who have been unable to afford the additional time required for preparation to enter an Honour Course,44 and who find that even the Pass Course, if pursued in earnest, may afford a genuine training of the mind. There are also the less seriously minded young persons who are attracted in such numbers to a modern university by other than intellectual interests, and who welcome a course that does not make too great demands on their time or their brains. And in the third place, to the Pass Course are transferred those students who were admitted on entrance to an Honour Course, but whose intellectual capacity or willingness to work when tested, has not measured up to the standards required. (19-20)
To the writer of that 1929 article at least, the Pass Course was nothing but a haven for the impoverished, the frivolous, the mentally impaired, or the lazy. Unfortunately, that writer’s attitude was not a solo aberration. many would
continue to share that view until 1969, when the Pass Course, by this time called the General Course, would lose its stigma only with the abolition of the Honour courses and the amalgamation of both programmes into a single American-style stream of electives.
Aware then of the respect and energy that most faculty members accorded the Honour courses, let us examine some highlights in the evolution of this paragon of systematic curriculum as it progressed through the forty years that concern us here. It should first be recalled that Modern Languages was not the only Honour course in which French played a role. Honours English and History (Moderns Option) existed until 1930, six years before the whole English and History programme began to be phased out, superseded by the delicately mounted, yet powerful, English Language and Literature (ell) superstructure (which left Modern History, incidentally, on its own). Both ell and the remodelled Modern History
offered a lighter French option.
The calendar for 1920-21 lists for the first time an Honour course in French, Greek, and Latin, which in 1929-30 would appear as Latin (French or Greek Option), a programme that remained a part of the university’s curriculum as long as the Modern Languages and Literatures (mll) programme, as the Modern Languages programme was eventually called. While the French component in the Latin and French Honours programme went through minor modifications along the way, the requirements remained, to all intents and purposes, identical to those of French in the Moderns programme, just as the Latin curriculum was that of Honours Classics. But in addition, these students were required to take whatever Greek and Roman History or Greek Language and Literature the uncompromising Classics Department decided to impose. many a student in this programme during
the forties and fifties was heard to complain loudly – especially as they approached their thirteen compulsory final examinations at the end of their third year or their eleven at the end of the fourth.45
In 1943-44 the Honour course in Modern History and Modern Languages (mhml) surfaces for the first time in the calendar. This course required, like mll, three Honours subjects in each of the first two years, of which History was one. Thus the French component was identical to that of mll as well. But in the third and fourth years, the student continued to take three Honours subjects (History and two languages), as opposed to the mll two-subject programme. The compensation for this otherwise excessive load in mhml was a reduction in the requirements for each of the two languages. The French component became, for instance, a core course in literature (two hours a week) and an hour of each of
Composition (meaning translation from English to French with a token nod at free written expression) and Oral. It is true, then, that having chosen one of these Honours programmes in September of first year, a student could be handed the timetable for the next four years, so few were the options along the way.
Let us look more closely at the mll curriculum. In French, each year had at its core a literature course. In the first year, in 1920-21, the core course involved a survey of French literature with special reference to the medieval period. But the texts prescribed for critical study were by Augier and Anatole France, along with an anthology of French Lyrics and the durable Quelques contes des romanciers naturalistes, edited by Dow and Skinner. As the years went on, the course continued to reflect somebody’s notions of modern literature – usually meaning the nineteenth century. But in the 1947-48 calendar, it became a course on
French Literature of the Romantic Period, perhaps in an effort to cover at an early stage some of the fourth-year modern period, which by the mid twentieth century was becoming dauntingly lengthy. Certain professors (such as W.H. Trethewey at Victoria) feared that such a large dose of impassioned love, self-indulgent melancholy, and grandiose eloquence could be dangerous for impressionable eighteen- and nineteen-year-olds. In any case, in 1957-58 the calendar indicates that the period covered in the first year was increased to 1800-85. But after a short experiment, the course returned to a study of the literature of the first half of the nineteenth century.
The first year had, up until 1924, included the collaborative course in Phonetics, offered by the Romance Languages instructors. In that year, the Department of French chose to mount its own course in French Phonetics, taught by its own staff
at each of the four colleges. At Victoria the course was taught for some years by Victor de Beaumont, who eventually decided that he wanted Laure Rièse to replace him in this duty. But she had to first observe him teach. She recalled that one day he asked her, “`A quelle partie de la voyelle i sommes-nous?” She replied, “Au point.” He was not amused! She hastened to the Institut de Phonétique the following summer, obtained a diploma, and subsequently taught in a more orthodox manner.46
The first year also included the course in French history (one hour a week for one term) alluded to in chapter 2. Taught by French professors who were almost never trained historians, it varied in content as the years went by. It was, in the later decades at least, examined by the individual instructors at the various
colleges, rather than by a university final. When the course was eventually replaced in the late 1950s by some extra instruction in literature, everyone – staff and students alike – heaved a sigh of relief.
The calendar for 1946-47 tells us that an hour of Oral French had become a part of the curriculum for each of the first and second years, making them at last parallel to the third and fourth years, which had enjoyed oral instruction and oral examining since 1937 and 1938 respectively. Oral work had first been listed as a part of the curriculum in 1922-23. Professor Rièse recalled how important were the conversation classes and the examinations. In her early years, the annual examiners were Saint-Elme de Champ from University College, Felix Walter from Trinity, and Louis J. Bondy from St Michael’s, along with herself from Victoria. The peripatetic examining team spent four days each spring testing the
multitudinous candidates in each of the four colleges. The uc sessions took longer than the others, she says, since Professor de Champ had nicknames for each student and felt inclined to explain each one for the committee. At the end of one of these late sessions, professors de Champ and Walter having exited by the cloister door, mademoiselle Rièse (as she was universally known) and Father Bondy attempted to leave by the door close to Hart House. Since it and all other appropriate exits were locked, Father Bondy, in full cassock, suggested that he and mademoiselle Rièse jump out a rather high classroom window. They proceeded to do so – right into the surprised presence of the uc registrar accompanied by the president-designate, Sidney Smith, to whom the two less-than-composed French professors were formally introduced. Professor Rièse stated that in future years, whenever they met, Dr Smith greeted her with a wink of complicity. “J’ai toujours eu un faible pour lui,” she added.47
The second year seems to have been perpetually dedicated to the literature of the seventeenth century. Its history course lasted as long as the first year’s – until 1957. The second-year history course was replaced by a one-term, one-hour-a-week course on Bibliography and Methods of Criticism, which had previously been offered without credit by a team of instructors from all colleges. And, of course, there was the inevitable hour a week of Composition and, after 1946, Oral.
After some preliminary toying with dates of eligibility of its texts (from 1715 to 1815? from Fénelon to Chateaubriand?), the third year settled into having the eighteenth century as its “core.” (That meant, for instance, that this was the sole course that third-year French students in ell, mhml, and Modern History would be offered – like it or not.) After a brief spree with the non-century course on The
Classical Ideal as Represented in Critical Writings from the Pléiade to the Beginnings of Romanticism, the third year became instead the haven of a course on Elementary Old French, before taking on in 1937 an hour a week on the sixteenth century. The Composition course and (after 1937) the Oral hour completed the programme, a total of six hours per week. The third-year history course had long since happily been absorbed into the core literature course.
The fourth year, as we have seen, was eternally committed to “modern” literature. While this at first meant primarily nineteenth-century texts, the list became more contemporary as the years went by. Not that Toronto had been shy about teaching living authors. Quite early, texts by maurice Barrès, Anatole France, and Paul Bourget turned up on the curriculum before their respective deaths. And the same would prove true of works by Gide, mauriac, Duhamel, Cocteau, and
Sartre, for instance, as the century wore on. It is particularly interesting to follow the dates at which various “modern” writers were deemed worthy of curriculum status. The calendar indicates that Verlaine preceded Baudelaire onto the programme, the former appearing as early as 1927, whereas the author of Les Fleurs du mal had to wait until 1935.
The problem of curriculum planning was, of course, complicated by the presence in the federation of St Michael’s College: so many of the most important writers of the most studiable books in the canon of French literature were on the Index of prohibited books. Nevertheless, agreements were reached that seemed to please everyone. Students of the 1950s and 1960s will remember that on the fourth-year core course on French Literature of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries
(exclusive of the Drama), three novels by Gide were prescribed – except at St Michael’s, where three by the Catholic novelist François mauriac were highlighted instead. Among the other prescribed texts for this course, students at University, Victoria, and Trinity colleges were indeed responsible for mauriac, but only one novel, whereas St Michael’s students read one work by Gide, La Symphonie pastorale, an extremely short novel that paints the Protestant Church in an unflattering light. A balance in academic curriculum was thus maintained, even though the focus was necessarily different. It must be remembered that students from all colleges sat for the same final examinations in all years. The examinations subtly reflected the variance in prescriptions at St Michael’s.
At the same time, the poetry component of the course surprisingly boasted some study in depth of the scandalous Les Fleurs du mal, with a compulsory question to
be answered on the poetry final by all students, including those from St Michael’s. But if one looked closely at the course syllabus, it was equally surprising that the Catholic poet Paul Claudel was treated with the same privileged status for compulsory study at all colleges. Thus students of all faiths and denominations were subjected to some obligatory ultra-close reading of the resonant (and ponderous) Cinq Grandes Odes. Compromises could take strange routes to arrive at even stranger results. (Father Bondy, it might be noted, was famous for his graduate course From Baudelaire to Claudel, which, his students claim, might have been more realistically titled merely “Baudelaire and Claudel.” We can see why his literary tastes might oblige him to barter regularly not only with the department but also with the Vatican.)
It is always a ticklish business identifying the current authors whose importance is
going to last. Professor Rièse participated with professors Jeanneret, Walter, and Bondy in their respective colleges in the planning and teaching of the earliest (1938-39) courses on literature of the professedly “contemporary” period. Together they chose very well indeed. The importance of Gide, Proust, Valéry, Claudel, and mauriac is undeniable still, even if the greatness once accorded Georges Duhamel is now just a distant memory.
The fourth year was the first (and only) point in the programme where the students could enjoy the pleasure of selecting an option or two. In fact, the choice was not very vast. From 1947 onward, one was obliged to choose two out of three one-hour-a-week courses:
1 The old Literary Theory from Du Bellay to Brunetière course, which since 1928
had been listed among the fourth-year offerings. (Eventually it was renamed French Literary Criticism from the Renaissance to the Present, ending with the oh-so-contemporary Jules Lemaître and Anatole France.)
2 An advanced course in Old French.
3 A term each of the Drama of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries (omitted from the core course for this purpose) and French-Canadian Literature.
Since almost nobody chose the Advanced Old French, the issue of “electives” was, in fact, merely academic. At the end of the 1950s, this option was replaced by a course in French Stylistics, although most of the administrators of the period confessed not to understand what this new term might mean. Inevitably, the fourth-year programme was completed with an hour each of Composition and
Oral.
While each of these subjects will be treated elsewhere in this volume, it is appropriate to recall here that this was the period when both Study Elsewhere and French-Canadian Literature raised their trendy heads. In 1927-28 it was announced that students in their second or third year could be excused from classes and examinations at Toronto for a year in order to study abroad. The following year, the calendar announced that this privilege was extended to third-year students only, and over the years it was clarified that this was meant, in fact, only first-class honours students and the occasional exceptional one of the second-class variety.
Although the calendar does not list authors or titles of prescribed texts for all
courses, it is probably safe to assume that the printed prescription of Louis Hémon’s maria Chapdelaine was an important date (1927) in the history of the department. The text was decidedly Canadian in content if not in authorship. The daring instructors for this fourth-year course were also responsible for the introduction of Verlaine in the course prescription. The department would have to wait until 1938 for its first (optional one-term, one-hour) course that mentioned French-Canadian literature in its title: Contemporary French Literature and French-Canadian Literature.
Before leaving the 1920-60 period, we must return at least briefly to the much-maligned Pass Course. The university reduced it to a three-year programme in 1931, the same year that it announced a concurrent four-year General Course. This General Course was a compromise between the enforced breadth of the
Pass Course and the enforced narrowness of the Honour courses, allowing, as it did, some concentration in specific subjects in the third and fourth years after two years in either the Pass Course or an Honour course. The Department of French mounted courses as usual for students in all three programmes, Pass, General, and Honours. In 1952 the Pass and General courses were blended into a new three-year General Course, which required concentration in a single discipline in the second and third years in addition to the study of three other subjects arranged in a specified distribution over certain breadth categories.
Naturally, the Department of French responded to this curricular challenge in the only way imaginable. It turned its General Course concentration into a mini-version of the Honours programme. After a first year of assorted texts and composition, concentrators in the second year took the all-purpose course in
seventeenth- and eighteenth-century literature (and the ubiquitous Composition) and a concentrators’ course in more of the same, along with some Oral. In the third year, the pattern continued with a course on nineteenth- and twentieth-century literature (with Composition) and, for concentrators exclusively, the drama of the period (with Composition and Oral). This curriculum assured some coherent coverage of post-1600 continental French literature at least, at the same time as it created class groups that progressed through a programme building on shared knowledge and constant intellectual companionship. In other words, this new General Course had wisely profited from some of the most beneficial aspects of the Honour Course model. One must never underestimate the importance of the esprit de corps promulgated by both the Honour courses and the concentration packages in the post-1952 General Course. The
