To Miss Wilkinson
Dear Miss Wilkinson,
I’ve been called plenty of names during the many, many years that have passed since I was in your grade 10 English class at Sault Collegiate Institute. My favourite by far is Grampa Book. It’s what my grandchildren call me. Yes, young Davey Johnston has grandchildren. Twelve of them, an even dozen! They’re fascinating kids. They call me Grampa Book because I’m seldom seen without a book in my hands – often more than one. I’m constantly sharing books, stories, and quotations. And I take every opportunity I get to read to my grandchildren, introducing them to worlds they have never seen before, and through them and this experience, I revisit old worlds with fresh eyes. I try to tell them stories they have never heard before. But of course I have stories I’m particularly fond of retelling – like The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis. I’m rereading it to my grandchildren, having already shared the series of books five times with my five daughters.
Encountering new ideas and gaining greater context of ones I’ve encountered already are the main pleasures of reading. I can’t think of an experience any more intellectually and emotionally pleasing and transformative. I can, however, get impatient with books. If one doesn’t seize my attention and propel me on in the first twenty pages or so, I don’t hesitate to cast it aside. And when I pick up a work of non-fiction, I often scrutinize the table of contents and the book’s final pages to determine whether I want to devote my time and attention to the whole thing. Drives my wife crazy. And some books I return to after many years for a second read. In fact, I’m now working through Will and Ariel Durant’s History of Civilization series for a third time.
You introduced me to the power of words. You first showed me how reading pretty much anything but especially great literature serves as a lens through which we can view our lives and our changing world. What a gift you shared with me. I like how novelist E.L. Doctorow expressed the electric force of reading. He said any book you pick up as a reader is a private circuit for your own life to flow through. In that way, the act of reading is a powerful source of good in the world. I believe that as people become more cosmopolitan – as they become familiar with the experiences of people from many different countries and cultures – the harder it becomes for them to dehumanize others. Reading breeds empathy.
This thought is not especially novel – ahem. Steven Pinker wrote that fiction especially is empathy technology. In his book The Better Angels of Our Nature, the Harvard University professor made a case for the invention of printing and the subsequent “Republic of Letters” of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries spreading ideas that led to a humanitarian revolution. He argued convincingly that some popular novels in the nineteenth century, such as Oliver Twist and Uncle Tom’s Cabin, propelled that revolution further by encouraging readers to put themselves in the place of people much different from themselves. When we step into the shoes of others – even just for a few moments – we enrich our own lives and expand the scope of our moral concern. Of course, the empathy that books ignite in us is not inexhaustible. But books and reading can be a darn good way to nurture greater empathy in all of us, especially in young people.
The flip side to reading, of course, is writing. Writing requires you to crystallize your thoughts. I never know what I truly think until I sit down at a keyboard or pick up a pen and try to express it in words. It’s tough work, but there are few feelings more gratifying than the one you get when you capture on the page an idea or emotion you think is worth sharing. Nothing good ever comes without a struggle. I learned this lesson clearly when I was dean of the law faculty at Western University in the 1970s. Very few of our faculty members then had their work published in scholarly journals. Even fewer were writing books despite the fact that there was a hunger for volumes on Canadian jurisprudence in a multitude of fields. I thought it important to lead and so produced several books of my own. We also brought publishers’ representatives to the faculty twice a year to encourage our younger professors to write books. We quickly boosted the number of books produced by our professors from one a year to eight or ten. Each year, we would have a baptismal ceremony in which we would unveil publicly for all the university to see the books written by our faculty members. It was a celebration of writing. Then we displayed them permanently in a case at the entrance of our library to remind our students of the importance of books and the valuable role of their professors in writing them and continually reforming the law.
Writing is something worth celebrating. Where would readers be without writers? Some of the most memorable evenings I spend as governor general are those on which I meet writers, translators, and illustrators at ceremonies to honour winners of the Governor General’s Literary Awards. John Buchan started the awards. Also known as Lord Tweedsmuir, he served as governor general from 1935 to 1940. He was a prolific Scot who produced more than 120 books during his lifetime. My favourite room at Rideau Hall is the library, which contains every Governor General’s Literary Award–winning book since 1936 and has Buchan’s portrait hanging over the fireplace. I wish it had been possible for you to attend one of the awards ceremonies. You would have relished meeting the writers. They help define our country’s identity for Canadians and spread aspects of our shared identity with readers not only across Canada but also throughout the world. Robertson Davies, one of our great writers (and a Governor General’s Literary Awards winner), wrote that a nation without a literature is not a nation. I would add that a nation that ignores its literature and languages, that neglects to teach and encourage children to read and write, is not a nation either; or if it is a nation, it is one without a soul and an inspiration.
I can’t imagine what my life would have held without reading and writing. And I can’t think of reading and writing without thinking of you and your influence. For that, for you, I am and will be eternally grateful.
Your devoted student,
David
Miss Wilkinson was Mr. Johnston’s grade 10 English teacher at Sault Collegiate Institute in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario. Her inspiration and tutelage helped him win the school’s prize for poetry in grade 10 and the prize for prose the next year. Miss Wilkinson’s influence has been lasting: Mr. Johnston has written twenty-seven books, primarily legal treatises, including new editions and co-authored works. The books are mainly co-authored because Mr. Johnston worked in teams with former students. One was co-authored with his daughter Debbie, a lawyer with the Department of Justice. Sharon Johnston, who was also taught by Miss Wilkinson, has done her share as well, publishing scientific articles and her first novel, based on her grandmother’s life. She is working on a second, based on her mother’s life in Sault Ste. Marie; a third is also planned, which Mrs. Johnston will entitle The Boy in the Orange Pyjamas. Mr. Johnston hopes he’s “the boy.”