things at which he becomes an expert during his three years at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario – the college his grandfather George Monro Grant did so much to establish.
When he first arrives on campus, George is 1.88 metres or nearly six foot two inches tall, slim, and emotionally distressed. His father never pushed him to excel academically, but his mother is ambitious for him. For her, public success – including social success – is the measure of personal worth. Ambition is to be directed at the greater public good, the service of something bigger than oneself. She pushes George into the world of Queen’s as the grandson of its greatest Principal, the son of a former teacher, the nephew of James Macdonnell, who is chairman on the board of governors of Queen’s, and as Maude Grant’s boy.
Because Maude wrote her many friends in Kingston, a lot of doors opened to George. He was immediately a social success as a tennis and dance partner with the daughters of prominent families. This made it difficult for him to establish his own identity at Queen’s. He began to wonder if anyone could like him for himself. There were no men’s residences at Queen’s so George boarded in town. Although he found many of the students, especially his housemates, obsessed with girls and hockey, he did find them simpler and nicer than those he’d studied with at UCC. To create a world in which he could measure himself by his own standards, George set himself the academic challenge of doing the four-year Honours History program in three years.
In his first year at Queen’s, George suffered from loneliness and lack of money – the twin evils that beset most university students when they are first away from home and on their own. The loneliness was more acute in his case because his family and friends had all left UCC and there was no longer a home he could return to. His mother was once again visiting England and staying with friends. His sister Charity was in Europe studying German, his sister Alison was in London studying art, his eldest sister Margaret remained in Toronto, but she was on the verge of marrying one of the UCC teachers and establishing her own life. The Masseys, the uncle and aunt to whom he was closely attached, had left for London the previous year when Uncle Vincent was appointed Canada’s High Commissioner. It was his reward for helping bring the Liberals back to power in Ottawa under the leadership of Prime Minister Mackenzie King.
George’s best friends at UCC had scattered to different universities. It was the height of the Depression – a terrible period of mass unemployment, agricultural crop failures, and widespread poverty. When George’s father died, UCC granted his mother a pension of 30 per cent of what William’s salary had been. By the general standards of the time, George was well off as a university student but there was little money left over after he paid his fees, his board and lodging. He fought off loneliness by studying hard, joining drama and debating societies, taking an avid interest in international affairs – the abdication of the King, the Spanish Civil War – and by reading widely for pleasure. His relationship with his mother began to dominate his emotional life: he started writing lengthy letters to her every week.
Maude Grant comes back to Canada to take up the kind of job she’d done before her marriage. McGill’s Royal Victoria College in Montreal has appointed her dean of women. George joins his mother for a holiday in rural Quebec before taking up a summer job of his own as a reader for Professor McDougall, a University of Toronto historian, who was blinded in the Great War. The experience deepens his pacifism and increases his self-awareness. He writes to his mother,
I hope that I am passing through the supremely selfish stage which has been enveloping me and that this job which entails doing exactly as I am told very cheerfully will do me good.
During the second year at Queen’s, George is joined by one of his close friends from UCC school days. His circle of new friends grows, he begins to excel in the study of history. One of his great pleasures in the middle of much hard work is to listen to Saturday afternoon broadcasts from the Metropolitan Opera in New York. He also learns that freedom of speech and political action can not be taken for granted in Canada, especially when they conflict with the aims of Canadian industrialists. As political opinions become radicalized by the growing power of fascism in Spain and the increased military power of Germany under Hitler and of Italy under Mussolini, the Principal of Queen’s refuses to allow a student debate on Chamberlain’s peace policy and forbids leftist political clubs on campus. Through the social contacts he has due to Maude’s influence, George is disheartened to discover just how powerful a role business and government actually play in the running of Canadian universities. After the president of the Canadian Pacific Railway visits the campus, George writes to his mother,
The unity of Rig Business certainly degraded Grant Hall as it has never been degraded before. It was abysmal. Cleverly covered up, the subject really was: “We have the money and if you university professors don’t do and say what we want, out you get.”
On a cold winter day in February 1938, Principal Wallace calls George into his office at Queen’s and says, “I’m putting your name forward for a Rhodes Scholarship. I think you have a good chance of being awarded one next year.”
George doesn’t know what to say.
“You do know that it won’t be given to you just because you’re George Parkin Grant. There are other strong candidates in the class of ’39. You’ll have to work to win it.”
George sets to work with great discipline. When he writes his mother to tell her about it, he says,
An excellent system of work has been devised… Getting up at seven in the morning & eating my breakfast till eight then working till nine then lectures. I go to bed strictly at eleven o’clock. The trouble is that when one goes to bed one is so tired that one drops exhausted to the pillow only to get up the next day and do exactly the same thing.
The hard work and discipline pay off almost immediately. He wins two scholarships for his final year at Queen’s which allow him to take the summer off and travel in England and Europe. He works his way to England on a cattle boat then stays with Mrs. Buck at her country estate. He visits with the Masseys in London and then spends some time cycling in England with a friend. With his sister Alison and his cousin Hart Massey, he visits Italy by automobile. In Milan, George writes home:
I have been slow writing, but there has been so much to do and it has all been perfect. I have never seen such wonderful things and, above all, you must not miss Chartres. Paris, however wonderful, must be given up for a bit to see Chartres, as it is the most wonderful man-made thing I have ever seen, even after Geneva (marvellous), Switzerland & the mountains, the lakes and Milan. I think I loved Chartres best. Even rushing through France I realised that it was far in a way not a foreign country but home.
From Milan they go to Padua, Venice, Verona, and Florence then to Assisi, Capri, Naples, Pompeii, Rome.
Back in Kingston for his third year, George works hard for the Rhodes Scholarship. In letters of support from his teachers, he’s praised for his ‘quick active mind and powers of penetration and comprehension above the average’ by Professor Trotter. Professor Corry singles out ‘the important quality of intellectual daring.’ Nicholas Ignatieff, who had taught him history at UCC, writes that George gives ‘every indication of possessing a first class mind – fearless, original and prodding’ and exhibits ‘a strong but sensitive character very much concerned with justice and right.’ All comment on his emotional immaturity. After he wins the Rhodes scholarship, there are those who think he got it through family connections because he’s neither as well-rounded nor as competitive an athlete as Rhodes Scholars are expected to be in order to better become great leaders.
Toward the end of his final year, war looks more and more inevitable. It’s on everybody’s