The Conscience of the World

On the morning of June 12, 1940, Army Chief of Staff George Catlett Marshall stood before the graduating class at his alma mater, his mind full of dark forebodings. "This is a day of high emotion for you men," said he to Virginia Military Institute's grey-uniformed seniors. "It may also be one of the most fateful days in the history of the world . . ." General Marshall was right. That morning, President Roosevelt had summoned him to an emergency meeting: German troops were advancing on Paris.

Last week, ten years and one World War later, George C. Marshall once again rose to address a V.M.I, commencement. In his hand he held his same old manuscript, and once again, the same words came through the microphone. "This is a day of high emotion for you men," said Marshall. "It may also be one of the most fateful days in the history of the world . . ." After a decade of war and painful reconstruction, Marshall had seen no reason to change his warning, or to write a whole new commencement speech.

A Tragic Era. Judging by the warnings and soul searchings of many another commencement speaker across the nation last week, George Marshall seemed to be right enough. What with Communism and the cold war, these were indeed fateful days--"a tragic era," cried Vice President Barkley at Michigan State College. "This is not," added President L. A. DuBridge of the California Institute of Technology, "the best of all possible worlds ... In fact, it just isn't a very nice world at all!"

In the face of such a world, some speakers seemed frankly exhausted. "I have almost reached the end of my rope," said Rhode Island's Governor John O. Pastore to the Rhode Island College of Pharmacy. "There are only so many things you can say to a graduating class and I've had dozens of occasions on which to say them." Echoed Illinois' Governor Adlai Stevenson at Western State Teachers College: "It makes little difference what I talk about, because you won't remember what I say, even if it's important, which it isn't . . ."

An Age of Risks. Yet, in 1950, U.S. graduating classes would have some words to remember--and they were not all words of desperation. At Northampton, Mass-., Smith College's former President Herbert J. Davis had best expressed what many another educator took as his theme for the fateful days of 1950. "Your consciousness," said Davis, "has been extended to look before and after . . . You have heard something of the glory and of the shame of man's history. You cannot say that you did not know that there have been saints and prophets and poets who have offered to humanity a more excellent way . . ."

Said Davis: "I would count it not among the least of your privileges that you have been in some measure prepared ... to share in the enjoyment of the arts . . . not just to provide you with bright remarks for cocktail parties, but to enlarge your sympathies in every direction, to give you good humor and tolerance, to prevent you from being overserious and solemn even in a good cause . . ."

The Souls of Men. Above all, said Davis, it was the right and privilege of 1950's graduates "to be the conscience of the world today, pricking the souls of men whenever these standards are in danger of being set aside, or threatened by newfangled heresies, or old error freshly disguised ... to enjoy and defend and pass on to those who come after you the freedom to know and to learn ... to uphold the claims of the intelligence and the imagination against all the forces of stupidity and dullness and vulgarity ... not in pride and vain boasting, but in a spirit of gentleness and humility."

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