Tuesday 19 November 2013

FIRST MINUTES, OF THE FIRST DAY...



  Dr. Waite always wore what appeared to be a long,
  black cape over his suit.  So, on that very first day
  of class, noisy, excited students became a little
  less noisy as their attention was drawn to the rather
  distinguished looking professor who stood before 
  them.  At first, he did not make eye contact.  He just
  seemed to be a bit preoccupied.
  ___________________________________________

  Dear Dan,

  My black gown was an MA gown, but worn commonly
  by older professors when I came to Dal in 1951.  It
  was already starting to go out of fashion, but I ignored
  the trend, believing that students from high school,
  seeing it, would grasp immediately that university
  was a different world, and they would therefore 
  realize that really independent work was now expected
  of them.  When I was in an English school 1933-1934,
  roughly our Grade 8 but with French and Latin, all
  the masters but one wore the same black gown as we
  did later on at Dalhousie.

 The style is positively ancient, at least mediaeval.

                            Sincerely
                                 Peter
  

Tuesday 5 November 2013

REASONS...

                                                                               
                                                                             
                                                                             

    On Halloween night, I was glad to find a treat in my
  inbox:  Details from Dr. Waite, pertaining to his 
  decision to change universities [as a student] in 1947.
  __________________________________________

  Fundamentally, it was the narrow focus of history at
  U. of T.  I'd read an article in Maclean's about 
  Larry Mackenzie, UBC's recently appointed (1944)
  President, a Nova Scotian, and I quite liked the cut
  of his jib. (We later met and still later I published his
  biography, "Lord of Point Grey".  He offered me free
  use of his papers, a huge run in the UBC Archives.)

  I found U of T History too narrowly political:  I wanted
  history to comprehend wars, politics of course, but
  literature, architecture, art, religion, 
  economics - everything.  I didn't quite find it at UBC
  but it was better than U of T.  The real answer was
  the Ph.D. programme back at U of T and still more
  George Wilson under whose auspices I came to 
  Dalhousie in 1951.  He took in everything; his mind
  was massive and his memory equal to it.  I thought
  he was marvellous.  I still do.

               Sincerely,
                      Peter