Remarks to a Group Attending the Convention of the International Federation of Catholic Universities.

Monsignor, Rectors:

I want to express a very warm welcome to all of you, and we take a good deal of pride and satisfaction in your having chosen, I think, for the first time, to come to Washington to hold this meeting.

The purposes of this meeting, which I understand are to concern yourselves with the problem of education in the developing countries and also with the relationship of Western civilization, Western culture, Western religious life with the East, with oriental civilization and culture--I think both of those purposes are most worthwhile.

Knowledge is power, and I think the events of the past years have shown that in a very dramatic way.

I am particularly interested in the progress we can make in the developing countries-Latin America, Africa, and Asia.

The need for trained men and women in all of the disciplines of life, constantly increasing as technology and science expand our horizons, and the relatively small educated elite which we find in these countries on whom heavy burdens have been placed, I think, indicate how essential it is in the sixties that the universities of the West, particularly in the highly developed countries, concentrate their attention on expanding education, indicating that education is not merely a means and an end, and not merely a technique, but also a way to the good life which is a way to a more secure and afterlife.

I recognize how difficult it is to maintain a free society under the best of conditions. We in the United States have many problems. With all of the advantages that nature--and also the qualities of self-restraint and discipline which have been developed in our people, we recognize how difficult it is to sustain the democratic system.

Western Europe has also had its adverse experiences, but yet they have a broad educational base, a long religious tradition, a great cultural record, and yet they have found that the self-discipline which goes with self-government is difficult to maintain.

If we in the West find it so difficult, imagine how complicated it is for the newly developing countries which lack this long tradition, which lack this happy balance of economic and political power which we have been able to develop in this country. So this makes your job most important, this meeting most significant.

We are very proud of what you are doing, of the long tradition which some of your universities represent. We take a good deal of pride in the schools which have been built in this country, and what f am most impressed by is, instead of talking about the rather esoteric subjects which sometimes occupy the attention of educators, that in 1963 you are talking about two very important problems: the problem of education in the developing world, and the problem of our relations with the East. So it shows that even though Salamanca and Louvain, and all the rest, may go back hundreds and hundreds of years, in 1963 you are looking to the future.

We are glad to have you here.