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Courage
Upon his election as Lord Rector of St. Andrew's University, Sir J.M. Barrie delivered an inaugural address in which he sought to inspire the youth sitting before him. His stirring words on the subject of "courage" are just as invigorating today, more than eight decades after they appeared in book form in 1923. Barrie advised young people never to ascribe to an opponent motives meaner than your own; to know what you mean; to insist on helping; to learn how world-shaking situations arise and how they can be countered; and to doubt those who deny you the right of partnership. Charming, candid, and stimulation, Barrie's address is a rousing example of how he championed the spirit of young people. Of his daring comments, he said, "I sound to myself as if I were advocating a rebellion, though I am really asking for a larger friendship."
28 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1922
14 people are currently reading
241 people want to read
About the author
J.M. Barrie
2,307 books2,220 followersJames Matthew Barrie was a Scottish novelist and playwright, best remembered as the creator of Peter Pan. He was born and educated in Scotland and then moved to London, where he wrote several successful novels and plays.
The son of a weaver, Barrie studied at the University of Edinburgh. He took up journalism for a newspaper in Nottingham and contributed to various London journals before moving there in 1885. His early Auld Licht Idylls (1889) and A Window in Thrums (1889) contain fictional sketches of Scottish life representative of the Kailyard school. The publication of The Little Minister (1891) established his reputation as a novelist. During the next decade, Barrie continued to write novels, but gradually, his interest turned towards the theatre.
In London, he met Llewelyn Davies, who inspired him about magical adventures of a baby boy in gardens of Kensington, included in The Little White Bird, then to a "fairy play" about this ageless adventures of an ordinary girl, named Wendy, in the setting of Neverland. People credited this best-known play with popularizing Wendy, the previously very unpopular name, and quickly overshadowed his previous, and he continued successfully.
Following the deaths of their parents, Barrie unofficially adopted the boys. He gave the rights to great Ormond street hospital, which continues to benefit.
The son of a weaver, Barrie studied at the University of Edinburgh. He took up journalism for a newspaper in Nottingham and contributed to various London journals before moving there in 1885. His early Auld Licht Idylls (1889) and A Window in Thrums (1889) contain fictional sketches of Scottish life representative of the Kailyard school. The publication of The Little Minister (1891) established his reputation as a novelist. During the next decade, Barrie continued to write novels, but gradually, his interest turned towards the theatre.
In London, he met Llewelyn Davies, who inspired him about magical adventures of a baby boy in gardens of Kensington, included in The Little White Bird, then to a "fairy play" about this ageless adventures of an ordinary girl, named Wendy, in the setting of Neverland. People credited this best-known play with popularizing Wendy, the previously very unpopular name, and quickly overshadowed his previous, and he continued successfully.
Following the deaths of their parents, Barrie unofficially adopted the boys. He gave the rights to great Ormond street hospital, which continues to benefit.
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Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews
July 20, 2025
This rectoral address was not a moving as I hoped but some parts read well enough when I remembered this was not long after WWI. The conclusion had a nice stirring finish. I enjoyed McConnachie as Barrie's alter ego. I must read his speech on Hook at Eton.
April 5, 2012
This is Barrie's talk to the the graduating class of St. Andrews University in 1922. He tells the students to not be afraid to overcome the sins of their "betters" and to hold onto the hopes that light up their faces. But he also reminds both them and the reader that they too will one day be called to account for their actions.
I love short little pockets of inspiration like this. J.M. Barrie is a fantastic writer and this 'last lecture' is full of the witticisms and soft humour that he's known for. You could thumb through it in under an hour but that would waste the magic. This is a book best savoured, allowing yourself ample opportunity to mull over each little nugget of thought. Best read in spurts over a long summer's day.
I love short little pockets of inspiration like this. J.M. Barrie is a fantastic writer and this 'last lecture' is full of the witticisms and soft humour that he's known for. You could thumb through it in under an hour but that would waste the magic. This is a book best savoured, allowing yourself ample opportunity to mull over each little nugget of thought. Best read in spurts over a long summer's day.
January 23, 2019
got this book as a graduation present! my mama got me the copy that was in amelia earhart's personal library
June 11, 2017
I really wanted to love this piece. I attended St. Andrews and was hoping for some good memories and a dash of wisdom. But I don't think I'd recommend Barrie's speech very widely, even after reading with a generous eye. It's short - took me about half an hour to read. Delivered in 1922, it has some prescient insights about the nature of war. And it does have some wonderfully lyrical lines. But it offers very little on the quality that gives the talk its name, nor on other qualities that might help undergraduates embarking into the world. I'd look for edification elsewhere.
July 1, 2014
I'm curious about how this sounded as it was delivered, because it felt a tad disjointed as I read it. Regardless, it was a fascinating read: a rectorial address given at St. Andrews between the two World Wars.
September 4, 2021
Like so many other intellectual writers in English, Barrie owes the honing of his craft to journalism. This, while refining his creative hand at writing, means that as an essayist, he is reduced to an opinion writer. Courage, as a lecture may have been pertinent, but its transcription to essay form does not.
Courage, first published in 1922, is in fact a transcript from a graduating lecture that Barrie delivered at ST. Andrews University 03 May 1922. The theme of the lecture, not surprisingly, was courage. I liked his advice to students to stand up to the establishment and have the courage to make a difference, or, as Barrie says early in his lecture, ‘I want you to hold that the time has arrived for youth to demand that partnership, and to demand it courageously. P.5. He implores this youthful courage because he recognises that it is the youth who act out the proclamations of hierarchical folly. In the context of time and place, that is, Scotland four years after the conclusion of World War I, this message is vital to a nation that had engaged in a foreign war that had dire consequence to the youth who obediently heeded the call. Barrie appeals to his listeners, the young graduates of ST Andrews, ‘But if you must be in the struggle, the more reason you should know why, before it begins, and have a say in the decision whether it is to begin.’ P.8.
This theme of courage resonates as he implores his youthful audience to take the power of national decisions into their consciousness and political will. He says, ‘Do not stand aloof, despising, disbelieving, but come in and help—insist on coming in and helping. ... There are glorious years lying ahead of you if you choose to make them glorious.’ P.13. He urges the young graduates to be proactive from the onset and to understand ‘how world-shaking situations arise and how they may be countered. Doubt all your betters who would deny you that right of partnership.’ P.14. He concludes, though far from his actual conclusion, with a dire warning, ‘the truth about this great game, [is that] your elders play for stakes and Youth plays for its life.’ P.17
These sentiments are noble, and variations of the theme may well be heard across graduating auditoriums to this day. What’s more, there are a number of quotable (as I have done) lines within. However, Barrie’s powerful message is lost in a disjointed essay. For example, along with courage he speaks of his fictious alter ego, ‘M’Connachie’. After reading the essay, I was left wondering if we should follow our own ‘M’Connachie’ or not. Barrie claims M’Connachie is ‘the name I give to the unruly half of myself: the writing half. We are complement and supplement. I am the half that is dour and practical and canny, he is the fanciful half;’ P4. He goes on to quickly warn his readership, that he ‘might have done things worth while if it had not been for M'Connachie, and my first piece of advice to you at any rate shall be sound: don't copy me.’ P4.
M’Connachie appears to serve no purpose in this essay per se. However, I think taking the delivery of the speech in context of its time and place, at the time of the aftermath of what many considered a fruitless, unnecessary war that continued to bring economic and social heartache, and in a place, ST Andrews no less, that propagated the ruling elite. I suspect that Barrie uses M’Connachie as a comic diversion from the crux of what he was trying to achieve; the courage to be politically engaged to protect themselves from the established plutocracy. As a speech, this may have worked, but as an essay, it loses continuity and meaning.
Courage, first published in 1922, is in fact a transcript from a graduating lecture that Barrie delivered at ST. Andrews University 03 May 1922. The theme of the lecture, not surprisingly, was courage. I liked his advice to students to stand up to the establishment and have the courage to make a difference, or, as Barrie says early in his lecture, ‘I want you to hold that the time has arrived for youth to demand that partnership, and to demand it courageously. P.5. He implores this youthful courage because he recognises that it is the youth who act out the proclamations of hierarchical folly. In the context of time and place, that is, Scotland four years after the conclusion of World War I, this message is vital to a nation that had engaged in a foreign war that had dire consequence to the youth who obediently heeded the call. Barrie appeals to his listeners, the young graduates of ST Andrews, ‘But if you must be in the struggle, the more reason you should know why, before it begins, and have a say in the decision whether it is to begin.’ P.8.
This theme of courage resonates as he implores his youthful audience to take the power of national decisions into their consciousness and political will. He says, ‘Do not stand aloof, despising, disbelieving, but come in and help—insist on coming in and helping. ... There are glorious years lying ahead of you if you choose to make them glorious.’ P.13. He urges the young graduates to be proactive from the onset and to understand ‘how world-shaking situations arise and how they may be countered. Doubt all your betters who would deny you that right of partnership.’ P.14. He concludes, though far from his actual conclusion, with a dire warning, ‘the truth about this great game, [is that] your elders play for stakes and Youth plays for its life.’ P.17
These sentiments are noble, and variations of the theme may well be heard across graduating auditoriums to this day. What’s more, there are a number of quotable (as I have done) lines within. However, Barrie’s powerful message is lost in a disjointed essay. For example, along with courage he speaks of his fictious alter ego, ‘M’Connachie’. After reading the essay, I was left wondering if we should follow our own ‘M’Connachie’ or not. Barrie claims M’Connachie is ‘the name I give to the unruly half of myself: the writing half. We are complement and supplement. I am the half that is dour and practical and canny, he is the fanciful half;’ P4. He goes on to quickly warn his readership, that he ‘might have done things worth while if it had not been for M'Connachie, and my first piece of advice to you at any rate shall be sound: don't copy me.’ P4.
M’Connachie appears to serve no purpose in this essay per se. However, I think taking the delivery of the speech in context of its time and place, at the time of the aftermath of what many considered a fruitless, unnecessary war that continued to bring economic and social heartache, and in a place, ST Andrews no less, that propagated the ruling elite. I suspect that Barrie uses M’Connachie as a comic diversion from the crux of what he was trying to achieve; the courage to be politically engaged to protect themselves from the established plutocracy. As a speech, this may have worked, but as an essay, it loses continuity and meaning.
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August 8, 2024"How comely a thing is affliction borne cheerfully, which is not beyond the reach of the humblest of us." An excellent and wonderful speech by the author of Peter Pan, on the duty and opportunity of the youth, on following one's "betters," on adventure and heroism and courage. Here is a larger excerpt, one of my favorite parts:
"Courage. I do not think it is to be got by your becoming solemn-sides before your time. You must have been warned against letting the golden hours slip by. Yes, but some of them are golden only because we let them slip. Diligence--ambition; noble words, but only if 'touched to fine issues.' Prizes may be dross, learning lumber, unless they bring you into the arena with increased understanding. Hanker not too much after worldly prosperity--that corpulent cigar; if you became a millionaire you would probably go swimming around for more like a diseased goldfish. Look to it that what you are doing is not merely toddling to a competency. Perhaps that must be your fate, but fight it and then, though you fail, you may still be among the elect of whom we have spoken. Many a brave man has had to come to it at last. But there are the complacent toddlers from the start. Favour them not, ladies, especially now that every one of you carries a possible marechal's baton under her gown. 'Happy,' it has been said by a distinguished man, 'is he who can leave college with an unreproaching conscience and an unsullied heart.' I don't know; he sounds to me like a sloppy, watery sort of fellow; happy, perhaps, but if there be red blood in him impossible. Be not disheartened by ideals of perfection which can be achieved only by those who run away. Nature, that 'thrifty goddess,' never gave you 'the smallest scruple of her excellence' for that. Whatever bludgeonings may be gathering for you, I think one feels more poignantly at your age than ever again in life. You have not our December roses to help you; but you have June coming, whose roses do not wonder, as do ours even while they give us their fragrance--wondering most when they give us most--that we should linger on an empty scene. It may indeed be monstrous but possibly courageous.
Courage is the thing. All goes if courage goes. What says our glorious Johnson of courage: 'Unless a man has that virtue he has no security for preserving any other.' We should thank our Creator three times daily for courage instead of for our bread, which, if we work, is surely the one thing we have a right to claim of Him. This courage is a proof of our immortality, greater even than gardens 'when the eve is cool.' Pray for it. 'Who rises from prayer a better man, his prayer is answered.' Be not merely courageous, but light-hearted and gay. There is an officer who was the first of our Army to land at Gallipoli. He was dropped overboard to light decoys on the shore, so as to deceive the Turks as to where the landing was to be. He pushed a raft containing these in front of him. It was a frosty night, and he was naked and painted black. Firing from the ships was going on all around. It was a two-hours' swim in pitch darkness. He did it, crawled through the scrub to listen to the talk of the enemy, who were so near that he could have shaken hands with them, lit his decoys and swam back. He seems to look on this as a gay affair. He is a V.C. now, and you would not think to look at him that he could ever have presented such a disreputable appearance. Would you? (indicating Colonel Freyberg)."
"Courage. I do not think it is to be got by your becoming solemn-sides before your time. You must have been warned against letting the golden hours slip by. Yes, but some of them are golden only because we let them slip. Diligence--ambition; noble words, but only if 'touched to fine issues.' Prizes may be dross, learning lumber, unless they bring you into the arena with increased understanding. Hanker not too much after worldly prosperity--that corpulent cigar; if you became a millionaire you would probably go swimming around for more like a diseased goldfish. Look to it that what you are doing is not merely toddling to a competency. Perhaps that must be your fate, but fight it and then, though you fail, you may still be among the elect of whom we have spoken. Many a brave man has had to come to it at last. But there are the complacent toddlers from the start. Favour them not, ladies, especially now that every one of you carries a possible marechal's baton under her gown. 'Happy,' it has been said by a distinguished man, 'is he who can leave college with an unreproaching conscience and an unsullied heart.' I don't know; he sounds to me like a sloppy, watery sort of fellow; happy, perhaps, but if there be red blood in him impossible. Be not disheartened by ideals of perfection which can be achieved only by those who run away. Nature, that 'thrifty goddess,' never gave you 'the smallest scruple of her excellence' for that. Whatever bludgeonings may be gathering for you, I think one feels more poignantly at your age than ever again in life. You have not our December roses to help you; but you have June coming, whose roses do not wonder, as do ours even while they give us their fragrance--wondering most when they give us most--that we should linger on an empty scene. It may indeed be monstrous but possibly courageous.
Courage is the thing. All goes if courage goes. What says our glorious Johnson of courage: 'Unless a man has that virtue he has no security for preserving any other.' We should thank our Creator three times daily for courage instead of for our bread, which, if we work, is surely the one thing we have a right to claim of Him. This courage is a proof of our immortality, greater even than gardens 'when the eve is cool.' Pray for it. 'Who rises from prayer a better man, his prayer is answered.' Be not merely courageous, but light-hearted and gay. There is an officer who was the first of our Army to land at Gallipoli. He was dropped overboard to light decoys on the shore, so as to deceive the Turks as to where the landing was to be. He pushed a raft containing these in front of him. It was a frosty night, and he was naked and painted black. Firing from the ships was going on all around. It was a two-hours' swim in pitch darkness. He did it, crawled through the scrub to listen to the talk of the enemy, who were so near that he could have shaken hands with them, lit his decoys and swam back. He seems to look on this as a gay affair. He is a V.C. now, and you would not think to look at him that he could ever have presented such a disreputable appearance. Would you? (indicating Colonel Freyberg)."
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May 24, 2022The mortifying ordeal of finding this --- a speech delivered and printed in 1922, intended for the graduating class of St. Andrews --- lying outside my university while walking to the first day of my new-grad job exactly 100 years after it was printed, realizing what it is and finding a four-leaf clover pressed inside of it.
August 23, 2022
My version of this book was tiny - about 3" x 3" - it's the record of a commencement speech that J.M. Barrie [creator of Peter Pan] gave at St. Andrew's University. It's a very moving speech by a very humble man.
January 10, 2023
Really enjoyed this Rectorial Address given at St Andrews back in 1922 . I wonder what today’s students would make of it?
September 27, 2015
I read this after finishing The Night Gardener by Jonathan Auxiely. He wrote about it in the author's notes as a source of inspiration.
An interesting speech about Courage and what youth should aspire to in life. Written for the 1922 graduation class of St Andrews in England. He wrote about WW I and the courage as a youth to make sure that they engage in current events in order to know what the issues are and where the course of history is going in order to avoid another war. Lots of things to thing about .... a speech often referred to in other speech's and in literature.
An interesting speech about Courage and what youth should aspire to in life. Written for the 1922 graduation class of St Andrews in England. He wrote about WW I and the courage as a youth to make sure that they engage in current events in order to know what the issues are and where the course of history is going in order to avoid another war. Lots of things to thing about .... a speech often referred to in other speech's and in literature.
September 2, 2008
This is Barrie's lecture to a college class graduating in the early 1920s; he encourages them not to defer to their "betters" who have just demonstrated their failings by not avoiding WWI.
May 3, 2015
The thoughts expressed in the book just did not flow as well as I would have expected from such an accomplished author. It does, in fact, read more like a speech, which it was it was.
October 26, 2015
There are some really quotable lines in this speech, but I think for the most part the speech was aimed at a very specific audience and without a lot of context seems disjointed.
March 28, 2016
Tragic, given the timing, but still moving today.
Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews