University of Toronto - Torontonensis Yearbook (Toronto, Ontario Canada)

Page 15 text:

UNIVERSITY CQLLEGE

Page 14 text:

Q To the Graduating Classes of the University of Toronto O the members of the Graduating Classes of 1931 I send my greetings. May you discover as the years pass that the time you have spent at the University will have been pregnant with good for you, and that what these years have given you will increase in value. It is trite to remark that you will have ups and downs, sometimes success, again reversals of fortune, but in the varying experiences your real possession will, I hope, grow in value. In spite of misfortune and the dangerous undermining which great prosperity often brings, you will always have your mind and character, whatever they may be. You look out upon life from your own life within. I do not say that you are likely to become so philosophical as to be independent of external goods. But I do say that this inner room of your life, the sanctum where you are at home, is by far the most important place of abode for you. And it is this inner room that you have begun to furnish while you have been at the Univer- sity. The possession of a competent mind, an established character, and serene wisdom comes at the end of a long career. But to have made a beginning in these requirements and to keep on adding to them throughout the years is at once a supreme satisfaction and a realizable hope. All this I wish for you.

Page 16 text:

To the Graduating Class in University College By PROFESSOR MALcol.M W. VVALLACE B.A., PHD. SUPPOSE that for most students the experience of leaving College is a sad one. You probably realize that, however hard you may have work- ed you have been members of a highly favoured community, which it is difficult to turn your backs on without a certain degree of apprehension. Let me remind you, however, that most human fears are groundless, and that only rarely do they help us to solve real problems. A goodly measure of light-hearted courage is a much better equip- ment with which to face the future. It is true that you will be tested as to your capacity to adjust yourselves' to new condi- tions of work. But all of life is a process of adjustments, and if you have profited by your years of study you should find it much easier to modify your point of view in obedience to the world's changing needs than are those who have not had an opportunity to take a preliminary survey of the human scene. Indeed, I am inclined to believe that many of you may be tempted to concentrate your interest too exclusively on the practical business of earning a living. That is important, but it is even more important that you make provision in your programme for developing the interest in general questions which you have cultivated in College-unless you have missed the primary object of a college course. Your community, your country, the world has a right to expect from you your best thinking on the multitudinous prob- lems of life. It is little other than base desertion for the educated man to let the world solve its own problems while he devotes his energies to achieving what is ordinarily called success. Be ambitious to make your contribution to the cause of better education, better civic government, better political practice. It is a dangerous as well as an ignoble thing to concentrate our interest exclusively on our individual concerns-dangerous to our health of mind, and fatal to our hopes of experiencing the most abiding satisfactions o ie. Among other interests which I hope you will cherish is your interest in your College. Its Alumni now constitute a great society, membership in which IS a source of very legitimate pride. You can enter fully into your lnlheriutance only by knowing the history of the College, keeping in touch with 1fS activities, and by making whatever contribution you can to sound educational thinking. I wwf? UNIVERSITY COLLEGE