Graduation Address

"Addresses UNB Convocation: Premier Calls for World Recognition of Communist China"(October 1960). (UA Case 69, Box 1)

Your Honour ... My Lord Chancellor ... Mr. President ... Honoured Guests ... Ladies and Gentlemen:-

It is to me a source of great personal delight to be made an honorary Doctor of Laws by our Provincial University. The added honour of being asked to deliver the Convocation Address makes me doubly grateful.

This latter honour places me in the company of Senator John Kennedy, who now seeks election to the highest office in the United States of America, and the Right Honourable John G. Diefenbaker, who sought and won election to the highest office in the gift of his fellow Canadians.

Many other illustrious gentlemen have addressed Convocations at the University of New Brunswick and, as I join that company, I trust the experience will not be too trying for you.

I extend warm congratulations to Dr. Phyllis G. Ross, Monsignor Irenee Lussier and Dr. Alfred Leslie Rowse, my fellow recipients of honours. It gives one great pleasure to receive the recognition of the University together with such distinguished associates.

I have been told that you who are today receiving earned degrees are, with one or two exceptions teachers from New Brunswick (the province without a Canal), and our neighboring Province of Prince Edward Island (the province without a Causeway), and that you have earned your degrees, for the most part, by working in the Summer Session and through the Extension Services of the University.

You are deserving of double congratulations.

First ... for earning your degrees ... and secondly, for diligence and the sacrifice of holidays in order to better equip yourselves for the difficult and important task of teaching.

May I digress for a moment. It seems to me a discriminatory feature of present income tax regulations that no exemption is given for moneys spent by members of the teaching profession in improving their qualifications as you have done. I would suggest that you write your respective Members of Parliament and press strongly for recognition of this need. Exemptions are made for barristers attending Bar Conventions, likewise for medical doctors and in other professions. Your profession deserves equal consideration and will, I suggest, receive it if you will make a concerted demand upon your elected representatives. Besides, it will give them something more to talk about in Parliament, other than surplus wheat and Bomarc missiles.

In today's world, with its rapid changes and shifting values, we depend heavily upon the educators ... the teachers and administrators of our educational institutions ... for the "key job" in our democracy. They must produce graduates who will face them ... who will have the integrity and will to bolster and strengthen the foundations of a responsible society, to maintain those freedoms that we cherish and upon which the dignity of man is based.

This is an awesome task, both in its difficulty of accomplishment and in its utmost importance.

The great world powers are today engaged in a struggle to either win the minds of men or blast the whole of us off into eternity. (It is difficult at times to determine which course they have embarked upon.)

In the course of this struggle, they often appear to abandon both truth and justice. How difficult it must be to implant in the minds of students a basic and lasting respect for these principles when the most superficial study of world events reveals double-talk, and hypocrisy in the constant quarrelling of world leaders. The sordidness of it all reaches everyone today, now that the show is being televised into every home. The five year old watches Mr. Khrushchev's wild gyrations, and laughs ... his grandfather joins him. The whole serious business of world diplomacy has been turned into a cynical circus performance.

A prime example is the issue of recognition of the Chinese nation within the United Nations. Admission was again refused by a narrow margin in the vote of a week or two ago.

Here is a nation with a population almost double that of the United States of America and the Soviet Union combined ... a nation fast emerging as a power, both economically and militarily ... a nation whose hundreds of millions are bulging the confines of her borders to the bursting point ... a nation whose good or bad intentions could well mean life or death to all of us.

And this is the country whose admission to the United Nations is consistently refused.

None of us, I hope, is an admirer of the philosophy that has been embraced by Red China ... none can look with relish upon her growing need for territorial expansion.

But surely none of us will be so dishonest with himself as to suggest that the threats posed by China and her leaders will dissipate and fade away merely because we refuse to recognize her or to sit down with her in discussion at today's world council, the United Nations. We cannot long continue to hide our heads in the sand of self delusion in this issue. If we continue to try, the time might well come when we would be suffocated by a people almost as countless as the grains of sand.

I give this as the prime example of our world leaders' failure to be honest with themselves or with those whose safety is entrusted to them.

On the other side of the coin, manifestations of dishonesty and hypocrisy by the leaders of the Soviet controlled nations are well-known to us and are too numerous to enumerate.

These are the events that are helping to shape the minds of the youth today. These are the bad examples that the leaders of tomorrow are now seeing exemplified and which they may seek to emulate ... unless ...

Unless our educators are able and willing to instill in their minds the basic principles upon which we have stood for so long and upon which our continued existence as fee men must depend.

Yes, the task of the educator is both difficult and important ... he MUST have the support and encouragement of all of us. He cannot succeed without it.

New Brunswick has a proud tradition in Education.

This very institution which honours me today has a particularly proud tradition.

Established in the words of Sir Howard Douglas, one of its founders, "on a liberal (small 'l') Constitution and Royal Foundation," it has acquired and maintained "a high and distinguished reputation as a place of general learning and useful knowledge."

It has stood for freedom of expression and non-discrimination in race, color, or creed for many years. It represents the best of our democratic traditions.

With the increasing number of students, due to growing demands for more skilled and highly trained people to operate the mechanism of our society, the University faces many problems. But, I am pleased to know that it is not planning to limit enrolment, thus turning away any who have both the ability and desire to obtain higher education.

Rather, the problem is being met by enlarging both plant and university staff so that none will be denied the opportunity for higher learning. This poses problems in both finance and administration of the University which are recognized by all serious-thinking citizens.

I want it clearly understood that the present administration, which I represent today, has an acute awareness and sympathetic appreciation of these problems. It is our aim that we may soon be able to demonstrate that awareness and appreciation in more concrete fashion.

Difficult and complex problems are facing educators everywhere today. New Brunswick is no exception. I would hope that our Province might again lead the way in finding solutions to some of those problems.

The world renowned Chancellor of this University has made an admirable start by blazing a path that we may follow with confidence.

The Beaverbrook Scholarships have enabled scores of our people to broaden their knowledge in overseas institutions and in first hand experience in other lands. By the law of averages alone, some must return with new ideas that will improve both our economic and educational standards.

But there is only one Beaverbrook ... and he alone cannot do that which we are obligated to do for ourselves.

We in New Brunswick must seriously re-examine our procedures in the whole field of education. There are obvious needs which must be met.

We need more and better teachers, of the calibre that are here today. Standards for entrance to teacher training and for liscensing must be improved.

More students and more capable students must be encouraged to complete high school and go on to professional and technical work.

Regulation requiring high school teachers to hold degrees, with proper safeguards for the experienced teacher, must be progressively established.

The economic barrier to higher education must be removed, to ensure to all our capable youth an education commensurate with their abilities and efforts.

A scheme of grants similar to those being established in some of the more wealthy provinces and in Scotland must be devised. Funds for such grants should come from the federal level of government. It is surely in the national interest that education to the highest level be available to every able and willing student, if Canada is to become and remain really strong.

I believe that the federal authorities will soon recognize and accept their responsibility in this field.

In the meantime, the Province is studying a program of assistance for those high school matriculants whose standing and deportment indicate their preparedness to absorb university training. The details of our proposal will be finalized and announced in due course.

We also have the problem of school finance at the pre-university level. Authorities on this aspect of education tell us that in order to provide equalization of opportunity throughout the Province, government financial assistance must recognize and be based upon ability to pay.

The measure of ability to pay is the equalized assessed municipal valuation per pupil in each district. To date, we in New Brunswick have been unable to procure figures for equalized valuation, and consequently we have not reorganized our grants system.

This problem is now being tackled ... it is not nearly as difficult of solution as some would have us believe. It must be solved and I believe that a new and more equitable system of grants will be established as a result.

Vocational education has now come of age, and many educators hold the view that the division of our system into two sections is no longer necessary or sensible. With the increasing complexity of society, the growing number of specialized occupations, and the development of the modern comprehensive high school, the necessity for better identification of the individual abilities of our youth has become apparent.

The whole field of guidance of the student into the field for which he is best suited has been largely neglected in this Province. I am informed that instruction in this regard has been offered in the Summer Session of this University, but that is only a start ... much more needs to be done. Those of you who are graduating today must be among those who will assist in getting a positive guidance program established in the Province.

I have enumerated some of the inequities and deficiencies that today are evident in our program of education. We recognize these obstacles and are determined to surmount them. But, these are not the problems of government alone. It is not only for we who hold office to provide the solutions. These problems are a challenge to the whole of our society. And particularly are they a challenge to those of you who today receive your degrees ... the teachers and educators.

Leadership is powerless without a base of enthusiastic followers to urge on and encourage those whose responsibility it is to mover New Brunswick ever forward in the field of education. I ask you to join with us in providing that enthusiastic support so necessary to the success of our program.

As we improve and strengthen our educational system, so also do we improve and strengthen our whole economic structure. It is a long term program requiring limitless patience. But it is one of the most effective means of attacking the basic ills of our area of Canada.

And now to bring these few remarks to a close, just a word or two about the Chancellor of UNB. The President is a young man ... one of the most youthful university presidents on the Continent. I too am young in years. But this man exudes more youth than either of us.

The University is singularly fortunate to have the continuing interest and guidance of Lord Beaverbrook in all its plans for improvement. And our Province is equally fortunate to hold his interest and affection.

I look forward to the day when a grandchild of mine may become the proud recipient of a Beaverbrook Scholarship, and receive a personal letter of commendation from his benefactor. Impossible, you say? Believe me, it is not.

this is a man who defies the ravages of time. His every act cries out "Move forward with me. The best is yet to come."