ACADIA BULLETIN  1943   A. B. Balcom, '07: An Appreciation Assembly Address, 18 October, 1943 By T. M. DADSON, M.A., Ph.D. Professor of History

It is natural that this Assembly with which Dr. Balcom was so closely connected, where his voice was so often heard, should wish to set aside this session to his memory.

There are many things about Dr. Balcom that could and will be said more appropriately elsewhere and by others. He was a public figure known and respected far beyond the constituency of Acadia. He was honoured in this community as one of its most valued citizens. He was more than once the Mayor of Wolfville, and was always on call in its service. He was for many years the trusted adviser of the government of this province.

His scholarship in his own field, his thorough grasp of the relation of his science to the conditions of his time, his sound judgment, and his remarkable powers of lucid expression, made him continually sought after in places of influence. Had his ambitions lay in that direction, there was open to him a career much more conspicuous in the life of this Dominion than the one he deliberately chose.

His heart was in Acadia, and we of Acadia would rather think of him now as the man we knew so familiarly on the Campus, in the class rooms, and in the various associations of our common life.

Our uppermost feeling at this time is the deep sense of the loss of a friend. As I think of him, and I am sure I speak for you all who knew him, the first thing that comes to my mind is that unlimited capacity for friendship which was manifest in all his human contacts: with his associates on the staff, the students, not only of his own classes, and the men, women, and children of this community.

Friendship with him was always easy. We know of many friendships that are won and kept with difficulty, only over barriers, prejudices, conceits, and humours of character and temperament. None of these obstacles was present in Dr. Balcom's nature. There was a magnanimity about him which made friendship the natural relationship with all with whom he had to do.

While he was with us, we took all that for granted. We never thought to seek an explanation or to subject his character to any kind of analysis, but now as we look back, I think we will recognize that there dwelt among us a man of rare worth and charm, shedding an influence that will long be remembered by Acadia men and women.

Dr. Balcom was a gentleman; a word much misused and hard to define, but I am sure we will all say of him, there was a man who bore without abuse the grand old name of gentleman.

It was my good fortune to know him intimately for more than thirteen years; I have been with him in all manner of situations; I never heard him utter a sentiment that was below par; I never heard from him a mean word about anybody or to anybody. His mind was thoroughly wholesome and proof against petty or unworthy suggestions. There was nothing snobbish or condescending in his make-up. He had a natural dignity which needed no artificial props to sustain it and an equal respect for the dignity of and a generous appreciation of others.

In the best sense of the term Dr. Balcom was a humanist. He could truthfully say of himself, in those much quoted Latin words, homo sum, humani nil a me alienum.

He was genuinely fond of folks in all walks of life. I have rarely known a man who could more smoothly and sympathetically engage himself in the interests and doings of his fellow beings of whatever age or standing.

An illustration of this comes to mind. A number of years ago I travelled with him to Toronto to attend a meeting of the Political Science Association. I took him with me to stay at the home of one of my friends. On bidding him goodbye, I overheard our host say to him, "Well when you came, we accepted you for Dadson's sake, now we are accepting Dadson for your sake." It was a facetious remark, of course, but that brief visit of his was never forgotten by those people, and though years have passed, they always enquire after him as of an old friend of the family.

Some minds are open books but uninteresting books at best. We cannot speak of Dr. Balcom without reference to the stimulating quality of his mind. This has been remarked upon to me again and again within the past few weeks, by students and members of the faculty.

In contact with him, one was impressed not only with the wide range of his intellectual interests and the extent of his information, but with the soundness of his judgment and his sure instinct in sifting the chaff from the wheat, discarding non-essentials and reaching sound philosophical conclusions. As one of our professors and a former student of his expressed it, he always had his feet on the ground.

It was his aim as a teacher often expressed, to develop in his students the habit and power of what he called analytical thinking. I have heard many of his students pay tribute to his excellence as a teacher, and I know that among the graduates of the last thirty years there are many men now holding places of great responsibility and power who will date their intellectual awakening from the discussions of his classroom. Who then can measure the extent of his contribution to society and to this Dominion?

But even what I have said does not account fully for the firm hold that Dr. Balcom has gained on the affections of successive generations of students and associates of this Campus. He was a likeable man, a delightful companion, with a pawky and kindly sense of humour. He knew how to give banter and how to take it.

He was a good sport, apart from any of the opprobrious senses in which that sobriquet is sometimes used. He was fond of games and contests of all kinds. Some games he played with great skill, others indifferently, but he never lost the zest of the contest and, win or lose, he played the game, as indeed he lived his life, according to the rules and for all he was worth.

You know what a familiar figure he was at all student contests. Dearly as he loved golf, I have known him, time after time, to forego a Saturday on the links, to stand on the sidelines at a football match. He had a perennial interest in all phases of student life.

We like now to think of him as having derived a great deal of solid pleasure out of his life. What many did not realize, in his later years he carried one great sorrow. Most of you will have no memory of Mrs. Balcom, a gracious lady, who made his home a place of singular happiness for him and hospitality for his friends. He was never quite the same after her untimely death about thirteen years ago. He maintained his home and bore his grief without parade. Only those who knew him when his family circle was complete will understand the loneliness of his later years. He never wore his religion on his sleeve, yet his whole life was ordered by its abiding loyalties.

His going from us was startlingly sudden, but perhaps in the way he would wish it, in harness, without prolonged suffering, his zest for life unimpaired to the end.

So we honour the memory of a friend of us all. One of the great advantages of the small university, and which goes far to justify its existence, is the privilege given to so many, to know intimately a man of the mold of Dr. Balcom.

What we know him to have been to this generation of students and faculty, he has also been to those of the past three decades. He has bequeathed to Acadia a legacy and established a tradition which we will value more and more as we view it in the receding perspective of the years.