But the progress of our economy can more than match the growth of our needs.  We need only to act wisely and confidently.

Here, I hope you will permit me to digress long enough to express something that is much on my mind.

The basic question facing us today is more than mere survival—­the military defense of national life and territory.  It is the preservation of a way of life.

We must meet the world challenge and at the same time permit no stagnation in America.

Unless we progress, we regress.

We can successfully sustain security and remain true to our heritage of freedom if we clearly visualize the tasks ahead and set out to perform them with resolution and fervor.  We must first define these tasks and then understand what we must do to perform them.

If progress is to be steady we must have long term guides extending far ahead, certainly five, possibly even ten years.  They must reflect the knowledge that before the end of five years we will have a population of over 190 million.  They must be goals that stand high, and so inspire every citizen to climb always toward mounting levels of moral, intellectual and material strength.  Every advance toward them must stir pride in individual and national achievements.

To define these goals, I intend to mobilize help from every available source.

We need more than politically ordained national objectives to challenge the best efforts of free men and women.  A group of selfless and devoted individuals, outside of government, could effectively participate in making the necessary appraisal of the potentials of our future.  The result would be establishment of national goals that would not only spur us on to our finest efforts, but would meet the stern test of practicality.

The Committee I plan will comprise educators and representatives of labor, management, finance, the professions and every other kind of useful activity.

Such a study would update and supplement, in the light of continuous changes in our society and its economy, the monumental work of the Committee on Recent Social Trends which was appointed in 1931 by President Hoover.  Its report has stood the test of time and has had a beneficial influence on national development.  The new Committee would be concerned, among other things, with the acceleration of our economy’s growth and the living standards of our people, their health and education, their better assurance of life and liberty and their greater opportunities.  It would also be concerned with methods to meet such goals and what levels of government—­Local, State, or Federal—­might or should be particularly concerned.

As one example, consider our schools, operated under the authority of local communities and states.  In their capacity and in their quality they conform to no recognizable standards.  In some places facilities are ample, in others meager.  Pay of teachers ranges between wide limits, from the adequate to the shameful.  As would be expected, quality of teaching varies just as widely.  But to our teachers we commit the most valuable possession of the nation and of the family—­our children.