([ IMAGES of our Past [( AcAdiA University Tom Sheppard i For Sabine and Silas Copyright © 2013, Tom Sheppard All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior written per- mission from the publisher, or, in the case of photocopying or other reprographic copying, permission from Access Copyright, 1 Yonge Street, Suite 1900, Toronto, Ontario M5E 1E5. Nimbus Publishing Limited 3731 Mackintosh St, Halifax, NS B3K 5A5 (902) 455-4286 nimbus.ca Printed and bound in Canada NB1062 Design: Jenn Embree Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication Sheppard, Tom Acadia University [electronic resource] / Tom Sheppard. (Images of our past) Includes bibliographical references and index. Electronic monograph in PDF format. Issued also in print format. ISBN 978-1-77108-021-7 1. Acadia University—History. 2. Acadia University—Pictorial works. I. Title. II. Series: Images of our past (Online) LE3.A32S54 2013 378.716'34 C2012-907364-4 Nimbus Publishing acknowledges the financial support for its publishing activities from the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund (CBF) and the Canada Council for the Arts, and from the Province of Nova Scotia through the Department of Communities, Culture and Heritage. contents Introduction ............................................1 Chapter 1 ..........The Founding of Acadia .............................4 Chapter 2 ..........The Campus and Its Buildings ....................18 Chapter 3 ..........Residence: A Home Away from Home ...........47 Chapter 4 ..........Presidents ...............................................66 Chapter 5 ..........Professors ...............................................90 Chapter 6 ..........Students and Their Stories ..........................108 Chapter 7 ..........Acadia in Time of War .............................133 Chapter 8 ..........Life at Acadia ..........................................142 Chapter 9 ..........Student Recreation ....................................169 Chapter 10.........Organizations and Societies ........................182 Chapter 11 .........Sports ....................................................203 Chapter 12 .........Acadia Today ..........................................227 Acknowledgements ....................................234 Bibliography ............................................235 Note on the Photographs ............................237 Image Credits ..........................................238 Index .....................................................239 University Hall not long after it was built, c.1930 introduction Jane Cayford and Wayne Hills got off the Dayliner together at the train sta- tion in Wolfville, Nova Scotia, as they arrived for their freshman year at Acadia University in the fall of 1963. Both were from Quebec: Wayne from Montreal and Jane from Magog. They had come to Nova Scotia on the Ocean Limited from Montreal but had met for the first time when they boarded the Dayliner in Halifax. They were the only two students at the station that day. Without any maps to tell them where they should go, they took their bags and headed toward Main Street. When they got to the corner they could see the Evangeline Inn on the right, the old hotel that was, at the time, being used as a residence: Evangeline House. Wayne was to live there for the year, rooming with Roger Williams. It was early evening. Wayne left his bags and the two of them walked across the street and up the curved laneway that led to University Hall. When they got to the foot of the stone steps leading to the huge front doors, Wayne said to Jane that she might as well leave her bags there and he would go and check. Wayne walked up the steps and knocked on the big doors. There was no answer. He waited and knocked again. Finally, he came back down the stairs and reported to Jane, “It must be after closing time, because no one answered.” Wayne’s former high school in Montreal had twice as many students as Acadia, all in a single building. He figured University Hall was all there was. He thought everyone had gone home for the night. They walked back down to Evangeline House, where they arranged for Jane to have her own room for the night. Wayne booked in with Roger. The next morning, Jane was gone, off to find the cam- pus, and Wayne set out too. Their years at Acadia had begun. Jane graduated in 1967 and went on to become registrar at Acadia from 1995 to 2002; Wayne graduated in 1968 and became a dentist, with a practice in Wolfville. There was more to Acadia, and this is that story. While thousands of stu- dents have made the same journey, the school itself is not an anonymous mass of students. There is not enough room for all of their stories. (The time frame for this history ranges from the founding of the university to the end of the 1970s, though there is a chapter on Acadia Today, as well as references to events in Acadia’s most recent years.) Acadia means something to its graduates, and many 1 spend the rest of their lives in touch with the university, fol- lowing its life and returning occasionally to see how the campus has changed. There is a spirit to the university. Acadia endures and changes, and the people who experience it are very different when they leave. This book looks at why that is. I hope this book will be read for pleasure. The detail is there to set the stage. Acadia represents hard work and se- rious study, but it also repre- sents the joys of friendship, the fun of life in residence or off Jane Cayford at the train station with her parents, campus, the intensity of athlet- Howard and Jean, at graduation, May 1967 ic competition, the rewards of working with others in clubs and organizations, the stimula- tion of interacting with faculty and staff, and finally, the delights of romance. (You can’t put that many young people together without there being romance— it was something that early Acadia feared and tried to prevent, as will be seen, but with very little success.) People found each other at Acadia, got married, had children who went to Acadia, who had children who went to Acadia—it goes on and on. As does Acadia. 2 AcAdiA University Graduating class proceeding up the steps to University Hall, May 18, 1954 introdUction 3 chApter 1 the Founding of Acadia AcAdiA’s beginnings on Monday, June 23, 1828, the attendees of a meeting of the Nova Scotia Baptist Association in (what was to become) Wolfville were upset to hear that their ministers believed they had been suffering from a lack of education. These men appeared learned, if often self-taught, and were confident, forceful preachers. How could they be almost in tears as they described their lack of learning? These were turbulent times so far as higher learning was concerned. In the days and weeks previous to this gathering, there had been many conversa- tions about establishing an institution that would educate young Baptists. The religion itself was young in Nova Scotia; there were only two dozen churches and sixteen hundred followers. Yet it was growing, partly as a result of the re- ligious ferment in Halifax, which saw the embracing of its principles by sev- eral educated men and the establishment of a church on Granville Street just the year before. The whole province seemed caught up in the idea of creating centres of higher learning. An essay on the founding of Acadia, “History of Acadia College,” written by Albert Coldwell in 1880, speaks of the attempts to es- tablish Dalhousie College just ten years earlier and of the work to establish a Presbyterian academy in Pictou a year before that. The very first college had been set up in 1790 at Windsor, on the road between Wolfville and Halifax, and was operating with a royal charter by 1802, but in order to attend King’s College one had to be Anglican. Baptists, Catholics, Presbyterians, and Methodists were specifically excluded. Since public monies supported the college, other denominations were angry. In 1807 the requirement was removed, but not made generally known, to paraphrase Ronald Longley’s Acadia University, 1838– 1938. In fact, this act of exclusion, and the events that flowed from it, is the reason why there are so many universities in Nova Scotia today. The Earl of Dalhousie, who governed Nova Scotia from 1816 to 1819, saw the need for a 4 Acadia from the air, c.1946, showing the Cornwallis River and the War Memorial Gymnasium (top); the Acadia farm and its orchards (bottom); Highland Avenue (right) and University Avenue (left) college open to all denominations. Building began in 1820, though it was not until 1838 that the first professors were appointed and the first classes held. That plan ultimately had the opposite effect of that which Dalhousie intended. At the meeting in Wolfville in 1828, it was proposed that a seminary, providing higher education for young Baptists, be established. Albert Coldwell wrote that the effect was electric: “Old and young vied with each other in the support of the new measure, and the proposed plan was not only unanimously, but rapturously, adopted.” The idea was that an academy would be set up, along with a society of subscribers to support it. Coldwell writes that Horton, later Wolfville, was selected as the site for the academy because of its natural beauty and central location. Sixty-five acres of land were purchased and, in March of 1829, Horton Academy was opened. Its only building was an old structure located right on the main street (College and University Halls were later built on the hill behind the original building). The first principal was a man named Asahel Chapin, a devout Baptist the FoUnding oF AcAdiA 5 from Massachusetts, who had graduated from Amherst College. He left a year later and the Rev. John Pryor was appointed to take his place, a position he held until Acadia College was founded. Coldwell wrote, “During this period, Horton Academy educated a large number of young men of all creeds, and represent- ing all parts of the province, and grew to be recognized as a classical school of a high grade.” {} AcAdiA college is estAblished During this decade, events were occurring elsewhere that would lead to the establishment of Acadia College as an outgrowth of Horton Academy. Upset over the British government’s 1824 appointment of Rev. Robert Willis, of Saint John, as rector of St. Paul’s Anglican Church in Halifax, a group of promi- nent church members decided to leave the Church of England and form a new church: the Granville Street Baptist Church. One of these members was Edmund Albern Crawley, who went on to become a founder and president of Acadia University, and another was James William Johnston, who became leader of the Conservative Party and later governor of the province. Edmund Crawley became the pastor of the Granville Street Baptist Church. He also taught classes at the Dalhousie building before it opened as a college. It was Crawley who had proposed the plan for opening Dalhousie and, as A. W. H. Eaton wrote in his History of Kings County, was promised a place in its fac- ulty. Crawley did not receive that appointment, however, because he was a Baptist. Both Crawley and those who had founded the Granville Street Baptist Church were outraged and decided to set about establishing another college— one where there would be no question that Baptists were welcome. Meanwhile, at Horton Academy, the question of offering courses beyond the high school level was paramount—the thought had always been that Horton Academy would eventually develop into a college. In 1836 the Horton Academy Managing Committee urged Baptists to establish a seminary for this purpose and, as Coldwell wrote, “advised the appointment of ‘two efficient teachers in the more advanced classes.’” They saw the current state of higher education to 6 AcAdiA University