June 1, 1961 -- and here we are, graduating. Like the two-faced god Janus, of mythology, we're looking back, remembering the years of education terminating here this evening; and we're looking ahead, anticipating the future that is stretched out before us. For twelve years we have been instructed, admonished, and reasoned with- but these years are over. We should be looking forward confidently to the years ahead. We're rushing out to build our places in the sun... and yet, many of us are facing our future with some misgivings. Why?

As this is a time of progress and change technologically, it is also a period of change in all other aspects of life: a general and expansive political, social, economic and religious upheaval. Laos, Cuba, and Montgomery, Alabama, are not merely isolated incidences of mankind's confusion-they are part of the current, universal trend. And the sad fact is that in a great many cases it is a trend unfavorable to that which we refer to as our "American way of life".

In many respects those before us have failed. They have not succeeded in stopping the almost explosive spread of international communism. They have not been able to convince the neutral nations of Asia, Africa, and Latin America that ours is the superior way of life; and they have not even been able to apply our principles of democratic equality to our fellow Americans here at home...so this is where we come in, THE CLASS OF 1961. They have told us that we lack a sense of purpose, a challenge; but we are stepping into a decade which might well mark the termination of the "American Dream." Could there be any greater challenge for us, as young Americans? It seems entirely possible to me that the heritage which our country-men have cherished for two hundred years, and the Christian principles which have been developed over the past two thousand years could vanish from the face of the earth in a single generation... our generation. The dictionary of the future might well list american, with a small "a," as an adjective meaning "wasteful; one unappreciative of his blessings."

All that remains, then, is for us to take up this greatest of challenges; for us to appreciate the significance of the life that confronts each of us here this evening; and for us to make the crucial decision as to which way we shall turn, diploma in hand, when we leave this our high school for the last time. Perhaps if we choose wisely we may later look back on that decision as did Robert Frost, when he wrote;

THE ROAD NOT TAKEN

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same.

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I-
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.