Valedictory Address

“The Canadian Graduate 1966” (May 1966):1-11. (UA Case 68, Box 2)

I am honoured this evening on being selected by my classmates to deliver their valedictory address. It is not my intention on this occasion to attempt to revive the many experiences which from time to time are encountered by a student in the university community. Rather, I would suggest that if there are those among us who have not questioned themselves regarding the experiences which he or she has undergone at university that they do so immediately. Experience can be a great Teacher. They should take pride in their successes and carefully examine their failures for it is only on this basis that the graduate of 1966 can properly prepare himself for the challenging future which this country offers.

My comments this evening will concern the decades before us. These I hope will be equally as valuable as any remarks that one could make regarding past university experiences. I should first of all like to comment on the present challenges which face our universities today noting that the students of these higher institutions are for the most part in sympathy with their administration’s efforts to expand and finance present facilities. Secondly, I would warn my classmates of the pressing demands which our Canadian economy will place on their shoulders in the next few decades. Education must not stop upon graduation. Finally, I will direct my remarks to the misguided nationalism which has gripped their nation far almost a decade.

In any discussion of our present universities one should realize that there are three main missions which the modern academic community must perform. These are research, teaching and “acting in the nation’ service”. James A. Perkins, President of Cornell University while delivering a series of lectures at Princeton in November of 1965 stated and I quote “it is the most sophisticated agency we have for advancing knowledge through scholarship and research. It is crucial in the transmittal of knowledge from one generation to the next and it is increasingly vital in the application of knowledge to the problems of modern society”. End of quote.

It has only been during the past ten years, that students at Canadian universities have really felt the affects of the increasingly crowded conditions and the increased costs of university education. These conditions have resulted in marches and demonstrations by student bodies across the country and a number of briefs being prepared both for governments and university administrations. As university students, we too have felt these discomforts and for better or worse we reacted in a manner similar to our colleagues across the country. Unfortunately our graduation will not eliminate these unfavorable conditions. Under present conditions, it is relatively easy for many students to blame both university administrations and governments for a lack of planning and preparation. Such criticism is, in my opinion, unfair and unfounded – surely an administration can only expand present facilities when it is assured that finances are available to build and to engage the staff to maintain and support such expansion. Governments have, in the past, been reluctant to pour money into high education lest some other sector of the economy be neglected. Dominion-provincial cost sharing agreements have rarely resulted in either level of government bearing its proper share of the burden.

The reason for this hesitancy on the part of government at all levels has been that the university community has only fully evolved during the past century. It was the Greeks who made the first important contributions towards the quest for knowledge. However, their idea that knowledge could be acquired through logic and reasoning was not appreciated for centuries. It was only when the authoritarian structure of the Middle Ages has been dissolved by the Renaissance, the Reformation and the Industrial Revolution that change could become a desirable goal. The German universities of the late 19th century developed research as the second central mission of the university, however, progress was limited here by the ruling classes who did not wish its influence to stir up the lower classes.

In England, the pattern was quite different as Oxford and Cambridge evolved as the measures of excellence in undergraduate instruction. The problem here was that this decentralized and undergraduate environment was not hospitable to research and graduate study.

These English and German shortcomings were to be solved by the developing university community in the United States. Spurred by the technical demands of the Civil War and labour shortages of the period 1860-1890, American universities were to combine the British tradition of undergraduate instruction and the German concern for graduate education. Also. they added to these duties, a third and new mission – acting in the nation’s service. During these years the pattern of life also changed from rural to urban areas and all these phases of university actively began to work interchangeably. Canada’s universities followed a pattern of development similar to that of the United States although we were some years behind in most areas of development. With such important transformations taking place in the last century, one can understand why university administrations and governments have, up to now, let society set the pace for educational development. Present conditions would indicate, however, that a change is needed both here and in the United States. An increasing college age population seeks entrance to university; a new social philosophy exists that everyone should go beyond secondary education if he wishes and that persons without funds should be finances; coupled with this is the fact that a proportionally smaller pool of faculty members exists today reduced by the low birth rate of the depression and tapped by the higher salaries in government, industry and a variety of other services. At the same time, the nation’s interest in university research has made millions of federal dollars available for research of ten at the expense of the undergraduate education. Clark Kerr, President of the University of California, while delivering the Godkin lecture at Harvard in 1963 notes that there are four main dangers facing today’s university – the fear of uncontrolled growth; the fear of the loss of direction; the fear of loss of principle and finally the fear that the university will be too rigid in an era of rapid change, Canadian universities are also facing these dangers. Seemingly our modern university is threatened by its own success and its integrity shaken by the difficulty of maintaining balance within its various parts.

Despite these problems our university and others across the continent have responded quickly and intelligently to the pressures which our growing country demands. Systems of junior colleges have been set up, correspondence and extension courses exist and it appears that in the not too distant future educational television, taped curricula and the three semester year might well be a part of higher education in Canada. Whatever changes may take place in university education in the years ahead, I suggest that the majority of students realize and understand the nature of these problems. They appreciate the efforts of the administration on their behalf and that they will continue to persuade government for the financial assistance that is required for future development.

I would like to turn now to a second consideration, that of the Canadian economy. The graduating student should at once realize that we are most fortunate to be graduating in these yeas of economic growth and prosperity. While competition is keen, chances of success are now better than even before. The Economic Council of Canada in 1964 while projecting the goals of this country’s economy to 1970 called for an unemployment rate of 3% and an annual average potential growth in output of 5.5%. These figures have only recently been matched in our economy’s history by the years 1952, 1953 in the boom period after the Second World War. In its second review released in December, 1965, the Council indicated that the economy had moved rapidly towards these goals and that such demands on our economy would not be as impossibly as they have seemed just one year before. The Council in its 1964 review noted that the supply of highly skilled and professional manpower will undoubtedly be a critical factor in the achievement of these economic goals to 1970. During the past twenty years, short-ages of specialized scientific and technical manpower have been cited by industry as an obstacle to undertaking more extensive in research activities to develop and produce new industrial products. Some companies have reported that the supply of engineers was a limiting factor in their present and future capital expenditure programme. It is apparent that the problems of obtaining adequate numbers of highly skilled staff would become even more acute in the years ahead. These of the graduating class who have completed studies in the scientific and technical fields will indeed find a most promising and challenging future before them. The Council notes that the engineering graduate may soon have to be re-schooled after only fifteen years in industry due to the rapid technological developments in this profession. Also that many of our high school graduates who train in vocational schools may well have to return for retraining in a second trade at about the age of forty. It is evident, therefore, that while the rewards are greater, the demands which the economy places upon the graduate are heavier than ever before. Those among us who might feel that this week’s events will bring to a close their life’s education are mistaken. In the field of resources, economists hold the view that although it is extremely unlikely that the North American population will put enough pressure on resource supplies to restrict economic growth. The Ford Foundation’s research group called “Resource For the Future” forecasts that population will level off with the dislike of crowded living conditions or the family’s desire to provide better education to fewer children. It would appear, therefore, that unless war or depression grips our society that the socalled “good life” is just over the horizon.

I should now like to make a few comments on the present state of our nation. It is, I feel, important to realize the nature of the restlessness which has possessed many Canadians in recent years. As Canadians, we should be greatly disturbed because our nationalism as presently practiced seems to reinforce the most undesirable features of the Canadian character. Canadians today seem to feel that they have accomplished nothing worthy of genuine national pride. As a result they have turned upon one another. The French-English differences today stand out raw and ugly. Seemingly, Canada is experiencing some sort of adolescent tantrum and in the process has inflicted serious physical damage upon herself. The hurt, however, has gone beyond Canada’s borders. In the years of slow economic growth from 1958 to 1963 much of the blame for these conditions was placed on foreign competition and American investment in Canada. As a result, the attention of the Canadian people was drawn from the true state of affairs – namely that the economic policies adapted here at home left much to be desired. There are those who charge that Canada’s identity was threatened by cultural and economic influences from the United States which could lead to our loss of freedom as a nation or to eventual union with the United States. A number of economists have disputed these charges, the most noted being Professor Harry G. Johnson, a Canadian citizen presently at the University of Chicago. Professor Johnson notes in his book The Canadian Quandary that the Canadian identity is certainly independent of American pressures. Canadians tend to reflect serious attitudes, provinciality of outlook and feelings of inferiority more so than the average American. The recent trends appears to be that Canadian independence can only be demonstrated by opposing American policies. As for the means whereby the United States threatens our identity, Canadian nationalists usually point to the consumption of American goods and the practice of the American standard of life in Canada. Also they point to the wide circulation of American communications media in Canada. Professor Johnson argues that this certainly is not a real argument especially in the eyes of an economist. While one may deplore many aspects of the affluent American style of life, it is what the people desire. Also he notes that by forcing people to buy Canadian goods and magazines instead of American that the Canadian produced would simply produce the same types of goods and probably not as well.

With respect to the threat to Canadian independence, the Canadian nationalist usually points to the proportions of imports from the United States and to the American ownership of many Canadian enterprises. Prof. Johnson notes that in some ways they represent Canadian exploitation of the U.S. For example, the one half billion or so dollars of corporate income taxes that Canada collects from direct American investment comes more or less at the expense of the United States Treasury, and that the U.S. government has heavily subsidized Canadian resource development through their depletion allowances. Finally, neither imports of American goods nor imports of American capital can acquire voting rights in Canada. Thus Canadian independence as embodied in the sovereignty of Parliament can hardly be threatened in this way. While Johnson makes no mention of other possible pressures which American industry could exhibit in other areas, the fact can be well taken that Canadian nationalism has been misguided in recent years. Not only does Canada need a source of strength which will unify the country, she also needs leadership to develop and guide this source of strength. If there is anyone in this graduating class who feels that he possesses within himself the qualities which might help to lead this country towards the greatness for which it should be destined, let him begin now for the demands will be great and the burden heavy. For the graduates who find that they are not suited for public life, their role will be of equal importance. They must heal the cultural, social and racial wounds which have existed in this country for two hundred years. Let none of us turn our backs at a time when Canada faces her greatest needs.

If there is an overall theme to be taken from what I have said this evening, it must be that education holds the key to our future. Prospects of a progressive country, a prospering economy and a secure nation all rest on the educational preparations which we will make in the next few years. The Commission to the Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada in 1965 “recommended that each university graduate recognize the advantage they enjoy from the public investment by giving at least one percent of their income towards their university. In reality, this amount is approximately the sum which one would invest each years for a very small insurance policy. Such an investment will pay rich and rewarding dividends by securing the future of our way of life. These then, my fellow graduates are some of the demands which we must face in our lifetime. I urge each of you to work towards your chosen goal with confidence and determination. I wish you every success and happiness and I share with you the excitement and the challenges of these formidable years that lie ahead.