Every once in awhile, I hear — or read – one of those graduation speeches that really stays on my mind. This one came my way via Tom Harris, a founder of the multi-national PR firm, Golin Harris, and a treasured friend of mine. Tom wrote in his most recent newsletter about the celebrated historian, David McCullough, conveying these words of wisdom to a graduating class at Boston College this past spring:
“Information, let us be clear, isn’t learning. Information isn’t poetry. Or art. Or Gershwin. Or faith. It isn’t wisdom. The value of information, facts, figures and the like, depends on what we make of it — on judgment. Facts alone are never enough. One can have all the facts and miss the truth. Learning is not found on a print-out. It’s not on call at the touch of a finger. Learning is acquired mainly from books. And from teachers. And from work, concentrated work. Therefore, read, read, read!”
“And please do what you can to cure the verbal virus that seems increasingly rampant among your generation. I’m talking about the relentless, wearisome use of the words ‘like’ and ‘you know’ and ‘awesome’. Listen to yourselves speak. Just imagine if in his inaugural address John F. Kennedy had said, ’Ask not what your country can, you know, do for you, but what you can, like, do for your country.”
