At the outbreak of the War the University had on its books 398 students, of whom 90 were women. Of the 308 male students of the session 1914–15 by the end of the session practically every third man had enlisted for military service.
So many students left the Presbyterian Theological College, Pine Hill, Halifax, as to make it only the shadow of its former self. In the session of 1914–15 as many as twenty-five students from Pine Hill were drilling with the O.T.C.; thirteen men from this College ultimately saw service Overseas.
Of students of Engineering in the session of 1914–15, twenty-one were enrolled in the O.T.C.
Of Law students twenty-two were on the roll of the O.T.C. during the first session.
One cannot write of what Dalhousie University did in the War without a few words as to what she suffered. The only son of the Chairman of the Board of Governors, Mr. G. S. Campbell, LL.D., Lieut. George Henderson Campbell, was killed near Ypres in May, 1916. He had graduated B.A. in the previous May, and was within only two days of his 21st birthday. Two Rhodes Scholars lost their lives in the Great War, namely: Walter Melville Billman (B.A. ’13), Lieut. 1st Middlesex Regiment, B.E.F.; and Harry Austin MacCleave (B.A. ’16), Lieut. 13th Montreal Highlanders, C.E.F. While the accidental death of the young, the healthy and the brave is always a poignant sorrow, the passing of those who are also the finest products of the academic culture of their day is a catastrophe of the first magnitude.
CHAPTER XLII.
KING’S COLLEGE AND KING’S COLLEGE SCHOOL IN THE WAR.
The University of King’s College at Windsor, N.S., has always been small in numbers, but always big in the spirit it has displayed and in the type of men it has fostered.
It was founded in 1789—the oldest University in the British Dominions beyond the Seas—by United Empire Loyalists, by men who readily gave up all they possessed in a material sense rather than forsake their allegiance to an ideal. It is not surprising then that at all times there have been King’s men ready to answer the King’s call and that the names of men such as Inglis and Welsford are held in special reverence by their Alma Mater.
The spirit of loyal service and sacrifice that has actuated King’s men was at once evident in her sons when the Great Call came in 1914, and King’s has every reason to be proud of her record of loyalty and devotion in the Great War. More than four hundred of her sons were at the King’s side during that fierce struggle for freedom.
In 1914 there were at least twelve King’s men, including seven Generals, holding commissions in the Imperial Army and the Canadian Permanent Forces.