UpDate - Vol. 13, No. 1, Page 9
September 2, 1993
James R. Soles introduces Delaware to Class of 1997
James R. Soles, Distinguished Alumni Professor and chairperson of the
Department of Political Science and International Relations, was featured
speaker at the Aug. 31 New Student Convocation. Held on the Mall, the
ceremony welcomed the members of the Class of 1997 and returning alumni
from the Class of 1947 at the beginning of the 1993-94 academic year. His
remarks are printed below.
We assemble today in convocation to celebrate and confirm your
membership in this University. We also honor distinguished scholarship by
presentation of the Francis Alison Award and distinguished leadership by
bestowal of the University Medal of Merit. As we engage in these important
tasks, we reaffirm for each member of this community the common commitment
to learning and to what Thomas Jefferson called the "illimitable freedom of
the human mind."
We are glad that you have joined us, for it is with this annual
renewal that we keep faith with those who have preceded us and hold ready
the future for those who shall follow us.
Forty years ago this week I sat in convocation as a member of the
class of l957 at Florida State University.
I cheerfully confess that I had chosen FSU for two simple reasons: the
tuition was $75 a semester and until very recently it had been Florida
State College for Women. Because it had so recently become coeducational,
there were nine times as many young women as young men on the campus. I
felt a compelling duty, as any patriotic, red-blooded American male of 18
would, to do my part to help equalize those numbers. It is a decision I
have never regretted. There I met the young woman who graces my life to
this day. There also I encountered professors, teachers touched by
greatness, who taught me the labor and the love of learning.
To most of America, FSU is symbolized by the Seminoles who defeated
Kansas 42-zip last Saturday. But to those of us privileged to be their
students, FSU will forever be profs. Vinalia Lavina Shores, Anna Forbes
Liddell and Marian D. Irish.
Prof. Shores taught us all that industry is the first ingredient in
learning by the simple expedient of giving us a 30-page, single-spaced
suggested reading list.
Anna Forbes Liddell taught us to examine and question everything.
"Don't," she said, "let your love go wrong."
Marian D. Irish, taught us, by action and example, that learning must
be characterized by integrity, commitment, and courage; and informed by
compassion, humor and reverence for life itself.
Whatever your reasons for coming here, I hope you will experience the
labor and the love of learning that lies at the heart of this institution.
Delaware, like my alma mater, possesses a host of extraordinary teachers
who understand that learning is the human vocation.
Immediately behind this platform is Memorial Hall, so named because it
was built as this state's memorial to all of its citizens who died in World
War I. It was a library constructed only at great sacrifice. But those who
labored to realize their goal, understood well what every library
symbolizes: the uniquely human capacity to learn and to preserve learning.
Libraries, as depositories of learning, are the outward and visible sign of
civilization.
The great classicist Gilbert Highet summed it up best when he wrote,
"Thinking. Learning, remembering, knowing, imagining and creating new
ideas, preserving and communicating knowledge over distances in time and
space. Not only is it wonderful in its compass and variety. It is unique.
It makes us human."
Prof. Vinalia Shores, with her 30-page reading list, provided me with
an early and firm introduction to the library.
Dr. Anna Forbes Liddell . . . in her course on the Greek philosophers,
taught us equally well that we alone have the power to examine our lives
and make choices of how we shall live them. And she would say, time and
time again, summing up profound philosophical truth in her own grand way:
"Don't let your love go wrong." Question. Question. Question. Accept
nothing. Question.
We meet today on ground made sacred by those who have proceeded us in
this place. To your right, in front of Mitchell Hall, is a memorial stone
bearing the names of the alumni of this institution who gave their lives in
World War II, that we, their heirs, might assemble here today in freedom.
We are embraced on all sides by buildings: Sharp, Du Pont, Robinson,
Hullihen, Drake, Mitchell, Brown.
They bear the names of those who gave of their substance, their
ability and their vision to create this University. In these buildings we
continue the pursuit and dissemination of knowledge that have been the work
of our institution since its founding 250 ago.
Now you join us in the quest to know. But knowledge for what?
Jefferson was specific about it when he outlined the goals of his
academic village: Knowledge, he said, to form the leadership "on whom
public prosperity and individual happiness are much to depend."
He went on to note that universities should "expound the principles
and structure of government"; should "harmonize and promote the interests
of agriculture, manufactures and commerce"; should "develop the reasoning
faculties of our youth, enlarge their minds, cultivate their morals and
instill in them the precepts of virtue and order"; should "enlighten them
with mathematical and physical sciences,....advance the arts and administer
to the health, the subsistence and comforts of human life."
He concluded by asserting that these things should in turn, lead to
individuals' "happiness within themselves." Later this morning President
Roselle will introduce our colleges: I believe you will find we have met
Jefferson's challenge.
Learning may be well justified by itself, in the sheer exhilaration of
discovery and creation and the delight of study and mastery. But Jefferson
saw education as the essential ingredient for self-governance and human
happiness. To use one's learning for those ends is an unenforceable
obligation: one that each of us may assume, one that can never be assigned.
As Dr. Liddell would say, "Don't let your love go wrong."
And here, where we sit and stand, have been freely debated the
enduring values of a democratic republic: human freedom, human equality and
human dignity. In debate and in demonstration, in argument and in anger,
the issues surrounding those basic values have been confronted.
These towering trees have witnessed vigils to support human rights,
peaceful anti-war protests, civil disobedience in pursuit of racial
equality, free speech demonstrations, memorial services, street theatre in
support of sexual minorities, Take Back the Night rallies, union actions
and support for military engagements.
And, appropriately so, for diversity of opinion and ardent debate are
the avenues through which we approach truth. They are our best guarantees
of self-government and of human happiness.
The great Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes warned us that,
"Those who do not enter into the battles and passions of their times may be
judged by history not to have lived at all."
But that is that matter of examining and making choices, that matter
of unenforceable obligation again, that matter of question; accept nothing;
question.
And ultimately, as Jefferson wrote to his nephew Peter Carr, "You are
to judge... by your own reason."
But these trees have also witnessed the best Frisbee-catching dogs in
America, a quartet of wild tubas in celebration of Blue Hen football
victories, Halloween clowns and orangutans, some late and loud and
all-too-happy singing, and on one St. Patrick's day, the student who
painted himself green and dressed only in a ski mask streaked the Mall in a
remarkable, if chilly, celebration of the day. Even lovers have been known
to pass this way. You have come to a very special place. But you have come
to no ivory tower, free from the world. Here we labor. Here we question.
Here we choose.
Here you embrace the whirlwind of diversity and debate. "For it is our
job," Marian Irish says, "like Socrates before us, to stir up things
endlessly."--Don't let your love go wrong. Good luck. Go to it.