historical plays ... I am going to try this summer to read all his plays. Don’t worry about your studies. Keep your health good by exercise, and as much as possible by riding drawing or playing. Write to me when you can.20
While Bryant advised wide reading and plenty of exercise, D.S. Smith, the classics master, took a different line in his letter of condolence. He advised more study in classics and spelled out a formidable list of readings in Latin. He also sent a Greek grammar “as a mark of personal esteem.”21
There is no record of how Harry applied these rather conflicting recommendations. No doubt he put the time in Embro to good advantage. This period may well have helped lay the groundwork for his subsequent brilliant career in English and the classics at university. He had already begun to acquire the background that later showed in his superb use of English and classical quotations in his sermons and speeches.
Mrs. Cody’s death probably drew Cody closer to his father at least for a time. There was never a serious breach between them personally, although Harry told Barbara that he had not seen eye to eye with his father. Nevertheless, his relations with Elijah continued to be mutually affectionate.22
Harry returned to Galt and to his grandparents’ home to resume his studies at the collegiate. He proposed to stay in Galt for two more years and wrote to his father on September 6, 1883, with this explanation:
I am in the form I wanted to be in last year namely the University Pass Matriculation form and have the same English and Mathematics as those who are trying to get a second class certificate, and have my Latin and Greek in the Senior Latin and Greek class. So I could go to the University next year [1884] in a pass course but I am too young and I want to go in an honours course. I am perfectly satisfied with my promotion.
There had been some changes in the staff. Smith, the classics master, had resigned, moving on to a post at the Ottawa Collegiate Institute. His farewell letter to Harry gave evidence of his high opinion of the young man: “I was looking forward to a very happy year of work in Galt – knowing that you would be back once more amongst us to stimulate both master and pupil with your eager mind as well as your excellent heart.”23
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
