May 31, 1968

Address to Graduates of College of Humanities

Dean Clark, members of the faculty, members of the graduating class in the College of Humanities, parents, and friends:

During the past few weeks I have been honored more times than I have any right to expect in a lifetime. Not the least of these honors is being privileged to speak at this convocation exercise. I have always held an especially high regard and affection for the College of Humanities and its faculty and staff and I admire each generation of students graduating from this college. This year we have something special in common. When you graduates, as a class, entered as freshmen I was Acting President. Now that you are receiving a diploma I am receiving one too. [Honorary Doctor of Laws from Brigham Young University] The only difference you earned yours.

You have studied subjects concerned with the understanding and appreciation of life. You have read many of the great books of the world and hopefully, you have learned the technique and the art of communication. Accurate, pleasant and reliable communication among individuals and among nations is one of the greatest needs in the world today. Misunderstandings, anxieties, hostilities, disappointments, and even warfare itself are often, if not usually, due to faulty communication.

I am reminded of a young man – a college student who was somewhat shy and timid around a young lady he admired. In her presence he had trouble with verbal communication. Consequently, he decided to carefully write a love letter each day for a while and send to her by special delivery mail. He continued this for a whole month. Each day for the month the mailman delivered the letter and do you know what happened? The girl married the mailman!

Perhaps this is an argument in favor of verbal in contrast with written communication. I do not intend it to be so interpreted for I assume the young suitor was not a major in Humanities and, consequently, wrote ineffective love letters.

As a part of my responsibility as an officer of the regional accreditation association, I have occasion to visit various universities. All too frequently

I observe what appear to be hippies or beatniks in psychedelic surroundings on many campuses. Thus as I return to our beloved campus at BYU I am always pleased because of the pleasant contrast.

Yet if we are thinking of the manner of dress as an important aspect of hippiism, what actually is more quaint and psychedelic than the medieval costumes many of us are now wearing. Just look around you at the uncomfortable caps and gowns and hoods – at the bright and often conflicting colors. Should little men arrive in a flying saucer from Mars and observe us here tonight, would they ask if we are super-hippies?

Of course a correct answer to the question is a resounding no – wearing your caps and gowns does not make you hippies, but quite the opposite. Graduation exercises as developed over the centuries represent dignity, achievement, completion of a long and rigorous and carefully planned educational program and you are to be enthusiastically congratulated.

As I began considering what might be appropriate to discuss with you upon this occasion, I reflected upon the nature and composition of this college graduating class. There are 260 of you – 121 women and 139 men. Most of you are between 21 and 23 years of age. In any event, you were war babies for you were born either during the closing period of the highly destructive and costly Second World War or else immediately following that war. Your birth almost exactly coincided with the birth of the atomic bomb, which according to Dr. Edward Teller, may prove to have been the most significant, if not fateful invention, of modern times. Thus your entrance into the world ushered in the nuclear age. About the same time several world leaders departed from this mortal life. They included Franklin D. Roosevelt, through illness; Adolph Hitler by suicide; Benito Mussolini was executed; and Mahatma Gandhi was slain. Considering the many world-shaking changes at your birth one era of history ended and another very different one had its origin. As we older folk discuss world problems or community or national problems, or historical events with you, we should be mindful of this situation.

Years ago when I began teaching in college, it was difficult for me to realize that entering freshmen at that time could not remember much first hand about the First World War. Thus, I had to modify my classes accordingly. A still later generation of students knew nothing much except the great depression of the 30's and the long administration of Franklin D. Roosevelt.

Now I am brought up with a start as I realize you college graduates know nothing directly either of the great depression or of the Second World War and scarcely anything of the Korean War. You were only about nine years old when the latter conflict ended. You never heard one of Franklin D. Roosevelt's soothing fireside chats nor did you hear Hitler rave and rant over the radio. Your entire lives, except perhaps one year have been spent in the post-Hiroshima age; moreover, in an era of relatively high prosperity. Therefore, you have had no experience with living in a nation having mass unemployment and deep depression. You probably can't even remember when rocket missiles or jet planes were first invented, although you have been observing their developments in this the space age. You have no recollection of a time when there was no television, or penicillin or sulfa drugs or electronic computers or garbage disposals for the kitchen sink. It is true that you became teenagers by the time of the first sputnik and the first rocket to reach the moon. This recollection you will be able to narrate to your children and grandchildren. Within our church, the only president you can really remember is David O. McKay, for he became president before most of you were baptized at the age of eight.

Is today a good time for you to be alive and part of the younger generation who are now graduating from college? You have reached legal maturity and are blessed with an average life expectancy of nearly fifty years ahead of you. Are the years likely to be good ones? Would it have been better for you to have lived in some golden age of the past when problems were simpler and manners of living less complex?

Of course none of us knows what lies ahead. We can, however, be reasonably sure of problems. Each generation has its problems. We are always subject to strife and struggle, conflict and dissention. At few times throughout the history of mankind has there been complete peace in the world.

Today is no exception. We are facing extremely difficult problems both at home and abroad. First, we are engaged in the Vietnam War – costly in both lives and in resources. A war with somewhat clouded issues and uncertain outcome even though we can ultimately find a way of achieving military victory. Secondly, we are involved in civil rights issues within our nation. These issues pertain to all minority groups, but today especially, they pertain to our Negro population. What are the answers? How may the issues be resolved? Obviously not easy questions to answer!

We have a third general problem, which as a student of economics, I wish to at least mention. Inflation is a great threat today. Here are a few of the signs: Prices within our country have risen during the last 12 months, ending April 30^th over 4%; interest rates now generally are higher than any time in the Twentieth Century; the Government lack of balance between spending and taxing is such that even stronger inflationary pressures are building up; also there is the gold outflow and lack of international balance of payments. Economists have learned much regarding inflation causes but inflation prevention gets into the political area and, consequently, solutions are not always simple, easy or even possible.

Nevertheless, in spite of these difficult problems facing us, and other serious ones could also be mentioned, it’s really a good time to be alive and young and graduating from college.

Never before in history have living standards in America been so high.

Never has unemployment been so low. Never have so many families owned their own homes.

Yet as never before in history education has become an important requirement for success and especially for leadership in many, if not most, of the vital economic, political and social activities of life. So you graduates have a head start.

It is reported Brigham Young had only eleven days of formal education in his entire life, yet he was one of the great pioneering and religious leaders of his generation, if not of our dispensation. This was possible because Brigham was endowed with exceptional natural talents and was ordained by our Father in heaven to lead his people. Even so, President Young often admitted his handicap in not possessing more formal schooling. As evidence of his realization of the vital importance of education, even in the past century, Brigham founded two great universities – the University of Deseret (now the University of Utah) and Brigham Young University. Inscribed on a plaque in the foyer of our Smoot Administration Building are these immortal words of Brigham Young "Education is the power to think clearly, to act well in the world's work, and the power to appreciate life." And so Brigham Young really knew what an education meant, even though he had very little formal education himself. But he was an exceptional person.

One of the greatest inventions of all time took place when men learned to transfer thoughts, emotions, experiences and knowledge from one individual to another by means of written words and sentences. What a wonderful ability to be able to write and also to read and interpret intelligently and to remember what we have read. Opportunities for reading both old and new worthy books are unlimited from the viewpoint of the supply. Tens of thousands of new books are published annually. Yet it’s surprising how many adults in the population of our own country have not read a single book during the last five years. Surveys indicate the validity of this indictment. Among literate people this would have been a tragedy even in the dark ages.

One man said there were only two books that had ever done him any good. One was his mother's cookbook and the other was his father's checkbook. I know you graduates in the College of Humanities have a much greater appreciation of books generally and I urge you to retain and develop further the love of reading which most of you now possess.

But remember there is a great deal of difference between the eager man who wants to read a book, and the tired man who wants a book to read, perhaps to put him to sleep.

We trust that your experience at Brigham Young University has taught you not only the importance of knowledge and intellectual development and growth but also the vital importance of character.

President McKay has told us and I quote:

"Character is the aim of true education; and Science, history, and literature are but means used to accomplish this desired end. Character is not the result of chance, but of continuous right thinking and right acting. True education seeks to make men and women not only good mathematicians, proficient linguists, profound scientists, or brilliant literary lights, but also, honest men, with virtue, temperance, and brotherly love. It seeks to make men and women who prize truth, justice, wisdom, benevolence, and self-control as the choicest acquisitions of a successful life.

It is regrettable that modern education so little emphasizes these fundamental elements of true character. The principal aim of many of our schools and colleges seems to be to give the students purely intellectual attainment and means of gaining a livelihood, and to give but passing attention to the nobler and more necessary development along moral lines. "

In a commencement address Dr. Karl T. Compton once stated as he talked to the graduating class:

“You have received certain talents, some ten, some five, some one. Whether you wish it or not, the world will hold you accountable. Each of you has his own particular amount and kind of knowledge. Some have had wider experiences, some have studied harder, some have better memories.”

Dr. Compton explained that as the nobleman in the New Testament held his servants accountable for the use of their varying number of talents so the world will hold graduates from college accountable after they get out into the world.

If you have great potential because of the important talents possessed and achieved while in college much will be expected of you and please don't disappoint the world, your church, your school or your parents. Don't bury your talents but use them in the service of mankind.

In my concluding remarks I shall paraphrase and partly quote from a statement I have used before, the first time was when speaking to all of the University graduates in the capacity of my job as Acting President four years ago.

In a few moments you graduates will be certified to the world at large as alumni of this great university. She is your kindly mother and you her cherished sons and daughters.

This exercise, as well as the one this morning, denotes not your severance from the university, but your union with her. Commencement does not mean, as many wrongly think, the breaking of ties and the beginning of life apart. Rather it marks your initiation in the fullest sense into the fellowship of the university, as bearers of her torch, as centers of her influence, as promoters of her spirit.

Brigham Young University is not the campus, not the buildings on the campus, not the faculties, not the students of anyone time – not one of these or all of them. The University consists of all who come into and go forth from her halls, who are touched by her influence and who carry on her spirit. Wherever you go, the University goes with you. Wherever you are at work, there is the University at work.

What the University purposes to be, what it must always strive to be, is represented on its seal, which is stamped on your diplomas – a beehive encircled by the honored quotation:

“The Glory of God is Intelligence.”

Thus, Brigham Young University stands for industry and perseverance in the search for truth, knowledge, spiritual values, and wisdom. She also stands for the transmission of this truth, knowledge, the spiritual values and wisdom to as many of God's children as enter her portals. Therefore, if the University’s light shines not in you and from you, how great is its darkness! But if it shines in you 258 from this college and 2, 590 from other colleges and divisions of the university today, as well as some 36,000 graduates before you, who can measure its power?

With hope and faith I welcome you into the fellowship. I bid you farewell only in the sense that I pray you may fare well. You go forth, but not from us. We remain, but not severed from you. May the Lord's blessings go with you and be with you and with us.