The 1960s were a period of constant change for the ma programme in French at the University of Toronto. In 1962 it presented two plans: plan a proposed four graduate courses, culminating in written examinations and an oral examination on the area “represented by at least two related courses among the four selected”; plan b consisted of three graduate courses and a short dissertation, culminating in written examinations on each course and an oral examination on the area “represented by at least two related courses and the dissertation.” This schema was prompted by dissatisfaction with the previous random selection of unrelated courses by the students and the desire to ensure more concentrated areas of study. In practice it proved to be too awkward and was replaced in 1965 by a simpler arrangement. The two plans were retained, but plan a provided for four

graduate courses with written examinations on each course and an oral examination, while plan b consisted of three courses and a short dissertation, culminating in written examinations and an oral.

The same year a major change saw the disappearance of the Department of Romance Languages and Literatures and the creation of two new departments in the School of Graduate Studies, French Language and Literature and Italian and Hispanic Languages and Literatures. In its first year of existence, the Graduate Department of French Language and Literature listed fifty-six courses, thirty-one being offered in that academic year; at about the same time, to meet the needs of a steadily increasing number of candidates, summer courses were introduced, with four being offered in the summer of 1966. The following year the two-plan ma programme had completely disappeared, replaced by a single programme

consisting of the course in Bibliography and Methods of Research and “at least three” of the other graduate courses, culminating in written examinations on each course and an oral examination. In a return to the past, a thesis could be substituted for one of the graduate courses. In 1969 the requirement again became any four courses, one of which could be replaced by a thesis. This prescription still obtained in 1975.

minimum of five courses required, and the language the first minor, with two courses required; the second minor could be selected by a qualified candidate in another Romance language or literature or in Romance Philology. Candidates were expected to have an oral and written command of French and a reading knowledge of Latin, a second Romance language, and German. The following year it was stipulated that one of the two courses in the first minor would normally be either the History of the French Language or Romance Philology; a course in Bibliography and Methods of Research was required as an extra, if not already completed; the Old French courses on the Epic and Bourgeois Literature and the course in Old Provençal could be counted either as literature or language. For the first time, courses were listed either as language or literature, with six in the former and forty-six in the latter category.

In 1969-70 an important change was instituted in the system of examinations marking the end of a candidate’s course work. Increasingly, the comprehensive examinations, which extended over the entire field of French literature, had been felt to be an unsatisfactory method of judging candidates’ knowledge and their ability for research, as well as an excessive and unreasonable burden. In their place was introduced a three-part system of qualifying examinations, which comprised written and oral examinations on candidates’ course work and tested their capacities for textual analysis and their ability for research and preparation of a thesis. Except for some slight modifications in this system of examinations, the requirements for the PhD remained unchanged to the end of the period under consideration.

examination, completion of an essay or research paper, and a final oral examination at which the candidate had to show evidence of an oral command of French. Knowledge of a second Romance language or German and of Latin of at least high school level was also required. Four PhilM degrees were awarded in French, but candidates had disappeared by 1973, principally because of concern about the value of the degree as compared to the PhD and uncertainty about the status and advancement of holders of the degree within the university hierarchy. Ultimately, the programme was dropped by the department.

In 1963-64, of twenty-one students in the PhD programme and sixteen candidates for the ma in Romance Languages, ten and five respectively had been in French. The establishment in 1963 of the Province of Ontario Graduate Fellowships, the

The record number of registrations in the Department of French in 1969-70 coincided with the peak in Ontario Graduate Fellowship awards. The number of faculty members also increased dramatically. From twenty in 1960-61, it rose to forty-two in 1970-71 and to fifty-one in 1974-75. The rapid growth in the latter years in the number of instructors was accompanied by a corresponding increase in the number and variety of courses offered. In 1974-75 the total of courses listed in the calendar was seventy, of which thirty-three were offered that year. New approaches to traditional subjects, as well as entirely new fields in the study of French language and literature, were introduced. The variety and range of these courses, from Old French literature and language to contemporary literature, problems of literary aesthetics, theories of translation, stylistics, and various aspects of modern phonetics and phonology, examined in the Experimental Phonetics Laboratory, can be seen in the calendars of the period. In this era of plenty, various

research projects directed by members of the Graduate Department of French offered students initiation in research as well as part-time employment. These projects, which have been supported by the Canada Council (later the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada), included La Correspondance générale d’Helvétius, formally launched in 1968; La Correspondance de Mme de Graffigny, under way since 1975; and the Correspondance d’Émile Zola, the conception and planning of which had begun in 1970. Despite the dimished funding available for research, all of these programmes have continued into the 1990s.