Alumni Oration

"Encoenia of the University of New Brunswick" The Daily Telegraph (25 June 1878): 4.

May it please your Honor, Mr. President and Gentlemen of the "Associated Alumni:"--

You have honored me with an invitation to address you, and to speak in your name to-day, and loving my old Alma Mater as I do, I could not decline to undertake the duty, though unable to discharge it as I ought.

The "Alumni Association" was established "with a view to the promotion of sound education, and the advancement of the interests of the University."

These two objects are in reality but one, for the former includes the latter; and together they form a subject suggestive and comprehensive which I shall strive to treat at least with brevity.

Alumni! The very name of our society suggests the duty that we owe to the tender foster-mother of our moral and intellectual life. She nourished the warm aspirations of our opening manhood. She led us through sweet Academic groves and beside Pierian Springs, when life was a garden of romance, and very day "An idyll with Boccacio's spirit warm." She gave us the true companionship of the great and wise and good of every age and clime. She was our guide and mentor at that critical period in the inner life when manly intelligence was just awakened to the full consciousness of its mighty powers when the things which, to the schoolboy mind, had been but lifeless puppets, or dry technicalities became instinct with real and vigorous existence, with soul-stirring interest and meaning; when history changed for us from a painted surface to a solid retrospect; when the doors of the past seemed to roll back upon their hinges, and admit us into the midst of the stirring scenes of the old world, of which we had only read before; when Roman and Greek, Persian and Scythian, lived, and spoke, and marched, and fought, as it were, before our very eyes. In the days of riper manhood, in the midst of the stern battle of life, the heart often warms at the remembrance of those moments of vivid feeling, and with them recalls lovingly the old halls in which they were experienced. Many a pleasant recollection of happy social hours mingles with the retrospect. Lips that are silent, hands that are cold, seem again to welcome and to clasp us. The eloquent and touching words of the learned Professor who has preceded me have spared me the painful task of the referring to the most recent losses which have befallen the band of our Alumni. But, with a sadness softened by time, there returns to me to-day the memory of many whose place on earth now knoweth them no more, before whom I stood, somewhat as I am standing now, when I took my bachelors degree 26 years ago. I recall the old staff of professors, of whom but one remains, in the person of the honored president of this University. I recall the old classmates of whom some are dead and some are far away, and the rooms and halls seem still to echo their familiar voices. When we revisit the scenes of by-gone pleasure, effort or success, association stirs the heart with keen emotion. Every familiar sight and sound awakens memories of long ago, with a charm which grows as the silent years pass on. We look out from the college windows on the glorious landscape spread before us, grove and river and distant hillside glimmering in the summer sun, spire and house-top rising through the sea of foliage, and it seems as if nothing could enhance the exquisite beauty of the scene. But the chime of distant bells breaks softly on the ears or the scent of the clover blossoms is sweetly wafted to us and the heart throbs with a new delight. so it is when the mental eye looks back over the landscape of the departed years, while the clock of time, measuring the hours of life's declining day, sounds faintly from afar, and the perfume of the flowers of friendship that bloomed around us in the past steals over the memory with a refreshing fragrance. Such associations rekindle the flame of love for the old seat of learning to which we owe so much, and awaken a lively interest in its welfare and its progress. They help to keep up that esprit de corps, which will, I trust, be one effect, perhaps not the least valuable effect, of our society.

Meeting year after year as foster-brothers, drawn together by mutual interest, the different generations of Alumni will learn to know each other, will awaken and stimulate in each other an active sympathy with every vicissitude in the fortunes of their Alma Mater, a deep interest in every step of her progress, in every literary or scientific achievement of her sons. Our Encoenial gatherings will become more and more truly times of re-union, seasons of pleasant and profitable intercourse, to which old students, with their kindness, will flock from every quarter, as they do to the commemorations at the great Universities of England, to revive the happy memories of the past, to live over, as it were, the old college days in the persons of their brothers and their sons.

But mere association and intercourse, my brother Alumni, is not alone sufficient. If we would maintain this interest and sympathy, we must ourselves keep up the intellectual culture of our student years. If we would have our minds and hearts in tune with the sweetest harmonies of all ages, we must not suffer them to be wholly absorbed by the engrossing duties of our professional, our commercial, our ordinary workday life. Above all we must not expend our whole stock of intellectual activity on the passing topics of the day, as discussed in newspapers and periodicals. Though our first energies must needs to be given to our special occupation, to the daily duties of our calling--though we must boldly bear our part in the conflict of modern thought, helping to solve aright the burning questions of the day, and seeking to make our own times the brighter and the better for our influence, yet as we grow older surely we may snatch some moments for communion with the choice spirits of an elder age. In the burden and heat of the middle and the declining day we may drink more deeply of the pure springs of literature, from which our first conscious draughts perhaps were drawn within these walls. The old books, that we began to know as students, will reveal to us yet deeper treasures of wisdom and delight than our younger eyes would find in them. The old books! with the pencil marks of long ago, the passing thoughts of the moment noted in the margin, the hastily formed criticisms on the text, perchance the familiar faces roughly sketched upon the fly-leaves! Who has not such old books upon his shelves, dearer to him than many a more costly volume? If we could anticipate the pleasure that may accrue to us in after life from many of our old class-books, whether through the renewal of our knowledge by re-reading them, or through the countless associations they revive, we should preserve them as ties that bind us to ur intellectual foster-mother, and strengthen our gratitude for the tender care with which she trained our earlier powers.

But let us pass on to the practical result of this re-awakened interest, viz., the active promotion of sound education, and advancement of the interests of the University. We all know that the present condition of our young Province is not that which is most favorable to the attainment of the highest intellectual culture. Those who have abundant means and abundant leisure for literary pursuits as yet are few. With the overwhelming majority of our young men the pressing need is for a means of livelihood, a remunerative occupation, as speedy a return as possible for the time and money and labor expended on their education. There is a danger of this feeling invading even our University, and modifying, if not the standard and balance of the mental culture it imparts, at least the energy and thoroughness with which the different branches of that culture are pursued by individual students. The spirit of utilitarianism constantly suggests the question, of what use will this or that study be to me in after life?--how will it promote my success in the career which I have chosen?--and so the very training which the mind most needed is often neglected when within its reach, and lost to it forever.

Let me then lift up my voice in favor of that broad general culture which this University is so well able to impart, and express the earnest hope that it may be expanded in breadth, in depth, in height, if need be in length also, but may never be contracted. Let me emphatically endorse the paramount importance of a high general education, as preceding and preparing the way for that merely technical and professional training with which society is pledged by its own existence to provide itself. The highest education surely is not that which regards the mind as a shop to be stocked with knowledge as with goods, and from which the wants of life are to be met as the wants of customers. Rather it is that which regards the whole man, body, mind and  spirit, as a noble being to be trained for life of which this is but the beginning--to be developed harmoniously in all directions to the utmost of its capacities and powers. To-day, however, I purpose speaking only of intellectual culture and development.

Most cordially do I recognize the thoroughly Christian character of this University. While the special religious teaching of each student is, if necessity, relegated entirely to the Christian body to which he is attached, careful provision is made that his religious duties shall not be neglected. With deepest thankfulness do I bear witness to the high moral tone which prevails among the young men educated here, fostered as it is both by the precept and the example of their teachers. These are of course the most momentous questions concerning which every faithful Christian parent would desire a full assurance; for far above all else in importance must ever stand that culture of the spiritual part of man which fits him for the higher life of the eternal future, which unites him with the unseen world, and lightens the struggles and the woes of earth by the hope of a better land. But after this comes that mental training, that intellectual preparation for the conflicts and the toils of life, to which this seat of learning is designed to give its full development. And such design the Curriculum of this University, at the same time comprehensive and well balanced, is admirably fitted to accomplish. If I understand aright, a university has three great functions. The first is that of directing, by examination and reward, the general education of the whole country, --acting as a central body to test the work of the higher institutions of learning which it contains. This function of ours, I believe, is not yet authorized, in any considerable measure, to perform. The second and highest function is that of actual [               ] me that the aim of this [               ] imparting of all the [                 ] different branches [                    ], the improvement, the [        ], of the mind itself, making it strong and active, firm yet elastic, subtle and keen, yet solid and capable of enduring the wear and tear to which it may be exposed in the conflicts of after life--implanting the conviction that intellectual growth is noble, intellectual labor happy--that knowledge is desirable for its own sake, independent of any secondary or mercenary motives--that the very toil which lifts the mind above its former self, and opens for its new scenes, and wins for it new realms, is in itself a vigorous enjoyment. How may this end be best attained? To know much of one thing and something of many things is the highest degree of culture which we weak mortal can arrive at. The experience of many ages leaves little room for doubt that a thorough training in Latin and Greek literature is the best basis for such higher education. On this has been founded the system of the public schools and Universities of England, under which the flower of British intellect has been trained for generations, with a result on which we, as British subjects, may look with honest pride. Far be it from me to endorse the extravagant claims that have so often been put forward on behalf of the ancient classics, which would place mathematical and natural science, the study of modern language, and even the literature of our own, entirely in the back ground. I deem it an indefensible exaggeration to speak of the ancient tongues of Greece and as if they afforded the only thorough discipline for the human mind--as if they were the only possible introduction to the principles of universal grammar and philology--as if they were the only master-key to open the treasures of all literature, and to unlock all European tongues--as if they alone could convey the highest teaching in mental, ethical and political philosophy--as if they alone could convey the highest teaching in mental, ethical and political philosophy--as if they alone could inculcate that passionate love of country, love of freedom, love of knowledge, love of beauty, which are needed to counteract the complacent pettiness and selfishness of modern life. Yet at the same time I do not hesitate to claim for them so high a value in each and every one of these respects, that no other study can wholly take their place, and that classical learning must still continue to be the back bone of a literary education. Rightly, therefore, does our Alumni Association aim a the attainment of its first object, by encouraging skill in Latin composition, that thereby may be ensured, as far as possible, at least such mastery of the Latin language as may, in a real sense, throw open to diligent students the beauties of its literature, and enable them to enjoy intelligently the poetry and eloquence that are enshrined in it.

But while there may be accorded this precedence, this primacy as it were, to the ancient classics, a most honorable and important position must, without question, be assigned (as it is here) to the different branches of science, to modern languages, and especially to that grand heritage of literature handed down to us in our own mother tongue.

Science, in these modern days, has grown so strong that its claims need little urging. So far as it is a true interpretation of nature it is the ally of all truth, and therefore of true Religion. To the devout mind it opens up new views of the wisdom, the greatness and the goodness of the Almighty. And therefore Christianity may heartily welcome true, deep and faithful scientific research as  means of reading God's handwriting in His works. In true science there can be no danger to true Religion, for one part of God's Eternal Truth cannot really contradict another. While, however, Christianity itself has nothing to fear from science, we cannot put out of sight the fact that science is as yet in a transition state, and dealing with theories not improved only but improvable. We cannot fail to see that there is in it unreal danger to individuals, when pursued with too exclusive a devotion. There is in it a tendency to throw the unseen and spiritual out of view behind the material and the sensible. The close and constant study of one kind of evidence with which it deals, at least tends to cause a secret discrimination, if not a positive inaptitude to accept evidence of a different kind--producing a narrowing effect upon the judgment, because of its not making allowance for the intervention of an external Will. And therefore though it must ever be a most valuable and necessary study, and an unmixed benefit and blessing when carried on soberly, reverently and in the fear of God, when duly limited by humble Christian faith and submission to Divine Revelation and Divine authority,--as it unquestionably is in the case of many of its ablest advocates, yet it requires that the fortress of the faith be doubly guarded, and the sentinels armed with the whole panoply of God. To such devout and reverent minds it becomes, as was said, I believe by the late Professor Agassiz, one of the greatest lights of modern science, "A study of the thoughts of God as uttered in His works." Yet we cannot but see that there is a hard and stern tone about it, a sort of inhumanity,--because it has to do only with the lower works of God, with matter not with spirit--and as the body is not the man, not with spirit--and as the body is not the man, nor the highest part of man, so of the best and truest human culture science alone can never form the basis.

It is I am sure, quite needless for me, before this assembly, to advocate the claims of modern languages to an important place in a sound and liberal education. The pleasures and advantages accruing from such studies are alike self-evident. For the expression of one wish, in this connexion, must I ask the forgiveness of the University authorities, who have already shown so much wisdom in arranging the order of instruction here. It is, that either by extending the length of the present under-graduate course, or by giving more elasticity to the curriculum, and allowing after the first or second year some such system of elective studies as has been adopted by many other universities, time could in some way be found for the same attention to the language and literature of Germany as is now given to that of France.

But if it be needless for me to enlarge on the advantages of learning modern languages, still more unnecessary is it for me to speak to-day of the paramount claims of our own mother tongue--of the treasures of wisdom, of delight, of beauty which have been embalmed in it--of the refined and lofty feelings, the profound and noble thoughts which it expresses and imparts to us. All this and far more has already this morning been ably and eloquently set before you.

It remains for me only, before your patience is exhausted, to speak briefly as to what appears to me to be one more function of a university, and one not to be lost sight of, even though, in our new country, it may seem to be less practically needful, as well as less attainable, than the two already touched upon. I mean that of extending and deepening knowledge, as well as merely testing and diffusing it--of providing for the cultivation of the highest learning, and the prosecution of mature study and original research--of encouraging the development of native talent, and the attainment of literary distinction and scientific fame. It is true, indeed, that a high average of general culture is, on the whole, the best--that men of ordinary talents fairly disciplined, and used for the common good, are generally the most useful men in a community. Yet in every land, however small, there is the possibility of something greater. As a high tone of religion and morality, widely diffused, conduces most to the true happiness of any country, yet such religious spirit will sometimes blossom out into the devoted life of a great Saint; so a country's appreciation of beauty may flower, as it were, in a great artist, or of scholarship in a great scholar. Our Alma Mater has, we trust, no cause to blush for the sone she has sent forth already. With credit and efficiency most of them are doing or have done their duty in the various walks of life which they have chosen. May I not say, "Si Quaeris circumspice?" But how know we at what moment an Alumnus of this Institution may press forward and take his place among the world's foremost men. Discovery and invention are not yet exhausted--the laws of nature are not all sought out--the secrets still--the mysteries of the heart of man have not been all unravelled--the delicate hand-writing on the human soul has not been once and for all deciphered and interpreted--the treasures of knowledge and of beauty are practically inexhaustible, and the world, and men's intellects are still young with everlasting youth. To-morrow may give us a new Shakespeare, to write for us life dramas that shall mould the character and stir the heart of generations. To-morrow may reveal a second Newton to interpret to mankind another all-pervading Law. What place shall have the glory of their birth we know not; but that the underlying honor of fostering the development of some world-famous intellect may fall to the lot of our own Alma Mater is at least within the range of possibility. Let it be ours, my brother Alumni, to see that she be fully equipped and fitted for the task.

Let it be ours to maintain the credit of her training by useful and honorable lives, and of her teaching by every-onward steps in intellectual growth and culture. Let it be ours to identify ourselves with her, and with each generation of her students, as ourselves students still, wooing the muses with a life-long love, saying, as Virgil said of them,

"Quarum sacra fero ingenti perculsus amore."

And so, though our names may add no special lustre to her fame, we shall advance her truest interests, and help to win for her an honorable rank among the world's seats of learning, supplying what Church and State alike stand most in need of,--men--Christian men--intelligent and cultivated, active and enterprising, upright and pure and true.