Counsel at School's End

Many of you students come forth from your years in the classroom wondering what you can expect of your education and what the world expects of you. As you leave your days of schooling, in general it may be said that you will find less of shelter. You may have had some rude bumps in the past, but the bumps become more rude and more real in wresting a livelihood from a burly and busy world. As to what you can expect from your schooling: No amount of education can ever give you something for nothing, nor can it ever spare you the realities and the stresses of life. It will help you meet the stresses better, help you to serve your own generation better, help you to a better understanding of things and of people, and of God and His purposes, and give you a more reliable sense of values. It may do other things, of course, but if it fails in these, your schooling has somewhere missed its mark. And now as to what the world expects of you: It expects you to work, to earn your way, to leave it somewhat better than you found it, to make life somewhat fuller for those who are less fortunate or less able. And it expects you to take responsibility. One of the crying needs of this and of every generation is for men and women, young and old, in every activity of life, church and civic, economic and industrial, social and political, to take responsibility, faithfully and intelligently, without being constantly checked or constantly prodded. Conditions have not always been too favorable for bringing this about. Sometimes parents have coddled too much; sometimes society has been too eager to regiment. And neither indulgent coddling nor rigorous regimentation are conducive to teaching people to take intelligent responsibility. But any young man or young woman of reasonable education, of common sense, and of good character, who will take responsibility, who will accept an assignment and see it through, with loyalty, with intelligence, with integrity, can have about what he wants, within reason, in this world, in this day.