4 September 2026

When JM Barrie, the Scottish playwright, became rector at St. Andrews University, he was invited to address the students. His theme was courage and the rectorial address runs to forty-five pages. It was delivered on 3 May 1922, barely three years after the Armistice was signed. By this time, Barrie was sixty-two.

It is a remarkable piece of writing characterised by the courage of which he speaks. Early on, there is a confession. ‘For fifty years or so we heeded not the rumblings of the distant drum.’ he says of those whom he describes as the students’ betters!

‘And when war did come we told youth, who had to get us out of it, tall tales of what it really is and of the clover beds to which it leads. We were not meaning to deceive, most of us were as honourable and as ignorant as the youth themselves; but that does not acquit us …’

He goes on to challenge the students to do two things. Firstly, to work in partnership with their betters to make the world more just and more humane. Secondly, to work with people of all nationalities including the Germans.

‘Even hostile countries sent out many a son very like ours, from the same sort of homes, the same sort of universities, who had as little to do as our youth had with the origin of the great adventure.’  And immediately, we are brought back to the image of God within us all and the sacrifice of Christ for the love of the whole world.