Address in Praise of Founders

Oration

Delivered at the Encaenia in King's College, Fredericton,
June 27, 1839.
By
James Robb, M. D.
Lecturer on Chemistry and Natural History
Fredericton: Printed by John Simpson, Printer to the Queen's Most Excellent Majesty.
1839.

A Commemorative Oration.

Pascal has well and philosophically stated the analogy which exists between the history of one particular individual, and that of the human species in general.

A man, when he begins life, is both ignorant and erring; but, as he grows up, he progressively accumulates knowledge and information. During this gradual acquisition he is indebted, not only to his own proper experience, but also to that of all his predecessors, and, what he takes from the general treasury and storehouse of knowledge being ultimately returned to it again with interest, the total amount is constantly on the increase. A well informed man of our own day is virtually in the same condition, as one of the ancients would be, if he continued to live and to learn up till the present time;-- Hence then, the man in particular and mankind in general continue to progress in knowledge as the world grows older, because the same thing must happen to the individual as to the species, and the human race may be regarded as one individual, who lives always, and is progressively becoming wiser and more learned. This onward movement and progress may be considered as the training of man or of mankind, as the Education either of the individual or of the species. In the earlier stages of this systematic Education, it may always be observed that a larger share of attention is bestowed upon the physical than upon the moral part of man. The intellectual nature is submitted to the dominion of the senses and passions; because personal strength and personal courage are as yet the most essential elements in the constitution of those who are ambitious of being thought great in the eyes of their compatriots. During there eary periods, I say, it is the body which chiefly becomes the subject of Education; The limbs of the Grecian, the Roman, the Indian, or the Gothic warrior were tutored and practised into strength; his sinews were braced by arduous and long continued exercise; and he, who proved most victorious in the arena, was alone considered worthy of command, in fields of ampler magnitude, and in strifes of far other importance. By and bey, however, the mind, the nobler part of man, begins gradually to develop itself, and the people have some plaudits to bestow on the sage, as well as upon the athletic gladiator and the valiant warrior. At length, the words of wisdom begin to have a charm for the ears of youth; and the grove of the citizen Academus, originally intended to be the scene of gymnastic contests and exertion only, becomes in due time the school of Plato, and the birth place of a new philosophy.

This "Academy" is peculiarly interesting, as one among the earliest of which we have any historical record; and the causes which led to its formation were probably the same as those which afterwards led to the institution of others, which have survived even till our own times. One individual, whom nature has favored more than the rest, feels the mens divinior within, and is urged to educate or elicit it. Accordingly, after having taken advantage of all the means of knowledge in his own country, he is impelled to look for it some where  else. Like the eager miner, who has wrought out all the ore in the vein which is nearest to the surface, he proceeds deeper and deeper, in search of a new and yet unexhausted soil. But when he has availed himself of all the accessible sources of knowledge, after he has meditated well, and duly proven the value of the intellectual treasures which he has acquired, the philosopher begins to communicate to others a portion of the truths which it had taken him so much patient study, and such a complicated experience, to obtain. His first hearers are attracted probably by curiosity or the novelty of the thing; but they are soon constrained to become permanent disciples of one whom they find worthy to be a master. In this way at length did Plato and Aristotle, those master spirits of antiquity, soon secure a willing and submissive auditory; and in this way too did others, their successors at Athens and at Rome, whose names I need not now mention.

After the reign of Grecian and of Roman greatness had ended, a university was established at Bagdat, about the year 740, by the Caliph Almanzor; and the Arabs, who were duly aware of the advantages derivable from that kind of Educational institution, shortly after they had got possession of Spain, proceeded to organize a university for the cultivation of the Arts and Sciences, at Cordova, and in other places of their newly acquired dominions. Charlemagne in France, and Alfred in England, both of whom were pious and learned princes, did not neglect the example of the Moors; and according to some antiquarians, the latter monarch is believed to have been the original founder of the University of Oxford, (the oldest institution of the sort in England). During the middle ages, however, there were no universities, nor even any good schools in central Europe. Science was in the hands of a bigoted Clergy; and "the scholars were either brought up within the walls of a monastery, or attached as a kind of menial servants to some Parish Priest," who, preaching that ignorance was the mother of devotion, could not consequently be expected to promote the acquisition of knowledge. In the year 1150 a lawyer and a physician of Salerno, a small won near Naples, succeeded in organizing a regular university, and in obtaining a charter for it from King Frederick I. The number of those who voluntarily came to improve and extend their knowledge at the new university soon increased; and additional professors were from time to time elected and paid by the community. The university of Bologna was chartered in 1158, that of Paris in 1200; and that of Padua in 1222. Some of the Norman Sovereigns of England, and especially Henry II, were distinguished for their zeal in patronizing literary men, and in providing means for the instruction of their people in the higher branches of knowledge. In this way the universities of Oxford and Cambridge gradually assumed the form of privileged seats of learning and science. The students lived, first in separate houses or halls, afterwards in Colleges which were specially endowed and organized for the maintenance of a certain number of fellows and scholars. The lecturers were selected from among the most learned of the community; and the exercises and disputations of the university were carried on in appropriate public buildings called schools. Other institutions more or less similar in their arrangements were soon after established in Scotland, at St. Andrews in 1410, at Glasgow, 1451, at Aberdeen, 1495, at Edinburgh, 1582, and in Ireland, at Dublin, 1591. The epoch of their establishment may be regarded as that of the revival of learning altho' they are to be considered rather as the index, than the cause, of the favorable change, which had begin to be wrought upon the minds of mankind. In these far famed universities, have the youth of Great Britain ever since been prepared for public life; and from the halls of these institutions has issued the army of divines, lawyers, scholars and statesmen, whose names have shed a perennial lustre over the history of our native land.

The first university founded in America was that of Harvard in Massachusetts. Under the auspices of Charles II, a charter was procured for it in 1638, only 56 years after the university of Edinburgh had been opened under charter from James 6th, of Scotland.

The College of Yale, (Connecticut,) was the nest which the New Englanders succeeded in establishing. "Ten worthy gentlemen" says the historian, assembled at Branford in 1700, and each laying a few volumes on a table, said "I give these for the founding of a College in this colony;" and the institution, which sprang from so humble beginnings, now rivals any like establishment in the United States, and stands at the head of all on this continent for the number of its students.

In 1789 a grant was made by the Legislature of Nova Scotia for an Academy or College in that Province, and in 1803 the university of King's College was opened at Windsor pursuant to Royal Charter.

In 1817 the Lieutenant Governor of Nova Scotia granted, from the monies accruing from the capture of Castine, the sum of £9,750 pounds for the establishment of a College at Halifax to be called the Dalhousie College; and in 1819 an additional grant of £2,000 pounds was made by the House of Assembly to the same object. In Canada there are many Colleges, where a liberal education may be obtained. In the Lower Province, these are chiefly, or altogether, under the auspices of the Catholic Clergy; but at Toronto, in Upper Canada, there is a flourishing Collegiate institution, which is yet destined no doubt to effect a most salutary influence upon the Education of the youth of that portion of Her Gracious Majesty's Dominions.

The Subject of Education attracted the attention of the loyal settlers of New Brunswick, at a very early period in the History of the Colony. In 1788 His Excellency Lieutenant Governor Carleton granted a tract of land in the vicinity of Fredericton, towards the support and maintenance of a Grammar School in the infant capital. In the year 1800, the Academy or Free Grammar School of Fredericton was converted into a College, and established under Charter granted by the Governor, under the seal of the province, which incorporated it by the name of "The Governor and Trustees of the College of New Brunswick." This was done for the purpose of obviating some difficulties connected with the appropriation of monies accruing from the granted Lands. In 1805, during the Presidency of the Honorable G. G. Ludlow, a Bill passed the Legislature, by which a permanent pecuniary support was secured to the College. This, as the Honorable the President expressed himself, was done "in the hope of preparing the rising generation to tread in the footsteps of their parents, and enabling them to contend with the foremost in the cause of Loyalty and as steady attachment to the British Constitution." From that period up to the year 1823, the College of New Brunswick continued in active operation; but, as it had ever been the desire of the Governor and Trustees to secure to those receiving instruction the full advantages of a Collegiate Education, it was determined by that Board of to petition the Legislature to permit the surrender of the old Charter of 1800, and to procure a new Charter under the great seal of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. Accordingly this was done a few months before the death of General Smyth; and, the prayer of the Trustees being granted, a new Charter was, after due care and mature deliberation, prepared under the eye of Lord Bathurst, by which the College became endowed with the privileges of an university, under the name and style of "The Chancellor, President, and Scholars of King's College at Fredericton in the Province of New Brunswick." In 1828 His Excellency Sir H. Douglas, who had ever most warmly interested himself in the cause of Education, was able to announce, that "His Most Gracious King George IV had condescended to become Parton and Founder of the new university, and to bestow upon it a larger annual grant from the Royal revenues, with the view of placing it upon a more improved establishment." The Charter itself was soon after received; and thereupon the Provincial Legislature, with great and becoming liberality, at once voted sums of money sufficient to permit the commencement of the edifice which we now occupy. After two years, the building was completed and the new university was opened under the most auspicious circumstances. Let every good and worthy inhabitant of this most loyal Province unity then with the Honorable The President Black, in the hope and confidence expressed by him in his opening Address to the Legislature of 1830, "that King's College may in due time realize the good and salutary purposes of its establishment, to the fullest expectation of its warmest advocates, and reflect great and imperishable honor upon the Legislature of New Brunswick.

There are not wanting, it is true, those who have thought that the establishment of King's College was premature, that such an institution is needless and may be mischievous to so young a Country. But I am not one of those who foresee any ill consequences from the dissemination, however early, of the principles of science, of literature, of loyalty and of morality. On the contrary, it is my conviction, and I trust that it is equally the conviction of all those whom I now have the honor to address, that the members of every enlightened Legislature, so soona s they have made provision for the civil Government and commerce fo a Country, are bound to provide the means of knowledge for the people whom they represent. They are bound in fact, by virtue of their office, to supply the means of instruction; because it is by thus acting that they best provide for the development of the powers and native energies of the people. That science (which is simply knowledge reduced to a system) should confer power, may easily be comprehended; because he who has most extensively examined and best understood the constitution of the material world, will be preeminently qualified to make it subservient to his own purposes. That such knowledge may be made applicable to the acquirement of riches is quite obvious; but, independently of worldly riches, the keen enquirer after knowledge secures for himself a need of intellectual affluence and gratification, which by its very nature is placed beyond the ordinary accidents and fatalities of fortune. Though poor apparently, he is rich indeed. Though deprived of the society of friends and companions, yet he is far from being alone; nunquam minus solus est quam cum solus. All the pleasure of such a person are derived from other objects than those of sense, and, like the Roman philosopher, he feels that he is born for higher things than to be the slave of the body.

But knowledge, besides thus giving power and wealth both material and intellectual to its possessor, gives also--what we most desire to get--time. It does not certainly give time in the literal sense of the word, but it teaches the proper use and value of time. The ignorant soon become depraved, because they have no idea of the true value of time, and of the responsibility they lie under to make a proper use of it. Vanities beyond laughter, listlessness, vacancy, frivolity, systematic egotism and positively vicious debauchery, are the enjoyments of those only who have not begun to appreciate the delights of knowledge, and who have never felt the intense satisfaction which results from the discovery of truth, by the use and unaided exercise of one's own intrinsic powers.

True it is, however discouraging it apparently may be to be told so at the outset, that the more knowledge we attain to, the more are we led to feel our own ignorance.--The contemporaries of Columbus believed that they were already acquainted with all the world and they rested content in their ignorance. Even he, when he first set foot on the New World--even he, the intrepid navigator--sighed that so much more was yet to be done before he saw the limits of the new country. But did this cause him to be discontented, or to repine, or to despair? No. The prospect was inviting as it was new, and the vastness of the whole was not less impressive than the novelty and interest of the part which had already been discovered. The very magnitude of the object was to him, accordingly, a stimulus to increased exertion; and hearty, vigorous and resolute exertion brought with it more enlarged and more important discovery. So it is in knowledge. Let us first discover the outer island, and we shall soon discover the all but limitless continent behind--we become aware of our own ignorance, but we are rewarded by what we have already learned or observed, and hope still urges us on to further attainment. No man, however, may flatter himself with the hope of obtaining all. They who pretend to universal knowledge are little better than quacks; and the true philosopher is the first to confess his own ignorance. Not even Newton--the Columbus of Science--not even Newton believed he had attained to perfect wisdom; on the contrary, we are informed, that he was modest and diffident or himself to a more than ordinary degree. "I do not know what I may appear to the world, but to my self I seem to have been only like a little boy, playing on the sea shore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of Truth lay all undiscovered before me."

The first lesson in knowledge, therefore, will be humility; and if we thus at the outset lay down the conceit and swelling pride of ignorance, whilst we replace it by humility and a desire for more information, truly we may be said to have gained much. With humility and lowliness of mind will come moderation; with moderation, self-government; with self-government, morality. Were this only the end of the process, the founders of any scheme or institution promotive of such an object would be deserving of our warmest gratitude. But the Governors and Legislators, who have so thoughtfully considered the interests of education, will be found to have most effectually answered their own purposes in another way; for they have raised a powerful barrier against the inroads of crime, and a strong defence for the happiness and honor of the community. And if the literary scientific education so conferred upon the rising generation be based upon the principles of religion--and more particularly if, as in this, and, I am happy to say, in most British Universities, it be accompanied by an habitual inculcation of the great moral doctrinal truths which characterize and constitute the Christian Religion--if, to the instructions of one who is specially charged with the teaching of such an important kind of knowledge, there be added a daily and common worship of the great giver of all knowledge; if, in short, a secular and a religious education be intimately and effectively combined together--there is then the highest human probability, that the true end and object of all such institutions will be achieved, and that the country will be supplied with men qualified to promote its welfare in every department of life.

Let all praise, therefore, and all honor be ascribed to the various Governors and Legislators who, in the foundation and endowment of King's College, have afforded the means and instruments by which the intellectual and moral faculties are developed, and by which consequently, the temporal and the eternal interests of the Youth of New Brunswick have been the most effectually consulted.

I need not make any lengthened remarks upon the specific advantages of the different branches of Literature of Science which are taught in this place. A knowledge of the classics is, in my opinion, and always will be, an essential element in the education of a scholar, and an English gentleman--all the cavilling of ignorance, innovation and sophistry notwithstanding.

Mathematics are of unquestionable benefit to the young mind, because this, more than any other branch of study, tends to improve the reasoning powers. It is the best kind of practical logic; and a person who has become thoroughly imbued with mathematical principles and reasonings, must, on all the future occasions of life, be peculiarly fitted for the detection of error, or the discovery of recommendation of being the instrument, by which the science of natural philosophy has been raised to its present eminence and extent. In the eloquent language of Professor Sedgewick, "it is a high privilege to study this language of pure unmixed truth. The laws by which God has thought good to govern the universe are surely objects of lofty contemplation; and the study of that symbolical language, by which alone those laws can be fully decyphered, is well deserving of the noblest efforts on the part of the Student."

The study of nature, that universal and public manuscript which lies expanded to the eyes of all, is productive of much advantage to the mind, because its object is to make us acquainted with many facts of interest and importance, to methodize and classify knowledge, to train to habits of observation and reflection upon things which the vulgar call trivial or common. Things thus become hooks, and every object is made to afford matter of useful contemplation and thought. A double advantage will result from the study of this branch, if the teacher strives constantly to impress upon the young men committed to his charge the necessity connecting means with ends, and then again with their final purpose in Creation, and the intrinsic imperishable evidence which they afford of care, divine superintendence and special providence.--If these views be constantly kept up, then surely the study of Natural History will be admitted to a higher rank than it has hitherto held in what is rightly termed a liberal Education.

It is neither intended nor desired that the young men should become only Classicists, Mathematicians or Naturalists; but it is decidedly the intention of the wise and most estimable founders of this institution, that they should become fitted by early training for the business of active life. Now, habits of observation, method and reflection are the results of such an education or training as that which is here afforded to the youth of the Province. A young man, who has rightly improved the advantages here offered to him, will have laid up a vast and varied fund of information; and (what is of no mean consequence) he will have become enabled to judge of his own powers and aptitudes; and, if other circumstances have not already influenced him, to decide upon the choice of a profession, or creditably to discharge any duties which his country may call upon him to fulfil.

Now, having obtained all these advantages--having to the rank and name of an educated man, he must endeavour to act worthily of such a character. He must look well that the titles which he has won are not suffered, while in his keeping, to become less valuable, or less an object of general emulation. he must--and, if he is an honest man, he will act in a manner which shall not be deemed unbecoming in one on whom so much care has been bestowed, nor subject him to the scoffs and the sneers of those who, in regard to any act of heedlessness or imprudence, are but too apt to exclaim, "behold the fruits of a College Educaiton." There is hardly an excuse for him, who, having once found and known the pleasantness of the pats of truth and rectitude, has seceded and turned again to those of frivolity and foolishness.

But besides this, I would wish to warn my young friends, that the public eye is upon them; that the country expects--nay demands, that they act worthily, and live as those ought to do who have had like advantages conferred upon them. The benevolent founders of this institution have purchased at a high rate the means of educating the youth of New Brunswick; and it is a piece of fraud, on the part either of the teachers or of the taught, to neglect or abuse those responsibilities, to which, on entering these walls, they have voluntarily submitted themselves.

I need not urge the interest of the teacher in this matter. It is obvious, there is no feeling to which he can be so keenly alive as that of gratitude on the part of his pupils; and this gratitude is to be shewn simply by seconding his efforts, by taking advantage of his instruction, and in after life by acting as if they appreciated the knowledge and the truth with which they had begun to be familiarized.

Ever increasing exertion, therefore, is both desired and expected. Enthusiasm, let me tell you, is as necessary for success in the pursuit of knowledge, as it is in any other pursuit of business. A prize, a medal, a scholarship, may be necessary for beginners, and, by the forethought fo the founders and benefactors of King's College, they have been offered--but, having once begun, they ought to go on loving, and wooing, and winning knowledge for its own sake. If we do, or ever have done anything for reward or profit, we ought to be ready to undergo the same exertion and more, in search and attainment of wisdom and of truth.

The character of a nation or of a province generally depends less upon that of the many, than upon that of the few who lead the many, of the educated men in short. Now, where are we to look for the educated men of New Brunswick, if not among the Alumni of King's College? Whence, if not from these halls, is to be derived a due supply of men fitted to serve their country in Church and State? You are those men; or rather, you, my young friends, are those on whom the charge will soon devolve; and it nobly concerneth your honor to shew, by a proper walk and conversation, that you are not unworthy of being considered the hope of your country--the stay of your father land--"Viros quos sibi partia seposuerit."

Keep up through life, therefor, the knowledge which you have begin to acquire a relish for in this place. Some people may tell you that education ends when you leave College; but education properly so called never can be said to end. It ends professedly; but I am ill understood indeed, if you can imagine that I wish you to believe, that it is really ended and completed when you bid adieu to these walls. All the influences which direct us in the right conduct of life--all the results of observation, experience and reflection which we win and treasure up through life--all these, I apprehend, are the means and makings of man's education. our education, therefore, has as yet only begun. You are not taught, but you have become qualified to teach yourselves. In the words of one (Dr. Badham, Professor of Medicine in Glasgow College,) whom I am proud to style a master and a friend, "Your instructors at college have only been the pioneers of the march, who with spade and mattock have cleared a way for the young conscript. Ours it has been to make the crooked places straight and the rough places smooth, casting a bridge over the stream, and making the torrent practicable.--This we freely and faithfully have done; imparting to him some of our own experience, and a portion of our own confidence. Then mutually supported, let it be our united and persevering effort to compel the rock and citadel of Science, which is never taken by storm, to capitulate."

All this life long we are in a scene of action, and strife, and exertion; as has been well said, "It is an amicable contest with difficulties." But "pathemata  mathemata"--sufferings are, or ought to be lessons. And not till we have experimentally known the tactics and the weapons of our enemy, are we capable of meeting him successfully on the field or real warfare.

The good fruits of all our knowledge then must be shewn in conversation and in action; for words or deeds unbecoming and improper in themselves attest and characterize the man of unproportioned thoughts, and of a half educated mind. In everything we say or do, therefore, we ought to be directed by principles derived first from parents and teachers, and afterwards confirmed by our own proper experience, reading and judgment.

"When then" you ask me "is this toil of thought and weary strife to end?" Gentlemen, I assure you, that all life is but a training for death, and that Education goes ever on until we are about to pass from life to immortality.

"But where will it end?" If you choose, Gentlemen, it may end where you wish it to end,--in Heaven. For Heaven, as the christian religion informs us, may be secured if we only take advantage of the means put at our disposition. But we must make a proper use of every talent which is committed to our keeping; From those to whom much is given much will be required; and the man who has been educated in the principles of human knowledge, of virtue and religion, has become a highly responsible being; and this feeling of responsibility ought to make us more intensely alive to the calls of duty. We are enlightened, therefore we ought to b forward in well doing. We have an informed conscience, therefore we shall not escape, if we be negligent or careless in our efforts to fulfill all that it dictates or demands.

Alike by the law of nature, and the law of revelation, we are bound, while blessed with the advantages this place affords, to improve ourselves to the utmost of our power in all human and all divine knowledge, and zealously to make such an use of all our acquisitions as may appear most conducive to the glory of God and the good of our fellow creatures; nor can we be careless of these duties, without betraying our true honor as well as our highest and most permanent interests.