![]() There is very good reason for that commitment. This is now an institution deeply and deliberately committed to the liberal arts. At the same time, I look out today on one of the finest leadership training grounds in the world and I see something of an answer: This is not just the nation’s first college of engineering, the school of my great-grandfather (and I still, in fact, have the leather case that holds his engineering tools). It would seem we agree on little, except that a leader inspires others to do what they might not otherwise do. Two millennia of wisdom and more than a century of analysis leave us with enduring questions: What makes a leader? Are leaders decisive or flexible, are they visionary or pragmatic, are they for themselves or for others? And how do we create more of them? ![]() As someone said, so many books, so few leaders. Starting in the late 19th century, the word “leadership” in English-language books climbed rapidly, until today a search for the word yields more than 180,000 entries for books on Amazon and 1.7 million entries in the Harvard University Library catalogue. Now, it is daunting to talk about leadership at West Point, which has been training leaders since 1802, while much of the rest of the world has merely been talking about it. I want to focus for a few minutes here today on the importance of language to leadership, on the interpretive and empathetic power of words on which leaders rely, and on the necessity of the humanities and the broad liberal arts education that nurture these indispensable qualities. ![]() Including, of course, with my great-grandmother, who he clearly hoped would surrender more than her sword pin. Now, given his low marks as a cadet in almost every subject, the evidence provided by his eloquent letters might suggest that his way with words played a role in his eventual successes. Tyson was later elected to the United States Senate, where he was serving at the time of his death. Only after the Armistice did General Tyson go to England to claim the body. While he was with his troops in France, his only son, a naval aviator, was killed when his plane crashed into the North Sea. West Point cultivated in my great-grandfather a considerable capacity for leadership: He commanded a regiment in the Spanish-American War, and then in 1918 he served as a general on the Western Front, where his brigade took terrible losses as it broke through the Hindenburg line. His advances - on all fronts - raise a larger question. He was trying to win with the pen what he had not yet won with the sword. My great-grandfather took this as an “omen” of their unity, a bond that would bring him, he said - in his words, “No more quarrels or wars … each of us has surrendered to the other his sword.” He confessed in one: “I fear I should weary you if I wrote oftener.” For their first Christmas of knowing one another, they sent each other identical scarf pins in the shape of a sword - and they crossed in the mail. As a young second lieutenant, my great-grandfather was stationed in the West, where he met my great-grandmother and began writing her passionate and quite poetic love letters. Now, in fact, as I found reading through my great-grandfather’s papers, he seems to have shared with Grant something of an affinity for language. And Grant confessed to spending a good deal of his time here devouring novels. Now, of course, his ranking was better than that of George Armstrong Custer, who was the goat in 1861, but worse than that of Ulysses Grant, who was 21st out of 39 in the Class of 1843. ![]() Edwards, cadet number 52, who saved him from being the “goat.” Great-Grandfather Tyson must have been deeply grateful for Clarence B. Now that doesn’t sound too bad, except that in the Class of 1883 there were 52 students. His name was Lawrence Davis Tyson, and it wasn’t till I recently received a copy of his transcript that I discovered he was 51st in his graduating class. I come from a family with deep roots in the military, and it is a great source of family pride that my great-grandfather graduated from West Point in the Class of 1883. ![]() It is a supreme honour for me to be here today at West Point. This is an abridged version of a speech given at the West Point Military Academy, New York, by the President of Harvard University. West Point Cadet Chapel ( Dave Whelan January 17,2009) ![]()
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