Few Canadians will remember today that Prime Minister Mackenzie King earned a Ph.D. from no less a university than Harvard. He also served as the Valedictorian of his class at the prestigious Boston-area university.
On this date in 1898 King, who had been studying at Harvard for less than a year, was celebrated in the press for his success there. “In the broad fields of intellectual achievement Canada is marching on,” noted the Victoria Times Colonist in an editorial. “Another young Canadian, Mr. W.L. Mackenzie King, has just been appointed to the Henry Lee Memorial fellowship at Harvard University, a distinction awarded only to students who have shown special attainments in that science.”
At the same time, the paper also noted King’s success as a reporter. “Mr. King has (also) written a series of power articles on the sweating system,” it said.
King’s future, it seems, was very bright indeed.
Arthur Milnes is an accomplished public historian and award-winning journalist. He was research assistant on The Rt. Hon. Brian Mulroney’s best-selling Memoirs and also served as a speechwriter to then-Prime Minister Stephen Harper and as a Fellow of the Queen’s Centre for the Study of Democracy under the leadership of Tom Axworthy. A resident of Kingston, Ontario, Milnes serves as the in-house historian at the 175 year-old Frontenac Club Hotel.