Commencement Address at the University of Louisville by Commissioner Of Education Earl McGrath, Freedom and Security Tomorrow

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FREEDOM AND SECURITY TOMORROW * The class of 1949 is perhaps the most remarkable graduating class in the history of our country. This sounds like old-fashioned commencement oratory. But the facts show that it is more than that. This is no ordinary class. The class 1949 is the largest ever to graduate from American colleges and universities. And it is different from those which have gone before. It contains a larger proportion of men, of whom some two-thirds are veterans. They are from three to four years older than graduates of other years. A third of these men are married, many of them to members of their own class. In contrast with earlier classes, they have been more eager to get the most from their education. They have achieved more. In still another respect they are different: many of the veterans have been educated under grants from the Federal government. Our best available information is that more than half of these men and women would not have had the advantages of higher education without this aid. But these important differences between the class of 1949 and its predecessors are superficial. Deeper levels of analysis show an even greater contrast. In reporting on a survey of this year's senior class in a representative group of colleges and universities, By Earl J. McGrath, U. S. Commissioner of Education, Federal Security Agency, Washington, D. C. - commencement address at University of Louisville, Kentucky, June 13, 1949