Remarks in Philadelphia in the Girard College Chapel

Mr. President, distinguished guests, and members of this great school:

It is a pleasure for me to be here today on the 198th anniversary of the birth of Stephen Girard, one of the country's great. It is also a pleasure to me to be here for the centennial celebration of this great school.

I was also a very great admirer of Stephen Girard. He has the typical American story. The vicissitudes of Stephen Girard are an example to every American boy. Born in Bordeaux--cabin boy--shipmaster--trader-merchant financier, a wizard at finance. I don't think there's a greater one in the history of the country. And what makes him doubly great is the fact that he set up this school with that immense fortune which he made in his career as financier and merchant and trader. It is remarkable. It is estimated that his fortune was worth six million dollars when he died. Well, that is an immense fortune in this day. It was fabulous in his day. And just think what it has done!

I am told that there are 15,000 young men who have been graduated from this school, and that some 12,000 of them are still alive, and among them are leading citizens of this great Nation. Think what a monument that is! Just think what Stephen Girard did! He was a man who believed in public service. He was willing to give his life when the yellow fever epidemic was on here in Philadelphia, and he gave the ingredients for the curing of yellow fever: he said cleanliness and good food, and plenty of open air. He didn't know anything about the mosquitoes that were causing the transfer of the yellow fever from one person to another, but he had the fundamentals of what it has taken to eliminate the yellow fever from all this part of the world, and of the Caribbean. Just think of that, what a remarkable man he really was! And he set up this school. He showed that his heart was exactly right; and when he encouraged boys and young men to thirst for an education, he was doing something really great for the country at that time.

You know, in his day it was difficult even for the well-to-do to get an education, let alone people of small means, and he set up this school for the purpose of giving the people of small means a chance--the same sort of a chance that the rich man's son had in his day.

Now you young men and boys are exceedingly lucky, for you have now an advantage even over the schools of the present day. You have individual attention from your teachers. In the present day our public schools are so overcrowded that there are plenty of instances where the teachers are not able to call their pupils by name because they have so many of them, they don't have a chance to learn who they are.

And the financial situation of our public school system is something disgraceful--in the richest country in the world. Underpaid teachers--not enough room for the children to get an education that they ought to have. You can't live in this day and age without an education. This is the mechanical age, and you must be an expert in some line if you are going to make a success in this great day--the greatest age in history, I call it.

Now we call it the machine age. They have even got to the point where they milk the cows with machines. They bottle the milk with machines. They deliver it to your door--in a machine. These lights are made by machines. The heat comes from a machine.

Now when I was a young man--a boy your age--I had to milk a cow night and morning, carry the milk to the house, and put it in a cooler so I could have milk for breakfast. You just go out on the back porch and pick up a bottle, you don't know where it comes from. When I was a boy, we didn't have any mechanical dishwashers. I had to wash the dishes, and wash the lamp chimneys, so that we could have clean dishes for the next meal, and for light. If we didn't have clean lamps, we didn't have any light. I had to split wood and carry it and put it in the woodbox behind the stove, so I could get up in the morning and start a fire so that we could have breakfast. Now all you do is turn on a gadget and have everything ready. It really is the machine age. That is true of heat. All you do is turn on a gadget and you have the heat. These lazy people of the modern day can lie in bed, turn on the heat in the house and finish out their nap while the house gets warm. I couldn't do that, I had to start the fire, light the lamp, and get things ready so mother could get the breakfast.

It is an interesting age in which we live. It is an age, in my opinion, that can be the greatest age in our history. It is an age of opportunity. Don't any of you young men let anybody convince you that there are no opportunities in the present day. There is more opportunity in the present day than there ever has been in the history of the world, but you must prepare yourselves to grasp that opportunity when it comes along.

I can tell you a story or two that will be interesting. Sounds as if people in the 1840's were not much different from the people today. There was once a British cabinet officer, and he made the statement that he was most happy he was retiring from the British cabinet because the British Empire was coming to its end, and it was certainly going to break up before 1850 came along. And after that, Disraeli made Queen Victoria Empress of India, and Britain's greatest age was just then opening up.

Another time, a Commissioner of Patents made a report to the President of the United States, and this is what he said, I will read it to you, it is very interesting. Now this was in 1843, more than one hundred years ago. He says, "The advancement of the arts from year to year taxes our credulity and seems to presage the arrival of that period when human improvement must end." And this same Commissioner of Patents went down to the Senate Appropriations Committee and said he thought they ought to begin to liquidate the Patent Office because there was nothing else to be invented. That was in 1843. And what great inventions of the world have come about since that age!

Now we live in the atomic age, the age which can be made either the destruction of humanity, or it can be made to be the greatest age in history. And I have said that a hundred times since the atomic age came along, and I am saying it again to you young men: this is the greatest age in history.

I wish I was 18 years old. I wish I could go through this age that you will face after I am gone. You see, the country is going to be in the hands of such young men as you, from now on. It's a young man's age. It's the age of the greatest outlook in the history of the world, and it is our endeavor and the effort of the Government of the United States to have that age accomplished for the welfare and the peace of the world, and not for its destruction. That is what we work for, is peace in the world.

You boys and young men can consummate that effort, if you will just carry on when the opportunity knocks for you. Don't let anyone tell you that you are going out into the world where there is no opportunity. It is there--greater and better than ever. This great country has only started on its career.

Again I say, I wish I had the same opportunity that you have.

Thank you very much.