Carnegie, Andrew, 1835-1919; Industrialists -- United States -- Biography; Philanthropists -- United States -- Biography
My election to the Lord Rectorship of St. Andrews in 1902 proved a
very important event in my life. It admitted me to the university
world, to which I had been a stranger. Few incidents in my life have
so deeply impressed me as the first meeting of the faculty, when I
took my seat in the old chair occupied successively by so many
distinguished Lord Rectors during the nearly five hundred years which
have elapsed since St. Andrews was founded. I read the collection of
rectorial speeches as a preparation for the one I was soon to make.
The most remarkable paragraph I met with in any of them was Dean
Stanley's advice to the students to "go to Burns for your theology."
That a high dignitary of the Church and a favorite of Queen Victoria
should venture to say this to the students of John Knox's University
is most suggestive as showing how even theology improves with the
years. The best rules of conduct are in Burns. First there is: "Thine
own reproach alone do fear." I took it as a motto early in life. And
secondly:
"The fear o' hell's a hangman's whip
To haud the wretch in order;
But where ye feel your honor grip,
Let that aye be your border."
John Stuart Mill's rectorial address to the St. Andrews students is
remarkable. He evidently wished to give them of his best. The
prominence he assigns to music as an aid to high living and pure
refined enjoyment is notable. Such is my own experience.
An invitation given to the principals of the four Scotch universities
and their wives or daughters to spend a week at Skibo resulted in much
joy to Mrs. Carnegie and myself. The first meeting was attended by the
Earl of Elgin, chairman of the Trust for the Universities of Scotland,
and Lord Balfour of Burleigh, Secretary for Scotland, and Lady
Balfour. After that "Principals' Week" each year became an established
custom. They as well as we became friends, and thereby, they all
agree, great good results to the universities. A spirit of cooeperation
is stimulated. Taking my hand upon leaving after the first yearly
visit, Principal Lang said:
"It has taken the principals of the Scotch universities five hundred
years to learn how to begin our sessions. Spending a week together is
the solution."
One of the memorable results of the gathering at Skibo in 1906 was
that Miss Agnes Irwin, Dean of Radcliffe College, and
great-granddaughter of Benjamin Franklin, spent the principals' week
with us and all were charmed with her. Franklin received his first
doctor's degree from St. Andrews University, nearly one hundred and
fifty years ago. The second centenary of his birth was finely
celebrated in Philadelphia, and St. Andrews, with numerous other
universities throughout the world, sent addresses. St. Andrews also
sent a degree to the great-granddaughter. As Lord Rector, I was
deputed to confer it and place the mantle upon her. This was done the
first evening before a large audience, when more than two hundred
addresses were presented.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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