BEHIND AN ACADEMIC VEIL

Press, Volume CXIV, Issue 33675, 26 October 1974, Page 10

BEHIND AN ACADEMIC VEIL

The Memoirs of John Macmillan Brown. Whitcombe and Tombs for University of Canterbury. 215 pp. Bibliography. Index.

The legend of John Macmillan Brown belongs essentially to the University of Canterbury and to Christchurch. His name, among the three first professors of what was a century ago Canterbury College, has become synonymous with classics and English literature in the local community; and though he. retired from active teaching 80 years ago and has been dead now 40 years, his memory remains clothed in an aura of mystique peculiar to a gigantic personality. All this is right and pro-

per, for Macmillan Brown was a commanding, dominant teacher and leader in the realm of oral and written expression. His legend, too, pictures the man of business acumen, the voracious collector of books, the world traveller and observer of wide range and frequent voyaging. His life was long and influential, his benefactions were considerable, and his impact, both while living and posthumously, almost unrivalled on the local educational field. What more need there be in a chronicle of this man?

Yet for many who have confined Macmillan Brown to these limits, broad and productive as they were, there is much more now to be learned from this volume of memoirs. Some of the revelations from his own pen as well as from the members of his family confirm and embellish judgments already formulated; but — and perhaps more significantly — others uncover hitherto unpublicised characteristics.

Who would have paused to appreciate, for example, that Macmillan Brown possessed as many of the frailties of a normal human being as he did the strengths? There has been, some evidence of his intolerance of fools — what men of genius lack this trait? — but little indication to date of a severity in human relationships even within the confines of his family circle. His elder daughter now writes, frankly, of personality clashes, of her father’s lack of restraint in showing his feelings, of his

impatient irritability. Perhaps this was a veneer that disguised deep sentimentality.

This could be observed, in a similar environment, in the close relationship between the father and the younger daughter who were cast in quite different dispositional moulds. Macmillan Brown had to have depths of emotionalism to reach his heights of intellectual achievement. It comes as quite a relief to learn, from the writings in this volume, that the man was indeed a very human being as well as a figure of legend. Possibly the most significant assessment of him comes from the pen of the late James K. Baxter, a grandson who scarce knew his grandfather, being but nine in the year of Macmillan Brown’s death. Commenting on the memoirs as of documentary rather than as of literary’ quality, Baxter saw “a humane, vigorous, and even, on some levels, primitive personality (hidden) behind veils.” The problem facing those seeking to perceive the whole Macmillan Brown was intensified, he wrote, by the impression that it was “not so much what Macmillan Brown wrote as the vantage point from which he saw the world.” The memoirs lend credence to this wise judgment, for Macmillan Brown surveyed his society from an eminence not accessible to many men and authors. His prescience in social perspectives was extraordinary. “New Zealand,” he wrote in the preface (1930) to his memoirs “. 6 .

is going to play a large part in the ultimate drama of the Pacific Ocean and of the world.” He discovered in his travels “such a gulf (between human types and races) as could not be crossed in many thousands, if not ten thousand, of years.” Such observations, recorded 45 years ago, wedge themselves frequently among the pages of his experiences. Here lie some of the secrets behind a deep genius of vision. He had had his wits sharpened, noreover, in forums and debates among students and tutors in Britain who included traditionalists, radicals of many persuasions, clergy, poets, agnostics — all relentless in argument, unsparing in provocation and criticism. In describing these dialectics in much detail, the memoirs reveal how Macmillan Brown came to possess his exceptional ability for influencing people in lectures and discussion. He recognised, himself, that he had the hypnotic eye and persuasive manner which not only swayed listeners but were good for discipline. He had that gripping personality which imparted enthusiasm in the pursuit of learning, and of perfection in literary and other fields. Not that these chronicles are always examples of polished literary art. Both the author and Baxter recognise that. Macmillan Brown had too little of his life left to him to edit the memoirs as he would have wished, and none other could subsequently do this for him.

But, indeed, they stand high in interest and expression even in virtual draft form, and one gem at least must be extracted from the mine of literary exploration. Passing one time from the West Coast across to Canterbury in the midst of a continuing violent rainstorm, Macmillan Brown observed the Otira River to be “gargling its throat with boulders.” “The Memoirs of John Macmillan Brown” are of great value in expanding the understanding of this exceptional man of letters whose intellectual ability made him the master of his contemporaries in early and mature years. They carry, as far as may ever be carried, the evidence needed for an assessment of their author. Hence they are rewarding in their own right. More than that, they inspire further delving into Macmillan Brown’s previous publications, comprehensively enumerated in an informative bibliography.