Fr deVerteuil gets honorary PhD

ST MARY’S COLLEGE former principal, Rev Fr Anthony deVerteuil, was awarded an honorary doctorate by the University of the West Indies (UWI) at the first day of the annual graduation ceremony of the St Augustine Campus on Friday. DeVerteuil was honoured for his work in education and in writing books which deal chiefly with the local history of Trinidad. Priest, teacher, historian, author, and sports coach — in all of these fields has served Fr deVerteuil. As a young man he had originally earned a degree in History and English at the University College, Dublin.

He modestly said: “I’m sure we had a ceremony. In fact I remember somebody sitting down next to me and congratulating me, but I’m afraid that’s all the memory I have.” Of his honorary doctorate he remarked: “I couldn’t quite make out why it was LLD and not Doctor of Literature. It was a surprise for me to get it in Law and not in Literature. I never found out why.” He said he has published 25 books, the most recent being Temples of Trinidad, and second most recent, Western Isles of Trinidad.” His teaching career began in 1962 and he is still teaching, both at St Mary’s and St Anthony’s Colleges. For years his subject was Geography but he now says: “I think this will be my last year at Geography because of the change from Cambridge (to CAPE). I’ll stick to teaching Religion after that.”

Asked about the wide range of subjects he taught, he said: “I used at one time to teach A’level History, A’level English and A’level Geography. Sometimes the poor boys had me for about four classes in the day.” DeVerteuil is now 72, having had to formally retire as principal of St Mary’s College at 60 years old, having served in that post for 14 years. Asked how he felt about his life at this stage, he replied modestly: “Well... good, I suppose. To tell you the truth I don’t think much about myself. “When people ask me if I am happy I kind of say ‘I don’t know.’ I suppose the reason I can say that is because I am.” “I suppose I’ll keep teaching as long as I find that I’m contributing something. “I’m now working on a book on the Corsicans in Trinidad. It’s interesting. I’ve been meeting a lot of people and won’t have to do so much paper research.

“It will be nice to meet the old people, and they themselves have a lot of material. You have Agostini, Cipriani, Giuseppi...” Fr deVerteuil addressed the hundreds of students graduating from the Faculties of Humanities and Education, Science and Agriculture, and Medical Sciences. Life is inevitably a mixture of failure and success, he said, adding that only if you had failed could you truly know what success is. “Our attitude determines what we see as success or failure, as friend or enemy.” Failure could be a great teacher, he suggested, as long as you analysed why you had failed. He urged the students to see life as their friend and to always seek excellence.

“Think highly, dare greatly. Face up to the continued challenge of nearly succeeding.” People should not fear failure, he said, but rather consider it to be a friend. “Failure accepted and learned from is the sure road to success.” We should all learn to share our joy with others and to be happy at their success, he opined. DeVerteuil concluded: “You could do no better than to contemplate the lives of two special men, to follow the example of these two whose lives shared the greatest successes and the greatest failures the world has ever known — Mohandas ‘Mahatma’ Gandhi and Jesus Christ.”  Also addressing the ceremony were UWI Chancellor Sir George Alleyne, valedictorian Barbara Constance, and Alumni Association President, Frederick Bowen. The graduation was due to continue yesterday evening for the Faculties of Engineering, Law, and Social Sciences.