Graduation Address

"Convocation Address by David M Dickson" (October 22, 1995). (UA Case 69, Box 3)

The wife of the late Mr. Justice Frankfurter, the former member of the United States Supreme Court, used to say about her husband that as a public speaker he had two failings; he departed from his subject—and he returned to it.

I shall have little opportunity to demonstrate either failing, because the invitation to be the Convocation speaker contained two stipulations: My remarks should be graduate-oriented; and—perhaps more significantly—they should be confined to five minutes.

I must confess that if someone else were the speaker I would consider that a most sensible—even merciful—restriction. I must assure you that I treat the admonition not lightly.

I do thank you, Mr. University Orator, for the kind things you’ve said about me—most of them either exaggerated or undeserved—and also for overlooking my many failings. I thank the University and its Board and Senate for the honour of receiving an honorary degree in law. It is a particular honour to have been included with these two distinguished and accomplished gentleman—Dr. Peters and Dr. Green.

Someone said to me: You seem to have got yourself sandwiched between two Irishmen. I pointed out that the Irish strains in my own blood were probably stronger than any other. After all, I pointed out, my forebears include Thomas More, the Irish poet, the friend of Byron, Scott and Shelly, and who wrote the words for some of the best-loved songs in the English language. His only response was that he could hardly conceive that two Irishmen, let alone three, could fool the authorities at UNB into believing that they were intellectuals.

People do of course closely associate with Ireland its beautifully lyrical poetry, music and song. One of my own favourite verses is one with which I became familiar on a visit to Dublin 54 years ago. It is, if I recall correctly, inscribed as an epitaph on a tombstone located near the foot of O’Connell Street. It reads:

Beneath this stone lies Murphy;
They buried him to-day.
He lived the life of Riley.
While Riley was away.

I’m particularly pleased to be a participant in these Convocation exercises today—falling as they do on the 50th anniversary of the return, following service in the Second War, of many hundreds of veterans. I was among them, having left my studies in my sophomore year some five and a half years earlier.

There were 102 in my class when I left. Probably the vast majority of them served in the forces at some stage of the War. Seven of them gave their lives during the War and weren’t able to resume classes with the rest of us at its conclusion. In all, some 47 students or former students of UNB—most of whom I remember as acquaintances or friends—were killed in the war. Thirty-two others from UNB had similarly given their lives 25 years earlier in the First War. Most were in their early twenties—the age of most of you graduates here today. We must not forget the sacrifice they made to ensure for us the freedoms we enjoy.

I congratulate today’s graduates on the attainment of your academic degrees. One must admire and compliment those who have done so with outstanding academic achievement and whose efforts have merited the award of prizes or other special recognition. But at the other end of the spectrum one must equally admire and respect those who have achieved their degrees only with a great deal of struggle, perseverance and effort. And the accomplishment has not, in many cases, been achieved without a great deal of sacrifice, by other family members and friends.

I would refer especially to the indebtedness due to those graduates who have come here to study from foreign lands. Their presence has, I’m sure, greatly enhanced and enriched the mosaic and fabric of life and study on this campus.

I suppose it’s expected of a Convocation speaker that an effort be made to impart great and sage advice to the graduates. Some philosopher has observed that "Old men love to give good advice, because they are no longer capable of providing bad examples."

I will confine myself to reminding you that the learning process does not end with the granting of a degree. All of life continues to be a learning process. For it is only by constantly and continuously enlarging one’s knowledge and experiences that one can reach fulfillment in life.

I shall conclude with this anecdote and leave it to you to extract from it what lessons for life that you can.

A year ago or so I read in the Globe and Mail a report of a Canadian filmmaker who had returned from Los Angeles to speak to some arts group or other.

He told his audience of how during his work in the States he had built up a great respect and admiration for his American associates. He cited their determination to succeed, their ingenuity, their ability to improvise their work ethic and drive and so on, as qualities which compelled him to accept that Americans generally exceeded their Canadian counterparts in ability and competence.

But he had recently abandoned that notion. And he attributed his change of mind to an event which he described as follows:

Two film directors—one Canadian, the other American—were standing at a curb in New York City watching a circus parade pass along the street. The cage on one of the circus wagons contained a hungry man-eating lion which paced back and forth.

When the wagon had passed about 200 feet along the street, one of its wheels inadvertently struck the curb and the wheel came off. The wagon tipped over, the cage door swung open, and the lion pounced out. The crowd on the curb scattered like wildfire. The hungry man-eating lion spied the two film directors a couple of hundred feet away and bounded towards them.

The Canadian knelt down and put on his running shoes. The American said: "If you think that by putting on running shoes you’ll be able to out-run that hungry man-eating lion, you’re a damned fool!"

To which the Canadian replied: "I don’t have to out-run the hungry man-eating lion. I only have to out-run you."