“A Respectable English Education”: Innovation and Tradition in Literary Studies at Wesleyan Ladies’ College (1861–1897)

Abstract

“A RESPECTABLE ENGLISH EDUCATION” : INNOVATION AND TRADITION IN LITERARY STUDIES AT WESLEYAN LADIES’ COLLEGE (1861-1897) ANNA SONSER University of Toronto I T h e story of the Wesleyan Ladies’ College (Hamilton, Ontario) is a narra­ tive of contrast and contradiction, a chronicle that raises specific questions not only about a key segment of the history of women’s education but also about the development of English study at the university level. Languishing unnoticed in local library archives until very recently, the papers of WLC — calendars, literary journals, examinations, essays, and reminiscences — sug­ gest a critical plurality at work, a complexity of innovation and tradition that may alter and modify the accepted timetable of literary study. The curricular development of English at WLC appears not only to pre­ date the formulation of literary studies at all-male universities but also to anticipate the theoretical and feminist questions determining the discipline’s boundaries in succeeding decades. To better situate this curricular develop­ ment, it is helpful to contextualize its ideological underpinnings, the result of an intricacy of traditions, pressures, and innovations arising from numer­ ous sources, one of the more influential being gender differentiation (Bayley and Ronish 39). The nature of English study at WLC, unlike English study at all-male institutions such as the University of Toronto, reveals a con­ structive albeit contradictory set of assumptions, a cultural ideology that confidently promised its patrons a “respectable English education” (HPLA Calendar 1880/81 18). What lay behind the claim of a “respectable English education” ? What did the over two thousand graduates of WLC read — in the lecture halls, in the college’s library, in the privacy of their own rooms? More importantly, perhaps, how did they read? How were they taught and which questions were they schooled to ask? How did instruction in English studies at Wes­ leyan differ from what was happening just forty-five miles down the road and a gender world away at the University of Toronto? The suggestions generated by these questions create a portrait of WLC that is at odds with what Prentice and Theobald refer to as the “unflattering stereotype” of the English St u d ie s in Ca n a d a , 19 , 1 , March 1993 “netherworld of education by default” (72-73). The story of WLC instead presents a palimpsest of ideological brushstrokes that simultaneously affirm and negate assumptions not only about women’s higher education in the mid-to-late nineteenth century but also about the development of English as a curricular subject. These assumptions will be examined from four interrelated perspectives. The first stage proposes a review of English subjects at Wesleyan in the course of its more than thirty-year history, an assessment that uncovers a markedly progressive curriculum with roots nonetheless fixed in a traditional, that is, “masculine” heritage. English study at the Hamilton college com­ prised an interesting mix of classical training in rhetoric and composition imitative of men’s schooling, combined with, particularly at senior levels, an Arnoldian slant. In other words, Taine and Parker’s Aids made an appear­ ance along with an emphasis on textual criticism that promoted experiential, aesthetic, and moral appreciation of literature. This amalgam of approaches to English study at WLC invites comparison with curriculum development at the University of Toronto. Examination papers from WLC indicate that students were encouraged to study primary texts closely and in their entirety, not simply for parsing purposes or for rhetorical principles. Personal evaluations were elicited through essay topics and examination questions suggesting an intimate, experiential contact with poetry, fiction, and criticism. Conversely, primary documentation from the University of Toronto sug­ gests that the aim of English education was to discipline the mind, to require the student “simply to undergo an exercise in memorizing a special kind of history; there is no direct literary ‘experience’ required, nor is there a need for personal evaluations” (Tilson 472). A direct comparison of WLC with the University of Toronto only serves to underscore that the study of English at the women’s academy was fully formulated and closer to the discipline as it is known today than what passed as literary study at parallel, all-male insti­ tutions...