Early Life
Arthur Meighen was born on a farm near Anderson, Ontario, to Joseph Meighen and Mary Jane Bell. He was the only farm boy ever to become prime minister (although others made it into the higher circles.) He attended primary school at Blanshard SS# 1 Anderson, where, in addition to being the grandson of the village's first schoolmaster, he was an exemplary student. In 1892, during his final high school year at St. Marys Collegiate Institute, which later became North Ward Public School in St. Marys (now known as Arthur Meighen Public School) Meighen was elected secretary of the Literary Society and was an expert debater in the school Debating Society in an era when debate was in high repute. He received first class honours in Mathematics, English, and Latin.
He then attended University College at the University of Toronto, where he earned a B.A. in Mathematics in 1896, with first-class standing. While there, he met and became a rival of William Lyon Mackenzie King; the two men, both future prime ministers, did not get along especially well from the start. Meighen then graduated from Osgoode Hall Law School.
In 1904 he married Isabel J. Cox, with whom he had two sons and one daughter.
Read more about this topic: Arthur Meighen
Famous quotes containing the words early and/or life:
“Some men have a necessity to be mean, as if they were exercising a faculty which they had to partially neglect since early childhood.”
—F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896–1940)
“The man of large and conspicuous public service in civil life must be content without the Presidency. Still more, the availability of a popular man in a doubtful State will secure him the prize in a close contest against the first statesman of the country whose State is safe.”
—Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1822–1893)