excitedly.
“Why would you want to do that?” Professor Grant asks.
Years later, when he’d become a teacher, he’ll tell his own students that he’d studied with George Grant because Grant was a man of learning – a man who lived what he knew – and that such teachers are much rarer and more difficult to understand than people who want to know about things just so that they can gain power over them and control them. But, at that moment, he doesn’t know quite what to say. He’s disconcerted by the question. He’s disconcerted by his closeness to a man whose books he’s read. The young man has not met many authors. And he’s a little disconcerted by the way George Grant smokes cigarettes. The cigarette never seems to leave his mouth. It just sort of sticks to his lower lip as he talks and scatters ashes on his clothes. When he’s silent, the ash grows longer and longer and then falls and sometimes it’s caught in the hand and sometimes it isn’t. And a fresh cigarette is lit from the butt of the one just smoked. The young man has known other chain smokers, knows that many men who went through the Second World War became deeply addicted to cigarettes because smoking deadened their noses to the stench of dead bodies. The young man is also a heavy smoker and doesn’t yet know – and most people in 1967 don’t know – how dangerous smoking is to health. But the young man has never known anyone so oblivious to the mess they’re making of their own clothes because they’re speaking and listening so carefully and are so lost in conversation. Not knowing what to say in answer to the question, the young man blurts out, “Because I don’t know what you know.”
“What do you think that is?” Professor Grant asks.
“If I knew, then I’d know and I don’t but I know it has something to do with finding peace within yourself when the world is at war.”
The meeting lasted another hour and a half, much longer than the young man had ever spent in conversation with any of his other teachers in the five years he’d spent at two other universities. At the end, the young man knew some of what he hadn’t known and how much more he needed to learn.
Sir George Parkin and his grandson, George Parkin Grant, 1921. “You must learn to spell and write as soon as you can, so that you can write me letters. I shall be a proud grandfather when I get a note from George P. Grant.”
Sir George Parkin says, “I want one of the children for a photograph on the beach. Who will it be?”
The children look at one another or at their feet. They are all a little shy around this grandfather they hardly know.
The littlest one steps out from behind his mother’s skirts. “George will stay!”
“I think he’ll do whatever you ask him to do, father,” a middle-aged mother says. And a look passes between her and her father as if something very important has just happened.
Little George goes down to the beach with his grandfather and sits where he is told to sit among the rocks. He does whatever he is told to do with the food he’s given by his grandfather while one of his uncles sets up the camera, poses the subjects, and takes a picture of Sir George and his grandson that is destined for publication.
Nearly a year later, Sir George sits at a writing desk in his London home. It’s April 17, 1922. He’s a tall, thin, elegant man in his seventies with a full head of sand and silver hair and a large silver and white moustache. His clothes and his manners are those of an English aristocrat, but he is a Canadian of humble beginnings who was knighted by King George V for services to the King and the British Empire. He’s only been “Sir George” for two years. Before that, he was simply George Parkin, the thirteenth child of an immigrant family from Yorkshire in England that had taken up farming in New Brunswick. As a young man, he became a teacher and rose to the rank of the headmaster in a school in Fredericton. A bit of a dreamer, his great dream was for worldwide peace and justice. He believed passionately that his dream could best be achieved through the Imperial Federation – a proposed worldwide political alliance that would unite Britain, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa in a sort of United States of the World. Once established, this new empire would jointly administer Britain’s colonies in Africa, India, Asia, the West Indies, and Latin America and lead them step-by-step to the status Canada had already achieved with Britain’s help. Because he was an excellent public speaker, wealthy people who shared his dream supported him for six years as he toured the British Empire preaching the benefits of such a worldwide government. When his travels were over in 1895, he accepted the position of headmaster (or principal) of Upper Canada College (UCC), a private boys’ school in Toronto. Seven years later, he was chosen by the estate of Cecil Rhodes to implement and establish the Rhodes Scholarships.
Cecil Rhodes was the Englishman who extended British influence in South Africa through the British South Africa Company. Their territories – now Zimbabwe – were named Rhodesia after him. When Rhodes died, he bequeathed his considerable fortune to a trust fund that would administer scholarships. Rhodes Scholarships were to be awarded each year to the brightest university graduates with the strongest leadership skills in the United States, Germany, and the countries of the British Empire. These scholarships would enable the winners to study at Oxford University with all expenses paid for a law or other degree. At Oxford, Rhodes Scholars would participate in formal and informal events and create a new and better-educated ruling class. George Parkin was so successful in making Rhodes Scholarships the most prestigious and best-known academic awards in the world that he was knighted on his retirement. Sir George and Lady Parkin’s return to Canada in 1921 for a summer holiday made headline news.
As he sits at his desk, he writes a letter to one of the people he met in Canada – his grandson George Parkin Grant, who is only two-and-a-half years old. This is what he’s writing:
Dear George,
A few days ago I was walking along the street in London, and I saw the picture of King George, which I am sending you with this. It seemed to me that your own name was George, and both your grandfathers were Georges and, as I knew you had at the College a picture of St George, you might like to have one of King George in your room – so here it is. I have talked with him several times, and he is so cheerful and pleasant that I am sure you would not mind having a chat with him yourself, if you should happen to meet him. And when you grow up you will be expected to work for your king and your country. The name George really means a farmer or earth-worker. So, when you do some gardening like you did last spring, you are really doing what your name means.
I was delighted to get that nice picture of our jolly little picnic at the shore. How nice those oranges and bananas were, to say nothing of the bacon. I am quite sure the other girls and boys wished to be with us. I wish mother could bring you over to England with her, so that we could have another picnic here… You must learn to spell and write as soon as you can, so that you can write me letters. I shall be a proud grandfather when I get a note from George P. Grant.
Your very loving Grandfather
Two months later, Sir George is dead. There are no more picnics, no more letters.
The holiday in Canada included several weeks in Quebec at Cap à l’Aigle on the shore of the Saint Lawrence River north of Quebec City. Cap à l’Aigle
