Some Day the Sun Will Shine and Have Not Will Be No More by Brian Peckford Read Free Book Online Page A

the
     Smallwood prescription for a “better” province.
    Perhaps equally memorable was the initiative by the Smallwood government to
     provide generous assistance to us students in the form of grants and salaries.
     This was announced with great fanfare by Premier Smallwood with his full Cabinet
     in tow at a special assembly held in the Physical Education Building. There was
     great jubilation among the students and it seemed to be received positively by
     thepopulation at large. However, a number of us thought that
     these measures were going too far. Personally, I felt that the present $600 per
     year grant to Education students, which would be forgiven with two years
     teaching in the province, was adequate and that we needed to get more qualified
     teachers in the classroom as quickly as possible. And even this should have a
     sunset provision at some point. Further, I felt that loans rather than grants
     would be the better approach to take and that salaries were just too much of a
     good thing. I began to recognize the politics of it all and was somewhat
     affronted as I watched the premier and his Cabinet so lavishly dispense with
     money that I was sure could be used for more worthy things.
    These were negative experiences that have stayed with me, but there were many
     more numerous positive experiences.
    I took to the university right away, notwithstanding the long walks to and from
     my boarding houses in rain and snow. It was exhilarating rubbing shoulders with
     all these bright people and listening to the more senior students discuss and
     debate the great ideas of the world. I was captured by it all and spent an
     inordinate amount of time in the Arts Building common room engaged in debate
     that seemed at the time more important than classes, or anything else that was
     happening around me.
    The university faculty and administration were conservative and still
     maintained some sort of dress code. I remember being called to the dean’s office
     one day to be questioned about an alleged infraction, from some days before, of
     the dress rules. It was all news to me and I said so to the Dean. He was a
     little taken back by my mildly aggressive response and confessed to me that
     someone connected with the Education Society had reported me and that he didn’t
     know the facts of the matter. This was one of my first encounters with raw
     politics and ego-dominated organizations. At the time a number of us Education
     students were agitating for a more open and aggressive Education Society. The
     leaders were well-entrenched and seemed to want a closed shop and maintenance of
     the status quo. Being one of the ringleaders of the dissenting group, I guess, I
     was singled out to be reported to the administration.
    This new, more aggressive temperament among the Educationstudents was really a new phenomenon, as they had been known in the past as a
     passive lot who did not rock the establishment boat. But a new day was beginning
     to dawn, and even this stodgy bunch was awakening from a long slumber. Perhaps
     this best manifested itself in a major undertaking by a number of us concerning
     teacher salaries. Looking to our eventual graduation, we began to investigate
     the level of remuneration that we would receive on becoming a teacher. We were
     astounded to find that the wages of teachers then were much lower than what
     graduates from other faculties would receive in their chosen fields.
    So we began to make noise about this—appearing on the local TV newscast evening
     news (with Don Jamieson, who would later be my adversary in my first election as
     premier) and finally presenting a brief to the government. This proved to be a
     little difficult at the time, so a number of us went to the premier’s office at
     the Confederation Building to give our brief to the premier’s parliamentary
     assistant, Mr. Edward Roberts, who would be an Opposition Member/Leader in the
     legislature