Alumni Oration

"W.G. Gaunce’s Oration" The University Monthly VI, 9 (June 1887): 13-17. (UA Case 67a, Box 1)

I apprehend that the oration on behalf of the faculty is presumed to deal with some feature of the educational problem, or the educative value of some study, that the Alumni Address is intended rather as a point of touch between this Institution and the Public.

Based on this belief my address to day shall savour little of educational philosophy, little of the grove or the porch, but shall deal briefly and plainly with the relations between this University and the State.

A graduate of this University, my heart warms toward my alma mater to-day, as I see the faces of former teachers, as I review the old familiar haunts, as I recall dead class-mates and professors doubtless unto whom "is given a life that bears now immortal fruit."

A citizen of state, I am presumed to let my loyalty be first to her, and so it is that to-day I shall endeavour to hold even the balance between the University and the state; and while I prevent memories of life here, or the bias of my life work from magnifying on the one side, to likewise prevent the broader fellowship of the state from making me unfair or hypercritical on the other.

The poet has sung of "Sovereign Law as a States collected will." Theoretically this is true practically it ought to be, were people honest it would be, but we far it is not.

The day has come when the ballot held in the palm which has been defiled by its purchase, is often different from what it would be were the intelligence and desire of the individual allowed to decide it. ‘Tis true that the day is here when men write laws sometimes, not out of the beliefs of the heart but out of he expediences of the case.

I may take almost any law to-day, and throw you down a challenge and say "prove that the States collected will," and your task is difficult. It may be such, but can you demonstrate it, you who know how men get into power and how use it when there. And yet men will to be thus and so you say, and so 'tis true that law is their collected will. You tell me that intelligence and manliness and honor are wanting and the absence of these account for the presence of the other potential energies of public life.

America to-day is crying out for more of intelligence and honesty, and while its best are leading in the struggle for private end and prize, many are forgetting that the higher peerage is one of manhood and manliness, and that the best of Knighthood is a people’s honest trust.

When the masses do their own thinking aided in measure by those who are more intelligent and fitted to honorably lead, and when with untrammeled will they express their beliefs, then the words of the poet will be literally true.

Intelligence, greater intelligence is the State’s demand, more cultured honest men, aye more honest cultured men to lead and shape a people’s thoughts. To afford such to the State is the business of our educational institutions.

Every school should be a fort, every Academy a military school, every College an arsenal.

The public conscience and public thought must be partly shaped in the school room; the public school must draw its inspiration from Academy and Normal school; and these in turn depend upon College and University.

Directly up to the University may this stream of national betterment be followed.

And thus it is ye men who daily meet with three score more or less, of a people’s best, remember that ye are surely if invisibly touching hands with the children of the state at their work and at their play, in home and school, and though not fully sensed at times ye are the most vital parts of our educational system,—the heart supplying blood, the lungs purifying it.

When the great Kossuth visited America, over the archway in front of the State Capitol in Boston were placed the words, selected from one of his speeches: "There is a community in the destinies of humanity" and so let me say there is a community in the educational interests and destinies of the state, and they who sit in the highest seats are most responsible for the welfare of that community.

There is a paradox in the educational system, and it is this: The highest part is the lowest, the top is the foundation. The system is not from common schools up to the University but from University to Common Schools. From above downward in the grade of Institution is from below upward in the system. And thus in my belief this Institution is the true basis of our system. With this University impaired, or only half efficient the most expensive or elaborate machinery beyond cannot fully compensate.

Thus it is that I am glad to see the Chief Superintendent of Education a member of the Senate of the University. The position belongs to him by right and not by courtesy. Thus it is that I could be glad to see the present Professors of the University brought into more active effort in the work of our Teacher’s Institutes, and into the examination of our Higher Schools. These things bind together the parts of the system, are the hair in the mortar.

When Presidents, and Professors Chief Superintendents, Inspectors, Normal School Professors and pupils all touch hands in this work, the circuit becomes complete through which an electric thrill passes to the entire organization.

To control the keys and sit in judgement and deliver lectures, is not the highest prerogative of a professor, just as to sign cheques and issue orders is not the chief function of a Chief Superintendent. Underneath and about and above all must breathe a silent, subtle influence which shapes young life. One of the great desires of our late Chief Superintendent of Education and one of the grand points towards which he endeavoured to direct public sentiments, was better secondary Education, the cement between University and Common School. There in one particular our system needs strengthening.

Like the pioneers of New England, who when they laid the cornerstone of a nation three and one half centuries ago saw the absolute need of a Harvard our fathers realized the importance of a College here. Although the power, and interest and liberality and utility of the University have grown and widened with years, yet the first effort was wise and worthy. To-day with broader views and greater brotherhood we saw they were narrow in their endeavour. With years of life has come breadth and spirit, and to-day our University stands with open doors and with 'welcome' written on its walls. It knows no creed, no color, no sex. One by one the heights have been attained, sometimes with plodding pace, sometimes with sudden bound.

A state University, it exists for the state. It is often and with great force contended that a denominational Institution is superior to a state one; and the strongest part of the argument is in the devotion of the graduates of such to their alma mater. This result is worthy and is most natural, when we remember the individual interest and even sacrifice needed to build and endow such; and the constant interchange of sympathy between the College faculty and its supporters. Men become interested in that in which they or theirs have investments, and if some of our Episcopalian friends will contribute here as towards Kings College, Windsor, some of our Presbyterians as towards Dalhousie, some of our Methodists as toward Sackville, some of our Baptists as towards Acadia, I pledge a marvellous growth of interest here.

But I recall one fact which while I do not use it to as an argument against the denominational Colleges, I mention to show the liberality of this State University. I refer to the fact that it remained for a denominational College a short time since to refuse admission to a colored applicant, because "nature forbade for a community of social interests," and while we look eastward and see the doors of London High schools in conservative England opening to the colored student, we look southward to Chattawooga in democratic America and find the doors of a denominational College closing on two students, because God thought best to color the outward man.

Our University has shown that it was qualification and not color and not sex that was to decide its membership. The tree of our fathers planting begins to drop more plentifully its golden fruit.

As to the financial support which this University is receiving there seems to be a few who believe the state is doing too much and many who believe that voluntary contribution is doing far too little. I dissent from the former, I agree with the latter. Is it not a little curious that the spirit of the day which clamours for compulsory support of the primary schools should argue against similar support for higher? Voluntary support for High Schools and Colleges say they, "but compulsory for the lower grades." Is that only another phase of the demagogue’s cry of interest in the poor man. Why should the prosperity of the country be taxed to educate the 70,000 in our common schools, and not be taxed to educate those who are to be future educators themselves. So many to-day are riding that poor man’s hobby that the creature has become curved in the spine with load, and wind broken with the speed.

Do not understand me as arguing that there is no need of voluntary aid to our University. A state endowment may be happily supplemented by voluntary endowments. What magnificent memorial might some of our wealthy men erect here this Jubilee year. Elsewhere we read of chairs endowed and scholarships founded and why not here. All about us other Colleges are rallying and a genuine revival of learning seems to have come. Acadia is providing for another chair, M. Allison is striving to secure one of her own distinguished graduates as Professor. Kings College, Windsor has been placed on a firmer footing, and is doing better work, while Dalhousie has doubled its teaching staff in the Arts Department in a few years and added an excellent law school with two Professors and six Lecturers.

While denominational support has been increasing to the first, it has been somewhat withdrawn from the last because private endowments have been pouring in, in amazing volume. Five chairs,—four in Arts, and one in Law, have been endowed by one man, who in addition was liberally provided scholarships and Cursaries.

Has this University not some other friends than those who have already declared themselves?

Are there not some among the survivors of its one hundred graduates who will mark this year by a Jubilee gift? The other day we read of Senator Stanford’s munificence in founding a University in California in honor of his son. He erects his monument while he lives.

Men willingly contribute to almost everything else. They subscribe money for regattas, they buy shares in trotting parks. They take stock in party newspapers, they build churches and contribute election funds, they erect monuments and carve thereon virtues which were never possessed, and all the while the children of the people are yearning for advanced scholarship or technical education. Spirit is wanting and not money.

I recently read the Henry D. Cogswell of San Francisco had given 1,000,000 for endowment of a school in San Francisco where trades might be taught to any girl or boy who was qualified to enter.

I mention for this a double purpose; (1) to call attention to his generosity and public spirit and the wise direction of the gift, and (2) to the demand which exists to-day for something in the way of technical education. It was not long since that Great Britain awoke to the fact that she was neglecting this important factor in national education. Her supremacy was being disputed not only abroad but by foreigners at home. Her youth were being supplanted by Swiss and German workmen, or else were driven abroad to learn what was denied at home. And here I would utter a plea for state aid in this regard. We have money for the physical development of the country; can we not find it for the practical education of our people? The state now fits for the life work the teacher, the men of business, in large measure the man of a profession, what does not do for the man who is to depend upon his hands for a livelihood? We have helped to build 11000 miles of railroad, cannot we now lend greater thought and aid to the matter of technical culture, by which design may be taught and handicraft developed; can span our rivers by magnificent bridges; can we not render less difficult the present means of obtaining technical skill? "By the law of Solon children were acquitted from maintenance of their parents who had not instructed them in some profitable trade or business."

Is there not food for thought here for our Solons who so ungrudgingly have sacrificed themselves for the state.

A few weeks since Her Majesty Queen Victoria marked this auspicious year of Her happy reign by laying the foundation stone of the Technical Handicrafts school in connection with the Peoples’ Palace London. This event marks the year, quite as much as the year the event. She, whose lamented Consort in his day was so interested in the happiness and welfare of the subject, signifies her continued sympathy with the nation at the close of a half century as Queen. Past are fifty years since she became Queen with this her resolution "I will be good," years marked with joy of wedded life, with purity of court, with undying grief, with growth of Empire and of a people’s love, and now she signalizes such by manifesting an interest in the education of the masses in handicraft and mechanical skill. The kind mother, the devoted wife, the heart broken widow, reveals herself in this signal act of an eventful year, as a wise sovereign, and contemplating her as such, may we not all fervently pray that she may rule us long "And leave us rulers of her blood as noble, till the latest day!"

But not only in England, here in Canada we want more hands that can perform and heads that can direct as well as hearts that can feel and courage that will pursue. Our arts and manufactures are progressing, and we need the best of workmen, and our own among the best. Why should we possess the brains and import the skill, why should foreigners do our planning and Canadians do the drudging! Our Federal Government is turning attention to the matters of agriculture, with the view of discovering much about seeds and soil, that private parties could not afford to investigate.

In Ontario we find an agricultural College; at McGill we find instructions afforded in some departments of technical skill, but here we have no special institutions which will assist the great bulk of our people in making their days work more valuable to themselves or to the state.

I conceive that it augurs well for the future of our Educational Institutions, and for our political as well, that so many of our college graduates are coming to the front in political life. Among the college graduates in our Local Legislature one of this institution is speaker of the Assembly, another is a member of the Government with office, and a third is a prominent member of this House, while in the Federal Parliament one holds an important positions as Minister of the Crown. If government is to be wise we want the leadership of educated men. The clamour to-day for democratic institutions does not imply a demand for ignorant leaders. More than either democracy or aristocracy we want life simplified and its possibilities increased; we want cultured intellects and clean hearts in our Legislatures, framers of laws who do not most grossly violate the laws they write, and who set not up heights for others to climb which themselves cannot attain. We want men whose lives and public deeds are sympathy with the poet and who will contribute to this event.

Ring out false pride in peace and blood,
The civic slander and the spite;
Ring in the love of truth and right
Ring in the common love of good.

Towards this happy event Educational Institutions must contribute. I would place emphasis on the thought expressed, that some effort must soon be made to make our general education more practical. Too much of it is aimless, and much of it unfit rather than fit for life. While the professions are being overcrowded with young men whose education has bee "seek ye first something genteel," agriculture is asking in vain for more men of culture, promising more, far more to the majority as such, and to the state, by such a choice. Trade asks for educated men to engage in her marts and share in her development; while Germany educates liberally her sons who are to toil as artisans, a higher education in Canada seems to be an eternal protest against engaging in any industrial pursuit. Everywhere in our country today the most clever boys at school are planning for town or city life, and have visions of professions which are both respectable and lucrative. They have never associated education with stock raising, or fruit culture, or running machinery. The learned professions tell hem not to come, industrial pursuits implore them to come, but to both they are deaf and so haste onward into the ranks of the non-producers of material wealth direct. Their education is largely at fault. True education will fit not unfit men for life-work. Its first teaching of the individual is an answer to the question "what am I best fitted for?" Because of false teaching Canada has many today where they are no adornment. No country can prosper as it should when the ranks of farm-labourer and artisan do not broaden equally with those of the professions. I do not like to think that our system of education is at fault. I do not believe the theory that education of the masses brings evil, but I am daily being convinced that in some way in our schools and educational institutions a false pride is being begotten and thoughts of future life-work are diverted from the proper channel. I regard the intelligent artisan, or farmer, or merchant or inventor, as a much superior being to the lawyer who encourages a suit only to lose it, or a clergyman who puts his congregation to sleep. I honor more, I enjoy more, the intelligent farmer who leads public thought in his locality and whose acres daily become more productive than the judge whose opinion is the inert echo of his wise brother on the bench.

Intellect and culture alone can truly dominate a people, and spirit hath a greater leverage than position. Judea has been the world’s pivot for the last nineteen centuries for there was born the spirit of its redemption. There have been times when an ox-hide would grit an empire, because of the limited compass of the spirit, which controlled it. To mould spirit and not confer degrees, to fit for life and not for position, is the true work of the best education, and when a state is educating its people thus, it is making its best investment. The truly cultured are worth more to a state than a surplus.

A state’s promise cannot be accurately measured by the size of its Legislative Halls, or the extravagant habits of the Ministers of the Crown.

We erect costly halls, and choose cheap legislators too often, the class who always want the educational grant cut down and the bye-road grant increased. Better roads, better bridges, are worthy a Government’s consideration, but are not better citizens too? Examine the statistics of crime and you will find very few Bachelors of Arts behind prison bars, and very little Greek on the gallows. As you go downward in the scale of culture you go upward in the scale of crime. I think it was Florence Nightingale who gave it as her experience that she had generally found the fourth R-Rascality associated with the three R’s or a limited knowledge of such. I believe that both history and observation prove that as the general instruction of the masses proceeds disorders decline. Added to a respect for law and superiors, comes a respect for themselves individually, and that in turn begets respect for and confidence in them.

* * * * *

From the opening year of this century New Brunswick has been interested in the cause of higher education. In that year the College was incorporated and founded and endowed with certain lands. In 1805 it added the annual grant of £100 to the Endowment, and 11 years later a further grant of £150. In 1823 this grant was increased by £600. Thus the grant stood until 1829, when on certain conditions a total grant of £2,100 was made. From 1800 to 1829 the growth of public patronage, you will thus see was most marked. Since then the grant has remained unchanged.

But in other ways public appreciation has been marked. The number of students in attendance and the number of graduates have been steadily increasing. Taking the last 60 years, in periods of 20 years, I find the following number graduating:-
From 1828 to 1847 – 58
From 1848 to 1867 – 86
From 1868 to 1887 – 244

Or an annual average in the 1st period of – 3
In the second period of – 4
Do 3rd – 12

In this respect the public would appear to appreciate the value of this Institution.

But the public owes the University a negative duty as well, I believe, and you will allow me to say that I believe it is the public’s duty not to believe every evil report against its management; not to credit or circulate every irresponsible statement about the Faculty or the Senate; not to heed all that disappointed aspirants or half-informed critics say.

It is much easier to detect errors than to correct, to suggest the need of reforms than to assist in carrying them out.

But the relation between State and University is reciprocal, and though a State should partially fail in its duty to the University, the duty of the University to the State remains. A Prussian Emperor, addressing the Professors of a University, made use of these words,—"Fruits, gentlemen, fruits." And so New Brunswick has a right to expect fruits from this University. IT has a right to expect that its youth will be handed back to it better fitted for the duties of citizenship than when they entered. Unless they go forth from these halls with a fuller, nobler sense of manhood, and a more elevated view of citizenship they have not partaken of the best fruits of generous culture.

The plodding, manly student at the foot of his class is better for the State than the brilliant libertine or the clever infidel at its head. With sinews strengthened in the gymnasium and with wits cultured in the lecture room, he is still a poor product who goes forth to battle with a life without a deep set sense of manly courage.

It is here I believe that denominational colleges get their strongest recommendation to public regard. They aim to educate the trinity of man’s nature more than state colleges, I fear although I believe it is the legitimate work of all to teach manhood and candour and manliness, aye and godliness too. The Christian spirit in the state which has founded the University in all ages, and which in denominations has called forth such spontaneous streams of support, must likewise find demonstration within the University, is its work to be well done. In the Report of the Commissioners already referred to, I find these words: But the Government, if not as representing the collective sentiments of all religious persuasions, yet as being at least the guardian of their equal rights, should require that the evidences, the truths, and the morals of Christianity should lie at the foundation of all public collegiate instruction, and the spirit of Christianity should pervade its whole administration.

The public asking another favor of our educated men, and knowing their value in society I venture to name it. The public is asking for fuller acquaintance with the leading educationists. While the various denominations as such are begin enthused by the Professors in the Denominational Colleges, the public as such is remaining ignorant in a large degree of the excellent qualities of our University Professors. I should like to see such more frequently on the public platform discussing some specialty, or some question of national concern, of non-partisan color, or lending sanction to the onward movement of some social reform. Thus might their constituency be greatly enlarged, with mutual benefit to University and State.

And now before I close I may naturally be expected to say a word to those who to-day leave these for other scenes. Freed, for the broader sphere, you still stand halting on the threshold, here where so many ties have been knit and so many associations formed. You look forward and Hope with a bright light in her face, beckons you to haste, you look backward, and memory, with subdued and sober mien, bids you stay.

Writ on the hearts of classmate and professors are your names, and there they shall remain to beget in other years a sense of joy or shame according as your life work proves.

Honour your College, gentlemen, honour your classmates, honour your teachers, honour your country, honour your God.

One word of advice, gentlemen. If not already done, decide your life work at once. Multitudes to-day in the valley of indecisions are being poisoned by the deadly vapours which they inhale. Amid its larksome ways they wander their path unlit by sun or unmarked by star.

Already you know your taste, and tendency and fittedness; allow no false motive to move you from duty to yourself. Admire most the man who true to this instinct follows its lead, and does there his best work

Unimpressive sermons and bad-set limbs, and inferior literature and half-defended suits at law, are the frequent results of misdirected abilities. True honor lies in work well done. All over this country are comfortless hearts, because a young life drifted wrong or was forced by circumstances into unhappy channels.

In conclusion this couplet:

"Solid men of Boston, make no long orations"
"Solid men of Boston, banish strong potations."

And taking the suggestion in the first line to myself, I offer that in the last to you.