ESC: English Studies in Canada

P U B L I C A T I O N A N D S C H O L A R S H I P : T W O S T A T E M E N T S (The following two statements were delivered at the May 1978 meetings of the Association of Canadian University Teachers of English in response to some remarks in F. E. L. Priestley and H. I. Kerpneck, Report of Commission on Undergraduate Studies in English in Canadian Universities. Because of their special relevance to the activities of English Studies in Canada they are published here.) “It is fatal to real scholarship to equate it with publication.” WILLIAM ROBBINS University of British Columbia I was surprised to find, on arriving in Fredericton last year too late for the plenary session, that the section of the Report containing today’s topic was apparently not discussed. When I expressed surprise to our President, I paid the penalty for my temerity by being asked to speak to the issue this year. To explain last year’s omission, I can only surmise that with so many oxen being gored, the attack on a sacred cow went unnoticed. Or else, that the vociferous critics of such an arch-conservative document were unable to credit the authors of the Report with so radical a statement. Or perhaps most readers were stunned into silence by the pithy and pungent Priestleyan prose: “It is fatal to real scholarship to equate it with publication.” This uncompromis­ ing vigour of phrase is one of the qualities in Felp that I have always ad­ mired, and at times envied. I recall one evening in Toronto many years ago when a group of us were sitting around the Priestley living-room and the con­ versation turned, for some obscure reason, on the relative merits of All-Bran and other forms of roughage for promoting what the admen call regularity, only to have the subject closed off abruptly when Felp said, “I never yet saw a plumber who cleaned a pipe by stuffing it with hay.” Admittedly, the sen­ tence now before us has not quite the same ambience, but it does have that conciseness and directness which must, I suspect, sometimes offer refresh­ ment to the spirits of those who have to review books by social scientists. E n g l ish Studies in C anada, v, i , Spring 1979 At any rate, this challenging statement on scholarship needs careful atten­ tion to its exact words, especially “real” and “equate.” There is no attack here on scholarly publication per se, which would indeed be absurd in the light of Priestley’s own impressive list of first-rate published work. There is by implication, however, an attack on publication under pressure, a species Northrop Frye once described as the “spasmodic laying of unfertilised eggs for fear of the administrative axe.” This in turn reminds us how much the whole question is bound up with matters of tenure and promotion, with a balanced regard for teaching and scholarship, and with the need, yet reluc­ tance, to make evaluative judgments in particular cases. A complex problem, indeed. By exploring the terms “real” and “equate” I hope to simplify or at least to focus the argument, and at the same time to persuade those opposed to see the statement as a valid one. (What follows is purely personal, with no responsibility attaching to Professors Priestley and Kerpneck for interpreta­ tions I choose to offer.) I am sure no one questions the assumption that a university professor must be a scholar in a more specialized and also more extensive way, in a deeper and broader sense, than the high school teacher. After all, he is one who teaches the teacher. Not that the schoolteacher’s job is less important; in the wider context of civilising the whole community it is more important. But its commitments and obligations are different, as proportionately reflected in the distribution of time and energy. Scholarship in the university teacher means, ideally, the mastery of a special field, some familiarity with related fields and subjects, a critical eye for the inaccurate and the fallacious, and the creative power of...