Produced by Al Haines
[Illustration: Cover]
REGINALD BATEMAN
TEACHER AND SOLDIER
A MEMORIAL VOLUME OF SELECTIONS
FROM HIS LECTURES AND
OTHER WRITINGS
PRINTED FOR
THE UNIVERSITY OF SASKATCHEWAN,
SASKATOON, CANADA
AND PUBLISHED FOR THE UNIVERSITY BY
HENRY SOTHERAN AND CO.
LONDON
1922
PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN.
CHISWICK PRESS : CHARLES WHITTINGHAM AND GRIGGS (PRINTERS), LTD.
TOOKS COURT, CHANCERY LANE, LONDON.
PREFATORY NOTE
The purpose of this volume is to commemorate the life and death of
Reginald John Godfrey Bateman, first Professor of English at the
University of Saskatchewan. It was felt by the Governors and Faculty
of the University that his friends and old students would value a
representative selection from the lectures delivered by him within the
University and to the outside public. Included in the selection are a
few poems which were found among his papers. The lectures and essays
which are published here, being written for popular audiences or
literary gatherings inside the University, were never intended by their
author for publication as the original and considered critical work of
a Professor of English; doubtless, if such had been his purpose, much
that is printed here, originally hurriedly prepared during the busy
rush of a college session, would have been altered and recast.
While originality was one of Professor Bateman's most marked qualities,
the members of the committee entrusted with the preparation of this
volume for the press have not, in every case, regarded originality of
thought as a necessary qualification for inclusion. In making their
selection they have rather been guided by the desire to give to his
friends and old students what, whether original in thought or not,
appeared to be in treatment and presentation most characteristic of the
man and teacher.
War--and herein lies its greatest tragedy--always takes heavy toll of
the promise and latent greatness of a nation, its youth and vigorous
young manhood. Like many others who risked all and gave all in the
Great War, Reginald Bateman was cut off in his prime.
He was born in Ireland some thirty-eight years ago. His schooldays
were spent under Dr. Biggs, often called the Irish Arnold, at Portora
Royal School, perhaps the greatest of Irish public schools, with a
tradition of scholarship which is centuries old. On leaving school he
entered Trinity College, Dublin, where he graduated with the Highest
Honours in Modern Literature. In college his activities and interests
were wide, and he was an outstanding example of the student who
combines with distinction in scholarship, prominence in athletics and a
broad and human outlook on life. In this as in other respects he was a
worthy representative of the spirit of his University. After a few
years' experience of teaching in Ireland, he was appointed to the chair
of English at the University of Saskatchewan, being one of the original
four professors who, with President Murray, launched the University on
its educational career in 1909. When a peaceful and unsuspecting world
was plunged, in August 1914, into the horrors of the most stupendous
war in its history, Professor Bateman quickly decided that his place
was in the fighting line, and he enlisted in the 28th Battalion in
September 1914, in company with another professor and many members of
our student body. His ability to handle men, quickly became apparent;
he soon won his sergeant's stripes, and went to France with that rank.
In 1916 he was recalled to Canada to take command of the Saskatchewan
Company of the Western Universities' Battalion. He proceeded to
England with the rank of major, and in 1917 reverted to the rank of
lieutenant in order to get again to France, where he was wounded in
action. He was holding the rank of captain in the 46th Battalion when
he was killed on the 3rd of September 1918. He had taken part in the
fighting toward the end of August when the Canadians made the first
breach in the Hindenburg Line. The major of his battalion has written
that on the 2nd of September Captain Bateman gallantly led his company
into action. Dury was taken that day, and near that place on the night
of September 3rd he was killed by a shell at the Regimental
Headquarters, which were being held in a chalk quarry. On the 4th of
September the chaplain of the regiment gathered together a party who,
"amid the roar of guns and scream of shells paid their last respects to
a very gallant comrade and one of the best loved men in the Battalion."
Those who served under him as an officer bear witness that he had won
not only the men's implicit confidence by qualities of leadership of
the highest order, but also their very great affection by his personal
qualities. The affection and respect which were the University's
tribute to his character were also the tribute of his comrades in
circumstances where a man's soul is stripped of all pretences in the
constant presence of death, and where the dread arbitrament of war must
reveal the good or evil that may lie hidden beneath the
conventionalities of ordinary life. Strong in body and fearless in
spirit, Reginald Bateman possessed that courage which is neither the
product of discipline and rigorous training, nor the mere animal
quality which (to quote an early writer on the war) "is our inheritance
from a past in which men fought each one for himself that they might
survive," but that finer quality of courage which will face the most
appalling horrors because it has a vision of the future and a faith in
the destiny of mankind.
If Professor Bateman had survived, his career as a soldier would have
been but a glorious interlude in his life's work. During the years
spent by him at the University, his character and attainments had made
him an outstanding figure, and gave promise of a future even richer in
achievement. Intellectually, he was a signal example of the union of
great ability and imagination with the modesty of a fine spirit and a
sane and penetrating outlook on life. He was possessed of a breadth of
outlook that gave him clear insight in literary matters. His judgments
were always just, because based on essentials, while his humanity
enabled him to couple with the minutiae of scholarship a catholicity of
interpretation and a sanity of criticism which is not always found in
those who are most deeply versed in their subject. The respect of his
colleagues and of his students is definite proof of his great ability
as a teacher. It was manifest to all that he gave himself
wholeheartedly to his work with that enjoyment and appreciation which
are essential characteristics of a true teacher.
The loss that the University in general has sustained by Professor
Bateman's death finds its counterpart in the personal sorrow of his
friends. Those who were privileged to know him well are left
immeasurably poorer by his death but enriched by a memory that will
always remain with them. For "his story lives on woven into the stuff
of other men's lives." His wide human interests brought him into
sympathetic touch with many phases of life and gave him strength and
tolerance. His true manliness, sincerity of character, and sociable
nature endeared him to all. He was a delightful comrade, and many of
his colleagues must remember some flash of true humour which lit up the
prosaic tenor of an ordinary conversation or of some inordinately dull
Faculty Meeting. The students of the University too shared in his
friendship. His never-flagging interest in their activities, whether
literary, musical, or athletic, will always be remembered.
The University of Saskatchewan lost in the Great War many of its finest
spirits, and its losses reached their culmination in the death of
Reginald Bateman.
Upon such sacrifices
The gods themselves throw incense.
CONTENTS
PART I
REGINALD BATEMAN--STUDENT AND TEACHER
Francis Thompson
Milton
To the Memory of Dr. Biggs
The Teaching of English
My Last Duchess
Christmas Shopping
Realism in Wordsworth and Browning
Synge--a Fragment
Dickens and Thackeray
Pessimism
Brains and Intellect
The Eternal Silence