99 Book Reviews/Comptes Rendus Instead, they brought maturity and studiousness to Dalhousie, while enhancing the social life of men. Waite treats the subject of gender respectfully, but perfunctorily. The complexity of women's experience - how they viewed and grappled with their subordinate status - is probed more thoroughly in a previous article by Judith Fingard, which the author cites. But feminist historiography of the late Victorian era is not one of Waite's major interests. Nor are some other preoccupations of recent educational historians. Newer literature on the introduction of professional education into universities probes critically the social construction of occupational status at the turn of the century. But for Waite, Dalhousie's entry into legal and medical education was simply the sensible and pragmatic thing to do. Similarly, the author overlooks some provocative studies which raise questions, without rejecting entirely, the myth of the democratic Scottish-Presbyterian educational tradition. In his book, Education and Opportunity in Victorian Scotland (1983), R.D. Anderson notes that the growth of Scottish universities in the late 19th century did little to reduce social class divisions in the community. University was still largely inaccessible to the children of "labourers, miners, or crofters" (p. 318). The same might be said of Dalhousie. Most students were not rich, but relative to the population at large they were still relatively privileged, and the university played a role in furnishing local elites. However liberal its soul, Dalhousie was something less than a populist institution. Its significance within the class structure of Halifax and environs deserves additional study. While some interesting historiographical questions linger, Waite has largely succeeded in his attempt to evoke the era and the aura from which Dalhousie emerged. The author's focus - the contest of religion, education, and politics - is captured in lively and graceful prose. The sequel should be no less intriguing. oooooooooooooooooooo Killtop, A.B. Matters of Mind: The University in Ontario, 1791-1951. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1994. Price: $75.00 (cloth); $35.00 (paper). Reviewed by Barry M. Moody, Department of History, Acadia University. With his book, Matters of Mind, A.B. McKillop has provided us with a large step forward in understanding not only the evolution of the university in Canada, but also the development of intellectual trends in this country during the past 150 years. Although focused solely on the university in Canada West/Ontario, the study has relevance, interest and importance far beyond those narrow geographic boundaries. 100 Book Reviews/Comptes Rendus The author's purpose, "to relate the university experience as a whole to the life of the province" (p. xviii), is clearly stated in the Preface and is consistently carried through for the rest of the book. This is not an attempt merely to link together the histories of individual institutions, but rather to explore the development of the university as an integral part of the intellectual, social, cultural, political, economic and religious life of the community. That McKillop should undertake such a task is commendable; that he should succeed brilliantly is almost breathtaking. By casting such a broad net, by exploring, and linking such diverse themes and issues, he has shed much new light on our past and our present, and shown clearly that in this case the whole is certainly more, and richer, than the parts. Insight is given not only into the life of academe, but into the development of the colony/province as well, for the university is presented here as part of the life of the community, not segregated from it. McKillop's approach is generally chronological, taken in the broadest sense of that term. Beginning with the idea of a college, in the mind of LieutenantGovernor Simcoe, McKillop explores the founding of the various mid-century institutions, and the ideology that underlay them. Here he is concerned not so much with buildings and administrative structures as he is with ideas and values, arguing that "it is critically important to recover and take measure of the ideas and imperatives that lay behind the largely lost world of the mid-Victorian liberal arts curriculum, for they helped give form and substance to what might be called an Ontario ethos well beyond the nineteenth century." (p. 83) His presentation is very sensitive to the play of conflicting forces - spiritual and materialistic - on Victorian Ontario students. Through his exploration of curriculum and university ideology, he brings together very clearly the major intellectual forces of the age - evangelicalism and the cult of progress. We are shown not only what students studied, but why they studied it. The way in which the university is altered by the changing intellectual climate, and in turn helps transform society is examined, with a particular emphasis on the influence of Great Britain, which in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, he argues, is far more pervasive than that of the geographically closer but academically more remote United States. There are excellent sections on the new role of women in higher education, and student culture in turn-of-the-century Ontario, although there is no indication as to why he chose this particular period for such an examination. The significance of World War I - "The Great Divide" in McKillop's words - is given considerable play, for good reason. In a solid chapter, which includes useful graphs on such topics as university enlistment, male/female student ratios, and female faculty numbers, he explores 1914-18 as the great watershed 101 Book Reviews/Comptes Rendus in university life, as it was in so many other aspects of Canadian life. He uses this period to draw to a close the first significant stage of the evolution of the university, and to introduce the next, and substantially different, one. "The balance between tradition and innovation, past and future, had been tipped, and the post-war university was to be a major forum in which much of the complex nexus of modern culture was to be played out." (p. 292) However, he wisely argues that the war period was not a termination point, but a bridge linking the old with the new. Much was swept away, but much also remained. Continuity, as well as change, remains central to McKillop's university. If the rise and refinement of the liberal arts curriculum is one of the key themes of the Victorian university experience, its overshadowing by utilitarian concerns forms an important focus of the late nineteenth century/early twentieth century, accelerated in Ontario by industrialization and two world wars. The rise of professional training, and its gradual, sometimes painful, integration into the university is dealt with carefully and sympathetically, as is the growing unease over developments of some elements of the traditional arts faction. The section on the changes in medical research and teaching was especially succinct and useful, examining as it did the political, intellectual and academic aspects of the process. The gap between the arts and the more "utilitarian" branches of study is brought out most strongly in the discussion of the "crisis of confidence" suffered by arts students and faculty during World War II, and the concerns for the future not only of faculties of arts but for the liberal values which they had traditionally fostered. The steadily growing emphasis on utilitarian concerns and the development of professional programmes led to the increasing need for government financial support, another of the broad themes underlying the structure of this book. Although the University of Toronto from the beginning received money from the provincial coffers, the others, notably Queens, Western and McMaster, suffered the problems and enjoyed the independence that freedom from annual government subsidy brought. McKillop argues that it was the utilitarian concerns brought on by industrialization that led directly to the need for government support, which led in turn to secularization and political involvement in the life of the university, with all the resultant impact which that has had in this century. The sections dealing with government support of and interference with the university should be required reading for anyone who would attempt to understand our current problems re university funding and government involvement. The dangers political control poses to academic freedom are clearly underscored in McKillop's sections dealing with the University of Toronto in the early decades of this century, especially his lengthy but informative discussion of the career of Professor Frank Underhill. 102 Book Reviews/Comptes Rendus McKillop's provocative and insightful discussion of the development of Ontario universities is brought to a conclusion with the 1951 report of the Royal Commission on National Development in the Arts, Letters and Sciences. He argues, quite rightly, that this report heralded the beginning of an era "so different in its demographic, social, economic, and intellectual imperatives as to constitute a revolution in matters of mind." (p. 563) This modern era, the last forty years, he urges another intellectual historian to tackle. Given his success with the first part of the story, his grasp of the issues, and understanding of the sweep of earlier events, one can only hope that McKillop himself will decide to undertake the study. Aside from being remarkably comprehensive in its scope, and convincing in its arguments, this book is also especially well written. McKillop is lucid and focused, clear and crisp in his analysis, and challenging in his conclusions. Given the weighty subject matter, it reads remarkably well. Given the many strengths of this remarkable book, it would seem like small-minded carping to point out any of its relatively minor shortcomings. However, a few of them do need to be mentioned. Although McKillop explains at the very beginning of the book why there will be more attention paid to the University of Toronto - it alone of the major nineteenth-century universities has no modern history - one has to wonder if this does not skew the analysis somewhat. Because of this obvious lack, the author does much more primary research on the "provincial university" and in the process asks different questions and explores other issues than did the historians of say Q u e e n ' s or M c M a s t e r . Is it any wonder that Toronto often looks different, or more advanced, given the greater and more intensive research its experience receives? In some sections, all the rest of the universities completely disappear; it is difficult to believe that they are that intellectually bankrupt, or devoid of leadership or useful examples. A slightly more balanced approach would have strengthened the book. One could also have wished for a better discussion of the secularization process, and the death of the concept of "Christian higher education." Not everyone will agree with McKillop's criteria for giving the University of Toronto the status of "national" university. These picayune points aside, this is a wonderful book, which carries the discussion of universities and the intellectual life of Canada onto an entirely new plane. Hopefully, it will stimulate the production of companion pieces, similar studies of universities in the other regions of English Canada, and of French Canada as well. Maybe then we will have the material to understand adequately the several intellectual solitudes which comprise our country. oooooooooooooooooooo