A Half-Century of UTQ

W.). KEITH and B. - Z. SHEK A Half-Century of UTQ I Although a journal entitled the University of Toronto Quarterly, and described as 'conducted by Undergraduate Societies of the University of Toronto: appeared briefly between early 1895 and late 1896, the periodical as we now know it today was first published in October 1931 (at a subscription-rate of $2.00 a year), and has maintained regular publication ever since. Its first editor was the distinguished philosopher C.S. Bret (an imaginative portrait of whom has recently appeared in Hugh Hood's novel Reservoir Ravine). Brett was a shy man, and his name never appeared on the title-page, but the first issue contains an unsignedl editorial presumably from his pen. It announces with characteristic selfirony : 'An editor is expected to have a policy and, in this case, a part of the policy is to have no editorials.' This tone continues in later paragraphs. The new journal, we are told, 'does not provide space for fiction or poetry - a rule which it is our privilege to ignore in the case of [Charles C.D. Roberts's] TheIceberg.' More significantly, Brett goes on to describe the initial aims of the Quarterly in a statement that has profound implications for the continuing policies of subsequent editors: The old ideal of a 'gentleman's magazine,' described by our forefathers a~ amusing because it was reminiscent of all the nine Muses, and instructivE because it was concerned with serious topics competently treated - this ideal iE still perhaps the best pattern for a quarterly which is intended to be neitheJ vocational nor technical and yet remains within the limit of scholarship an ' academic interests. To some readers (as well as some editors) in 1980 this conjures up th engaging spirit of a more leisured, casual, civilized, and now totalll vanished age. Shades of the well-rounded Renaissance man still linge, here, together with a whiff of cultured privilege that must have alread) seemed incongruous in the early years of the depressed thirties. This is a informal, clubbable atmosphere that some may find agreeable, other oppressive. The first issue, which began with an essay on 'Spiritual Authority ir England: and included articles on science, architecture, classics, Italiar A HALF-CENTURY OF UTQ 147 tudies, and the modern novel, clearly fulfilled the generalizing, farmging aims of Brett's editorial. But a distinct sense of experiment and 1aptation characterized these early days. Brett did not continue as editor IT long; with the beginning of the third volume E.K. Brown and A.5.P. loodhouse are announced as co-editors, and by volume 5 Woodhouse is , full charge with Brown and Alexander Brady, a political scientist 'presenting the non-humanities subjects, as associates. Two years later ,e editorship has become a committee with Woodhouse as chairman: the .thering of 'gentlemen' has evolved with startling rapidity into an (ecutive board. The changes that took place during this period were considerable, and ley have set the standard for the journal up to the present day. While 'oiding the recondite mysteries of higher specialization, the Quarterly id its emphasis (and here Woodhouse's concerns become clearly man- ,st) on sound scholarship and the publishing of internationally known ,thorities. While the contributors to the first two volumes had been most exclusively Canadian, a more cosmopolitan list is evident from the 'ginning of the third year of publication. There are contributions be- 'een 1933 and 1935 from William Temple (then Archbishop of York), seph Warren Beach, Paul Elmer More, Jacques Maritain (associated at at time with the Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies recently estabhed in Toronto), and Louis Cazamian. Cazamian is represented, inlentally , by an article on D.H. Lawrence, one of two pieces that peared on a writer who was still highly controversial at that time - an iication that the early issues were not as stolidly 'traditional' as one ght have supposed. In other respects, too, the journal opened up ",ards more ambitious projects. Reviews began to appear in '933, and , following year saw an announcement heralding 'a number of articles opinion on international affairs.' A feature now considered central to , Quarterly, the annual 'Letters in Canada' section, first appeared in...