The Valedictories
Our idealism, excitement, and happiness are probably greater now than at any time since we first arrived in Hanover four years ago. Perhaps our optimism lies in the prospect for new experiences, things for which we have no true conception. Will we lose our idealism as the reality of life hits us?
It seems to me that the greatest thing a person can have is a postitive outlook on everything he does or thinks. Childlike, open eyed, innocent curiosity, idealism, and happiness are the greatest things I have observed in a man. They are also the rarest.
That they are indeed rare may not even be realized. Our fastpaced life seems dedicated to keeping people so busy that they have no time for spiritual considerations. The result, I believe, is .growing cynicism as they come to understand the worldly and find security within it. This was certainly the trend I observed in many fellow students these past few years and just as certainly what I expect to find in the coming years.
It took me two years here to run into someone who was different, a year to figure out how he was different, and now I try i realize this difference within myself. What I learned was simple.
It is important to be happy. To be happy is more important than anything else, except, perhaps, spreading this happiness to others.
To be happy means finding joy in even the most tedious tasks, to be interested in the world around you, and to find pleasure in the people you meet. This means being curious, keeping an open mind. Further, this curiosity should be an active, enthusiastic affair. Enthusiasm is the key to grasping both happiness and curiosity; and in the most positive form it comes to mean "idealism."
In these four concepts - happiness, curiosity, enthusiasm, and idealism - must be the solution to many of the world's problems. If not the solution, then certainly the means to cope with them.
My childhood hero was a man of endless consideration and careful thought — about people, things, and ideas — even those which evoked little sympathy or public support. His liberal outlook reflected concern and love for the people around him. Those could not agree with him were at least led, by his example, to consider very carefully their own thoughts and perhaps to open 'heir minds and hearts to the understanding of people and ideas around them. While I never saw him actively try to convince someone to change his own viewpoint, I think he succeeded at least in leading others to be more tolerant of other opinions.
I believe, then, that this is the way to fight the problems facing us- The combination of happiness, curiosity, enthusiasm, idealism, and an open mind is both our objective and the means to win it for others.
Today I would make a plea to you all. I sense ambition, optimism. and maybe even a little fear, about me. I sincerely hope it is all coupled with happiness, and that this happiness may grow rather than dwindle away in the coming years.
If we accept such a personal goal, we will be sure to find it in others, and the world will be a better place in which to live.
MEMBERS OF THE CLASS OF 1974:
Yours was the first class I had an opportunity to address when you arrived on campus, and so I seem to get both the first word and the last word. Since that day four years ago countless forces have shaped your lives and your thinking and the question is what I can add to that in just a few minutes.
I reread my remarks to you four years ago at the College's opening Convocation. You will recall it was at a time when the war in Vietnam was foremost in all our minds, and yet I took a chance and said. "I believe that the fundamental issues four years hence will be issues within our nation." That has turned out to be true, but the issues turned out to be even more serious than I would have guessed four years ago. So I am going to use my brief final words to recommend to you a very old-fashioned virtue: honesty.
What is there to recommend honesty? I wish I could say to you that honesty is always the best policy, but there is ample evidence to the contrary. Dishonesty often reaps large financial rewards. I know you went through Dartmouth under the honor system, and I also know that some of you could not help — at some point — giving in to temptation. You will often be tempted in your future career by dishonest means which may advance you faster. Indeed, you may reach your goal a great deal faster through dishonesty. Therefore, the only way I can recommend honesty to you as a policy for your life is to say: what is the good of reaching your goal much faster if you don't like yourself as a person when you get there?
For our nation dishonesty brings distrust of individuals and institutions — the very institutions on which we depend for survival. If we accept the philosophy under which the end justifies the means — justifies it no matter how many lies have to be told, no matter how many laws have to be broken, and no matter how many people have to be hurt — then how will we differ from those nations whose political philosophy we despise?
Somehow we must regain trust. We must regain trust in our fellow citizens and in our institutions, and the first step to that is to make a personal commitment — a commitment that while you may suspect your neighbor is dishonest, that he may cheat on bjs income tax or he may lie to advance himself, this does not give you license to lie and to cheat. Someone must take the first step back to honesty, and you can't wait for someone else to take that step.
In my Convocation address four years ago I noted that a commitment was forming, a commitment to solve the problems of society. But I also noted:
I would like to go on to say that by 1974 we will not only have a commitment to solve these problems but we will either have solved them or we will have made a major start in solving them — but I am afraid that I don t believe this. No matter how early we make this commitment. I can't believe the tremendous problems of society can be cured in a very short period of time. They are very hard, they are tremendously complex, they are often oversimplified by those who talk about them, and I think it will take a new generation with different kinds of training before we seriously make a dent in these problems.
Yours is that new generation. Your legacy is a troubled nation and a troubled world, and I hope that you will leave your own children a finer legacy. I hope that you will do this by dedication and by willingness to serve.
I am not very much of a magician but I have one magic power. You saw me exercise it a few minutes ago when I turned you from undergraduates into alumni. I hope that as alumni part of your service will be to Dartmouth, because Dartmouth cannot survive without your support and service. I hope that part of your service will be to the community you choose to live in, to make it a better place to live in. I hope that part of your service will be to your nation, because it is too easy to say that politics is dirt therefore you will have nothing to do with it. If all honest men and women turn their backs on politics and the political process, then politics will necessarily be dirty. For your own future lives, I wish you success, I wish you happiness, and I wish you that deepest satisfaction of knowing that you have made life better for your fellow human beings.
Men and Women of Dartmouth, all mankind is your brother and you are your brother's keeper.
Graduating Phi Beta Kappa. summa cum laude, with distinctionin his hiologv major, lan Law is a man of diverse talents whichhave earned citations for outstanding academic achievement alsoin art. music, geography, and anthropology.
