This speech was made in favor of legislation designed to provide comprehensive preschool education for the nation's children. It is urged that the needs of the handicapped children of our country be particularly considered. Sixty to eighty per cent of the children in classrooms for the retarded are cumulative products of environmental factors. Those children suffering from organic disorders also need and deserve help. A child is born with an "impairment"; whether he becomes "handicapped" or not depends in large measure on the favorability of his early developmental environment. Supportive data is presented from a 5-year-study in early intervention at Vanderbilt University. Also mentioned is a preschool program for deaf children who were subsequently able to enter normal classrooms, but who, without the program, were destined to become deaf mutes. Such specialized programs are impossible without public financial assistance. Both the legislation itself and the concept of comprehensive preschool education for all children are supported with the recommendation that allowances be made for additional models for sensorily and physically impaired children and children from poverty areas. (MH)