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THE UNIVERSITY
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UNIVERSITY OF ALBERTA, MAY, 1949
VOLUME VI NUMBER 2
Subscriptions $1.00 per year. Individual copies, 25 cents
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What’s Happening in... EDMONTON
Edmonton is the magic word in Canada to- day. Everybody wants to know what’s happen- ing in the oil, gas, coal, air, gold, wheat and educational centre of Western Canada.
And the answers are supplied by the Edmon- ton Journal.
In June, 1949, the Journal published over 1500 news stories about Edmonton, in addition to local Sports and Women’s News.
This volume of fact-packed, objectively writ- ten local news with editorial interpretation, explains why the Journal is the sixth most quoted paper in Canada.
To keep in touch with your friends, business and professional associates as well as all the activities here, be sure to read the...
Ldmonton Iourual
over 51,000 net-paid circulation
The New Trail
A quarterly publication of the University of Alberta and its Alumni Association
Editor: J. W. E. Markle
Associate Edttor: Edith Park. Business Manager: J. M. Whidden
Art Editor: H. G. Glyde Advisory Board:
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G. F. McNally Robert Newton Hon. Mr. Justice Parlee W. H. Swift Volume VII. May, 1949 Number II. CONTENTS
The Humanities in French Canada Monseigneur Vandry 6. 79 Planting the Window Boxes Georgina Thomson p. 84 Far From the Heart of Texas Freda Smith Mudiman p. 86 A Medical Miscellany E. P. Scarlett p. 89 South Africa, A Land of Many Races J. E. L. Peck p. 94 Induced Precipitation D. W. Perrie p. 100 Convocation Section ; p- 106 Whiskey jack (Section devoted to Friends) p. 124 Trail Blazers p. 126 Chipmunk (News of the University) p. 128 Alumni Notes p. 131 News from the Branches p. 137 Missing Alumni Records p. 141
Annual subscription to The New Trail is $1.00. If the subscriber is an alumnus of the University of Alberta, subscription is included in the annual membership dues of the Alumni Association. (See page 76.)
The Contents of this issue are copyright. Printed by the University Printing Department.
16
General Alumni Association
President—Barclay W. Pitfield "34. Past President—Dr W.H. Swift ’24, ’27, 30, Vice-President —Dr. A. C. McGugan ’29, Honorary Secretary-—G. B. Taylor ’23, ’25. Councidlors—Sonia Anhill ’47, Edmonton; Major W. R. N. Blair 42, Ottawa; Raymond Dixon ’40, 4A; Isador Goresky °29, ’45, Thothild; Boyne Johnston °47, Lethbridge; Dr. P. J. Kendal 36, Dental; T. C McBeath ’28, Winni- peg; D. P. McDonald 726, ’28, Calgary; Dr. R A. McEwen 739, Edmonton; Dr. A. H. McLennan °32, Medical; Ken Madsen °39, Toronto; Mary Moore ’43, Red Deer; A. Blair Paterson ’21, Victoria; E, H. Read 29, ’33, Drumheller; Eleanor Whitbread 47, Camrose; Ewart Stutchbury °22, °24, West-
lock. Permanent Secretary—J. W. E. Markle °37.
CALGARY: Chairman—D. P, McDonald, 201 Lancaster Bldg. CENTRAL ALBERTA: Pres —De. Wm. Parsons, Red Deer. Sec.—Violet Davidson, Red Deer. DENTAL ALUMNI ASSOCIATION: Pres—Dr. P. J. Kendal, 209 Tegler Bldg., Edmonton DRUMHELLER: Pres —J. F. Watkin, Drumheller. Sec.—J. E. Taylor, Drumheller. EDMONTON: Pres—-Neil C. McKernan, 3 Credit Foncier Bidg. Sec.—Elaine Forbes, 10950 84 Ave. LSTHBRIDGE: Pres-—-A. G. Virtue, Parkside Drive. See—Dr, Peggy O'Meara, 611 15 Se. S. Asst. Sec.—Boyne Johnston, 1502 14 Ave. S. MEDICAL ALUMNI ASSOCIATION: Pres.—Dr. E. Hitchin, 421 Tegler, Edmonton. See—Dr. C. R. Dobson, 214 McLeod Bldg., Edmonton. MEDICINE HAT: Pres.—Irene Lapp, 525B 4th Ave. NURSES’ ALUMNAE ASSOCIATION: Treas. — Carmen Wilson, 11131 88 Ave, Edmonton.
OTTAWA: Pres.—Jack Dewis, 364 Hamilton Ave. Sece—Mrs. J. W. O’Brien, 302 First Ave.
SMOKY LAKE: Pres—H A. Kostash, Smoky Lake. Sec.-Treas—J. C. Dubeta, Radway.
TORONTO: Pres —Kenneth Madsen, 130 Duchess See—Mrs R. R. Francis, 464 Winona Drive
TWO HILLS-DERWENT: Pres—M. H. Ponich, Two Hills. Sec.—Mrs. A, B, Young, Two Hills.
VANCOUVER: Pres—Dr. J. C. Grimson, 1611 West 54th Ave Sec.—Margaret Rea, 1375 Comox Street.
VICTORIA: Pres—A Blair Paterson, 301 Pemberton Bldg , 625 Fort St Sec —Murtel Knight, 1230 Rockland Ave.
WINNIPEG: Pres—Dr. E. W. Stringam, 173 Maplewood Ave Sec—Dr LD. Barnhouse, 140 Riverbend Crese , St. James 4A: Pres.—Raymond Duon, Provincial Dairy Branch, Parliament Buildings, Edmonton.
ALUMNI ASSOCIATION DUES (Including Subscription to The New Trail)
Alumni Association member, $1.00. Joint Membership, $1.50. Friends of the University, $5.00 up. Friends who are also Alumni members, $6.00 up. Life Membership, $25.00. Other subscribers to The New Trail, $1.00. Indicate your classification by marking X in the box opposite the one to which you belong.
Clip out and enclose with your cheque or money order to Business Manager, The New Trail, University of Alberta, Edmonton.
Date Signature
Address
qT
Editorial
TO THE MEMBERS OF THE MOST EXTRAORDINARY GRADUATING CLASS IN HISTORY
(Our History)
As this issue of The New Trail is to go to every member of the graduating class of 1949, we intended saying a rather formal and impressive “how-do-you-do.”
But when we found ourself confronted with the problem of fitting into one magazine material sufficient for two we decided that the editor’s page would have to be cut. So, we must just say a hasty but cordial greeting and hope that you will all make yourselves thoroughly at home.
Somewhere in the showers of invitations, congratulations and admonitions that have been descending on your weary heads, you may have heard the word “alumni.” It is no great cause for wonder if your jaded ears gave but little heed. But the fact is, that by reason of the magic word, all you promising new graduates have become members of convocation and, by the same token, alumni of the University
of Alberta.
In this new status it is your privilege to share with the graduates of former years mm the work of promoting the best interests of this great university. Everyone of you wants to have a hand in its further expansion and development and the very first step toward that end 1s to place yourself on the active list by sending in to the alumni office the annual dues. Full information can be found on page 76 of this issue and you do not need to be afraid to look. The association’s demands are very modest and we warn you, you will be agreeably surprised.
You have already received letters of welcome from Barclay Pitfield, the head of the alumni family. Please do not consider these as just so many more form letters. There are a great many of you and each letter was intended to be as personal as it could very well be. So do not wait for the alumni office to contact you. Bury it under an avalanche of letters, each giving full information about your present where- abouts and activities and enclosing dues for your first year as active alumni members.
Just one more word: the alumni association earnestly solicits your intelligent and steady support; the University needs your continuing participation in its growth and success and this humble editor wants in the worst way to put your names on the permanent mailing list of The New Trail.
So please make yourselves at home in your new family. We “oldsters” are proud to have you associated with us and hope that you will allow us to become intimately acquainted with you.
78
THE NEW TRAIL
The Editor, The NEW TRAIL.
Dear Sir: Incontrovertible evidence of the necessity of the Rutherford Library is provided by a pair of robins which
have built their nest over the east corner of the main
doorway. If housing accommodation is so scarce that these poor birds are forced to move in before the build- ing is completed, and to bring up a family in the midst of alarms and scaffolding, then we can hardly call the new Library a mere ornament or an idle luxury.
Sincerely yours,
F, M. SALTER.
The Incontrovertible Evidence
79
The Humanities in French Canada
(Address given by Monseigneur Ferdinand Vandry at the Annual Alumni Dinner, May 16, 1949)
It is difficult, if not impossible, for me to express at this moment the feelings in my heart, and the thoughts in my mind. I am highly honored to be here tonight, and still more honored by the fact that I shall be given tomorrow an honorary degree. The University of Alberta becomes my Alma Mater, and I pledge fidelity
to the Alma Mater that shall become mine tomorrow—as well as yours.
I am conscious, however, that the honor is for me a vicarious one; it is really for Laval University. I am confident that this generous gesture will bring closer together our two universities.
Canada has been built by the descendants of two nations rightfully proud of their respective cultures, France and England. Without repudiating in any manner the past, we, the French speaking Canadians together with the English speaking Canadians, wish to devote all our energies to the building of a united Canada, prosperous and rich, not merely in material goods but above all in spiritual wealth. To reach this goal, so worthy of our most persistent efforts, we think we must endeavour to develop the inheritance handed down by our French ancestors, an inheritance which we have jealously guarded and even enriched, despite the vicissi- tudes of fortune. ;
Now, ladies and gentlemen, when you examine the cultural inheritance of French Canada, you realize immediately that one of our most conspicuous wealths, one which has greatly contributed to assure the survival of our ethnical character, is the Graeco-Latin Humanities, that is to say, the disciplines which are at the core of our classical teaching. Never shall we over-estimate what we owe them. Until now we have been inviolably attached to them and they in turn have preserved us as we were at that very moment when the fortunes of war brought us under a new allegiance. They have been the keystone supporting the French structure of our mund and soul. And we wish to preserve them in their integrity, because we see in them a wealth which benefits the whole of Canada. We are firmly convinced that the forsaking of our language and traditions, two of the most precious jewels of our legacy, would be an infidelity, a treason to the past, and, at the same time, a lessening of the cultural wealth of Canada for the present and the future. The whole, indeed, 1s worth what the parts are worth.
But what is the source of this particular value of the classical humanities in imparting mental culture. It is to be found, first of all, in the face that our western civilization had Athens and Rome as its birthplace. Whether we will or no, we
The Alumni Association entertained the graduands of 1949 at the annual banquet in Athabasca Hall on the evening of May 16 Monseigneur Vandry, Rector of Laval University, was the guest speaker The following day Honorable Mr Justice Frank Ford presented the distinguished guest to the Chancellor for an honorary degree. Further details may be found in the Convocation section of this issue
80 THE NEW TRAIL
French-Canadians are Graeco-Latins in our way of thinking, in our conception of life and of the universe; whatever is best in the field of philosophy, eloquence, poetry, the drama, and even law, comes to us directly from the Greeks and the Latins. To renounce this source of intellectual life would be to repudiate the better part of our western civilization.
The value of the humanities arises also, from the consecration that time alone can give to the things of the mind. The unanimous homage paid in the past, and still today, to the language, the literature, and the philosophy of Greece and Rome, surrounds their teaching with a majestic stamp of impartiality and experience. When a professor expounds an ancient text before his students, he is on solid ground, for he is supported by the testimony of centuries; the infatuation or craze of the moment has nothing to do here. The cursory. reading of mere translation, however faithful, will never give more than a pale reflection of the original thought expressed for all time by the ancient author. Something of the ancient genius will be lost, that is to say, the manner of conceiving and expressing the thought. Why be content with a substitute when the rich and original product is at hand.
Above all, what an admirable intellectual gymnastic the ancient texts provide for students. The humanities aim more at forming than informing; their ideal is a mind well-formed rather than well-filled. The many hours spent, during five and even six years, in scrutinizing the beautiful texts of the greatest geniuses of antiquity will not be fruitless. Indeed something of their spirit, of their fineness of intellect, of their sense of shade in meaning, will insensibly pass into the mind of the student. Long after the Greek and Latin are forgotten the pupil will nevertheless retain a flexibility of mind, a deeply human manner of facing a problem. If it be true to say that there is nothing more useful, more practical than to have a well-formed mind, imbued with sanity of judgment, power of discernment and shades of thought, we must admit that there is nothing more practical than these dead languages, which, when intelligibly learned, communicate to the mind suppleness, flexibility, judgment and good taste.
Far be it from me to pretend that we alone in Canada and on this North American continent appreciate the humanities in this way. To think so, still more to say so, especially at this University where the importance given to the humanities is widely known, would be naive. I merely wish to stress the point that we French- Canadians have probably more motives than you for being attached to the humanities: they have served as a bulwark which has protected and kept us faithful to the past— to a tradition which for us constitutes an inestimable wealth.
Does this imply that we, in the Province of Quebec, refuse to adapt ourselves to the conditions of our modern world? Not at all. On the contrary, we are bent on preparing generations of Canadians who will work with intelligence and energy to develop the immeasurable resources of our country, to build industries, to exploit our forests, to seek in laboratories the hidden secrets of science. To be exclusive, we know, would spell our condemnation to a mean, poor life, without vistas or ideals.
However, in the hierarchy of values, we must surely all agree that the strictly spiritual values have to be put foremost: I mean the disinterested studies whose
THE NEW TRAIL 81
goal is to enrich the mind and soul of man, and not what is outward to him. To distinguish these studies which make a man more fully a man, the civilized nations have for centuries used and consecrated a fine expression. The Humanities, “h iores li ” as Ci h ltivated of all R Iled th
umaniores litterae” as Cicero, the most cultivated of all Romans, called them. Allow me to proclaim openly in this university assembly that these humanities have been for a long time the cornerstone of the scholastic formation of our secondary schools in Quebec, and our ambition is to preserve them.
In the Province of Quebec, primary schools are under the control of the Depart- ment of Public Education, while the secondary schools are under the control of the University. Apart from a few colleges which give a so-called modern teaching, there are more than fifty colleges of secondary level where the basic element of the curriculum is the traditional Graeco-Latin humanities, completed and crowned by two years of philosophical and scientific studies. Among these, twelve are colleges for girls offering courses of five or six years: the subjects which hold the pre- dominant place, besides religion, are Latin and Greek, the French and English languages and literatures; the most common exercises of the students are transla- gions of the ancient texts and literary compositions in French. Our students are obliged to take at least five years of Latin and four years of Greek.
In the past twenty years, scientific studies have obtained a fairly large place. The student who has successfully undergone two tests at the baccalaureate final examinations can proceed to any faculty of the University, thanks to his bachelor’s degree. Such is the place—a very large one as you will note—given to the Graeco- Latin humanities; five to six yeats out of a total of eight in the classical course.
A great idea was the basis of the establishment of this classical course, an idea which 1s being admitted more by those interested in higher education that it is not good to aim at a premature specialization. In our opinion, specialization belongs to the University proper. The classical course, under penalty of not being true to itself, must not aim at specialization. Its aim, indeed, is to form perfectly well- talanced students whose mental faculties will have acquired a suppleness, a power, a finesse which are the best preparation for specializing later on.
Undoubtedly this cult of the humanities leads us to require a long residence at the college before students can obtain a B.A. degree, and take specialized studies. But we believe that time has no respect for what is done without it. Moreover, a good general culture, faculties made flexible by literary exercises on ancient and modern texts, constitute the best recipe we have so far discovered to enable our students to reach more rapidly the fundamentals of things, the heart of the problems they will have to solve in life. We consider that this method is attended with more advantages than shortcomings. A well-balanced mind is without price; this equilib- rium of the mind is perhaps not to be obtained by the humanities only, we think, but they lead to it more certainly than any other system.
What benefit has the Province of Quebec, and indirectly the whole of Canada, reaped from such a conception of classical studies? Such is probably the question you would like to ask. I shall refrain, gentlemen, from advancing too far on notoriously slippery ground, but I cannot help, however, recalling that many French-
82 THE NEW TRAIL
Canadians, who have played a prominent role in building our country and who have largely contributed to make it what it is today, have nearly all been profoundly imbued with this culture grounded in the humanities. They are very interesting representatives of classical culture as we understand it; they constitute some of the wealth we have placed on the credit sheet of Canada and Canadian culture. Spiritual values have this particular quality, that one can share them with neighbours without impoverishing oneself. In giving them to Canada, Quebec has lost none of the glory these men shed far and wide. They have been an asset to Canadian culture, which they helped to make better known and appreciated. It is permissible to doubt that they would have been so, had they not possessed this human general culture acquired in their classical studies.
These leaders we have given to Canadian life are to be found in different spheres of activity. That is precisely the aim we must assign to the teaching of humanities. Our country needs leaders who can grasp out problems in their widest range, with all the ramifications and the consequences involved.
I must add that these leaders would be incomplete, nay, even dangerous to our nation, if they fail to bring about in themselves a synthesis of Christian and human :deals. Humanism must be Christian under penalty of being something deficient. It is never permissible to forget what enrichment, what improvement, the Gospel has lent to human wisdom. That is why we deem that the humanities, deeply
Part of the head table at the alumni banquet, May 16. From left to right: Barclay Pitfield, Monseigneur Vandry, Mrs. Bowen, Dr. McNally, Mrs. Swift, Hon. Ivan Casey, Mrs. Bowker, Dr. McDougall, Mrs. Lister, J. W. E. Markle.
—Garneau Studios.
THE NEW TRAIL 8&8
meditated upon and dispensed by believers, by convinced Christians, are the final word in the matter of integral culture.
And to complete still further their formation, our future bachelors are obliged, during the last two years of their classical studies, to submit to the rigorous disciplines of a profoundly rational philosophy borrowed from the human wisdom of Aristotle and brought into relation to Christian thought by the genius of Saint Thomas Aquinas. Such is the spiritual wealth we dream of bequeathing to Canada, our country.
In so far as it lies within our power, for the greater benefit of Quebec, and by the same token, of the whole of Canada, we would like to maintain at the core of our teaching these disciplines which have so well served our country so far. On the morrow of an upheaval such as the world has never witnessed, we do not wish to increase the general unrest. We prefer always to keep in mind the judgment of the eminent French historian, André Siegfried: “The men of today are running the risk of passing from a civilization of Greek and Christian inspiration, to a technical civilization of utilitarian inspiration, liable to destroy itself.”
Ladies and gentlemen, such are the Humanities through which we have guarded and enriched the cultural inheritance of French Canada. This French culture of ours, we do think, is an asset to Canadian culture. It is the reason why we intend to preserve it in its integrity. It is also the reason why the French-Canadians have to be so grateful to the University of Alberta for giving its support and encourage- ment to the colossal effort of Laval University to preserve and spread the French culture in Canada.
THE EMMA READ NEWTON COLLECTION
Mr. H G Glyde, Associate Professor of Art at the University of Alberta, has announced the acquisition by the University of fifty-five pictures donated by Dr Robert Newton, President of the University, and Mrs. Newton. These pictures form part of a colfection which Dr. and Mrs. Newton have been
building up over a number of years and represent the first instalment of a substantial group to be known as ‘’The Emma Read Newton Collection.’’
The selection includes works by William Johnstone, Alban Cartmell, Annora Brown, Dorothy Henzell Willis, Walter J. Phillips, Sarah M. Robertson, Eric Freifeld, Herbert J. Finn, Solveig Stadheim and André Jacques.
This excellent collection will be eventually housed in the new Rutherford Library.
Planting the Window Boxes
By Georcina H. THomson
I have a profound admiration for the systematic methodical people who always get things done at the right time, decently and in order; the sort who have their Christmas cards addressed and stamped a month ahead of time, instead of feverishly writing greetings at two in the morning the day before the feast. Yet I often think these orderly folk miss a great deal at that.
Tonight, for example, at a time when most people were resting from their day’s labours, sitting on their front porches, or, the evening being a bit cool, by their firesides, listening to their favorite programs, I began my annual task of filling the window boxes for the summer. Since they are the stationary kind, the work all had to be done in the front yard in full view of passers-by.
Assembling my loam, pots of geraniums and baskets of annuals, I began the delightfully mucky job, so reminiscent of the mud pies of our childhood. Whiffs from the nearby lilacs came to me as I worked. The commissionaire stopped at the gate, admired the lilacs and discussed judicially the business of filling window boxes, before resuming his patrol.
Two sea cadets came in to sell me a ticket to their ball game. I took it in my grimy hand and tiptoed in on my earthy shoes to get them their quarter. A neighbour came out and we talked back and forth across the fence as I worked, beginning with the lateness of the spring, and arriving somehow at the probable origin of the Baptist church, and the respective merits of the doctrine of election and the belief in freedom of will and the power of choice. It was growing late and the mosquitoes were getting bad so my neighbour left the question of pre- destination unsettled and went inside.
I finished putting in the geraniums and started on the trailing lobelia and the schysanthus. The neighbour’s black cat, Rochester, slipped stealthily through the bushes nearby, setting forth on some mysterious feline business. Everything was very still and the scent of the lilacs quite heady. The moon was well up in the sky now with one large bright star (would it be Venus?) in attendance.
“That,” I thought, “is a star-dogged moon,” and I said over to myself the lines from Coleridge’s “Ancient Mariner” the weird magic of which even the teaching to successive years of high school students could not dim:
One after one by the star-dogged moon, Too quick for groan or sigh,
Each turned his face with a ghastly pang, And cursed me with his eye.
Miss Thomson's experience with her window boxes has helped us to make up our mind We shail do our own planting this year. Last spring we were too busy or too tired or too—— well, anyway we had our boxes done at a greenhouse and it wasn’t half as much fun os mucking around ourself. We scarcely hope to capture the measure of content that Miss Thomson did, but we think it worth a try.
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A dark object came circling through the air on busy wings. I thought at first it was a bird, but ‘soon recognized it for a bat. I watched it with some sus- picion, wondering why we always feel a faint shudder go over us at the sight of this harmless little creature, whereas we watch almost any kind of bird with delight. There must be some old primitive taboo connected with it, or perhaps just the fem- inine fear of mice carried over to their winged brothers.
It is now almost dark. Two returning neighbours bid me good-evening as they pass, and probably think me slightly “teched” to be planting window boxes by moonlight. I fill the watering can with vitamin B1 solution and give the plants a good soaking, sweep off the walk, gather up my tools and go into the house, leaving the moon and the bat, Rochester and the geraniums outside.
A pot of tea and generous slabs of bread and butter and marmalade taste very, very good. Then a glance at the headlines in the paper and so to bed, well content with my belated planting.
Mr. and Mrs. Steve Holowaychuk of Chipman, attend the graduation of their daughter, Tillie, May, 1949. This is the seventh graduation ceremony these proud parents have attended. : —Garneau Studios.
‘
Far from the Heart of Texas
By Freva SmitH Mupiman
In the early years of this century, all but one of the pioneer settlers in the extreme southeastern corner of Alberta were from Texas. Who were these people, and why had they come so far to establish homes in a new land?
The forebears of these Texas ranchers had driven their cattle from the eastern and southern states onto the grasslands of the Lone Star State. And now they, in turn, set off on a trek that took them across New Mexico, to Nebraska, to the Indian Territory and up the Long Trail to Canada. Like the herdsmen of Biblical times they had to follow the grass.
The cattle were shipped by rail to some point in Montana and then trailed to Sage Creek, near Wild Horse Lake, in what was then the North West Terri- tories. Here the ranchers pre-empted hay meadows and settled down. For they had found grass—good grass. One of them later said that in his forty-five years as man and boy on the cattle trails of America he had never seen such fine grass.
The families of these Texas ranchers crossed the plains in covered wagons, climbing all the time and heading westward into the unknown, for to them Canada was but a large white empty space on the map. Soon after they arrived, log houses were raised at a “bee.” Materials for the houses were brought down from the Cypress Hills some sixty miles to the north.
Sites for the homes were chosen so that the families might have company in the lone land. Open house was the order of the day and the latch-string was always out for a neighbour, or itinerant cowboy, or the Police Patrol. If there should be an overflow, a guest rolled himself up in a home-made quilt and retired behind the kitchen stove.
Cook-stoves had come in the covered wagons, but heaters were few and far between. This is a treeless land and coal had to be freighted in from Havre, Montana. In the severe winter of 1903 the coal supply ran short and the ranchers in desperation, stripped soil from the banks of the Milk River and found an underlay of domestic coal.
Other economic problems were not so easily solved and when the fall work was done up the men felt they had to “go out and work for wages.” So the women were left alone. In bad weather, the cover of the box over the well froze down; the coal bin was snowed under; they had to put small children back into bed to keep them warm—but they managed.
At first the people were too busy to have any social life, but as they became established the men were able to remain at home, and there wete some community gatherings.
We are indebted to the Lethbridge Herald for permission to reprint this delightful bit of Albérta history. The writer, Mrs Freda Smith Mudiman, graduated from this university in 1926 with @ B.Sc. in Arts. Before her marriage she taught in high schools of Alberta and managed at the same time to keep an interested eye on the early history of Southern Alberta. Now she has on R.C.M.P. husband and some children to look after, but continues to do quite a good
deal of writing.
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The most popular social events were the dances. These were held at the various ranch houses in turn. The hostess supplied sandwiches and coffee and the guests brought cakes. Neighbor women gathered a day ot two ahead of time, to lend a hand with the preparation, in true Southern style.
On the evening of the dance a four-horse team was hitched to a sled and driven around to gather up everyone within a radius of twenty-five miles, literally everyone, for the babies were “bedded down” in a safe corner before the festivities began. The music was supplied by a fiddler, a mouth organ, or “a squeeze box.” Dancing went on until dawn; then beefsteak was fried and the guests breakfasted before returning home. There was no liquor at the dances in those early days.
A few times a year the men set off for supplies. They went either to Medicine Hat, Alberta, or Havre, Montana. Their shopping was confined to machinery and groceries, so the women continued to wear the clothes in which they had come into the country.
Canned milk and bacon, flour and tomatoes, dried fruit and chicken feed were brought home. Canned milk and bacon—for no self-respecting Texas rancher would be seen milking a cow or feeding a “hawg.”
The mainstay of their diet was beef—good, fat beef—and the men maintained that the country would grow nothing but grass. However, a few cherished seeds had been brought from Texas, were planted, and grew. So fresh vegetables appeared on the range. Once in a sack of chicken feed from Medicine Hat, a woman found what appeared to be some kernels of corn. She hopefully planted them and from those few seeds came all the subsequent roastin’ ears on Sage Creek.
Now that their families had a more varied diet, the mothers’ attention was turned to the matter of education. The government, when petitioned, said that there were not enough children to warrant the establishment of a school in that remote district. This pleased the children, and also the single ranchers, who protested that having a school would raise the taxes.
But when Providence sent a rancher with seven children of school age, the Department of Education agreed to furnish materials and one carpenter if the rest might be accomplished with local labor.
There was some dispute over the location of the building, but a central spot was chosen and the work begun. While faithful fathers shovelled gravel and mixed cement, the bachelors hauled water or languidly handed boards and nails to the carpenter.
Soon after this a trading post was built across the Border and designated as a Post Office. With a school and Post Office, civilization had caught up with the Texans.
It was these people who introduced into Alberta the successful ranching methods of the South. They were good riders, good ropers, and good company. They enriched the vocabulary of the range with the nomenclature of their trade. They had a dry humor, soft voice and a delightful turn of phrase.
88 THE NEW TRAIL
The Texans have gone from Sage Creek—some to other fields of endeavor—
some to more comfortable surroundings in their declining years—some to their eternal rest.
_ But the wind that wanders over southeastern Alberta still murmurs with a Texas drawl.
St CCC CC CC
Dr. Ernest Wilson Sheldon, professor emeritus at the University of Alberta, demon- strates the fine points of his new brief case. Dr. Sheldon will leave in August for Wolf- ville, N.S., where he will assume the duties of interim professor of mathematics and acting head of that department at Acadia University. The brief case is a gift to Dr.
Sheldon from his colleagues in the department of mathematics of the University of
Alberta. —kKensit Studio.
THE NEW TRAIL 89
A Medical Miscellany
From the Commonplace-Book of a Medical Reader
By E. P. SCARLETT Personal History
The recent publication of a little book* giving the patient’s account of his disease is of great interest in adding still another to the lengthy shelf of books of this character. These “autopathographies” (if one may invoke medical terminology) provide a fascinating insight into the subjective aspects of disease. Apart from their clinical interest, they are moving records of aspects of life which readers usually obtain from the novelist writing at second hand through the medium of imagination. Here you have the immediate experience of a sensitive human being recounting his reactions to disease—the tragedy of his hopes, the way in which he faces the inexorable fate which has overtaken him, the response to the ultimate challenge.
The book before us, prepared by the late Dr. Firth, is based on an interesting manuscript found in London some eight years ago. The author Sir Augustus d’Esté was the son of the Duke of Sussex, sixth son of George III, and he sets down a detailed account of his own complaint—disseminated sclerosis which ended fatally. Besides its valuable information of the medical customs of the period, the story is remarkable in providing one of the earliest known accounts of the disease. Charcot who gave us the first comprehensive description of the disease wrote later in the century, and it was not until the nineties that knowledge of the condition was extended to the profession at large and only slowly then.
This very human document of d’Esté’s brings to mind at once a remarkable book, The Journal of a Disappointed Man, by W.N. P. Barbellion, published in 1919 and now something of a minor classic. My own copy, one of the most prized books in my library, was published in London by Chatto and Windus. I am delighted to see that it is being reprinted this year by Penguin Books (No. 674), for previously it could only be picked up on second-hand book stalls. The man who called himself Barbellion was Bruce Frederick Cummings, a young science student of brilliant intelligence who developed the first signs of disseminated sclerosis at the age of twenty-nine and died from the disease nine years later. The Journal is the personal account of the travail of his soul.
“I am only twenty-eight,” he wrote in one of the moving extracts in this diary, “but I have telescoped into those few years a tolerably long life: I have loved and
*The Case of Augustus d’Esté, by Douglas Firth, MA., MD. (Contab ), F.R.C P. (London), Cambridge University Press, 1948.
The Calgary Associate Clinic, comprising an imposing array of specialists in pretty nearly every phase of medical science, publishes a most interesting quarterly booklet. In the February issue of this Clinic Historical Bulletin, we found what we thought was a most fascinating article by E, P. Scarlett, whose name heads the Medicine and Diagnosis list on this clinic’s letter-head. We are grateful to Dr. Scarlett for permission to reprint this for readers of The New Trail. By the way, Dr. Scarlett is a member of the Board of Governors of this university.
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married, and have a family: struggled and overcome, and when the hour comes I shall be content to die.” But this man who chose to call himself Barbellion will never die in the minds and hearts of thousands of men and women who have drawn inspiration from his writings and who find in him the tormented but victorious soul of one who was a modern like as we are.
There is a task long over-due for some medical man—scholar and humanist— who has not been warped by the Freudian categories to make a study of those books which have been written by individuals who have set down the account of their slowly enveloping disease. If such a man could bring to the task something of the jncandescence of mind shown by a writer like Sainte-Beuve, what a magnificent study it would be! There come to mind such books as Hans Zinsser’s As | Remem- ber Him, Marie Bashkirtseff’s Journal, fragments of Jonathan Swift’s writings, Flaubert’s November, William Ellery Leonard’s Locomotive God, Seabrooks’s Asylum, De Quincey’s Confessions of an English Opium-Eater, and John Keats’ Letters. There is a rich harvest here waiting to be gleaned and one which would have significance far beyond prosaic and pedestrian medical circles.
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The Lost Art of Walking
Physicians as well as students of the customs of today lament the decline of the noblest of all forms of healthful exercise, walking. As the means of rapid trans- portation have increased, our walking capability has dwindled, almost to the vanish- ing point. And with this decline has gone not only a stimulating form of exercise, but also a noble art and a traditional propensity to thought of a reflective nature, for walking of the right sort stirs up brain and muscle alike. Indeed formulated medicine had its beginning among Greek philosophers who walked and talked and meditated; some of them came to be known as Peripatetics. But today so little peripatetic are we that it comes as a shock to be reminded that the employ- ment of the legs in the business of walking has been a prime means of creating philosophy and giving the necessary fillip to man’s sluggish urban-conditioned brain.
This reflection has been suggested by reading during the recent holiday season Charles Dickens’ immortal account of Christmas at Dingley Dell. The Pickwick group set out with Mr. Wardle and his companions for a walk after breakfast, and the narrative reads: “At dinner they met again, after a five-and-twenty mile walk, undertaken by the males at Wardle’s recommendation, to get rid of the effects of wine at breakfast.” It is quite casually set down with no suggestion that the length of the walk was at all exceptional. What a sensation would be caused today if a guest at the dinner-table announced that he had just come in from a twenty-five mile walk! Such an achievement would be a nine days’ wonder.
Which reminds us that our ancestors of the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries were indeed stout walkers. Wordsworth, Coletidge and De Quincey often covered forty miles in a day. One of the most stirring sentences that I know of is from Dorothy Wordsworth’s Journal written during a visit to Dorset: “There was fine walking on the hills in the direction of the sea.” Thomas Carlyle was a
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mighty walker, and in that downright fashion of his would cover a distance from Muirkirk to Dumfries in a day—a good fifty-four miles. One could soon assemble a long line of famous walkers beginning with the Greeks and the Romans, to Thoreau, greatest of this hemisphere’s pedestrians, and ending with Mr. Hilaire Belloc, who is perhaps the most famous walker of our own time.
I recall that Mr. Christopher Morley, celebrating in vigorous fashion the act of walking as a means of glorifying the ways of God to man, challenged the medical profession—the sober Faculty—in this way:
Away with the stupid adage about a man being as old as his arteries!
He 1s as old as his calves—his garteries.
* * s
This Writing Business
Call it what you like—avocation, hobby, what one does with his spare time— the question comes very near the head of the list when you start to assess the business of living. It is of prime importance for the man of medicine whose margin of leisure is small, and who, as often as not, has to fight for it. The physician is a human being as well as a doctor, and he has to get satisfaction out of life as well as a living. If he is wise he will fill his hard-won bit of leisure with interests wider than his vocation, things which keep his mind alive and keep him in touch with other aspects of the world. He may do this in one of several ways—the various forms of art, natural history (and here the older generation of physicians shows the way), sport such as “huntin’ and fishin’,” riding or golf, or just plain collecting, always bearing in mind-that the last may become a mania. Writing as a means of enjoy- ing leisure time is seldom mentioned in any list of hobbies. That in itself is a curious thing. I suspect that writing is still regarded in most masculine circles as something of a secret vice, the province of strange folk called journalists or even more dubious people called authors. It may be respectable enough, but hardly the thing for the North American male who likes to think of himself as practical and red-blooded and a rough, downright fellow, (so the argument goes) .
Now there seems to me to be something less than honesty in this point of view, for after all we in this age live in a world of print, and the people who produce that print, far from being inconsiderable eccentrics, have an importance of the first magnitude. Nor is it as far-fetched as it sounds to suggest that medical men might cultivate the writing hobby. For in point of fact they do plenty of writing, more than any of the other professions. To judge by medical literature most physicians like having a shot at authorship. (Editors of medical journals would say too many.) If this itch to write is so prevalent in the profession why confine it to medical and scientific jargon? The average man can have just as much fun writing about fishing or his adventures or even himself as in writing in the narrow and stiff categories of medical diction about heart disease or fractures, particularly when most of what he writes in the medical way comes from the literature which has already gathered about the subject like some great coral reef, and to which he adds only a minute deposit, and not always that. Scientific writing may exercise the intellect, and it should breed humility. Writing outside the medical canon can
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do both these things, but at the same time it gives free expression to the imagination, for here “the world is your oyster” and you can travel where you will without con- sulting the “references” that stand like grim sentinels and sober guarantees of respectability at the end of every medical article.
The medical man who finds pleasure, or more frequently an indefinable mixture of pleasure and pain, in stretching his pia mater by writing outside the confines of medicine has the satisfaction of knowing that he is working in the line of a great tradition. For physicians have made a notable contribution to the world’s literature. There is no need to call the roll, a noble list which extends from Sir Thomas Browne to Robert Bridges, the late poet-laureate of England. In our time names come crowding in—Osler, Clifford Allbutt, Stephen Paget, Thayer, Cushing and Humphrey Rolleston. All these men were practising physicians whose leisure expended in writing added to their stature and gave them greater command of their vocation. They exhibited that paradox so difficult for the Puritan-minded of most of our profession to grasp that the secret of success is to do a job effectively with a minimum of labour. Nowhere more than in medicine is there danger of allowing the routine element of the work to get the upper hand, to proceed on the principle that the more work one puts into a thing, the better it is, and to forget that one may put too much work into a job, but not too much intelligence which insists on periods of leisure when the mind can be free to fare abroad and not be choked by the soul-destroying routine which makes the individual a plodding drudge.
The average busy man of medicine may ask how it is possible to do any con- structive writing in a medical world that makes such infinite demands on him. The simple answer is that it is being done on every hand around him. Consider the example of three London surgeons. Mr. Wilfred Trotter, Surgeon to the king, whose book The Instincts of the Herd in Peace and War is a classic of modern philosophy and whose recent death was a great loss to British medicine; Mr. Ken- neth Walker, who has several notable books in autobiography to his credit; Mr. Geoffrey Keynes, who has made himself the world’s leading authority on the poet, William Blake. Beside these there are scores of lesser lights, and beyond them again a legion of scribblers writing about all sorts of things in journals and news- papers and privately printed pamphlets.
The fact of the matter is that physicians are pretty much of a writing breed, and in suggesting writing as a doctor’s hobby we are merely putting the seal of approval upon what many are doing already, albeit that not a few seem to be
hiding their light under a bushel.
What is more, physicians as a class have an unique experience upon which to draw. They are closer to human nature than any other people. Professional writers have often told me that they prefer to read the non-professional writing of medical men. They recognize its “grip”, for it is in close touch with life and is usually tempered by the discipline of a scientific training. Recently a well-known English novelist stated that the best possible training for a young man anxious to write novels is a medical course. So there seems to be no lack of encouragement for the seasoned medical man who wishes to try, his hand at writing. What the profession
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is capable of doing in a casual way in this respect may be seen in the section which appears each week in The Lancet entitled “A Running Commentary) by Peripatetic Correspondents” in which physicians write on every subject under the sun, and most of it is writing of a surprisingly high order.
How to go about it? Two sentences from the letters of the late Lord Tweeds- muir, better known to the world as John Buchan, hint at the answer. “I am writing a book. I could not help it,” he says in one place. And again: “I find, as 1 grow older, that I write more and more to please myself and my friends, and I think of nothing else.” In other words, write about anything, but keep at it; and write to please yourself, and not some set of rules.
Writing can be a rewarding pastime for the hobbified physician (may his number increase!). He has the joy of creation in a task which he is doing for the sheer love of the business. So employed, he is that most happy and glorious of individuals—an amateur (as G. K. Chesterton once pointed out, in this particular sense, God too is an amateur). Writing creates quietness of thought from which comes strength and resolution. It provides a clearing house in the mind and soul of a man where impulses are ordered and adjusted and serenity of spirit achieved in spite of the restless and clamouring world about him.
The 1949 graduation ball at the ‘’Mac’’. —Garneau Studios.
South Africa, a Land of Many Races
By J. E. L. Peck
The Union of South Africa is the land of my birth and upbringing. That is my justification for this attempt to discuss the problems which the various races here face in their relations one with another. Though they may appear to be only local problems, they are actually manifestations of those which face all countries of the world, in some form or other. To the solution of these problems the man in the street applies the prejudices he has received from his parents or the clichés he hears from his neighbours, but such hardly form a basis for a sane development of our inter-racial relations.
The Union of South Africa is a federation of four provinces: the Cape Province, extending across the coastal range of mountains; Orange Free State, a high plateau of four to five thousand feet; Transvaal, an extension of the plateau to the north, and Natal, the garden province. It is a land beset with many problems, geographical and racial: it has no navigable rivers and no lakes. Hordes of members of the negroid race have poured into the land: the Hottentots, the Xosa, the Bushmen, the Zulus, the Swazi, the Basutos. Every province has its share.
The Dutch first arrived at the Cape in 1652. Then came some French Hugue- nots, making such names as de Villiers, le Roux and du Plessis common among the Afrikaans. Malays also settled at the Cape and later came the English who brought the Indians from India. The population of the Union now is: European (whites) 2,373,000, Bantu (blacks) 7,806,000, Coloured (mixed) 905,000 and Indians 283,000. Thus, the Bantu form 70 per cent of the population, and supply the’main source of unskilled labour in the Union. Some of them, through their association with European civilization have become doctors, lawyers and teachers. The Afrikaans, who form one half of the white population, are descendants of the Dutch and Huguenot settlers. They predominate in Orange Free State and have given to South Africa such great statesmen as Louis Botha, Jan Hofmeyer and General Smuts. The present cabinet is composed entirely of Afrikaans. The English are chiefly: settlers in the urban areas and are engaged in commerce, finance and industry. They predominate in Natal where there is a large settlement of Indians, brought over to work on the sugar farms. The coloured people are a mixture of white and black and'are found in all four provinces.
Thus South Africa is confronted with five pressing problems, all arising from the differerices of origin, culture and language of these various races. They are: (1) the relations between the English and the Afrikaans, (2) the differences
When we last heard from Mr. J E. L Peck, the author of this article on South Africa, he was taking classes in New Haven, Connecticut. The article is based on a lecture, complete with charts, illustrations and paraphenalia, which Mr. Peck gave at this university during the summer session of 1948. Somewhere along the way, these lesson helps were mislaid and we régret that we are unable to reproduce them. But we make bold to say that we think the article loses little of its significance by their absence. . ,
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between the whites and the Bantu, (3) the problems involving the whites and the coloured people, (4) the rivalries between the coloured folk and the Bantu, and (5) the now strained relations between the English and the Indians.
The differences between the two white races are rapidly disappearing. The language of the Afrikaans (also called Afrikaans) has become one of the two official languages. It is developing a fine literature of its own and although the language of commerce is English, all government publications are printed in both languages. Naturally the Afrikaans nurse their new language with tender care. The Provincial Education Departments are leaning more and more to the policy of establishing what are called Dual Medium Schools, in which instruction is given in both languages alternately. Tests conducted by Dr. Malherbe have shown in recent years that there is definite evidence of a decrease of racial discrimination as the standard of education increases. A few generations should see the end of all antagonism between the two white groups. After all there is no difference in the colour of the skin and colour seems to be the chief cause of social differences in South Africa.
This brings me to the relations between the white and the black people, or more specifically between the whites and the Bantu, for I shall use the term black to refer to the Bantu and the Indians. This relationship is mainly one of master and servant and is reflected in the fact that the Bantu have no vote. They are, however, represented to a certain extent in parliament by four special members who are chosen by parliament for their particular knowledge of Bantu affairs. These members, who are white men, are able and high principled, but as one may imagine they are not able to accomplish much.
Most of the Bantu live in reserves, which are areas set aside for their exclusive occupation, much the same as the Indian reservations of Canada. Some are squatters on the lands belonging to the white farmers and pay rent by supply- ing the farmer with labour. In this way the farmers have had an abundant supply of cheap labour, but many of them are now complaining that their labour supply is dwindling. This is mainly due to the migration of the Bantu towards the towns. A recent government commission has made a study of this migra- tion to the urban areas and has discovered that it has not been confined to the Bantu. In fact the migration of the other races has been proportionately higher, although the greater number of Bantu in the rural areas causes their migration to be more apparent. The rapid rise of the number of Bantu, in or near the towns, has caused an acute housing difficulty, for the increase has been so rapid that proper housing cannot keep pace with it. Thus we find settlements like Alexandra, on the outskirts of Johannesburg, comprising 50,000 Bantu, more than the population of Saskatoon, but with inadequate housing and civic amenities. The housing difficulty is further complicated by the fact that the Bantu are excluded from the trade unions, so that very often houses are built for Bantu occupation by white labour at a cost greater than the Bantu can afford. These anomalies are a source of annoyance, apart from the fact that they are unjust.
There is a strict segregation. In the trains there are three classes of travel. In general the black people travel third class, while the white people travel first
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or second. If a black person wishes to travel first, he can do so but must occupy a special compartment of the coach which is first marked “reserved.” In public transport in cities there are generally certain seats set aside where black persons may sit. In Durban they are the last three seats in the upper deck. Restaur- ants do not serve black people and hotels do not accommodate them. Public counters at post offices often have separate sections for white and black. Theatres do not admit black persons except those which cater for them exclusively, while if they attend public meetings or concerts in public halls they are generally in a section apart. Domestic servants are invariably housed in a separate outhouse, and not under the same roof as the employer. It is not the custom to make way for a black man on the sidewalk, for by long tradition he will instinctively make way for you. No churches practise segregation as part of their creed except perhaps the Dutch Reformed Church, but it usually happens that congregations are segregated. Those who have attended an inter-racial service, where all races do attend, can testify that it is an uplifting experience.
In most cities the Bantu are required to carry on their person certain papers, known locally as passes, and must be able to produce the papers on request ot be liable for imprisonment. These passes take the form of either a tax receipt, or an employment registration receipt, or simply a note from the employer explaining why his servant is out late at night. This system is in use in an attempt to curb crime in the cities, but is naturally much resented by the Bantu people.
The Bantu labourers in towns are mainly migratory. The house servants which my father employs, for example, seldom stay longer than six months, for their homes are about fifty miles from the city and their families do not migrate with them. There are far more men than women in the towns. It is thus not surprising that the high moral standards which the Bantu are known to have in their primitive culture, deteriorate when they come to the large centres. In fact, a very successful novel called “Cry the Beloved Country” has just been published in the United States about this tragedy. It is written by a sincere South African who is the principal of a reformatory for Bantu boys.
Apart from the problem created by the black people in the towns, let us examine the problem they create by leaving the reserves. Between the ages of 21 and 34 more than half of the male population of the reserve is absent working in the towns. This reserve is thus deprived of its vigorous manpower. One cannot expect agriculture to proceed at a rapid rate if the cultivation is left to women, old men and children, nor is it right that fathers should be away from their families for months or even years at a time. A recent government commission has strongly condemned this system of migratory labour, and it is to be hoped that its recommendations will be heeded. The gold mines are the chief offenders in this respect, for they have always depended on the cheap labour drawn from the reserves. It is to be hoped that they will eventually discover the advantage of a stabilized labour force.
What is the feeling of the black man? This is a difficult question to answer, but I think it is true that there is a growing resentment on the part of the Bantu
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toward the indignities which they must suffer, a resentment which is encouraged by the recent agitation of the Indian population. There will come a time when the white population will have to face it squarely.
What is the feeling of the white man? Perhaps one can say that there is a fear that they will be overwhelmed by the large numbers, though I doubt that any South African would consciously admit it. There is, however, a certain fear of economic competition from the black people with their lower standard of living. This fear is reflected in the fact that the Bantu may not belong to the trade unions. But these generalizations are dangerous. It would be more profitable to examine some statistics on this point.
In May, 1944, the Army Education Services carried out an interesting survey on racial attitudes amongst a sample of 7,000 persons of the Union Defence Force. Soldiers were tested on their reactions to allowing the Bantu more political rights, more economic advantages, and more education. The results showed clearly that those with more liberal views usually have a higher standard of education. How- ever, one might bear in mind that persons with more éducation usually have better jobs and can afford to be liberal. Though this may be a partial explanation for this reaction, I find it difficult to believe that it is wholly responsible. I would like to think that the analysis proves that the road to better racial relations lies with more education. As an indication of the attitude of Young South Africa it is significant that the War Memorial of the Union Defence Force, to which South African soldiers subscribed, is to take the form of a National Health Foundation with the object of practising preventive medicine amongst the people in the reserves.
What about the relations between the white people and the Indians who live mainly in Natal? As I have mentioned before, the Indians were brought to Natal by the white settlers to work on the new sugar farms of the Natal coast. The Bantu were considered too lazy and therefore not suitable. The Indians came on the indenture system, i.e., they were to work for a period of five years, after which they were given the choice of a free passage back to India or a plot of land. Finding themselves in a land of opportunity and free from the caste system which they had known in India, it is not surprising that most of them stayed and took their plots of land. In fact, of the first thousand male adults which arrived in 1860, more than half had bought their freedom before their indenture term was complete. Now, only four per cent of the Indians in Natal are employed on the sugar farms and are outnumbered in this labour by the Bantu in the ratio of six to one.
Most of them set up as petty shopkeepers or market gardeners. In fact, they supply, practically all the vegetables to the cities of Pietermaritzburg and Durban. In 1885 there was a depression in Natal. The Indians with their lower standard of living were able to undersell the white people, and so the agitation against the Indians began. Many attempts to induce them to return to India failed. An attempt to place a fine on those who stayed was overridden by the Imperial Gov- ernment, but the colonists did succeed in imposing immigration restrictions, and
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by 1897 in depriving the Indians of the franchise which they had enjoyed. How- ever, by 1911, 142,000 Indians had been imported from India. Even the offer in 1927 of a free passage and a bonus of $80 per adult and $40 per child was not sufficient to induce them to return.
Thus it continued until about five years ago when the fires of racialism were again fanned by the breeze of economic and social competition. Considerable con- “cern was expressed by the white people in Natal at the extent to which the Indians had in recent years acquired property and established residence in predominantly white areas. With their lower standard of living the Indians had succeeded in trade, commerce and agriculture where the white people could not compete with them, and had made their presence felt economically in steadily increasing measure. Some of the Indians had amassed considerable wealth and had bought residences and business properties in what had been regarded as exclusively white areas.
In connection with the rate of growth of the Indian population the following figures are interesting. In 1943, the crude birth rate of Indians in Natal was over 44 per thousand (which is*’about equal to the rate in India) as against 26 per thousand for white people. The Indian death rate was 19 per thousand( in India it is 34) as against the white death rate of 10 per thousand. The Asiatic natural increase rate was thus 25 per thousand as against the white rate of 16 per thousand, so that even with its higher mortality rate, the Asiatic population is reproducing itself at a much higher rate than are the white people. Using these figures to- gether with the population figures, it involves only a sort of compound interest calculation to discover that the Indian population will overtake the white popu- lation in about six years.
The investigation of the so-called Indian Penetration in Durban has formed the subject of many government commissions. In 1943 evidence of a commission showed that penetration was increasing at an alarming rate. In consequence the Government, beset with the difficulties of war, passed a temporary measure known as the Pegging Act, which was to prohibit the transfer of property between white and Indian, until such time as it could work out a scheme whereby racial feeling would be minimized. Accordingly, in 1946 the Asiatic Land Tenure and Indian Representation Act was passed. It gave the Indians a measure of tepre- sentation in Parliament, but restricted their purchases of property. The act estab- lishes areas in Pietermaritzburg and Durban and in other parts of Natal where Indians may acquire and occupy property, but it lays down that outside of these areas no transactions which involve the passing of property between white and Indian, in either direction, shall be lawful except under permit of the Minister of the Interior.
The Indians in Natal and the Transvaal are to be represented in the Senate by two senators, in the House of Representatives by three members, and in the Natal Provincial Council by two members; only the last named are permitted to be Indians. However, by an amendment of the new Government which has just come to power, all representatives must be white.
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As may be imagined, this act was not accepted by the Natal Indians. It had wide repercussions not only in the Union, but also abroad, the government of India giving notice to suspend the trade agreement between India and South Africa and withdrawing their diplomatic representative from the Union. Deputations of South African Indians flew to Britain and to India to gain support for their opposition to the bill, and the government of India lodged charges with the General Assembly of the United Nations that Indians in South Africa were being discriminated against and that as a result friendly relations between India and South Africa were likely to be impaired. Stories came back about clubs in India which displayed notices to the effect that South Africans were not admitted.
In Durban the Indians established a camp in a restricted area and invited arrest, while a message from Mr. Gandhi exhorted them to employ the “matchless weapon of passive resistance.” The act became law in the first half of 1946, and by the time I left Durban in August of that year the passive resistance movement was in full swing. Many Indians had submitted themselves to voluntary imprison- ment. Though they were incited to violence at times by groups of white hooligans, their behaviour was exemplary. One cannot help feeling an admiration for these methods of protest. I myself feel that the people of Durban are lucky that Gandhi taught them the methods of passive resistance rather than the methods of violence.
The attitude of the white people of Natal is reflected in a more recent referen- dum by which the proposal for representation of Indians in town councils was thrown out by a majority of 70 per cent.
This brief sketch may help to give a rough idea of the problems which have to be faced in South Africa. Its people are well aware of them, and resent the advice of those who have never lived there and do not know the conditions which prevail. South Africa has a grave responsibility to solve in her own way these problems, for they are not really comparable to those in other countries. Yet she must remember that the eyes of the world are watching her, and that an unjust solution will not be tolerated. I am confident that she will eventually achieve a just solution: burt when governments change, policies are reversed. However, each party believes sincerely that its own solution for the problem is just and is in the best interests of the under-privileged. Reversal of policies makes progress necessarily slow. Yet there is progress. What more should be required?
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Induced Precipitation
By D. W. Perrie
A series of cloud-seeding experiments was performed by the Hydro-Electric Power Commnission of Ontario, with the co-operation of the Meteorological Division, Department of Transport. The H.E.P.C. Grumman Mallard CP-GEU, was the aircraft used for the experiments. The base of operations was Kapuskasing Airport, and the experiments were performed in the vicinity of Abitibi Lake and Porquis Junction.
Solid carbon dioxide (“dry ice”) was used as an inoculant. It was broken by means of an experimental chopper loaned for the experiment by the National Research Council. This chopper consisted essentially of a cylinder with projecting metal points, and a hopper. As originally assembled, it had a worm mechanism to carry the broken carbon dioxide. This worm mechanism was removed and a metal chute substituted. The chute consisted of a standard stove pipe elbow and a section of stove pipe opened to form a trough. A piece of coarse wire screen was rolled to form a cylinder, and placed in a sloping position, end to end with the chute. The suitably sized pieces of carbon dioxide flowed down the inside of the screen cylinder, while the powdered carbon dioxide fell through the screen. Large, heavy paper bags were used for transporting the chopped carbon dioxide. The powder was bagged separately: it was subject to caking in the bags, but the lumps wete easily broken up when required for use.
The dispenser in the aircraft consisted of a large metal hopper, and a length of cylindrical pipe. The pipe was passed through a hole in a metal plate, which latter had been put in one of the window frames. A sliding gate was installed between the hopper and the discharge pipe, the function of the gate being to control the rate of “seeding.” The hopper was filled before each seeding run, and the seeding was commenced by opening the gate in the pipe.
The “dry ice” chopper broke down when the driving gears seized. After this breakdown, the solid carbon dioxide was broken by means of hammers.
The sizes of the pieces of carbon dioxide were widely varied. On the November 14 flight, the sizes were more varied than usual, on account of the method used for breaking the solid carbon dioxide.
During ascents to operating levels, records were kept of the temperatures at various altitudes. Temperatures were generally observed at 500 foot intervals and at the cloud base and cloud top. Temperatures were also recorded at intervals in flight and during descent.
Induced Precipitation is one of two papers written by Donald William Perrie, B.Sc. (A) ‘33, which have been recently published by the Meteorological Division, Department of Transport. We learn from a very recent letter that Mr. Perrie’s book Cloud Physics has been accepted by the University of Toronto Press for fall publication. Although this graduate writes at present from Toronto he is intending to move to Victoria Readers of The New Trail will wish Mr. Perrie the best of luck with his new book.
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The “phase” of the cloud elements was determined by observations. Formation of airframe ice in the cloud was proof that the cloud was composed of super-cooled liquid water. When a “glory” was observed on the cloud top, it constituted evidence that the cloud was composed of liquid water.
The approximate rate of seeding was determined from time and airspeed of the seeding run, together with the approximate amount of solid carbon dioxide dropped.
The times mentioned are all Eastern Standard; the temperatures are in Fahren- heit degrees, and are uncorrected; and all heights are referred to mean sea level.
ok * Ok OR
November 10.—The time of departure from Kapuskasing airport was 1515. The temperatures observed during the ascent were:
2000 feet 250° F. 3700 feet 18° F, 2500 feet 22° FE, 4000 feet 17° F, 3200 feet 20° F. 4500 feet 16° F,
Temperatures constant to 7500 feet at 16° F,
The cloud was a broken layer (7/10 to 10/10) of fractostratus, based at 2200 feet, and topped at 4500 feet. The cloud was composed of liquid water droplets; this was indicated by a “glory” on the cloud top, and by a formation of rime ice on the aircraft while in the cloud.
The aircraft was flown toward Porquis Junction. The cloud layer below the aircraft became more continuous and thicker, becoming a layer of stratocumulus topped in some places at 6400 to 6500 feet.
Three protuberances in the cloud top were selected as seeding sites and runs were made over them between 1535 and 1540. The solid carbon dioxide was let out at rates of approximately 60 pounds per mile, 90 pounds per mile and 150 pounds per mile.
In so far as modification of the cloud is concerned, results were indeterminate. There may have been a slight increase in the height of the seeded protuberances, but there was no change of a readily observable nature. It appears reasonable that some growth might have taken place as a result of natural convection.
A descent, beginning at 1604, was made in the vicinity of the first seeding run. During descent, the following temperatures were observed:
6500 feet 15° F, 4000 feet 19° F, 6000 feet 16° F, 3000 feet 21° F. 5000 feet 15° F.
The cloud was at 5500 feet, and the base at 2700 feet. During the initial pare of the descent, a “glory” was observed on the side of a protuberance on the cloud top, indicating that the cloud in the region where the descent was made was com- posed, as during the ascent, of liquid water droplets.
ssing Bee yl oe
102 THE NEW TRAIL
At 1615, a stow shower was observed at the approximate location of the first seeding. The shower consisted mostly of virga, although some snow appeared to be teaching the ground. The aircraft was flown through the shower at 2500 feet, at which altitude the temperature was 28° F. The shower appeared to curve in the same manner as the aircraft’s path on its seeding run. Flight through the shower was timed and its long dimension was determined to be approximately 4 miles.
It is considered highly probable that the snow shower observed was caused by the seeding of the cloud with solid carbon dioxide. This appears very likely as no other snow showers were observed.
November 12, First Flight—Departure from Kapuskasing airport on the first flight of November 12 was at 1030.
During the ascent, the following temperatures were observed:
1700 feet 31° F, 7300 feet 9° FE, 2400 feet 30° F 8000 feet 6° F, 3100 feet 27° F 8700 feet 4° F, 3800 feet 24° F, 9000 feet 4° F, 4500 feet 21° FB, 9400 feet 2° FE, 5200 feet 19° F 10000 feet 2° EF. 5900 feet 15° F 10100 feet 1° F, 6600 feet 12° F. 10400 feet 1° F, 7000 feet 1° F.
Slight turbulence was noted at 6600 feet. The cloud was at 8400 feet, and the top at 9400 feet. Light rime ice formed on the aircraft in the cloud.
By the time the altitude of 10000 feet was reached, it was noted that a broken layer of stratocumulus was below the altocumulus through which the aircraft had climbed, and was topped at an estimated height of 5000 feet. Scattered cirrus cloud was observed above the aircraft. The layer of stratocumulus became notice- ably thicker as the aircraft approached the vicinity of Abitibi Lake. At the same time, the layer of altocumulus was thinning, and the breaks in it widening. A “glory” was observed on the top of the cloud, and was recognized as evidence that the cloud was composed of liquid water droplets.
Two seedings were performed above the altocumulus cloud, at and shortly after 1111. The rates of seeding were approximately 20 pounds per mile and 30 pounds per mile. At 1129 the cloud top was observed to be at 9800 feet.
A descent was made to 6400 feet. Light rime ice formed on the aircraft during the descent through the altocumulus. The base of the altocumulus was ragged, extending from 8500 feet to 8200 feet. The temperature at 8500 feet was 8° F., and the temperature at 7000 feet was 14° F. No result was observed from the two seedings above the altocumulus.
Two seeding runs were made at 6400 feet at rates of approximately 30 pounds per mile and 20 pounds per mile.
THE NEW TRAIL 103
The aircraft was next taken below the stratocumulus layer. At the point where the descent was made, a thicker portion of the cloud was topped at 700 feet. During descent, the following temperatures were observed:
6600 feet 14° F, 3500 feet 26° F, 6100 feet 17° EF. 2500 feet 29° F. 4000 feet 23° F, 1800 feet 32° F,
Snow was observed in the cloud below 3500 feet. The cloud base was at 2200 feet, and at 1800 feet a few flakes of snow were observed.
On the return flight to Kapuskasing, a light snow shower was observed at Iroquois Falls, far removed from the cloud seedings. Cumulus clouds embedded in, and projecting above, the stratocumulus layer were built up to the level of the altocumulus layer, and those not seeded were built up fully as high as any. in the vicinity of the seeding runs.
It appears very doubtful if any interference with natural processes was accom- plished on this operation. Snow was observed in and below the seeded cloud, but a natural snow shower of greater intensity was observed.
November 12, Second Flight—The second flight of November 12 was com- menced at 1620. During the ascent, the following temperatures were observed:
1500 feet 36° F. 5000 feet 20° F. 2000 feet 34° FB, 6000 feet 15° F, 3000 feet 29° F. 7000 feet 13° F. 4000 feet 24° F. 9000 feet 7° F,
There was very little cloud at Kapuskasing but, during the ascent the aircraft passed above a layer of stratocumulus, which was topped at an estimated height of 5000 feet. Cumulus clouds were built up to approximately 9000 feet. Patches of fractostratus were observed through breaks in the stratocumulus overcast. This fractostratus top was estimated to be approximately 2000 feet.
Four seeding runs were made. Of these, the first, second and fourth were all over the same cumulus cloud. The third was in a large break in the stratocumulus layer.
The times of the seedings were: first, 1639; second, 1646; third, 1650; fourth, 1656. The altitude of the aircraft was 9000 feet. The rate of seeding was of the order of 30 pounds per mile.
Where the “dry ice” was dropped in clear air, a fine wisp of cloud was seen to form. By 1659, nine minutes after the seeding, this wisp had expanded slightly, but remained very thin and tenuous.
The top of the inoculated cumulus cloud was very uneven, and it was most difficult to determine whether or not it Was in any way modified. Any; modifica- tion there may have been was very slight.
A descent was made through the seeded cloud from 7000 feet to 5400 feet. During the descent, light rime formed on the aircraft.
104 THE NEW TRAIL
Virga were observed down to approximately 3200 feet. Some of the virga took the form of supercooled droplets, which deposited very light rime on the aircraft. At a lower level, the virga were in the form of snow. Little or no precipitation appeared to be reaching the ground.
Within approximately two miles of the seeded cloud, another similar shower, consisting again of virga, was observed. This latter shower was quite evidently a natural phenomenon, and could not be attributed to the inoculation of the cloud with solid carbon dioxide.
It appears quite definite that no major modification was caused by the cloud seeding on this flight. The formation of a thin, tenuous wisp of cloud constitutes an interesting subsidiary experiment.
November 14.—The November 14 flight was commenced at 1550. The tem- peratures observed during the ascent were as follows:
1100 feet 34° BF, 4500 feet 18° F. 2000 feet 30° F, 5000 feet 16° FE, 2500 feet 28° F, 5500 feet 14° F. 3000 feet 25° FB, 5900 feet 15° F. 3500 feet 23° F. 6500 feet 18° F, 4000 feet 20° F.
A continuous layer of stratocumulus was based at 5000 feet, and topped at 5900 feet. The cloud was composed of liquid water in a supercooled state. This was indicated by the occurrence of a “glory” on the cloud top, the temperature in the cloud and the formation of light rime ice on the aircraft during ascent through the cloud.
The cloud was seeded from an altitude of 6300 feet, 400 feet above its top. The temperature at 6300 feet was 20° F. Indicated air speed on the seeding runs was 160 miles per hour.
The first seeding was performed in the interval from 1628 to 1631. Approxi- mately 300 pounds of solid carbon dioxide was dropped over a flight path of approximately eight miles. The seeding operation was almost continuous, but was interrupted briefly for re-loading of the discharge hopper. The second seeding was performed in a similar fashion, in the interval from 1638 to 1642. Approxi- mately 400 pounds of solid carbon dioxide was dropped over a flight path of approximately 10 miles.
At approximately 1700, a half-hour after the first seeding, a very striking cloud modification was observed. The area affected was approximately 8 miles long and 3 miles wide. The dimensions were determined by timing flights across the affected area, and using the time, together with the airspeed.
Tt will be noted that the length of the affected area corresponds with the length of the seediing run, but the width is enormously increased.
The modification, as first observed, took the form of complete disappearance of the roll structure, and its replacement by a depressed area having a fibrous nature without relief or structural details.
THE NEW TRAIL > 105
As the aircraft approached the seeded cloud area, a pillar of light was observed on the top of the depressed region, opposite the sun. This provided evidence that the elements of the affected portion of the cloud had been changed from water droplets to ice crystals.
A descent was made through the modified portion of the cloud. Falling snow was observed with the aid of the landing lights, and snow static was heard on the radio. The depression was observed to become gradually an opening in the cloud, with the supercooled cloud droplets all changed to falling snow. The edges of the opening were quite well defined, with a narrow zone of downward-streaming snow.
The snow was light and fine. The impression was obtained by some observers in the aircraft that the snow falling from the modified cloud was visible on the ground. There was a general rather sparse snow cover, and the additional light coming through the opening in the cloud may have made the area underneath appear to have a more complete snow cover.
As darkness was approaching, it was not possible to make a complete examination of the area of the second seeding. However, a similar effect appeared to have been produced. Light snow was encountered in the course of a flight under the affected area.
Snow of natural origin was not observed on the return flight until some very light snow was observed on the approach to Kapuskasing airport.
It appears certain that the seeded cloud areas were converted from supercooled water droplets to ice crystals which later became falling snowflakes. The lateral spreading of the cloud glaciation is most interesting. It is noted that the observed rate of lateral spreading is of the order of that mentioned by Dr. V. J. Schaefer. Dr. Schaefer states that lateral spreading of the effect of inoculation takes place at the rate of 2 metres per second.
* * * * *
The results of the experiment indicated that no significant amounts of pre- cipitation were caused by inoculation of the clouds. It is noted that, at the season when the experiment was conducted, clouds other than frontal cloud systems do not generally contain very much water. Hence it is not to be expected that large amounts of precipitation can be produced by inoculation of clouds.
It has been noted that natural precipitation was occurring in most cases when precipitation followed inoculation of the clouds.
It is considered that the most significant experiment was the one which produced an extensive cloud modification. The dissipation of the cloud is considered to be more significant than the very small amount of snow precipitated from it.
Dr. V. J. Schaefer’s remarks relative to amounts of “dry” ice used for seeding are of considerable interest. He is of the opinion that amounts such as were used throughout these experiments are grossly excessive. However, on the only, occasion when a notable modification was produced an even greater amount of solid carbon dioxide was used than had been used in the other experiments.
106
CONVOCATION
REPORT OF THE PRESIDENT TO CONVOCATION
By Robert Newton May 17, 1949
EmINENT CHANCELLOR:
We shall be presenting to you for degrees and diplomas today some 1,200 students, the largest graduating class in our history. Last spring we graduated about 900, the largest up to that time. The very large post-war classes, dominated by student veterans, are now moving out, the veterans having been officially “rehabilitated.” This year we had 4,605 full-session students, a few hundred less than last year. From the teaching point of view, however, this was our peak year, because the large numbers were in the senior years. Next year will also be quite heavy for the same reason.
Last year we had in the regular session almost equal numbers of student veterans and civilians, namely, 2,453 and 2,412. This year we had 1,977 veterans and 2,628 civilians. In the 1948 summer session there were 1,405 students at Edmonton, 42 at Calgary, and 608 at Banff. The grand total for the year was 6,687 as com- pared with 6,822 last year, or a decrease of 135.
Admission quotas of about fifty students in each of first-year Medicine and first-year Pharmacy have had to be maintained. In Dentistry it appears that we have overtaken the backlog, and that the normal quota of about thirty-five first- year students will accommodate all the qualified candidates next fall.
It is gratifying to report that the need for teachers in secondary schools has been almost fully met by graduates of our Faculty of Education. There is still a substantial shortage of teachers for the elementary grades, mainly in rural schools. A special committee of the Faculty is studying the programme of training for ele- mentary school teachers, with a view to making this more adequate and attractive.
The Calgary, branch of the Faculty of Education continues to flourish. The Director reports an attendance of 222 students, an increase of 42 over last year. Five new members were appointed to his staff, three of them in the Faculty of Arts and Science. The addition this year of new science laboratories and lecture rooms in a remodelled Air Force building completed all necessary facilities for teaching the first two years of the B.Ed. course. The cordial co-operation of the Institute of Technology and Art enables students studying for the B.Ed. in Indus- trial Arts to complete the third year of that course at Calgary.
THE NEW TRAIL 107
The nurses invade Convocation Hall, Graduation 1949. —Garneau Studios.
As the province of Alberta matures, the complexion of its population gradually changes, and this is reflected in our university students. Here is an. interesting little table showing the numbers and percentages of Alberta-born students in the University at ten-year intervals after the First Great War:
Total Alberta-born
Registration No. %
1918-19 .. 339 32 9.4 1928-29 .. 1,516 555 36.6 1938-39 .. 2,175 1,185 9 54.5 1948-49 (Regular winter session only) 4,605 3,418 74.2
Perhaps the most important single event during the year was the presentation to the University Senate and the General Faculty Council of a report on General Education. This was prepared at the request of the Senate by a special committee which studied the question for several months, under the chairmanship of Professor Andrew Stewart.
Universities all over the world have become increasingly concerned over the tendency of the professional faculties to dominate by sheer weight of numbers, with the attendant danger that the educational purpose of the universities might be submerged by undue emphasis on technical training. A university is not content to turn out skillful practitioners who are not also well educated citizens. There is no easy solution to this problem, since professional training is very necessary,
108 THE NEW TRAIL
and often so heavy and exacting as to leave little room for general education. The subject has been under discussion for many years, but the Stewart Committee report contained such a careful analysis both of the difficulties and of possible solutions as to stir up unusual interest and considerable action by faculty councils.
The accommodation of a number of departments has been improved this year by the completion of the east and west wings of the Medical Building. The new Dental Clinic was opened last fall with appropriate ceremony, and is regarded as the finest in the country. The School of Pharmacy is not yet fully settled in its new quarters, but that school also will shortly be able to claim equipment second to none. Other parts of our building programme are proceeding satisfactorily, notably the Rutherford Library and the first unit of the Students’ Union building. These two should be completed in 1950 and will enormously improve our equip- ment, the library for scholarly work, and the Union for extracurricular activities and social amenities.
With evidence of building activity all around them, some faculties and schools, especially Agriculture and Engineering, which have carried on many yeats with very inadequate accommodation, and the professional societies dependent on them for recruits, have grown understandably restive at the lack of obvious action to make additional provision for them. The Board of Governors regards the buildings now under construction as completing the first phase of our post-war expansion. In preparation for the second phase, a special committee has been appointed to sutvey this summer our probable space requirements during the next ten years. The committee has been asked to assume that our attendance, after dropping for two more years, will build up again to a level of about 5,000 students by the end of the period covered by its terms of reference. What we want to develop is a building programme that will ensure proper accommodation for that number of students, divided among the various faculties in accordance with the best estimates the committee can make. We must assume that the various temporary arrange- ments, especially the ex-army huts, upon which we now depend for a substantial part of our accommodation, will have run their course by the end of that time.
A related study has been initiated by Professor Andrew Stewart, now Dean of Business Affairs in the University, on university finance. Growth in size means growth in cost. Professor Stewart will analyse the cost per student in different faculties, the cost per course, and the cost of enterprises other than teaching; he will tackle the difficult problem of long-range budget forecasting, and attempt to assess the shares that should reasonably be carried by government grants and by students’ fees. Our purpose is to develop sound and stable financial policies.
The University continues to adjust its programme to serve the special needs of the province as well as possible. Let us take, for example, the petroleum industry, now assuming such importance in our economy. The Department of Geology has enlarged its course offerings to help students who are preparing for petroleum exploration. It is gratifying to report that Imperial Oil Limited donated a $600 set of books to our library in recognition of the particular contribution Dr. P. S. Warren has already made in that field. The same company is making a substantial
THE NEW TRAIL 109
contribution to the equipment of our petroleum engineering laboratories, now the central feature of our Department of Chemical Engineering. Dr. George Govier, the youthful and vigorous chairman of that department, is also a member of the Alberta Petroleum and Natural Gas Conservation Board. Finally, on this particular subject, I should mention the latest in our ever-expanding list of short courses, a Mud School. This two-week course is in session now. Apparently mud, from the viewpoint of a well driller, is a highly important and technical subject. The well-drilling contractors, both Canadian and American, and the Conservation Board, ave put their collective heads together under the wing of our Department of Extension to instruct well drillers in good practice in the use of mud as a drilling fluid.
Among other ventures initiated during the year, I should mention particularly new courses in farm management and in irrigation engineering. These meet long- recognized needs which have become more pressing as time went on.
The external services, often on a national basis, chat our staff members are asked to give, are welcome evidence of the respect in which they and the University ate held. Dean R. D. Sinclair has been during the past year national president of the Agricultural Institute of Canada. Dean W. S. Hamilton has been Chairman for two years of the Council on Dental Education of the Canadian Dental Associa- tion, presiding over the preparation and publication of a booklet entitled, “The Requirements for Approval of a Dental School.” Professor Andrew Stewart was a member of the Royal Commission on Natural Gas. Mr. E. J. Hanson prepared for the Provincial Department of Municipal Affairs a report on Municipal Adminis- tration. Dr. R. L. Rutherford was appointed a member of the newly, created National Advisory Committee for Research in the Geological Sciences. Dr. W. H. Johns is a member of the Humanities Research Council, and Chairman of its Com- mittee on Grants in aid of Research. Professor M. H. Long is a member of the Social Science Research Council, also of the Historic Sites and Monuments Board of Canada, and Chairman of the Geographical Board of Alberta. The last-named pody is responsible for approving all new geographical names in this province. Dr. D. E. Smith is one of six directors of the Canadian Psychological Association. The foregoing are just examples, not a complete list.
You will find in your Convocation programmes the titles of theses, based on original research, presented by post-graduate students getting their degrees today. Time fails me to describe the research work represented by scores of papers pub- lished by staff members during the year. Suffice it to say that the University is doing its full part in pushing back the bounds of knowledge as well as in conserving and imparting to students the vast body of existing knowledge.
While most of our contributions to new knowledge may have reference to scientific or other problems affecting our physical or economic well-being, I am glad to say the University is also promoting that finer quality of life for which our people are hungering. The Banff School of Fine Arts, now an institution of international reputation, has held sixteen annual summer sessions. Our Department of Fine Arts at Edmonton began its work only four years ago, but has already
110 THE NEW TRAIL
made its mark on the province. In addition to the regular courses for full-time students, there was this year a 10-week course in choral leadership attended by 48 students. There were eleven extension art classes on the campus, and ten com- munity art classes in other places. There have been regular art exhibitions in the University buildings, developing the interest and taste of students in all faculties. There was established a studio theatre on the campus, giving opportunity for practical and experimental work in play production. One of the most gratifying features of all the fine arts work on the campus is the large number of Education students who participate, and who will be able to carry its benefits directly to the schools of the province. The music teachers of the province are depending more and more on the Western Board of Music, operating under the wing of the Univer- sity, as an examining body. Over 1,200 music pupils wrote the Board’s examinations this year, competing for over $4,000 worth of scholarships and prizes donated by crganizations and individuals in the province.
Student government in the University was maintained at a high standard under the leadership of Mr. Bernard J. Bowlen, President of the Students’ Union. Mr. Bowlen was awarded the first J. D. O. Mothersill Scholarship of $150, hereafter to be awarded annually to a student selected for outstanding contributions to student life in the University, especially through good citizenship and active support of student government.
We have no greater joy than to see our students and graduates do well, and_ I should like to mention three other names of graduates who have brought special honor this year to themselves and to the University.
Mr. Eoin L. Whitney, who graduated a year ago with first-class honors in Mathematics and the Governor-General’s gold medal, also won that year a special prize for placing in the first five competitors for the Putnam Prize Scholarship of $1,500 to Harvard University. This year he won the Putnam Scholarship itself, the most coveted mathematical prize on the continent.
Dr. Donald R. Wilson, our Rhodes Scholar of 1935 and now a member of our Faculty of Medicine, was awarded a Markle Foundation Scholarship of $25,000, sptead over five years, to enable him to devote himself to advanced teaching and
‘research here during that period.
Miss Grace L. Duggan, graduate and member of our School of Household Economics, has been awarded a special fellowship by the Canadian Home Economics Association to devote the next year to a survey of home economics education in Canada, and to some extent in the United States, in relation to professional services expected of graduates, and to make recommendations for any desirable changes.
These persons, and others I could mention if time permitted, are pacemakers for you young men and women who are going out today. If you individually make the best contribution to your communities of which you are capable, the University will have achieved its purpose as a centre of enlightenment and a force for progress. We wish you good success and Godspeed.
111 Conferring of Honorary Degree (Address by His Honor the Lieutenant-Governor)
EMINENT CHANCELLOR:
I have the honour to present a distinguished citizen of the Province of Alberta, that you, with the authority invested in you by the Senate of the University of Alberta, may confer the degree of Doctor of Laws upon the Honourable Senator William Asbury Buchanan.
Senator Buchanan is a son of the manse, educated in ‘the public and high schools of his native Province of Ontario. As a young man in his teens he chose the field of journalism for his career. He went through the training as a cub reporter with The Peterboro Examiner. Promotion and larger opportunities rapidly opened to him. In a few years he succeeded to a position in metropolitan journalism. He became city editor, and later news editor of the Toronto Telegram. From Toronto he went to become managing editor of the St. Thomas Journal.
He was lured by the call of the west, and came out to Lethbridge, then a growing town of about 3,000. At the time when the influx of new settlers was changing the ranching country into wheat-lands, he bought a newly established weekly. paper, and immediately entered the daily newspaper field, publishing the Lethbridge Daily Herald, which he has continuously published for over forty years. From the beginning, his enterprise in the West has shown exceptional qualities for public service. The first premier of this province, the Honourable A. C. Rutherford, invited him to come to Edmonton to establish the library of the legisla- ture. He was later elected as a member of the Legislature for Lethbridge, and became a Minister without portfolio. He resigned his cabinet position in Edmonton to become a candidate in the federal election of 1911, for Medicine Hat, which at that time included Lethbridge. After ten years in federal politics he declined further activities in the political arena, until he was summoned to the Senate in 1925.
His ability and gifts as a journalist have been widely recognised. He has been assigned special missions of a national character. He has been especially active in the Canadian Press Association, serving for years on its executive, later as vice- president, president, and he is now honorary president of that organization.
Eminent Chancellor, may I present for the degree of Doctor of Law Honoris Causa, a distinguished pioneer citizen of Alberta, one of Canada’s elder statesmen, a journalist in the front rank of illustrious Canada’s newspaper men, who through- out the years has sttiven to weld public opinion of this vast country into a united Canadian national consciousness. The Honourable Senator Willis Asbury
Buchanan. Kez
112 THE NEW TRAIL
Senator Buchanan receives congratulations, Convocation 1949, 47 Kensit Studio.
Convocation Address
By The Honorable William Asbury Buchanan May 17, 1949
Eminent CHANCELLOR, Your Honour, Mr. President, Your Lordship, Members of the Faculty, Ladies and Gentlemen:
His Honor is a friend of long standing and that is the explanation for his far too generous tribute to myself. I confess I am happy in being sponsored on this occasion by one whom I know so well and regard so highly, and who has served Alberta with such distinction.
Never did I dream when I came to Alberta in the year the Province was created that I would be standing in the presence of an audience of this nature, to receive an honorary degree from the University of Alberta. There was no University. then, and I was only a tenderfoot amongst the citizens. Nothing that has happened in the forty-four intervening years humbles me so much as this honor you have given me today. I feel most unworthy, but I cannot tell you how much I appreciate. becoming associated with the notable men who can now call themselves honorary gtaduates of this University. I realize there are those who criticise the giving of these degrees, as there are those who criticise the Canadian Senate. Probably in
my career as the publisher of a newspaper something of this nature may have appeared in its columns. If so, I stand here as living evidence of a changed mind.
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I mentioned the Canadian Senate also for the reason that I have known extreme fault-finders who have taken a seat in that Chamber of Parliament and have become reformed in their viewpoint, rather than having reformed the Senate—unless they expected their presence there to bring about reform. ?
:
I want you to know, in case I have not already borne evidence to you, that I have no academic background. My schooling ceased after two or three years in Ontario High Schools! My education, however, has been going on ever since, and you will find that to be so, too. Education is a continuous process. You never cease to learn. There may be some who think that a university course means a completely rounded-out education—that graduates know everything and can’t learn anything more. They will soon find out differently.
I can recall Sir Wilfrid Laurier, in his sixties, snapping his fingers to a House of Commons page and sending him on a message to the Parliamentary Library. What did he bring back? A dictionary almost as big as the page-boy. He placed it on the great French-Canadian statesman’s desk. The House was discussing fish, or some such question that did not interest Laurier, so he spent the free minutes in turning the pages of the volume on his desk. What for? To continue his education in English, acquainting himself with the meaning of English words, so that he would use them in their proper place when he spoke.
Now that I have mentioned Laurier, might I be allowed to go on and say some- thing about our dual language system at Ottawa. To the members from Quebec it means a continuance of education. Born to the French tongue, nearly every one of them can speak English, and some very fluently—the present Prime Minister particularly so. They feel this is necessary in order to be properly equipped parlia- mentarians. It is only in rare instances that an English member knows the French language. It may interest you to be told that when I sat in the House of Commons and first met the late Right Honorable Ernest Lapointe he had not yet made a speech in English. I was there when he spoke for the first time, the language that education had given to him, and in years to come I was to be enthralled by the eloquence of his utterances in the language that he had acquired by diligence and concentration.
There is a lesson here for those of us who think the English language is all we need. As the world becomes smaller and we are drawn closer to peoples who speak other tongues, we can’t enjoy full acquaintance with Europe or South America without knowledge of languages like French and Spanish. This is so, too, if we go into most parts of Quebec where our fellow French-speaking Canadians live. We may take the narrow view and say that there should be only one language in Canada, but acquaintance with our history makes us recognize that, so far as Quebec is concerned, it is a dual-language province and, to get acquainted with the larger number of the people there, an understanding of French is necessary.
We call for national unity—and how can we reach it until we are able to mingle more closely with our French-speaking citizens? Actually, the French-Canadians, as far as numbers are concerned, outclass us in knowledge of languages. Thousands
Beees
114 THE NEW TRAIL
of them know and speak English, to a hundred English-speaking Canadians who
‘ean speak French.
I am eager for understanding and good relations between the two dominant groups in our population and that is why I stress these thoughts on the language question. But remember, the French language is an asset in any travels one may make in Europe. There, it is something of a Continental language—and knowledge of it makes your travels more interesting and educational than they would other- wise be.
My mention of South America and the Spanish language is prompted by my awareness that as the years move on we are going to do more business with the great areas to the south of us and that, to do so, we must know the language that is common to their people. In our diplomatic service, ability to read and speak Spanish is a necessity for those who go to South American posts. Not only for diplomats is this true, but it is a requirement for the representatives of Canadian industry who seek to promote trade there.
Having expressed myself in this way about languages, I go one step further in this search for a pathway to better understanding amongst our peoples, and that is to urge you to frown upon racialism; to get, if you possess it, the “superior tace” idea out of your minds. Canada—Alberta very much so—is a land of peoples of various racial origins. The sons and daughters of the settlers of European origin, who came to us in earlier days, now speak our common language so well, and have adopted our customs so completely, that it is difficult to think of them as anything other than native-born Canadians.
Then there are others whose color, or whose customs, stay with them; but that does not mean that they are not capable of becoming good citizens. Churchill’s friendship with Bernard Baruch should bring a prejudiced element, of which we have too many, to realize that the brilliant Englishman is proud to look upon one of the outstanding Jews in the United States as an intimate personal friend. That is as it should be; we will never achieve the One World of the idealists until we bury our racial dislikes and broaden our minds and abandon our prejudices. Even here in Canada I regret to read of the color line being drawn, largely because we have narrow-minded people amongst us who feel they belong to superior stock. Don’t be too sure. Who was the individual who brought warring groups together to reach understanding in the Palestine area? It was an able Negro educationalist named Bunche, grandson of a slave. There are countless instances where men and women of other races and other colors rank high in all avenues of life. We cannot have a United Canada or the One World that the late Wendell Wilkie visioned unless we eliminate racial prejudice.
May I say to you something of how I rate a man or woman graduating from a university with a degree? Quite frankly, I expect much more of them than of those who lack it. If I have a Bachelor of Arts man on my newspaper staff I look to him to write better articles than the reporter who hasn’t gone beyond the twelfth gtade. I think you will agree thar is a natural attitude for me to take. Remember, you not only carry away a degree from a university, but a reputation and a responsi-
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bility. If you fall down badly in what is expected of you, there will be some who will generalize at once and criticise all higher institutions of learning and all university graduates. That, of course, would be unfair, but it is worth while to keep the thought in mind.
I would like now to speak about present day opportunities, because I know you are thinking of them and searching for them. Since I came to Alberta there has been an amazing transformation—and much of it has created fresh opportunities. As I knew education in our rural areas, in those early days after Alberta became a province, it was being imparted in little school houses all over the prairies, pupils walking miles to school—the rare one riding a saddle pony—and all of them, no matter how they travelled, carrying a cold lunch. Today it is in many instances the consolidated or centralized divisional school, with bus transportation and warm lunches at mid-day. All of this has meant expansion of the opportunity, for education. But, you will ask, “What about opportunity after you have had your education?” There is more of it right at your door than ever before. Invention and science have created many new occupations. The Alberta I knew in the early nineteen hundreds had no automobiles, trucks, moving pictures, radio or air- , planes. Now we treat them as commonplace and envision even more revolutionary changes in the future. All that has been going on in this way in the past fifty, years has been producing opportunities, new professions, new positions—and the educated man and woman should be best able to fill them.
What of the future? Are there no more last frontiers, and have we to depend upon the well settled parts of our country for our future opportunities? I am not too sure. When I read about the development that is taking place in Siberia, where even some fairly large cities have come into being, I look north and wonder what may happen there in the next quarter century.
Already we know that there are rich and varied resources in the Northwest Territories. The mere mention of Yellowknife and its mines is enough to prove that great possibilities lie ahead. Then there is Norman Wells—and oil, and farther north rich lead deposits have been uncovered.
It is quite easy to envision a host of opportunities there in the years to come. “Took to the North” is the cry today. As our own Alberta steadily expands with the disclosing of undreamed-of resources in oil, and the possibility of converting immense deposits to uses other than fuel, we have every reason to look to Alberta to become one of the richest and most productive provinces of the Canadian Con federation.
Professor Griffith Taylor of the University of Toronto, a recognized authority, has already predicted that with the full use of the coal resources between Edmonton and the Montana boundary, Alberta could become the centre of Canada’s population and the scene of its greatest industrial activity.
Whether this will happen depends upon the energies and aggressiveness, but above all upon the knowledge of our citizens of the future. We are living in an ever-changing world. What seemed impossible yesterday is achieved today, and
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predictions that are ridiculed today, in the light of what has happened in the past, will be realized tomorrow.
-And now, in closing, I want to stress the opportunity that exists for public service. It is there that all of you can do something for your fellow citizens and for Canada—and, I would hope, for the great outer world as well.
Some of you may be concerned about getting into an occupation where wealth can be acquired quickly. It is more easily thought of than realized. What does wealth mean anyway? Comfort, yes; early retirement, possibly; freedom from worry, not-always. But if wealth is your sole object you will not leave behind you a name rich in memory, as did John A. Macdonald and Laurier, among others in this country, and Churchill, Disraeli, Gladstone and Lloyd George in Britain, and Woodrow Wilson, Franklin Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln in the United States. Wealth with its comforts and ease wasn’t what they aimed at. They, lived to serve their fellow citizens and their names, like those of distinction in science, invention and literature, will be remembered for all time, long after most of the men whose names we associate with wealth only have been forgotten.
Never fail to keep in mind that, while you have to make a living, you are partners as well in creating a Canada that will impress the world with its inherent greatness, its intelligence, its progressiveness and its recognition of the true values
of life.
Conferring of Honorary Degree Eminent CHANCELLOR:
I have the honour to present to you Dr. James Sutherland Thomson for the degree of Doctor of Laws, honoris causa.
Dr. Thomson migrated from Auld Scotia to Nova Scotia in 1930 to become Professor of Systematic Theology and Philosophy of Religion at Pine Hill College. Since 1937 he has been President of the University of Saskatchewan, though for the year 1942-43 he had leave to serve as General Manager of the Canadian Broad- casting Corporation. He is now on the point of relinquishing his position at Saskatoon to become Dean of the newly established Faculty of Divinity of McGill University.
Dr. Thomson saw much active service in the Cameron Highlanders, 1915-19, passing through the ranks from private to captain. In the field of education he has had many important assignments, among them visiting lectureships at Yale and Edinburgh Universities, and a term as President of the National Conference of Canadian Universities.
Dr. Thomson’s native eloquence, backed by substantial scholarship, make him one of our outstanding orators. Distinguished as preacher, teacher, scholar, and administrator, he returns now to his first love, theology, in an eastern university, after having served western Canada well for twelve years.
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Eminent Chancellor, I now present Dr. James Sutherland Thomson, that you may, with the authority of the senate of the University, confer upon him the degree of Doctor of Laws, honoris causa.
—Robert Newton.
Education in the Contemporary W orld
(Address to the Graduating Class, University of Alberta, May 18, 1949) By James S. Thomson, President, University of Saskatchewan
The world in which our graduates of today must play their part is not likely to be dull and uninteresting. However we may describe this age, it is certainly not a period of sluggish movement, when the very stream of time itself appears to stand still. On the contrary, we are very much aware of its dynamic character, as we are impelled by what seem to be gigantic and super-human forces to an encounter with swiftly moving events:
“Things are in the saddle And ride mankind.”
Dr. Thomson signs the Roll of Honorary Degrees —Kensit Studios.
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But we ate restive steeds, and buck the horsemen with all the fire and spiric of bronchos at a Calgary stampede. For this is a rough time in the history of the world, and we are not likely to see much settlement in the immediate future.
What’s all the fuss about? There is a common logical fallacy—indeed it is probably the most common of all the fallacies. Technically it is known as ignoratio elenchi, but you will understand its nature much better if I describe it more pic- turesquely and not less accurately as barking up a wrong tree. Much vital breath and emotional energy is spent in this unrewarding exercise. And so, if we are living in an age of controversy there is urgent need to make the issues plain, and in a celebrated phrase to “clear your minds of cant.” If we may recall the occasion on which the famous author of this injunction used it, Doctor Johnson added by way of explanation to Boswell that he might talk like other people bur there was no need for him to think foolishly.
By way of making the necessary clearance, it may be said that there is no great quarrel about the nature of our physical environment. It is hardly necessary to discourse to young ladies and gentlemen whose heads are still reeling with the dizziness of scientific knowledge that wherever else our minds may be muddled, at least we have struck the sure method of settling questions about the kind of physical world in which we live. There is much yet to know, but we do not advance to the attack on our ignorance with divided forces set in rival camps. Rather, the attractions of the scientific method are so enticing that I have no doubt, here as in every other university today, most of the graduates propose to find their life’s employment either in its exercise or application.
Scientists differ and even quarrel among themselves. I am_ sufficiently acquainted with their ways to know that they sometimes divide themselves into denominations, with orthodoxies and heresies just as violently and sharply separated as anything to be found in the Church itself. And doubtless, some of the graduates of today have been gravely warned by. the more evangelical of their professors against the peril of intellectual flirtation with the erroneous doctrines of rival sects, to which they themselves do not adhere.
But there is no difference about the method of settling the disputed claims of opposing theories, nor about the court of appeal. The method is known as research, and the court is the laboratory, wherein we isolate a portion of the physical world and then proceed to perform experiments. In the striking description of Immanuel Kant, we compel nature to answer the questions addressed to her. The art of the scientist (and he must be an artist if he is to be a worthwhile scientist) is to devise the proper questions.
Observe this word “re-search,” that falls so easily from our lips, and which presents itself like a golden key, calculated to unload every door on the way to kriowledge. Re-search means searching for something that already exists. Nature’s secrets ate there, waiting to reveal themselves to the inquiring mind. Atomic structure and energy. are scientific discoveries but they are not scientific creations because they-have always existed in the constitution of what we sometimes may
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call matter. The satisfaction that comes to the scientist is the understanding of facts—in the literal sense of that word—facts—facta, things done or in action.
The real disputes in the world are not concerned with what is but with what ought to be. Here we pass from the realm of fact to idea and ideal. Our engage- ment is not with physical nature but with ourselves, or at least with physical nature as its inherited energies are caught up into that distinctive form of existence called human beings. What are we? This also is a subject for re-search, because we have been here in this world sufficiently long to provide a vast and varied amount of material for the study. But the investigation is not a simple one, because the facts are both complicated and varied. They are certainly neither fixed nor un- changing. As I have suggested to you already, the art of the student is rather the reverse of the academic ordeal, out of which our graduates of today have just emerged so successfully into this present ceremony—not so much the giving of proper answers to questions that are asked—as the devising of proper questions that should be asked—in short, to avoid barking up the wrong tree.
Mankind is stirred and disturbed by what we are to make of ourselves. And so the relevant fact is that we are capable of change. Human nature can be remade. And this we must do for ourselves, in the last resort personally and even privately, but not in isolation from the processes of change, which are at our disposal. For- tunately by our social nature, we are tied up in the bundle of life with all our fellow human beings—not least important with those who have gone before us. We can re-make ourselves because we have the capacity to live by ideas. This is the mark of our distinctive human nature—this is what we mean when we say that we have minds. We accept neither ourselves nor our environment as we find them —we bring them into understanding and such knowledge is power. This is what builds bridges, controls diseases, establishes institutions, creates music, writes literature and makes us “dare do all that doth become a man.” It is at once our bane and our blessing. By this, we unite mankind in the strength of noble ideals or we fill the earth with vast and terrible slaughter; we extend our usefulness to serve our fellowmen or we plunder the world for our own glory and enrichment. For ideas become ideals by which we are joined together or divided.
Our acquired ideas can be transmitted neither mechanically nor biologically, but in institutions and by them through personal recapitulation. It is for this purpose that universities exist. Because education is the distinctively human activity, education is at once our heritage and our hope—and it is worthwhile thinking about this fact for a few minutes this afternoon ere we part. So far from universities being detached and isolated from human life, as a decorative embroidery. on the edge of the real stuff and fabric of our common existence, universities are the most distinctive of all human creations. They are not luxuries in which to indulge when we have provided for other more essential necessities—they are the very medium whereby civilization continues. But only if they are true to their proper function and are not deflected by every wind of doctrine! Our concern is with ideas and their cultivation in the mind. The extent to which we are successful in this achievement is the sole test of our value, and if I may say so today, it is
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the only standard by which I personally would be prepared to admit any under- gtaduate to a degree.
T am well aware of the fact that ideas cannot be grasped from their practical expression and that minds cannot be cultivated without an environment. But we must not confuse what are called techniques with principles nor the amassing of facts with their interpretation. In our time, there is ominous substitution of training for education. We are entreated to train students for this and that, and while we must not be merely aimless and diffuse in our purposes, it is difficult to resist the conclusion that we may be scattering our energies so widely that we may fail to fulfil our real vocation. In the process, we invest our students with the idea that the object of a university. is to train them for a particular job and they miss entirely the idea of being educated persons. Thereby they themselves are deprived of life’s finest enrichment and the world is impoverished in the matter of its gravest need.
As I speak, I am not forgetful of the subject with which I began—the divided state of our world and our apparent incapacity to resolve its problems. It is the world in which the graduates of today must live and work. They must take it as it is, but surely they must also have some concern about its transformation into what it ought to be. This involves the acceptance of a vocation and not simply the search for a job, or the expectation that a job should be found for them. As members of a university, we are “heirs of all the ages” and therefore trustees for the civilized estate of mankind. It is only because human life has changed and these changes have been transmitted through ideas that we are here today as graduates of a university and not rude savages. We must make it our faith that what we have received, as a bequest, should be made available for all, and that the world of men can be changed by knowledge and the power of education. There is no other way by which we can move forward with hope and confidence. The record of human experience is sufficiently long and clear to establish that every other way has failed— force and coercion, whether the power of the state or the power of the sword. The only durable changes must be accomplished within men themselves and that is precisely what we mean by education. When men become convinced of this truth concerning human nature with the same strength of assurance that they. have adopted the scientific method in the study of physical nature, we shall have begun to enter the era of true human enlightenment.
The vocation of the graduate is not therefore difficult to realize. The first is to accept for himself the ideal of being an educated person. Such an ambition has the great attraction of being co-extensive with life itself, and of promising an unflagging interest. By an educated person I mean in brief, a person whose chief value is the quality of his mind, and who makes its cultivation the superlative aim of his life, who is so constantly aware of what he has received in heritage that in Wordswotth’s fine description, his mind becomes
“a thanksgiving to the Power That made him”: who takes the gift of mental power not in pride but in humility, as the trustee of a noble possession to be dedicated to rational living and not for merely personal
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gain: who recognizes this spiritual capacity to be that which makes him truly kin with all mankind, despite the accident of race or color, of birth or heritage and therefore lifts him far above all contempt, boasting or strife: who perceives this principle of ordered life within himself that goes forth to seek and find an order in the world about him to be evidence of a superlative order which is the sure promise of an order that shall also be fulfilled in human life and society. The second is to pledge himself in loyalty to the same ideal of education as the method of ordered change for the world and to strive for the same whatever his work may be and to refuse to be deflected into the acceptance of other means, such as violence or tyranny. And lastly, to unite with all of similar faith and conviction as in a fellowship of kindred minds, not in the aloof detachment of intellectual snobs, but as of those who share a precious secret and who guard it not as a personal possession but for the universal enrichment of life everywhere.
Conferring of Honorary Degree (Address by Hon. Mr. Justice Frank Ford, May 17, 1949)
EMINENT CHANCELLOR:
I have the honour to present to you for the degree of Doctor of Laws, honoris causa, the Right Reverend Monseigneur Ferdinand Vandry, Companion of the most distinguished Order of St. Michael and St. George, Knight of the Legion of Honour of France, Bachelor of Arts, Licenciate in Philosophy, Doctor of Theology and Doctor of Laws, the Rector of Laval University.
Monseigneur Vandry has had a distinguished career in education, in religion and in the public life of his native province. He is a recognized leader of the classical tradition in our Canadian heritage, as well as an apostle of Canadian unity, believing that, by understanding and mutual respect, the two great races of our country— the French and British—can develop in Canada a culture which will transcend provincial and indeed national boundaries.
Monseigneur Vandry was born at Riviére-du-Loup in the Province of Quebec 20 years after the Canadian Confederation was established. His mother bore the very Scottish name of Caroline Fraser. Having completed his preliminary and secondary studies at the Seminary of Quebec and Laval University and being ordained to the Priesthood, he taught at the Seminary and then at the Grand Seminary of Quebec of which he became the Director and then Superior.
Before being appointed in 1945 Rector of Laval University he served as Dean of its Faculty of Theology and has since become Vicar General of the Archdiocese of Quebec and Archdeacon of its Metropolitan Chapter.
In 1943 he was chosen to be a Domestic Prelate of His Holiness the Pope, and in 1945 was named Apostolic Prothonotary. In 1946 His Majesty the King made him a Companion of the most distinguished Order of St. Michael and St. George. In 1947 the Republic of France made him a Knight of the Legion of Honour.
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Monseigneur Vandry at Convocation and the Registrar. —kKensit Studio.
Since 1946 he has been the Director of the Anti-tuberculosis League of Quebec, and last year was elected Vice-President of the National Conference of Canadian Universities. The wide extent of the esteem in which Monseigneur Vandry is held in Canada and abroad may be gathered from the fact that he has received the honorary degree -f Doctor of Laws from the University of Oxford, England; Fordham University, New York; and the Canadian Universities of Ottawa, of Toronto and of Western Ontario. * * *
Monseigneur, Recteur magnifique de l'Université Laval: Je profite de l’occasion pour vous exprimer mes sentiments de profonde estime et de plus haute considera- tion. Je tiens a vous dire le plaisir que j’ éprouve d’avois été choisi pour vous présenter a la remise des lauriers académiques les plus hauts de notre Université.
En faisant référence 4 vous comme chef de file de la tradition classique univer- sitaire, je n’ignore pas les developements apportés a vos départments de Science pure et appliquée et 4 l’expansion constante de votre Université et je vous souhaite grand succés dans la construction de la Cité Universitaire 4 Quebec et pour la célébration de l’anniversaire centenaire de la fondation de l'Université en 1852 par Charte Royale de sa Majesté la Reine Victoria.
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EMINENT CHANCELLOR: I present Monseigneur Vandry, Rector of Laval University.
Conferring of Honorary Membership
EMINFNT CHANCELLOR:
I ask leave to present to you now Mr. Reginald Charles Lister, Superintendent of Residences, that you may, with the authority of the Senate and Governors of the University of Alberta, admit him to honorary membership in Convocation.
The action of the Senate and the Board in approving Mr. Lister for this honour touched off a train of spontaneous enthusiasm among students, graduates and staff. On Monday the graduating class of ’49 admitted him to honorary membership in their ranks, presenting him with an inscribed gift as a memento of the occasion. That evening the University Alumni Association presented him with a certificate of Honorary Life Membership.
Mr. Alan Armstrong, Chairman of the Men’s House Committee, in an excellent speech about Mr. Lister at the Class ’49 Valedictory exercises on Monday afternoon, included two statements I shall take the liberty of quoting:
He said Mr. Lister, though not a member of the academic staff of the Univer- sity, had taught the students some of the most important things they had learned here; in particular he had taught them how to live together.
He said also that Mr. Lister struck terror into the hearts of obstreperous fresh- men, but no student ever left the residence halls without feeling that Mr. Lister was his personal friend.
I should like to read now what is inscribed on the certificate you hold in your hand:
The Senate and the Governors of the University of Alberta certify by this document to all whom it may concern that Reginald Charles Lister by virtue of his distinguished service for some forty years as guide, counsellor, and friend of many generations of students in residence in this University has been declared to be an Honorary Member of Convocation and awarded all the rights and privileges pertaining to this membership. In testimony whereof are appended the signatures of the Chancellor, the Chairman of the Board of Governors, the President, and the Registrar of this University, together with the common seal of the same.
Given at the University on the eighteenth day of May, 1949, in the 42nd year of
the University of Alberta. —Robert Newton.
——
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Whiskeyjack .. .
The Whiskeyjack sat on a tree outside McDougall Church and watched the wind-blown Convoca- tion. “I wouldn’t miss it for a king’s ransom,” said he. “Don’t be naugh- ty,’ I said. “I’m as pure as the driven snow,” said Jack.
“Speaking of king’s ransoms,” I said, “it takes a lot of high-priced help to run one of these things.” There they were: Deans and De- partment Heads and Professors, to say nothing of odds and ends—the Bursar, Registrar, President, Chan- cellor, Governors, Premier, Minister of Education, and strays from Sas- katoon. “How much?” asked Jack.
Whipping out our slide-rule, we made a lightning calculation—subse- quently proved correct to the fourth decimal by the School of Slide- Ruling and the Dean of Cost Dis- counting — and suavely answered, “Omitting the students, the talent represented here is worth three dol- lars, sixty-seven and two-thirds cents a minute—that is, reckoned on the - basis of the working week of the Union of Diploma Cutters, Seal Stickers, and Label Attachers. On the basis of the working week of the
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Professional Alphabet Reconstructers Association, it comes to three dollars, ninety four and a half cents a minute; but on the professorial work-week basis, it comes to one dollar and thirty-four cents a minute even.”
“Then,” said Jack, “the whole show is worth——?”
“Just the rent of the building,” I said, “for the whole gang has to be paid anyway, and we might as well get something for our money. I shouldn’t be surprised if they got the church for nothing, making the entire cost no dollars and no cents even.”
“Even so,” said Jack, “I think it’s worth it. Why, there must be enough scarlet there to clothe the entire red line on which the sun never sets. Besides, there is the smell.”
“The smell?” I asked.
“The whole place is as fragrant as Annapolis on Apple-Blossom Sunday,” said Jack.
"You've been around,” I remarked.
“T’ve been to Annapolis,” said Jack, “but I knew you wouldn’t understand.”
“T’ve got to get back to my ushering,” I said.
“Wait a minute,” said Jack. “Do you see that gnarled and twisted old tree there?”
“That isn’t a tree,” I said, “it’s a man and his wife.”
“By their fruit ye shall know them,” said Jack. “Get them a seat, a good seat. They have given their boy a better chance than they had themselves—much better. They nearly didn’t make it, but the Friends of the University helped them the last inch.”
“And don’t be blasé about Convocation,” said Whiskeyjack. “It’s as beautiful as Apple-Blossom Sunday.”
NEW FRIENDS OF THE UNIVERSITY (February-May, 1949)
G. M. Blackstock, Qu’Appelle Bldg., 10215 100th St., Edmonton. Guthrie and Muriel Sanford, 11017 84th Ave., Edmonton.
Eric J. Hanson, Dept. Political Economy, University of Alberta. Eddie Yee Wing, 1819 Bolton St., Baltimore, Maryland.
N.B.—Friends of the University are those who subscribe five dollars a year ot more to provide scholarships and research facilities, extras, for the University. They receive The New Trail without further subscription.—Ed.
126
Trail Blazers
Dr. Donald Robert Wilson
DR. DONALD ROBERT WILSON
Dr. Donald Robert Wilson, a member of the staff of the Faculty of Medicine, bas been appointed Markle Scholar for 1949. He is one of the thirteen medical scientists who have been named as the second group of “Scholars in Medical Science” appointed by the John and Mary Markle Foundation as part of a five year program to keep young doctors on teaching and research staffs of medical schools. John Markle, it seems, was a Pennsylvania coal miner who, having become wealthy, established the foundation to encourage students in medicine and the social sciences.
The award is new and unusual in that the scholar may choose his own subject of research and pursue it at his own university, free of official strings except for a yearly accounting to a committee of the foundation. The 1949 scholars were selected from a group of candidates proposed by, accredited medical schools in the United States and Canada and interviewed by regional committees appointed by the foundation. The sum of $325,000 has been appropriated for their support, to be allotted in grants of $25,000 each at the rate of $5000 a year, to the medical schools in which they now hold faculty appointments.
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Dr. Wilson, when we interviewed him, seemed more eager to talk about the award and his plans concerning it, than about himself. He is probably well known to graduates who attended university in the years ’31 to 35, having been a prominent athlete, active on the rugby and swimming teams, holder of a Big Block “A”, and president of Men’s Athletics in 1935. He is a member of Zeta Psi fraternity.
He had a brilliant academic career. A Rhodes scholarship in 1935 took him to Oxford for two years where he obtained a B.A. degree in the Honor School of Physiology. On his return from England he spent two years at McGill, securing the degree of M.D., CM. Two years internship in the Montreal General followed.
The war sent Dr. Wilson into the Airforce as Medical Officer. He served for a time at Ottawa, but saw most of his service in India. He was discharged in 1945 with the rank of Squadron Leader. However, he still acts as a medical con- sultant for the airforce.
After discharge from the airforce, he spent a year and a half at Montreal General, and then went to the Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard University as Research Fellow in Medicine, then back to Montreal to hold a similar post in the Royal Victoria Hospital. During this period he qualified as a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians (Canada), and secured the diploma in Internal Medicine from McGill.
As Markle scholar Dr. Wilson will retain his teaching position here while he carries on his intended research in Metabolism and Endocrinology in the University
Hospital.
Stan Mealing, Rhodes Scholar, receives a cordial greeting from the Chancellor. —Garneau Studios.
the chipmunk
The Chipmunk was sunning himself on one of the brick-piles beside the new library when a casual snatch of passing conversation tickled his curiostty——’A Mud School?” That was intriguing enough to send him scurrying into the nearby ‘“Med”’ building — Inquiries led to the department of chemical engineering, where he learned that a ‘Mud School” will indeed be held in the laboratories of that de- partment May 16th to 27th.
This is the first time a school of this kind has been held in Canada though they have become fairly common in the United States. Last year the university, anxious to co-operate with the petroleum industry in Alberta, estab- lished a curriculum in petroleum engineering About two months ago it was decided to run a short course in drilling fluids or “mud” as the oilmen call it. This ‘mud’ 1s pumped into the well through the drill stem and fills the space between that and the casing, thus acting as a safety measure against the pressure of gases encountered in drilling. [It is im- portant that the mud be properly handled and of the right viscosity. The course is designed primarily not for engineers, but for the work- ers in the oilfields, the roughnecks, derrick- men, drillers and tool pushers, and will include instruction in the functions of drilling fluid, standard mud tests, good mud practice in this area, use of chemical and weighting materials in controlling mud quality.
The chemical engineering department and the department of extension of the university are co-operating with the newly formed Canad- ian Association of Oil Well Drilling Contractors, the American Association, and the Alberta Petroleum and Natural Gas Conservation Board, the purpose being to promote safety and better methods in the oilfields. Special instructor in the Mud School will be James E. Conway, Drilling Fluid Specialist of the University of
Texas. ment of Chemical Engineering will also instruct.
Members of the staff of the depart-
’
Feeling like a “mud” expert himself after learning all this, your chipmunk encountered Professor Gads of the Engineering Faculty, who changed the subject from ‘’mud” to stars’’ and showed him some very interest- tng charts and equipment used tn an astronomy course given by the department every year In connection with the survey school However, a chipmunk’s curiosity being confined pretty close to the ground, he declined a peek through a telescope and wandered over to the plant science department There he learned that Dr McCalla has recently been elected presi- dent of the Edmonton branch of the Agricul- tural Institute of Canada He also heard that the Canadian Seed Growers’ Association will hold tts annual convention in Edmonton this year As there are more seed growers in A!- berta than in any other province, a big turn- out 1s expected The convention will be divided into three sections: the first, on ‘Production and Marketing of Forage Crops” will be headed by John McKay of Ottawa, Mr. C A. Weir of Plant Products Division in Calgary, will talk on “Northern Canadian Production of Forage Seeds’, the second section, on ‘Production of Pedigreed Grains” will be headed by Earnest Jackson of Eston, Saskatchewan, in the third section’ Dr. Bill Broadfoot, of the Science Service in Lethbridge will speak on “Diseases of Cereals,’ and W H. Mead from the Dominion Laboratory of Plant Pathology in Saskatoon will speak on “Diseases of Grasses and Clover.”
Most alumni will be interested to know that Dr Ernest Sheldon, long time head of the Mathematics Department, has accepted a post at Acadia University, at Wolfville, Nova Scotia.
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Chipmunk had his first glance at a Prime Minister on April 9th when the Right Honorable Louis St. Laurent, accompanied by his wife and daughter, paid a brief visit to the University. The Prime Minister addressed a large gathering of students, stressed the importance of the At- lantic Pact as a great step in assuring world peace, and making a few observations regarding the purpose of university education and the relation of the public and its leaders.
The new University Studio Theatre, located in Hut ‘’C’’ on the campus, held its grand opening on March 4th. The hut has been con- verted into a 150-seat auditorium to be used by the drama department for training and experimental work. To mark the opening, the Dramatic Society and the University Provincial Players staged four plays of widely differing character. Two were on Alberta themes—Elsie Park Gowan’s prize-winning ‘‘Breeches from Bond Street’’ and Professor R. H. G. Orchard’s "The White Man and the Mountain,’’ an ex- periment in drama, ballet and music, dealing
with the legend of the ’’Lost’ Lemon Mine.’ A Victorian farce, ‘“Cox and Box,’’ and an impressionistic drama, ‘’Sordid Story,’’ portray- ing the inside of a murderer’s mind, completed the interesting and diversified program.
This year’s interyear plays also featured an experimental drama combining music, poetry and drama, written by Miss Ulasovetz, and titled ‘’Rain.”’
One of the Beaver Club Scholarships, awarded for the first time this year, has been won by John Ogwen Parry. The Beaver Club was established in London in the early days of the Second World War, to meet the needs of Canadian Servicemen in Great Britain. At the end of the war, the Club, which had been generously supported and carried on for the most part, by voluntary work, found itself with a substantial fund. To administer this fund the Beaver Club Trust was established, its objects being to provide scholarships*to enable Canadian ex-servicemen and their sons to pur- sue further studies and training at universities
1949 Graduation Class, University Hospital Beauties. —Garneau Studios.
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and colleges in Great Britain. The purpose was education rather than research and preference in selection was given to those interested in humanities and social sciences, including such subjects as law, pedagogy, fine arts and sociology
Jack Parry is an airforce veteran and a member of the graduating class in faw.
The John Dolson Oliver Mothersi!l Memorial Scholarship, also new this year, went to Bernie Bowlen of Carsta:rs, president of the Students’
Union for the past year. Bernard Bowlen, a member of the graduating class in agriculture, was awarded the scholarship in recognition of distinguished service to his fellow students dur- ing the past year. The scholarship was pre- sented by Mr. and Mrs Alfred Chard of Vic- toria, in memory of the late J D O Mothersill, an arts graduate who was a prominent student during the years 1912 to 1916 It 1s awarded for outstanding contributions to student life, especially through good citizenship and active support of the student government.
Status of our Teaching Profession LaZerte Report, 1948
Should teachers take an active part in the life of the community? Yes, say over two- thirds of our citizens.
Agriculture supplies 37% of our teachers, unskilled labour 10%, skilled labour 10%, the professions 6%, clerical service 8%.
The more capable students going into teach- ing select the longer training programmes.
Low entrance requirements and short pro- grammes of training attract less able students.
Families tend to select the same vocational groups as those of the fathers. But sons and daughters of teachers are not entering the teaching profession.
Thirty-five per cent of teachers in training do not intend to stay more than four years. Ninety-seven per cent of young people do not believe that society appreciates the service given by teachers.
Business and industry think that whot is wrong with teaching is
Low salaries
Poor pension schemes Inadequate training
Low entrance requirements.
Teachers believe teacher-training program- mes should be revised. They want less theory,
more practical application of theory, more practical teaching, more demonstration lessons, some selection of trainees, planned in-service training
18% of Canada’s teachers have some Uni- versity training.
27% of Canada’s teachers have a Grade XI education.
30°% of Canada’s teachers have a Grade XI education.
15% of Canada’s teachers have Grade X or less.
11,000 persons in charge of classrooms have no certificates.
Canada needs 133,000 teachers before 1958'!! OR 13,300 ao year. In 1947-48, 7,800 were enrolled in teacher-training insti- tutions—just half of the estimated number required
Low salaries is the main cause of the short- age of teachers. Alberta has avoided a pro- vincial crisis in education by using correspond- ence courses. Next to salaries, little oppor- tunity for advancement is given as the cause of the teacher shortage.
—AT.A Magazine, May, 1949.
» »
45 William S. McDonald is with the Department of Transport, Canal Service, in Ottawa. He tells us that his brother, James Alexander Me- Donald ‘24, 1s in the Ontario Hospital at Brock- ville
‘20 John J. Tighe, who was a member of the legal staff and assistant secretary of Burns & Co Ltd, has retired and lives at 2233 26A Sst, SW, Calgary. ‘22 Prominent Edmonton barrister and former military secretary tn the Department of National Defence, Henry A. Dyde was married April 23 to Mrs Dorothy Plaunt, widow of the late Alan B Plaunt, of Ottawa
23
Some time ago we had an interesting note from Dr. Charles D. Reid, who lives at 106 Commonwealth Road, Rochester 10, NY. He reports “Bob Baker, B.Com. ‘24, visited us during the year from Dryden, NY We also renewed acquaintance with Allon Galbraith ‘28, who ts now at Aberdeen Proving Ground Ona recent trip to NY. City we had a chat with Margaret Lowry (nee Archibald) ‘22, who dis- plays her usual vigor after so many years in NYC By the way, Arthur Seroggie ‘22 lives at 5210 Caledonia Road, Richmond, Va.”
Agnes MacFarlane was married January 8th to Mr J Hurst. They will live in Toronto
Mes, P. Blundell (nee Marion MacEachern) has returned to teaching and ts now principal of Camp Centre School at Wetaskiwin.
‘24 Donald McRae is an administrator of the Veteran’s Business and Professional Loans Act, Department of Finance, Ottawa
Dr. James B. Collin made a brief visit to Edmonton earher this spring after having at- tended a western regional meeting of the medi- cal division, National Research Council, at Sas- katoon Dr Collip, widely known as a co- d'scoverer of insulin, 1s dean of medicine and head of the department of medical research at the University of Western Ontario.
Alumni Notes
131
« «
Dr. W. W. Bell is the pension medical ex- aminer with the Canadien Pension Commission in Victoria.
‘25
W. G. Malaher is assistant secretary, Can- adian Wheat Board, at Winnipeg.
Leslie Bell is at Haileybury, Ontario, with the Consolidated Mining & Smelting Co Ltd
Harry Hardin is seeing that his sons get off to a good start Byron and Sam have just com- pleted their first and second years respectively in the School of Pharmacy here
T. P. Devtin of Winnipeg, western manager for the CNR = department of colonization and agriculture, was a recent Edmonton visitor.
‘27 Clarence White lives at Yellowknife, N W.T. He is operating superintendent of the “’Con’’ Mine there ‘28 William J. Dean has been credited with having a part in the titanium discovery in northern Ontario. '29 Dr. George S. Field 1s Deputy-Director Gener- al, Defence Research Board and scientific ad- viser to the Chief of Navol Staff.
30 Dr. Fred Werthenback and Mrs. Werthen- back {nee Grace Hubbs) live at Unity, Saskat- chewan They tell us that their two daughters are prospective members, class of ‘54 and ‘55! M. Ruth Thompson is director of nursing at the Victoria Hospital in London, Ontario J. Allan Campbell of Edmonton ts grazing land appraiser with the Provincial Department Lands and Mines. 31 Dr. Melville Cormack is in charge of plant pathological work in the new Science Service Laboratories at Lethbridge. Dr. James H. Torrie is Professor of Agronomy at the University of Wisconsin. Stanley Rands is presently the coordinator of research and reports for the National Film Board of Ottawa.
THE NEW TRAIL
132
‘SOIPNIS NDausIDy—
AIDJyD D]DB Dd spM ‘9, ADW ‘||D}H DISDGDUW UI JaNbUDG IULUN|D ayy
THE NEW TRAIL
‘32
Ralph Cody McPherson is now general man- ager of Northwestern Utilities Ltd, of Edmon- ton
We have received word that Henry Boettcher ‘32 and John F, Moore ‘37 were recently owarded degrees of Doctor of Philosophy from the University of Minnesota
Tim Byrne is superintendent of the Taber School Division in this province
Guy Preston is supervising district agricul- turist at Prince George, BC tn January of this year he was married to Miss Haze! M Cole
‘33
Jay Burke Lilge is the brand-new son of Mr. and Mrs. E. O. Lilge of Edmonton Mrs Liige ts the former Elizabeth Burke.
Dr. F. P. Sparks has moved from Vancouver and 1s now at the Royal Inland Hospital at Kam- loops, BC
Harry Mather is assistant to the director of Line Elevator Farm Service, Winnipeg
Born to Mr. and Mrs. H. Leeds (nee Merran Drew) a son, Douglas Logie, October 6th last
Frank Kinahan is a laboratory and inspection supervisor with Shawinigan Consolidated Works
‘34
Rev. E. Sinclair, who has been in Vermilion for the past six years, has accepted the appoint- ment to the United Church at Dawson Creek, BC
Dr. Clarence A. Johnson !ives at Princeton, NJ, where he 1s director of research for Hydro- carbon Research Inc
Mrs. J. A. Harrison (nee Marjorie Hall), writes from 7522 Whitaker Ave, Van Nuys, California) Mrs Harrison received her PhD from the University of Chicago in 1947
Dr. Joseph H. Cooper has moved from San Francisco and his new address is 242 Dorer Ave, Hillside, N J
Dr. Josephine M. Mitchell is with the Depart- ment of Mathematics at the University of Ill- nois in Urbana
‘35
Bill MacKenzie has recently moved from Toronto to Calgary and his present address ts 2713 Montcalm Crescent
Mrs. W. L. Thompson (nee Doris Stephens) tells us she has a new son, born March 28th Fred Miller, who recently resigned as prin- Cipai_ of the Olds School of Agriculture, has
133
been appointed agricultural assistant to the Ed- monton Exhibition Association 160
Mrs Freeman ts the
Mrs. Patrick Freeman’s new address :s: Glenvale Blvd , Toronto former Modeline Austin.
‘36
Among McGill's recent promotions is that of De. J. E. Ayre, who has been promoted to the post of director of the cytology laboratories tn the new Donner Building for Medical Research.
John G. Mcintosh, member of the Victoria Alumni Branch, ts a partner in the law firm of Marchant, Gillis and McIntosh, in that city.
Dove McKerricher is employed by Northwest Orient Airlines as meteorologist His head- quarters are at Anchorage, Alaska
Allan and Mrs. McTavish (nee Margaret MacDougall) of Edmonton are justly proud of therr three sons, Douglas, Wally and Gordon Allan is principal and owner of McTavish Busi- ness College
Eddie Yee Wing advises us that he 1s now associated with Alexander S Cochrane, Archi- tect, Baltimore, Maryland
John Garrett has left for New Zealand, where he will take up duties as head of the English department at Canterbury College at the Univer- sity of Christchurch. | He has been lecturing at Trinity College at the University of Toronto
Herb Hewitt is chief engineer with Interna- tional Coal & Coke at Coleman, Alberta
‘37
Dr. Gordon L. Burton writes from Macdonald College, PQ, where he is with the Department of Agricultural Economics The Burtons (Mrs Burton ts the former Jean Stafford) have two children, John and Jay
Ralph Ludwig is also at Macdonald—associ- ate professor of plant pathology
Dr. Abe Hurtig has been holidaying in Ed- monton, and dropped into the office to visit briefly He practises in Ottawa
When we last heard from Jean K. McDonald, she was at the University of Michigan, a gradu- ate student in astronomy.
‘38 Born to Mr. and Mrs. E. Roy Stouffer (nee Margaret MacMillan) of Edmonton, on March 25, a son, David John.
134 THE NEW TRAIL
"39
Dr. J. Crosby Johnston is at the University of Toronto on a hospital administration course, which is to be completed by June, 1950.
"40
James A. McKirdy ts a research bio-chemist with the Manitoba Cancer Institute.
Morris Zaslow has been awarded a Canadian Social Science Research Council fellowship. He is now studying at the University of Toronto where he is a candidate for the PhD. degree in the department of history.
James Elwell is with the Cerro de Pasco Cop- per Corporation, Mahr Tunel, Peru.
Dr. James Cardy has been certified as a specialist in pathology by the American Board of Pathology as a result of examinations re- cently written in Boston.
‘Al
Dr. H. E. Rosvold hos been appointed to a full-time research post at Yale University. He was assistant professor of psychology at McGill last year and his new post will be that of assistant professor of psychology and psychiatry.
Rolph Bailey now holds the position of Group Superintendent at the CM. & S. plant at Cal- gary.
Dr. John Dixon is at present on a post graduate surgical course at McGill. Mrs. Dixon is the former Isabelle MacKenzie. They have a daughter Ann who is just about a year old now.
Dr. Cyrus Pow plans on leaving Vancouver during the latter port of June, for Montreal, where he will take a year’s course with a view to obtaining his FRCS.
42
J. Delmor Foote is riow secretary to the Canadian Minister to Sweden.
Howard Young tells us he has his own retail pharmacy in Calgary, which is situated in the New Rosedale district on the Banff Trail.
Stuart S. Purvis was recently admitted to the Alberta bar and 1s now with the Edmonton firm of Purvis, Johnston and Purvis. He has spent some time at the University of Toronto where he attended the school of graduate law studies and institute of industrial relations.
Dr. Fred Day, who is doing post graduate work in Liverpool, tells us that he intends to return to Edmonton soon, to practise ortho- poedics.
‘A3 Russeli Hemstock is in the employ of Im- perial Oil Co, Ltd., at Devon, Alberta.
Dr. Leonord Loveseth, who has been on the staff of St Luke’s Hospital tn Chicago, has re- cently moved to San Mateo, California, to enter private practice.
Jack Parry, who graduated with the degree of LLB. at recent convocation exercises, has been awarded a Beaver Club scholarship which is valued at about $4,000. Jack expects to study at Oxford for the next two years.
Jean Kosloff, whose article ‘‘Palestine Tragedy’” appeared in the last issue of this magazine, advises us that she is leaving Los Angeles and returning to Tel Aviv. Her new address will be. Box 2728, Tel Aviv, Israel
Florence Bonsall 1s administrative dietitian at Royal Columbian Hospital in New Westminster, BC
‘44
Donald Livingstone 1s located at Sarnia, On- tario, where he 1s a process engineer with Polymer Corporation.
Dr. J. Donald LaZerte and Mrs. LaZerte (nee Barbara Mason, 42) have moved to St Paul where Don is employed by the Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing Co.
In March of this year, Marry Hole and Muriel Sweetnam (‘48) were married in Ed- monton, where they are making their home
Harry G. V. Evans has been awarded his third National Research Council scholarship During the past two years he has been under- taking research in physical chemistry at Mc- Gill University.
Born to Dr. and Mrs. R. H. Blaquiere of Edmonton, on May 2, a son, Donald Robert
Norman Putnam is Field Crops Commissioner with the Department of Agriculture at Victoria, B.C.
Frances Holdom is employed as a nutrition- ist with the Department of National Health and Welfare in Ottawa. Paulette Jegard is also with this department, while her sister Suzanne is at Ames University (lowa) working on her master’s degree.
Dr. R. E. H. Fargharson is lecturer in anes- thesia with the faculty of medicine at the University of California.
THE NEW TRAIL 135
John Myers is an instructor in the chemical engineering department at the University of Michigan and is working toward his Ph.D. in the same department.
‘45
Rey. H. A. Cantelon will head the new bible school in religious education at Alberta College when the fall term begins At the present time Mr Cantelon is taking post graduate work at Berkeley, California
Hannah McCullough is a psychologist at Shaughnessy Hospital in Vancouver.
Dr. Lewis Younger advises us that he is off to the University of Minnesota to start a fellow- ship in otolaryngology He has been House Resident at the U of A Hospital for the past yeor
Alex Snowdon expects to go to France this fall, where he will study and lecture at the University of Paris
Wm. D. MacDonald resides in Calgary He is employed as a geologist for the Rio Bravo Co of that city
R. W. Brandley is assistant professor in civil engineering at the University of Saskatchewan.
Born to Mr. and Mrs. John Weeks (nee Lucy Gainer, ‘48) on May 15, at Montreal, a son, Chester Gordon
W.. J. Bruce will be leaving the department of mathematics here early in September for the University of Seattle where he has a teach- ing fellowship He will work toward his Ph D in education.
Born to Mr. and Mrs. Hu Harries (nee Joyce Farrell) of Edmonton, on May 20, a son, Thomas Hu.
Elizabeth King is dietitian at Tadanac Hospital
the Trail-
‘46
Born to Mr. ond Mrs. Robert Kasting of Ot- tawa, on Morch 28, a daughter, Pauline Ann
Marion Might began work at the hospital at Ste Anne de Bellevue early in May.
Ray Montolbetti 1s taking a post graduate course in the Graduate Physics Division of the University of California, Berkeley.
Allen Ronaghan and Shirley Hemphill were recently married in Edmonton They will make their home at Tofield, where Allen is on the high school staff,
Dr. Rene Boileau has been appointed resident in surgery at the Notre Dame Hospital, Univer- sity of Montreal, where he has been doing post graduate work in surgery He assumes his new position June 1.
Mrs. Jac A. Fehr (nee Florence Stewart) who has been living in Winnipeg, advises us that she and her husband are moving to Altona, Mani- toba, in the near future Florence and Jac were married last September tn Calgary. We were happy to hear from Florence of other re- cent graduates ‘‘! correspond with Betty Pullar (H.Ec., ‘46), Hollingshead. She and Bob (Eng., *46) are still in Edmonton Murray and Shirley Jacques (nee Auld, ’46) are in Calgary and have a bouncing baby boy born last January— Lawrence Murray Blanche Howard (nee Machon, Science ‘44) and her husband are living in Penticton, B C , where they are making quite a success of a drive-in lunch bar and gas station.”
Mrs. C, T. Sherring (the former Doris Wynd- ham) is now a resident of Bircham, Alberta. Doris worked in Victoria until her marriage.
Margaret Moness of Roxboro, North Carolina, recently became the bride of Dr. Don Husel. Don, who has been interning at Duke Hospital, Durham, will serve next year as assistant resi- dent doctor at St. Luke’s Hospital in St Louis.
Gordon Myers intends to go to McGill in Sep- tember of this year to work on his Ph.D. in Bacteriology. left for Honolulu in. the
Lavonne Broadfoot has where she will be assistant dietitian Queen Mary Hospital there
Collin Corkum writes from Bloedel, BC.
Me. ond Mrs. Robert Mifner of Ottawa an- nounce the birth of a son, William Bruce, on February 21 Mrs Milner is the former Verona Elder.
Naomi Wershof, Edmonton soprano, made her concert debut in Montreal some time ago with considerable success. She has been study- ing in Toronto and more recently in Montreal
George Mathers is attending Stanford Uni- versity for post graduate work.
‘47 Poul McConnell, who is in the employ of Canadian General Electric, has recently been transferred from Toronto. to Vancouver. His address in Vancouver ts: 1990 W. 19 Ave.
136 THE NEW TRAIL
Joan O’Rourke is the Reference Librarian at U.B.C.
Born to Mr. and Mrs. Frank Finn of Edmon- ton, on Oct. 29 last, a son, John Michael. Mrs. Finn is the former Patricia Cave.
_ We hear also that a son, Terence John, was
born to Mr. and Mrs. T.: Oldford of Red Deer on July 14 last. Mrs. Oldford is the former Kathleen Thompson.
Norman Brennan and Evelyn Miller were married in March. They will live in Camrose.
Marguerite Lambert is one of those chosen to do special research work into heart diseases, under a. fund set up by life insurance com- panies in Canada and the United States. She is continuing her M.Sc. work at the University of Saskatchewan.
Edith Armstrong is the district home econo- mist at Camrose.
Donald Matthews is farm manager at the Highland Stock Farm near Calgary.
Helen White is working for her master’s degree at Pasadena College.
‘A8 Eleanor Jamieson, public health nurse with the Athabasca Health Unit, has her head-
quarters at Colinton, Alberta.
A spring wedding took place in Beverly Hills, California, when Elva Pearson became the bride of Reinhard Frederking. They are making their home in Beverly Hills.
Etta Barnecut is with the Calgary Public Library.
Peter Petrashuyk has d position with a power utility operating in Maracaibo, Venezuela.
Dr. Robert W. Robertson and Sonia Podgurny were married recently in Edmonton. They will reside here.
Jim Harris is in the employ of United Geo- physical Co. and has been jogging around the province this past year. When last heard from he was at Breynat.
Lawrence Williams is working for the pro- vincial department of agriculture as district agriculturist at Sedgewick. Mrs. Williams is the former Esther Anderson, ‘43.
Reg. Lister receives from. Barclay Pitfield honorary life membership in the Alumni Association
—kKensit Studio.
THE NEW TRAIL 137
Beth Tanner has been teaching home economics at Athabasca High School for the past year.
Neal Blackburn ts at Shawinigan Falls, Que- bec, an engineer in the chemical development department of CIL’s cellophane plant
Arnold Lesk has been awarded a teaching assistantship at the University of Illinois He 1s studying for his MSc degree in electrical engineering
On April 16 Amy Wiese was married to Frank W. Thompson of Grande Prairie.
Maxine Urch is employed by the City of Calgary Health Department, as schoo! nurse.
Dr. J. A. M. MacKay and Elizabeth Bay were married on April 18 in St Stephen’s Col- lege Chapel.
A pretty wedding took place on April 23 when Frances Cosselman and Bob Reynolds were married tn Edmonton They will live in Sarnta, Ontario, where Bob its with Canadian Synthetic Rubber
"a9
Alex Wasylewsky, who received the Governor General's Gold Medal at convocation ceremonies just concluded, will attend Harvard this fall He has been awarded a scholarship that will enable him to do research work in chemistry and also work toward his Ph D
Lt. Leon Richardson, RCDC, and Mary Mitchell were married on May 7 in Edmonton, where they will temporarily make their home. Leon is a ‘49 graduate in dentistry.
Doug Hagerman, who has been awarded the Institute of Chartered Accountants Prize, has arrived in Reno, where he will be employed by an accounting firm
Al Knebel and Eunice Kreutz were married the latter part of April Al is a recent com- merce graduate
Mr. and Mrs. Lem Barnes, who were recently marrted in Edmonton, will reside in Calgary. Mrs Barnes 1s the former Marjorie Burn.
Crawford Ferguson, who was the recipient of all prizes awarded by the Faculty of Law this year, will article with Porter, Allen and Millard of Calgary
On May 19 June Sigsworth and John Hunt (‘47), were married in Edmonton. They will be making their home at Radium, BC.
On June 22 Joy Russell is sailing for London, England, where she expects to teach in one of the grammar schools Joy intends to remain for a year
Reginald Thurber has been appointed to the position of soils engineer for the department of public works in British Columbia and has left for Victoria.
—KAY BENDIKSEN, Editor.
‘NEWS .... from the branches
Toronto There can be no doubt about it the To- ronto Branch 1s a hive of activity This issue
we have no end of affairs to record
First of all there 1s the ‘East Shindig’’ head- lined in the Gateway under the date March 4, 1949 This actually took place on March 12 and was preceded by a reception for Alberta graduates Here is what Marion Francis says cbout tt.
“At our last executive meeting | was asked to report to you on the Alberta reception pre- ceding the Universities of Western Canada an- nucl dance at the Royal York Hotel, March 2th It was a great success—180 Alberta alumni enjoyed the reunion
"Green and gold name tickets and ribbons were an innovation at the reception this year, and sold for 25c, the only charge made for the pre-dance affair Copies of the special edition of the Gateway, which arrived by air express and headlined our Toronto party, were distributed at the reception Annually at the dance each of the four Western Universities unofficially competes for the most enthusiastic rendition of its Varsity song and yell—we did ourselves proud with ‘Ring out a cheer for our Alberta’ and the yell A-L-B-E-R-T-A—as if we weren't these 2,000 miles and (for some of us) several years removed from the whoop-to-do of dances and sports on the campus.”
We have also a report of a supper dance held in the King Edward Hotel on April 20.
138 THE NEW TRAIL
President Ken Madsen sends word that this affair was a real success and that the branch is hoping for a repeat performance in the fall.
By the time this issue goes to press this thriving branch will have swallowed its tea at Wymilwood and elected a new slate of officers. Concerning this affair Ken Madsen says: ‘The date is definitely May 22nd and it will be held at Wymilwood. _Wymilwood is one of the Women’s Residences at the University of To- ronto—a beautiful old home facing on Queen’s Park and the Campus. We were very fortun- ate to get this spot and we are looking for- ward to an excellent turnout. Jessie Heath (nee. Carmichael) convened the Tea last year and has agreed to look after it again this year. Election of officers for 1949-1950 and presentation of financial report are also slated for this event.”’
And that is not all. Plans are already made for a Christmas reception and party on Decem- ber 10. This seems to start the old merry- go-round, how many days to Christmas?
Incidentally we should like to mention, merely for the record, that a certain graduate
by the name of Clem King keeps the dues from this branch merrily rolling.
: Winnipeg The chief item of news from this busy branch is of course the Annual Green and Gold Dinner, April 19, 1949. This gala affair took place in the Mikado Room of Moore’s Restaurant and your Alumni Secretary-Editor had the privilege and pleasure of being present as guest speaker.
It was great fun. The punch was good, the dinner excellent and the whole affair a super- latively happy affair, Nearly fifty Alberta graduates were present and sang the old songs with as much gusto as ever. We did our best to rise to the occasion and succeeded in spite of the worry connected with such assignments in having a rare good time.
Bouquets must be handed all round: first, to Tom McBeath for being such a good host; to Elwood Stringham for organizing the recep- tion preceding the dinner; to Mrs. Don Mc- Leod for all her work in connection with the dinner arrangements and to Don Bryden for manipulating the cash balance.
University of Alberta graduates in Toronto turn out for a party at the Royal York.
THE NEW TRAIL “139
We were sorry, however, to note one dark spot: the Don McLeods are being moved to Montreal.
Elwood Stringham heads the new executive of this branch with Dr. Margaret Stobie as vice-president, Dr. Dorothy Barnhouse as secre- tary and Don Bryden as continuing treasurer.
Ottawa
We are happy to acknowledge a fat cheque and a long list of paid-up members from the secretary of this branch.
In her letter of April 6 last Mrs. O’Brien reports as follows: ‘The new executive held a social evening in the Y.W.C.A. on Friday, March 25. Forty-six alumni attended. We showed pictures, had a sing-song and then spent an hour visiting and looking at past year books. We were somewhat disappointed at the small turn-out but had a most enjoyable evening nevertheless.”’ ;
In a later letter dated May 13 we have this further news: ‘Our older alumni group meet at W. S. Macdonald’s, 110 Brighton Ave., next
Saturday, and our yearly general picnic is next month at the aboretum on the Dominion Experimental Farm."
Well, we sincerely hope it doesn’t rain on
the picnic day! , Victoria
From our staunch friend in Victoria, Blair Paterson, we have another report of the activi- ties of the branch in that city. Here it is: “Needless to say, we had a delightful meeting at the home of Miss Muriel Knight on the 5th instant, and our next meeting will be at the home of Dr. and Mrs. W. A. Trenholme, 2550 Cavendish Avenue, Oak Bay, Victoria. Mrs. Trenholme is Peggy Manning, and graduated in nursing from the University.
“We are in the midst of our regular host of Alberta visitors, and as a result we obtain a great deal of information, official and other- wise.
“We have lost Miss Salamandick as our branch secretary, owing to the fact that her work here was completed, and Miss Muriel Knight has very kindly consented to take over
More graduates in Toronto at the same party
140 THE NEW TRAIL
the secretarial duties at least until the next election of officers.
“) think this is all the news | have for you at the present time. Perhaps | should mention that the New Trail came through, and at the last meeting a great many of the members indicated how much they had enjoyed it.’’
Thanks Mr. Paterson, for your interest and The New Trail blushingly acknowledges the kind bouquets.
Edmonton
Now a spot of news from the home front.
The executive of the Edmonton Branch under
its president, Neil McKernan, met April 6 at the home of Mrs. Boone. We hear that there was a lively discussion of aims, projects, and possible changes that may result: in greater interest on the part of the alumni in and around Edmonton.
Neil reports that each and every member of the executive is determined to assist this branch to really step out this year. Another meeting is to be held in the very near future to which the Alumni Secretary is to be invited. We hope to have more to tell in the next issue about this branch’s plans.
AS
Dr. Elwood Stringam President, Winnipeg Branch 1949-50
——-
141
MISSING ALUMNI RECORDS
Perhaps some of these graduates were your classmates . . . we have no record of their present addresses. If you know where they are and what they are doing, please drop a line to the Alumni Secretary of the University of Alberta.
1914— Appleton, Harold, B.A.
1915— Berkov, Abraham, B.Sc. (App. Sc.)
1918—
Brown, Thomas L., B.Sc. (Ag ) 1921—
Hamilton, Jessie M, B.A.
1922— Bryan, Helen, B.A. Butchart, Harold, BSc. (M) Briegal, Mrs J. (nee Thelma Butchart, B.A.) Atkin, George D., LL.B. Baker, Addison G LLB. Ogston, Alex, B.A. MacLaren, Reginald F., LL.B.
1923—
Robison, Samuel C, B Sc. (Ag.) 19246—.
Karran, Frederick R. D., B.A. 1925—
Clermont, Eugenie M., B.A. Baker, Morris L., LL.B. 1926—— Baker, Harold M., B.A. 1927—. Cameron, Donald M., LL.B. Lyle, Guy R., B.A. 1928— Burton, Jean, M.A. Cornwall, James D, B.A. 1929 Cameron, Jean M., B.A. Ainsworth, Harold B.Sc. (EE.) Badcock, Dan G., B.A. 1931— Barclay, Frederick, LL.B. Becker, Donald B., B.A. Halliday, Clarence, B.D. Butler, Mildred, B.Com. Clarkson, Leila, B.A. Taylor, Mrs. Carl (nee Grace Adamson, B.A.)
1932— Alexander, Kenneth, B.Sc. (A.) Boisvert, Wilfrid, B.Sc. (Ag.) MacDonald, James, B.A.
1933— Spooner, Mrs. Gordon (nee Marjorie Allin, BSc. (A)).
1934— Roy, Adele, B.A. Begg, Dorothy R., BA. Blair, Gordon A., B.Sc. (A.) Thomas, Victor, BSc. (Chem.)
1935— Adamson, Robert M., B Sc. (Ag.) Bergman, Lawrence H., B.Sc. (M.) Bradshaw, Mrs C. N. (nee Elinor Embury, B.A.) Denovan, Alexander, B.Sc. (A.) Simcoe, Alfred, B.A.
1936— Hayward, Vernon, B.Sc. (A.) Blue, Jon F, BSc. (A.) Brickman, Edelhardt, B.A. Gibson, Marjorie E., B.A. Harding, Charles M., B.Sc. (E.)
1937— Maddin, Mrs. W. Lorne (nee Barbara Burns, B.A.) Sullivan, Mrs C. B. (nee Ida Jamieson, BSc., (A.)
Turner, Alfred S, M.D. Martinovsky, Elizabeth, B.Sc.
1938— Bercov, Alma, B.A. Miller, Herbert, B.Sc. (A.) Bell, Mary W., B.A. Jones, Franklin W., D.D.S, Atkins, Walter F., B.Sc. (M.)
1939— Campbell, James, B.A. Chisholm, Dr. William, M.D.
1940— Smith, Ernest V., B.Sc. (Ag.) Baron, Robert, B.A. Aylsworth, Aileen, B.A. Brown, Walter L., B.Sc. (M.) Burton, Robert J., B.A.
1941— Brocklebank, Chester R. (Dip. Phm.)
(N.)
142
Bridges, Winnifred, B.Sc. (A.) Jacquest, Donald M., B.Com: Anderson, James John, M.D. Chauvet, Donald Paul, B.A. Barchyn, Donald, B.Sc. (E.)
THE NEW TRAIL
1944— Clemis, William, B.Sc. (A.) Wachowich, Victoria, B.Ed. Carr, John L., B.Sc. (A.)
1943—
1945—. Bell, Lillian, B.Ed. Taylor, George A., B.A. Clark, Margaret G., B.Sc. (N.) Gimby, William H., B.Sc. (A.) Davies, Alfred F., B.Sc. (A.)
Graduates .. . |
In this issue of THE NEW TRAIL you have read articles that have caught your interest, perhaps, or news of current happenings at the University of Alberta which have awakened
for you a flood of memories.
Before you put it down we should like to suggest that you
pause a moment and make a check:
1. 2.
10.
Have you returned that notice concerning your dues?
Have you advised the Alumni office of your change of address, your new position, your marriage, your new addition to the family?
. Has the editor of THE NEW TRAIL been given an opportunity to invite you to write
an article on the interesting things you have done or are now doing?
Have you studied your cash balance since reading ““Whiskeyjack’’?
Have you contacted the secretary of the Alumni Branch in your locality?
Have you a graduate friend who is not in good standing to whom you can pass on your copy of THE NEW TRAIL (after suitably marking p. 76)?
Haye you considered the matter of Life Membership?
Have you any suggestions or ideas for the editor’s private ear?
Are you doing everything you can to boost the active membership of the Alumni Association?
Have you asked yourself: support to my University?”’
‘‘Am | REALLY too busy to give my share of time and
——Editor.
A Leader in the Catalogue’s Mighty Parade...
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The New Trail 1s happy to have another of Dr. William Rowan‘s incomparable birds for the May, 1949 issue Anyone who has been around where birds are will surely recognize this
sharp-eyed fellow, but, as one must never take anything for
granted, we perhaps should tell you that this haughty chap
isa magpie. We take thts precaution because a certain person, on entering our office recently, spred this print and inquired what species of e —but no, never mind, we just can’t
let such an old friend down —-Ed