History shmistory

Here I was again at the old normal school (an earlier picture of it is in the PiP at upper left; normal schools are now called teachers' colleges), and here was this memorial, and memorials interest me, so I memorialized it. The stone ended up teaching me things about the history of Canada that I had never been taught in school, one of these things being something that I probably should have learned about there.

Anyway, the inscription is:

Sugar Maple
Planted by John Dearness
Arbour Day 1949
Class 1948-1949

I am so clueless about local history that I took John Dearness to be one of the students who had been chosen to plant the tree. After research, though, I felt certain that it was the distinguished John Dearness, who at the time would have been 97 (he lived to 102). Now, if you're from London, Ontario you know the name Dearness. There's a Dearness Home here, and a John Dearness School. What I didn't know was anything about his remarkable career.

John Dearness was a local farm boy who received his teacher's certificate in 1869 when he was 17 years old, then graduated from Toronto Normal School in 1871 with a special certificate in natural history, botany and agricultural chemistry. He pursued his botanical interests in his spare time, and eventually was teaching botany and zoology at the local university (now the University of Western Ontario, although they have been trying to get people to call it Western University, its original name). He went on to become an eminent mycologist and plant pathologist, and the first Canadian-born president of the Mycological Society of America.

But wait...that's not all! He kept working in education, too. When the Normal School opened in 1899 he was appointed vice-principal and became principal in 1918. So that must have been quite an event back in '49, with the eminent former principal returning (unless he was still the principal, which I wouldn't put past him).

I went to school in London from grade 3 on; I never heard him mentioned. Nor did I learn about the local battles in the War of 1812, the European settlement of the city (which began even later), relationships with First Nations (there are three reserves within 40 km of London), or pretty well anything about how we all came to be there. Frederick Banting may have been mentioned in passing. Indigenous history probably got a couple of sentences, too.

Oh, the other thing I learned from the memorial -- Arbour Day. I had never known that Ontario had an Arbour Day, We now have Arbor (sic) Week in May (why they dropped the u is a mystery, since Ontario government spelling requires -our endings). Then in September National Tree Day aka Maple Leaf Day is the successor of Arbour Day. Never heard of any of them, either. Not only are we not to be taught anything about our past but the present is out of bounds, too.

I say we should have learned about John Dearness because he would have been one of those people who are considered so important today -- a role model. Of course the chief function of role models these days seems to be getting exposed as a secret practitioner of vice, but that just shows we pick lousy role models. If we learned about remarkable people like John Dearness, we might be inspired to greater things than having a film crew at our beck and call.

Anyway, we should have learned something about where we were growing up.

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July 17, 2021

I recently discovered a press photo of John Dearness planting this tree at the age of 97. He did not need help. He was turning the soil as if it was 1858 again and he was working on the family farm near St. Marys.