Graduation Address

"Adult Education Cure for Economic Ills Says Premier" Daily Gleaner (14 May 1936). (UA Case 67, Box 1)

I am indebted to the Faculty of this University for the privilege of addressing the Graduating Class of ’36, a privilege that I shall look back upon, with much pleasure.

We gather today to share the honour that is yours. The Degrees which have just been conferred are the happy culmination of years of hard work and application to study. It is the crowning of conscientious effort and diligent research in the pursuit of knowledge spread over the years and I congratulate you most heartily for a work well done. Your work here represents years of sacrifice, sacrifice at home by those who made your stay here possible, sacrifice that say from day to day the savings of a lifetime being cut into in order that the privileges of a new horizon be opened up to you. Students of ’36, I pray that you do not forget those sacrifices.

Throughout these years, happily you have been under the guidance and direction of those entrusted with your care who have been most solicitous for your welfare. They have watched your progress from day to day with anxious care, assisted you in the solving of knotty problems, encouraged you to surmount the various hurdles along the way. To the staff of professors you owe a debt of gratitude that you may never repay.

Your years while under the roof of this old institution of learning, shall I say the Oxford of America, have, I am sure, been pleasant and inspiring. Here friendships have been formed that will last as long as life itself. Associations have been born that will ripen with the passing of years. The sentiments surrounding the old institution have become engrafted on your character as a part of your respective lives and your love for your Alma Mater shall grow with that passing of the years, for

"Time but the impression deeper makes
As streams their channels deeper grow."

But what of this old institution? Despite the lofty place this University holds, it is not by comparison an old institution measures in years. Yet what a vastly changed world since this place of learning was founded!

When in the year 1800 King’s College was founded on this site, the Battle of Trafalgar had not yet been fought and won. The Battle of Waterloo was not even a dream. When in 1859 the University of New Brunswick received its character, Great Britain was just recovering from the Crimean War, and on the American Continent the embers of civil war were already smouldering. The Dominion of Canada had not yet been created and vast stretches of these British Provinces, which since have been brought under the control of man, were as yet virgin plains and forests, and fields for the pioneer.

Measured in terms of years, as a people we are but youths among the nations of the world, yet it is our proud boast that we have made outstanding contributions in the diversified fields of human effort. It is unnecessary to enumerate to you, who have just completed your academic work, what those contributions have been. If you have not already had occasion to study the University of New Brunswick Calendar, you will be amazed at the number who have passed through this institution to win eminence in the councils of the world, in science, commerce and industry. This Province has been the cradle of genius and intellect far beyond the average and this splendid institution which honors you today has been a very liberal factor in preparing our human resources for worthwhile application, not only here in the Province, not only throughout the other Provinces in this Dominion, but throughout the world.

As you go out from this institution your real work begins. Your degree is in a sense the symbol of a work well done – the stamp of approval of the University that you have devoted yourselves faithfully to the task in hand. Here you have learned the art of thinking, your vision has been broadened. Or, may I put it this way, you were here equipped with a thinking kit, the tools that will stand you in good stead throughout the years.

Education and culture come with years of reflection and close study. Preserve and further develop the habits of industry that you have formed here and with an ever open and alert mind, go forward with that same devotion to duty that marked your years in this institution. Inspired by years of careful training, prudent direction and sympathetic encouragement, you will, I am sure, pursue your studies in fields, the fringe of which you have but yet explored.

You go out into a world of changing conditions. The world that faces you today is not that which faced your fathers a quarter of a century ago and, when the present shall have been swallowed up in the past, so shall mankind face new conditions. It is therefore, incumbent upon you to attune yourselves to new conditions and new environments.

Grow to appreciate the value of time – that learned, that close application to work with some play – concentration with hours for recreation, and, like Wordsworth’s Highland lassie, you will virtually sing at your work.

Remember always that you are a part of this great social fabric – civilization. Yours shall be a life of service in the greatest of causes – humanity. The dedication of you energies, your talents, to that great cause might well be your greatest contribution!

May I pause to suggest to those of you who have not yet decided upon a career that you withhold your final decision in other spheres until you have sympathetically explored the rugged charm, and enchantments which haunt the halls of public life. This field calls for the closest study – a study so cast that, in a sense, it transcends all professions, all sciences, and finds itself reflected in legislation enactments which alternately bring joy or sorrow to the tens of thousands affected favorably or adversely within the ambit of their influence.

Thus, as you go forth from this old institution of learning to the four points of the compass where Fate calls you, remember that you are now young men and women, richly endowed with the full rights of citizenship in this great new land. You have passed over the threshold of youth and now take your places in the ranks. Having come through the more impressionable years, having absorbed a theory, felt inspiration, developed strength of character, you are equipped in a very special manner to become a real, vital force in the solving of the many perplexing problems which surround us today. In the pursuit of this undertaking, you will meet with handicaps, rebuffs, disappointments but what is worth while in this life that is picked from the mantel of ease? Hope springs eternal, ambition inspires the goal towards which we move, hence in the moments of adversity, disappointment or despair, remember that perseverance, determination and the will to do will carry you through. Recall the incident in the life of the great Bruce who, having embarked upon one supreme effort to bring a measure of happiness to his people and having met with defeat time and again, literally threw himself down in despair when his Scottish eye picked up the struggle of an innocent spider, the way to whose goal was a slender thread. In those days there were neither wickets nor tickets so the noble Bruce looked on. After nine, vein attempts to reach its goal, the spider finally succeeded. Enheartened, Bruce shouted:

"That spider there defied despair,
He conquered, and why should not I?"

He returned to the conflict and won. What the great Bruce did, you can do. Courage, determination, the will to surmount all obstacles, you boys and girls can go far in the direction of curling the ills that settle ‘round about us and show to the present and future generations the way.

In these days of conflict where men the world over are struggling with vast economic upheavals, there perhaps is a greater challenge to youth that at any time during the life of the nation. Depression, unemployment, scarcity of the necessities of life in the midst of plenty, wanton destruction of foodstuffs while people go hungry – a chaotic condition so vast, so bewildering, that time may yet point its finger to this as the period when mankind virtually failed. It is no answer to say that in other days depressions were followed by cycles of prosperity from decade to decade with rhythmic regularity. Such a philosophy likens stable economics to the shifting scenes of ocean wherein Byron remarked:

"Mountains and caves are here and yet are not
For what is now the one is, now the other,
And all is but a heap of boiling, rushing water."

To say that this economic disease is incurable is a challenge alike to science, to research, to youth itself. If I understand the temper of the times, youth will not fail.

One might well ask what is the cure. Leading educationists assert that the remedy is to be found through the medium of mass enlightenment, mass education. None will gainsay that leadership is not necessary but the great task of the leaders of thought to-day is to carry education to the rank and file 'round about us. In short, Adult Education. The dark besetting problems that have grown into stark reality can be dislodged in large measure through this agency. One of the foremost leaders in educational work today approaches this subject boldly and declares that:

"There are two questions facing us to-day, first, vocational education, secondly, adult education."

With respect to the former, he pertinently asks how far should young people in schools paid for by the Province be fitted for the work that they are actually going to do. We have already reached the stage where we do no believe the State has fulfilled its obligation when it gives special training to those who are preparing to enter the higher professions while supplying for the others only the mere rudiments of an education.

Respecting Adult Education, one might point with pride to the work carried on today in our sister Province of Nova Scotia, a work that is a shining example of what can be accomplished in the way of bringing people to a realization of their true worth in each community – changing their outlook on life to the end that they forget relief and take a firm, independent stand as a part of this great social fabric, an advanced step in education that will create a new awakening in this land and give rise to the dawn of a new life that may pulse through the hearts of New Brunswickers.

The place which this institution serves is unchallenged. One cannot refrain, however, from looking forward to the day when it will render a wider service. A State University supported by the taxpayer must continue to be the goal towards which ambitious youth is drawn for inspiration and training and from this same institution there ought to go forward throughout all this Province, to the villages, the hamlets, the humble roofs of the tradesmen and artisan alike, in generous measure, its enlightenment.

To you boys and girls of the Class of ’36, may I say that the future is full of hope, hope for those who know not fear, hope for those who yearn for conquest. Problems there are aplenty awaiting solution. Sons and daughters of the noble bands whose pioneer days fill us at this distant date with pride, you shall not fail.