United Colleges - Vox Yearbook (Winnipeg, Manitoba Canada)

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6 VOX in afferent and efferent waves, he unceasingly affirmed the fact of a personality, living and essential, behind and in all the marvellous mechanism. Conduct was more than behavior, and life more than physical processes. When others were attempting to explain the strange power of hu¬ man aspiration, longing and ambi¬ tion as the residue of a lower order from which men had evolved, Prof. Hetherington grew impatient with a crassly materialistic evolu¬ tionary hypothesis, and kept clear¬ ly before the minds of his students and hearers the thought that man is akin to God, and from God come these nobler aspirations of his soul. These are not an inheritance from a lower origin, but the breath of the divine in the soul of man call¬ ing him upward to communion and fellowship with God. So, during the time of transition and change in Religious Education, Psychology and Evolution, he ren¬ dered a very distinct service, sym¬ pathizing with all new light and fresh truth, but adhering firmly to the great fundamental principles of the Christian faith and life. A good man, faithful and effec¬ tive, has done his work here, and has passed on to work in a higher life in closer communion with the God he loved and sought loyally to serve. Appreciation by a Student Dr. Hetherington will live in the memories of his students. It will be so not merely in the intellectual advance which they made under his guidance, but also in the value of personality which he revealed to them. One of his former students tells this in a few paragraphs of appreciation which follow. “We live calmly among men who might be put into brave books and be the bravest figures in those books,’’ has frequently been my thought as I have listened to Professor Hetherington illustrating in his lectures from his early ex¬ periences in the Trail of Ninety- Eight.” He was our teacher in Psy¬ chology, Religious Education, Old Testament and Hebrew, in which subjects we considered him not so much a foremost student, but rath¬ er as one who knew folks and neighbored with their experiences in the learning processes. His personality had for us the largest appeal—that ready laugh of his, that wave of the arm in re¬ cognition across the halls, that knowing glance of the eye, that pushing of the stray lock of hair across the forehead, that keen sense of the ludicrous, the rollicking glee he had in his friends, that helpfulness without censoriousness, that service without thought of self-sufficiency, that freedom from ranting, that happiness in an over¬ abundance of work, those firm un¬ wavering convictions without dog¬ matism or self-assertion, that in¬ stinct and grace of a man of peace, that spiritual nature which needed not to talk about religion all the time to let men know he had re¬ ligion—such a man he was, and as such he moved in and out among the students as an inspiration and a blessing, whose heart was young and whose sympathy was a per¬ petual spring.

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vox 5 work of Hebrew Literature and Language in co-operation with Prof. E. Guthrie Perry. This po¬ sition he held until the time of his death. During all the years he kept in close touch with the Council of Religious Education, and watched with intelligent interest the devel¬ opments in this new phase of reli¬ gious emphasis and growth. On Friday, December 14, 1928, he walked home from Wesley Col¬ lege with another member of the staff, seemingly in his usual good health and spirits. At the dinner table he mentioned casually that he did not feel well. He went to his study but was stricken with such intense pain that it was necessary to call the doctor. Then another medical man was called in, and ad¬ vised removing him to the hospital, where at five o’clock the next morn¬ ing an operation was performed. Peacefully on Tuesday morning he passed into his eternal rest, leaving a widow, six sons and one daugh¬ ter to mourn his departure. The funeral service was conduct¬ ed by Rev. Harry Heathfield, his pastor, in Young United Church, on Thursday, December 20. Many tributes, in spoken and unspoken words, in flowers and telegrams, were paid to a life well and faith¬ fully lived. Prof. Hetherington had many unique qualities. His face and form arrested attention, and made one turn to notice the man as he passed. He was a good preacher of the didactic type, winning always the respect and confidence of his con¬ gregation. It was, however, in the classroom that he excelled. He knew his subjects and was passion¬ ately devoted to them; but, better still, he knew his students and loved them with a father ' s devo¬ tion. All through life he main¬ tained that keen and active inter¬ est in youth which marked his early years. During his college days he was highly honored by his fellow students for his sterling worth and for his ability to enter into the sports of the college. His prowess as a football player will always remain a pleasant memory with the early students of Wesley. Prof. Hetherington was a keen and sensitive student, and a lover of nature. Few men could inter¬ pret the mountains, the rivers and prairies as he could. But after all this is said, his significant contribution may be summed up in three particulars. It was his good fortune to take a part in the life of Canadian thought when three great movements were evolving in the intellectual and spiritual life of the people. When he began his teaching ca¬ reer, Religious Education was just beginning to occupy the attention of religious leaders, and many were claiming for this new science a de¬ termining power in religious devel¬ opment. Its advocates were saying that all men needed for their salva¬ tion was a fuller knowledge and a better mental culture on sounder principles. Prof. Hetherington al¬ ways maintained that beyond all the mental processes, however val¬ uable, that a new birth was a nec¬ essary factor. He reiterated with unswerving fidelity the solemn truth “Ye must be born again.” He pleaded for a new life as the basis of religious experience and growth. In the realm of Psychology, of which he was a close student, while some were seeking to find all the mental phenomena of human life in stimul i and reactions in neu¬ rones, nerve centers and complexes,

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vox A Milestone in Canadian Criticism It Needs to Be Said ... by FREDERICK PHILIP GROVE (Macmillans in Canada, 1929.) In the year 1864. Matthew Ar¬ nold, then Professor of Poetry at Oxford, published an epoch-mak¬ ing essay entitled “The Function of Criticism at the Present Time.” To the parochial England of his day, Arnold proclaimed the need for absolute standards in literature, for the impregnation of the creative mind of ideas, and for the propaga¬ tion by the critic of “the hest that is known and thought in the world.” There followed a neces¬ sary familiarity on the critic’s part with the literatures not merely of Greece, Rome, and Judea, but also of contemporary Europe. Only thus could there be produced such a current of true and living ideas as would inspire the creative mind to work of enduring worth. In the year 1929, Mr. Frederick Philip Grove, perhaps the most dynamic creative writer in Canada today, has published a volume of essays, It Needs to be Said, with a similar emphasis on the abiding value of the absolute in art. It is a timely book. Matthew Arnold’s essay seems unknown in Canada, except perhaps to college Sopho¬ mores—in that vague way in which all prescribed texts are re¬ luctantly peered into. Here and there across the country, some aca¬ demic Jeremiah tries, with a wry face, to preach a gospel of high se¬ riousness in literature, to insist that standards of truth and beauty still have cogency. But so far as things published are concerned, most of our book-reviewers are blind lead¬ ers of blind book-writers and book- readers. It would be hard to name more than one or two professed critics in the whole Dominion who have a competent knowledge of any modern literature other than Eng¬ lish, still less of the great literatures of antiquity. Much of the imma¬ turity and ephemerality of Cana¬ dian writing is traceable to this lack of stern, enlightened leadership. Mr. Grove, nourished on six modern and two ancient literatures, and himself a writer with thirty years’ apprenticeship, now presents our generation with critical theory in the great tradition. Of the eight essays in the book, one, on “Na¬ tionhood,” is partly sociological in substance; the rest are al l critical; (1) “A Neglected Function of a Certain Literary Association,” (2) “Literary Criticism,” (3) “Real¬ ism in Literature,” (4) “The Happy Ending,” (5) “The Aim of Art,” (6) The Value of Art,” and (7) “The Novel.” The clearest statement of his lit¬ erary creed is to be found in “Lit¬ erary Criticism” and so pertinent are his remarks that large-scale quo¬ tation seems to be called for. His basic declaration is that the real critics have always faced in three directions: “They faced, firstly, that vast accu¬ mulated mass of literature which has stood the test of the centuries and which, in what follows, I shall call classic, no matter whether it was written in ancient Greece or in modern Italy, England, France, or Germany. They faced, secondly, the contemporary authors. And they faced, thirdly, the contempo¬ rary public. Let us, then, see what may be the functions of the critic facing in these various directions.