Bill Clinton: “Thank you. Let's give the band a hand. Are they good or what? [Applause] Thank you. Thank you very much. First of all. I…”

“Thank you. Let's give the band a hand. Are they good or what? [Applause] Thank you. Thank you very much. First of all. I want to thank Elizabeth for her introduction, and Nikole for her introduction of Prime Minister Blair. Weren't you proud of your fellow students today? [Applause] They were great. Governor, Senator, Members of Congress, Nancy, all the faculty and administration staff here at Montgomery Blair High School, we are very glad to be here. I want to paraphrase something President Kennedy said when he and his wife went to Paris: I now will go down in history as the man who accompanied Tony Blair to Montgomery Blair High School. I want all of you to know that in years to come you will be very glad you were here for many reasons. But one of them is that Hillary and I are convinced, based on our friendship with Prime Minister Blair and his wonderful wife, Cherie, that they are going to make truly historic contributions to the world of the 21st century, and you are a part of that because you invited him here today, and I thank you for that. I want to just say a couple of things very briefly about this whole issue of education. You know that we just were in your computer room and we were E-mailing students in England. And I was thinking about how the first time I went to England, 30 years ago this year, I went on a ship and it took me 6 days. Now, people can look at me over a computer, and we can communicate in a matter of seconds. One of the biggest questions we have to face as a people, and one of the great questions they're facing in Great Britain, is whether or not this new technology-driven, information-driven, scientifically exploding world all of you will live in will work to the benefit of all of our people without regard to their racial, their ethnic, their religious background, their income, or will it just benefit even more people who are privileged by birth to have a high income and then can get a good education? I am committed to making sure that every single American child is a part of the 21st century revolution. And I just want to say that the first thing that I tried to do was to open the doors of college to everyone who would work for it. And I believe I can look at every one of you today and say, because of the HOPE scholarship, a $1,500 tax credit for the first 2 years of college, because of the lifetime learning credit, because of more Pell grants and more work study positions and more national service positions and better student loans with better repayment terms--if you will work for it, you can go to college in American today. You can do it, and that's important. And now what we have to do in our country---- Audience member. We love you!”