VOCATIONAL REHABILITATION Disability-always a cruel burden-has partly succumbed to medical progress. Our Federal-State program of vocational rehabilitation has been demonstrating this fact for more than 40 years. Rehabilitation can help restore productivity and independence to millions of Americans who have been victims of serious illness and injury. Over 110,000 disabled men and women were returned to activity and jobs last year alone. I have already recommended appropriation of increased Federal funds for Vocational rehabilitation. I now recommend enactment of legislation to facilitate the restoration of greater numbers of our mentally retarded and severely disabled to gainful employment, by permitting them up to 18 months of rehabilitative services prior to the determination of their vocational feasibility. I also recommend enactment of a new program for the construction and initial staffing of workshops and rehabilitation facilities, program expansion grants, and increased State fiscal and administrative flexibility." 9. Remarks at St. Louis University, St. Louis, Mo., February 14, 1964 [Excerpts] * President Kennedy told us and I most strongly agree, that our progress as a nation can be no swifter than our progress in education. The human mind is our fundamental resource. This is the most fundamental truth of our system and our society, and every success that we have achieved or hope to achieve. This is not always clearly seen. It is as true today as when Thomas Jefferson first said it, that people generally have more feeling for canals and the roads than they do for education. But I hold the hope that Jefferson held, that we can advance them with equal pace. In our cities and in our counties, and in all of our country, there is a very great and urgent need for public works. But today more than any time in our history, America's most urgent work is educating its people, educating all the people, all the time, wherever they may have been born or wherever they may have chosen to live.15 10. Remarks on the third anniversary of the Alliance for Progress, Pan American Union, March 16, 1964 [Excerpts] In the last 3 years we have built a structure of common effort designed to endure for many years. In those years much has been accomplished. Throughout Latin America new schools and factories, housing and hospitals have opened new opportunities. Nations have instituted new measures of land and tax reform, educational expansion, and economic stimulus and discipline. We are proud of these achievements. But as we take pride in what has thus far been done, our minds turn to the great unfinished business. Only by facing these shortcomings, only by fighting to overcome them, can we make our Alliance succeed in the years ahead. By broadening education, we can liberate new talents and energy, freeing millions from the bonds of illiteracy.✶✶✶16 "Ibid., Feb. 10, 1964, pp. 1, 7, 8, 9, 10, 12. Ibid., Feb. 14, 1964, p. 1. Ibid., Mar. 16, 1964, pp. 2, 3. 11. Message on foreign aid, March 19, 1964 [Excerpts] Funds for educational and technical cooperation—to help start schools, health centers, agricultural experiment stations, credit services, and dozens of other institutions are not concentrated in a few countries. But they will be used for selected projects to raise the ability of less fortunate peoples to meet their own needs. To carry out these projects we are seeking the best personnel available in the United States-in private agencies, in universities, in State and local governments, and throughout the Federal Government." 12. Press conference, April 16, 1964 I am today establishing a program of Presidential scholars. The title will be given to outstanding scholars graduating from our secondary schools, public and private, throughout the Nation. These awards are to recognize the most precious resource of the United States--the brainpower of its young people, to encourage the pursuit of intellectual attainments among all our youth. It is my hope that in the future a similar system can be worked out to honor our most gifted young people in the creative arts. Two Presidential scholars, a boy and a girl, will be named from each State. Two will be named from Puerto Rico, 2 from the District of Columbia, 2 from the American territories, and up to 15 at large. The Presidential scholars will be chosen by a Commission on Presidential Scholars which consists of Dr. Milton Eisenhower, president of Johns Hopkins University, the Chairman of the Commission; Leonard Bernstein, Catherine Ann Porter, Dr. Albert W. Dent, president of Dillard University of New Orleans, the Reverend Michael P. Walsh, president of Boston College, Dr. William Hagerty, president of Drexel Institute of Technology, Philadelphia, and Mr. Melvin W. Barnes, the superintendent of schools of Portland, Oreg. The Commission will operate with complete independence. The Presidential scholars will be named in May of this year. The President will invite them to the White House as guests of this Nation, and present each with a medallion symbolizing the honor.18 13. Remarks in a Courtroom at City Hall, Rocky Mount, N.C., May 7, 1964 [Excerpts] We are going back to Washington and try to take 1 percent of that budget, 1 penny out of every dollar. We saved it by cutting out more than $2 billion, more than twice as much, in obsolete military establishments and so on, the economies effected in the Defense Department. We are going to try to take that money that we saved there and put it to helping people, doing the greatest good for the greatest number, hoping that every boy and girl that is born in this land has a chance to grow up and hold a job that they are trained for and that they are equipped for, hoping that every boy and girl that is born in this land can have a roof over their heads and food in their bodies, clothes on their backs, and can have a chance to have an education, without regard to their race, their religion, or the region of this country in which they live.” Ibid., Mar. 19, 1964, pp. 1, 4. 18 Congressional Quarterly, weekly report, week ending Apr. 24, 1964, p. 787. White House release, May 7, 1964, pp. 1, 4. 14. Remarks Before the New Jersey State Democratic Committee, Convention Hall, Atlantic City, N.J., May 9, 1964 [Excerpts] It is not just a coincidence that New Jersey ranks 6th in unemployment and 10th in those without an 8th grade education. Ignorance breeds joblessness, while opportunity to learn creates opportunity to work. As long as we have poor classrooms, as long as we have untrained teachers, as long as there are little children who fail to finish school, as long as there are young people who cannot afford to go to college-so long will we fall short of being a really, truly great society. Five months ago I signed the historic Education Facilities Act. This bill will build college classrooms for hundreds of thousands of students, construct community colleges and technical institutes, improve graduate schools and college libraries. Next year, New Jersey schools alone will receive more than $6 million for classrooms, libraries, and laboratories alone. But, as Governor Minor and other Governors on the platform, and Dick Hughes, knows, the crisis of our schools is just beginning. On the horizon are problems so huge that only a national effort of vast dimension can meet them. Between 1960 and 1970 there will be 5 million more children in elementary schools, 5 million more children in high school, more than 3 million more children in college-13 million more in elementary, high school, and college and unless we act now, our educational system will crack under this pressure. We have proposed to help States and communities with funds for teachers' salaries, with emergency classroom construction, with projects to iLprove the quality of what is taught. Every community has the right to run its schools as it sees fit, and nothing in our program interferes with that right, but the States, short on new revenue, burdened by new demands, laden with new taxes, need help, and they ought to get it if we are to save 13 million young people. So take it from me tonight that this administration is determined to give knowledge to your children, and men of learning to your country." 15. Remarks at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Mich., May 22, 1964 So I want to talk to you today about three places where we begin to build the great society-in our cities, in our countryside, and in our classrooms. A third place to build the great society is in the classrooms of America. There your children's lives will be shaped. Our society will not be great until every young mind is set free to scan the farthest reaches of thought and imagination. We are still far from that goal. Today, 8 million adult Americans, more than the entire population of Michigan, have not finished 5 years of school. Nearly 20 million have not finished 8 years of school. Nearly 54 million, more than one-quarter of all America, have not even finished high school. Each year more than 100,000 high school graduates, with proved ability, do not enter college because they cannot afford it. And if we cannot educate today's youth, what will we do in 1970 when elementary school enrollment will be 5 million greater than 1960? And high school enrollment will rise by 5 million. College enrollment will increase by more than 3 million. In many places, classrooms are overcrowded and curricula are outdated. Most of our qualified teachers are underpaid, and many of our paid teachers are unqualified. So we must give every child a place to sit and a teacher to learn from. Poverty must not be a bar to learning, and learning must offer an escape from poverty. But more classrooms and more teachers are not enough. We must seek an educational system which grows in excellence as it grows in size. This means better training for our teachers. It means preparing youth to enjoy their hours Ibid., May 9, 1964, p. 5. of leisure as well as their hours of labor. It means exploring new techniques of teaching, to find new ways to stimulate the love of learning and the capacity for creation." 16. Remarks at the Gallaudet Centennial Banquet, Gallaudet College, Washington, D.C., June 6, 1964 [Excerpts] Yet, our wealthy society is tolerating a worrisome burden of wasted human lives. Tonight, too many of our people are unschooled, untrained, and underemployed. Too many are physically handicapped. Too many are mentally handicapped; too many more are handicapped for life by the environments and the experiences of their childhoods. America needs these talents. We must not and we cannot let them go to waste. An ancient Hebrew proverb teaches that there are three pillars of society: education, charity, and piety. For our society, the pillars have been education, compassion, and morality. In the next 24 hours, the research that comes forth around the world would fill seven sets of the Encyclopedia Brittanica. In the next year, the output of such research would require a man to read around the clock-day and nightfor the next 460 years. In the next 10 years, the sum of human knowledge will multiply twofold. When knowledge is advancing at this pace, a compassionate nation cannot afford to leave any segments of our society behind to form and to perpetuate a human slag heap. We must express our compassion in a greater commitment to education. * Universal education has brought our society to its present high level of success. If our society is to move higher, higher education must be made a universal opportunity for all young people. Public education and compassion go hand in hand with private morality." 17. Remarks at Site Dedication Ceremonies of the University of California at Irvine, Calif., June 20, 1964 [Excerpts] Education is a national need, and I want to assure you, that as long as I am President, the education of your children is going to receive top priority by the men who lead your Nation. In the last few months, I have signed three education bills into law, in addition to one library bill. One of them will build college classrooms for hundreds of thousands of students, construct community colleges and technical institutes and improve graduate schools and college libraries. But that is just a beginning. In the next decade, our college population will almost double, and we must provide them with facilities and faculties second to none in the world. I believe we will so provide them. I expect higher education in America to cross many new frontiers in that decade, and one of the most critical is the frontier of the city life. A century ago we were a nation of farms and farmers. Eighty percent of our people lived in rural areas. We had to cultivate a wilderness of western lands. Congress passed legislation then to apply the science of our learning to the secrets of our agriculture, and our colleges and our universities set out to change our farms. Well, the results were revolutionary—so revolutionary that today one farmworker produces what six produced a hundred years ago. Now Ibid., May 22, 1964, pp. 1. 2. 3. 70 percent of our people live in urban areas, like Los Angeles. Their needs are immense. But just as our colleges and universities changed the future of our farms a century ago, so they can help change the future of our cities. I foresee the day when an urban extension service, operated by universities across the country, will do for urban America what the Agricultural Extension Service has done for rural America. And I am asking the U.S. Commissioner of Education to meet with the leaders of education-men like your own Clark Kerr-to see how that can come to pass. All our hopes for peace depend on the kind of society that we build here in the United States. And that, in turn, the kind of society that we build, rests on our system of education. I do not intend for us to settle for an uneasy peace for the world, or an inferior society for America, or an inadequate education for our children. * 18. Remarks at the Convention of the Communications Workers of America, Cleveland, Ohio, June 17, 1964 [Excerpts] In 1965, 1 million more youths will be looking for jobs than in 1964. In this decade, 26 million young people will seek their first job. Ten million of them will not even have a high school diploma. These workers will enter a job market almost closed to the man without a skill. Over the next 5 years, the demand for professional and technical people will go up 65 percent; for clerical workers it will go up 45 percent, but the demand for unskilled workers will not go up at all. So, the challenge to our leadership is clear. We must continue to expand our economy, creating new jobs. We must provide our workers with education, and training to meet the needs of a new dynamic industry." 23 19. Remarks at the Fund Raising Dinner, Hilton Hotel, San Francisco, Calif., June 19, 1964 [Excerpts] Third, we took immediate action to meet the hopes and widen the horizons of opportunity for every American. In San Francisco, we said, and I quote, "The pressure of our schools, the plight of our aged, the necessity of maintaining full employment, the necessity of expanding equal rights to all Americans— these are the things that require action." Since 1960 we have enacted legislation and started programs to build almost 30 new public community colleges every year; to provide college classrooms for hundreds of thousands of new students; to provide loans that enable almost 100,000 additional Americans to attend college every year. But we have only just begun. In the next decade our goal is to open the door of higher education to every youngster in America who qualifies. * * We are going to expand our investment in training new workers.* * **4 Ibid., June 17, 1964, pp. 1, 3. |