Graduation Address

"H.A. Carr, K.C. Advises 1940 Class of Post-Bellum Problems" The Daily Gleaner (16 May 1940): 5. (UA Case 67, Box 1)

The Address to the Graduating Class of 1940 was delivered at the Encaenia of the University of New Brunswick in this city this afternoon by Hugh A. Carr, B.A., K.C., Campbellton, himself a graduate of 1907 and retiring President of the Associated Alumni. Mr. Carr devoted much of his address to the duty which will develop upon educated persons the days after the present war when the nations of the earth must attempt restoration and rehabilitation. For the present he urged confidence and courage to carry out to successful conclusion the task which has been set by Fate.

Mr. Carr took the opportunity of making reference to the retirement from the University Presidency of Dr. C.C. Jones and to the fact that the Class of 1907 was the first capped by him.

In part he spoke as follows:

The time has now come, members of the graduating class, for a change in the current of your lives. You are about to bid farewell to the halls of your Alma Mater so familiar to you over the past few years and face a life’s adventure yet for you unknown and untried. The world which you are facing is a very different world from that which lay before our generation at your time of life. We entered an age of great expansion, confidence and prosperity. You are facing one of great perplexity, a world full of disorder, strife and turmoil. We review all that Britain, Germany, France and Italy have in the past contributed towards enlightening the dark places of the world, towards education, science, art and music, and turn from that to what seems to be the madness of war and bloodshed and we are confounded and wonder at the cause of it all.

Previous Pessimism

The picture is a dark one, but dark as it is those of us who are not pessimists cannot believe that civilization is heading towards disaster. I was lately reading from a valuable little work of the late F.S. Oliver wherein he refers to the despondencies of great men in the past. In that he refers to the essays of Montaigne, the French writer of the Sixteenth Century, and to the continual note of tragedy.

He then reminds us that for more than fifty years after the French Revolution reflective minds were haunted by its memories; that Sir Walter Scott was no less apprehensive of disaster than Montaigne had been in the Sixteenth Century, and believe that the foundations of civilization were shaken. He contrasts, however, with him the Duke of Wellington. It is said that he held the same views as Scott and that he feared the roof of the world would fall in, and in that case the heaviest crash would come on England, but through it all remained as cool as he had been in the worst hours of Waterloo.

Scott died in 1832, the Duke twenty years later. In that short period we are reminded that a remarkable change from anger and apprehension to tranquility and hopefulness had come over the country and England entered a decade of unexampled prosperity, wherein her trade increased by leaps and bounds, the beginning of her golden age. England had fully recovered from her fright.

The Same To-day

May that not be the case of to-day, and even thought the days are dark and trying still may we not be only passing through a similar phase to that of France and England in the days to which I have just referred. I do not for a moment wish to minimize the dangers or the tremendous task which lies before us, where the entire resources of the nation must be mustered and the supreme effort of every one, facing unknown sacrifice, will be required to destroy this menace to the whole world, and whether it be on the battle fronts with our soldiers, sailors and airmen or in whatever our appointed place may be in contributing to the common cause, let us stand united and look forward with courage and confidence in our cause at length becoming triumphant in the hope that tranquility and hopefulness may again be restored and we may enter upon a period of peace. It is impossible for us to believe in any other outcome.

Bloody-minded Tyrants

It is impossible for us to think that personal liberty as understood by the people of this Nation can be swept away by bloody-minded tyrants who by their lawless acts have outraged the conscience of civilized mankind who rule in foreign lands by savage force and terror and secret policy, where freedom is entirely unknown, where human life is considered valueless and where mankind has been thrown back into the ideals of the early ages. "The human spirit if it lives [a sil] must be free."

Post-Bellum Problems

When this war is over the tremendous task of rebuilding and reestablishing our Country’s institutions and restoring them along the lines of sanity and strength must be faced and in that you must be prepared to take your part. The opportunities then facing Canada will be perhaps the greatest of any country in the world, but the problems following even a successful war will be many and bitter, and never will Canada be in a greater need of mental and moral resources than at that time. These problem will be for your generation to solve. Lessons may be learned by you from the causes of our past failures wherein striving for material gain we lost sight of the spiritual values.

False and Foolish Doctrines

It will be the duty of your generation to join in keeping your Country free from false and foolish doctrines entirely foreign to the best interests of the Dominion, and in strengthening our Country’s system wherein law is respected and freedom reigns. What happened in Germany is a threat to freedom everywhere. Who would have believed a few years ago that the academic life of Germany of all countries in the world could have met with such disaster, where scientific work and scholarship are to-day looked upon with disdain. All this tends to emphasize these dangers and to show that, as one once said—"what a thin partition divides the noblest from the basest in man."

As college graduates you are better equipped to carry out the duties of citizenship, to play your part in public affairs, to be a leader among your people, bringing to bear the greatest force of all, viz. the force of character. We are reminded that the greatness of any nation is dependent upon the character and ideals of its people and that the character of the individual. Someone has said "his own character is the arbiter of everyone’s destiny" and Lord Birkenhead, referring to that in an address some time ago, said that he would have these words engraved on the lintel of every university lecture-room to remind those who cross its threshold that character counts for more than knowledge, learning or ingenuity.

Words of Asquith

I would like to leave with you the words of Asquith in an address on Culture and Character—"Keep always with you, wherever your course may lie, the best and most enduring gift that a university can bestow—the company of great thoughts, the inspiration of great ideals, the example of great achievements, the consolation of great failures. So equipped, you can face, without perturbation, that buffet of circumstances, the caprice of fortune all the inscrutable vicissitudes of life."

May God speed you on your way.