Proclamation 6785

By the President of the United States of America A Proclamation

As we move toward a complex and challenging new century, excellence in American education is more vital to our Nation's success than ever. We live in an era when advances in science and technology create new questions and demand more of our citizens each day. Only a national commitment to high-quality education can prepare our young people to meet the great responsibilities and opportunities of the future.

Yet an education that prepares a child for a lifetime is more than an accumulation of facts or single-minded preparation for a career. It is also a set of ideals and ethics that unites all Americans and allows us to work together for a just and honorable society. Teachers, families, and communities play vital roles in passing on these shared values and common hopes for a better tomorrow.

Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, the Lubavitcher Rebbe, well understood the importance of nurturing the heart along with the mind. Throughout his long and rich life, he believed that the education of our young people would only be successful if it sought to build character as well as intellect, if it taught the lessons of honesty, tolerance, and good citizenship, as well as language, math, and science.

This year, let us rededicate ourselves to teaching the love of learning that was championed by Rabbi Schneerson and is strengthened by caring leaders like him throughout our Nation. As we provide our students with the information and practical tools they need, let us also pass on to them the capacity for understanding that can help to give fuller meaning to their lives.

Now, Therefore, I, William J. Clinton, President of the United States of America, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and laws of the United States, do hereby proclaim April 11, 1995, as "Education and Sharing Day, U.S.A." I call upon Government officials, educators, volunteers, and all the people of the United States to observe this day with appropriate programs, ceremonies, and activities.

In Witness Whereof, I have hereunto set my hand this tenth day of April, in the year of our Lord nineteen hundred and ninety-five, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and nineteenth.

William J. Clinton

[Filed with the Office of the Federal Register, 10:48 a.m., April 11, 1995]