Graduation Address

"Honorary Degree Recipient’s Speech, Spring Convocation" (22 May 1981). (UA Case 67, Box 2)

First, I would like to thank the University of New Brunswick in Saint John for honoring Judge Guss and myself by choosing us to become members of the class of ’81. I consider it a particular privilege to be here as I’ve always considered UNB my favorite alma mater, and now I have a double reason to do so.

Convocation is an important ceremony as it shows the world that you have completed the requirements for degrees. It also is a sad time, in a way, because it may be the last time you will work and play closely with a number of your classmates. For those of you not going on to graduate programs or to professional schools, this ceremony marks the end of your climb up the formal education ladder. I hope, however, that it will not be the end of your education.

As you’ve heard, I wear many caps – physician, scientist, researcher, and teacher. The last is, in my view, the most important one. While it is very exciting to make a significant scientific discovery, the most exciting thing is to have a student grasp a difficult point, or to make his or her first research discovery.

All of you here today had some formal education, and yet the really educated people have found ways to continue their education outside the classroom. This informal education is more like climbing a mountain than like climbing the educational ladder with its fixed steps of grade school, high school, bachelor’s and master’s, and doctor’s degrees.

The educational mountain is different; the path may be easy or hard, but you and you alone have the choice of which one to take, and you and you alone must decide how willing you are to reach the top. Hopefully, some of your formal education, and particularly some of the people you have met will help you to choose your path.

I’d like to tell you about three teachers I’ve had who had a profound effect on me and on the way I try to climb the mountain. I’ve purposely not chosen any from UNB, not because they were poor teachers but because there were so many good one’s that I can’t describe them all and do not wish to hurt anyone’s feelings.

The three I’ve chosen are Dr. Bernice MacNaughton, Dr. Alan Burton and my grandfather. They were very different but I’ve tried to take part of what I’ve learned from each and to choose my own path up the mountain.

Dr. Bernice MacNaughton was one of UNB’s first women graduates, and later served on its senate from 1949-1953. She was a remarkable woman in many ways, not least because she taught both geometry and French in Moncton High School. Dr. MacNaughton had a plaque on her wall which read "We Can If We Try Hard Enough." As you can imagine, there was always somebody to say "I can’t." Then the student or the class would recite "We Can If We Try Hard Enough." It’s a good motto, and every time I hit a snag I find myself saying it and then trying harder. I hope you too will adopt it as your motto.

I did my graduate training at the University of Western Ontario with the late Dr. Alan Burton. I have never met anyone like him. He found everything interesting and exciting, but like best to teach during coffee break, which has been for many years and is still a ritual in our department. Topics ranged from fleas to kangaroos. Did you know they would both jump the same height? Another day we’d discuss why woodpeckers didn’t get concussions when we certainly would if we banged our heads. Did you ever wonder why urine foams? – Or how to find the temperature of a hibernating polar bear? Dr. Burton did, and found the answers. Unlike many modern scientists who tend to stick to the same subject for all of their careers, his mind jumped quickly from one thing to another.

One summer I was there, Labatt’s Brewery had their centennial and the London Free Press said they would have a beard growing context. Dr. Burton was in his element. He’d always wondered if a beard would help to conserve body temperature like a hat does. He called Labatt’s and soon we had a stream of bearded men sitting in the cold room, in trunks, with their head in a calorimeter, which is simply a big box used to collect heat. After the context the wives shaved off the beards and back their men came to be retested.

Dr. Burton was a typical absent-minded professor. He could concentrate on only one thing at a time and he always got very excited about things. If this happened while he was drinking coffee or lighting his pipe, you can imagine what happened. Suddenly he’d wave the full cup of coffee too vigorously and one or more of us suddenly had a shower! Or, for variety, a lighted match would fly off to the wastepaper basket, and then we’d become fire fighters!

It was an exciting and painless way to learn, and made us think of a great variety of subjects.

My third teacher was my maternal grandfather. He had to leave school after grade IV to support his widowed mother, but more than made up for his lack of formal education. Unlike Dr. MacNaughton and Dr. Burton, he was a placid, quiet-spoken man, who lived to be 95. He read avidly, and believed you had to look at both sides of every question. He had an interesting teaching technique that I’ve often used. He loved to debate, and we always had first choice of sides. Then we’d start and carry on until we could think of no more arguments. Then, we had to change sides. We always knew this was coming ands o we listened carefully to his arguments so we could use them later. This, too, was a painless form of learning, and taught us to consider fully both sides of every question before we reached a conclusion.

I believe that all of these methods can be used to help us to broaden our minds and so become better educated. Each one of you must find what works best for you. For example, Dr. Burton, who had a remarkable vocabulary, always read "It Pays to Increase Your Word Power" in Reader’s Digest. I always knew what words he’d get wrong as they would appear and reappear in his conversation over the next few days until he’d added them to his storehouse. This, like Dr. MacNaughton’s use and reuse of her motto "We Can If We Try Hard Enough" points out the importance of repetition.

The newspaper provides many ideas for subject matter, and obviously needs grandfather’s approach to looking at both side of the question. Should we, or should we not spray the Spruce bud words, and if so, with what? Should we or should we not find more practical conservation methods? How can we use nuclear power without danger to living things? There are many more, and I hope you’ll look for them. As long as you think learning is fun, and you’re willing to look at both sides of the question, and to try hard enough to do it, you’ll never cease learning, and so you too will be truly educated.

Good luck to all of you, and thank you again for letting me join the class of ’81.