Discovery in the social sciences and the humanities can often be attributed to chance, to conjuncture, or even to structural necessity, and the various moments that make it possible are frequently accounted for through narrative or biography. Publication of the results of individual or collective research can be ascribed to the same types of causes and organized in terms of the same narrative or biographical forms. Until recently, the perceived trend in the humanities has been that of isolated scholars carrying out research on long-term projects in near or far-distant libraries and then writing up the results in the solitude of their studies or offices. Yet over the last twenty years, major collaborative enterprises involving a number of researchers from Toronto and other universities in North America and Europe have developed within the Department of French at the University of Toronto, notably the Graffigny, Helvétius, and Zola projects. Thus another tradition has come into being, whereby colleagues with shared research interests define common objectives and establish procedures for meeting specific goals. A distinctive characteristic of this volume is that what began as an individual undertaking became, in the end, the endeavour of a group of dedicated scholars.
Their collective purpose ensured that further research was carried out, thus making it possible for the work to appear. And, in a sense, it could be said that the publication of this collaborative undertaking, its very existence as a collective enterprise, is the analogon and material representation, the witnessing and trace of the evolution of French studies at the University of Toronto.
Yet a narrative, albeit a brief one, should be told of how this volume was written – of those who figured in the enterprise from the beginning, as well as those who progressively became involved in its completion. The project grew out of the considerable research initiated by Professor Dana Rouillard, mainly after his retirement in 1969 until his death in the summer of 1991. A tentative outline for what was referred to as a “History of the Department of French” appeared in a letter signed by Dana Rouillard and addressed to all members of the department, which solicited suggestions and contributions. The departmental history was to be a record of organization: the beginnings, the college departments, the graduate department, and the newly formed university department of French. It was to determine the place of French in the university: the development of the curriculum, undergraduate and graduate,
including courses or programmes involving other departments in the university. It was also to be a personal history, focusing on the building up of the teaching staff and the roles of individual members over the years. Contributions to scholarship and to the teaching of French through textbooks and through graduates of the department were to be recorded. Other areas to be explored included the development of the French collection in the University Library, with emphasis on its special strengths; the participation of French staff in related non-curricular activities; scholarship and fellowship aid; student exchanges; studies abroad; and prospects for future development. In brief, the history was to have both an institutional and a personal dimension: it was to focus on the emergence of French studies as a discipline within the university and on those who made contributions to its coming of age over the preceding century and a half. Professor Rouillard’s outline provided us with a blueprint that has in the main been adhered to by those who have contributed to this volume.
Although considerable research had been carried out and a number of chapters completed or outlined at the time of Dana Rouillard’s death, much work remained to be done if the project was to see the light of day.
Few members of the department had actually looked at the results of his research, though many were aware of the nature and scope of the undertaking. In the spring of 1992, professors Victor E. Graham, David M. Hayne, William S. Rogers, and John F. Flinn informed the current chair that a large number of documents from Professor Rouillard’s files for the “History of the Department of French” at the University of Toronto were stored in one of the emeritus professors’ offices at University College. I was asked if I wished to ascertain the state of the research that had been undertaken and what remained to be done to complete the project as it had initially been envisaged. Some time was spent examining the material: several typed chapters, others in manuscript form, parts of chapters outlined in Dana Rouillard’s handwriting, sets of files – some more complete than others – on teachers and teaching in the colleges to 1975. Other files contained photographs; information on language laboratories, third-year study elsewhere, visiting professors, and dramatic productions; and personal correspondence; as well as drafts on New and Innis colleges by our late colleague Paul L. Mathews, who was associated with the project for several years until 1982.
The archives were moved to the administrative centre of the Department of French at 7 King’s College Circle. Further examination of the material led to meetings with professors Graham, Hayne, Rogers, and Flinn. It soon became apparent that an active scholar would need to be appointed to spearhead the endeavour and convene colleagues from all colleges if the research and the unfinished chapters of the projected volume were to be completed. Professor C.D.E. Tolton, graduate of Victoria College and professor of French there, was the unanimous choice to head the department’s Publication Committee. After he had consulted the archives and was convinced of the importance of the research already undertaken and the desirability of completing the project, Professor Tolton accepted the assignment with great enthusiasm. A brief note appeared in the French Department News announcing the formation of the Publication Committee and asking for volunteers to help carry out the work begun by Dana Rouillard. The convener personally contacted key members from each college, inviting them to attend a meeting. Numerous meetings followed, and it is safe to say that without Cameron Tolton’s dynamism, enthusiasm, and outstanding organizational skills this book could not have appeared in its present form.
Indefatigable in setting deadlines and encouraging colleagues to meet them, he was also instrumental in locating documents and finding photographs to be used in the published work.
In his “Reader’s Guide”1 drafted for this study, Dana Rouillard had indicated that its opening and closing dates should be those of the first teaching of French at the University of Toronto (1853) and the final fusion of the college departments and the Graduate Department of French into one university department (1975). But as almost twenty years had passed since centralization, the Publication Committee decided that the work should be extended to cover the evolution of French studies to 1993 in order to record the establishment of new departmental structures, programmes, and curriculum during a period of great change within the discipline itself, as well as in the university as a whole.
The dates dividing the five chapters in this history can be considered as somewhat arbitrary markers, but they are not without logic. In 1890 the first federation of a denominational college, Victoria (Methodist), with University College occurred. That year also saw a “palace revolt” of the French and other modern language departments within the university that gained them the academic stature they sought.
By 1920 Trinity College (Anglican; federated since 1904) and St Michael’s (Roman Catholic; fully federated since 1910) were equal working partners with University and Victoria colleges, and the Graduate Department and the Department of Extension were formally organized after the end of World War I. As Professor Rouillard noted, “the new generation of French Professors appointed during the twenties is still close to us in the persons of a number of professors emeriti.” The year 1960, the penultimate dividing date, marks the beginning of great change and expansion that would culminate in the establishment of the centralized Department of French. Four constituent colleges were founded to accommodate the massive increase in students and staff (New College in 1962, Innis College in 1964, Scarborough College in 1964, and Erindale College in 1967), the academic structure of the Faculty of Arts and Science underwent radical change with the introduction of the New Programme, and the department’s organization was greatly modified. The year 1975, when the formal centralization of the “college departments” in the Faculty of Arts and Science took place, defines the beginning of the last period in this history. Increased financial pressures experienced by the university and the federated colleges was the principal motivation for centralization.
The University of Toronto Policy and Procedures Act on the Appointment of Academic Administrators (Haist Rules) determined the structural organization of the department, as well as the make-up of the decanal search committee for choosing a chair.
It should be noted that until 1890, University College had been the sole teaching body of the University of Toronto. In that year, following federation with Victoria College, the university began to provide instruction in specific fields (mainly the sciences and the social sciences) and left to University College, along with any federated colleges, the teaching of the humanities, with the exception of Italian and Spanish. Thus after the federation of Trinity and St Michael’s colleges, there were four undergraduate departments of French, each with its own head appointed for life, each teaching the same programmes, and each making its own faculty appointments, practices that continued until centralization in 1975. In addition, from the 1960s on, University College recruited and appointed teachers of French for New, Innis, Scarborough, and Erindale colleges. As the provincial college and an integral part of the university, University College was also responsible for the teaching of French in other faculties and in Extension.
The four departments of French collaborated in drawing up or revising curriculum, choosing textbooks, setting and marking examinations, and determining grades, and faculty members from all four undergraduate departments served on departmental committees. Graduate studies in French fell under the aegis of the Graduate Department of Romance Languages and Literatures until 1965, when the Graduate Department of French Language and Literature was established and heads were appointed for a specific term. Following unification of the undergraduate departments of French, the position of head was redefined as associate chair for graduate studies.
For the reader of this collaborative work, a number of issues are raised concerning what might be called the institutionalization and autonomization of a discipline, as well as about the relation of the university to society at large. Contrary to common belief, disciplines such as French are not isolated structures that evolve within the confines of the “ivory towers” of academe; on the contrary, they are firmly anchored in the very fabric of the societies in which they develop. Hence, debate on the relevance of the study of modern languages in Canadian society was of paramount importance at the time of its establishment at the University of Toronto
during the second half of the nineteenth century. Moreover, the very first teacher of modern languages, James Forneri, had participated in the Napoleonic Wars as a cavalry officer in Napoleon’s garde d’honneur and some years later had been exiled for having taken part in the Carbonari movement. The First and Second World Wars had a direct impact on many of the professors of the department, who served in various capacities before returning to the university; so too did the Vietnam War in the sixties.
French studies as an autonomous discipline did not come into being until the early 1960s, when it became independent of Modern Languages. Today its boundaries have been stretched to such a point that they encompass not only the language, literature, and culture of France, Quebec, and francophone communities in Canada, but also those of many other francophone countries. Furthermore, continental and Anglo-American linguistics have progressively been included in the undergraduate and graduate curriculum, and along with more historically oriented methods, various approaches to literature of an interdisciplinary nature, such as narratology, semiotics, hermeneutics, women’s studies, and postmodern, psychoanalytic, and communication theory, have evolved within the department over the years. In short,
as the twentieth century draws to a close, and despite major cutbacks in the university system of the province of Ontario, which will have a profound impact on staffing and the shaping of the curriculum, the Department of French is positioned to engage in and contribute to the critical debate during the next decade over the role of French studies within the university, as well as in the country as a whole.
This work, begun by Dana Rouillard, saw the light of day thanks to colleagues from all the federated and constituent colleges in the University of Toronto. It bears witness to a concerted effort by long-standing and devoted members of the faculty and the administrative staff, who have given unselfishly of their time and energy and who, over the years, have made major contributions to the teaching of French at the University of Toronto. I would like again to thank Cameron Tolton, who convened the Publication Committee, and to give special mention to all those faculty members who contributed to this volume: Nicole Boursier, A.R. Curtis, R.B. Donovan, Leonard Doucette, A. Graham Falconer, John Fleming, John F. Flinn, Victor E. Graham, David M. Hayne, Eric James, Lawrence Kerslake, Barbara A. Kwant, the late Paul L. Mathews, Mariel O’Neill-Karch, Clarence Parsons, Janet M. Paterson, C.E. Rathé, Laure Rièse, W.S. Rogers,
Ben-Zion Shek, and David Trott. In addition, I would like to thank Randall Sheppard, Vittorio Frigerio, Linda Lamisong, and Marjorie Rolando, who also worked on the manuscript, and especially Elizabeth Hulse, who in copy-editing this text, spent much time in the University Archives checking dates, references, and documents and made numerous suggestions for improving and shaping it. Indeed, full credit must be given to Ms Hulse for the competence she demonstrated in reorganizing the manuscript and ensuring its structural and stylistic coherence.
Special acknowledgment should also be given to the Rouillard family, who in establishing the Harriet and Dana Rouillard Endowment, made it possible to publish this volume. Finally, warmest appreciation should go to Kay Riddell Rouillard, whose sincere commitment and tireless dedication to this project provided the necessary catalyst to bring it to fruition.
Paul Perron, Chair
January 1994