"You Chosen Ones ..."

Last week, Don Spence of Harvard's class of '48 wrote in the New York Times: "The workmen have finished hammering together the commencement scaffolding . . . and everything is set for graduation . . ." And how do the graduates feel? Students "have an uneasy feeling that the world is unraveling faster than anyone can wind it up ... No one envies the commencement speaker in his attempt to sum it all up . . ."

Envied or not, there were, as always, plenty of commencement speakers (some notable ones: Attorney General Tom Clark, ECA Boss Paul Hoffman, Publisher Marshall Field, Senator J. William Fulbright, David Lilienthal) for the largest (some 250,000) graduating class in U.S. history. They spoke earnestly, with learning and emotion, of "Youth in the Atomic Age," the menace of Communism, the need for a big Army & Navy.

At Catholic University, Fulton Oursler, a Reader's Digest editor, tried the inspirational approach: "You are the salt of the earth . . . You are the elect, the chosen ones . . . Let your light shine before men . . ." T. H. Sun, Dean of China's Cheeloo University, took the large view at Hanover (Ind.) College: a "college education, which a contemporary wit in this country might light-heartedly dub 'the perpetuation of infancy,' is actually a luxury reserved for only a few grown-ups . . ."

No Storms. But the prophecies and platitudes were generally not in the cheery tradition. Paul Hoffman recalled another commencement, 39 years ago. Then, the commencement speaker "gave the lucky graduates precise instructions, not only 'for launching their ships on the sea of life,' but also for sailing them ... He hinted rather strongly that there would be no storms for those young navigators who were in bed by 10, kept their shoes shined, their eyes off the clock, their noses to the grindstone . . ."

Plainly, times had changed. At Wabash College this week the Rev. Henry P. Van Dusen would spread no sunshine: "What can we say of the future? It will be a time of unpredictable change ... a time of widespread and largely undeserved human suffering ... a period of threatening peril for every great fruit of human achievement." At Omaha's Creighton University former Congresswoman Clare Boothe Luce called modern man a "moral muttonhead." She blamed the present "moral and spiritual turmoil, the political and economic chaos" on "efforts . . to substitute the concept of service to Man for the idea of obedience to God."

No Hope? Onetime Supreme Court Justice Owen J. Roberts, who spoke at Duke University, announced that "today's crisis is unparalleled." And at the University of Detroit, The Very Rev. Raphael C. McCarthy admitted that "the world is bewildered and millions mourn."

Was there no hope? Not even in world government, decided Kurt Schuschnigg, Chancellor of pre-Hitler Austria: "A great ideal," he told the ladies of Loretto Heights (Colo.) College, but "not . . . in our time."

In such a generally gloomy atmosphere, some speakers had little advice to offer. But one whose advice seemed to make sense was the University of Iowa's President Virgil Hancher. Said he: "Somewhere along the pathway of progress the art of contemplation has been lost. The Society of Friends, certain Roman Catholics, and an occasional mystic or band of mystics have preserved the art. They retain anchorage in a sea of ceaseless motion, of disquiet and drifting. You can make it a rule of life to withdraw each day into quiet and contemplation. You have but one life, and a short one, at your disposal. Only in leisure can you savor it . . ."

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