    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1998, Book I)]
    [June 5, 1998]
    [Pages 894-898]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    Commencement Address at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in
    Cambridge, Massachusetts
    June 5, 1998

        Thank you, Dr. Vest. I think you're the
    real thing. [Laughter] Chairman d'Arbeloff, Dr. Gray, members of the
    corporation, the faculty, especially to the members of the Class of 1998
    and your families, the Classes of 1948 and 1973, Mayor Duehay, members of the City Council. I thank the Brass
    Ensemble for the wonderful music before. Let me say I am profoundly
    honored to be here on the same platform with Dr. David Ho and grateful for the work he has done for humanity.
        When we met a few moments ago in President Vest's office with a
    number of the students and other officials of the university, I said you
    had a good representation of speakers today, the scientists and the
    scientifically challenged. [Laughter]
        But my administration has been able to carry on in no small measure
    because of contributions from MIT. Sixteen MIT alumni and faculty
    members have served in important positions in this administration,
    including at least two who are here today, the former Secretary of the
    Air Force, Sheila Widnall, and the Deputy
    Secretary of Energy, Ernie Moniz. Four of your
    faculty members and your president have done important work for us. I
    thank them all.
        And I come here today with good news and bad news for the graduates.
    The good news is that this morning we had our latest economic report:
    unemployment is 4.3 percent; there have been 16 million new jobs in the
    last 5 years; there are numerous job openings that pay well. The bad
    news is that you now have no excuse to your parents if you don't go to
    work. [Laughter]
        MIT is admired around the world as a crucible of creative thought, a
    force for progress, a place where dreams of generations become reality.
    The remarkable discoveries and inventions of the MIT community have
    transformed America. Early in your history, MIT was known for advances
    in geology and mining. By mid-century, MIT pioneered x rays and radar.
    Today, it's atomic lasers, artificial intelligence, biotechnology. MIT
    has done much to make this the American Century. And MIT will do more to
    make America and the world a better place in the 21st century, as we
    continue our astonishing journey through the information revolution, a
    revolution that began not as our own did, here in Massachusetts, with a
    single shot heard around the world, but instead was sparked by many
    catalysts, in labs and libraries, startups

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    and blue chips, homes and even dorm rooms across America and around the
    world.
        I come today not to talk about the new marvels of science and
    engineering; you know far more about them than I do. Instead I come to
    MIT, an epicenter of the seismic shifts in our economy and society, to
    talk about how we can and must apply enduring American values to this
    revolutionary time, about the responsibilities we all have as citizens
    to include every American in the promise of this new age.
        From the start, our Nation's greatest mission has been the
    fulfillment of our Founders' vision: opportunity for all, best secured
    by free people working together toward better tomorrows and what they
    called ``a more perfect Union.'' Americans believe the spark of
    possibility burns deep within every child, that ordinary people can do
    extraordinary things. Our history can be understood as a constant
    striving, on foreign fields and factory floors, in townhalls and the
    corridors of Congress, to widen that circle of opportunity, to deepen
    the meaning of our freedom, to perfect our Union, to make real the
    promise of America. Every previous generation has been called upon to
    meet this challenge. And as we approach a new century and a new
    millennium, your generation must answer the call.
        You enter the world of your tomorrows at a remarkable moment for
    America. Our country has the lowest crime rates in 25 years, the
    smallest welfare rolls in 27 years, the lowest unemployment in 28 years,
    the lowest inflation in 32 years, the smallest National Government in 35
    years, and the highest rate of homeownership in our history. Such a
    remarkable time, a period of renewal, comes along all too rarely in
    life, as you will see. It gives us both the opportunity and the profound
    responsibility to address the larger, longer term challenges to your
    future.
        This spring I am speaking to graduates around the country about
    three of those challenges. Last month, I went to the Naval Academy to
    talk about the new security challenges of the 21 century, terrorism,
    organized crime and drug trafficking, global climate change, the spread
    of weapons of mass destruction. Next week at Portland State in Oregon, I
    will discuss how our Nation's third great wave of immigration can either
    strengthen and unite America or weaken and divide it. And I thank Dr.
    Ho for what he said about immigration and our
    immigrants.
        Today I ask you to focus on the challenges of the information age.
    The dimensions of the information revolution and its limitless
    possibilities are widely accepted and generally understood, even by lay
    people. But to make the most of it we must also acknowledge that there
    are challenges, and we must make important choices. We can extend
    opportunity to all Americans or leave many behind. We can erase lines of
    inequity or etch them indelibly. We can accelerate the most powerful
    engine of growth and prosperity the world has ever known, or allow the
    engine to stall.
        History has taught us that choices cannot be deferred; they are made
    by action or inaction. There is no such thing as virtual opportunity. We
    cannot point and click our way to a better future. If we are to fulfill
    the complete promise of this new age, we must do more.
        Already the information age is transforming the way we work. The
    high-tech industry employs more people today than the auto industry did
    at its height in the 1950's. Auto and steel industries in turn have been
    revived by new technologies. Among those making the most use of
    technology R&D are traditional American enterprises such as
    construction, transportation, and retail stores.
        It's transforming the way we live. The typical American home now has
    much more--as much computing power as all of MIT did in the year most of
    the seniors here were born. It is transforming the way we communicate.
    On any business day, more than 30 times as many messages are delivered
    by E-mail as by the Postal Service. And today, this ceremony is being
    carried live on the Internet so that people all over the world can join
    in.
        It is transforming the way we learn. With the DVD technology
    available today, we can store more reference material in a 3-inch stack
    of disks than in all the stacks of Hayden Library. It is transforming
    the way our society works, giving millions of Americans the opportunity
    to join in the enterprise of building our nation as they fulfill their
    dreams.
        The tools we develop today are bringing down barriers of race and
    gender, of income and age. The disabled are opening long-closed doors of
    school, work, and human possibility. Small businesses are competing in
    worldwide markets once reserved only for powerful corporations. Before
    too long, our children will be able to stretch a hand across a keyboard
    and reach every book ever written, every painting every painted, every
    symphony ever controlled.

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        For the very first time in our history, it is now possible for a
    child in the most isolated inner-city neighborhood or rural community to
    have access to the same world of knowledge at the same instant as the
    child in the most affluent suburb. Imagine the revolutionary
    democratizing potential this can bring. Imagine the enormous benefits to
    our economy, our society if not just a fraction but all young people can
    master this set of 21st century skills.
        Just a few miles from here is the working class community of East
    Somerville. It has sometimes struggled to meet the needs of population
    that is growing more diverse by the day. But at East Somerville
    Community School, well-trained technology teachers with equipment and
    support from Time-Warner Cable have begun to give first to eighth
    graders an early and enormous boost in life. First graders are producing
    small books on computers. Sixth graders are producing documentaries. The
    technology has so motivated them that almost all the sixth graders
    showed up at school to work on their computer projects over winter
    break.
        That small miracle can be replicated in every school, rich and poor,
    across America. Yet today, affluent schools are almost 3 times as likely
    to have Internet access in the classroom; white students more than twice
    as likely as black students to have computers in their homes.
        We know from hard experience that unequal education hardens into
    unequal prospects. We know the information age will accelerate this
    trend. The three fastest growing careers in America are all in computer
    related fields, offering far more than average pay. Happily, the digital
    divide has begun to narrow, but it will not disappear of its own accord.
    History teaches us that even as new technologies create growth and new
    opportunity, they can heighten economic inequalities and sharpen social
    divisions. That is, after all, exactly what happened with the
    mechanization of agriculture and in the industrial revolution.
        As we move into the information age, we have it within our power to
    avoid these developments. We can reap the growth that comes from
    revolutionary technologies and use them to eliminate, not to widen, the
    disparities that exist. But until every child has a computer in the
    classroom and a teacher well-trained to help, until every student has
    the skills to tap the enormous resources of the Internet, until every
    high-tech company can find skilled workers to fill its high-wage jobs,
    America will miss the full promise of the information age.
        We cannot allow this age of opportunity to be remembered also for
    the opportunities that were missed. Every day, we wake up and know that
    we have a challenge; now we must decide how to meet it. Let me suggest
    three things.
        First, we must help you to ensure that America continues to lead the
    revolution in science and technology. Growth is a prerequisite for
    opportunity, and scientific research is a basic prerequisite for growth.
    Just yesterday in Japan, physicists announced a discovery that tiny
    neutrinos have mass. Now, that may not mean much to most Americans, but
    it may change our most fundamental theories, from the nature of the
    smallest subatomic particles to how the universe itself works and,
    indeed, how it expands. This discovery was made in Japan, yes, but it
    had the support of the investment of the U.S. Department of Energy. This
    discovery calls into question the decision made in Washington a couple
    of years ago to disband the super-conducting supercollider, and it
    reaffirms the importance of the work now being done at the Fermi
    National Acceleration Facility in Illinois.
        The larger issue is that these kinds of findings have implications
    that are not limited to the laboratory. They affect the whole of
    society, not only our economy but our very view of life, our
    understanding of our relations with others and our place in time.
        In just the past 4 years, information technology has been
    responsible for more than a third of our economic expansion. Without
    Government-funded research, computers, the Internet, communications
    satellites wouldn't have gotten started. When I became President, the
    Internet was the province of physicists, funded by a Government research
    project. There were only 50 sites in the world. Now, as all of you know,
    we are adding pages to the World Wide Web at the rate of over 100,000 an
    hour, and 100 million new users will come on this year. It all started
    with research, and we must do more.
        In the budget I submit to Congress for the year 2000, I will call
    for significant increases in computing and communications research. I
    have directed Dr. Neal Lane, my new Adviser for
    Science and Technology, to work with our Nation's research community to
    prepare a detailed plan for my review.

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        Over the past 50 years, our commitment to science has strengthened
    this country in countless ways. Scientific research has created vast new
    industries, millions of jobs, allowed America to produce the world's
    most bountiful food supplies and remarkable tools for fighting disease.
    Think of what today's investments will yield. Dr. Ho will unravel the agonizing riddles of AIDS. There will be
    a cure for cancer; a flourishing economy that will produce much less
    pollution and move back from the brink of potentially devastating global
    warming; high-speed wireless networks that bring distance learning,
    tele-medicine, and economic opportunity to every rural community in
    America.
        That is why, even as we balanced our budget for the first time in 29
    years, we have increased our investments in science. This year I asked
    Congress for the largest increase in research funding in history, not
    just for a year but sustained over 5 years. It is a core commitment that
    must be part of how every American, regardless of political party or
    personal endeavor, thinks about our Nation and its mission. [Applause]
    Thank you--those are the people who received the research grants over
    there. [Laughter]
        I want you to know that we are also working to address the threat to
    our prosperity posed by the year 2000 bug. I tried and tried to find out
    what the class hack project was for the Class of '98, and I failed. But
    I did learn that in the year 2000, the graduating class is proposing to
    roll all of our computers back by 100 years. And I am determined to
    thwart you. I will do my best. [Laughter]
        The second thing we have to do is to make sure that the
    opportunities of the information age belong to all our children. Every
    young American must have access to these technologies. Two years ago in
    my State of the Union Address, I challenged our Nation to connect every
    classroom to the Internet by the year 2000. Thanks to unprecedented
    cooperation at national, State, and local levels, an outpouring of
    support from active citizens, and the decreasing costs of computers,
    we're on track to meet this goal.
        Four years ago when you came to MIT, barely 3 percent of America's
    classrooms were connected. By this time next year, we will have
    connected well over half our classrooms, including 100 percent of the
    classrooms in the Nation's 50 largest urban school districts.
        But it is not enough to connect the classrooms. The services have to
    be accessed. You may have heard recently about something called the e-
    rate. It's the most crucial initiative we've launched to help connect
    our schools, our libraries, and our rural health centers to the
    Internet. Now some businesses have called on Congress to repeal the
    initiative. They say our Nation cannot afford to provide discounts to
    these institutions of learning and health by raising a billion dollars
    or so a year from service charges on telecommunications companies,
    something that was agreed to in the Telecommunications Act of 1996 that
    passed with overwhelming bipartisan majorities in both Houses.
        I say we cannot afford not to have an e-rate. Thousands of poor
    schools and libraries and rural health centers are in desperate need of
    discounts. If we really believe that we all belong in the information
    age, then, at this sunlit moment of prosperity, we can't leave anyone
    behind in the dark.
        Every one of you who understands this I urge to support the e-rate.
    Every one of you here who came from a poor inner-city neighborhood, who
    came from a small rural school district, who came perhaps from another
    country where this was just a distant dream, you know that there are
    poor children now who may never have a chance to go to MIT unless
    someone reaches out and gives them this kind of opportunity. Every child
    in America deserves the chance to participate in the information
    revolution.
        The third thing we have to do is to make sure that all the computers
    and the connections in the world don't go to waste because our children
    actually have 21st century skills. For 5 years now I've done my best to
    make education our number one domestic priority, creating HOPE
    scholarships, expanding Pell grants, to make the 13th and 14th years of
    education as universal as the first 12 are today. We've passed tax
    credits, reformed the student loan program, expanded work-study, created
    AmeriCorps to open the doors of college to every young person who is
    willing to work for it.
        We're working to make our public schools the best in the world, with
    smaller classes, better facilities, more master teachers and charter
    schools, higher standards, an end to social promotion. But the new
    economy also demands that our Nation commit to technology literacy

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    for every child. We shouldn't let a child graduate from middle school
    anymore without knowing how to use new technologies to learn.
        Already, 10 States with an eye to the future have made technology
    literacy a requirement of graduation from high school. I believe we
    should meet this goal in the middle school years. I believe every child
    in every State should leave middle school able to use the most current
    tools for learning, research, communication, and collaboration. And we
    will help every State to meet this goal.
        If a State commits to adopt a technology literacy requirement, then
    we will help to provide the training that the teachers need. I propose
    to create a team of trained technology experts for every American middle
    school in every one of these States and to create competitions over the
    next 3 years to encourage the development of high-quality educational
    software and educational websites by students and professors and
    commercial software companies.
        All students should feel as comfortable with a keyboard as a
    chalkboard, as comfortable with a laptop as a textbook. It is critical
    to ensuring that they all have opportunity in the world of the 21st
    century.
        Today I pledge the resources and unrelenting efforts of our Nation
    to renew our enduring values in the information age. But the challenges
    that we face cannot be met by Government alone. We can only fulfill the
    promise of this revolution if we work together in the same way it was
    launched together, with creativity, resolve, a restless spirit of
    innovation.
        While this mission requires the efforts of every citizen, those who
    fuel and enjoy the unparalleled prosperity of this moment have special
    responsibilities. The thriving new companies that line Route 128 in
    Silicon Valley--I challenge them to use their power to empower others,
    to invest in a school, embrace a community in need, endow an eager young
    mind with opportunity, not to rest until every one of our children is
    technology literate. Many of you are doing such work already, and many
    of them are; but America needs all such companies to participate.
        And finally, to the graduates of the class of 1998, I, too, offer my
    congratulations and, as your President, my gratitude for your
    commitment, for challenges conquered, for projects completed, for goals
    reached and even surpassed. You, your parents, and your friends should
    be very proud today and very hopeful, for all the possibilities of this
    new age are open to you. You are at the peak of your powers, and the
    world will rightly reward you for the work you do.
        But to make the very most of your life and the opportunities you
    have been given, you, too, must rise to your responsibility to give
    something back to America of what you have been given. As the years
    pass, your generation will be judged and you will begin to judge
    yourselves not only on what you do for yourself and your family but on
    the contributions you make to others, to your country, your communities,
    your generation of children. When you turn your good fortune into a
    chance for others, you then will not only be leaders in science and
    industry, you will become the leaders of America. Twenty-first century
    America belongs to you. Take good care of it.
        Thank you, and God bless you.

    Note: The President spoke at 11:55 a.m. at Killian Court on the campus
    of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In his remarks, he
    referred to Charles M. Vest, president, MIT; Alexander d'Arbeloff,
    chairman, and Paul Gray, former chairman, the Corporation of MIT; Mayor
    Francis H. Duehay of Cambridge; Dr. David D. Ho, scientific director,
    Aaron Diamond AIDS Research Center; and Ernest Moniz, Under Secretary of
    Energy.