Graduation Address

"Remarks by the Governor-General of Canada" (18 May 1972). (UA Case 67, Box 2)

Mr. Chancellor. To come back to Fredericton and to this campus, one of the oldest in Canada, is always a delight to my wife and me, a delight which is doubled today by the stirring events of Encaenia and the graduation of the Class of '72, as well as by the warmth of your hospitality.

However, I have become so accustomed the last few years to my role as spokesman for Canadians, at least in matters of sentiment if not of policy, that I had better say a word ex officio before I begin speaking personally. Perhaps I make a distinction where there is no difference. I suspect that some litterateur has already observed epigrammatically and therefore with only half-truth, that "the office is the man."

As some of my predecessors have found by expressing themselves personally in a partisan controversy, the political purity of the Viceregal office is scant protection for them and scant comfort for the Prime Minister to whom the error is imputed.

However that may be, I am happy to receive the honour which you have just conferred upon me and which I recognize with pleasure as a mark of respect to the Representative of the Crown in our Canadian constitutional system. In thanking you and the University of New Brunswick, may I offer to both the greetings of Her Majesty The Queen, whose family interest in this seat of learning goes back at least to 1828.

May I also express for Canadians as a whole their satisfaction, Mr. Chancellor, that you continue to support with such enthusiasm and generosity this and other institutions in the Province which gave your father his first home and his early formation. The Aitkens, and other well-known New Brunswick families, whose names are commemorated on this campus, have made great contributions to affairs both in Canada and on the larger stage of the Commonwealth.

Also of timely interest to Canadians is the recognition today of five other Canadians of outstanding merit: Professor Emeritus Seheult; The Hon. Richard Hatfield, Premier of this Province; Professor T.H.B. Symons, President of Trent University; Dr. Nels Anderson, Visiting Professor of Sociology; and Miss Thelma Keirstead, retired Head of the Department of English at Teachers' College; whose merits have been so eloquently cited and so honourably received by this vast audience here today. To them, as well as to the whole Graduating Class, and a very large class it seems to be from this distance, who have come to their degrees by a more direct and strenuous approach, the acclaim of their fellow Canadians is also due.

It is one thing to speak for all Canadians, as I have been doing; it is another matter to speak for one's wife, particularly in her presence. I should like to associate her with all that I have said in appreciation of this event, but in referring to my new honour I have to be a little guarded. I think of her years of triple duty as wife, mother and student of philosophy which finally earned her a Doctorate from the University of Toronto, and that one of our daughters had achieved a similar degree in bio-chemistry. In these circumstances there was a tendency in our family to look down upon the honorary degree which I was able to finally bring home. Today, however, I am sure of her complete concurrence in my feelings as she became last Tuesday an Honorary Doctor, herself, of Human Letters of Mount Saint Vincent University.

If the Graduating Class of today will overlook the distinction between what has been earned and what has been given, I hope that they will accept me, even at this late date, as a member of their Class, and by this means as a member of the Graduate Family of the University of New Brunswick.

At least I can claim as qualification a long and fairly intimate connection, not only with the University of New Brunswick but with the higher education in the Province at St. Joseph's College and later the University of Moncton, and at Mount Allison University. After my appointment in 1936 as General Secretary for the Rhodes Scholarships in Canada, I became a regular visitor to these universities to secure their co-operation in the selection and nomination of Scholars. In that way I enjoyed a warm friendship with successive Presidents from Dr. Norman MacKenzie to the present distinguished occupant of the office. In fact I might claim a minor assist in Dr. J.O. Dineen's occupation of that post because I recall that he was one of a distinguished group of Rhodes Scholars from New Brunswick in the years immediately prior to the outbreak of the Second World War, four of whom are now either Presidents or Vice-Presidents of Canadian universities: namely, in 1936, Dr. O.H. Warwick, now at Western Ontario, in 1937 Monsignor Duffie, who is here today and well known to all of you; in 1939, W.S.H. Crawford; and in 1940, your own President. The Scholar for 1938 was a recreant from the academic field but not to be dismissed on that account for he is now Under-Secretary of State of External Affairs, Mr. A.E. Ritchie.

Of course there were many more from this University and Province but I have time only to mention one more whom I hope is here today, Professor W.Y. Smith, former Head of the Department of Economics and Political Science.

Before you accept these facts as qualifications for Honorary Membership in your Graduating Class, I must confess to some views which may prejudice my chances.

First, as you might expect from one who has undertaken to represent Her Majesty, I believe that the Constitutional Monarchy provides a better and more suitable framework for democratic government by the elected representatives of the people than any other yet devised. There is not time to debate that issue today, but it perhaps wouldn't lie well in my mouth to debate it, anyway.

Secondly, in the long-range view of your future (that is, looking ahead to your children and grandchildren) I might be regarded as a pessimist. In two recent speeches I have been reviewing the gloomy predictions of catastrophe for the human species within 100 years if major trends of today are not changed. I am sure you could call them by name as well as I: Accelerating industrialization is one. Rapid population growth is another long-range trend which alarms the world; wide-spread malnutrition; depletion of non-renewable resources; and deteriorating environment.

In other words, in a finite world, there must be some limit to growth and especially at the accelerating pace of today which is becoming too rapid for our assimilative powers. In reality I am an optimist and have great faith in the human will to live and its potential to adapt, as will be demonstrated by those of your generation.

Third, although Canadians cannot consider themselves in isolation, they are blessed with better prospects in this wide and well-endowed land than any other peoples. This offers great scope in the next few decades for all of you who will live on into the 21st Century. What an exciting prospect it is! I wish you could take me with you, but I fear that jogging does have its limits in postponing old age.

Fourth, Canadians who wish to take a full part in the life of this country, artistic, social, scientific, political, or anything worth doing, should be able to communicate in both English and French.

Mettant en pratique mes propres conseil, je souligne, en français, qu'il est encourageant de constater, d'après les récentes données de rencensement, qu'un plus grand nombre de Canadiens de langue anglaise deviennent bilingues. Comme je le dis souvent à nos jeunes, qui sont vraiment le mieux en mesure d'agir en ce sens: "Quiconque aspire à jouer un rôle dominant ou important dans la vie de demain au Canada, soit dans le domaine public, professionel ou artistique, de toute nécessité doit pouvoir communiquer dans les deux langues."

La chose est particulièrement vraie des grands centres bilingues dont la province du Nouveau-Brunswick est certainement l'un des plus importants.

Finally, Mr. Chancellor, in wishing great success and happiness to those who take leave today of the classroom, I suggest a motto for them. It is one which I chose for myself when I found in 1967 that I should have armorial bearings and a Privy Seal. It is "Libre et ordonné" which I interpret as meaning that liberty is essential to the development of the individual, as order is essential to civilized human society.