Milton Academy - Yearbook (Milton, MA)

Page 122 text:

..-,. , , a muddle of ideas out of which no real convictions are formed, that we are really capable of knowing very little. Soon, however, this will not be the case. Soon, each philosophy will be crystal-clear, and, with the boldness of youth, we will have selected those aspects of each we consider of the most fundamental truth, and we will be proud because we will have something more than any of their originators. It is then that we will cease to be impressed by the fact that these men were infinitely more intelligent than we, studied and thought much more than we, and yet arrived at basically different conclusions from each other con- cerning life. Perhaps it is then that we will forget what we now suspect and must always remember: that we are really capable of knowing little, and that very possibly the broadest limitation we put on the ideas of man are still too narrow. It is as true today as it was two thousand years ago that each nation is as strong or as weak as the individuals making up that nation. On thousands of platforms such as this today and during this month, it will be urged that the spirit of conformity in this country is weakening the individual libre of each of its citizens and thus is weakening the nation itself. Agreeing with this in saying that each must develop and live by his own individual values, I am convinced that it is equally important to realize these four things: First, that the frailty of the human mind demands respect for those who have fundamentally different conceptions of truth from ourselves. Second, that whatever we have decided is true for ourselves has no real value for another unless he believes it to be true. Third, that we must develop from these realizations logical humility and toler- ance of the beliefs of others. Fourth, that this humility and tolerance must not be simply intellectual, but must so infect every action and idea as to inspire each person with whom we have contact with the vital importance of this inspiration to peace on every level of being from the human soul to the world itself.

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Valeclictory We will have completed in a few minutes a period of training, intellectual and otherwise, which has taken place during a major portion of our life-time. And if you were to ask any one of us one year or two years or any number of years from now what our ideas on religion or love or society or democracy are, they would be different and more intelligent than the ideas which we could offer now. Religion and love: I mention these because we have not even established those basic values necessary to meet with any measure of success the many other less fundamental but vitally important problems of life. We are incomplete, in the most fundamental sense of the word. And this is good. For in a necessarily slow and methodical manner, we have achieved a situation which must exist first, if each of us is ever to establish a system of values correct for ourselves as individuals and learn to apply that system to living itself. This is what we do know. We have taught each other, with the help of our advisors, that we must respect the rights, though not necessarily the opinions, of each other, that in order to receive friendship, we must be friendly, and that in order to receive sympathy, we must be sympathetic. In short, we have learned without the com- promise of a single opinion the secret of successful everyday living in a demo- cratic and semi-classless society. Secondly, we have learned, I believe, what the most basic problems of human existence are. And thirdly, we have developed a curiosity about the meanings of those problems as well as the realization that we cannot live successfully in this world without establishing a set of individual values based on a personal understanding of them. Here is what we understand of the problems of life. Perhaps the basic goal and thus the basis for all of the problems of each individual is simply the pursuit of happiness. The philosophies developed in order to insure the most complete success in this pursuit range from the complete indulgence of Hedonism to the self-denial and general self-sacrifice of Puritan- ism, each philosophy depending upon the interpretation of that most profound word, happiness. Whatever interpretation we make of happiness, however, I think each of us will be forced to meet the problems of how and how much we should concern ourselves with religion, society, earning a living, and the external and internal welfare of our country, to the last of which Mr. Kennedy has given us an inspir- ing example of devotion. We have learned these things to some extent through each other and to a very great extent through the perseverance and devotion of the masters, for which I have the frustrating conviction that we will never be able to repay them. The question we now ask ourselves is, Is this all we know? Is this all we can learn from our years at school? And this question, I believe, raises one other point which is as important as all the others put together. It is our belief at the present, as we read Plato and Pascal and Nietzsche and Sartre and finish with

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