Proclamation 3931—Stay in School

As the summer ends, many young Americans are deciding whether to continue their formal education. For economic and personal reasons some will be tempted to drop out.

Most of those who abandon their classrooms will be forced to contest for jobs with others who possess better educational credentials. Without an opportunity to acquire relevant experience, they may be continually unable to obtain positions offering prospects for advancement.

Experience has proven that citizens sufficiently concerned to provide potential dropouts with encouragement and counseling can play a decisive role in persuading them to continue their education. The course of thousands of lives can be constructively influenced by this kind of individual action.

Parents, teachers, religious advisors, and friends can all contribute to the national welfare by urging young people to stay in school. Private and public employers can help by providing part-time jobs to those for whom the need to have income is critical.

To secure wide public participation in an effort to limit the number of youths who drop out of school, I, RICHARD NIXON, President of the United States of America, do hereby proclaim a national Stay-in-School campaign.

I call upon Governors, Mayors, and other public officials to join with me in focusing continuing civic attention on this effort.

In Witness Whereof, I have hereunto set my hand this twelfth day of September, in the year of our Lord nineteen hundred sixty-nine, and of the Independence of the United States of America the one hundred ninety-fourth.

RICHARD NIXON