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Sunday, September 2, 2012

American Rhetoric: Lyndon Baines Johnson -- "The Great Society"

American Rhetoric: Lyndon Baines Johnson -- "The Great Society":


A third place to build the Great Society is in the classrooms of America …We are still far from that goal. In many places, classrooms are overcrowded and curricula are outdated. Most of our qualified teachers are underpaid, and many of our paid teachers are unqualified. So we must give every child a place to sit and a teacher to learn from. Poverty must not be a bar to learning, and learning must offer an escape from poverty.


Lyndon Baines Johnson
The Great Society
delivered 22 May 1964, Ann Arbor, MI
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[AUTHENTICITY CERTIFIED: Text version below transcribed directly from audio.]
President Hatcher, Governor Romney, Senators McNamara and Hart, Congressmen Meader and Staebler, and other members of the fine Michigan delegation, members of the graduating class, my fellow Americans:
It is a great pleasure to be here today. This university has been coeducational since 1870, but I do not believe it was on the basis of your accomplishments that a Detroit high school girl said (and I quote), "In choosing a college, you first have to decide whether you want a coeducational school or an educational school." Well, we can find both here at Michigan, although perhaps at different hours. I came out here today very anxious to meet the Michigan student whose father told a friend of mine that his son's education had been a real value. It stopped his mother from bragging about him.