Remarks at Four Seasons Elementary School in Gambrills, Maryland

Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents, Sept 15, 1997

The President. Thank you very much. Jonathan, this is an important, good book for me to be reading. I've been reading a biography - right now, this morning, I was reading before I came to work - of President Grant, who was the commanding general of the Union forces in the Civil War. And I haven't gotten to the part about the Monitor and the Merrimack yet, so I thank you. So I can read this as long as I have it back by the 27th, huh? [Laughter]

Secretary Riley, Principal Leone, Governor Glendening and Lieutenant Governor Townsend, Senator Sarbanes. I'd like to say a special word of appreciation to my good friend Congressman Steny Hoyer; I know I'm in his district. And his late wife was a committed teacher of young children, and he wanted me to come here to his congressional district to make this announcement. And looking at you, I'm certainly glad I did. And I thank you for making me feel so welcome.

Secretary Riley asked how many people had read one book. I want to start by congratulating the star readers who are sharing the stage with me today. It is true that I have been an avid reader of books since I was your age, and it is also true what Secretary Riley said, that if you work hard and learn a lot, you have a good chance to live out your dreams, and you might grow up to be President. Once I was just sitting in an elementary school not very different from this, just like you.

I'm glad to be here today, especially because this is International Literacy Day, a day when people all over the word say we ought to be committed to making sure everyone can read. And one of the most important things we are doing, which your principal mentioned, is to support a program called America Reads. We're trying to get up to one million people all around the country to help parents and teachers make sure every single third grader in America can read independently by the end of that third grade. And I think that's a very good thing to do. It's obvious that all of you are doing that now.

Secretary Riley asked how many of you have read one book - anybody read five books, at least, this summer? Anybody read at least 10 books this summer? How about 15 - any 15 books? How about 20? [Laughter] How about 25? Don't feel bad, I haven't read 25 books, either. [Laughter] You're out past me. How about anybody read more than 30 books this summer? Wow! Anybody read more than 40 books this summer? [Laughter] Anybody read 50 books this summer? Now, that's amazing. [Laughter] You need to tell me how you manage your time. I'd like to have some help on that. That's great. Well, give yourselves a hand - let's give everybody a hand for their reading. That's great. [Applause]

I came here today to talk about the importance of reading and learning, not only for you but for all the children in our country. How many of you know how to at least do a little work with a computer? Now, if I asked that in the White House, there wouldn't be that many hands go up. [Laughter] And you know that you're living in a time when the computer can do more and more and more things, right? And you probably know that someday before long, we probably will see telephones, televisions, and computers all combined into one thing. And you'll probably be able to carry it from room to room and hang it on the wall and get on the computer and talk to people all across the world, do research in libraries all across the world.

And this big explosion in what computers can do is changing the way people work and live and learn. And a lot of you will be doing jobs that are different from the jobs your parents are doing. A lot of you will wind up doing jobs that nobody has even thought up yet. They don't even exist yet. But what that means is, is that those of us who are your parents - and your grandparents' generation - we have a big obligation to make sure every single one of you can read well and can learn and can keep on learning for a lifetime because of the exciting word you're going to be living in.

If you have a good education, and especially if you can read, young people your age will be able to do more different things that they're interested in doing than any group of people who have ever lived in the history of human beings on the Earth. It will be a very exciting time.

You might be interested to know that this year there are more than 52 million young Americans in school - more than 52 million - the largest number of children ever in school in the history of America. And it's very important that we do what we can to help them.

Now, what that means for all of us who are in the Federal Government, like Secretary Riley and me and Senator Sarbanes and Congressman Hoyer, or people at the State level, Governor Glendening, the Lieutenant Governor, the other State officials who are here, or your local superintendents - that all means different things. Sometimes it means just giving the schools more money. For example, we have doubled the funding to try to provide the opportunity for every school in America to hook up every classroom in America to the Internet by the year 2000. I understand that you're all going to be hooked up, all your classrooms, by the end of this year, and that's very good. But we want every single student in America to be in a classroom connected to the Internet by the year 2000.