A new self-teaching course in practical English and effective speech : comprising vocabulary development, grammar, pronunciation, enunciation, and the fundamental principles of effective oral expression
Lesson one. First among the evidences of an education I name correctness and precision in the use of the mother tongue / Nicholas Murray Butler-- Lesson two. The flowering moments of the mind drop half their petals in our speech / Oliver Wendell Holmes-- Lesson three. Those things which now seem frivolous and slight will be of serious consequence to you, when they have made you once ridiculous / Earl of Roscommon-- Lesson four. His words, like so many nimble servitors, trip about him at command / Milton-- Lesson five. Talking is one of the fine arts... and its fluent harmonies may be spolied by the intrusion of a single harsh note / Oliver Wendell Holmes-- Lesson six. Language most shows a man; speak, that I may see thee / Ben Jonson-- Lesson seven. Drawing is speaking to the eye; talking is painting to the ear / Joubert-- Lesson eight. And it is so plain to me that eloquence, like swimming, is an art which all men might learn, though so few do / Emerson-- Lesson nine. Mend your speech a litter, lest it may mar your fortunes / Shakespeare-- Lesson ten. Language is the dress of thought; every time you talk your mind is on parade / Anonymous-- Lesson eleven. Blessed is the man who, having nothing to say, abstains from giving us wordy evidence of the fact / George Eilot-- Lesson twelve. What is not in a man cannot come out of him surely / Goethe-- Lesson thirteen. Language is the armory of the human mind, and at once contains the trophies of its past, and the weapons of its future, conquests / Coleridge-- Lesson fourteen. The greatest of faults, I should say, is to be conscious of none / Carlyle-- Lesson fifteen. He ceas's, but left so pleasing on the ear, his voice, that listening still they seemed to hear / Homer
A dictionary of correct English : a manual of information and advice concerning grammar, idiom, use of words, points of styles, punctuation, pronunciation, and other practical matters
First lessons in composition : in which the principles of the art are developed in connection with the principles of grammar; embracing full directions on the subject of punctuation, with copious exercises
Professor John Weldon Grant was born 12 March 1919 in Sunnybrae, Nova Scotia, son of Alec and Linda Grant. He was raised in Sunnybrae and graduated from Pictou Academy in 1937. Prof. Grant entered Pine Hill Divinity School to study Theology. During his ministerial internship, he taught and preached in Rabbit Lake and Biggar, Saskatchewan. He graduated from Pine Hill in 1943 and entered the mission field with the United Church.
Professor Grant moved to Trinidad & Tobago in the 1940s. There he taught in both San Fernando and Siparia, towns located in the southwest tip of the island. Weldon Grant was the first head master off the Iere High School School in Siparia when it opened in 1955. Professor Grant is recalled by Kenneth Ramchand in his _The West Indian Novel And Its Background_ as “his beloved English teacher” reading from an early Sam Selvon novel in a “Saskatchewan version of Trinidad dialect.” That he was teaching Selvon – a West Indian writer - testifies to Grant’s cultural pluralism. See Kenneth Ramchaud, _The West Indian Novel and its bachground_ (London: Faber and Faber, 2001 edition).
Professor Grant and Bernice Emma Moats were married in Gray, Saskatchewan 30 June 1954. They adopted three children in Nova Scotia and returned to Trinidad.
In 1961, the Grants returned to Canada. Weldon taught for one year at Vincent Massey High School and then joined the English Department at Brandon University where he taught in the English department until his retirement on August 31, 1984.
During a sabbatical he spent six months exploring Ireland and the poets that had been inspired by its countryside. He also loved stories of the sea and read many varied authors, both factual and fiction.
Custodial History
Records were collected by Weldon Grant during his teaching career in Trinidad and Canada.
Scope and Content
In the course of his teaching career in Trinidad & Tobego and at Brandon University Professor Grant acquired and retained a number of items with cultural, scholarly and sentimental value. These incude The First Folio of Shakespeare, prepared by Charlton Himan, [Academic ed.]. Imprint New York : W.W. Norton, 1968. xxvii, 928 p. : port. ; 37 cm. Mr. William Shakespeares comedies, histories, & tragedies. Published according to the true original copies. London, Printed by Isaac Iaggard, and Ed. Blount, 1623.
The facsimile is described as "an ideal copy in which each page represents the best page selected from one of the 29 most satisfactory copies of the 80 copies in the Folger Shakespeare Library."
1 Self prononcing Holy Bible, Oxford 1910.
1 print 22.4" x 17," "Baking in a Clay Oven," by Trinidad artist David Moore, June 1977 printed in Trinidad by the College Press.
2 water colour paintings 17.5" x 12" by artist "AM." One titled San Fernando (1961) one titled Royal Palm, Trinidad (1960).
1 black and white portrait 10" x 13" of Governor general Roland Michener and his wife (No: A-2) copyright Karsh dated 1970.
1 Asian art work, 12.5" x 18" embroidery on silk.
Notes
Weldon Grant history/bio from Weldon Grant obituary Brandon Daily Sun c. April 14, 1999.
Materials were in the possession of Harvey Young until their donation to the McKee Archives in 2008.
Scope and Content
Fonds consists of one file containing a copy of the history of the Geology Department and a drawing of its layout when it was located in the H-Huts. Both were created by Harvey Young.
