CHELSEA CLINTON GRADUATES; PRESIDENT DAD CALLS FOR STUDENT COURAGE, SAME FROM PARENTS.

Byline: James Bennet The New York Times

Besides wishing them courage and warning them against cynicism, President Clinton urged the students in his daughter's graduating high school class Friday to guard against self-pity. But he did not resist indulging in a bit of it himself as he contemplated sending his only child, Chelsea Victoria Clinton, off to college.

``Members of the class of '97, you are not the only graduates here today,'' Clinton informed them, as they sat beneath sycamores and a pale blue sky outside the elite, private Sidwell Friends School here. The parents, too, were graduating, he said.

``Our pride and joy are tempered by our coming separation from you,'' he continued. ``So I ask you at the beginning to indulge your folks if we seem a little sad or we act a little weird.'' He said that ``a part of us longs to hold you once more as we did when you could barely walk, to read to you just one more time, `Good Night Moon.' ''

In remarks that he labored over on Thursday in the Oval Office, Clinton swerved from such tender reflections to more practiced and familiar ones. ``Crime and welfare rolls have dropped steeply,'' he observed. He worried over ``the coming retirement of your parents' very large generation'' and called for ``the world's first truly great, multiracial, multiethnic, multireligious democracy.''

Then he returned to the personal, offering the 122 students his advice, ``for what's it worth.''

All in 14 minutes. ``Dad, I want you to be wise, briefly,'' Clinton quoted his daughter as having told him beforehand.

Citing past practice by Sidwell, the White House barred reporters from the event. The Clintons zealously shielded Chelsea from the press when she arrived in Washington, but late in her father's re-election campaign she began to appear more often in public. Still, White House aides said, the Clintons wanted to protect her privacy Friday.

Such concerns have not stopped the Clintons from publicly fretting over their daughter's graduation and departure next fall for Stanford University, the subject of Hillary Rodham Clinton's syndicated column this week.

Clinton's remarks were transmitted to the White House briefing room. And at a Mexican restaurant near the school, Marsha Berry, Hillary Clinton's spokeswoman, described the two-hour ceremony as sequestered reporters slugged back margaritas. Chelsea and her female classmates wore ivory or white dresses, Berry said, and carried bouquets of Shasta daisies and babies' breath, trimmed with ribbons. The boys wore blazers, and some pulled out cigars after receiving their diplomas.

In his remarks, Clinton praised the school and its Quaker practice of ``meaningful worship'' - an hour set aside for reflection and respectful exchange. Rather ambiguously, he said of his own experience trying meaningful worship with other Sidwell parents this week, ``I left wishing that Congress were in control of the Quakers.''

As they left the ceremony, students and their relatives praised the president's performance, but one new graduate sounded a poignant note about the first family's star power.

``I know the focus is on Chelsea, but my parents are still proud, and I'm not letting it take away from my enjoyment of the day,'' Nikki Spencer said. She said it nonetheless was ``a very good experience'' to have Clinton speak.

Others described a more familiar graduation sentiment. ``I'm just glad to finish high school,'' said Kevin Reed.

It is traditional at Sidwell for the parent of a graduating senior to give the commencement address.

Critics questioned the Clintons' commitment to public education when they decided to send Chelsea to Sidwell, a Quaker-run school where annual tuition tops $14,000. At the time, friends of the Clintons said they were unwilling to risk their daughter's education to make a political point.

But during a radio interview in April, the first lady said she had worried that in a public school Chelsea, who is now 17, might be harassed by outsiders. ``We wanted to be able to tell the press and the public that they could not be allowed on the property,'' she said.

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PHOTO (color) President and Mrs. Clinton stand with daughter Chelsea, 17, after she graduated from high school Friday.

Associated Press