Address in Praise of Founders

EDUCATIONAL IMPROVEMENT
A
COMMEMORATIVE ORATION
AT
THE ENCAENIA
IN
KING'S COLLEGE, FREDERICTON
JUNE 28, 1855.
BY
EDWIN JACOB, D. D., PRINICPAL.

The circumstances in which I undertake the duty of the day are not of a very encouraging complexion; they present indeed so forbidding an aspect, that some might wonder how confidence can be found for the task.

"Praise of the Founders and Benefactors of King's College!" But who will now pretend to say that they deserved anything better than censure and reproach? or, at the best, than scornful contempt? Antiquated specimens of a race well nigh extinct! Unfit to be named in this enlightened and progressive generation! To speak in the year 1855 of the Colebrookes, the Harveys, the Douglasses! Of men who lived at the accession of Queen Victoria; who might even have witnessed the coronation of King William the 4th; nay, one of whom actually obtained a Royal Charter and Endowment, and founded the Gold Medal still bearing his name, while George the 4th remained on the throne! To avert to that charter, with its obsolete provisions for the "Education of youth in the principles of the Christian Religion, and their instruction in the various branches of Science and Literature, which instruction in the various branches of Science and Literature, which are" said to have been 25 years since "taught in the Universities of this Kingdom;" or even to allude to our Provincial Act of Amendment which nine years since provided for the continued maintenance with of the Theological chair and of Divine Worship, in compliance with petitions from all parts of the Province! Why, who knows not that New Brunswick has outgrown all such things? that they could not stand a moment's consideration since the first sod was turned for a station of our projected Railways? and that the College must be remodelled into a machine which, with all the velocity of Telegraphic wires, shall render the whole circuit of the land as fertile as the shores of Ontario, populous as the central district of Rhode Island, fi not replete with the multifarious title which could, in my humble opinion, immediately improve the College.

Assuming, but without reason assigned, that the constitution of the University requires still further amendment, the Commission recommends a new arrangement of departments; some doubtless, perhaps all, in themselves, advisable. But these are either already comprised in our existing scheme, or must be conjoined with its divisions;--the remuneration proposed being, with few exceptions, manifestly inadequate for the engagement of separate instructors.

The Report contains the eloquent and edifying language of christian piety and catholic charity. But, as far as I have been enabled to discern, it might leave our Students destitute of Religious Instruction unless from voluntary visits of neighbouring pastors or itinerant preachers; and of participation in Divine Worship--except so far as any might attach themselves to congregations unconnected with the College.

The Commission appears to contemplate no provision for Tuition; either in the limited sense of aid in private study; or in that of the ampler superintendence of intellectual and moral conduct, which our Statutes, like those of the English Universities, were originally intended to ensure.

Moreover the Report tacitly abandons our Library, Philosophical Apparatus, and Museum; abolishes our Convocation, organization, and economy; and provides no direction, supervision, or jurisdiction for the Collegiate body; save such as might be exercised by a travelling Rector, charges with the inspection or regulation of all the public schools in the counties and Parishes of the Province; or by a variable Council, assembling possibly at long intervals from different and distant quarters.

In short, however highly we may be disposed to estimate the qualifications and intentions of the Commission, the Act recommended in the Report to be added to our Provincial Statutes might have the effect of reducing the College to a number of independent and precarious classes; meeting perhaps on certain days or hours in Lecture-rooms or fields, or possibly amidst the woods or on the waters; and then returning to their several lodgings, to digest at individual discretion the general or partial, little or much information which they may have been disposed to seek and receive.

Now I say not that such a distribution of schools would be worthless; I am ready to admit that some of the scholars might acquire a considerable amount of useful knowledge; I can even conceive that here and there a young man of peculiar character might find the discursive variety suited to his habits or his taste. But, with all my respect for the liberal views, motives and intentions of the Commission, I am bound to declare my persuasion that the change recommended might unspeakably augment the defects which we feel in our Collegiate system, and fall immeasurably short of that University which our Founders and Benefactors aimed to establish.

It can hardly be thought possible now, with any probability of success, to bring forward a plan for supplying those defects, and realising their benevolent design. Improvements formerly introduced under the most favorable auspices, and embracing almost every amendment which our system has ever been alleged to require, have been either ruthlessly "strangled in life's porch," or industriously obstructed and defeated by agencies beyond our control.

In fact, although our Charter itself had from the first provided that no Religious test should be appointed for any person matriculated, or admitted to any Degree, with the single exception of Divinity; the impression has never ceased to inculcated on the popular mind, that all the privileges and benefits of the College were confined to members of one established Church;--a representation so widely at variance from the truth, that in no instance whatever has the slightest difference been made in the College, either in the bestowment of Scholarships, or in any other beneficial respect, between any two Students on the ground of their Religious persuasion, or Denomination connexion.

And so again, while in my first discourse before the University printed by desire of the Chancellor and Council, I emphatically observed that Tutors even and Professors there might be in the College whose faith should be that of other Churches, it was made matter of complaint in a Petition to the Crown, now on record in the Journals of the House of Assembly, and received as unquestionable by the Secretary of State, that all the Professors were required to be members of the Church of England; an allegation deliberately persisted in even when two members of the Church of Scotland were teaching their classes in the College; and still credited, after French and Irish Catholics, with one trained in the Reformed Church of the Netherlands, have occupied the same position.

Similar has been the reception given, from time to time, to our offer of gratuitous instruction to persons desirous of qualifying themselves for teachers of Schools; an offer commended to the Legislature by Sir Archibald Campbell, and embraced by one who, in due course of advancement, has now become the Principal of a Baptist Academy in Nova Scotia;--to our Statue, admitting to equal privileges the members of all other Seminaries; availing themselves of which Tutors of the Wesleyan Academy at Sackville proceeded to the Degrees of Bachelor and Master of Arts; and to the Statute enacted by the existing Council, permitting any person, without residence or formal Matriculation, on the presentation of a fee little more than nominal, to attend any course of Lectures, and obtain a Certificate of proficiency--such as lately granted to the Class in Civil Engineering.

All these concessions to the alleged wants and wishes of the people, together with other alterations made by virtue of the Act of Amendment, have utterly failed to satisfy the demands for reform or revolution; and on what ground could a better fate be expected for any further attempts? we cannot here in Fredericton,--beautiful and healthy as is the situation, and whatever attractions may be thought to belong to the seat of Government,--assemble the 50,000 souls now forming the population of the city of Providence, with their 30 banks and hundreds of manufacturing establishments, at once furnishing a "Brown University" with numerous bodies of students. We cannot spread around us the wide expanse of deep fertility, rendering Western Canada so attractive to vast numbers of enterprising emigrants; which, since the foundation of a "King's College at York," has multiplied the population of twenty or thirty fold, and richly provided for the Normal Schools of Toronto, with other Educational institutions. We could not induce the traders and mechanics of our seaports, or the graziers and dairymen of our vales and marshes, still less enable the poorer settlers of other districts, to maintain their sons during the requisite period of Collegiate Education; should we even attempt to imitate the "Free Academy," now crowning the system of public instruction for the hundreds of thousands constitution the emporium of New York, and fast eclipsing the Schools and Colleges of New England and of Canada.

But we could, and--if justly countenanced and supported, instead of incessantly ignored, thwarted or maligned--we assuredly should with some fair hope of success, exert our best endeavours to impart to the youth, repairing hither for such an Education, the intellectual and moral culture qualifying for the several professions and the higher occupations of life. More than this, with the means actually applied to the support of the College as a place of Education--scarcely exceeding half the proclaimed amount of its income--it would be vain and dishonest to promise; and for the accomplishment of this measure of good, I should be wanting in candor and truth did I hesitate to acknowledge my conviction, that the course to be pursued must be in several respects different from that recommended by the Commission; and in some, which I believe essential, much more complete.

For those of our aspiring youth through the Province, whose parents are unfortunately destitute of means to provide for their maintenance, I cannot imagine effectual relief; unless the public bounty or munificent individuals should competently endow Scholarships or Exhibitions--such as in other lands, and especially at the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge, have enabled many to pursue their studies, who have consequently risen from obscure penury to posts of importance and distinction in the world; or unless the scheme just now promulgated in the North-western division of the United States should be conceived to suggest a happier idea.

There, as we read in the public prints, the interests of Agriculture have been at length duly recognized, while previously there was not on this broad continent one solitary institution where young men could learn the science and practice united. The Legislature of Michigan has made provision for the establishment, or organization and operation of an Agricultural College. Their Act provides for the purchase of a site in the neighbourhood of Lansing, the inland capital of the State; for the erection of the buildings, and all other requisite expenses. The course of instruction is to include Natural Philosophy, Chemistry, Botany, Anatomy and Physiology, Geology, Mineralogy, Meteorology, Entomology, the Veterinary art, Mensuration, Levelling, Political Economy, Book-keeping, and the Mechanic arts connected with Agriculture. The Tuition is to be for ever free; but during the summer Term, from the beginning of April to the end of October, the Students will be required to devote a portion of their daily time, not less than three hours nor more than four, to manual labour. To quote the language of "the Albany Cultivator" and "Country Gentlemen" it is earnestly hoped that the College will soon be in successful operation under the charge of such as will take a deep interest in its prosperity; and that multitudes of the young men in the State will resort to it, in search of that discipline of mind, and that amount of scientific information,  which will make the business of the Farmer a more interesting, delightful, and dignified employment."

Agriculture in truth, I cannot hesitate to say, ought to be regarded as the primary art and fundamental science. No country can be well inhabited, until the culture of the soil shall furnish the necessaries of life to a settled population; and the means of acquiring, by manufacturing industry, mechanical ingenuity, and that  interchange of commodities which constitutes commerce, the comforts and enjoyments of a people advancing in civilization; with its higher demands and nobler incentives to action. "But the essence of a College or University requires moreover," as our late Lieutenant Governor, now the highest public authority in British North America, observed in his Letter to the Commissioners, "that such an institution should embrace a wider range of study; and should combine, with useful knowledge, those elements of Classical Literature, and of Abstract Science, which serve to raise the character and refine the taste, of every class in every country."

The chief question remaining for solution regards, I conceive, the arrangements for imparting that "Useful Knowledge," which begins indeed with the scientific cultivation of the ground, but rises to the high attainments of intellectual and moral philosophy. Agriculture itself, as the Legislators of Michigan have seen, is comprehensive. So likewise is Engineering; so is Navigation; so are all the Manufacturing, Mechanical, and Commercial pursuits; so are Architecture, Horticulture, and all the elegant arts; so are the Military, the Legal, Medical, and Ecclesiastical professions; so especially is that of the Educator; so, above all, are Legislation and Government. ow these, all these are indispensable to the progress of a civilized people; and it requires a wisdom far from ordinary of extemporaneous to assign their just place and time in a system of universal Education.

My own hope, as respects this our College, is, I must again avow, still directed mainly and ultimately, although not exclusively, to the continued cultivation of the mind and heart;--to that learning which more immediately

"emollit mores, nec sinit esse foros;"

and renders the man, not merely knowing and able, but pious and virtuous just and honorable, modes and friendly, patrioutic, and humane, and in every relation of life truly and religiously good;--according to that admirable description of Philosophy in the Tuscjulan Questions of Cicero, which I scarcely know how to quote, except in his own expressive Latin:--"Philosophia vero, omnium mater artium, quid est aliud nisi, ut Plato ait, donum, ut ego, inventum Deorum? Haec nos primum ad illorum cultum; deinde ad jus hominum, quod situm est in generis humani societate; tum ad modestiam, magnitudinemque animi erudivit; eademque ab animo, tanquam ab oculis, caliginem dispulit, ut omnia supera infera, prima, ultima, media videremus."

Let them the hope still be entertained that, whatever improvements in the system of Education may be, on full consideration, adopted by the Legislature, care will be taken, not to abandon or frustrate, but as far as possible advance towards perfection, the design of those Founders and Benefactors, who desired to promote the highest good of the whole community. For, although painful experience may compel us to confess, with the unwilling "Idler," whom the want of due support estranged from the College of his affections and the University of his hopes, that "it is seldom we find either men or places such as we expect them;" and that "he that has pictured a prospect upon his fancy will receive little pleasure from his eyes;" yet, as Johnson pursues the reflection, "it is necessary to hope, though hope should always be deluded. For hope itself is happiness, and its frustrations, however frequent, are yet less dreadful than its extinction."

And, "Oh!"--if at this distance of a quarter of the century it may be allowed me to recall the visions floating before my eyes when I addressed the infant University assembled for the first time in Fredericton Church--"Oh! when we contemplate the great and extensive and lasting good, fo which our College might be productive in the present and in future ages; when we look forwards to the wisdom and virtue, and the glory and happiness, of which the seeds might there be sown in "the ground of good and honest hearts"; when we see arising among our children, and our children's children, high and noble and generous and holy spirits--men who should teach their generations how to live and how to die; when we perceive, here perhaps a SYDNEY or a FALKLAND, uniting the brightness of genius and the elegance of taste with the heroic courage with devotes its heart's best blood for its king or country; there a PITT or a CLARENDON, maintaining the best institutions of the land, or restoring them from the ruin of violence or anarchy; there again a HALE or a Bailey, awing blasphemy and malice itself into silence by the venerable piety of their character ensuring the equity of their decisions; and there the sacred orator and the pious pastor, the GILPINS and TAYLORS and HERBERTS of the West, now recalling the misled multitude from engrossing cares and polluting pleasures to their high-born original and their heavenly inheritance, and then visiting the hovel of poverty and the bed of sorrow with the bread of life and the consolations of immortal hope:--Oh! what gratitude ought we not to feel towards those to whom New Brunswick owes the foundation and endowment of her University"--which might yet contribute to the realization of such visions; "and at the same time how solemn" ought to "be the feeling of responsibility in them to whom the rising interests of that establishment," and its destiny for periods and for people not to be numbered to day, have been, and "are now committed!"

At all events, as Hooker, once a poor Scholar of my own College in Oxford, consoled himself in the last words of his Ecclesiastical Polity, "though for no other cause, yet for this, that posterity may know we have not loosely through silence permitted things to pass away as in a dream, there shall for men's information be extant thus much concerning the present state of the College established among us, and their careful endeavour who would have upheld the same."