Excerpts from the Valedictory Address
Over the past several years the insistence upon a division between college and the so-called "real world" has struck me as one of the gravest problems in American education. For if the real world isn't somehow an extension of collegiate life, then I have to wonder what the heck we've been doing here for the past four years.
Gumby and Pokey (the animated slab of green clay and his trusty orange steed who are among the great epic heroes of modern cinema) serve as exceptionally revealing metaphors for the relationship between college and the real world. For despite all their intimacy, Gumby and Pokey are profoundly different creatures. Not only is Gumby far more self-assured and purposeful than Pokey, he also reveals a sense of perspective - toward both his own life and the lives of others - that quite distinguishes him from his rather narrow-minded sidekick . . . What makes Gumby so distinctive is that he has made his life an extension of his learning. As you may remember, both he and Pokey can enter the contents of any book at will, but it is only Gumby who ever really draws upon the riches of those contents, because it is only he who sees his "real life" not as a separate entity from his life in books, that is, his education, but as a continuation of it.
It's the very breadth of perspective conveyed by the liberal arts which modern America, and particularly elite modern America, seems to so significantly lack. If the events of the past year have taught us anything, it is that a sense of perspective - an ability to see beyond oneself - and a commitment to acting upon that perspective are absolutely required by modern life; and nowhere is there a better starting point than thought in the liberal arts. For in the end narrow-mindedness whether manifest as racism, sexism, or any of the other forms which we've spent much of this past year confronting is simply the result of a facile and superficial mind.
Thus Gumby's accomplishment his commitment to thinking in the outside world - is our challenge . . . When you're doing the laundry, or paying the rent, or plotting your move up the corporate ladder, remember what Plato and Montaigne and Mill and Kafka had to say, and think. Drag it kicking and screaming if you must, but make the collegiate world a part of your real world; you owe it to yourself and to the society that's put you here. And when the going gets tough, as it most certainly will at times, just remember the Adventures ofGumby jingle: "If you've got a heart, then Gumby's a part of you."
