John William Dawson: Faith, Hope, and Science by Susan Sheets-Pyenson (review)

144 The Canadian Historical Review One of the major themes in Canadian intellectual discourse is the grinding poverty of Canadian intellectual life - a lament that seems to have been sounded with frequency within the halls of the Royal Society. After reading this book, one is left with the unsettling feeling that these pronouncements were unintentionally self-reflexive, saying far more about the failure of a particular intellectual vision than the very genuine accomplishments of the people of Canada. The final irony, perhaps, is that a learned member ofthe Royal Society has taken the occasion of a new official history to raise such important questions about the terms and conditions that such an official intellectual vision has imposed. WILLIAM WESTFALL York University John William Dawson: Faith, Hope, and Science. SUSAN SHEETS-PYENSON. Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen's University Press 1996. Pp. xxii, 274, illus. $44·95 Thomas Carlyle's romantic injunction of history as the essence of innumerable biographies may find little support in modern academia, but Susan Sheets-Pyenson provides an elegant argument in favour of biography in John William Dawson: Faith, Hope, and Science, the first full-length study of this exceptional administrator, educator, and scientist. Although Dawson is primarily known for his controversial writings against Darwinism, the author contends that this historiographical tendency to emphasize points of conflict has skewed our perception of a man who regarded himselfas following a 'quiet middle course.' By using a wide variety ofpersonal papers and correspondence, and drawing attention to Dawson's broad range of activity, this work is largely successful in producing a much richer portrait of a seminal figure in Canadian scientific, intellectual, and educational history. Born in Pictou County, Nova Scotia, in 1820, Dawson attended Thomas McCulloch's Pictou Academy, where he was exposed to up-todate scientific instruments, a rigorous training in the classics, and a library that held fifteen copies of Paley's Natural Theology. The nearby shale and sandstone beds, and his close personal connections to such eminent geologists as William Logan and Charles Lyell, provided abundant encouragement for Dawson's geological pursuits. The young scientist and teacher became the principal of McGill University in 1855, and it is against the background of this 'poverty-stricken, provincial' institution that Sheets-Pyenson sets most of Dawson's life. Here the book shifts from chronologically ordered chapters towards a more Book Reviews 145 thematic approach, through which Dawson's diverse range of activities are prospected like a stratified rock formation, each layer revealing different perspectives on one whose life touched so many different fields of inquiry. What emerges from this exploration is a distinct tension between Dawson's active involvement in affairs at a local level and his desire for international scientific recognition. As a Canadian, Dawson balked at British elitist attitudes towards 'colonists' and their disinterest in Canada's diverse geology, while at the same time he sought legitimation in their societies and journals. He twice applied unsuccessfully for academic positions at the University of Edinburgh, and SheetsPyenson 's examination of his 1854 attempt to gain the Regius Chair of Natural History (appropriately titled 'A Real Horse Race') is a particularly illuminating window into the politics and patronage of the nineteenth -century scientific community. It was no small point of pride when Dawson became the first 'colonist' to serve as president of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, and the first person to preside over both the British and American associations. According to Sheets-Pyenson, Dawson's international prestige did not detract from concerns at home. If anything, they reinforced his desire to encourage scientific pursuits at local and national levels, and Dawson rightly should be regarded as a great popularizer ofnineteenthcentury science. In addition to his educational fundraising among Montreal's elite anglophone community, McGill's principal was instrumental in revitalising the Natural History Society of Montreal, establishing its journal, and attracting the annual conferences of international scientific societies to the city. A co-founder of the Royal Society of Canada, Dawson was a pivotal figure in the promotion of science and scientific research in Canada. However, there is one significant layer that remains noticeably absent from Sheets-Pyenson's study. As a...