On 17 October, 1964, the great and much beloved Governor General of Canada, Georges P. Vanier, visited Peterborough and declared Trent University open for the service of our country and for the advancement of learning throughout the land.

At the opening that day, I expressed a number of hopes for this new institution. These had to do with its ways of teaching, with what it taught, and with the particular importance of its relationships with its home community Peterborough, the historic Valley of the Trent, and the surrounding areas. To a substantial extent, the University has kept these aspirations in mind, and, to a substantial extent, they have been fulfilled. They give to Trent its distinctive character. They are not things that can be taken for granted. They need constant review, repair, and re-invention.

In its approach to teaching, Trent has kept in mind the dictum of John Henry Newman that a university should not be an impersonal factory, but Ïan alma mater, knowing its children one by one. To this end, it has made basic decisions about its size, structure, and arrangements: it has been planned and developed as a small university; it has worked hard to keep its classes small and most are; it has created a system of colleges within which the opportunities for students to know and to learn from one another and from the faculty can be increased; it has placed an emphasis upon programmes, facilities, and arrangements designed to help the individual student on the road to learning. In these ways, Trent has sought to counter the academic elephantiasis which is characterizing, and damaging, so many North American universities.

From the outset, it was very much the hope and wish of everyone associated with Trent that it would become in the fullness of time a useful and significant centre for Canadian studies. By this was meant the study of our Canadian civilzation for such there surely is in its totality: its history, literatures, arts, and sciences, its resources and environment, its institutions and peoples, its thought and culture. Trent has, indeed, emerged as one of the foremost centres in the world for the study of Canada. It has developed centres of strength and excellence in such fields as Canadian Studies, Native Studies, and Environmental and Resource Studies. In doing so, it has pioneered in the use of inter-disciplinary approaches to teaching, research, and knowledge. It has become a hallmark of the University that in almost every aspect of its work a thoughtful consideration has been given to the Canadian context and content of the subject. Further, the development of the concept of a Special Emphasis in a given subject has made it possible, for example, to offer a programme in Geography with Special Emphasis on Northern and Polar Studies.

Substantial aspects of the strong programmes developed in such fields as Administrative Studies, Cultural Studies, Modern Languages and Literatures, English, Politics, History, Geography, Economics, Anthropology, and Sociology have a Canadian focus. At the same time, outstanding programmes in International Studies and Comparative Development Studies give the University wider windows on the world, and the rich programmes in Philosophy and Ancient History and Classical Studies bring cultural breadth and historical depth to the curriculum.

Trent's teaching and curriculum are imbued with a deep commitment to the liberal arts and sciences as the foundation of a good education. The teaching and curriculum also draw strength from the great amount of wide ranging research in which the members of the faculty are involved. These, in turn, provide a solid base from which the University has moved into post-graduate teaching in selected fields.

Trent is in a special sense related to the community in which it is located. No university has received a greater measure of support from its home community, and it is this community which has given to the University much of the special character and out look which make it distinctive. Located in the historic Valley of the Trent, and in this old Ontario city of Peterborough with its long tradition of interest in the arts and letters, it is natural that this University should feel a particular interest in the study of the history and culture of its community and of our nation.

One hundred and twenty-five years ago, Benjamin Disraeli declared that "a university should be a place of light, of liberty and of learning". I think Trent meets this test. May it always do so.