Hegemony and the Historiography of Universities: The Toronto Case

r 3, summer 2003 university of toronto quarterly, volume 72, numbe C.T. MCINTIRE Hegemony and the Historiography of Universities: The Toronto Case Canada Post signalled the academic aging of Canada when, during 2002 and 2003, it issued stamps commemorating significant anniversaries of universities and colleges across much of the country. Their ages pale when compared to institutions elsewhere in the world, but for Canada they are high, and rising. Those honoured in 2002 were St Mary=s, Halifax, for 200 years, Laval in Quebec and Trinity College in Toronto for 150, and Manitoba in Winnipeg for 125; followed in 2003 by St Francis Xavier in Antigonish and Bishop=s in Lennoxville for 150 years, Montréal and Western Ontario for 125, and Guelph=s Macdonald Institute for 100. There were many other anniversaries not noticed by Canadian philately, especially in Toronto. During 2002, besides the 150 years for Trinity College, the University of Toronto celebrated 175 years, St Michael=s College 150, and Wycliffe College 125, while University College reached 150 during 2003. Three of these Toronto establishments marked their age with books about their history. William Westfall=s book on Trinity, The Founding Moment: Church, Society, and the Construction of Trinity College, focuses on a brief period surrounding the beginning of the college, while Reginald Stackhouse=s The Way Forward: A History of Wycliffe College, Toronto, 1877B2002 and Martin L. Friedland=s The University of Toronto: A History ambitiously span the entire length of their subjects= existence. The books by Stackhouse and Friedland particularly invite comparative analysis. They also offer opportunity to reflect upon the historiography of universities, and to contemplate the character of communities of higher education. By happy coincidence, 2002 also brought the republication of one of the single most important books ever written on the history of universities, Charles Homer Haskins=s little volume The Rise of Universities, first published in 1923. Haskins articulated a vocabulary that remains useful for understanding the character of universities.1 1 Haskins relied on what is still in some sense the starting point for the history of universities, Hastings Rashdall=s The Universities of Europe in the Middle Ages, a massive work published in 1895. Behind Rashdall lies Heinrich Denifle=s Die Entstehung der Universitäten des Mittlealters bis 1400, published in 1885. Predecessor histories for the Wycliffe and Toronto volumes appeared in 1927. The Jubilee Volume of Wycliffe College celebrated that institution=s first fifty years with a collage of pieces by eleven writers, either teachers in the college or loyal supporters. In 1977 Wycliffe celebrated with another the historiography of universities 749 university of toronto quarterly, volume 72, number 3, summer 2003 volume and another collage, The Enduring Word: A Centennial History of Wycliffe College, edited by Arnold Edinborough, a writer and friend of the college. But where the Wycliffe histories began with a straightforward founding date, A History of the University of Toronto, 1827B1927 evidenced a choice made about origins. The book, commissioned by the Board of Governors, and written by the university librarian W. Stewart Wallace, appeared in connection with the official celebrations of the one hundredth anniversary of the founding of the university. However, in 1927 the University of Toronto, which began on 1 January 1850, was only seventyseven . The politics of time, domination, and secularity in higher education necessitated an origin for Toronto that antedated any other university or college in Ontario. Early in its history Toronto had co-opted as its founding moment the year 1827, the date of the Royal Charter issued for a different institution, King=s College, the Church of England university that existed at Toronto from 1843 until its closure by the Parliament of the Province of Canada in 1849 (Friedland, 29). By taking 1827 as its origin, the University of Toronto asserted seniority and priority over Victoria, founded as Upper Canada Academy by Methodists in 1836, over Regiopolis at Kingston begun by Roman Catholics in 1837, over Queen=s founded by Presbyterians in 1841, over Knox initiated by Presbyterians in 1844, and, of course, over Anglican Trinity and Roman Catholic St Michael=s (Harris). Such claims to antiquity justified the University of Toronto=s politics of transcendence...