Bryant was having trouble with his eyes and sought treatment in Hamilton. He tried to hang on as principal in 1883–84, but was compelled to retire at the end of the academic year. Now living in Toronto, he continued to write to Harry with advice and encouragement: (July 26, 1884) “I think you should read some biography. If you have it in your library [Cody was in Embro for the summer] look over the first part of the life of F.W. Robertson – Select a few of the biographies accessible and send me their names and let me help you in choosing one.” On August 2, 1884, Bryant recommended Plutarch’s Lives (“I should choose a few of the best ... those whom you know to have a moral character”) and some of Macaulay’s Life (“especially that referring to his youth and character”).
Harry continued to thrive at Galt Collegiate. He got on well with Carscadden, who succeeded Bryant as principal, and with C.S. Logan, the new classics master, to whom he had been recommended by Bryant. Harry had a high regard for Logan, later describing him as “among the best teachers in Ontario.”24
Having passed the “non-professional” examinations at Galt with high honours in July 1884, Harry went to Toronto in June 1885 to write the matriculation examinations for admission to the University of Toronto. Bryant had written to him with further advice and an invitation to stay with the Bryants during his time in Toronto: “Be sure not to work hard now. Take a great deal of sleep and a good deal of exercise. Avoid trying to get up new things now.”25
Harry’s performance at the examinations marked the beginning of an outstanding academic career. He matriculated with first-class honours in classics, mathematics, and modern languages, and won four scholarships: the Classical, Modern Languages, Prince of Wales, and General Proficiency.
It was a surprising performance and congratulations poured in from Harry’s teachers, fellow students, proud relatives, and others. Logan, who was staying in Peterborough for the summer, had told two Peterborough teachers about Harry’s brilliant prospects before the results came out. He reported, “They looked rather incredulous, as I imagine they often hear such assertions. I have seen the masters since however and I was approached by them and they expressed considerable surprise at my being under the mark in what seemed to them a very rash assertion.”26 Grandpa Torrance’s letter of July 17 indicates the exuberance of his rejoicing:
When Mr. Woods came rushing down the steps his face lit up with joy and grasped me by the hand and congratulated me saying Harry won - four – scholarships – I was knocked into a cocked hat – poor Gran had just gone to post you a card. I rushed out in my excitement thinking I would be the first to send you the good news [he also sent a telegram on July 17] ... all Galt is stirred up you are spoken of by every one and we are congratulated coming from church – in the streets – in the stores – and calls at the house.
In all the chorus of praise, two letters were more muted. Hincks expressed warm congratulations in rather formal language but was concerned that Harry should not “commit the great error of overtaxing a facile brain or forget the good old maxim ‘mens sana in corpore sano’ [‘a healthy mind in a healthy body’].” R. Balmer, another Galt teacher, hoped Harry would not become a remote academic but would do some good in the world. He concluded dubiously, “We are all anxious that what is undoubtedly a great force should also be a useful force. No elegant inutilities, my boy, no mere subtleties. The world has just now great needs, and we insist that the able skill [be] up and about to satisfy them.”27
It was advice Harry may well have pondered. In a certain way, the whole of his subsequent career was an attempt to meet Balmer’s demands.
Chapter 2
University, 1885–1889
When Cody came to Toronto in 1885, it was a comparatively small place, judged by modern standards, with a population of about 90,000. The boundaries of settlement ran from the waterfront to south of St. Clair and from High Park to the region just east of the lower Don River. When Cody went to St. Paul’s later as curate, most of his parishioners lived in the region of Jarvis Street, then considered the best residential street in the city, or in nearby Rosedale.
The University of Toronto, too, was comparatively small. University College (UC), a beautiful Gothic structure built in 1859, was the principal building. The only other two structures, both located south of UC, were Moss Hall, built in 1850, housing the medical school (destined to be replaced by the biology building in 1888), and the first School of Practical Science building, completed in 1878; but neither medicine nor science were yet affiliated with the university.
Registration was comparatively small. University College had about 250 students in 1867, 351 in 1881, and about 500 in 1889.1 The students were mainly from Ontario, a large number from families of modest means. Out of 53 who graduated, 8 were from Toronto and 45 from other parts of Ontario. Of the 45, 40 had been brought up on farms.2
Until 1884 UC had been an exclusively male institution, having up to that time resisted the attempts of women students to gain admission. When Agnes Walls, a friend of Cody’s, asked him in 1887 whether women could take university courses, she was touching a sensitive nerve.3 The demand for admission of women was part of the women’s rights movement that characterized much of the nineteenth century. Canadian periodicals, particularly the Canadian Monthly, ran many articles on the subject in the 1880s. Sir Daniel Wilson, who became president of the university in 1881, was particularly opposed to the admission of women. He thought women were entitled to university training but should be taught in separate, all-female institutions. He confided to his diary on February 3, 1882. “A deputation of ladies – strong-minded – bent on having the College thrown open to women, Parliament to be appealed to, etc., etc. I have had an inkling of this for some time, and kept it in view in writing certain letters to lady applicants which Parliament is welcome to peep into now if it has a mind.”4 In spite of Sir Daniel, the Ontario government accepted the principle of co-education in 1884, and in October nine women entered UC as undergraduates. In 1888–89, thirty-nine were in attendance. Cody’s friend Tommy Des Barres wrote to him ruefully in May 1888: “This will I think impress you – Miss Robson cleared all the fellows out in Moderns in our year.”5
The academic staff, while small, included some men of distinction. Sir Daniel Wilson, for instance, was a scholar of note in the fields of English and history. Cody later recalled, “It was his habit to read his familiar lectures with great enthusiasm, punctuated by his familiar phrase ‘Hence accordingly, gentlemen.’”6 It was Wilson’s task to pilot UC through the negotiations that culminated in university federation. Ever since the secularization of the University of Toronto, the Ontario government (Canada West until 1867) had been confronted with the problem of how to support the denominational colleges (Victoria, Trinity, St. Michael’s, et al.) as well as UC. The act of federation of 1887 laid the basis for the scheme that would eventually provide a solution. Wilson was endlessly suspicious of what he regarded as the designs of the church colleges, particularly Victoria, to erode the position of UC in the proposed federation. However, University College survived and so did Wilson, who remained as president until 1892. Wilson was an evangelical, a founder of Wycliffe College, but he was a strong believer in the secularization of education. He thought the churches should confine their activities to theological seminaries like Wycliffe and Knox, leaving education in science and the arts to the secular authorities.
Among the rest of the staff of UC were two notable scholars, George Paxton Young and Maurice Hutton. Hutton, who became professor of classical literature in 1880 and later principal of UC, was an eloquent exponent of the civilizing influence of classical studies. Cody recalled that he was “a lecturer of wonderful interest and possessed of the power of inspiring others in a marked degree” and that “he took an individual interest in his students, an obiter dicta on men, politics and world movements were always extremely stimulating.”7 Young, a great exponent of ethical idealism, will be discussed later.
W.J. Loudon, secretary of the class of 1880, provided a picture of student life in the period. He lived with his uncle, the dean of residence from 1867, and was himself an undergraduate