With the last of the high school graduations completed on Friday night, we wish the young people who earned their diploma the best life has to offer.

To paraphrase Charles Dickens in “A Tale of Two Cities,” it is the best of times and it is the worst of times. The Class of 2009 knows no technological boundaries. We may speak with one another on cellular phones from one end of the earth to another. Information is only a touch screen or keyboard away on the Internet. Even their high school photographs are digital, taken in an instant and recorded on a disk for posterity. What’s more, with the proper education, many of these graduates might contribute the next technological leap into a world of nano particles and quantum physics.

Yet, theirs is a difficult world in which to negotiate — a war that seemingly has no boundaries, a world economy in recession, dwindling resources and highly competitive job markets.

The key here is education. These children who have completed one step in their educations this week still have far to go, although they’ve come so far.

We wish them well. We hope for them a better world than we inherited.