On April 28, , who, along with his beloved wife, Isabel, is among Queen’s University’s most generous benefactors, would have turned 100 years old. As we mark this milestone, we remember him in his own words – a 1986 convocation address in which he shared what he learned at Queen’s, his secret to a happy life, and the value of helping others.
I am especially happy to be awarded the degree of LLD, Doctor of Laws, because I have sometimes secretly wished that I were a lawyer, and my good friends know how I have always enjoyed a fight when I knew – or thought I knew – that I was right.
Today, I want to talk to you very personally about what Queen’s has meant to me – how it has affected, nay, changed my life – and to share with you what I think is essential for a truly happy life.
To many people, a university is the place where you acquire a profession. And of course, at Queen’s I became a chemist – good enough to get into graduate school at Harvard, and to start a chemical company.
But Queen’s taught me more – it changed my outlook in very personal ways.
My first impressions of Canada were truly mistaken. From the time I came to [the internment camp in] Canada in July of 1940 until I came to Queen’s on 15 November, 1941, I thought that Canadians were largely dishonest and uncivilized. But the great majority of Queen’s people – students and academics – were decent and warm-hearted people – that I learned very quickly.
What is the best advice I can give you today? In life, most of us make two decisions that are far more important than any others. The choice of profession and the choice of our mate. I am reminded of the saying of one of the world’s ablest chemists, Vladimir Prelog, who celebrated his 80th birthday this year. Asked about happiness, he said, ‘If you want to be happy for an hour, buy a bottle of wine; if you want to be happy for a week, slaughter a pig; if you want to be happy for a year, get married; if you want to be happy for your life, enjoy your work: To which I would add, ‘Enjoy your work and find a mate with whom you can share everything, and you will be as close to paradise as you can be: As I am. By a happy coincidence, today is Isabel’s 60th birthday. We met on a boat from Quebec to Liverpool in 1949, and it took me nine days to propose. Today I wonder why it took me so long – I just had not proposed to a girl before and so I was a bit slow. The only flaw I discovered in Isabel in all these years was her going to the University of Toronto. None of us is perfect.
A great many Queen’s people have helped me, and I have tried to repay those many acts of kindness by helping others. At the end of my days, I pray that I will have succeeded as Queen’s succeeded with me – in helping others in their professions, in their perspectives, in their realization of their potential. The three P’s through Q – profession, perspective, potential through Queen’s.
– Edited from the original transcript, Nov. 1, 1986
