Editorial

Editorial The QUARTERLY'S new cover and typography-in ''Times New Roman"-are not a gala dress put on to celebrate the beginning of its twenty-fifth year of publication; they are rather a fresh suit of everyday clothes, to be worn until they, too, fallout of fashion. There is, of course, no merit in mere change, but there are times in the life of any periodical when it is as well to reaffirm by an alteration in its appearance, its continuing vitality and adaptability. As these physical changes happen to coincide with the appointment of a new editor, it may be necessary to reassure those anxious for the QUARTERLY'S reputation that no radical change in policy is being planned. A tradition as well established as the QUARTERLY'S would exact obedience from the most self-assertive editor, and to run counter to it would only prove his misunderstanding of its strength. The QUARTERLY will continue to serve the interests of Canadian scholarship , and as far as the republic of letters knows no "iron curtains," the cause of scholarship everywhere. The greater number of the contributors will naturally be Canadian, but contributors from outside the country will take their proper place, to heighten by their diverse views the general interest of each number. "The cause of scholarship" is a phrase of sufficient finality to answer any question about the QUARTERLY'S purpose, but like other orotund generalizations, it should not be allowed to stand uuremarked. We might ask, for example, where is this cause maintained? "In the universities " would be the expected answer; but though the reply would be correct and satisfactory up to a point, it might leave one with the uneasy feeling that a cause of such significance should be able to count on wider support. In his retrospective article on the QUARTERLY, Professor Roy Daniells makes the disturbing remark that the first editors found it necessary "to live always within their citadel; outworks and practicable communications to a front within Canadian society there were almost none." The difficulty is not peculiarly Canadian. No periodical which serves the cause of scholarship, whether published in Canada, Britain 1 2 EDITORIAL can count on an audience other than the aca.. 5'-'J,Jl""A';.L.L cultivated looks on it askance. Before the is criticized for its it would be as well to seek for faults at home. the scholar from the emlenOlato,r, the The ...,.~...."',.... translates his into a a rev'ela,tlolll, pel:'SmlC1e any cultivated reader that the may not bear on his it is not remote from his true interests. "Let us now be told no more of the dull of an " Johnson a similar Unit has to be confessed that too many scholars lack paSSli:m. Their concern in their is write for prc)m()tlOln and not out of and their attitude is their gr~iceless~ unanimated has tried to avoid that it will continue to attract and ......... 'JA.L.;l'.u. contributors whose can to any cultivated whether within or without a walls. It may asked whether divorced from letters in that the a more immediate contribution to the Canadian literature. The has been for exthat it should open its to short stories and poems. The answer is that this could not be done without its character. There are obvious limits to any and should it to become it will do The fails to the extent of the ",-<:'-'£U,'\,.L.LH"L.J. service to Canadian letters. The annual survey, "Letters in " which tries to the the critical standards which would be will continue to appear, criticism from those of an avuncular criticism can do more to further the of Canadian literature than the of a few short stories and a handful poems. To be IWI~nIV"Tlve is to have weathered the worst which life tries a COllStLtu1tiOltl, and the earlier editors the are to be for carried it the difficulties which inevitably beset it. established it. A later editor cannot their acIlie",enlent. but at least he can to have it he had the where led. ...