these skills and these faculties will serve you well in all the years
ahead. In your attainments, you merit the commendation and the
good wishes of all of us.

And next, as the Governor of Maryland and representing its people
here today, it is appropriate that I offer recognition to Towson State
College on its one-hundredth birthday. Towson is the oldest and the
largest of the institutions in our State college system and figures
prominently in our plans for the future development of our system
of public higher education. It is fitting, therefore, that as she enters
the second century of her existence we offer her the tribute she so
well deserves for the part she has played in the cultural, social and
economic development of our great State over the past one-hundred
years.

Many times in the past I have said that it is my purpose and the
purpose of my Administration, to create the kind of public educational
system that will offer Marylanders the best education that is available.
This was no empty oratorical gesture on my part, I assure you. On
the contrary, I can think of no legacy that I would rather leave the
people who have honored me with the highest political office of the
State than an educational system so soundly and so strongly based
as to assure that this purpose will be fulfilled.

Regardless of what the uninformed circles may say, I firmly believe
that the foundation for such a system has been laid. There is an
abundance of evidence that points to that conclusion: die tremendous
expansion in physical plant, vast increases in appropriations for
operating expenses, increased emphasis upon the quality of teachers
at all levels, expansion of scholarship programs, and so on. I can
think of no better proof of the progress made during the past few
years.

Perhaps no single accomplishment speels out more clearly our
determination to reach our goal of the best education available than
the reorganization of our system of public higher education which
took place in 1963. I refer, of course, to the inauguration of the so-
called tri-partite system of public higher education with a framework
involving the University of Maryland, with its branches; the state
colleges and the community colleges. This college, as you know, fits
into the pattern as a part of the State college system, and it is this
aspect of our three-par program that I should like to discuss with you
in some detail today.

In the broadest sense, it is the role of the State colleges to be re-

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