Class Commencement Speech – June 4th, 1972
David M. Webster ’ 72 , Class Speaker
I speak to you today not as a Bascom House man, nor as a row house man, but as a Williams man—convinced, as we leave the fertile vales and rockbound hills, the rolling streams and wooded glens of our Berkshire Motherland—i.e ., Williamstown—that we face few of the traditional perils faced by Williams men and women—who have left this place in days of yore. Or, as it was so eloquently put by a distinguished senior member of the faculty the other day, “ When those turkeys blow town this weekend, things just won’t be the same.” I think that what he really meant was that the fun-loving class of 1972 simply does not face the more traditional perils faced by Williams graduates in the past—perils like getting drafted, or getting married, or arrested, or of having a compelling reason—such as being employed—for staying sober. Nor will most of us have to confront the problems of the world. For in spite of all the attention we have devoted during our four years here to world problems like pollution, war, and man’s age old foes of poverty, famine, pestilence and disease—not very many of us, with the possible exception of about 2/3rds of Carter House—will go about starting wars, polluting the cities, or spreading disease. . . . Instead, I humbly submit that the Class of 1972 faces a peril all our own—a peril which I have chosen to call the threat of banality, ineptitude, incompetence and mediocrity.
My presence as your speaker ought to indicate just how far this peril has spread. As many of you have thoughtfully pointed out, the stirring list of mediocre accomplishments that I have achieved appears in little danger of being surpassed. For example, it is not the talented man who spends a semester as one of 25 males at Wellesley College and ends up rooming with a football player from Amherst. I’ve had trouble with rejections too. I have not been turned down just for Williams in Hong Kong, or just for the Watson Fellowship, or just for the Mead Internship, or just for the College Fellowships, or just for the Marshall Scholarship; I have been turned down for them all. I couldn’t even make the wall ball team at Spencer House.
You may be thinking that things will get better—that I’ve got a great job for next year or that I’m into a prestigious grad school, or at the very least I’m still in the ball park. Wrong! At this point it would take a Webster Memorial Library for me to make the Waiting List. It has been this way for a long time. Freshman year, during my first day on the job as college bell ringer in Thompson Memorial Chapel, I decided to open with Stanley’s 20 minute Anvil Chorus in E Major—only to discover upon descending the stairs that the faculty had been meeting next door in Griffin Hall. About the only time worse than that was the time I had the Williams Travel Bureau arrange my trip to Europe—on Mohawk. And to cap it all, I played for three years in the Williams Band.
The troublesome thing in all of this is that my distinguished career in mediocrity is by no means unique. We as a people seem so much less innovative sometimes, so much more inclined to accept average or mediocre performances. In the past our leaders were men of skill, daring, vigor, and endurance. Theodore Roosevelt stalked grizzly bears; Andrew Jackson battled Indians; John Tyler had 14 children. Today our President’s favorite sport is bowling; his favorite delicacy cottage cheese and ketchup; his favorite pastime doing God knows what on Bebe Rebozo’s sailboat. . . Even Williams is not immune from accusations. Many alumni critics of the college claim that co-education has brought about a stifling of the famous Williams urge to explore—a stifling of the desire to make new conquests—a stifling of that penetrating need to take vast journies in search of companionship. If that be the case . . . . THANK GOD FOR COEDUCATION!
Speaking seriously for just a moment, there is a reason for talking about mediocrity in our lives because mediocrity can destroy us just as surely as perils far more famous. I think it very important that we remember always to distinguish between what it means to fail at a task and what it means to be mediocre. I think that there is all the difference in the world between the life lived with dignity and style which ends up failing in the ways of the world and one which achieves power and glory yet is dull, unoriginal, non-reflective and thus mediocre. In a very real sense what matters is not so much whether we make lots of money, get a prestigious job, or whether we don’t; what matters is that we become people who stress verve, energy and creativity—that we become people who can enjoy our own company. This kind of life is miles away from one which “ makes it big” yet is lived without grace . . . or style.
In the end, of course, learning to avoid mediocrity—much more than learning how to get into law school—is what a liberal arts education is all about. A magnificent virtue of Williams College is that it has given all of us the chance to discover that success really comes in making ourselves into educated individuals able to recognize that there is always a difference between living with excellence and living with mediocrity. Sherlock Holmes once told Dr. Watson, “ Watson, mediocrity knows nothing higher than itself. It takes talent to recognize genius.” To which he could well have added it takes talent to know that what counts is condemning mediocrity not in others but in our selves. Well we are talented, talented enough to have made it this far, talented enough to know that no life will mean much—no matter how famous we become, unless it is lived creatively, caringly, and well.
David M. Webster ’ 72 , Class Speaker
Commencement, Williams College, June 4 , 1972