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This act improves the work-study program in two important ways: First: The new legislation provides that a student employee shall work an average of 15 hours per week each semester-rather than specifically requiring 15 hours of work each week. This allows a student to reduce his time on the job during testing or examination periods, and make up the loss later.

Second: The original act specified that the Federal share in the program 90 percent would be reduced in one step this year, to 75 percent. The new legislation in order to reduce the financial impact of the reduction on the employers of these students, phases the reduction in three steps: to 85 percent this year, 80 percent in 1968, and 75 percent in 1969.

The student who works to pay for his education does more than help himself financially. He builds resources of character, self-reliance, and independence that make his degree even more valuable to himself and to the country. And every student in the program contributes importantly to his college and his community.

In the past few years, we have embarked on an historic campaign to give every citizen an equal chance in America-regardless of his birth or his race or his financial status. This law is one way of moving that great effort forward. Its influence in America will be a lasting tribute to the 90th Congress.

NATIONAL ADVISORY COUNCIL ON EDUCATION PROFESSIONS DEVELOPMENT

Announcement of Appointment of the National Advisory Council on Education Professions Development. September 22, 1967

President Johnson today announced the appointment of the National Advisory Council on Education Professions Development.

In making the announcement the President said, "This act, one of the significant achievements of the administration and the 90th Congress, will greatly contribute to the Nation's ability to solve one of the key problems of education: the development and enlistment of better equipped teachers for our schools and colleges. Teachers are central to the role of education in our country. And education is the very base of an informed and strong Nation."

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The President's Remarks Upon Signing the Vocational Rehabilitation Act Amendments of 1967. October 3, 1967

THE PRESIDENT. Secretary Gardner, Under Secretary Cohen, Mrs. Switzer, Members of Congress, ladies and gentlemen:

Eight years ago in Portage, Pennsylvania, a 20-year machinist dived into a swimming hole and struck his head. Thus, he was paralyzed for life.

Even before that accident, he was handicapped; he had been partially deaf since his birth. Now he was not only deaf, but he was

sentenced to another kind of life imprisonment. In many ways, that seemed to be a very, very hopeless case.

Today, that "hopeless case" is a very successful draftsman. He makes a good living with a design firm near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He pays his taxes. He is a member of the community-instead of its helpless ward.

All of that is true because he was helped, helped right from the start by a counselor from the Pennsylvania Bureau of Rehabilitation. The law that I am going to sign today makes such stories as this possible. It brings them into reality. Thousands of them. Half a million exactly in the last 4 years. Since Woodrow Wilson's day it has helped more than 2 million Americans who-in one way or other-would be equally "hopeless cases."

As much as any law on the books, this law reveals what great possibilities every person has-and what, I believe, a great heart we have in America.

Last year, we helped restore 173,000 people to useful lives. Threefourths of them had been unemployed-20 percent of them were already on welfare.

Today, every one of them are taxpayers. This program reaps five tax dollars for every dollar that we sow. And measured in human happiness, its value is beyond all of our counting.

So this moment is more than just a ritual. Today we express again our purpose in America: fulfillment for the individual. We aim to knock down every barrier that keeps a child or a man from realizing his full potential in our country.

The history of these years, I believe, when it is written, will be the story of how we in America accomplished that goal.

A rather bitter writer once gave this definition of history: "The account, mostly false, of events, mostly unimportant, which were brought about by rulers, mostly knaves. ***”

I disagree with him on all counts.

History, I am convinced, will remember these years as a great awakening in America.

In these years, we discovered poverty in the midst of plenty-and we did something about it-not as much as we would like-but we did all that we could get a majority to do.

If historians seek a name for this age in the United States, I hope that they will call it the Age of Education.

Our Government guarantees to all of its citizens all the education that he or she can take.

In the past 6 years, the number of young people going to college from poor homes has risen by more than 12 percent.

In 6 years, the number of high school dropouts has dropped-from 25 percent to 18 percent of our young people between 16 and 24.

I regret we have 18 percent. But I would much rather have 18 than 25 that we started with.

If men in the future want to suggest the range of our achievements, I think they could do it in only two sentences:

"The American people in 3 years, multiplied their commitment to health and education 4 times over. They passed more laws and they committed more funds to the education of our children—and to the health of our people-in 3 years than in all the previous history of America put together."

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Junior colleges are now being founded in America at the rate of one per week.

By 1965, new Federal programs were helping 500,000 young people go to college and without that help, they might not have had a chance. Next year I want all of you to get this-we will be helping 1,200,000; so we have doubled the number that we helped go to college-more than doubled it in the last 2 years-500,000 to 1,200,000.

Those to me are not just numbers. They are miracles. They represent human lives which are being changed and human lives which are being enriched.

They mean that a new idea is already at work here in America.

Once, we thought of rehabilitation as something for the physically handicapped. This law is evidence of that. But now we have learned that other handicaps yield to the same treatment. The handicap of ignorance for example. Mental handicaps are another. The handicap of poverty is another.

Rehabilitation, in fact, has become a basic idea in our country. We act on the belief that every man-no matter what his color, no matter what his bank account, no matter what his handicap, no matter what his IQ-has abilities which America needs.

That is a new idea. But it is a great idea. It is like discovering a new country right in our midst the territory of human promise. That idea promises not more welfare, but more well-being for all-well-being for our people-the people we have selected to serve. So we come here to the East Room of the White House this afternoon to continue this program. To continue it-and to add much to it that is new:

This law extends rehabilitation service to migrant laborers-the poorest among us, the most needy among us.

It increases Federal support for rehabilitation here in our Nation's Capital.

And finally, it strikes at one of the most baffling and heartbreaking handicaps that we can imagine: the double handicap of deaf-blindness. For years, that problem seemed too difficult for us. Now, by establishing a National Center for Deaf-Blind Youth and Adults, we hope to change all of that.

To all the supporters of this law in Congress, to all the Members of the House and Senate who are here this afternoon on behalf of all the Nation, I want to say the Nation owes you a debt of thanks.

I would like to call each of your names. I am sure I would overlook some and make some of you offended. But I must refer to Senator Hill, who is always in the limelight to anything that is good for health and education in this country-to Congressman Perkins, to Congressman Daniels, and to their committee members.

They gave this law dedicated-and bipartisan-support.

In the next few years, this law will turn hope into achievement for thousands of our people.

And it will prove something to us and to history: that in America there is no such thing as a "hopeless case."

Before I conclude because I couldn't go to the Capitol yesterdayI want to pay my respects, my very great esteem and affection to that grand young man who was 90 yesterday, Carl Hayden.

I have never known a better public servant. I have never known a better human being. And I have never had a better friend. I am so glad he could be here today.

INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON THE WORLD CRISIS IN EDUCATION The President's Remarks to Delegates to the Williamsburg Conference. October 8, 1967

Dr. Perkins, Dr. Gardner, most distinguished ladies and gentlemen: I know that all of you share with me the feeling that we are all deeply in the debt of Dr. Perkins for his leadership and this memorable conference which you have launched here. I think in the years to come it will be remembered as one of our most necessary and desirable movements of this period.

It was in this town almost two centuries ago that a revolution began which swept around the world. And it was here that Thomas Jefferson submitted to the Virginia legislature a "plan for the diffusion of knowledge."

The men who founded this country were very passionate believers in the revolutionary power of ideas.

They knew that when a people commit themselves to learning, a revolution begins which will never stop.

Now, here once again, the winds of change seem to be blowing. And once again, we have come here together to consider plans for spreading knowledge.

I am no historian. Certainly I am no prophet.

But for a good many years I have been an observer and a participant in some of the affairs of the world. I have watched man at work; I have seen his creative power-and I have seen his awesome talent for destruction.

In this century, during my lifetime, man has spent literally trillions of dollars on the machinery of death and war. The cost of World War II alone has been estimated at $1 trillion 154 billion-taking no account whatever of any property damage.

In those years, nearly 100 million people have died in the maiming and disease and starvation which came with war.

Yes, we can take no pride in the fact that we have fought each other like animals. And that is really an insult to the animals who live together in more harmony than human beings seem to be able to do. There are other facts that trouble me, too, tonight.

In the world in which we live today, 4 adults in 10 cannot read and write. That is one of the reasons you are here.

There are whole regions in this world in which we live where 8 out of 10 people are illiterate.

Even now, most people end their lives unable to write "cat" or "dog."

These are most disturbing facts in the 20th century, in this the richest age that man has ever known.

They are facts which I think cry out "Shame on the world, and shame on its leaders."

A sarcastic writer once gave this definition of history: "the account, mostly false, of events, mostly unimportant, which were brought about by rulers, mostly knaves."

Naturally, I do not agree with all of that statement.

If future historians, as I said the other day, should seek a name for this period in America, I hope that they will give consideration to calling it the age of education.

If our children's children want to measure what we tried to achieve, I hope they will remember one thing:

The American Government in only 3 years multiplied its commitment to education and to health four times over. Congress passed more laws and committed more funds to education and health in the last 3 years than in all previous history.

The Federal commitment for education and training alone has risen from $4 billion 700 million in the United States in 1964 to $12 billion 300 million in the United States in 1967.

We plan to emulate this commitment in the American program to help others fight these age-old enemies of ignorance and disease.

In 1966, about one-third of our entire economic aid program was directed toward agriculture, health, and education. This amounted to more than $800 million in 1 year.

This year our budget calls for $1 billion 300 million for these three objectives. That is about half of the entire United States aid program for agriculture, for health, and for education.

We may be wrong, but as a former schoolteacher of a small rural school, I have had the feeling that if we could help the people of the world to maintain a good, sound body, and if we could provide them with appropriate, proper education, with a good mind and a good body, they could build their own steel mills.

We have been trying to concentrate our energies in that directionin the direction of educating the mind, improving the body, and providing food for their sustenance.

When other forms of United States assistance are added to America's program for foreign aid to agriculture, education, and health, namely, our food program, that exceeds some $3 billion this year. But when it comes to education, every nation-including this one, I think-is still very much a developing country.

We have so much to learn from others. That is one of the primary reasons you are here to help us assort what there is to do and to make an agenda for it. We firmly believe that the knowledge of our citizens is one treasure which grows only when that treasure is shared. So we must find ways to extend the treasure to lands where learning is still the luxury of the few.

One lesson of our experience in economic and social development is quite clear: Education is the greatest single bottleneck. Development means that men and women can put to use in their own societies, in their own lives, in their own time, what modern science and technology can provide to help them. But that requires education.

At the level of basic education the truth of the matter is that we may be falling far behind. It takes so long these days to train a teacher, and yet it is so relatively easy to produce a student that we are not even holding our own in basic literacy.

At higher levels of education we are making progress. This year there will be 1 million young American boys and girls in the colleges of this country who will be there because of the legislation that we have passed providing for scholarships, grants, and loans during the last few years.

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