Figures of Speech.
Choose One of Five.
You graduates have every right to expect penetrating words of profound wisdom. Unfortunately, though, I am going to have to disappoint you and present to you a multiple-choice test the last of your college career.
The only consolations that I can offer in presenting the test are that you may consult texts freely, the test is self-scoring, and you have a lifetime at your disposal now to complete it.
This exam will be proctored, though. The proctors will be two — the community in which you live and, hardest taskmaster of all, your inner self.
The question:
What do you do with your education now that you have it — and now that it is beginning to become obsolete even as you sit here?
Choose one of five possible answers.
Choice One:
Put your diploma in a convenient drawer and close the drawer. Put whatever textbooks you’ve accumulated in a bookcase and close the bookcase. Put your mind to the dailiness of earning a satisfactory livelihood and close your mind.
I should warn you that it will take a bit of doing to follow this course with the rigour that it deserves.
You will have to take care not to read anything except, in the case of men, the sports pages…
