The General Course in arts assumes that an integrated curriculum, even in so specialized a world as ours, is, up to a point, possible at the university level. The Honour Course, on the other hand, is based on the assumption than any genuine discipline can be used as a centre of knowledge, the radius of expansion from the centre being the student\u2019s responsibility. Either assumption is justifiable, but that of the Honour Course is perhaps closer to this age of intellectual pluralism. (\u201cThe Critical Discipline,\u201d CW 7, 113)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
I have been accused, if that is the word, of defending the Honour Course whenever I get a chance, and this is one more chance. I remain obstinately of the opinion that the Honour Course, with all its rigidity and built-in administrative absurdities, gave the best undergraduate training available on the North American continent, and the best teacher training for the instructor as well. (\u201cThe Beginning of the Word,\u201d CW 7, 540)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Other of Frye\u2019s judgments about the Honour Course can be found by following the entries in the index to Northrop Frye\u2019s Writings on Education <\/em>(CW 7).<\/p>\nHere\u2019s the way Mary Culley described the Honours course in English during the early 1950s:<\/p>\n
The Honours Course in English Language and Literature was arranged sequentially.\u00a0 In the first year we started out with Anglo\u2011Saxon up to the Middle Ages (Chaucer, Malory, the miracle plays); second year, the Elizabethan Age (Shakespeare, the Reformation, Milton); third year, the Age of Reason, the classicists, early Romanticism; fourth year, later Romantics, the Victorian Age, and early twentieth century.\u00a0 In each time period we took three or four English courses\u2013\u2013novels, drama, poetry, essays, plus parallel courses of the same period from Honours History, Honours Philosophy, and Honours French (or another language).\u00a0 Marvellous.\u00a0 (Letter of 7 June 1994)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
One of the attractions of the Honour Course for Frye was this notion of parallel courses, so that while students were studying medieval literature during their first year, they would be studying medieval history and medieval philosophy at the same time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
In response to Joe Adamson’s post: Frye\u2019s earliest defense of the Honour Course is in a piece he wrote for Acta Victoriana at the end of his fourth year at Victoria College:\u00a0 \u201cThe Pass Course: A Polemic.\u201d\u00a0 There he argues that one of the virtues of the Honour Course is that \u201cthe subjects are all […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[16,44],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8418","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bob-denham","category-education"],"yoast_head":"\n
Frye and the Honour Course - The Educated Imagination<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/2010\/02\/22\/frye-and-the-honour-course\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Frye and the Honour Course - The Educated Imagination\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"In response to Joe Adamson’s post: Frye\u2019s earliest defense of the Honour Course is in a piece he wrote for Acta Victoriana at the end of his fourth year at Victoria College:\u00a0 \u201cThe Pass Course: A Polemic.\u201d\u00a0 There he argues that one of the virtues of the Honour Course is that \u201cthe subjects are all […]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/2010\/02\/22\/frye-and-the-honour-course\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Educated Imagination\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2010-02-22T19:29:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2010\/02\/Students_at_Victoria_College_1910.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1041\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"745\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Bob Denham\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Bob Denham\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/2010\/02\/22\/frye-and-the-honour-course\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/2010\/02\/22\/frye-and-the-honour-course\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Bob Denham\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/#\/schema\/person\/f0d6833dfde3f2793ecbbc6aacd83812\"},\"headline\":\"Frye and the Honour Course\",\"datePublished\":\"2010-02-22T19:29:00+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/2010\/02\/22\/frye-and-the-honour-course\/\"},\"wordCount\":481,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/2010\/02\/22\/frye-and-the-honour-course\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"http:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2010\/02\/Students_at_Victoria_College_1910-300x214.jpg\",\"articleSection\":[\"Bob Denham\",\"Education\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/2010\/02\/22\/frye-and-the-honour-course\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/2010\/02\/22\/frye-and-the-honour-course\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/2010\/02\/22\/frye-and-the-honour-course\/\",\"name\":\"Frye and the Honour Course - 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