GRADUATION, UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND 273

up and a bit more during the war in Europe. I knew life to be con-
siderate too, for this I learned in my own home and from my own
parents without having to wander to find it. I had the visions every
young man has... and they had to do with very real things like earn-
ing a college degree, finding satisfaction in my work, buying a home
and a car, and settling down to live a good life.

I thought this was enough.

But one day it wasn't. I can't tell you the day or the time or the
place that this actually happened, but one day that old corny cliche
caught up with me. "I wanted to do something more with my life. "
It was not enough to have a comfortable law practice... I wanted
to take on a bigger client.

I suppose the same kind of thing happens to most lawyers who enter
political life and to some doctors who find a prosperous practice sud-
denly disquieting and to some people in business who find themselves
disturbed when the cash register says they're supposed to be the most
happy. It happens to people like Nelson Rockefeller who are thought
too rich to need anything, and people like Averell Harriman who are
thought too esteemed to want to prove anything. Nobody tells any of
these people that they have to serve a calling or a cause. Nobody will
say an unkind word if they don't. The world is satisfied if you become
a sober citizen and mind your own business. It's only when you suc-
ceed in a big way that somebody will want to shoot you down; it's
breaking out of the pack that incites them to chase after you. It's not
easy wanting to serve and often serving is not a lot of fun.

For many of you, this is your last class. You're on your own. You've
been taught. You are your own teacher from now on. You can be an
educated hermit and a prosperous one, or a different kind of person
with something else going for you. There's a choice to be made and
you know it. You can make it now. You can make it later. Or you
can never make it and perhaps never even wish you had.

Maybe education is not infectious. Maybe it's an irritation of the
skin that only sometimes gets under it. Maybe the smartest people
stay out of government, avoid community service, don't become in-
volved in a lot of meetings about somebody else's problem.

Or maybe commitment can be communicated. Maybe involvement
can be inspired.

Maybe this is why a free society reveres education and our nation
cherishes it.