Dethroning Classics and Inventing English: Liberal Education and Culture in Nineteenth-Century Ontario by Garth R. Lambert (review)

HUMANITIES 229 cultural context. Stokes, while he discusses Rachel's symbolic position as a Jew, as a tragedienne, and as an image of revolution, is principally concerned to determine 'whatexactlyRachel did on stage.I Stokesexplicitly differentiates his goals from those of Rachel M. Brownstein in her seminal postmodern biography of Rachel, Tragic Muse, which I finds myth as meaningful as fact,' but both his essay and Booth's would have benefited from more attention to the contribution made by 'myth' to the documentary evidence on which their reconstructions rely. Further, as parts of Stokes's essay suggest and as Bassnett's confirms, consideration of each actress's symbolic status within her culture widens the appeal of the volume beyond those with a specialized interest in acting history. The volume as a whole would also have been strengthened by more numerous links among its three parts, either through more cross-referencing within the essays or through a more substantial introduction. While Three Tragic Actresses achieves its limited aims, focused on reconstructing the contribution of individual performers, this volume suggests the potential value of a more ambitious comparative cultural analysis of these tragedie1U1es. (NANCY COPELAND) 'Garth R. Lambert. Dethroning Classics and Inventing English: Liberal Education and Culture in Nineteenth-Century Ontario Lorimer. x, 234· $19.95 At the outset of Dethroning Classics and Inventing English, Garth R. Lambert considers how John, later Bishop, Strachan strove to rough-hew how he could an education system in the new colony of Upper Canada at the dawn of the nineteenth century. After considering Strachan's own Scottish education (which tended to be ofa more modern and progressive type than that found in the English public schools), Lambert analyses how Strachan tried to import this liberal education background into Ontario, so as to produce, ideally, servants to Christianity and loyal citizens of the British Empire. Strachan steered a balanced course, understanding the need for practical,scientificeducationin aprimitivesetting,but insisting on classicsbased curricula such that Upper Canada district schools were 'nurseries for a university' which would produce prototypical imperial gentlemen. 'English / of course, at this time was studied as a language, and not as literature. In subsequent chapters, Lambert compares the views of influential educators of the first half of the century on the I critical question' of 'what should be the function of classical language in liberal education.' The central figure hereis EgertonRyerson, periodical editor, inaugural Victoria College president, chief superintendent of education. In the 'great university debate' of 1860 and throughout his life generally, he grasped the 230 LETTERS IN CANADA 1996 utility of an 'English course' for those students who would be entering fields such as commerce, manufactufing, and agriculture, but he clung stoically to a beliefin the preferable pre-eminence ofa classics-based liberal education, particularlyfor those intendinglearned professions. Bytheclose of the century, through the influence of individuals such as Paxton Young, a high school inspector under Ryerson and divinity teacher at Knox College, Toronto, the study of English for its literary, as opposed to philological, qualities had begun. Interestingly, Lambert stresses that classics was usurped not so much by English, as this latter discipline flourished, but rather by a growing emphasis on the study of science, 'which weakened classics to the benefit of English.' Though the author does not dwell on such matters at length, there is much implicit in his research which will interest those concerned with pedagogy today. One will find, in the nineteenth century, contention over process (learn ' to think) versus product (learn what others thought) education much as one finds today, when calls for more standardized testing and practical training moW1t. One benefit of classical education Ryerson advanced was that the texts to be absorbed there gave students common intellectual currency, much as the now splintered and disparaged 'canon' ofEnglish literature rnayonce have done. Also, the debate over the rewards of classical education then can be compared to that regarding liberal education with English, literature, and the humanities at its core today. In our post-literate, or at least screen, age, the rudiments of English grammar, rhetoric, and compositionmust increasinglybe seen as referential to a dead language, orif to a living language, one quite without the prestige and...