Alumni Oration

"Friendship," The Alumni Oration by Wallace Broad (12 May 1927): 1-10. (UA Case 67a, Box 2)

This is the fiftieth Encaenia of the University of New Brunswick since the Class of which I was a member received the scholastic accolade at the hands of that fine scholar and revered President, Doctor William Brydone Jack, and were dubbed Bachelors of Arts. The day was the summer solstice, the twenty-first of June, 1877. The sun shone gloriously, trees and shrubs were in full foliage, gardens in bloom, and the surrounding country green with growing crops. The "Celestial" City of Fredericton, laved by the noble River Saint John, was looking its very best, that is, very beautiful indeed. But while the season was propitious and every prospect pleasing, and the Encaenia an event always looked forward to with eager anticipation by all concerned, a great sadness possessed the assembly and was felt all over the Province and Dominion, for on the previous evening the Great Fire of Saint John started, and was burning throughout the day. A number of people from the stricken City had left for Fredericton to attend the Encaenia, before the fire began. One of them remarked that all he had remaining of his beloved home was the key of the front door. You all know the details of the devastating conflagration (1612 buildings were destroyed, and 13,000 people were made homeless. The estimated pecuniary loss was $27,000,000), from the effects of which it took the citizens many years to recover; but a finer city now stands in the place of the old one destroyed, and continues to justify the noble motto adopted by the City's sanguine founders, —O fortunati quorum jam mœnia surgunt.

The Class that graduated in 1877 was a small one—small even for those earlier years. It numbered ten at matriculation in 1874, and ten graduated; but two of the original matriculants dropped out, and graduated a year later, and the defection was made good by two who had dropped out from the Class of 1876. Of the ten who graduated, three became clergymen, three lawyers, one a Doctor of Medicine, and the remaining three, engineers—one in the civil branch and two in mining and geology. The three clergymen and one of the lawyers have "gone to their long home," and only six members of the Class survive.

One of the surviving lawyers is now a Judge of the Supreme Court of New Brunswick, and one of the mining engineers is a Professor in the School of Mines of Columbia University, New York City. Of the five Professors, who were the sole teaching staff of the University of New Brunswick throughout our collegiate course, and to all of whom we were so greatly indebted, one alone survives. That one is not only the University's most distinguished graduate, but also her most generous benefactor, The Right Honorable Sir George E. Foster, P.C., G.C.M.G., the Nestor of the Canadian Senate, whose eminent public services are known and admired throughout the British Empire. Long may he be spared!

As one of our Class who adopted the engineering profession, and was for a number of years a geologist and mining engineer, in Canada, South and West Africa, China, and Japan, it may have been conjectured that I would speak to you to-day on the practical and scientific aspects of my former professional life and experience; but even if I regarded this as a suitable occasion for an address on technical matters, which I do not. I could not presume to avail myself of it, for I retired nearly fourteen years ago from professional work, and thus am not in touch with the more recent advances in the science and practice of mining engineering. I might, however, give you some reminiscences of a long and varied life, but it would not be possible to condense the narrative within the compass of the time limitation.

The subject I have chosen for my address is FRIENDSHIP. It is one of universal interest, and occupies a large space in all literature from the earliest timed to the present; and so much has been said and sung about it that it is quite impossible to add anything that can be regarded as new or original. Although I cannot claim, with the Seer in "Lochiel's Warning," that "the sunset of life gives me mystical lore," I have ventured to hope that you would appreciate from one who has passed the allotted span and is now living on borrowed time, some words relating to a subject of such intense interest and vital importance. Such is its importance that Archdeacon Sinclair, Canon of St. Paul's Cathedral, when retiring some years ago from his London incumbency, at a farewell banquet given in his honor, told those present that the longer he lived the more he was convinced that the only thing in life worth living for, is friendship. What this eminent Anglican divine said was, in effect, what Cicero wrote nearly two thousand years before:

"I can only exhort you to look on Friendship as the most valuable of all human possessions, no other being equally suited to the moral nature of man, or so applicable to every slate and circumstance, whether of prosperity or of adversity, in which he can possibly be placed."

Of all writers on Friendship with whom I have any acquaintance, Cicero takes a prominent place. Montaigne's Essay, inspired so largely by the early death of a dear friend, and Sir Francis Bacon's Essay, are old favorites. You will find I have borrowed freely for this address from those authors, and from several others as well.

To define or explain Friendship it is best, perhaps, to follow Cicero. He tells us: "True Friendship can only subsist between those who are animated by the strictest principles of virtue and honor." And he goes on to point out that the principles of virtue and honor are not those of the speculative moralists who clamor for absolute perfection, but such as can be judged by the standard of plain common-sense. "In my opinion," he says, "whoever restrains his passions within the bounds of reason, and uniformly acts in all the varied relations of life, upon one steady principle of approved honor, justice, and beneficence, that man is in reality, as well as in common estimation, strictly and truly good; inasmuch as he regulates his conduct (so far, I mean, as is compatible with human frailty) by a constant obedience to those best and surest guides of moral rectitude, the sacred Laws of Nature." Pope has said: There is nothing that is meritorious but virtue in friendship, and, indeed, friendship is but a part of virtue." And Dr. Johnson, in like vein, said: The greatest benefit which one friend can confer upon another, is to guard, and excite, and elevate his virtues."

Saint Chrysostom, that most saintly of all the saints, not excepting St. Francis, and who died over fifteen hundred years ago, said :

"A faithful friend is the medicine of life; for what cannot be effected by means of a true friend? or what utility or what security does he not afford? What pleasure has friendship? The mere beholding of a friend diffuses unspeakable joy, and at the bare memory of him the mind is elevated. I have known one who used to beg of holy men to pray, first for his friend and then for him. Such is friendship, that through it we love places and seasons; for as the bright bodies emit rays to a distance, and flowers drop their sweet leaves on the ground around them, so friends impart favor to the places where they dwell; and when we return to these places without these friends, we weep and lament remembering the days which we spent in their society. Words cannot express the joy which a friend imparts; they only can know who have experienced. A friend is dearer than the light of heaven; for it would be better for us that the sun were extinguished, than we should be without friends."

What this Father of the Greek Church wrote at the end of the fourth or the beginning of the fifth centuries is as true and as applicable to-day as when he wrote it. "Life would be utterly lifeless without a friend on whose kindness and fidelity one might confidently repose." To a friend one may lay open the most secret thoughts of one's heart without fear of betrayal of confidence. A friend rejoices in one's prosperity, administers to one's needs and affords consolation in adversity. Indeed, the severest test of sincere friendship is furnished by misfortune. Amicus certus in re incerta cernitur. A friend in need is a friend indeed.

Friendship implies a mutual agreement in matters of principle, a sympathy of tastes, a tolerance of difference of opinion concerning matters not involving moral issues; and, in fact, it is "adapted by its nature to an infinite variety of different ends, accommodates itself to all circumstances and situations in human life, and can at no season prove unsuitable or inconvenient."

Cicero makes Lalius say :

"The principal question that has always occurred to me is, whether friendship takes its rise from the wants and weaknesses of man, and is cultivated solely to obtain, by a mutual exchange of good offices, those advantages which he could not otherwise acquire? or whether nature, notwithstanding this beneficial intercourse is inseparable from the connexion, previously disposes the heart to engage in it upon a nobler and more generous inducement?...There is a truth and simplicity in genuine friendship, an unconstrained and spontaneous emotion, altogether incompatible with every kind and degree of artifice and simulation. I am persuaded, therefore, that it derives its origin not from the indigence of human nature, but from a distinct principle implanted in the breast of man; from a certain instinctive tendency, which draws congenial minds into union, and not from a cold calculation of the advantages with which it is so pregnant.

"The first and greatest axiom in the laws of amity should invariably be—never to require from a friend what he cannot grant without a breach of his honor; and always be ready to assist him upon every occasion consistent with that principle. '...Another rule of indispensable obligation upon all who would approve themselves true friends, is 'to be ever ready to offer their advice with an unreserved and honest frankness of heart.'

"Scipio used to say that never was a caution more injurious to the principles of true amity than the famous precept which advises 'so to regulate your affections towards your friend as to remember the time may possibly come when you shall have reason to hate him.' He could never, he said, be persuaded that Bias, a man so distinguished for wisdom as to be ranked among the sages of Greece, was really the author, as is generally supposed, of so unworthy a precaution. It was rather the maxim, he imagined, of some sordid wretch, or perhaps of some ambitious statesman, who, a stranger to every noble sentiment of the human heart, had no other object in forming his connexions but as they might prove conducive to the increase or establishment of his
power.

"I think the only measure that can be properly recommended respecting our general conduct in the article of friendship is, in the first place, to be careful that we form the connexion with men of strict and irreproachable manners; and in the next, frankly to lay open to each other all our thoughts, inclinations, and purposes, without the least caution, reserve, or disguise."

So much from Cicero. Let us now turn to Sir Francis Bacon and see what he has to tell us:

"Certainly, if a man would give it a hard phrase, those who want friends to open themselves unto are cannibals of their own hearts; but one thing is most admirable which is, that the communicating of a man's self to his friend works two contrary effects; for it redoubleth joys, and cutteth griefs in halves; for there is no man that imparteth his joys to his friend, but he joyeth the more; and no man that imparteth his griefs to his friends, but he grieveth the less.

"The second fruit of friendship is healthful and sovereign for the understanding, as the first is for the affections; for friendship maketh a fair day in the affections from storm and tempests, but it maketh daylight in the understanding, out of darkness and confusion of thoughts; neither is this to be understood only of faithful counsel, which a man receiveth from his friend; but before you come to that, certain it is that whosoever hath his mind fraught with many thoughts, his wits and understanding do clarify and break up in the communicating and discoursing with another; he tosseth his thoughts more easily; he marshalleth them more orderly; he seeth how they look when turned into words: finally, he waxeth wiser than himself; and that more by an hour's discourse than by a day's meditation….

"Add now, to make that second fruit of friendship complete, that other point which lieth more open, and falleth within vulgar observation: which is faithful counsel from a friend...Counsel is of two sorts; the one concerning manners, the other concerning business: for the first, the best preservative to keep the mind in health, is the faithful admonition of a friend. The calling of a man's self to a strict account is a medicine sometimes too piercing and corrosive; reading good books of morality is a little flat and dead; observing our faults in others is sometimes improper for our case; but the best receipt (best I say to work and best to take) is the admonition of a friend.

"After these two noble fruits of friendship (peace in the affections and support of the judgement), followeth the last fruit, which is like the pomegranate, full of many kernels, I mean aid, and bearing a part in all actions and occasions. Here the best way to represent to life the manifold use of friendship, is to cast and see how many things there are which a man cannot do for himself: and then it will appear that it was a sparing speech of the ancients to say, 'that a friend is another himself: for that a friend is far more than himself. Men have their time, and die many times in desire of some things which they take principally to heart; the bestowing of a child, the finishing of a work, or the like. If a man have a true friend, he may rest almost secure that the care of those things will continue after him; so that a man hath, as it were, two lives in his desires. A man hath a body, and that body is confined to a place; but where friendship is, all offices of life are, as it were, granted to him and his deputy; for he may exercise them by his friend. How many things are there which a man cannot, with any face or comeliness, say or do for himself? A man can scarcely allege his own merits with modesty, much less extol them: a man cannot sometimes brook to supplicate or beg, and a number of the like; but all things are graceful in friend's mouth which are blushing in a man's own. So, again, a man's person hath many proper relations which he cannot put off. A man cannot speak to his son but as a father; to his wife but as a husband; to his enemy but upon terms: whereas a friend may speak as the case requires, and not as it sorteth with the person: but to enumerate these things were endless; I have given the rule, where a man cannot fitly play his own part, if he have not a friend he may quit the stage."

A very recent writer, the winner of a prize offered by "The Spectator" for the best Essay, in prose or verse, on "The Character of an Ideal Friend," thus closes his successful essay :

"In sickness and in health, in riches and in poverty, he would remain—my friend; something less than a lover, and something more. Love influences both being and action; friendship should influence being, but not action. Love is, ideally, the fusing of two souls; friendship is the result of their conflict. Thus is a friend less than a lover. But friendship ever seeks truth to possess it, and hungers after right-doing; love in its charity sacrifices truth for peace. Love represses and inhibits; friendship exposes and lays bare. Thus is friendship greater than love.

"So for one friend I would give all—save love."

"He that hath a friend must show himself friendly, and there is a friend that sticketh closer than a brother." So readeth one of the Proverbs of Solomon. Possession of the spirit of amity or friendship manifests itself in the conduct of its possessor, and is communicable to all brought within cognizance of it. It affects a small circle, a community, a race, or a nation. I remember saying to Mr. Rudyard Kipling on my first acquaintance with him—it was in Bulawayo in 1898—that I had seen in the newspapers that he had visited Saint John, New Brunswick, whichwas my birthplace. He said he had most pleasant and abiding recollections of his visit, and found the people more hospitable and friendly than any he had ever met before. Naturally I was pleased to hear this eulogium of my native city from one who does not flatter and does not fear to speak the truth. And I was doubly pleased, because he made mention of the kindness of two men who were very dear friends of my own. Moreover, I had always found the people of all parts of New Brunswick that I knew, to be possessed of manifest friendship.

Tempora mutantur nos et mutamur in illis, said Lothaik, Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, who died nearly eleven hundred years ago. It may be a fortunate provision in the universal scheme, that as times change we change with them; but there will always be some to regret certain changes, and desire to return to the conditions that prevailed before. I am one of these; and what I most deplore is that the changing times are altering the natural friendly dispositions of the people. From physical change there is no escape for anyone, but the spirit of man is surely under his control.

On my return to my native land in 1913, after an absence of over nineteen years, and quite expecting to find many changes, I was impressed by the seeming decline in the spirit of amity; and the experience of the subsequent fourteen years has tended to confirm this impression. Not only have I discerned a decline in the friendly spirit of the people, but I have also found an unexpected aggressive unfriendliness that surely will have—has already had—pernicious results. The multiplication of so-called fraternal societies, often with queer titles, absurd rituals, and grotesque habiliments, is, in my opinion, a manifest indication of a decline in the spirit of amity. The retrograde change is, I believe, due to the increasing spirit to dominate and to monopolize,—the spirit which brought about the Great War in 1914. Legislation often seems to be inspired by the same motives, and not based upon the principle of equal rights and opportunities for all. Laws are enacted, and an attempt made to enforce them, that many right-thinking people do not want and cannot respect. The ultra-moralists, who "compound the sins they are inclin'd to, by damning those they have no mind to," attempt to have brought about by legislative enactment, changes that can only be effected, if effected at all, by an alteration in the spiritual outlook of the people. All the laws that legislatures can enact, cannot alter the Divine scheme of the Universe. Good and evil will continue to coexist. The millennium is not in sight; the lion does not yet lie down with the lamb; the love of money ('the root of all evil,' as Paul described it in his Epistle to Timothy), will not soon be eradicated. But a wider dissemination of the true spirit of friendship will redound to that betterment of human affairs towards which all good men are striving.

Though the subject is fascinating, limitation of time precludes the possibility of recounting herein examples, which abound in literature, of the friendships of legendary and historical personages. The cases mentioned in the Holy Bible are among the most interesting and inspiring. The loss, by death, of early friends has often been the theme or the inspiration of some of the most famous works in literature. I have already referred, in this connexion, to Montaigne's "Essay" on Friendship; and in our own language we have, to name only a few, Milton's "Lycidas," Gray's "Elegy," and Tennyson's "In Memoriam." This is not the place, nor the occasion, even if time permitted, for me to tell of all, or any number, of my own personal friendships, and I have had a greater share than ever I merited; but it would be unworthy of me if I did not here pay my just tribute to one of my earliest, dearest, and best friends, who was a classmate and a resident of Fredericton, George W. Allen. Had he survived he would have been the only choice of the remaining members of our Class to represent them here to-day, for he was our leader, and the Class was always known by his name. "Fair science frowned not on his birth." He was facile princes among us in intellectual powers; possessed of a marvellously quick, accurate, and retentive memory; of fine physique and noble appearance; athletic, amiable, a delightful conversationalist, and a most eloquent public speaker. Had he survived, and continued to use his Heaven-given powers in the manner of which he was so capable, he would have been one of the great men of Canada to-day. The Cruel Fates, Clotho, Lachesis, and Atropos ordered otherwise.

"No further seek his merits to disclose.
Or draw his frailties from their dread abode,
(There they alike in trembling hope repose.)
The bosom of his Father and his God."

At the time of his death I was living in Shanghai, and when I read the sad news in a Canadian paper, I felt like Callimachus, in his Epigram "On the Death of a Scholar Friend," in the Greek Anthology, so beautifully rendered in English verse by Cory:

"They told me, Hekaclitus, they told me you were dead,
They brought me bitter news to hear and bitter tears to shed.
I wept, as I remembered, how often you and I
Had tired the sun with talking and sent him down the sky.

And now that thou art lying, my dear old Carian guest,
A handful of grey ashes, long long ago at rest,
Still are thy pleasant voices, thy nightingales awake;
For Death, he taketh all away, but them he cannot take "

And now, to conclude, a word to those who to-day have been enrolled as Graduates of this venerable institution of learning, and to the Undergraduates present. I beg to offer you this advice, based on what I have said in the foregoing part of this address : Cultivate the spirit of Friendship, and endeavor, as opportunity permits, to make friends of those whom you find worthy of friendship; and this, of course, means that you should be worthy of the friendship of others. And always bear in mind the advice of Polonius to his son, Laertes:

"Those friends thou hast, and their adoption tried,
Grapple them to thy soul with hoops of steel."

And of this I am sure, if you make the spirit of Friendship your guiding principle, that whatever success in life may be yours, you will have lived to some purpose if your epitaphs can truthfully record the words the poet Gray chose for part of his own:

"Large was his bounty, and his soul sincere;
Heaven did a recompense as largely send:
He gave to misery all he had, a tear,
He gained from Heaven, 't was all he wished, a Friend."