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PROCLAMATION 4140-JUNE 26, 1972

[86 STAT.

students too have a legitimate interest in sharing in the process of school governance. While the forms which that sharing can take are many, one of the best is the student government organization at each school and campus. Student councils, though not new in America, are newly important in these times of challenge for democracy. They can offer young people early and vital experience in exercising a voice in matters of common concern, reconciling diverse interests, and selecting leaders to express representative views. Equally important, active and responsible student governments can exert a constructive influence in shaping the on-going reform and selfrenewal of our educational communities. " There is, of course, ample evidence that student councils which lack proper organization and wide student support are at best ineffectual, at worst subject to misuse by an activist few at the expense of an apathetic majority. However, I am encouraged to believe that most students in most schools are accepting their new opportunities with the kind of responsibility which will prevent adverse results and ensure a vital and enlightened role for student government in the Seventies. Our hopes and our efforts must be directed to their doing so, for the quality of our future in some degree depends on it. NOW, THEREFORE, I, RICHARD NIXON, President of the United States of America, do hereby proclaim September 26, 1972, as National Student Government Day, and I invite the Governors of the States and the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, and appropriate officials of local governments and communities to issue similar proclamations this year, as many have done in the past. .........,.,, ,..,„.,,\. I urge all educational institutions, academic, vocational, and nonacademic, to join in appropriate activities to highlight, to revitalize, and to encourage wider participation in, their particular forms of student government. I also urge all students to acquaint themselves fully with the activities and programs of their student government, and to take a full and constructive part in that government. IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand, this twentysixth day of June, in the the year of our Lord nineteen hundred seventytwo, and of the Independence of the United States of America the one hundred ninety-sixth. ,.

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