If you want to read an uplifting commencement address, one that is not bitter and self-absorbed or nasty and partisan, as all too many have been this season, Vice President Mike Pence gave a lovely graduation address at Hillsdale College.   

Pence praised "our great inheritance" as Americans:

You are an extraordinary group of men and women who have accomplished extraordinary things in your time here, and you’ve only just begun. You are 366 strong, you represent 37 states and five countries, and you’ve persevered through one of the most challenging and transformative educations in the country.

Although it seems, at times, that we live in an age of grim relativism, this class has seen the power of unchanging truth to change lives. You’ve learned the vital importance of character, that it is essential for self-government, and that right conduct is its own reward.

It also seems, at times, that we live in an age when too many disregard the wisdom of the past. But here at Hillsdale you’ve been grounded in the teachings and traditions that are our greatest inheritance as Americans—the same teachings and traditions that are the surest foundation of a boundless American future.

Our 48th vice president quoted a sobering pronouncement by John Adams, our first vice president:  

Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.

I feel  certain that Adams meant virtue rather than virtue-signaling, which seems to have replaced virtue.

But let me not get bogged down. Pence's speech was fine and sent the young people into the world bolstered by idealism and tradition.

Wish we had more of this.