Valedictory Address

“University of New Brunswick Valedictory for Class of 1932 Delivered by J. Herbert Smith” Daily Gleaner (12 May 1932). (UA Case 68, Box 2)

The task of saying “Farewell” on behalf of the Class of 1932 of University of New Brunswick fell to J. Herbert Smith, Electrical Engineer, of Fredericton. The Valedictorian, although of necessity following the line of other valedictory addresses, struck out on new branches and made some excellent suggestions. He spoke as follows:

For three years now, Encaenia has meant merely the beginning of another vacation, but this year it has a significance that we have never really appreciated before. It means the severing of old friendships, the start of new occupation, and for many of us our first taste of financial independence with its added responsibilities.

We have been fortunate in being enrolled in the university at the time of perhaps its greatest development. Three new buildings have been constructed and placed in operation during the past four years, the faculty had been enlarged, and the scope of some of the courses has been widened by the addition of several new elective subjects.

The past year has been marked by an increase of interest in student affairs. Important reform in the student government of the college have been proposed during this last term and it is expected that the coming year will see many changed in the method of controlling our student affairs.

New Student Societies

In keeping with the expansion of the university along these lines several new student societies have been formed in the past year. The science students now have a society where they meet at regular intervals to discuss the latest developments in biology, chemistry, and physics. The Pre-Medical Society and the Arts club serve the same purpose in the medical and the philosophic field respectively. In addition to these new societies the Engineering Society and the Forestry Association still carry on a similar task in their respective fields. These societies need and deserve the support of every student at the university who has any interest in the profession that he is studying for. Their greatest value lies in providing for the student an opportunity to receive practical experience in public speaking on technical subjects.

Weekly Publication

The past college year also saw the beginning of the new weekly newspaper. The university has grown to such an extent that it is difficult for a student to keep in touch with all its different activities, but the weekly, by presenting all the news of the college interests, the undergraduate, in the entire work of the university, and thereby places his own work in proper perspective. A newspaper keeps the graduates in close touch with all the happenings at the college hence retaining their active interest for a longer time. The chief criticism has been the apparent neglect of the literary side in comparison with the old monthly Brunswickan. The new paper is willing in fact, anxious to publish any article or poems of literary value that may be contributed to it. It is not attempting, however, a personal canvass of possible contributors. Any shortage of literary material is due to the inactivity of the student body and not to a change in policy of the Brunswickan.

In Athletics

We are all so well acquainted with the athletic activities during the past four years that a very few words will suffice for that section of our college career. We have maintained the usual standard of excellence associated with U. N. B. in football, hockey, basketball and track. In addition there has been an increased interest in co-ed athletics, particularly basket-ball, and the co-ed basketball team having been runners-up for the provincial championship this year.

During the past two years more attention has been paid to the physical development of the average student than was formerly deemed necessary. There have been paid to the physical development of the average student than was formerly deemed necessary. There have been inter-class leagues in football, basketball, and hockey for the general student body. It is estimated that 74 per cent of the students have taken part in organized athletics during the past year. This extensive programme was the result of having full-time athletic instructor at the university.

Late Dr. Cameron

A familiar face is absent from the encaenial exercises today. Both the university and we, the students, have suffered a distinct loss during the past year in the death of Dr. Adam Cameron. Dr. Cameron occupied the Chair of Chemistry at U. N. B. since 1913, coming to us from the University of St. Andrew’s, in his beloved Scotland. His worth may be summed up in the simple statement that there was no more popular nor more highly esteemed professor at the university.

What is Education?

We have received today a graduation certificate testifying to our four years of study and the successful years of study mastering of the requirements for a Bachelor’s Degree. We must not delude ourselves, however, that our years at school have made us educated men and women. An eminent modern thinker has said: “In school we learn how to read: In college what we read; after we graduate we become educated men if we use these gifts.”


In recent years the dollar sign seems to have become the symbol of education, replacing the owl or torch of Minerva. Too much significance is being attached to the ability of the so-called educated man to earn more money than the uneducated. Education does not mean that we have become certified experts in business, or industry, or finance; it means that through the absorption of the moral, intellectual, and aesthetic inheritance of our race we have come to understand and control ourselves as well as the external world. Education is the art of making living itself an art and is in no way connected with the machinery of making money.

Education is not education when it makes no changes in a person’s habit of thought and behavior. Merely having information is not being educated. It is possible to know a tremendous number of facts, yet be essentially vulgar in tastes and enjoyments, bigoted in human relationships, and having judgments largely determined by passion and prejudice. Our modern system has a tendency to overlook this important fact. Dean Martin made the statement: “Education is too much pre-occupied with graduations, requirements, discipline, see that a given minimum of identical work is done by all in a given time, to pay much attention to actually educating.”

If our ideas and tastes are essentially the same to-day as they were four years ago, then, regardless of what honors we may have won, we are yet uneducated. Now can we infer from all this that the applied science student, whose course is undoubtedly specialized training, is uneducated? While it is true that his course provides a training which almost entirely omits social, political, and religious ideas, yet it does develop the reasoning powers, sponsors initiative, and teachers the religion of doubting face values. These are the necessary aids to the obtaining of an education.

Engineering

If the Engineering professions—those into which the applied science men are entering—are ever to have a standing comparable to Law, Medicine, and Theology, then an attempt must be made to educate as well as train. Since, however, education truly begins after college then the level of the profession rests upon the engineer using the results of his college training, as stated before, to educate himself. And being educated is not having the ability to merely to perform some job well. It is the complete realization of the significance of the work done, the development of a true perspective that sees one’s own work in proper relation to all work. An educated man has a set of values, determined not by the group of people among whom he lives, but by his own philosophy on life. He has learned what to prefer because he has lived in the presence of things that are preferable.

May we never look upon our college training as did George Babbitt, the epitome of the successful American business man, in a book by Sinclair Lewis. Babbitt advised his son to go to college with the following words: “I’ll tell you why you should go to college son, I’ve found out it is a mighty nice thing to be able to say you’re a B. A. Some client that doesn’t know what you are and thinks you’re just a plug business man, he gets to shooting off his mouth about economics or literature or foreign trade conditions, and you just ease in something like, ‘When I was in college—of course I got my B.A. in sociology and all that junk—’ Oh, it puts an awful crimp in their style.”

Yet if we are to believe that a great many of our modern advertising writers, a college education has its greatest importance in enabling one to impress those less fortunate. That anyone should seriously enter upon a course of study just to impress people with one’s knowledge, to appear genteel, or to gain admittance to an exclusive social set is a distinctly modern “contribution” to educational theory.

To-day we join the every increasing army of college graduates. If from our four years at U.N.B we have received only those things: a thirst for knowledge, a measure of open-mindedness, and the ability to make decisions uninfluenced by mob opinion we may indeed fell satisfied with our work.

To the Senate

Gentlemen of the Senate: We appreciate your willingness to consider all reasonable requests from the student body and your willingness to work with us. While we realize that this is a time of stringent economy yet we wish to submit for your consideration a few requests which we feel express real needs at the university. For two years the student body has employed and paid for a full time physical instructor. We found the load almost too much this year and it was decided that it will be impossibly to continue the hiring of such an official. If the college is to be next year without the services of a trained physical instructor it means a backward step in its development. Such an official hired by the Senate would be responsible to them, would organize gym classes, and would make the physical instruction at U. N. B. on a par with that at most of the other universities.

A further need, in line with the first named, is a new gymnasium. The present gymnasium, built in 1905, is entirely inadequate for a college as large as U. N. B. is now. Following the system of Cato the Elder, though not the subject matter, each valedictorian proclaims: “We must have a new gymnasium.”

To the Faculty

Mr. President and Gentlemen of the Faculty: We realize that yours is not an easy task, but in the hope that it may alone somewhat for unnecessary trouble that we may have caused you we wish to extend our hearty appreciation and thanks for your willingness to give us extra help in all our subjects, your patience in teaching, and your interest in our welfare. May your memories of this graduating class be not altogether unpleasant.

We wish to suggest a change in the honor system at this university. At the present time it is necessary that a student make a first division in all the subjects of his first two years in order to take honor subjects in his last two. The subjects of his first two years are often unconnected with those in which he may wish to major, yet if he is to graduate with first class honors in the subjects in which he many have intense interest he must make first division in all the subjects in his early years, subjects in which he may have little if any interest. If graduation honors were to be granted by considering principally the subjects in which the student is majoring it would be, we think, a much fairer and more logical method than the one now employed.

We wish also to propose that circular letters be sent to the members of each graduating class five years after graduation requesting from each a criticism of the courses provided at the college. Such criticisms would be of real value since by that time any intense feelings of prejudice would be forgotten and the graduate could calmly survey his course and suggest worth while changes.

To Fredericton

Citizens of Fredericton: You have shown many kindnesses to not only those of us whose homes are here but to those residents in the city only during the college year. You have supported our athletic activities both by attendance at our games, and a great many of you, by direct contribution. It is hardly necessary to say that we deeply appreciate the friendly spirit you, the citizens of Fredericton, have shown toward us.

To Undergraduates

Undergraduates: To you is given the control of our student government at a time of tremendous change. Many ideas of reform have been suggested in the past few months which we feel, if put into force, will increase the efficiency of our governing bodies. It will be no easy task to make these changes and will require the co-operation of every student in the university. Also, if the many societies which function here are to be successful it is necessary that every student should take an interest in at least one. Support it to the fullest extent and be willing to work a little to make it a success. Undergraduates, we wish you the very best of luck in your work here at the college and afterwards.

To the Class

Fellow Classmates: Leaving U. N. B. should give us no feeling of regret. We may rightly feel sorrow at parting with the friends we have made during the past four years but we have received all that the college itself can give us. Many of us will never meet again, but though our interests will differ, our lives be changed, we shall always have one thing in common: Our four years at the “College on the Hill.”