Address in Praise of Founders

"The Encaenia Address, Prof. Fletcher"The Capital (25 June 1881): 1-4. (UA Case 71)

May it please Your Honor, Mr. President, Ladies and Gentleman:
The University has set apart, in every year, a special day on which it pauses in its tranquil though unresting course to look back upon the past or forward into the future, and justify its own existence. This day is the University Encaenia, the day of consecration and commemoration, when the University consecrates itself anew to the work of another year, and recalls with affectionate gratitude the piety and wisdom of its founders, and the munificence and liberality of its benefactors. Today we are celebrating the eighty-first anniversary of the institution of this College. Those who stood and watched by its cradle are long ago dust. And every year we deplore the loss of some of those who, with untiring zeal and earnestness, devoted their best energies to furthering the interests of the University. They are dead; but the good they did lives after them, and to-day in accordance with time-honored custom, I will endeavor, in their honor, briefly to indicate some of the leading features of that education which is bestowed upon the youth of a country by such institutions as these men founded and fought for.

Whatever notion we may have of the true and primary functions of a University, there can be no doubt that its chief function is, as Mill defined it, to "make capable and cultivated human beings." Schools of Law, and Medicine and Theology and Technology and Engineering and Agriculture are useful institutions in any country. But their work is not the work of the University. The University gives no professional knowledge or training. It enables professional men to approach their technical pursuits in the light of a liberal culture, and with the energy of a disciplined interest.

And amongst the many famous reactions which have characterized the age in which we live, none is more famous than that which restores to the old orthodox system of education, at least in its present modified form, its ancient honor and prestige. The old question between education as a developing of the powers of thinking, and education as supplying materials for thought; the old question between education as a training of cultivated intelligence, and education as an imparting of useful knowledge, is at rest and forever. It is the exercise of the intellect in study, and not the knowledge gained by the way which makes capable and cultivated men. And however much it may be to be regretted, if the class graduating to-day proceed at once to neglect and forget the subject-matter of their recent studies, still, if they have made a proper use of these studies, their minds have reaped all the essential advantages which a liberal culture is able to bestow. The subject-matter is only the instrument, an instrument it is true, which, if the student is wise, he will not throw lightly away, but will keep bright and furbished even amid the distractions of professional life, but an instrument which has virtually served its purpose when the student for the last time crosses the College threshold. The knowledge he has acquired, elevating and refining though its influence may be, is after all only of secondary importance. If this be the true theory of University education, and it seems to me to be the only philosophical one, it follows that a University course will comprehend all those subjects which are best adapted for the development of the intellectual powers. It is not to my present purpose to enter upon a defence of the subjects of the University curriculum, as to how far they are suited for purposes of intellectual discipline, or to justify the employment as educational instruments of Classics, or Mathematics, or Science, Physical or Metaphysical. If there were any better instruments, those at present employed would soon be superseded. The course of University study, of which they form a part, is the product and result of the wisdom and experience of ages, and is endorsed as the best devisable system for developing and training the intellectual faculties, by the testimony of teachers and scholars of all civilized nations. The student who, with a real desire for intellectual improvement, applies himself to the mastery of these subjects, has all his mental powers called into life or quickened into new growth. By the constant repetition of intellectual acts, good mental habits are formed and stamped forever upon his mind, and he goes forth from his College apprenticeship well equipped and prepared to know and do all that is known and done under the sun. But more: If the student has been true to himself, he has by his acquaintance with liberal studies, opened up for himself a mine of pleasure which he can never exhaust, and discovered a spring which will never run dry. In literature, philosophy and science he has friends for life. His mind is filled with a love of the good, the beautiful and the true. He has learned to live with the dead masters of learning, to listen to their voices and to feed upon their thoughts. He has learned to draw aside the veil from the face of Nature and to read her deepest secrets. He has learned to know himself. There is, of course, the reverse of the picture: where the student, falling under the tyranny of inadequate motives, of ambition, emulation or a love of material rewards, crushes out of his heart, all high aspiration, and all desire for intellectual improvement, chills the genial fire of soul, and destroys in the end all love of knowledge and liberal studies. Or again: where the student, with no guiding principle in his College life but an unmanly self-indulgence, falls under the Siren spell of indolence and pleasure, declines all intellectual toil, and sinks at last into absolute stagnation and death-like paralysis of intellectual action. But it is no argument against the efficiency of a College curriculum that in some cases it is inefficient.

But again: Just as the repetition of mental aepetitisn of mental acts produces mental facts, so the repetition of moral habits produces moral character. And this brings one to the other side of College education: the formation of character in college. The youthful student when, at the most pliant and impressionable age, he leaves for the University the protection and safeguards of his home, becomes acclimated with startling rapidity to the new atmosphere he then begins to breathe. He imbibes with marvellous ease the spirit and traditions of the University, and the standard of University life, becomes the standard of his own. If the tone is high, no influences tend more strongly to form an elevated and manly character. If the tone is low, no influences tend more dangerously to produce a debased and degenerate one. And it is of the first importance, accordingly, that every student should feel himself, and make himself responsible for the tone of his University. For the habits, mental and moral, which are formed at College are for the most part fixed for life. Although good servants when they are good, they are bad masters when they are bad. On the other hand, a well enforced system of college discipline cannot fail to set its own impress upon the University, and the plastic susceptible natures of its youthful members are stamped with the virtue of method and regularity and perservance, and manly self-reliance, than which there are no surer guarantees of success in life. Such then briefly and I feel most inadequately stated, is the theory of University education.

And in conclusion, let me say to you, students of the University of New Brunswick, you whom I shall never have the right and privilege of addressing again, you whom I see now standing on the threshold of manhood, with capacities and powers, soon to be exerted either for good or evil: Strive to be worthy of the great privileges you enjoy, and of the high heritage which has been bequathed to you; and in the words of Milton - "labor to be inflamed with a love of learning and an admiration of virtue, and stored with the high hopes of living to be brave men and worthy patriots." The student who resolves to bring to the service of his country a pure heart and a cultivated intellect, has already given no small promise of a patriotic life.