Graduation Address

"Address to Graduating Class" Brunswickan 44, 6 (May 1925): 249-252. (UA Case 67, Box 1)

"The opportunity has been given to me to address you as a Graduating Class and to say a few words in the way of encouragement, and of advice before you are released from the protecting arm of Alma Mater and step out into the uncertainties of the wide, wide world.

For a number of years you have been in the schools of the Province. Earnest and painstaking teachers have labored to train the intellect which God gave you and to bend its inclinations to useful things. Today you withdraw your hand from the supporting arm; you move out with unsupported step; without the guides which up to now have assisted you. Tomorrow you will walk alone.

You will walk alone; but you will walk not without guidance. The years of training which have passed will have provided you with a compass to assist you in traversing the unknown future, and the spirit and principles which the University and the schools have given you ought to serve as a chart by which you can direct your way.

You are now about to enter upon the work which will be your life work. Different ends will be sought by each of you; different goals will be the object of your ambition; but no matter what the goal may be, I have no doubt that each one of you today is filled with a hope and determination to accomplish some high and noble purpose.

In order to accomplish that high and noble purpose and to win success in life, you must first determine definitely what work you propose to do; what the object of your ambition is to be. Some of you have already done that. Those of you who have not should do so at once. No progress can be made until that is done. A captain who is at sea, before he can take his ship safely into port must first determine where he wants to go; then he will take his bearings, set his course, and day and night, through fine and stormy weather, pursue his way, checking his progress by any fixed object which he may know, until he has reached the port in safety.

Therefore if you have not determined upon what you propose to follow as your life work, make haste to do so. Don't choose some low ideal. Let the ultimate object of your quest be high, but nevertheless don't strive to scale the most difficult heights before you have attained the lower hills. From the top of these lower hills you will be able to survey the surrounding mountain tops and ascertain the way to reach the higher altitudes beyond.

Hard Work Needed

These heights can be attained only by persevering endeavor. Don't be afraid of hard work. Anything that is worth having is worth working for. Almost always the difference between the man who succeeds and the man who fails is the ability to stay at the task until it is done. Perseverance is the second essential to success.

One of the great evils in the industrial life of this day is the discrimination to do arduous work and the desire to get something without making a return of adequate value. In commercial matters we hear much of the high cost of production in this country, and the resultant difficulty in doing business in the markets of the world. Some of you will shortly be taking a place in industry, where you will come in contact with this problem, and will have to face the questions arising from it. One of the causes of this difficulty is the attitude of mind which has apparently taken possession of all classes in this country and created a dislike to close application and long hours of work. In place of the hard working men and women of the last generation we have developed a pleasure loving people. The farms which were cleared by our fathers are deserted for the town; for there are more frequent opportunities for excitement in the town than in the country. Factories in turn are found to be distasteful; for it is much more pleasing to be speeding in a motor car along a highway than toiling at a machine. The offices, too, are abandoned; because our semi-atrophied muscles require some mild exercise, and the golf links are calling not far away.

The cost of production will never be brought down while we continue to carry on in that way. It will never come down until we develop the power to produce more in a given time. We might as well look facts in the face whether they are pleasant to look upon or not. We must make up our minds to more intensive labor, and perhaps longer hours of toil, before we can hope to improve the industrial position which we occupy.

Courage is Necessary

Therefore we must work hard in order to attain success—harder than we have done. To do that requires courage, and courage to do your duty is the third element of success. The courage which is required is not indeed that courage which sustains a man to stand in the cannon's mouth but the courage which was demanded of the glorious men whose names are enshrined within these walls, and whose blood was shed in Flander's Field, on Vimy Ridge, and wherever the battle raged; which enabled them to hold the line and to save our civilization; not that, but another type of courage which without the excitement of battle or the encouragement of numbers, will give you strength to perform day after day and year after year the duties and obligations of your position in life amid the obstructions, the adversities and disappointments that must come to all.

That courage you must seek in order to succeed. Whether or not you will have that courage will depend largely on your mode of life, and therefore upon yourselves. If you will be temperate in all things, and will keep your minds and bodies pure, that courage will be given to you, and will enable you to follow the line of duty as you it, and to persevere in your labors to the end.

Do that duty faithfully as it comes to you. Do it in all things, whether your lot be cast in public or private places. You who have been favored by a University education owe an especial debt to the state, and you ought not to be slow to take part in public affairs. The performance of public duty is onerous, and the public is not always grateful for services faithfully performed, but our University graduates have taken in the past a foremost place in sharing the burdens of government in the Province and in the Dominion, and they ought of right to continue to hold the same place in the future. You owe that obligation to the state to assist as far as possible in taking your share of such responsibility.

Obligation to God

And don't forget that you owe an obligation to God; that you are more than the birds of the air and the lilies of the field. There was breathed into you a soul that is immortal, and the laws of justice require you to pay homage to your Creator, and he is not a just man who refuses to acknowledge that obligation.

There has grown up in many places a feeling that to be great you must deny belief in the providence of God. Let that spirit never dwell in your minds. The greatest thinkers and scientists that the world has ever produced have acknowledged that the more they delve into the secrets of nature and the more they have discovered of the working of nature's laws, the more they have been confirmed in their faith in Divine Providence. And don't forget that He who hung the stars in the firmament and gave them their light, and set the planets in their courses and holds them there subject to unchanging laws, is the same God who gave Moses the Commandments on the Mount, the same who taught the beatitudes, the same whom we have been privileged to call Our Father, and that He holds us quite as firmly bound by the immutable principle of justice and right.

Every walk in life has its peculiar responsibilities. You must face them in one form or another, whether it be in a position of trust and confidence in the state or in some business enterprise, or in that nobler and higher position as mother of a family, the obligations of your position will be quite equally binding, and to bring happiness and success must be reserved.

To conform to the suggestions which I have mentioned will aid greatly in attaining success; but even then worldly success will not always come. But if after faithful endeavor you fail, you will have the satisfaction of having done your duty, and there will be a triumph in your failure. So in dosing I will leave with you that noble and encouraging thought of the poet:

"Do thy duty—that is best
And leave unto the Lord the rest."