User:Steve Smith/Aberhart early life

Childhood
William Aberhart Junior was born December 30, 1878 in Hibbert Township, Ontario. His father, William Aberhart Senior (1844–1910), was a successful dairy farmer who had come to Canada from Mecklenburg-Schwerin with his parents in the wake of the Revolution of 1848, to avoid either taxation or compulsory military service. His mother, Louisa Aberhart (née Pepper) (1850–1944), was the daughter of English immigrants. William Junior was born in his parents' two-storey farmhouse, the fourth of eight children.

Aberhart's family seems to have enjoyed a good reputation in their community: Johnson & MacNutt describe them as "good, sober church people" and Irving as "honest, dependable people", though as "exacting bargainers" (Aberhart's brother Charles apparently became known as "400% Aberhart" for the mark-up in his Seaforth store). There is no doubt that they were hard-working, though they apparently had little involvement in community life.

William Aberhart Junior initially attended a one room schoolhouse, designated Hibbert School #7, until 1886, when his family moved to Tuckersmith Township, when he transferred to an elementary school in Egmondville. He attended high school at the Seaforth Collegiate Institute, though sources differ on whether he began there in 1892 or 1893, and on whether he finished in 1896 or 1898. A possible explanation for this latter discrepancy lies in Aberhart's attendance of Chatham Business College in 1897, from which he graduated with a commercial specialist certificate; Elliott and Miller report that he subsequently returned to Seaforth Collegiate for the 1897-98 academic year.

There is general agreement that Aberhart was a diligent and hard-working student who asked (and answered) many questions in class. It is also a fact that he never failed a departmental exam, which Irving notes were "rigorous" in 1890s Ontario. Though Elliott and Miller suggest that he "was only an average student", he seems to have been blessed with superior powers of focus, concentration, and retention, along with "beautiful penmanship". Elliott and Miller suggest that these powers came at the expense of inductive reasoning, a deficiency they blame in part on William Senior and partly on William Pendergast, a favourite mathematics instructor at Seaforth Collegiate, who they say "gave his students math problems and their formulae but refused to show them the reasoning behind the formulae. Rather, he emphasized memorization." In contrast, Irving and Johnson and MacNutt say of Pendergast that he withheld solutions to encourage his students to work out the reasoning themselves. In any event, mathematics became Aberhart's favourite subject. Though he had at one point needed to be dissuaded by his mother from quitting school, Aberhart soon resolved to become a schoolteacher.

Later in life, Aberhart recalled a lesson from his father about ploughing, which he applied to all areas of his life:

"My father used to tell us boys on the farm, in our younger days, that we could never plow a straight furrow if we did not focus our attention on a particular post or tree or other landmark away at the end of the field. He warned us again and again not to allow a big stone or clump of bush or a tree to distract us we passed along."

Ever-faithful to that lesson, Aberhart was diligent and focused in all that he did. He later developed his own plough-related lesson:

Two ploughshares were once made by the same blacksmith in the same shop from the same kind of iron, and brought to the same farm. Some time after the farmer brought his plough in for repairs, and then the blacksmith saw the two ploughshares. One was tied to the beam and the other was on the plough. And what do you think he found? The ploughshare hanging from the beam was all dull and rusty; but the one on the plough was as bright and shiny as it could be.

It's all very well for us to talk of turning over the turf and doing things. But, if we are only tied to the beam, we will rust out sure as fat. We must get down into the sod and life. And rise up in brightness.

Initially, the young Aberhart was not a great success socially. Considered a loner, he devoted much of his leisure time to teaching himself musical instruments, including the piano, guitar, and violin. He was athletically gifted and excelled at such sports as soccer, skating, tennis, badminton, track and field, cycling, and especially football, but Irving notes that he was a poor "team player", and that "even in his youth a desire to dominate or to be constantly in the spotlight caused him to experience certain psychological difficulties in that co-operation with others which membership in a football team demands". His social life may also have been hampered by the exigencies of life on a farm: Aberhart was expected to milk cows and deliver the milk to homes and businesses around Seaforth. As Aberhart grew older, however, the passion for organizing people that would mark his adult life took hold, and he became more active in extracurricular activities, including organizing glee club events and a touring musical performance to raise money for a new school piano. Always large for his age, and nicknamed "Whitey" for his light blond hair, Aberhart also became the star player on Seaforth Collegiate's dynastic football team, which won at least twelve consecutive championships. In his last year at that school, he won first place in the running long jump, shot put, 100 yard dash, running high jump, and bicycle race.

Aberhart gave up chewing tobacco after trying it once at the behest of a farmhand, and was once disciplined by his father after being caught smoking corn silk. Unlike his father and some of his brothers, he never developed a taste for alcohol. Despite this early penchant for clean-living, he did get himself in some trouble around the family farm: on one occasion, he was badly hurt being kicked in the face by a horse, and on another he broke his collarbone on some homemade parallel bars that his father had ordered dismantled.

Teaching in Ontario
Another accident delayed Aberhart's entry to the Ontario Normal School, in Hamilton: shortly after graduating from Seaforth Collegiate, he suffered a broken leg as a result of an accident picking apples on his father's farm. He postponed his departure for several weeks while his leg healed, and the injury initially precluded extensive participation in athletic activities while he was studying at the school, from which he graduated in 1899 (though towards the end of his term, he played basketball and football). One of his classmates was future Premier of Saskatchewan William Melville Martin.

Upon graduation, Aberhart took a position at Morris School #7, in Huron County between Belgrave and Wingham, at an annual salary of approximately CAD$295. He taught there for two years before the East Huron public school inspector, impressed with Aberhart's work, recommended that his interim teaching certificate be upgraded to a first-class professional one. The inspector took particular note of the discipline and order that Aberhart maintained. These traits were recurring themes during Aberhart's teaching career: Elliott and Miller point to a 1903 essay by Aberhart as advocating group discipline at the expense of students' individual creativity, and suggest that this was indicative of "a certain amount of personal insecurity", and that Aberhart "viewed the classroom as a battlefield in which he had to be the victor". They liken his classrooms to army camps, and report that he addressed his students by three digit numbers rather than names, and dispensed strappings liberally; they quote a former student as claiming that he "did everything he could to break the spirit of a child". However, they acknowledge that some students appreciated Aberhart's approach (while others hated it), and allow that it was "accepted by his educational peers and superiors". Irving states that he was well-liked by students "in spite of his severe treatment of offenders".

In 1901, Aberhart was given the position of head of commercial form at Brantford's Central Public School, for which he was paid $60 per month or $600 per year. He was successful at this position as well, and when the principal died in 1905, Aberhart was selected to replace him, bringing his salary to $1,000 per year. As principal, Aberhart continued to teach bookkeeping and related subjects.

During this period, Aberhart was also starting a family. In 1901, he met Jessie Flatt (1878–1966), though sources are divided on whether he met her at a football game, or at a Hamilton social evening while Aberhart was on a weekend trip to the city and Flatt (who was from Galt) was visiting a friend there for three weeks. According to Johnson and MacNutt, Aberhart learned during that first social evening that Flatt would be at similar events during each of the next three weeks, and arranged to be there himself as well. The two exchanged letters for the next few months, and by the end of 1901 they were contemplating marriage. Aberhart was concerned about whether his salary would allow him to support a family, and sought, and received, a raise of $100 per year. Aberhart and Flatt were engaged, but no wedding date was scheduled until Flatt's father, a widower, announced that he intended to re-marry; Flatt refused to live with a stepmother, and she and Aberhart were married July 29, 1902. They had a daughter, Khona Louise Aberhart, in 1903, and another, Ola Janet Aberhart, in August 1905.

Besides his teaching responsibilities, during his time in Brantford Aberhart was engaged in a number of his own educational pursuits. Most notable of these was a Bachelor of Arts, taken by correspondence through Queen's University. Apparently commenced in 1907, its completion was an arduous process: over the course of his degree, Aberhart failed Greek twice and honours political science once (and, according to Elliott and Miller, but not Johnson & MacNutt, Hebrew once as well), on his way to an eventual 1911 graduation. Other educational attainments achieved while teaching in Ontario included diplomas from the Province of Ontario Art school in geometry and advanced drawing in 1899, and in advanced geometry in 1904; a diploma as a high school cadet instructor from the Toronto School of Infantry in 1901; and a commercial specialist's certificate with honours from the Ontario Ministry of Education in 1905.

As principal of Central Public School, Aberhart was a great success, and by 1910 he was president of the Brantford City Teachers' Association. His reputation was carried west by colleagues who moved there, and, also in 1910, he was offered an appointment as a school principal in Calgary, at an annual salary of $1,400, $200 more than he was receiving as principal of Central Public School. Brantford's school board, eager to retain him, offered him a $100 raise—a proposal to fully match Calgary's offer was blocked by a single board member with a personal dislike for Aberhart —but Aberhart accepted the Calgary offer and made his resignation as Central Public School's principal effective April 1, 1910; he moved west later that spring. He departed to glowing tributes, including one from Brantford Mayor William Bruce Wood reading in part as follows:

"I am more sorry than I can express that you have decided to leave Brantford. Everyone admits that you have done first class work as Principal of our Central Public School and you have surrounded yourself with a large number of friends who esteem you very highly for your moral worth and Christian character. I know that you have been the instrument through which God has spoke to many a heart and no greater honour than that can come to any man in this world.  No one can blame you for seizing the wider opportunities of our growing West.  I sincerely hope that your fondest hopes may be fully realized and that Mrs. Aberhart, yourself, and the children may enjoy life in your new home."

Similar letters came from the teachers and students of Central Public School, and from E. E. C. Kilmer, the Inspector of Schools.

Principal in Calgary

 * Train trip west (Johnson & MacNutt 33–34)
 * Principal of Alexandra school, 1910–1912 (Johnson & MacNutt 37)
 * Principal of Victoria Public School, 1910-1911 (Irving 13)
 * Principal of Mount Royal Public School in 1912 (Johnson & MacNutt 37)
 * Principal of Alexandra School, which later became Mount Royal, in 1911-1912 (Irving 13)
 * Principal of King Edward School, 1912-1915 (Johnson & MacNutt 37; Irving 13)
 * Principal of Balmoral Heights in 1915 (Schultz 187)
 * Principal of Crescent Heights in 1915, initially located at Balmoral (Johnson & MacNutt 38; Irving 13-14)
 * Principal of Crescent Heights in 1927 (Schultz 187)
 * Official opening or Crescent Heights in 1929 (Johnson & MacNutt 38)
 * Description of Crescent Heights building, completed in 1928 (Irving 14)
 * Good reputation (Johnson & MacNutt 40; Schultz 187; Irving 15)
 * But not universally (Irving 15)
 * Drill sergeant/dog trainer (Irving 15-17)
 * No original methods (Irving 17)
 * PR (Irving 17)
 * Objective measurements hold that not a superb educator (Irving 17-18)
 * Excellent principal, as distinct from teacher (Irving 18)
 * "A bit of a bully" (Irving 18)
 * Not autocratic with staff; loyal to them (Irving 18-19)
 * Authoritarian (Johnson & MacNutt 43; Schultz 187)
 * Allowed teaching of evolution (Johnson & MacNutt 43; Irvin 19)
 * Personally develops all students' timetables (Johnson & MacNutt 42)
 * Sincere, intense interest in students (Johnson & MacNutt 40; Schultz 187)
 * Not a member of the Alberta Teachers Alliance (Irving 19)
 * Gender relations (Irving 19)
 * Four maxims (Schultz 187)
 * Largest Parent-Teachers Association (Johnson & MacNutt 41–42; Schultz 187; Irving 14)
 * Many school activities (Johnson & MacNutt 41)
 * Good academic performance (Johnson & MacNutt 42–43)
 * Movie projector project (Johnson & MacNutt 45–46; Schultz 187–188)
 * Drove Model T (Johnson & MacNutt 40)
 * Discipline of future Muriel Manning (Johnson & MacNutt 44)
 * Calgary Albertan musical competition (Johnson & MacNutt 46–47)
 * Kept religious and political views out of classroom (Johnson & MacNutt 47-48)

Religion
It appears that the Aberharts were not terribly religious, though it is clear that William Junior attended Sunday school at the Presbyterian church (Egmondville's only one), and John J. Barr refers to William being "frequently" brought by his parents to revival meetings. .


 * Impressed by evangelists' hold (Barr 37, Irving 11-12)
 * Religious conversion (Elliott; Miller 7)
 * Studied under William Nichol (Irving 12)
 * Bible class at Central Public School (Irving 12)
 * Does not enter ministers (Irving 12-13)