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This item is filmed at the reduction ratio checked below/ Ce document est filmi au taux de rMuction indiqui ci-dessous. 10X 14X 18X 22X 26X 30X v/ 12X 16X 20X 24X 28X 32X Tlw copy film«d h«r« ha* b««n raproduetd thanks to th« ganarosity of: New Brunswick Museum Saint John Tha imagaa appaaring hara art) tha baat quality poaaibia eonaidaring tha condition and lagibiiity of tha originai copy and in icaaping with tha fiiming contract spacificationa. Originai copiaa in printad papar covara ara fiimad baginning with tha front covar and anding on tha laat paga with a printad or iiiuatratad impras- •ion, or tha bacic covar whan appropriata. Aii othar originai copiaa ara fiimad iiaginning on tha firat paga with a printad or iiiuatratad impraa- sion, and anding on tha iaat paga with a printad or iiiuatratad impraaaion. 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Un daa symbolaa suivants apparattra sur la damlAra imaga da chaqua microflcha, salon la caa: la symbols -ii»> signif la "A SUIVRE", ia aymbola ▼ signifia "FIN". IMapa. plataa. charta, ate., may ba fiimad at diffarant raductlon ratloa. Thoaa too larga to ba antlraly included in ona axpoaura ara fiimad baginning in tha uppar laft hand comar, laft to right and top to bottom, aa many framaa aa raquirad. Tha following diagrama illuatrata tha mathod: L^a cartaa. pianchas, tabiaaux, ate, pauvant itra filmte i daa taux da rMuction diffiranta. Loraqua la document aat trap grand pour Atra raproduit an un saul ciichA, 11 aat film* i partir da I'angla supAriaur gaucha, da gaucha A droita, at da haut an l>aa, an pranant ia nombra d'im -jaa nAcaasaira. lias diagrammas suivanta IIK.«u'ant la mAthoda. 1 2 3 4 5 6 1 < ■■■I I ! %. ii ^-d^ 12^ EDUCATIONAL IMPROVEMENT ; COMMEMORATIVE OKATION. AT fiiii wumn i\ KlNirS COLLEGE, FREDERICTON, JUNE 28, 1855. : 4 RY If EDWIN JACOr,, I).r«., PRHnCK'AL. FRKDERICTON: J, SIMPSON, I'HISTKK TO TlIK QUKKN's MOST KXCET.I KNT MAIK'^tV. , ^ 1855. 5r 1,! EDUCATIONAL IHFROTEMENT j i| COHHEHORATITE OEATION, AT THE mmn IN KING'S COLLEGE, FREDERICTON, JUNE 28, 1855. BT EDWIN JACOB, D.D., PRINCIPAL. FREDERICTON: 1, SIMPSON, PBINTUB TO THB QUEBn's MOST BXOBLIiBNT MAJESTY. 1855. - ''^ rs '>« u irji -.1 .1 umnm .juinaaoo »-i i^U'^V^li :,! M f . ,t'.cr> \ M- -AVVM vff .UMi:.r>^i.Ht: '■iJi'-I i .t',mparatively uncultivated country, no means which we could employ would have the effect of filling the Col- lege with agricultural, manufacturing, mechanical, or commer- cial Students ; but that, unless additional inducements be pro- vided for those who might adopt the professional pursuits more especially denominated learned, we must be content to await the gradual progress of the population in number, wealth, and the wants and demands of an opulent and civilized people. To contribute to that progress, and to accelerate it, belongs to us, in common with all the improving institutions and inhabi- tants of the Province. To anticipate it by premature and ' violent efforts, could be productive of no better effect, than miserable, disheartening, self-destructive disappointment." Such were the conclusions distinctly avowed by me at our 21st Enccenia, and which I deliberately reacknowledge on this the 25th. For what has since occurred to change them in any respect? At the suggestion of our late Visitor, Sir Edmund Head, the College Council established the additional depart- ment of Civil Engineering. The scientific principles of that useful art, together with their applications to practice, had — like those of Agriculture, Navigation, and others — been already taught in the College. But the Class of the professional Engi- neer was certainly attended by others beside our general Stu- dents; and it is not for me to explain why the promising services of that gentleman were discontinued at the end of three months, and no further effort made in the same direction. — In the midst indeed of this experiment to give our instructions a more visibly and tangibly practical character, the College Council might consider itself virtually superseded by certain proceedings in the House of Assembly, which terminated in the appointment of an extra-collegiate Commission. But in the Report of that Commission, comprehensive as are its gene- ral views, and calculated as I am willing to trust it may be found to conduce to valuable improvements within the circle of our Provincial Education, I must confers myself to have seen i . ! ■ V ! I little which could, in my humble opinion, immediately improve the College. Assuming, but without reason assigned, that the constitution of the University requires still further amendment, the Com- mission recommends a new arrangement of departments ; some doubtless, perhaps all, in themselves, advisable. But theeie are either already comprised in our existing scheme, or must be conjoined with its divisions ; — the remuneration proposed being, with few exceptions, manifestly inadequate for the engagement of separate instructors. The Report contains the eloquent and edifying language of christian piety and catholic charity. But, as far as I have been enabled to discern, it might leave our Students destitute of Religious Instruction — unless from voluntary visits of neigh- bouring pastors or itinerant preachers ; and of participation in Divine Worship — except so far as any might attach them- selves to congregations unconnected with the College. The Commission appears to contemplate no provision for Tuition ; either in the limited sense of aid in private study ; or in that of the ampler superintendence of intellectual and moral conduct, which our Statutes, like those of the English Univer- sities, wero originally intended to ensure. Moreover the Report tacitly abandons our Library, Philoso- phical Apparatus, and Museum; abolishes our Convocation, organization, and economy ; and provides no direction, su- pervision, or jurisdiction for the Collegiate body ; save such as might be exercised by a travelling Rector, charged with the inspection or regulation of all the public schools in the Counties and Parishes of the Province; or by a variable Council, assem- bling possibly at long intervals from different and distant quarters. In short, however highly we may be disposed to estimate the qualifications and intentions of the Commission, the Act recom- mended in the Report to be added to our Provincial Statutes mignt have tho effect of reducing the College to a number of independent and precarious classes ; meeting perhaps on cer- tain days or hourd in Lecture-rooms or fiolds, or possibly amidst the woods or on the waters ; and then returning to their several lodgings, to digest at individual discretion the general or par- tial, little or much information which they may have been dis- posed to seek and receive. Now I say not that such a distribution of schools would be worthless; I am ready to admit that some of the scholars might acquire a considerable amount of useful knowledge ; I can even conceive that here and there a young man of peculierr character might find the discursive variety suited to his habits or his taste. But, with all my respect for the liberal views, motives and intentions of the Commission, I am bound to de- clare my persuasion that the change recommended might un- speakably augment the defects which we feel in our Collegiate system, and fall immeasurably short of that University which our Founders and Benefactors aimed to establish. It can hardly be thought possible now, with any probability of success, to bring forward a plan for supplying those defects, and realizing their benevolent design. Improvements formerly introduced, under the most favorable auspices, and embracing almost every amendment which our system has ever been alleged to require, have been either ruthlessly " strangled in life's porch," or industriously obstructed and defeated by agencies beyond our control. In fact, although our Charter itself had from the first pro- vided that no Religious test should be appointed for any person matriculated, or admitted to any Degree, with the single exception of Divinity ; the impression has never ceased to be inculcated on the popular mind, that all the privileges and benefits of the College were confined to members of one estab- lished Church : — a representation so widely at variance from the truth, that in no instance whatever has the slightest differ- ence been made in the College, either in the bestowment of It mi 9 Scholarships, or in any other beneficial respect, between any two Students on the ground of their Religious persuasion, or Denominational connexion. And so again, while in my first discourse before the Uni- versity, printed by desire of the Chancellor and Council, I emphatically observed that Tutors even and Professors there might be in the College whose faith should be that of other Churches, it was made matter of complaint in a Petition to the Crown, new on record in the Journals of the House of Assem- bly, and received as unquestionable by the Secretary of State, that all the Professors were required to be members of the Church of England ; an allegation deliberately persisted in even when two members of the Church of Scotland were teaching their classes in the College ; and still credited, after French and Irish Catholics, with one trained in the Reformed Church of the Netherlands, have occupied the same ppsition. Similar has been the reception given, from time to time, to our offer of gratuitous instruction to persons desirous of quali- fying themselves for teachers of Schools ; an ofier commended to the Legislature by Sir Archibald Campbell, and embraced by one who, in due course of advancement, has now become the Principal of a Baptist Academy in Nova Scotia ; — ^to our Statute, admitting to equal privileges the members of all other Seminaries ; availing themselves of which Tutors of the Wes- leyan Academy at Sackville proceeded to the Degrees of Bachelor and Master of Arts ; and to the Statute enacted by the existing Council, permitting any person, without residence or formal Matriculation, on the presentation of a fee little more than nominal, to attend any course of Lectures, and obtain a Certificate of proficiency — such as lately granted to the Class in Civil Engineering. . .: < ^ ^ All these concessions to the alleged wants and wishes of the people, together with other alterations made by virtue of the Act of Amendment, have utterly failed to satisfy the demands for reform or revolution ; and on what ground could a better :-> fate be expected for any further attempti ? We eannot here in Fredericton, — beautiful and healthy as is the iituatioHf and whatever attractions may be thought to belong t9 the ieat of Government, — assemble the 50,000 souls now formiflf the population of the city of Providence, with their 30 banki atid hundreds of manufacturing establishments, at onee furniihitig a " Brown University" with numerous bodies of 8tud@nti«— « We cannot spread around us the wide expanse of deep fi^rtilityi rendering Western Canada so attractive to vast numberi of enterprising emigrants ; which, since the foundation of a " King's College at York," has muhiplied the population twenty or thirty fold, and richly provided for the Nofffial Schools of Toronto, with other Educational instittitioni*'— We could not induce the traders and mechanics of our seaportif or the graziers and dairymen of our vales and marsbeii itill huu enable the poorer settlers of other districts, to maintain their sons during the requisite period of Collegiate Edueatiofl } should we even attempt to imitate the " Free Academy/' now crowning the system of public instruction for the bundredi of thousands constituting the emporium of New York, and fait eclipsing the Schools and Colleges of New England and of Canada. . But we could, and — if justly countenanced and iiipported, instead of incessantly ignored, thwarted or maligned— W(f assuredly should with some fair hope of success, exert our boit endeavours to impart to the youth, repairing hither for inch an Education, the intellectual and moral culture qualifying for the several professional and the higher occupationi of lifo« More than this, with the means actually applied to the iupport of the College as a place of Education — scarcely exeeeding half the proclaimed amount of its income — it would be vain and dishonest to promise; and for the accomplishment of tbii mea- sure of good, I should be wanting in candor and truth did I hesitate to acknowledge my conviction, that the eourie to be pursued must be in several respects different from that reeom- mended by the Commission; and in some, whieb I believe essential, much more complete. 10 For those of our aspiring youth throughout the Province, whose parents are unfortunately destitute of means to provide for their maintenance, I cannot imagine effectual relief; unless the public bounty or munificent individuals should competently endow Scholarships or Exhibitions — such as in other lands, and especially at the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge, have enabled many to pursue their studies, who have consequently risen from obscure penury to posts of importance and distinc- tion in the world; or unless the scheme just now promulgated in the North-western division of the United States should be conceived to suggest a happier idea. There, as we read in the public prints, the interests of Agriculture have been at length duly recognized, while previ- ously there was not on this broad continent one solitary insti- tution where young men could learn the science and practice united. The Legislature of Michigan has made provision for the establishment, organization and operation of an Agricultural College. Their Act provides for the purchase of a site in the neighbourhood of Lansing, the inland capital of the State; for the erection of the buildings, and all other requisite expenses. The course of instruction is to include Natural Philosophy, Chemistry, Botany, Anatomy and Physiology, Geology, Mine- ralogy, Meteorology, Entomology, the Veterinary art, Mensu- ration, Levelling, Political Economy, Book-keeping, and the Mechanic arts connected with Agriculture. The Tuition is to be for ever free; but during the summer Term, from the begin- ning of April to the end of October, the Students will be required to devote a portion of their daily time, not less than three hours nor more than four, to manual labour. To quote the language of " the Albany Cultivator" and ** Country Gen- tleman," it is earnestly hoped that the College will soon be in successful operation under the charge of such as will take a deep interest in its prosperity ; and that multitudes of the young men of the State will resort to it, in search of that discipline of mind, and that amount of scientific information, which will make the business of the Farmer a more interesting, delightful, and dignified employment." and 11 Agriculture in truth, I cannot he. late to say, ought to be regarded as the primary art and fundamental science. No country can be well inhabited, until the culture of the soil shall furnish the necessaries of life to a settled population ; and the means of acquiring, by manufacturing industry, mechanicdt ingenuity, and that interchange of commodities which consti- tutes commerce, the comforts and enjoyments of a people advancing in civilization; with its higher demands and nobler incentives to action. " But the essence of a College or Uni- versity requires moreover," as our late Lieutenant Governor, now the highest public authority in British North America, observed in his Letter to the Commissioners, " that such an institution should embrace a wider range of study; and should combine, with useful knowledge, those elements of Classical Literature, and of Abstract Science, which serve to raise the character and refine the taste, of every class in every country." The chief question remaining for solution regards, I con- ceive, the arrangements for imparting that •♦ Useful Know- ledge," which begins indeed with the scientific cultivation of the ground, but rises to the high attainments of intellectual and moral philosophy. Agriculture itself, as the Legislators of Michigan have seen, is comprehensive. So likewise is Engi- neering ; so is Navigation ; so are all the Manufacturing, Me- chanical, and Commercial pursuits ; so are Architecture, Horti- culture, and all the elegant arts ; so are the Military, the Legal, Medical, and Ecclesiastical professions ; so espe^sially is that of the Educator; so, above all, are Legislation ?iiid Govern- ment. Now these, all these are indispensable to the progress of a civilized people; and it requires a wisdom far from ordi- nary or extemporaneous to assign their just place and time in a system of universal Education. Aly own hope, as respects this our College, is, I must again avow, still directed mainly and ultimately, although not exclu- sively, to the continued cultivation of the mind and heart ; — to that learning which more immediately " Emollit mores, nee sinit esse feros ;" and renders the man, not merely knowing and able, but pious 12 and virtuous — just and honorable, modest and friendly, pa» triotic and humane, and in every relation of life truly and reli- giously good; — according to that admirable description of Philosophy in the Tusculan Questions of Cicero, whieh I tcarcely know how to quote, except in his own exproNiiro Latin: — "Philosophia vero, omnium mater artium, quid Oft aliud nisi, ut Plato ait, donum, ut ego, inventum DeoruRi? Hffic nos primum ad illorum cultum; deinde ad jus bominumf quod situm est in generis humani societate ; tum ad modeHtiARlf magnitudinemque animi erudivit ; eademque ab animo, tan- quam ab oculis, caliginem dispulit, ut omnia supera, infora, prima, ultima, media videremus." Let then the hope still be entertained that, whatever improve- ments in the system of Education may be, on full consideration, adopted by the Legislature, care will be taken, not to abandon or frustrate, but as far as possible advance towards perfection, the design of those Founders and Benefactors, who desirg.'l to promote the highest good of the whole community. For, although painful experience may compel us to confess, with the unwilling ** Idler," whom the want of due support estranged from the College of his affections and the University of bii hopes, that " it is seldom we find either men or places meh ni we expect them ;" and that " he that has pictured a prospeet upon his fancy, will receive little pleasure from his eyes ;*' yet, as Johnson pursues the reflection, "it is necessary to hope, though hope should always be deluded. For hope itself ii hap- piness ; and its frustrations, however frequent, are yet leii dreadful than its extinction." v' '< And *'Oh !" — if at this distance of a quarter of the century it may be allowed me to recal the visions floating before my eyes when I addressed the infant University assembled for the first time in Fredericton Church — " Oh ! when we contemplate the great and extensive and lasting good, of which our College might be productive in the present and in future agei; when we look forwards to the wisdom and virtue, and the glory and happiness, of which the seeds might here be sown in "the 13 ground of good and honest hearts" ; when we see arising auong our children, and our children's children, high and noble and generous and holy spirits — men who should teach their gene- rations how to live and how to die ; when we perceive, here perhaps a Sydney or a Falkland, uniting the brightness of genius and the elegance of taste with the heroic courage which devotes its heart's best blood for its king or country; there a Pitt or a Clarendon, maintaining the best institutions of the land, or restoring them from the ruin of violence or anarchy; there again a Hale or a Bailey, awing blasphemy and malice itself into silence by the venerable piety of their character ensuring the equity of their decisions; and there the sacred orator and the pious pastor, the Gilpins and Taylors and Herberts of the West, now recalling the misled multitude from engrossing cares and polluting pleasures to their high- born original and their heavenly inheritance, and then visiting the hovel of poverty and the bed of sorrow with the bread of life and the consolations of immortal hope: — Oh! what grati- tude ought we not to feel towards those to whom New Bruns- wick owes the foundation and endowment of her University" — which might yet contribute to the realization of such visions ; " and at the same time how solemn" ought to " be tue feeling of responsibility in them to whom the rising interests of that establishment," and its destiny for periods and for people not to be numbered to day, have been, and " are now committed !" At all events, as Hooker, once a poor Scholar of my own College in Oxford, consoled himself in the last words of his Ecclesiastical Polity, 'Hhough for no other cause, yet for this, that posterity may know we have not loosely through silence permitted things to pass away as in a dream, there shall for men's information be extant thus much concerning the present state of the College established among us, and their careful endeavour who would have upheld the same."