First Generation: An Autobiography

Alexander D. Gregor is associate dean of the Faculty of Education at the
University of Manitoba and co-editor of Postsecondary Education in
Canada: The Cultural Agenda.

Internationally recognized Milton scholar Ernest Sirluck served as
vice-president and dean of graduate studies at the University of Toronto
between 1962 and 1970, and as president of the University of Manitoba
between 1970 and 1976. His memoirs add considerably to our understanding
of the development, during particularly critical periods of their
history, of these two institutions of higher education. Also brought to
life is the intellectual and collegial life of the University of
Chicago, where Sirluck served between 1947 and 1962.

Sirluck was among the first generation of Jewish academics to break
through the not-very-subtle barriers that existed in Canadian
universities. The author writes poignantly of growing up in a small
German-speaking Manitoba town during the pre–World War II years, and
of serving in the Canadian Army during that war. In contrast to the
optimism that characterized his years in Toronto, Sirluck’s sojourn at
the University of Manitoba was marked by unremitting personal pain and
frustration, and the premature death of what had been a brilliant
career.