00-1/22/11/27
SPEECHBY PRESIDENT
DEVANNAIR AT THE OFFICIALOPENING
OF SHEARES
HALL AT THE KENTRIDGECAMPUS
OF THE NATIONAL
UNIVERSITYOF SINGAPORE
ON SATURDAY,
27 NOVEMBER
1982 AT 11 AM
Twenty-one years ago, in 1961, 260 students of the late
President Sheares appealed to him to reconsider his decision to
resign from his position at the university.
They wrote: "By your
resignation, we feel that we are losing the guidance of a dedicated,
inspiring and able teacher who has the interest and welfare of his
students at heart."
It is a rare teacher who receives a letter like that. Regrettably,
some teachers find their students extremely enthusiastic, but only
during the farewell dinners which the students throw for their benefit.
Even as Head of State, the late President continued to share
his professional and academic gifts by lecturing and continuing to
hold consultations at the KandangKerbau Hospital. He is known to
have replied:
"'Don't stop me", when Professor S S Ratnam, Head of
Obstetrics and Gynaecology, tried to persuade him not to do so much.
You might usefully make those words "Don't stop me" your motto in
your pursuit of scholastic and humanexcellence. May I express the
hope that the former Dunearn Road Hostel justifies
its renaming in
memoryof the late President Sheares.
There is no need to forget your past in Dunearn Road either.
It was an old hall and unusual in its set-up of rows of five-roomed
semi-detached houses, while the other hostels were dormitory-style
ones.
Because of the separated type of accommodation, boys and girls,
especially in the Arts side, lived next door to each other. Result:
the boys were better dressed and bettor behaved. At least some of
the girls, so I am told, showed a deterioration of taste in dressstyles.
The others remained unperturbed and normal.
The only...
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The only exasperating thing about the Dunearn Road Hostel
was absent-minded scholars abstractedly sauntering across Dunearn
and Bukit Timah Roads, to and from the old university.
So much so
that it becamean instinctive reflex action for several motorists,
who even today slow down when they come to those particular reaches
of the two roads. Indeed, "Students Ahead" signs could have an
almost equally deterrent effect as "HumpsAhead" signs. Ignore
the humpand you only damageyour car. But ignore a student, and
you damageboth car and student.
l
I do not accept all the uncomplimentary things being said
these days about our students, We are told that they are selfish,
refuse to share their notes with othwr students, and so on. Such
allegations should be dismissed for what they are - sweeping
generalisations.
Not everybody can or ought to be tarred with
the same brush. By the same token, not everybody can or ought
to be painted in equally glowing colours.
Students and teachers alike have much to give each other,
and to receive from each other, It may be a largely one-way
traffic in the lecture theatre. But halls of residence should be
places of creative interchanges, between students and students,
and between students and Masters and Fellows. Docile and nonenquiring minds are a pain in the neck, if not worse, in a hall
of residence.
Amongother things, halls are excellent places for stimulating
inter-disciplinary
cross-fertilisation,
which is the hallmark of
The halls provide opportunities to break out
a good university.
of closed worlds.
One may sometimes be permitted the licence of exaggeration,
in order to drive homecertain points, I pray for such indulgence.
So here goes!
Never put two medical students together in the same room in
a hall of residence. They will only successfully oncapsulate each
other. Put two lawyers together, and there may well be fisticuffs.
Put two poets together, and they will both probably end up as
specimens for the Pathology Department. Put two philosophers
together, and ......3/-
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together, and there will be bloodshed, I will leave you the task
of exhausting all the other horrendous (and of course exaggerated!)
possibilities
of putting like with like.
It is the intellectual
permutations and combinations which
can take place when students from diverse disciplines mingle with
each other, that will lead to the widening of intellectual
and
spiritual horizons, the deepening of mutual understanding and
appreciation, without which a rich and multi-faceted intellectual
life becomesimpossible.
It is fascinating to explore the myriad possibilities
opened
up by such cross-disciplinary
interchanges. Please mark that I
do not insist that such interchanges should extend to the field of
matrimony. Every person has a right to his own choice of doomOne merely wonders whether halls of residence do
or felicity!
make a difference in this regard. We will leave this matter for
research by the statisticians,
for it is up their street.
However, I do know of a poet who married a doctor. Result a healthy poet and a cultured doctor - normally, and probably
unkindly, regarded as contradictions in terms.
Returning to intellectual
stimulation, the advantages of
getting dissimilars to react to each other, indeed to educate each
other, are abundantly clear. In a complex society like Singapore's
we need desperately to relate to people in a variety of disciplines.
economists, accountants, lawyers, arts
Engineers, scientists,
graduates who make excellent PROSand personnel managers, are all
They
necessary to make a modern multinational corporation tick.
all have to work as a team. Indeed, you cannot think of a modern
enterprise which does not require talents drawn from ovor a wide
Even philosophers can be madeproductive. In
range of disciplines.
the recent past, we have been hearing Confucianist philosophers and
moral educationists ad lib, if not ad nauseam. We are told that
they help to promote team spirit and improve productivity.
Living in a hostel is not merely intellectually
stimulating.
It is also a toughening process. For example; you can be subject to
the torture of listening to a room-mate's droning monologueon his/her
favourite
topic..
..4.*'-
favourite topic. Do not hit the roof! Develop a positive
attitude by regarding it as an infallible
remedy for insomnia.
And it does so become! A useful side-effect is that your snores
will awaken your defeated tormentor to reality.
You need also to respond appropriately when he or 'she comes to
you with a life-or-death problem. In which case avoid the temptation to give him or her tips on the most convenient methods of
committing suicide. Rather, try the more intellectually
challenging task of proving
to the person concerned that his or her problem
is not as earth-shattering as the person likes to make out.
Another point. A hall of residence should not pamper its
residents too much. Large amounts of public funds are being poured
can do their bit to reduce the
into the university.
Hostelites
burden on the public by not expecting windfalls.
You can work coHand-outs
operatively to raise funds for various hail projects.
only soften us. We should be wise enough to appreciate that
anything worth having is worth sweating for,
Last year, I expressed the view that Masters and Fellows of
halls should be men and womenof academic distinction,
and who are
'kc mentors of student life
dedicated, enthusiastic and stimulating
should manifest compassion for and empathy with the ones they guide.
And you cannot manifest what you do not possess in latency.
A hall of residence is one place in which nobody need feel
preferable, whether
obliged to talk down to anybody else. Infinitely
you are students, Master or Fellow, you can talk to each other, and
with each other.
Above all, you can cultivate
a commonloyalty which binds
together students and teachers, to the community at large, and to
the nation as a whole. The ultimate beneficiaries of your development and progress ought to be the people of Singapore. They are at.
once the source and the goal of your endeavours, and it is my privilege to say this as their President, and yours.
One last word.
You can also learn from the non-Singaporeans in your midst. They
help to widen your horizons and your sympathies. They are your fellow
votaries at a commonshrine of learning. Treat them as such, and
you will find that you receive as much as you give.