|
r___
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH FLORIDA
TAMPA, FLORIDA
DECEMBER 22, 1963
I believe that this is the first time I have over spoken to
a graduating class on the eve of Christmas. It would not have
surprised me to have been marched in to the tune of Jingle Bells.
Christmas aside, I must confess to a sense of awe as I
contemplate what this occasion represents. This is the first
graduating exercise of the only public university established in this
state in this century. This is the first graduating class which is
a product of the trimester system. The members of this class, in a
real sense, are the first wave of a new force landing on the beachhead
of tomorrow.
In the perspective of your individual lives, and in those
of your relatives and friends gathered to share this occasion with
. yOu, this is a moment of great significance. In the perspective of
history yOu stand, not simply on the threshhold of a new experience
in your own lives, but at the threshhold of a new civilization. Hot
new in the sense that rockets will be a common mode of individual
transportation, or plankton from the sea a major source of food, or
hospitals automated-~though these may come to pass; not new in the
i sense that the major characteristic of the new civilization will be
some exotic thing it produces, or uses, or develops--though these also
may be true; but new in the rate of change which will become the common
denominator of life, and new in that the key to productive living will
be the ability to comprehend, perhaps anticipate, and make use of
the rapid rate of change.
Einstein, applying this thought to the physical world,
conceived that the rate of change within apparently inanimate bodies
-2-
created a 4th dimension. To the static, three-dimensional qualities
of the physical world he predicted the addition of a 4th. What I say
to you now is that there is such a rate of change, self-sustaining
and reproductive, in the world today that there has been added a new
dimension to living, a 4th dimension to society.
There are so many signs that this is true.
All of us have heard of the industries, large and diversified,
which nevertheless derive their major income from the production and
sale of products unknown 10 years ago. Such examples are so common-
place as almost to excite no notice.
In Japan there is a company, and there are surely many in
this country, which makes a business, and a profit, not cut of producing
at a less cost than others, but out of producing things that have
never been produced before. Their only real asset is brains, and
their only sales appeal is change.
Around Cape Kennedy thousands of men are employed performing
tasks that a few years ago did not exist.
Armies are moved around the world in a matter of hours,
reQuiring revisions of strategic concept and logistic plans as great
as was caused by the invention and development of gunpowder--and
requiring those revisions in a few years rather than in the hundreds
of years spanned by the development of gunpowder.
For years 12 of Floridas counties in the panhandle have
been losing population and receding econOmically. Eleven of theux
in this year 1963, have reversed their course-not because they have
discovered oil, nor brought in new industry, but because education
and transportation, changing in a changing world, has equipped them
to perform tasks that are profitabhy, and have done it in the span
of a few years.
-3-
Within the 'ives of most of the people here an 8th grade
. education was a norm. There is still a shocking number of persons
over 25 who are functionally illiterate. But today a high school
education has become a practical minimum, a college education is no
longer a luxury, and a graduate degree in many disciplines is a sound
investment.
Medical libraries are being adapted for electronic data
storage and retrieval. So rapid is the growth of medical knowledge
that even the most narrow specialist cannot keep up with the
deveIOpments in his specialty.
Concentrated research is being undertaken in the field of
patents, because the rate of invention is so great and the range so
broad that old methods and categories are totally inadequate to keep
up with the explosion in patentable knowledge.
. Research, which once was the business of a few absent-minded
professors with an occasional trial-and-error genius of the Edison
type, is now one of the principal businesses for which the government
spends its money.
Any private producer of goods who cannot engage in or have
access to extensive research in its field will soon be out of the
field.
Changes have already taken place in Florida which have been
so rapid, and so recent, that we have not yet adjusted to them-and
at our preSent rate of adjustment will be changed again before we have
accommodated to them.
Dr. Carothers and Dr. Stickler, making a study for the
Southern Regional Education Board, point out that in Florida and
. California the number of college students will more than double between
-11-
now and 1970. This, as you are aware, we are preparing for. But
they also predict that in Florida this increase will be duplicated
by 1975. We had a century to prepare for the present college population,
we will have 10 years to prepare for the second 100%, and five years
for the third. The rate of change increases.
The same experience and prospect can be cited for most public
facilities. During the last three calendar years the State of Florida
has built as many miles of u-lane highway as have been built in all
the previous history or the state, but the need for additional high-
ways, and for urban facilities in areas that until now were rural,
increases.
Ten years ago this state had one institution for the mentally
retarded. That institution has been expanded to capacity, three new
ones have been provided, a fourth is being planned, community and
private facilities are being expanded-~yet the waiting list of qualified
applicants is longer than it was before this expansion program began.
Ten years ago this state had five Junior colleges. It has
built 23 more, at a Faster rate than any other state in the nation,
but the need for further additions and expansions is not yet met.
A rise in living standards, advances in medical science
and public health administration, with control of infectious diseases,
have caused spectacular rises in longevity. One hundred years ago
one-fourth of the new-horn died before reaching 5; today they reach
45 before one-fourdie. Onefourth can expect to live to be 83. But
our economic practices and social laws have not adapted to this change,
and as of today no satisfactory provision has been made for the
beneficial use of this bonus of years, either by the individual or
society. The conquest of all communicable diseases is a forseeable
prospect, and that combined with the development of new weapons for
-5...
overcoming the degenerative diseases will causa, is causing,
change of staggering potential, at an accelerating rate.
The multiplication of population, particularly in Florida,
has assumed such proportions as to defy cOmprehension. The rights of
individuals, which seemed preperly absolute in a day when the
population of Florida had a density or one per square mile, or ten per
square mile, must be viewed in the light of the combined rights of
others when the population becomes, as it has, 100 per square mile.
The right to dig a well, to hunt game, to allow cows to roam at will,
to build a house, or to dump refuse into the river, could be
unrestricted when their exercise had no discernable effect on others.
Today these rights, and all others, can only be exercised with regard
for the combined rights or the rest of the population. This state
had a leisurely 130 years in which to accommodate to the growth of the
first 100 people per square mile. We have less than 20 years to
prepare for the next 100 people per square mile. The rate of change
is six times as great, and will undoubtedly increase.
Progress begets progress. Growth in education does not
satisfy-- t increases the demand for education. Expanding knowledge
increases demands for consumption, increases skills in production,
a byproduct of which is increased knowledge, and increased capacity
to conSume.
In a world of three dimensions, with its leisurely and com-
Portable evolution frOm one stage to the next, there was time to
gather around the potbellied stove to discuss the few changes that
the next several years would bring, time to debate the pros and cons
of different courses or action, time to adjust to changes in life in
the way one adjusted to an occasional new pair of shoes which were
basically the same as the old pair. But in this day or which the
,.
-D-
intercontinental missile is but a symbol, in which the great
antagonist is changing conditions for which we are not prepared,
leisurely adjustment is no longer compatible with progress, or even
wi.h survival. We need not just a hot line to Moscow, to deal with
the changes in the mind of one man or the actions of one nation; we
need a hot line to tomorrow. In a :orld of four dimensiona, where
today is yesterdays tomorrow, and tomorrow has dawned before the sun
has set today, the fourth dimension can be mastered only by the mind.
Muscle will not perform the task; natural resources are of no sure
value: a strategic advantage can be wiped out by one invention; a
stockpile can become obsolete overnight.
England ruled the world with a powerful navy for a hundred
years. The nation today that is all-powerful because of its atomic
power, its Jet planes or lte missiles, can he a BeCOnd rate power,
or was 381 tomorroxx' .
The one sure reSOUrce, other than the love or God, which
need never faila us, is the educated mind. In just a little while
you will be authorized to move the taoeel from one side of your
mortar board to another. Go ahead and move it with yOur hand, but
?
4
J.
you ever move it in your mind, the world will pass you by.
PAGE 1
-.0.1
PAGE 2
-.0 : : ": .1 ..j .:. g' -, : -..--, -0 i v -: --:~_ 0 :-3.11 : -: : .-, : -i --
PAGE 3
I
PAGE 6
0 i' -. .._. |.-, n -0 -:.::: 0-r -::----
|
