Graduation speeches are almost universally forgettable.

We challenge any reader who has been out of school more than a few years to remember who spoke at their high school or college graduation and what they said.

But as with every rule, there is an exception. That exception came from Wellesley (Mass.) High English teacher David McCullough Jr. who recently told the graduates: “You are not special. You are not exceptional.”

McCullough’s speech has since gone viral, receiving recognition from across the country, including the Los Angeles Times:

“‘You are not special,’” David McCullough Jr. told the students — in hearing range of their parents, no less. “You are not exceptional.’

“And the class of 2012 applauded. Many of the students in affluent Wellesley, Mass., appreciated the bald honesty and overdue dose of reality,” wrote The Times.

As The Times alludes, modernday thinking has parents believing and inculcating the notion into their youngsters’ heads that they are special, that life must treat them fairly and that self-esteem will somehow overcome mediocrity.

McCullough’s nearly 13-minute speech dispels that notion in not only eloquent fashion but with statistics.

“Across the country no fewer than 3.2 million seniors are graduating about now from more than 37,000 high schools. That’s 37,000 valedictorians … 37,000 class presidents … 92,000 harmonizing altos … 340,000 swaggering jocks … 2,185,967 pairs of Uggs.”

He continued: “Even if you’re one in a million, on a planet of 6.8 billion that means there are nearly 7,000 people just like you.”

The point of McCullough’s speech was not to deflate and discourage, as critics argue. Rather it was to introduce Wellesley graduates to the real world.

That world is one where no one is entitled to royal riches, where hard work does not always mean success, and where fairness is a fairy tale.

The hard truth is that not every baby is beautiful, not every high school soccer star will play for the Revolution, and that A you got in chemistry will not assure you a job at Dow Chemical.

But perhaps the most important part of McCullough’s message was found in his urging of graduates to assume responsibility for their own success. “Carpe the heck out of the diem …” he said. “Get busy, have at it. Don’t wait for inspiration or passion to find you. Get up; get up; get out; explore. Grab it with both hands.”

“Climb the mountain, not to plant your flag but to embrace the challenge, enjoy the air and behold the view. Climb it so you can see the world, not so it can see you.”

Put another way, the journey through life is as important as the destination.

We urge students to make McCullough’s speech a core requirement for entering the next stage of adult life and joining the working world. We have no doubt it will serve them well.

— Foster’s Daily Democrat of Dover (N.H.)