Dear Estonian schoolfolk,

when I first went to school, I had a big leather satchel on my back. There was a piece of string hanging out of the satchel, with a green moist sponge on it. Why the sponge? This was so long ago - more than 65 years ago - that we went to school with a piece of chalk and a small, notebook-sized blackboard in our satchels. We learned to write on this blackboard, and if something went wrong, we wiped it off with the small green sponge. I remember that the closer I got to the schoolhouse, the more children I saw with sponges hanging on their backs.

I remember clutching my mother's hand tight when I got to the classroom door. And when the teacher came, she closed the door gently and quietly, and all the mothers waving from the door were suddenly on the other side of the door. This is the way school begins. This is the way it begins, never to end. But I wanted to tell you about the first day at school because this is always a day we will remember to the finest detail. This is a day we will bear in mind also when we are old. This can be the longest day, and yet so brief and so bright, that its brightness will remain with you throughout your lives.

Tomorrow, 210,000 pupils will be going to school, every fourth family in Estonia is sending someone to school. Nearly 16,000 children are going to school for the very first time. And I would like to say to all the schoolfolk: pupils of higher grades, let everybody see that for all of us, school is a home that gives us knowledge, and receives us like a real home. I would like to say to the students of higher grades: see to it that you set a nice example, that you do not let injustice or evil happen to the little ones - please interfere. Already at school we must learn to help the younger. Because if we do not learn this at school, we will not behave like this in the streets, we will not behave like this to our country.

School has many secrets. One of the secrets is that the first day at school may seem the longest, but is actually the shortest. And school itself is a very brief, but great day in a human life. Let us take everything out of this day. Because this day is never coming back. Let us make this day enter into our lives with a smile. Let the smile not be extinguished, let us make it last, so that from school, we could take with us not only knowledge, but justice, honesty, and caring for those younger than us, as I already said. Let us also learn at school some things that are not explained in textbooks. Let us learn the habit to say how do you do.

When you enter your schoolhouse - and I am talking specially to the children who are going to school for the first time - say how do you do to your teacher in a strong and clear voice, and remember to greet the policeman in the street who helps you to cross the street, and mind you - this way, you will also teach those who are already much older than you, and may already have forgotten the simple art of smiling, greeting and wishing people well.

I would like to say to all of you that this schoolday is also special because all the first-year children will receive something for their schoolbags - now no longer a satchel - something that has a special meaning - a gift from the Year of Estonian Book.

The Year of Estonian Book and your first day at school are intertwined. The understanding that before you open a book, you should always wash your hands is something that school must give you. Books must be valued, books must be read, not just to show you can read, but because the letters that make up words and words that make up sentences will in your mind turn into landscapes, speech and feelings. From the black art of print, you will learn to create a new, better world for yourselves. This is a great gift. I hope that school will above all teach you to love books, and through books, also the world that we live in. If the books are always with you as friends, and your learning accompanies you as a friend throughout the world, this - and this only - will make you strong.

Estonia, and the Republic of Estonia, is one of the smallest countries in Europe, and Estonians one of the smallest nations. But if we are wise and able to receive the knowledge school gives us, carry it with us and make it develop, if we understand that school is just a beginning of something that will never end, then by and by we will also be an educated nation; and an educated nation is never a small nation. An educated nation is able to defend itself, to assert itself, to protect its language, to protect its writers, orchestra and choir conductors, and composers; and they will come back and make our country, our families and our school a beautiful country that will bring happiness to us all, and bring happiness to you, my dear little children, also at the time when you are as old as I am now.

Thank you, and have a good schoolyear!

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