Sixth: In the area of education and research, I recommend a balanced
program to improve our resources, involving an investment of about a
billion dollars over a four year period. This involves new activities by
the Department of Health, Education and Welfare designed principally to
encourage improved teaching quality and student opportunities in the
interests of national security. It also provides a five-fold increase in
sums available to the National Science Foundation for its special
activities in stimulating and improving science education.
Scrupulous attention has been paid to maintaining local control of
educational policy, spurring the maximum amount of local effort, and to
avoiding undue stress on the physical sciences at the expense of other
branches of learning.
In the field of research, I am asking for substantial increases in basic
research funds, including a doubling of the funds available to the National
Science Foundation for this purpose.
But Federal action can do only a part of the job. In both education and
research, redoubled exertions will be necessary on the part of all
Americans if we are to rise to the demands of our times. This means hard
work on the part of state and local governments, private industry, schools
and colleges, private organizations and foundations, teachers, parents,
and--perhaps most important of all--the student himself, with his bag of
books and his homework.
With this kind of all-inclusive campaign, I have no doubt that we can
create the intellectual capital we need for the years ahead, invest it in
the right places--and do all this, not as regimented pawns, but as free men
and women!