A MIGHTY OAK FROM A CRUSHED ACORN
It would have been difficult to have had a more confused and humble beginning when something called Ryerson Institute of Technology opened its historic and battered red door over two days because the politicians were busy the first day of classes when maybe 210 students launched the future university on its way.
Now there are 40,000 students and nearly 3,000 doing post grad, numbers so fantastic that back on Sept. 21, 1948, you would have been trundled off to 999 which old Torontonians will recall is what we called the Insane Asylum before it was, thank heavens, renamed.
It is very much the old city that we uncover when we poke at the entrails of a university that survived more perils than the heroine in any Saturday afternoon movie for kids in the 1940s and 1950s when Rye High kept clawing for life.
All it had on its side was a glorious (but publicly ignored) history because its home of St. James Square had been the nursery for more innovations in Canadian education and culture than snooty U of T that did its best, along with the other universities, to make sure the insult of Rye High flourished as if Ryerson was just a souped up high school.
I came along in 1955 when you had to be nuts, considering the general wackiness, to enrol. But I'm glad I did get sucked in by the glossy calendar that made the place look like a cross between MIT and Harvard. We survivors got a great education, especially for the rough world of Toronto newspapers,
I wrote the history of the early days on Ryerson's dollar but then had to publish it myself as Ryerson University A Unicorn Among Horses because as student president and member of many board advisory and search committees I often saw what the Ryerson administrators wanted hidden in a censorship frenzy.
One former president said the university was looking forward, which was a polite way of admitting that many, including him, wanted to forget the first years which were a mix of BS, high school, gifted and innovative profs, failed teachers marking time, and a despotic regime which would made old Russia look like a summer camp.
So the university turns a frigid shoulder towards my book - which you can get through
Amazon in the various versions of Kindle etc. - not realizing that old grads like me think the young Ryerson was the equal of any university because it taught us that survival and even success was up to us, not some tenured prof mumbling into his politically correct lecture notes.
My original manuscript was chopped and mangled and survives, barely, in the university archives, and the hours of tape with the pioneers such as H.H. Kerr were shunted to some nook when taping technology moved on. Yet the nostalgia is golden when my fading classmates gather in a flurry of remember whens.
Even H.H., the first principal/president, is remembered for his accomplishments rather than his stupidities like when he put our entire class on probation because the mother-in-law of a major reporter complained to the premier about us. (But that's another story.)
For almost a century, there had been a teachers' college at the Square. And one of the first public museums in Canada. And art school. And art gallery. Various government ministries had started there. Air crew trained there for war, and when the war ended, the veterans came to patch their CVs. Then came the apprentices. And now, what? Everyone wondered.
Ryerson had to wait a day for even a modest opening ceremony for the unveiling of the next step towards newfangled technology because it wasn’t important enough to command immediate attention. It was a
careful occasion but not a splashy one because the public wasn’t quivering with
anticipation. Two weeks later, there was a brief mention in the Legislature
about institutes in general but Ryerson wasn’t mentioned because skepticism was
common and the Opposition indifferent because not much money was involved.
So no band played, no bunting waved, and no one cut a ribbon
when students walked to the first classes on Tuesday, Sept. 21. Just how many
were there? Estimates ranged up to 250, with 210 as Kerr’s best guess. No
instructors bothered much with Admit-To-Lecture cards and roll calls, just
happy some had shown up.
The next day, the premier and an entourage of civil servants
gathered at 3 pm. in the auditorium, then the largest space available because
the biggest air force buildings were chopped up by partitions. Many didn’t
realize the old hall was one of the most historic in the city.
It was a cool, clear afternoon that made people hope that
Indian summer would arrive soon before winter. Ironically, considering the
delays it had caused Ryerson, the big news was the Berlin blockade. Kerr had had
his staff beat the bushes for an audience of students. They were only at
Ryerson because of the promise of new courses and must have been perplexed when
the premier spoke as if the rehab programs for veterans were just continuing.
(George Drew probably
was preoccupied with leadership manoeuvres but he never lost his blissful
ignorance about the institute that he had allowed. Kerr remembered Journalism
students interviewing him later in Ottawa and becoming upset when it became
obvious that Drew was still hazy about what Ryerson taught and was surprised to
find a Journalism school there.)
It was left to two provincial officials to stress the new
aims, to bring underlings in support, and to arrange for telegrams from
well-wishers, including principals, in an attempt to convince the premier there
was wide support.
For Kerr, the stars of the occasion were in the audience,
not on the old stage. Kerr thought fondly of the first students because “they
were the real pioneers. They were taking a chance on a type of education of
which they, and the outside world, knew very little.” For years his instructors
talked about these “special” students, like the first student president, Tom
Gilchrist, who became a CBC star as Gil Christie.
The second president also was remembered, because he was the
biggest character there, among the students that is.
Honest John Vail, as he liked to be known, used a top hat,
stunts and a refreshing confidence to become a legend. Inevitably, when H.H. called in for a chat the new Students’ Administrative Council president —
the preferred name at first because that was the name at U of T — he would
mention Christie and Vail while the student sat nervously across the desk that had been used by Egerton Ryerson. (I still remember his wintery smile while he tried his awkward best to
put me at ease.)
Vail also figured in an early problem which was a hint that
campus newspapers would always give Kerr headaches. The first paper was just a
mimeographed sheet but it infuriated him with its attacks on the
administration. He figured his student leader was the best bet to unmask the
ungrateful writer. Vail kept reporting he was getting close but he never found
the culprit. Or so he told Kerr, who found out too late that Honest John, using
Ryerson equipment, had been the secret critic.
The students found after the first days stretched into
routine that despite all the talk about new courses, there were no dramatic
changes from the past. Rennie Charles had come from war to the rehab confusion which taught thousands and said it was a gradual transition “from some of
the things we had been teaching.” There were also older faces besides the staff
because there were still some veterans. They qualified because under Kerr’s
rules, anyone qualified whom he wanted to admit. Besides, he thought it safer
to keep them at the Square than have them go to the last rehab operation in
Hamilton where they might be dissatisfied and complain to an MPP. Their
presence also helped boost the numbers.
Eventually the Square became a routine stop for celebrities
and leaders. They would receive honourary degrees, open buildings and
speechify. But none of this mattered as much as that humble opening ceremony when
even if the premier was, in the language of students, clueless as to what
really was going on, at least Drew brought his prestige. So the Conservative
newspaper, the Evening Telegram, responded with a big layout on Page 3 which
had the familiar picture of the Normal school but also, for three cents a copy,
Helen Hutko fitting clothes on a dummy and H. Perryman repairing a clock.
The feature began: “There isn’t a football team at the new
Ryerson Institute of Technology on Gould St. There is no school tie and there
are no dormitories. But apart from these few minor differences, Ontario’s most
modern poly-technical school, officially opened this afternoon by Premier
George Drew, has all the earmarks of a full-fledged university.
No doubt U of T profs choked at that imagery. After all,
some upstart with no campus and an aged complex surrounded by huts was called a
full-fledged college, even if it was in the Tely and not that real paper for
the academic world, the Globe.
The feature was speckled with errors, such as Ryerson was
modelled after the Rochester Institute, and had 150 students and a staff of 60.
It was also useful because it said there was room for 600 students, and
practical experience would be considered in admission. The hours may be from
8.30 to 4.30 with no spares but there would be little homework because the system
stressed the practical over the theoretical with little textbook work.
It didn’t matter that Kerr had only one day of operation
under his belt because he told the reporter Ryerson was a success because of
all the promises for summer employment. He boasted that Electronics was the
most popular course because it had “what is believed to be the first television
camera in Canada, only part of the costly equipment needed in the course."
Great publicity because it touched every point in his\ standard sermon: uniqueness, practicality, good equipment, industry support, and lots of
jobs afterwards. Unfortunately it also left misconceptions about Ryerson being
the right hand of industry with little use for textbooks. After all, Ryerson’s
founding principles were that no industry could dominate and that every student
had to take compulsory academic courses.
Many students must have wished Ryerson really did have
“little use” for textbooks as they made the annual costly September foray into
the A and A store on Yonge. It served as Ryerson’s first bookstore, even
keeping copies of the book lists for various courses behind the drawers of 78
records. And in the back, there was a soda fountain.
The complexities of the novelty of Ryerson also proved
slippery for a smaller Globe article the same day, but Kay Sandford fortunately
hit on the angle that invested the new institute with traditions.
“The Toronto Normal School, the seed plot of the Ontario
educational system, will take on a new look and a new future today. The old
buildings on Gould St., which have nurtured the spirit of Rev. Egerton Ryerson
for 100 years, will be the home of the Ryerson Institute of Technology. As
Ontario’s hub of the latest development in technical and vocational training,
it may be a far cry from the famous educationist’s idea of higher learning, but
it will be a lasting monument to the man who used his whole life teaching
others how to live.”
The Globe also said Ryerson would be “the right hand of
industry” because it had training equipment worth $1.5 million. (A fortune in
1948 but probably a Kerr exaggeration.) The province’s only “polytechnical”
school would have “60-odd
courses,” the feature said. Another misconception that would haunt because there were actually 15
courses with 37 options, all supervised by the education department. What fed
the confusion was that in the same buildings the same instructors gave shorter
apprenticeship courses supervised by the labour department.
The apprentices certainly helped Kerr meet his budget but
their presence nurtured a PR disaster that tainted the main occupant of the
Square as a trade school and hurt grads hunting employment. They certainly
bugged Ryerson students who paid tuition when the apprenticeship students were
paid an allowance to take the free training.
Despite any confusion and flaws, the main coverage was that
a bustling different school had opened where you could learn all about the
chores of industry and then get a job. Ryerson was to enjoy a favourable
“press.” Saturday Night was the first magazine to demonstrate this, devoting
three pages and 14 photographs. It was helped later with all its grads in the
media. But in 1948, most journalists had come up the hard way, climbing from
copy boy to reporter to editor, and then they went to war. So Ryerson with its
pragmatic history was more to their liking than the universities, which were
just starting journalism schools.
There were no major problems in the first year, although the
lack of students hung like a pall. Kerr said: “It was quite an experience after the thousands upon
thousands of rehab students. But it was expected because we knew that unless we
were given six months to acquaint the public, enrolment would be small. So we
had far too many teachers for the number of students.
The largest class was in electronics, which had been
popular in rehab days with a great demand and everyone getting jobs. The
smallest was in printing, because school training in this area was new. The
course wasn’t threatened because there was all that equipment and vets who had
trained there earlier were now supportive voices in the industry.
Everyone knew that they had to get the numbers up. Still,
the happiest people in the first year were the instructors. It was a blessing
for the survivors just to have a job. They knew they could handle anything that
Kerr or the department or fate could throw at them.
And they handled it for 71 years as the student number grew 190 times even as the new barons of Ryerson ignored that it had all started with one old building that they rushed to destroy surrounded by dubious military buildings that no one wanted.
There was no hint as fall came in 1948 that this simple ceremony for something called RIOT would mark the beginning of the grandest accomplishment for a Square that has no rival in the country for what it has contributed to education and culture.
Why the guest of honour didn't even quite know what was being launched. Which, come to think of it, made it a typical political ceremony!
I am in my Shopper's Drugmart at Royal York and Bloor several times a week. When you stand at the back of the store (and remember when it was the headquarters for the world's first pay-TV experiment) you watch all the men and women over 80 who are turned away because the ordinary flu shot is not recommended for them.
