Living To Tell The Tale > Writings > A Tale of Two Graduations
During the past few weeks, thousands of parents have been driving north, south, east and west across the country, to attend their children's graduation days. It so happens that my wife and I have been to two within a fortnight; not a unique experience, but probably fairly unusual, because two of our children, separated by just one academic year in age, had completed a four year and a three year course respectively. So we have had a rare opportunity to witness, compare and reflect on the experience of graduation.
Graduation is a wonderful and moving event. Like most such, it's lost on the young, who typically can't understand what all the silly fuss is about, the dressing up in improbable clothes and hats, the processions and the ceremonial. You have to be quite a few years older before you understand that opportunities for walking about in silly clothes are among the most important things that happen in life. For yes, graduation is a modern rite of passage. A secularised one, maybe; but one which still quite clearly has its roots in a Christian world-view. And this should remind Christians that if we really believe in a God whose Word became flesh and dwelt among us, there is no such thing as 'secular': the whole of this world, and all human activity, are within the love of God, and something which he concerns himself with.
Our two graduations, quite different as they were, were both special, with special truths to convey.
In the Senate House in Cambridge, you are surrounded by the visible signs of centuries of dignity and tradition. Nothing undignified or enthusiastic, such as applause, is countenanced here. Photography is not permitted; and one parent who was merely resting a camera on the rail of the gallery was quickly spotted by the stewards, pounced upon by colleagues they had alerted by walkie-talkie, and warned to put it away.
The graduands process into the Senate House, constantly under surveillance for proper dress, and are then led forward four at a time by a Praelector, each holding a finger of his right hand. He doffs his mortarboard to the Vice-Chancellor and presents them, in Latin, as persons of sound learning and character, who have satisfied the requirements of the Statutes of the University, and are worthy of being admitted to this degree.
Each one then kneels before the Vice-Chancellor, who takes their suppliant hands in his - they are effectively swearing some kind of fealty to the University - and admits them in Latin: "By the authority committed to me I admit thee to this degree, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit." The new graduate then stands, bows, and moves on.
At Lampeter, in contrast, the graduation ceremony takes place in a modern theatre. Here it is quite acceptable not only to applaud, but even to take flash photographs of your offspring shaking hands with the Vice-Chancellor; and it does not feel at all inappropriate as it might in the Senate House. Yet here too, they are at pains to point out that they stand in a venerable tradition; in this case, that St David's College, Lampeter, is the third oldest degree-conferring institution in England and Wales. Predating the universities of London and Durham, it comes after only Oxford and Cambridge.
Here too, the ceremony is conducted in what the Prayer Book charmingly calls 'a tongue not understanded of the people'; in this case, Welsh. The Pro-Vice-Chancellor raises his mortarboard to the Vice-Chancellor, and presents the candidates for their degrees: "Anrhydeddus Is-Ganghellor, cyflwynaf i ti … disgybl o'n Prifysgol ni, a enillodd radd …" "Honourable Vice-Chancellor, I present to you … a student of this University who has gained the degree of …"
Each student then shakes hands with the Vice-Chancellor, the President and the Warden of the Guild of Graduates, and receives their degree certificate, before standing in a group before the platform, when the Vice-Chancellor says (in Welsh): "By the authority of the University, given to me, I admit you to the degree of (Bachelor of Arts, etc.)"; the President speaks on behalf of the University of Wales, and the Warden welcomes them into the membership of the Guild.
At Lampeter, furthermore, there was a short homily by the Vice-Chancellor, most striking for its exhortation to see whatever they did in life, as graduates of their University, as an opportunity for 'serving their generation'. This suggests the quaintly old-fashioned idea, which I haven't come across for some time, that the point of gaining a degree is not to get a job which is many times better paid than others, but to be able to use one's knowledge, energies and skills in the service of others.
When I attended my own graduation some thirty years ago, that was still the prevailing ethos. That was why higher education was free. You received these opportunities, and you put in the hard work that was required, not for your own selfish improvement, but in order to equip yourself better to be a useful member of society, to work for the common wealth. But since then successive governments, no doubt reflecting the spirit of the age, have come to regard students as consumers of education. Education is something you ingest in order to get fat; so of course you must pay for it. But what will be the result? It's not hard to work out that it will be generations of graduates who have no choice but to demand the most inflated salaries they can, simply in order to pay off their student loans, and who will have no incentive to see their careers in any sense as serving the greater good of society, but only themselves. Society has withheld what used to be a gift of grace - generous and undeserved - to them; why should they give anything back to society?
in contrast, graduation ceremonies up and down the land still present a public challenge to these prevailing values, and a statement of how things should be. They insist on what can only be described as the sacredness of learning. That is, that studying, receiving an education is an awesome privilege, a serious charge and responsibility, an attempt - not just in science, but in every discipline - to seek out truth, to discover the mind of God.
Made in the image of God, like little children wanting to learn from our parent, to acquire everything the parent can know and do, we study as part of our stewardship of creation, in obedience to the injunction in Genesis, to exercise responsible dominion over the created order.
If graduation is a rite of passage for the young, it is for their parents too, of course. We also are moving on to the next step or gradus of our life journey. But we are making this journey in inhospitable times, when the spirit of the age is not receptive, is actively hostile even, to the values on which many of our institutions are still based. Modern culture, in England at least, despises education and the intellect - how else would we have allowed governments to make a wasteland of our schools and universities, and a dispirited underclass of our teachers? It does not believe in the sacredness of learning, but only in the sacredness of celebrity. This is the country where you can get a knighthood for being famous or glamorous, but not for a lifetime of humble service of science, or of your fellow-men and -women.
This journey in inhospitable times can often feel like a night-patrol along some kind of Hadrian's Wall, against which the tides of barbarism are constantly threatening to prevail and bring in a new Dark Age. But from time to time something like a graduation ceremony brings just a little ray of light, an encouraging reminder, that truth is still on our side.