Keith Jackson is acquiring one more distinction this morning: Lyon is making him an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters.

Walking behind his towering frame in the academic procession, I can't remember a time when I've felt so well protected. I've never had blocking like that. And the sound of the pipes in the backgroud-Lyon has not forgotten its Scottish Presbyterian roots-makes us all stand taller.

But as always on graduation day, the spotlight is where it should be: on the graduating seniors. Now that they have a degree they can commence their education. Every day. Like the rest of us.

Those graduates who majored in education are a special inspiration-because they've gone through Lyon's pioneering education program. Imagine: a college that believes teachers should be educated, not just trained. What a concept. Here at Lyon, it is only after acquiring a liberal education-literally an education befitting the free-do these future teachers begin their apprenticeship in the classroom.

A liberal education. That's one more idea and ideal we learned from the Greeks that, in our modern hubris, we seem to have un-learned, either reducing it to only a superficial decoration or confusing it with professional training. There are some returns to the past that would be a great step forward.

These future teachers have quite a challenge ahead of them, the least of which may be the students whose young minds they are going to open and shape. Because as teachers they'll also have to deal with unimaginative administrators, unhappy parents, and the kind of critics who know all about education without the inconvenience of ever having spent a single hour teaching. Not to mention the kind of school boards and teachers' unions that worry more about perks and political power than educating the young. No wonder teachers burn out so soon these days.

While I'm congratulating the graduates, I note that they include the president of the student body at Lyon, Emily Wilson, a friend of the son of an assistant to my dentist in Maumelle, who by the way sends his best wishes. That's Arkansas for you. If folks don't know you, they know folks who do. Sociologists speak of there being only six degrees of separation between all of us. In this small, wonderfully interwoven state, it's more like four. At the most.