Читать книгу Life is an Adventure - R. J. Manion - Страница 11

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A few comments on extra-mural activities may not be amiss, for much of the real education of a student is obtained outside the college halls. The training of the universities is merely the foundation upon which one builds a culture-edifice in later years. Education helps to ripen the character that one possesses, and as one’s contacts outside the university are more real than the disciplined contacts within it, extra-mural associations are equally as important in completing the educated product.

In Toronto there were five theatres—the Princess, to which went the best dramatic and operatic companies; the Grand; which got the next grade; the Toronto, where one might enjoy the thrills of extreme melodrama; Shea’s which specialized in vaudeville; and the Star, with its rough variety shows, at which was offered what then passed for indecent exposure of shapely girls, but which to-day on our beaches would be laughed at as old-fashioned.

Henry Irving frequently visited Toronto in the London off-season, and, as he was looked upon as the world’s greatest actor, it gave the students a chance to see a superb artist for the price of a seat in “the gods.” Oft do I remember being one of a long line of students standing outside the rush entrance before a performance of The Merchant of Venice, or The Bells, in which Sir Henry came and went upon the stage. His Shylock comes back vividly to me now, as do also the splendid characterizations by E. S. Willard in The Cardinal or David Garrick. Willard always appeared to me to be an even greater actor than Irving. Another performance of which I can recall every incident was that of Otis Skinner in Francesca da Rimini, in which he played the hunchback prince who was betrayed by his favourite brother. The final tragic act (in which the hunchback kills his wife and her lover, then, after spurning his wife with his foot, casts himself in grief on the breast of his brother) is as vivid to me to-day as it was the night I saw it. E. H. Sothern and Julia Marlowe in Shakespearean rôles; Forbes Robertson in The Light that Failed; Martin Harvey in The Only Way; George Alexander in Monsieur Beaucaire; Richard Mansfield in Cyrano de Bergerac; Lulu Glaser in Dolly Varden, and other musical comedies such as Floradora and The Prince of Pilsen—all these gave us the chance of seeing and hearing world leaders on the dramatic and operatic stage, delights which I naturally never had had the opportunity of experiencing in my boyhood, and the memory of which is still fresh after thirty years. At present one must go to London or New York to enjoy good drama, and as a rule we give ourselves a ten-day treat annually in New York, enjoying there as well the magnificent musical performances of the Metropolitan Opera House.

On the musical stage Paderewski (who, after the peace treaties, became the first President of Poland) gave piano recitals in Massey Hall, though I never have been able to get the thrill from piano music which is given me by the human voice or the violin. I also remember in those days hearing Madame Melba and our own Madame Albani in their splendid vocal recitals.

The ability to appreciate beauty is possessed by any man with reasonably good taste, and this applies to all branches of art. Good paintings are admired by any intelligent man who is not frightened from attempting to estimate them by the jargon of the critics. Again and again on our visits to some of the world’s famous art galleries, we checked this up by entering salons of Italian, or Dutch, or French, or British paintings, and choosing from among the treasures on the walls what appeared to us to be the real masterpieces of the salons. Invariably, on consulting the guides or guide-books, we found that our selections were justified, and yet we had no training whatsoever in painting. It may not be quite so easy in sculpture or in architecture, but in a general way the beauties of either are recognized, without any technical knowledge, by anyone who loves the beautiful in nature and in art.

One of the amusing and instructive memories of those days deals with a boarding-house at which we stayed and an incident in connection therewith. In the period spoken of none of us “lived in” at the university, all having rooms in private homes and taking our meals in other private homes, the reason for separating these two services being, that when one tired of the food (as one often did) it was easier to change boarding-houses than to change rooms, though even changing rooms was not so troublesome, as on these occasions we helped each other lug our trunks from place to place.

The incident occurred at the home of an old woman who kept a rather good establishment. I was about twenty, strong and healthy, accustomed to plain, wholesome food, and blessed with that best of mealtime sauces, a good appetite. Therefore the meals, which usually consisted of plenty of meat and vegetables, with pie or pudding and tea or coffee, quite satisfied me. But most of the other students were not blessed with my healthy outlook on food, and as a result complaining at table was almost continuous among the thirteen or fourteen who took meals with Mrs. Gee. After some months I became impatient with this continual fault-finding at table, accompanied by a lack of courage to say anything to the woman who catered to us. Being of a frank disposition, and not lacking the courage to express my thoughts, I suggested that if they were all dissatisfied, as they appeared to be, one of them should be deputed to talk to Mrs. Gee. As she was a sharp-tongued old lady, none of them cared to take it on, while nearly all of them admitted that they were displeased with the food.

“Well,” I said, “if you chaps are all dissatisfied, I shall tell Mrs. Gee what we think of it,” to which proposal they acceded, suggesting that they go across the street to await the result at old Teddy Byron’s bookshop, which was a club for us all. This I agreed to, finishing my meal slowly while the table gradually emptied. After they had all gone I walked in to Mrs. Gee in her parlour where she sat with a Queen Victoria air of dignity watching us come and go.

“Mrs. Gee,” I said respectfully, “the boys are all displeased with the food, and have asked me to express to you their disapproval of it.”

“It’s too damn good for them,” she heatedly returned.

“Well, it may be, Mrs. Gee,” I answered, “but we don’t think so; and we merely wish to advise you that if it does not improve we are going to leave the house.”

To which she angrily replied that it would not be improved, and, if we did not like it, we knew what we could do. When I gave them her answer the boys were somewhat panicky, as they really liked the old lady, and probably enjoyed the food more than they admitted.

This was a Saturday evening; and on Sunday morning at breakfast-time she stood majestically in the doorway and accosted each as he came in.

“Mr. Smith,” she would say, “are you satisfied with the food in this house?”

“Perfectly, Mrs. Gee.”

“You pass on,” she would reply.

“Mr. Jones, are you satisfied with the food?”

“Entirely, Mrs. Gee.”

“You pass on.”

Some nine or ten had come in before I arrived, and not one of them had supported my protestations to the landlady, so that by the time of my arrival she was in good fettle to meet me. She wasted no words. As I opened the door, she stood before me with arm outstretched toward the street.

“You get to hell out of here,” she said. “I want you in my house no longer.”

How well I remember grinningly paying her the balance of my account and going off down Yonge Street to a restaurant to have my breakfast. It was a lesson to me in after years in regard to frank speaking and its not uncommon reward, though I never succeeded in curbing my sometimes too outspoken habits to any great extent.

However, I should not finish the story of the incident without (in justice to my fellow-students) adding that when they learned what had happened, all of them but one left the house; and we moved down Parliament Street a couple of blocks to another table. Poor old Mrs. Gee (whom I really liked very much, and to whom I had given the protest with the best of intentions) hated me most vindictively, and repeatedly stated to the one student who remained that “that fellow from out West” had wrecked her boarding-house. The frank and fearless friend is rarely appreciated, for, with the generality of mankind, candid words cannot compete with candied words!

The one student who remained was a native of the West Indies, a charming chap, about one-fourth native, the other three-fourths giving him very pleasing English manners. He apologized to me for staying, stating that he had been with Mrs. Gee for two or three years, and, as he was graduating in the spring and did not care to move, he asked me if I would resent his remaining. To this, of course, my reply was heartily in the negative, being only too happy to see the old lady retain one of us.

There is a strange sequel to this incident. The one student who remained went back to practise in the West Indies, and we met no more for twelve years. The World War had broken out, and I had gone across on my own and enlisted with the French army as a surgeon, being sent to a casualty clearing station about a mile behind the lines north of Compiègne. Within an hour of my arrival the French Surgeon-General asked me to trephine the skull of a soldier who had been kicked on the head by a horse, depressing about three square inches of skull. The man was brought immediately to the casualty clearing station from some sector in the neighbourhood where he had been injured, and, as I walked into the library-operating-room of this old château-hospital for the first time, the anaesthetic was being given by my West Indian friend who had stayed at Mrs. Gee’s boarding-house. The patient upon whom we operated made what surgeons call a “first-intention” recovery, and my erstwhile student friend and I worked and played there together for some months thereafter, I as surgeon in charge, and he as one of my assistants.

As student escapades have been told in books innumerable, and are much alike from generation to generation—only the details being altered—no further space need be given to them.

One conclusion reached since then in meeting men who deal with public affairs is that a medical training is one of the best mental disciplines which it is possible to obtain, for it teaches one to think out any problem from cause to effect in a systematic and logical way. Education has for its object the formation of ideas and ideals, not the giving of information; the acquirement of tastes, not the imparting of knowledge; and, as a result of these tastes and ideals, character develops and ripens. If in the formation of character the mind is trained to think independently, to follow a problem from cause to effect, the foundation has indeed been laid for success in whatever walk of life the scholar may tread in later years.

Though few medical men go into public life, those who do so almost invariably analyse questions competently and present their views in a clear-cut and well-defined order, due to their scientific training. Some of them have attained in Canada high positions in our legislative halls, despite the lack of business or legal experience. Sir Charles Tupper, a country physician, is perhaps the best example of this.