News & Events 2003-2004

John C. Bogle ’47 is Special Commencement Speaker

John C. Bogle ’47, founder of the Vanguard Group and Blair Academy Trustee, addressed the senior class at commencement exercises, Saturday, May 29, 2004. His granddaughter, Rebecca Renninger ’04, was among those graduating. His speech follows.

Just a few hours ago, as I turned off Interstate 80, where the sign says “Blairstown/Hope” — think about that! — with my car radio blasting out Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy,” I couldn’t help thinking that this magnificent day held all sorts of wonderful omens for you in Blair Academy’s Class of 2004. Congratulations!

Special congratulations, too, if I may, to the four holders of Bogle Brothers Scholarships who are graduating today. To each of you, I offer my appreciation for the wonderful letters you have written me, and for the energy and enthusiasm you have put into your work during your time on the Blair campus. And to the two who (as we’ve just learned) shared this year’s Headmaster’s Prize, I tingle with the thrill of your accomplishment. You bring to 102 the total number of Bogle Scholars at Blair whom we have had the distinct honor and high privilege to help along the way over the past 30 years. We owe all of you so very much!

And finally, if you’ll permit me a family note, congratulations as well to my granddaughter, Rebecca Renninger, of whom I am awesomely proud, on her graduation. She follows in the family footsteps of my brother William, Class of 1945, and me and my late twin brother David, both of the ancient, doddering Class of 1947. Perhaps Becca’s attendance will maintain a tradition of Bogles — whatever their last names — at Blair Academy.

Hard as it may be for you of Blair’s Class of 2004 to imagine, when I graduated 57 years ago, I was pretty much like you are today — not nearly as smart, but proud (and even a bit relieved) that I was graduating; excited (if a bit apprehensive) about the challenges I’d face in college; pretty sure (maybe even positive) that I knew an awful lot more than I actually knew; and — I hope and pray this is also true of you — brimming with the idealism of youth, idealism that truth told, still remains with me on this splendid and special day.

Perhaps like you as well, I could not imagine what the next half-century plus would hold for me. If one of my classmates had told me that I would have the opportunity to serve as a Blair Trustee for more than three decades, we both would have howled with laughter. If he’d added that I’d serve as Chairman . . . well, no one would have had that fertile an imagination! Similar delightful surprises, I’m sure, are in store for you.

The fact is that life is full of surprises, and it simply isn’t given to us to know what the world — and what the Lord — have in store for us, especially in this deeply troubled world that is our legacy to you. But there are some things that we do know, things that no one can ever, ever take away from you. First, your minds. I remind you on this Commencement day that you have successfully completed a major milestone in your education that has qualified you to move to the next phase of your lives, an even higher level of learning. Your mind is your greatest gift, and no matter what the future holds, it is yours alone.

But it is not only the gift of the human mind — of knowledge, of intellectual curiosity, of clear thinking — that cannot be taken away from you. The gift of human character, too, is yours alone — your moral compass, your courage to deal with life’s inevitable adversities, your love of what is good, the values that shape your every act. Yes, character counts. While by Commencement day, your character is pretty much formed, if we are the right kind of human beings — and I know you are — we’ll spend the rest of our lives honing our character, sharpening it, moving it upward toward an ever-higher level, and honoring the better angels of our nature.

Yet if our minds and our characters already define who we are, we still have to make hard choices about the kind of lives we wish to live. My hope today is that each of you will choose a path in which you avoid, indeed shun, the kinds of self-indulgence in which all of us human beings are tempted to engage, and strive to serve others — family, friends, neighbors, your nation; heck, even the whole world — at the highest possible level. If you have not done so, you will one day learn that helping others, in ways large and ways small, is the key to a life well-lived, one in which you too — yes, you too — can look back 57 years from now and say, “I did my best; I fought the good fight; I made a difference.”

So on this bright, hopeful morning, I ask you to consider not only about what you want to achieve in your lives, but why you want to achieve it. It’s an important difference, brought into focus by this brief but compelling story told by the preacher Fred Craddock. Dr. Craddock may have been imagining things — the way preachers are wont to do — but he assures us that this story really happened. When he was visiting in the home of his niece, there was an old greyhound dog there, just like the ones who race around the track chasing those mechanical rabbits. His niece had taken the dog in to prevent it from being destroyed, because its racing days were over.

Dr. Craddock strikes up a conversation with the dog: “I said to the dog, are you still racing?” “No,” he replied. “Well, what was the matter? Did you get too old to race?” “No, I still had some race in me.” “Well, what then? Did you not win?” “I won over a million dollars for my owner.” “Well, was it worth it?” “I loved it!” “Bad treatment?” “Oh, no,” the dog said, “they treated us royally when we were racing.” “Did you get crippled?” “No.” “Did you lose your competitive zeal?” “No. I still tingle with excitement for the race.” “Then why?” Craddock pressed, “Why?” The dog answered, “I quit.” “You quit?” “Yes,” he said, “I just quit.” “Why did you quit?” “O.K. Here’s why I quit: Because after all that running and running and running, I found out that the rabbit I was chasing wasn’t even real.”

As you go on, now on to college, later to full adulthood and living the years of your lives, you will meet, I guarantee you, scores of rabbits that are not real — goals that are self-indulgent, values that are superficial, people who would lead you in the wrong direction. In his superb Baccalaureate talk last night, that is exactly what Mr. Cooke meant when he talked about the difference between what is artificial and what is real and genuine. Please heed his words and seek the genuine in life.

Seek, above all, those real rabbits that represent goodness and honesty and truth and love, and ignore the many counterfeits that are rife in our society today. These values are real; they represent the things that, as our best citizens, you owe to our great nation. You owe those values to your families too. You also owe them to this wonderful school whose students, faculty, and administrators have supported you. But even more, you must chase the real rabbits in life because you owe it to yourself to do so.

In the song I heard during yesterday’s class assembly, I was struck by the words reminding us to “build a firm foundation.” That is best done by chasing not what is artificial, but what is real. Today, you begin your next chase, having captured one of the greatest of all the real rabbits you’ll enjoy during your entire lives: The Blair Academy diploma. Remember this day always, and hark back often to the wistful words of that same song, “May you be forever young.” If you want to be forever young, you will be. Indeed, as I look out on our lovely campus on this glorious day, and share this shining moment with you, even this aging Blair alumnus feels “forever young.” Godspeed! And again, congratulations.

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