Alumni Oration

"N.B. University. The Encoenia Exercises. ... The Alumni Oration" The Daily Telegraph (25 June 1880): 3.

Eight years have passed away since I stood within these walls and received with my class mates from our worthy president the degree of Bachelor of Arts. In that brief period many changes have taken place in our midst. We have been called upon to lament the death of some of the noblest supporters of this University, men of marked ability in their several stations, whose influence and example for good we still feel and remember. We miss their presence on this recurring festival of our Alma Mater when we meet together to talk over again (as it were) our college days. But sadly as we view the past few years we cannot but feel that there has been much to encourage, much to stimulate us to greater effort in the cause of higher education. Not only has this building been materially improved to meet the advancing wants of professors and students, but the course of instruction has been fully maintained and faithfully performed. Above all we see in this large number of students attending college, an evidence of increased recognition by the public of the incalculable benefits of a higher education. Those benefits have been so often advocated in these halls by far wiser and abler speakers that I feel I can add very little, if anything, to what has already been said, and yet, perhaps, to the diligent and thoughtful observer the field of education is ever fresh, interesting and varied. New ideas, new sources of knowledge, new modes of training and disciplining the mind are continually coming to the surface. It may not be wise to be too liberal, but we may on the other hand be too conservative. How are we following the models that are set us? What do we possess? What may we still improve upon? How may we adapt ourselves more skilfully than hitherto to the spirit and necessities of the age? These are important questions to be often thought over and considered.

On all sides we hear the cry--"Give us useful and practical knowledge--knowledge which, by acting on the mind and making it flexible and manifold, will endow it with a general fitness for the duties and requirements of daily life." To cultivate the intellect, to form correct habits of thought, to draw forth the hidden powers in the mind of his pupil, to make him self-reliant and self-helpful should be the constant aim of every teacher, either at school or college. Then let the mind be stored but not overloaded, enabled to receive, grasp and retain. But more important then "learning how to learn," more necessary than the kinds of knowledge imparted is the temper and aim with which the youth pursues his studies. We hear much of head education, but do we hear enough of heart education? Do teachers endeavor (like Dr. Arnold) to enlist the sympathies and affections of their pupils, to set before them high and worthy objects of attainments and to enforce, both by precept and example, the great necessity of living interest in all their work? Do they think only of turning out intellectual monuments, head educated at the expense of the heart? I feel satisfied that if more were done in this direction in our schools, the young men when leaving college would be more grateful to their professors and more attached to their Alma Mater. The professors ought not to be expected to do the work of schoolmasters. they should be relieved from all elementary education of hear or heart, simply because it does not fall within their province.

After these remarks on the subject of education; it seems to be my special duty and privilege to say a few words, however imperfectly, to the students of this University. "Your college days are the happiest days of your life," said our worthy president to me not many years ago. Gentlemen, I am not much older than many of you and yet I have already recognized the truth of these words. The days are coming when cares will intrude or press, when this natural elasticity of mind must depart and all the faster under the strain of life; when intellectual or material stores will find objects upon which they must be necessarily consumed and wasted. Therefore gather much and gather early or you will not be able to supply the natural wastes of life, or to meet its more urgent demands or its heavier losses. You have many causes for real joy, and few for real sorrow. You have now peculiar opportunities that you will never have in after life. True, your mind has not yet been matured, much less duly informed and cultivated, but it has some powers which it will henceforth know again, and it is the greatest folly to be waiting for some more favorable opportunity of enjoyment. In the words of Lord Brougham, I pray you "to believe how incomparable the present season is, verily, and indeed the most precious of your whole lives," and how "every hours you squander here will in after life rise up against you and be paid for by years of bitter, but unavailing, regrets."

But let me further remind you, in the words of Sir Robert Peel, that "if any one of you will determine to be eminent in whatever profession you may choose and will act with unvarying steadiness in pursuance of that determination, you will, if health and strength be given to you, infallibly succeed." Many of the fairest portions of nature's field now blossoming as the rose (but once barren, desolate, and swampy), afford abundant proof that "it is in man and not in his circumstances that the secret of his destiny resides." "For most of you" (says an acute observer) "that destiny will take its final bent for good or for evil, not from the information you imbibe, but from the habits of mind, thought and life that you should acquire during your college career." Believe me now is the time to sow the good seed, if in after years you would reap an abundant harvest. The waste of your time will cause you to dwindle alike in intellectual and moral stature; the thrift of it will repay you in after years with a usury of profit beyond your most sanguine expectations. All of you have spheres of usefulness to fill in the world. Some of you may be chosen to greater distinctions, honours and trials, and may enter into that class of which each member (while he lives) is envied or admired;

"And when he dies, he bears a lofty name,
A light, a landmark on the cliffs of fame."

Some of you again may pursue "The trivial round the common task," dignifying the ennobling quiet lives by the conscientious and faithful discharge of all your duties. But, gentlemen, whatever may be your lot in life wherever you may be, I entreat you to remember with gratitude your Alma Mater. While here help your teachers and meet their efforts neither with indifference nor mistrust. They are working for your temporal, nay eternal, welfare and you should cheerfully render them your much needed sympathy and support and when you have left these walls to begin the battle of life do not suddenly forget your college and teachers. Above all do not openly condemn or silently distrust your Alma Mater. Some are apt to depreciate the University, unmindful of the great work she has done, is doing, and will yet to do in the interests of higher education. No doubt some corrections and improvements may be necessary from time to time, but the young alumni are scarcely fit judges of those from whose authority they have just emerged--show yourselves then, grateful Alumni. You owe your Alma Mater a debt which no lapse of time, no change of circumstances, can ever wholly efface; and as occasion requires, you should give tangible expression of your feelings. And now, ladies and gentlemen, you who annually throng these halls and cheer us with your presence, if there is any request that we would make of you, it is that you give the teachers and students of the University your hearty sympathy, encouragement and support. Have not many of you sons pursuing their studies here? Do you not feel interested in their intellectual and moral welfare? Do not the honors and rewards that they win here gladden your hearts and quicken your love? And should not those who have no sons here, are not blessed with children, do something for education? Most assuredly they should. The advancement of learning in our schools and colleges is a matter that effects or ought to effect the real happiness and prosperity of every member in the community. That man can scarcely be called liberal or philanthropic who (though blessed with means) will do nothing to foster and promote native ability, nothing to improve the heart and head of his fellow-man, nothing to make him more fit for that higher and better state of being.

But some will say: "Education is all very well for those intending to take a profession, but upon the general mass of men, especially those engaged in mercantile pursuits, it is money largely thrown away." Without giving an extended answer to this argument, we may remark that as a matter of record only five out of 100 ultimately succeed in business. This small percentage is due in a great measure to the want of that higher education, which enables one man to surpass another, to grapple firmly with the financial difficulties of the hour, and not be reckless in the midst of success. Do not understand me as discouraging those who would engage in trade. More, no doubt, would be successful in business if they were better educated and materially fitted for this kind of life. A man with a profession has always something to fall back upon. He is not subject to great fluctuations of income like the merchant. Whether he be a clergyman, a doctor or a lawyer he has that which will always command a certain amount of money. A few words more and I shall have finished. It is, I think, of great importance that parents should endeavor to find out, and then allow their sons to follow the natural bent of their mind. A man forced into a calling opposed to his nature and inclination will seldom succeed. He is like the seed sown in stony ground.

I think it is a mistake for young men to go to college at a very early age, for this reason: That when their three years course are completed they are still young with the mind not fully developed and their judgment not yet matured. Better remain a little longer at school and receive more elementary education than go to college lacking some essential principles. And while in this connexion let me venture to suggest to young men leaving college, who are not yet ready for the study of the profession they intend to follow, that they devote a year at least to some commercial pursuit--the student has seen the theoretical side of life; let him look at it a little from a practical stand-point. By studying the book of mankind in the outside world he will soon know everything; that his college career, however successful, has merely furnished him with some of the tools to begin the great work of life; that he is virtually a student all his life long, and that education really ceases only at his death. I have heard it said by some of the leading members of my own profession (and I daresay many a clergyman and doctor will say), that they have all their lives felt the great want of practical business training, and that had they received it when young, they would have made less mistakes when older, and been on the whole more successful.

Once more: When their sons are at college let parents cheerfully assist and encourage them in their work. Give the University fair play, the teachers thereof kindly consideration. It is not pretended to turn out men almost perfect in some particular branch, but we aim at giving them a general acquaintance with all departments of useful knowledge, believing that his is the best course to pursue in a young country which is not yet able to pay for all kinds of work. Apart from this, we think that such a course of instruction produces on the whole more practical, self-reliant men. We wish to preserve the happy medium between the narrow-mindedness which the pursuit of one subject is apt to engender, and the dissipation consequent upon the pursuit of a multitude of subjects. The public do not as a body give this University the support and encouragement that it deserves, but those who are engaged in the great work teaching here have the inward satisfaction that they are doing their duty and that, if the fruit of their labors is not seen now, it will be recognized in years to come, when other names and other generations shall rise up and call those blessed who taught within these walls, formed the mind and heart of the students committed to their care, and in the face of some prejudice and opposition stood up for the University of New Brunswick and the undying cause of education.