Commencement, 1949

The world is closing in on the Class of 1949. For the last 20 years or so, today's graduates have been floating along through life with the aid of nurses, parents, school-teachers, and more recently, for some, government money. And most seniors realize that this happy state of affairs is going to end pretty soon. Some are trying to postpone the day of reckoning by sneaking off to graduate or professional schools, or by hiding cravenly in summer jobs or Continental tours. But the world is closing in on everybody--and it's no bargain.

During the last four years, when the young men who will leave the College today were both reasonably mature and reasonably irresponsible, most of them had some acquaintance with the world. They found that it was what everyone said it was: a big, frightening place presided over by the Great God Job. That's why most seniors, on this last day at the College, suddenly feel a sense of uneasiness and regret. The soft days are over.

Yet the Good (College) Life isn't the only thing that's over. The world, as most of today's seniors know, is full of people who have agreed on orthodox ways of living and thinking, and who make it their chief concern to see that everyone follows them without a quibble. They stand ready to punish the unorthodox with varying degrees of severity, and continually join battle with any cases of non-conformity which protect and nourish the rebels. The most important sanctuaries for unorthodoxy are the colleges and universities, and in the past few years, many of them have been cocreed and frightened into obedience.

This College has kept its integrity. It has sheltered unorthodoxy just as it has sheltered grifters. It has needled the orthodox world from time to time, just as it has occasionally disturbed its own conformists. Its only requirement of its students has been that they think once in a while and wear costs and ties to dinner.

So seniors can hardly be blamed if they gaze for the last time upon familiar surroundings with a brimming heart. Some of them are simply grifters who are sorry to see the end of a 10 to 2 workday. Some are intense individuals who strove joyfully for four years in a fascinating welter of ideas and knowledge. Most are probably a mixture of both types. All, it is safe to say, are a little touched by stage fright and resignation. The College is behind them. The world is closing in.