Do your best and then some, historian urges Class of 2001

Distinguished historian David McCullough, whose just-published book, John Adams, is already a best-seller, delivered the address at the University of Delaware's 152nd Commencement, held Saturday, May 26, in Delaware Stadium. McCullough, whose honors include the Pulitzer Prize, two National Book Awards and the prestigious Francis Parkman Prize, is also well-known for his work on public television, serving as host of The American Experience and narrating the award-winning documentary series The Civil War.

These remarks are printed with his permission.

President Roselle, [Delaware] Gov. Minner, distinguished trustees, alumni, members of the faculty, parents, grandparents, friends of the University and you of the great Class of 2001, I thank you for the honor to take part in this thrilling occasion.

On the night of July 1 and 2, 1776, as so many of you know, the immortal Caesar Rodney traveled 80 miles through the night to arrive in Philadelphia to cast the decisive vote for the Declaration of Independence. He went, as it says at the foot of the bronze statue in Rodney Square, despite thunder and rain. You, in the great tradition of Delaware, have turned out today, despite thunder and rain. So, let the record show that at the appointed hour, on the appointed day, Saturday, May 26, 2001, Newark, Del., 39 degrees 41 minutes north, 75 degrees 45-1/2 minutes west, you were here!

Did you know that every time you vow not to budge an inch or accuse someone of green-eyed jealousy or claim to be in a pickle or to have laughed yourself to stitches, you are quoting Shakespeare? Did you know that every time you say, "Every dog has his day" or "Mum's the word," you are quoting Don Quixote? It was Cervantes in Don Quixote in the 17th century who first observed that "birds of a feather flock together," that a "closed mouth catches no flies" and that "honesty's the best policy." If you find yourself saying "to err is human" or "fools rush in where angels fear to tread," you're mouthing lines from the great 18th-century poet Alexander Pope. "To err is human," Pope wrote in his essay on criticism and in that same poem declared, "a little learning is a dangerous thing," which is said, commonly enough, but unfortunately without including the next line, which is "drink deep of learning, drink deep."

Did you know that the population of the largest city in the Colonies in 1776, Philadelphia, had all of 30,000 people? Or, that when the British landed their military might on Staten Island in the same week as the Declaration of Independence, the number of British troops was 32,000--more troops than the largest city in the entire American Colonies? Did you know that the oldest written constitution still in use in the world today predates our national constitution by a full decade? It is the constitution of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Did you know that only one of the founding fathers, just one, never owned a slave? That was John Adams. All the others owned slaves.

Did you know that we have no portrait of Caesar Rodney? The statue in Rodney Square is a handsome piece, but it probably bears little resemblance to the great man himself. John Adams, however, in his diary at Philadelphia, described him as the oddest-looking man in the world: slender as a reed, pale, his face not bigger than a large apple. Yet, he wrote, "There is sense and fire, spirit, wit and humor in his countenance." May it ever be for you of the Class of 2001 that you have sense and fire, spirit and wit and humor in your countenance.

Rodney's face was partly eaten away by cancer. He was extremely ill and would ultimately die of the disease, but in the last part of his life--still serving in the government--he said that he would keep on in the business of--the painful business of--beating down, defeating his disease: "I am determined to persevere." May each of you in your time of difficulty, when things are going against you, be determined to persevere.

I know all of these things because I have been working on a book about the life of John Adams--the same years that you have been doing what you have done, the hard work, the achievement you've arrived at in the four years or more of your work here at the University of Delaware. As you've been learning, I've been learning about a century in a time that I knew little or nothing about prior to beginning my work.

I have encountered some of the most impressive people that I have ever known anything about, but I must stress they were all human beings. None was a god. None was superhuman. And, the fact that they were human beings--with failings, flaws, the human weaknesses we all know--makes what they achieved all the greater. And, to deny them their humanity, to see them as gods, is not just a mistake; it's to take away the glory of what they accomplished as flawed, failed, but very brave and idealistic human beings.

John Quincy Adams at age 12 was about to sail with his father on a ship to Europe in the midst of the war. I'd like to read to you what his mother wrote to him. Abigail Adams wrote to him to boost his spirits, to give him a sense of taking part in one of history's great turning points. He had sailed once before with his father in a terrifying, storm-tossed voyage that left him terrified of the sea for much of the rest of his life. Here is what she said to him, as he was about to embark again at age 12:

"These are the times in which a genius would wish to live. It is not in the still calm of life or the repose of a pacific station that great characters are formed. The habits of a vigorous mind are formed in contending with difficulties. Great necessities call out great virtues. When a mind is raised and animated by scenes that engage the heart, then those qualities which would otherwise lay dormant, waken to life and form the character of the hero and the statesman."

Sometime later, when she herself had gone to Europe to join her husband in his diplomatic work after the Revolution was over and Abigail learned that John Quincy, who had since returned to attend Harvard, was acting a little too full of himself, a little too impressed by his own opinions, she wrote the following letter to him, which in many ways is a better guide to life even than what she had written earlier:

"If you are conscious to yourself that you possess more knowledge upon some subjects than others of your standing, reflect that you have had greater opportunities of seeing the world and obtaining a knowledge of mankind than any of your contemporaries; that you have never wanted a book but it has been supplied to you; that your whole time has been spent in the company of men of literature and science. How unpardonable would it have been of you to have turned out a blockhead."

One of the most obvious lessons of history is that there is no such thing as a self-made man or woman. We are all the beneficiaries of those who have helped us, who've guided us, who've nudged us in different directions when we needed that nudging, who have encouraged and inspired us. And, I include in that, those who went before us, those figures from the past to whom we owe so much.

You, too, like John Quincy Adams, have had opportunities unlike most people in the world. You, too, have never wanted a book. You, too, have spent your time in the company of men of literature and science, and you, too, I have no doubt, will not wind up a blockhead.

You of the Class of 2001 are needed. We need you. We need your energy, your ability, your ideas, your idealism--your idealism especially.

Somewhere along the line, perhaps not very long from now, you will be embarked on your new undertaking, your new work, and someone, perhaps someone well-meaning but more likely someone in a somewhat skeptical or cynical tone is going to say, "Well, welcome to the new world, welcome to the real world." The real world. Remember, please, that Beethoven and Botticelli are the real world; that Willa Cather and George Gershwin are the real world; that great libraries and symphony halls are the real world; that this University is the real world. Poetry, music, painting, architecture, philosophy, the world of the spirit and of the mind are the real world.

Have the courage, please, to employ your own fundamental common sense. "Prize friendship, prize honesty, pay heed to the helmsman within," as Marcus Aurelius wrote. That voice within that tells you, that knows right from wrong. Write letters; pick up a pen, a pencil; write a letter; write a letter to your father, your mother, someone you haven't seen for years. Learn to work out your thoughts on paper. Write, because writing focuses the mind as nothing else you can do.

And, whenever you check out, before you check out, of a hotel or a motel, leave a tip for the maid. Always, always tip the maid.

When you get down--and you will--about the state of society or the level of intellectual attainment in the modern helter-skelter culture of so much of America, take heart from the fact that there are still more public libraries in this country than there are McDonald's.

Choose carefully the path you follow. Think, think long and hard about the work you pursue, because we become what we do. What you are at the end of your working life will depend, will have been shaped very much by, how you have spent
your working life.

Read. Read, read, read. Read history, read biography, read poetry. Carry a book with you wherever you go on your travels. Always have a book in your saddlebag, so to speak. John Adams, in writing to his son, once wrote, "You will never be alone with a poet in your pocket." And, for heaven's sake, don't leave off reading Don Quixote as I did, until you are past the age of 50.

Good luck to you. God bless you. Warmest congratulations to you all, you graduates. This is a thrilling day. This is your day. This marks great, hard work and real achievement. This is an occasion that celebrates something that really is true, solid and important, a turning point in life but also a clear approval of genuine accomplishment. And, your education is just about to begin.

Do your best and then some. And, sometime, somewhere along the way, in some form or other, do something for your country.

On you go.