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President of the Republic to the Best High School Graduates
21.06.2000

My dear young men, who were boys only yesterday,
and dear young ladies, who were girls only yesterday,

Finally, this day has come. The day that will always remain a borderline in your personal history - before and after your graduation from high school - and which also has a much holier meaning. You will now be scattered all over Estonia, all over the Estonian universities, and the universities of the world, and you will never again call your closest friends your classmates - class sisters and brothers. I do not recall that I, or Prime Minister Laar, who is standing nicely in the shadow over there, had ever called our fellow students at the university our sisters and brothers. Cherish this friendship that has united you. Cherish it just to understand how much the school has given you, so that it will help you to go on. To go on where? There is no such world, no such country, village, or city in our outside Estonia where your learning days would be over.

You finished school not only in order to begin your studies again at another school. In that other school, you will be much freer in your choices. Today at least part of you have understood what it is you certainly want to do, and what you certainly do not want to do. You are citizens. And now you are responsible for your own future, and in a couple of decades also for your children's future, and you will tell your children about this day.

I would like to tell you something that I have certainly already told many people. I would like to tell you about what happened today 47-48 years ago, when I graduated from high school. I had studied in nine different schools and also changed my studying language for five times, but I graduated here in Tallinn, under the pine trees of Nõmme - so went the words of our school anthem, and both the words and the tune were written by Kulno Süvalepp.

Because of the war that had ended only three years earlier, there were four forms graduating on the same year, and we still had our old headmaster who had been appointed to his post by the Republic of Estonia. The year was 1948 and none of us knew that in less than a year every 50th Estonian would be deported from their native country. I assure you that we too were very happy on that day, and then our old headmaster Teaste got up and held a short speech to our four forms, a short speech that I will never forget. He said: let the blue sky always shine above you, and let your hands always be covered with earth from your work, and let there always be the light of hope in your hearts. This way, this honourable man wanted to tell us about the colours blue, black, and white. And this was to be his last speech, as he had to leave our school on the next week and was in a prison cell already a month later.

This is the shortest summary of Estonian history - the history that you have been learning. If you want to know where you are going, then for this day the day that has finally come - to be beautiful, you must know where you come from, where you have come from, where your parents have come from, and what your parents once have done and had to endure. Think a little back in time, although it may seem ancient history to you. In 1918, boys and girls of your age made a very simple choice. They saw that history had for once given the Estonians an opportunity to create their own state and their independence, and above all, to create Estonian-language schools and an Estonian-language university where they would be able to study. But in order to do that, they had to defend this little spot of land with gun in hand against the enemy who was 2, 5, 10, 100 times more powerful. Imagine - what once was just a dream in their hearts became a reality, because no one hesitated on the path taken by your grandfathers or great-grandfathers at that time.

I would like to tell you that I expect something from you, and this is a very personal request. I have visited several Estonian schools in this beautiful spring when students graduate from schools. All the graduation ceremonies are beautiful, but some are more beautiful than others. I saw that not all the schools in Estonia are yet able to sing the Estonian national anthem properly, and that not all our schools know that the Estonian national flag carried into the room solemnly, and not the long evening dresses, is the most beautiful symbol of graduation.

I have a request to you. Within this week, or perhaps after the Midsummer Day, I would like each of you to write to me about what he liked and disliked most about school. It would be very important for me, and I would be very grateful if you trusted me with you hopes and disappointments. I am not going to use them for any ill purpose, and you know this. But I will look them through and convene the Academic Council. This Council consists of our best scholars, and we will discuss this and do everything in our power to make the Estonian school a little better next year, and even better on the year after the next. And those of you, who have decided to become schoolteachers - which to my mind is a profession more beautiful than that of a poet, or a composer, or a writer, or an architect, because a schoolteacher is a creator of thinking human beings - those of you who have chosen the profession of a schoolteacher can be sure that when they step into a classroom again as schoolteachers, not as pupils any longer, the Estonian school will be wiser and friendlier and stricter, and abler to respect, support and develop the individuality of each student. This is the meaning of this simple sentence.

When we really know where we come from, we know just as well where we are going, and we only want to go on to the Republic of Estonia that is more just, wealthier, happier, and younger - and for that, my dear friends, I wish you a lot of luck and grit. The courageous gain the victory, and all of you have courage.

Thank you!

 

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