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Remarks to Public Affairs Research COuncil of Louisiana Farris Bryant
March 19, 1965
This is my first visit to your lovely capital city. It will not be my
last. To the romance of New Orleans and the charm of your Southern belles,
i must now add the magnificence of Baton Rouge. You are citizens of no
mean state.
At the moment, however, I must rush back to Florida. In a few days
a two-manned space capsule will be flung around the world, and I want to
share the excitement of that event.
It is difficult to focus attention on education at such a time. I wish
that my mind could keep sufficiently the pace of rushing events to deliver to
you a learned address with guidelines growing out of them. We move too
fast. Before I can assimilate the impact of one event, another has occurred
demanding our attention.
The first commercial jet ight from New York to Florida occnrred in
1958. Before I could understand what it meant for there to be only two hours
from snow to sunshine, a man had leaped from our sunny shores to outer
space.
Each of these events ushered in new worlds. In a very major sense,
we stand almost every moment in a new world. These events are not simply
new experiences in our lives. We stand every day on the threshold of a
new order of society -- a new civilization. Not new in the sense that
rockets Will be a common mode of individual or mass transportation, nor in
that plankton from the sea will be a major source of food -- or hospitals
automated -- though these may come to pass; not new in the 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 compre-
hend, 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 created a fourth dimen-
sion. To the static, three-dimensional qualities of the physical world, he
predicted the addition of a fourth. 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 fourth 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 prod-
ucts unknown ten years ago. Such examples are so commonplace as almcst
to excite no notice.
In Japan I visited a company (and there are many in this country),
which makes a business, and a profit, not out of producing at a lower cost
than do others but out of producing things that have never been produced be-
fore. 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.
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Armies are moved around the world in a matter of honrs, requiring
revisions of strategic concept and logistic plans as great as was caused
by the invention and development of gun powder, with this vast difference:
the impact of the development of gunpowder was spread over hundreds of
years: the development of this new capacity for movement has occurred in
a very few years.
Within the lives of most of the people here an eighth grade educa-
tion 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, a graduate
degree in many disciplines is a sound investment, and the Gallup Poll re-
ports that most Americans look upon a college education as the only sure
door to a better tomonow.
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 developments in his specialty.
Concentrated research is being undertaken in the field of patents,
because the rate of invention is so great and the range of discovery 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 government spends its money.
The expenditures of the federal government for space research alone is
equal to the total expenditure of the federal government thirty years ago.
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. Industrial
leadership and leadership in research have become almost synonymous.
Changes have already taken place in Florida which have been so rapid
and so recent, that we have not yet adjusted to them. At our present rate of
adjustment, new changes will have occurred before we have accommodated
the old.
A Southern Regional Education Board Research monograph points out
that, in Florida and California, the number of college students will d0uble
between 1963 and 1970, and in Florida will triple by 1975. Florida had 100
years to prepare for its 1963 college population. It has seven years to
prepare for its second 100%, and five years for its third. The rate of in-
crease increases.
len years ago, Florida had five junior colleges. In ten years
it has built twenty-five more, at a faster rate than any other state in the na-
tion, but the need for further additions and expansions is not yet met. The
need for vocational education beyond the high school, so necessary in a
sophisticated industrial society, is just now being studied for
presentation to We this year. Without question this great unmet
need is going to require a parallel expansion.
A rise in living standards, advances in medical science and in public
health administration, with mass control of infectious diseases, have
caused spectacular rises in longevity. There has not been a death from
malaria in the United States for a decade. One hundred years ago, one-
fourth of the new-born died before reaching five; today they reach forty-five
before one-fourth die. One-fourth can expect to live to be eighty-three.
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 by society. The con-
quest of all communicable diseases is a foreseeable prospect, and that
combined with the development of new weapons for overcoming the degener-
ative diseases will cause, is causing, changes of staggering potential, at
an accelerating rate.
Progress begets progress. Growth in education does not satisfy -- it
increases the demand for education. Expanding knowledge increases
demands for consumption, increases skills in production, a by-product of
which is increased knowledge and increased capacity to consume.
Poverty, which used to be absolute, has become relative, and must be
redefined to be re-discovered.
In a world of threr dimensions, with its leisurely and comfortable evo-
iution from one stage to the next, there was time to gather around the pot-
bellied stove to discuss the few changes that the next several years would
bring, time to debate the pros and cons of different courses of action, time
to adjust to changes in life in the way one adjusted to an occasional pair of
new shoes which were basically the same as the old pair. But in this day of
which the intercontinental 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 with survival.
In a world of feur dimensions, where today is yesterday's 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.
The Maginot Line was well-designed, bravely defended. Its trouble
was that it was designed for yesterday's war, not tomorrow's.
It is tempting to live today in yesterday's educational world.
Yesterday a high school education prepared people for life. But not for
tomorrow.
Yesterday the summer vacation was pleasant and practical: a youth still
finished his education by the time he reached maturity. But not so today -
even less so tomorrow. The seven and eight years required for a graduate
degree under the old regimen consumes a student's life until the twenty-fifth
or twenty-sixth year. Year-round education is spreading across college cam-
puses not because it is pleasant, or even because it is economical -- but
because it is a necessity if the fruitful years of our best minds are not to be
wasted.
Knowledge is expanding at an explosive rate: colleges and universities
nend more time to deal with it effectively.
General-liberal education alone or specializedgraduate-professional
education alone is no longer enough; to live effectively in today's world many
must have both, and that takes time. With a year-round academic calendar
both a liberal and a professional education often can be acquired within the
time span formerly devoted to one or the other.
Today's intellectual battles cannot be fought from an educational Mag-
inot line. J ./
Adult education beyond college is an industrial necessity. In Florida,
where we have opened new public universities and two-new privaiedcol-
leges in the last where another public university is under construc-
tionanda fourth on the drawing boards, we are expanding college education,
including graduate education, beyond the college campus through the medium
of small intellectual centers tied to a mother university, and tied together by
two-way, closed-circuit television. Public school teachers are being trained
in the new math, in the use of learning laboratories, in the latest techniques
in instruction by university-sponsored training programs conducted in their
own communitiesinstead of depending on them to use their summer vacation
to attend college. Junior colleges are becoming the cultural and educational
centers for adults in communities far from the customary orbit of institutions
of higher learning .
I wish I could tell you where this almost frantic race toward ever-
receding educational horizons will lead -- or what it will cost. I don't
know! But clearly, education has become the mainstream of life, and it
is a atream that rushes forward to some unknowable rendezvous with truth.
Victory, yes -- and perhaps even survival -- is the prize for that man and
that people that keep this rendezvous There is no place for waste, but
there is no time for counting the cost in time or talent.
There is a tide in the affairs of men, which, taken at the flood,
leads on to fortune: . ."
The great stream of knowledge ooding the world is that tide, today, and
we have no choice but to take it. I have no doubt that the ride will be
fraught with danger -- but he who fears education, fears truth.
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Remarks ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ tolilcAfihRsachCuia fLusaaIarsBraa March 9, 196
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r inanimate bodies created a fourth onal qualities of the physical woric What I say to you now is that there ing and reproductive, in the world nonsion to living, a fourth dimensit this is true. dustries, large and diversifad, wh >me roin the production ar.d sale of examples are so commonplace as a (anti there are mar.y in this country) it, not out of producirig at a lower r things that have never beeri produ. s, and ther only sales appea] is i ds of men are emoloved nerformina
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ajusten to them. At our present rate e curried before we have acco:11rnodcited oard Research monograph pojnts out Arnber of college students will double a will triple by 1975. Tiarida had 10( >opulatfo.. It has seven years to years for its third. The rate of injunior colleges. In these Cen years
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by the time he reached maturity, But rio* so today .The severs and eight years required for a graduate agimer. consur:ies a student's life until the twenty-fi Year-round education is spreading across co]]ege c s pleasant, or even because it is economical -but ity if the fruitful years of our best minds are not to
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