Ladies and gentlemen:
I want to say how proud we have
been that you chose to come to this country to examine our educational
system, and I am sure that you taught us during your visit here more than
you learned.
There is, I know, a great tendency
in every country, including my own, to consider education important but
perhaps not so vital. We are so concerned in so many parts of the world
with the problems that are coming today, next year, and the year after
- and it does take 5 or 10 or 15 years to educate a boy or girl - and therefore
there is a tendency to concentrate available resources on the problems
we face now, and perhaps ignore what the potentialities and capabilities
will be of our people 10 or 15 years from now.
Thomas Jefferson once said that
if you expect a people to be ignorant and free you expect what never was
and never will be. And from the beginning of this country, in order to
maintain a very difficult discipline which is self-government, we have
placed a major emphasis on education.
My own feeling is, we have to
do better - not only in quantity but also in quality, and I am hopeful
that we can develop in this country a cult of excellence in regard to education
and intellectual development, which will make this country more equipped
to meet its problems. What is true of us I'm sure is true of you. In some
of your countries your problems are entirely different, and that is, making
it possible for, in the mass, to educate great numbers of your people who
today do not have that advantage, and also making sure that at the higher
level we can train and then usefully employ men and women to serve not
only their own interests but that of their country.
I want you to know we are very
proud to have you here. Our educational system has represented the devoted
efforts of our citizenry, but I think we can always do better. And perhaps
by your presence here, and your questions, and your concerns, you have
been able to stimulate us to move more forward along what I consider to
be the most vital function of society: educating our people - making it
possible for them to realize their potentials, and by serving their own
personalities and development, serving the national interest.
So we're glad to see you and
we hope that when you go home you will be able to communicate to them not
only things that you may have liked here, or disliked, but also the sense
of a people desiring to improve themselves and their country.
Thank you.