Remarks at Luncheon Meeting of the Association of American Colleges

Mr. Chairman and President of this distinguished audience:

I must first acknowledge and insist that my appearance today is really an ex officio one, because I do not presume that my short adventure, pleasant though it was, in the educational field, gives me the right to be here to talk to you. But as President it is a most pleasant duty and a truly great privilege to be able, on behalf of the Administration--the United States Government-to welcome this body here, to assure you of the interest with which we follow your work both collectively and in your individual capacities.

As to a message of substance, I doubt that I can say anything that you have not heard, that you will not hear, and possibly that each of you already understands better than I.

But it might be, nevertheless, of some significance that as the head of the Government charged with the responsibilities which were spoken of in the invocation, that by some simple statement I acknowledge clearly my appreciation of the importance of the work you people do--indeed, must do.

I am going to talk about education for a moment, not in its spiritual or its intellectual or its materialistic values and purposes. I want to talk about it, really, as a great cementing force by its promotion of understanding.

For example, we have a clear comprehension that we need to strengthen the spiritual bases of our free institutions. We know, also, that we need as never before, experts, technicians in the sciences, people to conduct the research in every kind of discipline that applies to our material world. But it certainly takes understanding, a deeper comprehension, than a true knowledge of either of these factors of human existence, to know how to put them together.

How do you combine idealism and realism and never be guilty just of weak compromise?

How do you establish for this nation great purposes, ideals that you are pursuing, and then manage other influences that come to bear and at least discolor or force a postponement of the achievement of those great ideals?

How do you cooperate with others in the international field, certain that we have a great task of leadership to do? There we must realize that if we try to plant our own methods, our own concepts of man's dignity and worth instantly into another area, all we do is incur resistance, indeed enmity. How do we bring about understanding? We cannot be content merely with studying our own history and seeing how we have developed. We cannot be content with a mere study of the history of others so far as it affects us directly, or as they come in contact with us through wars or trade agreements. We must understand their cultures, their histories, their aspirations, if we are to recognize-to be sympathetic even--to the decisions that they take that, sometimes now, are almost incomprehensible to us.

The great masses of people--the two and a half billions of people that make up the population of the world--are never going to grow closer together unless there is a promotion of understanding.

I think this is in a very large sense spiritual in character. Whence did we come? Why are we here? What is the true reason for our existence? And where are we going? For all of this, in the answers, we have the assistance--we have the faith--of the Christian ethic, or of our own particular religious convictions.

But others don't. Indeed, our greatest potential enemy in the world is the frank exponent of the doctrine of materialism, rejecting all of these values.

This is the kind of thing, it seems to me, that educators must concern themselves with, just as seriously as they do with mathematics and engineering and research and theology. The common questions of humanity must be comprehended to meet--and it must be an integrated answer--to meet the crying needs of the human race in the twentieth century.

Now I have only haltingly and possibly very roughly sketched out an idea that I think will portray to you my appreciation of your work. Consequently, you know how earnest I am when I say I could not wish anybody greater success than I do you people. In our schools, in our churches, indeed in our Government, in everything we do, we must find a way to supplement the efforts of the home to develop Americans of understanding, of great spiritual beliefs, intellectual capacity, and unexcelled collective material strength, in a prosperity that is so widely shared that we all march forward together.

That, is seems to me, is my rough idea of what I think you people have got to do, if the United States is going to attain that future that is surely hers by right and that, under God, she will attain.

Thank you very much.