The President, on 20 July 1917, urged col leges and technical schools to maintain their courses on the usual basis in order that every opportunity might be given for the training of the leaders on whom must fall the serious work of reconstruction. Likewise we may note the appeal of March 1918, signed by the Secretary of War, Secretary of the Navy and others, urg ing that boys and girls be kept in elementary and secondary schools until 18 years of age, because the future requires that these pupils have more and better education to cope with the problems of peace.
A second remedy is the plan to use the school plants to their maximum capacity, that is, all the year around, with the year divided into four quarters of 12 weeks each. Moreover greater use of school plants is urged for late afternoon and evening classes, both for minors and adults and the use of assembly rooms for lectures connected with the problems of the war, such as conservation, production, savings and thrift. Numerous school plants have been used for the training of those entering the war, for both military and industrial services and for the production of war materials — for use of the Red Cross, for example. There is also greater use of the school plant as community centres and as meeting places for the various organized bodies directly or indirectly connected with the school, whose work contributes to the war. This intensive extension of the functions of the school is seen in the formation of such organizations as the Junior Red Cross, Boy Scouts, War Savings, Liberty Loan, and War Garden clubs.
A third remedy is to change the point of view in teaching so far as it centres on local, State, or sectional interests rather than on na tional interests. President Wilson, in his letter of 23 Aug. 1917, asked the school officers and teachers of the country to stress the prob lems of community and national life because they are the most pressing problems now before us and will be still more so in the future. This tendency to emphasize national ideals is one of the most important of the changes brought on by the war. The fact that we do not have a national system of education has tended to divert attention from national interests and ideals. One of the immediate effects of the war, however, is to place emphasis on the duties and obligations of citizenship rather than on the privileges and rights of the individual. Con sidering the origin of the nation, the importance attached to individual rights in the period of the American Revolution, the slow growth of the national ideal, and the fact that education itself is under State control, it was natural that this point of view was neglected. But war is one of the greatest integrating and unifying forces, and tends to counteract racial, religious, party, sectional and class divisions, the disinte grating forces in national life, in order that the whole strength of the people may be used to Overthrow the common foe. It places first the interests of the largest group, the nation, in stead of individual interests, or those of a group seeking some selfish or local end.
Another principle affecting education is the new conception of the relation of the individual to the nation because of the immediate demands of the war. As public opinion changes, as the
lessons forced on the people by the war are learned, education necessarily reflects these changes. The war has emphasized not only the matter of duties and obligations, but the prin ciple of obedience and the performance of defi nite and often disagreeable tasks. This is in contrast to the notion present in the educa tional philosophy of the past generation, that pupils should do only those things which in terest them. The exacting demands of war and the performance of uncongenial tasks required as a part of the training to gain skill and knowl edge; the subordination of the individual to the group, to gain efficiency and success — these principles tend to react on educational philos ophy, methods of instruction and the require ments made of the pupil. The effect on public opinion of the campaign for saving and econo mizing in money, time, food and clothing tends also to influence school practice and ideals.
Broadly speaking, the war has emphasized two types of education which compete more and more with the older cultural variety. The first grows out of the emphasis on national ideals and interests, and the duties and obliga tions of citizens to the nation in peace and war. This may be called the new social-civic education which has for its basis the socializa tion of the pupil through the study of the social sciences, history, civics, economics and sociology. It is through emphasis on these subjects that the pupils can be taught to take the social rather than the individual point of view; to become interested in, and to sacrifice for, the interests of the group. The new in terest in history and civics is the first outcome of this force. It is,agreed that the subject of history assumes great importance because the ideals for which we are fighting must neces sarily be taught to the present generation. This calls for a revaluation of our own history as well as a broader study of the origin and de velopment of our cultural and political insti tutions, and the development of democratic ideas. It also calls for a more complete knowl edge of the history of the nations opposed to us, their psychology, philosophy, political sys tems and aims. It calls for a broader study of the history of those nations with whom we are allied in the war. It calls for a restudy of our own history, especially with respect to an understanding of our indebtedness, to Eng land for the origin of many of our institutions and much of our culture, to remove false prejudice and to show how under the forms of monarchy England is a democracy. The final attitude of the United States at the peace con ference and in future efforts to preserve the world peace must, in the last analysis, be de termined by public opinion. An enlightened public opinion is impossible unless historical conceptions are present in the minds of the people, sufficient for them to recognize what is just and right for the future existence of the nations and peoples who are concerned in the world peace. If the people of the United States are to help safeguard the world for democracy, it is obvious that the historical background of the struggle for in the past and the manner in which nations have reacted to that struggle must be thoroughly understood.