BYU Graduates Counseled Concerning Their Future

At commencement exercises for Brigham Young University, President Gordon B. Hinckley told 5,342 graduates to keep the faith, plan for and nurture a good marriage and a solid home, and continue to pursue knowledge.

“I do not hesitate to say that if you pursue only your dream of recognition and monetary reward, and give little or no attention to these other items I mention, you will not be successful in your living,” President Hinckley said.

President Hinckley described the faculty at BYU as “men and women who have come out of the great educational institutions of the nation, who have taught with skill and expertise in their chosen fields.” He told the graduates that they were privileged to have had “a most precious opportunity available to only a relative few among the great numbers” desiring to be students at BYU.

“No knowledge is of greater worth than the knowledge you have gained here in things of the Spirit,” President Hinckley told the graduates. He admonished them to continue in prayer and realize that their prayers are answered. “Never forget that the schooling of the spirit is as important, if not more so, than the schooling of the mind,” he said.

“Marriage is the most important step you have made or will make,” the Church President counseled. “No other decision will have such tremendous consequences for the future.

“Welcome children who will come to your home and rear them in the nurture and admonition of the Lord,” President Hinckley told the graduates. He told of reading a newspaper article about a recent study indicating that society would be better off if more people would marry and remain married. To this he said, “Any of us could have said that without a long and costly study.”

President Hinckley mentioned during his address that he and Sister Hinckley were to celebrate their fifty-eighth wedding anniversary on Saturday, April 30, two days following the graduation exercises. “I thank the Lord for my beloved companion, for her loyalty, her love, her encouragement, her companionship. I thank the Lord every day for her, for our children, and our posterity,” President Hinckley said. He then challenged the graduates to be “fiercely loyal” to their marriage partners and added that “selfishness is the greatest destroyer of happy family life.” He suggested that they each make their companion’s happiness and well-being their first concern and said that in doing so they would be happy and have a successful marriage.

In closing, President Hinckley cautioned graduates to “never stop learning,” because there is more to learn in the future than there was in the past. “Drink deeply from this ever springing well of wisdom and human experience,” he told them. The consequence of not continuing to learn will stunt intellectual and spiritual growth, he said.

Robert W. Fogel, Pitt Professor of American History and Institutions at Cambridge University and recipient of the Nobel Prize in 1993, delivered the commencement address. BYU President Rex E. Lee also addressed the students.

A graduate is greeted by President Hinckley during BYU commencement exercises. (Photo by Mark A. Philbrick.)