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I want to begin by thanking the Honor Council for this opportunity to speak to you about the McDonogh Honor Code this morning. But first I want to talk to you about my house. I live on Farm Road in a quaint red farm house that, according to Mr. Simmers, was built in 1887 and is the last of its kind on campus.

It is, to paraphrase Daniel Webster, a small house, but we love it. I often think of the families it has sheltered and sustained over the last hundred or so years and the time tested wisdom secreted within its walls. The foundation has neither shifted nor cracked; it is, to be sure, sturdy stuff, and built to last. Like Thoreau’s cabin on Walden pond it is simple, four-square; perhaps this little house is out to teach me that I must to strike a balance between what I want and what I need and, more importantly, to have the wisdom to know the difference.

The honor pledge occupies a prominent position in my classroom though I cannot take credit for having put it there. Affixed to my wall it is, like my house, four-square, and enclosed in a rather modest and unprepossessing brown frame. It is a gift from the Class of 1991. It reads: “I will not lie, cheat, or steal. I will respect the rights and well being of myself and others.”

The pledge is simple, elegant, powerful. It does not tell us that we should not lie, cheat, or steal, or that we should respect ourselves and others, but that we will. Notice too that the pledge is not only categorical but unconditional. In other words, there are no circumstances in which lying would be condoned, no circumstances in which cheating would be permissible.

Then I got to thinking about how this particular honor plaque was a gift. This certainly was not a gift like giving money to McDonogh, and it certainly wasn’t a gift of the same order as the ark in the lower school playground, or the benches I love near Tagart Chapel that overlook the cornfields. What kind of a gift is as exacting, as demanding, as the honor pledge? Is it, in fact, really a gift at all?

It is, and of the very best kind for the following reason: it is a gift of principle and principles, a gift that thereby creates what we call the McDonogh community and sets us apart as exceptional. It acknowledges and affirms that there is something special in each and every one of us that is superior to circumstances. It underscores our commitment to honesty and integrity even if it means a low grade on an exam for which we were ill- prepared, or on an essay on which we were strapped for time. There is no mistaking the fact that academic excellence is for sale: there are essays on almost any topic imaginable available online; there are even some tutors who, no matter what they tell themselves to assuage their conscience, have ceased to teach students and instead are doing their work for them. Many athletes, even high school age athletes, are using performance enhancing drugs, steroids, in order to get them the edge they think will secure a college scholarship. And since honesty is part of the honor pledge let us be honest with ourselves and with each other. Many, I’d even have to say most, will never be caught, whether it is in the classroom or on the athletic field. College admission is more competitive and more costly than ever; high school athletics have been professionalized, and if you doubt the latter don’t believe me just read Sports Illustrated which, courageously, is willing to bite the hand that feeds.

Let us again be honest: there have always been reasons to cheat and lie, but now there are more reasons than ever before. Moreover, those who we thought were models of honesty and integrity—Jayson Blair of the New York Times who fabricated sources, Rafael Palmeiro who doesn’t look like some pumped up goon but is one, Martha Stewart who is worth billions of dollars but nevertheless received inside trading information that for her was the equivalent of pocket change—are not. Yes, they were caught but they profited handsomely from their misdeeds. Palmeiro is ready to retire anyway, and with the multi-million dollar contracts he signed because of his bloated numbers he can buy a small island and other creature comforts that will make our consternation and his embarrassment a distant memory. Think you can’t live with the guilt? Does anyone remember O.J.?

Plato tells a fanciful but telling story in the Republic. A shepherd named Gyges is tending his flock one day when he notices one of his sheep is missing. In pursuit of the errant sheep Gyges comes upon a cave and in the dirt of the cave he finds a beautiful ring. In the act of putting it on his finger he turns the ring and quickly realizes that the ring has magic powers and has made him invisible. Shepherds are not, of course, at the top of the food chain. What then, does he do? He kills the king, seduces and marries the queen, and uses the country’s treasury as his own private bank account. The cloak of invisibility enables him to commit any crimes he please and to commit them with impunity.

So what am I trying to tell you? What is Plato trying to tell us? Ms. Deegan would say—and this is one of my favorite expressions of hers—that Gyges is “a little piglet.” He is defined by his appetites, a “pig satisfied,” John Stuart Mill would say. But Mill would add in one of his more famous aphorisms: “Better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a pig satisfied.” What does that mean? It means not taking the easy road to success means just that; it won’t be easy and there are no guarantees. You may not get all that you desire; there may be others who are smarter, stronger, faster. So what do you get? You get to be a human being, and since human happiness is only afforded to those human beings for whom humanity is an activity and not some kind of entitlement, only those who are genuinely human, that is to say truthful, kind, and caring, are really happy.

When John Thomas asked if I would speak, I in turn asked what the Honor Council was looking for. John said: “I want them to ask themselves if it’s worth it?" Well, it isn’t worth cheating, lying, or disrespecting others, and do you know why? Because you are worth it. You— are worth it.

There is a very beautiful and moving passage at the end of the Yom Kippur service, the Jewish day of atonement. My father first showed it to me when I was very young. He tried to live its spirit every day and so, to honor and keep alive his memory, do I. Like our honor principle it is simple and it is elegant because it is true. It reads: “The gates are closing! The gates are closing! Choose life!” Choose truth, choose compassion, choose goodness, choose love. May your life be, as the rabbis say, for a blessing. Thank you.