(Bloomberg) Barack Obama, standing in for Senator Edward M. Kennedy as commencement speaker at Wesleyan University, invoked the Kennedy family's legacy of public service and challenged students to look beyond material gains and work for our ``collective salvation.'' ``No one is forcing you to care,'' Obama said. ``You can take your diploma, walk off this stage and chase only after the big house and the nice suits and all the other things that our money culture says you should buy. But I hope you don't.'' With a commanding lead in the race for the Democratic presidential nomination, Obama said that if he is elected he will call upon the students and the nation to ``be unified in service to a greater good. I intend to make it a cause of my presidency.'' Wesleyan officials estimated the crowd at 25,000, including those who viewed the speech on closed-circuit television in rooms around the campus set up to handle the overflow. Last year, 8,000 attended the college's 175th anniversary celebration. Obama pinch-hit for Kennedy at the Middletown, Connecticut, school after the 76-year-old Democratic Party lion was diagnosed with a malignant brain tumor. Kennedy, along with his niece, Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg, endorsed Obama in January, a symbolic ``passing of the torch'' to the Illinois senator. ``It is rare in this country of ours that a person exists who has touched the lives of nearly every single American without many of us even realizing it,'' Obama said in tribute to his cancer-stricken Senate colleague from Massachusetts. ``And I have a feeling that Ted Kennedy is not done just yet.'' Obama said the students should draw inspiration from Kennedy and devote their energies to the common good. ``It's because you have an obligation to yourself,'' Obama, 46, said. ``Because our individual salvation depends on our collective salvation.'' Among the Wesleyan graduates today is Kennedy's stepdaughter, Caroline Raclin. The commencement also marks the 25th reunion for Kennedy's son, Edward Kennedy Jr., who graduated from the school in 1983. Recalling his time as a community organizer in Chicago, Obama said there are many ways the students can help others. ``At a time of war, we need you to work for peace,'' he said. ``At a time of inequality, we need you to work for opportunity. At a time of so much cynicism and so much doubt, we need you to make us believe again.''

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