Remarks to the Conference on Rural Education.

I feel like a fish out of water. I haven't thought of education in this country for three years. I have thought about education in some other countries, changing the type of education in certain other countries. And yet, all the while, I am told that American education has supported the war effort wholeheartedly, but that was rather a manual problem than an intellectual one. And I have seen a lot of young people- boys and girls- coming into the service of their Government during the war, and some of them have been educated, and some of them have not. And that is what I want to talk to you a little bit about today.

There are a lot of things which we have learned in this war. Among the most important are those that we have learned because of the war, because of the things that have happened, for instance, through our Selective Service System about the health and education of the youth of our Nation.

We have found that among those examined for selective service 4 1/2 percent can be classed as illiterate; and that 40 percent of all registrants for selective service have not gone beyond an elementary school education.

That is why this Conference on Rural Education assumes such great importance in our planning for the future, because we are going to have peace, some day. While we plan' for the welfare of our returning veterans first—and I think rightly—and for the continued prosperity of our war workers, which means, first and last, the majority of the human beings in this country, we must also lay plans for the peacetime establishment of our educational system on a better basis than in those days of long ago that we used to call peacetime days.

Those should be the goals of this Conference on Rural Education.

For rural teaching, country teaching, the teaching given in the small schools at the farm crossroads and in the little villages and towns has played a greater part in American history than any other kind of education. From what I have said, you will see that I am a country boy too.

The American form of government was conceived and created by men most of whom had been taught in country schools.

Country schools prepared Americans as a whole for the task of mastering this continent.

Country schools trained a great proportion of the boys who fought the early American wars.

The country schools trained millions of those who are fighting this greatest of American wars today. And they will play their part—a tremendous part—in the creation of the American future to which the citizens of this country are committed in their hearts and souls. Much more unanimously, I might add, than the newspapers of these weeks in this war would lead us to believe.

It is for all of us Americans to see that the building of that future does not lag because the country schools are without the means to carry on their essential work even more than they have in the past.

The full attendance at this Conference, and the agenda which it has before it, indicate the special attention that must be given to the problems of the education of that half of our children and youth who live on the farms and in the villages. So far as school opportunities are concerned, these children have always been, and still are, the least privileged in the Nation. We are justifiably proud of the splendid, modern schools in our cities and towns. We cannot be proud of this fact: that many of our rural schools, particularly during these years of war, have been sadly neglected.

Within one school year after Pearl Harbor, several thousand rural schools had been closed because teachers could not be found for them. One of the leading farm papers recently reported that in one agricultural State of the Midwest, nearly a third of the teachers in one-room schools are now persons holding only emergency licenses to teach, and nearly 800 schools face this coming school year without a teacher. That fact ought to be brought home to the American people.

The basic reason for this situation is simple, I think. We all know what it is. It is not patriotism alone that has taken teachers out of the classrooms. Most of them simply cannot afford to teach in rural schools.

And I always remember, a great many years ago, when I was down in Georgia, the first year I was there, sitting on the porch, and a young man came up twiddling his cap, and he said, "Mr. Roosevelt, may I speak to you?"

And I said, "Yes. Come up."

And he said, "Mr. Roosevelt, we are having commencement in our school—[mentioning a little village a few miles away] and I would like to have you come over and present the diplomas next Wednesday."

And I said, "I would be very glad to do it. What are you? Are you the—the president of the graduating class?"

And he said, "No, sir. I am—I am the principal of the school."

And I said, "How old are you?"

He said, "I am nineteen, sir."

I said, "Have you been to college?"

"Oh yes, sir. I have had one year at the University of Georgia. I am taking this year out for enough money to go back for a second year at the University."

And I said, "How much are you getting as principal?"

"Oh," he said, "I am getting four hundred dollars a year."

And that boy had 250 pupils under him.

The present average salary in this country is less than $1,000 a year, and I think that some salaries go as low—in my State, for instance- as $300. But I know schools where it is less than that. That is just too small by any decent standard in any part of the country. Only the self-sacrificing devotion of teachers who put their duty to their schools before their consideration for themselves permits the children of many American school districts to get the education to which all Americans are entitled.

Frankly, the chief problem of rural education is something that we don't simplify enough. It is the problem of dollars and cents. You and I know that. We also know that in very many cases the problem cannot be solved by just increasing the local taxes because the taxable values are just not there.

I have pointed out before that the gap between the educational standards in the richer communities and those in the poorer communities is far greater today than it was a hundred years ago. I think I have said this six years ago. And we have got to turn the course of that trend.

We must find the means of closing the gap- by raising the standards in the poorer communities. And that ought to be stressed morning, noon, and night.

I believe that the Federal Government should render financial aid where it is needed, but only where it is needed. I don't mean Federal aid in the town of Hyde Park in Dutchess County. We have got taxable values, and we can handle our own schools. I live there part of the time. But we do need Federal aid down in Georgia, where I live also a part of the time. Down there they haven't got the taxable values. Only where it is needed in communities where farming does not pay much, where land values have depreciated through erosion or through flood or drought, where industries have moved away, where transport facilities are inadequate, or where electricity is unavailable for power and light.

Such Federal Government financial aid should, of course, never involve Government interference with State and local administration and control. It must purely and simply provide the guarantee that this country is big enough, and as a whole rich enough and great enough, to give to all of its children the right to a free education.

Closely related to this whole problem is the question of the health of our young people. And we who are interested in education can bring the problem, I think, much more closely and with perhaps a greater sympathy, to all the homes of the country, if we can tie in health with education.

Here again we cannot boast of what we have done to solve the problem of health. We cannot boast of our part in this war without a feeling of guilt- for about 40 percent of all the men who were examined under the selective service had to be rejected for military service for physical or mental reasons. And we ought to hang our heads in shame at that statement.

We cannot be satisfied with the state of this Nation if a large percentage of our children are not being given the opportunity to achieve good health as well as good education.

We can put it this way, if we want—if you care about education: what's the use of giving them an education without their having good health to use it when they grow up?

I believe that our educators—those who are close to the children of the land- ought to consider these two problems together. I believe that from conferences such as this one, we may produce constructive plans looking toward substantial improvement in the American standard of living in education as a part of our standard of living, as well as breakfast, school lunch, and supper. And that means better production, better clothes, better food, better housing, more recreation, more enjoyment of life. These things do not come about from wishful thinking they come from hard work, from realistic thinking by those who are sincerely devoted to the solution of these problems.

We do not pretend that we can reach our goals overnight but. if we seek them day in and day out, we may in our own lives take our rural educational system out of what was called, once upon a time, by a certain gentleman, the horse and buggy age.

Your Conference this year has met at a time when the forces of evil have their backs to the wall—at a time when all the civilized world is more than ever determined that such wars cannot, will not, happen again.

Nothing can provide a stronger bulwark in the years to come than an educated and enlightened and tolerant citizenry, equipped with the armed force necessary to stop aggression and warfare in this world.

So, to you of this Conference, and to all similar groups devoted to the cause of a better America, in the big places and the small places, the Nation will look for advice and guidance as, in democratic fashion, it works out the designs of the future.