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Two kings' sons once upon a time went into the world to seek their fortunes; but they soon fell into a wasteful foolish way of living, so that they could not return home again. Then their brother, who was a little insignificant dwarf, went out to seek for his brothers: but when he had found them they only laughed at him, to think that he, who was so young and simple, should try to travel through the world, when they, who were so much wiser, had been unable to get on. However, they all set out on their journey together, and came at last to an ant-hill. The two elder brothers would have pulled it down, in order to see how the poor ants in their fright would run about and carry off their eggs. But the little dwarf said, 'Let the poor things enjoy themselves, I will not suffer you to trouble them.' So on they went, and came to a lake where many many ducks were swimming about. The two brothers wanted to catch two, and roast them. But the dwarf said, 'Let the poor things enjoy themselves, you shall not kill them.' Next they came to a bees'-nest in a hollow tree, and there was so much honey that it ran down the trunk; and the two brothers wanted to light a fire under the tree and kill the bees, so as to get their honey. But the dwarf held them back, and said, 'Let the pretty insects enjoy themselves, I cannot let you burn them.' At length the three brothers came to a castle: and as they passed by the stables they saw fine horses standing there, but all were of marble, and no man was to be seen. Then they went through all the rooms, till they came to a door on which were three locks: but in the middle of the door was a wicket, so that they could look into the next room. There they saw a little grey old man sitting at a table; and they called to him once or twice, but he did not hear: however, they called a third time, and then he rose and came out to them. He said nothing, but took hold of them and led them to a beautiful table covered with all sorts of good things: and when they had eaten and drunk, he showed each of them to a bed-chamber. The next morning he came to the eldest and took him to a marble table, where there were three tablets, containing an account of the means by which the castle might be disenchanted. The first tablet said: 'In the wood, under the moss, lie the thousand pearls belonging to the king's daughter; they must all be found: and if one be missing by set of sun, he who seeks them will be turned into marble.' The eldest brother set out, and sought for the pearls the whole day: but the evening came, and he had not found the first hundred: so he was turned into stone as the tablet had foretold. The next day the second brother undertook the task; but he succeeded no better than the first; for he could only find the second hundred of the pearls; and therefore he too was turned into stone. At last came the little dwarf's turn; and he looked in the moss; but it was so hard to find the pearls, and the job was so tiresome!—so he sat down upon a stone and cried. And as he sat there, the king of the ants (whose life he had saved) came to help him, with five thousand ants; and it was not long before they had found all the pearls and laid them in a heap. The second tablet said: 'The key of the princess's bed-chamber must be fished up out of the lake.' And as the dwarf came to the brink of it, he saw the two ducks whose lives he had saved swimming about; and they dived down and soon brought in the key from the bottom. The third task was the hardest. It was to choose out the youngest and the best of the king's three daughters. Now they were all beautiful, and all exactly alike: but he was told that the eldest had eaten a piece of sugar, the next some sweet syrup, and the youngest a spoonful of honey; so he was to guess which it was that had eaten the honey. Then came the queen of the bees, who had been saved by the little dwarf from the fire, and she tried the lips of all three; but at last she sat upon the lips of the one that had eaten the honey: and so the dwarf knew which was the youngest. Thus the spell was broken, and all who had been turned into stones awoke, and took their proper forms. And the dwarf married the youngest and the best of the princesses, and was king after her father's death; but his two brothers married the other two sisters.

In welcoming the Class of 2030, Levin celebrated Stanford's culture of exploration, expertise, and optimism. "The future is something you build rather than something that happens to you." Following is the prepared text of remarks by Stanford President Jonathan Levin at the 136th Convocation Ceremony on Sept. 15, 2026: First-years, transfer students, and families: Welcome to Stanford! We're so glad you're here. We enjoyed seeing you moving in this morning. That's one of my favorite moments of the year. Parents and families, we especially enjoyed seeing the look of pride on your faces. Let me start with a prediction, based on evidence, although admittedly a small sample size. I predict that you are unlikely to remember much of this talk. But you will remember the feeling of arriving at Stanford. That has certainly been the case for me. In the fall of 1990, I flew across the country, and a blue Super Shuttle bus dropped me and my two duffel bags in front of Wilbur Hall. I remember the feeling as if it were yesterday – walking around campus in the sun, meeting a few people in my dorm who I still talk with today, and seeing my room for the first time. Some of you might wonder, have the rooms changed much? The answer is no. We call it eclectic. I had chosen Stanford for its sense of openness and possibility, for its spirit of exploration. It did not disappoint, and that is one of the many reasons I'm still here today, and I'm so excited to see you launch on your own voyages. This weekend I was scheduled to be in Florida to watch the launch of another Stanford explorer. Jessica Watkins arrived at Stanford in the fall of 2006. She wanted to be an astronaut. Of course, I grew up wanting to play center field for the New York Yankees, so these things don't always work out, but in Jessica's case, it did. At Stanford, Jessica studied geological and environmental sciences. She was a star on the women's rugby team – winning a national championship as a sophomore. She did a summer internship at the NASA Ames Research Center, and studied how to grow plants in Martian soil. Those experiences set her up to pursue a PhD and, eventually, to be selected into NASA's astronaut program. Today, she's the commander of the Crew-13 mission to the International Space Station – her second trip there. By the way, Stanford has graduated 27 astronauts, and more female astronauts than any civilian university. I was hoping to point up at Jessica in orbit, but as often happens with space missions, the launch on Saturday was postponed. I can't wait to be there when it happens, and maybe one day to see Jessica put her geology training to work walking around on the moon, or even Mars. One of the reasons I love Jessica's trajectory and was so eager to be there for her launch is that it ties into something I've been thinking about all summer. This fall, I'm teaching a section of COLLEGE 101, a course many of you will take. It'll be a new class for me, and different. My field is economics, so I've usually taught classes on game theory or innovation or how to design markets. COLLEGE 101 is about the role of education in preparing you to live a good life. A feature of our freshman curriculum is that we invite faculty from all across campus to teach in it. That's why some of you will have literary scholars while others have a physicist, or a physician, or an economist who's become a university president. So this summer, I've done a lot of reading: Plato, Du Bois, Tagore, Dangarembga, Epicurus, Seneca. Tara Westover's memoir. Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. Many of the readings are about what education should look like, or personal accounts of education, at different times and places. You'll get to talk about them all through the quarter. The readings raised a question: What is it about a Stanford education that distinguishes it from the many and varied forms of education over time and place? How will it prepare you for a good life? I think there are three answers. First, the freedom to explore. Many educational traditions are narrow by design: a fixed course of study, depth in a particular area. Stanford is different. You're embarking on a true journey of discovery. You'll have the opportunity to take classes and encounter new ideas across many fields, and to change your mind. Changing your mind is a big part of education. My freshman year at Stanford I arrived with no idea what I wanted to study. I took a class on Eastern philosophy, a seminar on Dostoyevsky, and what for me was an incredibly challenging math class. I ended up majoring in English and math. Jessica Watkins started as an engineer and switched into Earth science. Isaiah Berlin famously described two types of thinkers – the fox who knows many things and the hedgehog who knows one big thing. A liberal education aims to give you some of both, the theory being that judgment and citizenship require both mastery and exposure to different ways of thinking. Second, the premise of a research university is that expertise matters, and that by putting scholars together with undergraduates, everyone benefits. You will learn from faculty who have devoted their entire lives to a field. In turn, you'll ask questions and push the faculty to explain their field and why it matters. The exchange runs in both directions. All of us on the faculty have experienced this. One of my favorite research projects started when one of my advisees spent his junior summer working for a used car dealership in Tucson, Arizona. The business was fascinating, and we ended up writing a paper about it. I learned a ton and I think he did too. A few years later, he and his classmates started what is by far the most successful used car company in the United States. Third, there is the experience of the campus. As Dean Shaw described, you're an impressive and wide-ranging class, but that's not why you're here. You're here for who you are going to become, and much of that will be shaped by each other – in dorms, in dining halls, in rehearsal rooms, cheering on Stanford teams, or perhaps occasionally swimming in the fountains. What I hope you will share and embrace is the distinctive culture of Stanford's campus – the pursuit of excellence, the openness to ideas, and the sense of optimism. At the heart of Stanford's culture is a belief in our ability to work together and solve problems, a belief that the future is something you build rather than something that happens to you. You, the class of 2030, are arriving at a particularly momentous time, when rapid technological change promises to transform discovery, education, and many aspects of our lives. Even here, in a place which launched the semiconductor industry, modern computer architecture, and the internet age, no one can forecast exactly how it will unfold. But consider the following. Suppose you were starting with a blank sheet of paper, and asked to design a place to be at the current moment. What attributes would you want? A place with the freedom to explore and adapt. A place with expertise across many disciplines – science, technology, humanities, arts, the social sciences. A place that is forward-looking and problem-solving. So what I can tell you with confidence is that you are in the right place.

There was once a king whose name was Dionysius. He was so unjust and cruel that he won for himself the name of tyrant. He knew that almost everybody hated him, and so he was always in dread lest some one should take his life. But he was very rich, and he lived in a fine palace where there were many beautiful and costly things, and he was waited upon by a host of servants who were always ready to do his bidding. One day a friend of his, whose name was Damocles, said to him, "How happy you must be! You have here everything that any man could wish." "Perhaps you would like to change places with me," said the tyrant. "No, not that, O king!" said Damocles; "but I think, that, if I could only have your riches and your pleasures for one day, I should not want any greater happiness." "Very well," said the tyrant. "You shall have them." And so, the next day, Damocles was led into the palace, and all the servants were bidden to treat him as their master. He sat down at a table in the banquet hall, and rich foods were placed before him. Nothing was wanting that could give him pleasure. There were costly wines, and beautiful flowers, and rare perfumes, and delightful music. He rested himself among soft cushions, and felt that he was the happiest man in all the world. Then he chanced to raise his eyes toward the ceiling. What was it that was dangling above him, with its point almost touching his head? It was a sharp sword, and it was hung by only a single horse-hair. What if the hair should break? There was danger every moment that it would do so. The smile faded from the lips of Damocles. His face became ashy pale. His hands trembled. He wanted no more food; he could drink no more wine; he took no more delight in the music. He longed to be out of the palace, and away, he cared not where. "What is the matter?" said the tyrant. "That sword! that sword!" cried Damocles. He was so badly frightened that he dared not move. "Yes," said Dionysius, "I know there is a sword above your head, and that it may fall at any moment. But why should that trouble you? I have a sword over my head all the time. I am every moment in dread lest something may cause me to lose my life." "Let me go," said Damocles. "I now see that I was mistaken, and that the rich and powerful are not so happy as they seem. Let me go back to my old home in the poor little cottage among the mountains." And so long as he lived, he never again wanted to be rich, or to change places, even for a moment, with the king.

About five kilometers from the White House in Washington, D.C., stands an historic building closely linked to one of America's most famous presidents: Abraham Lincoln. The building, known as President Lincoln's Cottage, is where Lincoln spent about one-fourth of his time while in office. And he made some very important decisions while there. Summertime can get very hot in Washington, D.C. So, President Lincoln used a country house to escape the worst of the heat. Each morning and evening, Lincoln rode between the two houses on horseback, unguarded. The trip took about thirty minutes. The large house he rode to was on the grounds of the Soldiers' Home. The house stood on much higher ground than the White House, so the wind kept it cooler. It was also quiet -- a place to think. Lincoln spent much of his time there writing. That work included early versions of what would become one of the most important documents in American history: The Emancipation Proclamation. The Emancipation Proclamation came during the Civil War in the United States. The proclamation declared people held as slaves in the rebellious states were free. The Civil War lasted from 1861 to 1865. Troops remained at the Soldiers' Home to protect President Lincoln during the war. At first, Lincoln did not welcome the soldiers. He did not think he needed their protection. But he began to enjoy talking to them. In fact, much of what historians know about the president's time at the house is from stories told by those soldiers. One night in 1864, President Lincoln survived a murder attempt. He was alone and on horseback near the country house when someone shot at him. His tall hat flew off his head. Soldiers found the hat and saw that a bullet had torn through it. The president was not injured in the attack. After that, the War Department increased protection for Lincoln. But it was not enough to save his life. Records show that he visited his country house for the last time on April 13, 1865. The next day, John Wilkes Booth, an actor and supporter of the defeated Confederacy, shot President Lincoln at Ford's Theatre in Washington. President Lincoln's Cottage opened to the public in 2008. I'm John Russell.

The Goodyear Blimp is an airship that is also a traveling advertisement for the Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company. The airships are immediately recognizable to most Americans. For the past 100 years, Goodyear has flown blimps over major sporting events, including the Daytona 500 car race. The blimp has been at every Daytona 500 race since 1962. In 2025 to celebrate the anniversary of the Goodyear Blimp, the airships are taking a special tour of big events around the country. Goodyear operates three 75-meter-long airships, called Wingfoot One, Two and Three. Wingfoot One is based near Akron, Ohio, which is also home to the company's headquarters. Wingfoot Two is based near Fort Lauderdale, Florida. The third airship is based near Los Angeles, California. Today, there are many camera technologies, such as drones, that have changed aerial photography. However, the blimp continues to provide pictures from the air that are unusual. At the Daytona 500, for example, the airship provides a bird's eye view of the speedway that cannot be equaled. Fox Sports director Artie Kempner spoke to the Associated Press about television coverage of the race. Kempner said, "It's great to show the pack racing." He added that he expected to use aerial pictures from the blimp about 50 times during his coverage. The Goodyear Blimp has been a regular sight at major sporting events since flying above the 1955 Rose Bowl American football game. It became a service vehicle for television coverage providing shots from high above events. At the same time, it has been a recognizable advertising vehicle for the Goodyear company. Over the years, blimps have undergone many changes. They have been equipped with improvements to steering, camera, and safety technology. The airship is quieter to ride because the engines and propellers have been repositioned. Riding on the blimp is not too different from traveling on a small airplane. Each can carry 12 passengers and has reclining seats, tables, seatbelts, and a bathroom. The blimp offers a smooth ride even at its top speed of 117 kilometers per hour. "It's an iconic symbol for our nation, a floating piece of Americana," said blimp pilot Jensen Kervern. She added, "Despite changes in technology and our environment, people still get so excited to see the blimp." Goodyear representatives say the blimps have covered more than 2,500 events and taken more than 500,000 passengers for rides. President Ronald Reagan might be the most famous passenger. Already in 2025, the Goodyear fleet has flown over college football games at the Rose Bowl and the Orange Bowl, professional sports games, and golf competitions at Pebble Beach, California. One of the blimps is also expected to appear at the music festival Coachella, at WrestleMania, and at the Academy Awards. Some people, however, might wonder whether the blimp will survive another 100 years. They point to improving drone technology and note that the Goodyear Blimp crew at Daytona required 20 people. But blimp pilot Kervern is not too worried. She said, "There's nothing like it in the world." I'm Anna Matteo.

An old lion was lying on the ground. It was very tired and sick. The lion was almost dead. A wild boar saw him and ran at him. The boar used his tusks to hurt the lion, getting back at him for something that happened before. Soon after, a bull used his horns to attack the lion. The bull gored him as if he was an enemy. Then, an ass saw that the big, tired lion was not able to fight back. The ass kicked the lion on his forehead with his heels. The lion, about to die, said, "I have put up with the insults of brave animals. But I cannot believe I am treated this badly by you. You are a shame to nature. It is like I am dying twice."

A CHARGER, feeling the infirmities of age, was sent to work in a mill instead of going out to battle. But when he was compelled to grind instead of serving in the wars, he bewailed his change of fortune and called to mind his former state, saying, "Ah! Miller, I had indeed to go campaigning before, but I was barbed from counter to tail, and a man went along to groom me; and now I cannot understand what ailed me to prefer the mill before the battle." "Forbear," said the Miller to him, "harping on what was of yore, for it is the common lot of mortals to sustain the ups and downs of fortune."