“I am a Pennsylvania State Trooper, a soldier of the law. To me is entrusted the honor of the force. I must serve honestly, faithfully, and if need be, lay down my life as others have done before me, rather than swerve from the path of duty. It is my duty to obey the law and to enforce it without any consideration of class, color, creed or condition. It is also my duty to be of service to anyone who may be in danger or distress, and at all times so conduct myself that the honor of the force may be upheld.”

This is the Pennsylvania State Police Call of Honor. Every cadet memorizes this pledge, to recite it on the day he or she becomes a member of the force. It’s been a tradition since the state police superintendent issued a general order in 1929 requiring all troopers to memorize the call.

On Friday, 62 more cadets recited the call of honor and took that big step.

They are the fourth and final class of graduating cadets this year, making a total of 271 new recruits in 2016.

But there’s a big problem looming. for every one of those new troopers, there are three troopers who became eligible for retirement in 2016. And some municipalities are abolishing their own police departments for lack of funding, leaving a law-enforcement void where state police are the only remaining authority.

The agency has intensified its recruitment efforts; even so, this year’s figures fall far behind the 406 cadets who graduated in 2015. In the last five years, 1,476 graduates have joined the 4,500-member state police force.

There are internal and external pressures on the force and its recruitment efforts.

The internal pressures include a cheating scandal a year ago that exposed some practices described as unsavory and dysfunctional: shoddy training, test answers routinely provided ahead of time, and tests unchanged over several years, according to previous news reports.

Former cadets also cited racist or discriminatory comments by instructors and inadequate training in subjects like CPR and use of force.

External pressures include a general distrust of law enforcement by ethnic minorities — a distrust that has manifested violently on occasion in locations across the country. The threat of violence only increases the difficulty in recruiting for law enforcement; the distrust make it difficult to recruit specifically for ethnic minority cadets.

Friday’s trooper class reflected the modern-day challenges. Not all, but a predominant number of the new officers are white men.

To remain healthy and reverse its net loss of officers, the state police must consider a recruitment approach that opens its ranks to racial diversity, drawing from and developing a force more representative of the growing diversity of Pennsylvanians.

Such a move might seem revolutionary to some observers, but in fact, it was a founding principle of William Penn to foster tolerance and diversity in his colony of brotherly love.

We should be proud of our state police force and grateful for the courage and spirit of sacrifice they represent. We encourage the agency and its superintendent, Capt. Tyree C. Blocker, as they strive to recapture the high virtues encapsulated in the Pennsylvania State Police Call of Honor.