Alumni Oration

"Alumni Oration: Dr. W.C. Murray, M.A., L.L.D." Brunswickan 44, 6 (May 1925): 253-263. (UA Case 67a, Box 2)

It has been an honoured custom at our Encoenia, or feast in honour of the founders, for one of the Faculty to give an address in praise of the founders. Although once a member of the Faculty I had never the honour of praising the founders. Now, with your permission, I will join in the chorus of praise.

It is over one hundred and forty years since a woman proposed that there be a college in New Brunswick. Dux femina facti, or in the words of that humourous translation which provoked the laughter of Mr. Parkin—"a woman bossed the job." From Passamaquoddy Bay came the cry of a woman, anxious for the education of her children. She was the wife of Dr. Paine, who with 1,800 other Loyalists had settled there in 1783 and 1784. In 1785 Dr. Paine was elected to represent Charlotte County in the First Assembly of the new Province and became the first Clerk of the Assembly. He prepared a petition to Governor Thomas Carleton asking for the establishment of an Academy or College at the Capital and signed it with six others, including Ward Chipman, George Sproule and A. Paddock, names well known in New Brunswick history. The next year 2,000 acres were set aside for this purpose and in 1793 £200 were voted for a building. Sometime between this and 1800, when the College was incorporated, a building was erected near the site of the Cathedral for what was known as the old Grammar School, later the Collegiate. Such was the beginning of the first and oldest State University in Canada. It was established by the Province with provincial funds for the youth of the Province.

Ten years was a long time for Mrs. Paine to wait for the opening of a suitable school to teach young Loyalists to fear God and honour the King. Perhaps she turned her hopes towards Windsor, where an Academy was opened on the first of November in 1788 by Bishop Charles Inglis.

Founder at College of Windsor

If a woman was the fons et origo of the University of New Brunswick a Bishop was the founder of the College at Windsor. In March, 1783, six months before the Treaty of Peace was signed, eighteen clergymen of the Anglican Church met in New York, probably in Trinity Church, New York, mother of Kings College, later Columbia University, and prepared a memorial to the King asking for the establishment of an Episcopate in Nova Scotia. In October of that year five of them petitioned Lord North to establish a College or Seminary in Nova Scotia. The petition was sent through Sir Guy Carle ton, brother of Governor Thomas Carleton of New Brunswick, and was signed by the Rev. Charles Inglis, Rector of Trinity, afterwards Bishop of Nova Scotia, the first Colonial Bishop, Rev. Benjamin Moore, afterwards Bishop of New York, Rev. Jonathan Odell, afterwards a member of the Legislative Council of New Brunswick, and two others. Among the eighteen was Rev. Dr. Seabury, afterwards the first Bishop of the American Episcopal Church.

In another part of the British Dominions another leader of the Loyalists was advocating the establishment of a College. In 1792 Governor Simcoe of Upper Canada, who had distinguished himself in the Revolution, recommended the establishment with public funds of a College or University to prevent the gentlemen of Upper Canada from being obliged to send their children to the schools of the United States, "which would tend to pervert their British principles."

"Thus in the province of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Ontario, and even in Quebec through the Royal Institution of Learning, the precursor of McGill, the Loyalists were the founders of Colleges for the higher learning. In Nova Scotia the clergy were the leaders; in New Brunswick, laymen, prompted by a woman, and in Ontario a Governor headed the enterprise.

Distinguished Teachers

The ardent Englishmen who founded these Colleges to establish the young in their devotion to the Church and King of England intrusted the actual work of instruction to Irishmen and Scotchmen.

William Cochrane, a graduate of Trinity College, Dublin, was called from the chair of Latin and Greek in Columbia College, New York, to become Principal of the Academy and later President of the College at Windsor, where he taught for over forty years.

To the College of New Brunswick James Somerville, a native of Scotland, was called in 1811 and for thirty years he was its most distinguished teacher first as principal preceptor of the Academy, then as President of the College of New Brunswick and later as Professor of Metaphysics and Divinity in Kings College. In 1840 another brilliant young Scotsman came from St. Andrews to fill the chair of Mathematics and Natural Philosophy. With David Gray, who preceded him in this chair for three years, and James Robb, who filled the chair of Natural Science from 1837 to 1860, both brother Scots, William Brydon Jack gave to the New Brunswick College a reputation that placed it second at that time only to Toronto in Canada.

The College at Toronto had come under the dominating influence of another Scotsman, John Strachan, afterwards Bishop of Toronto, and an Irishman from Trinity College, John McCaul, for forty years Professor and President first of Kings College and later of the University of Toronto.

Higher Education in Canada

The coming of John Strachan, of Aberdeen, from St. Andrew's University to Kingston in 1779 was big with fate for higher education in Canada.

When Governor Simcoe's plans for a college took shape Hon. Richard Cartwright wrote to St. Andrew's for a young man of ability to come out and take charge of such college or university. The offer was made first to Dr. Duncan, afterwards famous for his scholarship, then to Thomas Chalmers, later the great leader of the Free Church in the disruption of 1843. Both declined it and Chalmers recommended that the offer be made to John Strachan, assistant to Professor Brown. The offer was accepted and Strachan left for Canada only to find on his arrival that Simcoe had left and his plans had fallen through. With the support and encouragement of Cartwright and Hamilton he established a school which soon became one of the great schools of Canada. Strachan's great force of character, his Scottish passion for education and his wonderful success as a teacher gave him an influence in the educational and public life of Upper Canada that continued for well nigh half a century. It was Strachan who stimulated his brother Scot, from Glasgow, James McGill, to lay the foundation of McGill University. It was Strachan who called Kings College, Toronto, into being and dominated university politics until the secularization of Kings College in 1849, when he founded Trinity College, Toronto, in protest. Dr. Strachan touched the fortunes of the college of New Brunswick.

The friends of the colleges in the provinces who were also defenders of the exclusive rights of the Church of England seem to have thought it wise to procure royal charters for colleges so that they would be beyond the amending power of the Provincial Assemblies. In New England a serious conflict over religious questions had arisen between some of the State Legislatures and their colleges, notably Yale, and the matter was fought out in the courts. A royal charter would place the college beyond the power of the Local Assembly. Kings College at Windsor secured one in 1802; Strachan sought one for Kings College, Toronto, in 1827; and while in London had evidently consulted about the royal charter for the College of New Brunswick, which was to become another Kings College. His advice seems to have been followed, for the charter of King's College, Fredericton, differs materially from that of Windsor and closely resembles the Toronto charter.

Fight For Non-Sectarian University

Bishop Strachan was the valiant defender of the rights of the Church of England to a position of special privilege and power in Kings College, Toronto, and his spirit seems to have animated President Jacobs of Kings College, Fredericton. The reformers were stronger and more numerous in Ontario and won their victory for responsible government and a non-sectarian university ten years earlier in that province than in New Brunswick. Baldwin's bill converting King's College, Toronto, into the University of Toronto was passed in 1849. It was not until 1859 that Fisher's bill to transform the Kings College, Fredericton, into the University of New Brunswick was passed.

It is interesting to note that upon the commission which recommended the change in New Brunswick sat Egerton Ryerson, Superintendent of Education for Ontario, and William Dawson, Superintendent of Education for Nova Scotia. Shortly after this Dawson became principal of McGill and began the heroic task of transforming a feeble college into a national university. Ryerson, of Loyalist stock, formerly principal of Victoria College, had been Strachan's most vigorous antagonist. Thus the fortunes of the University were linked up in a strange way with those of Toronto and McGill.

The year of 1861 is an eventful year in the history of the University of New Brunswick. It marks the close of the era of the Church College and the beginning of the Provincial University. It, witnessed the entry of Dr. Jack into the Presidency; the passing of Dr. Robb; the coming of Loring Bailey to the chair of Science, and the appointment of Montgomery Campbell to the chair of Classics. The old order had passed with Dr. Jacobs and with a new President, two new Professors and Professor D'Avray in French, the University entered upon a new career of great usefulness. In the sixties some of the most brilliant men who ever graduated from this University were in attendance. Sir George Foster and Sir George Parkin, Hon. William Pugsley and Hon. James Mitchell; Principal Sheraton of Wycliffe College; Professors McCurdy of Toronto and Goodspeed of Chicago; Professors Bridges and Cox of the University of New Brunswick; Professor Paisley of Mt. Allison; Senator Keegan, Drs. Atherton, Coulthard and Currie; Judges Chandler and VanWart; lawyers like Millidge, Phinney and Sturdee, and Lugrin the Journalist. Need I mention more of that brilliant company?

The times were stirring. The American Civil War was raging. Free Schools and Confederation were profoundly agitating the people of these provinces. In England the great duel between Gladstone and Bright on the one side and Disraeli and Derby on the other was in progress. In the scientific world as in the political, great events were happening. The publication of Darwin's Origin of Species in 1859 had provoked the greatest controversy of the age between religion and science. Herbert Spencer in his Essays of that year on behalf of the introduction of science into the schools had challenged the educational system of the English speaking people. Under the touch of the great geniuses Faraday, Clerk, Maxwell, Thompson, Tait and Helmholtz electricity was being harnessed in the service of man; the Atlantic cable was laid, the telegraph had ceased to be a toy and the telephone was on the horizon.

Promote Agriculture, Manufactures and Commerce

The men were alert. Drs. Jack and Robb had been active in their support of the society for the promotion of agriculture, manufactures and Commerce which the Governor had sponsored. The great industrial Exhibition as the Crystal Palace in 1861 had its Fredericton counterpart in the Provincial Exhibition of 1852, which Drs. Jack and Robb had advocated. President Jack had come under the influence of Sir David Brewster, the eminent physicist, had been on the point of succeeding Dalton in Manchester, whose atomic theory had revolutionized chemistry. To succeed Dr. Robb a young professor had come from Harvard with the latest ideas about chemistry. There Elliott was then professor of chemistry and was on the eve of proposing an elective system for Harvard in order to give Science its due place in University education. For several years the young professor used Elliott and Storer as a textbook and prescribed for reading the new chemistry by Cooke, his old teacher. Later the geological discoveries of Logan and Dawson came to the students through the work of Professor Bailey.

Dr. Jack's services to the College and University extended over forty-five years, Dr. Bailey's over forty-six. From the coming of Dr. Jack in 1840 to the retirement of Dr. Bailey in 1907, a period of sixty-seven years, more than half of the history of the University, these two teachers kept their students abreast with the recent advances
of science. Their contributions to the University are not to be measured by the length of their services, great as this was. They were the representatives of the new scientific movements which were revolutionizing the world. Of Dr. Jack as a teacher and scientist Dr. Raymond has written in terms of generous appreciation. Dr. Bailey's work as New Brunswick's foremost man of science was recognized in his selection as one of the charter members of the Royal Society of Canada in 1882. Until quite recently there has been no scientific gathering of national importance, no important undertaking in biological or geological work in Eastern Canada in which he has not taken part, or his advice was not sought. Though he was ill-supplied with equipment and funds he gathered together a useful geological collection and gave courses of lectures that started not a few able students on distinguished scientific careers. Perhaps one, who never displayed any special aptitude for science may speak of the stimulating effect of his lectures, more particularly in geology, upon the imagination of his students, the clearness of his exposition, the range and accuracy of his knowledge.

Of the representatives of the humanities in those early years, Professors D'Avray, Montgomery-Campbell, and Jardine, those who received instruction from them have spoken in terms of praise. Near the close of this early period, Dr. Harrison, clearest of teachers, came to the chair of Philosophy and English. Through him this University, like Kings, Toronto, Dalhousie and McGill, came under the influence of Trinity College, Dublin, whose reputation for exact scholarship in the Classics and Mathematics was recognized far and wide. As President he was responsible for the establishment of new chairs and the beginnings made in adapting the University to the industrial needs of the province through school engineering.

In whatever way we look at these early years of the revival of the University of New Brunswick we are impressed with the vigor of the intellectual life of the Faculty and the students, the freshness of their teaching and the modernness of their point of view. At that time they stood second in Canada only to Toronto, which had just passed through a similar revival, and which had barely failed to add Tyndall and Huxley to its staff of teachers. In Nova Scotia, Dalhousie was just beginning; in Quebec, Dawson was awakening McGill from its slumber; in Ontario, Queens had not yet felt the touch of the magic wand of Grant.

Generous Endowments

In the period that followed great things happened in other parts of Canada. When Dalhousie was seriously thinking of closing its doors for lack of funds, George Munro, a Nova Scotian who had made a fortune in publishing in New York, came to its aid with a rapid succession of generous endowments for chairs and scholarships. His gifts were at that time unparalleled in Canada. They enabled Dalhousie in the eighties to appoint a brilliant group of young professors and to attract a well trained body of able students. Munro's example stimulated the millionaires of Montreal and McGill received a series of magnificent donations from Molson, Redpath, Workman, MacDonald and Strathcona—gifts that enabled the University to secure the ablest men in the Empire for her chairs and achieve an imperial reputation.

Meanwhile Grant's magic voice was gathering around Queen's a constituency rich in numbers and enthusiasm, if not in princely, fortunes. Grant's skill in detecting brilliancy even in the immature graduate filled the chairs of Queens with a Faculty of great brilliancy and power.

Although there came to Toronto no sudden access of great wealth, the University enjoyed a substantial income from her land endowment. But better than the gifts of millionaires there came to that University a sudden awakening of the people to the value of a state university and a desire among the denominational colleges to unite with the provincial university. The Federation of 1887 placed Toronto on a new footing and assured Ontario of a university worthy of a great province.

Later came generous gifts to Acadia, Mt. Allison, McMaster and St. Francis Xaxier.

Few Contributions to U.N.B.

The University of New Brunswick slipped behind in this period of the race. It did not enjoy the bounty of wealthy men; neither did the province rally to its support. Its professors laboured faithfully and its students were loyal; but without large gifts or larger grants it could not keep pace with the larger universities.

Each quarter in the nineteenth century witnessed a characteristic phase of university development in Canada. In the first quarter auspicious beginnings were made; in the second sectarian strife embarrassed and embittered; in the third the state asserted its right to control; and in the fourth private philanthropy rescued the colleges from penury. New Brunswick began with great promise in the first quarter; successfully resisted sectarian assaults in the second; in the third became the child of the state, but in the fourth failed to attract the interest of the men of wealth or increased support from the people.

In the first quarter of the present century the most notable event has been the awakening of the people to their responsibilities for university education. This has been coincident with the opening of the West, the industrial development of the East, and the entry of the Dominion into nationhood, an entry sanctioned and sealed by the blood of the men who sleep in France and Flanders.

In this period the value of the trained mind, the need for the applications of science and the importance of research, were brought home to the people with a force that overcame all opposition. In the years to come men will marvel at the spectacular rise of the state universities during this period and the graduates of the University of New Brunswick will point to this stately memorial, the generous gifts of the Province, the City and the Alumni, as evidence that the University of New Brunswick has at last come into its own and that the people of the province have turned to it for service in their time of need.

It would be unbecoming for me to attempt to indicate how the provincial university can serve this province. Already through its school of Forestry it has begun to render a service that would have delighted Dr. Robb and Dr. Jack. It is not in the training of expert foresters that the university can render its greatest services, but in researches into the diseases that destroy, into methods of cultivation and preservation, methods of better utilization. Perhaps its greatest service will be in forming public opinion, quickening the interest of the people, awakening their fears and placing at their disposal expert opinions unbiased by plutocrats or politicians.

In selecting opportunities for serving the province this University displayed sound judgment when it took up Forestry. About one-third of the annual net production of wealth in the province comes from the forests; less than one-seventh from the factories; not one-twentieth from the sea; but fully two-fifths come from the farms. The Provincial University may very properly come to the assistance of agriculture. It may not be wise to undertake the training of experts. This work may be done as efficiently and with less cost at Truro or Macdonald. But in the solution of its agricultural problems the application of science, and in carrying the results of scientific investigations to the people, the University may make a contribution that cannot be made by any other agency. It is true that the Dominion is engaged in this work, but the interest of the Dominion is the national rather than in the local aspects of these investigations. The provincial departments of administration must make use of science or fail to serve the people properly. To do this they must either appoint trained experts to their staffs or seek the assistance of experts in the University. Where the offices of administration and the laboratories of the university are side by side, the closest co-operation should be possible. The university should become the scientific arm of the state.

Methods Suggested by Science

Let me illustrate. If a new disease in stock or plants is reported who should be called in to diagnose, investigate and suggest a remedy? Surely the expert in the university. With the expert's report to guide him, the administrator can take proper action. Again let me give you a simple illustration of what a scientist recently did. Merchants reported extensive discoloration of salted fish. The producer was blamed. The matter was referred to the scientist. He discovered a tiny fungus in the sea salt which spread rapidly upon the treated fish. This fungus attached itself to the sheds where the salt was stored and so infected other salt. The scientist suggested a method of prevention. The suggestion was passed on to the producer and much loss to him and to the merchant was prevented.

The potato grower finds his crop diseased, poor in quality and small in yield. The plant breeder's aid is invoked. The laws of heredity are so well known that the breeder can begin a series of crosses to produce large smooth, disease resistant potatoes of good quality and large yield with as much certainty as the druggist can mix certain drugs to get a desired result.

In these and similar ways the scientist can aid the farmer. The province should have its corps of experts, co-operating in fighting disease, increasing yield, improving quality in crops and stock as it should have its officers for the maintenance of law and order and the direction of public education. From the university this expert assistance should come.

In educating the people to the value of new scientific methods the university should take a part. The people should come to look for disinterested advice and direction to some state service. Too frequently the state service is suspected of being given for political purposes. The university being disinterested, should win the confidence of the people. In time every farmer in difficulty or distress should be able to apply to the university for assistance and feel that he can trust what is given him.

Problems of Production

Today the problems of marketing, of transportation, of finance are as perplexing as those of production. Here the advice of the economist is of great importance. The possibilities, the difficulties and the advantages, the dangers and the safeguards of co-operation are matters of vital interest to the producer. Is there an authority, competent and disinterested to whom he can turn with confidence for advice and assistance? Here again the state, through its university, can be of substantial service to him.

But I need not elaborate further. To improve the practices of a people in the production of wealth, in the marketing of their products through co-operation and the application of science is no small undertaking. In New Brunswick it is indeed great. For her ways are settled and her habits of long standing. Her people, too, are divided by race and history. Nature is also fighting against unity of thought and action. She has scattered the people along the borders of the province and separated them by a large undeveloped area in the interior. The press, the telegraph, the telephone, the radio may distribute news and information but more is needed for community of thought and feeling. Frequent assembling in provincial conventions for discussion and joint action is a great unifying agency; but it is not enough. There must be constant interchange of ideas through educational agencies, provincial in origin and direction but working through local organizations. These agencies must be disinterested, seeking only the advancement of the people, not those of party, sect or class.

Elsewhere the people are coming more and more to look to their state universities for this disinterested service. They have learned to value the knowledge of their experts, the professors, and to trust their honesty. The wonders of the fairy tale are rivalled by the story of the services rendered to the states of Wisconsin, Michigan, Minnesota, Iowa, Missouri, Indiana and Illinois by their universities. What these universities have done for their people New Brunswick can do for hers. But this cannot be done without the faith and support of the people.

Give All Honor to Premier Veniot

Today the friends and graduates of the University of New Brunswick rejoice as they see evidence of greater faith and more generous support. They rejoice to see men and women from all sects and sections rallying to the support of the provincial university, and they give all honor to the Premier of the French race who has so wisely pledged the support of the province to its university.

Today the descendants of the expelled Acadians, the children of the Loyalists driven from the land whither Evangeline went, the bairns of the fugitives from the "Highland Clearances," the sons of England and of Erin join in serving and being served by the university which the province has established for the use of all its children.

One of the great achievements of the people of this continent within the century has been the establishment of a national system of education offering to every boy and girl, without respect to class, creed grace, the opportunity of an education from the lowest to the highest grade. Through education Germany was revived after the devastation wrought by Napoleon; through education Scotland sought to overcome the handicaps of soil and climate; through education Denmark was converted from a sand bar into a rich and prosperous community; through education Greece lighted a torch that has illumined the world for centuries, and through education the eastern fringe of the Mediterranean has sent forth into the world the great religions that have transformed humanity.

Can the peoples of this province, with their histories stretching way into the past on this side of the Atlantic and beyond, living in a land of wide valleys and deep rivers, of stately hills crowned with noble forests, a land around whose coasts the deep Atlantic drives its fleets—can this people, so rich in historic memories, so blessed with climate, soil and sea, be unmindful of the great truth expressed in those words which Sir William Hamilton placed above his platform where every student could read:

On earth there is nothing great but man,
In man there is nothing great but mind.