Commencement Address at the University of Miami By Commissioner Of Education Earl McGrath, Glady Learn and Gladly Teach

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GLADLY LEARN AND GLADLY TEACH* The subject of this address, as many in the audience will recognize, was chosen from that section of the prologue to the Canterbury Tales in which Chaucer describes the scholar who accompanied the expedition to Canterbury. In speaking of the academic member of that company of travellers Chaucer says, "And gladly would he learn and gladly teach." Now in choosing this subject I am not suggesting that every member of this graduating class will follow the profession of teaching. Many of course have chosen, this calling, and I suspect that unless the salaries of teachers materially rise it will be possible to say of them as Chaucer did so long ago, "They have a hollow look and a threadbare cape.' But the members of this class will enter. a great variety of professions and other occupations. It would be interesting to show how keen Chaucer's analysis of character was by quoting his reflections on the representatives in the Canterbury group. As for example, his comment that the businessman voiced his views "with much self-consequence, forever telling how his commerce throve." Or about the real estate man "whose bread, his ale *By Earl James McGrath, U.S. Commissioner of Education, Federal Security Agency, Washington, D.C., at Commencement Exercises, University of Miami, Coral Gables, Florida, February 5, 1951. Published in Association of American Colleges Bulletin, Vol. XXXVII, No. 2, May 1951, pp. 238-245.