LORD ROSEBERY AND SELFRELIANCE.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume LIII, Issue LIII, 17 August 1908, Page 5

LORD ROSEBERY AND SELFRELIANCE.

WHAT IS THE UNIVERSITY - STAMP?

Lord Rosebery has just been installed as Chancellor of- Glasgow University, and his ' address was full, of good thin" "

Referring to the 2500 students at the Glasgow University, he said: — "We>send them forth to the world with the stamp of Glasgow upon them. What is that stamp to be? The enquiry is not futile. Oxford and Cambridge impart, or did impart, a distinct character to their men ; they had a marked .division in politics as well as in, learning; Oxford had the traditional and reverential; Cambridge the enquiring or testing spirit. Again, Rugby — under . Dr. Arnold, at least — was famous' as giving a distinct character to its scholars. Why should not Glasgow do the same? And, if so, what .is that character to be ?

.LEARNING AND POVERTY.

"I know what I should like it to be, though, in former days in Scotland the suggestion that I. am about to offer would have bee'm. considered a superfluity. We had then in Scotland more than now ,the terrible lrfind-to-hand atruggle, with learning on the one hand and poverty, on the other, which embodied in a new form the combative spirit of; our ancestors, but which turned out 'indomitable Scotsmen, who had suffered so much, who had done so much that they needed and dreadeS nothing in the battle of life. *

"We have all known many such instances, ljut one has come to hand so recently that it may he well to remember it to-day. Dr. Robertson Nicoll has lately published a memoir of his father, who! .was an Aberdeenshire minister, and. one of "the most remarkable book .epllectors, considering his means, that ever lived. But it is not with- that of 'his life that I am concerned ■ .to-day. -In 18|3O, young Nieoll.was a student at Aberdeen University. He had a bursary of £12, of which. £B went in fees. This left £4 for a session of twenty weeks. His lodging, cost him a shilling a week, his food was bread and« cheese, his drink treacle and water, he had to face the long 'Aberdeen winter without." fuel. I ask you to remember that I am not recommending a diet, but recalling a character." |n-this desperate struggle he .came., 1 off victorious. * „ SCOTTISH SELF-RELIANCE.

"We remember the kindred struggle and triumph, of Carlyle at Edinburgh. Men like th^£se we£e so braced by what they /had Igbne through that they emerged as the survivors of the fittest ; they had nothing more in life to fear; . they ~were inured and hardened for whatever, life might have to offer ; they were, so, to speak, the Tenth Legion of Scottish' learning and character. What enabled r them to face such a training? Was it not, humanely speaking; that Scottish characteristic of selfreliance—rthe, hTeart of 'Scottish independence "and Scottish success ? That is the stamp that I would 'fain Bee the University pfc Glasgow affix , to ' her teaching, and , to the graduates' whom she sends -into the' world.-- Many will be ' disposed to say that this is unnecessary, that, in f aot, it would not distinguish the product of Glasgow from the rest of the nation. . j. ' SELF-RELIiNOE ENDANGERED.

"It may be so." I wish I thought so. I wish I could think, so. Everything is being done to swamp self-reliance, to make it superfluous and ridiculous. 1 am not likely in this place to touch upon politics. But in both the great political parties, do we not see that mechanical . organisation overrules individual opinion, that individual opinion counts for little or nothing, that independent thought is banned and condemned? Politics were made for man, not man for politics, by which I would imply that, men should control politics, and- not politics -men; that politics should embody certain - prinxjjples and certain needs, and' not be tfie mere shibboleth of a group of prompters. On questions of religion, or philosophy, or . economics* Unlversi- | ties still send forth independent Voices. I should like to see them strain men to think for-^themselves and act; for I themselves in other fields 'as well, men | who would, absolutely refuse to harness . i their intellects to the' current cant of the day; men not' angular, but true to themselves and to -their faith. : Theyi wsl find it an ill trade, unremunerative and reviledj attended with kicks, unattended with placks, but they,' will be a valuable element in the State; - they will render service to .their,,.opun-. - try, and they will be none the less successful in the ordinary,- calls' and professions of life for the possession of a sterling character. ' , i ; SELF-RELIANCE, AND LIBERTY. . '"'The plea for self-reliance ia after all a plea for liberty, the most f sacred and impalpable of national privileges. And yet it behoves us to scrutinise even liberty with a suspicious eye, for it is the word most often abused. The 'great and sacred principles which evoke enthusiasm .contain within them the germs of tyranny, for animated .conviction leads to fanaticism, and fanaticism to intolerance and oppression, The bloody tyranny of the French Revolution was carried on under the hallowed standard of liberty itself. Cruel persecution has been constantly exercised on behalf of Christianity, in the name of the Man of Sorrows. And so newideals, however specious their object, unless guarded and defined, may involve new tyrannies. I distrust a despotism even when exercised in the name of liberty and adorned by the epithet benevolent, for I know the benevolence to be acciAntaJanjj^JM*

and women who love real freedom to resist doctrines which encroach on liberty before these, thriving on apathy, obtain a destructive domination, which, short tho\igh it may be cannot fail to be disastrous, and may be mortal.

WHY SCOTS THRIVE.

"I would then, have self-reliance, the quality for which Scots were famous, but which is being daily • flapped* the principle for which Chalmers in thiß veiy city made so gallant a fight — I -n'(suia ] 3 ft v ? self-reliance as the assay mark of this University. It is by selfreliance, humanly speaking, by the independence which has been the motive and impelling force of our race, that the Scots have thriven in India and in Canada, in Australia and !New Zealand, and even in England; where at different times they were banned. As things are, we in Scotland 3o not late much, or oven ask much from the State. . "But the State invites us every day to lean upon it. I seem to hear the wheedling and alluring whisper, 'Sound \ you may be, we bid yo'i be a cripple. T>o you see? Be blind. Do you hear? Be deaf. Db you walk? Be not ao venturesome. Here is a crutch for one arm ; when you get accustomed to ft you will soon want another — the sooner the better.' The strongest' man r if encouraged, may Soon accustom himself to the methods of an invalid; he may train himself to tottor, or to be fed with a spoon.

"Speaking as a .Scotsman to Scotsmen, I plead for. our historical character, for the maintenance of those sterling national qualities, which meant so much to Scotland- in the past."