Illustration by Marley Allen-Ash
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My decision to take Professor Browne’s history class 44 years ago was about as random as drawing a name out of a hat for the office Christmas gift exchange. I had one class I needed to take to graduate. It had to be a night class because I had begun working full-time for a Member of Parliament. With few options for my history major, I reluctantly registered for a Wednesday night seminar on Confederation.
I had been a good but lazy student in high school. University was a rude awakening. There were people in my classes considerably smarter than anyone I had ever met and certainly smarter than me. With a propensity for partying, I remained a solid B and C student. Now I just wanted that diploma.
Professor Browne was a slight, bespectacled man with a hint of a British accent. He could have played an Oxford don in a 1950s movie. He always wore the same tweed jacket with patched elbows over a crisp white shirt with a stiff collar and skinny tie. He referred to us formally. I was Miss Switocz, which he pronounced correctly, first try. And he was demanding. Two major papers were required, as were weekly assignments called gobbets.
Professor Browne defined a gobbet as “the digestion of a tasty morsel.” In reality, it was a structured commentary on a text from a document, which in our case, related to The British North America Act of 1867. Professor Browne expected us to consult multiple primary sources (this was an upper-level history course, after all) and deduce the intention underlying the passage we were “digesting.” Every week our analytical skills were challenged, as were our abilities to express ourselves in the written word.
Each student had a different passage for their weekly gobbet, which they had to present orally to the class. We had to submit the written analysis, and he returned the tasty morsel the following week, full of red markings. Every grammar failure was corrected, many sentences were improved and our sloppy thinking was challenged, making us feel inadequate and insecure. The damn gobbets took over my life that term. I considered packing it in multiple times, but I needed the course to graduate.
Professor Browne was a well-regarded scholar of Canadian constitutional history. But he relished discussing grammar and language even more than the nation’s past. He was a self-proclaimed prescriptive grammarian whose bible was Fowler’s Dictionary of Modern English Usage. He referred to it often as the final authority on all written English.
Particularly passionate about the correct use of the semicolon, Professor Browne maintained the Supreme Court had misinterpreted the division of powers between the federal and provincial governments because they misunderstood the correct usage of this important punctuation mark in The British North America Act. According to him, our nation’s fate was altered by a semicolon.
A few weeks into the semester, we were invited to his apartment for a glass of wine after class. He lived in Centretown and 20 minutes later, we were comfortably ensconced in his book-filled living room that looked exactly like the Oxford University movie set he belonged on.
We were shocked to see the second bottle of red wine opened only 20 minutes after the first, then a third and a fourth. Each time he opened a new wine, we were asked about our wine preferences – not something lowly university students were accustomed to. A large piece of brie appeared. The discussion became more animated and before I knew it, several hours had passed. The others were still conversing when I left at around 3 in the morning. I had to be at work in a few short hours. I walked home through the deserted Ottawa streets and rolled into bed.
These soirées continued week after week. The only difference was that stilton sometimes replaced the brie. We were penniless students, thrilled to be plied with wine and cheese. We thought Professor Browne lived a monastic existence, his solitude broken only by his beloved students. That he was the quirkiest person I had ever met was confirmed one week when he let down his guard.
First, he brought out a box of identical wire-framed spectacles. Several frames had been well-worn, but there were just as many brand-new ones without lenses. It was his signature model, and he wanted enough to last his lifetime. Next came the detachable collars; he wore white shirts to which he affixed crisp white detachable collars. He demonstrated. So British, we thought. He showed us ten identical tweed jackets with patched elbows. Some were worn, some new.
And then came the clincher. He showed us items from his childhood, including a small tin bowl he still used to pour water over himself when he bathed. Miss Sorenson, the other female in the class, and I exchanged an uncomfortable glance. Too much information, but all we could do was nod and smile.
I had never worked harder. I sweated over every gobbet, sneaking in time to work on them during my office hours. I struggled over the final essay, completely stressed because I had spelled the word input as “imput” on the first essay – an embarrassing mistake I made more than once. I couldn’t even say it was a typo.
As stressed as I was about the work the course required, I came to look forward to the class, the late nights drinking wine, and the camaraderie I developed with my fellow students. I was awestruck that anyone could be so passionate about language and words.
When I received my grade at the end of the course, I was elated to receive my first A. I had measured up to Professor Browne’s expectations. It gave me enough confidence to apply to grad school and convince the department that although my grades were lacklustre, I was really an A student, and they should take a chance on me.
Six years later, Professor Browne was found dead in his apartment after he failed to show up for a class. He was 53, and we were shocked. The autopsy revealed he died of a heart attack, but we had our suspicions. One night he had told our little group that he had joined the newly formed secret Hemlock Society, an organization advocating assisted suicide. “No one would ever suspect,” he explained.
Our group held a few reunions in the years following our graduation, and whenever we met, we exchanged Professor Browne stories and our firm conviction that we had been his favourite class.
From Professor Browne, I learned to love language and the written word. I discovered the intense satisfaction of digging deep to produce my best. I developed a considerable fondness for the semicolon. And I never had another teacher like him.
Alice Switocz Goldbloom lives in Montreal.