1927 Fredericton Encaenia
Valedictory Address
Delivered by: Mersereau, George Weldon
Content
“Valedictory”The Brunswickan 46, 7 (May 1927): 3-7. (UA Case 68, Box 2)
For the last time we are gathered together.
Some of the fifty-nine boys and girls who came “up the hill” for the first time in September, 1923, had never seen the college before and had not met those who were to be their classmates in the class which today ceases to have a place in the little world of the University. We came together from far places and had little in common with each other. Only one forenoon, however, was needed to give us one bond of union—that of sympathy, and we soon came to know each other and our “superiors'” very well indeed. In fact, for some time it was not hard to distinguish one of our fellow sufferers from the more favored classes. Ours was an unhappy lot, but we soon outgrew it and obtained the full franchise and, the right to refer to our football team, our hockey team and, above all, to our class. The Christmas examinations, our first “Con,” the mock trial and parliaments passed, other classes performed mysterious rites and initiated some of us into the procedures—and the cannon boomed another year away.
When we returned to the University as Sophomores we were only forty-four, but we knew each other and the reunion was happy. We were glad to get back to our classmates and studies and games. “Hands of chance and change” had “marred and moulded and broken” and the men found that the weaker sex had won a victory of which the spoil was their reading room and that we were to be relegated to the basement. A biology laboratory had been constructed in the library and the Memorial building stood ready for use.
On returning to our Junior year we found our numbers still further depleted and it was with sorrow that we noted the absence of one of our most gifted members, Miss Mary Wood, who was fatally injured in an automobile accident during the summer vacation. The year passed all too quickly and brought its honours to the University and to the class and its trials to each individual. It “came like water and like wind” it went, but it left its mark on us in the strengthening of those ties of friendship and habits of work that we value today as our passports in life. Athletics were considerably aided by the new club house which had been built on college field.
We are graduating with a class of thirty-four, five of whom are graduating in law. All, however, of those absent have not fallen by the wayside. One quarter of them are still obtaining a college education.
Our athletics this year have been carried on with the usual wholeheartedness and our football team upheld its right to the Mac-Tier cup, which was won in Montreal last year. Our team also compared favourably with the Bermuda sportsmen, and once more carried off the honours for U. N. B. Our basketball and hockey teams, though they were not champions, kept well the good name of the college in playing hard clean games and doing their best upon all occasions. Athletics this year have also been extended so as to include everyone, in the institution of inter-class and inter-faculty competition. This is a precedent that would be well followed by succeeding classes.
Not only, however, in athletics has our Alma Mater been active, but in the line of intellectual and literary endeavour. Our debating team, though the fortunes of war went against it, fought a hard battle to an extraordinarily dose decision. The institution of class debates, a custom which has been for some time in the discard, was resumed this year with good results, and we hope that those who follow us will not forget this side of their college life nor allow it again to relapse.
A step toward a more united Canada has been taken by the University in entering the Canadian National Federation of University Students. This organization is yet in its infancy but, with the support of other Universities, it will not only advance the Universities themselves but aid in the development of Canada, which is an object to be borne in mind not only by us, who are leaving, but those whom we leave behind and those who have gone before. It is a step toward a national life and an international sympathy. The college magazine, The Brunswickan, has had a successful year and has enjoyed the hearty support of a large number of students. Much credit is due the editor and his associates in producing a magazine of such qualities as to be recognized as one of the leading student publications of the Dominion. It is to be hoped that the magazine will continue to receive ever more and better support from the student body and ever strive for higher standards and more literary competition in the college.
Another honour to be shared between the college and its recipient is the Rhodes Scholarship, which was awarded to one of our students again this year. “Bill” Donohoe has always taken an active part in the University activities and with his record of work before us we have no doubt that the University of New Brunswick will be well represented by him in the Old Country. We extend to him our heartiest congratulations, and best wishes for success in whatever line of work he may enter.
The engineering and forestry faculties have progressed this year and a new microphone is being obtained for the broadcasting set which was installed in the Memorial Building last year.
At this point we pause and look about us in the sterner and more searching light of criticism. The first question that comes to our minds is, “What have we done for U. N. B.?” Modesty prevents us from a detailed account and we turn to the perhaps less embarrassing question, “What can we and those we leave behind do to improve the University?” Immediately several ideas flash across our minds, “Improve the gymnasium, the Club House, the Library, the Reading Room. Obtain a better magazine, better debates, more universal athletics, start a glee club, get better attendance at college functions and activities, have more activities of a class and University character; and many more.” So many things could be done that we begin to think that it would be impossible to get them. The solution of the problem lies in the word "interest" or "enthusiasm". That is the crying and immediate need of the college. For each and every object that we desire, we must have an interest and enthusiasm which is at present devoted to a restricted field. But we must not forget that the solution of one problem begets another, nor allow one attainment to fill us with false pride or over-confidence. We are proud of our Alma Mater and that pride will be justified as long as ideals keep coming and new interests and enthusiasms are born both for the old and for the new. We must not, however, sacrifice great things for little nor the essential to the inessential. Those whose task it is specifically, to improve the college know that we need a better museum, a better library, that equipment could be improved and have not forgotten the need of a residence. It is for us and for those who follow to lend assistance. And in lending this, we must remember that, both literally and metaphorically, “Every gate is barred with gold and opens but to golden keys.”
And so, while we march on to the new life, “with beating heart and with flying banners,” just before “the old order changes giving place to new” we want to extend to you, Mr. Chancellor, and gentlemen of the faculty, our warmest appreciation of, and our heartiest thanks for the assistance, encouragement and sympathy which you have always given us during our college course and which has provided us with an enviable equipment with which to go out into the greater course of life.
To the citizens of Fredericton we wish to express our gratitude for the ready assistance which they have always lent us at need or request and the pride which has been theirs in the University activities.
Undergraduates, it is for you to carry on the tasks we are leaving and to do so better than we. It is not enough for you merely to do your share, you must “play up, play up and play the game.”
Classmates, we must each say farewell, but when we go, it must be with head held high and with a determination to be,
For the last time we are gathered together.
“Some little talk awhile of Me and Thee “There was—and ‘now’ no more of Thee and Me.”At times such as this, something within us “gives us pause” and we know that,
"Whether at Naishapur or BabylonWe have come to the end of a task and see it now but as a small part of a very much larger task. We have worked to accomplish it and, now that we have done so, we are glad. The little ideals for which we have been striving have been dimming slowly—some of them have disappeared—and now we stand expectant, each of us more or less alone, in “the garden between the dawn and the sun-rise,” and with its glow already around us, await the arrival of a larger sun that is rising. But even while we smile and keep our eyes fixed steadily on the future we cannot escape the memories of our “momentary halt” that keep crowding through our minds.
Whether the cup with sweet or bitter run,
The wine of life keeps oozing drop by drop,
The leaves of life keep falling one by one.”
Some of the fifty-nine boys and girls who came “up the hill” for the first time in September, 1923, had never seen the college before and had not met those who were to be their classmates in the class which today ceases to have a place in the little world of the University. We came together from far places and had little in common with each other. Only one forenoon, however, was needed to give us one bond of union—that of sympathy, and we soon came to know each other and our “superiors'” very well indeed. In fact, for some time it was not hard to distinguish one of our fellow sufferers from the more favored classes. Ours was an unhappy lot, but we soon outgrew it and obtained the full franchise and, the right to refer to our football team, our hockey team and, above all, to our class. The Christmas examinations, our first “Con,” the mock trial and parliaments passed, other classes performed mysterious rites and initiated some of us into the procedures—and the cannon boomed another year away.
When we returned to the University as Sophomores we were only forty-four, but we knew each other and the reunion was happy. We were glad to get back to our classmates and studies and games. “Hands of chance and change” had “marred and moulded and broken” and the men found that the weaker sex had won a victory of which the spoil was their reading room and that we were to be relegated to the basement. A biology laboratory had been constructed in the library and the Memorial building stood ready for use.
On returning to our Junior year we found our numbers still further depleted and it was with sorrow that we noted the absence of one of our most gifted members, Miss Mary Wood, who was fatally injured in an automobile accident during the summer vacation. The year passed all too quickly and brought its honours to the University and to the class and its trials to each individual. It “came like water and like wind” it went, but it left its mark on us in the strengthening of those ties of friendship and habits of work that we value today as our passports in life. Athletics were considerably aided by the new club house which had been built on college field.
We are graduating with a class of thirty-four, five of whom are graduating in law. All, however, of those absent have not fallen by the wayside. One quarter of them are still obtaining a college education.
Our athletics this year have been carried on with the usual wholeheartedness and our football team upheld its right to the Mac-Tier cup, which was won in Montreal last year. Our team also compared favourably with the Bermuda sportsmen, and once more carried off the honours for U. N. B. Our basketball and hockey teams, though they were not champions, kept well the good name of the college in playing hard clean games and doing their best upon all occasions. Athletics this year have also been extended so as to include everyone, in the institution of inter-class and inter-faculty competition. This is a precedent that would be well followed by succeeding classes.
Not only, however, in athletics has our Alma Mater been active, but in the line of intellectual and literary endeavour. Our debating team, though the fortunes of war went against it, fought a hard battle to an extraordinarily dose decision. The institution of class debates, a custom which has been for some time in the discard, was resumed this year with good results, and we hope that those who follow us will not forget this side of their college life nor allow it again to relapse.
A step toward a more united Canada has been taken by the University in entering the Canadian National Federation of University Students. This organization is yet in its infancy but, with the support of other Universities, it will not only advance the Universities themselves but aid in the development of Canada, which is an object to be borne in mind not only by us, who are leaving, but those whom we leave behind and those who have gone before. It is a step toward a national life and an international sympathy. The college magazine, The Brunswickan, has had a successful year and has enjoyed the hearty support of a large number of students. Much credit is due the editor and his associates in producing a magazine of such qualities as to be recognized as one of the leading student publications of the Dominion. It is to be hoped that the magazine will continue to receive ever more and better support from the student body and ever strive for higher standards and more literary competition in the college.
Another honour to be shared between the college and its recipient is the Rhodes Scholarship, which was awarded to one of our students again this year. “Bill” Donohoe has always taken an active part in the University activities and with his record of work before us we have no doubt that the University of New Brunswick will be well represented by him in the Old Country. We extend to him our heartiest congratulations, and best wishes for success in whatever line of work he may enter.
The engineering and forestry faculties have progressed this year and a new microphone is being obtained for the broadcasting set which was installed in the Memorial Building last year.
At this point we pause and look about us in the sterner and more searching light of criticism. The first question that comes to our minds is, “What have we done for U. N. B.?” Modesty prevents us from a detailed account and we turn to the perhaps less embarrassing question, “What can we and those we leave behind do to improve the University?” Immediately several ideas flash across our minds, “Improve the gymnasium, the Club House, the Library, the Reading Room. Obtain a better magazine, better debates, more universal athletics, start a glee club, get better attendance at college functions and activities, have more activities of a class and University character; and many more.” So many things could be done that we begin to think that it would be impossible to get them. The solution of the problem lies in the word "interest" or "enthusiasm". That is the crying and immediate need of the college. For each and every object that we desire, we must have an interest and enthusiasm which is at present devoted to a restricted field. But we must not forget that the solution of one problem begets another, nor allow one attainment to fill us with false pride or over-confidence. We are proud of our Alma Mater and that pride will be justified as long as ideals keep coming and new interests and enthusiasms are born both for the old and for the new. We must not, however, sacrifice great things for little nor the essential to the inessential. Those whose task it is specifically, to improve the college know that we need a better museum, a better library, that equipment could be improved and have not forgotten the need of a residence. It is for us and for those who follow to lend assistance. And in lending this, we must remember that, both literally and metaphorically, “Every gate is barred with gold and opens but to golden keys.”
And so, while we march on to the new life, “with beating heart and with flying banners,” just before “the old order changes giving place to new” we want to extend to you, Mr. Chancellor, and gentlemen of the faculty, our warmest appreciation of, and our heartiest thanks for the assistance, encouragement and sympathy which you have always given us during our college course and which has provided us with an enviable equipment with which to go out into the greater course of life.
To the citizens of Fredericton we wish to express our gratitude for the ready assistance which they have always lent us at need or request and the pride which has been theirs in the University activities.
Undergraduates, it is for you to carry on the tasks we are leaving and to do so better than we. It is not enough for you merely to do your share, you must “play up, play up and play the game.”
Classmates, we must each say farewell, but when we go, it must be with head held high and with a determination to be,
“One who never turned his head but marched breast forward,And we must,
Never doubted clouds would break.
Never dreamed, though right were worsted, wrong would triumph
Held we fall to rise, are baffled to fight better
Sleep to wake.
“At the noonday, in the bustle of man’s worktime,And so, believing thus, we take our leave and bid you Faculty, Citizens of Fredericton, Classmates and “dear old Alma Mater” a regretful “Farewell.”
Greet the unseen with a cheer!
Bid him forward; breast or back as either should be.
‘Strive and thrive’, cry, ‘Speed! Fight on! Fare ever
There as here’.
Addresses may be reproduced for research purposes only. Publication in whole or in part requires written permission from the author.