Harmonious Perfection: The Development of English Studies in Nineteenth-Century Anglo-Canadian Colleges by Henry A. Hubert (review)

212 LETTERS IN CANADA 1994 construct,' the assurance with which he speaks of regionalism as an influence and as a kind of writing, as well as his designation of writers as regionalist or non-regionalist, suggests on his part something of 'the denial of intentionality' he sees in realist poetics. That is, in the narrative of New World Regionalism, there is not sufficient recognition of regionalism as a construct of social and theoretical discourse or therefore of the complex political, social, and cultural implications of the construction and significations of the term. It is not that Jordan views regionalism in essentialist terms, but he has certainly closed off its meaning, seeing it as a relatively observable phenomenon, rather than as a site of continued debate over its meaning and applicability. Jordan, who also has edited Regionalism Reconsidered: New Approaches to the Field, has certainly helped to turn the critical tide in regard to regionalism, and to open up what has been a problematically marginalized and circumscribed debate. But given the length of New World Regionalism and its tendency towards closure, Jordan perhaps does not go far enough in that direction. (HERB WYILE) Henry A. Hubert. Harmonious Perfection: The Development of English Studies in Nineteenth-Century Anglo-Canadian Colleges Michigan State University Press. Canadian Series, 5. xi, 215. $28.00 cloth The shock waves produced by the collision of social, literary, and philosophical theory with diverse areas of inquiry (from German to Geography) has set disciplinary foundations trembling. As a result, there has been a renewed inquiry into the ways in which academic knowledges and boundaries - as well as the more general concepts of knowing and 'Knowledge' - are produced, practised, and professionalized. In the case of English studies, for example, scrutiny has been given to the discipline's practices (from text-reading to test-making) and its politics (in so far as it is intricated with concepts of national culture and racial characteristics). Altering this stubborn discipline's ways and means involves demonstrating that they arise not from the order of things - or from any intrinsic demands of the subject matter - but from successions of historical, cultural, and institutional circumstances, now largely forgotten. While disciplinary historical work is therefore an important part of the new theoretical enterprise, little such inquiry has been undertaken in English Canada to date, in part reflecting the current state of cultural studies and intellectual history in which mainstream literary and artistic movements (rather than popular and populist culture) and 'great' individuals (as opposed to institutions) receive the only concerted attention. Henry Hubert's detailed and densely argued study of the development of English studies in the English-Canadian universities is a welcome HUMANITIES 213 departure. Hubert provides a primary-source study of literary curricula at higher education institutions throughout the nineteenth century, considering calendars, course lists, examinations, and textbooks (to the extent that the existent records allow). The book considers, as well, the debates over the desirability of English instruction, as provided in polemics pro and con by well-known educators (Thomas McCulloch, Egerton Ryerson, Daniel Wilson, and James Cappon, for example) and in letters and opinion pieces in contemporary education journals. Until this point, scholars have had to rely on more partial studies: Robin Harris's history of English at Toronto; Patricia Jasen's dissertation on the evolution of the English-Canadian liberal arts curriculum as well as Margery Fee's on the development of Canadian literary studies; and Nan Johnson's preliminary study of rhetoric texts and syllabi, published in College English. The archival spadework alone is a most useful contribution. Hubert's motivating concern, however, is not with the retrieval of data and details, but with 'the historic cultural environment in which English studies in Canada evolved.' This 'cultural environment' was, of course" a characteristically colonial admixture of imported models and domestic mandates. Beginning with a consideration of the development of English studies in Scottish and English colleges and universities, Hubert discerns two distinct models at work: a rhetorical (and, for Hubert, more democratic) Scottish tradition, and a literary-aesthetic (elite) English tradition, each of which was translated to English Canada through the establishment of Protestant (or hon-affiliate) colleges on the one...