Once again, graduation time is upon us. By some iron rule, every graduation must have a graduation speaker, whose role has been compared to that of the corpse at a great Irish wake: His presence is deemed necessary for the event to be take place, but, other than that, precious little is expected from him.
The odds are pretty good that more people could name the U.S.'s last 10 vice presidents* than could tell you who spoke at their own graduation.
As someone who has more than once tested the patience and exceeded the attention span of a captive audience, I modestly offer some suggestions for the prospective graduation speaker. First, remember that the ceremony can run long, the day can be warm and the chairs can be hard. President Franklin Roosevelt, a man who knew how to give a successful speech, may have had this in mind when he advised: "Be sincere; be brief; be seated."
Former Vice President Hubert Humphrey, a gifted but long-winded speaker, was reminded by his wife, Muriel, "Hubert, a speech does not need to be eternal to be immortal. " An old-timer once counseled me that "if you don't know what to talk about, then talk about three minutes."
Begin by reassuring the audience that you will not tax their forbearance with an opener: "As King Henry VIII said to each of his six wives: 'Don't worry. I won't keep you long.'"
The graduation speaker's duty is to provide some rules or advice for the graduates. The first is to urge them to pay attention and some respect to their parents or the elders who have helped them through the recent years. Mark Twain put it perfectly: "When I was a boy of 14, my father was so ignorant, I could hardly stand to have the old man around.
But when I got to be 21, I was astonished at how much the old man had learned in seven years. "
Give the grads some practical guidance. For example, "You will never be permanently happy with a roommate or a life companion who insists on pronouncing the 'd' in Wednesday. "
Or this: "In every political campaign you will ever find yourself in, there will always, without fail, be somebody on your side you wish devoutly was on the other side." Conrad Hilton, after a successful lifetime in the hotel business, was once asked what he had learned, and his answer: "Always keep the shower curtain inside the bathtub."
Graduates, how many times have you been told that "life is not like college"? Actually, that is true. Life is not like college. No, actually life is a lot more like high school.
For that reason, the story about the great philosopher William James' son, also named William but called Billy, is appropriate for the occasion. Young Billy, then about 21, was asking all those vexing questions that young people have forever asked about how and what to do with his life. Billy wrote his uncle, the great novelist Henry James, for his wisdom. Henry James wrote his nephew: "Three things, Bill, three things I tell you to do in life. The first thing is to be kind. The second is to be kind. And the third thing is to be kind."
And remember, it is impossible at breakfast to over-tip the waitress. Congratulations!
* Last ten vice presidents: Joe Biden, Dick Cheney, Al Gore, Dan Quayle, George H.W. Bush, Walter Mondale, Nelson Rockefeller, Gerald Ford, Spiro Agnew and Hubert Humphrey.
To find out more about Mark Shields and read his past columns, visit the Creators webpage at www.creators.com.
DISTRIBUTED BY CREATORS.COM
COPYRIGHT 2013 MARK SHIELDS
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6 Comments | Post Comment
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Here is some terrible advice for graduation day: Tell your students that the government always has their best interests in mind. Tell them the collective is better than the individual. Tell them that the government will never turn to tyranny. They are mindless sheep after all.
Comment: #1
Posted by: Chris McCoy
Fri May 10, 2013 6:43 AM
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Sir;... This article proves two things... Every well written sentence is an argument in itself; and: If you feel like saying it, it was probably said better by some one else already...
I would like to comment that I have heard some good speeches... The Governor, George Wallace gave a good one... So have some Socialist I knew... One woman socialist thanked the caterer for a meal fit for Kings and Queens... Funny... I didn't taste Poison....
When you read speeches of the past you can sense that people had more time on their hands, came ready for a rational argument presented in detail, and took it as a form of local entertainment... If we have sound bite minds with attention spans no longer than a commercial; then whose fault is that??? We are not trying to push ourselves to the wall; but the more we are pressed, the more attention and time we must give to politics that we do not have... And some people are fatalistic; Saying: it does not matter who you elect because nothing changes... True; but we as often elect people to resist the sort of changes we hate...
Primarily; even when people and society need great change; their forms resist that change... Every marriage is a form, and it would not be much of a form if it fell at the first cold blast; but sometimes those forms change gradually, evolve, and cannot be restored or renewed... Happiness and life are supposed to come out of our forms, and if they did come, we would not have to rivet our attention on them...
It is too late for words, and too soon for action... It is the right time to resist every wrong of government, church and economy... It will all fall just with the force of all those people trying to keep it moving and standing still, so don't let it fall on you...If you see me running it is time to haul ass; because I never run from danger...
I am glad that you took James' advice; but if you take mine, then if you internalize too much heart break, you get fat... Poop on one end is spleen on the other... Being one of the good guys, you fail too often to recognize that there are actually bad people, sometimes who are poor because poverty breeds immorality; but some times, wealthy people are very immoral because that is how they got rich, and many rags to riches stories are the tales of immorality driving people to greater feats of immorality... If the children of the middle class are not ambitious in the extreme, neither are they immoral to any great degree... What is missing from their lives is the reward morality should know and have, of health, and happiness.... And the more their needs grow, and the less they have to meet their needs the more they will look to government and politics as the cure... The cure has to be there, or it is time to go to zero, and reboot society...
Thanks...Sweeney
Comment: #2
Posted by: James A, Sweeney
Fri May 10, 2013 6:44 AM
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Re: Chris McCoy;... If you are one of they, drink the same water and salute the same flag; then how did you get free??? Even if sheep do some times get it wrong, they too have a sense of their best self interest, and many sheeple find that in a working government... And you might ask why so many tyrannies have worked, and work yet, and have been supported by their populations; I think you would find that you would find that the best tyranny can beat the worst democracy or any other worst sort of government that finds itself incompetent... Our government was built incompetent against certain classes that feared the sheeple, and that only means they have garnered all the wealth of the land that they care to have, with the government powerless to prevent it...
Do you know about Ottoman history; how the death of an Sultan was signal for fratricide... Brother went after brother until the strongest alone survived, and the people did not mourn this fact, but celebrated it because they were spared factionalism, and the scourge of civil war...What they feared, your side entertains...
For you to paint all sheeple as "They", only means you do not care for them, or identify with them...How long will it take the likes of you to resort to euthanasia for your lesser examples??? To you, there are Americans, and then, there are americans... What good do you have in store for "they"???
I would like to ask: What does it matter??? If we are not morally equipped, or rationally advanced enough for democracy then we are destined to be ruled; and if not by a majority, than by a minority as we have, so far, always been...We are more likely to suffer the tyranny of ideas rather than the tyranny of an individual... People are simply too imperfect to be accepted as ideas are...
Comment: #3
Posted by: James A, Sweeney
Sat May 11, 2013 9:30 AM
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Very interesting. You should check out what he said on Inside Washington about what Hillary should have done in connection with Benghazi. He picks nice sweet topics here when he himself is helping them to cover their bare butts.
He never said before that Hillary should have done anything. Now he pronounces the great wisdom.
He waits for the evidence to come out, and then responds, carefully avoiding the need to voice any criticism until his journalistic credibility is on the line. He's just a shill for the Democrats, and I am so disappointed. I thought he was, and wanted him to be, greater than that.
Comment: #4
Posted by: Masako
Sat May 11, 2013 8:20 PM
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As a professor at Arkansas Tech University too many years ago, I had the "pleasure" of sitting through many graduation speeches. On one occasion, the First Lady of Arkansas (Bill was Governor), Hillary Clinton, gave the commencement. Of that speech I remember only one important thing: the damn chair was way too hard. Your essay was fun!
Comment: #5
Posted by: Mike Ohr
Sun May 12, 2013 6:20 AM
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I thought the article was funny. "Be sincere; be brief; be seated." always amuses me. I get what Masako says, but sometimes it is nice to read an article not about politics of the moment.
"Three things, Bill, three things I tell you to do in life. The first thing is to be kind. The second is to be kind. And the third thing is to be kind." Transcends politics, and we all need such a reminder once in a while.
Comment: #6
Posted by: Tom
Sun May 12, 2013 6:30 AM
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