My Canadian hero: Prof. John S. Moir

Friday, October 15, 2010
Education from the heart for the heart
Walter, wow, this is a beautiful story.

Mine centers on John S. Moir at U of T. I had the good fortune to take his one-year graduate course on Canadian religious traditions.

In it were Moir, myself, and a woman from Montreal! The three of us met from September to May, 1969-1970.

It was like the old Oxford system. He simply said, "Go to the library and read on this topic and tell me what you find next week."

When Christmas came, he was the only professor to invite us to his home! The other faculty with whom I worked prattled about humanity, and their love for it. But it was John Moir who invited us into his home, and since we had lost our country, this gesture was very powerful. Ever since I have a disgust for professional sentimentalist who are really careerists.

When I had flu in the spring of 1970 he called our apartment to check up on me. He expressed concern about my losing weight, down to 145 pounds in my desire to do straight A work, which in fact I did for my Toronto M.A.

Later, when I was in Wiarton, Ontario, he invited me to become his Ph.D. student. My wife resisted. Moir and his wife Jackie invited us down to their living room in Markham. The four of us sat in his living room, and he asked my wife, "Will you help him." "No" was her answer; it was one of the first nails to go into the coffin of our marriage.

John S. Moir has remained my hero, and whenever we can we stop to visit with him in Brantford, where he lives now to take kidney dialysis. He can no longer write or type; his granddaughter must copy his notes to me. At my best, I try to be to my students what Moir has been to me.

He was the Ph.D. student of Donald Creighton, probably the greatest historian of Canada to date. He would walk with Creighton during the lunch hour in Queen's Park, Toronto. I wanted, longed to be the next link in this chain of loyalty to what matters.

Moir loved to tell Diefenbaker stories, and his wife Jackie and he enjoyed highland dancing. He did not engage in the politically correct drivel that permeated the rest of the curriculum, thank God. He kept track of the battle order of the army regiments of Canada as they would be called to the flag if Canada mustered for war. He had served in army intelligence in Ottawa during World War II where he translated German documents.

I shall always remember him bringing a brick of Stratford cheese to one of our weekly "classes," actually a tutorial. He bought it on a return trip from Windsor, where had had attended the annual meeting of Canadian Historical Association! He was proud, proud, proud of that cheese! My God, Walter, it is sanity in this crazed world to know, respect good cheese when you find, taste it!

Only three other men come close to Moir in my list of educational greats, but John S. Moir stands above all of them. To this day, this very minute, your humble servant here wants to be worthy of his faith in me.

As I told him during our first Brantford visit, "You will always be my professor, and I shall always be your student." Yes, it is about people if it is about anything.

Or as Parker Palmer, a Madison, Wisconsin Quaker writer puts it, "It is education from and to the heart." It is more than facts, techniques. It is caring about and sharing from the heart. God has blessed me with these memories. God has blessed me with and through Professor John Sargent Moir, Ph.D., D.D., Professor Emeritus, University of Toronto, Canada.