In this next piece from The College Record, published in the April 1894 issue,1 Montgomery relies on the life writing and point of view of a “second class” mouse to satirize the “ins and outs of life” at Prince of Wales College. Unlike the First Class students depicted in “The Usual Way,” according to Rubio and Waterston, “Second Class students took the basic courses plus algebra, geometry, physics, Latin, and scientific temperance.”2
JAN. 9TH, 1894. – FROM THE GENERAL COMMOTION THIS morning I concluded the students must have returned, and, on creeping out from behind the wall of the Normal,3 I found my conjecture correct. I am glad; holidays are poor times for college mice! there are never any bits of paper or crumbs around the floor then. All are swept and garnished. I have grown quite lean during vacation.
Feb. 15th. – I thought I would go over to the college to-day and see my friend, the First-Class Mouse. I performed the journey in safety and was making my way along behind the wain-scotting in Prof. C——’s room4 when I was suddenly arrested by the most unearthly noise I ever heard in my life. I cannot describe it. At first I was motionless from horror, and, on recovering the use of my limbs, I fled for my life. Oh! but wasn’t I terrified! but my friend, the First Class Mouse, laughed at me and said it was only the English class yelling and hammering on their desks. I wonder if that is the way to study English. There are some things about this college I cannot understand. I always knew even from my small experience that boys are dreadful creatures to make a noise. Next to cats they are my particular aversion. But I did not think even they could have produced such sounds as those which alarmed me.
Feb. 29th.5 – I cannot decide which are of most service to mice – the college boys, or the college girls. The boys never bring lunches, so when I find nice crumbs on the floor I know whom to thank. But then it is the boys who tear up and scatter around so many nice little bits of paper, which are so convenient when I want to make a nest. Still, as mice cannot exist solely on paper, I think after all the girls are our best friends, even if they do scream terribly and hop on the chairs if a mouse ventures to poke his poor nose out near them.
Mar. 8th. – This has been a great day in the annals of Mousedom. I was taking a nap in my nest when I was aroused by a disturbance, louder than usual. I peered out but could only see the air darkened by a cloud of something, I knew not what. As usual in my perplexities, I went to my friend, the First-Class Mouse, whose experience is very useful to me. He was a Second-Class Mouse himself last year, and so is well informed as to their customs. He told me not to be alarmed as it was only the First-Class crowd having a pea-nut party during Chemistry hour. He said they would have a lot of pea-nuts, which they would crack and eat, and then throw the shells at each other, this last being the cream of the performance.6
After all this was over we hurried in to explore the premises before the janitor swept them up. That floor was a caution to any mouse. Every inch was covered with shells. We found a lot of nut-meats that had been dropped, some generous slices of carrot, a lot of white beans, and a piece of smoked herring by way of a relish. I assure you we feasted royally. I hope they will have another pea-nut party soon, but my friend the First-Class Mouse said it was not probable, as the professor did not encourage that sort of thing.
Mar. 22nd. – I ventured out this evening in search of something to eat and found a lot of apple smushed over the floor, desks, and walls of the Normal. Of course I went for my friend the First-Class Mouse to share the treat. He said he supposed the Second Class had been at their old tricks again, firing rotten apples around. If they meant to leave them for me to eat, I am very much obliged, but I do not admire their taste in ornamenting the walls with them. This Normal is a queer old place. The desks look as if mice had been nibbling at them for centuries. It seems that we mice are not the only creatures fond of mincing things up.
Well, I suppose next year I will be a First-Class Mouse myself, and thus able to teach some other poor little Second-Class fellow of ’95 the ins and outs of life behind these classic walls.
(1894)
High School Life in Saskatchewan
In this final piece published in The College Record, in May 1894, Montgomery reminisces about her experience as a high school student in Prince Albert, now the third-largest city in Saskatchewan, in 1890–1891. Given how negative her experience had been (at least according to her journals), she was careful in this piece not to identify her teacher, her classmates, the town, or the school year she attended there. Her selective account draws a good deal on a journal entry dated 19 September 1890, but it omits a number of details, including her initial liking of the school and her ambition to get a teacher’s certificate; her spotty attendance record, particularly after the birth of her half-brother Bruce; and the fact that her teacher, John Mustard, whom she and her friends considered “a ninny and a bore,” eventually proposed marriage. Her memory of those years was fading fast: reminiscing about her Prince Albert classmates in a journal entry dated less than two years after the publication of this piece, she confessed that “I have half forgotten their very names.”1
IT DID NOT IN THE LEAST RESEMBLE OUR LIFE AT PRINCE of Wales. Nothing could be more dissimilar. The building itself was about as large as our college, but only one of its rooms – an apartment about half as large as Prof. Caven’s room – was devoted to the use of the High School students, of which there were about sixteen. The remaining rooms served a variety of uses. The one above ours was the public ball-room, and on the occasion of a ball, our room was utilized as a ladies dressing room. On the next morning we would find numerous hair-pins, feathers, flowers etc., strewn over the floor, with very probably, a hand-mirror or two! On the other side of the big hall was The Council room and above it the Free Masons Hall. Beside these, in the back of the building were the patrol quarters where two or three red coated Mounted Policemen were always stationed to patrol the town.2 When they arrested a drunken man they brought him in there, taking him through the hall outside our room, where very often there would be a lively scuffle and language strong enough to stand alone. Finally they would lock him up in one of the small, dark cells, a row of which ran directly back of our room. I remember venturing too rashly into an empty cell, one day, out of curiosity, and of being locked in by a Policeman, who did not know I was in it. There I had to stay, too, for a mortal hour, till he returned and the teacher told him of my whereabouts. I did not go exploring again in a hurry.
We had but one teacher and he was a firm believer in Solomon’s doctrine.3 He had a violent temper, and, as many of the High School boys had a fair share of the red man’s nature,4 we occasionally had lively times. The master, when thrashing anyone, used a murderous-looking “raw-hide” whip, as long as himself, and if the victim broke free and assumed the defensive and offensive with a stick of firewood, the thing got quite sensational, especially if, as usual, he had locked the door before beginning operations.
He could not punish the girls in this manner, but he would keep us in an hour or so after time, and give us terribly long compound interest sums to work. But, if I remember aright, very few were ever worked.
Our amusements were limited. At dinner time and recess the boys played football, while we girls (there were only two of us) wandered around the dusty old place, or sat on the balcony and watched the game. The school was beautifully situated on a hill outside of the town. The noble river5 rolled its blue tides before it, past the mighty dark pine forests of the north land on one side, and the willow-clad banks on the other. Away to our back extended undulating sweeps of prairie, pink and golden, with roses and sheets of prairie sunflowers, and dotted with groves of slender white-skinned poplars. Or perhaps we watched the passers-by on the road beneath us – Indians for the most part, “braves” with their dirty blankets over their shoulders, or chattering dark-eyed squaws, with their glossy, blue-black hair, and probably a small-faced papoose strapped to their backs.
As for our studies, they were simply nowhere! We had a list of them a
s long as the Moral Law,6 but I cannot recall ever having opened a book out of school. The work was allowed to drift along as it liked. Learning anything did not seem to be expected at all. I remember of having but one exam – in Latin – and the results of it were never known. We never heard anything more of our papers after they were given in.
I do not know what makes the memory of those times so pleasant. We did not learn anything, and they were very dull and stupid, but for all that it will be long ere I forget my High School days on the broad, fertile, wind-swept prairies of the far Northwest – the “Great Lone Land.”7
(1894)
Valedictory
JAMES H. STEVENSON
At the end of Montgomery’s year at P.W.C., the valedictory was read by New Glasgow native James H. Stevenson, who had been named “the best scholar in the school” by the Charlottetown Daily Examiner and who had received the Governor General’s Silver Medal and ranked first in nearly every third-year subject, including Latin, Greek, algebra, geometry, English literature, and French.1 Stevenson – whom Montgomery referred to as “Jim,” “Jamie,” and “Jimmy” in her journals – had shared a boarding house with her since the end of April that year and, faced with the prospect of giving the valedictory, had turned to the budding writer for help. “He wants me to write it for him,” Montgomery recorded in her journal with exasperation, “simply because he is too lazy to do it himself.” Her prediction upon completing it that “Jim will have the kudos of it and I the grind” proved to be only too true: when the Island Guardian and Christian Chronicle of Charlottetown reported on the convocation the following week, the unsigned article stated that “the valedictory by Mr. J.H. Stevenson[] began as most of its predecessors doubtless have done, by uttering the lament of the parting class. But before it finished, it made practical suggestions and expressed other thoughts of such value as won the praise of the principal of the P. of W. and the Premier of the Province.”2 The Daily Examiner ran the full text of the valedictory as part of its extensive coverage of the convocation ceremony.
ANOTHER YEAR IN THE ANNALS OF PRINCE OF WALES has rolled by, and once again its students assemble here to welcome with pleasure those who have so kindly come to witness our commencement exercises. This is an hour when joy and happiness and kindly feeling should pervade every heart, when every petty annoyance or disappointment of the past year should be forgotten, and everyone clasp hands in friendly affection, for tonight many of us must part to meet no more as fellow-students and class-mates. Some in higher colleges will steadily strive to reach that far-off, shining goal, where fame holds out her laurel crown, while some will bid farewell to college life to-night and plunge at once into the busy world’s arena, there to wrest from the hands of Fate the influence and fortune ever to be won by industry and perseverance. But whatever path we may pursue, whatever pleasures await us in after life, no memory will be so dear to our hearts as that of our college course. A tie of common fellowship will forever bind those who have wandered together through classic mazes or wrestled with mathematical mysteries at Prince of Wales College.
A larger number of students than ever before has attended our college this season,3 and lack of accommodation has been the greatest drawback to satisfactory work. It is earnestly to be hoped that the powers that be will see fit at no distant date to provide us with a more commodious building. But notwithstanding this the past year has been one of steady progress – all the various branches of the curriculum have been well sustained and drawing has been added under the able instruction of Prof. Shaw. But the year has not been one of wholly unrelieved toil. Pleasant and we also hope profitable recreation was afforded by the debating society, where our budding orators displayed their powers, and by the football contests where strength and activity of body as well as mind were promoted. A new departure has been witnessed by the publication of a monthly paper by some enterprising students.4 This bright little periodical is devoted to the interests of the college and has formed a pleasurable feature in the history of the year.
And as regards our professors, what can we say but what has been said again and again by students who have gone out from this, our college, encouraged and strengthened by their hearty assistance and sympathy? None of us will ever forget the instruction and advice of our energetic and esteemed Principal, Dr. Anderson. The recollection of Professor Caven’s genial humor will ever bring a smile to our faces and a kindly remembrance to our hearts. Professor Harcourt, our teacher of science, has interested all and opened to our view many of the wonders of the natural world. Professors Shaw and Robertson have taken the chairs formerly occupied by Professors Robinson and West. It is superfluous to speak of the splendid work they have accomplished in their various departments, suffice it to say that deserved success has crowned their efforts. Among the athletes of the college, Prof. Shaw will be gratefully remembered for the interest he has displayed in their sports. Professors Miller and Arsenault have officiated in their several branches to the satisfaction of the students and all concerned. Owing to Mr. Lloyd’s departure from the Province, we had no instructor in music until late in the term, when Prof. Earle commenced an enthusiastic and successful course of instruction, and the hours spent with him have been enjoyed and will long be remembered by us all. We take this opportunity of extending our heartiest thanks to our friends in Charlottetown who have done so much to render our sojourn among them pleasant.
And now dear fellow students we turn to each other for a last farewell. Let each and all take this as a sacred trust through life – to keep the reputation of our Alma Mater unsullied, to reflect honor on the teachers to whom we owe so much, and to help each other and our fellow men to higher planes of thought and action. Let us take the simple yet sublime motto of our college as our own – “Ich Dien – I serve,”5 and let us serve, not ignoble ends, petty factions and the darker passions of human nature, but rather acknowledge as our masters only the noblest thoughts and motives, the highest aspirations and the kindliest feelings between man and man. Such a servitude would be glorious indeed. Once more friends, professors, classmates, we bid you all farewell, and yet to the end of time we will be fellow students, for what is the world but one great college where we must all learn the deepest lessons of human life. Let us then
“Go forth prepared in every clime
To love and help each other,
And know that they who counsel strife
Would bid us smite a brother.”6
(1894)
“Portia” – A Study
Miss Montgomery’s Essay at the P. of W. Convocation
LUCY MAUD MONTGOMERY
Besides ghostwriting the valedictory speech for “Jim” Stevenson, Montgomery read at her graduation ceremony one of two essays on Shakespeare’s play The Merchant of Venice, presumably as a result of receiving the top score in her second-year “English, ‘The Merchant of Venice,’ &c.” and English literature courses.1 While the Daily Examiner gave the essay lukewarm praise (“well written and clearly and distinctly read”), the Island Guardian and Christian Chronicle pronounced it “the piece de resistance of the evening,” “a charactersketch such as might have come from George Eliott [sic] in her ’teens. It was not only a subtle, analytical study; it was a literary gem.” Praising the essay’s “phrases of almost perfect art,” the article concluded that “to say that Miss Montgomery in this analysis did justice to Portia’s intellectual worth may seem a strong statement and undue praise, but it is simple truth.” According to Montgomery’s journal, she “felt pleasantly tickled” over this praise for her work.2 The essay was published in the Island Guardian and Christian Chronicle and in slightly different form in the Daily Patriot and the Daily Examiner.
OF ALL SHAKESPEARE’S MANY DELIGHTFUL PLAYS SURELY the Merchant of Venice is the most delightful. The scenes of this charming comedy are for the most part laid in that fairy city of romance, Venice, the queen of the Adriatic; and some of its characters are ranked among the great dramatist’s master pieces. Of these char
acters, Portia the beautiful heroine is, perhaps, the one who appeals most strongly to our sympathies, and, from first to last, fascinates us by her beauty, grace and intellect.
There are three female characters in this play, all perfect portraits after their mind, but there is a great difference in the kind. Jessica, the pretty, dark-eyed Jewess, is indeed, piquant and sprightly, but too heartless and deceitful to win our love; and Nerissa, the confidential waiting maid has all of an indulged servant’s garrulity in her sharp tongue. But who will find a fault with Portia – this stately, graceful heiress of a long-past age? An age far removed from us now, in customs and in manners as in time and yet here brought vividly near to us in these pictured passions of the human heart, which is the same to-day as it was when Venice was in her glory’s prime.
And yet Portia is not absolutely without a flaw, – a little touch of human frailty now and then endears her still more to our hearts. For one thing, she is somewhat sarcastic and does not at all spare the weaknesses of the suitors, whom her golden tresses, and no less, her golden ducats, have brought to her feet. When we first see her in the play, she is gaily discussing with Nerissa the faults and virtues of her unfortunate admirers, with a sportive carelessness which tells us that her heart is as yet untouched. But withal, her sparkling wit is without malice or bitterness – it is merely that of a light-hearted, joyous girl, with no cares to trouble her, except, perhaps, those same lovers whom she may neither accept nor refuse, being bound by the terms of her father’s will, to marry whoever chooses from three caskets the one containing her picture.
But Portia, though quick to see their foibles, is never anything but perfectly considerate and thoughtful of them. In her interviews with her princely suitors we are always impressed by her delicate tact and graceful courtesy. Affection for any she never simulates – there is no affectation of an interest she does not feel, but never, by word or look, does she wound the feelings or hurt the vanity of any aspirant for her hand. And even if after they fail in their choice and depart, she expresses her relief in some laughing jest with Nerissa, who shall blame her?
A Name for Herself Page 6
