Proclamation 2199—American Education Week

By the President of the United States of America
A Proclamation

An opportunity for all of our people to obtain the education that will best fit them for their life work and their responsibilities as citizens is the ideal of American education. It is an ideal which has been a vital factor in our national development since 1647 when the General Court of Massachusetts enacted the historic measure providing for an elementary school in every township of fifty householders and a grammar school in every town of one hundred families "to instruct youth so farr as they may be fited for ye university". in the expansion of the nation the school has moved with the frontier, and time and experience have demonstrated that universal education is essential to national progress.

It is accordingly with a feeling of earnest gratification that we note the improvement which has taken place with respect to the educational situation in the United States. Teaching positions which were eliminated during the depression years are being restored and teachers' salaries have returned to pre-depression levels in an encouraging number of school systems, colleges, and universities. There has been a steady increase in the attendance of students at elementary schools, high schools, and colleges.

It is particularly appropriate, therefore, that a time be set apart this year for a widespread and understanding observance of the benefits that flow from a continuing advancement of the standards of American education.

Now, Therefore, I, Franklin D. Roosevelt, President of the United States, do by this proclamation designate the week beginning Monday, November 9, 1936, as American Education Week and urge that it be observed throughout the United States.

In Witness Whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United States of America to be affixed.

Done at the City of Washington this 30th day of September, in the year of our Lord nineteen hundred and thirty-six, and of the Independence of the United States of America the one hundred and sixty-first.

FRANKLIN D ROOSEVELT

By the President:
CORDELL HULL
Secretary of State.