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Has every delegate voted? Does any dele-
gate desire to change his vote?
(There was no response.)
The Clerk will record the vote.
There being 52 votes in the affirmative
and 72 in the negative, the motion is lost.
The amendment is rejected.
The next item on the debate schedule is
consideration of section 2. Delegate
Burgess.
DELEGATE BURGESS: Mr. Chairman,
I rise to a point of personal privilege.
THE CHAIRMAN: State the privilege.
DELEGATE BURGESS: I would like to
announce the presence in the rear gallery
of Miss Dolly Finch, the young lady in
the green dress, the daughter of one of our
delegates, Delegate Walter Finch, seated in
the back row.
(Applause.)
THE CHAIRMiA,N: The pages will dis-
tribute Amendment H, H for Harry — I
am sorry — H for Hurry.
DELEGATE E. C. MURRAY: Mr.
Chairman.
THE CHAIRMAN: Delegate Churchill
Murray.
DELEGATE E. C. MURRAY: A point
of personal privilege. I would like to call
attention to that posterity for which we
are doing this work, in the gallery.
(Applause.)
THE CHAIRMAN: This will be Amend-
ment No. 3. The Clerk will read the amend-
ment.
READING CLERK: Amendment No. 3
(to accompany Minority Report GP-6(A))
to Committee Recommendation GP-6 by
Delegates Boyer, Lord, Jett, Key, Singer,
E. J. Clarke, and Caldwell.
On page 1 strike out all lines 13 through
15, inclusive, comprising all of section 2.
THE CHAIRMAN: This is a period of
controlled debate. Delegate Lord has fifteen
minutes, Delegate Wheatley, fifteen min-
utes. The Chair recognizes Delegate Lord.
DELEGATE LORD: Mr. Chairman, I
would like to yield five minutes to Delegate
Raley.
THE CHAIRMAN: Delegate Raley.
DELEGATE RALEY: Mr. Chairman,
members of the Convention, I rise to sup-
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port this amendment, to wipe out entirely
section 2, which states, the General Assem-
bly shall provide by law for equal educa-
tional opportunities for all residents.
I do so for two reasons: number one, I
think it will hurt education because it will
have to reduce its impact to the lowest
common denominator and number two, be-
cause I believe it will be impossible to im-
plement. When you think of what it means
to the General Assembly to provide by law
for equal educational opportunities for all
Marylanders, those words do sound good. I
do not think there is anyone in this assem-
bly today that does not agree that this is
what we like, what we want to do, but it is
another thing to implement it. In fact, it is
impossible to do.
I feel and believe that education must be
free to let creative influences come and
flow through it, and when you have this
kind of thing that says everything shall be
equal, then where and what happens to the
diversity, what happens to the creative in-
fluences that we know are needed in educa-
tion. Then it comes to the problem of mean-
ing1. I am sure that if we ask every member
in this assembly sitting here today, what
equal educational opportunity means for
all residents, we will get 142 different
answers.
Does it mean complete, total, free educa-
tion from infancy to the grave? Does it
mean that each child must receive the same
amount of money for education, regardless
of circumstances? Does it mean that the
technical school in St. Mary's must offer
the same identical type of courses that one
does in Baltimore? It injects in my opinion
a religious question in here, because it says
again, the General Assembly shall provide
by law for equal educational opportunities
for all residents.
Does it mean that .there is going to be a
graduate school for all as long as they
want it? I can see an enormous amount and
number of legal problems. How would it
conflict with Baltimore Polytechnic Insti-
tute programs, where things are being tried.
That is what I am talking about when I say
diversity. We try something, when we want
to, because, as someone pointed out today,
there are new ideas coming today in the
field of education, and we must be free to
present these ideas. We must be free to try
these ideas. This amendment, it seems to
me, tries, but in the name of helping educa-
tion, I think it reduces it, hurts it, and de-
stroys it.
There is one other point that I would
like to make. I think, we should get our
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