Spring Convocation - Students - University of Saskatchewan

Walter C. Murray First U of S President – 1908-1937
Following are excperts from a speech
delivered in 1946 by Grant MacEwan,
former Professor of Animal Husbandry at
the U of S:
“I don’t suppose anybody left a more vivid
mark upon the youthful face of Western
Canada than the late Walter C. Murray.
It wasn’t just what he did but it was the
“Murray way” he had of doing it that
made him loved. He distinguished himself
as a philosopher and he was a great
educator; yes, but more than that, he was
distinguished for his tremendous capacity
for friendship; he was a great Canadian.
Walter Charles Murray was born at
Studholm in King’ s County, New
Brunswick, on May 12, 1866. From the
local schools, young Murray went to the
University of New Brunswick and graduated
in 1886, a distinguished gold medalist. He
was awarded a scholarship which permitted
him to pursue graduate studies overseas and
he elected philosophy at the University of
Edinburgh. Leaving Edinburgh he travelled
in Europe and studied in Berlin and then
returned to become Professor of Philosophy
at his own University of New Brunswick.
Dalhousie University wanted him and got
him in 1892, and there he remained until
1908 when he accepted the challenge of
the new North West.
Murray had a vision of a provincial
University dedicated to service, a vision
of a peoples’ University. It was to be the
servant of an agricultural area, conducting
useful research, and turning out able
leaders; and raising cultural standards.
Dr. Murray’s relationship to his students was
Walter Murray in his office, 1937. A-5537
extremely happy. He got along well with
them. He could call most of them by name
and actually he knew a great deal about the
problems confronting them individually.
No one enjoyed good humor more than
Murray and there was no lack of originality
in his own. The first two dormitories
on his campus, Saskatchewan Hall and
Qu’Appelle Hall, were called after two
rivers in the province. He threatened to
call the next one Carrot Hall. It was his
observation that “the modern pastime
known as necking had done more to
discourage the habit of tobacco chewing
than a thousand years of reform.”
In training, Walter Murray was a
philosopher but all through the years,
nothing gave him greater satisfaction than
his associations with agriculture. In the
formative years, he conferred with Dean
Rutherford in the planning of the University
barns and the laying out of the fields. And
he watched the horses and cattle and sheep,
and pigs. He loved the growing things; he
enjoyed nothing more than to stroll through
the barns and talk to the horses.
And while he had that great interest in
animals, he had a great and sympathetic
love for people. If there was a Santa Claus in
Saskatoon, his other name was Murray, and
in those years of depression, no one will
ever know how much aid and assistance he
gave, and nearly always anonymously.
When Walter Murray died on March 23,
1945, age 79, men and women in all
provinces and in all walks of life, mourned
his going. They mourned the passing of one
of God’s gentlemen, a noble Canadian, a
man who loved his fellows and lived to
make Canada a better place.”
– J.E. Murray fonds, file B.I.3
University of Saskatchewan 35 Spring Convocation 2007