Horseshoes and hand grenades

    Frank Zappa once said, "If you want to get laid, go to college. If you want an education, go to the library."
    Zappa wasn't entirely correct (his statement also leaves us wondering about the role of the college library, which one can only imagine is the most stimulating place on campus). Not only have students at Tufts grown intellectually over the last four years, but we have also deepened our understanding of ourselves, our interests and our priorities. Any successful college student who has built his life around Louis Sachar's "Sideways Stories from Wayside School" (1978) remembers a story about a student named Calvin who, when given the opportunity to get a tattoo, opts for a potato on his ankle. The point is that you don't have to make the most popular choices — to take the most traditional jobs or opportunities (and in this economy, you probably won't) — in order to be happy with your decisions. Tufts has confirmed what many members of the Class of 2009 may have always suspected to be true: that the world is full of quirky, interesting people, and we deserve to be among them.
    Most importantly, however, college teaches its students how to fail. While opportunities for failure certainly existed before higher education, the environment Tufts provides its students to engage their most idealistic whims has changed the scale and scope of those failures entirely. In a speech to the Sorbonne, Theodore Roosevelt praised the man "who comes up short again and again … who fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat." College is, for many, a time of unbridled impracticality; it seems as if there never was a time when college students did not claim that they would one day change the world.
    Of course, our generation has been spoiled in some ways by seeing the success of its activism; in the past two years, the notion that the youth of this country could affect — even dictate — events has gone from inconceivable to indisputable. Though pundits may argue about the scale of the effect of youth's judgment, they no longer dispute its inevitability.
    But in the world outside college, victories of the most idealistic sort may be a little harder to come by. Those who graduate today will find themselves in the worst job market in recent memory as America's economic system teeters on the brink of collapse. In faraway lands, young men and women fight for their country as shadowy enemies seek to do them harm. Our planet is in danger as temperatures rise, our global citizens live in fear as diseases run rampant and our leaders steel themselves for battle as a race for weaponry in the Middle East and Asia raises the specter of nuclear war.
    It's a tough time to save the whales.
    But if Tufts has taught its students anything — and we at the Daily submit that it has — it is that idealism is good. There is a saying that "close" only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades; that aside from sports and explosions, "almost" simply isn't worthwhile. That misses the point.
    Though they may not always pay off in the short run, impossible crusades are often catalysts for public advancement and social change. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. never saw a black man elected governor, let alone commander-in-chief. Leonardo da Vinci never built a successful flying machine. Dr. Michael DeBakey never performed a full human heart transplant, despite his decades of work in the field.
    Close counts because it represents progress; it means thought and debate and movement. The closer we come to our objective, the more clearly we can see our destination. That is why America's founding fathers built a nation based on the pursuit of a more perfect union; though we may never find fulfillment, every progression shortens the distance between ourselves and the possibility of a better future.
    In 1963, amid the waves of violent uprisings in Ireland, President John Kennedy stood in the well of the Irish Parliament and said, "The problems of the world cannot possibly be solved by skeptics or cynics whose horizons are limited by the obvious realities. We need men who can dream of things that never were." This sentiment was perhaps even more clearly articulated by his brother Bobby, who said, "Do we have to accept that? I don't think we do. I think we can do something about it."
    The Class of 2009 is graduating at a time of great challenge, apprehension and unease. This is not a time for careful reticence, nor is it a time for men and women to hold their tongues and await their moment. This is a time for those steeped in passion to step to the fore and chart the course of history. This is a time for almost — for idealists to find their voice and lead their cause in search of that more perfect union, however they may find it.
    Franklin Roosevelt once said, "A man who has never gone to school may steal from a freight car, but if he has a university education, he may steal the whole railroad." As you go forth on this day, we at the Daily urge you not to balk at grand enterprise. Failure in the service of a dream is not a lamentable experience, but a bold conquest; it provides inspiration to others who may share your conviction and serve your vision. Out of challenging times come great opportunities, and for the Class of 2009, your education on the Hill has given you the tools and the gusto to make your dreams reality.
    Let's go change the world.