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“A Magic Carpet Ride”

A Chinese proverb states: “If a person does only what is required, that person is a slave. If a person does more than is required, that person is free.”

Like most proverbs there is a wealth of knowledge poured into those few words. If you are interested in or just enjoy proverbs, our Dr. John Hemphill, Professor of Education, knows hundreds of them suitable for any occasion. You might look him up.

But back to this Chinese proverb; the President of Gettysburg College used that proverb in her inaugural address. She understood it to mean that if you just do as you are told, you are restricted and regimented in a lock step pattern. This is perhaps the single issue that makes serving hard time in prison so foreign to our freedom-loving human spirit – the routine, monotony of each day, day after day after day. But if you take initiative; if you go beyond what you are told, if you decide for yourself what must be done and do it, you are free – free to consider, to create, to experiment, free to make mistakes and correct them.

So how do we apply this proverb to your experience as you begin your trek through Greensboro College? We are a liberal arts college; we don’t teach you trades or tricks of the trades, because those tricks will be outdated before you graduate. We teach the liberating, the freeing-up arts.

Countless educators have attempted to define the liberal arts and to convince pragmatic, long-suffering parents that their son or daughter can do very well in business and the professions with a liberal arts degree in art, music, sociology or philosophy-that was my major. The liberal arts does not mean liberal as in not conservative or as in left wing politics.

Twenty-three years after Greensboro College was founded, William Cory, head of Eton College presented what is to me the best definition of the liberal arts. He said: “You go to a great school not for knowledge so much as for arts and habits; for the habit of attention, for the art of expression, for the art of assuming at a moment’s notice a new intellectual posture, for the art of entering quickly into another person’s thoughts.” I truly love that phrase, “entering into another person’s thoughts.” That is how we learn from each other…we enter into each other’s thoughts.

So what are you thoughts now? Dare I try to enter into your course of thought? Hmmm. Maybe I need to be more selective about whose thoughts I enter. Well, I cannot really read your minds, but I can read your faces. You are eager to start; you are somewhat intimidated by the challenge, but you certainly do not intend to let others know you are frightened…yes, I will use the word….you are scared…some more than others.

Don’t be; really, no need to be. Faculty, staff, students, trustees and alumni are determined for you to be successful here. It’s one of the things we do best. We are not removed from your world. We are here for you; your success is our success and we are driven to be successful.

Now how does that relate to you? Dr. Thomas Hearn was President of Wake Forest University for 22 years. Each of those years at the New Student Convocation, such as we are having here today, Dr. Hearn recited Shel Silverstein’s little homily, “Magic Carpet.”

Dr. Hearn explains that the enduring lesson is that too many students are buying matching drapes and putting their magic carpet on the floor under sofas and chairs and other items we call “our things.” They come to college already fixed on their destination. So despite all they may accomplish and all the honors they accumulate, they miss the joy and wonder of education and discovery.

Members of the class of 2010, this is going to be the ride of your life! H. L. Mencken, the early 20^th century journalist said that “A Puritan is one who lies awake at night with the haunting fear that someone, somewhere, is having fun.” Let me tell you that somewhere is here and that someone is you and me. This wild ride can be great fun!

I hope you are not so sophisticated, so accomplished, so worldly, so “programmed” that you have education mastered…all figured out. Aristotle said that all learning begins in wonder. So it is a good thing to be a little intimidated, to be a bit in awe of this unknown experience that awaits. It is good to wander around in the curriculum and to do so with a sense of wonder and expectation.

But while you wander around with wonder and enter into the minds of your fellow students and faculty, give heed also to the wise words of Missouri’s favorite son, that straight-shooting son of a gun, Harry S. Truman, the 33^rd President of the United States. He gave sound advice for each of us today:

So leap on your carpet and enjoy your magic carpet ride. Just be sure to be back for your 8:00 a.m. class.