Fontanus - (E-Journal - McGill University)

-, -

Contributors 
Miles Blackwell, born in 1945, was educated at Winchester College, Hampshire, at the University of Paris and at 
ew College, Oxford. He joined the bookselling side of his family's business, B. H. Blackwell Ltd, which was 
founded in 1879, has travelled widely and has visited Canada continually since his first arrival in 1970. In 1983 he 
was made a Fellow by Special Election of St. Cross College, Oxford and in 1990 he was awarded the degree of 
Hon.D.Litt. honoris causa by Laurentian University, Ontario, Canada. He received ottingham Trent University's 
degree of Hon.D.Litt. in Social Administration awarded by the Southampton Institute in 1995. He is a member of 
the Council of the Navy Records Society and holds the Royal Warrant of Appointment as bookseller to the Queen. 
Bruce Dolphin is a Montrealer who has also lived in Winnipeg, in Morrisburg, Ontario, and various places in 
Britain . Employed by McGill Archives in records processing and finding-aid production, he is currently up-<lating 
the three-volume Guide (first published 1985) to the University's archival resources. Previously. he received a B.A. 
from Concordia (S.G.W.U.). taught high school in Iroquois, Ontario, and followed a McGill M.A. in History with 
three years of historical research in England and Wales as part of a Ph.D. programme. (A modicum of the results 
of the latter research supplement McGill's Hardinge Papers in the present anicle on the Wellington-Winchilsca 
duel.) It is the writer's intention to produce a book-length study of the romantic Tories of the Young England 
movement of the 1840s; and another on the character and course of British Ultra-Toryism from the formation of 
Wellington's government in 1828 to Peel's resignation over the repeal of the corn laws in 1846. 
Stanley Brice Frost joined McGill University is 1956 as Professor of Old Testament Languages and Literature and 
during the next two decades became intimately concerned with the administration and direction of the University. 
He was appointed Dean of the Faculty of Divinity in 1957, Dean of the Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research 
in 1963. and Vice Principal (Administration) in 1970. For ten years, he was chairman of the University Libraries 
Commiuce. amcd Dire(:tor of the History of McGill Project in 1974, he has been the moving spirit in the 
organization of the popular James McGill Society, serving first as its executive secretary and now as Honorary 
President. His publications include Old Testament Apocalyptic, 1952, Standing and Understanding, 1969 and the 
two volumes of the McGill history, 1980 and 1984. A biography of Cyril James was published in 1991 and James 
McGill of Montreal in September 1995. 
Robert H. Michel holds a doctorate from McGill University. He worked as archivist for historical records and 
reference services at the McGill University Archives from 1974 to 1995. He is a contributor to recent issues of 
Fomanus, with aniclcs on diaries at the McGill Archives; a seventeenth century religious romance; military portraits 
of Sir Anhur Currie; and (with Dr. Stanley Frost) Sir William Macdonald. Current research and writing projects 
include a study of seventeenth-century marriage theory. Continuing his archival work, he is a project archivist at 
the Canadian Centre for Architecture, Montreal. 
orbert Scboenaucr studied architecture in Budapest and Copenhagen before obtaining his M.Arch degree at 
McGill in 1959. A year later he joined the faculty of the School of Architecture and has been teaching, writing and 
practicing architecture ever since. In the early 1960s he won several architectural competitions in association with 
various colleagues, and in partnership with Maurice Desnoyers built several housing projects, including Fermont, 
a new town in northern Quebec. Published in ew York, his three-volume history book 6000 Years of Housing 
(1981) was translated into Spanish and Japanese. His most recent books are: History of Housing (1992), Cities, 
Suburbs, Dwellings (1994), and Arts & Crafts and Art Nouveau Dwellings (1996). Schoenauer is a Fellow of the 
Royal Architectural Institute of Canada (FRAIC). member of the Royal Canadian Academy of Ans (RCA), recipient 
of the ·Medaille du Merite 1995" from the Ordre des arehitectes du Quebec, and holds the title of William C. 
Macdonald Emeritus Professor of Architecture. 
Michael A. Whitehead, professor of chemistry, McGill University, 1975- ; Fellow, Royal Institute of Chemistry 
(UK); Fellow, Chemical Institute of Canada; President, James McGill Society (1993-95); Editor, Maces Spectrum, 
( 1993- ); author of numerous articles in theoretical and physical chemistry. 
154 
Contributors 
Donald A. Wright completed his B.A. at Mount Alii on University and his M.A. at McGill University. He is 
currently a doctoral candidate in history at the University of Ottawa. His dissertation is a study of the 
professionalization of history in English Canada, 1919-1945. 
155 


English

Contributors

Cartwright, Michael

Foreword 
Universities are inevitably places of intuitive topography. Students and instructors acquire, swiftly or slowly, a 
built-in mental map of those places where knowledge, together with those who profess it, are to be found. Offices, 
classrooms, laboratories are inscribed in our minds through a highly personalized order of space, time, chronology. 
In the interests of public accessibility (a political gesture of no mean importance) institutions of higher education, 
particularly those in North America, now render their workings more visible. Buildings are clearly labelled, maps 
are posted at main public entrances, guided tours direct the occasional visitor to the main sites of interest. 
Of course, libraries figure prominently in these maps, both private and public. Even an undergraduate of one 
week's standing can usually point out a building known as the Main Library. And at the risk of the now cardinal 
sin of elitism, it must also be said that the more modest the institution the more likely it is that the Main Library 
will indeed be a solitary edifice with its function displayed prominently upon its facade. 
For libraries, in the plural, and in their accepted anonymity, are perhaps the surest indicators of a university's 
mission, of the richness and the variety of its intellectual endeavours. 
This year McGill celebrates the 175th anniversary of its founding. We have campus maps and guided tours, and 
in a satisfying way those of us in the Humanities can point to the prominent fortress of McLennan and say, in a 
spirit of expediency, "There is The Library" . . . However, the longer we have been at McGill the more we know 
that our university houses a multiplicity of collections where the specialist and the intellectually curious can find 
more particular resources; often in haven of quiet and speedy reference. There are, in fact, no fewer than sixteen 
libraries and sub-libraries at McGill. All working with that brand of discreet diligence which manages to resist, Dieu 
soit lout, the deadening impersonality of Centralization. 
More particularly, and more remarkably, we have Fontanus, a journal of the McGill libraries, launched in 1988. 
Constant in editorial endeavour, comprehensive in scope. Not a mere information sheet but a remarkably elegant 
publication, abundantly illustrated, its every article annotated with rigorous detail. There is no publication of similar 
calibre to be found anywhere else in Canada. Furthermore, the energies which gave it birth have been able to launch 
a series of extended monographs, all based upon the resources and the personalities which go hand in hand in 
maintaining McGill's intellectual eminence. 
This 175th anniversary edition of Fontanus is indeed a sure testimony to McGill's place in the international spirit 
of excellence which motivates the Academy, simply and at its best. 
Michael Cartwright 
DCpartement de langue et 1ittCrature fran~aises 
Fontanus IX 1996 


Foreword

McKnight, David

Notes and Comments 
Notes 
1. C. Paul Petersen is the form of listing found for all his entries in LovellS Montreal Directory. 
2 .  Biographical information supplied by his son Ole Petersen from an interview on Februaly 13, 1996. 
3. Idem. 
4. Information supplied by former Vice-Principal (Academic) Eigil Pedersen, October 15, 1995. 
5. Idem. 
6. Montreal Gazene, July 5, 1994. 
In Their Own Write: An Exhibition Celebrating 175 Years of McGill Authorship 
By David McKnight 
Reference Librarian, McLennan Library 
In her 1991 essay "A Torch for All Time" Carol Martin remarks: "Study, analysis, and research-the desire to 
push back, bit by bit, the frontiers of knowledge. These are the forces that lie at the heart of every great 
university. " I  Although it was not apparent 175 years ago that McGill would, in time, evolve into a great university, 
history has judged otherwise. 
Indeed, as the 19th century drew to a close, McGill had emerged as an institution with great promise due to the 
efforts of the "Three Williams:" William Dawson, Sir William Osler, and Sir William Peterson. Each in their own 
way played key roles in laying the foundation of McGill as a world-class university. As the second Millennium 
draws to a close the record of scholarly achievement is now secure. And yet, one thing is constant since James 
McGill set in motion the founding of the Royal Institution for the Advancement of Learning in 1821, then as now, 
the institution now know as McGill University is beset with new challenges which strike to the very core of its 
existence. 
One of the current key issues is how McGill will adapt to the global information revolution which is manifestly 
changing the essence of scholarly communication. Scholarly communication is, of course, the matrix of print 
documents-learned journals, proceedings, and the books, which have sewed as the primary media of expression 
for researchers and scholars since the rise of the modem research university at the end of the last century. 
Certainly it is too early to judge what the long term effects of electronic publishing will have upon the university 
community. Just as the spread of printing throughout Europe at the end of the 15th century gradually replaced hand- 
lettered books, electronic books and journals may in time become the primary medium for the transmission of 
knowledge rendering the printed word rarefied or quaintly antique. As for the immediate future, it is doubtful that 
scholars and researchers will soon abandon the ritual and necessity of scholarly publishing which is integral not only 
to the creation of new knowledge, but also the means of measuring and advancing academic careers. 
This latter concern, the advancement of an academic career, is today commonly referred to as the 'publish or 
perish' syndrome. Since mid-century scholarly publication has been a major component in the tenure granting system 
and has been the proliferation of scholarly journals and monographs despite the appearance of counter-trends which 
include the high cost of journals and monographs, and the shrinkage of public funding for academic presses. The 
impact has been felt in the arts as well as the sciences. 
On the occasion of McGill's 175th anniversary the Humanities and Social Sciences Library is going to celebrate 
the printed book. Drawing from its various collections, an exhibition will be held to highlight some of the great, 
enduring and curious books published by McGill professors, scholars and graduates during the university's long and 
distinguished history. The number and variety of works published by McGill authors is such that works of poetry 
Notes and Comments 
and fiction have been included in the exhibition. 
In honour of the 175th anniversary, McGill's Osler Library of the History of Medicine will also mount an 
exhibition. The Humanities and Social Sciences Library exhibition conscientiously displays both authorial creativity 
and the book as objet d'art. In keeping with the spirit of the University the exhibition is decidedly multidisciplinary. 
Works from the sciences, medicine, law, humanities and social sciences are represented. They represent in their 
totality the forces which define two of the intellectual cornerstones of this university: research and publication. 
The exhibits are divided into three groupings: 1) Advancement of Learning, 2) Researches, 3) The Pattern of 
Research. The first section examines books published between 1845 and 1900, the second includes works published 
from 1901 to 1971, and the third section covers works which have appeared since 1972. The titles of the second 
and third sections are derived from a list of published "researches" by McGill professors and librarians which 
appeared at the turn of the century in an appendix to the McGill University Annual Report. By 1971 the number 
of scholarly publications had grown to such an extent that it was decided to issue the listing of McGill authored 
publications under a separate title: The Pattern of Research. The first volume appeared in 1972. 
Over 40 authors are represented in the exhibition, among whom are names most often associated with 
McGill-Sir William Osler, Ernest Rutherford and Stephen Leacock. Indeed, given the rich holdings of Osler and 
Leacock material one could devote an entire exhibition to these individuals alone. Other notables include McGill 
principals: William Dawson, Sir William Peterson, and F. Cyril James. Well-represented are the members of the 
influential McGill Movement, consisting of A.J.M. Smith, F.R. Scott, Leon Edel, and John Glassco. Of the four, 
Scott was the only member who remained at McGill to pursue a distinguished career in the Law Faculty. The others 
are no less remarkable for their contributions to literary scholarship and letters. Another notable McGill author is 
Hugh MacLennan who began his 30-year association with McGill in 1951. 
The earliest book on display is Joseph Abbott's Philip Musgrave published in 1845, the most recent work is Yvan 
Lamonde's biography of 19th century liberal and anti-clerical seigneur, Louis-Antoine Dessaules. Among the more 
unusual works in the exhibition is that written by R.M. Bucke. Bucke graduated from McGill's medical school in 
1862. In 1877, he fell under the influence of the American poet Walt Whitman. The result of this meeting was an 
enduring friendship between Bucke and Whitman and the publication in 1901 of Bucke's Cosmic Consciousness. 
The book remains in print today. 
A book with an unusual publishing history is John Clark Murray's The Industrial Kingdom of God. Although the 
work was completed in manuscript in 1887 it was not published until 1981. Born in Scotland, Murray was appointed 
professor of logic at McGill in 1872. Murray remains little-known today and his major philosophical work was 
published almost a century after its completion. Within the context of McGill, he is best remembered for engaging 
Principal Dawson in an emotional and vituperous debate concerning the education of women at McGill. Dawson 
held the view that women should be educated in a separate college; Murray, in contrast, believed in co-education. 
Dawson's view prevailed. Of course, McGill has produced a number of notable women authors, among them Maud 
Abbott, Margaret Gillett and Anne Carson. 
In another 175 years, no doubt, this note will appear in digital format and praise the electronic words written 
by McGill scholars, with faint mention of the printed books which have played an important role in advancing the 
careers of the many McGill authors during its first 175 years. It also pays homage to the printed objects which serve 
as the artifacts of record which reveal the human mind and imagination as expressed in the works written by men 
and women associated with McGill University 'in their own write.' 
Notes 
1 .  Martin, Carol. "A Torch for All Time." In McGill: A Celebration. Montreal: McGill-Queen's Press, 1991, p. 103. 


In Their Own Write: An Exhibition Celebrating 175 Years of McGill Authorship

Michel, Robert H.

Notes and Comments 
An Archival Testament: the Papers of Sir William Dawson 
By Robert H. Michel 
Project Archivist, Canadian Centre for Architecture 
A Biography at Last 
Coinciding fortunately with McGill's celebration of its 175th year, McGill-Queen's University Press has 
published the first, full scale, scholarly biography of Sir William Dawson (1820-1899), McGill's chief architect and 
Principal from 1855 to 1893: John William Dawson: Faith, Hope and Science by Professor Susan Sheets-Pyenson. 
Historians of McGill, Stanley Frost and Margaret Gillett and historians of science such as Suzanne Zeller, Charles 
O'Brien and many others have described Dawson's critical role in the development of McGill, geology, museums, 
and scientific networks but Sheets-Pyenson's book is the first since the publication of Dawson's autobiography in 
1901 to bring us back to the man himself-Canada's eminent Victorian, driven as her subtitle suggests by "faith, 
hope and science." Dawson combined several careers into one: scientist, religious controversialist, University 
Principal, advocate of Protestant English education in Quebec, and tireless paterfamilias as well. Sheets-Pyenson 
offers a thorough, inspired, scientific and personal biography of the Principal who built McGill up from the little 
college with a Medical Faculty he found in 1855 to Canada's premier university by the time he retired in 1893. She 
portrays a researcher forced to become an administrator who performed both functions well but never achieved quite 
what he wanted--especially the reconciliation of Scripture with geology and palaeontology. 
The author draws attention to how much her biography depends on archives-from bills and scribbles to letters 
from other scientists, pointing out that while Dawson's thought may be studied through his publications, knowledge 
of the man himself depends on the thousands of letters and writings he and his wife and children carefully 
preserved. She declares that the richness of Dawson's archive allowed her to expand her originally-intended 
scientific biography into a full one covering personal and family life. Confirming to some extent the theories of 
biography advanced by Leon Edel and others, she notes that biographers bring their own lives and concerns to bear 
on their accounts of their subjects' lives; she observes that she became more interested in Dawson's family and 
economic concerns as she herself changed and brought up her children over the decade she worked on the book. 
While she occasionally speculates as to Dawson's motives (though never wildly), she mainly holds to the hard core 
of Victorian facts. ' 
This fine biography also provides an occasion to examine how personal papers advance knowledge. Unlike 
institutional records, private papers need not be kept permanently for legal or administrative reasons. Yet they can 
become their creator's intellectual testament and contribution to the future.* By preserving his papers Dawson made 
his biography possible. And the preservation of the papers of Dawson's wife and children lets us study Dawson and 
other family members in greater depth and in relation to one another. 
Constant Writer and Record Keeper 
Dawson carefully kept his papers for the future, arranged them, and mounted some of them in albums intended 
for his own reference and his family's enjoyment and edification. They contain such things as his letter of 
appointment to McGill, wedding memorabilia, and sketches of the Nova Scotia countryside where he grew up. He 
probably referred back to his papers and albums when writing his autobiography. At first one is surprised that this 
introspective Victorian did not keep a diary to take stock of his life and to record events. It seems likely that he 
simply did not have the time. Always busy, he published several hundred articles and nearly two dozen books; he 
preferred to devote his writing energy to getting into print. 
Figure I .  J.W. Dawson, from Daguerrotype, c. 1846. 
(J.W. Dawson's album of drawings. McGill University Archives) 
Figure 2. J. W. Dawson, pencil sketch by Miss Brooks, 1885. 
Verso annotated: "To the father of stones with compliments of M. 
Brooks." (McGill University Archives) 
Notes and Comments 
Dawson's papers reveal that, whatever his activity, he was an obsessive note taker. He wrote quickly and 
illegibly, often in pocket sized booklets; he made sketches of specimens, strata, Egyptian antiquities and fossils 
(some developed by engravers into illustrations for his books). He scribbled and kept for reference firsts drafts or 
copies of correspondence-he was his own camera and Xerox machine. He was always writing, according to his 
grand-daughter, Clare H a r r i n g t ~ n . ~  
The immense amount of writing that Dawson did helped him keep his busy life and innumerable projects under 
control. His surviving papers are a witness to his concern for details and effective "time management." His daughter 
Anna remembered how he kept lists of things to be done: 
He always was an early riser, usually downstairs by 7 [o'clock] & doing a great deal of his daily 
correspondence before 8 [o'clock] breakfast.. .he was very systematic & regular in his habits & never seemed 
to put off anything. It was the secret of his never neglecting little things, that he always attended to them at 
once .... He always kept a memo book & every engagement was noted in it that he had. if this book was 
missing it was a calamity, and we all flew to assist in the search for it. 
The Autobiography 
Dawson wrote his autobiography (perhaps long planned) in the last years of his life. Published as Fifry Years of 
Work in Canada (1901), it was his tally of achievements and failures; a summing up. The Dawson archive 
exemplifies how the accumulation of private papers (less compulsory than the creation and keeping of institutional 
records) gains a new life and purpose as a research source. While most people save their letters and bills for their 
own reference, with no larger purpose in mind, one suspects that Dawson with his faith in the progress of 
discoverable knowledge knew his letters and scientific and educational notes (like his publications) would have value 
in the future-for his own autobiography perhaps and for his family and others. He may have had the same motive 
for keeping his papers as for writing his autobiography: 
It has been truly said, that the story of any human being, has its lessons either of encouragement or of 
warning. I make no apology therefore for preparing the sketches that follow,-more especially as many of 
them refer to persons and events of much more importance than what pertains to myself individually.. . . They, 
will, in any case, I trust, be of some interest to my children and grandchildren, and perhaps to others who 
may have been influenced by my t e a ~ h i n g . ~  
It is surprising that after Dawson died in 1899 no biography appeared, except in obituaries. Dawson had 
completed his autobiography, however. Though it contained moving phrases about his life here and there, it lacked 
drama and failed to convey Dawson's great achievements. Much of it bogged down into detail about research and 
congresses or quoted previously published addresses. Lady Dawson, and the children Anna, George and Rankine 
wrangled for months over what use to make of the autobiography and whether it would be preferable to publish 
instead a biography by a historian; they mentioned McGill Professor Charles Colby as a possibility. Finally, 
Rankine, opposed by George, fulfilled his father's charge to look after the autobiography and published it in 1901.6 
The Archival Stage 
Sir William Dawson's private papers (including papers of other family members such as geologist George Mercer 
Dawson and son-in-law Bernard Harrington) came to McGill in two major phases: the Harrington children gave a 
large collection of Dawson's scientific and family correspondence to the McGill Library in the 1920s and Lois 
Winslow-Spragge, a grand-daughter, gave the McGill University Archives more of Dawson's and other family 
Notes and Comments 
papers in the 1960s and 1970s. The concern of the Dawson and Harrington families for preserving their papers and 
making them available to scholars at McGill has shaped the way we see nineteenth-century Canadian science. 
Concurrent with the boom in Canadian history in the 1970s and 1980s, the papers were heavily consulted for a 
multitude of projects -to cite just two: Suzanne Zeller's Inventing Canada and Cynthia Fish's doctoral thesis on 
Montreal fatherhood.' Judging by their usage, the Dawson Papers are probably McGill's most important holding 
of unpublished private papers+ertainly the most important for Canadian scientific h i~ to ry .~  
From about 1970 to the mid-1980s, the McGill Archives described and indexed Dawson's papers against a 
background of rapidly changing descriptive standards and technology. As well the papers, which originally came 
in dozens of accessions, were physically arranged into a unified archival fonds. The McGill Department of Rare 
Books and Special Collections cooperated in the effort to describe the papers globally and make them available at 
one site by turning its Dawson papers over to the Archives. In a series of projects, the 1970s multilith item-level 
listings of isolated groups of letters were superseded in the 1980s by computer-assisted indexes to virtually all the 
Dawson family  paper^.^ Though earlier finding aids became outdated, each generation of them helped guide 
researchers to what they needed in the ten linear metres of Dawson's papers. 
Undiscovered Dawson 
Dawson's written testament started early in his life, in his native Pictou, Nova Scotia. Except for Stanley Frost's 
article on Dawson's courtship letters to his future wife Margaret Mercer, his youthful writing, before 1845, has 
rarely been examined.'' Dawson studied at renowned Pictou Academy, spent a year at Edinburgh and then ran his 
father's book and stationary business. His writings at this time reflect his reading and his study of the rocks, wild 
life and flora around Pictou. The seed of all that would follow is evident in the papers that survive from this period. 
Dawson collected and wrote compulsively from the age of fifteen or so; the Archives contain notes and essays which 
he may have done while a student at Pictou Academy, or perhaps served as the basis of lectures to the Pictou 
Literary Society and to Pictou Academy in his late teens and twenties. By 1836, when he was sixteen, Dawson's 
handwriting had sped to illegibility. He probably kept his early essays for their continuing usefulness and may have 
recycled some for lectures and teaching in Montreal. Subjects included: snow crystals (with folded paper geometric 
examples); caterpillars; moths and spiders; Indian antiquities; "speculations on the limits of science"; "Notes on 
Some of the Birds of Nova Scotia"; "Zoological Changes Produced by Cultivation"; linguistics; entomology; and 
local coal mining. He had the awe of nature found in romantic landscapes of the time. He absorbed advanced ideas 
on the preservation of the earth's ecology. Although he became in many ways a scientific and social conservative 
in his later years, the young Dawson of Pictou had a creative concern for nature that was as poetic as it was 
scientific. In an essay on "The Forest" (perhaps aged 16, ca. 1836?), referring to the clearing of Nova Scotia for 
farming and timber sales, he wrote about the land as a living thing, threatened far more by man than by natural 
catastrophes: 
The wild chaos of barren rocks and mountains, shining in the summer's sun, or wreathed with the clouds and 
battered with the storms of winter, . . . display nature in her sterner forms, grandly but terribly. .... Such and 
more is the forest but man the great spoiler of nature's beauty.. .wars against the woods. The noble trees the 
growth of centuries, are destined to fall before the puny arms of a being that seems but a reptile at their feet. 
And faster and more surely do they rush to destruction before the desolating fire that, his carelessness creates 
and his feeble efforts cannot arrest-flames that hiss and crackle as they curl around the lofty trees that seem 
to writhe in agony beneath them, and rush insatiably forward converting luxuriant beauty into the blackness 
of desolation and leaving the bare scathed trunks stretching their gnarled and blasted branches to the sky-the 
ruins of the forest." 
Notes and Comments 
Dawson's early writing was relatively free of reference to scripture; his love of nature became all the more 
formidable once fortified by his rather fundamentalist religion. At all ages, he investigated everything that interested 
him, took notes and kept them, for publication or contemplation. He wrote his modest autobiography as his last 
work and in the fullness of time received, in Sheets-Pyenson, the biographer he may have hoped for. Shown here 
are two drawings which convey the long journey that his papers document-ne of the thin young man, about to 
marry at twenty-six and run a book store in Pictou (1846); the other as Canada's premier scientist and university 
Principal, aged sixty-five (1885), worrying that he was losing his battle against Darwinism and Catholic 
obscuranticism but proud of his publications, his family, and his university, McGill. As the University takes stock 
of itself after 175 years, it can be proud of its guardianship of these and many other records of Canada's heritage, 
given to it in trust, for the advancement of learning. 
Notes 
1. Susan Sheets-Pyenson, John William Dawson: Faith, Hope, and Science, McGill-Queen's University Press, Montreal, 1996, pp. 9-11. 
2. Dawson's administrative records as Principal (as opposed to his private papers) were found by University Archivist John Andreassen in the 
late 1960s, in the Arts Building, in tin boxes, folded up into bundles. Part of the official administrative records of McGill, they reveal Dawson's 
involvement in every level of University administration. Like Dawson's private papers, these records have been extensively mined: by Stanley 
Frost and Margaret Gillen and their assistants for histories of McGill, and by hundreds of others, including McGill students studying the history 
of Montreal institutions under Prof. Brian Young. 
3 .  Sheets-Pyenson, John William Dawson, p. 11. 
4. Anna Dawson Harrington, biographical notes on Sir William Dawson (probably prepared to assist George or Rankine Dawson, ca. 1900, pp. 
4-5. McGill University Archives, Dawson Papers, MG 1022, C 64 (punctuation and cross-outs edited). 
5. John William Dawson, F@y Years of Work in Canada, London, 1901, vii-viii. 
6. See Sheets-Pyenson, John William Dawson, pp. 207-21 1. The published autobiography, as Sheets-Pyenson notes, differs from the incomplete 
MSS draft in the McGill Archives (Dawson Papers, MG 1022, C 22). The extent to which Rankine rephrased it is unclear. 
7.  Suzanne Zeller, Inventing Canada, Toronto, 1987; Cynthia Fish, "Images and Reality of Fatherhood: a Case Study of Montreal's Protestant 
Middle Class 1870-1914", Ph.D., McGill, 1991. 
8. When I applied in 1974 for a job as archivist in the McGill Archives, I had just returned from doing research in England on marriage in the 
seventeenth century for my (eventual) McGill Ph.D. The then University Archivist, John Andreassen, blew cigar smoke at me and growled: 
"Why does the History Department send a guy like you to England when we have something like the Dawson Papers right here in McGill's 
Archives?" He was at the high point of collecting and issuing near-print listings of Dawson's letters as Principal, as well as some of the family 
and scientific correspondence, and could not understand how historians could pass them by in favour of the overworked archives and thesis topics 
of Europe. He need not have worried; the study of Canadian history was surging forward and by the mid-1970s. Dawson's papers began to be 
used extensively. 
9. In the 1980s, the McGill Archives produced an in-house computer-assisted author/recipient/date index to its holdings of the scientific and 
family correspondence and papers of J.W. Dawson and various family members (R. Craig, editor). In the later 1970s. a computer-assisted index 
to Dawson's records as Principal (with subject fields) was produced with the help of Stanley Frost's History of McGill Project (L. Vardi and 
J. King, editors). Published in 1992 was Susan Sheets-Pyenson, ed., Index to the Scient~pc Correspondence of John William Dawson (BSHS 
Monograph 7). British Society for the History of Science, 1992; while this index does not cover Dawson's correspondence with family and the 
papers of other family members, it includes J.W. Dawson letters held outside McGill. 
10. Stanley Frost, "A Transatlantic Wooing," Dalhousie Review 58 (1978), pp. 458-470. 
11. "The Forest", Dawson Papers, MG 1022, C 25, folder 3.  


An Archival Testament: the Papers of Sir William Dawson

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lllustrations 
Photocopies of visual material (with brief captions) must be submitted by authors for initial evaluation. Once an 
article has been accepted, the author is responsible for supplying clear black and white glossy photos and for 
securing the permission to publish copyright material if necessary. 
Fonranus is published each calendar year. Articles submitted before December 15 are eligible for consideration for 
the following year's issue. Authors will have the opportunity to review their manuscripts after editing has been 
completed. 
159 


Guidelines for Authors

Frost, S.B.

"Much Given to Reading": a Literary Footnote on James McGill

Johnston, David L.

Blackwell, Miles

The Legacy of Peter Redpath

Möller, Hans

T H E S E S ,  
DISSERTATION1 DANICB DE NOTIONE IRONIB 
AD JURA MAGISTRI AR'I'IUM 
IN U N I V E I W T A T E  IIAFNLENSI RITE OBTINENUA 
Scvcrinus Aabye Kicrkcgllartl, 
ll~col. cantl. 
llbgivet for 2Rngipergroben 
Figure 1. On the Concept of Irony. 
Kierkegaard's disseratation for a Master's degree, University of Copenhagen, 1841. By special dispensation from the King, Kierkegaard was 
permitted to submit the thesis in Danish rather than in Latin. Only the title page is in both Latin and Danish. 
(Malantschuk-Kierkegaard Collection. Department of Rare Books and Special Collections) 
Notes and Comments 
A Danish Collection at McGill 
By Hans Moller 
Research and Development Librarian 
McGill Library Collections include many unique and special collections rich in early materials not found 
elsewhere. In fact, the collections, are among the oldest in Canada. While ours is no longer the biggest book 
collection in Canada, it does have depth since it was started back in the 19th century. McGill has outstanding 
collections in biology and ornithology, art and architecture, Islamic studies, the history of medicine, British history 
and government documents, and it also supports a fine rare book collection. These are only some of McGill's unique 
collections of great quality. 
The richness of these collections is easily overlooked in the daily struggle to accommodate budget restrictions, 
deal with the rising cost of books and sift through the proliferation of printed materials from all over the world. One 
interesting and little known collection at McGill is that of Scandinavian literature, in particular Danish literature. 
Although not large, it is significant even though McGill has no Department of Scandinavian Studies. However, the 
study of Scandinavian culture is included as a part of study and research in many faculties, such as Arts, Music, 
Medicine, Education, Law, Architecture and Science. The Scandinavian material in these areas are collected in both 
English and French and in the Scandinavian languages as well, since most scholars who have an interest in Nordic 
topics know enough of the languages to orient themselves when consulting this literature. The fact is that 
publications from Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland and Iceland are numerous and typically of very high quality. 
It has been said for instance, that in Finland and Iceland almost everybody with respect for him--a herself has 
written and published a book of poetry! Literacy in all Scandinavian countries is very high and the publication of 
books is simply staggering considering the modest size of these countries. 
During the last 15 years McGill's Department of German Studies has been offering courses in the learning of 
the Danish language. As a result more and more students have a knowledge of Danish. This goes hand in hand with 
new efforts to enrich the Scandinavian library collections, especially the Danish collections, in the humanities and 
social sciences fields. Traditionally, McGill concentrated its collections development in English translations of Ibsen, 
Strindberg, Kierkegaard and a few other major authors. Other authors were only collected at random and hardly 
ever in any of the five Scandinavian languages. Topics such as linguistics, architecture, fine arts and history were 
very poorly represented. This changed dramatically during the 1980's and 1990's. Many works are now acquired 
in Swedish, Norwegian and especially Danish. In fact, the Scandinavian collections are now quite respectable and, 
probably, the best in Canada. 
The unique Kierkegaard Collection acquired in 1980 from Dr. Gregor Malantschuk, a Kierkegaard expert in 
Copenhagen, was a major acquisition. This is a remarkable collection of first editions of all Kierkegaard's works 
published during his lifetime (Fig. 1) in addition to a complete reconstruction of his private library of books in 
exactly the very editions he owned himself at the time of his death 1855. Over 20 of these are in fact the original 
copies from his library with his own signature or dedications to him from the authors. A detailed analysis of this 
McGill collection remains to be done. The Malantschuk-Kierkegaard Collection with its 1000 volumes represents 
one of the best and most valuable in the world outside of Denmark. A printed catalogue has been published and is 
still available from the Office of the Director of Libraries.' 
The collection of Danish literature classics has been greatly enriched during the last 15 years with the addition 
of hundreds of titles by authors such as Ludvig Holberg (1684-1754), Hans Christian Andersen (1805-1875), Georg 
Brandes ( 1842-1 927), Herman Bang (1 857-1912), Johannes V. Jensen (1 873- l95O), Karen Blixen, (alias Isak 
Dinesen) (1885-1962), Piet Hein (Gruk) (1905-1996), Benny Andersen (1929- ), Peter Hsegh and many 
Figure 2. Cover illustration by Quint Buchholtz. A best-seller translated into several languages. 
132 
contemporary novelists and poets (Fig. 2). The McLennan collection also contains numerous editions of Ludwig 
Holberg, father of Norwegian and Danish literature, including the four-volume Holherg Dictionary. Hans Christian 
Andersen, is collected extensively in several editions including the recently acquired, complete and critical edition 
of his Evenly in seven volumes. 
Old Norse literature including the Older and Younger Edda as well as the famous Icelandic Fanlily Sagas are 
well represented in both scholarly and popular editions. A remarkable item within this collection is the complete 
full-size photo reproduction in folio of the unique Icelandic medieval manuscripts, Corpus Codicum Islandicorum 
Mediiaevi (20 volumes) published in Copenhagen from 1930 to 1956 by Einar Munksgaard. These are kept in the 
Department of Rare Books and Special Collections while three additional editions are held in the McLeman open 
stacks. 
Major works on the History of Scandinavian Literature by well-known contemporary scholars such as F. 
Billeskov Jansen, P.M. Mitchell, Erik Dal and Svend Rossel are kept in the McLennan Library. Works on art and 
architecture are found in the Blackader-Lauterman Library of Architecture and Art. Among these are Trap 
Kongeriget Danmark (10 volumes), a complete topographical description of Denmark (1920), and Danske Slotte og 
Herregaarde (Castles and Manor Houses in Denmark) (20 volumes) by Aage Roussell. 
Major Danish reference works are now part of the McGill collections, namely Ordbog over det Danske Sprog 
(28 volumes), a scholarly dictionary of the Danish Language Det Danske Sprogs Historie (History of the Danish 
Language) (4 volumes) by Peter Skantrup, Dansk Biograjisk Leksikon (16 volumes) a dictionary of Danish 
biography. These reference works are complemented by the annual Danish Who's Who, Kraks BM Bog, and several 
specialized Danish bibliographies. These titles are found in the McLeman Reference collection of the McLennan 
Library. Of historical interest are complete sets of late 19th century Danish encyclopedias and general reference 
works, in addition to multi-volume works dealing with inventions and technology from the turn of the century. Other 
materials may be found in the collections of other McGill libraries, especially those within the subject areas of 
music, marine biology, glaciology, geology (notably related to Greenland and the Arctic), and the health sciences. 
One special collection, recently donated to the Department of Rare Books and Special Collections, concentrates 
on the Danish Resistance during World War I1 including the 1943 Rescue of Danish Jews, a topic now much 
discussed and researched by social scientists in Canada and the USA. This collection also includes samples of 
underground illegal newspapers distributed during the Nazi occupation of Denmark (1940-45) as well as books and 
photographs. 
Another unique acquisition, that of silverware crafted by Danish craftsman Carl Poul Petersen, is described in 
the above note by Conrad Graham. 
The Danish collection is housed in several libraries and is not concentrated in one location. Consequently, it 
serves students and scholars in diverse faculties, not only the Scandinavian Studies courses given by the Department 
of German. A solid foundation has been secured. Most recent materials have been acquired through generous 
donations rather than from the McGill book budget. Such donations have come from the Royal Library in 
Copenhagen, the Royal Danish Embassy in Ottawa and from many generous individuals and Danish family estates 
in Canada. 
Notes 
1. Catalogue of the Gregor Malantschuk-Swen Kierkegaard CoUection in the Department of Rare Books and Special Collections. Montreal: 
McGill University Libraries. 1984. 112 pp. 


A Danish Collection at McGill

Front cover

Fontanus Publications 
FONTANUS (journal) 
v.1 1988 
v.2 1989 
v.3 1990 
v.4 1991 
v .5 1992 Montreal 350th Anniversary Issue 
v .6 1993 Redpath Issue 
v. 7 1994 Stephen Leacock Issue 
v.8 1995 Women in the University Issue 
v. 9 1996 McGill I 75th Anniversary Issue 
FONTA:-IUS MONOGRAPH SERIES 
Adam Gacek, Arabic Manuscripts in the Libraries of McGill University, Union Caralogue, 1991 
II Calvin Evans, Soren Kierkegaard Bibliographies: Remnants 1944-1980 and Multi-Media, 1925-1991, 1993 
III Barbara Lawson, Collected Curios: Missionary Tales from the South Seas, 1994 
IV John Hobbins, On the Edge of Greatness: The Diaries of Jolm Humphrey, First Director of the Unired Narions 
Division of Human Rights, Vol. 1. 1948-1949, 1994 
V Max Dunbar, Essays from a Ufe: Scotland, Canada. Greenland, Denmark, 1995 
VI Alberto Perez-G6mez and Louise Pelletier, Anamorphosis: An Annotated Bibliography with Special Reference 
to Architectural Representation, 1995 
VII Adam Gacek, Arabic Lithographed Books in the Islamic Studies Library, McGill University, Descriptive 
Cara/ogue, 1996 
VIII Irena Zantovska Murray. Sources in Iconography in the Blackader-Lawemwn Library of Architecture and Art, 
McGill University, An Annotated Bibliography, 1996 
IX John Hobbins, On The Edge ofGreamess: The Diaries of John Humphrey, FirsT Director of the United Nations 
Division of Human Rights, Vol. 2, 1950-1951, 1996 
X Joan C. Bevan and Maria A. Pacelli, The Quintessential Canadian Anaesthetist: Wesley Bourne. A 
ReTrospecTive on the FoundaTions of McGill Anesthesia, 1996. 
Orders may be placed at: 
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