Some Day the Sun Will Shine and Have Not Will Be No More (5 page)

One of the courses, taught by another teacher, was Algebra. During these years
mathematics was split among the three components of Algebra, Trigonometry, and
Geometry. The class was having great difficulty understanding this subject and
following the teacher’s lessons. At Christmas, I think only three out of
forty-two passed the exam. After the break at Christmas, a number of students
approached the teacher and explained the dilemma, which of course should have
been clear to him, yet he seemed oblivious to our plight and was just soldiering
on as if all was well with the Algebra world. Things still did not improve, and
given that he was also the principal of the school, there was little else we
thought we could do. Luckily for me, my parents had just completed a room
“upstairs” in our one-storey house. This became my place for study, and I would
spend hours there pouring over the Algebra book trying to understand the
material. I
still remember the names of the authors written on
the cover of that infamous book—Hall and Knight—and they were not my favourite
people. Sometime during that period from January to June, I figured it out and
understood enough to pass the province-wide exams. I passed the other subjects
and now had to decide—where do I go from here?

I remember that my father had mentioned university, and Mr. Paddock had also
mentioned it. There were not many from my class interested, and I didn’t know
how interested I really was. The thing was, I really was not mechanical at all,
and just getting involved in the jobs like I had in the summertime would be
low-paying and uninteresting as careers. And I still remembered Mr. Paddock’s
question—what are you going to do with the rest of your life? And of course I
had heard that a brand new campus was about to open and that there was money
available if you were studying to be a teacher.

Well, I applied and was accepted. Off to St. John’s and a boarding house.

Mr. Paddock passed away a few years ago. When his family informed me of this, I
wrote his son the following:

“A university should be a place of light, of liberty and of learning.”

— Benjamin Disraeli

IT WAS ALL A
new experience. Exciting and sometimes
puzzling. Everyone was swept up in the new campus celebrations. The opening of
the new modern Memorial University campus, replacing an old and worn-out campus
on Parade Street, took place in October, 1961.

Mr. Smallwood, the premier, had all these famous people visit, and I remember
being part of the parade celebration, marching with hundreds of others along
Elizabeth Avenue parallel to the new campus. There were bands and marching
groups, schools and various organizations, and people representing electoral
districts from all over the province. There was the prime minister of Canada,
Mr. Diefenbaker, the new Chancellor Lord Thomson, and the distinguished
American, Eleanor Roosevelt, wife of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. It was
a glorious time for the province, and it launched me and many others on our
educational and life careers.

There was lots to learn and courses to choose from and my first exposure to
lineups. Just registering at the university meant a lineup, and choosing
subjects and books all involved lineups. Being a bayman, this did not come easy.
We quickly became aware that this new place was very much a townie place, and we
baymen were the outsiders. It was changing with the large influx of baymen
registered in the Education faculty, but there was still a big swagger to those
townies that did not sit well with many of us. This became even more grating
when one of our own numbers tried to act like a townie.

However, perhaps the most surprising early experience of the
bayman's place was a particular policy at the university. We were informed
that we would all have to take a speech test. And if we did not speak “properly,”
we would have to take special speech lessons. Wow! This was a bit of a
shocker. And so we were all given times when we would have to appear before two
professors in a room and read a prose passage, the reading of which would
determine whether we would have to take the special speech course or be
exempted. This was perhaps the first time since my experiences in high school in
Toronto that I felt I was being hard done by, as we say.

So I was ready with my own approach to the situation. On entering the room I
was asked to sit, which I refused, interrupting the two professors to propose
that I remain standing and recite a piece of work that I had chosen. Somewhat
taken aback, the professors agreed, and I proceeded to recite from Tennyson's
Ulysses
: “It little profits that an idle king, by this still hearth,
among these barren crags, match'd with an aged wife . . .”

I don't remember the exact number of lines I recited, but it was not many
before I was interrupted by one of the professors and told that that was just
fine—there would be no need to recite more, and I could go.

There was no speech class for me.

But the whole thing was disgraceful. This procedure did not last for many
years, thankfully. Ironically, it wasn't long before there was a Folklore
Department and valiant efforts made to preserve the many dialects (that we were
encouraged to “eliminate”) throughout the province. There was this attitude
throughout the land that we had to modernize, as exemplified by the new campus,
and that meant for some strange reason that our language and customs would have
to undergo major surgery. I was later to realize that this was largely the
Smallwood prescription for a “better” province.

Perhaps equally memorable was the initiative by the Smallwood government to
provide generous assistance to us students in the form of grants and salaries.
This was announced with great fanfare by Premier Smallwood with his full Cabinet
in tow at a special assembly held in the Physical Education Building. There was
great jubilation among the students and it seemed to be received positively by
the
population at large. However, a number of us thought that
these measures were going too far. Personally, I felt that the present $600 per
year grant to Education students, which would be forgiven with two years
teaching in the province, was adequate and that we needed to get more qualified
teachers in the classroom as quickly as possible. And even this should have a
sunset provision at some point. Further, I felt that loans rather than grants
would be the better approach to take and that salaries were just too much of a
good thing. I began to recognize the politics of it all and was somewhat
affronted as I watched the premier and his Cabinet so lavishly dispense with
money that I was sure could be used for more worthy things.

These were negative experiences that have stayed with me, but there were many
more numerous positive experiences.

I took to the university right away, notwithstanding the long walks to and from
my boarding houses in rain and snow. It was exhilarating rubbing shoulders with
all these bright people and listening to the more senior students discuss and
debate the great ideas of the world. I was captured by it all and spent an
inordinate amount of time in the Arts Building common room engaged in debate
that seemed at the time more important than classes, or anything else that was
happening around me.

The university faculty and administration were conservative and still
maintained some sort of dress code. I remember being called to the dean's office
one day to be questioned about an alleged infraction, from some days before, of
the dress rules. It was all news to me and I said so to the Dean. He was a
little taken back by my mildly aggressive response and confessed to me that
someone connected with the Education Society had reported me and that he didn't
know the facts of the matter. This was one of my first encounters with raw
politics and ego-dominated organizations. At the time a number of us Education
students were agitating for a more open and aggressive Education Society. The
leaders were well-entrenched and seemed to want a closed shop and maintenance of
the status quo. Being one of the ringleaders of the dissenting group, I guess, I
was singled out to be reported to the administration.

This new, more aggressive temperament among the Education
students was really a new phenomenon, as they had been known in the past as a
passive lot who did not rock the establishment boat. But a new day was beginning
to dawn, and even this stodgy bunch was awakening from a long slumber. Perhaps
this best manifested itself in a major undertaking by a number of us concerning
teacher salaries. Looking to our eventual graduation, we began to investigate
the level of remuneration that we would receive on becoming a teacher. We were
astounded to find that the wages of teachers then were much lower than what
graduates from other faculties would receive in their chosen fields.

So we began to make noise about this—appearing on the local TV newscast evening
news (with Don Jamieson, who would later be my adversary in my first election as
premier) and finally presenting a brief to the government. This proved to be a
little difficult at the time, so a number of us went to the premier's office at
the Confederation Building to give our brief to the premier's parliamentary
assistant, Mr. Edward Roberts, who would be an Opposition Member/Leader in the
legislature during my time and, later, become an effective
lieutenant-governor.

The university introduced me to ideas and the necessity to think analytically.
It introduced me to poetry, history, and philosophy—and most importantly I was
introduced to Wordsworth and Shakespeare, Milton, Donne, and Tennyson, and a
real library. I remember one day Professor Pitt revealing that if he had to live
on a desolate island for the rest of his life and could take only one book with
him, it would be Wordsworth's
Prelude
.

The breadth and depth of Shakespeare's understanding of human nature was so
remarkable that it was difficult to credit that all the plays and sonnets were
all composed by the same person. While the early comedies delight, the later
ones had real characters like Malvolio and Shylock, and the histories brought
into focus power and intrigue and introduced that over-the-top fellow, Falstaff.
The tragedies are explorations of man's highs and lows. One can often hear the
echo of Wordsworth's phrase “the still sad music of humanity” as one reads them.
No other English writer surpasses Shakespeare. I was later to be introduced to
American literature: Whitman, Frost, Hawthorne, Faulkner, Wolf, and America's
greatest poet, Emily Dickinson.

I remember Professor Schwartz in History class making the case
for the large part economics played in man's development. I had never thought
about this before, so used to viewing history as an isolated list of events and
personages was I. The broad sweep of discoveries and inventions through the
Renaissance and Reformation—art and music opened up a world for a lifetime of
reading and appreciation. I still have the wonderful book
Religion and the
Rise of Capitalism
by R. H. Tawney and David Thomson's
Europe Since
Napoleon
. I remember Professor Bruce and his review of Greek and Roman
history. He urged me to do a paper on the influence of the Athenian navy upon
the success of the Athenian state, which I did. Professor David Freemen led us
through the metaphysical poets of Donne, Herrick, Herbert, and Marvell, and who
can forget Milton? Sister Nolasco gave the course in Philosophy for Education
students, and this was my first brush with Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, with
St. Augustine, Aquinas, Bacon, Voltaire, and Chardin. Unfortunately, it was the
only stimulating course offered by the Faculty of Education.

In my third or fourth year I got involved in running for student council. I am
unsure, now, how this came about, but I think it had to do with my continuous
debates and discussions in the common room and my involvement in the Debating
Society and a fraternity called Mu Upsilon Nu. However, I was not well-known
outside of these groups, and hence seeking a seat on the council was really a
bit of a long shot. Well, a small group of students—probably fired up more by
the high risks and my bayman roots than anything else—swept into action to
assist me and, from posters to candidate debates, we made a positive impression.
To our surprise, I polled third in the balloting and took a position on the
council for that year. I was responsible to council for overseeing the various
clubs and societies on campus. Rex Murphy headed the polls and became president.
I remember one of the first speeches he gave to some organization in the city.
He contacted me for assistance, and I remember one night sweating with him over
the text of the speech he should give. The council was a real debating society
then, with all of the members taking many a long while to say very little. It
was the nature of young, naive politicians to be so wordy, I
suppose, yet I have learned that even more mature politicians don't seem to be
much better.

I was drawn to the Debating Society, a fledgling organization at the time. A
number of debates were sponsored by the society and I willingly participated.
One I clearly remember was a debate over the statement: “Labrador belongs to
Quebec.” I was on the negative team with Bob (Robert) Crocker, and I remember
Rex Murphy was on the affirmative team. It was memorable because of the topic
(one sure way to get a Newfoundlander's dander up) and also because Rex, in an
effort no doubt to intimidate his opposition and perhaps try and impress the
judges, entered the theatre in dramatic fashion after everyone was seated,
burdened down by a pile of books which he placed next to his lectern on the
stage. Notwithstanding the flourish, Bob and I won the debate.

After my first year at university, I spent a year teaching grade six at
Lewisporte Central School. It was a funny arrangement. Central school meant from
grade seven to eleven in those days. But apparently there was some problem with
housing the grade sixes at the elementary schools in town, and so grade six (all
eighty-five of them) ended up in a section/extension of the central school with
its own entrance/ exit, thereby, I suppose, still keeping within the silly
guidelines of maintaining the central school idea. I think my reasoning at this
stage for taking a year from university was to see whether I liked teaching,
since I was having some ideas about switching to law at that time.

This was a wonderful experience and solidified my original decision to go into
teaching, although originally it was as much financial as it was a career
choice. The provincial government at the time was offering a $600 grant for
first-year Education students. The only incentive was that you had to commit to
teach for two years in the province. In any case, this one year teaching was
very rewarding, notwithstanding the crammed quarters and two large classes of
forty and forty-two, respectively. There were two of us teachers—Jack Bussey and
myself—and we had six courses: I taught three and Jack, of course, taught the
other three, switching classes as appropriate.

Grade six is a great grade—the students no longer need personal
help and are inquisitive without the teenage issues. We had a large number of
very bright students, which in itself was a challenge, but it also presented the
larger challenge of ensuring that the average student and those with
difficulties were not ignored. The existing English course seemed inadequate,
and so I received grudging permission to replace some of the program with
materials that I had discovered from the United States. This would be a direct
cost to the parents, so I wrote all the parents and received overwhelming
support from them to get the new materials and bill them. This proved to be very
successful and of significant benefit to students who were having some
difficulty in reading and comprehension.