Education: Parting Words, Mostly Somber

At commencement, prophets of doom, profits and Toyotas

For the past several weeks, to the sound of brass choirs and symphonic processionals, commencement speakers have taken their places behind campus daises across the country to offer such parting wisdom as they possessed. For the nation's 1.3 million college graduates, the advice from their distinguished elders tended to be far more somber than lighthearted. The dominant topics were the nuclear arms race, the decline of Western values, the nation's economic troubles and the dangerous tensions abroad. Polish Solidarity Leader Lech Walesa was awarded honorary...