Baccalaureate Address

Baccalaureate Address

"Homage to Aaron Petty"

Today, and again tomorrow, we gather to observe the academy's oldest rituals: today the Baccalaureate service, in which we reflect on our past, and especially on what we hope, after four years of study, you take with you; and tomorrow, Commencement, in which we commemorate the beginning of the next chapter in your lives. It is therefore a time of ends and beginnings and a moment to recognize, accept, and even celebrate the ambiguities of lives which always, if kept in proper balance, are poised like the classical figure of Janus (for whom the month of January is named), with one eye fixed on the past, certain, known, remembered, and the other eye trained on the future, uncertain, unknown, anticipated. It is also, appropriately, an occasion for prayer:  for wisdom and courage as we sang to begin this service, for strength, love, and peace as we just sang, for help and hope as we shall sing in conclusion. It is, finally, a moment in which your relationship to the College shifts, as you leave a part of yourselves behind even as you take a part of the College with you. The words of Robert Frost's well-known poem, "The Gift Outright," which appears in the College catalogue, seem as appropriate now as they did when, as high school seniors, you first perused that volume's pages. You are 

Possessing what you still are unpossessed by
Possessed by what you now no more possess 

 You will take your leave tomorrow, and begin the next chapter of your lives, equipped with many tools: the tools of language and expression, both oral and written, including the vocabulary of mathematics and art and music and science. You have developed your sense of critical reading, and you are, we hope, more willing to put to the proof of hard evidence assertions that too often consist of little more than inflated rhetoric. 

 You have also discovered that life takes unexpected twists and turns and that the law to which you perhaps need to be most constantly alert is that of unintended consequences. 

 Unintended consequences. I don't know who first coined the term – there are many claimants – but it is most apt as a theme for these Baccalaureate remarks. 

 As many of you know, Bonnie and I have just returned from a brief, yet wonderfully refreshing, sabbatical leave in South Carolina. We spent this leave in a small, beautiful Low Country coastal town. One of the predominant species in small towns, I have discovered, is the citizen/philosopher, and one of the best places to encounter this species is at the local (here I use a term fast becoming anachronistic) barbershop. Hairstylists may be professionally trained. You probably get a better haircut. You certainly pay a higher bill. You may even get more gossip. But if philosophy is what you want, head for the barbershop. 

 Anyhow, I found myself conversing with Johnnie about the law of unintended consequences, and I told him a story that our retired colleague D.K. Smith of the Economics Department often tells to illustrate the principle. 

 Two Vermonters planned a day of fishing on the Lake. The day was glorious.  As they guided their rented boat out to the fishing grounds, they knew this would be a great day. The fish were biting. By the end of the day they had caught their limit and had barely moved from the spot they had first selected early that morning. They both agreed that they should come back the next day to see if they could be as lucky. 

 "Wait," said one, before heading in.  "I'll mark the spot." With that he leaned over the edge of the boat and with a piece of chalk, marked a big "X" on the side where the fish were so plentiful. 

 His friend just stared at him. Finally he spoke. "You idiot," he cried. "What do you think you're doing? What if we don't get the same boat tomorrow?" 

 Unintended consequences. In the story itself and also in the telling of the story. 

 Johnnie said he had a better one.  Two South Carolinians set off on a fishing expedition on one of the many tidal creeks that lace the Low Country.  They passed a boat heading downstream with a catch of cobia, drum, and sheepshead. They called over for advice, and the successful fisherman directed them upstream to a point where the water became much less salty. 

 Grateful for the tip, our guys set off.  After a short distance one reached over and filled a bucket with water. "Still pretty salt," he reported, so they continued on.  Ten minutes later, he tried again, "Still too salty," he said.  Another ten minutes. "Still salty." In another ten minutes, as the passage narrowed and the channel grew shallower, the pilot of the ship said, "Try again." His friend answered. "Still salty. And the bucket's almost empty." 

Unintended consequences. 

Now let us turn from the tonsorial and piscatorial to a local example of the same principle and to the main subject of today's address as noted in its title. 

Just when you thought it was safe to come out again, certain as you were that the oft-repeated "B-" word, so frequently uttered in the months – nay, years – leading up to the College's two-hundredth birthday had finally been retired, proud and relieved as you must have been to have spent your golden student years at the unremarkable institutional ages of 201 and 202, I hesitate to note, but feel that I must ... it's back! 

Yes, there is one more – I promise, only one more –bicentennial event, and it occurs this weekend: the 200th anniversary of the College's very first Commencement. We have not required you to linger until the actual anniversary date – that would be August 18 (though it did fleetingly occur to some of my more mischievous colleagues that perhaps, just this once, faculty might insist upon an extension from students).  But we do this weekend appropriately commemorate another significant milestone in this institution's long history.  And there is no better place to begin than with the story of the College's first graduate, Aaron Petty, of the Class of 1802.  

Much of what we know about Aaron Petty comes from Storrs Lee's excellent book Father Went to College, published in 1936.  I have relied heavily on Lee's account in telling Petty's story. 

Indeed, Aaron Petty was not among the original seven young men admitted to Middlebury in November 1800, when the College opened its doors. He did not show up until almost a year later. An early manuscript on alumni biographies in the College library offers this explanation of the Westminster, Vermont, native's decision to seek admission in 1801:  "He had learned the art of shoe-making, but being smitten with the desire of obtaining an education and becoming a minister, he worked at his trade barely enough to support himself and buy books." He pored over these books at home and discussed his ideas with a law student named Hezekiah May. 

Now the admissions process in 1801 was at once more simple and more complicated than the process through which each of you passed. One presented oneself on campus, in person, and underwent an oral examination administered by the trustees and the president. 

At this point I repair to Lee's account directly, as it is impossible to improve upon his version of the dreaded encounter: 

"He was first quizzed on the usual entrance subjects: the translating and parsing of Tully, Virgil, and the Greek Testament, and the rules of 'Vulgar Arithmetic.' In these the man was far advanced. The questions reached further and further into these subjects as the President had taught them to his Freshmen the year before. The elders then plied more boldly into his knowledge of English grammar, geography, the elements of chronology and history, algebra, geometry, the mensuration of superficies and solids, and conic sections. Petty's training in these Sophomore courses met the approval of the President, and the body adjourned to complete the test later. 

"The final examination session struck into trigonometry, navigation, surveying, natural philosophy, and astronomy.  Even in these subjects intended for the Junior year he had a passing knowledge. But scholarship was not sufficient for admission into Middlebury. And the brain-racking test took a more personal range. Every student 'shall produce satisfactory evidence of a blameless life and conversation.' The theological climate in which he would live was soon evident from the intimate cross-examination on the Origin of Sin, Free Will, Eternal Damnation, Wrath of God, Sabbath Observance, Punishment of Sinners, Sins of the Flesh. Such argumented morsels were meat for any conscientious youth. There was only one answer that they wanted and Petty knew it. 

"The President and Fellows indeed were proud of their undergraduate find. He soon learned that he was admitted into the senior class at Middlebury . . .

From that point on, Petty "recited" to the President twice a day, except on Sunday, and he also "disputed forensically" twice weekly in the chapel. Without question he was Atwater's prize pupil.

The year sped by, and as the appointed date for the first Commencement, Wednesday, August 18, 1802, drew nigh, both Town and College made elaborate plans and contemplated their execution with great pleasure.

Let us turn now to the pages of the Middlebury Mercury newspaper to learn more about those proceedings.

Again, I quote:

"An unusually large concourse of people attended, to witness the novel spectacle of the first Public Commencement in the State. At 9 o'clock, a procession, composed of students, members of the corporation, the president and officers of the College, and clergy, accompanied by a band of music, moved to the Court house; Col. John Chipman acting as officer of the day. The solemnities of the day were introduced with prayer by the president; to which succeeded the following exercises;

'An Oration on Imperfection;'

'An Oration on Taste;'

'A Colloquy on Duelling;'

'A Dialogue Showing the Effects of the Godwinian Philosophy;'

Instrumental Music

'A Greek Oration;'

'An Oration on Education;'

'A Dispute on the question, Ought civil government to support Religious Institutions;'

'An Oration on Man;'

'A Dialogue, exhibiting the just punishment attendant on Envy and Fraud.' "

Two degrees were then, at last, awarded.  The second, a degree of Master of Arts, was conferred upon Joel Doolittle, a graduate of Yale and a tutor of the College.  The first, a degree of Bachelor of Arts, the first baccalaureate degree awarded to a graduate of Middlebury College, was conferred upon Aaron Petty.

There was just one problem. Petty wasn't there. So rigorous had his senior year been that, as soon as it was over, he went home sick.  And in fact, in six months, he would be dead.

One local wag is reported to have said, "They graduate a class without the class." But Petty's absence would not stand in the way of a day, and a night, of grand celebration. The Commencement Ball that evening turned out the cream of local society for the minuet and also the quadrille, the reel, and, for more scandalously modern Terpsichorean tastes, the waltz. 

Now the first thought to arise in those of us in possession of modern sensibilities is likely to be, "how tasteless, how inconsiderate, how ... insensitive!" In fact, we may spend a bit too much of our precious time seeking occasion to express such feelings. A closer look from a greater distance, suggests a different interpretation. To be sure, Aaron Petty was to have been the honored human participant in these proceedings. His absence might have led the trustees just to call everything off – out of sensitivity toward the absentee. But they didn't. Wisely they didn't. They went ahead. They called conspicuous attention to Aaron Petty's achievement, read his name, and awarded his degree.  But they also went on with all the rest of the planned ceremonies – because this event was not just about Aaron Petty.  It was also about Middlebury College.  And it acknowledged the painful truth that students, faculty, even presidents, may come and go, but the College goes on and, though at any given moment the sum of its student and alumni parts, understands its larger, transcendent, existence and purpose – that is why exercises were held even in the absence of a graduate.

And that is why we are reminded that though we may find ourselves fleetingly the centers of attention this weekend, we are in fact a part, only a part, of something larger. Aaron Petty simply happened to be the first in a long line of Middlebury graduates, who now number more than 23,000. This weekend you take your own places in that line.

Or, to change the metaphor: at your opening Convocation I spoke to you about the process of "twigging," or grafting, and of how over the next 4 years you would be attaching yourselves to the sturdy, now 202 year-old trunk of the tree that is Middlebury College. Or, to quote Auden, "to twig from what we are not what we might be next." You have now established a firm and lasting bond with this College, and you have at least begun to create, as a result of that graft, whatever it is you might be next.

Auden understood the law of unintended consequences.  And as we look beyond this present moment into the unfolding of your own lives and careers, we could do worse than repair to the oratorical themes of that first Commencement – not, perhaps, to dueling or Godwinian Philosophy or government support of religious institutions, timely as those topics in the age of modern sensitivity might in fact be – but rather to the subject of the first oration, "Imperfection," and then to the subject of most enduring importance, "Education," and then to that of the last, "the just punishment attendant on Envy and Fraud."

IMPERFECTION

First, Imperfection. The French traveler Tocqueville was struck as he toured America in the early nineteenth century by the remarkable impulse to perfection, or perfectibility, he witnessed. The Constitution, after all, sought to create a "more perfect Union." And that was just the beginning.

The Americans, Tocqueville wrote, "have all a lively faith in the perfectibility of man ... They all consider society as a body in a state of improvement, humanity as a changing scene, in which nothing is, or ought to be, permanent, and they admit that what appears to them today to be good may be superseded by something better tomorrow."

Human beings in general, New Englanders, perhaps, in particular, have always been pretty good detectors of imperfection – in others.  This could, but won't, lead us to meditate upon the doctrine of original sin, nor will it take us to the famous scriptural admonition to attend to the beam in our own eye before seeking to remove the mote from that of our brother.

All of us have been made acutely aware in this past year that we live in an imperfect world. Not surprisingly, we have sought to identify the causes, the sources of that imperfection, and we have been tempted to assert with certainty how to make our world less imperfect – thereby, if we take a step backward, behaving precisely like the imperfect human beings we are.

Benjamin Franklin had it right.  We should doubt a little, each of us, in our own infallibility. We should remind ourselves that the first glimpse of imperfection we catch each morning occurs when we look in the mirror. Humility can do a soul a world of good and give the world a purer soul. As you make you way through life, try to make the world a better place, but do not insist upon perfection, in yourselves or in others. Seek only to make things a bit less imperfect.  Learn, as Faulkner so wisely writes, to love not because;  learn to love despite, a much more durable form of love.

EDUCATION

Next, education. It would be far too extravagant a claim to state that education is the best antidote to the indiscriminate exercise of human weakness. There is too much evidence to suggest that, in fact, some of the greatest injustices in history have been perpetrated by highly educated individuals.  And, reluctant as we may be to admit it, arrogance and intolerance are not found only among those of little or no education. The error, I think, is in believing that once you walk across the stage tomorrow your education has stopped.  It is those who have ceased to be willing to learn who are most to be feared and least to be trusted.  "Not a having and a resting," writes Matthew Arnold, "but a growing and a becoming is the character of perfection as culture conceives it." If we are to aspire to an ever higher degree of imperfection, in other words, we must realize the obligation each of us has as educated men and women to continue to learn, to broaden the limited reach of our own understanding, and never to be content, as Arnold put it, with "having" or "resting." Even Aaron Petty, brief as his life turned out to be, never stopped trying to learn more. And so, to risk descent into the realm of the cliché, keep in mind why we call this weekend Commencement. It is indeed a beginning, a beginning of a life of informed citizenship, which imposes upon you, because of the gift of education you have received in this place, an obligation to learn as much as you can for as long as you can, and never to think you know it all.

ENVY AND FRAUD

Which brings us to our final topics, envy and fraud.  These may seem to you improbable, if not downright inappropriate, subjects on such an occasion as this.  But in fact, we might be more mindful of the presence of these tendencies in modern life than we have been.  In my more cynical moments, which happily, because I have been on leave, are less frequent these days, I am tempted to think of how, as a History professor, I might create a context for understanding the political history of the last half of the twentieth century by characterizing that period, in partisan terms, as a contest between the forces of envy, on the one hand, and those of fraud, on the other (I will leave to you the making of particular partisan associations). In fact, I do not believe this to be the best way to understand politics, even though I also believe the characterization accurate for the most extreme, and most vocal, of those who somehow manage to stake a claim to our attention.

But, lest we inadvertently demonstrate the very sort of imperfection in this analysis to which education ought to be an inoculant, let us be reminded that envy and fraud on a lesser, more personal, scale are also still too much with us. "It is in the character of very few men," writes Aeschylus, "to honor without envy a friend who has prospered." As you seek to make yourselves less imperfect, set goals, measure your success in terms of how close you come to attaining those goals, but do not allow someone else to determine the worthiness of your own goals, and above all do not allow someone else's measure of success to become your own. The peace in your hearts at the end of the day will be more perfect if you are at peace with yourself. Pursue success, and, when you attain it, enjoy it, but celebrate also the successes of your friends and colleagues, and don't assume that theirs comes at the expense of yours. And, if you are successful, remember also the obligation to give something back, in thanksgiving for your own good fortune, and in recognition of the reality that you have not made it entirely on your own.

And finally, fraud. There is nothing more precious, or more fragile, than what in other times was known as "your good name." We are less willing these days to speak about such things as "character" or to think that the educational environments we create should have the strengthening of character as part of their purpose. I am not talking here about handbooks and rules, which have only thickened and proliferated over time, and which don't really speak to what we ought to mean by character. I mean rather a sense of community responsibility, based upon trust and common values, which assume that members of the community will behave honorably in the absence of laws, rules, guidelines, oversight committees, and penalty boards. To envision such a place is perhaps to dream a utopian dream.  But each time, in your lives, when someone says, "better call the lawyers," or "better check the handbook," or "better create a new regulation to keep THAT from happening again," challenge that person. Character, it is said, is what you do when no one is looking.  Lincoln once invoked, at a time of real crisis, the "better angels of our nature." Give those angels some room to work, in yourselves and others. That is how character is nurtured.

We expect much of you. May you seek to set your feet on lofty places. And may you from time to time lift your eyes to these hills, from whose strength generations of Middlebury men and women have drawn confidence, courage and hope.

Lest we become too sober, I close with a story to send you on your way.  Former President Lyndon Johnson has become the subject of much historical study recently. This "flawed giant," as one historian has described him, was indeed larger than life, and sometimes overreached.  My friend and predecessor Olin Robison is fond of telling this Lyndon Johnson story, with which I will conclude.

Johnson did not like to speak from a prepared text.  He preferred to have a stack of 3x5 index cards with "bullet points," out of which he would create sentences and paragraphs.  One day he was scheduled to speak in the Rose Garden, and he asked his staff to prepare a set of cards that would allow him to articulate his vision for a Great Society at home and peace in the world. One staffer chafed at the difficulty in making such a case persuasively, but he fulfilled the task as best he could, and handed the cards to the President as he stepped out of the Oval Office.

"I believe," Johnson began, "that it is possible to end poverty as we know it and raise the standard of living for all Americans, and I will tell you how."

Next card. "I believe," he continued, "that it is possible to bring justice to all Americans, and I will tell you how." 

Next card. "I believe," his voice raised, " that it is even possible to win the war in Vietnam while retaining the support of Americans at home and our friends abroad, and I will tell you how." 

Last card. On it was written, "OK Lyndon, you're on your own." 

OK, Class of 2002. You're on your own. We shall not forget you. And we wish you well, until we meet again.