Smith, John Herbert

ENCAENIA, MAY, 1958
JOHN HERBERT SMITH
to be Doctor of Science

In presenting this sterling alumnus, I can find no richer commendation than his own words, which he delivered a year ago as Alumni Orator:

"No rigidly limited and confined membership in a political party defines the source from which leadership may come. No single centre of initiative controls our destiny."

How true in general! In particular how true of himself!

Here, as in no other land on earth, merit meets its reward. But the merit must be there; and merit Herbert Smith had -- merit to lead, or be near leading, all his classes in both High School and University; merit to be chosen in each of his four undergraduate years President of his Class, and finally its life President; merit -- if, possibly, a qualified merit -- to have converted The Brunswickan from a spasmodic periodical into a weekly newspaper; merit to be Valedictorian of his year; merit to be accepted by General Electric in 1932 as one of two Canadian graduates for their "Test course"; merit, on finding no post with the firm because of the depression, to weather that ruinous storm and to win recognition outside for reinstatement in that great company of which he has now, on merit, been promoted to President.

If merit be one measure of character, then it is also (as our delinquents are teaching us) the measure of the home and the parents who make it. Herbert Smith, as his three brothers would shout in unison, had that best of homes -- modest, hard-working and, above all, harmonious.

I think, Your Honour and Mr. President, nay I know, that in honouring their eldest son we are honouring in equal measure the splendid mother and father who made and kept that home in which seedling could grow into tree of such rewarding blossom and fruit.

From:
Cattley, Robert E.D. Honoris causa: the effervescences of a university orator. Fredericton: UNB Associated Alumnae, 1968.