Equally warmly I welcome parents, other relatives, and friends who have come along to lessen the apprehensions that our freshmen might have. For many parents this is not the easiest of tasks, since they themselves are full of apprehension about this rite of passage and great adventure and about what lies ahead for their daughters and sons. I understand this from personal experience. As somebody once said in what has become my favorite mixed metaphor: "The future is an uncharted sea full of potholes."
Whatever the future may hold, there can be no doubt that the class of 1998 represents the next chapter in Stanford's history - a history that now stretches back over more than one hundred previous classes and more than one hundred years. By comparison with some universities, one hundred years does not seem long. The University of Paris, for instance, dates back all the way to the 12th century. However, what really matters in a university's history, I think, are commitment and continuity. Stanford University is an institution that has benefited from commitment and that has been handed down from one generation of faculty and one generation of students to the next. Now you are the "next," the new chapter in our history. It is the faculty, students, trustees, alumni, and local, national, and worldwide friends whose active engagement has made Stanford University a collective intellectual and moral effort - in short, an institution whose age is not so much expressed by the number of years of its formal existence, but by the intensity of commitment and the continuity of a tradition.
You are surrounded by the physical expression of that tradition as we have gathered here this morning in the historic Main Quadrangle outside Mem Chu - which does not refer to a Chinese dynasty but is the affectionate Stanford abbreviation for "Memorial Church," whose iconography belies the nonsectarian spirit that has characterized Stanford from its very beginning. It was just over there to your right, under the tall West Portal, that our founders, Leland and Jane Stanford, stood to welcome Stanford's first entering class of men and women on a similarly bright morning one hundred and three years ago. The first president of Stanford, David Starr Jordan, thought that the "fine buildings" forming the main and outer quadrangles are the most beautiful that ever housed a university. In a letter dating from 1913, President Jordan wrote: "The yellow sandstone arches and cloisters, the 'red- tiled roofs against the azure sky', make a picture that can never be forgotten, itself an integral part of a Stanford education."
In 1989, Antenna 2, the French television channel, broadcast a 90-minute program about Stanford. A French television magazine published a review in which it referred to the conditions at Stanford as "paradise." The magazine also said: "If one believes what one sees, Stanford is the modern incarnation of the abbey of Theleme as it had been imagined by Rabelais. Organized, constructed and laid out like a real town, it is an island of liberty in the sole service of learning and knowledge." The French television reviewer could hardly have known that a "city of learning" was indeed how our founders Leland and Jane Stanford, and the architects Frederick Olmstead and Charles Coolidge, thought about the university when it was projected.
Francois Rabelais, the 16th-century French humanist, doctor, and author of romances, developed the notion of the abbey of Theleme in one of his novels. The abbey was the very opposite of a traditional monastery. It was coeducational, substituted self-discipline for obedience, and its inhabitants were, "lively, jovial, handsome, brisk . . . witty, frolic, cheerful . . . frisk." Those not permitted to enter were "vile bigots, hypocrites, base pinching usurers, fomenters of divisions and debates," and, I confess in spite of my legal background, "attorneys, barristers, bridle-champing law practitioners." The abbey was devoted to men and women who used reason, quote, "to see the clearer."
I hope that - lively, jovial, witty, cheerful as you are - you also have come to "Stanford-Theleme" to use reason "to see the clearer."
A few years ago, I am told, on one of those posted maps on campus that helpfully indicate "You are here," a student had added "Yes, but why?" I should like to use my time this morning to consider the "But why?"
However, before we explore why you are here, let us establish why Stanford is here. First of all, Stanford's being here has a lot do with perseverance and determination. When Senator Stanford and his wife Jane lost their fifteen-year-old only child, Leland Jr., in 1884, they decided to use their wealth to do something for, "other people's" children. It was this act that led to the opening of our university on the 1st of October, 1891. When, only two years later, after Senator Stanford's death in 1893, the financial situation of the university became highly uncertain, Jane Stanford rejected the recommendation of her legal and financial advisors to close the university, at least temporarily: The university was to go on, no matter what happened to anything else. When, in 1906, the San Francisco earthquake caused much damage, President David Starr Jordan said: "[T]he doors of this institution shall never close." It was Jordan who had been largely responsible for the successful establishment of a university of "high degree." When, in the post World War II period, Wallace Sterling and Fred Terman, then president and provost, saw new opportunities for university research, they seized them with imagination and determination, pushing Stanford to a new plane and contributing greatly to the growth of Silicon Valley in addition.
Why is Stanford here, I mean here on the Peninsula? Because here Senator Stanford bred and raised championship horses on thousands of acres that he deeded over to the new university. Of that past two things remain: a building known as the Red Barn and the fact that many people refer to Stanford as "the Farm."
Why is Stanford flourishing? Because, as I mentioned at the beginning, of the continuing commitment of faculty, students, trustees, alumni, and friends. Stanford is flourishing because many of your predecessors, now alumni, have felt and presently feel a moral obligation to give something back to Stanford - and whose support thereby helps you and future generations to obtain the benefits that come from the pursuit of knowledge. Tuition has never in the past covered, nor will it ever cover, the full cost of a college education. One day, Stanford will therefore call on you, too, to display the same sense of moral obligation that our alumni now show on your behalf.
The question "Why are you here?" can be broken down into four subquestions: "Why are you in college?", "Why are you in college at Stanford?", "Why should you be in college?", and, finally, "Why should you be at Stanford?"
"Why are you in college?"
In the United States, college and a bachelor's degree are the prerequisite for most better-paying jobs and for admission to other courses of study in the sciences, humanities, law, medicine, business, public policy, education, divinity, what have you. Let us therefore be realistic: One reason you are in college is that you have little choice if you want to advance further. And while this is a fact neither you nor I should ignore or can do much about, I urge you to think of college not just as preparatory, as a means to an end, but as an end in itself.
In the United States, college also is a rite of passage - a fairly low- keyed and civilized rite of passage, but still a rite of passage from home to one's future. I read the other day a poem by Ivor Winters, a former member of Stanford's English department, which depicts the scene between parent and college-bound child at an airport. Let me quote its second stanza:
And you are here beside me, small,
Contained and fragile, and intent
On things that I but half recall -
Yet going whither you are bent.
I am the past, and that is all.
As a parent who has gone through the experience, I can assure both parents and children that the last line "I am the past, and that is all" will in reality not be the last line. However, college will challenge the familiar, will challenge prejudices, and even values, will create uncertainties, will lead to new ways of relating to one another. Its mostly residential character, its diversity, its emphasis on socialization and peer interaction, in the eyes of many, make the college environment, as distinguished from the college curriculum, a formative and formidable experience that is valued in its own right, independently of any academic purposes. The danger is obviously that college becomes prized mostly as "the undergraduate experience." One reason you are here, anthropologically speaking, is that experience. However, it is only one reason and it is not the reason anybody invokes to justify tuition. Again, I urge you to remember that the rite of passage is only an effect, and not the cause, of your going away from home to further your education.
I should like to turn now to the second version of the question "Why are you here?" - that is, "Why are you in college at Stanford?" Alas, this question I cannot possibly answer because I don't know why you chose Stanford. Each one of you will have come here for a different reason or a different set of reasons.
Three weeks ago, at the Stanford Sierra Camp, near Lake Tahoe, I had lunch with six Stanford students whom I asked why they had chosen Stanford. Many of you will recognize their answers. "Because of Stanford's academic reputation," "Because of the spirit and the excitement of the place," "Because of what my high school teacher said," "Because of the intelligence and integrity of Stanford students," "Because Stanford let me in," "Because I am an outdoor person" (which must mean "because Stanford lets me out"), "Because of the reputation of the History Department," "Because Stanford gave me more money," "Because most classes are relatively small," "Because of the people I met at Pro Fro," "Because of my parents," "Because of the weather," "Because of an older cousin," "Because the other university I was considering is too big and anonymous," "Because Stanford students seem to be really happy to be here," "Because of the athletics," "Because of the mix of students from all backgrounds, all parts of the country, and from abroad," and so on. All these reasons are, of course, perfectly legitimate. However, I should like to alert you to what one of my lunch companions stressed. She said: "The reason I had for coming to Stanford is not the reason why I continue to be at Stanford." For you, too, the reasons for being at Stanford are likely to change or be augmented over the next few years. That is not only natural, but desirable.
Now, "Why should you be here?" As I mentioned, I should like to consider this question in a general and a specific version. The general question is "Why should you be in college?" The specific question is "Why should you be in college at Stanford?"
College education cannot be reduced to one single purpose nor is there a single view of the matter. The view I present to you is my personal view, informed by my own educational experiences both as a student and as a teacher, informed by numerous discussions I have had with Stanford students and Stanford alumni over the last two years, and - last but not least - informed also by the forthcoming report of the Stanford Commission on Undergraduate Education. Why should you be in college?
First, you should be in college to learn better how "to use reason to see the clearer." That, as I have mentioned, was the formulation Rabelais used for the abbey of Theleme. "To use reason to see the clearer." To see what? To see nature. To see the world we live in - and when I say "world," I mean the term literally: We are not and cannot be isolated from other countries, civilizations, cultures. To see our own country the clearer: How can it be thought possible to live in the United States without a thorough understanding of our history, our government, the political theories that underlie it, our institutions, our own pluralistic culture, and also our failures? To see the clearer where we have come from, where we are, where we are going. To see the clearer your own lives and the endeavors you will pursue in the future.
The ability "to use reason" is more customarily expressed in terms of "thinking critically and writing clearly." Unless one is equipped to reason independently and critically, no accumulation of facts will add up to a sufficient education. To think critically, you have to master the very tools of thought and analysis, such as logic and the scientific method, including the language of mathematics.
Second, I should like to give independent status to the need to be critical. At a time when vast data are literally available at your fingertips by means of information technology, I urge you, I implore you, to be critical. Remember that many of the data you will be able to call up in a few seconds' time are spurious. An error-ridden newspaper article does not become any more accurate by being included in a data base. The point is applicable to all other forms of so-called information. "Garbage in, garbage out" may be the most important adage to remind oneself of in the information technology age.
However, there is a deeper point here that is not new but has always been applicable to the search for truth. I have a physicist friend who once said to me: "The love of truth implies that one must search not just for evidence, but for the counterevidence as well. We have to discover our own mistakes." In short, the love of truth means being rigorous.
You should be in college to receive, in the words of David Starr Jordan, "a practical education which can be made effective in life." He went on to say: "An education which takes but little time and less effort, and leads at once to a paying situation, is not practical. It is not good, because it will never lead to anything better. There is nothing more practical than knowledge, nothing more unpractical than ignorance."
While it is a cliche, covering kindergarten through graduate school, to stress the need to teach students how to think, you must have something to think with or to think about. College generally offers a two-tier curriculum, made up of a general education component and a disciplinary concentration. The great challenge for the curriculum is to allow students sufficient freedom to explore other disciplines while, at the same time, satisfying the extensive and precise requirements of their area of specialization. Stanford will rethink this challenge as it considers the recommendations from the Commission on Undergraduate Education. My point to you is a simple one: seize the day in acquiring a general and specialist knowledge. You are not likely to be offered this opportunity ever again quite as liberally as it lies now in front of you. Remember the old saying: "Any job worth doing, is worth doing well."
You should be in college to become aware of the cultural context within which your search to know takes place. College gives you the chance to acquire, to cite the Commission on Undergraduate Education, the comparative perspective and critical capacity that come from studying the history, values, and ideas of at least one other culture. To develop any kind of meaningful appreciation for another culture, one must engage in a serious effort to learn about language, history, literature, and art. Incidentally, herein lies the main reason why you should be truly proficient in another language: not to meet a language requirement, but to gain the appreciation that comes with the ability to read a newspaper, to hold a spontaneous discussion, to swim freely in the waters of another culture.
You should be in college to meet "strangers" - your fellow students, your faculty, other members of the university's staff, the alumni. You have a few wonderful years ahead of you at Stanford when you can talk extensively with these "strangers," befriend them. There will be new strangers waiting for you every year. The university and your fellow students, both undergraduate and graduate, offer you rich intellectual opportunities to explore and understand the many faces of diversity, here and abroad. Look around you: Among the people in the audience are many of the friends that you will make in the next few years and that will stay with you for the rest of your lives.
You should be in college to question fundamental assumptions and practices, not just those of others, but also your own. I am referring especially to the clarification of values. The university environment does not stand for moral relativism, but, as Thomas Hill has put it, for moral humility, for understanding the contingent nature of many, though by no means all, values. Last spring's commencement speaker, Stephen Carter of Yale University, discussed moral humility by referring to "the depressing rhetoric of demonization" that characterizes present-day political and moral discourse. He also referred to the fact that moral certainty can be horribly oppressive. "After all," as Professor Carter put it, "Pol Pot and the perpetrators of the Inquisition were morally certain, too." Lack of moral humility also is rather tiresome and an impediment to the search to know. I received a letter the other day that protested the Medical School's choice of the Surgeon General of the United States as its graduation speaker last spring. The letter began with the words: "It is with total shock, nausea and disgust . . . ." After an opening of that kind, there is no room for disagreement and discussion.
You should be in college to take pleasure in the life of the mind and to get into a lifelong habit of inquiry. It is a cliche that your generation, more than its predecessors, will have to cope with the increasing speed with which some knowledge will become obsolete. While the prospect of obsolescence can be and is overstated, certainly your learning will not end with the bachelor's or even a graduate degree. As a philosopher once put it, what a person is in terms of physical health and intellectual independence matters much more than material possessions or social standing. The latter two can easily be taken away, while the pleasure one takes in the life of the mind does not disappear once it has become a habit. Some contemporary research even suggests that it delays aging.
Finally, I turn to the specific question "Why should you be at Stanford?"
First and foremost, because Stanford is one of the best universities in the world. Teaching, learning, and research do not benefit from stagnant air but from fresh winds blowing, from interaction with people who are at the frontier of their field in research. Yes, not everybody at Stanford is foremost a teacher; yes, a number of classes are taught by teaching assistants; yes, this is a very complex institution serving society in different ways. However, those of you who seize the initiative, and seek out the incredible range of opportunities that Stanford has to offer you across the entire spectrum of a full-blown university, will be rewarded in ways that are not easily matched anywhere. You must keep in mind, though, as the social theorist Robert Merton has observed: "[O]pportunity is probabilistic, not deterministic; it opens possibilities but does not assure their being realized." Therefore, realize the opportunities!
Second, you should be at Stanford because there continues here what one might call a "Western" spirit of pioneering, entrepreneurship, energy. While ivy can be found on campus, it is not the dominant plant. As Wallace Stegner, the great writer, said in his Founders' Day speech during the university's centennial year, 1991: "[I]t was not a new dream that the Stanfords tapped into. What made their enterprise special was its ambitious scale, its radical format, its non- denominational and coeducational character, and above all its location [in California]." There are so many enterprises open to you at Stanford: the Hopkins Marine Station in Monterey, Stanford-in- Washington, the incomparable archival collections of the Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace, the Stanford Symphony Orchestra - I would tire you if I gave anything approaching a complete list.
Third, you should be at Stanford because of the diversity it contains as expressed by any measure of academic achievement and interests, artistic and athletic accomplishments, ethnic and social backgrounds. Very few among you have graduated from a high school or lived in a community with such diversity. As you cross bridges to meet strangers at Stanford, the going will sometimes be rough. That, however, is part of the excitement that Stanford offers you.
Fourth, you should be at Stanford because of the opportunities it affords for public service, for instance, through the Haas Public Service Center. Members of a university community, whatever their views, must not shy away from the social and political issues of their time, from shaping the social and political values of society, from engaging in public service. Stanford's culture is very supportive of these endeavors. Pursuing them at a university provides a chance to make them as effective as possible by applying the same critical reasoning to public service that is otherwise prized in the university.
Fifth, you should be at Stanford because the institution believes in the Roman adage "a sound mind in a sound body." When I came to Stanford, a not insubstantial number of people were somewhat doubtful because my prior university experiences, beginning with my studies in Europe, had not exactly prepared me for leadership in collegiate athletics. What they did not comprehend is that even I can understand the philosopher who once wrote "a healthy beggar is happier than an ailing king."
Sixth, you should be at Stanford because of its location on the Pacific Rim and its international focus, as expressed by its faculty and students. Stanford's president even speaks with an accent (or so people allege). Our eight overseas campuses, of which I greatly hope you will avail yourselves, stretch from Europe to Latin America to Asia. The philosopher William James, at Founders' Day in 1906, prophetically thought of Stanford "in a century" as "devoted to truth, radiating influence, setting standards." He stressed then Stanford's potential for helping people in America and Asia understand one another better. Stanford, over the last century, has certainly mediated between America and Asia, though, to be sure, never restricted itself to these two continents.
Seventh, you should be at Stanford because of the setting we are in at this particular moment: the yellow sandstone arches and cloisters, the "red tile roofs against the azure sky." Take them as a symbol for what Stanford stands for. Stanford stands for common purpose, for fortitude, faith, and good cheer. (Yes, there is room for fun.) Stanford stands for the wind of freedom. It stands for diversity. It stands for generosity, for doing something for "other people's" sons and daughters. It stands for understanding the importance of higher education and its support. It stands for perseverance in adversity.
Stanford's motto "The wind of freedom blows" (Die Luft der Freiheit weht) was chosen by our first president after he had encountered the phrase in a biography of Ulrich von Hutten, a humanist who had lived from 1488 until 1523 and who, in the course of the 19th century, had captured the public imagination as an early fighter for secular freedom. I do believe that our motto sums up most everything I talked about this morning. In his own student days, at the height of the Renaissance, Hutten made an enthusiastic statement about the search to know. He wrote in a letter to a fellow humanist: "It is a pleasure to live. . . . Studies blossom and the minds move." I wish that you may fully experience the pleasures that come from studies blossoming and minds moving.
Welcome to the Farm, class of 1998!