Computers in Education

In my 1968 Budget, I propose that the National Science Foundation be given new resources to advance man's knowledge and serve the Nation. Its endeavors will help our scholars better to understand the atmosphere, exploit the ocean's riches, probe the behavior and the nature of man.

The Foundation will also step up its pioneer work to develop new teaching materials for our schools and colleges. The "new math" and the "new science" are only the first fruits of this innovative work.

One educational resource holds exciting promise for America's classrooms: the electronic computer. Computers are already at work in educational institutions, primarily to assist the most advanced research. The computer can serve other educational purposes-if we find ways to employ it effectively and economically and if we develop practical courses to teach students how to use it.

I have directed the National Science Foundation working with the U.S. Office of Education to establish an experimental program for developing the potential of computers in education.

Enriching the Arts and the Humanities

Our progress will not be limited to scientific advances. The National Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities, established in 1965, has already begun to bring new cultural and scholarly spirit to our schools and communities. State arts councils, museums, theaters, and orchestras have received not only new funds but new energy and enthusiasm through the National Endowment for the Arts.

The National Endowment for the Humanities has made grants to support new historical studies of our Nation's heritage, to encourage creative teaching in our colleges, to offer outstanding young scholars opportunities for advancement.

I recommend that Congress appropriate for the National Foundation on the Arts and Humanities $16 million-an increase of nearly one-third. Higher Education for International Understanding

For many years, America's colleges and universities have prepared men and women for careers involving travel, trade and service abroad. Today, when our world responsibilities are greater than ever before, our domestic institutions of higher learning need more support for their programs of international studies.

The 89th Congress, in its closing days, passed the International Education Act-an historic measure recognizing this Nation's enduring belief that learning must transcend geographic boundaries. Through a program of grants under the Act, America's schools, colleges, and universities can add a world dimension to their students' learning experience.

I urge the Congress to approve promptly my forthcoming request for a supplemental appropriation of $350,000 for the International Education Act, to permit necessary planning for next year's program, as well as an appropriation of $20 million for fiscal 1968.

HOWARD UNIVERSITY

The President's Remarks at Ceremonies Marking the University's 100th Anniversary. March 2, 1967

Dr. Nabrit, members of this distinguished faculty, distinguished alumni, students:

This day is for prayers of thanksgiving. It is a day for remembrance and wonder.

One hundred years ago, out of the embers of a terrible war, this University was born to serve a people who had been liberated from the "peculiar institution" of slavery.

Another Johnson-the 17th President of the United States-signed his name to a law establishing Howard University, in the District of Columbia, as "a university for the education of youth in the liberal arts and sciences." The first four students were white. They were the living witnesses to a faith in or human dignity that has united men. and women of both races until this very hour.

But the purpose of those who founded Howard University was not merely to create one more institution of higher learning. It was to fulfill the promise of Abraham Lincoln that had been made 41⁄2 long years before:

"That on the first day of January, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, all persons held as slaves within any State or designated part of a State . . . shall be then, thence forward, and forever free."

Emancipation was a proclamation, but it was not a fact.

Howard University was created to help make the promise of the proclamation a fact of life.

I do not need to tell you that the purpose of the founders was not wholly achieved in their time-nor in the century that followed. Howard sent forth into the world trained teachers, doctors, artists, theologians, lawyers, and businessmen-but for millions, the promise of freedom remained unfulfilled. For them, the ordinary fact of life was enslavement-to poverty, to ignorance, to second-class citizenship. In our time-nearly a century after the war that brought an end to official slavery-we have begun the long-delayed process of liberation. We have struck off most of the bonds of discrimination that bound the Negro to the tragic past. The fundamental rights of citizenship are his: to vote, to use public accommodations, to attend school, to seek a job, to receive hospital care-without discrimination because of color. These rights had to be secured, not only to give life to Abraham Lincoln's proclamation, not only to render justice to Negro Americans, but because the conscience of humanity demanded that they be secured. They were not handed down from above, as a reward for good behavior. They were a legacy acquired by birth-and finally passed on to their rightful heirs.

Yet even they did not suffice. I came here 20 months ago, on an afternoon in June, to say "Freedom is not enough. You do not wipe away the scars of centuries by saying: Now you are free to go where you want, and do as you desire, and choose the leaders as you please..

"The task is to give 20 million Negroes the same chance as every other American to learn and grow, to work and share in society, to

develop their abilities-physical, mental and spiritual, and to pursue their individual happiness.

I have come back to Howard today to renew my commitment to that task, and to remind you and to tell you again so long as I live, in public or private life, I shall never retract or retreat or amend that commitment.

I have seen what can be done when hundreds of thousands of children are given a head start in life;

-when 8 million others begin to receive a better education in elementary and secondary schools;

-when millions of men can find work in a thriving economy; -when millions of older people have the haunting fear of medical costs lifted from them;

-when young men and women are given the chance_to_take hold of their lives in Neighborhood Youth Corps and Job Corps programs;

-when those without skills can acquire them;

-when 9 million workers the forgotten ones at the bottom of the economic ladder, the elevator operators, the charwomen, the waitresses-are assured a decent minimum wage for the first time this year.

I have seen these things happen, and much more. I do not want to and I never expect to turn back.

I know that millions of men and women-Negro and white-are still trapped in poverty, in dark city slums and depressed rural areas. I know that results are slow in coming from the best efforts men can make. for our adversaries-ignorance, discrimination, and the despairing conviction of failure-are old, well-entrenched, and tough.

But despite the shortcomings of what we have done so far, despite the stubbornness of the problems we face, I cannot bring myself today to bewail our fate. The last few years have convinced me that we have the will, the knowledge, and the resources-and the stubbornness, too-to remain dedicated to this task until it is accomplished.

It was less than 10 years ago as a Senator that I struggled through the night to pass the first civil rights bill through the Congress in almost 85 years. It was a frail instrument indeed and we so recognized it but it did pass. It was only the first. Seven years later as President, I signed into law a measure that had the power to change the conditions of life for Negro Americans. One year after that we opened the voting booths for good.

This is the work of less than 10 years: four civil rights measures striking at the last chains of enslavement after we had waited almost a century. This was the task of every man and woman who worked, prayed, and legislated to bring it about.

Because we have come so far, I know and you know that we have the power to go further; to make the past 10 years only a prologue, and the next 10 years the time when the Negro in America can say at last "I am a free man." I believe it will be so. I shall bend my will to make it so.

It is not hard to feel this way, here at Howard.

This campus has been the home, and is the home today, of men and women who knew their mission in life was greater than service to themselves. Many of them have been my friends. Some of them have been called to the Federal service during my Presidency:

-the great lawyer, Solicitor General Thurgood Marshall; -three distinguished jurists, Judge Robinson of the Court of Appeals, Judge Bryant and Judge Waddy of the United States District Court;

-Ambassador Patricia Harris;

-Mr. Hobart Taylor, director of the Export-Import Bank; -Mr. Andrew F. Brimmer, member of the Federal Reserve Board;

-Commissioner John Duncan, of the District of Columbia; -Mrs. Frankie Freeman, of the United States Civil Rights Commission;

-and Dr. John Hope Franklin, of the Board of Foreign Scholarships.

These sons and daughters of Howard-together with Under Secretary Ralph Bunche of the United Nations, and Senator Ed Brooke of Massachusetts, whom, I am sorry to say, I did not appoint-are a testimony to Howard's maturity far more compelling than the passing of a hundred years.

For they represent the fruition of an ideal: that as men become free themselves, they assume responsibility for the freedom and wellbeing of others, regardless of race. These men and women are devoting themselves to the affairs of our Nation. They are not devoting themselves to Negro problems alone, but rather to the problems of our entire society.

That is your challenge, you who follow them. For the work that lies ahead is demanding, and involves far too many lives in urgent need of help, to be parceled out by race. Tomorrow's problems, which will be placed squarely in your hands, will not be divided into "Negro problems" and "white problems." There will be only human problems, and more than enough to go around.

I said at the beginning that this day is for prayers of thanksgiving, for remembrance, and wonder.

Our prayers are to the God who has strengthened the will of a grateful people. Out remembrance is of those who created and sustained this great University, and brought here thousands of young men and women from all over the world, and gave them the power to serve their fellow man.

Our wonder our very great wonder-is for the human spirit, that having endured infinite wrongs, can yet hold to its faith in the dignity of life.

For one hundred years, that spirit has prevailed here at Howard University. May it always prevail.

UNITED STATES OFFICE OF EDUCATION

The President's Remarks at the Centennial Celebration of the Office. March 2, 1967

Secretary Gardner, Commissioner Howe, ladies and gentlemen: I have come here today not to call attention to the advancing age of the Office of Education, but rather to celebrate its next 100 years. It was back in 1867, when another man named Johnson was President, that the Office of Education was set up in two small rooms and

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its first budget was $13,000. Congress soon decided that this was wasting the taxpayer's money and it voted to cut the Commissioner's pay by 25 percent. He was to get the princely salary of $3,000 per

year.

Today your office space, your budget and your Commissioner's salary-all have grown somewhat.

Your responsibilities have grown, also.

A long time ago, a colonial Governor of Virginia declared, "Thank God there are no free schools in America and I hope we shall not have them."

We have raised our sights since then. We are no longer satisfied simply with free public education. We have declared as our national goal that every child shall have the chance to get as much education as he or she can absorb no matter how poor they are, no matter what color they are, and no matter where they live.

You who are here today celebrating this 100th birthday must play a very big part in helping us all reach that goal.

Dr. Hornig, my Science Adviser, tells me that if we were using the New Mathematics-the base 9 system-this anniversary should have been held in 1948. I am glad that we didn't because there is so much that we would not have been celebrating then. Besides, I was a candidate for the Senate in that year and I couldn't have been here. In 1948, we would not be celebrating the education revolution that has transformed America. In 1948, the latest data would have shown that the typical American adult had only a little more than elementary schooling. Today we are fast approaching the time when the typical adult has completed his high school education.

In 1948, we would not be celebrating a nation where college education is already within the reach of most young people who desire it and who seek it.

In 1948, all the colleges and universities in America conferred 317,000 degrees. This year they will grant 722,000 degrees-more than twice as many as they did in 1948. And over one million college students are being helped by the scholarships, loans, and work-study programs of the Office of Education.

So one million students are going to college this year who otherwise could not have gone except for the work that the Office of Education and the United States Government are doing in the higher education field.

In 1948, less than 25 percent of Americans aged 18 and 19 were in school. Today more than 4 out of every 10 that age are still in school or college.

In 1948, we would not be celebrating Federal aid to education—we had just begun the long hard struggle in Congress to meet this great national need.

Two days ago, I sent a message to Congress requesting $4 billion for the Office of Education in the coming fiscal year. This is 122 times as much as we asked for in 1948. It is nearly twice the entire Federal budget in 1948 for all its social welfare and health, housing and community facilities, labor and education.

Education has become big business in America. This year the schools and colleges of our country will operate at a cost of $50 billion-about 50 percent more than the entire Federal budget in 1948.