A life's work in the agony and sweat of the human spirit, not for glory and least of all for profit, but to create out of the materials of the human spirit something which did not exist before. The words are thirteen years old now, but they express a perennial truth, as valid for today and tomorrow as on the day in 1950 when, in acceptance of his Nobel Prize for Literature, William Faulkner spoke them. The great American novelist left to mankind a larger achievement than will be possible for most individuals in their respective fields.
Genius is rare and productive genius rarer still.
On Saturday next, when the University of Dallas offers to you, its graduating seniors, the certification of its diploma, you may very well heave the customary sigh of satisfaction. While no one will wonder at your exhalation, you should reflect in the very moment of your justifiable pride of accomplishment, at the meaning of the diploma which you clutch so greedily. Of that diploma, then, you must understand that it is more than a testimony to the past four years. How often have you heard during the past four years that man can only be satisfactorily defined as a rational animal. Uniting within himself the intangible wonders of God.