00:00:07.640 - 00:00:25.910

a senator who continues to practice what he preaches. He did that as our governor, and he's continued to do it as our senator. He's the person taught me how to be in public office. Uh, just say what you're gonna do. That's the easy part for most politicians.

00:00:25.920 - 00:00:43.050

But then go out and do it. And that's what Senator Graham has always been about. It's a real pleasure to be able to introduce to you the greatest quarterback in the history of the governor's office and the finest senator our state has ever known. Senator Bob Graham.

00:00:47.540 - 00:01:16.260

Yeah. Mhm. Yeah. Hey, job. Uh, Gary, thank you very much. I know you've got to to leave to go be the goalie of the soccer team for Tallahassee. Which, uh, which shows that you're now progressing beyond journalist, politician to senior athlete, which shows that garlands theory is still working.

00:01:16.340 - 00:01:35.220

Gary, if you'd like another career, I'd like to take you as a permanent introducer if you'll, uh, do as well. Gary and I did used to compete with each other while while we were here. We had an annual touch, uh, football game between the governor's office and the Capitol press corps.

00:01:35.230 - 00:01:59.730

I want to say that both teams tried before they set the lineup to get as many, uh, fringe participants as possible. I'm certain that the, uh, that Carol Dad Zeman, Tallahassee Democrat, would hire all these good F s U athletes to be temporarily, uh, newspaper delivery boys so they would qualify.

00:01:59.740 - 00:02:29.420

What they didn't know is that we had the Governor Sports Council. Uh, and we had the opportunity to get these Olympic class athletes who were in Tallahassee for some training. Uh, and after about five or six years as the quarterback of our team, when we had all kinds of intricate plays and and other things, none of which worked, we figured out that what we needed to do was to get one of these guys that could run 100 yards and under 10 seconds and just get the ball in his hands.

00:02:29.430 - 00:02:48.750

Uh, that was what it took to win. And I think the last time we played the the capital Press corps in spite of Gerry's best efforts, we won like 48 to 6 or so. So we we out recruited you. But Gary, thank you very much and thank you for your service to this community.

00:02:49.440 - 00:03:13.960

Uh, friends, This is a rare privilege to be able to be part of a series that commemorates the legacy of what is truly one of not only our great Floridians, but great Americans. Uh, Leroy Collins was a special human being, and his presence is still with us today.

00:03:14.540 - 00:03:54.390

I was in Ocala a week ago, Ocala being a town that I think of as being a very genteel, humanistic community. And I was struck when I visited the local newspaper, which is not part of the Knight Ridder, uh, outreach that they were. The newspaper was sponsoring a series of programs, and we're bringing in some professional, the talent on the subject of stability, how to get along with each other.

00:03:54.400 - 00:04:15.350

And the reason that the newspaper felt that was necessary was because civility had been so lacking. Uh, in much of the public life of Okawa, the City Council was yelling and screaming at each other. The county commission, the other elected officials were having a very difficult time, apparently getting along.

00:04:15.350 - 00:04:45.370

And so the newspaper felt that was appropriate. I believe that Leroy Collins would have been very shocked that it would have been necessary for a newspaper to host a series of seminars on civility in a community such as Ocala, Florida Civility for Leroy Collins wasn't something that he studied or made a special effort to understand.

00:04:45.370 - 00:05:16.560

It was so much a part of his essence, uh, that courtly, uh, charm, that outreach to people that, uh, wonderful, uh, wit, uh, were part of the way in which he dealt with dignity and respect with all those in whom he came in contact and then applied those personal qualities too effective personal life and public leadership.

00:05:17.140 - 00:05:39.760

I'm pleased that we have a number of, uh, the Collins family, uh, with us, uh, today, all of whom I am fortunate enough to call, uh, friends, uh, and people who have influenced our lives. And I thank you very much. Is Mrs. Collins is Mrs Collins here?

00:05:40.440 - 00:05:59.140

Well, please, I wish you would please extend my best wishes to her. One of the nicest things about our eight years of living in Tallahassee was we had such great neighbors. Uh, it was so nice to have, uh, governor and Mrs Collins, Uh, just across the street.

00:05:59.140 - 00:06:21.190

Adele was reminding me one year we had a hurricane that came through Tallahassee and knocked out the lights for a while. And so she went over to see, uh, Governor Collins and Mrs Collins to see how they were doing and asked if they'd like to come and stay at the mansion where we had a generator, uh, and had some lights.

00:06:21.200 - 00:06:50.550

And Governor Collins said no that he thought that would be too much of an imposition, but he wanted to know if he could come Phillies bucket up with water. Uh, that that is the kind of neighbor the governor Collins was. Uh, this, uh, the community was what helped us become, uh, familiar with and friends of the extended Collins family.

00:06:50.840 - 00:07:13.600

That was just one of the many ways in which Tallahassee has shaped our family. Our four daughters are all graduates of Leon High School, of which they are very proud. If you come to to our home, you will see all four of their graduation diplomas hung in the most auspicious position of our house, which is right over the television set.

00:07:13.610 - 00:07:44.570

Uh uh. Tallahassee also had a significant role in my being able to be with you this afternoon. My mother was the 1928 graduate of Florida State College for women. After she graduated, she went back to her, uh, home in the few Niac springs where she had graduated from Walton County High School and became an English teacher at Walton County High School.

00:07:44.580 - 00:08:06.890

She taught there until 1934 in the midst of the Depression. The, uh, school system in Walton County, uh, stopped paying the teachers, Uh, and it became difficult for mother to support herself without a salary. So she decided that she was going to have to seek another occupation.

00:08:07.060 - 00:08:49.120

And so she enrolled at Jones Business College in Jacksonville and on the last week of school in 1934 after she'd finished classes, she got on the bus in the few niac headed for Jacksonville and her new career as a secretary. The bus stopped in Tallahassee. There was a middle aged man whose first wife had, uh, sadly passed away of cancer a few years previously, who happened to be in Tallahassee on that day and who very much disliked riding the bus but had missed the last train to Jacksonville.

00:08:49.150 - 00:09:09.660

And so he took the bus. At this point, there was some disagreement as to just what the story was. Uh, my mother said that the bus had many empty seats, but he decided to sit at the one next to her. My father said there was only one empty seat, and he took it.

00:09:10.140 - 00:09:33.150

Uh, whichever story was right, they ended up spending 100 and 50 miles on the bus, uh, riding in Jacksonville. Uh, and, uh, romance, uh, was planted, and 18 months later, they were married. Uh, and a little while later, I was the happy, uh, product of that stop at the Tallahassee bus station.

00:09:33.440 - 00:10:00.300

So I am very pleased at all the things that Tower has he has contributed to me. There are many aspects of the private family and public life of Lloyd Collins that one could select as the thesis. But I would like to talk about what Leroy Collins, uh, meant to education.

00:10:00.310 - 00:10:23.340

Uh, in our state, and I used the word education in the broadest sense. Oftentimes, education, uh, and schooling are thought of as synonyms. Uh, they are actually quite different. Schooling is a particular method by which information is transmitted from one individual or one generation to the next.

00:10:23.380 - 00:10:51.150

Education refers to the broader process by which society, uh, enhances its understanding, uh, and transmits, uh, knowledge and values. Uh, Leroy Collins was an educator, uh, by his own example, those things that he, uh, felt and was willing to place before the public as important values for our society.

00:10:51.160 - 00:11:23.690

He educated us as to who we were. Uh, what were our potentials? Uh, when he came to public life in Florida, he saw a system of public schools. Uh, that was highly segregated. Uh, it was a system that was living the lie that you could have a society which was separate, segregated, but still equal.

00:11:23.700 - 00:11:44.860

And there was no place in which that lie was more evident than it was in the public schools. He also saw a Florida which was a relatively small state at the time of his birth. It was in population, uh, the smallest state among the states of the old Confederacy.

00:11:45.240 - 00:12:10.170

Uh, it was a poor state. Uh, and it was a state that had a highly fractured economic base. Ah, In the 19 twenties, a young graduate student from Colombia by the name of row, Johns came to Florida to do his doctoral thesis. The thesis was on education finance systems.

00:12:10.640 - 00:12:37.060

His conclusion was that it was uncertain as to whether Florida or Mississippi had the most impoverished education system in America in the 19 twenties. But he was certain that the competition was down to those two states. Uh, maybe that explains why they didn't pay my mother at Walton High School.

00:12:37.540 - 00:13:01.430

It was a state that had, uh, a high degree of separation of its local tax base. Up until 1947 each of the counties of Florida was divided into five districts for purposes of education. I grew up in the Hialeah district of Dade County. Uh, one of the other districts was Miami Beach.

00:13:01.440 - 00:13:26.610

We had to separate school boards, which were then called boards of trustees. Uh, and the tax base was allocated into those five separate components. Uh, needless to say, the schools in Hialeah were substantially, uh, less well prepared, less well equipped to. The teachers were less well paid than they were, uh, in the more affluent parts of the county.

00:13:26.620 - 00:13:53.700

Uh, and that circumstance was even further exacerbated when you moved across counties. Uh, particularly into some of the poor rural counties of central and North Florida. There was relatively little state participation in the financing of education and there was relatively little momentum to change all of the above Uh, in 19 oh five by the Buckman Act.

00:13:53.710 - 00:14:19.160

The state had organized its university system, uh, into three institutions. Uh, Florida's what is now Florida State University, Florida A and M University. Uh, and the University of Florida. Uh, and it was that way. Well, after World War Two, the only significant change that occurred is that the University of Florida and FS you had both become coeducational.

00:14:19.340 - 00:14:39.560

But beyond that, we had essentially the same system 50 years later. Ah, Governor Collins saw the necessity of creating change in order to meet the tremendous demands that education at all levels specifically at post secondary we're going to have at the end of World War Two.

00:14:39.940 - 00:15:07.650

Ah, he brought a series of bold, courageous innovations, uh, to Florida education. First as a member of the Legislature, where in 1947 with the close cooperation of now Dr RL John's, uh, he wrote the first minimum foundation program for Florida, which brought the stadium as a significant part of the financing of public education.

00:15:07.660 - 00:15:32.060

Uh, in Florida, uh, he was committed to the principle of equal opportunity for all students. Even while we had segregated schools, he was committed to the principle that all schools would financially be treated, uh, in parody. Uh, he understood that education was a significant part of Florida being able to realize its other objectives.

00:15:32.070 - 00:16:07.450

That the quality of education in our state had become a serious, uh, negative factor in the state's capacity to broaden itself culturally, uh, economically, Uh, and to take advantage of its special opportunities, he was particularly committed to increasing access to higher education. Shortly after he was elected governor in 1950 for a commission was established, uh, which brought, uh, to its, uh, leadership.

00:16:07.460 - 00:16:36.160

A man who was to influence significantly the second half of the 20th century in Florida. Higher education. Uh, Dr Ben Wattenberg, er, who is now the faculty at the University of Florida together, uh, wrote the program that established the community college system in Florida and began the process of expanding the higher education, uh, university system, uh, in Florida.

00:16:36.540 - 00:17:07.980

Uh, he knew that it was that commitment to education that would be the key to our states. Realizing its future. Governor Collins also understood the importance of building strong public support for education at all levels. Uh, he did this as a an advocate for education as the individual who established many of the institutional structures which supported education.

00:17:07.980 - 00:17:35.620

He believes strongly in the community colleges having locally based boards of trustees in order to remain sensitive to the needs of the individual communities in the state, uh, and through those citizens groups to provide a base of continuing public support. If we would ask ourselves now, a half century later, what would Governor Collins be proud of?

00:17:35.620 - 00:18:06.790

And what would he have? Continuing concerns about education in Florida today? Let me suggest the following. I think he would be very proud of our state university system, Uh, and the tremendous progress that it has made. Uh, he would be especially proud of what has been one of Florida's, uh, special contributions to higher education in the country, and that is the expansive community college system.

00:18:06.840 - 00:18:32.460

We have one of the largest, including the largest single community college in the nation, in terms of number of students enrolled, Uh, and one of the most diverse and community, aware and responsive community college systems in the country. He would also be proud of the caliber of students that are being produced by Florida's public schools.

00:18:32.840 - 00:18:58.900

We have now one of the largest numbers of merit scholars and other students who have received distinctions of any state in the nation. He would be proud of the quality of teachers that we have in our, uh, public schools and in our higher education institutions. But he would also share some concerns.

00:18:58.900 - 00:19:25.770

And it is on this that I wish to particularly focus because that is our challenge today, uh, where we have the same visionary capacity of Leroy Collins, uh, to see the world as it is to understand that world, uh, and then the will and commitment where necessary to change that world in order to create a better opportunity for the next generation.

00:19:26.740 - 00:19:50.210

In some ways, we are dealing with similar challenges to those that were faced in the thirties and the forties. In the fifties, we continue to face the challenge of how to maintain strong public support for education. Uh, we face the challenge of dealing with the alteration that has occurred in the family structure.

00:19:50.220 - 00:20:23.950

Uh, in our state and nation, the challenge of a state education system maintaining currency with the rapid growth and new demands which are being placed upon it. Let me comment on each of those three challenges. Ah, first public support. It is appropriate to recognize that the decline of public support is not unique to education.

00:20:24.440 - 00:21:08.460

Uh, public support is under assault. Uh, as it relates to all of the large institutions in our society in order to begin to reestablish that sense of the importance of education, uh, to the lives of individual citizens will require a thoughtful plan. It has many dimensions, but one of the most important for our state of Florida is a plan to assure that there is a close sense of affinity between our older citizens and our educational institutions.

00:21:09.140 - 00:21:37.970

Um, my wife, Adele, who I'm pleased, is able to be here as well as our oldest daughter and Leon High School graduate Gwen Logan. Uh huh. My wife will probably have to close her ears at this because she graduated from Miami Edison Senior High School. I graduated from Miami senior high school, which you see this distinguished, benighted lady back here.

00:21:37.970 - 00:22:04.560

Sir, uh, I will have to say that even now, many years after I graduated, when I have a particularly difficult task to undertake in my office. What I like to do is to get out my Miami heist injury T shirt and put it on. It gives me a sort of a sense of uplift to take on whatever I've got to do that particular day.

00:22:05.040 - 00:22:32.200

Uh, that sense of a personal, ah relationship with schools is an important aspect of building and maintaining that public support. And it is a relationship which for many hundreds of thousands of citizens of our state, uh, does not exist because they did not attend the public schools of our state.

00:22:32.200 - 00:23:08.260

Nor did their Children. Uh, and so it becomes especially challenging to develop strategies that will help create that relationship. I think that means things like, uh, my wife, who has written a book on the subject of intergenerational relationships in the public schools. Uh, that we must, uh, seek out and encourage, uh, older people to come into the schools as mentors and as volunteers in all the ways in which they can be effective.

00:23:08.640 - 00:24:08.080

Clearly that will help the Children. It will also clearly help the adult who has that experience. But one of the one of the most important benefits of that relationship will be what it will mean to public education as an ongoing part of our society. People who who have not had within their own personal experience, a relationship with the public schools in the community as either student or parent of student by having this opportunity to participate as an adult will help to create those bonds of affinity, which will then pay off when there are, UH, sales tax increase issues to support schools or elections of people who may have differing degrees of support for public education as candidates for the Legislature or the school board or other important positions.

00:24:08.090 - 00:24:50.460

Uh, it is important that the schools be made relevant, uh, to, uh, all of our citizens. But in a state where almost one third of the voters are over the age of 65 especially uh, to that part of our electorate, I have felt that one of the things we need to do was to redefine the school and the, and to go back to this distinction between schools and education that the school should be thought of as a physical facility which serves a variety of community needs with the primacy of those needs being the education of Children and adolescents.

00:24:50.470 - 00:25:30.090

But the school also ought to be the place where other activities that are appropriate, uh, to the community and will assist Children can also occur as an example. And I hate to say this, uh, in this, uh, beautiful, uh, public library, but, uh, it struck me that schools ought to be a logical place for joint ah school public library use so that you had a reason for members of the community to come in and participate in the school as they were participating in the service of the library.

00:25:30.100 - 00:25:53.500

That the schools of the logical place for the Public Health Service to have health services available to serve the Children, Yes, but also to serve the general community. What's the most underutilized? Uh, nutritional, uh, service activity in most communities? Uh, it's that which is in the public school.

00:25:53.500 - 00:26:19.320

It's only used for a few hours a day, a few days a month uh, 10 months out of the year that that ought to be the first choice for programs like meals for senior citizens, uh, again, to have a, uh, a positive rationale for the school to be seen by all of the people of the community as an institution of value.

00:26:19.330 - 00:26:54.360

To them, the issue of the school and the family is an especially critical one. Throughout the history of American public education, the school has been in a symbiotic relationship with the family. Uh, the first schools were where a family that had a sufficient amount of wealth would hire someone to come in and assist them in educating their own Children beyond the ability of the mother and father to do so.

00:26:54.740 - 00:27:19.330

For those families who weren't affluent enough to have a teacher of their own, they would come together and hire a teacher for the Children of several families in the area. That became particularly important as the sciences became a more significant part of the necessary, uh, cognitive base, uh, for adolescents.

00:27:19.340 - 00:27:39.500

Uh, family could teach their Children how to read and write by using the Bible. But as you moved into the scientific era at the beginning of the 19th century that was generally beyond the ability of the mother and father, so they would need someone with more specific educational background.

00:27:39.510 - 00:28:07.790

But the school was always seen as filling a void, which the family was unable to do. My assignment was to go to Gainesville High School, uh, and teach a class to 11th graders on preparing for college. And I had this script that I was supposed to read, and I had some brochures to hand out, and almost every sentence of my material had the word family in it.

00:28:07.800 - 00:28:35.540

You compute what your family income is in order to determine how much your family can contribute towards your higher education expenses in this group of about 15 or 20 students, I could tell quickly, because I'm a very fast learner that, uh, I wasn't communicating. And so I stopped and I asked, What does the word family mean to you?

00:28:35.550 - 00:28:55.050

What is your family? And in this relatively middle class high school in the middle of Florida in the middle of the 11th grade? In that group of 15 people, we had a few that were the kind of family that all those pages that I was reading described.

00:28:55.540 - 00:29:16.490

But most of the Children lived with a single parent, live with a grandparent, lived with the Guardian. We lived alone. I was surprised at how many 11th graders in that community were living without any adult supervision. And the schools have got to deal with the reality of all of those changes.

00:29:16.500 - 00:29:40.080

Uh, I think that one of the, uh, additional benefits of this concept of the redefined school that is a place, uh that serves a variety of community needs education being prime primary but also provides other services that are important to Children. Uh is a way in which the school recognizes the reality of that change.

00:29:40.090 - 00:29:59.760

Because those are the Children who are the most likely to need the services of the public health. You know, they're most likely to need the services of the community mental health, uh, agency, their most, uh, likely to need the kind of nurturing environment that having more adults in the school will help to facilitate.

00:30:00.840 - 00:30:28.930

A third challenge that I think Governor Collins would recognize today is meeting what I call the achievement challenge. The President Clinton has made education a priority. Uh, in his State of the Union speech. Almost a third of his, uh, speech was devoted to education, and he outlined a number of initiatives.

00:30:28.930 - 00:30:56.300

The first of those initiatives was to set higher national standards for schools. To me, uh, that sounded very reminiscent to a lot of us who had served with Bill Clinton as governor back in the 19 eighties, because that was what much of the educational reform effort that swept the country, particularly the South in the 19 eighties, was about raising educational standards.

00:30:56.300 - 00:31:29.130

We in Florida adopted a new set of requirements to graduate from high school as part of that raising standards. I think what we maybe did not adequately focus on was that standards have a corollary, and the corollary is achievement. It's one thing to say to a golfer you are going to have to shoot, Uh, a score of 72.

00:31:29.140 - 00:31:50.360

That's the standard for success. It's another thing to actually be able to go out and shoot a 72. Tiger Woods has spent 19 of his 21 years hitting golf balls, Uh, in order to be as good as he is. Uh, he did not achieve that just because somebody said that that is the standard of accomplishment.

00:31:50.740 - 00:32:26.670

I think that we have got to begin to focus on what is going to be required in order to assist students in being able to achieve the standards that we think are appropriate for a person who will live most of his life in the 21st century and where she will be held to meeting international standards of of competition with students being educated around the world and frankly, as a as a parent.

00:32:26.670 - 00:32:57.730

And now, grandparent, Uh, I am not satisfied that we're doing as well as we need to do. And as a public official, I am distressed that, uh, we as a society are not being adequately challenged to do so. I have with, uh, with the wonderful nurturing of, uh, Adele attempted to raise four daughters, and I think that we've done a pretty good job of it.

00:32:57.740 - 00:33:33.630

Uh, we're now into the grand Children business. Let me, uh, and I've got some pictures I'm going to show you, but, um, all four of our daughters, as I indicated, graduated from Leon. One of our third daughter, Suzanne, uh, received her master's degree in early childhood education, uh, from that institution in Gainesville, uh, and then taught at a kindergarten in Dade County, a brand new kindergarten.

00:33:33.630 - 00:34:00.060

Joel a good in her first year there, she was selected as one of the best first year teachers in the state for which we were very proud of her. Uh, that was the good news. The bad news was that as good as she was, it was difficult for her to handle 38 55 year old students, which is what she had in her kindergarten class.

00:34:00.540 - 00:34:30.550

Ah, She taught under those, uh, conditions, Uh, for three years. Then she was married, taught in Virginia for a year. Uh, and two years ago, March 30th made us the happy grandparents of our fifth, 6th and 7th grandchild. And I have a picture of our triplet granddaughters here.

00:34:30.940 - 00:34:51.460

She said that she was the only mother of triplets who had 35 fewer students kids to look after after her triplets. So we're born so that we're giving equal time. We also have a picture of all of the grand tour, including the three who are happy residents of Tallahassee.

00:34:51.640 - 00:35:25.850

Uh, my wife is a very smart lady. And she had the grandchildren color coded. Uh, so we have a green, yellow and red family. The green grandchildren are the greens, but, ah, we, uh we have got to refocus on what is going to be required in order to provide young people with the realistic chance to achieve at a level that they can reach these high standards.

00:35:25.860 - 00:36:05.650

I would suggest that those 38 5 year old in my daughter's kindergarten class were not being given that appropriate opportunity. Now, they're going to be a number of temptations to find, uh, simple, uh, and glitzy solutions to this problem. Uh, and I'm a believer in innovation and the desirability of trying out new ideas, but I don't believe that you ought to place all of your faith, uh, an untested idea, uh, and abandoned those old and tested virtues, uh, and procedures which we know have worked.

00:36:05.660 - 00:36:34.460

One of the most interesting people I served with in the Florida Legislature was a state senator from Miami named Jack Gordon, uh, Jack's very bright person. And he was able to see irony in almost any situation. When I was first in the Senate, Governor asked You had removed from office a, uh, sheriff from Franklin County.

00:36:35.330 - 00:36:59.200

Now, Governor asked. You had removed Sheriff Williams for these kind of minor indiscretions. Uh, Sheriff Williams was letting the county prisoners off on Sundays to have barbecues. Uh, the prisoners on Saturday afternoons were doing car washes in order to raise money to help support uh, the, uh, the jail.

00:36:59.210 - 00:37:26.550

He could probably have overlooked those. He may have been able to overlook the fact that the prisoners, occasionally we're being asked to go across to ST George Island and help Sheriff Williams build his beach house. But I think probably the thing that really got to governor ask you was when it was pointed out that Sheriff Williams was allowing marijuana to be grown in the backyard of the Franklin County jailed.

00:37:27.030 - 00:37:50.850

So the issue is now before the state Senate, whether those kind of activities justified not just a temporary suspension from office, but actually removing Sheriff Williams from his position as the sheriff of Franklin County. And Jack Gordon gave a speech, and the topic of the speech was innovation.

00:37:51.330 - 00:38:15.040

Yeah, and Jack said that he felt it was important in the criminal justice system, uh, to experiment with a number of different ways to deal with the same challenge so that we could learn which options seem to have the most efficacy and that he felt that Florida was 67 counties.

00:38:15.420 - 00:38:44.330

67 county jails could certainly afford to have one jolly jail. Yeah, we had it was in Franklin County, and we should keep it. And by George, the state Senate kept it by allowing Sheriff Williams to continue in office. Now, I'm not quite so cavalier in terms of what we should do relative to education.

00:38:44.330 - 00:39:40.140

I believe that education fundamentally today as it as it was true 100 years ago, as it was true, 1000 or 2000 years ago and beyond, uh is the product of an educated adult reasonably supported with a manageable number of Children or adolescents being given the opportunity to engage in that magical experience, which is education, uh, and that it is that basic relationship that we need to support if we are going to achieve the level of performance that will give Children reasonable expectation and we the reasonable right of expectation that they will achieve high standards.

00:39:40.520 - 00:40:18.340

Uh, I'm particularly concerned about what is happening in terms of the physical circumstances in which our Children are going to school. Uh, I also recognize that most of the things that happen, particularly in elementary secondary education, are the responsibility of local communities and the state. Under our constitutional allocation of authorities, the federal government has a secondary, uh, and remote role in terms of influencing what happens inside our classrooms, and I support that allocation of responsibility.

00:40:18.340 - 00:40:37.010

I don't think the United States, as large and diverse as it is, uh, is amenable to a French type education system in which, as they say, every child in France who is seven years of age is on exactly the same page at exactly the same hour in every school in France.

00:40:37.010 - 00:41:16.310

That is not the kind of system that we are going to be very comfortable with or will meet the needs of our young people in the United States. But a role in which I think the federal government can play, uh to a greater degree than it is today is in helping states and school districts meet their facilities, needs the reason there were 38 students and my daughters Kindergarten class Jalal, A good elementary school is if you took the number of students who were of kindergarten age and divided it by the number of classrooms at Joelle a good including the number of portables that they could cram, uh, into the play yard.

00:41:16.320 - 00:41:54.530

It ended up being 38 students per kindergarten class. So if you're going to provide a reasonable, uh, environment for learning, uh, it's going to require more classrooms. It's also going to require classrooms that are prepared to provide the kind of components of a modern educational experience wired, uh, for the types of of educational technology that are now such an important part of educating Children for the world in which they are going to live.

00:41:54.910 - 00:42:20.710

Oh, I believe the federal government ought to make a greater contribution, uh, towards meeting that facilities needs, uh, the president has a plan to do so I hope his plan will provide the basis but will be expanded, uh, to have a wider reach, uh, in terms of assisting at all levels, elementary, secondary as well as higher education.

00:42:20.720 - 00:42:55.260

Meet the needs for adequate facilities, friends. Those are some of the observations. I believe that Governor Collins would make if he were reviewing where education is in Florida. As we approach the last 1000 days of the 20th century, Uh, I believe that Governor Collins would be pleased with the institutionalization of many of the steps that he commenced.

00:42:55.270 - 00:43:26.230

Uh, he would be pleased to see the degree to which the rigid segregation of society had begun to erode, disappointed at the pace of progress towards ultimate success we have achieved, uh, he would be pleased at the fact that access to higher education now in Florida is available to almost all Floridians, regardless of where they live.

00:43:26.240 - 00:43:59.950

What, their ages, what their previous educational background had been. Governor Collins would continue to stand today for what his legacy provides us a human compassion, an understanding that fundamental to our ability to serve our people is the requirement that we first love our people. Uh, he genuinely loved the people of this state.

00:43:59.960 - 00:44:20.010

Uh, end of the world. He was a man who understood life because he had lived in in all of its varieties, from the peaks, uh, to the valleys. Uh, he had a vision of what our state could be in a personal commitment to the realization of that vision.

00:44:20.490 - 00:44:50.450

And he had the courage to live all of those principles for which he spoke with such eloquence. We are fortunate that he lived among us. Thank you. All right. It's hard to choose between courage and leadership, but I guess those two are sort of one and the same.

00:44:50.450 - 00:45:12.130

And certainly he symbolized both of those to me. And I think the many Floridians, the great leadership, he showed his governor and after he was governor and the courage he showed, particularly in the civil rights struggle and in his fighting for education in this state, if you could name one thing, that's the most important thing about Governor Collins legacy.

00:45:12.130 - 00:45:36.680

What do you think that would be his personality? He brought a spirit of compassion, of respect for each individual with whom he dealt. He had a vision for what he thought this state could be and the political will to place his life behind making that vision reality.

00:45:36.690 - 00:46:01.720

If he was alive today, what do you think his biggest concern would be? Education. Uh, it was his biggest concern when he was with us, because he recognized that everything else that the people of Florida aspired to individually as families, as communities are state dependent upon the quality of education, how well each of our people was developed to their full potential.