Northrop Fyre's Writings on Education

W.J. Keith is a retired professor of English at the University of Toronto and author A Sense of Style: Studies in the Art of Fiction in English-Speaking Canada.

A selection of essays by Northrop Frye entitled On Education was
published in 1988. Most of its contents are reproduced here, though a
few items have been reserved for other volumes in the series; the chosen
writings have been augmented by numerous other articles and speeches,
etc. (95 items in all) relating to educational matters and also to
schools and universities—especially Victoria College at the University
of Toronto, where Frye taught for over half a century.

The result is something of a mixed bag. The book begins rather lamely
with a number of the young Frye’s contributions to Acta Victoriana,
the college undergraduate magazine, in the 1930s. Besides showing an
enviable articulateness, these are unremarkable, but they soon give
place to solid, more mature writings that clearly and impressively
present Frye’s views on an awesome range of educational and academic
subjects. These views are consistently stimulating, even at times
provocative; they reflect the varied intellectual periods in which they
were expressed, but most of them have stood the test of time remarkably
well. On these subjects, Frye is often at his most accessible and
engaging.

Frye was the recipient of an extraordinary number of honorary degrees
in the course of his distinguished career, and many of his addresses to
convocation are included here, as well as installation speeches on
similar occasions. This inevitably means that, in the interests of
comprehensiveness, a good deal of repetition is involved, since Frye
understandably recycled standard accounts of his arguments. As a result,
this book is more rewarding when consulted for individual items than
when dutifully read from cover to cover. Fortunately, however, it is
well indexed, and readers can easily find their way to Frye’s views on
specific topics.

As usual, this volume has been expertly and sensibly edited, though I
did notice a missing footnote in the “Introduction to Design for
Learning.”