The 1920s

The 1920s McGill University

| Skip to search Skip to navigation Skip to page content

User Tools (skip):

Sign in | Wednesday, November 14, 2018
Sister Sites: McGill website | myMcGill

McGill News
ALUMNI QUARTERLY - winter 2008
McGill News cover

| Help
Page Options (skip): Larger

Site navigation (skip):

Sidebar content (skip | back to top of page):

Timeline

continue to page content | back to top of page

1920s

The first issue in December 1919 of the McGill News didn't appear with a great flourish but rather as part of a rather sober commitment by the Graduates' Society to help restore "a true college spirit" after the bitter years of World War I.

Cultivating such spirit was necessary according to the inaugural editorial, because "in the new life that is beginning in Canada, there is need of every instrument and agency that can serve as an inspiration of national citizenship." University graduates had a responsibility "higher than that of the crowd," and the reorganized Graduates' Society, now 50 years old, was ready to do its bit. One of its "most immediate and readiest activities was to put before the public the McGill News."

The publication's aims were then described in rather effusive, horticultural terms: "It proposes to occupy a field that will be all its own, a small acreage covered at present by a mingled growth of flowers and weeds but in the soil of which the News thinks to detect a rare fertility."

Members of the magazine's editorial board were primarily graduates who had worked on the McGill Daily during their student days. They had been selected for reasons not only to do with journalism. The Daily had started in 1911, following a radical move at the University which put students in charge of student affairs. "A great quickening of interest followed and led to the establishment of a student body that is now united and intensely enthusiastic. Graduates must follow suit."



So the committee set out on its task of quickening the interest of alumni by "providing a record for circulation among the graduates of the college of what is being done at McGill and of what is happening in the world outside that concerns the welfare of the University."

The tone of early McGill News issues was both sad and hopeful. War deaths were still being confirmed and reported -- 12% of McGill faculty, alumni and students who served overseas were killed. Of those who did survive the war, more later died of the effects of their wounds or of the worldwide influenza epidemic. McGill had been in a state of suspension for more than five years. Already a little down at heel as hostilities began, the University now identified urgent priorities which would require raising $5,000,000 "to make a beginning." In 1919, Sir William Peterson, who had been principal for 24 years -- one-quarter of the University's existence -- suffered a stroke. During Peterson's tenure, enrolment had more than doubled and endowments had increased tenfold, primarily due to his enthusiasm and skill as a fundraiser. His continuing ill health forced him to retire and he died two years later.

There were bright spots, however. The Percival Molson Memorial Stadium was officially inaugurated and McGill won the 1919 intercollegiate football championship. The very popular Prince of Wales, who later became King Edward VIII, visited McGill and was awarded an honorary degree. New departments were established, a completely refurbished Arts Building was unveiled, and the University celebrated its centennial in 1921, which included the first all-faculty reunion.

Later on in the decade, the News took on the ambitious task of providing a forum for discussion of national issues by including in its pages a special Supplement. "Canadian history, industrial, commercial, educational and social development, literature, science; everything that makes up the growth of our nation will be grist to our mill." The editors had hoped that the Supplement would become an independent magazine, but by 1930, neither the Graduates' Society nor the University had offered to support the venture and the McGill News reverted to its earlier role.

view sidebar content | back to top of page

Search