3 In regard to the other campus buildings, MacDonald had few immediate difficulties, as they had been given favourable inspection reports. However, extensive fire precautions were taken at both Allison Lodge and the Brunswick Hotel, including rewiring and the installation of sprinkler systems. All of this was necessary, Trueman reported to the executive committee in early March, 'in order that we may continue to hold the confidence of our constituency.' He was right, and even yet apprehensions were not entirely laid to rest. In the following July, the burning of a university-owned barn near Sackville gave rise to renewed rumours of an arsonist at work. Regretting the publicity given to this incident, Trueman assured a correspondent that 'the building of ours which was burned was an old barn out in the country which caught on a very windy day from a spark from the flue of a house some distance away'; he agreed, however, that it was 'bad advertising. ' 14 Also feared during the weeks following the destruction of the residence was enemy action. The suggestion that a hostile agent might have been responsible for the fire was never specifically disproved, and even in official correspondence of the university there were hints, usually in the context of a solicitation for funds, that the residence 'could be considered a war casualty.' A further indication of the seriousness with which this possibility was regarded was the assurance given to Trueman by Roy Fraser in late January 1942 that 'all living cultures which an enemy agent could use effectively were ... destroyed by Wednesday, Jan. 28th.' 15 Less immediate in its import but just as sombre was the admonition issued by Frank Parker Day that black-out drills should be instituted to guard against the eventuality that within a year Sackville, in common with other population centres in Eastern Canada, might find itself under aerial bombardment. Particular rea-

167 Reappraisal: 1941-1948

sons for the bombing of Sackville, Day suggested, would include the destruction of the Tantramar railway bridge, thus disrupting communicatons between Halifax and the west, and attacks on the foundries. 'The Ladies' College,' he added disturbingly, 'is the most prominent target ... and might be mistaken for a factory.' 16 Day's warnings notwithstanding, Sackville did not experience bombardment. Nevertheless, the war inevitably created stress. For students, and particularly for males of military age, there was the pressure of deciding whether or not to enlist. Although the National Resources Mobilization Act of 1940 gave authority for the government of Canada to impose conscription for service in defence forces within the western hemisphere, the fighting units of the Canadian forces were composed entirely of volunteers until late 1944. The lesson of the conscription crisis of the First World War had been learned at least to the extent that the King government succeeded in avoiding this divisive issue until the very latest stages of the war. Also learned had been the lesson that education could itself be a weapon of war, and that there was no profit in pressing the country's most able young men - particularly in scientific and technical subjects - to abandon their studies and go immediately to fight, as so many had done twenty-five years before. University students in good standing, therefore, were not subject to the draft, even for home defence. From 1943 onwards, these principles would be clarified, as the universities cooperated with the government in adapting their programmes to war purposes and in determining exactly which students were sufficiently gifted academically to be exempted from military service. The universities then took up an increasing share of the burden of such decisions. Until that time, however, the pressure was felt primarily by the students themselves, as the Argosy pointed out in its editorial on 5 December 1942: The question which, above all others, arises in the mind of today's college man who is of military age is 'shall I continue on with my education or should I leave it until after the war?' Most responsible thinkers to whom the student turns for advice tell him to continue with his studies in order to prepare himself for a better contribution at some future date; yet, on the other hand, he finds that there seems to be a definite feeling among the general public that the student is a shirker, or to use an even more obnoxious term, 'draft-dodger.' Every conscientious man wants to do the right thing for his country in time of need, yet the student finds himself in a very uncertain position. It seems logical that the very fact that the government exempts male students from compulsory active service indicates that he should continue his work in the university, but this does not provide a solution to the problem. ' 7

168 Mount Allison University

There was uncertainty too as to the effects of enlistment upon student attendance at the university. The danger of substantially reduced enrolments never in fact materialized - due in large measure, as Trueman acknowledged in his annual report in 1943, to the government recognition of the desirability of 'giving numbers of men training in Mathematics, Physics and Engineering in order that machines might be manufactured, manned and cared for' - and attendance was stable at somewhat more or less than 400 throughout the war. 18 Yet as Canadian troops were committed in increasing numbers to the various theatres of conflict, the possibility always existed that the demands of the forces would increase considerably before the war was over. Each summer, efforts were made to canvass for students in order to ensure that numbers were maintained, but here another wartime difficulty became apparent: the shortage of available faculty members. 'We have no one to visit the constituency,' Trueman complained in a letter of July 1942, 'and are losing students rapidly, both in New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island. ' 19 In Nova Scotia, the situation was better, with H. W. McKiel making annual forays to recruit students. The fact was, however, that the faculty during the war years was understaffed and overworked. During 1942, two more faculty members departed on war service, C.A. Baxter to join the army and A. C. Cuthbertson to conduct research in chemistry under the auspices of the National Research Council. Although both were replaced by acting professors (W.R. Fraser in philosophy and psychology and Donald MacLauchlan in chemistry), the loss of experienced faculty members during the war years - not all of whom had been replaced - and the resulting turnover of staff inevitably put a greater burden of teaching and administration upon those who remained. Herbert Tucker, for example, wrote in March 1943 to notify Trueman that he felt unable to teach summer school in that year: he was teaching four courses during the regular year, had had no assistant in the department of economics and sociology for two years, and served in addition as dean of arts. Tucker's administrative responsibilities gave him an especially heavy load; but war conditions put strenuous demands upon all the members of the Mount Allison faculty . 10 Heavy demands were made also upon the university's president, and on 20 May 1942 Trueman announced to the board of regents that he wished to retire in a year's time. He was now seventy years old, and the personal and administrative difficulties of the war years had not dealt kindly with his health. Even so, several board members expressed the hope that he could be persuaded to stay on, and the appointment of a search committee for his successor was deferred until the October meeting. Trueman had not

169 Reappraisal: 1941-1948 changed his mind by that time and, after a motion to proceed directly to naming Ross Flemington as the next president had failed to find a seconder, a search committee was formed under the chairmanship of W.M. Tweedie." The candidacy of Flemington had strong support on the board of regents, even though that initial effort to circumvent the appointment of a search committee was unsuccessful. Even before the meeting of October 1942 Trueman had reported privately to a correspondent that there was 'a rumour around here that Ross Flemington may be invited to come back to Canada to take my place as President.',, Trueman was personally sympathetic to this idea, although the robust advocacy of Flemington's supporters soon aroused conflict. As early as March 1940, Flemington had been approached by C. C. Avard, chairman of the board of regents, as a possible candidate, and in the meantime several other board members had given their support. Especially active was C.A. Fowler, the Halifax architect, who was confident enough to inform Flemington in November 1942 that 'the present line-up of the Board is apparently about 70% for Ross Flemington. ' J Among these supporters on the board were numbered N.A. Hesler of Sackville, president of Enamel and Heating Products Ltd, N.T. Avard of Amherst, President of the Canada Electric Company, J .L. Dixon of Sackville, General Manager of Eastern Hay and Feed Ltd, and F.G. Spencer of Saint John, president of the Spencer chain of cinemas. 24 Fowler also maintained by May 194 3 that 'the complete Halifax delegation ... [and] the Charlottetown delegation, and others too numerous to mention' had favoured Flemington in discussions held at the board meeting on the 17th of that month, and observed in particular that A.E. Kerr, principal of Pine Hill Divinity Hall, had been 'most enthusiastic' in his support. 5 The presidential search committee, however, was not yet convinced, and four of its five members recommended to the board meeting on 17 May that Trueman be requested to stay on for another year as president while the search continued for 'a man who was available, and who combined the desirable qualities of scholarship, administrative aility, and religious interest and affiliations.' The dissenting member was N.T. Avard, who accepted the recommendation that Trueman continue for another year, but maintained also that Flemington should be invited to assume the presidency in 1944. The subsequent discussion lasted, according to Fowler, 'for several hours' and was strongly favourable to Flemington. Yet the board ultimately refused to override the majority report, and instead instructed the committee to bring a definite recommendation to the next meeting. 26 Flemington's leading supporters remained optimistic, but had harsh words for the indecision of the search committee. 'The Presidential selection Committee ... , ' remarked 2

2

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Fowler to Flemington, 'contains three men described by our mutual friend Clem Avard as "octogeraniums" '; the three, he went on, 'resent any interference, criticism or suggestion by anyone who has not attained the grand old age of 80, and acquired the wisdom of Solomon by due process of stagnation.' 27 The committee's view, naturally, would have been quite different, and the notion that it included three octogenarians was in fact erroneous; Tweedie, it was true, had attained the age of eighty a few days before the committee was formed, but the two next oldest members, W.G. Watson and F.B. Black, were aged seventy-four and seventy-three respectively at that time. In Tweedie's view, the difficulties of the situation had arisen not from the members of the committee but from the 'unfortunate discussion about Flemington' and from the indiscretions of those board members who had 'canvassed as if the matter were practically settled. ' 28 There was, of course, more at stake than the personal feelings of the committee members and their critics. In part, the confusion stemmed from uncertainty over the intentions of Flemington, who had consistently taken the position that his first obligation for the present time was to continue to fulfil his duties as chief Protestant chaplain to the Canadian forces overseas. As late as 21 July 1943, during a special meeting of the board of regents called primarily to discuss the adoption of new by-laws, F.B. Black declared that he was sure Flemington would not accept the presidency if it was offered to him. Despite assurances by N .A. Hesler that discussions had already been held with the minister of national defence, J .L. Ralston, with a view to having Flemington released from his duties, the decision was postponed once again. 29 Yet even the question of Flemington's availability was not the fundamental issue. The matter turned rather upon different conceptions of the new president's role. There was substantial agreement that the president should be a scholar and an administrator of proven ability, and also acceptable to the United Church. Flemington, as a minister, unquestionably satisfied the third requirement, but the difference arose over the relative weight to be given to scholarship and to administrative capacity. Those who were unhappy with the prospect of Flemington as president were those who saw the office primarily as supplying academic leadership. Flemington, as he himself would have been first to admit, was not a research scholar, his highest degree being the MA in biology that he had taken at Mount Allison in 1923. Nor had he held any full-time university teaching position, having served as a part-time lecturer in education while headmaster of the academy. For some -defined by Fowler as including primarily 'the younger members of the Faculty,' but also including Tweedie - the personal qualities that Flemington undoubtedly possessed were not sufficient in themselves to jus-

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tify his appointment. Tweedie was in a particularly uncomfortable position, for he had high esteem for Flemington as a former student and later as a teacher and administrator at the academy. None the less, his considered view was expressed in a private letter of December 1942: 'it seems as if it would be desirable to have a man who had perhaps attended more than one university, had taken his PH. o., and had had some experience in university work.'Jo The opposite view was held by the supporters of Flemington's candidacy, who were led chiefly by businessmen on the board or by those who, like the architect Fowler, had close professional connections with private enterprise. No less committed to the future prosperity of Mount Allison than their opponents, they attached prime importance to Flemington's administrative record at the academy, and to the effectiveness as an advocate of the university that would result from his genial personality and his outstanding ability as a public speaker. Only through the appointment of a president with these qualities, they believed, could the financial crisis bequeathed by the past, and especially by the residence fire, be surmounted. Also considered important was the prestige enjoyed by Flemington as a result of his distinguished war record as overseas chaplain, which won him an honorary doctorate of divinity from Queen's University in 1943 and an OBE award two years later.J• What Flemington's supporters also shared was a sense of urgency. 'The situation at Mount Allison is, in my opinion, critical,' wrote Fowler to Flemington in April 1943: 'there has been little or nothing done insofar as a building campaign or the collection of funds, during the past year.' Hesler, in similar vein, assured a correspondent in September of his conviction 'that it is highly essential that a man like Ross Flemington, who is widely known, highly respected and who has done a magnificent job that has brought forth the highest appreciation of the leading men in Canada, would do more to reconstruct the fallen fortunes of Mount Allison than some man whose only claim to the position would be ... a deep appreciation of literary standards. 'J• By the time the board of regents convened once again on 28 October 1943, it was clear that there could be no further delay, and the presidential search committee reported accordingly. Acting upon suggestions made when the July meeting had ended inconclusively, the committee recommended not just one name but three, and called for a ballot to be held by board members to decide between them. One of the three - the first in alphabetical order, as presented by the committee - was Flemington. The second was John Hughes, head of the department of education at McGill University, and the third A.W. Trueman, who had resigned in 1942 as professor of

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English at Mount Allison to take up an appointment as superintendent of schools in Saint J oho. The strong underlying support for Flemington that had existed among board members from the beginning could now find expression, and Flemington obtained a clear majority on the first ballot. On Tweedie's motion, he was immediately designated as the next president. 33 He had indicated, however, that he would not be available to take up his duties until war conditions permitted: 'for the past four years I have been helping to build up the morale of others, and it would be humorous to say the least for me to leave them now just when the Canadians are beginning to go into action.' 34 It would be the spring of 1945 before Flemington returned to Mount Allison, and in the meantime Trueman continued as president. Flemington's presidency, therefore, had yet to begin; but what was certain was that it would be profoundly influenced by other changes that had their origins in the crisis following the residence fire, and that were already in the making by the time of Flemington's appointment. There were certain tasks, other than the immediate problems of finding living accommodations for displaced students and ensuring the security of the buildings, that clearly demanded attention in the wake of the fire. One was the revision of the institutions' fire insurance, which was quickly accomplished by the insurance committee of the board of regents under the chairmanship of N.A. Hesler. Hesler had been severely critical of the fire insurance arrangements even before the residence had burned, and at the time of the fire he had been working with the Amherst insurance brokerage firm Douglas, Rogers Ltd to produce a new schedule. On 2 January 1942 it was adopted by the executive committee of the board, and provided additional coverage of over $470,000 on the buildings and their contents, for premium payments increased by approximately $1000 annually. The largest single increase was on the library building, previously insured for only $5000: this amount was raised to a more realistic $n4,ooo. The new schedule also eliminated the practice of co-insurance, and was based instead on 80 per cent of agreed valuations.JS The updating of the institutions' insurance practices was a necessary and timely precaution. The fire had also raised other important financial questions, however, and particularly on the matter of revenues. Funds would be needed if the residence were to be rebuilt, and in the meantime the existing debts were putting severe strain upon operating revenues. The alumni building fund, despite the efforts of W.J. West and R.B. Hanson, did not make the anticipated progress. By November 1942 the amount raised was just over $45,000 - a significant sum, but far short of the target of $100,000 - and almost $24,000 of that had

173 Reappraisal: 1941-1948 come not from alumni but from business firms which had also been canvassed. West was discouraged, and wrote to Trueman in December that 'our Alumni have failed us miserably.' Trueman's reply revealed that he himself had met with unsympathetic reactions when mentioning financial matters at local alumni meetings. 'We have learned,' he concluded, 'not to depend upon our Alumni for support, although they may give us very real help. 'J 6 If it were true, at least for the time being, that alumni donations were not to be relied upon, it was clear that Mount Allison would have to take other measures to supplement its funds. The traditional answer would have been to turn to the church, either for a subsidy from its central resources, or in the form of an appeal to church members. In late 1942, however, neither of these possibilities was promising. Even the annual maintenance grant to Mount Allison from the United Church had fallen drastically during the 1930s, and by 1942 it was only $3430, as opposed to the annual grant of $10,000 that had been envisaged in 1926. Given the shortage of funds from which the church still suffered, there was no point in asking for more. 37 As for appealing to the congregations, this required much organization and had borne but little fruit in the last campaign. R.B. Hanson was certainly correct in early 1943 when he remarked to Hesler that the magnitude of the sum needed to restore Mount Allison's finances - he suggested that $472,000 would be enough for immediate building needs and repairs - ensured that 'it is nonsense to talk about getting it in small amounts from the adherents of the United Church. The great bulk of it will have to be given by some philanthropic and public spirited supporters .... •is The executive committee of the board of regents had already anticipated this conclusion, and had seized upon the possibility of corporate donations as the most likely route to success. 'The matter of contacting some of the large Upper Canadian Corporations,' recorded the minutes of 18 December 1942, 'who are doing business in New Brunswick with a view to obtaining subscriptions for Mount Allison was brought up by Mr. J.L. Dixon.' Accordingly, a previous committee formed to cooperate with the alumni on the building fund was augmented by the addition of Dixon, Hesler, and Captain R.V. Bennett, a prominent Sackville resident and brother of R.B. (now Viscount) Bennett. 39 The notion of appealing for corporate donations was relatively new at Mount Allison. There was, of course, a lengthy tradition of contributions from individual businessmen who were either Methodists or alumni or who had other personal connections with the institutions. During the campaign of 1929, the net had been widened somewhat, as Trueman had solicited donations, with variable success, from a range of wealthy individuals in Montreal. It had been in the immediate aftermath of

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the fire, however, that the device of appealing directly to corporations had been adopted, although as yet on a small scale. Even so, donations such as the $10,000 received in April 1942, from the Dominion Steel and Coal Company, had been largely responsible for what success the rebuilding fund had had. By July, Trueman was sufficiently encouraged to observe to F.B. Black that 'there are a few other companies that I would like to approach and shall probably do so. ' 40 Approaches to business concerns continued, and in the years that followed would assume an increasingly important place in fund-raising efforts. At the same time, Mount Allison itself borrowed increasingly from the techniques of private enterprise in its administration, under the influence especially of Norman Hesler. Hesler, a native of Ontario, had arrived in Sackville in 1923, aged thirty-six, as representative of the Royal Bank with the task of revitalizing the ailing finances of the Fawcett Foundry. He had stayed on as president of the company, known from 1928 onwards as Enamel and Heating Products Ltd, and in the meantime had played a prominent role in the activities of the town, serving as mayor in 1937. In 1938 he had been appointed to the Mount Allison board of regents as a church nominee, and on 17 May 1943 he was elected chairman of the board. Hesler was only the third non-clerical chairman, the Shediac merchant R.C. Tait having become the first when he succeeded Borden in 1926; Tait had been succeeded in turn, upon his death in 1938, by the Sackville newspaper proprietor C.C. Avard. By 1943, as the sixty-eight-year-old Avard wrote to Trueman, he was willing to 'leave the future of Mount Allison' to 'younger and more aggressive men,' and the election of Hesler followed.4' The new chairman, from the time he had first taken his seat on the board of regents, had been an outspoken critic of many aspects of Mount Allison's administration. The apportionment of the institutions' insurance contracts to what he later described as 'half a dozen Methodist agents' had been only one of the anachronisms he had identified and set out to change.42 Hesler, in fact, had been particularly critical of the practice of doing business with those who had close connections with the institutions, as open to abuse no matter what special price reductions might be offered. He himself declared more than once that he had 'nothing to sell to Mount Allison,' and on assuming the chairmanship he stated that 'in my capacity as Chairman of the Board I have no connection with any company supplying the University with foods or supplies of any nature whatsoever' 43 Inevitably, Hesler had aroused animosity from those who took the brunt of his critical remarks. 'Perhaps it is not customary,' he had declared in 1939 to C. C. Avard, 'for members of the Board of Regents to be so bold as to

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express their criticism and if that is the case and they only wish to have Members to put on the necessary "front," I am afraid that I would not qualify. ' 44 A year later, Hesler clashed with Trueman during the spring meeting of the board of regents, when he described the university's business methods as originating in 'horse and buggy days.' Trueman, however, had the better of the exchange, as he drew laughter from other board members by observing that Hesler had been listening to 'fairy tales.' Offended, Hesler threatened to withdraw from active participation in the affairs of the university; but the eventual result was quite different, after Trueman had written to Hesler shortly afterwards to praise his frankness: You will understand [wrote Trueman) that I am responsible more than any other person for ... affairs at Mount Allison in general. You can understand also that I can hardly stand back and have you come in and criticize all that I have done in this way without putting up a defence. I take your criticisms good naturedly; sometimes they have cut deep, but I know you have only the interests of Mount Allison at heart. If you are to work with me you will have to accept my statements without rancour, and among us we will be able to work out a better system all around, and do really valuable work for Mount Allison. If, however, you expect me to agree with everything you say and to admit that our business methods were bad before you became a Regent, you will be disappointed, and we shall have hard times."

That brief passage of arms formed the basis for a cooperative relationship between Hesler and Trueman that was to endure throughout the last five years of Trueman's presidency. It was a relationship between two men who differed radically in background and temperament. Trueman, the veteran academic and administrator, was sparing in speech, austere in manner. Hesler, who had never attended university but had built his company into one of Canada's major industrial and exporting concerns, was direct, aggressive, and yet quick to feel an intended or inadvertent slight. Hesler's role, as he saw it, was confined to the business methods of the university, in which he had expertise to offer; he consistently disclaimed any intent to involve himself in academic questions. Trueman, on the other hand, stood in need of assistance in his efforts to extricate Mount Allison from the toils of its continuing financial woes, especially after the residence fire, and especially as his two chief financial advisors hitherto - Senators Black and Robinson - were now, like himself, in their seventies and in poor health. Hesler's reforms, once he became chairman of the board of regents, were drastic. According to Robinson, they comprised an effort 'to revolutionise things,' and 'a matter which time alone will either vindicate or condemn. ' 46 For

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Trueman, they represented in some cases the abandonment of characteristics of Mount Allison that he had fought hard over the years to retain. Yet the institutions were undeniably in a critical state, and Trueman and Hesler would cooperate in measures taken in the interest of survival. Among the first reforms was the reconstitution of the executive committee of the board of regents, carried out at a special meeting of the board on 21 July 1943. Hitherto, the committee had had a fluctuating membership, consisting of those board members residing in Sackville, Amherst, Moncton, and Shediac and such others as the board chose to appoint. It had originally functioned simply as a means of enabling the full board of regents to delegate certain matters or to react to crises that demanded action prior to the calling of a board meeting. In recent years, however, as the board had increased in size and its functions had become more complex, it had tended to rely more upon the executive committee to transact day-to-day business, while discussing only general or especially weighty topics at the twice-yearly board meeting. The reform of 1943 reduced the size of the executive committee to seven - exclusive of the treasurer of the institutions, James Wheeler, who served as its secretary - and entrusted it not only with the duties of the old executive committee but also with those of the old finance committee. The new committee thus enjoyed powers unprecedented at Mount Allison, subject only to the scrutiny of the board. Furthermore, its initial membership had a strong business representation. Hesler as chairman, and Trueman as president, were members automatically. The other five, appointed by the board for a period of four years, were N.T. Avard, J .L. Dixon, W.S. Godfrey (the minister and former alumni and field secretary), Ira P. MacNab (a Halifax engineer and businessman), and Edith Spencer (a ladies' college alumna living in Moncton). 47 The new executive committee met for the first time on 16 August 1943, and among the first items of business discussed was that of overdue student accounts. Henceforth the calendar regulation that enjoined advance payment of all accounts as a condition of allowing students to write examinations was to be 'strictly enforced.' Furthermore, a serious effort was now launched to collect outstanding accounts, through legal action if necessary. Trueman had consistently refused during the depression years to enforce the regulations for payment, and he insisted now that he be allowed to make a final attempt to reach those who still had unpaid accounts. 'You have perhaps heard,' he observed to one, 'that I am likely to sever my connection with Mount Allison before so very long, and I am particularly anxious to collect all those amounts which through my carelessness were not paid promptly.' 48 The executive committee turned its attention also to the endowment fund,

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on the basis of a report submitted by Hesler in October 194 3 which had drawn attention in particular to the unclear status of the mortgages in which over $387,000, or some 40 per cent, of the total endowment funds were invested. 'It looks to me,' wrote a Montreal banker who had been asked by Hesler to comment on the report, 'as if once a mortgage was placed it was simply allowed to stand with no other attention than the collection of interest. '•9 Accordingly, during the next year, pressure was exerted upon those who had mortgages from the endowment fund for payments on the principal sums involved, although certain of the older mortgages were written off. By 21 June 1944, Hesler felt able to report to the executive committee that 'the Endowment Fund would seem to be in excellent condition,' while the meeting heard also that 'the current student accounts were coming in very well and that some reduction was being made in the old outstanding accounts. 's Also by that time, the executive committee had successfully recommended to the full board of regents that henceforth 'all purchases be made on a competitive basis.'P In its first year, therefore, the committee had developed new and more rigorous policies both for the inflow and the outflow of funds. The executive committee also turned its attention to the generation of new funds for the institutions, concentrating especially upon obtaining corporate donations. The largest donation received in 1943 had not been from a corporation, but had been a gift of $200,000 from Viscount Bennett early in the year, to be used to endow scholarships and faculty salaries." Donations of that size from individuals, however, were obviously rare, and it was to corporations that appeals were chiefly made during late 1943 . On 19 October, for example, Hesler informed the executive committee that he and H. W. McKiel - who had been released from teaching duties for a year to act as a fund-raising agent - were about to depart for Montreal, Ottawa, and Toronto 'to interview Upper Canadian firms.'n Although such approaches enjoyed some initial success, the task was abruptly made more difficult in late January 1944 when the minister of finance in the government of Canada, J . L. Ilsley, announced the severe curtailment of a provision by which a company could avoid wartime taxation of excess profits on an amount equivalent to 5 per cent of its income by donating to educational or charitable institutions. Several universities had already made good use of this opportunity in fund-raising campaigns and, according to Trueman, Ilsley's statement came as 'a thunderbolt.' Hesler complained similarly that it gave an unfair advantage to the universities, notably McGill, which had already collected large sums. H The protests from Mount Allison and from other universities, however, brought only minor concessions from Ilsley, 0

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and Hesler later reflected that the ruling had had 'a very serious effect' upon Mount Allison's efforts. 15 For all that, solicitations continued and Trueman commented to Senator Robinson in March 1944 that the building fund had increased rapidly to approach $300,000, and that Hesler's exertions were largely responsible. 16 Measures such as those taken by Hesler and the executive committee in 1943 and 1944 could not be accomplished in a moral and political vacuum. Although essentially administrative reforms, aimed at enabling Mount Allison to survive and prosper in future years, their nature was such that they could not avoid changing the character of the institutions to some extent. The more rigorous policy on the collection of student accounts, for example, was a move away from the leniency upon which Trueman had hitherto insisted, not - despite his own statement - through carelessness, but as a matter of principle. To one former student in 1943, for example, Trueman recalled that 'on more than one occasion I have threatened the Board that I would resign rather than refuse to give a degree to a student because his bill was not fully paid.' Now, he had been forced by circumstances to abandon that position. As one parent remarked in complaining about the 'pistol packing technique' used in 1944 to collect student accounts, 'Mount Allison seems to have changed in many ways. . .. ' 17 The enforcement of principal payments on mortgages, while intended to avoid the possibility of foreclosures, was also capable of arousing resentment, although ironically the case that caused most dispute was an old one. Percy Clark, a former student, had had his mortgage foreclosed on a property in Saint John in 1936, and since then had waged a long campaign accusing the university of unjust proceeding. The university, through the finance committee, had just as consistently defended its actions, and a special committee of investigation appointed by the Maritime Conference had refused to intervene. 18 What Clark was questioning was not the right of Mount Allison to foreclose, but the morality of its actions in view of the fact that he was 'a poor man,' who had 'mortgaged his property to send his son to Mount Allison. ' 19 A further conference enquiry in 1947 found that Clark had 'no moral claim' to compensation from the regents and yet the length of the controversy showed the potential conflict arising between the perceived obligation of a church college to be not only scrupulous but charitable in its dealings, and on the other hand the need to maintain stringent standards of business efficiency in order to recoup the financial fortunes of Mount Allison. 6o If the administrative reforms of the executive committee bore upon the

179 Reappraisal: 1941-1948 character of Mount Allison, the increasing reliance upon the support of corporations was also capable of doing so. Rarely did subscribing companies seek directly to influence the university, although one Saint John businessman did ask in late 1943, before deciding how to respond to a solicitation of his firm, for assurances as to 'whether your Institution, in which I am really interested, is producing, or fostering, or encouraging or permitting the dissemination of ... cure all policies as put forth, for instance by the c.c.F. or under other names.' Trueman's reply was non-committal, maintaining that social and economic changes were inevitable after the war but should be brought about 'without extreme action,' and stressing that socialist doctrines were objectively explained in economics courses by Tucker who himself had 'very little sympathy with them. ' 61 More important than direct linkage of donations to political criteria, however, were the implications of more subtle adjustments made in the way Mount Allison presented itself to prospective donors, through which the ideal of the church college serving a regional constituency was consciously played down. Approaches to central Canadian concerns were clearly more likely to be successful if they claimed a national role for Mount Allison, and as early as January 1942 Trueman's appeal to the Dominion Steel and Coal Company of Montreal made a virtue of the out-migration from the Maritimes which, during the 1920s, he had hoped that Mount Allison could help to prevent: We have in these Provinces a good class of people and among the young men and women who come to us each year are numbers of people of good natural ability and excellent character. A great many of these, after they are trained, go out to different parts of Canada, and a few go to the United States. Of our former students we have over three hundred in the area of Montreal and as many near Toronto. In fact, they are in every Province of Canada. I feel justified, therefore, in asking some of the business concerns in Central Canada, especially those which have branches in these Provinces, to help us out of our financial difficulties .... ••

Similarly, while no effort was made to disguise Mount Allison's affiliation with the United Church, that link was not emphasized in approaches to potential corporate donors. 'Our present appeal,' commented McKiel to one such, 'is not made as a United Church school or with the co-operation of that body, but on the grounds that we are a school of long standing in these provinces, with an honourable record of past service.' 63 In August 1943, Trueman wrote to W.N. Sedgewick of the United Church board of colleges and secondary schools to assure him that no appeal was being made to

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church members as such, which would have required church permission; instead, approaches were being made to 'some of the wealthier men of the various denominations and some of the business firms of our country.'64 Mount Allison's sources of funds, therefore, were changing, and in ways that betokened changes in the nature and goals of the institutions themselves. Among the greatest of the contributions made by Hesler to Mount Allison was his recognition of that fact, and his determination that changes should not be allowed to occur haphazardly but should be thoroughly discussed and planned in advance. It was Hesler in May 1942, a year before he became chairman of the board of regents, who urged the board to develop 'a larger and more comprehensive scheme which would outline the anticipated development of the institutional program for a number of years ahead, so that in soliciting funds from possible larger subscribers, a definite plan could be outlined to them, intimating approximately how the funds would be spent over a period of years.' The result was the appointment of a four-member policy committee under Hesler's chairmanship, the other members being Trueman, C.C. Avard, and C.H. Blakeny, an alumni representative on the board who was also the New Brunswick minister of education at the time. 61 In fact, as Hesler's original proposal implied, the report of the policy committee - which was presented to the board of regents on 21 July 194 3 and adopted with minor changes and subject to senate advice on certain academic questions - was a manifesto for the information of potential donors. Yet it was much more than that: the report represented the first serious effort since the rejection of the Carnegie federation scheme to take stock of Mount Allison's past record and future prospects, and to grapple with difficult and complex questions. It was a document that had great influence upon the evolution of Mount Allison over the following twenty years. The report began with a general review of the state of higher education in the Maritimes and Newfoundland, recalling the rejection of the Carnegie scheme and the undertaking made by Mount Allison at that time to limit its enrolment to 400 students, exclusive of those enrolled in programmes it had later inherited from the ladies' college. The influence of Trueman was evident as the policy committee reaffirmed that decision and praised Mount Allison's 'power to attract to her campus young people from the good old homes of the country where there is little money but high ambition.' Mount Allison, the report advocated in a phrase that was the only one in the entire document to be accentuated by underlining, 'should plan to grow in excellence of work rather than in an increased number of students . ... ' 66 Necessarily, this policy would require decisions as to how programmes should be limited, and the report suggested that 'attention paid to those basic subjects

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which are essential in the creation of an informed and broad-minded citizenship' was preferable to 'an overemphasis on mechanical and purely vocational courses.' With that general preface, the report proceeded to a critical appraisal of Mount Allison's relationship with the United Church. It did so with the approval of the church itself, as represented by the board of Christian education, which in June 1942 had adopted the report of a special committee chaired by Principal R.C. Wallace of Queen's University, professing the church's inability to give significant subsidies to its arts colleges; the church committee had encouraged the colleges to explore the possibility of renouncing church funding altogether, thus acquiring greater freedom 'to seek support where and as they can get it. ' 67 The Mount Allison policy committee's conclusions were broadly compatible with those of the church committee, not surprisingly since Trueman was a member of both. The report recognized the historical importance of the church relationship, and stopped short of recommending its severance. Yet it could find little of substance to say of its future role, save for vague assurances that 'religion is the sheet anchor that will save civilization from drifting towards N aziism.' What was remarkable was not so much that the committee should have recommended continuation of the church relationship as that it should recognize in doing so that 'the question as to whether Mount Allison would render a greater service if separated from the Church is important.' This was a matter that would clearly be raised again. Another question posed by the policy committee and only provisionally answered was whether the academy and the school for girls should be continued. On one point the report was definite. Public high schools were now sufficiently numerous and of high enough quality that it was difficult to justify duplication of their programmes by the Mount Allison schools: 'we have reached a stage in the development of these two schools when some radical change is necessary. ' An early draft of the report had gone so far as to recommend the closure of both schools forthwith, but this had been modified in the face of protests from Constance Young and Kenneth Parker, acting headmaster of the academy in Flemington's absence. 68 The final report recommended that each of the two schools would require substantial investment if it were to continue: the school for girls should have a building of its own, separate from the university campus, while the academy would require additions and renovations costing close to $500,000. Further study was needed, the committee concluded, before the future of the schools could be decided. The implication was clear enough, however, that they had become a hindrance to the work of the university and would not be long continued. Or that, at least, was the conclusion reached by Parker and

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Young. Shortly after the report had been adopted, Parker asked the board of regents for 'two months to consider his future plans,' although he eventually decided to stay on. Young departed for a holiday on Cape Breton Island, and wrote to Trueman complaining of 'the mess of intrigue and under cover dealing' that had accompanied the committee's deliberations : 'probably by the time I get back the girls' school will be doomed. ' 69 One part of the academy that the policy committee was not anxious to close was the commercial college. Instead, subject to senate approval, it recommended that the courses offered should be taken over by the university, and that a four-year degree programme should be introduced, consisting both of business administration courses and a leavening of arts subjects. In this way, Mount Allison could continue its tradition of offering commercial education while not duplicating the work of private business schools, although the report also envisaged the continuation of a two-year certificate course in commerce. The report also reviewed the facilities and staffing in other departments, although recommending only minor changes, before it proceeded to outline the financial requirements that should be met through fund-raising, stressing again the need for 'large subscriptions from individuals, business houses, and philanthropic organizations generally.' It did also recommend the adoption of a well-defined salary scale for the faculty, following the advice of Herbert Tucker. Responding to Hesler's invitation to make a submission to the committee, Tucker questioned the existing practice by which salaries could be arbitrarily decided by the university president, and advocated instead that all competent professors should enjoy automatic promotion through the ranks with salary increases to match.7° By the time Tucker's suggestion reached final form in the policy committee report it had undergone several modifications. The scale could not be 'strictly adhered to,' the report stated, unless more money were available; and supply and demand would continue to dictate some differences between salaries paid in the various departments. Furthermore, apparently at Trueman's behest, a distinction was made between salary scales for men and women. Whereas male faculty members would enjoy a scale progressing through five ranks from instructor to head of department, women were to be classified either as heads of department or as 'women with only brief experience' : in either case, their allotted salaries were considerably lower than those of their male counterparts. 'If women were paid as much as men,' the report commented inscrutably, 'few women would be employed, as for many reasons men are more satisfactory in most departments. ' 71 The policy committee report, therefore, was not entirely free of specious logic, and neither did the adoption of its recommendations by the board necessarily lead to their implementation. Tucker's proposal, for example,

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was only the beginning of a long campaign for the introduction of a definite scale of salaries for members of faculty. Nevertheless, the committee's concern for high educational standards at Mount Allison, safeguarded by an able faculty, was clear in the report's final paragraph: In conclusion may we suggest that buildings, no matter how elaborate they may be, do not of themselves constitute a University, and if we are to maintain the prestige of this University we must spare no effort to serve and retain teachers of outstanding ability, and we must strive to improve our curriculum continuously in order that it may meet the needs and circumstances of each succeeding generation of students.

Neither that sentiment nor any of the other individual facets of the report was in itself of revolutionary import at Mount Allison. Yet taken as a whole, giving due weight to the questions raised in the course of the report, it did indeed point the institutions in a new direction. That Mount Allison University should be small, and should offer arts and science programmes together with a limited number of professional programmes with substantial arts and science content, was not new. These characteristics had been continued from the concept of Mount Allison that had been enunciated by Trueman as an incoming president twenty years before. That the university could conceivably be better off without the academy and the school for girls was a significant departure from that concept, although one that Trueman himself had by now accepted. That the severing of the church relationship should be contemplated was more radical, despite the committee's reluctance to advocate definitely such a course. Only hinted at, and nowhere developed, were two of the most fundamental tenets of Trueman's original vision of what Mount Allison should be: the social role of Mount Allison in ensuring equal access to higher education, and the regional constituency. Among other things, the policy committee report demonstrated that the days of the social gospel and Maritime rights were over at Mount Allison. The logical conclusion of the report was that, if the two secondary schools disappeared and the church relationships were loosened, Mount Allison would emerge as a single institution - a 'Liberal Arts College,' to cite a phrase used in the report - financed in great part by private donations, informed by the ideals of the private university, and with its principal goal defined as being 'to grow in excellence of work.' Whether these were appropriate aspirations for Mount Allison would be debated often and at length in the course of the next two decades. The report of the policy committee was a contribution to the long-term planning of Mount Allison's future development. For the time being, how-

184 Mount Allison University ever, there was a war to be fought, and the years from 1942 onwards saw the university increasingly influenced by war-related pursuits. Military training continued to be given to all fit male students of military age, although no longer exclusively through the coTc. In October 1942, while the COTC was reorganized under the command of Lieutenant-Colonel H.S. Gamblin following the retirement of Frank Parker Day, a counterpart was established in the form of the Mount Allison contingent of the University Air Training Corps. As in the case of the COTC, members of the UATC took the equivalent of fifteen days of practical and theoretical training during the academic year, followed by a fifteen-day summer camp. The squadron's membership ranged between 35 and 55 during the war years - as compared with over 200 in the COTC - until the national disbandment of the UATC in January 1945 owing to a surplus of trained air crew.7 Forces personnel also continued to come to Mount Allison for theoretical training in various fields. The radio mechanics course continued until early 1943 and then was succeeded by 'No. 2 Army Course,' an intensive course in science and engineering designed for army recruits who had completed basic training but had not yet reached the necessary age for active service and wished to further their studies in the meantime. Administered by Donald MacGregor, as had been the radio mechanics course, the army course differed from its predecessor in that it took up the full academic year and carried university credit in the subjects studied. The first contingent of 50 students arrived in the fall of 1943.73 Mount Allison also gave occasional shorter courses under the sponsorship of the Canadian Legion either for service personnel or for members of the educational units of the forces. During the summer of 1943, for example, one-week courses were offered in 'Arts and Crafts,' taught by Stanley Royle, and 'Writing,' taught by H.P. Gundy, while the art gallery was again involved during the winter of 1944-5 in two-week craft courses provided for army and air force instructors. 74 Apart from such visible signs of war as the presence of uniformed personnel on the campus, there were also other important ways in which the influence of the Second World War made itself felt at Mount Allison, and none more so than in the increasing participation of the government of Canada in the shaping of the university's war effort. The recognition given during the Second World War to the role of higher education in wartime was reflected in a series of government measures designed to encourage students to enrol in scientific and technological subjects. A limited programme of student loans, for example, was proposed to the provinces in early 1942 by the federal ministry of labour, and was welcomed by the Mount Allison board of regents as being 'in keeping with a widespread 1

185 Reappraisal: 1941-1948 desire on the part of the citizens to democratize education and give equal opportunity to the poor as well as the rich. 'n Student loans were certainly capable of providing for equal access to higher education, but when details of this early scheme were announced - in early July 1942 in New Brunswick - it became clear that the real aims were more complex. The $300 of federalprovincial assistance awarded to each successful applicant was restricted to 'deserving and necessitous students studying engineering, science, medicine and dentistry,' and also required recipients to put themselves at the disposal of the dominion government on graduation for service in the armed forces or in war-related industry or research.7 6 Few students received government loans at Mount Allison as compared with the smaller University of New Brunswick: only three were awarded at Mount Allison in 1942-3, compared with 21 at UNB, while in the following year the respective figures were five and 26.77 Trueman, who had favoured a scholarship rather than a loan plan, speculated that the reason was partly that Mount Allison students objected on principle to borrowing money, but he was probably more nearly correct when he also blamed the attractions of UNB's four-year engineering programme for needy New Brunswick students, as opposed to the five years required by those students starting in the McClelan School.7 8 If the institution of student loans had only a marginal effect upon Mount Allison in itself, the scheme was more important for what it represented: the making of decisions by government authorities as to which courses of study were to be encouraged for war purposes, and the initiation of measures designed to channel students into those programmes. As 1942 went on, government influence upon the universities of Canada became progressively more marked, particularly through the National Selective Service authority, founded in March. By the end of the year, specific regulations had been set forth for the administration of students' exemption from conscription, providing that any student who refused to join the coTc (or equivalent body), or whose performance in military training was unsatisfactory, would immediately become liable for the draft. Furthermore, any student who failed the yearly or half-yearly examinations of the university was to be equally liable.7 9 This last provision threw a heavy responsibility upon the universities, which were now required to report failing students to the military authorities. At Mount Allison, a statement by Trueman in the Argosy in December 1942 promised 'a kindly and just interpretation,' with full consideration given to any mitigating circumstances that could be adduced in individual cases. Although the regulation applied only to male students, he added that failing women students would be reported to their parents 'with the recommendation that the students withdraw from the University.' 80 The

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promise of detailed individual consideration for all cases was fulfilled, as each student who was unsuccessful in the mid-year examinations in January 1943 was given a series of interviews by Trueman and the respective deans, McKiel and Tucker, before decisions were taken at a faculty meeting on 6 February 1943 to report 22 students for war service. Yet in the event it was the lengthy delays and uncertainties caused by this process that attracted the most severe criticism from students. The Argosy, in its editorial of 1 3 February, did not quarrel with the regulations themselves. 'What was not expected,' it continued, 'was a week and a half of worry for some - a period in which they knew that they were on the danger-line but could obtain no definite statements from any source as to their status. The result was a period of indifference when classes were ignored and an apathetic attitude to all and everything was the order of the day. ' 81 The same dilemmas would be faced after each examination period until the end of the war, and there was no ideal solution. Trueman, in his annual report in 1943, reflected upon the number of students who had already been lost to the university because of selective service requirements; 'notwithstanding these losses,' he concluded, 'we approve of the regulations. ' 82 Selective service regulations, in fact, were by no means forced upon Canadian universities. On the contrary, they were developed with the participation of the National Conference of Canadian Universities, which in the process acquired a new prestige and a new recognition as the collective voice of the universities of Canada. It also gained the power to resist government encroachment if such intervention threatened, in the universities' opinion, to go beyond what was necessary for the successful prosecution of the war. December 1942 saw the adoption of new regulations putting science and engineering students under the direct authority of the ministry of labour: they were required on graduation, for example, either to volunteer for service in the armed forces, or to accept employment in 'essential work' as directed by the ministry. 83 This measure was not contested by the universities, but according to strong rumours which had been current throughout the fall, the corollary might be that all courses other than those in science and engineering would be suspended by government order for the duration of the war. 84 Resistance to any such proposal was quick to gather among the universities. At Mount Allison and elsewhere, there was already a noticeable shift of students away from arts and towards science and applied science, which had been accentuated but not created by the war, having originated in the greater employment opportunities in pre-war days for science than for arts graduates. In the fall of 1942, reported Tucker to Trueman, only 17 new arts students had enrolled at Mount Allison as com-

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pared with 28 in 1941 and 40 in 1937. 'In light of the broader aspects of social needs,' Tucker commented, 'I view the tendency with some concern. ' 81 If arts courses were abandoned, even temporarily, the entire character of Canadian higher education would certainly be altered and, arguably, permanently impoverished. On 13 November 1942, the Central Advisory Committee met to declare the unanimous view of Maritime universities that arts students made an essential contribution to society 'even during a time of war,' and that their liability for conscription should continue to be the same as that of their counterparts in science and engineering. 86 Some two months later, on 9 January 1943, Trueman joined other university presidents at a general meeting of the NCCU in Ottawa at which, after a day of discussions with officials of the ministry of labour, the National Selective Service Office, and the Wartime Bureau of Technical Personnel, the abandonment of arts programmes was - rather narrowly - averted. The universities, for their part, promised wholehearted cooperation with existing regulations, and praised 'the enlightened policy of the Government of Canada with regard to the maintenance of higher education.' 87 Wartime measures now represented in effect a partnership between government and universities in the national interest. Not that this in itself ensured that they would be non-controversial. An early decision of the national University Advisory Board (founded in December 1942) called for the reporting to the selective service office of all arts students who were not ranked in the top half of their class, and it was only after strong protests from students throughout the country that the regulation was applied to all students regardless of their subject of study. 88 The universities, therefore, were necessarily and willingly integrated into the national war effort; but the possible curtailment of arts programmes, which would have borne heavily upon Mount Allison, was avoided. Mount Allison's war service was not solely measured in the military activity on the campus, or in the university's response to wartime manpower requirements. It was represented in the gallantry of some 1173 students, alumni, and faculty - 1070 men and 103 women - who were members of the armed forces, including the 75 who lost their lives and the 40 who received decorations for outstanding service. It was represented in the institution of blood donor clinics, and in student 'war fund' contributions totalling over $6500 to such charities as the Red Cross, the Salvation Army, and the International Student Service. 89 It was represented too in war-related research work carried out in the science departments. The physics department was kept at full stretch by its responsibilities for the training of army and air force personnel, but in the chemistry and biology departments ex-

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tensive research projects were carried through. In the chemistry department, under the direction of Bigelow, three years were spent working on explosives, the results of which were not published but were conveyed to the National Research Council as classified information. 90 Work by Fraser in biology centred upon surgical bacteriology, and his findings on the use of ultraviolet radiation in surgery were embodied in two papers published in the journal of the Canadian Medical Association, while his study on bacterial resistance to penicillin was still in progress at the end of the war. 9' The Mount Allison war effort was also shared by the women students, despite their lesser involvement in military activity as compared with the men. As an equivalent to coTc training, women students continued until the end of the war to receive training in such areas as first aid, home nursing, and motor mechanics, and they were also required to spend two hours each week on physical training. 9' During the war, the proportion of women in the student population increased, although not so markedly as during the First World War: not only had the proportion of women been higher immediately prior to the Second World War than twenty-five years earlier, but also the encouragement given to male university students to complete their courses of study prevented such large-scale enlistments between 1939 and 1945 as had been characteristic of the previous war. Also, the rising number of engineering students, who were almost all males, ensured that women did not constitute a majority of the students of the university. Even so, in the last year of the war ( 1944-4 5) there were 206 women in attendance as undergraduates, or 47.5 per cent, as opposed to 171, or 39.8 per cent, during the last pre-war year (1938-39). 9J Furthermore, most of the women students lived in Allison Hall, whereas the majority of the men were scattered in private homes throughout Sackville, and so the women students as a group enjoyed a greater coherence than was possible for their male counterparts. They continued to have more severe disciplinary restrictions than did the men, although one of these was modified somewhat as the result of a decision of the women's student council in November 1942: 'the question of wearing slacks to Classes was brought up and it was decided that slacks should not be allowed for classes and meals, but they could be worn to games and downtown after games, but are not to be worn generally every day.' 94 Apparently a more substantial advance was the presentation to Dorothy Jane Heartz in May 1944 of the first engineering certificate to be awarded to a woman by the McClelan School. It would be nineteen years, however, before the award of the next one, and so Heartz's achievement was, for the time being, an isolated one rather than the forerunner of a trend.9s

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For all those attending the university, whether male or female, there were difficulties associated with being a student in wartime. The range of campus activities was narrower than in peacetime, and the demands of study and military training ensured that time was short. None the less, there were exceptions. Intercollegiate sport, cancelled in 1940, was partially renewed in 1942 in the form of occasional exhibition games in football, hockey, and basketball. The start was not encouraging as the football team was decisively defeated by UNB in Fredericton on 25 October, but the games continued both against other universities and against visiting forces teams - to the point where the Argosy concluded in late 1944 that 'there is very little difference between the Unofficial Intercollegiate of today and the actual pre-war Intercollegiate. ' 96 There were also occasional intercollegiate debates - such as the one on 10 April 1943 in which Mount Allison defeated UNB by upholding the resolution 'that the Liberal Arts course in Canada should be retained in war time' - and concerts and recitals by faculty and students of the conservatory as well as by such visiting artists as the well-known Trapp Family Singers, who performed at Mount Allison in March 194 5. There were dramatic productions such as the successful Romeo and Juliet, also in April 1943, which according to the Argosy's critic, H.P. Gundy, 'caught the spirit of Shakespeare and captivated the audience. ' 97 For less formal times, there was Mel Goodwin's Tea Room on Bridge Street, 'Mount A.'s favourite gathering place' according to the Argosy of 9 October 194 3. 98 Yet still there were constraints. Students, as the dean of men D. W. MacLauchlan observed in a guest editorial in the Argosy in March 1943, led 'a hectic life': Joe College (and Josephine too) is urged by the Dean of Arts and by the Dean of Science to do more work. He (and she) is urged by the Dean of Men and the Dean of Women to get more sleep. They must not skip classes or they will be penalized. He must not skip parades or he will have an engagement with the magistrate.••

During late 1943, however, a number of Mount Allison students did have time to grapple with a major question raised on campus by the Student Christian Movement: the plight of the Jewish and other refugees from Nazi persecution currently in Spain and Portugal awaiting resettlement. The Mount Allison scM, acting on behalf of the Canadian National Committee on Refugees, posted copies of a petition appealing to Canadians and the Canadian government 'to adopt a more Christian attitude toward those who seek sanctuary in Canada.' The response was evidently not great, for a week later only 39 signatures had been gathered, but the petition did prompt a vigorous editorial condemnation of Canadian immigration policy in the Argosy, and

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of the failure of the Allied nations to take concerted action to relieve the situation of the refugees. While Canadians were fighting overseas to liberate the refugees' home countries from Nazism, the Argosy maintained, 'it seems inconsistent that Canada should take a callous view of their present plight and keep her doors barred.' 100 Had the editors of the Argosy known of certain deliberations that had taken place a few weeks before, however, they would have realized that they did not have to look as far afield as Portugal to observe such a paradox. Mount Allison's links with Jewish communities in the Mari times were long-established, particularly as regards the Jewish community in Cape Breton. During the early years of the Second World War, the proportion of Jewish students, according to Trueman, rose appreciably from the pre-war level of some 2 per cent, and approached a limit of 5 per cent that had been informally set 'for some years back. ' 101 In the 1942-3 year, 'Hebrew' students numbered 24 at the university and one at the academy, thus constituting 4.6 per cent of the overall number of students at the three institutions. In the following year, the number at the university declined, but increases at the academy and the school for girls brought the overall proportion to 5. 1 per cent. 101 These figures, along with a general breakdown of the religious affiliations of students, were presented at the meeting of the executive committee of the board of regents on 19 October 1943. Although no comments of any kind were recorded in the minutes, it was just four days later that Trueman observed in a note to Herbert Tucker that 'the Board' was in favour of maintaining the 5 per cent limit, and that 'in future we should be very careful in taking in men of that race and not full matriculation. ' 10 i Evidence regarding subsequent developments is sparse. An approach was made in late October 1943 to McGill University for details of differential entrance requirements imposed there upon Jewish applicants, but this model was not followed at Mount Allison. 104 Instead, a general admonition was given by Trueman in the following June to H. W. McKiel, about to visit Cape Breton to recruit students, that he should 'pay more attention to the United Church group than to those of other denominations and races'; Trueman then added a clear suggestion that McKiel should be cautious in offering scholarships to Jewish candidates. 101 Trueman was undoubtedly well aware, even acutely so, of the moral questions raised by such a course of action. On one occasion shortly before the war he had reflected to a correspondent on the paradox by which non-Jewish Canadians felt 'a deep sympathy' for European Jews and yet had ambivalent feelings towards Jewish communities in Canada; he expressed 'deep concern' but had no remedy to suggest. ' 06 Some time later, in conversation with a Jewish student- Nathan

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Cohen, who later became a prominent theatre critic, and who recalled the incident in an article on his experiences as a Jewish student at Mount Allison - Trueman returned to a similar theme in observing that 'it's important for Jews to be tolerant toward Christians. Christ died 2,000 years ago but his message hasn't reached the hearts of many people, especially those who say they believe in him.' Mount Allison's reluctance to accept any increase in the numbers of Jewish students was in part a reflection of attitudes towards religious and racial minorities that had wide currency in society at large. It was also, in part, a consequence of the characteristic dilemma of the denominational college as to how far it should serve those whose religious beliefs diverged widely from those of its own denomination. The countenance consequently given by the university to differentiations between Jewish candidates and others in the award of scholarships was short-lived. The policy was inevitably swept away in the rapid expansion that accompanied the arrival of veteran students in 1945, and proved insufficient to destroy the university's relationship with the Jewish community of, for example, Glace Bay: the spokesman for 35 contributors from that community to a Mount Allison fund-raising campaign in 1946 cited the fact that 'our children who were and are attending the Mount Allison University speak so highly of it ... .' Yet the fact remains, that in so far as Mount Allison had contemplated, and had briefly put into effect, a practice of covertly discriminating among applicants on racial and religious grounds, this was not only an affront to the university's traditional principle of open availability but also a particularly ironic and objectionable one at a time when the campus was fully mobilized to wage war against Nazism and when Allisonians were giving their lives for that cause. There were many aspects of Mount Allison's history, and of Trueman's presidency, in which the university could justifiably take pride; this was not one of them. Rather different was the case of the Japanese-Canadians. In July 1943, after an approach had been made to the university by the student relocation committee of the Nisei Liberties Union, based in British Columbia, the board of regents discussed at length the question of whether 'people of alien ancestry' should be employed by the university or accepted as students. No formal motion was passed, but the three speakers cited in the minutes Walter Mitchell of Halifax, the Pine Hill principal A.E. Kerr, and R.B. Hanson - all agreed that it was impossible justifiably to exclude from the university 'Japanese children of parents who have proven to be good Canadians,' and the discussion was described as enabling Trueman as president 'to gauge the general feeling of the members of the Board.' 109 Accordingly, his subsequent response to the representative of the Nisei Liberties Union 107

108

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was guardedly favourable to the acceptance of Japanese-Canadian students in small numbers, warning that they might face resentment from some in the community, but recalling that in pre-war days Mount Allison's links with Japan, through the activities of United Church missionaries, had been 'decidedly friendly.'" No such students apparently did come to Mount Allison in the following academic year, however, and evidence is lacking as to whether any applications were made to do so. There was one other major wartime question that had moral and social implications and with which Mount Allison, in common with other Canadian universities, had to be concerned during the Second World War: the problem of how the university was to discharge its obligations to the expected influx of returning veterans as students. At a national level, through the federal government and the National Conference of Canadian Universities, planning for post-war exigencies had begun in the early years of the war and was well advanced by 1944. In the Maritimes the central advisory committee discussed the matter in detail at its meetings in November 1943 and November 1944. In the fall of 1944, Mount Allison received its first four veteran students, and in the sure knowledge that these were only the forerunners of a much larger contingent the university began its serious planning at a faculty meeting in November of that year. By 15 January 1945, reports had been received from a series of committees which had been instructed to study particular aspects of the situation that would be created by the enrolment of 'as many as 200 men and 50 women' as additional students. Time would show that that had been an underestimate, but even so the committees found that considerable difficulties would be encountered. In particular, the committee on staff appointments reported that 'a substantial increase in enrolment will seriously impair the present teaching efficiency in most departments, some of which are already over-taxed,' although for the time being it did not offer any specific recommendations. " 3 The report of the committee on buildings and equipment was more optimistic, and on the important question of how the larger student body could be housed and fed it concluded that an additional 200 could be accommodated without undue difficulty. The major proviso was, however, that the new men's residence should be open by the time the veterans arrived. This was not an unrealistic hope, as construction of the residence had finally begun in August 1944. By that time, the building fund had reached just over $219,000; together with the $106,000 remaining from the insurance on the old residence, this was sufficient to prompt the board of regents in May 1944 to authorize a start to the building on condition that the cost should not exceed the $325,000 available. C.A. Fowler was appointed as 0

1"

112

114

193 Reappraisal: 1941-1948 architect - he promptly resigned from the board to avoid conflict of interest - and in early August the contract for the new building was let to Ambrose Wheeler of Moncton. The first sod was turned by W.M. Tweedie on the 16th."' At first, all went well, as a mild fall season allowed excavations to be completed and the foundation to be laid within a few weeks. By January 1945, however, problems characteristic of wartime had begun to arise. One of these was inflation. On 16 January, the executive committee heard from Hesler that the estimated cost of the building had risen from the authorized $325,000 to $480,000, and a special meeting a few days later succeeded in reducing the new figure by only $8 5,ooo, through omission of non-essential features from the design. A second problem was the shortage of skilled crafts men, particularly carpenters, and this was blamed by Wheeler in late February for the slow-down that caused Hesler to remark to the executive committee that he was 'very disappointed' with the progress being made. 116 There was little doubt by now that the new residence would be much more costly than had been hoped, and that - provided the war ended in 1945 the veteran students would have to be accommodated without its being in full operation. The war did end in 1945, and the rejoicings that accompanied the close of the European conflict in May naturally and rightly obscured for the time being whatever administrative difficulties the university might be facing on account of the expansion of student numbers that was to come later in the year. The end of the war also brought a new president to Mount Allison: in April, following an urgent summons from the executive committee of the board of regents, Ross Flemington had returned to Sackville ready to succeed Trueman on I July. 117 Six years of war had taken an inevitable toll upon those who had sustained the university's activities through trying times. Now, under Flemington's leadership, Mount Allison would be tested by the problems of peace. The closing ceremonies of the university on 22 May 1945 had a festive air, appropriate for the end of the war in Europe. In the university's president, however, the occasion must have evoked a mixture of feelings, for this was the last convocation over which Trueman would preside. Retirement would be a personal relief, for since 1940 he had frequently been ill and most recently had spent the spring of 1945 in the grip of a prolonged attack of sciatica. In the convocation issue of the Argosy, Trueman confessed that, like the members of the graduating class, he was 'glad in a way to complete my work, yet conscious that I should have done it better and uneasy because the opportunity will not come again.' 118 The doubts to which Trueman

194 Mount Allison University admitted were not assumed for the occasion, or calculated to give a false impression of modesty. They were real. They were not widely shared by others attending convocation that day in Fawcett Hall, to judge from the warm tribute paid to Trueman by N.T. Avard, as secretary of the board of regents, and the unanimous approbation of the audience. Nor were any reservations in evidence as Trueman participated later in the afternoon in the laying of the cornerstone of the partially completed men's residence, now to be known as Trueman House. 119 Yet in his annual report, presented at convocation and later published in full, Trueman quoted at length from his inaugural address of almost twenty-two years before, prefacing the extracts by stating that the address 'expresses my opinions and judgment fairly accurately today,' and then commenting in but a single sentence before turning to give a biographical sketch of his successor: 'during the twentytwo years of my presidency I have not been able to accomplish very many of the things which seemed important to me at that time. ' When strictly judged against the goals that had characterized Trueman's early years as president, it was true that his term of office had been unsuccessful. Trueman had exerted the full force of his office, and of his personal prestige, to steer Mount Allison towards a particular social role, profoundly influenced by the moral precepts of the social gospel but also informed by a vision of the regional coherence of the Maritime provinces and by a conscious, active, and deeply conservative commitment to the organic development of society in the region towards harmony and prosperity. The three institutions of Mount Allison, he believed, would play a distinctive part within an education system that would clear the way towards social improvement. The reality had been different. The depression of the 1930s had ensured, despite the optimism of the Maritime rights movement in the previous decade and despite the brief return of prosperity in the late 1920s, that the social and economic health of the Maritimes could not easily be recovered and that education must endure severe constraints in these circumstances. Mount Allison University had suffered from continual financial crises throughout the decade, made worse by the fires of 1933, and then had been confronted by the tragedy of the fire of 1941. The reappraisal that had followed, culminating in the policy committee report of 1943, had moved the university decisively away from the notion of the rural church college, with its associated academies, that Trueman had envisaged twenty years before. There was little reason to suppose that the change would be anything but permanent. Yet to dismiss Trueman's career as a failure would be wrong. For one thing, Mount Allison still existed. The decision to reject the notion of moving 120

195 Reappraisal: 1941-1948

to Halifax to participate in the Carnegie federation scheme, as Trueman was well aware at the time, was a gamble that depended upon successful fundraising and a favourable economic climate in order that Mount Allison should prosper alone. These conditions had not obtained and Mount Allison had not prospered; and yet Trueman's resolute leadership had played a major role in preventing it from foundering altogether. Furthermore, even though not all of Trueman's hopes for Mount Allison had been realized, certain of his precepts had survived and would continue to influence Mount Allison long after his own death in 1949. The notion of a restricted enrolment, for example, was part of his legacy. The rationale for Mount Allison's deliberately small size might vary- as academic excellence became its justification rather than the social goal of serving a rural constituency- but the possibility of unrestricted growth was now remote. Trueman's legacy also included the high sense of moral purpose with which he, like his predecessors but in a more secular age, had imbued the university. Paradoxically, during his time as president, Mount Allison had strayed at times into policies the morality of which - judged by the Christian principles that the institution professed - was questionable at best. That the university and all its members ought to subject themselves to such judgment, however, had been an essential assumption of Trueman as president. Trueman's Mount Allison had not been perfect, just as Trueman himself suffered from more acute dilemmas and self-doubts than could be apparent to those who saw only his austere fa~ade. Nevertheless, whatever contribution Mount Allison might make after 1945 to the cause of education in the Maritime provinces and further afield would owe much to his stewardship. Allan Tait, a former member of the board of regents, summed up Trueman's achievement concisely in a letter written on 2 3 May 194 5: I have so often thought this week of Dr. Borden's remark at the close of his address the day of your Induction. He turned to Doctor Allison (very old and feeble at that time with only a few months to live) and said, 'Now we'll let George do it.' We all know how well he has done it through the most difficult years of the College's history. "'

Trueman's successor was formally installed in office on 18 October 1945. By that time the Second World War was over in all of its theatres, and Flemington recalled in his inaugural address that he had been in the Italian town of Ravenna when he had received the executive committee's urgent request in January that he return to Sackville. Bitter fighting had been taking place at that time both in Europe and in the far east: 'I little thought,' he

196 Mount Allison University

observed, 'that my Inauguration would take place in a world once again at peace.... ' As befitted one who, at the age of forty-eight, was a veteran of two world wars, Flemington's speech dwelt upon the challenges and the responsibilities of peace in a world 'that has once again been bought by sacrifice - by inconceivable suffering.' Only by perpetuating what was best in the traditions not only of Mount Allison, but also of the ancient European universities that had suffered devastation during the war, could the university now fulfil its duty to be 'a gathering place for scholars - where knowledge and goodness and truth and beauty are constantly sought and increased.' For Flemington, there could be no contradiction between technical and liberal education, for both would be essential for the preservation of civilization in the post-war world, and for the perpetuation of civilized values. By holding to these ideals, he concluded, Mount Allison would 'help to make Canada a land that will be known to posterity for its contributions to Science and Literature, Art and Music, Good Government and sound Industrial Relations - all of which find their highest ideals and inspiration in an insight into things spiritual and eternal.,,,, The third clergyman to be president of Mount Allison would need all of his spiritual inspiration in order to deal with the stress and strain of the early post-war years. Just eighteen days after taking over the duties of the presidency on I July, he had informed F. W. Patterson, president of Acadia University, that he was 'already beginning to realize why Dr. Trueman's hair has turned white. ' J One matter which was quickly and satisfactorily settled was the appointment of a new secretary to the president. Stella Lund, who had become in 1919 the first full-time secretary at the university and had served as Trueman's secretary throughout his term of office, resigned in the summer of 1945 following her marriage to F.W.W. DesBarres. She was succeeded later in the year by Margaret E. Fullerton, whose service as secretary to successive presidents would equal in efficiency - and ultimately exceed in length - that of Lund. The post-war years also saw a series of retirements and_ resignations among the faculty, which complicated the task of assembling a faculty large enough to provide instruction for the expected large student enrolments of the ensuing years. Two years elapsed, in fact, before the shape of the post-war faculty became dearly defined. By the spring of 1947, three faculty members who had served Mount Allison since before the First World War had joined the ranks of the professors emeriti. Harold Bigelow had taught with distinction in chemistry since 1911, and for many years had been in the forefront of the university's research activities, as well as serving as a member of the National Research Council from 11

11 •

197 Reappraisal: 1941-1948 1935 to 1944. The honorary degree conferred upon him at the spring convocation of 1946 was a recognition not only of those professional achievements, but also of Bigelow's personal contributions to Mount Allison over nearly half a century as student, dean of men, and professor. Similarly honoured in the fall of 1945, by the first honorary Doctor of Music degree to be conferred at Mount Allison, had been J .N. Brunton. Brunton had also come to Mount Allison in 1911, as a vigorous and demanding young teacher of music and director of the conservatory. Through innovations such as local examinations centres he had done much to extend the conservatory's influence throughout the region, and it was with justice that his successor, Harold Hamer, remarked in presenting him for the Doctor of Music degree that 'I know of no one who has made a greater contribution to the musical welfare of the Maritime Provinces than ... James Noel Brunton. ' 126 The same might well have been said, in regard to fine arts, of the third faculty member to become a professor emerita in the immediate post-war years, Elizabeth McLeod. A member of the Royal Canadian Academy since 1916, she had also been effective head of Mount Allison's art school for some nineteen years following the retirement of John Hammond in that year, although enjoying the title of department head only between 1930 and 1935, and had taught in the art school except for occasional study breaks since 1895. McLeod had to wait until 1954 before receiving an honorary degree from Mount Allison; it was, by that time, not only well merited but also overdue. 127 Another departure from the art school was that of Stanley Royle as professor and director, who returned to his native England in late 1945 because of his wife's ill health, and resigned as from 1946. Royle's ten years at the head of the Owens school had encompassed the introduction of the BFA degree and the integration of the school into the university, but his major contribution had been in the quality of his teaching in the field of painting and drawing. Among those of his pupils who would become established artists in their own right was Alex Colville, who returned to Mount Allison in the fall of 1946 to serve as assistant professor of fine arts under Royle's successor, Lawren P. Harris. Harr=s, like Colville, had served in the armed forces as a war artist, and he assunled his new position at Mount Allison immediately upon being discharged. As well as his own accomplishments as a practising artist, Harris also began a rigorous appraisal of the academic requirements of his department. Together with Colville, and with established department members such as Christian McKiel, he ensured that Mount Allison's fine arts programme would continue to reach the highest professional standards both of teaching and of artistic achievement. 118 Two professors on military service during the war who did not resume 121

198 Mount Allison University

their careers at Mount Allison were C.A. Krug and G.F.G. Stanley. Krug continued in government service after the war, and was replaced as Massey professor of philosophy and psychology by C.A. Baxter, while Stanley accepted a position at the University of British Columbia and was replaced as professor of history by D.G.G. Kerr. Kerr, like Stanley, had served as an official war historian, in his case as a member of the Royal Canadian Navy, and he was released from the navy to take up his duties at Mount Allison in January 1947. Others, meanwhile, did return to Mount Allison from war service. Frank West, after teaching for a year in England at the Khaki University of Canada, returned in the fall of 1946 as professor of engineering and director of the McClelan School. Similarly, Arnold Cuthbertson returned from military research work in Ottawa to become Bigelow's successor as head of the chemistry department, while his wartime replacement Donald Maclauchlan stayed on also as a professor of chemistry. There was a change too in the headship of the mathematics department, as W.H . McEwen, professor of mathematics since 1930, departed for the University of Manitoba and was replaced by W.S.H. Crawford, assistant professor since 1943. 9 With other post-war faculty arrivals including H.D. Southam as professor of education, and Allan MacBeth as professor of French, who joined such established department heads as Fraser, Gundy, Hamer, MacGregor, and Runciman, the faculty by the 1946-7 year was assuming its post-war form as a mixture of old and new members. As student attendance demanded, it was significantly larger than before the war. The staff for 1946-7, as compared with that of 193

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"'

TABLE 28 Parents' occupati_n_s {_Canadian new students at Mount Allison University, 1952-4 1

1952

Group Group Group Group Group Group Group

1 2 3 4 5 6 7

14 83 12 11 46 12 13

(7.3%) (43.5%) (6.3%) (5.8%) (24.1%) (6.3%) (6.8%)

1953 13 (10.0%) 54 (41.5%) 10 (7.7%) 2 (1.5%) 33 (25.4%) 10 (7.7%) 8 (6.2%)

13 75 14 13 67 6 10

1954

Quebec and Ontario Total, 1952-4 only, 1952-4

(6.6%) (37.9%) (7.1%) (6.6%) (33.8%) (3.0%) (5.1%)

40 212 36 26 146 28 31

(7.7%) (40.8%) (6.9%) (5.0%) (28.1%) (5.4%) (6.0%)

15 (21.7%) 33 (47.8%) 3 (4.3%) 5 (7.2%) 9 (13.0%) 2 (2.9%) 2 (2.9%)

191

130

198

519

69

Not given, 23 or unclassifiable

27

38

88

6

Overall student population at Canadian universities, 1951(%)•

Overall Canadian labour force, 1951(%)

(11.0) (34. 9) (4.8) (7.1) (31.1) (5.8) (5.3)

(0.9) (10.7) (6.3) (7.0) (34.2) (19.6) (21.3)

Sources: Application forms of accepted students, 1952-4, MAA, 8112./.2-10; Bernard R. Blishen, 'The Construction and Use of an Occupational Class Scale,' Canadian Journal of Economics and Political Science, 2.4 (1958), 519-31; John Poner, The Vertical Mosaic (Toronto, 1965), 186. 1 The figures contained in this table are derived from the only surviving files of student application forms for the period to 1963. Only for the year 1952. were the files complete; data for 1953 were available only for the alphabet letters A to L; for 1954 only for the letters A to Mand S to Z. The application form required each applicant to give the occupation of one parent or guardian; most gave that of their father, but in cases where the mother was listed (or a female guardian), the occupation has been classified accordingly, as indicated by the Blishen scale. 2 The figures in this column are from Poner, The Vertical Mosaic, 186.

~ ~

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TABLE 29 Proportion of male and female students at Mount Allison University, 1945-63 1945--{,

Male Female Total

194£r.7

1947-8

376 (60.4%) 636 (72.2%) 647 (68.4%) 247 (39.6%) 245 (27.8%) 299 (31.6%) 946 881 623

1948-9

1949-50

1950-1

1951-2

1952-3

1953-4

476 (63.1%) 403 (63.5%) 388 (61.4%) 373 (60.9%) 419 (64.9%) 510 (67.0%) 278 (36.9%) 232 (36.5%) 244 (38.6%) 239 (39.1%) 227 (35.1%) 251 (33.0%) 761 646 635 612 754 632

(TABLE 29 continued) 1954-5

Male Female Total Source:

1955--{,

195£r.7

1957-8

1958-9

1959-60

1960-1

1961-2

1962-3

563 (67.3%) 607 (66.4%) 597 (65.1%) 741 (67.7%) 700 (66.0%) 738 (63.1%) 709 (60.2%) 739 (60.6%) 761 (62.1%) 273 (32.7%) 307 (33.6%) 320 (34.9%) 353 (32.3%) 361 (34.0%) 431 (36.9%) 469 (39.8%) 480 (39.4%) 464 (37.9%) 1225 1219 1178 1169 1061 1094 917 914 836 MAA,

vice-president's report, 25 October 1963, p. 7.

4>-

4>-

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TABLE 30 Enrolment at Mount Allison University by programme, 1945-63 194S-6 BA

BSC'

Commerce Cert. or B COMM BED

Engineering Fine and applied ans Home economics Music Sec. Cen. Special MA MSC

(sec.) Theology Ed. Dip. BA

1946-7

1947-8

1948-9

1949-50

195(}-1

1951-2

1952-3

1953-4

221 (35.5%) 322 (36.5%) 312 (33.0%) 283 (37.5%) 239 (37.6%) 239 (37.8%) 211 (34 .5%) 206 (31.9%) 204 (26.8%) 78 (12.5%) 86 (9.8%) 128 (13.5%) 102 (13.5%) 85 (13.4%) 87 (13.8%) 95 (15.5%) 121 (18.7%) 155 (20.4%) 25 (4.0%) 52 (5.9%) 59 (6.2%) 37 (4.9%) 28 (4.4%) 34 (5.4%) 38 (6.2%) 28 (4.3%) 59 (7.8%) 3 (0.3%) 5 (0.5%) 6 (0.8%) 6 (0.9%) 18 (2.8%) 9 (1.5%) 8 (1 .2%) 4 (0.5%) 134 (21.5%) 218 (24.7%) 214 (22.6%) 133 (17.6%) 105 (16.5%) 87 (13.8%) 93 (15.2%) 134 (20.7%) 171 (22.5%) 43 57 27 5 30 2 1

-

(6.9%) (9.1%) (4.3%) (0.8%) (4.8%) (0.3%) (0.2%)

49 76 41 13 21

-

-

(5.6%) (8.6%) (4.7%) (1.5%) (2.4%)

64 77 50 15 19 1 2

-

(6.8%) 70 (9.3%) 56 (8.8%) 55 (8.7%) 52 (8.5%) (8.1%) 74 (9.8%) 60 (9.4%) 52 (8.2%) 57 (9.3%) (5.3%) 40 (5.3%) 33 (5.2%) 35 (5.5%) 29 (4.7%) (1.6%) 6 (0.8%) 4 (0.6%) 2 (0.3%) 5 (0.8%) 11 (1.7%) 7 (1.1%) 4 (0.7%) (2.0%) (0.1%) 2 (0.3%) 6 (0.9%) 3 (0.5%) 1 (0.2%) (0.2%) 1 (0.1%) 2 (0.3%) 2 (0.3%) 11 (1.7%) 18 (2.9%) -

44 45 27 2 5 3 3 20

BT

623

881

946

754

635

632

612

646

(6.8%) (7.0%) (4.2%) (0.3%) (0.8%) (0.5%) (0.5%) (3.1%)

36 59 27 2 12 3 2 27

-761

(4.7%) (7.8%) (3.5%) (0.3%) (1.6%) (0.4%) (0.3%) (3.5%)

~

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(TABLE 30 continued) 1954-5 BA BSC'

Commerce Cert. or B COMM BED

Engineering Fine and applied arts Home economics Music Sec. Cert. Special MA MSC

(sec.) Theology Ed. Dip. BA

BT

195~

1956-7

1957-8

1958-9

1959-60

196(}-1

1961-2

1962-3

239 (28.6%) 283 (31.0%) 300 (32.7%) 332 (30.3%) 352 (33.2%) 407 (34.8%) 439 (37.3%) 481 (39.5%) 514 (42.0%) 177 (21.2%) 164 (17.9%) 134 (14.6%) 188 (17.2%) 179 (16.9%) 209 (17.9%) 234 (19.9%) 243 (19.9%) 228 (18.6%) 77 (9.2%) 85 (9.3%) 87 (9.5%) 100 (9.1%) 90 (8.5%) 107 (9.2%) 105 (8.9%) 119 (9.8%) 126 (10.3%) 5 (0.6%) 15 (1.6%) 13 (1.4%) 9 (0.8%) 10 (0.9%) 26 (2.2%) 22 (1.9%) 21 (1.7%) 11 (0.9%) 169 (20.2%) 180 (19.7%) 196 (21.4%) 249 (22.8%) 220 (20.7%) 188 (16.1%) 155 (13.2%) 144 (11.8%) 146 (11.9%) 41 (4.9%) 45 (4.9%) 29 (3.2%) 36 (3.3%) 35 (3.3%) 44 (3.8%) 44 (3.7%) 35 (2.9%) 34 (2.8%) 48 (5.7%) 46 (5.0%) 51 (5.6%) 56 (5.1%) 47 (4.4%) 64 (5.5%) 77 (6.5%) 76 (6.2%) 72 (5.9%) 26 (3.1%) 23 (2.5%) 23 (2.5%) 23 (2.1%) 22 (2. 1%) 16 (1.4%) 12 (1.0%) 1 (0.1%) -

-

1 3 38 12

-

-

(0.1%) (0.4%) (4.5%) (1.4%)

11 2 1 47 12

-

-

836

914

-

-

-

-

-

-

(1.2%) 8 (0.9%) 13 (1.2%) 12 (1.1 % ) 15 (1.3%) 10 (0.8%) 13 (0.2%) 1 (0.1%) 1 (0.1%) 1 (0. 1%) 2 (0.2%) 3 3 (0.3%) 5 (0.5%) 2 (0.2%) 1 (0. 1%) 3 (0.1%) (5.1%) 57 (6.2%) 74 (6.8%) 71 (6.7%) 76 (6.5%) 68 (5.8%) 64 (1.3%) 12 (1.3%) 7 (0.6%) 11 (1.0%) 9 (0.8%) 3 (0.3%) 5 6 (0.7%) 3 (0.3%) 4 (0.4%) 4 (0.3%) 6 (0.5%) 11 2 (0.2%) 2 (0.2%) 917

Source: MAA, president's reports, 1949-63. 1 Does not include B sc with Engineering Certificate.

1094

1061

1169

-1178

1219

-

(1.1%) 17 (1.4%) (0.2%) 1 (0. 1%) (0.2%) 3 (0.2%) (5.3%) 63 (5.1%) (0.4%) 5 (0.4%) (0.9%) 5 (0.4%) 1225

~ ......

0

..; SI)

er 0

"'

TABLE 31 Enrolment at Mount Allison by programme, 1955-63 (men) 1955-6 BA B SC

Commerce BED

Engineering Fine and applied arts Home economics Music Sec. Cert. Special MA

MSC BA (sec.) Theology Ed. Dip.

BT

-

5 (0.8%)

5 (0.8%) 1 (0.2%) 1 (0.2%)

-

12 (2.0%)

-

607 Source:

MAA,

1956-7

1957-8

1958-9

1959--{,0

1961>-1

175 (28.8%) 184 (30.8%) 218 (29.4%) 214 (30.6%) 236 (32.0%) 235 (33.1%) 136 (22.4%) 102 (17.1%) 150 (20.2%) 140 (20.0%) 158 (21.4%) 185 (26.1%) 81 (13.3%) 85 (14.2%) 96 (13.0%) 89 (12.7%) 103 (14.0%) 104 (14.7%) 5 (0.7%) 18 (2.4%) 10 (1.4%) 9 (1.5%) 3 (0.4%) 9 (1.5%) 171 (28.2%) 196 (32.8%) 249 (33.6%) 220 (31.4%) 188 (25.5%) 155 (21.9%) 9 (1.3%) 4 (0.5%) 6 (0.9%) 10 (1.4%) 2 (0.3%) 11 (1.8%)

-

-

-

3 (0.5%)

6 (0.8%) 1 (0.1%) 3 (0.4%)

4 (0.7%)

4 (0.5%)

-

-

-

-

597

741

12 (2.0%)

president's reports, 1956--63.

7 (0.9%)

5 (0.7%)

-

-

1961-2

1962-3

250 (33 .7%) 198 (26.7%) 119 (16.1%) 8 (1.1%) 143 (19.3%) 6 (0.8%)

273 (35.9%) 190 (25.0%) 125 (16.4%) 5 (0.7%) 145 (19.1%) 6 (0.8%) 1 (0.1%)

6 (0.8%) 2 (0.3%) 2 (0.3%)

6 (0.8%) 1 (0.1%) 2 (0.3%)

-

3 (0.4%)

3 (0.4%)

4 (0.6%) 1 (0.1%) 5 (0.7%)

10 (1.4%)

2 (0.3%) 1 (0.1%)

2 (0.3%)

-

-

11 (1.6%)

9 (1.2%) 1 (0.1%)

3 (0.4%) 2 (0.3%)

5 (0.7%) 2 (0.3%)

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

700

738

709

741

-

5 (0.7%) 2 (0.3%)

-761

~ -.;,

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TABLE 32 Enrolment at Mount Allison by programme, 1955-63 (women) 1955-6 BA B SC

Commerce BED

Engineering Fine and applied ans Home economics Music Sec. Cen. Special MA MSC

BA (sec.) Theology Ed. Dip. BT

108 35 4 6 2 34 46 18

-

MAA

-

6 (2.0%) 1 (0.3%)

5 (1.6%) 1 (0.3%)

-

-

47 (15.3%)

-

-

307 Source:

1956-7

1957-8

1958-9

195~0

1960--1

1961-2

1962-3

(35.2%) 116 (36.3%) 114 (32.3%) 138 (38.2%) 171 (39.7%) 204 (43.5%) 231 (48.3%) 241 (51.9%) (11.4%) 32 (10.0%) 38 (10.8%) 39 (10.8%) 51 (11.8%) 49 (10.4%) 45 (9.4%) 38 (8.2%) 4 (0.9%) 4 (1.1%) 1 (0.3%) 1 (0.2%) (1.3%) 2 (0.6%) 1 (0.2%) 4 (1.3%) 6 (1.7%) 5 (1.4%) 8 (1.9%) 12 (2.6%) 13 (2.7%) (2.0%) 6 (1.3%) (0.7%) 1 (0.2%) 1 (0.2%) (11.1%) 27 (8.4%) 32 (9.1%) 29 (8.0%) 34 (7.9%) 35 (7.5%) 29 (6.1%) 28 (6.0%) (15.0%) 51 (15.9%) 56 (15.9%) 47 (13.0%) 64 (14.8%) 77 (16.4%) 76 (15.9%) 71 (15.3%) (5.9%) 19 (5.9%) 19 (5.4%) 17 (4.7%) 13 (3.0%) 9 (1.9%) 1 (0.2%)

-

-

-

-

7 (2.0%)

-

57 (17.8%)

74 (21.0%)

6 (1.9%)

3 (0.8%)

-

-

-

-

320

353

president's repons, 195~3.

8 (2.2%)

-

71 (19.7%)

-

-

5 (1.2%)

-

76 (17.6%)

-

-

8 (1.7%) 1 (0.2%) 1 (0.2%) 68 (14.5%)

-

-

7 (1.5%) 1 (0.2%) 1 (0.2%) 64 (13.4%)

-

11 (2.4%)

-

1 (0.2%) 63 (13.6%)

-

4 (1.1%) 3 (0.7%) 4 (0.9%) 9 (1.9%) 3 (0.6%) 2 (0.6%) 2 (0.5%) 431 469 478 464 361

-"' ~

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TABLE 33 Full-time enrolment at selected Atlantic region institutions, by faculty, 1957-8'

Arts Dalhousie University' UNB

St F.X. Mt. A.• MUN

Acadia

214 228 418 408 55 188

(16.1%) (17.3%) (32.7%) (38.4%) (5.5%) (26.2%)

Science 238 164 282 185 152 180

(17.9%) (12.4%) (22.1%) (17.4%) (15.3%) (25.1%)

Commerce 117 101 220 99 24 18

(8.8%) (7.7%) (17.2%) (9.3%) (2.4%) (2.5%)

Medicine and related professions' 399 (30.0%)

-

5 (0.4%)

-

-

Education1 36 27 31 9 565 28

(2.7%) (2.0%) (2.4%) (0.8%) (57.0%) (3.9%)

Engineering/ applied science 177 618 286 251 154 173

(13.3%) (46.9%) (22.4%) (23.6%) (15.5%) (24. 1%)

Fine and applied arts

34 (3.2%)

~

(TABLE 33 continued)

'""

Forestry

Home ec.

152 (11.5%)

St. F.X. Mt. A' MUN

Acadia

13 (1.3%)

36 55 14 46

Law

Music

Secretarial•

Theology

150 (11.3%) 29 (2.2%)

Dalhousie University' UNB

...,

~

(2.8%) (5.2%) (1.4%) (6.4%)

21 (2.0%) 11 (1.5%)

54 (7.5'}'o)

14 (1.4%) 20 (2.8%_)

Other

Total 1331 1319 1278 1062 991 718

Source: Dominion Bureau of Statistics, Fall Enrolment in Universities and Colleges, 1957 (Ottawa, 1958), 10--11. 1 The selected institutions are those with a total full-time enrolment of 500 or over. 1 Included in this category are the fields of medicine, dentistry, nursing, and pharmacy. 3 Includes physical education. 4 Mount Allison BA (secretarial) students are included under Arts, and so do not appear in this category. 5 Not included are the 131 students of the federated University of King's College. 6 The discrepancies between the figures given for Mount Allison in this table and those in table 30 are accounted for partly by minor variations in enrolment during the year, partly by the omission from this table of post-graduate and special students, and partly by the fact that Mount Allison did not list its 7 theology and 3 educational diploma students in its submission to DBS.

~

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n

"'

TABLE 34 Enrolment at Mount Allison University by geographical origin, 1955-63 1955-6 New Brunswick Nova Scotia Prince Edward Island Newfoundland Bermuda Quebec/Ontario Western Canada USA

British West Indies Other Total

228 (25.6%) 339 (38.0%) 52 (5.8%) 66 (7.4%) 19 (2. 1%) 97 (10.9%) 1 (0.1%) 10 (1.1%) 40 (4.5%) 40 (4.5%) 892

Sources : Calendars, 1956-63.

1956-7 231 352 41 53 11 112 2 14 40 34 890

1957-8

1958-9

(26.0%) 277 (25.8%) 264 (25.6%) (39.6%) 372 (34.6%) 351 (34.0%) (4.6%) 46 (4.3%) 56 (5.4%) (6.0%) 61 (5.7%) 49 (4.8%) (1.2%) 10 (0.9%) 8 (0.8%) (12.6%) 187 (17.4%) 195 (18.9%) (0.2%) 8 (0.7%) 8 (0.8%) (1.6%) 14 (1.3%) 11 (1.1%) (4.5%) 45 (4.2%) 40 (3.9%) (3.8%) 54 (5.0%) 49 (4.8%) 1074 1031

1959-60

1960-1

1961-2

1962-3

291 (25.8%) 377 (33.5%) 59 (5.2%) 56 (5.0%) 6 (0.5%) 231 (20.5%) 3 (0.3%) 12 (1.1%) 41 (3.6%) 51 (4.5%) 1127

265 (23.2%) 402 (35.1%) 60 (5.2%) 49 (4.3%) 4 (0.3%) 290 (25.3%) 3 (0.3%) 10 (0.9%) 34 (3.0%) 27 (2.4%) 1144

278 (23.6%) 392 (33.2%) 54 (4.6%) 40 (3.4%) 5 (0.4%) 330 (28.0%) 9 (0.8%) 16 (1.4%) 25 (2.1%) 30 (2.5%) 1179

281 (23.5%) 371 (31.0%) 41 (3.4%) 32 (2.7%) 8 (0.7%) 379 (31.7%) 5 (0.4%) 23 (1.9%) 25 (2. 1%) 30 (2.5%) 1195

..,.

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TABLE 35 Enrolment of Quebec and Ontario students at Mount Allison by programme, 1955-63 BA B SC

Commerce BED

Engineering Fine and applied ans Home economics Music Sec. Cen. Special MA MSC

BA (sec.) Theology Ed. Dip.

1955-6

1956-7

1957-8

1958-9

30 (30.3%) 15 (15.2%) 4 (4.0%)

37 (33.0%) 10 (8.9%) 9 (8.0%)

51 (27.0%) 24 (12.7%) 24 (12.7%)

61 (31.0%) 31 (15.7%) 20 (10.2%)

24 15 3 2

34 (30.4%) 9 (8.0%) 4 (3.6%) 1 (0.9%)

59 (31.2%) 8 (4.2%) 9 (4.8%) 3 (1.6%)

55 10 5 3

-

(24.2%) (15.2%) (3.0%) (2.0%)

-

-

-

-

-

99

2 (2.0%)

4 (4.0%)

-

1 (0.5%) 1 (0.5%)

-

1 (0.5%) 1 (0.5%)

-

-

-

-

-

112

189

197

8 (7.1%)

9 (4.8%)

(27.9%) (5.1%) (2.5%) (1.5%)

9 (4.6%) 1 (0.5%)

1959-60

1960-1

1961-2

1962-3

74 (31.9%) 113 (38.8%) 134 (40.6%) 177 (46.5%) 36 (15.5%) 52 (17.9%) 70 (21.2%) 72 (18.9%) 27 (11.6%) 38 (13.1%) 39 (11.8%) 43 (11.3%) 1 (0.4%) 1 (0.3%) 60 (25.9%) 50 (17.2%) 49 (14.8%) 48 (12.6%) 10 (4.3%) 13 (4.5%) 15 (4.5%) 15 (3.9%) 13 (5.6%) 13 (4.5%) 13 (3.9%) 15 (3.9%) 2 (0.9%)

-

9 (3.9%)

-

-

11 (3.8%)

-

-

10 (3.0%)

-

1 (0.3%) 1 (0.3%)

-

9 (2.4%)

-

-

330

381

BT

Total

Sources : Calendars, 1956--63 .

232

291

~ ,.,. ,.,.

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TABLE 36 Failure rates in selected second-year courses at Mount Allison University, 1951-61 Biology 3, 2

---

1951 1952 1953 1954 1955 1956 1957 1958 1959 1960 1961 Total

7 15 2 10 10 16 14 24 5 18 17 24 3 32 1 187 11

-

13.3

-

-

20.8

-

12.5 3.1 5.9

Chemistry 1 2 3 51 52 67 83 95 110 114 115 119 95 87 988

11 19 13 33 24 31 25 35 19 24 23 257

21.6 36.5 19.4 39.8 25.3 28.2 21.9 30.4 16.0 25.3 26.4 26.0

Economics 1 2 3 52 56 56 64 72 64 59 76 55 66 63 683

14 14 7 13 26 14 22 25 12 22 26 195

26.9 25.0 12.5 20.3 36. 1 21.9 37.3 32.9 21.8 33.3 41.3 28.6

1

English 2 3

143 28 201 36 133 14 148 24 182 26 195 17 217 48 209 65 237 73 262 108 263 81 2190 520

19.6 17.9 10.5 16.2 14.3 8.7 22. 1 31.1 30.8 41.2 30.8 23.7

1

French 2 3

26 3 91 18 62 9 84 8 119 14 139 50 154 29 154 53 86 17 114 50 90 44 1119 295

11.5 19.8 14.5 9.5 11.8 36.0 18.8 34.4 19.8 43;9 48.9 26.4

1 3 3

4 11 12 15 13 18 10 6

4

99

Geology 2 3

-

-

-

2 3 1

18.2 25.0 6.7

5 3

27.8 30.0

1 15

25.0 15.2

-

-

-

1

47 20 14 10 14 16 55 82 60 43 21 382

History 2 3 14 2 3

29.8 10.0 21.4

1 1 11 20 11 13 6 82

7.1 6.3 20.0 24.4 18.3 30.2 28.6 21.5

~ ......

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(TABLE 36 continued) Mathematics 1 3 2

--

1951 1952 1953 1954 1955 1956 1957 1958 1959 1960 1961 Total

63 75 82 92 98 113 160 160 150 133 95 1221

25 34 34 36 36 40 57 89 79 58 48 536

39.7 45.3 41.5 39.1 36.7 35.4 35.6 55.6 52.7 43.6 50.5 43. 9

1

Music 2 3

65 2 63 3 53 3 22 4 21 1 18 1 17 3 30 4 29 1 30 3 40 388 25

3.1 4.8 5.7 18.2 4.8 5.6 17.6 13.3 3.4 10.0

-

6.4

Philosophy 1 2 3

1

Physics 2 3

9 22.0 32 41 48 13 27.1 25 7 17.1 33 41 35 64 11 17.2 9 14.8 44 61 43 6 14.0 60 64 7 10.9 67 74 42 9 21.4 84 58 15 25.9 59 67 14 20.9 61 63 6 9.5 59210617.9 574

4 4 10 6 19 13 16 25 18 22 19 156

12.5 16.0 30.3 17.1 43.2 21.7 23.9 33.8 21.4 37.3 31.1 27.2

Pol. science 1 2 3

Psychology 2 3 1

34 4 11.8 28 7 25.0 49 4 8.2 50 5 10.0 17 3 17.6 26 3 11.5 41 25 3 12.0 34 6 17.6 34 6 17.6 54 13 24.1 392 54 13.8

72 12 16.7 79 23 29.1 9 12.7 71 114 13 11.4 165 27 16.4 141 11 7.8 207 22 10.6 188 44 23.4 179 21 11.7 215 46 21.4 213 23 10.8 1644 251 15.3

Sociology 1 2 3 32 45 54 53 41 63 83 68 68 75 50 632

7 8 8 12 3 7 9 16 5 15 6 96

21.9 17.8 14.8 22.6 7.3 11.1 10.8 23.5 7.4 20.0 12.0 15.2

1

Total 2

668 801 729 840 957 1017 1275 1259 1186 1223 1136 11,091

3

133 183 121 167 192 195 254 393 280 384 297 2599

Sources: Report of university registrar, statistical appendix, in MAA, president's report, 1961-2. 1 In column 1 appears the number of students enrolled in one 'basic' second-year course in each department listed; in column number of students failing the course; in column 3 the percentage of failures.

2

19.9 22.8 16.6 19.9 20.1 19.2 19. 9 31.2 23.6 31.4 26.1 23.4

the

..... '-I ~

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ii'"

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Appendix

The following list recognizes the kindness of those persons named, in contributing to the preparation of this history of Mount Allison either by giving interviews or by donating documentary or other original material. Miss Dorothy H . Allen Mr Gerard Babineau Dr John S. Bates Mr Andrew S. Benn Dr Marion Bennett Dr and Mrs E. Arthur Betts Mr and Mrs John H. Bigelow Dr Gwendolyn Black Mr and Mrs J. William Black Miss P.A. Black Mr and Mrs Reginald B. Bowser Professor Howard F. Brown Dr Donald H . Brundage Mrs Marie Brunton Dr Donald A. Cameron Mr Albert J. Carter Mrs Nettie Chase Mrs Claire Churchill Mr and Mrs Raleigh Clare Dr Stephen D. Clark Dr Alex Colville Dr J .E.A. Crake Dr Dean P. Crawford

Moncton, NB Sackville, NB Sackville, NB Fredericton, NB Sackville, NB Halifax, NS Toronto, Ont. Sackville, NB Sackville, NB Upper Cape, NB Moncton, NB Lennoxville, Que. Toronto, Ont. Sackville, NB Sackville, NB Kentville, NS Sackville, NB Sackville, NB Sackville, NB Saint John, NB Wolfville, NS Sackville, NB Sackville, NB

460 Appendix Dr W.S.H. Crawford Mr David R. Creighton Professor Roland C . Crooks Dr William B. Cunningham Dr Arnold C. Cuthbertson Dr Vega Gronlund Dawson Mrs Stella DesBarres Mr Edgar Dixon Dr Lloyd A. Duchemin Dr Arthur J , Ebbutt Professor Carleton W. Elliott Mr and Mrs Frank Flemington Mrs Inez Flemington Dr Aida Flemming Mrs Gertrude Forest Senator Eugene Forsey Miss Peggy Ann Forshner Mrs Nita Fawcett George Dr Newell S. Gingrich Dr and Mrs W.S. Godfrey Dr Harold S. Hamer Ms Linda Squiers Hansen Mr O.B. Hanson Dr and Mrs Lawren P. Harris Dr Alice M. Harrison Mrs Sarah Stuart Hart Dr Norman A. Hesler Mr R.J. Hesler Dr Rutherford J. Hickey Mr Ben Church Hicks Dr Henry D. Hicks Mrs Susan Hierlihy Dr Deryck Holdsworth Mrs Elizabeth Bayley Hutchison Mr Robert B. Inch Mrs Jean Jones Mr Ralph W. Kane Mrs Gwen Kavanagh Mrs K. Hammond Krug Mr David M. MacAulay

Sackville, NB Moncton, NB Sackville, NB Sackville, NB Sackville, NB Halifax, NS Sackville, NB Sackville, NB Sackville, NB Halifax, NS Sackville, NB Fredericton, NB Fredericton, NB Fredericton, NB Moncton, NB Ottawa, Ont. Dartmouth, NS Sackville, NB Columbia, Missouri, Sackville, NB Halifax, NS Fredericton, NB Sackville, NB Ottawa, Ont. Sackville, NB Sackville, NB Sackville, NB Sackville, NB Fredericton, NB Middleton, NS Halifax, NS Oakville, Ont. Toronto, Ont. Sussex, NB Brandon, Man. Sackville, NB Halifax, NS Petite Riviere, NS Waterloo, Ont. Sackville, NB

USA

461 Appendix Mrs Margaret McCain Mrs Agnes McCormick Miss Mary J. McCutcheon Dr Donald G. MacGregor Mrs Elaine MacIntosh Dr. N.A.M. MacKenzie Dr Donald W. Maclauchlan Mr Hal Melanson Mr Charles W. Moffatt Mrs Marianne Morrow Mrs Florence B. Munro Mrs Margaret Newcombe Mr Walter Newcombe Senator Margaret Norrie Dr F. Hilton Page Dr Allison G. Patterson Ms Elizabeth Beaton Planetta Mr Fred Rand Dr Doris Runciman Dr W.B. Sawdon Mr Albert Smith Miss Cladie Smith Mrs Irene Smith Dr W.B. Stallworthy Dr G.F.G. Stanley Dr and Mrs Charles M. Stewart Miss Jean Stewart Mr B. MacL. Thomson Dr Grace Avard Tomkinson Dr Albert W. Trueman Mrs May Trueman Rev. Harold W. Vaughan Mrs Marjorie Bates West Dr William J. West Miss Edith C. Wetmore Mr James A. Wheeler Dr James G. Wright Mrs Rachel Wry

Florenceville, NB Annapolis Royal, NS Montreal, Que. Sackville, NB Toronto, Ont. Vancouver, BC Sackville, NB Sackville, NB Sackville, NB Toronto, Ont. Sackville, NB Centreville, NS Amherst, NS Truro, NS Halifax, NS Sackville, NB Sydney, NS Sackville, NB Ottawa, Ont. Sackville, NB Sackville, NB Sackville, NB Sackville, NB Edmonton, Alta. Sackville, NB Surrey, BC Toronto, Ont. Halifax, NS New York, New York, Ottawa, Ont. Sackville, NB Toronto, Ont. Sackville, NB Fredericton, NB Sackville, NB Sackville, NB Sackville, NB Sackville, NB

USA

Bibliography

I

PRIMARYSOURCES

IA Manuscript Sources Carnegie Corporation of New York: Acadia University File Maritime Provinces Educational Federation File Mount Allison University File Royal Institute of International Affairs File St Dunstan's College File University of New Brunswick File Dalhousie University, Archives: Frank Parker Day Papers Charles Bruce Papers President's Correspondence Great Britain, Public Record Office: co 188 Colonial Office Correspondence, New Brunswick Flemington, Frank: 'Early Flemington Letters.' Typescript in possession of Mr Frank Flemington, Fredericton, NB Hesler, Norman A: Personal Papers, in possession of Mr R.J. Hesler, Sackville, NB Mount Allison University: Alumni Office Records Comptroller's Office Records Mount Allison University, Archives: Charles Frederick Allison Papers David Allison Papers John Allison Papers

464 Bibliography Alumnae Association, Minutes 1871-1946 Alumni Society, Minutes 190~22 Raymond Clare Archibald Papers R.P. Bell-W.B. Cunningham Correspondence R.P. Bell-W.B. Sawdon Correspondence Winthrop Bell Papers Biographical Files Byron Crane Borden Papers Central Advisory Committee of the Carnegie Corporation, Minutes 1924-38 Comptroller's Office Correspondence Deans' Office Correspondence Eurhetorian Society, Minutes 1899-1904 Executive Committee of the Regents of Mount Allison, Minutes 1913-63 Extension Department Correspondence Faculty Association, 'The Idea of Excellence at Mount Allison.' Faculty Meetings, Minutes 1878-1963 Finance Committee, Minutes 1934-43 William Thomas Ross Flemington Papers Graduate Survey, 198 1 Norman Arthur Hesler Papers Ben Church Hicks, Diary (Extracts) Robert Boyer Inch Papers Ladies' College Papers Miscellaneous Files Mount Allison University, 'Comment on the Idea of Excellence at Mount Allison.' James Marshall Palmer, Letterbooks Humphrey Pickard, Journal Presidential Papers: Byron Crane Borden George Johnstone Trueman William Thomas Ross Flemington William Stanley Hayes Crawford (Acting President) Laurence Harold Cragg President's Committee on the Status of Women, Report 1975 Presidents' Reports, 1924-63 Amos Purdy Papers Regents of Mount Allison, Minutes 1858-1963 Regents of Mount Allison, Papers Sackville United Church Papers

465 Bibliography Senate, Minutes 1863-1963 Charles Stewart Papers Harriet Starr Stewart Papers Student Application Forms, 1952-4 Subscription Books, D.D. Currie, 1883-4 George Johnstone Trueman, Diary George Johnstone Trueman Papers Trueman Scrapbook Herbert Tucker Papers William Morley Tweedie Papers Wesleyan Academy Papers Westmorland Grammar School, Miscellaneous Records Mount Allison University, Faculty Association: Minutes, 1958-63 Papers, 1958-63 New Brunswick Museum: James Brown, Journal Chandler Papers Earle-Otty Family Papers MacBeath Papers, E.T.C. Knowles Scrapbook Milner Papers Mount Allison University Papers New Brunswick Historical Society Papers Public Archives of Canada: MG9, AI, vol. 110 New Brunswick Executive Council Correspondence, Colleges MG18, no8, vol. 161 Canadian Association of University Teachers Papers Provincial Archives of New Brunswick: MCl 18 Wood Papers RGl Executive Council Records RG4 House of Assembly Records RGII Department of Education Records Public Archives of Nova Scotia: MG17 Universities MGl0 Societies and Special Collections RG5 Legislative Assembly Records Sackville, Town of: Minutes, 1903-63 United Church of Canada, Archives: Nathanael Burwash Papers

466 Bibliography Albert Carman Papers Methodist Church Papers : Committee on Education/Board of Education, 18871925

United Church Board of Education, Minutes 1926-33 United Church Board of Colleges and Secondary Schools, Records, ucc/Bcss United Church of Canada, Maritime Conference Archives : Clarence MacKinnon Papers New Brunswick District, Journals 1843-55 New Brunswick District, Minutes 1826-55 Nova Scotia District, Minutes 1827-52 University of New Brunswick, Archives : R.B. Bennett Papers Wesleyan Methodist Missionary Society: Committee Minutes, 1837-51 Correspondence Wood, Laura S: Journal of Everyday Affairs, in possession of Miss P.A. Black, Upper Cape, NB IB Printed Primary Sources Bissell, C.T., ed. Canada's Crisis in Higher Education: Proceedings of a Conference Held by the National Conference of Canadian Universities at Ottawa, November r2-r4, r956. Toronto, 1957 Canadian Association of University Teachers Handbook of Policy Statements, Guidelines, and Model Clauses. 3rd edition. Ottawa, 1979 Chisholm, C.L. To the Board of Regents of Mount Allison, Sackville, N.B. New Glasgow, NS, 1898. College St-Joseph, Memramcook, NB Annuaires. 1883-8 Conference of Canadian Universities Seventh Conference of Canadian Universities, held at Laval University, Quebec, May qth and 18th, r920 Eastern British America, Methodist Conference of Minutes. 1855-74 Eurhetorian Society, Mount Allison University Hand Book of the Institutions of Mount Allison, the Central Institutions of the Maritime Provinces, Containing Information for the Benefit of Intending Students. Sackville, NB, [ c. 1904) Learned, W.S., and Sills, K.C.M. Education in the Maritime Provinces of Canada. New York, 1922 Massey Foundation Report of the Massey Foundation Commission on the Secondary Schools and Colleges of the Methodist Church of Canada. Toronto,

1921

Methodist Church, Educational Society Annual Reports. 1884-1925 Methodist Church, General Conference Minutes. 1883-1922

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1920]

- University Bulletin: Professional Courses at Mount Allison. Sackville, NB, [1903] - Yearbooks. 1931-63 Mount Allison University, et al. The Financing of Higher Education in New Brunswick: A Brief Presented to the Provincial Cabinet. [Sackville, NB], 1960 Otheman, Edward, ed. Memoir and Writings of Mrs. Hannah Maynard Pickard; Late Wife of Rev. Humphrey Pickard, A.M., Principal of the Wesleyan Academy at Mount Allison, Sackville, N.B. Boston, 1845 Owens Art Institution Catalogue of Works of Art in Owens Art Gallery. Saint John, NB, 1886 Pearson, G. Fred Statistical Studies of the Colleges Situated in the Maritime Provinces. Halifax, 1923 Ross, Victoria Burrill Moments Make a Year. Sackville, NB, [1958] Theological Union of Mount Allison Wesleyan College Fifth Annual Lecture and Sermon, Delivered June 1883 . Saint John, NB, 1883 United Church of Canada The Manual of the United Church of Canada. Toronto, 1937 United Church of Canada, Maritime Conference Minutes. 1925-63 University of New Brunswick Calendars. 1869-71 WesleyanUniversity, Connecticut Catalogues. 1831-9 IC Faculty Publications Andrews, W.W. 'A Cheap Form of Self-Regulating Gas Generator.' journal of the American Chemical Society, 17 (1895), 304-6 - 'Reform in the Teaching of Chemistry.' Report of the Sixty-Seventh Meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science Held at Toronto in August 1897 (London, 1898), 601-8 - 'Some Extensions of the Plaster of Paris Method in Blowpipe Analysis.' Journal

468 Bibliography of the American Chemical Society, r8 (1896), 849-69. - 'The Plaster of Paris Method in Blowpipe Analysis.' Report of the SixtySeventh Meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science Held at Toronto in August 1897 (London, 1898), 625-7 Bigelow, Harold E., and Morehouse, Fred G. Dominion High School Chemistry, and Dominion Chemistry Manual, to Accompany Dominion High School Chemistry. Toronto, 1935 Cohoon, J .W., and Crosby, H. Lamar, eds. Dio Chrysostom . 5 vols. London, and Cambridge, Mass., 1932-p Cunningham, W.B. 'Our Colleges Have Too Few Students, Not Too Many.' Maclean's, 25 March 1961, pp. ro, 62-3 - ed. Canada, the Commonwealth, and the Common Market: Report of the 1962 Summer Institute, Mount Allison University. Montreal, 1962 Duchemin, L.A., ed. The Challenge to Our Universities. Sackville, NB, 1958 Ebbutt, A.J. The Life, the Question, and the Answer: Fifteen Questions About the Life ofJesus . Toronto, 1957 Fraser, Roy 'A Study of Epidemic Catarrhal Jaundice.' The Canadian Public Health journal, 23 (1932), 396-4rr - 'Further Studies on Ultraviolet Radiation in Surgery.' Canadian Medical Association Journal, 55 ( r 946), 4 57-9 - Happy journey. Toronto, 1958 - 'Ultraviolet Radiation in Surgery.' Canadian Medical Association journal, p (1944), 403-9

Kerr, D.G.G. Sir Edmund Head: A Scholarly Governor. Toronto, 1954 Lockwood, P.A., ed. Canada and the West Indies: Speeches by Sir Grantley Adams, Professor Alexander Brady, and Others. Sackville, NB, [ 1957] MacGregor, Donald G. 'Currents and Transport in Cabot Strait.' journal of the Fisheries Research Board of Canada, 13 (1956), 435-48 MacRae, C.F., ed. French Canada Today: Report of the Mount Allison Summer Institute. Sackville, NB, [ r96 r] Stanley, G.F.G. The Birth of Western Canada: A History of the Riel Rebellions. Toronto, 1936 ID Government Documents Canada Census. r87r-r96r Canada, Dominion Bureau of Statistics Fall Enrolment in Universities and Colleges, 1957. Ottawa, 1958 - University Student Expenditure and Income in Canada, 1956-57. Ottawa, 1959 Canada, Privy Council Order in Council, P.C. 9566. 7 December 1942 New Brunswick Acts of the New Brunswick Legislature

469 Bibliography - Journals of the House of A ssembly. 1837, 1886 - Journals of the Legislative Council. 1845, 1849 - Public Accounts. 1945-8 Nova Scotia Debates and Proceedings of the House of Assembly. 1876 - journals of the House of Assembly. 1843-1959 - Journals of the Legislative Council. 1849, 1881 - Statutes Ontario Statutes Report of the Royal Commission on Higher Education in New Brunswick. Fredericton, NB, 1962 Report of the Royal Commission on National Development in the Arts, Letters, and Sciences, 194!r19J 1 Ottawa, 1951 2

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2A Books and Pamphlets Abella, Irving, and Troper, Harold None Is Too Many: Canada and the Jews of Europe, 1933-1948. Toronto, 1982 Allen, Richard The Social Passion: Religion and Social Reform in Canada, 19141928. Toronto, 1971 Archibald, Raymond Clare Historical Notes on the Education of Women at Mount Allison, 1814-1914. Sackville, NB, 1954 Axelrod, Paul Scholars and Dollars: Politics, Economics, and the Universities of Ontario, 1941-1980. Toronto, 1982 Bailey, Alfred G., ed. The University of New Brunswick Memorial Volume. Fredericton, NB, 1950 Banks, Olive Faces of Feminism: A Study of Feminism as a Social Movement. New York, 1981 Barton, Hugh Japan Since 1931: Its Political and Social Developments. New York, 1940 Bedford, A.G . The University of Winnipeg: A History of the Founding Colleges. Toronto, 1976 Bell, Winthrop Pickard A Genealogical Study. Sackville, NB, 1962 Bercuson, David Jay, ed. Canada and the Burden of Unity. Toronto, 1977 Berger, Carl The Sense of Power: Studies in the Ideas of Canadian Imperialism, 1867-1914. Toronto, 1970 Betts, E. Arthur Bishop Black and His Preachers. Halifax, 1976 - Pine Hill Divinity Hall, 182rr1970: A History. Halifax, 1970 Bissell, Claude Halfway Up Parnassus: A Personal Account of the University of Toronto, 1932-1971. Toronto, 1974 Blakeny, C.H. The Story of a Business and Its Founders. Moncton, NB, 1960

470 Bibliography Bliss, Michael A Canadian Millionaire: The Life and Business Times of Sir Joseph Flavelle, Bart., 1818-1939. Toronto, 1978 Bolger, Francis W.P., ed. Canada's Smallest Province: A History of Prince Edward Island. [Charlottetown], 1973 Borer, Mary Cathcart Willingly to School: A History of Women's Education. London, 1976 Bothwell, Robert, Drummond, Ian, and English, John Canada since 1941: Power, Politics, and Provincialism. Toronto, 1981 Bothwell, Robert, and Kilbourn, William C.D. Howe: A Biography. Toronto, 1979 Bowser, Reginald Burton A Genealogical Review of the Bowser Family. [Sackville, NB], 198 1 Bradbrook, M.C. 'That Infidel Place': A Short History of Girton College, 186fr 1969. London, 1969 Brick, Michael, and McGrath, Earl J. Innovation in Liberal Arts Colleges. New York, 1969 Brown, Herbert Ross Sills of Bowdoin. New York, 1964 Brown, Robert Craig, and Cook, Ramsay Canada, 1896-1921: A Nation Transformed. Toronto, 1974 Brunerand, Jon H., ed. The Study of American Folklore: An Introduction . 2nd ed. New York, 1978 Bumsted, J.M. Henry Alline. Toronto, 1971 Burwash, Nathanael The History of Victoria College. Toronto, 1927 Cameron, J.M. On the Idea of a University. Toronto, 1978 Canada in the Great War: An Authentic Account of the Military History of Canada from the Earliest Days to the Close of the War of Nations . 6 vols. Toronto, 1917-21 Comrie, John D. History of Scottish Medicine. 2 vols. 2nd ed. London, 1932 Cook, Ramsay, and Mitchinson, Wendy, eds. The Proper Sphere: Woman's Place in Canadian Society. Toronto, 1976 Cormier, Clement L'Universite de Moncton Historique. Moncton, N»,1975 Cornish, George H. Cyclopaedia of Methodism in Canada. 2 vols. Toronto, 1881-1903 Creighton, Donald The Forked Road: Canada, 19Jfrl9f7· Toronto, 1976 Croteau, J .T. Cradled in the Waves: The Story of a People's Co-operative Achievement in Economic Betterment on Prince Edward Island, Canada. Toronto, 1951 Davie, George Elder The Democratic Intellect: Scotland and Her Universities in the Nineteenth Century. Edinburgh, 1961

471 Bibliography Davies, Rupert, and Rupp, Gordon A History of the Methodist Church in Great Britain, Volume I . London, 1965 Davison, James Doyle Alice of Grand Pre: Alice T. Shaw and her Grand Pre Seminary: Female Education in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. Wolfville, NS, 1981

Dictionary of Canadian Biography. 7 vols. to date. Toronto, 1966Dirks, Gerald E. Canada's Refugee Policy: Indifference or Opportunism? Montreal, 1977 Eggleston, Wilfrid National Research in Canada: The N.R.C., 1916-1966. Toronto, 1978 Findlay, G.G., and Holdsworth, W.W. The History of the Wesleyan Methodist Missionary Society. 5 vols. London, 1921 Fingard, Judith The Anglican Design in Loyalist Nova Scotia, 1783-1816. London, 1972 Fischer, Lewis R., and Sager, Eric W., eds The Enterprising Canadians: Entrepreneurs and Economic Development in Eastern Canada, 182er1914. St John's, Nfld, 1979 Forbes, Ernest R. The Maritime Rights Movement, 1919-1927: A Study in Canadian Regionalism. Montreal, 1979 Forcese, Dennis The Canadian Class Structure. Toronto, 1975 Foster, Sir George E. Citizenship. Sackville, NB, 192.6 French, Goldwin Parsons and Politics: The Role of the Wesleyan Methodists in Upper Canada and the Maritimes from 1780 to 1815. Toronto, 1962. Frost, Stanley Brice McGill University: For the Advancement of Learning, Volume I, 1801-1895. Montreal, 1980 Gillett, Margaret We Walked Very Warily: A History of Women at McGill. Montreal, 1981 Gossage, Carolyn A Question of Privilege: Canada's Independent Schools. Toronto, 1977 Granatstein, J .L., and Hitsman, J.M. Broken Promises: A History of Conscription in Canada. Toronto, 1977 Grant, John Webster The Canadian Experience of Church Union. London, 1967 Gwynne-Timothy, John R.W. Western's First Century. London, Ont., 1978 Harper, J. Russell Painting in Canada: A History. 2nd ed. Toronto, 1977 Harris, Robin S. A History of Higher Education in Canada, 1663-1960. Toronto, 1976

Harvey, D.C. An Introduction to the History of Dalhousie University. Halifax, 1938 Holdich, Joseph The Life of Willbur Fisk, D.D., First President of Wesleyan University. New York, 1842.

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Hopkins, J. Castell Life and Work of the Rt. Hon. Sir John Thompson, K.C., K.C.M.G., Q.C., Prime Minister of Canada . Toronto, 1895 - The Canadian Annual Review of Public Affairs, 1907. Toronto, 1908 Horn, Michie! The League for Social Reconstruction: Intellectual Origins of the Democratic Left in Canada, 193r:r1942. Toronto, 1980 Howell, Nancy, and Howell, Maxwell L. Sports and Games in Canadian Life: 1700 to the Present. Toronto, 1969 [Inch, J .R.] The Inch Family of Ulster, Ireland, and New Brunswick, Canada. Sackville, NB, 1912 Jarrell, R.A., and Ball, N .R., eds. Science, Technology, and Canadian History. Waterloo, Ont., 1980 Johns, Walter H. A History of the University of Alberta, 1908-1969. Edmonton, 1981

Johnson, D.W. History of Methodism in Eastern British America, Including Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, Newfoundland, and Bermuda. Sackville, NB, [c. 192 5] Johnston, Charles M. McMaster University. 2 vols. Toronto, 1976-81 Kallman, Helmut, Potvin, Gilles, and Winters, Kenneth, eds. Encyclopedia of Music in Canada. Toronto, 1981 Katz, Michael B., and Mattingly, Paul H., eds. Education and Social Change: Themes from Ontario's Past. New York, 1975 Kealey, Linda, ed. A Not Unreasonable Claim: Women and Reform in Canada, 188os-192os. Toronto, 1979 Kirkconnell, Watson A Slice of Canada: Memoirs. Toronto, 1967 - and Woodhouse, A.S.P. The Humanities in Canada . Ottawa, 1947 Lester, R.M. Review of Grants in the Maritime Provinces and in Newfoundland. New York, 1934 Levere, Trevor H., and Jarrell, Richard A., eds. A Curious Field-Book: Science and Society in Canadian History. Toronto, 1974 Levy, George Edward The Baptists of the Maritime Provinces, 1753-1946. Saint John, NB, 1946. Light, Beth, and Prentice, Alison, eds. Pioneer and Gentlewomen of British North America, 1713-1867. Toronto, 1980 Logan, Harry T. Tuum Est: A History of the University of British Columbia. Vancouver, 1958 Longley, Ronald Stewart Acadia University, 1838-1938. Wolfville, NS, 1939 Lower, Arthur R.M. Great Britain's Woodyard: British America and the Timber Trade, 1763-1867. Montreal, 1973 McAlpine's New Brunswick Directory for 1903 . Saint John, NB, n.d.

473 Bibliography Mcivor, R. Craig Canadian Monetary, Banking, and Fiscal Development. Toronto, 1958 McKillop, A.B. A Disciplined Intelligence: Critical Inquiry and Canadian Thought in the Victorian Era. Montreal, 1979 Maclauchlan, Donald Wells Mount Allison So Fair. Sackville, NB, [1980) Maclean, C.H. Prominent People of New Brunswick.[-), 1938 Macmillan, David S. Canadian Business History: Selected Studies, 1497-1971. Toronto, 1972 MacNaughton, Katherine F.C. The Development of the Theory and Practice of Education in New Brunswick, 1784-1900. Fredericton, 1947 MacNutt, W.S. New Brunswick: A History, 1784-1867. Toronto, 1963 - The Atlantic Provinces: The Emergence of Colonial Society, 1712-1857. Toronto, 1965 Marshall, M. V. A Short History of Acacia Villa School. Wolfville, NS, 1963 Memorials of Acadia College and Horton Academy for the Half-Century 1828-1878. Montreal, 1881 Milner, W.C. History of Sackville, New Brunswick. Sackville, NB, 1934 Moody, Barry M., ed. Repent and Believe: The Baptist Experience in Maritime Canada. Hantsport, NS, 1980 Morgan, H.J., ed. The Canadian Men and Women of the Time: A Hand-book of Canadian Biography. Toronto, 1898 - ed. The Canadian Men and Women of the Time: A Hand-book of Canadian Biography of Living Characters. Toronto, 1912 Morrison, Leonard Allison The History of the Alison or Allison Family in Europe and America. Boston, 1893 Munro, Clayton A. A Methodist Epic: An Historical Record of the Methodist Church in Bermuda. Bermuda, 1949 Neatby, Hilda Queen's University, Volume I, 1841-1917. Montreal, 1978 Nesbitt, J. Aird A Short Biography of Canada's Oldest Artist: John Hammond, R.C.A. Montreal, 1929 Newman, John Henry The Idea of a University. Ed. LT .. Ker. Oxford, 1976 O'Brien, J. W. A Parson Reminisces. Sackville, NB, n.d. Oleson, Alexandra, and Voss, John The Organization of Knowledge in Modern America, 1860-1920. Baltimore, 1979 Parkhurst, Helen Education on the Dalton Plan. New York, 1922 Picot, J.E. A Brief History of Teacher Training in New Brunswick, 1848-1973. Fredericton, 1974 Porter, John The Vertical Mosaic. Toronto, 1965 Price, Carl F. Wesleyan's First Century: With an Account of the Centennial Celebration. Middletown, Conn., 1932

474 Bibliography Rawlyk, George, and Quinn, Kevin The Redeemed of the Lord Say So: A History of Queen's Theological College, 1912-1972. Kingston, Ont., 1980 Register of Rhodes Scholars, 1903-194J. Oxford, 1950 Riddell, J .H. Methodism in the Middle West. Toronto, 1946 Rose, George MacLean, ed. A Cyclopaedia of Canadian Biography: Being Chiefly Men of the Time. Toronto, 1888 Rudolph, Frederick The American College and University: A History. New York, 1968 Russell, Benjamin Autobiography of Benjamin Russell. Halifax, 1932 Sackville Art Association John Hammond, R.C.A., 1843-1939: A Retrospective Exhibition. Sackville, NB, 1967 Saunders, Edward Manning History of the Baptists of the Maritime Provinces. Halifax, 1902 Saunders, Laurance James Scottish Democracy, 1815-1840: The Social and Intellectual Background. Edinburgh, 1950 Saunders, S.A. The Economic History of the Maritime Provinces: A Study Prepared for the Royal Commission on Dominion-Provincial Relations. Ottawa, 1939 Schmidt, George P. The Liberal Arts College: A Chapter in American Cultural History. New Brunswick, NJ, 1957 Scott, R.B.Y., and Vlastos, Gregory, eds. Towards the Christian Revolution. Chicago, 1936 Semmel, Bernard The Methodist Revolution. New York, 1973 Shook, Laurence K. Catholic Post-Secondary Education in English-Speaking Canada: A History. Toronto, 1971 Simpson, W. Douglas The Fusion of 1860: A Record of the Centenary Celebrations and a History of the University of Aberdeen, 1861>-1960. Aberdeen, 1963 Sissons, C.B. A History of Victoria University. Toronto, 1952 Smith, T. Watson History of the Methodist Church Within the Territories Embraced in the Late Conference of Eastern British America, Including Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, and Bermuda. 2 vols. Halifax, 1877-90 Stanley, G.F.G. Canada's Soldiers: The Military History of an Unmilitary People. 3rd ed. Toronto, 1974 Stewart, Gordon, and Rawlyk, George A. A People Highly Favoured of God: The Nova Scotia Yankees and the American Revolution. Toronto, 1972 Stock, Phyllis Better Than Rubies: A History of Women's Education. New York, 1978 Stone, Lawrence, ed. The University in Society. 2 vols, Princeton, 1974 Taylor, A.J .P. The First World War: An Illustrated History. 2nd ed. London, 1966

475 Bibliography Thompson, E.P. The Making of the English Working Class. 2nd ed. London, 1968 Tratt, Gertrude E.N. A Survey and Listing of Nova Scotia Newspapers, 17f2l9f7• Halifax, 1979 Trofimenkoff, Susan Mann, and Prentice, Alison, eds. The Neglected Majority: Essays in Canadian Women's History. Toronto, 1977 Trueman, Albert W. A Second View of Things: A Memoir. Toronto, 1982 Trueman, Howard The Chignecto Isthmus and its First Settlers. Toronto, 1902 University of Toronto The University of Toronto and Its Colleges, 182;,-1906. Toronto, 1906 Veblen, Thorstein The Higher Learning in America: A Memorandum on the Conduct of Universities by Business Men. New York, 1965; first published 1918 Wallace, W. Stewart The Macmillan Dictionary of Canadian Biography. 3rd ed. Toronto, 1963 Walsh, H .H . The Christian Church in Canada . Toronto, 1956 Ward, W.R. Religion and Society in England, 1790-18fO. London, 1972 Webster, John Clarence Those Crowded Years, 1863-1944: An Octogenarian's Record of Work . Shediac, NB, 1944 Who's Who and Why: A Biographical Dictionary of Men and Women of Canada and Newfoundland, 191f-16. Toronto, [1915] Who's Who in Canada, 1960-61. Toronto, 1960 Willis, John. A History of Dalhousie Law School. Toronto, 1979 Wilson, J.D., Stamp, R.M., and Audet, L.-P. Canadian Education: A History. Toronto, 1970 Woodward, Calvin A. The History of New Brunswick Provincial Election Campaigns and Platforms, 186~1974. [Toronto), 1976 Woolley, John G., and Johnson, William E. Temperance Progress in the Century. Toronto, 1903 Wynn, Graeme Timber Colony: A Historical Geography of Early Nineteenth Century New Brunswick. Toronto, 1981 2B Articles Abella, Irving, and Troper, Harold "'The Line Must be Drawn Somewhere": Canada and Jewish Refugees, 1933-39.' Canadian Historical Review, 60 (1979), 178-209 Acheson, T. W. 'The National Policy and the Industrialization of the Maritimes, 1880-1910.' Acadiensis, 1 (Spring 1972), 3-28 Axelrod, Paul 'Businessmen and the Building of Canadian Universities: A Case Study.' Canadian Historical Review, 63 (1982), 202-22 Bilson, Geoffrey 'The Cholera Epidemic in Saint John, N.B., 1854.' Acadiensis, 4 (Autumn 1974), 85-99 Black, Harold Garnet 'Hinges of Fate: The Remarkable Story of the Founding of

476 Bibliography Mount Allison University, Sackville.' Atlantic Advocate, 56, no. 9 (May 1966), 7-52 Blishen, Bernard 'The Construction and Use of an Occupational Class Scale.' Canadian journal of Economics and Political Science, 24 (1958), 519-31 Bliss, J .M. 'The Methodist Church and World Warr.' Canadian Historical Review, 49 (1963), 213-33 Brookes, Alan A. 'Out-Migration from the Maritime Provinces, 1860-1900: Some Preliminary Considerations.' Acadiensis, 5 (Spring 1976), 26-5 5 Brown, David W. 'The Rise and Fall of Rugby Football League in Nova Scotia, 1946-56.' Canadian Journal of History of Sport and Physical Education, ro, no. 21 (December 1979), 52-75 Bruce, Harry 'The Way We Were at Mount Allison.' Maclean's, 87, no. 9 (September 1974), 22-3, 56-8 Caldwell, J . Warren 'The Unification of Methodism in Canada, 1865-1884.' United Church Archives Bulletin, 19 (1967), 3-61 Chapman, J .K. 'Henry Harvey Stuart (1873-1952) : New Brunswick Reformer.' Acadiensis, 5 (Spring 1976), 79-104 DeLottinville, Peter 'Trouble in the Hives of Industry: The Cotton Industry Comes to Milltown, New Brunswick, 1879-1892.' Historical Papers: Montreal 1980, IOC-1 5 Dow, Helen J. 'A Look at Nineteenth Century Values.' Canadian Art, 21 (1964), 76-9 Emery, George N . 'The Origins of Canadian Methodist Involvement in the Social Gospel Movement, 1890-1914.' journal of the Canadian Church Historical Society, 19 ( 1977), 104-19 Falconer, Sir Robert 'The Gilchrist Scholarships: An Episode in the Higher Education of Canada.' Proceedings and Transactions of the Royal Society of Canada, 3rd series, 27 (1933), section 2, pp. 5-13 Fingard, Judith 'Attitudes Towards the Education of the Poor in Colonial Halifax.' Acadiensis, 2 (Spring 1973), 15-42 Forbes, Ernest R. 'Prohibition and the Social Gospel in Nova Scotia.' Acadiensis, 1 (Autumn 1971), 11-36 Hammock, Virgil 'Art at Mount Allison.' Arts Atlantic, 1, no. 3 (Summer/Fall 1978), 16-23 Healy, Denis 'The University of Halifax, 1875-1881.' Dalhousie Review, 53 (1973-4), 39-56 Jarrell, Richard A. 'Science Education at the University of New Brunswick in the Nineteenth Century.' Acadiensis, 2 (Spring 1973), 55-79 Kane, R.W. 'The Atlantic Provinces Examining Board.' Canadian Education, 13, no. 2 (1958), 25-34

477 Bibliography Mabee, Ray 'A Double Surprise and the History of College Banknotes.' Coin Stamp Antique News, 8, no. 24 (1 May 1971), 8 MacNutt, W.S. 'The Universities of the Maritimes: A Glance Backwards.' Dalhousie Review, 53 (1973-4), 431-48 MacPherson, Ian 'Patterns in the Maritime Co-operative Movement, 1900-1945.' Acadiensis, 5 (Autumn 1975), 67-83 Magney, William H . 'The Methodist Church and the National Gospel, 18841914.' United Church Archives Bulletin, 20 (1968), 3-95 Masters, D.C. 'The Rise of Liberalism in Canadian Protestant Churches.' Canadian Catholic Historical Association Study Sessions, 36 (1969), 27-39 Mitchinson, Wendy 'Canadian Women and Church Missionary Societies in the Nineteenth Century.' Atlantis, 2, part 2 (Spring 1977), 57-75 Noble, William J ., and Haley, K.D.C. 'Canadian Men of Science.' Science, u9 Uanuary-June 1954), 167-72 Piggin, Stuart 'Halevy Revisited: The Origins of the Wesleyan Methodist Missionary Society: An Examination of Semmel's Thesis.' journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, 9 (1980-1), 17-37 Pomeroy, Elsie 'Mary Electa Adams: A Pioneer Educator.' Ontario History, 41, no. 3 (1949), 107-17 Reid, John G. 'Mount Allison College: The Reluctant University.' Acadiensis, 10 (Autumn 1980), 35-66 - 'The Education of Women at Mount Allison, 1854-1914.' Acadiensis, 12 (Spring 1983), 3-33 Rimmington, Gerald T. 'A Young Teacher's Life in Victorian New Brunswick: George Johnstone Trueman.' Atlantic Advocate, 67, no. 2 (October 1976), 67-9 - 'English Educational Ideas and Forms in a New Brunswick Parish: Sackville, 1818-1837.' History of Education Society Bulletin, 27 (Spring 1981), 4~p - 'The Foundation of the Universities of Nova Scotia.' Dalhousie Review, 46 (196~7), 319-37 Robinson, Cyril, and Beaver, Bert 'Grandma was a Co-ed.' Weekend Magazine, 4, no. 32 (1954), 2-5 Royce, Marion 'Methodism and the Education of Women in Nineteenth Century Ontario.' Atlantis, 3, no. 2 (Spring 1978), 130-43 Sacouman, R. James 'Underdevelopment and the Structural Origins of Antigonish Movement Co-operatives in Eastern Nova Scotia.' Acadiensis, 7 (Autumn 1977), 6~85 Sager, Eric W., and Fischer, Lewis R. 'Atlantic Canada and the Age of Sail Revisited.' Canadian Historical Review, 63 (1982), 125-50 Stanley, G.F.G. 'John Clarence Webster: The Laird of Shediac.' Acadiensis, 3 (Autumn 1973), 51-71

478 Bibliography - 'The Caraquet Riots of 1875.' Acadiensis, 2 (Autumn 1972), 21-38 Weiss, Janice 'Educating for Clerical Work: The Nineteenth Century Private Commercial School.' Journal of Social History, 14 (1980-1), 407-23 2c Newspapers and Periodicals Allisonia. Sackville, NB. 1903-14 Argosy. Sackville, NB. 1875-1931 Argosy Weekly. Sackville, NB. 1922-63 Borderer and Westmorland and Cumberland Advertiser. Sackville, NB. 1865-70 British North American Wesleyan Methodist Magazine. Saint John, and Fredericton, NB . 1840--7 Busy East of Canada (later the Maritime Advocate, and the Atlantic Advocate). Saint John, Moncton, Sackville, and Fredericton, NB . 1910--76 Canada Schoo/Journal. Toronto. 1882 Canadian Association of University Teachers Bulletin. Ottawa. 1959, 1970 Canadian Methodist Magazine (later the Methodist Magazine and Review) Toronto. 1875-1906 Chignecto Post and Borderer. Sackville, NB. 1869-97 Christian Guardian. Toronto. 1885-1912 Chronicle-Herald. Halifax, NS. 1961 Daily Sun . Saint John, NB. 1888, 1893 Daily Times. Moncton, NB. 1887-1963 Educational Review. Fredericton, NB. 1891-1908 Guardian . Charlottetown, PEI. 1892 Loyalist and Conservative Advocate. Fredericton, NB. 1844-5 Morning Chronicle. Halifax, NS. 1926 Morning Herald. Halifax, NS. 1875-1907 Mount Allison Record. Sackville, NB. 1916-76 New Brunswick Courier. Saint John, NB. 1844-5 Notes and Queries. London. 1953 Parish School Advocate and Family Instructor: For Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Prince Edward Island. Baie Verte, NB . 1858 Religious and Literary journal. Saint John, NB. 1829---30 Sackville Post. Sackville, NB. 1898-1946 Sackville Tribune. Sackville, NB. 1902-46 Sackville Tribune-Post. Sackville, NB . 1946-63 Saturday Night. Toronto. 1940 Telegraph-Journal. Saint John, NB. 1924-55 Time. New York. 1951

479 Bibliography Transcript. Sackville, NB. 1879-82 United Churchman. Sackville, NB. 1925-63 United Church Observer.Toronto. 1942-66 Wesleyan Methodist Magazine. London. 1856 Wesleyan. Halifax, NS. 1838-40 Wesleyan. (Provincial Wesleyan, 1853-74). Halifax, NS, and Sackville, NB. 18491925 2D Unpublished Materials Alward, Dale E. 'Down Sackville Ways: Shipbuilding in a Nineteenth Century New Brunswick Outport.' BA thesis. Mount Allison University, 1978 Bissell, Claude 'The Place of Learning and the Arts in Canadian Life.' Paper delivered at Duke University conference, 1978 Boyle, George Alfred 'Higher Criticism and the Struggle for Academic Freedom in Canadian Methodism.' TH o thesis. Victoria University, 1965 Brooks, William Howard 'The Changing Character of Maritime Wesleyan Methodism, 1855-83.' MA thesis. Mount Allison University, 1965 Buttimer, Twila F. ' "Great Expectations": The Maritime Methodist Church and Church Union, 1925.' MA thesis. University of New Brunswick, 1980 Darville, Richard Tulloss 'Political Economy and Higher Education in the Nineteenth Century Maritime Provinces.' PH o thesis. University of British Columbia, 1977 Dixon, Charlotte 'Mount Allison in 1854.' Manuscript in possession of Mrs C.M. Godfrey, Sackville, NB Ebbutt, Arthur J. 'History of the Department of Religious Studies.' Manuscript in Mount Allison University Archives Evans, Mary Godfrey 'Mount Allison Wesleyan Academy and College.' MED thesis. Bishop's University, 1978 Firth, Frances A. 'History of Higher Education in New Brunswick to 1864.' MA thesis. University of New Brunswick, 1951 Frost, James Douglas 'Principles of Interest: The Bank of Nova Scotia and the Industrialization of the Maritimes, 1880--1910.' MA thesis. Queen's University, 1978 Gammon, Frances Firth 'The Strange Case of Dr. Joseph Hea.' Manuscript in University of New Brunswick Archives Hamilton, William B. 'Education, Politics, and Reform in Nova Scotia, 1800--1848.' PH D thesis. University of Western Ontario, 1970 Jobb, Dean Wendell 'Josiah Wood (1843-1927): "A Cultured and Honoured Gentleman of the Old School."' BA thesis. Mount Allison University, 1980

480 Bibliography Manning, Harry 'Changes in Evangelism Within the Methodist Church in Canada During the Time of Carman and Chown, 1884-1915: A Study of the Causes for the Shifts in Evangelism.' TH M thesis. Emmanuel College of Victoria University, 1975 Moody, Barry M.'The Founding of Acadia College.' Paper delivered at Atlantic Canada Studies Conference, Halifax, NS, 1980 Morrison, W.A. 'History of the Mount Allison c.o.T.c.' Manuscript in possession of Major W.A. Morrison, Thornhill, Ont. Copy in MAA Muise, Delphin Andrew 'Elections and Constituencies: Federal Politics in Nova Scotia, 1867-1878.' PH o thesis. University of Western Ontario, 1971 Norrie, Margaret 'George Johnstone Trueman.' BA thesis. Mount Allison University, 1954 Pilkington, Gwendoline 'A History of the National Conference of Canadian Universities, 1911-1961.' PH o thesis. University of Toronto, 1974 Rimmington, Gerald T. 'Alexander Monro and the Development of Education in New Brunswick.' Manuscript in possession of Dr G.T. Rimmington, Peterborough, England. Copy in MAA - 'Mount Allison and the University of Halifax a Century Ago.' Manuscript in possession of Dr G.T. Rimmington, Peterborough, England. Copy in MAA Snowdon, James D. 'Footprints in the Marsh Mud: Politics and Land Settlement in the Township of Sackville, 176-1800.' MA thesis. University of New Brunswick, 1974 Spigelman, Martin S. 'The Acadian Renaissance and the Development of AcadianCanadian Relations, 1864-1912: "des freres trop longtemps separes."' PH o thesis. Dalhousie University, 1975 Stewart, Jean 'My Aunt Harriet.' Manuscript in Mount Allison University Archives Toner, Peter M. 'The New Brunswick Separate Schools Issue, 1864-1876.' MA thesis. University of New Brunswick, 1967 Vogan, Nancy Fraser 'The History of Public School Music in the Province of New Brunswick, 1872-1939.' PH o thesis. University of Rochester, 1979 Warren, Darlene Charlotte 'Adult Education in English-Speaking New Brunswick in the 1930s: The Search for a Comprehensive Approach.' BA thesis. Mount Allison University, 1980 Young, D. MacMurray 'The Politics of Higher Education in the Maritimes in the 1820s: The New Brunswick Experience.' Paper delivered at Atlantic Canada Studies Conference, Halifax, NS, 1980 2E

Bates, John S. 21 January 1977 Bennett, Marion. 6 January 1977

Interviews

48 1 Bibliography Black, Gwendolyn. 3 1 January 1979 Black, J . William, and Black, Margaret. 3 May 1979 Brunton, Marie. 11 May 1977 Cameron, Donald A. [1979] Carter, Albert J . .19 March 1979 Colville, Alex . .10 January 198.1 Crawford, Dean P . .11 March 1977 Crawford, William S.H. 6, 18 August 1980 Cunningham, William B. .16 May 1980 Cuthbertson, Arnold C. 9 March 1977 DesBarres, Stella. 6 December 1976 Dixon, Edgar. 3 May 1979 Ebbutt, Arthur J . 1 October 198 1 Godfrey, Clementina . .14 January 1979 -, and Godfrey, William S. 15 December 1978 Harris, Lawren P . .18 February 1979 Hesler, Norman A. 18 April 1977 Hicks, Henry D . .11 January 198.1 MacAulay, David M. 7 February 1977 MacGregor, Donald G . .11 February, 14 March 1977 Morrow, Marianne . .19 August 1980 Sawdon, William B. 19 June 1979 Trueman, May Wells . .13 April 1977 West, William J . .16 November 1979

Index

Acadia Seminary : see Acadia University Acadia University 12, 18, 49, 64, 138, 196, 21 l, 221, 238, 243, 262, 271, 298, 356, 383n136; collegiate academy 3, 125; sports 9, 32, 275, 276, 322; debating 33, II 1; and university federation 53-4, 66, 67; ladies' seminary 12 5 Adams, Sir Grantley 265 Adams, Mary Electa 359 Adams, Robert 266 Addison, Margaret 123-4, 127 admissions policies, during Second World War: Jewish applicants 19~1; Japanese-Canadian applicants 191-2 adult education: see extension programmes, summer programmes Aitken, W. Maxwell, Lord Beaverbrook 221-2, 258, 310, 43on89 Albert County, NB 2 1 Albright, LS. 29 Alcorn, J. Howard 98, 106 Algoma Steel Corporation 260 Allen, Clifford M. 2 p, 260 Allen, Dorothy H. 257, 307, 308-9

Allison, Charles Frederick 56, 218, 341, 354, 360, 362 Allison, David 7, 20, 55 , 57, 58, 97, 195, 355 Allison, Laurie M. 246 Allison, Martha L. 37rn111 Allison Gardens 214-15, 218, 223-4, 226, 278 Allison Hall: located in Ford Hotel 26, 35, 84; located in Brunswick Hotel 84, 11 5; located in former ladies' college 128, 165-6, 188, 200, 205,247,271,348, 398n6 Allison Lodge : see Ford Hotel alumnae, alumni 8, 22, 36, 51, 134, 176, 180, 187, 210, 228, 255, 265, 279, 282, 284, 285, 306, 315, 320, 343, 347, 424n235; of ladies' college 6, 87, 123, 202, 256--7; financial donations 12, 13, 92, 165, 172-3, 213, 217, 218, 226--7, 235-6; 242, 347, 382n122; alumnae association 15, 106; alumni society 15, 98, 106; federated alumni 106, 117-18, 216--17, 226, 335, 348 Amherst, NS 5, 6, 17, 38, 112, 121,

Bell, Mary Elizabeth 129 Bell, Ralph Pickard 216, 217, 226-8 passim, 242, 249, 293; as member of board of regents 214-15, 227; at 1958 summer institute 287-9; becomes chancellor 309-16; as chancellor 314-16, 318-19, 320, 327, 328, 330--2 passim, 344, 346-8 passim, 352, 355, 357 Bell, Winthrop Pickard 134, 226-9 passim, 231, 249, 312, 353, 412n28 Bennett, Marion Machum 142, 199, 348 Bennett, R.B. 92, 122, 173, 177, 4om52 Bennett, Ronald V. 92, 173, 290, 348, 4om65 Bennett House 290--1 Bermuda 19, 56, 102, 266, 275, 319, 354 Beschel, R.E. 260 Bigelow, Harold E. 7, 9, 15, 16, 38, 100, 102, 106, 133, 135-6, 188, 196-7, 198, 201, 225, 290, 360, 366n22, 382n110, 39m101 Bishop, Olga B. 246, 417n108 Black, Frank B. 44, 52-3, 54, 66, 68, 75-6, 79, 120, 121, 170, 174, 175, 202, 291 Baker, Emma 17, 368n66 Black, Gwendolyn MacDonald 126, Banting, Henrietta 419n1 53 3o4 Black Memorial Chapel 116, 117 Barclay, L.R.C. 251, 331 Blair, F.C. 151-2 Bathurst, NB 241, 315 Blakeny, C.H. 180 Baxter, Clayton A. 132, 155, 157, 168, Bland, Salem 29 198, 260, 285-6, 330--1, 344, 347, Blishen, Bernard 269 417n121 Beaverbrook, Lord: see Aitken board of regents: chairmen 55-6, 117, 174-6, 236, 350; composition and Beethoven Hall 87 membership 79, 121, 169, 171, Bell, Lorne 154 Bell, Marjorie Young 249, 297, 312, 360 209-10, 217, 227, 279-80, 335-6,

139, 155, 158, 164, 169, 172, 176, 205, 229, 263, 317, 325 Andover, NB 46 Andrews, Elias 231, 234 Andrews, Nellie Greenwood 257 Andrews, Wilbur William 34, 56, 103, 132, 257, 271, 360 Antigonish, NS 144, 146, 150; see also St Francis Xavier University Archibald, Mary Mellish 55 Archibald, Raymond C. 5, 7, 12, 26, 39, 40, 51, 55, 69, 125, 217, 246-7, 256 Argosy: see student life Association of Universities of the British Commonwealth 250, 343 athletic centre 310, 311, 314, 315-16, 325, 326 Atlantic Provinces Examining Board 97, 383n135 Australia 152, 275, 343, 357 Avard, C .C . 52, 92, 93, 169, 170, 174, 180, 424n236 Avard, N .T . 121, 169, 176, 194, 278, 286, 350 Avard-Dixon building 278, 289-90, 291, 303 Avonport, NS 56

485 Index 348-9, 435ni 77; policy committees 93, 18er-3, 199, 218, 254, 265-6, 278, 28er-1, 284, 286, 294, 304-7 passim, 3 12; composition and membership of executive committee 176 Bolshevism 28, 48 Boone, Gordon V. 8 Boorne, Ronald A. 251, 252, 293, 340 Borden, Allison 5, 365n11 Borden, Byron Crane 37, 43, 57, 58, 66, 68, 76, 195, 221, 271, 333; as president (1911-23) 5-8 passim, 10, 11-12, 14, 15, 17-19 passim, 23, 25, 26, 31, 33, 40, 46-8, 50, p-2, 65, 69, 77, 3 I 1-12, 354, 37on109; resignation as president (1923) 54-5; assessment 55-6; as chairman of board of regents 56, 174; death 97 Bousquet, Jean 298 Bowdoin College, Maine 49 Bowes, J.A. 223 Bowser, Isabella Richardson 87 Bowser House 99, 398n6 Brown, Howard F. 247, 258, 304, 305, 307, 308 Brown University, Rhode Island 246, 252 Brunswickan (Fredericton, NB) 322 Brunswick Hotel 26, 84, 90, 11 5, 164-6, passim, 205, 290, 291, 349, 426n22 Brunton, J. Noel 19, 86, 111, 126, 197 buildings: construction and design 14, 24, 25-6, 42, 43-4, 45, 49, 78, 83, 90, 96, 106-7, 116, 117-20, 165, 192-3, 194, 204-5, 213, 214, 218, 223-4, 254, 277-8, 289-92, 297, 3II, 315-16, 348, 387n33, 406n160, 427n26, 437n218; see also Allison

Hall, athletic centre, Avard-Dixon Building, Bennett House, Bungalow, Centennial Hall, Fawcett Hall, Hart Hall, Lingley Hall, Memorial Library, Normandy Hall, Ortona Hall, Palmer Hall, president's cottage, Trueman House, Windsor Hall Bungalow, the 204-5 bursaries: see scholarships and bursaries Busy East (Sackville, NB) 13, 46 Butterfield, V.L. 287-9 Cameron, Donald A. 211, 261, 346 Campbell, G.M. 16-17, 368n65 Campbell, Ian L. 252, 265, 294, 295, 339, 34o Campbellton, NB 263 Canada Council 239, 240, 297 Canadian Association for Adult Education 144, 145 Canadian Association of University Teachers 253, 294-5, 295-7 passim, 308-9 Canadian Broadcasting Corporation 26 5, 318 Canadian Commentator (Toronto, Ont.) 318 Canadian Council of Churches 233 Canadian Democratic Union 324 Canadian Hospitals Commission 1 1 Canadian Legion 184 Canadian National Committee on Refugees 189 Canadian Officers Training Corps (COTC) 4-6, 9, 16, 3er-2, 152-3, 155-6, 158, 165, 184, 185, 188, 207, 4070171 Canadian Student Assembly 153-4, 394n134

486 Index Canadian Universities Foundation 292 Canso, NS 53 Carnegie Corporation of New York 14, 40, 44, 48-9, 52, 53-4, 61, 64-6 passim, 68, 73, 75, 79, 80, 88-9, 945, 97, 105, 121, 126, 135-6, 137, 141, 147, 152, 180, 354, 379np, 3950149, 3970186, 4om49 Carr, Minnie 111 Cartwright, Morse A. 73, 95, 395m49 Cavanagh, Christine 303 Centennial Hall 14, 99, 106, 115-16, I 17, I 18, 119, 121, 277, 290, 294 central advisory committee 88, 97, 141-2, 187, 192, 242 Central Trust Company 121, 122, 293 Chalmers, R.C. 239 Chaput, Marcel 3 17 Charlottetown, PEI 32, 44, 119, 169, 255; see also Prince of Wales College, St Dunstan's University Chatham, NB 241 Chester, NS 227 Chignecto canal 325-6, 433m46 Chignecto Isthmus 281, 32 5 Chown, S.D. 4, 45 Christian socialism: see social gospel Chronicle-Herald (Halifax, NS) 318, 326 church union: see United Church of Canada Clark, Percy 178 Coady, Moses M. 125, 144 Cobb, A.R. 118 Cohen, Nathan 19er-1 Cohoon, J.W. 7, 29-30, 133, 136-7, 205, 206 College du Sacre-Coeur 241 College St-Louis 241 Colpitts, A.J . 63

Columbia University 26, 57, 83, 103, 125, 252, 303, 39m104 Columbian College 55 Colville, Alex 197, 218, 224, 245, 258, 286, 291, 293, 336, 345, 347, 417m21, 4360207 commercial college, Mount Allison 13, 43, 98, 129, 130, 182, 199, 221, 253, 25 5-6, 359 Conference of Canadian Universities: see National Conference of Canadian Universities Connecticut 7, 103, 106, 287, 315, 355 conscription 12, 167, 185-7 Cook, F. Ward 109-10, 111 Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (ccF) 179, 199, 222, 264; see also New Democratic Party cooperative movement 144-6 Cormier, Adrien J. 330 Cormier, Clement 242, 3 18 Cornell University 83, 126, 303 Cox, Harold 206, 21 1 Coyle, Albert F. 151-2, 3950164 Crabtree, H. Roy 293 Cragg, Laurence Harold 345, 4370210 Crake, J. Ernest A. 206, 244-5, 253 Crawford, Dean P. 112, 156, 293, 294, 347 Crawford, W.S.H . 198, 245, 248, 252, 286, 289-90, 293, 296, 300, 301, 330, 337, 418m33 Cross, Donald 260 Crowe, Harry S. 295 Crowell, J.W. 38 Cunningham, W.B. 244, 252, 264, 296-7, 301, 312-13, 331, 417m21, 427n35, 4330136 curriculum: at ladies' college 19-20, 43, 82-3, 123-4; at university 20,

36---7, 43, 74-5, 79, 81-3, 126, 182, 256---62, 270, 303, 304-5, 307, 314, 329, 3 55, 35 9-60; at post-graduate level 37, 138, 261-2; at academy 423, 130, 253; at school for girls 127-9 Cuthbertson, Arnold C. 102-3, 135, 136, 168, 198, 224, 245, 347, 360, 41 8m 33, 424n220 Cutten, G.B. 53 Daily Star (Halifax, NS) 209 Dalhousie Gazette (Halifax, NS) 9 Dalhousie University 4, 12, 38, 47--9 passim, 64, 72-3, 94-6 passim, 138, 140, 206, 221, 232, 237, 247, 262, 271, 272, 287, 310, 383n136, 392n123, 4om52, 41on4, 413n53, 43on86, 43on89; sports 32, 275-6; law school 36, 271, 323; and university federation 50, 53, 54, 66---9 passim, 79, 88--9; faculty salaries 243, 296 Daniel, Catherine 43on83 Davies, L.E.G. 146, 201 Dawson, A.O. 157 Dawson, Vega 419n153 Day, Frank Parker 134, 136, 153, 156, I 66---7, I 84 debating: see student life Delano, C . C. 29-30 DesBarres, F.W.W. 20, 34, 72-3, 81, 109, 133, 137, 155, 196, 201, 225-7, 229, 231, 249, 412n28 Design (New York, NY) 87 Deutsch, John J. 329-30, 350 Deutsch commission and report, see Royal Commission on Higher Education in New Brunswick deVos, Nijs 298 Dickinson, Annie Alice 419n153

Dickson, Anne 322 Diefenbaker, John G. 292, 325-6 Dimelow, Elizabeth J. 260, 347 Dingle, Max 324 disciplinary regulations : see student life Dixon, J.L. 158, 169, 173, 176 Dominion Steel and Coal Company 174, 179 Dorchester, NB 32, 213 Douglas, Rogers Ltd 117, 159, 172 Douglas, T.C. 317 Dow, Helen J. 305 drama: see student life Drew, George 222 Duchemin, Lloyd A. 206, 224, 245, 260, 294, 342, 344, 418n133 Duckworth, Martin 316, 317-18, 347 Dunn, Sir James 260 Dunton, A. Davidson 3 18 Ebbutt, Arthur J . 206, 221, 232, 234, 245, 248, 259, 267, 268, 286, 300-1, 304, 307, 341-2, 347, 404n108, 417n121 Eddy, Chesley G . 315 Edmundston, NB 241 education: teacher training 81-2, 103, 261 Elderkin, Vernon C. 8 Elliott, Carleton W. 257 Enamel and Heating Products Ltd 130, 158, 159, 169, 174, 175 , 264 engineering 37-8, 69, 79, 82, 102, 168, 184-5, 186, 188, 237, 260-1, 270, 328-9, 339-40, 403n8 5; see also McClelan School of applied science Eurhetorian Hall 99, 218 Eurhetorian Society 33, 35 , 222, 266, 273, 324, 355 Everett, Jon 325

488 Index examinations 80, 111, 176, 186, 300-1 ; local (music) 86, 197, 248; matriculation 97, 141, 334, 383n135 excellence : early discussion of 180-1, 195, 300, 301-2, 312; report on 336-42, 344, 345, 352, 436n194 extension programmes 63-4, 125, 143-9, 262-5, 285, 305, 316-19, 377n16, 39m104, 395n149, 42m182; see also summer programmes faculty: academy 98, 155, 170-1, 254-5, ladies' college/school for girls 17, 19, 85-7, 125, 127, 199, 201-2; university 7, 17-19, 20, 26-7, 29-30, 37-8, 8 I, 102-4, 126-7, I 315, 152, 155, 168, 196-9, 205-6, 225, 244, 247-53, 257-8, 260-1, 294-302, 303, 305--9, 312-13, 346-7, 352, 407n166, 427n35, 436n207; see also faculty association, faculty salaries and conditions, faculty seminar faculty association 253, 293-5, 296, 300, 301-2, 312, 315, 320, 331, 336, 339, 352, 355 faculty salaries and conditions 14, 39-40, 43, 49, 85, 91, 96, 104, 120, 131-2, 134, 136, 152, 156-7, 177, 182-3, 198, 241-5, 248--9, 295-8, 299-300, 311-12, 315, 331, 382n110, 39m104, 402n71, 414n70, 416n96 faculty seminar 253 Falconer, Mary D. 208, 245 Farrar, Frederick 157-8, 163-4 Fawcett Hall 33, 56, 58, 87, 106, 111, 194, 209, 272, 326 fees 12-13, 48, 80, 96, 104, 105, 113, 139, 204, 209, 236-7, 268, 326-7 Ferguson, Laing 298

Fergusson, Muriel McQueen 306, 419n153 Financial Post (Toronto, Ont.) 243, 265 fine and applied arts 19, 43, 87, 104, 123-8 passim, 135, 140, 147-8, 197, 237, 244, 248, 257, 258-9, 264, 270, 273, 302-5, 306, 308, 337, 339, 359; see also Owens Gallery fires 24, 32, 56, 108, 115-17, 120-2 passim, 157--9, 163-6, 171-5 passim, 218, 223, 355, 398n2, 398n14 Fisher, Douglas 317 Fisk, Willbur 289 Flemington, W.T. Ross 144, 199, 234, 346; student 33-4, 207; teacher at academy 66; academy principal 98, 115, 129-31, 181; appointment as president 163, 169-72, 193, 399n29, 399n30; installation as president (1945) 195-6; as president (194562) 196, 201-13 passim, 217, 221, . . 223, 227-31 passim, 235-40 passim, 240-2, 243, 244, 246, 249, 250-1, 252, 254-5, 263, 271-2, 278, 286, 291, 295, 300-1, 306-8 passim, 313, 317, 323, J.15, 326-7, 333-4, 406n10, 413n53, 418n133; health 205, 225, 343; president of Nccu 292, 343; resignation as president ( 1962) 342-3; assessment 343-4; death 436n202 Flemming, Hugh John 264, 265 Forbes, Ernest R. 324 Ford Hotel (also known as Allison Lodge) 26, 35, 49, 84, 99, 164, 166, 205, 291, 37on110, 38m85, 426n22 Forrestall, Tom 2 58 Forsey, G.P. 229 Foster, Sir George E. 98

Foster, J.F. 250, 251 Founder's Day 56 Fowler, C.A. 117-18, 165, 169-70, 171, 192-3, 199 Fraser, Joseph 157-8, 163-4 Fraser, Roy 38, 70, 87, 106, 133, 136, 140, 142, 166, 188, 198, 205, 248, 249, 259, 262, 360 Fredericton, NB 32, 33, 110, JII, 155, 165, 189, 224, 240; see also University of New Brunswick Fullerton, Margaret E. 196, 405n124 Fulton, E. Davie 3 17 Fulton, Wendell 273 fund-raising 11, 12, 24, 40, 44-8, 90-4, 95, 96, 149, 156-7, 165, 172-4, 177-80, 182, 191, 192, 195 , 213-18, 220, 226-35, 235-6, 242, 268, 278, 279, 284-5, 292-4, 306, 310, 311-12, 314, 315, 347-8, 37on103, 4oon40, 408n196, 409n208, 414n67, 427n30, table 20 Gagetown, NB 26 Gamblin, H.S. 184 Garton, Russell 7 Gass, C. L. 28 5 Gass, Doris 210-1 1 George, Victor 87 Gilchrist, Peter 325, 433n144 Gilmour, G.P. 235 Glace Bay, NS 191, 398n14, 424n225 Glenn, L. Ross 15 5 Globe and Mail (Toronto, Ont.) 318 Godfrey, Clementina Pickard 214, 3 14 Godfrey, W.S. 33, 98, 106, 140, 176, 214, 234, 309, Jl4, Jl5, 347, 392n122 Goodwin, H.A. 118, 119

Gordon, King 150 government grants: possibility contemplated 53-4, 148-9, 165, 215, 217; wartime student loans 184-5; from department of veterans' affairs 204, 236, 406n156; other federal grants 235-40, 280-1, 292, 415n81, 415n84; from province of New Brunswick 240-2, 292, 303, 329-31, 333-5 , 347; from province of Nova Scotia 240, 292, 347, 427n28 graduate careers 102, 135, 145, 186-7, 256, 257, 258, 303, 392n123, 394nl 3 5, 422n202, 433n13 I Graham, J.W. 71-2, 74, 82, 90, 91, 107 Green, Melvin 157-8, 163-4 Greenslade, J. Gareth 298, 324 Grierson, H.J .C. 133 Gronlund, Sarah Shenton 87 Guild, A.W. 146 Gundy, H.P. 148, 184, 189, 198, 202, 206 Guy, Norman 81, 82, 102 Guysborough, NS 96 Halifax, NS 5, 10, 17, 44, 47, 49-53 passim, 65-9 passim, 71-5 passim, 77-81 passim, 88, 89, 92-5, 97, 101, 111, 114, 117, 130, 145, 167, 169, 176, 191, 195, 209, 214, 231, 262, 273, 275, 278, 353, 354, 379n51; see also Dalhousie University, Pine Hill Divinity Hall, St Mary's University Halifax Conservatory 247 Hamer, Harold S. 86, 111, 126, 197, 198, 205' 206, 247-8, 275 Hamilton, Jean 152

490 Index Hammond, John 19, 87, 126, 197 Hannah, Gerald W. 298, 340 Hanson, R.B. 165, 172, 173, 191 Harris, Lawren P. 197, 225, 245, 258, 3o4-5 Harrison, Alice May 419n153 Hart, Charlotte Dixon 87 Hart, Sarah 258, 305 Hart Hall 26, 83, 128, 200, 202, 322 Hartford Seminary, Connecticut 103 Hartland, NB 10 Harvard University 81 Hatfield, Richard 3 18 Hay, Eldon R. 298 Heartz, Dorothy Jane 188 Hensley, John 24 Herbert, Walter B. 265 Hesler, Norman A. 130, 159, 165, 169-73 passim, 174-8, 180, 182, 193, 199, 200, 207, 214, 216, 218, 225-7 passim, 236, 264, 278, 310, 399n29, 4oon43, 4060160, 4100220, 412n28 Hessell, Mary 127 Hicks, Henry D. 264, 278, 280, 284-5, 286, 2.88--9, 310 Higginson, T.H. 158-9 higher criticism 353, 361 Hockin, Margaret Lillian 257, 419n153 Hoddinott, Donald F. 2.85-6 home economics 40, 43, 82.-3, 85, 102., 104, 123-6 passim, 128, 135, 137, 140, 215, 237, 244, 250, 257, 289-90, 302-3, 328-9, 339, 340, 346-7, 357, 359, 3700111, 38m95, 409n2.06, 429n64 Homer, Kenneth Ip Horton Collegiate Academy: see Acadia University household science: see home economics Howe, C.D. 2.87-9, 310, 426n12, 43on86, 43on89

Howe, Ralph 406n160 Hubener, Gustav Frederick 152, 157 Hughes, John 171 Hughes, Sir Samuel 5 Hunton, Sydney Walker 34, 37, 39-40, 49, 56, 58, 63, 100, 103, 121, 132-4, 2.25, 290, 298, 346, 360, 39on95 Ilsley, J.L. 177-8 Inch, J.R. 55, 57, 86, 217, 2.71 Inch, Robert B. 217, 228, 2.35-6, 335-6, 347, 435n177 International Union of Students 2.11 James, F. Cyril 238 Johns Hopkins University 206 Johnson, Charles H. 3 15 Johnson, Paisley 3 15 Jonah, Marguerite 10 Jones, C.C. 53 Jones, Oakah 293 Jost, Harriet J. 419n1 53 Jost, H . Marshall 96, 106, 136 Kaufman, Martin J. 164 Keirstead, R. D. 234 Keller, Harrison 308 Kennish, Marjorie 303 Kentville, NS 12 5 Keppel, F.P. 61, 65, 73, 75, 76, 79, 80, 88, 89, 94, 95, 135-6, 145, 146, 395n149 Kerr, A.E. 169, 191, 237, 2.38 Kerr, Donald G.G. 198, 245, 2.63-5, 285, 2.94, 2.99, 316, 417n121, 4180133, 42.m182, 425n7 Khaki University of Canada 198, 369n96 King, W.L. Mackenzie 167 Kinsman, Evron 257

491 Index Kirkconnell, Watson 211, 221, 236, 238, 240 Knight, Richard 358 Komyo, Teruko 419n153 Krug, Charles A. 132, 146-7, 152, 154, 155, 198, 39rn104 Langille, Warren L. 234 League of Nations 109,111,150,217 Leard, Alden 221, 255-6, 347 Learned, William S. 14, 48-51, 52, 53-4, 65-9 passim, 77-8, 88, 90, 140, 202, 356, 379np Learned/Sills report: see William S. Learned, Kenneth C.M. Sills Leddy, J .F. 289 Leonard, Edna 326 Lesage, Jean 318 Leslie, Jeannie W. 247 Lester, R.M. 95 Liberal Party 222, 317, 324, 325 libraries, Mount Allison 14, 24, 44, 49, 78, 90, 91, 106, I 17, 139, 172, 201, 208, 245-7, 262, 297, 332, 338 Liddy, R.B. 7, 20, 81, 82, 96 Lingley Hall 5, 24, 32, 56 Line, John 18, 29, JI, 33, 39, 62, 71, 72, 81, 90 Lister, Ralph 110 Lockhart, Grace Annie 359 Lockwood, Philip 251, 264-5, 298, 4180121 Lower, A.R.M. 154 Lund, Stella 196, 4050124 Lutes, Muriel 145 Lynds, Fred 264 McAnn, Aida 10 MacAulay, David M. 113-14, 313 MacBeth, Allan 198, 340, 342, 418n127

McClelan School of applied science 37-8, 82, 155 , 185, 188, 198, 248, 252, 26er1, 277, 290, 293, 329, 333, 340, 359 McCormack, Waldo 152, 155, 275, 315-16 MacDonald, C.D. 166 MacDonald, Gwendolyn: see Gwendolyn MacDonald Black MacDonald, H .F. 22-3 MacDonald, James Creelman 1 57-8, 163-4 MacDonald, Nelson 145 McEwen, W.H. 198 Macfarlane, Alice L. 298 Macfarlane, Angus 320 Macfarlane, Constance 2oer2 McGeachy, J.B. 265 McGill Daily (Montreal, Que.) 114-15 McGill University 4, 82, 103, 114-15, 154, 155, 171, 177, 190, 238, 247, 250, 261 MacGregor, Donald G . 38, 133, 136, 156, 184, 198, 202, 224, 245, 298, 346, 360 Machum, Marion: see Marion Machum Bennett Macinnes, Christine 319 Mcinnis, Edgar 265 Macintosh, Donald I. 313 Mackay, Arthur 8 Mackay, Colin B. 267 McKee, James 3, 5, 366022 Mackenzie, A. Stanley 12, 54, 66, 68, 69, 73, 75, 78, 94, 95 McKiel, Christian 197, 248 McKiel, Harold W. 34, 38, 66, 137, 168, 177, 179, 186, 190, 201, 221, 227, 245, 248, 257, 261, 271,272,276 MacKinnon, Clarence 69, 72-3, 75, 89, 94-5, I 19

492 Index Maclauchlan, Donald W. 168, 189, 198,208, 23~ 244,298,344,347 Maclean, Donald 222 Maclean, H.A. 252 Maclean's (Toronto, Ont.) 301, 312 Maclellan, Angus 154 McLeod, Elizabeth 87, 104, 127, 147, 197, 225, 419ni53 McMaster University 51, 211, 235, 25 I, 273 MacNab, Ira P. 176 McNair, J.B. 241 MacPhail, Agnes 109 MacRae, C.F. 251, 260, 274, 347, 417ni 21 Manley, Norman 265 Manning, Fred C. 278 Maritime provinces: economy of 25, 45-7, 55, 60-2, 66, 76-7, 91, 99, 101-2, 104-6, 107, 108-9, 130, 138-9, 142, 143-9 passim, 159, 179, 194, 284, 333, 352, 354, 361; Maritime Rights movement 46-7, 66, 183, 194 Maritime School of Social Work 262 Maritime Summer School: see summer programmes Martin, Paul 393ni34 Masefield, John 152 Massachusetts Institute of Technology 136, 329 Massey, Vincent 38, 152, 237 Massey commission and report (191921) : see Massey Foundation Commission on Methodist schools in Canada Massey commission and report ( 194951): see Royal Commission on National Development in the Arts, Letters, and Sciences Massey Foundation Commission on

Methodist schools in Canada 38-9, 40-3, 83, 85 Massey-Treble, Lillian 18-19 Massey-Treble School of household science: see home economics Matheson, A.W. 264 Mattessich, Richard 252, 256, 299 Matthews, James H. 298 Maxwell, Robert W. 330 Memorial Library 24, 44, 78, 90-1, 106, 172, 246, 297; see also libraries Memorial University of Newfoundland 243, 263, 266, 414n67 Memramcook, NB 241 Metherall, Annie 6 Methodist Chur~h 11, 17, 34, 40, 44, 45, 52, 55, 57, 74, 86, 96, 173, 174, 218, 228, 229, 231, 268, 283, 313, 314, 353, 354, 358, 37onro3; and First World War 4, 28, 30, 32; educational society/board of education 12, 54, 83; and social questions 29-30, 32, 58, 62, 101; and church union 42, 46, 68-72 passim Middlebury College, Vermont 355 Miller, Richard 208, 226-7 Mills, Henry C. 287-9 Mitcham, Peter 298 Mitchell, Walter 191 Moncton, NB 10, 86-7, 121, 145, 176, 193, 229, 241, 263, 264, 285, 317, 324, 330, 334 Montreal, Que. 18, 65, 114, 150, 154, 157, 173, 177, 179, 206, 227, 277, 293, 305, 320; see also McGill University Moore, J .C.G. 298 Morning Chronicle (Halifax, NS) 15, 75, 77 Morning Herald (Halifax, NS) 50

493 Index Morrison, Inez 343 Mount Allison institutions academy 3, 5, 10, 11, 20, 21, 24, 66, 69, 73, 75, 77, 78, 84, 152, 155, 164, 170, 171, 279, 291,. 306, 307, 308, 316, 344, 348, 356; and Massey report (1921) 41-3; and church union 70-2; J.M. Palmer as principal 98; 1933 fire 115-16; rebuilding 117-20, 121; developments during 19 30s 129-3 1; closure considered 181-2, 183, 199-200, 231; and theatre boycott 210; closure 25.3-6; see also commercial college - ladies' college/school for girls 3, 5, 21, 25, 26, 29, 35, 49, 55, 72, 73, 75, 77, 78, 82, 97,100,110,115,130, 131, 165, 205, 218, 225-6, 229, 246, 253, 254, 256-7, 279, 302, 305, 306, 308, 314, 322, 347, 348, 359, 37rn111, 372n138, 38rn95, 386028; and First World War 6, 13; institutional developments at, 191435 16-17, 19-20, 41-3, 83-8, 104, 117, 120, 122-5; reorganization of, 1935-6 124-6; school for girls 1279, 131; closure considered 18 1-2, 183; closure 199-203; see also women at Mount Allison - university, institutional and related developments: 1914-23 3-56; 1923-31 57-107; 1931-41 108-59; 1941-8 163-219; 1948-57 220-81; 1957-63 282-351; conclusion 352-62 Mount Allison institutions, academic standards 140-2, 208, 284-6, 300-1, 312, 320, 331, 336, 341, 355, 358, 418nr33, table 36 Mount Allison institutions, financial management 6-7, 10-14, 39-40, 42,

83, 90-1, 96, 104-5, 113, 120-2, 130, 139-40, 156-7, 165, 172, 176-7, 178, 192-3, 209, 212-15, 225-6, 292-3, 314-15, 333, 4orn49, 408n193; see also faculty salaries and conditions, fees, fund-raising Mount Allison Record 15, 20, 23, 24, 28, 34, 44-5, 46, 5 I, 83, 92, 93, 100, 214,242,264,281,291,293,294 Munro, W. Fraser 28, 228, 231, 233, 234, 280, 281 Murray, Walter 95 music 19, 43, 83, 86-7, 111, 123, 125-7, 128, 135, 137, 140, 147, 197, 206, 221, 237, 244, 247-8, 250, 257-8, 259, 264, 270, 273, 302-9, 337, 339, 359, 430083 National Conference of Canadian Universities 12, 16, 22-3, 27, 30, 153, 186-7, 192, 203, 236-40, 280, 292, 343, 393nr34, 415n81 National Federation of Canadian University Students 153-4, 211, 2 73 National Research Council 135, 168, 188, 196-7, 237, 239, 245 Newbolt, Sir Henry 129-30 New Brunswick: see government grants, student enrolment New Brunswick Federation of Labour 118 New Brunswick Music Teachers' Association 306 New Brunswick Rangers 15 5 Newcastle, NB 230 New Democratic Party 317; see also Co-operative Commonwealth Federation Newfoundland 18, 19, 77, 92, 97, 102, 180, 233, 243, 263, 264,

494 Index 266, 267, 269, 275, 277, 319, 354, 3830135, 414067, 42m181, 433n13 1 New Glasgow, NS 263 Newman, John Henry 359 New Westminster BC 55 New York 54, 87, 95, 106, 108, 114, 151, 287; see also Carnegie

Corporation of New York Nicholson, Clarence M. 232, 286, 4 13°53

Nicholson, J .W.A. 146 Nicholson, P.J. 238-9 Nickerson, J.L. 39m104 Nielsen, Richard 222 Nisei Liberties Union 191 Noble, W.J. 298 Normandy Hall 204, 406n160 Norrie, Margaret 306 Nova Scotia: see government grants, student enrolment Nova Scotia College of Art and Design 127 Nova Scotia Technical College 31, 82, 261, 276, 329, 4220202

Nowlan, Alden 318 O'Brien, J. Leonard 31 5 Ontario 102, 109, 174, 266, 267, 269, 277, 296, 299, 319-21, 338, 433n131;

see also Ottawa, Toronto Organ, Arthur 146, 328 Ortona Hall 204, 406m 60 Ottawa, Ont. 177, 187, 198 Owens Gallery 19, 49, 82, 258-9, 359 Owens Museum of Fine Arts: see Owens Gallery pacifism 4, 28, 30--2, 150, 207 Paley, William 353

Palmer, James Marshall 3, 1o, 20, 2 1, 43, 69, 70--1, 79, 98, I 16, 127, 129, 255, 388053 Palmer, Kenneth B. 255, 348, 350 Palmer, R.M. 27 Palmer Hall 281, 348 Parker, Kenneth A. 181-2, 199-200, 253-5, 3o6 Parrsboro, NS 1 5 Patterson, Allison G. 257, 261, 347 Patterson, F. W. 196 Payzant, Geoffrey 251, 264, 417n121 Peacock, Fletcher 147-9, 224 Peake, Ethel 126, 248 Pearson, Lester B. 317, 325

Pickard, Clementina: see Clementina Pickard Godfrey Pickard, Humphrey 57, 77, 283,

289, 314, 333, 355, 356, 358, 359, 360 Pickard, Mary Emerancy 314 Pickard, Thomas 222 Pictou, NS 70, 12 5, 202 Pine Hill Divinity Hall 47, 69-75 passim, 78, 81, 89-90, 91, 93, 96, 169, 191, 225, 228, 231-2, 286, 328, 3820110, 413053 Plummer, Helen C. 10, 26-7 Point de Bute, NB 55, 57, 60, 61 Pond, Gerald R. 260--1, 340 Port Elgin, NB 213, 325

Porter, B.J. 15 Port Morien, NS 113-14 post-graduate programmes 37, 97, 137-8, 261-2, 285, 338-9, 357, 359, 3830136, 42507 Pottle, Herbert L. 109

Pratt, Christopher 2 58 Pratt, Mary 2 58 Presbyterian College: see Pine Hill Divinity Hall

495 Index president's cottage 106, 117, 157, 164, 291 Prince Edward Island 6, 93, 98, 99, 139, 146, 221, 251; see also Charlottetown, PEI Prince of Wales College 119 Princeton University 7, 126 Progressive Conservative Party 165, 222, 317, 318, 424n220 Provincial Wesleyan: see Wesleyan Pulford, E.B. 258 Purdy, Margaret W. 405n124 Quebec 30, 102, 118, 239, 266, 267, 269, 277, 296, 317-18, 319-21, 338, 432n126, 433n131; see also Montreal Queen's University 4, 38, p, 171, 181, 206, 217, 329, 330 Rackham, George 29, 3 1 Radcliffe College 17 Ralston, J. L. 170 Read, Anne Louise 419n 153 Read, Robert C. 279, 3 15 refugees, from Europe 151-2, 189-90, 395n164 Reid, J .H.S. 308--9 research 135-7, 168, 187-8, 196, 244-5, 297, 339, 346, 360, 416n104 Robichaud, Louis J. 318, 32 5, 330 Robinson, Clifford W. 121, 165, 175, 178 Robinson, Howard P. 215 Ross, Victoria Burrill 86-7, 100--1, 110 Ross, William C. 70--1, 85-7, 98, 100--1, 104, 122-5, 146, 388n59 Ross Bay, NS 146 Roulston, Ellis N. 258, 304-5 Roulston, Maxwell L. 258, 305 Royal Bank of Canada 113, 121, 174, 226

Royal Canadian Academy 87, 197 Royal Canadian Air Force 156, 158, 164, 165 Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism 3 18 Royal Commission on Higher Education in New Brunswick (Deutsch commission), 329-30, 331-4 passim, 337, 350, 355, 357; report 320, 329, 334-5, 341, 344, 347 Royal Commission on National Development in the Arts, Letters, and Sciences (Massey commission) 237-40, 241, 415n81 Royal Conservatory of Music 126, 258, 302 Royal Microscopical Society 136 Royal Military College 238, 366n22 Royle, Stanley 126-7, 184, 197 Runciman, Doris S. 102-3, 198, 257, 3o3, 340, 346-7, 417n121 Ryan, Claude 318 Ryan, William 119-20 Sackville, NB 5, 19, 21, 22, 46, 47, 57, 89, III, 118-19, 130, 147, 157, 158, 166-7, 176, 188, 205, 225, 231, 248, 265, 278, 308, 317, 323, 325, 345, 354, 355, 404n108, 426n22; students from 43,112, 139;questionof removal of university from 49-5 2, 64-78, 88, 90, 93-5, 96, 97, 105, 106-7, 144-5, 379np; town-Mount Allison relations 92, 135, 164-5, 210--12, 213, 214, 223-4, 349-50 Sackville Post (Sackville, NB) 22, 158 Sackville Tribune (Sackville, NB) 5, 6, 9, 44, 46, 51, 52, 74, 92, 122, 128, 158, 203 Sackville Tribune-Post (Sackville,

496 Index NB) .208, .21 I-1.2, .276, .293, .294, 349 St Andrew's, NB .245, 346 St Dunstan's University 3.2, .276 St Francis Xavier University 1.2, 49, 64, .238, .239, .26.2, .263, .271; and university federation 53, 66, 67; extension department 105, 108, 1.25, 144, 146--8 passim; sports 110, .275, .276 St Hill, Leonard .266, .273 SaintJohn, NB 44, 63, 118, 119, 138, 147, 169, 17.2, 178, 179, .234, .237, 3.25, 33o, 33 1, 334 Saint john Globe (Saint John, NB) 19, 36 St John's, Nfld .264, .267 St Laurent, Louis .23er-1, .251, .281, 318 St Mary's University .26.2, .276 St Stephen, NB 93 St Thomas University .241, 334 Sanford, A.M. 55 Saturday Night (Toronto, Ont.) 154, 418n133 Saunders, Stanley .298 Sawdon, W.B. 15 3, .293, 304, 310, 31.2-15, 33o, 33 1-.2 scholarships and bursaries 11.2, 138-9, 141, .2.21-.2, 411n5 Sclanders, F. Maclure 147 Scotland 6.2, 114, 147, 356 Seaman, Louise V. 303 Sears, Job 164 Sedgewick, W.N . 179 Sharpe, D .R. 407n171 Shediac, NB 68, 174, 176 Sheffield, E.F . .280 Sills, Kenneth C.M. 14, 48-51, 53-4, 65, 67-9 passim, 77-8, 90, 140, .20.2, 356

Sims, J .A . .298 Skinner, G.F . .28-9 Smith, A.D. 7, 19, 13.2 Smith, Ella 155, .247, .250 Smith, George .266 Smith, O.E. 130, 131, 397n186 Social Democratic Party 324 social gospel .28-30, 32, 47, 55, 58-9, 61-.2, 64, IOI, 118-19, 143, 144, 150, 183, 194, 311, 333, 353, 361 Southam, H.D. 198, .244, .261, .263, 4i8n133 Sparling, Colonel 30, 3 1 Spencer, Edith 176 Spencer, F.G. 169 sports: see student life Sprague, Annie 17, .26, 110, 1.27, .290 Sprague, Howard 17-18, 19, .23, .290, 35° Sprague House .290 Sputnik .28.2, 329 Stallworthy, W.B . .251, .260, 339, 417n1.21 Stanley, Carleton 14er-.2, 39.2n1.23 Stanley, G.F.G. 137, 150, 155, 198, .247 Stanstead College 41, 55 , 57, 76 Stanway, Ross A . .298, .299, 339 Stewart, Charles 33 3 Stewart, Harriet Starr 3 59 Stewart, W.G . .216--17 Stewart Construction Company 118-19 Strothard, H.S.B. .234 Strothard, Josephine 419n 153 Stuart, Henry Harvey 30 student enrolment: numbers attending 3, 8, 9-10, 18, .2er-1, .24-5, .26, 46, 66, 76, 80, 83, 86, 97, 99, 104, 113, 1.23, 1.27-8, 140, 155, 156,

497 Index 168, 186-7, 188, 192, 200, 203-5, 221, 223, 253-5, 263, 265-6, 270, 286, 303, 317, 328-9, 333, 366076, 377nr6, 381095, 403085, 405nr36, 421nr81, 42mr90, 4230204, tables 18, 22, 29, JO, JI, ]2, JJ, 35; recruitment of students r 5-16, 66, 86, 98-9, 113, 140--1, 168, 221, 232, 267, 268; social origins 46, 76, 105, 108, 113-14, 143, 148, 254, 267-9, 321, 422nr97, 422nr98, 4320129, tables 21, 23, 24, 25, 28; geographical origins 64, 102, 112-13, 266-9, 319-21, 329, 338, 361, 432nr26, tables 22, 34, 35; religious affiliations 73, 190--1, 232, 234, 268, 327-8, 352, 4040108, 4220199, tables 19, 26, 27; debate on restricted enrolment 277-81, 283-9, 292-4, 302, 311, 316, 332-5, 336-7, 352 student life general discussion 25-36, 98-101, 109--12, 150--6, 183-9, 203-12, 2223, 271-7, 290--2, 321-9 - debating 32, 271, 273, 4230207; intercollegiate debates 10, 33, 1 II, 189, 273; model parliaments 222, 324-5 - disciplinary regulations 6, 2 5-6, 345, 85, 98, 99, 101, 128-9, 142, 188, 199, 207-8, 223, 229-30, 247, 271-2, 312, 323-4, 326, 412039, 412040 - drama 34-5, 101, 111, 129, 189, 273-4, 317, 372nr 38 - enlistment in armed forces 3, 4, 8, 9"-I0, 15-16, I8, 20--I, 155, 156, 167-8, 188, 366037 - initiation 34, 222, 223, 272-3 - religious life 99--101, 232-3, 313,

327-8; Student Christian Movement 29--30, 32, 150, 153, 189, 32 3 - residences 2 5-6, 84, 99, 157-9, r 64, 204-5, 271, 290--2, 348, 427026, 4370218 - segregation of sexes 35, 223, 270, 271-2; dancing 35, 100--1 - sports 8-9, 32-3, 36, uo--1 r, 129, 155, 189, 222-3, 274-7, 315-16, 320, 322, 424022 5 - student government 25, 34, 100, 188, 206, 209--12, 214, 223, 266, 272, 273,315, 323-~ 349 - student publications : Allisonia 3; Argosy 3-5 passim, 7, 8--9, 10, I 1, 15, 17, 21-2, 23, 26-35 passim, 35-6, 44, 45, 52, 210; Argosy Weekly 35-6, 38, 84, 92, 96, 99--101 passim, 109--12 passim, 115, u6, 134, 150--4 passim, 156, 164, 167, 185, 189--90, 193, 204, 206, 208-12, 213, 216, 222-3, 226, 271-7 passim, 281, 291-2, 300, 314, 317, 322-9 passim, 345, 350--1, 362, 427026, 4330136 summer programmes 63-4, 81, 138, 145-6, 205, 248, 262-5 passim, 287-9, 316-19, 432nr23 Summerside, PEI 6 Sussex, NB ro Swetnam, Dorothy r 26 Sydney, NS 44, 263

Tait, Allan 195 Tait, R.C. 117, 121, 174 Telegraph-Journal (Saint John, NB) I 16, 229, 249 theological education 17-19, 28-31, 47, 68-73, 75, 81, 89--90, 97, 101, 139,

498 Index 206, 23er-1, 268, 328, 353, 359, 369n96 Thomas Ernest 29 Thomas, H.E. 29, 52, 54, 67, 69-70, 75-6 Thomas, Lowell 108 Thompson, Sir John S.D. 230 Thomson, George H. 251, 260, 293, 427n35 Thorburn, H.G. 251-2 Time (New York, NY) 273 Times (London) 251 Tolmie, Murray M. 297, 331, 337, 345 Tompkins, J .J. 53, 66, 144 Toronto, Ont. 29, 55, 65, 76, 90, 98, 126, 157, 177, 179, 255, 258, 293, 357, 379n61; see also University of Toronto, Victoria University Toronto Conservatory of Music: see Royal Conservatory of Music Toynbee, Arnold 152 Trapp Family Singers 189 Trethewey, W.H. 132, 142 Tribune (Windsor, NS) 272 Trudeau, Pierre Elliott 318 Trueman, Albert W. 102-3, 111, 171-2, 237, 4oon33 Trueman, Alec 157 Trueman, George Johnstone 82, 104, 117, 144, 215, 228, 262, 392n117, 4oon43, 406n145, 41m21; assistant secretary of Methodist board of education 41, 47, 83; and university federation 51, 63-7, 74-81, 88-9, 379n51; appointment as president 54-5; personal background 57-8, 379n61; inaugural address (1923) 58-62; as president (1923-45) 63-8 passim, 71-81, 85, 88-93 passim, 95, 97, 99, 101, 103, 105,

107, 108, 112-14 passim, 118-19, 122, 125, 127, 131-2, 134-6, 138-43, 145-9, I 51-2, 157, 159, 164, 165-6, 172-6 passim, 177, 178-83 passim, 185-7, l9Cr-2, 196, 199, 20Cr-l, 203, 279, 283, 289, 305, 333, 353-6 passim, 361, 383n136, 384n158, 393n133, 394n135, 404n119; retirement (1945) 163, 168-9, 193; assessment 193-5; death 224-5 Trueman House 194, 204-5, 206, 213, 218, 291, 322 Truro, NS 12, 35, 110, 230 Tuck, James A. 244, 251, 299, 312, 347, 417n121 Tucker, Herbert 102-3, 137, 168, 179, 182, 186-7, 190, 203, 204, 234, 243, 244, 248, 25er-1, 260, 418n133 Tupper, Pat 325, 433n144 Turner, G.H. 308-9 Tweedie, Leora 236, 414n70 Tweedie, Mitchell 41on219 Tweedie, William Morley 4, 2er-1, 22, 3 I, 37, 39-40, 58, 102, 103, I 32-4, 141, 169-72, 193, 205-6, 225, 236, 297, 298, 346, 360, 39on95, 399n30, 404n119, 41on219, 414n70 Tweedie Hall 218, 264, 41on219 United Church of Canada 77, 86, 95, 123, 139, 145-6, 164, 170, 179-80, 190, 192, 202, 213, 221, 225, 227, 238-9, 240, 243, 283, 284, 285, 306, 323, 341-2, 343, 348, 353, 41on4; church union 42, 47, 68-75, 79, 94, 101, 125, 231; adherents of, among faculty 70, 134, 25er-1; grants to Mount Allison 72, 104, 149, 173, 33 5; Maritime Conference 72,

499 Index 119, 130, 144, 146, 178, 218, 226, 228-35 passim, 255, 278-81, 286, 289, 294, 302, 313, 314, 315, 333, 345, 352, 355, 435n177; relationship with Mount Allison questioned 93, 181, 183, 217-18, 313-14; General Council 217, 238, 280, 295, 345; financial campaign (1948-54) 217-18, 228-35, 236; Newfoundland Conference 233, 414n67; adherents of, among students 268, 270, 327-8, 341, 422n199; no longer appoints majority of regents 335-6, 361, 435n177; see also Methodist Church, theological education United Churchman (Sackville, NB) 91, 105-6, 119, 216, 228, 231-2, 233, 234, 280, 281 United Church Observer (Toronto, Ont.) 202, 230 United College, Winnipeg 280, 295, 425n241 United Nations Summer School 264-5, 42m186 United Theological College, Montreal 18, 150 U niversite de Montreal 3 18 Universite St-Joseph 12, 61, 149, 241-2, 317, 318 University Advisory Board 187 University Air Training Corps 184 University College of the West Indies 265 University federation 48-54, 64-9, 73-81, 88-9, 94-5, 354, 379n51; see also Carnegie Corporation of New York, William S. Learned, Kenneth C.M. Sills University of Aberdeen 133, 252 University of Alberta 345

University of Bombay 357 University of Bonn 152 University of British Colummbia 39, 198 University of Calcutta 357 University of California 299 University of Cambridge 136, 251, 260, 337 University of Chicago 303 University of Halifax 57, 65, 79, 354, 356 University of Kansas 38 University of King's College 12, 54, 67, 79, 94, 96, 140, 262 University of London 146, 221, 252, 356, 39m104 University of Madras 357 University of Manitoba 198, 251, 273, 280, 4oon33 University of Minnesota 198 University of New Brunswick 4, 12, 31, 96, 140, 221, 237, 262, 267, 310, 320, 323, 334, 4oon33, 43on89; sports 9, 32, 36, 110-11, 189, 275-6, 322; and university federation 53; engineering school 82, 185, 329; government grants 21 5, 241, 315, 330, 333; faculty salaries 243, 296 University of Oxford 50, 103, 206, 247, 337, 345 University of Pennsylvania 137 University of Reading 260 University of Rochester 287 University of Saskatchewan 95, 289 University of Sydney 357 University of Toronto 4, 7, 18, 27, 38, 50, 51, 136, 206, 245, 251, 280, 299, 302, 329, 399n30, 417n108 University of Western Ontario 246, 299, 417n108, 42m186

500

Index

University of Wisconsin 252 Upper Sackville, NB 60 Vaughan, Harold 335 Vesey, Maud Maxwell 87-8 veteran students 10, 22-3, 24, 27-8, 31-2, 163, 192, 198-9, 203-12, 218, 220---1, 222, 236, 265, 269, 406m56, 4060160, 41004

Victoria College: see Victoria University Victoria University, Toronto, Ont. 17, 18, p, 76, 90, 123, 132, 257, 280 Wade, Mason 3 18 Walker, Sydney Ann 275 Wall, Georgie M. 135, 37om11 Wallace, R.C. 181 Wardell, Michael 32 5 Watson, William G. 16, 23, 47, 69,

Wheeler, James 176, 293, 304, 314-15 Wheelock, Frank E. 5, 9 Whitehead, Alfred 206, 247, 258 Wigle, Hamilton 13, 17, 21, 83-5 Williamson, Douglas H. 252, 260, 345, 417m21

Windsor, Sidney A. 348 Windsor Foundation 348, 4370218 Windsor Hall 348, 4370218 Windsor, NS 272; see also University of King's College Winnipeg, Man. 15 3, 280, 295 Winters, Robert 293 Wolfville, NS 9, 275; see alsoAcadia University women at Mount Allison: women's education 6, 10, 21, 25-6, 83-4,

78-9, 140

123-4, 128-9, 188, 256-7, 269-70, 329, 358-9, 4220202, 429064, tables 29, 32; women on faculty 26-7, 134-5, 182, 250, 303, 347, 37om11, 402071 Wood, Josiah 5, 11, 17, 55, 56, 97-8, 350 Wood Lectures 97-8 Woodstock, NB 93

91, 354, 36o

World Wars, effects on Mount Allison : First World War 3-22, 23-4, 153, 156, 203, 354; Second World War 152-9, 163-96; see also admissions policies, conscription, refugees, veteran students Wright, James G. 224

71-2, 81,

I

19, 170, 225

Webster, John Clarence 68-9, 74, 75,

Weekend Magazine (Montreal, Que.) 257 Weeks, Ernest P. 111 Weldon, Alma Eliza 419m53 Wells, G.A. 399029 Wesleyan (Halifax, NS, and Sackville, NB) 4, II, 24, 46, 47, p, 55, 67, 77, Wesleyan Theological College: see United Theological College Wesleyan University, Connecticut 57, 287-9, 355

West, Frank L. 30---2, 38, 155, 198, 248,259,262,291,304, 34~ 4180133 West, William J . 165, 172-3, 217 West Indies 125, 265, 266, 275, 319 Westmorland County, NB 213 Wheeler, Ambrose 19 3

Yale University 126 Yarmouth, NS 35, 44 Young, Constance 125, 127-9, 181-2, 199-200, 202

Young, Harold 233, 240, 243 YMCA YWCA

29, 138 29