Proclamation 4005—American Education Week, 1970

When Horace Mann gave up a fine legal practice and a promising position in the State legislature to take on the poorly paid and obscure role of Secretary of the State Board of Education in Massachusetts, many of his friends thought he had made a terrible mistake. But Mann explained his decision this way in a letter to his wife in 1837: "If I can be the means of ascertaining what is the best construction of [school]houses, what are the best books, what is the best mode of instruction; if I can discover by what appliance of means a non-thinking, non-reflecting, non-speaking child can most surely be trained into a noble citizen . . . if I can only obtain and diffuse throughout the state a few good ideas on these and similar subjects, may I not flatter myself that my ministry has not been wholly in vain?"

Horace Mann went on to become America's first great educational reformer. But the fundamental questions which he asked of his wife in 1837 are questions which great educators still ask in our day. How should we design and build our educational plants? How should we write our textbooks and other educational materials? What are the best modes of instruction? How can we best encourage a noble citizenry? These problems now demand answers that will be as appropriate in our time as Mann's answers were in his. And the nation waits again for men who will "obtain and diffuse throughout the state a few good ideas on these and similar subjects."

The theme of American Education Week this year is "Shape Schools for the Seventies." That theme puts our challenge well. For the decade we are now entering will surely be a time of immense change in almost every area of life and learning. If we are really going to "Shape Schools for the Seventies," then we must be ready to reshape them with greater imagination, greater boldness and greater energy than we have ever applied before. I have every confidence that the educators of America, working with parents, students and all Americans, are ready and able to meet this challenge.

This work is particularly important at a time when impatience with old forms is straining our social fabric in ways which we have never before experienced. At such a time, some even despair at the possibility of reform and a few have forsaken reason and discussion as the means of achieving change. It is imperative that we vigorously repudiate the counsel of those who preach despair and division and destruction. But it is also imperative that we vindicate those who vigorously affirm the possibility of orderly reform and who proudly work toward its achievement.

We owe a great deal to the devoted educators of our country—those who served in the past and those who serve today. They have built an educational system which has been a great source of national strength and pride. As they have pursued excellence and equality in education, they have fostered excellence and equality in every area of American life. They also represent a resource of incalculable value for the future. Because of them we can say with the German philosopher Leibnitz: "I have hope that society may be reformed when I see how much education may be reformed."

Now, Therefore, I, Richard Nixon, President of the United States of America, do hereby designate the period of October 25 through October 31, 1970, as American Education Week.

I urge my countrymen to engage during this week in earnest discussion and serious reflection on the challenges and opportunities which confront the American educational system and on the ways in which our society can best respond to them.

In Witness Whereof, I have hereunto set my hand this 24th day of September, in the year of our Lord nineteen hundred seventy and of the Independence of the United States of America the one hundred ninety-fifth.

RICHARD NIXON