Ken Osborne
Canadian Historians and National History: A 1950 Survey
The dominant subject in Canadian discussions of history teaching in the 1940s was whether or not schools across the country should use one uniform history textbook designed to enhance national unity by conveying a single version of Canada's national history to all Canadian students. This concern for national history was sparked by the tensions that had arisen between Quebec and the English-speaking provinces as a result of Canada's involvement in the Second World War. Canadian unity was thought to be threatened by the mutual antagonisms of French and English Canada, antagonisms which arose from the problems of the day but which were thought to have their roots in the failure of the two language groups to acknowledge a common history. Thus, a national history, embodied in a national textbook, was seen as part of a wider project to establish a "bonne entente" between the two groups. This 1940s debate is interesting in its own right but it also has some relevance to today's discussions of the need for schools to teach a national history, embodied in a national curriculum, or at least in national standards.
In the 1940s the subject was brought to public attention by a debate in the Senate in 1944 which resulted in a call to Canadian historians to determine which historical facts all Canadians should know in order that a national textbook could be written to tell the same story of the past, regardless of province, region or language. The Senate's concern arose from the fear of some Quebec federalists that national unity was endangered, most immediately by the tensions surrounding the conscription issue, and more indirectly by the activities of some Quebec nationalists and by English-speaking Canada's general ignorance of Quebec.
Feeding into these fears was a related debate that had been sparked in the 1930s when the Laval historian, Arthur Maheux, accused French language history texts of teaching "hatred of the English." This debate was part of a wider historical argument between Maheux, who took a benign view of the British conquest of Quebec and saw no contradiction between his Quebec heritage and a wider pan-Canadian unity, and Lionel Groulx of the University of Montreal, who saw the British conquest as a disaster for Quebec and who was far from certain that Quebec's future was best served by Confederation. The difference between the two historians was nicely symbolized by the titles of a series of radio lectures that Maheux delivered in 1943 and by Groulx's response to them. Maheux gave the published version of his lectures the rhetorical title, Pourquoi sommes-nous divisés? (Why Are We Divided?), implying that all disputes between French and English Canada were unnecessary, unjustifiable, and based on misunderstanding and historical ignorance. In reply, Groulx replaced Maheux's question with a categorical assertion: Pourquoi nous sommes divisés (Why We Are Divided). He argued that the French-English division in Canada was perfectly understandable, perhaps even inevitable, resulting not from a misunderstanding of history but from an all too accurate knowledge of it. It arose, argued Groulx, from French-Canada's finding itself in a permanent and endangered minority in an English-speaking Confederation that refused to recognize its particularity (Maheux, 1943; Groulx, 1943).
Maheux's accusations sparked something of a political storm in Quebec. One of Groulx's colleagues, André Laurendeau (later to be co-chair of the Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism in the 1960s) examined the textbooks in question and declared that they were too boring to preach hatred or anything else. They were, he concluded, little more than dull catalogues of facts, likely to destroy any interest in the past, and certainly not likely to make young Québécois proud of their heritage (Laurendeau, 1941). In the early 1940s this textbook debate reached the floor of the Quebec legislature when the leader of the opposition, Maurice Duplessis, used the issue to embarrass the Liberal and federalist premier, Adélard Godbout. To extricate himself from a tricky political situation, Godbout commissioned an investigation of history textbooks, with a particular focus on how they treated the French-English dimension of Canadian history.
The investigator, Charles Bilodeau, reported in 1943 that the textbooks, in both languages, did not teach hatred, but did suffer from some serious limitations. French-language textbooks dwelt on the French aspects of the Canadian past, emphasized the history of New France, and paid disproportionate attention to those episodes of Canada's history where English-speaking Canada had ridden roughshod over French rights (which, shorn of his more intemperate language, was more or less Maheux's point). Similarly, English-language textbooks gave inadequate attention to New France, and largely ignored the French elements of Canada's past, while at the same time portraying French Canada in stereotyped terms. This did not mean, said Bilodeau, that the textbooks in question deliberately set out to promote discord. Rather, it was a question of "mutual ignorance," a failure of both language groups to see Canada through each other's eyes (Bilodeau, 1951).
The controversy sparked a response in the Canadian and Newfoundland Education Association, which in 1943 appointed a committee of historians (including Maheux and Arthur Lower of United College, Winnipeg) to study Canadian history textbooks. The committee took Bilodeau's report as its starting point and endorsed its conclusions, noting " A foreigner would have an altogether different view of Canadian history according to whether he read a school textbook in the French language or the English language" (CNEA, 1945: 10).
The committee avoided taking a direct stand on the question of textbook biases, noting instead that "many people consider that a faulty teaching of history in school is conducive to ill-founded prejudice and even antagonism" and pointing out that, if this was indeed the case, then "the deficiencies of history textbooks must surely be a contributing factor" (CNEA, 1945: 10). Even so, the committee did not recommend a single national textbook, contenting itself instead with a series of guidelines for the evaluation and production of existing and future texts, though it did recommend that the "basic factual content" of textbooks should be the same in all provinces. The committee's papers and minutes seem no longer to exist and so it is impossible to know with certainty what factors shaped these decisions, but it seems likely that committee members concluded that a single national textbook, even if desirable in theory, was too complicated and contentious a project ever to be realized. It would obviously require the cooperation of the provinces, the phasing out of existing texts, and the difficult and expensive task of designing and producing a new textbook and ensuring its adoption by the schools. Historians themselves worried that a national textbook designed to enhance national unity would be more propaganda than history. Moreover, Quebec made clear its opposition to any national history text, and the committee ran into difficulties in Quebec because it was suspected of being a stalking horse for a uniform national history curriculum. In these circumstances, the committee presumably opted for what it saw as a pragmatic approach to the question. In subsequent years, for example, both Lower and Maheux dismissed the idea of a single national text; Lower because he thought it would do nothing to solve the problem of poor teaching that he thought was at the root of history's problems in the schools; Maheux because he saw it as technically impractical and politically unattainable.
More fundamentally, the committee recognized that "complete unity, among all our varying peoples and interests, is probably beyond achievement" and suggested instead that, rather than national unity, "the ideal of reasonable understanding" should be the goal of history teaching. To this end, it recommended that textbooks combine a "a reasonably broad, national point of view" with the "legitimate claims of provincial emphasis" (CNEA, 1945: 12). It was prepared to go surprisingly far in this direction, at some points accepting what was almost a censoring of history. It endorsed the principle that a province could ignore any topics it found unacceptable, noting that Quebec would probably not wish to teach much about the Reformation, while Ontario might want to emphasize topics "of British connotation" (CNEA, 1945:9). The committee tried to square this particular circle by arguing that, even with provincial variations and exclusions, its proposed programme would ensure that schools would still teach more common content than they currently did, but it is difficult to avoid the impression that by making these concessions to provincial and religious sensibilities the committee was in fact cutting the ground out from under its own feet. After all, how could there be a "basic factual content" common to all provinces, if provinces could decide for themselves what they would or would not teach?
The bulk of the committee's report was taken up with describing an ideal history programme from Grade 1 to Grade 12 (to be the subject of a subsequent column), since, in the committee's view, textbooks should be shaped by the demands of the curriculum, and not the other way round. However, the committee's existence, and its 1945 Report, testify to the widespread concern that history teaching should be more truly national and helped keep the question alive.
The end of the War in 1945 took the conscription issue off the political agenda and in general brought a reduction in French and English tensions as the two language communities reverted to their pre-war stance of largely ignoring each other. As a result, the push for a national history textbook lost much of its momentum. It had always been driven more by concerns for national unity than by any educational considerations, and when those concerns lost their edge, so did the textbook question. It did not completely disappear, however, and Lionel Groulx and his nationalist colleagues continued to worry that English Canada sought to use history to submerge Quebec beneath a pan-Canadian sense of nationhood. Thus, in the late 1940s Groulx and Laurendeau organized a survey of leading historians to see what they felt about the desirability, or otherwise, of a uniform national history text. The historians' responses were published in the Quebec nationalist journal, L'action nationale, in 1950 and still make for interesting reading (Laurendeau, 1950: the page references in what follow are all to this report).
To Groulx's apparent surprise, the survey showed that English-speaking Canadian historians opposed a single national textbook, though not necessarily for his reasons. They did not so much oppose it on national grounds, but for the probability that it would be contrary to the spirit of history as an intellectual discipline. They saw it as likely to reduce history to a catechism of approved facts, devoid of either intellectual challenge, pedagogical interest, or emotional appeal. McGill's E.R. Adair, who in the 1930shad effectively demolished the legend of Dollard des Ormeaux, described the whole idea as "rather unintelligent" and undesirable even if it were possible, which he doubted. It would, he said, remove the controversy that was the very heart of historical study and be "so appallingly dull that even the soul of the long-suffering Canadian school boy would revolt" (364-5). A.L. Burt, who over the years had written on French Canadian history, said that a single official textbook contained propagandistic dangers that most people failed to realize and argued instead for a variety of textbooks, all acceptable in all parts of Canada, from which teachers could choose which they wished to use. A.R.M. Lower took the opportunity to criticize history teachers for being so unintellectual and unadventurous that it made no difference what kind of textbook was used. In his view, "The schools do not seem interested in the free play of the mind: they prefer to teach Canadian history in much the same spirit as they teach the multiplication table" (367). Drawing on his own experience of textbook writing, he argued that textbooks almost by definition were dull and stereotyped and could be nothing else. In these circumstances, he concluded, the textbook debate was a waste of time that should be better spent on a concerted effort to teach real history in the schools.
Another Manitoba historian, W.L. Morton, was less abrasive but equally negative. Continuing the rejection of the central Canadian, Laurentian biases of Canadian history that he had voiced in 1946,he argued that a national textbook would reflect the interests and views of central Canada, to the detriment of other regions of the country. He further suggested that the current state of research in Canadian history made a national textbook impossible. In other words, a textbook based on the existing state of historical research might pass for national history, but would in fact represent a very narrow and distorted view of Canadian reality. As Morton saw it, "Canadian historians need much further research in Canadian history at their disposal, particularly in regional and social history, before such a text may be written." Rather than one national textbook, he recommended a variety of texts, all written to the highest possible standards, and designed to promote "tolerance, understanding and sympathy among the racial and religious groups of Canada" (369).
Gordon Rothney of Montreal added other arguments. In his view, a standard textbook would be "most unwise." Himself a director of Lionel Groulx's l'Institut de l'Amérique française, he rejected the centralizing pan-Canadian nationalism that he saw underlying such a project, arguing: "It is perfectly obvious that the historical knowledge necessary for intelligent living in the environment of Newfoundland is not exactly the same as in the Province of Quebec" (369) And "intelligent living," he insisted, was the central goal of historical study. In his words, "the purpose should be to stimulate thought, about the present and the future." This meant that only those facts mattered that were significant in promoting an understanding of the present and the function of a textbook was to provide them, while also helping teachers arouse interest and stimulate thought in their students. At the same time he argued that no book was infallible and that even a textbook should be something to think about, not to memorize. A single textbook could never do this; rather, it would lead to history being taught "in the same manner as the multiplication tables or a catechism." For Rothney, "Two books are better than one, three are better still." Moreover, a single national, officially authorized textbook could not help but be "propaganda for the glorification of the status quo." As these words suggest, Rothney went beyond most other historians in placing the textbook question in the context of democratic citizenship: "The greater the variety of text books we use across Canada the better not merely for our knowledge of History, but also for the development of the spirit of sceptical toleration which alone can make democracy meaningful" (370).
G.F.G Stanley of the Royal Military College was no more encouraging than his colleagues, noting that there were serious obstacles in the way of any national textbook, not just because of differences between English-speaking and French-speaking Canada, but because of strong regional differences across the country. More especially, he argued, the fundamental difference between French-speaking and English-speaking Canada was to be found not in nationality or language, but in "philosophy." Historians did not simply interrogate their sources; they interpreted them according to their particular "critère de la vérité " (criterion of truth). Thus, a single national textbook, equally acceptable in all parts of Canada, was an impossibility(362-3).
French-speaking historians agreed with their English-speaking counterparts. Jean Bruchési of the University of Montreal flatly declared that a single textbook was undesirable, even if it were possible, and insisted that what mattered was not the textbook but the teacher. The Rector of the University, Olivier Maurault, on the other hand, said that he favoured a national textbook in the abstract, but thought it impossible in the real world, or, if possible, likely to reduce history to a catalogue of facts. He raised the possibility of a textbook that presented students with a variety of viewpoints but conceded that such a book would not create the spirit of national unity that was the purpose of the proposed national text. Léo-Paul Desrosiers, the head of the Montreal public library and a published historian, feared that a single national textbook would sacrifice truth on the altar of so-called national understanding and so, by definition, would be bad history. Another historian, the school inspector Albert Tessier, agreed that a national textbook was neither desirable nor possible and added a pedagogical objection, arguing that a national textbook could only be a catalogue of facts and so would be intellectually stultifying: "Un manuel unique mécaniserait l'éducation et lui enlèverait toute supplesse. Il dessécherait l'esprit au lieu d'éveiller l'enthousiasme et l'amour" (380: trans: a common textbook would regiment teaching, removing all flexibility from it. Instead of awakening enthusiasm and love, it would dry up the spirit).
Perhaps the most nuanced response came from Guy Frégault, who argued that since the whole debate was more a question of ideology and pedagogy than of history, historians were no more qualified to speak to it than plumbers. Moreover, he added, since there was nothing new to say he would discuss not the project of a national textbook but the diverse reactions to it, which for him were the most interesting aspect of the whole debate. In this spirit, he stressed the desirability of all Canadians knowing the history of their country and saw no reason for anyone, including French-speaking Canadians, to fear a national textbook, provided only that it was true to the spirit of historical inquiry, told the truth, and was rigorously scientific in stating facts and not interpretations. Whether such a book was feasible, he did not say.
Lionel Groulx, for his part, denied that an objectively neutral history text was possible. He pointed out that there obviously had to be agreement of matters of elementary fact, such as the date of Frontenac's death, but emphasized that history involved much more than this: "L'histoire n'est point simple chronologie, ni simple alignement ou entassement de faits. Dans le choix des faits à retenir, ou à laisser tomber, dans l'importance à leur conférer, forcément l'historien en est amené à établir un ordre de grandeur, une échelle de valeur" (345:trans: History is more than chronology and the laying out of facts.In choosing which facts to include and which to omit, in judging their importance, the historian has to establish a scale of value, an order of worth and significance). Elsewhere, Groulx distinguished between the role of the historian as historian and that of the historian as teacher, especially in the schools. Historians, he insisted, had to be as scientific as possible, but teachers served a civic or national purpose, which, in the context of Quebec, meant that their primary task was not to train young historians, but to produce citizens, proud of their heritage and committed to its preservation. This meant, above all, that in the schools history teaching must be directed to the protection of French and Catholic civilization against the forces of an English-speaking, materialist, and often hostile North America. Moreover, Groulx suggested, while any true historian must be objective as a researcher and scholar, objectivity was different from neutrality, which was neither possible nor desirable.
Beyond this, said Groulx, in the particular circumstances in which Canada, and especially Quebec, found itself, a single national textbook would be "inutilement désagréable" (trans: pointlessly offensive), would satisfy no-one, while provoking endless argument, and so would do nothing for the national unity it was supposed to promote. For Groulx, the fundamental obstacle to a national textbook was the existence in Canada of two nations, each with its own heritage and its own perspective on the world: "Nous en tenir donc, autant qu'humainement possible, en histoire, à l'objectivité . Si l'on admet l'existence de deux nationalitié s au Canada, et que chacune, par conséquent, a bel et bien sa conscience historique, chacune doit posséder son histoire à soi" (348:trans: We believe that history should be as objective as humanly possible. But if one accepts that two nationalities exist in Canada, each with its own historical consciousness, then it follows that each must have its own history). In other words, Canada could never enjoy one common national history since it was not and never could be one nation. Its fate was to accept that it possessed two national histories which frequently intersected and interacted but were nonetheless distinct and different.
Groulx's most persistent opponent, Laval's Arthur Maheux, did not participate in the survey, presumably because of the antipathy he and Groulx felt for each other and because of the antagonistic historical stances of the history departments of Laval and the University of Montreal, but even he, perhaps the most forceful exponent of all Canadian historians of using history to cement national unity and to promote "bonne entente" between French and English Canada, expressed his opposition to a national textbook elsewhere. As he told the Canadian Historical Association in his presidential address in1949, a national textbook would be "very difficult to realize, though it is not impossible." Like Jean Bruchési, however, Maheux put his trust in properly trained and qualified teachers who would give their students "a scientific and factual training, instead of a course in civics or even in propaganda, provided, however, that ... an equal importance be given to both civilizations, the French and the British" (Maheux, 1949: 5-6). Ronald Rudin has recently described Maheux as a proponent of a single national textbook, but, though Maheux certainly wanted schools to teach a national version of Canadian history, he did not in fact see a national textbook as the way to achieve it (Rudin, 1997: 239, n.133).
In addition to these historians, two Quebec educationists were asked for their views. One, Richard Arès, a Jesuit who wrote extensively on Canadian federalism and Quebec's place within it, dismissed the whole idea of a national textbook as smacking of regimentation and centralization, even of "soviétisation," and as leading not to "une unité canadienne organique" but to "une unité mécanique" imposed by force. The other, EsdrasMinville, Director of l'Ecole des Hautes Etudes Commerciales in Montreal (in effect, the University of Montreal's business school), dismissed the whole idea as utopian, "une fantaisie des centralisateurs," and all too reminiscent of the spirit of "totalitarisme" that marked the contemporary world. He voiced his opposition to the vision of national unity that lay behind the idea of a national textbook, which, he said, aimed at creating a Canadian culture based on the fusion of Quebec with the rest of Canada which, by definition, would mean the disappearance of Quebec as a distinct society. A textbook would not solve the Canadian problem: "Une vertu peut assurer la paix et l'harmonie au Canada - et c'est la justice" (383-7: trans: One quality alone will guarantee peace and harmony in Canada - andthat is justice).
Though she did not participate in this survey, the University of Saskatchewan historian, Hilda Neatby, as committed and eloquent a champion of history as anyone in Canada, echoed its conclusions. She was a member of the Massey Commission on the Arts, and though the Commission was careful not to trespass on provincial turf, its mandate to review the state of the arts, letters and sciences in Canada inevitably brought history to its attention. One of the many background essays it commissioned was on the state of history in Canada and Neatby was asked to write it. In doing so,she took note of the textbook debate:
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There is a very general demand at the moment for one textbook for all Canadian schools. That request is often, though not always, made by those who regard a history textbook as a collection of vitamin pills requiring only to be administered at the right time and in the right quantity. At the present stage of our history and our historiography, a text that would suit the two cultural groups and the four great geographic and historic sections of Canada would be a featureless mass of facts (Neatby,1951: 210). |
A "mass of facts" was exactly what the Senators had called for in 1944 and the Canadian and Newfoundland Education Association had endorsed in 1945. The difference between them and the historians was that the latter did not see history inthese terms. When historians were faced with suggestions that they establish what historical facts all Canadians should know, they saw not only the immediate political difficulties of reaching agreement on what those facts were, but also the far more complex philosophical problems of defining what a historical fact was, problems that had been described a generation earlier by such historical heavyweights as Carl Becker and Charles Beard.
The argument was taken up by Jean Bruchési, of the University of Montreal, in his 1952 presidential address to the Canadian Historical Association. He made no secret of his opposition to the idea of a uniform national textbook, declaring that, even if it were feasible, it would, by eliminating variety and competition, produce "a reign of mediocrity." He declared that "Common sense and the principles of sound pedagogy are against it" (Bruchési, 1952: 11). However, while rejecting a uniform textbook, Bruchési resurrected one aspect of the Senate's 1944 motion by raising the possibility that a committee of historians might nonetheless compile "a list of those essential facts and events which every Canadian should know" (Bruchési, 1952: 12). Immigrants had to pass a history test, and this, he noted, suggested that someone had been able to decide what history prospective citizens must know. Why then, he asked, could not a similar standard be created for native-born Canadians? However, no historians took up his challenge.
The advocates of a national textbook, designed to strengthen national unity, found themselves facing a dilemma which they never solved. On the one hand, they sought to avoid the possibility of interpretative bias by making sure that their desired textbook would be purely factual. On the other hand, they faced the probability - their critics said the certainty - that such a book would be dull and uninspiring, restrictive for teachers and dispiriting for students, and false to the spirit of history as an intellectual discipline. But if they said, as some of them did, that it was the duty of teachers to make the textbook interesting, they opened up the very possibility of interpretative subjectivity that a national textbook was intended to foreclose in the first place.
Perhaps the greatest problem confronting the proponents of a national history textbook was that they were unable to find a way to put the cart before the horse. As some of their critics occasionally pointed out, a truly national textbook could only be the product of national unity, not its cause. But if national unity existed, there would be no need for a national textbook. Conversely, ifit did not exist, then no national textbook would be possible. Arthur Maheux in 1943 paradoxically ended a plea for teaching history so as to foster national understanding by appealing to national understanding for a reorganization of history teaching:
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Lorsque ma" tres et élèves auront lancé vers le Ciel leurs ferventes supplications pour un Canada uni, comment la leçon d'histoire pourrait-elle respirer ou inspirer la haine? Comment, au contraire, n'inspirerait-elle pas à la jeunesse et à ses guides l'indulgence, la compréhension, la charité, le pardon s'il y a lieu, la bonne volonté, le respect, la concorde? (Maheux, 1943: 156; trans: When teachers and students launch their fervent requests to heaven for a united Canada, how can history create hatred? Will it not, rather, instill in the young and their teacher's forgiveness, understanding, goodwill, respect, agreement, pardon if pardon is necessary?). |
Neither Maheux nor any other supporter of national history teaching seems to have noticed the contradiction. It is a contradiction that remains with us, one whose complexities are underestimated by today's advocates of national history and national standards.
References
Bilodeau, Charles. (1951) "L'histoire nationale." Royal Commission Studies: Selected from the Special Studies Prepared for the Royal Commission on National Development in the Arts, Letters and Sciences. Ottawa; King's Printer,1951: 217-230.
Bruchési, Jean. (1952) "L'enseignement de l'histoire du Canada." Canadian Historical Association. Report of the Annual Meeting of the Canadian Historical Association, Held at Quebec, June 4-6, 1952: 1-13.
Canadian and Newfoundland Education Association. (1945) "Report of the Committee for the Study of Canadian History Textbooks." Canadian Education, 1 (1): 3-38.
Groulx, Lionel. (1943) Pourquoi nous sommes divisés. Montréal: Les Éditions de l'Action Nationale.
Laurendeau, André. (1941) Nos écoles enseignent-elles la haine de l'anglais? Montréal: Les Éditions de l'Action Nationale.
Laurendeau, André. (1950) "Pour ou contre le manuel unique d'histoire du Canada?" L'Action Nationale, XXXV (5), mai 1950: 337-395.
Maheux, Arthur. (1943) Pourquoi sommes-nous divisés? Montréal: Radio Canada.
Maheux, Arthur. (1949) "A Dilemma for our Culture." Canadian Historical Association. Report of the Annual Meeting Held at Halifax, June 11 and 12, 1949: 1-6.
Neatby, Hilda. (1951). "National History." Royal Commission Studies: Selected from the Special Studies Prepared for the Royal Commission on National Development in the Arts, Letters and Sciences. Ottawa; King's Printer, 1951: 205-216.
Rudin, Ronald. (1997) Making History in Twentieth Century Quebec. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.