Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. I am honored to be here and to receive the Russell C. Hill Award.

Bishop Antonie Gayle, that was an inspiring invocation. It set the right tone for the evening.

And Wallace Bright; you are an impressive young man. I'm so pleased you were part of our ceremony. During the "Pledge of Allegiance," when you spoke of "liberty and justice for all," I just wanted to shout out "Amen"!

I can't help it. For the last four years, I have been working with the president and the Congress to make American education more inclusive, fair and just. Part of that process has been to give parents and students real liberty, more freedom and true empowerment. We want to remove the chains of bureaucratic bondage. And when I hear the "Pledge of Allegiance" I feel a renewed energy, because I know our work is helping to fulfill the promise of the Constitution, Brown v. Board of Education and the other pledges we have made to each other. We are working to make education more effective, to give each student a quality education. That's why No Child Left Behind is so important. Every student deserves a quality education. And a quality education isn't just about facts or calculations. It is also about encouraging character—helping to craft a person who cares about hard work, honesty, integrity, compassion, tolerance and a sense of justice.

Character is more than a trait—it is a result, the kind of person we become. Good character is the product of good decisions—embracing values, serving others, and setting high standards of conduct. It comes about because of powerful guidance and profound mentoring. You see, knowledge is useless unless it leads to positive action. We want to foster wisdom and to find our humanity, to help others, to live a life of service and concern for others, to find our duty to our fellow man and then to fulfill that duty.

With those last words, I have described the mission of the Boy Scouts. I'm delighted to see so many Scouts here this evening. You have been called "living monuments" to the mission of Scouting. You understand the call to service. You heard it, and you responded.

The Boy Scouts have helped millions of young men to give of themselves, to find fulfillment in a life of service. Back at the beginning, when Robert Baden-Powell founded the scouting movement, he wanted to train the mind and the heart, to broaden the vision of young men, and to widen their intellectual horizons. He wanted each Boy Scout to strive for excellence in life through formation of good character and to use each life as a force for positive change.

After all, that's why we are here. We can change the world, make it better and make a difference, if we live a life of service. I recall the advice of Mother Teresa: give until it hurts, and then give some more. Boy Scouts understand that advice and live it every day.

After all, there are formidable challenges. There is a culture of callousness around us. Everywhere we see violence, crime, disrespect, hatred, indifference and disregard. The culture of callousness spreads like a disease, infecting our music, our movies, our motives and our minds. Skepticism, nihilism and relativism threaten any effort at value formation. We see the results. Polls over the past several years have shown that a majority of our citizens identify a decline in moral values as one of the major causes of our problems. A much larger percentage of our citizens say that our values have weakened over the past generation.

But there are those who remain committed to a life of responsibility. Individual personal responsibility is key to fulfilling the obligations we owe both to our families and ourselves. It also is the way we fulfill the obligations we owe to our community and to our nation.

So I applaud programs like "Learning for Life." Your value-based curriculum has made a positive difference for thousands of students in school districts around the country. For example, in the District of Columbia, over 30,000 students participate in this vital, valuable organization. You are the leaders for change, the builders of a culture of character. Our task as parents, as citizens and as educators must be to work, individually and collectively, to encourage good character formation, to overcome a culture of callousness with a culture of character. A good education must create good character, which, as your organization has said so eloquently, consists of "knowing the good, loving the good, and doing the good."

Thank you for honoring me tonight with the Russell C. Hill Award. Good luck to each of you in your personal and professional endeavors.

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