Valedictory Address

The Valedictory for the Class of ’95 by Mr. T.A. Hoben” University Monthly 15, 1 (October, 1895): 2-6. (UA Case 68, Box 1)

Your Honor Mr. President mid members of the Senate, Mr. Chancellor, and Gentlemen of the Faculty, Ladies and Gentlemen:

Custom bids me as valedictorian of the class of '95 repeat the old story of college life. Custom likes repetition, opposes innovation, and therefore it confines me to the ground so often covered by my worthy predecessors in this trying position. The hope and the fear of the matriculant; the ups and downs of the freshman; the foolish wisdom of the sophomore; the dawning sense of the junior; and the dignity of the senior all unite to make our class history laughable and interesting. To explain the various "combinations and permutations” through which we have passed, to “recount our innumerable woes'' would be so great an undertaking that we must for the most part leave these university graduates to recall their own history, and must allow all others to have recourse to the most vivid imagination.

The joys of college life are untold, and will remain unwritten. But they are real as are those unwritten laws whose kindly influence taught us and other freshmen two essentials of success, respect and obedience.

The class of '95 matriculated in September '91 with a membership of nine. On that bright morning when we entered this room our hearts beat fast, not only from the uphill work of getting here, but also from that uneasy foreboding, the real torture of examinations. But then, as soon afterwards, the Chancellor's genial presence put our fears to flight, just as effectually as his paper put our wits to work.

While we were freshmen the faculty befriended and tried to shield us. Becoming sophomores, however, we lost the friendship and protection of the faculty, so that being left to shift for ourselves we found it necessary at times to make money payments as the price of our love of chaotic liberty. In the degree to winch we suffered as freshmen, in that degree did we try to do our duty as sophomores.

In the freshman year our membership grew to 10, in the sophomore year to 11, in the junior year to 12, and to-day we graduate with our starting number 9.

During our course the University has widened her borders so as to make available to the people of St. John some of the benefits she has been bestowing upon us. In the cause of university extension the U.N.B. is foremost in Canada. Let us hope that the people of St. John, in appreciation of this, and in loyalty to our provincial institution, will send to these halls in pursuit of a more liberal education an ever increasing number of sturdy sons and blithesome daughters.

Within the University there has been steady growth. The reading room has become what the name suggests. The library is more efficient and more easy of access. Under the financial association the business of the students is carried on systematically. The debating society has become more orderly and eloquent.

The Y.M.C.A, continues to exert a healthful influence on college life. Records once the limit of athletic prowess have become too small for better bone and sinew and have consequently been broken. To Prof. Davidson is due the credit of re-establishing and improving the public lecture course, whereby the students have heard the best men discuss the questions of the day. There is a good resulting from these lectures. For, in addition to the knowledge gained, the students are led to take part in public speaking. How poorly does our education compare with that of the Greeks or Romans in this respect. With them public speaking was the goal of learning; with us it is neither the goal, the course, nor even a by-path. Yet with the steady development of democratic government, and the ever widening range of governmental interference and control, the demand for public men grows apace.

Does our school system meet this demand? From the child in the primary department to the University graduate too little effort is made to cultivate the art of speaking. If pupils are required to answer questions orally they are nearly always allowed to use broken phrases instead of finished sentences. The English, which they should pronounce purely and distinctly, is so chewed up and run together that it conveys little pleasure and less knowledge. We need some pains taken in the University, as well as in the schools, to encourage the fruitful side of education, the proper expression of thought.

Therefore I am glad that the faculty and students have decided to continue the public lecture course. And further, I would respectfully ask the President of the University, who is the Chief Superintendent of Education, to do what he can to develop this important branch of education. And, if I may be permitted to give advice, I would advise the students for their own benefit to take a more lively interest in the debating society and in all public debates; for even if you should become great storage batteries of learning it would be all the more shameful to sit by and allow the ignorant to electrify the multitude. May I add that the university should give some instruction in constitutional history. This year the Uni¬versity of New Brunswick anticipates other Canadian colleges in the matter of democratic government. I refer with pride to our committee for monthly conference with the faculty. This committee meets the long felt want of clearer understanding between faculty and students. It insures fair and more intelligent action on the part of the faculty, while at the same time it is a mild and self-imposed restraint upon the students. But more than all it admits of hearty co-operation for our mutual benefit. The work done by our joint committee is the strongest argument in favor of the movement.

So much for present progress. What will the future give us?

Gentlemen, residency. On this issue we stand firmly united. This year residency is not a dead question, an idle dream, nor a far-fetched subject for a valedictory, but it is a live question, a not distant reality, and a subject that is near to, and thrusts itself upon the professors, graduates and students of the University of New Brunswick. To you residency means unbroken fellowship, distinctive college life, concentration of spirit and effort, a common roof, a common table, success in football, more students, and a countless number of joys known only to the assemblage of hopeful jubilant youth. To the senate too, I believe, residency means more students and the greater usefulness of our provincial university; but alas, it also means an expenditure of from ten to twenty thousand dollars.

Our province should have, and has many noble public buildings. They have cost money. Our House of Assembly is indeed beautiful, but it is scarcely more important than our University. Should an institution, the child of this province and the parent of many well-to-do sons, be hampered through lack of ten or twenty thousand dollars? With the senate, alumni, and students in favor of it, residency must come; how soon, depends largely upon the excellent committees already appointed.

But to substantiate our belief in residency the members of the class of '95 subscribe $100 to the residency fund. This amount is payable, in two years. Thereafter we will give $50 a year in various ways for the benefit of the University. But while we confidently hope for residency, let us not suppose that residency is so automatic and persuasive, so energetic and aggressive that it will of itself bring to these halls the ever prophesied and never realized large number of students. Other colleges are wide awake, hustling, advertising, canvassing, even preaching, and withal working might and main to get students. Are we? They must have students or go down. They are sectarian colleges, and work with the vim and perseverance suggested by that narrowing word.

But the U.N.B. is a government institution, the head of the provincial school system "the College of New Brunswick " for which an agitation was begun as long ago as 1785; the time-honored champion of liberal education in this province; it is not speculative, but sure. Being a government institution, it moves slowly and stately; the head of the provincial school system, it calculates on a large supply of material from that system. During the period of an hundred years, agitation has got tired; the champion's pride will not permit him to go begging. The absence of speculation has much to do with the presence of ease and complacency.

It is with due respect to all authorities that I slate the opinion of many graduates and undergraduates that too little effort is made to bring the U.N.B. into its deserved prominence, and to claim for it the deserved number of students.

According to the calendar the number of B.A. degrees conferred by this university from 1880 to 1885 was 76; from 1885 to 1890, 68; from 1890 to 1896, 63. It is necessary for purposes of comparison to extend the last period to 1896, for during it, the B. A. course was lengthened from three to four years. The last period shows a fall of 17 per cent, below the first and of 7 per cent below the second.

Now I think it my duty to ask, why this decrease in attendance when there has been a simultaneous increase in the University's efficiency? While the province has established in the University of New Brunswick excellent chairs in philosophy and economics, and engineering, and has offered free education to the needy, in the meanwhile many of the sons of this province have sought education in the United States and Upper Canada, as is shown by the educational reviews for February and March.

The causes of the small attendance at the U.N.B. are chiefly three: first, too little effort to get students; second, too little patriotism and appreciation on the part of the people of the province; third, a decided preference for denominational colleges.

A good deal of fault has been found with the classification of graduates. Classification, if such be possible, is made more easily alphabetically within divisions than in order of merit within divisions. For, while an examiner can be fairly sure about the division to which to consign a candidate, he finds it a very nice task for human intellect to justly assign each candidate his relative position within that division. The whole matter takes such a serious aspect, if an examiner should determine one man to be superior to another, by one or by a half of one per cent. Perhaps if university examination lists had been framed so as to have no beginning nor end - say in the form of a circle or ellipse - and if the students had studied from a love of learning rather than of place, sickness and death from over-study would have been unknown. However, there might have been a dearth of educated men; since of many struggling to get well up in the list some have accidentally become educated.

But though the so-called honor-course does get partiality, yet, I think, we are all willing to be classified as the faculty sees fit, believing that after a thirty or forty years' course in the greater uni¬versity we shall be given our proper positions whether of oblivion, kind remembrance, or lasting honor.

And now as we stand upon the threshold of the greater university we have to say good-bye, first to those who have so patiently and faithfully directed our preparatory course. Much of what they have tried to teach us has not been learned, and much of what has been learned will be forgotten; but they themselves will remain as a sort of second promise to all our judgments. Our lives cannot but take a certain color from their teachings. Their position is almost sacred, since they determine to some degree the destiny of every scholar. The experience of my course has taught me that with the average student an ounce of personal interest from the teacher outweighs a ton of disinterested teaching. Equal neglect is not impartial kindness. Every teacher should be partial, but partial to every one of his pupils. Feeling that our instructors here are interested in us, we go forth with a stronger determination to succeed. With our departure comes greater responsibility upon the under graduates. We trust to you to maintain the ancient customs. Keep the old halls ringing with the now sadly waning songs. Revive them till the few re¬maining toes shall be shaken from the feet of our lean brothers in the fartherest corner of the museum. Get together often and you will the more enjoy college life. Make all the improvement you can, we shall not be jealous, but will envy your happiness. My classmates, the four short years are gone. We have reached the goal. We have gained the parchment; but now within our grasp the snowflake of pleasure melts. The future beckons but we would cling to the past. Here then with conflicting emotions we stand Janus-like. Our inward turned face is sad at separating from the university and one-an-other, our outward turned face hopeful of "conquests yet to come." In parting we shall feel the force of the friendships formed at school, which remain in full force even to old age, as if cemented by a certain religious obligation; for to have been instructed in the same studies is a not less sacred bond than to have been instructed in the some sacred rites. “Forsan et haec olim mominisse juvabit."

Our departure will be announced in the usual way. Any slight disturbance of the atmosphere during the coming night will be intended to voice to the people of Fredericton our recognition of their hospitality and kindliness. We intend to be present and to meet you all at the great reunion in the new residency building in 1900. Till then, Farewell.