THE WHITE HOUSE
                                   
                     Office of the Press Secretary
       
       ____________________________________________________________
       For Immediate Release                        April 26, 1994
       
       
       
                   KEYNOTE ADDRESS BY THE FIRST LADY
                          AT SCRIPPS COLLEGE
       
       
               Thank you so much.  I am very honored by this
       presentation and the receipt of this medal, and I feel doubly
       honored to have it presented to me by Ellen Ravel Eckis.  It
       is so fitting and touching to me that a graduate of the first
       class would be here in a very tangible way to correct all the
       generations of women who have passed through Scripps College,
       and I want to thank you for honoring me in that way.  
               
               I am also honored and delighted to be here at
       Scripps with my good friend, your president, Nancy Bekavac. 
       It is such a sweet pleasure to be with someone whom you have
       known for as many years as Nancy and I have known each other. 
       We have sat for many hours amidst great discussions about all
       the unresolved issues of the day, and we have traded ideas
       about what books or poetry needs to be read to open one's
       mind.  The last time I saw her was when she spent the night
       with us at the White House.  My husband and I were fully
       immersed in watching the National Collegiate Athletic
       Association Basketball Tournament, and we didn't get as much
       of a visit in as I would have liked, except in between
       commercials and other such interruptions of the main business
       of the evening.        
       
               But I hope all of you know, and I'm sure you did
       based on the alumni and trustees and friends of Scripps, as
       well as students whom I met today, how very fortunate you are
       to have a woman of such vision and commitment as your
       president in this time of change for women's colleges.  I'm
       very pleased for Scripps.  I also want to thank Martha
       Hammer, the chair of the Board of Trustees.  
       
               I want to recognize Diane Bai, who is involved in
       student government, and still finds time for biophysics and
       other such academic endeavors, and I want, also, to
       acknowledge Michelle Maltais, who will speak at commencement
       in a few weeks.  I have a special bond with Michelle because
       many, many years ago, before most of you were born, I was the
       first student speaker at a Wellesley commencement.  
       
               And it was a rather unusual event because there had
       never been a student speaker before.  There has been every
       year since, and none of us, especially me, knew what to
       expect.  But we struggled through that in 1969.  And I am
       sure that Michelle's words will make a lasting impression on
       all of you since I am confident mine did not, since we were
       still so bewildered by the fact we were doing it, which was
       our major accomplishment of having convinced the
       administration.  
               
               You know, to be honored by a women's college and in
       the name of such a remarkable woman, Ellen Browning Scripps,
       is very important to me.  I'm a big believer in women's
       colleges.  I feel grateful that I made the choice to attend a
       woman's college, and especially in the last 15 or so months
       since my husband has been president.  I have become even more
       interested in the lives of women who have broken the paths
       that many of us trod today.  
       
               We live in a time with a very short memory, and all
       too often we forget the sacrifices, the examples of women
       like Ms. Scripps, who were there long before we were.  And I
       think it is good for us to stop and remember the kind of
       sacrifices and the kind of examples that they have set.  And
       I want to talk about two such women:  Ms. Scripps and Eleanor
       Roosevelt.
                 
               Before I left Washington, I received a letter from
       a woman who serves in the White House Counsel's Office and is
       a Scripps graduate.  A woman named Beth Nolan.  She wrote to
       me to say, "I see you are accepting the first annual Ellen
       Browning Scripps Medal on April 26.  You will see what a
       special place Scripps is.  
       
               "You won't be able to see its founder, so I thought
       you might like to read what was said of Ellen Browning
       Scripps in 1952, on the 25th anniversary of Scripps College.
       `Her manner was marked by the simplicity and directness
       characteristic of all people concerned with important matters
       with no shadow of pretense or wish to impress.  She asked
       concrete questions and made forthright comments whose meaning
       was unmistakable.  
       
               I remember no hint of a desire to justify or
       explain.  The world was imperfect, but one took it as it was
       and did the best one could.  Ivory towers were not for her. 
       She was, first of all, a worker, concerned with the things
       that could be done. If the task was difficult, all the more
       reason for getting on with it.'"  
               
               In her talk, there were no "if onlys."  What a
       wonderful thing to say about anyone, but particularly a woman
       of her generation  who broke new ground as she tried to live
       her life, not waving flags and banners, but making decisions
       that were right for her.  And in doing so, attempted to live
       a life of integrity and completeness.  You know the stories
       about her pioneering work, her philanthropy, and her social
       activism.  Someone once described her as having the heart of
       a nurse and the courage of an astronaut.  
               
               I like that.  Because in today's world, we too
       often fall back on stereotypes.  One can either have the
       heart of a nurse or the courage of an astronaut.  But in
       today's world of soundbytes and efforts to categorize people,
       holding in one place, the often contradictory features of a
       whole life becomes a real challenge.  
       
               There was another woman like that whom I admire. 
       Eleanor Roosevelt.  And in the last months I had imaginary
       conversations with her in my head.  I have said to her, "Oh
       my goodness gracious, what do I do now?"  And she has replied
       back, "Well, you just get on with it, of course."  And I have
       read her columns and her autobiography.  I have read about
       her.  And I see the same qualities that we honor in Ms.
       Scripps.  I see the qualities often contradictory at first
       glance, but which working together, made a whole life.
                 
               As I look out at this audience primarily of young
       women, although I'm sure there are young men somewhere in the
       back beyond my gaze, I know how difficult and challenging it
       is for young people today to make sense often of the world in
       which we find ourselves, as each of us as individuals seek to
       balance the different roles that we have, and even that we
       encounter as we move through our lives.  There was no
       confusion in Ms. Scripps' mind about what constituted a
       meaningful life.  
       
               She knew it was important the take care of herself
       and her family.  To that end, she became a successful
       entrepreneur and businesswoman.  But she also knew it was
       important to give to others.  And to that end, she never
       stopped standing up for her beliefs, whether it was woman
       suffrage or social justice, or contributing generously to
       enrich the lives of her fellow citizens.  
               
               So her life was really an exceptional example of
       that sometimes elusive balance we strive for between "me" and
       "we," between our rights and expectations as individuals, and
       our obligations to the larger community.  Too often today we
       forget what it means to be a member of a community.  We focus
       so much energy on ourselves that we forget we are all
       interdependent and interrelated.  And we forget that if we
       subordinate the needs of the larger community for too long,
       we often end up hurting or stunting ourselves as individuals. 
       
               I have seen the many challenges that young people
       are facing today.  And I have seen particularly the concerns
       that many young women bring as they look ahead to the future,
       about how they will carve out their own lives, how they will
       make sense of the many demands they face.  And that's why I
       go back and read about the lives of women who came before. 
       Women who often made choices that required the confidence and
       the courage, and the hopefulness that Ms. Scripps ascribed to
       this college, where there were no guarantees about the
       choices that were made. 
                 
               There is no recipe book, there is no road map for
       one's life.  Each decision, everyday, has to be made in the
       best way you know how, and then that decision built on. 
       Nancy and I were talking before we came over, about how
       strange it would have been if all those years ago at Yale Law
       School, someone had said, "Well, where do you think you will
       be in April of 1994?"  
       
               And she had said with any kind of confidence, "Oh,
       I will be the president of Scripps College."  And I have
       said, "Oh, (laughter) this boy I just met from Arkansas will
       be president." (Applause.)  You know, life doesn't work that
       way.  And that's good that it doesn't.  
       
               Instead, what we talked about was how we were going
       to make the decisions that confronted us.  What kind of jobs
       we were going to take; what kind of friends and relationships
       we would have; how we would continue to expand our mind and
       be open the world around us; how we would avoid ever being
       walled off by the meritocracy that has lifted up young women
       and men like ourselves because, through whatever combination
       of luck and fortune and parenting and heritage, we were able
       to take advantage of the great richness of fine educations
       and all that America has to offer.  
       
               How we would avoid becoming desensitized to the
       pain of others.  How we would understand, as Ms. Scripps
       understood, as Eleanor Roosevelt understood, that we had
       continuing obligations to the larger world.  How we knew that
       anywhere, anyone was diminished, in some way diminished us. 
       Those were the things that we kept talking about.
                 
               There was not road map for life there, but there
       was the stuff of what makes a life.  All of the individual
       choices and challenges that come to each of us.  In today's
       world, we too often short circuit that process.  There's too
       much criticism, too many easy answers, and we find ourselves
       often off balance as we try to find balance.  
       
               I look back now in the last 25 years, and think
       about the choices my women friends have made.  I have friends
       who are living very much like my mother lived.  They are
       full-time homemakers, full-time mothers volunteering in their
       communities.  
       
               And if they feel good about their choices, then
       they are living the lives they were meant to live, with
       integrity and excellence.  (Applause.)  And I have friends
       who never married.  Have not yet had children, although that
       becomes an increasing possibility as the years go by unlike
       the past, and who have devoted themselves to one career or
       many taking joy and enthusiasm out of everywhere they've
       lived, everywhere they've worked, every challenge they've met
       and confronted.  And if they are satisfied and lived their 
       lives with integrity, then that is the right choice for them.
       (Applause.) 
       
               Most of us struggled to balance family and work at
       different points in our lives.  I have friends who have had
       their children in their 20s.  And by the time they are in
       their late 30s and 40s, are embarked on a whole new set of
       life experiences.  I have friends who have had their careers
       in their 20s and their 30s and started having children in
       their 40s.  All different combination of possibilities that
       are now open to women.  
       
               And the only thing that is holding women back from
       realizing their full potential is their own insecurity about
       the choices they make in their own lives, and their
       unwillingness to listen to the silent voice inside themselves
       which tells them what is the right decision for them, and not
       the siren calls of either praise or condemnation that come
       from the outside.  
       
               The real (applause) -- the real opportunity that
       exists for all of us, and this is one of the great gifts of
       being a woman today in our society, is the opportunity we
       have to make the choices that are right for us, and to know
       that the choice you make at 20 may be different than the
       choice you make at 30, or 40, or 50, or 60, or 70, or as the
       woman I met in the receiving line earlier, at 90, who was
       talking to me and Nancy about something, yet knew she was
       intending to do.  
       
               You have that opportunity today.  And what I hope
       is that, once and for all, we can break free of the
       stereotypes that imprison women and their potential, that
       tell them the choices they made are not right because they
       are not right in somebody else's eyes.  And that we respect
       the choices women make, and support those choices, giving
       each other the nurturing and the love and the friendship that
       enable all of us to listen to that internal voice and to
       pursue the direction it gives. 
       
               I'm often asked if what I am doing in Washington
       creates a new role model for First Ladies.  And I always say,
       I don't want to create any new stereotype.  I want to free
       women to live according to their own needs and desires.  I do
       not want to create a new category that anyone after me must
       somehow fit into.  I want all women to be given the respect
       they deserve to have for the choices may make.  (Applause.)  
       
               And what I hope (applause) -- what I hope is that
       when you go out into this complicated, competitive world that
       awaits, whether it's this year or the next or the year after
       that, I hope your experiences here, your friendships here,
       will serve as a guide for your own internal voice.  And I
       also hope that, like Miss Scripps and like Eleanor Roosevelt,
       you leave Scripps with an obligation not only to yourself,
       but to the larger community.  
       
               I've said before that the American dream is an
       intergenerational compact, or as someone once said, "One
       generation is supposed to leave the key under the mat for the
       next.  We repay our parents for their love in the love we
       give to children.  And we repay our society for the
       opportunities we are given by expanding opportunities granted
       others.  We need that sense of intergenerational commitment
       as we face the problems confronting America.  
       
               Yes, we want to make sure that America's safer by
       tackling the problem of crime, that America's healthier by
       making sure every American is guaranteed health insurance
       coverage. (Applause.)  We want to end welfare as we know it
       and instill opportunities and independence and generations of
       women and their children.  (Applause.)  We want to improve
       our economy so that there are jobs available for all who will
       work and an opportunity to advance and realize the American
       dream.  
       
               We want to extend educational opportunity to
       children no matter where they live.  We want to be sure that
       the dream that enabled every one of us to be in this
       auditorium today is kept alive and enhanced for generations
       to come.  And the surest way of doing that is by building men
       and women who, with the kind of confidence, courage and hope
       that we all need face their responsibilities as citizens, as
       parents, as workers, as volunteers because there is no single
       way to find that balance between "me" and "we". 
       
               But there are so many exciting paths out there.
       (Tape cut off temporarily.)  And, you know, as my great
       mentor, Eleanor Roosevelt said, "Far better to light a candle
       than curse the darkness."  (Applause.)  And I've never had
       the opportunity to address anybody in the dark before. 
       (Laughter.)  
       
               But I am sure that for all of us, this will be a
       memorable occasion.  And I only hope that someone somewhere
       is trying figure out how to throw the current back on,
       because I don't want all of you to have to sit here in the
       dark for too long.  
       
               But I do want to make sure that all of you know
       that as you gather in settings like this in this glorious
       auditorium, even though I know we were originally meant to be
       outside, there is such a feeling that I sense from the young
       women I met and that I had a chance to talk briefly to, about
       what a special place Scripps is, and really all of the
       colleges here in this glorious, beautiful spot.  (Applause.) 
       
               And it would be very hard not to be grateful
       everyday for all that we have if you were to wake up and
       teach here, or work here, or go to school here, and to make
       gratitude almost a discipline in one's life for all that is
       around.  
       
               Maybe one of the roots for best nurturing that
       internal voice that can speak if one listens because if you
       think about all of the various aspects that go into making a
       life, family and faith, work and service, there is so much to
       be grateful for.  And I am reminded often of the kinds of
       challenges that the women and men who have gone before have
       faced, but I am also constantly confronted by the challenges
       that men and woman face today.  The lives of heroic courage
       that they live.  
       
               And any time any one of us feels beleaguered or
       disappointed, think about the lives of people you know who
       suffer setbacks and disappointments, illnesses, tragedies,
       and how so many of them learn ways of going through their
       lives with joy despite whatever has happened to them.  
       
               So keeping in mind the examples from the past,
       keeping in mind the faces of those whom we all know, and
       recognizing the courage that it does take to live any life
       fully and well, I wish each of you Godspeed on your own
       life's journey.  Thank you very much.  
       
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