Valedictory to 1967

GENTLEMEN OF THE GRADUATING CLASS

We have reached the point in this ancient ceremony of "Taking Off" where there is no turning back, no trying it again, no next time. In this immediate sense your college experience is now beyond any further doing or, perhaps more to the point, any undoing.

In the larger sense, if you and college were well met it is no misuse of mighty words - which you may soon be repeating elsewhere —to say that your Dartmouth experience is now yours "to have and to hold from this day forward, for better or for worse, for richer or poorer, in sickness and in health, till death" do you part.

It has been our business here to learn many things together, including the awesome discovery that each of you is uniquely you. This is the perennial truth that blooms in youth. Over the years life's great teacher helps most of us to live with that somewhat abrasive and arrogant fact more graciously, more kindly and perchance more generously.

Only as you go on to that level of life's learning will your individuality and the individuality of others be joined in work and love rather than set apart in futility and enmity. If, happily, that higher learning should be your lot, you will know the privilege of going beyond self- assertion to the never-ended task of sustaining man's civilization in spite of himself. It is then that you personally will discover deep within yourself what is required of a man who is the stuff of an institution, not merely its beneficiary.

And now, men of Dartmouth, the word is "so long," for in the Dartmouth fellowship there is no parting.