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Excerpts from:
John Gardner’s Commencement Address
Sidwell Friends School, Washington, DC,
June 13, 1986
READ BY: William Trimble, John Gardner’s grandson
You
yourselves have already tasted the joys of advising your younger
brothers, sisters or friends, so you know the pleasure that advice
gives to the advisor. Perhaps it's the enjoyment of displaying what
we take to be our hard-earned experience. Or perhaps it is that
none of us finds the path through this life particularly easy or
free of heartache and we can't help believing that we might spare
others what we could not spare ourselves.
I've decided not to take the route of Bob Hope who, confronting
a class of graduates about to go out into the world, said "Don't
go." Let's begin by assessing your present situation. You are
now adults, for better or worse.
In your mid-teens you became old enough so that your parents could
stop punishing you. Soon you'll be old enough to stop punishing
your parents. Up to this point your jury in most matters has been
packed with your elders. Now you must be willing to be judged by
your peers--if you think you have any.
You learned very early that we react to our environment. You now
know that in some measure we create our own environment. You may
not yet grasp the power of that truth to change your life.
Humans are creatures that live not just in the world of physical
stimuli but in the insubstantial world of visions, aspirations,
illusions, self-deception, faith, skepticism and reverence. We have
seen them create inexpressible beauty and we have seen them descend
to unspeakable depths. Exposure to that astonishing story can help
us to prepare for what are to me central themes of moral striving--to
be true to the best that humans have said and done, to strive for
the enhancement of individual dignity, the release of human potentialities,
the liberation of the human spirit.
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