Oral History Program Leland H. Monson Interviewed by Lawrence C. Evans 7 December 1971 Oral History Program Weber State University Stewart Library Ogden, Utah Leland H. Monson Interviewed by Lawrence C. Evans Dean of Social Science 7 December 1971 Copyright © 2012 by Weber State University, Stewart Library iii Mission Statement The Oral History Program of the Stewart Library was created to preserve the institutional history of Weber State University and the Davis, Ogden and Weber County communities. By conducting carefully researched, recorded, and transcribed interviews, the Oral History Program creates archival oral histories intended for the widest possible use. Interviews are conducted with the goal of eliciting from each participant a full and accurate account of events. The interviews are transcribed, edited for accuracy and clarity, and reviewed by the interviewees (as available), who are encouraged to augment or correct their spoken words. The reviewed and corrected transcripts are indexed, printed, and bound with photographs and illustrative materials as available. The working files, original recording, and archival copies are housed in the University Archives. Project Description The Weber State College Oral History Program was created in the early 1970s to “record and document, through personal reminiscences, the history, growth and development of Weber State College.” Through interviews with administrators, faculty and students, the program’s goal was to expand the documentary holdings on Weber State College and its predecessor entities. From 1970 to 1976, the program conducted some fifteen interviews, under the direction of, and generally conducted by Harold C. Bateman, an emeritus professor of history. In 1979, under the direction of archivist John Sillito, the program was reestablished and six interviews were conducted between 1979 and 1983. Additional interviews were conducted by members of the Weber State community. ____________________________________ Oral history is a method of collecting historical information through recorded interviews between a narrator with firsthand knowledge of historically significant events and a well-informed interviewer, with the goal of preserving substantive additions to the historical record. Because it is primary material, oral history is not intended to present the final, verified, or complete narrative of events. It is a spoken account. It reflects personal opinion offered by the interviewee in response to questioning, and as such it is partisan, deeply involved, and irreplaceable. ____________________________________ Rights Management This work is the property of the Weber State University, Stewart Library Oral History Program. It may be used freely by individuals for research, teaching and personal use as long as this statement of availability is included in the text. It is recommended that this oral history be cited as follows: Monson, Leland H., an oral history by Lawrence C. Evans, 7 December 1971, WSU Stewart Library Oral History Program, University Archives, Stewart Library, Weber State University, Ogden, UT. Leland H. Monson 1 Abstract: The following is an oral history interview with Leland H. Monson (born 1900). The interview was conducted on December 7, 1971 by Lawrence C. Evans in order to gather Mr. Monson’s recollections and experiences as a student at Weber College from 1922 to 1924, and as a faculty member from 1926 to 1968 during which time institution had become Weber State College. LE: Dr. Leland Monson was a distinguished educator for many, many years, going back to the 1920's, and a very active member of the L.D.S. Church here in Utah including membership on the General Sunday School Board, and as a person active in many civic affairs. Perhaps it would be worth asking you some of the events you consider important in your early life. LM: I was born in Preston, Bingham County, Idaho on February 22, 1900. Naturally, one of the most important events was my marriage to Ada Button on March 10, 1920 in the Salt Lake Temple. I graduated from the eighth grade in West Point, Utah in the spring of 1913. I went to the North Davis High School in Kaysville the following two years, graduating from High School in three years. My father was not too well and was unable to send me immediately to college, though he had it in mind all my life. He therefore sent me to the Smithsonian Business College with the understanding that there I could get a training that would help me to earn my way through college if it were necessary. My father died in 1918 when I was approximately eighteen years of age. It was in July 1922 when I read an article in the newspaper pointing out that Aaron W. Tracy had become president of the Weber College. I became very much interested and registered in the fall of 1922. 2 I graduated from Weber in the spring of 1924, then I went immediately to the University of Utah, graduating in 1925, then I proceeded to the University of Chicago where I took my Master's Degree in the fall of 1926. LE: Well, that's immpressive already Leland. You still remember the time you won a pocket folder? Do you still have the pocket folder you won? LM: I do not have the pocket folder, but while attending the Davis County High School I won a pocket folder for being the fastest typist in Davis County High School. LE: I wonder if you hit my record Leland. How fast did you go? LM: I worked for the Ogden Union Railroad and Depot from 1917 to 1925 typing. When I left the railroad I could type 128 words a minute. LE: That beats me by twelve words. You took your Ph.D. from the University of Utah in 1956. I think you didn't mention that before. Is there anything, Leland, about the M.S. or M.A. degree you received from the University of Chicago that stands out in your mind? I understand that you took your degree there and did it while at the same time taking care of a family and it wasn't exactly as if you had been financed by one of the Kennedys or Rockefellers. LM: When I left for Chicago I borrowed $100 from Samuel G. Dye. We drove in an old Dodge from Ogden to Chicago with my wife and three children. My father and mother were both dead at this time. I also had a sister and a brother with me in Chicago. After I paid my first quarter's tuition and my first month rent, I had $50 left. I worked as a bookeeper for a number of organizations to help pay my way. I also worked for the railroad there. Furthermore, I worked for the school. When I originally told them in January that I wanted to graduate in August, they said it 3 couldn't be done, but I proceeded to do my course work and had my thesis completed and they graduated me in the fall of 1926. LE: Leland, I think you are a marvelous example of that saying, and I don't think I can quote it exactly, someone says “The difficult we can do right now, the impossible will have to wait a couple of days", and I think this is certainly true not only of your experience at the University of Chicago, but in many, many other ways. LM: I might tell you the struggle I had with my B.A. When I graduated from Weber, I still lacked one of my courses that I needed for graduation. I used to catch the train from Ogden to Salt Lake at 5:30 in the morning. I arrived in Salt Lake at 6:30 and walked from Union Pacific Station to the University of Utah. I had to take this one course in Biology in the afternoon so I had them excuse me just a few minutes early so that I could walk down to the station and catch the 5:30 train to Ogden. That put me in Ogden at 6:30. I went immediately to the freight office and worked until 2:30 in the morning and then went home and slept long enough to catch my train to Salt Lake the next morning. This was done one summer. LE: Leland, it would be interesting, I think, if you would indicate some of the honors that you have accumulated during a long career of service to school and community. What in your mind stands out? You've got a list here that goes from A. to L. It makes me sick just to look at it, but there must be some here that seems more important to you than others. You wouldn't have time to go through them all. LM: In 1935 I was given an award, the Degree of Highest Achievement for Debate Coaching by national Phi Rho Pi. I was a member of the Executive Board at 4 Large in the Ogden Area Council of Boy Scouts in 1944. In 1941, I was made a member of the Ogden Rotary Club. I served on the Ogden Stake High Council. I became a member of the General Sunday School Board of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in 1943 and served until 1967. I have served as president of the Weber College Faculty Association for two years, as president of the Associated Alumni of Weber College. I was three times a president of Phi Rho Pi, a national junior college debating society. LE: Leland, in connection with that, you were in the paper just the other night, pictured with a couple of students from Ogden High School in connection with the 35th annual Leland H. Monson High School Forensic Tournament. Now you organized this back in 1934, am I right? LM: That's correct. LE: You don't know this, but I believe that a year or two after that I participated in that tournament from Ogden High School and here you are now appearing with a couple of High School Students. I should think you would be very proud of this tournament. This year 700 students will come from several states. If I remember rightly, Leland, we have had as many as 1200 students, haven't we? LM: We have had 1400. LE: I remember working under you for so many years in the English Department and directing, on occasion, the men's division of this tournament. I think there were times when we had over 200 teams in the men's division alone. LM: That's correct. 5 LE: I think it most fitting that the tournament is now called the Leland H. Monson rather than the Weber College High School Debate Tournament. I remember, Leland, at one time we were casting about to say something that would distinguish our tournament from others. We decided that very likely our tournament was one of its kind in the United States. I suggested, I remember, to you at the time that since nobody could gainsay us on this, why didn't we just go ahead and say that it was the largest tournament of its kind in the country. I think we have been saying this ever since. LM: I think it has been the largest tournament. LE: I think it very likely has been. Some of the highlights that are listed here that I don't recall your mentioning are these. First, you were listed in Who's Who in the West in 1958, and also you were honored for thirty-one years of distinguished service by the Speech Arts Association of Utah in 1968. You have been president of the Utah Council of Teachers of English. You have been in Who's Who in Education, published by Brigham Young University and in the Directory of American Scholars for 1969. Also you received, on October 28th of this year, the Distinguished Service Award given by the Associated Alumni of Weber State College. I certainly think that is a signal honor and something of which you should be proud. I notice also here that it mentions some of the speaking experiences that you have had. I know this has been vast. You have spoken in many parts of America and in Canada in connection with the college, with civic groups and with education. You've been a commencement speaker in various places. I think 6 perhaps one of the most interesting things that you have done in the way of writing was your doctoral dissertation, Shakespeare in Utah. Perhaps you would like to say just a word about how you became interested in this as a topic, and perhaps say something else about the treatment of Shakespeare in Utah theatre. LM: I have long been interested in Shakespeare and suggested it as a topic to the head of my committee at the University of Utah. He immediately picked it up and we worked out the title, Shakespeare in Utah. I had an interesting experience in connection with this title. A few years ago I was in the public library in Ogden. Someone asked when I was scheduled to speak to a historical association on Shakespeare in Utah. The individual said, "I didn't know Shakespeare had ever been in Utah." LE: Well, Leland, that reminds me of a remark that was made by someone who shall remain anonymous, but it was someone intimately connected with the campus here. Perhaps this ought not to be recorded on here, but I think in the interest of posterity it should be. You were once approached by someone here and you were asked this question, "Why do you continue to teach that old moss back Shakespeare." I don't remember what your answer was at that time. Do you feel that Shakespeare still has a place on the college campus? LM: I still feel as I felt at the time I was teaching Shakespeare that he is as modern as tomorrow morning's broadcast over TV. He dealt with such universal things as power struggle, sorrows can be teachers, jealousy, hatred, anger. These themes are as modern as any modern writer. 7 LE: Leland, we are in the midst now of a search for a new president for Weber State. How do you feel with respect to the emphasis that the college seems to be placing on the technological side of education, the training side as distinguished from what we would perhaps call the liberal arts or humanities? I would presume that you are still very much interested in Weber's continuing as a school with a liberal arts tradition which it has always had and in good measure because of your own interests and your own great ability as a teacher. I presume that you hope that our new president will have at least some orientation toward the liberal arts or humanities? LM: It would seem to me in the field of education that the progressive movements in America, in the field of teaching technology, are good. On the other hand, all too frequently, those who are trained in technological work are deprived of a cultural background and this is the great mistake I feel that is being made. It would seem to me that the new president ought to have a background in the humanities and that this he ought to emphasize. Conditions in the world today are such that people need this training if we are to live together in peace. After all, when you look over the world today, you can't help feeling that we have made rather shiftless plans for the benefit of all peoples living in the world. It's the humanities which will correct that situation. It needs to be corrected. LE: Leland, I think one of the finest tributes that I as an individual could pay you is that my first introduction to English literature really came as a student in one of your classes many, many years ago down in the old Moench building. This was a class in the romantic poets, and we were concerned primarily with Wordsworth, 8 Coleridge, Byron and Keats and Shelly and a few other poets of that period at the beginning of the 1800's. I often turn to one or the other of these poets and prose writers of the period with extreme relish. I have experiences in reading these people that I didn't have at the time as a student since I was, I think, too young to appreciate them. The fact that I can return to them from time to time, not only to them, but to Shakspeare, whom I think you introduced me to also, in any depth— the fact that I can turn to these people and derive a kind of pleasure that is available in no other way, is certainly testimony to what you have just been saying. Leland, there is another question that I have been thinking of asking you and and that is this. You've taught at Weber College from about 1926, if I am not mistaken, to about 1968. Is that right? LM: From 1926 to 1968. LE: I was thinking about that. That spans a period of 42 years. Now during that period have you noticed any difference in the quality of students—either in their preparation as they first came here or in their general outlook toward the human condition or in any other way? What kinds of changes have you been aware of? LM: When I first began teaching at Weber, we were under the direction of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. One of the objectives of the school was to further a belief in God and to develop integrity of character in the students. It was a wonderful experience to be able to encourage students to try to reach their high potential as spiritual sons and daughters of God. If I were to pick one period in which I enjoyed my teaching most, I think it would be the period under the 9 Church because we had a greater freedom to work for what is near and dear to me. LE: Well, Leland, I was not a student when the College was under Church control. I think the Church turned the college over to the state in 1933. The quality of the student in terms of his preparation to do college work has probably changed over the years. Did you notice any change say from the middle 30's when you began your debating tournament until you retired? LM: I think earlier it was a bit easier to get students to study and give their best. LE: As you noted it was Aaron W. Tracy who hired you in 1926. I know that you and he have been very, very close over the years and I know how sad you were when he died just a few years ago. After President Tracy, if I am correct, we had Dr. Leland H. Creer from the University of Utah History Department who served from 1935 to 1937. Then in 1938 President Henry Aldous Dixon came in who later was president of the Utah State University, and also served three terms as a United States Congressman. He was president until 1953 when President William P. Miller was named. Would you care to comment about any of these presidents under whom you have served, indicating what you regard to be their outstanding or their noteworthy characteristics? LM: As you have said, Lawrence, I had my original experience in teaching under the direction of Aaron Tracy. He was one of the most cooperative men under whom I have ever worked. In my opinion he is one of the greatest educators of this state. He was interested in Weber College and was at the helm during the period when he was constantly confronted with the idea of the closing of the school by the 10 Church. No one ever fought harder to keep this school in existence than did Aaron W. Tracy. He was an intelligent fighter. When the effort was made in the state to have Weber College become a branch of the University of Utah, he took a definite stand against it. I stood side by side with him. He did two or three things that I considered at the time and still consider very wise. He sent a teacher to all of the counties surrounding this school and had them encourage parents of students to send them to Weber College. The enrollment was increased by such methods. In addition to that he sought to increase the class offerings and draw students into the institution. I remember, for example, that we taught a course on the Book of Mormon in the old auditorium. I believe there were 172 students in that class which I taught. In addition to that, Guy Hurst organized a class in salesmanship. That class had several hundred students in it. I taught the class from Marjorie Greenby's book Personality, and enjoyed it very much. From these two methods students were brought into the school and I think we had nearly a thousand students when we went to the legislature. In addition to these two ways of enlarging the enrollment, President Tracy asked me if I would go to Southern Utah with him and we spoke to large congregations in several parts of the state. The purpose of the talks was to encourage those people to work for an independent state supported junior college in Ogden. Ultimately we were successful in getting that kind of school. President Tracy had the undivided support of his students. I don't know how a man could have been accepted by a group of students better than Aaron Tracy was accepted by a large part of the student body. 11 LM: When Dr. Leland Creer came to the presidency of Weber College—I believe it was in the fall of 1935, for the school year 1935-36. I was in Chicago. The second year Dr. Creer made me a member of the Executive Council of the school. I think one of his greatest contributions to the school was the organization of the faculty. He started a regular administrative council. Another contribution of Dr. Creer was an increased emphasis on scholarship. I would say these are his two greatest contributions to the school. It was in 1938, I think, that President Henry Aldous Dixon assumed the leadership of the school. President Dixon won the community's support for this institution and I think this was his greatest contribution. He was forever talking about the Weber College family. He united the faculty and the students. He was successful in developing the technological phase of our work today and he developed it to a point where Weber was considered one of the ten greatest junior colleges in the United States. I think President Dixon had a great contribution to offer. LE: In 1953, President Dixon became president of Utah State University and that would be when President Miller became president. Is that right? LM: That is correct. President Miller's great strength was one of keeping the community behind the school. In addition to that he took special pains to make certain that decisions reached were correct decisions. It was often a slower method, but certainly it led to some wiser decisions on the part of President Miller. President Miller had critical faculties of mind, and enduring qualities of character that won the affection of students and the fellow citizens. 12 LE: Leland, do you feel that students, during the last five years you were at the college, were different in any noticeable respect from ones before that? LM: Yes, it would seem to me that during my last five years of teaching it was a little more difficult to get students to make preparations and to do their best. LE: Would you have any explanation for this? I have felt this is the case too, as a teacher here, and I know others have expressed this same sentiment. I've often wondered why this is the case. Do you feel it’s because of lack of preparation in high school, lack of motivation on the secondary level, or do you think something even more basic than that? LM: I have often felt that much of it was a result of the fact that in secondary education students were allowed to graduate from high school, not because they had completed satisfactorily a course of study, but largely because they had been regular attendants at high school. The students have never been required, and I am thinking of many of them, to give their best. During the last five years we had extra good students, but we had too many who were lackadaisical. LE: You probably would agree that a good many of the people who actually were in college ought not to have been and many of those who were not in college should have been. LM: That's correct. LE: Leland, you attended Weber as a student yourself, what years were they, and you may have mentioned that earlier, but I don't recall. LM: I was working for the Ogden Union Railroad and Depot Company in 1922. In July of that year I read in the Standard Examiner an article which pointed out that 13 Aaron W. Tracy was to be the new president of Weber College, and then and there I determined to go to college. My co-workers laughed at me and said that I would be an old man before I got my degree, but I started in September and two years later, in 1924, I graduated with honors from Weber. I worked eight hours a day during that period because it was the only way I had of getting an education. LE: Leland, you graduated with your degree from Weber in 1924, as you look back to that period, who do you recall as some of your finest teachers? LM: I think I would have to enumerate John Q. Blaylock in the field of History and Lavina Maughn in the field of English. LE: Anything particularly outstanding about these people? What was it that in your mind made them outstanding teachers? LM: J.Q. Blaylock was interested in his students. He knew how to get the best out of a student. He frequently gave a series of fifty or sixty questions on a course and indicated that answers to these questions would be required in the final examination. One always knew in Brother Blaylock's courses exactly what he wanted and was prepared to deliver the goods. LM: I was teaching a class in theology for Brother Blaylock one day. Aaron W. Tracy visited the class. Two days later he asked me to come to his office. When I came, he told me that if I would go through and specialize in the field of English, there would be a job waiting for me at Weber College the day I graduated with my masters’ degree. This was my first meeting with Aaron W. Tracy. 14 LE: And you certainly fulfilled that, Leland, and then some. As a student at the college were you engaged in any extra curricula activities that you might want to comment on? LM: I worked in the field of debating and in other forensic activities, participated in as many of them as I could. Junius Tribe was my debating partner in 1924. LE: What about the physical plant, Leland? When you were here, was it essentially the old Moench Building. LM: That's all there was to it, plus the gymnasium. LE: The gymnasium would have been built about when? LM: I'm not certain, seven or eight years earlier I would think, than the time I came. LE: Now when you were here as a student, did some of the faculty still reside on that block where the gymnasium and Moench Building were located? LM: The only one who lived on the campus when I first came to Weber, I think, was Aaron Tracy. LE: I think he lived just north of the Moench Building, didn't he? LM: That's correct. LE: Do you remember, J. G. Lind in Geology? I remember when I was a student here he retired, and Walt Buss who is still with us took his place. LM: Dr. Lind was a scholar in every sense of the word. He took his doctor's degree from Heidelberg in Germany. He was a good teacher. The one thing that I remember most was a little, "Note that, note that." LE: That’s exactly what I remember. As a student, I can hear that as if it were yesterday in this German tinged accent of his. He would say, "Take a note, take 15 a note." Leland, coming back to something a little different, some people perhaps are not aware of this, but you not only have been eminently successful as a teacher and as a scholar, but I think there are a good many people who do not realize how successful you were as a salesman. As a matter of fact, I think you probably could have sold refrigerators to Eskimos as they sometimes say facetiously, but in any case you didn't sell refrigerators. Would you like to tell us something about some of your experiences as a salesman? I think most of these occured during the summer when you, in those leaner days, would make a little extra money. LM: In the summer of 1927 I went to work as a salesman for the Baron Woolen Mills in Brigham City. Heber McKell, a chiropractor, went with me. The two of us went to Yakima, Washington. I was thrilled with the experience, made a genuine success of it and returned to the the college in the fall. The following summer I was made a district manager of the Intermountain Knitting Mills which was organized by J. Edwin Nelson. Nearly every summer after that until about 1952 I sold on the road as a trained salesman. During part of that time I was district manager over organizations for the Intermountain Knitting Mills, and I served on the Board of Directors for that mill. It was about 1940 when my brother and I organized a mill of our own called the House of Duchesne. We did very well, but in 1952 I had to decide whether I was going to complete my Ph.D. degree or whether I was going to finish in the field of business. I loved teaching and decided to go on and get my Ph.D. degree. Earlier than this, J. Edwin Nelson on 16 many occasions gave me attractive offers to become a salesmanager for their organization. But I refused them because my first love was teaching. LE: Leland, this is just the question I was going to ask you, did you have to make this choice, whether you were going to get a doctorate you had started or continue in business? You were doing so well with the sales job that I imagine this was an extremely difficult decision. Yet, on further reflection I don't know that it was such a hard decision as you indicated you loved teaching and this was really first, so that rather than serve mammon you decided to serve academia. You had done so up to that point and continued to do so in such a creditable fashion. LM: From a financial point of view, I would have been much better off to have continued working for the Intermountain Knitting Mills or to have gone on with the business my brother and I had established. Oftentimes during the summer months I made much more selling than I made on my contract for a full year at Weber State College. LE: Leland, I think you would be certainly one of very few people who have given up the opportunity to do well materially and have instead elected to pursue a career that was less financially rewarding. When you retired from the college in 1968 it didn't take McKay-Dee Hospital very long to find out that in you they had excellent potential for the job which they had in mind, and I think part of the job had to do with raising funds for McKay-Dee. This is a little off the subject of Weber State but at the same time I think it illustrates the same kinds of qualities that made you such an outstanding teacher and administrator and salesman. Would you care to comment very briefly about your experience at McKay-Dee? 17 Before you do, this may embarrass you a little bit, but I know you talked to me once and you almost fairly regularly called in to me at the college whenever you have been up, which I have been most appreciative of as you know. In any case, one day you came up and you said to me, “Larry, if I had known how much I was going to enjoy this new position, I don't know, but that I would have taken it even before I retired.” It is indicative of the zeal of the enthusiasm, with which you attack new challenges. But, in any case, would you like to say something about your experience since retirement? You look better. You look younger right now than when you retired. LM: In the spring of 1968, when my retirement was announced in the paper, Kenneth Knapp, adminstrator of the McDay-Dee Hospital Center, came to me and asked if I would be willing to accept a position as director of Development and Research Facilities at the hospital. I hesitated to retire and take myself out of an interesting life, so I accepted with a great deal of alacrity. He made it known to me, at the time that I could travel whenever I wanted. All I would have to do was to make up the extra time. He told me that I could have an exellent travel budget so that I could be trained for work in which I would be engaged. I have enjoyed my work at McKay-Dee Hospital. My first task as I can conceive it was to organize a board of business and professional men and women. Today we have seventy members on that board, and serve as executive director of that group. We have been successful. We organized a foundation January 9, 1969, since we have received well over two million dollars to help build the McKay-Dee Hospital Center. 18 LE: This was one of the things I wanted to bring out, Leland, the part that you have played in helping to finance the fine new hospital that this area so badly needed. Leland, we haven't said too much about your church activities. You indicated earlier that you enjoyed the atmosphere of the college, enjoyed your teaching more while it was still church controlled. If I am not mistaken you were, for many years, a member of the L.D.S. Church General Sunday School Board and probably held other positions in the Church and I think you have been instrumental in developing various courses of study in the church. Is this correct? LM: Yes, I was taken onto the General Board in April of 1943. I continued in that position until the fall of 1967. I had the honor of serving as Book of Mormon consultant to the members of the General Board and to the wards and stakes of the Church. I wrote a course of study on the Book of Mormon that was used for approximately twenty years, course number fifteen, for students seventeen and eighteen years of age. I had the privilege of serving as chairman of a committee to prepare one of the conventions that was taken all over the church. I spoke a number of times before men and women assembled in the Salt Lake tabernacle. It was during this time that I was asked to write a seven year course of study for the Relief Society Conference in the Tabernacle. I enjoyed this work because from childhood I have had deep religious tendencies and could satisfy them in no other way. LE: Leland, I understand that you wrote a history of debate at Weber State and various trophies that have been won, is this correct? 19 LM: Yes, in about 1966 I started to write a history of debate and I divided that under two or three main headers—number one, our participation in national debates under the direction of Phi Rho Pi. Weber College was successful between 1934 and the time I retired in winning seventy-three national plaques for activity in the field of debating, extemporary speaking, impromptu speaking, radio and oratory. The other part of my treatice on debate focused upon tournaments in the western United States. We were successful in winning every major tournament in the West. In one or two instances we won both the men's and women's division. LE: I remember, Leland, during one year I think our debate team had not done too well. Perhaps owing to a lack of preparation, perhaps a lack in part of proper instruction, but I remember you personally took over the program for a time, I think in the 1950's. I remember how impressed I was with how effectively you took over a disintegrating situation and before the end of that season we were again winning tournaments. You insisted on careful preparation on the part of students, you insisted they be well read, and that they had done their homework in whatever the question happened to be. I do remember that particular year and how impressed I was with your taking over. You probably don't remember that, Leland. LM: Yes, I remember it very well. LE: You came into a room, I think it was right next to the suite of offices up there, one day and gave them a Dutch uncle's lecture and I tell you it had its effect. You have in addition, published a book called Character and Leadership. This is also in our library as is the book on debate and then of course your dissertation, 20 Shakespeare in Utah is in our Library. You have collaborated with C. W. Barton to write a book, and you have also written a book Ancient America so that makes five books that are under your name that are presently in our library. LM: The last book I wrote is on the Sermon on the Mount. I entitled the book Look to the Mount. LE: Is that in the library now, Leland? LM: I think so. LE: What does that deal with primarily? LM: The Sermon on the Mount. I divide the sermon into five significant parts. The first part deals with the beatitudes, the second part has to do with Jesus' recognition of the responsibilities and the dignity of the apostles. The third part I've entitled, Ye Have Heard It Said, because in this part Jesus contrasts the old law with the new law which he gave to the world. In the fourth part of the sermon Jesus defines righteousness and in the final part he makes a clarion call for taking the gospel off the lips of people and into their lives, saying, "Not everyone who sayeth unto me Lord, Lord, shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven." He ends it with the story of the man who built his house upon the sands and the man who built his house upon the rock. LE: Leland, you have taught literature for several decades. What is it that you have felt was the most important aspect of literature, particularly in the teaching of young people? 21 LM: I think I could summarize it in the statement, "Have something to say and then learn to say it well." I tried to put my emphasis upon the message of this writer to the world and then to explain the style with which the author presented his message. LE: You undoubtedly would agree with Pearl Buck when she indicated that great literature was that which dealt with the fundamental problems of the human heart. LM: That's correct. LE: I think an interesting question to put to you Leland, would be this, right now Weber State is looking for a new president. There has been a State Board of Higher Education created which is to indicate the roles of the various institutions of this state, what their primary responsibilities should be. What do you think that Weber State College or what role do you think Weber State College ought to play in the future development of higher education in the state? Do you think that we should emphasize the technological side of learning, leaving the liberal arts and sciences mainly to our two larger sister universities or do you think that students in this area deserve as fair a shake as the others and they ought not to be inconvenienced in having to go to these other schools for this kind of education? I suppose what I am really asking is you is in the next ten, fifteen, twenty years do you think that Weber's role should be primarily as a technical school or do you think that it should do something in addition to this? LM: Larry, I would dislike very much to see Weber become a technological institution. Moreover, I think this work should be carried on at the college. I think it's an 22 important work. I think that when students are trained in this field they should have a background in the arts and sciences, but it would seem to me that the new president ought to become one who would direct his efforts in the direction of strengthening the humanities. LE: What you're saying I suppose is that if we neglect this here, we're neglecting a vital part of our heritage, with a capital W, beginning with the Greeks. That it's the preservation of this heritage upon which hinges the success or failure of future society, would you agree? LM: Yes. LE: Leland, you have served on a good many organizations and you probably can't remember them all, but I just thought for the record here we ought to indicate some of the various groups you have been associated with? LM: Yes, I have been a member of the Ogden Rotary Club since January of 1941. I was made an honorary member of Tau Kappa Alpha, National Senior College Debating Society in 1943. I have been a member of the Utah Association of Teachers of English and served as president of that organization. I have long been a member of the National Association of the Teachers of English, and the American Association of University Professors. I'm now a member of the Utah Retired Teachers Association. I have served as a member of the Western Teachers of Speech and participated in their conventions a number of times. I have served as a member of the International Platform Association. I have served the Utah Academy of Arts and Sciences, and was at one time head of the Department of Arts. 23 LE: A few weeks ago, in a meeting led by Dr. Helmut P. Hofmann, we were talking about the need for gifted teachers, and the need for upgrading teaching generally, not only on our campus, but on all campuses. I remember his saying how utterly foolish it was for the college to have allowed a person like you to be lost the last couple of years. I suppose what Dr. Hofmann meant was that it was terribly unfortunate that you were not retained and kept as long as you were able to teach. I say that to you, not to make you feel bad that you are no longer here, but to let you know how much the people who weren't even here when you were here are aware of what you were like or at least aware of how effective a teacher you were. LM: Now Larry, you will remember that I would have been extremely happy had I been permitted to go on teaching at Weber. LE: I think for the record I would personally like to say that there have been several people who have retired and we have felt over the years that the easiest kind of retirement policy to follow is one that requires retirement at a certain age, and at the college here it's been sixty-eight. It's easy to administer a program of this kind but I sometimes wonder whether ease of administration is the most important criteria we should follow. Well, Leland, those are some of the organizations that you have belonged to over many years. There are several others that I could mention, but I won't take the time. Your memberships on various organizations, your teaching career, your career with the church, you career as an outstanding salesman, but, I have a feeling that after all is said and done we haven't brought out the real Leland 24 Monson. It's Leland Monson that few of us on campus know and I think it ought to be recorded on this tape. As a student of yours I have mentioned that you are the first who got me interested in literature. It was you primarily who induced me to go into this field and take degrees in English. There are a couple of facets of your character, however, that I would like to mention here as we close out this interview. They seem to me very typical of you as a person. I remember one of the most delightful experiences I ever had was one of two or three trips that you and I took to Tucson with the debaters. We drove in your little Volkswagen. I loved to drive the Volkswagen and you were delighted to let me sit there and listen. We would usually have a couple of students in the back seat. I remember when we would get there and we would go out and see the marvelous Senora Desert Museum and take a look at the desert. I remember on one of these trips on our way back between Blanding and Monticello, two of the fellows in the back seat of the Volkswagen indicated that they had had a perfect record of church attendance up until that point, and they were afraid it was going to be marred. So Leland turned back to them and said well, “Why don't we have a service right here in the car.” That hadn't occured to them and they thought it was a marvelous idea, so one of them opened with prayer. As I remember, it was snowing rather heavily at the time, then we sang a song, of course we couldn't pass the sacrament, but one or two things had to be forgone. Then Leland turned to one of the fellows and said, “Well, is there any particular subject you'd like to discuss?” One of the boys mentioned a topic. I 25 don't recall just what it was now, you may Leland. I'm not sure. In any case he said, “Give me just a second or two to think about that.” I think Leland took about thirty seconds and gave one of the best organized forty-five minute lectures I've ever heard. I think the two fellows were dumbfounded, and maybe Leland was too, but I don't think he was really surprised at his ability to do this. He stated his objectives very clearly, indicated the three or four main points he wanted to make, made them, and summarized them beautifully. I think the fellows, without question, would have said it was the outstanding service they attended in all that year. This is one of the things that people often fail to recognize in Leland—this marvelous clarity that marks his mind, his ability to put ideas together, to make them coherent, to make them meaningful to the people who listen to him. There's another side of Leland that I think ought to be brought out here too, that these memberships in these various organizations and so forth just don't reveal, Leland's tenacity. He is the kind of man who never says die. He's a perfect example of that statement in the bible, "The race is neither to the swift or to the strong, but to him that endureth to the end". This indeed Leland has done in many, many ways. His getting his degree in Chicago is an example of this. Under great difficulty he achieved this. He would never say die in respect to the dissertation. He, like all of us, who have taken this degree, had to work with recalcitrant committees, committees who are out of town half the time, who come up with niggling little criticisms. Leland was patient through all this, but above all he was tenacious, he would not be denied. I think a lesser man would have given up long before. This is the kind of stuff which Leland Monson is made of. 26 I remember a movie called The Big Country, starring Gregory Peck, and I think I mentioned this to you a few moments ago. As a tenderfoot he is invited to ride the horse that throws all the tenderfeet and he refuses to ride him at the time. A couple of days later, when no one is around, he gets one of the old ranch hands to bring the horse out and saddle him up and to agree that no one will know that Peck tries to ride the horse. He sits on the horse, finally, and nothing happens for about ten seconds then with one leap the horse throws him sprawling in the dust. He's shaken up and he gets up, he gets on the horse again. This time he stays on for about five seconds. The horse threw him I suppose, about twenty times, nearly killed him. But finally that horse was as docile as a twenty year old nag. This is a perfect example of the tenacity that Leland Monson has shown over the years. It's one of the things that has made him successful as a teacher, as a salesman, as a church leader, as a civic leader, and now in the position that he holds at McKay Dee Hospital. But it's certainly not only tenacity that this man has. It's the great ability he has to organize his thoughts, to deliver them forcefully, impressively and clearly. But I just wanted to say this at the end of this tape which will be recorded as part of the Oral History of Weber State College. I am afraid that so many times tapes of this kind become mere recitals of a man's memberships in organizations or achievements and they are like the glass we see through darkly. They prevent us from seeing the man face to face. I hope that one or two of these things I've said here at the end will help see Leland Monson face to face.