Make a Bonfire of Your Reputations

“When I was asked to make this address I won­dered what I had to say to you boys who are grad­u­at­ing.  And I think I have one thing to say.  If you wish to be use­ful, never take a course that will silence you.  Refuse to learn any­thing that implies col­lu­sion, whether it be a clerk­ship or a curacy, a legal fee or a post in a uni­ver­sity.  Retain the power of speech no mat­ter what other free­dom you may lose.  If you can take this course, in so far as you take it, you will bless this coun­try.  In so far as you depart from this course you become dampers, mutes and hooded executioners.

As a prac­ti­cal mat­ter a mere fail­ure to speak out upon occa­sions where no opin­ion is asked or expected of you, and when the utter­ance of an uncalled-for sus­pi­cion is odi­ous, will often hold you to a con­cur­rence in pal­pa­ble iniq­uity.  Try to raise a voice that will be heard from here to Albany and watch what comes for­ward to shut off the sound.  It is not a Ger­man sergeant, nor a Russ­ian offi­cer of the precinct.  It is a note from a friend of your father’s offer­ing you a place in his office.  This is your warn­ing from the secret police.  Why, if any of you young gen­tle­men have a mind to make him­self heard a mile off, you must make a bon­fire of your rep­u­ta­tions and a close enemy of most men who would wish you well.

I have seen ten years of young men who rush out into the world with their mes­sages, and when they find how deaf the world is, they think that they must save their strength and wait.  They believe that after a while they will be able to get up on some lit­tle emi­nence from which they can make them­selves heard.  ‘In a few years,’ rea­sons one of them, ‘I shall have gained a stand­ing, and then I will use my pow­ers for good.’  Next year comes and with it a strange dis­cov­ery.  The man has lost his hori­zon of thought.  His ambi­tion has evap­o­rated; he has noth­ing to say.  I give you this rule of con­duct.  Do what you will, but speak out always.  Be shunned, be hated, be ridiculed, be scared, be in doubt, but don’t be gagged.  The time of trial is always.  Now is the appointed time.”

–John Jay Chap­man, Com­mence­ment address to the grad­u­at­ing class, Hobart Col­lege, 1900