Commencement Keynotes

Many good friends have or are going to graduate this year. This is a half-hearted way to say congradulations to all of you - a snippet from Robertson Davies short story: "What Will the Age of Aquarius Bring?"

“The usually thing – the statistically normal thing – is for the speaker to tell the graduation class that they are going out into a world torn by dissent, racked by problems of unprecedented knottiness, and difficulty, and headed for the abyss of destruction unless the graduating class shoulders its burden and does something splendid to put everything right. The speaker generally admits that he is at the end of his tether: he is old, and broken on the wheel of Fate; his decrepitude and his wounds have been received in this great battle with the world’s problems. Nothing – absolutely nothing – is to be expected of him in the future. From his failing hands he throws the torch; he plants the task of setting the world right square on the graduating class. He says that he does it with confidence. But he is usually so gloom that one wonders how much his confidence is worth. Sometimes one gets the impression that immediately after Convocation he is going to home to die.”

Congradulations!