Childhood, Education and Academic Career
Humphrey was born to Frank Humphrey and Nellie Peters on April 30, 1905 in Hampton, New Brunswick. His childhood was touched by tragedy as he lost both his parents to cancer; he also lost one of his arms in an accident while playing with fire. Humphrey attended a boarding school where he endured teasing from other students; it is claimed that this was instrumental in building his character and compassion.
Humphrey applied to Mount Allison University at age 15 and was accepted. He transferred to McGill University and lived with his sister Ruth who was a teacher in Montreal. Humphrey graduated from McGill in 1925 where he was awarded a Bachelor of Commerce degree. He promptly enrolled in a Bachelor of Arts and Bachelor of Law at McGill, graduating in 1927 and 1929 respectively. Upon graduation, Humphrey was awarded a fellowship to study in Paris, sailing from Montreal on the RMS Aurania. He met fellow passenger Jeanne Godreau while onboard and they were married in Paris shortly after arriving.
Humphrey returned to Montreal after the fellowship to practice law for five years before accepting a teaching position as a professor at McGill; he also enrolled in a Master of Law specializing in international law. During the 1930s Humphrey was considered a renaissance man with his interests in education, the arts and humanities, and human rights. While teaching at McGill in the early 1940s, Humphrey met Henri Laugier, a refugee from France who was working on behalf of the Free French. In 1943 Laugier moved to Algeria to teach at the University of Algiers and later became the Assistant Secretary-General of the United Nations.
Read more about this topic: John Peters Humphrey
Famous quotes containing the words education, academic and/or career:
“It’s fairly obvious that American education is a cultural flop. Americans are not a well-educated people culturally, and their vocational education often has to be learned all over again after they leave school and college. On the other hand, they have open quick minds and if their education has little sharp positive value, it has not the stultifying effects of a more rigid training.”
—Raymond Chandler (1888–1959)
“Short of a wholesale reform of college athletics—a complete breakdown of the whole system that is now focused on money and power—the women’s programs are just as doomed as the men’s are to move further and further away from the academic mission of their colleges.... We have to decide if that’s the kind of success for women’s sports that we want.”
—Christine H. B. Grant, U.S. university athletic director. As quoted in the Chronicle of Higher Education, p. A42 (May 12, 1993)
“From a hasty glance through the various tests I figure it out that I would be classified in Group B, indicating “Low Average Ability,” reserved usually for those just learning to speak the English Language and preparing for a career of holding a spike while another man hits it.”
—Robert Benchley (1889–1945)