ABSTRACT
When Kolnai was well enough to travel to Quebec and take up his post he was, for the first time in his life, in receipt of a regular salary “earned by a fairly estimable activity more or less in keeping with my real interests”. 1 This “civic birth”, as he called it, was highly gratifying. The actual teaching duties were by no means unusually onerous, and Kolnai was at first regarded as a half-timer. He was primarily employed as an Assistant Professor to teach the history of post-Scholastic philosophy to a mixed group of graduates and final year undergraduates for two hours a week. Since he felt he knew very little of renaissance thought this involved him in a good deal of preparatory reading. He also had to give a one and a halfhour seminar on Saturday afternoons to the same group, and chose the theme “Utopias and the idea of Progress in early modem times”. In November, Charles DeKoninck, the Professor and Dean of philosophy, persuaded the authorities to increase his salary from $ 1,500 to $ 2,500, since it was obvious that he was giving the whole of his time to his teaching and related studies. The following year he also had to lecture on the same theme to junior undergraduates, making 4 hours in all, and DeKoninck managed to get him paid a further $500. The one-month summer school in July, which Kolnai also taught during the early years, brought in some additional pay. Annual increments would bring the salary up to $4,000.
