Peanut Butter and Lime Jelly: Paul Hiebert's Convocation Address

Primary tabs

Page 13
Peanut Butter and Lime Jelly:Paul Hiebert's Convocation AddressI believe that it is customary on these occasions for the speaker to address the young graduates in ringing tones, the theme being always in my experience more or less the same. You are, I understand, to be told that the future is in your hands, that yours is the heritage of youth, and that armed with your knowledge and diplomas you are now to go out into the brave new world and make it a better place. We of the older generations � in my case a generation about four times removed � are supposed to be handing onto you the torch which you are to carry into the future, holding it aloft with all the courage and idealism of youth.Alas, I wish I could address you on this occasion in that noble tradition. But in all conscience, my opinion is that as you go out into this brave new world you are going to make a bigger hash of it than we ever did, and all I can say to you is that if anybody hands you the torch you would better have nothing to do with it because you are likely to blow the place up.I think therefore I shall just take advantage of my declining years and become fondly reminiscent concerning this University of Manitoba with which I have been assocoated the greater part of my life. Perhaps out of my memories of the past you may find some values which can be salvaged in case one of these days you decide to start all over again.I am always proud to say that I was a member of the first student body to ever graduate from this University as such. Ours was the class of 1916, one of those who made the world safe for democracy during the first great war, of which I am sure you must have heard.Before our time we had all been students at the denominational colleges, Wesley, Manitoba, St. Johns or St. Boniface; and the University held the examinations for the degree and granted them, but we were still members of the different colleges with our own loyalties and rivalries. But the colleges, Wesley and Manitoba combined13
Page 14
for a number of years, and then later, being church colleges, when they quarrelled, we as students were expected to return to the original colleges in which we had started. But we decided to stick together and the University received us as a separated student body and we became graduates of what was then called, Varsity College.As I remember that class of 1916, the total number of graduates, not counting engineering and medicine, was about sixty or seventy students. As undergraduates we received much more individual attention than you can possibly receive today. We were known to each of the professors whether we took their classes or not. It was an age of much less efficiency than now and since efficiency is always the enemy of personality, we received much more personal attention.Students in those days did not enter the University in the hopes of improving their chances for a job, or, if they were women, improving their chances for a husband. We had already undergone a kind of screening process in the community from which we came � only those who wanted an education or felt that as persons we might be more worth knowing when we came out after our four years, entered the courses. It was all very simple. You went to the registrar's office and he would say, "Have you got your matriculation? What do you want to take, and will you please pay the cashier forty-two dollars."The university was very definitely something of an ivory tower in those days. We were, in a sense, the elite. We entered a community of educated men, themselves products of the British universities, and they were generally also what one might call characters. They were eccentric, very opinionated, they rode their ideas to absurd lengths, but they were full of knowledge and our lives were enriched by associating with them. We picked up an education by osmotic pressure in addition to having to take their more or less rigorous courses. Two years of Latin were compulsory for all students as well as a year inMathematics, and we always felt that after the first two years' hurdle we were well away and could not fail. But we acquired an outlook and an attitude which, I regret to say, was often supercilious with regard to those whom we regarded as not so fortunate, and a scale of values which we tended to assert in the face of those other assertions of wealth and social standing.I said that we were treated very personally. When it came to convocations such as this, we were called individually from the front benches to the rostrum where the Chancellor of the University, in those days the very reverend Samuel Matheson, Archbishop of Rupertsland, shook our hand individually and by the authority vested in him as Chancellor admitted us to the Baccalaureatus in Artibus, or something like that. Our two years of Cicero, Virgil, Horace, Caesar, Ovid, and things like that didn't always prepare us for the Latin we might meet. Unless of course it was cum laude, or magna cum laude, which meant that we were being presented with a medal or something. We always maintained about Archbishop Matheson, whom we affectionately called Sammy Rupertsland, that because he was very tall and dignified in his robes and had a long white beard, that he presented to the St. Johns student a copy of the Holy Scriptures, suitably inscribed, "With the Compliments of the Author."I remember my first convocation very well. The speaker on that occasion was Professor Hutton, Professor of Classics from the University of Toronto, but I remember little of his address. We were told that the world was our oyster, or words to that effect, and of course that we should continue to make the world safe for democracy which you are all happy to know we have done. But what I remember best about that first convocation address was that in describing the great Dominion of Canada, the field of our endeavour into which we were to carry the torch, he pointed out that it was large and expansive and that, to quote him, "The railroads stretched from ocean to ocean and the telegraph lines from pole to pole."Now that remark has stayed with me all these long years. It was a very obvious pun and a bit corny, but it gave me confidence and encouragement and I decided to become a professor. I thought that it was an illuminating insight into the academic mind to which some day I might qualify. Years later I was to make use of this thought when some research student in English in one of the smaller universities of Ontario wrote me saying that he was doing post graduate work in the Department of English, and that he had chosen for his thesis The Lesser Writers of Canada, and could I give him some biographical information. I know how dull some PhD theses can be so I decided to brighten his work a bit if possible. Knowing from my own work on the literature of Saskatchewan how important it is to have the historical and environmental background in which a writer's work becomes significant, I told him that my cultural roots were deep in the history of Manitoba, that my great-grandmother had been a Mongolian Princess who had been a mistress to one of the Czars of Russia, and that after having been banished to Siberia, she had made her way over the Polar ice-cap into northern Manitoba where she had been adopted by the Crees. She supported herself by giving lessons in Mongo-14
Page 15
lian bead-work and although she always spoke Cree with a strong Russian accent to her dying day, she was well received and eventually married one of the lesser Cree chieftains. From this union a daughter, whose Indian name was Sitting Duck, was born and she in turn married my grandfather who was one of the Hudson's Bay Company Factors. Now here is where the influence of Professor Hutton comes in with his telegraph lines stretching from pole to pole.I explained that although the Hudson Bay Company Factors were common enough in those days, they were still socially the highest members of the community and we were very proud of him and always referred to him as The Highest Common Factor. I felt that with that atrocity I had discharged my debt to the academic world and perhaps even gone the Professor of Classics one better.Anyway, I know I improved his thesis and I recognized my academic responsibility and felt that critical research into the literature and the writers of that literature of Western Canada, would rob it of some of its vitality which so often happens when the scholar gets going on poetry. Scholarship so often sprinkles a dry-as-dustness upon the poets work when it is too thoroughly analysed.I often think, in this connection of those deep lines of the Saskatchewan Muse, the one called M by scholars, and who has never been known or identified, and therefore has been given only half a merit by the Saskatchewan Government when the Orders of Merit were distributed to the other seven poets. They felt that a disembodied voice did not rate a whole Order of Merit but that in giving it a half, they were still ahead of the Group of Seven painters in Ontario who had done so much for the north shore of Lake Superior.I must read you these lines from the Muse. They were first heard from the tape recorder which was being played when the original School of Seven met in Willow-view Cemetery to celebrate the twenty-fifth anniversary of the death of Sarah Binks. The Muse, and as I said, no one knows who she is because the taperecorder was Government property which the civil servant, Jones-Jones had borrowed for the occasion without permission, was to introduce each poet in turn as he or she stepped up to the ceremonial fire which they had built on Sarah's grave.I must read you these lines from the Muse. She warns here against that very thing I have mentioned to the effect thatthe scholarly mind upon living poetry may rob it of its freshness and its livingness and that it may end by being embalmed in university libraries. I think her words in this connection are most appropriate.Break not the lute � the poet's spate Shall flow as thesis for the Doctorate, And the minstrels tears a-shedden 'til hedries,Embalmed be, in universities.But if so, let voice of learning speak, In dialectic and critique, That thus the songs for learning's use, Be squeezed of every human juice.You may have heard the quotation, "He who analyses a flower loses it," and I am inclined to think that the scholar who analyses poetry not only loses the poetic vitality of the poem but that he himself may lose the ability to recognize a flower as such and will end by regarding all literature as subject for clinical investigation. Again I quote that same Muse. It was given when the only academic member of the School of Seven-and-a-Half, Professor Baalam Bedfellow of St. Midgets College stepped up to the ceremonial firewhich had been built on Sarah's grave. (Bedfellow, by the way, has sometimes been called The Piltdown Man because, although he writes beautiful bird poetry he does so because he hates birds and tries to project himself into a kind of pre-historic era where there were no birds, and that is why the Muse refers to him as Piltdown Man with PhD. But the Muse makes the point also that the academic mind is often suspended between sea and sky, as it were, and can not descend to earthy appreciation because of its tendency toward intellectualism.What comes? What gives? What now the gist? The poet or existentialist? One never knows � these men of learning Are torn twixt cosmic mind and yearning. They tread not earth nor touch the stars, But shout their longing from afar In tortured verse � but we shall see � Speak, Piltdown Man, with PhD.I would like to spend more time on the analysis of the academic mind but I am afraid that this talk itself may degenerate into a scholarly address and this, after all,THE ALUMNI ASSOCIATION of theUNIVERSITY OF MANITOBA Executive Director DesignateRequired to start working with the present Executive Director on or about January 1, in preparation for taking over his duties in mid-Summer 1975. Within this period the appointee will act as Editor of The Alumni Journal.Ultimate responsibilities, beyond the obvious managerial ones, will include liaison with the University, students, community and, particularly, graduates of the University. The applicant should have the capacity to work effectively with the Board of Directors in carrying out, with staff, the policies and programs of the Board. Considerable writing ability is essential, two of the Executive Director's main concerns being the quarterly magazine and the annual mail solicitation for membership fees and Alumni Fund. Preference will be given to a graduate of the University of Manitoba.Salary commensurate with qualifications and experience.Applications should be made in writing, with resume of education, experience and other pertinent details, before October 15. to:The Selection CommitteeAlumni Association of the University of Manitoba Room 139, University Centre The University of Manitoba Winnipeg R3T 2N215
Page 16
is convocation. They are colorful affairs, and highlights of the students' four years at the University. At the last one at which I received a degree the speaker was Stephen Leacock and he too did not hold out the torch for us as graduates to carry into the broad Dominion. He spent the whole half hour telling us about how good the fishing was at that time of the year in Northern Ontario. I wish I could do that for you but having just recovered from the Carman flood I cannot face the thought of water whether it contains fish or not.As I said, the convocations are the highlights of the academic year. There used to be only one per year but the University has wisely decided � probably on the advice of the Mathematics Department � that if one is good two must be better, and the student who doesn't pass the exams in May is still enabled to graduate the same year. I think this is a splendid idea. During my days as a member of the teaching staff at this University I repeatedly suggested that no examinations should be held, and that any student who paid his fees and hung around for four years should be given his degree. Except, of course in those technical subjects like Engineering and Medicine, but I have always maintained that a student who is exposed to the university influence and granted the privileges of the University library would acquire an education, but then I may have been harping back to my own undergraduate days, where as I said, the student acquired an education by osmotic pressure.But in addition to the convocation to which we as students and staff all looked forward to as marking the end of work for the academic year, there was another institution to which we also looked forward. This occurred at irregular intervals but it was accompanied by all the pomp and circumstance of the convocation itself. This was, from time to time, the installation of a new president.They too were always happy affairs � any regret at losing one president was always compensated by the thought of a new one. Indeed, it has become part of the academic tradition to always look forward to a new president, in fact from the moment of installation the president of any university is enveloped in an aura of anticipation for his successor. He lives, as it were, at least from the standpoint of the teaching staff, always in the future. And I have known one president at least who seemed to be very much aware of this since he would fearlessly state on everypublic occasion that "the future lies before us." (He was succeeded by a man of singularly equine countenance, "large and horsy" to quote some members of the faculty who regarded his installation, to quote them again, as a "complete horse," a welcome inovation on the part of the Board of Governors . . )I have known many university presidents and sometimes I feel that I would like to write a book about the ones I have known. It would be entitled, "I Would Sooner be Right." Some of those I have known were titled men like Sir Arthur Currie and Sir Robert Falconer, others were my former professors or colleagues, and four at least were once students of mine so that I cansay that I have seen them develop from what might be regarded as a kind of insect stage, through the various cocoons of dean and professor into whatever surprising creature, may emerge.Even your own President, Dr. Sirluck here, although never a formal student of mine in Chemistry, sat through my lectures on Saskatchewan literature, and I always like to feel that my own little candle lighted the spark of scholarship for literature which has become such a brilliant flame. I like to say of myself, "How far that little candle throws his beam, So shines a good deed a naughty world."In wandering down Memory Lane this way � since I cannot commend to you the brave new world, I could tell you many things about the Ivory Tower days of this University � the very formal annual "conversaziones" given by the faculty and which they attended in hood and gown, and where each guest was formally announced by a sergeant-at-arms at the door. Or I could tell you about the parties for the retiring members of the staff at which they were presented with a wrist watch together with the wishes for many happy and care-free years in Victoria, and then plied with weak tea and the famous brownand white bread sandwiches of lime jelly and peanut butter for which the Head of the Home Economics Department had once received her MA as part of her practical work for the degree.But changes must come, and the big change I notice is, in the composition of the student body itself. Manitoba has very properly become proud of its ethnic mosaic. But when I entered the University there was no such thing. Of the seventy or so students in my class there were three Jewish boys, two Icelandic, two Ukrainian, and one Minjetsky, myself. All the rest were Wasp. We were not made to feel it but we were nevertheless aware of it when it came to dating the girls for the class snowshoe or toboggan parties. But how greatly things have changed! The roster of the graduating class today reads like the famous Football squad of Notre Dame, the fighting Irish in which no Irish names ever occur.And I would like to read you, in closing, a poem which, to my mind, most beautifully illustrates this change. It is a poem written by a Winnipeg boy, Peter Rose-blossom, who incidentally is a younger brother of Rapunzel Roseblossom of the English Department of our fellow University here in Winnipeg and who wrote that inspiring little tribute to the moon. The talent evidently runs in the family. The moon poem you may remember goes:The moon is shining brightly in the sky It shines so hard you'd almost think it's hot �And it just shows what you can do if you try,So shine and give it everything you've got.Peter's poem deals with the ethnic mosaic in Manitoba and he takes the bronze buffalo in our parliament buildings here in Winnipeg as a symbol holding the different groups together.You may have noticed on the grounds of our parliament buildings in Winnipeg the various statues which have been presented to the government when the different groups who gathered them could not decide into which town or community they should go. Peter Roseblossom, a little short man who has been described as "every half inch a poet" is a product of our Winnipeg schools, and as we might expect, is thus a little weak in history. He regards the various statues on the grounds of the parliament buildings as statues of Manitoba heroes who have taken part in its battles and he speaks of them as "our deceased". He also is a little weak in16
Page 17
geography in that like most Winnipeggers he regards the eastern boundary of Manitoba extending as far as Kenora, and on the west as far as the Qu'appelle Valley. Such errors of fact are generally permitted in a poet, and very often literature is enriched thereby. Here is Peter Roseblossom's poem entitled THE BUFFALO, and in spite of its errors, perhaps even because of them it is big in scope, and richly deserves having been selected as the Poem of the Month and awarded the prize given by the Kraft Cheese Corporation for the best Manitoba poem during its Centennial year.I may say that its close competitor was Baalam Bedfellow's "God, How I Hate Manitoba," which only lost out because of what the Judges from the Department of Education called its "negative motivation." Anyway, here is Peter Roseblossom's poem and you will see why, in view of the change in the ethnic outlook here in the University of Manitoba I quote it in full:THE BUFFALOFrom Kenora east, to Assiniboine's strand, From the forty-ninth to the arctic sky,Proudly the province's buffalo stands With head erect and tail held high. Guarding the memory of our deceased, Against all � especially them bastards in the East.Proudly those heroes on Parliament's lawns,Stand, who have builded and builded well, Shevchenko, Victoria, done in bronze, Bjarnasson, Burns, and now Riel � Guard them, oh Buffalo on Parliament's porch,With tail aloft like freedom's torch.Stand guard, oh Buffalo, guard our age. And hold in trust the things that we Hail from our ethnic heritage � Ukrainian, Mennonite, Pole, and Cree, English, Orkney, Jewish, Jap, Icelandic, Pategonian, Ibbo, Lapp.Well, I could leave you with that thought, but in closing I would like to pay a tribute to those early professors who as educated and dedicated men made up this University in its early days before there was much of anything in the way of a physical plant to speak of. They were the men after whom many of your buildings have been named � Parker and Argue andBuller to mention only some. They were all scholars and they were rigid and demanding in their scholarship, but quite apart from that we acquired from them not only a wider outlook but above all a sense of values above material things. We assimilated, as it were, an idealism which looked for goodness and beauty and humour, for spiritual qualities beyond the passing face of things, an appreciation of the infinite variety of the world and its activities � in the end a faith in the ultimate goodness of life.That I hope has also become yours in the course of your years here at Manitoba. We complain a lot about the modernization of the University, that it has become something of an educational mill or a degree granting factory but in spite of its numbers it is not that. It has never become an impersonal corporation. There are still the individuals who compose it, fellow students as well as professors, and from these I hope you have drawn your own individual education and your idealism and your faith. If you have them, I need not, as your graduation speaker, point to any brave new world for you to conquer. It is already yours. A Preview of the 1974-75 Winter Travel ProgramAvailable to members Of the Alumni AssociationLike it or not, winter will be with us again this year . . . but to give you a break in the cold months ahead, the Alumni Association is arranging the following vacation packages:1. An escorted flight for three weeks at Marbella on the sun coast of Spain: departure mid-March.2. A two-island, two week holiday in Hawaii: one week in Honolulu, one week on the island of Maui: departure January 27.3. A seven day combination � Disney World/Tampa, Florida: departure March 29 for school Easter break.4. Two weeks in Mexico's newest resort, Mazatlan: departure February 22.5. A three week combination � one week in London, two weeks on the sunny beaches of Tunisia: departure on or about February 23.6. A week of skiing at Innsbruck, Austria: departure mid-February.Further details will be announced in a newsletter to alumni on our special "Travel List". Graduates who participated in or enquired about previous Alumni Holidays are included in that list. Please inform the Alumni Office by letter or by telephone (474-9330) if you wish to have your name added.17
Page 20
'15 DR. PAUL HIEBERT, BA/16,whose book 'Sarah Binks' has become a Canadian classic, was awarded an honorary degree by the University of Manitoba at the spring convocation this May. He spent 28 years here as a chemistry professor.the 20's'23 SAUL LECHTZIER, BScEE/23,of Vancouver, was honored by the Bowling Proprietors' Association of Canada at a recent convention as their Founding President.'28 DR. H. MEDOVY, BA/23 MD/28,Chief Consultant, Department of Pediatrics, lectured on Sudden Death in Infancy and the Responsibility of the Child's Physician for Adult Disease at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque during May and June . . . PROFESSOR NORMA E. WALKER, (WATTS), BA/28, assistant professor in the family studies department of the home economics faculty, was presented the Olive Beatrice Stanton Award for excellence in teaching at the University's spring convocation, 1974.'29 JACK HOOGSTRATEN,BScCE/29, has retired from his position of Dean of Engineering. Jack has served the University of Manitoba for 35 years, as professor, vice- president, and Dean. During 1973-74 he was Honorary President of the Alumni Association . . . SOL KANEE, BA/29, president of Soo-Line Mills (1969) Ltd., was awarded an honorary degree by the University of Manitoba at the annual spring convocation this May . . . DR. LALL G. MONTGOMERY, MD/29, a pathologist who is internationally recognized for his work in elevating the standards for the education and certification of medical technologists, received an honorary degree at Ball State University, Muncie, Indiana, May 17, 1974.The first Dean of Architecture, John A. Russell, who had been associated with the university since 1928, donated a fundamental collection of books assembled by himself The block of books dealing with various aspects of architecture and the visual arts is in the John A. Russell Room of the Architecture Building.the 30's'33 DR. HAROLD SUGARMAN,MD/33, received senior life membership in the Saskatchewan Medical Association and College of Physicians and Surgeons of Saskatchewan, (October 1973).'34 NORMAN J. MacMILLAN QC,BA/30 LLB/34, recently retired as Chairman and President of CNR, has been elected a director of Abitibi Paper Company Ltd.'35 KATHLEEN (KAY) M.JONES,BScHE/35, former director of dietary service at Deer Lodge Hospital inThe Honourable Richard S. Bowles, BA/33, LLB/37, LLD/68, was recently elected chancellor of the University of Manitoba for a three-year term beginning June 1, 1974. Dr. Bowles succeeds Peter D. Curry, who has stepped down after six years as chancellor.Dr. Bowles, a lawyer, was lieutenant-governor of Manitoba from 1965 to 1970, and holds honourary degrees from the University of Manitoba, the University of Winnipeg, Lincoln University, and St. John's College.1972 was presented with an honorary life membership in the Dietetic Association of Manitoba for her "invaluable service to the dietetic profession and the professional association." . . . EDWARD A. F. LEMON, BAHon/35, attended the memorial "Battle of Britain" service at St. Clements Danes church, London, with wartime Pilots and Observers Association of Winnipeg last September. About 160 former RCAF aircrew types enjoyed the reunion.'37 DR. ISABEL MacARTHUR,BScHE/37, former director of the university's school of home economics, was honored by Manitoba home economists for her contributions to dietetics, home economics and to the community.'38 DR. METRO A. OGRYZLO,MD/38, has become the first Editor of a new scientific journal published in Toronto, called The Journal of Rheumatology. Dr. Ogryzlo is Director of the University of Toronto Rheumatic Disease Unit with the rank of Professor of Medicine.the 40's'40 DR. ERNEST SIRLUCK,BAHons/40, President of the University of Manitoba, received an honorary degree from the University of Toronto at their annual spring convocation.'41 DR. JACOB KASTNER,BScHon/41, was elevated to Fellow of the American Nuclear Society. He is being honored for his "contributions in the fields of radiation dosimetry and characterization of the natural environmental radiation background and for his extensive publications in the scientific literature, particularly for the informative booklets written for the younger generation and the general public."20