PROFESSOR BROWN ON INDUSTRY, THE NEWSPAPERS, EDUCATION, &c.

Globe, Volume XXIV, Issue 2620, 30 August 1882, Page 3

PROFESSOR BROWN ON INDUSTRY, THE NEWSPAPERS, EDUCATION, &c.

Professor Brown delivered the following

address at the ceremony of the presentation of diplomas and conferring degrees held yesterday:—

Professor Brown (who on coming f orwsrd

was heartily applauded) said: Mr Chancellor,—You havo desired me, as a member of the University Senate, to address the graduates you have just capped, and I have accepted the duty with tome reluctance; for one who has spoken to them in lectures so many sessions can have little to say that is new to them. But, perhaps, the unusual character of the occasion may justify the reiteration of old truths, and the new position of preacher may give a new coloring to old maxims. Preaching, or the earnest iteration of truths that are apt to be forgotten, is a pleasant change from criticism, and is on occasion as necessary. For even though the wisest thoughts of oar greatest thinkers arc but new versions of the Ten Commandments, more or less, the world continually demands new thinkers to re-state the old code. It is because nature, and specially human nature, is so great a plagiarist, that our greatest ethical teachers seem so to echo each other, and that preaching or licensed plagiarism will never be a lost art. Some of yon graduates may, on hearing this, remark that if wisdom is reducible to such small compass, surely a three or four years’ college course that is effective ought to have communicated it all; and some graduates, I am afraid, accept their graduation* ns the crown and close of all the learning they need in life. But the fallacy is obvious ; it is not the number of the commandments that is the difficulty, it is their application. The infinite variety of life demands infinite adjustment of i's fundamental truths. You will And, before you have made many steps into the world, that instead of all your examinations being past they have but begun. The qualities that you have brought into exercise at year examinations are not to be thrown aside when you pass from learning to action. Life is one long system of examinations with a far severer strain of competition, and a larger and more exacting body of examiners than you have yet met with. In life, you will find nothing worth the having that is to be won without the struggle of competition and the sharpest criticism from your compeers. Now, education, as a preparation for life, is life in miniature. It is, therefore, a mistake to suopose that true education can go on without examination. Ifjyour University course has not braced yon for the struggle of life, it has miserably failed in its aim. If it has given to you the no; ion that yon can be educated by merely imbibing knowledge, that you can receive culture without struggle, then yon have all your education to begin again. And whether you will or not, you cannot avoid getting educated. Narrowing your arena will not reduce the struggle. Necessity is the hardest of schoolmasters, and narrowing the arena but places you in a atraiter corner for this hard schoolmaster to deal with you. That is the kind of education you will get if you do not go boldly out to meet the difficulties of life. Do not go out to meet them, and they will oome to meet you, and throw you, too, in most ignominious manner. That is but a poor invertebrate philosophy which is ever insisting on the evils of overwork and of abstinence from amusement. The preacher of such a gospel should go next and preach to children on the evils of abstinence from sweetmeats. Human nature has no such deadly propensity to work or aversion to pleasure. The intellectual part, especially needs perpetual stimulus. Incentives to idleness and amusement it has enough ; if more it needs it should be of the Irish oardriver’a kind, who inserted in a traveller’s bill, “ Refreshment for the horse, 2d," and on being asked what this was, replied, “Whipcord, your honour.” If overwork slays its thousands, sloth slays its tens of thousands, only, in the latter case, it is death by inches—it kills faculty after faculty, energy after energy; it produces an intellectual death in life. The former kind of deaths are commonly tragic and striking, like casualties at ses, and hence their frequent use as texts. But the lesson drawn from them, “Beware of work,” seems to me as inoonsequent as the surprise expressed by a landsman at a sailor’s determination to go to sea, in spite of the warning that his father and grandfather and great-grandfather had ell been drowned at sea. And the tailor’s reply seems ' * apposite, asking the landsman, "Whore did your father and grandfather and great grandfather die P” and eliciting the answer to each question "In bed," he added, " Then I am astonished you should ever go to bod,” If cases of illness from overwork were inquired into, it would bo fouud_ in the majority that overwork meant irregular work, or at least worry added to hard work. Children and youths sometimes work unwisely, preferring spasms of labor to the alow process of regular industry ; and that, as well as the spasm of devotion to amusement that follows, is pernicious, and has to be cheeked. But if there is one thing you should have learned from your University course, it is the limit of your powers—how far you can go in the way of work. And another quality which this course should have developed in yon most—self-command —give* you the power to apply that knowledge. No; overwork is a disease which many people would be the batter of catching for a time. There would then be loss idle talk, less malicious remark, less suspicion and assignment of bad motive, less feeble conspiracy and intrigue in the world* Ido not believe with Byron that—

“ Society is now one polished horde Formed of two mighty tribes, the bores and bored.” Nor that a more correct classification would be the stingers and stung ; but, idle moments are the devil's opportunities, and where idle ears and idle tongues meet, there will either be yawning or scandal. If work were wholesome in no other way, it is wholesome in this that whilst absorbed in it you will hear no idle tales, nor will you tell them. Half the malice and lies of this world are the product of idle hours and idle tongues that would otherwise be innocent enough. This is the secret of the mischisf that colonial newspapers and colonial Legis latures so frequently do. The newspapers hays so many columns to fill, and even the most ill founded rumour is a godsend. Thus misrepresentations come more often from this necessity, and the consequent thoughtlessness and hurry of getting copy than from any real malice. I doubt if even in their grossest misrepresentations they could not be victimised like the absent-minded editor, who quoted in his paper a forgotten article of his own appropriated by a rival paper, and headed it with “ Wretched Attempt at Wit.” Thi Legislature, too, has a certain period to pass every year in legislating and speechmaking, and custom* that well might look after themselves arc worried into mischievous laws, just to fill up the time, and so excellent institutions are made the vehicle* of falsity and *ham. Now that is a state of thing.* which needs cure. And my great hope with regard to this University is that the habits of solid work which her graduate* have acquired in attaining their degrees, will go out with thorn into the country and purify its literary and poli ioil atmosphere. Such habits are tho b"st antidote to all untruth and shuffling. They are, too, the best preservative from all tbvt scheming and conspiracy which it the diabolic element in life. Politics, I am afraid, it often but a mean game. Too many go up to their legislatures, as Sheridan’s eon proposed to do, with “To let” on their foreheads, ready for auy party to hire; and not a few, I fear, merit Sheridan's addition to the label, “ Unfurnished.” Neither imputation netd ycu fear if yon taka ont the lesson* aid habits learned in your course with you into the world. It is true that, in engaging in the game of life, you cannot always avoid

to'ng dragged into conspiracies and intrigues, as an object of attack at least Bet when you feel yourself so benefited, hare the courage to hold your hand from using the meaner weapons of your enemies. Bear their machinations and abuse as silently os you can, rather than soil your hands ri‘ h their methods. That is the only way to keep your purpose pure and sincere. “ fie that blows in the dust fills his own eyes.'* Confine your student habits through life, and half the intrigues that cone within shot of you will pass harmless. If yon continue to do such solid werk as yon hare done, no scheming will loosen your grip of jour business in life, and if you retire to the books and great thinkers of the past you have learned to love, they will either keep yon from hearing the annoying rumours thst whiz around everybody’s bead like mosquitoes, or if you hear them, soothe you and prevent yon from stinging in return. Of course the best result yon should have from

your course is the habit of systematic work with definite aim. If all you have done is merely to fulfil the popular idea of a graduate, as a man crammed with stores of knowledge—whr.t Mrs Malaprop calls “ a progeny of learning ” —then the" good you have received is very email indeed, Not a museum of curious or antique facts, but an armoury of keen faculties your course ought to have made your mind. Some I have heard

say:—What is the use of trying to give imagination or reasoning power, or common sense or will to those who have not got it? And the saying of Cervantes is quite true “Every man is as Q-od made him, and oftentimes a great deal worse.” But it is a poor education that cannot turn this last clause into “ and oftentimes a groat deal batter,” The faculties we have are but in germ when we begin life, and I fear in too many cases when wo end life too. It should be the purposs of true education to develop these. “In the coldest flint there is hot fire,” and in the most unpromising youth there are all the faculties waiting to be developed. It is a sure sign of a bad workman that ht ever complains of the material he has to work on ; and it is a sure sign of a bad teacher to despise the pupils be has to teach, One lesson, you have learned, I hope, by succeeding _in yonr course, and that is, that however imperfect the instruments you work with, the definite aim and the determined will accomplish aIL There is no evil feature in your character but you can eliminate ; there is no good one but you can strengthen. “Every man is the sen of hi* own acts." Do each action well and nobly, and your character, however ignoble to begin with, will soon take the color of yonr acts. To faith and determination all things are possible with your own soul. But your aim must be level with your mina’s eye, and near enough to it. If you attempt to shoot at the moon, your shot will only return on yon, and at times even a worse fate befalls E utopian aims—the fate of that philosopher who, keeping his eye on the stars as he walked, fell into a well and was drowned. It ie no bad thing to have a distant and ambitions ideal in the future ; but keep it cut of eight. If you air it too much you will addle it. not hatch it. Wear it in “your heart cf hearts," and let it never disgust you with the narrower and closer aim. Adjust them as well as you can ; but if the claims of the two seem to clash, and the nearer should be as honorable os the more distant, then follow the whist playsr’e rule, “ When in doubt, win the trick.” But your nearer aim should be an adequate one—such an aim as will nut do yon dishonor, or throw ridicule on the means you use. Some men after the most elaborate education spend it all on the most trivial pursuits, such as the hoarding o£ money a the making and promulgation cf paltry gossip. In the inadequacy of their ends to their means they are not unlike Sir Hudibras—

“ For be by geometric scale Could take the size of pots of ale.” Be wise in the selection of your aims as well ms in that of your means. Never shoot flies with forty-pounders. But above all things you should have learned from yonr course never to despise the sphere yon have to work in, or to think that if you changed it you would bo more successful. With the talents that Nature, Chaucer’s “ Vicar of the Almightie Lord,” has given you, and the development your education has given these, you are certain not to be without fit sphere for long ;as the proverb ha* it—“ Get thy spindle and tby distaff ready, and God will send thee flax." And when yon have got your sphere stick to it with hearty cheerfulness, determined to do your best with it. Do not think that, if yon had the sphere of somebody else or his material, or Lis instruments, you could do so much better. Ho who waits for perfect instruments or a perfect sphere will hr.re a veiy long time to wait. And without a doubt those are the beat and most economical that are the readiest to yonr h ind. You will waste far mete time and tail in treking for your ideal sphere than you would u-efully spend in fitting to yonr faculties that which is closest to you, In fact, once set off in the quest, ycu will never find the sphere you want. And with Sterne, "I pity the man who can travel from Dan to Beersheba and say ‘ Til all barren.’ " The barrenness lies in himself. If you cannot come across good material or good instruments, or good sphere, you will find the fault in yonr own nature. Never forget that “ the kingdom of heaven is within you,” that it lies in no imaginary circuu.r f ances yithout you, that it is no country or condition at a distance from you, that wherever you go yon carry the possibility of it with you, that ths world around you is what your soul is. They are never likely to find the kingdom of heaven who go wandering out cf thair own selves and surroundings in search of it. They reverse tho quest of Saul. I think it is Goethe has said, “He went ont to ssek his father’s asses and found a kingdom j” they go ont to reek a kingdom and find their father’s ass.