Education is one of the keys to the long-range ability of this nation to, in the words of Jesse Jackson, “keep hope alive.” This includes educational efforts of many kinds, from improved education about AIDS and other social and health issues to a decisive improvement in the resources devoted to science and mathematics education.

The quality of the instruction and the nature of teacher presentation in science and mathematics will have a profound impact on present and future generations. Only if students are able to fully grasp the issues and gain confidence in their ability to solve problems cooperatively will they be able to face a future in which employment opportunities will demand such knowledge and skill. Only if students of the present can begin to explore the complex and many-sided connections between science and society, the role of technology, and the urgent demands of the global environmental crisis will they be able to play their role as, in Vice President Gore’s terms, “stewards” of the global environment.

As I have stated often in speeches and in this column, much greater funding at a federal level is absolutely necessary if state and local government, local communities, and the vast multitude of dedicated teachers and educators are to succeed in transforming the current situation. This is especially true even amidst the current economic crisis, and I have been pleased to see some emphasis on education in the new Administration’s proposals and programs. Such funding, I hasten to remind you, is not really anything new or revolutionary, but simply a return to the substantial assistance that has been forthcoming during a good part of this century!

It is imperative, for example, that we work for increased teachers’ salaries; for full educational participation of all young people, regardless of background, gender, or ethnicity. In the field of science and mathematics, we must ensure that the current reforms with their strong emphasis on hands-on learning and alternative assessment are encouraged and expanded. All of this and much more is necessary to meet the urgent need for an educated and scientifically literate citizenry who can celebrate and build upon their splendid diversity, rather than fall victim to economic decline, ignorance, discrimination, or the angry frustration of alienation and despair.

While I have not (yet) had the opportunity to meet Bill Clinton, I have met the Vice President, whose father I knew quite well. I remember one hearing during my tenure as Chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) when I was called before the Joint Committee on Atomic Energy to testify regarding cuts to the AEC’s budget that had forced the commission to begin laying off some machinists at the Oak Ridge complex in Tennessee. The senior Senator Al Gore (D—Tennessee) then served on the Joint Committee and he asked me, “What do you have against machinists?” I responded by saying, “I don’t have anything against machinists. In fact, my father was a machinist. My grandfather was a machinist. And my great-grandfather was a machinist.” After a brief pause I added, “And if I had any talent for it, I would’ve been a machinist.” At this point, everyone, including Senator Gore, broke into laughter and the hearing essentially ended.

And speaking of machinists, it’s well worth noting that one important emphasis in modern math and science education is to convey the real-life relevance of student activities. The GEMS program has a number of guides that make this point loud and clear. A new guide, Build It! Festival, made possible as part of a grant from the McDonnell Douglas Employees Community Fund and Foundation, is now in the national testing process, with publication scheduled for Fall 1993. From construction workers, plumbers, and electricians, and yes, machinists, to interior designers, draftspersons, architects, and city planners, the exciting and very “constructive” activities in Build It! Festival connect very directly to careers, helping even very young children better understand how important mathematics is in so many lines of work, and bringing much needed knowledge to those who will in fact “build” our future.

The presidential election also prompted me to recall the ten presidents whom I have been fortunate to serve in one capacity or another, since the time of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. I never met Roosevelt personally, though the work on the Manhattan Project took place during his administration. He had a great appreciation for, and I believe a good understanding of, the work of his scientists and engineers on the project, and I was an ardent admirer of his ever since his first presidential campaign in 1932. I did know Henry Wallace, Roosevelt’s third term vice president, and both my wife Helen and I knew Eleanor Roosevelt, who has been much discussed these days as a new “First Lady” with her own strong set of goals and priorities takes center stage.

From that time on I knew and often worked quite closely with the presidents who followed Roosevelt—from Truman to Eisenhower then to John F. Kennedy, whose phone call to me on January 9, 1961 changed my life dramatically when he asked me to serve as Chairman of the AEC. At the time I was Chancellor of the University of California at Berkeley, but he reached me at my Monday refuge from administrative duties at the Radiation Laboratory where I continued to follow progress in my own field of nuclear chemistry. When I asked him how much time I had to make up my mind, he said, “Take your time. You don’t have to let me know until tomorrow morning.”

Little did I know when I accepted the job that I would remain in the position for over ten years, through the terms of Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson, and two-and-a-half years into the term of Richard M. Nixon. In my book, National Service with Ten Presidents of the United States, I recount many anecdotes of those years as well as my meetings and contacts with Presidents Ford, Carter, Reagan, and Bush. I am fortunately able to draw in detail upon my daily journal, which I began as a boy of 14 (during the Administration of Calvin Coolidge!) and have continued meticulously.

Interestingly, as our nation begins to recognize and (hopefully) continues to advance on the central goal of equal opportunity, I can testify from firsthand experience that Lyndon Johnson anticipated and promulgated the importance of “diversity” and was determined that this be reflected in, for example, appointments to the five-member AEC. We were ordered to help him find a woman and an African-American. Mary (Polly) Bunting (President of Radcliffe College) and Samuel Nabrit (President of Texas Southern University) both served with distinction. President Johnson was the possessor of a very interesting and complex personality—indeed, the most compelling I have known!

As a new President from Hope, Arkansas (whose middle name is Jefferson) seeks to “catalyze” the nation, I am reminded of the dinner President Kennedy gave at the White House for Nobel Prize winners on April 29, 1962,at which he made his famous extemporaneous remark, “I think this is the most extraordinary talent, of human knowledge, that has ever been gathered together at the White House, with the possible exception of when Thomas Jefferson dined alone.”

In addition to his musical and other accomplishments, I am told that President Clinton has a penchant for mystery novels. This fits right in with the latest emphases in GEMS—we’ve just published a nearly 400-page handbook on literature connections to the entire GEMS series. Not to mention another GEMS guide now undergoing national testing—The Mystery Festival. This guide, in which students at classrooom learning stations conduct scientific tests on and evaluate evidence left from an imaginary crime, has already received much favorable national publicity. When it is published in the Fall of 1993 I would be more than happy to send a complimentary copy to the new “First Family.”