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The story is told of the sultan who awoke in the middle of the night and summoned his wizard. "Wizard," he said, "my sleep is troubled. Tell me: What is holding up the earth?"
"Majesty," replied the wizard, "the earth rests on the back of a giant elephant."
The sultan was satisfied and went back to sleep. He then awoke in a cold sweat and summoned the wizard. "Wizard," he said, "what's holding up the elephant?"
The wizard looked at him and said, "The elephant stands on the back of a giant turtle. And you can stop right there, Majesty. It's turtles all the way down."
My friends, don't get lost in the study of turtles. Endless, vertiginous self-examination leads not only to a sterile moral life, but also to a stilted intellectual life. Yes, examine. But do it with dispatch and modesty and then get on with it: Act and go and seek and do.
Which brings us to lesson three. When you do, what to do? Everything. But above all this: Save the best.
In this country, at this great university, saving the best means something very particular. It means saving your unprecedented historical achievement in ethnic coexistence. It is no accident that when boat people are found floating in some distant sea, their preferred destination is invariably North America. Not just because of its prosperity or democracy. But because of its ethnic harmony. We have figured out how to live together without raging civil strife.
In the Bosnian town of Srebrenica, where peoples that have lived together for centuries are now at each other's throats, there are today 300 Canadian soldiers sheltering the innocent. Soldiers from a country that might have been . Yugoslavia -- serving as protectors in a country that is Yugoslavia.
Yours is a legacy not to be thrown away. In the U.S. there are those prepared to dispense with the American approach to ethnic diversity and begin counting by race. It is a dangerous, thoughtless course that we will one day regret with Balkan intensity. Similarly, the Canadian solution of dignified if sometimes disputatious coexistence between two great peoples is one too precious to throw away. Save the best.
Look outward. And don't lose your head.
End of sermon. Now go out and change the world.