Graduation Address

"Address by Dr. Sidney E. Smith, President, University of Toronto" (15 May 1957). (UA Case 67, Box 2)

I should like to speak to the really important people in this hall, in whose honour and for whose sake the whole ceremonial of today takes place - the graduating students. This is the day of your glory, which must not be quenched by any number of visiting firemen. We on the platform have become children of U.N.B. by adoption, but you are her children by grace. Throughout your lives you will bear the hall-mark of her excellence, and your distinction will add to her many laurels.

I grew up on a farm on Port Hood Island, off Cape Breton, so that my thoughts turn naturally to animals. I want you to bear with this zoological idiosyncrasy of mine for a few moments while I talk about some of the animals you will meet in the next few years.

First, elephants - white elephants. A few years ago when I returned from a trip to India, I told my colleagues at the University of Toronto that I had had a ride on an elephant, and a professor of Classics remarked that that was a case of piling Ossa upon Pelion. That elephant, however, was not a white elephant.

In Siam, albino elephants when captured became the property of the Emperor, one of whose titles was "Lord of the White Elephant". He alone might ride or use such an animal, and none might be destroyed without his consent. Because of the latter prerogative, whenever it pleased the Emperor to ruin a courtier who had displeased him, he would present him with a white elephant. The cost of feeding and caring for the huge animal that he might not use nor destroy gave the term its present meaning - a costly but useless possession.

You are not courtiers of the Emperor of Siam. You are in the more fortunate position of being able to look a gift elephant in the mouth. If you are wise, that is just what you will do. In the next few years you will be obliged to make decisions that will affect the whole future course of your lives. I urge you to look very carefully at any gift, any piece of good fortune that comes your way, any "break" that you get, and make sure that it is not a white elephant in disguise; for they do disguise themselves, and it may take you years to penetrate the deception.

A good job can be a white elephant. That may sound strange to you, but it is true. A good position with high pay waiting for you right after graduation can turn out to be a white elephant. You might find after several years that you are on a dead-end street, and that you are stuck in it unless you go into reverse and accept a much lower income more congenial - and retrenchment such as that is very difficult. A house can be a white elephant if it causes you to become rooted in a certain locality and lose your freedom to range far afield. A car can be a white elephant. A wife - or, I hasten to add, a husband - could be a white elephant. Luxurious tastes, high standards of living, the friendship of wealthy people, the accumulation of many possessions - all of these can be, and very often are, white elephants. It is said that he who travels light goes far. The determination to keep up with the Jones's has wrecked many promising careers. Political preferment, especially when you are young, is sweet to the vanity and pleasant to the self-esteem. It may look like a horse that you can saddle and ride far, but it may turn out to be a white elephant that you are saddled with. Your education is s strong grey elephant that will roll great obstacles out of your way if you keep it a work for you; but let it languish in a stable and it will turn white.

The next animals on my list are dogs - sleeping dogs. "Let sleeping dogs lie" is an old maxim. Chaucer wrote: "It is not good a sleeping hound to wake", and Shakespeare has "Wake not a sleeping wolf". The idea is obvious - don't go looking for trouble. It is good advice under certain circumstances. If the "sleeping dog" is something that is none of your business, it is better not to be a buttinsky. If "waking the sleeping dog" means stirring up trouble for other people, or trouble between other people, it is better to leave it alone. But it would be cowardly to use the maxim as an excuse for doing nothing about any situation where you are convinced that something is wrong. It often takes courage to waken the sleeping dog.

It was written of Winston Churchill that he displayed that courage which is "a man's deliberate refusal to shirk from saying things he feels to be true, even though no one would comment on his failure to say them. It is something more than sincerity; a man can be sincere in everything he says and yet take care not to say anything which will disconcert his potential supporters."

A recent graduate of Harvard Law School remarks that this generation, with its admiration for tolerance, is becoming afraid to take a positive stand on any controversial subject. He says: "The sort of indiscriminate tolerance that robs its adherents of the power to affirm their own beliefs seems to me a greater menace in many ways than most forms of prejudice. I think we are in danger of drowning our own convictions in a great swamp of sweetness and light by being so infernally kind to our neighbours ... Rarely do we say what we believe to be right; instead, we say what we know will be pleasant. Let us not forget the words of Jefferson: that every difference of opinion is not a difference of principle. And let's remember too that life is not a popularity contest and that most of our great achievements have boiled up out of clashes between tough-minded people."

Tough-minded people, independent individuals, "characters", will be regarded as trouble-makers by those who are complacent about everything that lies outside their personal security and comfort. But there are sleeping dogs that should be wakened and driven away. What do I mean by sleeping dos that should be wakened? If you never recognize any, you have not gained much from your education. Injustices - threats to individual freedom - corruption in high places - bigotry - cruelty based on racial or religious prejudice - you will come across these and other evils in many situations where the safe, easy and respectable attitude is acquiescence.

You don't need to wake all those sleeping dogs at once. It would not be prudent to rouse a dozen dozing Dobermans simultaneously. As well as courage you need good judgment. If you choose your opportunities carefully, you will accomplish more than you could by kicking out indiscriminately in all directions at once. But I hope that throughout your lives you will never lack the courage to tackle those sleeping dogs.

The final exhibit in my menagerie is cows - sacred cows. (If I had an over-all title for these remarks it would be Animal Crackers or Sidney in Disneyland.) As I told you, I was brought up on a farm, and intuitively I knew, and I know, one end of a cow from the other. You may have heard the essay that was written by a seven-year-old boy, a city boy, on the subject of cows (I did not write it):

The Cow is a mammal. It has six sides - right, left, an upper and below. At the back it has a tail on which hangs a brush. With this it sends the flies away so that they do not fall into the milk. The head is for the purpose of growing horns and so that the mouth can be somewhere. The horns are to butt with, and the mouth is to moo with. Under the cow hangs the milk. It is arranged for milking. When people milk, the milk comes and there is never an end to the supply. How the cow does it I do not know, but it makes more and more. The cow has a fine sense of smell: one can smell it far away. This is the reason for the fresh air in the country.

The man cow is called an ox. It is not a mammal. The cow does not eat much, but what it eats it eats twice, so that it gets enough. When it is hungry it moos, and when it says nothing it is because its inside is all full up with grass.

Well, now you know about cows, that is, ordinary, secular cows. The sacred cow is not so easy to define. Aaron made a gold calf for the Children of Israel, and so the sacred cow is a term for an object of idolatry, or for any fetish or talisman. Various animals have been held sacred and endowed with miraculous powers in different cultures and religions. We feel a sense of superiority when we read of fetishes and taboos, of sorcery and incantations, and we smile at the credulity and superstition of other races and of other times. Of course in our enlightened age we have no sacred cows. Or have we?

Education should enable us to identify and to dethrone false gods. What has been your experience during your university years?

What is your chief object in life? Will roadside shrines be places of worship of that evil god whose sway warps lives, destroys ideals, and makes men selfish and cruel - that golden calf, that sacred cow, that false god, the Almighty Dollar? Will social distinction, with its climbing to get in and its snobbery to keep others out, be for you a sacred cow? Will more labels or shibboleths identify some of your sacred cows? (For example, what do the words Tory, Grit, socialist, reactionary, red, pink, bohunk, dago, et cetera, bring to your minds?) Will part politics, or sectional interest, be sacred cows? Or will you think first and always of the welfare and progress of the state and of mankind? Will the printed page, in newspaper, book, or shiny periodical, be for you a sacred cow to be worshipped without thinking? Will slavish following of the whims of some costumer or dress designer betray your idolatry of another sacred cow - fashion? Will some athlete, some movie star, some crooner (worthy though he may be in his profession) be elevated to sacred cowdom in your home? Will you be ruled by personal, family or community voodoos and taboos? Or will you seek truth, beauty, goodness and wisdom in humility and with independence? To do so you must slaughter many sacred cows.

You are about to receive your Chancellor's accolade and become graduates of the University of New Brunswick. As you go forth from these halls I wish you good luck and Godspeed. May you be uncowed by sacred cows; may you scatter sleeping dogs; and may none of your elephants be white ones!