Valedictory to 1961

GENTLEMEN OF THE COLLEGE:

The time for your going forth is here. We mark the day with ceremony because over the ages man has learned to honor the achievement and to covet the fruit of education. It is no news to you that this commencement does not mark the completion of education, but on the authority of the ages I can tell you that your education is now well begun and the proverb assures us that well begun is half done.

The life of an important moment need not be smothered in solemnity. Even under these robes and the awe of traditional ceremony we remain men, a condition of life characterized by its precarious balance of aspiration and imperfection. There is an academic version of an amusing story that credits every graduating class with raising the quality of both the campus and the wide, wide world by its going out. It would be cold comfort to you to be told that just the opposite is true, but however it may prove to be between you and the world, believe me, gentlemen, it is no mere sentimentality to tell you that underneath the best wishes and the bravado of this day, all of us who shared these Dartmouth years with you know that in your going out a bit of each of us goes too and we will be the poorer for it.

No one can share another's growth without having a part of himself irretrievably caught up in that other life. This is the law of the family and so too is it the law of education. It is the price of love the good parent pays; it is the price of an earthly immortality that the good teacher pays for having shared with you his learning, not merely his knowledge. The disengagement of teacher and student is necessary to education, but it is always just a little bit more incomplete than either of us knows and that is where, for better or for worse, the immortality creeps in.

At this moment of disengagement our hope for you and for us is that having glimpsed man's best you will henceforth commit your heart and hand to its pursuit. In such a pursuit, wherever it leads, Dartmouth will be proudly with you all the way.

And so, Men of Dartmouth, once again the word is "so long" because in the Dartmouth fellowship there is no parting.