Press copy of Address of the President, Charter Day, Memorial Stadium, University of California, Berkeley, 23 March 1962

FOR RELEASE AT 2:00 P. M., (PST) FRIDAY, MARCH 23, 1962 Office of the White House Press Secretary (AS ACTUALLY DELIVERED) THE WHITE HOUSE ADDRESS OF THE PRESIDENT CHARTER DAY, MEMORIAL STADIUM UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY, CALIFORNIA Mr. President, Governor Brown, Dr. Pauley, Chancellor, Members of the Board of Regents, Members of the Faculty and Fellow Students -- Ladies and Gentlemen: The last time I came here to this Stadium was 22 years ago, and I visited it in November of 1940 as a student at a nearby small school for the game at Stanford, and we got a -- Imust say I had a much warmer reception today than I did from my Coast friends here on that occasion. In those days we used to fill this university for football, and now we do it for academic events, and I'm not sure that doesn't represent a rather dangerous trend for the future of our country. I am delighted to be here on this occasion for though it is the 94th anniversary of the Charter, in a sense this is the hundredth for this university and so many other universities across our country owe their birth to the most extraordinary piece of legislation which this country has ever adopted, and that is the Morrill Act, signed by President Abraham Lincoln in the darkest and most uncertain days of the Civil War, which set before the country the opportunity to build the great land-grant colleges, of which this is so distinguished a part. Six years later, this university obtained its Charter. In its first graduating class it included a future Governor of California, a future Congressman, a Judge, a distinguished State assemblyman, a clergyman, a lawyer, a doctor -- all in a graduating class of 12 graduates This college, therefore, from its earliest beginnings, has recognized, and its graduates have recognized, that the purpose of education is not merely to advance the economic self-interest of its graduates. The people of California, as much if not more than the people of any other State, have supported their colleges and their universities and their schools, because they recognize how important it is to the maintenance of a free society that its citizens be well educated. "Every man, said Professor Woodrow Wilson, "sent out from a university should be a man of his nation as well as a man of his time. " And Prince Bismarck was even more specific. One third, he said, of the students of German universities broke down from overwork, another third broke down from dissipation, and the other third ruled Germany. I do not know which third of students are here today, but I am confident that I am talking to the future leaders of this State and country who recognize their responsibilities to the public interest. Today you carry on that tradition. Our distinguished and courageous Secretary of Defense, our distinguished Secretary of State, the Chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission, the Director of the CIA and others, all are graduates of this University. It is a disturbing factor to me, and it may be to some of you: that the New Frontier owes as much to Berkeley as it does to Harvard University. more