For our older citizens have longer and more frequent illnesses, higher hospital and medical bills and too little income to pay them.  Private health insurance helps very few—­for its cost is high and its coverage limited.  Public welfare cannot help those too proud to seek relief but hard-pressed to pay their own bills.  Nor can their children or grandchildren always sacrifice their own health budgets to meet this constant drain.

Social security has long helped to meet the hardships of retirement, death, and disability.  I now urge that its coverage be extended without further delay to provide health insurance for the elderly.

EDUCATION

Equally important to our strength is the quality of our education.  Eight million adult Americans are classified as functionally illiterate.  This is a disturbing figure—­reflected in Selective Service rejection rates—­reflected in welfare rolls and crime rates.  And I shall recommend plans for a massive attack to end this adult illiteracy.

I shall also recommend bills to improve educational quality, to stimulate the arts, and, at the college level, to provide Federal loans for the construction of academic facilities and Federally financed scholarships.

If this Nation is to grow in wisdom and strength, then every able high school graduate should have the opportunity to develop his talents.  Yet nearly half lack either the funds or the facilities to attend college.  Enrollments are going to double in our colleges in the short space of 10 years.  The annual cost per student is skyrocketing to astronomical levels—­now averaging $1,650 a year, although almost half of our families earn less than $5,000.  They cannot afford such costs—­but this Nation cannot afford to maintain its military power and neglect its brainpower.

But excellence in education must begin at the elementary level.  I sent to the Congress last year a proposal for Federal aid to public school construction and teachers’ salaries.  I believe that bill, which passed the Senate and received House Committee approval, offered the minimum amount required by our needs and—­in terms of across-the-board aid—­the maximum scope permitted by our Constitution.  I therefore see no reason to weaken or withdraw that bill:  and I urge its passage at this session.

“Civilization,” said H. G. Wells, “is a race between education and catastrophe.”  It is up to you in this Congress to determine the winner of that race.

These are not unrelated measures addressed to specific gaps or grievances in our national life.  They are the pattern of our intentions and the foundation of our hopes.  “I believe in democracy,” said Woodrow Wilson, “because it releases the energy of every human being.”  The dynamic of democracy is the power and the purpose of the individual, and the policy of this administration is to give to the individual the opportunity to realize his own highest possibilities.