Address in Praise of Founders

"Eulogistic Address in Praise of Founders of the University of New Brunswick Given by Dr. W.C. Keirstead at Encaenia This Afternoon" The Daily Gleaner (13 May 1915): 3.

The Province of New Brunswick and the University of New Brunswick have a common and contemporary origin in the energy and devotion of the brave men who endured persecution and forsook home and country in order to maintain their citizenship in the British Empire. These Loyalists landed in St. John in 1783 and the next year New Brunswick became a separate province.

But even prior to their departure from New York, they wrote to Sir Guy Carleton urging the need of establishing at once a seminary or higher school of learning in the land where they were about to settle in order that they might educate their sons without sending them back to the United States "to imbibe principles that are unfriendly to the British Constitution."

After arrival and settlement here, and on December 13th, 1785, a number of these gentlemen presented a memorial to Governor Thomas Carleton urging the expediency and necessity of establishing a school for liberal arts and sciences and praying that lands be reserved for its support and that trustees be appointed for its establishment and management. The original memorial, the germ of this University, hangs yonder on the wall, a gift from that careful and scholarly historian of this province, the Ven. Archdeacon Raymond. The records of the Executive Council for this date reads: "Took into consideration the memorial of Dr. William Paine and others praying a charter of incorporation be granted for the institution of a Provincial Academy of arts and sciences; also a memorial of the principal officers of the disbanded corps and other inhabitants of the County of York praying that part of the reserved lands around Fredericton may be appropriated to the use of the proposed Academy. Ordered, that the Attorney and Solicitor General be directed with all considerable speed to prepare the draft of a charter for the establishment of the said institution."

The royal assent to the charter incorporating the College of New Brunswick was not given until December 12, 1800, but several years before it arrived the trustee secured a building and opened a Grammar School in Fredericton.

Of course the beginnings were small for the Province was in a primitive state. The entire population prior to the coming of the Loyalists was scarcely 4,000; in the winter of 1788 Parliament could not meet because there were no roads to Fredericton. In 1802 the population was estimated at 25,000, with 3,000 in St. John and 800 in Fredericton. It was not until 1820 that the college made any effort to do work of collegiate grade, and then it was recognized at once that its financial support was inadequate for this purpose and the trustees secured legislation permitting them to surrender their charter for another, in which the King would be deemed the founder, and granting more adequate support. In 1828 three students were graduated with B.A. degree, the only graduates of the old College of New Brunswick.

On the 15th of December, 1828, the King in Council issued a new charter incorporating King's College "within the Province of New Brunswick, for the education of the youth in the principles of the Christian religion, and for their instruction in the various branches of literature and science that are taught in our Universities in this Kingdom."

In 1824 Sir Howard Douglas was appointed Governor of our Province, and at once became a warm supporter of the College. He was instrumental in securing the new charter and greater financial aid both from the Crown and the Legislature. He selected the site for this present building, and practically superintended its construction, and on the first day of January, 1829, he formally opened it to the work of King's College and gave the inaugural address. He speaks of the College as "the first and greatest object" of his mission, and confesses that its establishment "gives him more complete satisfaction than any other public service" in his life. In order to "enjoy identity with the institution forever," he established the gold medal which bears his name and which will be awarded in the exercises today. He defines the function of education in a manner worthy of himself and of the institution. It is "to train men to virtuous, well educated, accomplished manhood," "to bring the blessings of sound, virtuous, useful, religious education," to enable them "to go to old age with conscience devoid of stain, and conduct devoid of censure." He closed that address in these words:

"Firm may this institution ever stand and flourish, firm in the liberal constitution and royal foundation in which I have this day instituted it; enlarging and extending its material form and all its capacities to meet the increasing demands of a rising, prosperous and intellectual people, and may it soon acquire and ever maintain a high and distinguished reputation of great learning and useful knowledge."

Sir Howard Douglas deserves to be counted along with the early loyalists among the founders of this University. He was one of those far-seeing, high-minded administrators of the motherland, whose tact, ability, energy, devotion to duty and genuine interest in the welfare of the colonists have enabled her to build up the greatest empire in the world, and to unite the hearts of all her subjects, whatever their race or creed, in common loyalty and devotion. This University was born and nurtured in enthusiasm and devotion to the Empire and the State, and that spirit abides with us today. Among the great statesmen of the Empire, among governors and jurists of Canada, are our graduates; they are leading portions of His Majesty's forces in this gigantic struggle; they are in the training camps of England and along the far-flung battle line of Flanders; aye, and our undergraduates, too, are fighting the battle of freedom and winning glory for their country and their University.

From 1829 until 1859 this institution existed under the charter and corporate name of King's College, and during this period was subjected to considerable criticism. King's College did some excellent work and although its graduates were few they were in most cases men of ability who rendered invaluable services to their country. Results cannot be adequately measured by mere numbers; a university is "the fortress of the higher life of a nation;" it is the bearer of her ideals, the educator of her leaders, and it is the immortal credit of our founders that they recognized this function and fought for this institution when the masses of our people were unable to appreciate the value of such a service.

But here was considerable feeling throughout the province that the College was not measuring up to its opportunities or filling its full function in the community. In 1850 the population had grown to 200,000, but the attendance at the College remained discouragingly small. The President claimed that the increase of population was due to the influx of the poorer classes who toiled at lumbering and primitive agriculture and could not appreciate the advantages of higher education. The parish schools were inefficient, with small and very irregular attendance; the Normal School was not established until 1847, and the free school system until 1871. The College is devoted to higher education, and its prosperity depends not only upon its own efficiency, but also upon the sympathetic co-operation and efficient functioning of every institution within our educational system.

The founders of our University were cultured men and they brought to this province a moral energy and an intellectual leadership that we cannot overvalue. They taught us obedience to law, reverence for tradition, loyalty to British institutions; in short, they were a conserving and yet constructive force in our earlier provincial life. But they shared the limitations of their age and class, and were incline to believe that "one class had a right to govern the others," and that loyalty meant a recognition of this fact by all. Another social factor gave the dynamic principle, and element that reaches back throughout the entire history of Great Britain, expressing itself in the revolt against King Charles, crossing the water with the Pilgrim Fathers, establishing the Republic of America and achieving responsible government throughout the Provinces of Canada and in this same period fighting victoriously for political liberty in the Assembly of New Brunswick. These leaders in the Assembly felt, at times, that the College was the institution of their opponents, the school of mere tradition, the bulwark of social ideals that were passing away with an outgrown form of social organization. It is well to recognize that a University is a social institution, knit up with all the other social institutions of its generation, growing and changing with them, and compelled to define anew for each generation to maintain its usefulness and vitality.

The new social consciousness that was finding expression in responsible government was destined to transform the University. The popular branch of our legislature charged that a charter which gave to one religious body the control of the College council was "illiberal and exclusive" and they continued to protest until in 1859 the new charter of The University of New Brunswick was secured without religious strictures of any kind. We have already noted the emphasis which the founders put upon the moral and religious aspect of education, and emphasis still essential if we are to secure character within the individual and stability within the nation. But in common with the custom and ideas of the time they sought this value in a way that seemed to restrict the freedom of others. Today within the classrooms and halls of our University students meet on a basis of absolute equality; there is not only freedom in the matter of religious belief but also that freedom for scientific and historical investigation that is essential to all true scholarship. Our education is non-sectarian but surely not irreligious, if education means culture, if culture means appreciation of the most fundamental values of life and of the world, and if such values are essentially moral, social and religious.

The Assembly criticised the curriculum as traditional, classical, giving education for the aristocratic and professional classes, but rendering no service to the masses. Some wanted to establish an agriculture school in place of the College, others wished to divert the grant to the support of the grammar schools, but the wiser members in the Assembly of 1859 secured certain changes within the College curriculum and charter. Governor Colebrooke wrote the President in 1854, "King's needs more students and must meet the actual wants of the community it serves and for whose sake we exist." It may be said that College education is meant for an aristocracy. Only a select few are ever able to secure a college education, but even a democracy must provide this education if it is to have efficient future leaders. It is surely not difficulty in these days to recognize the national importance of leaders. Who can estimate the social value of such men as Kitchener, French, Jellico, Asquith, Grey, or George? And let us not forget the equal importance of the leaders in science and industry, or among the artists, poets, prophets, preachers and other professions of the nation. But the aristocracy of democracy must be one of ability and worth, not of caste or birth, and to attain this it must offer something like equality of opportunity where the humblest in birth can compete for the highest leadership. The University should seeks to provide education for the leaders in every vocation, it should seek to unite culture with utility, to maintain the ideals of the nation and yet to secure efficiency in the achievement of these ideals.

It is not to be expected that in the short period allotted to this address I should undertake any thorough discussion of the relative merits of "cultural" and "utilitarian" education. I wish, however, to point out that in the present curricula of our University the value of both are recognized. Some courses place the emphasis upon the utilitarian, others upon the cultural, students therefore may do likewise; but there is no course that, I trust, is not both cultural and utilitarian. It is the danger of utilitarianism that it become mechanical and materialistic, regarding utility as ability for money-making, narrowing the soul to the one vocational interest, and crushing out the other and often higher spiritual value. It is the danger of mere culture that it become pedantic, selfish, a kind of class polish, instead of openness of soul, spiritual freedom and a spirit of service. "If, as Ruskin assures us, a man damns himself forever as a man of culture when he speaks of Iphigenia as Iphigeenia, it is not because his ear has not been trained in general, but because he has not been trained to accept that particular word; in short, because he does not know things that people of a particular set do know. From this point of view the training of a man of culture is as technical as the training of a civil engineer." The argument for the value of formal training no longer serves as it has been demonstrated that such training cannot be transferred except to closely allied fields and then only in limited degree. The Arts course is not better because it gives a better training, but because it covers wider range and calls out more interests of the soul, it is a preparation not for a single profession but for the manifold interests and satisfactions of life.

It needs emphasis that culture is not determined primarily by the subject matter, but by the reaction of the self. Things are not cultural and utilitarian secular and sacred per se; culture is growth of soul; it is inner and spiritual appreciation. And wherever such appreciation is secured, whether in science or literature or classics, there is genuine culture. At the same time it is probably true that the deepest appreciations are called out by the richest values, by the records of the "thoughts, aspirations, ideals," achievements and visions of mankind; that is by the humanities.

Culture and utility are alike essential to all true education. In our society each individual is both means and end. As a means, he should function efficiently for the welfare of every member. Society can only progress and prosper as each individual performs efficiently a social mission, and to secure this is one aim of education. This is meant when we speak of utility, and whether a member labors to maintain social values or to provide the means for the attainment of these values, he is performing a social function and this utilitarian or social significance of the individual is the justification for his education by the state. We can learn from our enemy. Germany has developed social efficiency and co-operation more than any other nation in the world. We need the name efficiency in the achievement of our nobler ideals of national life.

But with us the individual is also an ideal. We live for the glory of the state, because the state aims to secure the happiness and welfare of each individual. there are no values that are not conscious values, that do not come to some individual soul as personal appreciation, aspirations, ideals or satisfactions. Personality is our supreme category, its development and enrichment our ideal of culture. If utility means efficiency in performing a social mission, then culture means that it be accomplished with intelligence, with a full appreciation of the value of the mission in the life of the worker and in the enrichment of other lives, with a like interest in the activities and values of other workers and vocations. When a man can see the full meaning of his work, when he can put his intelligence and conscience into it, when he can see its value in the whole system of social values, then he is being cultured. Culture means this broadened outlook, this multiplicity of interests and appreciations, this recognition of the whole meaning of life, where we see the value of ends as ends and means as means. Culture stands for a delicate sense of proportion, for symmetry in human values; it means reverence for tradition, a reverence that appreciates the evolution of values in our long historic past, that discriminates between the eternal and the temporal, that interprets the present in its relation to the future and inspires the soul with faith and hope. Culture means the highest participation in the consciousness of humanity and the most far-reaching fellowship and co-operation with others, in its highest form it is self-sacrifice and love and yet it means as well spiritual appreciation and inward independence. Culture means appreciation of the beautiful and the rational in the larger cosmic and universal spiritual life, in its deepest aspect it is social, moral, religious.

This, we believe, is the true relation of culture and utility. Of course we fall far below our aims, but the University of New Brunswick is seeking to serve the interests of higher education in this province. In the more utilitarian courses there is an effort to relate the vocation to the sciences and arts to give along with efficiency an enlarged outlook and widened vision. In our Arts course the social or utilitarian aspect of true education finds expression in manifold ways. This University stands today as the one institution of higher learning that belongs to all the people; that is supported by their public funds, and it seems to me that it should command in larger measure the affection and devotion of its graduates and the sympathy and confidence and co-operation of the people throughout the province. Our age has witnessed three great movements, one of which is the growth of democracy throughout the world, another is the rapid advance of science and its almost universal application as a method in industrial and social activities, and the last is the extension and growth of governmental activity as a means of accomplishing common ends, and all these movements find their embodiment in this institution; it is the state in action for the education of her youth that they may achieve utility, happiness and nobility.