Go Forward

^{Originally published in The Way on June 21, 1941.}

The month to which the graduates of this year have been looking forward to has arrived at last. After years of labor and the formation of many friendships you, graduates, can look back and see what you have gained by your time in school.

Some have gained more, some less. What you have gained depends upon what you have invested in school. Today your teachers watch your going with mingled sorrow and joy — sorrow, as of friends parting more or less permanently, joy in the realization that they have contributed much to the success that you have achieved.

As you leave your school and you wend your way onward, there will come to you also a feeling of sadness mingled with joy; sadness that the friends you have made are parting with you, that many of the fine associations which you have enjoyed will end, friendships will gradually dwindle as you find yourself in new groups with new associations making new friends.

Then certainly there will be the joy of successful accomplishment, the thrill of further achievement.

Graduates, you have within you powers and abilities that make for success, the power to stick to a job long enough to give yourself a chance to succeed in it and the ability to carry your work to a successful conclusion.

So go forward; go forward with the confidence that you have a finer education, go forward with the confidence that you can succeed further, be it in study or earning a living, because you have the power and ability; go forward knowing that each and every person helps make the world what it is, so let your pride and ambition urge you on to higher and better things. Go forward with a firm step, a determined will, and with faith in yourself and in God.