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

Page 21 text:

Hier-In ' if C? UNIVERSITY COLLEGE -ii -4 5 is E 2 EE, .E An R i 1 W E 1 ii i ,E Li Q limi I fff 1 f n' I . I ik - , lNA'9'Q35AlE

Page 20 text:

ilfel lVf'5i6.yNl 11-ff' V To the Graduating Classes of the University of Toronto T IS my happy privilege to offer to you, the gradu- ating classes of the Uni- versity, my warmest greet- ings and my sincere good wishes for your future wel- fare. This is the time for both retrospect and pros- pect. You look back on crowded years of opportun- ity, of hard work, and cheer- education has been given you through lectures, discus- sions, books, recreations and personal friendships. You have helped educate one another. If you have gained from your university course l a love of good literature and a group of friends, you have gained much. You will carry , away with you the company of great thoughts, the in- spiration of great ideals, the example of great achievements, and the consolation of great failures. You will have learned both what other people think, and how to think for yourselves. To what do you look forward? In past years positions have awaited you after graduation. Now positions are not so easy to get. Mr. Fairbairn, the chief engineer of the Canadian Pacific Railways, one of our own graduates of the Faculty of Applied Science, told the members of the Engineering Society at their annual dinner, that in all probability there would await each one for some years hard work, hard knocks, and hard times . I hope that you will all have the speedy opportunity of doing work, even though it is hard work. Endure hardness as good soldiers is a timely apostolic exhortation. Hard times make strong men and women. In such days we are challenged to learn anew the avoidance of waste, the privilege of toil, the value of training, and the supremacy of soul over things. You young men and women will have the chance in due time to take over the management of a world which the past generation has in many ways mishandled. We trust that through faith in God, in your fellows, and in yourselves, you will make a better world than we have been able to make. Stand fast in these troublous times. Hold to the great intellectual, moral and spiritual funda- mentals of life. Cultivate clear thinking, and constant goodwill. Be courage- ously hopeful, and kindle the fires of hope in others. Your ALMA MATER gives you her blessing. She is proud of your sterling character and buoyant determination. She is judged by the kind of men and women you prove to be. Be worthy of her best ideals. Gratefully cherish her in your thoughts, words and deeds. Give to her, and to your country and your God loyal and efficient service. Over the gateway into the grounds of a famous university are words which I pass on to you: Enter to grow in wisdom, ,G Depart to serve thy country and mankind. CAA wiaicw Ifsflllihe ful companionship. Your -'lm fi. ? Nc?

Page 22 text:

VQICN vwf5lC'Nl To the Graduating Class in University College By PRoFEssoR MALCOLM W. WALLACE, B.A., PHD. O WISH you God-speed, if the phrase is to be interpreted as success in a worldly sense, is hardly possible to-day without an uncomfortable feeling that the wish falls somewhat short of perfect sincerity. You are graduating at a time when the disorder of the world shows only faint signs of abating. For the present it is a world which may deny to many of you an op- portunity to pour your energies into those channels to which you are instinctively attracted by your various tastes and capacities. We are beginning to understand that compulsory unemployment is one of the greatest afliictions under which men suffer, and it is a measure of our present disorder that this affliction now selects as its victims, not merely the un- skilled and the ignorant, but a great multitude of those who are specially qualified to contribute to the well-being of society. Many of you will doubtless find more or less satisfactory employ- ment, but I confess that in writing this greeting to the graduating class I am thinking especially of those who may be less fortunate. For you, the immediate future may contain much of disappointment, and you will be tempted to indulge in bitterness and unavailing low spirits. I can say nothing to you that will conjure away this frustration of your hopes, but I can at least recall to your minds the reflections which adversity has always called forth from the wise. Keats was suffering under a much more intolerable burden of frustrated hopes than most of you are likely to experience when he wrote: The first thing that strikes me on hearing of a misfortune having befallen another is this-'Well, it cannot be helped: he will have the pleasure of trying the resources of his spirit'. Bacon declared that the virtue of adversity is fortitude, and indeed there is nothing else that can avail. You will know that the luxury of indulging one's sense of disappointment and regret is futile and weak, and that there is always scope for choice and self-mastery. Many men have converted periods of disappointed hopes into opportunities for fitting themselves more adequately to play their part in the world when opportunity at length presented itself. You are living in the dawn of a great new era in human affairs, and the very necessity of adjusting your- selves to new conditions may be the instrument for developing your characters and capacities. I know that homilies of this kind must seem to you a poor substitute for more substantial prospects, and I am very conscious of the fact that they can be delivered with most effect only by those who are fully sharing your troubles. Nevertheless, all human experience testifies to the wisdom of accepting the inevitable, of making the best of what cannot be helped, and to the high virtue of heroic courage and of a determination to think as clearly and act as wisely as we may when difficulties have gathered thick about us. - .gg 1 'Q fr g.,. V K . V g Eighfeen UNIVERSITY COLLEGE Cm hwiewfe N933