Advice to Graduates from our Founders

An open letter to the graduating class of 2010

from Senator Brent Hill

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This year I have had many opportunities to visit with several of you who are graduating from high school. I have attended your Project Citizen presentations and spoken to your government classes. I have responded to your letters and emails and watched you perform as legislative pages. Each encounter with you has renewed my hope for a better tomorrow. You are more informed, more comfortable with technology, and better equipped than any generation before you. Indeed, you must be better prepared to enable you to solve the complex problems now facing our world.

Just as wise and inspired people were called to establish this nation, you will be called on to preserve and defend it. The same principles that guided our Founders will give you the needed direction as you confront the political, social and economic challenges that lie ahead. Not only are those principles your best chance, they are your only chance for success.

With that in mind, I have reflected upon what advice our nation's Founders would have for you as you graduate from high school. I think some of their counsel would be as follows:

Continue your education. Benjamin Franklin is credited for saying, "an investment in knowledge always pays the best interest." From his time to ours, history has shown that additional education will pay huge dividends to you, to your family and to the society in which you live. George Washington reinforced that fact, reminding us that "knowledge is, in every country, the surest basis of public happiness."

Get to know your country. After reluctantly accepting the presidency, George Washington exclaimed, "I was summoned by my country, whose voice I can never hear but with veneration and love." Like any other love, love of our country grows by getting to know her better—her history, her personality, her virtues and even her flaws. Dedicating your time and abilities to solving her problems and defending her goodness will instill within you a love for the principles she holds dear.

Avoid cynicism. News of runaway spending, national deficits, corrupt politicians and failing economies gives us much to criticize in this country. Cynical commentators preach fear and hopelessness, leaving us with disdain for anything the government does. Certainly, we must confront our problems and strive for improvement, but we must never forget that this country continues to provide the greatest levels of freedom ever enjoyed by a people. John Adams insisted that such knowledge should arouse hope, courage and happiness: "A constitution founded on these principles introduces knowledge among the people, and inspires them with a conscious dignity becoming freemen; a general emulation takes place, which causes good humor, sociability, good manners, and good morals to be general. That elevation of sentiment inspired by such a government makes the common people brave and enterprising."

Think beyond yourself. Referring to you, Thomas Jefferson wrote, "I had always hoped that the younger generation receiving their early impressions after the flame of liberty had been kindled in every breast . . . would have sympathized with oppression wherever found, and proved their love of liberty beyond their own share of it."

Live honorably. Thomas Jefferson continued with these last words of advice: "Give up money, give up fame, give up science, give the earth itself and all it contains rather than do an immoral act. And never suppose that in any possible situation, or under any circumstances, it is best for you to do a dishonorable thing, however slightly so it may appear to you. . . . From the practice of the purest virtue, you may be assured you will derive the most sublime comforts in every moment of life, and in the moment of death.