Remarks to a Group of Foreign Students

I want to express a very warm welcome to all of you on behalf of Mrs. Kennedy and myself.

We are very much honored that you have come to the United States to study. It represents a tremendous commitment on behalf of all of you to what we hope is a wide horizon of learning. We are honored by it. I think you have probably taught us more than you have learned in this country, but in traveling abroad and studying abroad, you are following a very ancient scholarly tradition, one which has been followed by a great many Americans in our earlier days as well as today. Some of our most distinguished American scholars in the early 19th century went to Europe to study and even today the Secretary of State, the Deputy Attorney General, two members of the Supreme Court, the head of our Policy Planning, the President and some others--all went abroad and studied and observed and came back, we hope, wiser.

How many here are from Europe? And how many from Latin America?

A student: Chile!

THE PRESIDENT. How many from Chile? From Canada? From Africa? From Asia? From Australia or New Zealand? Well, in any case, we are glad to have you from wherever you come.

I think that you should feel rather gratified about your future prospects. I was looking at some statistics the other day which show that nearly 15 or 16 heads of the African nations are under forty-five, a substantial number in their thirties, none as yet in their twenties. But what is true of Africa is going to be true in increasing degree, I think, in Latin America and in Asia. And even this revolution of youth which has swept some of our older societies, even here in the United States, I think, offers the brightest promise that all of you will have an opportunity to put this learning to work in a constructive way.

The ancient Greek definition of happiness was the full use of your powers along lines of excellence. I can think of no area, particularly those of you who come from the southern part of the globe, where you can put your powers to more excellent use and produce more personal and general happiness than in the field of national service in government, either as politicians or as technicians, to help advance the welfare of your people. The world needs you and therefore we are proud, as I said at the beginning, that you chose to come here to learn.

Being a student is a lonely experience--I spent some months in London--particularly in a free country where no one really cares very much about what happens to you, when you sink or swim on your own resources. This is a valuable experience because the world is very much that way, and you will sink or swim on your own resources when you leave this country. We hope, therefore, you have not felt that this is in any sense an abrupt or cold or uninterested society. It is wide open, unfinished, with innumerable problems of our own. The image of America which is seen from abroad is in many ways inaccurate. Our problems in some ways are more serious, our riches are less, our hopes are greater than may be imagined from far away. You have been close to us. We hope that you are generous in your judgment, even charitable, and we hope that you will be welcomed back some years from now as either the president, the prime minister or, even more significant, the wife of a president or prime minister.