I think the University of Maryland, in the program we have here and
in other parts of the world, has done a great deal to bring our country
and its citizens closer to the peoples of other lands. And I hope that our
work abroad has served to stimulate a respect and warm feeling of others
toward us. If we had accomplished this and nothing more, we would
have been well rewarded for our efforts.

ADDRESS, UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND

COMMENCEMENT EXERCISES

COLLEGE PARK

June 6, 1959

I often think that the students in our colleges and universities today
must be both flattered and bewildered by the attention they receive from
those of us on the outside. At every turn, they are told that the fate of
the world rests precariously on their shoulders. This is a departure from
the older concepts of the student's role in society., and could be annoying
to everyone concerned were it not for the heavy element of truth it
contains.

Not many years ago, it was customary on commencement day to
shower the graduates with platitudes on success and progress, give them
a healthy pat on the back and wish them a speedy success in business so
that they might return within a very few years with a pocket full of
money to support the football team. But these good days are gone, and
gone beyond recall, I suspect. It is the fashion nowadays for the com-
mencement speaker to recite all the woes of the world and to advise the
young men and women before him that it is their awful responsibility to
abate them. "We haven't done at all well, " we say, "and therefore if we
are to keep the good life we have inherited, you must help us out. " Ah
yes, it is true, we do wish them all the success—monetary and otherwise—
they seek, while at the time the thought races in counterpoint through
our mind: "It's not going to be so easy as you think friends. "

I do not believe—and I think you do not either—that speakers,
writers and others who prod you and belabor you with problems do so
because they dislike you and want to make the moment unpleasant for
you. As adept as some of us are in the art, we would prefer not to bore
you.

The plain fact is that we are in trouble. We do desperately need
assistance and those of you who are recipients of the best education we

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