1868 Fredericton Encaenia
Graduation Address
Delivered by: Bailey, Loring Woart
Content
"Oration Delivered at the Encaenia, in the University of New Brunswick, June 25, 1868, By Professor Bailey" The Head Quarters 1, 261/262 (8, 15 July 1868): 1-2. (UA Case 67, Box 1)
May it please Your Excellency,—
Mr. President, and Gentlemen of the Senate and University, Ladies and Gentlemen.
At the close of another academic year, we gather here again to-day with the approving presence of the friends of education and culture, to celebrate the return of our Encoenial Festival, and to confer upon the band of young men, now about to leave our ranks, the crowning honors of their collegiate course. In connection with these purposes it is my pleasant duty, upon behalf of the University, to extend to all a kindly greeting, to congratulate the authorities of the Institution upon its continued successful progress, to welcome the return of its graduates and friends, and to address a few words of counsel as well to those who to-day bid farewell to these collegiate halls, as to those by whom their place is soon to be supplied.
The occasion is one which, suggests its own subject of reflection. The great question of popular or national education, always one of great interest and importance, is one which at the present time is urging itself upon our attention with more than its usual force. At no time, probably, certainly not for many years, has this question been more generally discussed, or its conclusions been deemed of more paramount importance, than is now the case in all civilized communities. Everywhere the subject is engaging the most serious thoughts and the most earnest efforts, alike of legislators, theologians, manufacturers, capitalists and scientists—with different motives and with different objects it is true, but all with a bearing upon the same result, the more perfect instruction and the more general diffusion of sound learning. Some with a view to political interests, and recognising the actual or probable admission to political influence of whole classes formerly excluded therefrom, desire that that influence should be of an intelligent order; others, looking more towards material prosperity, regard education as the all-powerful lever for the advancement of the useful arts and the consequent increase of individual and national wealth: theologians, formerly opposed to its diffusion as tending to scepticism and infidelity, now look to it both as the surest means of placing religious belief upon a safe and sufficient basis, and at the same time as the best safe-guard against the superstition which is the direct offspring of ignorance and prejudice; while still others again, not the largest class, but that including the most profound thinkers and the most earnest workers, while they recognise all of the above advantages as flowing from a generally diffused education, regard also the latter as at once the best and only safe method of effectually elevating and ennobling human life and character, morally, socially and politically, and thereby of improving the whole fabric of society. That party, once the majority, who were wont to denounce all education as not only useless but pernicious, is now happily no more, or if still existent, so small and so conscious of its own feebleness that it no longer dares to raise its hand in opposition to a demand for knowledge which has become well-nigh universal.
As we would naturally expect from this diversity of opinions as to the objects of education, there exists a corresponding diversity of belief as to what constitutes a really liberal education and what are the best modes by which this can be given, not to the favored few but to the many, to all, indeed, who may desire its attainment. And here the real practical difficulty begins. While all are in accord as to the necessity of a better and more comprehensive system than the present one, no agreement has as yet been arrived at as to how such improvement may be most readily and most satisfactorily obtained. Some would have education compulsory, others purely voluntary: some would take as the basis of the system the classical languages and literature, others would banish them altogether or place them upon the same level as other literatures, at the same time giving greater prominence to the mathematical and physical sciences. The first problem involves questions of a political and social, as well as merely educational character, the latter is simply a question of expediency, whether this or that system is the best calculated to ensure the desired results, and may be very differently answered according to the light in which these results are viewed. We cannot, however, fail to note that the new systems, if such they can be called, are but the legitimate outgrowth of the advanced knowledge and civilization of our day, the inevitable consequence of the new subjects and methods of investigation, which new circumstances, new ideas, and new habits of thought necessarily call forth. The classical system, founded upon principles which had their origin in a civilization long anterior to our own, is now opposed by those who, while recognizing in that system many useful and indispensable educational elements, yet think that it is not in all respects sufficient for the present.
Thus the ancient and the modern elements stand face to face, the one the element of ideas, the other that of facts and things. The sciences of language and of logic, including in the latter the mathematical as well as the purely mental branches, the only subjects embraced in the education of the ancients; have now to strive with those of the exact sciences and natural history, the latter scarcely begun before the time of Bacon. Modern Languages and Literature, too long neglected, or assigned to a subordinate position, are also putting in their claim, and with these we have Modern Political Economy and Social Science, the latter the latest but not least important addition to the great circle of the sciences.
Between the two parties thus distinguished, the ancient and the modern, or the classical and the natural—for I will not say ant classical—the warfare is even now being hotly waged, and it cannot be doubted, whether for good or bad, with decided advantage to the latter. In support of this assertion I have only to refer to the almost unanimous opinion of the leading minds of Europe as expressed in their great scientific and social congresses, or through the medium of books, or still more conclusively to the recent Reports of the School Commissioners both of France and England, advocating the general introduction into schools even of inferior grades, subjects long banished even from those occupying the highest position. It must be remembered, however, that on one side at least, this is not necessarily a war of extermination. Those who demand for modern literature and for modern science, their appropriate place in the educational system, do not ask to introduce these to the exclusion of classical culture, but that both may be studied side by side, confident that the one will but fertilize and adorn the other. Until very recently the real question has been whether the former should be admitted at all in the University curriculum, and so strong is the prejudice still too often entertained, that these studies—the most important by far in all their bearing upon the actual experiences of life—are even now barely tolerated in some of the oldest and most powerful institutions of learning. The question is certainly one of great moment, and it is perhaps as well that we should not too hastily arrive at its solution. In the mean time we may congratulate ourselves that it is receiving, as it deserves, the most thorough investigation on the part of the most able thinkers and the most earnest workers of our day.
But it is not my purpose this morning to enter upon the consideration of this subject, a subject far too vast to be satisfactorily treated, even in a cursory manner, upon an occasion like the present. The advantages of classical education, which I for one, would be far from denying or undervaluing, have been often and eloquently urged both here and elsewhere, while nature has an eloquence of her own to those who will but listen to her voice, and needs no enconiums from me. And this is the less necessary, occupying as our University does, in accordance with a wise provision of its founders, the safe middle ground between the two contending parties. Natural and Physical Science have always had here their appropriate place, side by side with those of Mathematics, Philosophy and Language, and we may safely leave, I think, the verdict to those who are now about to graduate, or who have heretofore graduated from our halls, whether the one is in any way antagonistic or injurious to the other. I would rather this morning invite your thoughts to a more limited field of reflection, to the consideration of a subject which I believe to be too often disregarded, but the recognition of which, in whatever educational scheme may be adopted, will have a very important bearing upon its success—I refer to what may be termed the love of knowledge, i, e. the pleasure to be derived from its pursuit, irrespective of any other benefits which may follow in its train, How far does this element of pleasure constitute a motive power for intellectual effort? To what extent is it recognised and valued as an educational influence? How far may the same element be appreciated and cherished by us as teachers, and be made to yield permanent and beneficial results?
These are important questions and deserve our earnest consideration, for they have a direct practical bearing upon the whole system and methods of modern educational training. In attempting to answer them we may first observe that the desire of happiness is one of the most constant and effective of our active powers. It is from motives of gratification that our earliest efforts, physical and intellectual, arise, and these same motives, though varying in their expression, continue unimpaired through life. In childhood we seek the pleasures of a gratified curiosity, in youth the enjoyment of our rapidly expanding bodily and mental activities, as years advance the pleasures of ease, of personal ambition, of social distinction, of scientific or literary eminence, of practical usefulness. Pleasure, in some form or other, is the secret spring of all our efforts, the constant and most powerful incentive to our exertion. Recognise its influence or not, as we may, the influence is there, potent for good or ill, for good if directed into worthy channels, equally powerful for evil if allowed to choose its own. All life, even from our earliest years, is but an educational training, in which pleasure and pain are the two great masters, and increased happiness, for the individual and for the race, is the great and ultimate object of that training. It is our part as educators to aid in the nature and direction of that training, to point out the channels of true happiness, and by rendering them easy and attractive, to win to them those who, about to enter upon paths apparently more full of pleasure, may too late find that they have been deceived.
I say apparently more full of pleasure, for it needs no illustration to show that the paths of knowledge are not always smooth, that her temple is at lofty, well-nigh inaccessible heights, that bold hands and stout hearts can alone hope to reach her portals. He who would scale those heights, he who desire to drink of the waters of truth directly from their fountain-head, must not expect to find all laid smooth before him, but to meet with obstacles at every turn, doubts, difficulties, disappointments with every onward step. Still less must he look to great worldly advantages as the necessary result of his labors. These are, it is true, perfectly natural and legitimate objects of pursuit, but, to the scholar at least, they are not or should not be the sole or even the highest object of that pursuit. He should be prepared to sacrifice all of these to his own great and sole aim, the attainment of truth for the truth's sake. This is his highest ambition, and to this all less worthy objects should be subordinated.
Nor let us regard such an ambition as merely visionary and sentimental; it is actual and possible, and the instances are innumerable of those whose whole lives have been guided and controlled solely by such motives. Regarding as the truest educators those who in all times have labored to increase and to diffuse the store of human knowledge, how seldom do we find personal ambition or even motives of practical utility the mainspring of their efforts. It was not motives such as those that led Franklin and Hayes and Kane to brave the terrors of the Arctic seas, or Livingston and Speke the equally perilous task of penetrating the great unknown of Africa; it was not worldly gain or mere ambition that held the great astronomer Bond, in nightly contemplation of the heavens, and kept that searching eye fixed on the distant worlds until all else was forgotten and his own life became the sacrifice to his untiring zeal; it was not this that induced the illustrious Agassiz to decline all the tempting offers which were made to him, of increased emoluments, higher social position, the friendship of the ablest minds of the old world in science and in letters, and last but not least, the companionship of his native hills, and all that he might pursue a favorite study in a field as yet unknown to him,— in a field, nevertheless, which promised results of interest to himself and to the world.
But I need not multiply examples. History abounds with illustrations of such devotion to favorite pursuits, a devotion continued in spite of all obstacles, at the sacrifice of all worldly ambitions, in the face often of the most determined opposition, and that, too, when no immediate or even prospective advantage could be foreseen as a consequence of success. The names of Galileo, Harvey, Tycho Brahe, and Kepler, and many other martyrs to science arise spontaneously in our minds, and though happily in our day the efforts for which they suffered may be made without the danger of actual persecution, yet he who would devote his life to such a work must be prepared to expect no sympathy, no interest, much less any active cooperation. Well is it for us and for the world that neither ridicule, nor want of sympathy, neither interposition of obstacles, nor apparent want of results, can daunt or deter from their self appointed tasks such minds as those of Newton and Davy, Franklin and Cuvier, Faraday and Brewster. Theirs was a nobler motive than personal ambition or even mere practical utility. They sought and found their reward not so much in the approving smile of the world, which is quick enough to appropriate the results of those labors, but seldom disposed to recognise or appreciate the long years of doubt, trial and disappointment by which those labors lead to a brilliant success—as in the consciousness of a work nobly but humbly done, in the satisfaction which attends the search and discovery of truth simply for its own sake, in the pleasure which nature never fails to lavish upon those who devote themselves wholly and unselfishly to her service. The true secret of their success, and of that of every true scholar, lay insincerity and love.
Let us now attempt to analyse this element of pleasure, and, if possible, ascertain its source.
First, then, I would say that one chief reason why intellectual effort should be a source of mental enjoyment is inherent in the very constitution of the mind itself. The intellectual, no less than the physical powers of man, are endowed with an activity which it is impossible to resist. Exercise of the one is as essential as that of the other. As the muscular fibres become wearied more by inaction than by well-directed but continuous effort, as the nervous cords, when unemployed, at last excite spasmodic movements of the limbs, as the entire structure of the body necessitates the introduction of new matter upon which the organs may act, or otherwise those organs attack and destroy the body itself, so the intellectual faculties require, even more imperiously than the body, to be constantly in use. They, too, require new food, for thought, and as the most perfect physical health is felt only when all the bodily powers are in harmonious movement, and a glow then overspreads the entire frame, so the exercise of the mind is ever attended with pleasurable emotions, and never more so than when we attempt to enlarge its powers, to overcome obstacles, and to widen the field of our contemplation. The human intellect is not satisfied with remaining idle. The hardest work we can have to do, is to do nothing at all. If not employed it deteriorates, it narrows, it turns upon and consumes itself. What are bigotry, fanaticism, nay even insanity in many cases, but the result of the cramping of the intellect, the brooding over one idea, the inability or the refusal to accept those varied modes of thought which in a well constituted, or, as we term it, "well balanced" mind, are so carefully weighed the one against the other?
Another and not the least of the sources of pleasure gained by constant and well directed mental effort lies in the increased precision acquired in the application of our reasoning powers to new objects of thought. The well trained mind that is accustomed to reason upon and to compare the different aspects of a problem soon learns, like the mathematician, to eliminate all that is secondary and non-essential, it endeavors to come at once to the point, it strives to reach its conclusions by the shortest yet the surest method. It will not, taught by experience, jump at those conclusions, but weighing well all the facts which have a bearing upon the question, will have no difficulty in pronouncing upon their relative value, or in forming an accurate judgment of the consequences to which they lead. Here again the analogy between the mental and the bodily powers is very striking. How rude and clumsy are the efforts of the beginner in attaining the mastery of even the more simple mechanical arts, but he who has once acquired the control of his muscles, he who has become thoroughly acquainted with their infinite versatility yet their wonderful precision when properly employed, can readily adapt them to any required use and thus in a few days obtain the necessary knowledge of a new art, for which the beginner would require months or even years. Is it not from an appreciation of a corresponding fact that we are led to receive with such ready credence the opinion of those eminent for their scholarship, their literary or scientific attainments, even when that opinion is upon subjects not directly connected with, or even widely removed from, their ordinary studies? Do we not instinctively feel that the habits of accurate observation, of careful judgment, which we know them to invariably employ in their own peculiar fields, will be brought by them to the consideration of the new subjects to which their attention has been asked?
Three general sources of pleasure, then, present themselves as arising from, as well as tending to produce intellectual effort, viz., first, the natural activities of the human mind, "the delivious but divine desire to know;" secondly, the capacity which those active powers also possess of unfolding and expanding; and thirdly, the increased precision which their exercise confers upon our reasoning faculties.
But this very unfolding and expanding of our intellectual powers leads us to the enjoyment of pleasures of other and higher kinds. Mere mental activity, a growing intellect, and an increased capability of reflection, these are to a certain extent intuitive and shared by all, and may be, and often are, excited even by low and unworthy objects, while the pleasures to which I would now refer are more difficult of attainment, come only to the few, and arise from causes the nature and extent of which it is not always easy to estimate.
And first among these hidden sources of intellectual enjoyment I would place the sense of beauty, a sense present in every human breast, but like other senses capable either, by neglect, of deterioration if not absolute extinction, or by a contrary process, of almost infinite development. This sense of beauty is a very complex one, taking different forms according to the peculiarities of individual intellects, but can any one deny that it is an active sense, capable, when rightly directed, of yielding powerful results. The beautiful in art, in literature or language, and last but not least, the beautiful in nature, are not these true sources of pleasure, are they not in mind capable of appreciating them; often the means of a most exquisite enjoyment? To the students of classical literature, for instance, what can yield a keener pleasure than the resounding lines of Homer or the smoothly flowing hexameters of Virgil, what more enticing than the study of their lofty thoughts, their glowing imagery, or their strange but beautiful mythology? Was it not to the extraordinary development of this sense of beauty among the ancient Greeks and Romans that to a great extent were due, not merely the eminent position attained by these nations in their day, but as well the powerful influence which they have exerted and continue to exert upon our own?
And here I would observe that this sense of beauty, especially in art, is, with our modern desire to turn everything to practical account, apt to be sadly neglected, and its beneficial effects underrated. How few and how insignificant are the art treasures which as yet this continent has produced, how few even are there to be found in the old world as compared with the products of an earlier age. We hare no Raphaels, no Michael Angelos, no Titians, in our day. And as with painting so with architecture and with sculpture. How few are the buildings in America, public or private, which can lay any just claim to grandeur, to beauty or even durability. To what can this result be ascribed than to the comparative neglect of this sense of the beautiful, our failure to recognise, as an educational influence, ought but what can clearly be shown to be of practical utility. Are not our courses of intellectual training defective in so far as they ignore, or fail to arouse and develop, this powerful sense of what is pure and noble!
It is much the same with the study of nature. The great fountain-head of poetry, of history, of art and science, the great mirror of which these are but the imperfect reflection, how few seek to drink the waters of that fountain in all their parity, how few to look below its bright surface and to search out the beauties which lie hidden beneath. Can it be that those beauties are not worth the seeking? Surely no one who has earnestly made the effort can have failed of his reward, for how infinitely do they transcend man's poor attempts to copy them. In what does the painter's or the sculptor's art consist, but in the desire to reproduce nature, to convey to our minds impressions, idealized it may be but originally derived by long study from her, and deriving from her all their beauty and their charm? Bright creations we may call them, but they are not, after all, mere imitations,—imitations, too, which cannot for one moment bear comparison with the original. Rich and glowing as may be the painter's canvass, full of grace and symmetry the sculptor's group, examine them attentively and how soon their beauties fade! The one to become a cold and lifeless stone, the other a flat and equally lifeless mass of mingled color.
How different with nature herself. It is hers to invite and not to repel our closest study. Beautiful as may be the landscape as a whole, each portion will he found to possess its individual charm, no object which it presents, however minute, is too insignificant to reward our closest gaze. Be it a single leaf, a pebble by the way side, the most insignificant flower that hides itself from sight, each has its beauties not identically repeated in any other.
And when our unassisted vision fails, science again comes to our relief, and the marvelous wonders of the microscope become revealed. Under its penetrating eye, we may search into the very secrets of nature, we may study the interior as well as the exterior forms of beauty. We may, as it were, come face to face with the great mystery of life. We may watch the current of the blood, as laden with its nutritive elements, it courses from artery to vein, the circulation of the sap from cell to cell, the crowding of the atoms each to take its appointed place is the forming crystal. With it we may view the wonders brought up by the sounding lead from the ocean's greatest depths, or looking back into the past may tell the very kind of trees whose wood we now burn in the form of coal, or we may recognise, at a still more remote period, and in spite of all the changes which they have undergone in the long lapse of time, the existence of organic beings in the very oldest strata of our globe.
It is this which constitutes the inspiration of the genuine naturalist. He never tires in his search, for he knows that his rewards will never fail, that the field of his labors is exhaustless. He knows that beauties lie hidden where we would least suspect their presence, that it is in the minute rather than in the grand that nature has been most lavish in her expenditure, most exact in her workmanship. There is an indescribable charm felt by every naturalist in this study of the minute, a pleasure unequalled when, in some long familiar object, there is suddenly disclosed to him some beauty unseen before.
And not beauty only, hut harmony, a wonderful adaptation, a perfect order. There is no chance work, no jarring of conflicting elements, no imperfection in results. Everything is seen to be but part of an ordered plan, a system under law. This is the very essence of modern science, the means as well as the result of its rapid advancement. Originally a mass of isolated facts, without order or connection, it has risen from these to the enunciation of great principles. Each fact is studied, not for its own sake merely, but also for the light it may serve to shed on all related facts. What a wonderful illustration of this have we in the new and now generally adopted doctrine of the "Convertibility of Force." It was a great step gained for science, when the powers of nature, the forces of heat, of light, and of electricity, were shown to be not material substances, but the result of certain attractive and repulsive influences, but how much greater has been the gain when, in our own day, we are led to regard these influences themselves, not as distinct and at variance with each other, but most intimately connected, to a great extent correlative, and all, with the kindred forces of chemical attraction and cohesion, and even gravitation, mere manifestations of the motive powers of bodies. At will we change our motion into heat or light or the electric charge, we develop the one by the mere acceleration or retardation of the other. Who does not see here the prospect of a grand progress in the future, the discovery and application of principles which shall greatly extend our present knowledge as well as our means of practical advancement? Already the results attained in one department are employed not merely for the explanation of those in another, but as suggestive of new modes of experiment, affording the means of constructing instruments and appliances of more exact research. What a wonderful illustration of this mutual, bearing of all the branches of natural knowledge is afforded in the case of a well-equipped modern astronomical observatory, what a spectacle may there be seen of the interplay of nature's forces, the employment of the hidden springs of power to unfold and utilize the grandest truths of our universe. By the aid of electricity and light, those subtle agents so intimately related to each other and all the forms of matter, the laws which govern the universe of matter are observed and studied. Thus astronomers not only map out the heavens, take life pictures of the celestial bodies in all their phases, and record with unerring accuracy the transit of the stars, but by those same processes of photography and electricity take simultaneous observations at distant points, record the paths of meteors and the vibrations of the auroral light, the variations of magnetic force, the direction, power any velocity of the winds, the pressure and humidity of the atmosphere, and many related phenomena—and these, too, without any exhausting effort on the part of the observer, but by the self-registering power of the instruments themselves at every moment and from year to year. Thus all variable elements become eliminated, the constant and fundamental laws become apparent, not to reason only but to sight, portraiture as it were of all the phenomena which it is their office to record. And, again, from these constant data in the past, the mind is led to scan the future, to predict long before hand facts and events of the utmost importance in the practical affairs of life.
This prophetic character of modern science is the direct result, as it is also the surest proof of the intimate co-dependence of all the branches of physical inquiry. We are able to pronounce before hand, even from imperfect data, what the subsequent completion of these data will only serve to verify. From his observatory at Greenwich the astronomer signals the approach of storms, from whatever quarter or from whatever distance they may come; from a single bone or tooth the comparative anatomist reconstructs the whole frame and pronounces upon the food and habits even of an animal long since extinct; from the study of a single mass of rock the geologist will tell you the period of its formation, the origin of its materials, the conditions under which it was formed. Every one is familiar with the wonderful discovery of Adams and Leverrier, showing by mathematical demonstration the presence of a far distant but unknown planet with such precision that the telescopes of Challis and of Galle were with unerring certainty turned, to the very spot which that planet occupied; but have we not in modern chemistry an equally wonderful illustration of the progress of our science? The presence in the spectra of certain incandescent minerals, of a few dark or bright lines not attributable to the existence of any known elements, served only as a stimulus for stricter search, and four new metals—Caesium, Rubidium, Thallium, and Indium—now added to our list, prove the accuracy of the conjecture as well as the delicacy of our analytical methods. So extreme indeed is that delicacy that we are now competent to detect in familiar substances an amount of those metals not exceeding l.2,730,000,000th of a single gramme. Who can wonder that with such results we are able to carry our investigations beyond our own sphere and to demonstrate the existence of these same elements in the sun, the stars and the still more distant nebulae—a wonderful example not merely of the precision of modern scientific discovery, but showing as well how closely all branches of science are interwoven, the one serving to illustrate and explain the other.
Intimately connected with this idea of relationship between the different branches of physical inquiry is the correspondence which we cannot fail to observe between the methods of nature and those which we ourselves employ. Every naturalist is struck with these resemblances, these similarities of design, no matter to what branch his studies may be directed, but they are nowhere more apparent than in our own organization. Is not the human frame a complete epitome of the methods employed in each and all of the mechanical arts? Where have we better illustrations of the attainment of the greatest strength with the least consumption of materials, where are the contrivances for the application of power more perfect, more simple or more varied? The strength of the different bones always exactly proportioned to the resistance they have to hear, their connection by joints combining all the requisites of perfect freedom, entire want of friction and protection against external injuries; the flow of the blood regulated just according to the wants of the member whose nourishment it is to supply, the attachment of the muscles to the bones upon which they are to act in each a way us to attain either promptitude, precision or force as one or the other is desired; all of these objects are attained by the very methods which the mechanic would use to produce similar results, but here infinitely more perfect, and moreover attaining by on and the same means results for which the mechanic would require many different and often incompatible appliances. Is not the eye the most perfect of optical instruments, the ear the most marvelous illustration of the laws of sound, the hand an unrivalled example of consummate mechanism.
And not in man only but throughout the entire animate creation, and from the most remote periods, the same resemblances are apparent, the same coincidences between the expressions, if we may so term them, of the human and the divine minds. From the complex structure of man, the fulfillment of the highest possibilities of life, to the minute and simple Polyp, from the Foraminifer of the Laurentian rocks to the varied Fauna and Flora of our own era, each object recalls to our minds something that is familiar to our own experience, or is suggestive of principles and truths which we can not fail to apprehend and apply. In the mailelad fishes of the Devonian, long buried in the old Red Sandstone of Scotland, Hugh Miller discusses the principles and methods now employed by the carpenter or mechanic, in the varied corals and crinoids of the Silurian, the eye of Agassiz unfolds the symmetry of Gothic and Corinthian columns, in the shells of our own era the most casual observer cannot fail to discover such forms of grace and beauty as the artist and designer is but too ready to grasp and imitate. Even in the inorganic world, our towers and temples, our spires and turrets, are reproduced in rocky pinnacle and in mountain peaks, in volcanic domes and basaltic columns, in stalactitic caverns and in arctic ice!
Nor are the resemblances, as in the above cases, always merely superficial; they are often but the expression of truths which underlie the whole universe, animate and inanimate, connecting its widely varied objects and phenomena under simple laws and into comprehensive groups. As the naturalist wanders from field to field, as each new fact or being attracts his notice, he not only admires its individual beauties, but seeks for the hidden thought which it embodies, for the link which shall servo to define its place and purpose. Similarity, but not identity of form or structure, is ever awakening his astonishment, he sees the higher types of life passing through stages in which they transiently represent peculiarities that are constant in the lower orders of the same group. Even in the physical history of our planet, as he reviews the geological ages, he beholds cycle after cycle in long succession, each in many respects a counterpart of those which have proceded, but each at the same time possessed of its own peculiar features, and each marking some new stage in a progressive development. Thus in whatever direction he may turn his thoughts the student of nature cannot fail to recognize the presence of a Supreme Intelligence, a power ever guiding and controlling the material universe. He beholds in the world a theatre of unceasing activity and change, nothing in absolute rest, nothing independent and self-existing, but all in an infinite harmony, each animal and each plant in its appropriate place, and each dependant upon the other, though at the same time passing through its own peculiar phases of development,—nay, even the atoms of the inanimate creation possessing a sort of vitality ever oscillating, ever attracting or repelling each other within the fixed limits of their motion. He perceives that amid all the diversity around him there is at the same time a marvellous unity, that the Creative Intellect has worked as it were upon a comparatively few simple models, while at the
same time moulding these into an infinite variety of graceful forms. To use the eloquent words of one who has devoted a whole lifetime to the work—"When one has become by long study of nature in some sense intimate with the animal creation, it is impossible not to recognize in it the immediate action of thought, and even to specialize the intellectual faculties it reveals. It speaks of an infinite power of combination and analysis of reminiscence and prophesy, of that which has been in eternal harmony with that which is to be; and while we stand with reverence before the grandeur of the Creative Conception as a whole, there breaks from it such lightness of fancy, such richness of invention, such variety and vividness of color, nay even the ripple of mirthfulness,— for nature has its harmonious side also,—that we lose our grasp of its completeness in wonder at its details, and our sense of its unity is clouded by its marvellous fertility. There may seem to be an irreverence in thus characterizing the Creative Thought by epithets which we derive from the exercise of our own mental faculties, but it is nevertheless true that, the nearer we come to nature the more does it seem to us that all our intellectual endowments are merely the echo of the Almighty Mind and that the eternal Archetypes of all manifestations of thought in man are found in the creation of which he is the crowning work."
May it please Your Excellency,—
Mr. President, and Gentlemen of the Senate and University, Ladies and Gentlemen.
With such a field before us, so attractive, so boundless and so accessible, ever inviting us as it does to enter in and possess it, is it not surprising that so few should be found to accept that invitation, so few willing to make the effort, without which, as in every pursuit of life, success is impossible. How few even when the grandest truths of our universe are presented to their minds, have any just conception of their true meaning or significant. Surely this can only be the result of a defective educational training, of the tendency still too prevalent in all our educational institutions to make the study of actual living forms subordinate to that of books, to throw a veil over the secrets of creation as if they were forbidden things, not intended, as they most certainly were, for the development of our best and purest faculties. In our desire to unfold the reflecting powers, to expand the intellectual capacity of the mind, we have failed to employ the very means which are really the best adapted for producing both expansion and ennoblement. The very objects which by their beauty, their harmony, their wonderful adaptation, are best calculated to awaken thought, to invite our earnest study and most minute analysis, are left untouched, uncared for, the exclusive field of those who, even from a very partial acquaintance with nature, have found therein the source of their highest pleasure. The observing powers, by which alone such studies can be pursued, are apt to be entirely neglected, the objects of the material world are made to repel rather than to attract attention. Yet a knowledge of these is certainly as necessary for the complete education of a man as is the development of his purely reasoning faculties. Why, it may be asked, should the brain be exercised upon itself alone, and all those wonderful organs by which it is placed in communication with the world around us be left, not of course unused, but untrained, undisciplined, performing only an infinitismal part of what their wondrous structure would enable them to perform? And why should the actual knowledge of that external world itself be so lamentably deficient among the great majority of educated men, men whom we are accustomed to regard as the representatives of learning and refinement? Had they any just conception of nature's charms, of the beauty which lies concealed where we would least suspect its presence, no less in the myriad atoms which make up the life of the commonest wayside brook than among the innumerable planetary worlds, also mere atoms in the one great universe, would they rest content to let such inexhaustible fields of knowledge and of pleasure pass unheeded by? How little do they appreciate even the commonest and most obvious of the objects and phenomena which everywhere surround them, of the air they breathe, the food upon which they live, how little of the constitution of their own bodies or of the other organic beings which accompany them upon the earth, how little of that earth itself, its structure, its history, or its relation to other worlds!
Do I seem to exaggerate the neglect of the observing powers? Such neglect is everywhere apparent among all members of the community, it appears in all the current literature of the day where the most improbable, nay even impossible, statements are made and received as undoubted facts, it is shown in the descriptions given by travellers of natural scenery and phenomena, it introduces uncertainty into our courts of law, and leads to carelessness and inaccuracy in ordinary conversation. The first difficulty which every teacher of the Natural Sciences has to contend with is this inability on the part of his pupils to use to their full extent the different powers with which they are endowed. It is a very easy matter to look but a far more difficult one to see, for the eye, like the voice or ear, can only be used with full effect after long preparatory training. Even the untaught savage is, in the use of these organs, an adept in comparison with most civilized men, discriminating with the nicest precision the different impressions to which his senses are exposed, whether of taste, sound, or vision, and errors in the use of these organs, naturally and inevitably tend to corresponding delusions of the reflective powers. With the observing faculties trained to their right use and full development, the errors and impostures which have at all periods gained a large share of popular credence, from the oracles of the ancients to the witchcraft and necromancy of the middle, and the spiritualism of our own age, would have yielded to actual observation what they have failed to yield to the demands of reason and morality.
It may seem to some of my hearers that in dwelling thus at length upon the value of Natural History as an educational element, I am disposed to give an undue importance to favorite pursuits, but I have done so with the belief that I could thereby best illustrate the main purpose of my remarks, viz, to show that there is, underlying all intellectual effort, an element of pleasure, which it is our duty to recognize and cherish to the utmost extent; and which, if neglected, will do much to render futile our best endeavors. We should strive to give to the various branches of study, no less in Literature than in Science, a pleasurable and attractive form. It is here that I believe may be found one fundamental error in the older and to some extent even in the recent systems of intellectual development. They fail to take hold of and to interest the mind of the learner. He struggles hard to acquire the mastery of the difficult tasks imposed upon him, his memory becomes loaded with details of which he cannot see the use, and if haply he at last attains to anything of the beauty or the charm of the study he is pursuing, it is only to look back with renewed dread over the weary way he has travelled. It is not for me to say how far each individual department is open to this reproach, but it is my belief that in all there is still room for improvement in this respect,—not particularly in our own University, which as regards the point in question may compare favorably with many similar institutions, but in the means and methods of education in general, in schools even more than in colleges. There is far too much of the "cramming" system, too little effort to interest and win the natural inclinations of the mind. The whole scheme is apt to be made one of memory, not sufficiently one of analysis, of observation and of comparison. There is little or no intellectual liberty, without which there can be no true intellectual growth. Knowledge is indeed imparted and received, but only for the time—it is acquired but not assimilated, and yields no mental nourishment. How seldom does this system lead to any further effort after the educational course, so called, is ended, how gladly for the most part are the studies pursued within our Universities thrown aside as a finished task, as something of no further use as soon as the doors are passed! Is it not for the same reason that they who have attained to the greatest eminence in literature and in science, are not those who owe their success to a University training, but those who, either beginning in early life, from pure devotion to the pursuit, have fought their way through all obstacles and difficulties, or who, at a later period bursting asunder the bonds which trammeled them, have roamed unfettered in their search for truth. Surely this should not be so, and seems clearly to indicate that something is radically wrong in our present systems of educational training.
How far and in what way a remedy may be applied to the defects of which we now complain, it is not my present purpose, nor have we sufficient leisure to discuss. Among such remedies, however, we may certainly place an improved and more attractive form of school houses; the supplying of these with Maps and Atlasses, exhibiting the grander relations of the physical universe, apart from the mass of unimportant details with which they have heretofore been encumbered; the study of History as a record of human progress, of cause and effect, rather than as a mere accumulation of facts and dates; the study of Literature, ancient and modern, more as a means of unfolding the ideas and thoughts of the authors than as mere illustrations of the grammar; the introduction into our superior schools of the study of elementary Natural Science and Natural Philosophy, the encouragement of local Museums of the rare and curious and beautiful from the world around us,—in fine, a determination, throughout all branches of the educational course, to awaken in the minds of students a curiosity and desire for personal effort, and to make for them the prosecution of their studies a pleasure and not an irksome task. Our great aim should be to lead the mind upward from the contemplation of isolated facts to the recognition of great principles, we should endeavor to create and cherish habits of observation, reflection and comparison, not attempting to rush headlong through a certain amount of matter, but with a comparatively limited field to make that field attractive, to make, in short, the pursuit of knowledge, as it should be, its own exceeding great reward.
And here let me add one word with reference to what I conceive to be at present the most pressing needs of our own University.
If what I have said be true, that the main object of our University training, as indeed of all educational training, is the improvement of the mind, the production and development in the young of an intellectual taste, in short, the education of the intellect in the laws of nature and of man, it follows of necessity that every available means should be sought which can in any degree contribute to this result. Everything which may have any tendency to create or foster such a taste should be most carefully preserved and diligently employed, every possible means should he cherished by which those laws may be rendered easy of comprehension, and their study be made a source of pleasure as well as of profit.
I need scarcely say that among the means most important in the accomplishment of these results are our Library and our Museum, the two most valuable instruments probably in the whole machinery of our usefulness, the one the record of the laws of nature as expressed in organic and inorganic forms, the other the record of the laws of man as expressed in the history of his ideas, his progress, his language, and his civilization. As regards the first of these, the Library, it is not necessary that I should now speak at length, either as to its importance, which I think no one will dispute, or the absolute necessity for its enlargement, a necessity apparent to every one who may enter its walls in its present cramped and overcrowded condition. I desire, however, to say a few words with reference to the second, and to call your attention to a few facts in connection with our University Museum, its history, its objects, its present condition, and its possible improvement.
The varied and invaluable collection, now contained within the University Museum, was the original work, and is the most enduring monument of its lamented founder, the late Dr. James Robb. Undertaken with a keen sense of its importance and usefulness, and prosecuted with an untiring determination to make it the most complete, accurate and thorough representation of the Mineralogy, Geology and Natural History of the Province, as well as the means of direct comparison of the natural products of New Brunswick with those of other countries, the labors of its originator soon served not only to place the collection upon a secure and permanent basis, but to cause its rapid extension and enlargement. When deprived of the further continuance and benefit of those labors, the valuable material collected had already exceeded the limited accommodations for its preservation and display, and much that might profitably be retained and employed in illustration and instruction was necessarily removed, or stored away in a practically unavailable form for future use. These difficulties have constantly and rapidly increased to the present hour, when it becomes absolutely necessary to reject large quantities of material, which with proper and ample facilities for their arrangement and display, would not only add greatly to the completeness of the collection but also enhance to a very considerable degree its practical usefulness.
Under these circumstances it would seem as though the time had now come for the construction of a building especially devoted to the arrangement and preservation of this most valuable collection which, already far more complete than any other in the Lower Provinces, is capable of becoming, with comparatively little effort, the representative Museum of Acadia. To convey a more just appreciation of the real value of our Museum, and to give some conception of the extent, variety and importance of the objects which it already illustrates, it may not be uninteresting to present here a brief synopsis of its present collections and of their general mode of arrangement.
They may be briefly summarized as follows: Beginning with the
Mineral Kingdom.
May it please Your Excellency,—
Mr. President, and Gentlemen of the Senate and University, Ladies and Gentlemen.
At the close of another academic year, we gather here again to-day with the approving presence of the friends of education and culture, to celebrate the return of our Encoenial Festival, and to confer upon the band of young men, now about to leave our ranks, the crowning honors of their collegiate course. In connection with these purposes it is my pleasant duty, upon behalf of the University, to extend to all a kindly greeting, to congratulate the authorities of the Institution upon its continued successful progress, to welcome the return of its graduates and friends, and to address a few words of counsel as well to those who to-day bid farewell to these collegiate halls, as to those by whom their place is soon to be supplied.
The occasion is one which, suggests its own subject of reflection. The great question of popular or national education, always one of great interest and importance, is one which at the present time is urging itself upon our attention with more than its usual force. At no time, probably, certainly not for many years, has this question been more generally discussed, or its conclusions been deemed of more paramount importance, than is now the case in all civilized communities. Everywhere the subject is engaging the most serious thoughts and the most earnest efforts, alike of legislators, theologians, manufacturers, capitalists and scientists—with different motives and with different objects it is true, but all with a bearing upon the same result, the more perfect instruction and the more general diffusion of sound learning. Some with a view to political interests, and recognising the actual or probable admission to political influence of whole classes formerly excluded therefrom, desire that that influence should be of an intelligent order; others, looking more towards material prosperity, regard education as the all-powerful lever for the advancement of the useful arts and the consequent increase of individual and national wealth: theologians, formerly opposed to its diffusion as tending to scepticism and infidelity, now look to it both as the surest means of placing religious belief upon a safe and sufficient basis, and at the same time as the best safe-guard against the superstition which is the direct offspring of ignorance and prejudice; while still others again, not the largest class, but that including the most profound thinkers and the most earnest workers, while they recognise all of the above advantages as flowing from a generally diffused education, regard also the latter as at once the best and only safe method of effectually elevating and ennobling human life and character, morally, socially and politically, and thereby of improving the whole fabric of society. That party, once the majority, who were wont to denounce all education as not only useless but pernicious, is now happily no more, or if still existent, so small and so conscious of its own feebleness that it no longer dares to raise its hand in opposition to a demand for knowledge which has become well-nigh universal.
As we would naturally expect from this diversity of opinions as to the objects of education, there exists a corresponding diversity of belief as to what constitutes a really liberal education and what are the best modes by which this can be given, not to the favored few but to the many, to all, indeed, who may desire its attainment. And here the real practical difficulty begins. While all are in accord as to the necessity of a better and more comprehensive system than the present one, no agreement has as yet been arrived at as to how such improvement may be most readily and most satisfactorily obtained. Some would have education compulsory, others purely voluntary: some would take as the basis of the system the classical languages and literature, others would banish them altogether or place them upon the same level as other literatures, at the same time giving greater prominence to the mathematical and physical sciences. The first problem involves questions of a political and social, as well as merely educational character, the latter is simply a question of expediency, whether this or that system is the best calculated to ensure the desired results, and may be very differently answered according to the light in which these results are viewed. We cannot, however, fail to note that the new systems, if such they can be called, are but the legitimate outgrowth of the advanced knowledge and civilization of our day, the inevitable consequence of the new subjects and methods of investigation, which new circumstances, new ideas, and new habits of thought necessarily call forth. The classical system, founded upon principles which had their origin in a civilization long anterior to our own, is now opposed by those who, while recognizing in that system many useful and indispensable educational elements, yet think that it is not in all respects sufficient for the present.
Thus the ancient and the modern elements stand face to face, the one the element of ideas, the other that of facts and things. The sciences of language and of logic, including in the latter the mathematical as well as the purely mental branches, the only subjects embraced in the education of the ancients; have now to strive with those of the exact sciences and natural history, the latter scarcely begun before the time of Bacon. Modern Languages and Literature, too long neglected, or assigned to a subordinate position, are also putting in their claim, and with these we have Modern Political Economy and Social Science, the latter the latest but not least important addition to the great circle of the sciences.
Between the two parties thus distinguished, the ancient and the modern, or the classical and the natural—for I will not say ant classical—the warfare is even now being hotly waged, and it cannot be doubted, whether for good or bad, with decided advantage to the latter. In support of this assertion I have only to refer to the almost unanimous opinion of the leading minds of Europe as expressed in their great scientific and social congresses, or through the medium of books, or still more conclusively to the recent Reports of the School Commissioners both of France and England, advocating the general introduction into schools even of inferior grades, subjects long banished even from those occupying the highest position. It must be remembered, however, that on one side at least, this is not necessarily a war of extermination. Those who demand for modern literature and for modern science, their appropriate place in the educational system, do not ask to introduce these to the exclusion of classical culture, but that both may be studied side by side, confident that the one will but fertilize and adorn the other. Until very recently the real question has been whether the former should be admitted at all in the University curriculum, and so strong is the prejudice still too often entertained, that these studies—the most important by far in all their bearing upon the actual experiences of life—are even now barely tolerated in some of the oldest and most powerful institutions of learning. The question is certainly one of great moment, and it is perhaps as well that we should not too hastily arrive at its solution. In the mean time we may congratulate ourselves that it is receiving, as it deserves, the most thorough investigation on the part of the most able thinkers and the most earnest workers of our day.
But it is not my purpose this morning to enter upon the consideration of this subject, a subject far too vast to be satisfactorily treated, even in a cursory manner, upon an occasion like the present. The advantages of classical education, which I for one, would be far from denying or undervaluing, have been often and eloquently urged both here and elsewhere, while nature has an eloquence of her own to those who will but listen to her voice, and needs no enconiums from me. And this is the less necessary, occupying as our University does, in accordance with a wise provision of its founders, the safe middle ground between the two contending parties. Natural and Physical Science have always had here their appropriate place, side by side with those of Mathematics, Philosophy and Language, and we may safely leave, I think, the verdict to those who are now about to graduate, or who have heretofore graduated from our halls, whether the one is in any way antagonistic or injurious to the other. I would rather this morning invite your thoughts to a more limited field of reflection, to the consideration of a subject which I believe to be too often disregarded, but the recognition of which, in whatever educational scheme may be adopted, will have a very important bearing upon its success—I refer to what may be termed the love of knowledge, i, e. the pleasure to be derived from its pursuit, irrespective of any other benefits which may follow in its train, How far does this element of pleasure constitute a motive power for intellectual effort? To what extent is it recognised and valued as an educational influence? How far may the same element be appreciated and cherished by us as teachers, and be made to yield permanent and beneficial results?
These are important questions and deserve our earnest consideration, for they have a direct practical bearing upon the whole system and methods of modern educational training. In attempting to answer them we may first observe that the desire of happiness is one of the most constant and effective of our active powers. It is from motives of gratification that our earliest efforts, physical and intellectual, arise, and these same motives, though varying in their expression, continue unimpaired through life. In childhood we seek the pleasures of a gratified curiosity, in youth the enjoyment of our rapidly expanding bodily and mental activities, as years advance the pleasures of ease, of personal ambition, of social distinction, of scientific or literary eminence, of practical usefulness. Pleasure, in some form or other, is the secret spring of all our efforts, the constant and most powerful incentive to our exertion. Recognise its influence or not, as we may, the influence is there, potent for good or ill, for good if directed into worthy channels, equally powerful for evil if allowed to choose its own. All life, even from our earliest years, is but an educational training, in which pleasure and pain are the two great masters, and increased happiness, for the individual and for the race, is the great and ultimate object of that training. It is our part as educators to aid in the nature and direction of that training, to point out the channels of true happiness, and by rendering them easy and attractive, to win to them those who, about to enter upon paths apparently more full of pleasure, may too late find that they have been deceived.
I say apparently more full of pleasure, for it needs no illustration to show that the paths of knowledge are not always smooth, that her temple is at lofty, well-nigh inaccessible heights, that bold hands and stout hearts can alone hope to reach her portals. He who would scale those heights, he who desire to drink of the waters of truth directly from their fountain-head, must not expect to find all laid smooth before him, but to meet with obstacles at every turn, doubts, difficulties, disappointments with every onward step. Still less must he look to great worldly advantages as the necessary result of his labors. These are, it is true, perfectly natural and legitimate objects of pursuit, but, to the scholar at least, they are not or should not be the sole or even the highest object of that pursuit. He should be prepared to sacrifice all of these to his own great and sole aim, the attainment of truth for the truth's sake. This is his highest ambition, and to this all less worthy objects should be subordinated.
Nor let us regard such an ambition as merely visionary and sentimental; it is actual and possible, and the instances are innumerable of those whose whole lives have been guided and controlled solely by such motives. Regarding as the truest educators those who in all times have labored to increase and to diffuse the store of human knowledge, how seldom do we find personal ambition or even motives of practical utility the mainspring of their efforts. It was not motives such as those that led Franklin and Hayes and Kane to brave the terrors of the Arctic seas, or Livingston and Speke the equally perilous task of penetrating the great unknown of Africa; it was not worldly gain or mere ambition that held the great astronomer Bond, in nightly contemplation of the heavens, and kept that searching eye fixed on the distant worlds until all else was forgotten and his own life became the sacrifice to his untiring zeal; it was not this that induced the illustrious Agassiz to decline all the tempting offers which were made to him, of increased emoluments, higher social position, the friendship of the ablest minds of the old world in science and in letters, and last but not least, the companionship of his native hills, and all that he might pursue a favorite study in a field as yet unknown to him,— in a field, nevertheless, which promised results of interest to himself and to the world.
But I need not multiply examples. History abounds with illustrations of such devotion to favorite pursuits, a devotion continued in spite of all obstacles, at the sacrifice of all worldly ambitions, in the face often of the most determined opposition, and that, too, when no immediate or even prospective advantage could be foreseen as a consequence of success. The names of Galileo, Harvey, Tycho Brahe, and Kepler, and many other martyrs to science arise spontaneously in our minds, and though happily in our day the efforts for which they suffered may be made without the danger of actual persecution, yet he who would devote his life to such a work must be prepared to expect no sympathy, no interest, much less any active cooperation. Well is it for us and for the world that neither ridicule, nor want of sympathy, neither interposition of obstacles, nor apparent want of results, can daunt or deter from their self appointed tasks such minds as those of Newton and Davy, Franklin and Cuvier, Faraday and Brewster. Theirs was a nobler motive than personal ambition or even mere practical utility. They sought and found their reward not so much in the approving smile of the world, which is quick enough to appropriate the results of those labors, but seldom disposed to recognise or appreciate the long years of doubt, trial and disappointment by which those labors lead to a brilliant success—as in the consciousness of a work nobly but humbly done, in the satisfaction which attends the search and discovery of truth simply for its own sake, in the pleasure which nature never fails to lavish upon those who devote themselves wholly and unselfishly to her service. The true secret of their success, and of that of every true scholar, lay insincerity and love.
Let us now attempt to analyse this element of pleasure, and, if possible, ascertain its source.
First, then, I would say that one chief reason why intellectual effort should be a source of mental enjoyment is inherent in the very constitution of the mind itself. The intellectual, no less than the physical powers of man, are endowed with an activity which it is impossible to resist. Exercise of the one is as essential as that of the other. As the muscular fibres become wearied more by inaction than by well-directed but continuous effort, as the nervous cords, when unemployed, at last excite spasmodic movements of the limbs, as the entire structure of the body necessitates the introduction of new matter upon which the organs may act, or otherwise those organs attack and destroy the body itself, so the intellectual faculties require, even more imperiously than the body, to be constantly in use. They, too, require new food, for thought, and as the most perfect physical health is felt only when all the bodily powers are in harmonious movement, and a glow then overspreads the entire frame, so the exercise of the mind is ever attended with pleasurable emotions, and never more so than when we attempt to enlarge its powers, to overcome obstacles, and to widen the field of our contemplation. The human intellect is not satisfied with remaining idle. The hardest work we can have to do, is to do nothing at all. If not employed it deteriorates, it narrows, it turns upon and consumes itself. What are bigotry, fanaticism, nay even insanity in many cases, but the result of the cramping of the intellect, the brooding over one idea, the inability or the refusal to accept those varied modes of thought which in a well constituted, or, as we term it, "well balanced" mind, are so carefully weighed the one against the other?
Another and not the least of the sources of pleasure gained by constant and well directed mental effort lies in the increased precision acquired in the application of our reasoning powers to new objects of thought. The well trained mind that is accustomed to reason upon and to compare the different aspects of a problem soon learns, like the mathematician, to eliminate all that is secondary and non-essential, it endeavors to come at once to the point, it strives to reach its conclusions by the shortest yet the surest method. It will not, taught by experience, jump at those conclusions, but weighing well all the facts which have a bearing upon the question, will have no difficulty in pronouncing upon their relative value, or in forming an accurate judgment of the consequences to which they lead. Here again the analogy between the mental and the bodily powers is very striking. How rude and clumsy are the efforts of the beginner in attaining the mastery of even the more simple mechanical arts, but he who has once acquired the control of his muscles, he who has become thoroughly acquainted with their infinite versatility yet their wonderful precision when properly employed, can readily adapt them to any required use and thus in a few days obtain the necessary knowledge of a new art, for which the beginner would require months or even years. Is it not from an appreciation of a corresponding fact that we are led to receive with such ready credence the opinion of those eminent for their scholarship, their literary or scientific attainments, even when that opinion is upon subjects not directly connected with, or even widely removed from, their ordinary studies? Do we not instinctively feel that the habits of accurate observation, of careful judgment, which we know them to invariably employ in their own peculiar fields, will be brought by them to the consideration of the new subjects to which their attention has been asked?
Three general sources of pleasure, then, present themselves as arising from, as well as tending to produce intellectual effort, viz., first, the natural activities of the human mind, "the delivious but divine desire to know;" secondly, the capacity which those active powers also possess of unfolding and expanding; and thirdly, the increased precision which their exercise confers upon our reasoning faculties.
But this very unfolding and expanding of our intellectual powers leads us to the enjoyment of pleasures of other and higher kinds. Mere mental activity, a growing intellect, and an increased capability of reflection, these are to a certain extent intuitive and shared by all, and may be, and often are, excited even by low and unworthy objects, while the pleasures to which I would now refer are more difficult of attainment, come only to the few, and arise from causes the nature and extent of which it is not always easy to estimate.
And first among these hidden sources of intellectual enjoyment I would place the sense of beauty, a sense present in every human breast, but like other senses capable either, by neglect, of deterioration if not absolute extinction, or by a contrary process, of almost infinite development. This sense of beauty is a very complex one, taking different forms according to the peculiarities of individual intellects, but can any one deny that it is an active sense, capable, when rightly directed, of yielding powerful results. The beautiful in art, in literature or language, and last but not least, the beautiful in nature, are not these true sources of pleasure, are they not in mind capable of appreciating them; often the means of a most exquisite enjoyment? To the students of classical literature, for instance, what can yield a keener pleasure than the resounding lines of Homer or the smoothly flowing hexameters of Virgil, what more enticing than the study of their lofty thoughts, their glowing imagery, or their strange but beautiful mythology? Was it not to the extraordinary development of this sense of beauty among the ancient Greeks and Romans that to a great extent were due, not merely the eminent position attained by these nations in their day, but as well the powerful influence which they have exerted and continue to exert upon our own?
And here I would observe that this sense of beauty, especially in art, is, with our modern desire to turn everything to practical account, apt to be sadly neglected, and its beneficial effects underrated. How few and how insignificant are the art treasures which as yet this continent has produced, how few even are there to be found in the old world as compared with the products of an earlier age. We hare no Raphaels, no Michael Angelos, no Titians, in our day. And as with painting so with architecture and with sculpture. How few are the buildings in America, public or private, which can lay any just claim to grandeur, to beauty or even durability. To what can this result be ascribed than to the comparative neglect of this sense of the beautiful, our failure to recognise, as an educational influence, ought but what can clearly be shown to be of practical utility. Are not our courses of intellectual training defective in so far as they ignore, or fail to arouse and develop, this powerful sense of what is pure and noble!
It is much the same with the study of nature. The great fountain-head of poetry, of history, of art and science, the great mirror of which these are but the imperfect reflection, how few seek to drink the waters of that fountain in all their parity, how few to look below its bright surface and to search out the beauties which lie hidden beneath. Can it be that those beauties are not worth the seeking? Surely no one who has earnestly made the effort can have failed of his reward, for how infinitely do they transcend man's poor attempts to copy them. In what does the painter's or the sculptor's art consist, but in the desire to reproduce nature, to convey to our minds impressions, idealized it may be but originally derived by long study from her, and deriving from her all their beauty and their charm? Bright creations we may call them, but they are not, after all, mere imitations,—imitations, too, which cannot for one moment bear comparison with the original. Rich and glowing as may be the painter's canvass, full of grace and symmetry the sculptor's group, examine them attentively and how soon their beauties fade! The one to become a cold and lifeless stone, the other a flat and equally lifeless mass of mingled color.
How different with nature herself. It is hers to invite and not to repel our closest study. Beautiful as may be the landscape as a whole, each portion will he found to possess its individual charm, no object which it presents, however minute, is too insignificant to reward our closest gaze. Be it a single leaf, a pebble by the way side, the most insignificant flower that hides itself from sight, each has its beauties not identically repeated in any other.
And when our unassisted vision fails, science again comes to our relief, and the marvelous wonders of the microscope become revealed. Under its penetrating eye, we may search into the very secrets of nature, we may study the interior as well as the exterior forms of beauty. We may, as it were, come face to face with the great mystery of life. We may watch the current of the blood, as laden with its nutritive elements, it courses from artery to vein, the circulation of the sap from cell to cell, the crowding of the atoms each to take its appointed place is the forming crystal. With it we may view the wonders brought up by the sounding lead from the ocean's greatest depths, or looking back into the past may tell the very kind of trees whose wood we now burn in the form of coal, or we may recognise, at a still more remote period, and in spite of all the changes which they have undergone in the long lapse of time, the existence of organic beings in the very oldest strata of our globe.
It is this which constitutes the inspiration of the genuine naturalist. He never tires in his search, for he knows that his rewards will never fail, that the field of his labors is exhaustless. He knows that beauties lie hidden where we would least suspect their presence, that it is in the minute rather than in the grand that nature has been most lavish in her expenditure, most exact in her workmanship. There is an indescribable charm felt by every naturalist in this study of the minute, a pleasure unequalled when, in some long familiar object, there is suddenly disclosed to him some beauty unseen before.
And not beauty only, hut harmony, a wonderful adaptation, a perfect order. There is no chance work, no jarring of conflicting elements, no imperfection in results. Everything is seen to be but part of an ordered plan, a system under law. This is the very essence of modern science, the means as well as the result of its rapid advancement. Originally a mass of isolated facts, without order or connection, it has risen from these to the enunciation of great principles. Each fact is studied, not for its own sake merely, but also for the light it may serve to shed on all related facts. What a wonderful illustration of this have we in the new and now generally adopted doctrine of the "Convertibility of Force." It was a great step gained for science, when the powers of nature, the forces of heat, of light, and of electricity, were shown to be not material substances, but the result of certain attractive and repulsive influences, but how much greater has been the gain when, in our own day, we are led to regard these influences themselves, not as distinct and at variance with each other, but most intimately connected, to a great extent correlative, and all, with the kindred forces of chemical attraction and cohesion, and even gravitation, mere manifestations of the motive powers of bodies. At will we change our motion into heat or light or the electric charge, we develop the one by the mere acceleration or retardation of the other. Who does not see here the prospect of a grand progress in the future, the discovery and application of principles which shall greatly extend our present knowledge as well as our means of practical advancement? Already the results attained in one department are employed not merely for the explanation of those in another, but as suggestive of new modes of experiment, affording the means of constructing instruments and appliances of more exact research. What a wonderful illustration of this mutual, bearing of all the branches of natural knowledge is afforded in the case of a well-equipped modern astronomical observatory, what a spectacle may there be seen of the interplay of nature's forces, the employment of the hidden springs of power to unfold and utilize the grandest truths of our universe. By the aid of electricity and light, those subtle agents so intimately related to each other and all the forms of matter, the laws which govern the universe of matter are observed and studied. Thus astronomers not only map out the heavens, take life pictures of the celestial bodies in all their phases, and record with unerring accuracy the transit of the stars, but by those same processes of photography and electricity take simultaneous observations at distant points, record the paths of meteors and the vibrations of the auroral light, the variations of magnetic force, the direction, power any velocity of the winds, the pressure and humidity of the atmosphere, and many related phenomena—and these, too, without any exhausting effort on the part of the observer, but by the self-registering power of the instruments themselves at every moment and from year to year. Thus all variable elements become eliminated, the constant and fundamental laws become apparent, not to reason only but to sight, portraiture as it were of all the phenomena which it is their office to record. And, again, from these constant data in the past, the mind is led to scan the future, to predict long before hand facts and events of the utmost importance in the practical affairs of life.
This prophetic character of modern science is the direct result, as it is also the surest proof of the intimate co-dependence of all the branches of physical inquiry. We are able to pronounce before hand, even from imperfect data, what the subsequent completion of these data will only serve to verify. From his observatory at Greenwich the astronomer signals the approach of storms, from whatever quarter or from whatever distance they may come; from a single bone or tooth the comparative anatomist reconstructs the whole frame and pronounces upon the food and habits even of an animal long since extinct; from the study of a single mass of rock the geologist will tell you the period of its formation, the origin of its materials, the conditions under which it was formed. Every one is familiar with the wonderful discovery of Adams and Leverrier, showing by mathematical demonstration the presence of a far distant but unknown planet with such precision that the telescopes of Challis and of Galle were with unerring certainty turned, to the very spot which that planet occupied; but have we not in modern chemistry an equally wonderful illustration of the progress of our science? The presence in the spectra of certain incandescent minerals, of a few dark or bright lines not attributable to the existence of any known elements, served only as a stimulus for stricter search, and four new metals—Caesium, Rubidium, Thallium, and Indium—now added to our list, prove the accuracy of the conjecture as well as the delicacy of our analytical methods. So extreme indeed is that delicacy that we are now competent to detect in familiar substances an amount of those metals not exceeding l.2,730,000,000th of a single gramme. Who can wonder that with such results we are able to carry our investigations beyond our own sphere and to demonstrate the existence of these same elements in the sun, the stars and the still more distant nebulae—a wonderful example not merely of the precision of modern scientific discovery, but showing as well how closely all branches of science are interwoven, the one serving to illustrate and explain the other.
Intimately connected with this idea of relationship between the different branches of physical inquiry is the correspondence which we cannot fail to observe between the methods of nature and those which we ourselves employ. Every naturalist is struck with these resemblances, these similarities of design, no matter to what branch his studies may be directed, but they are nowhere more apparent than in our own organization. Is not the human frame a complete epitome of the methods employed in each and all of the mechanical arts? Where have we better illustrations of the attainment of the greatest strength with the least consumption of materials, where are the contrivances for the application of power more perfect, more simple or more varied? The strength of the different bones always exactly proportioned to the resistance they have to hear, their connection by joints combining all the requisites of perfect freedom, entire want of friction and protection against external injuries; the flow of the blood regulated just according to the wants of the member whose nourishment it is to supply, the attachment of the muscles to the bones upon which they are to act in each a way us to attain either promptitude, precision or force as one or the other is desired; all of these objects are attained by the very methods which the mechanic would use to produce similar results, but here infinitely more perfect, and moreover attaining by on and the same means results for which the mechanic would require many different and often incompatible appliances. Is not the eye the most perfect of optical instruments, the ear the most marvelous illustration of the laws of sound, the hand an unrivalled example of consummate mechanism.
And not in man only but throughout the entire animate creation, and from the most remote periods, the same resemblances are apparent, the same coincidences between the expressions, if we may so term them, of the human and the divine minds. From the complex structure of man, the fulfillment of the highest possibilities of life, to the minute and simple Polyp, from the Foraminifer of the Laurentian rocks to the varied Fauna and Flora of our own era, each object recalls to our minds something that is familiar to our own experience, or is suggestive of principles and truths which we can not fail to apprehend and apply. In the mailelad fishes of the Devonian, long buried in the old Red Sandstone of Scotland, Hugh Miller discusses the principles and methods now employed by the carpenter or mechanic, in the varied corals and crinoids of the Silurian, the eye of Agassiz unfolds the symmetry of Gothic and Corinthian columns, in the shells of our own era the most casual observer cannot fail to discover such forms of grace and beauty as the artist and designer is but too ready to grasp and imitate. Even in the inorganic world, our towers and temples, our spires and turrets, are reproduced in rocky pinnacle and in mountain peaks, in volcanic domes and basaltic columns, in stalactitic caverns and in arctic ice!
Nor are the resemblances, as in the above cases, always merely superficial; they are often but the expression of truths which underlie the whole universe, animate and inanimate, connecting its widely varied objects and phenomena under simple laws and into comprehensive groups. As the naturalist wanders from field to field, as each new fact or being attracts his notice, he not only admires its individual beauties, but seeks for the hidden thought which it embodies, for the link which shall servo to define its place and purpose. Similarity, but not identity of form or structure, is ever awakening his astonishment, he sees the higher types of life passing through stages in which they transiently represent peculiarities that are constant in the lower orders of the same group. Even in the physical history of our planet, as he reviews the geological ages, he beholds cycle after cycle in long succession, each in many respects a counterpart of those which have proceded, but each at the same time possessed of its own peculiar features, and each marking some new stage in a progressive development. Thus in whatever direction he may turn his thoughts the student of nature cannot fail to recognize the presence of a Supreme Intelligence, a power ever guiding and controlling the material universe. He beholds in the world a theatre of unceasing activity and change, nothing in absolute rest, nothing independent and self-existing, but all in an infinite harmony, each animal and each plant in its appropriate place, and each dependant upon the other, though at the same time passing through its own peculiar phases of development,—nay, even the atoms of the inanimate creation possessing a sort of vitality ever oscillating, ever attracting or repelling each other within the fixed limits of their motion. He perceives that amid all the diversity around him there is at the same time a marvellous unity, that the Creative Intellect has worked as it were upon a comparatively few simple models, while at the
same time moulding these into an infinite variety of graceful forms. To use the eloquent words of one who has devoted a whole lifetime to the work—"When one has become by long study of nature in some sense intimate with the animal creation, it is impossible not to recognize in it the immediate action of thought, and even to specialize the intellectual faculties it reveals. It speaks of an infinite power of combination and analysis of reminiscence and prophesy, of that which has been in eternal harmony with that which is to be; and while we stand with reverence before the grandeur of the Creative Conception as a whole, there breaks from it such lightness of fancy, such richness of invention, such variety and vividness of color, nay even the ripple of mirthfulness,— for nature has its harmonious side also,—that we lose our grasp of its completeness in wonder at its details, and our sense of its unity is clouded by its marvellous fertility. There may seem to be an irreverence in thus characterizing the Creative Thought by epithets which we derive from the exercise of our own mental faculties, but it is nevertheless true that, the nearer we come to nature the more does it seem to us that all our intellectual endowments are merely the echo of the Almighty Mind and that the eternal Archetypes of all manifestations of thought in man are found in the creation of which he is the crowning work."
May it please Your Excellency,—
Mr. President, and Gentlemen of the Senate and University, Ladies and Gentlemen.
With such a field before us, so attractive, so boundless and so accessible, ever inviting us as it does to enter in and possess it, is it not surprising that so few should be found to accept that invitation, so few willing to make the effort, without which, as in every pursuit of life, success is impossible. How few even when the grandest truths of our universe are presented to their minds, have any just conception of their true meaning or significant. Surely this can only be the result of a defective educational training, of the tendency still too prevalent in all our educational institutions to make the study of actual living forms subordinate to that of books, to throw a veil over the secrets of creation as if they were forbidden things, not intended, as they most certainly were, for the development of our best and purest faculties. In our desire to unfold the reflecting powers, to expand the intellectual capacity of the mind, we have failed to employ the very means which are really the best adapted for producing both expansion and ennoblement. The very objects which by their beauty, their harmony, their wonderful adaptation, are best calculated to awaken thought, to invite our earnest study and most minute analysis, are left untouched, uncared for, the exclusive field of those who, even from a very partial acquaintance with nature, have found therein the source of their highest pleasure. The observing powers, by which alone such studies can be pursued, are apt to be entirely neglected, the objects of the material world are made to repel rather than to attract attention. Yet a knowledge of these is certainly as necessary for the complete education of a man as is the development of his purely reasoning faculties. Why, it may be asked, should the brain be exercised upon itself alone, and all those wonderful organs by which it is placed in communication with the world around us be left, not of course unused, but untrained, undisciplined, performing only an infinitismal part of what their wondrous structure would enable them to perform? And why should the actual knowledge of that external world itself be so lamentably deficient among the great majority of educated men, men whom we are accustomed to regard as the representatives of learning and refinement? Had they any just conception of nature's charms, of the beauty which lies concealed where we would least suspect its presence, no less in the myriad atoms which make up the life of the commonest wayside brook than among the innumerable planetary worlds, also mere atoms in the one great universe, would they rest content to let such inexhaustible fields of knowledge and of pleasure pass unheeded by? How little do they appreciate even the commonest and most obvious of the objects and phenomena which everywhere surround them, of the air they breathe, the food upon which they live, how little of the constitution of their own bodies or of the other organic beings which accompany them upon the earth, how little of that earth itself, its structure, its history, or its relation to other worlds!
Do I seem to exaggerate the neglect of the observing powers? Such neglect is everywhere apparent among all members of the community, it appears in all the current literature of the day where the most improbable, nay even impossible, statements are made and received as undoubted facts, it is shown in the descriptions given by travellers of natural scenery and phenomena, it introduces uncertainty into our courts of law, and leads to carelessness and inaccuracy in ordinary conversation. The first difficulty which every teacher of the Natural Sciences has to contend with is this inability on the part of his pupils to use to their full extent the different powers with which they are endowed. It is a very easy matter to look but a far more difficult one to see, for the eye, like the voice or ear, can only be used with full effect after long preparatory training. Even the untaught savage is, in the use of these organs, an adept in comparison with most civilized men, discriminating with the nicest precision the different impressions to which his senses are exposed, whether of taste, sound, or vision, and errors in the use of these organs, naturally and inevitably tend to corresponding delusions of the reflective powers. With the observing faculties trained to their right use and full development, the errors and impostures which have at all periods gained a large share of popular credence, from the oracles of the ancients to the witchcraft and necromancy of the middle, and the spiritualism of our own age, would have yielded to actual observation what they have failed to yield to the demands of reason and morality.
It may seem to some of my hearers that in dwelling thus at length upon the value of Natural History as an educational element, I am disposed to give an undue importance to favorite pursuits, but I have done so with the belief that I could thereby best illustrate the main purpose of my remarks, viz, to show that there is, underlying all intellectual effort, an element of pleasure, which it is our duty to recognize and cherish to the utmost extent; and which, if neglected, will do much to render futile our best endeavors. We should strive to give to the various branches of study, no less in Literature than in Science, a pleasurable and attractive form. It is here that I believe may be found one fundamental error in the older and to some extent even in the recent systems of intellectual development. They fail to take hold of and to interest the mind of the learner. He struggles hard to acquire the mastery of the difficult tasks imposed upon him, his memory becomes loaded with details of which he cannot see the use, and if haply he at last attains to anything of the beauty or the charm of the study he is pursuing, it is only to look back with renewed dread over the weary way he has travelled. It is not for me to say how far each individual department is open to this reproach, but it is my belief that in all there is still room for improvement in this respect,—not particularly in our own University, which as regards the point in question may compare favorably with many similar institutions, but in the means and methods of education in general, in schools even more than in colleges. There is far too much of the "cramming" system, too little effort to interest and win the natural inclinations of the mind. The whole scheme is apt to be made one of memory, not sufficiently one of analysis, of observation and of comparison. There is little or no intellectual liberty, without which there can be no true intellectual growth. Knowledge is indeed imparted and received, but only for the time—it is acquired but not assimilated, and yields no mental nourishment. How seldom does this system lead to any further effort after the educational course, so called, is ended, how gladly for the most part are the studies pursued within our Universities thrown aside as a finished task, as something of no further use as soon as the doors are passed! Is it not for the same reason that they who have attained to the greatest eminence in literature and in science, are not those who owe their success to a University training, but those who, either beginning in early life, from pure devotion to the pursuit, have fought their way through all obstacles and difficulties, or who, at a later period bursting asunder the bonds which trammeled them, have roamed unfettered in their search for truth. Surely this should not be so, and seems clearly to indicate that something is radically wrong in our present systems of educational training.
How far and in what way a remedy may be applied to the defects of which we now complain, it is not my present purpose, nor have we sufficient leisure to discuss. Among such remedies, however, we may certainly place an improved and more attractive form of school houses; the supplying of these with Maps and Atlasses, exhibiting the grander relations of the physical universe, apart from the mass of unimportant details with which they have heretofore been encumbered; the study of History as a record of human progress, of cause and effect, rather than as a mere accumulation of facts and dates; the study of Literature, ancient and modern, more as a means of unfolding the ideas and thoughts of the authors than as mere illustrations of the grammar; the introduction into our superior schools of the study of elementary Natural Science and Natural Philosophy, the encouragement of local Museums of the rare and curious and beautiful from the world around us,—in fine, a determination, throughout all branches of the educational course, to awaken in the minds of students a curiosity and desire for personal effort, and to make for them the prosecution of their studies a pleasure and not an irksome task. Our great aim should be to lead the mind upward from the contemplation of isolated facts to the recognition of great principles, we should endeavor to create and cherish habits of observation, reflection and comparison, not attempting to rush headlong through a certain amount of matter, but with a comparatively limited field to make that field attractive, to make, in short, the pursuit of knowledge, as it should be, its own exceeding great reward.
And here let me add one word with reference to what I conceive to be at present the most pressing needs of our own University.
If what I have said be true, that the main object of our University training, as indeed of all educational training, is the improvement of the mind, the production and development in the young of an intellectual taste, in short, the education of the intellect in the laws of nature and of man, it follows of necessity that every available means should be sought which can in any degree contribute to this result. Everything which may have any tendency to create or foster such a taste should be most carefully preserved and diligently employed, every possible means should he cherished by which those laws may be rendered easy of comprehension, and their study be made a source of pleasure as well as of profit.
I need scarcely say that among the means most important in the accomplishment of these results are our Library and our Museum, the two most valuable instruments probably in the whole machinery of our usefulness, the one the record of the laws of nature as expressed in organic and inorganic forms, the other the record of the laws of man as expressed in the history of his ideas, his progress, his language, and his civilization. As regards the first of these, the Library, it is not necessary that I should now speak at length, either as to its importance, which I think no one will dispute, or the absolute necessity for its enlargement, a necessity apparent to every one who may enter its walls in its present cramped and overcrowded condition. I desire, however, to say a few words with reference to the second, and to call your attention to a few facts in connection with our University Museum, its history, its objects, its present condition, and its possible improvement.
The varied and invaluable collection, now contained within the University Museum, was the original work, and is the most enduring monument of its lamented founder, the late Dr. James Robb. Undertaken with a keen sense of its importance and usefulness, and prosecuted with an untiring determination to make it the most complete, accurate and thorough representation of the Mineralogy, Geology and Natural History of the Province, as well as the means of direct comparison of the natural products of New Brunswick with those of other countries, the labors of its originator soon served not only to place the collection upon a secure and permanent basis, but to cause its rapid extension and enlargement. When deprived of the further continuance and benefit of those labors, the valuable material collected had already exceeded the limited accommodations for its preservation and display, and much that might profitably be retained and employed in illustration and instruction was necessarily removed, or stored away in a practically unavailable form for future use. These difficulties have constantly and rapidly increased to the present hour, when it becomes absolutely necessary to reject large quantities of material, which with proper and ample facilities for their arrangement and display, would not only add greatly to the completeness of the collection but also enhance to a very considerable degree its practical usefulness.
Under these circumstances it would seem as though the time had now come for the construction of a building especially devoted to the arrangement and preservation of this most valuable collection which, already far more complete than any other in the Lower Provinces, is capable of becoming, with comparatively little effort, the representative Museum of Acadia. To convey a more just appreciation of the real value of our Museum, and to give some conception of the extent, variety and importance of the objects which it already illustrates, it may not be uninteresting to present here a brief synopsis of its present collections and of their general mode of arrangement.
They may be briefly summarized as follows: Beginning with the
Mineral Kingdom.
- A collection of simple minerals, including more than 250 from New Brunswick, over 100 from other portions of Acadia, and over 500 from various foreign localities in Europe and America, representing especially the great mining districts of the old world.
- A collection of rocks, representative of the geology of New Brunswick and arranged in duplicate series, the one illustrative of the especial character of the different counties, the other of their more general relations and geological age.
- A similar series of foreign rocks, over 400 in number, representative of the principal formations of Europe.
- Similar specimens from the most interesting localities in Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, Canada, and the United States.
- A collection of the economic minerals of New Brunswick, including
- Such as are used for the amelioration of the soil (Sands, Clays. Marls, &c.)
- Burning materials (Coal, Albertite, Shale, Petroleum, &e.)
- Materials for fulling and cleansing (Steatite and Graphite.)
- Materials for grinding and polishing (Pure Silicia, Sand, &c.)
- Materials for Porcelain, Stoneware and Pottery (Kaolin, Fire Clay, &c.)
- Building Stones (Granites, Freestones, Marbles, Slates, &c.)
- Ores of the Metals (Iron, Copper, Lead, Zinc, Antimony, Manganese.)
- Mineral Salts (Common Salt, Alum, &c.)
- Mineral Paints (Ochres, &c.)
- Glass Materials, Furnace Stones, Slags, &c.
- A collection of the economic minerals of New Brunswick, including
- A collection of New Brunswick Plants; over 700 in number, and representing as far as now known, the complete Flora of the Province.
- A collection of North American Plants.
- A collection of European Plants, consisting of authentic and type specimens from the celebrated Herbaria of Professors Hooker and Balfour.
- Numerous Vegetable Curiosities, Monstrosities, &c.
- The Fossils of New Brunswick—typical and characteristic specimen from which in many cases, the age of our rock formation have been determined.
- Fossils of Nova Scotia, including many fine specimens from the celebrated Coal sections of the Joggins, Pictou, and Cape Breton, Canadian and North American Fossils,
characteristic of the different periods of American geological history.
- A collection of Foreign Fossils, 500 in number, arranged according to the eminent French Palaeontologist, Broun.
- In the first place, then, they present in a condensed and systematic form an epitome of all organic and inorganic nature. They contain, side by side, natural objects from all quarters of the globe, illustrating their relationships and contrasting their differences, and thus affording a clearer insight into the great laws of the universe, of which they are but the outward expression.
- They enable those interested in the study of the animals, plants, minerals or natural products of the Province, to compare the specimens from the latter with those of other countries, and thus with greater precision and certainty to determine their character and to pronounce upon their value.
- They furnish a standard of reference for all doubtful points arising as to the mineralogy, geology or botany of the Province.
- They are invaluable as a means of instruction, enabling students to acquire an actual and practical acquaintance with the subjects of their study, such acquaintance serving to imprint the characters of the latter upon the memory far more indelibly than can any merely verbal or printed descriptions.
- They awaken a desire for further acquaintance with the objects illustrated, and stimulate; fresh exertions to increase the number and completeness of those illustrations.
- They greatly facilitate the labors of the instructor by enabling him to appeal directly to the objects described in proof of the truths he may be endeavoring to explain.
We have next the
Animal Kingdom.
This includes, besides a valuable anatomical and osteological collection, numerous specimens, preserved dry or in alcohol, of the Mammals, Birds, Reptiles, Fishes, and Invertebrates of the Province, besides many valuable and interesting objects of Natural History from other localities. This portion of the cabinet is regarded as one of special importance, and is in constant use for the purposes of instruction. It has been rapidly increasing within the last few years, and is still receiving constant additions, from both individual liberality and that of other scientific institutions.
Next follows the
Vegetable Kingdom.
Next we have the
Palaeontological Cabinet.
In addition to the above we may add a large number of Miscellaneous Articles, such as—
Models of Crystals, Stratified Rocks, Iron and Soda Furnaces, &c.; Models of Pottery Works and fools, Glass Furnaces, Iron Rollers, &c.; Maps—Geographical, Geological and Physical; Charts; Plates—Chemical, Anatomical, Botanical, Geological, Sectional, &c.; and finally, a Microscopical or Histological Collection, embracing more than 150 slides, illustrative of the minute structure of animal and vegetable tissues.
Such is the condition of our Cabinet at the present time, a condition certainly upon which to congratulate ourselves, but as certainly capable of great enlargement and improvement, improvement both in the better display of what we now possess and in the addition to many departments of articles in which we are now deficient.
The advantages of such a collection are almost too obvious to need enumeration, yet I would briefly call your attention to a few of them as bearing upon their educational value, and the consequent importance of their direct connection with a seat of learning like our own.
And lastly, they may aid in the general progress of knowledge, by collecting and preserving facts and objects, the relations of which, to those in other parts of the world, may assist in the discovery of new truths, and the deduction of great and universal principles.
It follows as a natural consequence of many of these facts that the most profitable and advantageous locality for such a collection is in direct connection with a seat of learning, Public Museums, independent of literary institutions, although far from being without their value, fail for the most part to confer those practical benefits which similar collections in Colleges and Universities are sure to afford. The casual visits paid to the former serve rather to confuse than to instruct, while the latter, used in the daily illustration of natural laws and organic forms, become a store-house to the student, wherein, under proper guidance, he may for himself trace out and acquire a knowledge of those laws which it is his principal object to unfold.
To fully accomplish this result, it is desirable that such collections, when made, should be so arranged and displayed as to enable those interested in the study, to acquire the desired information with the least possible difficulty. The objects exhibited should be so arranged in suitable cases as to display conspicuously their most important and characteristic features. They should not be so crowded as to confuse the sight, nor so separated as to make their comparison difficult. There should, moreover, he room not only for the most unique specimens but also for all such as illustrate possible variations from the typical form. And lastly, there should be sufficient space for the growing wants of the Museum, for the storing of duplicate specimens to be used in exchange, and for the purposes of class instruction.
These objects cannot be attained within the walls of the present University building, where the space which is now occupied by the Museum and Library is already wanted for the accommodation of resident students. They can only fully and satisfactorily accomplished by the erection of a new building especially designed for this purpose. Such an edifice, if properly constructed, and stored with our rapidly increasing collections of natural objects, would become not only a means of imparting a higher and more perfect instruction to the students of the University, but would become at the same time an object of interest to the community in general.
Such a building may readily answer other purposes than those of the Museum simply. If of two stories it may he made to combine the Library as well, and it considered desirable, the Chemical Laboratory. Another advantage attendant upon the possession of such a building is that it would, in its Library, furnish an ample Hall, now much desired, for the annual University public examinations, an well as perhaps, for the Encaenial celebrations, the meetings of the Associated Alumni and other kindred purposes.
With these few explanations and remarks I must now leave this subject in your hands, sincerely trusting, however, that not many years may be allowed to elapse before some active steps are taken towards the attainment of this most desirable object, and that our present very valuable collection may be properly displayed in a suitable building, which shall not only exhibit its treasures to the best advantage, but be at the same time an ornament alike to our University and the Province.
I would add but one word more in conclusion, a word addressed more particularly to the present or future undergraduates of our University. It is for them that all these advantages are sought, for them it is desired to make the paths of knowledge easy, pleasant and attractive; let them, therefore, do their part to show that these our efforts have not been made in vain; let them prove by the right use of the opportunities afforded them that they duly appreciate their advantages, and are determined to employ them to their lull extent. Above all let them enter upon their efforts with earnestness and sincerity of purpose, banishing all less worthy motives, and seeking to learn the truth simply because it is the truth. Let them remember that perfect success, whatever may he our aim, can only be attained by perfect devotion, by an ardent enthusiasm in the cause upon which we are engaged. Without enthusiasm, without a sinking of ourselves in our work we cannot hope for the accomplishment of great or worthy results. With such enthusiasm, with a fervent but humble desire to seek out and unfold the depths of knowledge, that work will become the easier at every step, pleasures of which we little dreamed will constantly arise to illuminate and cheer our way, we shall be led to the contemplation of the beauties and harmonies of both mind and matter, manifestations as they are of Infinite Benevolence, Wisdom and Intelligence, than which no grander theme can occupy our thoughts or confer a more pure and lasting enjoyment.
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