absorbed from the world without contributing in like proportion to society's progress?

While the teacher is primarily concerned with the development of mind and character, he cannot be indifferent to that which affects the body's welfare. Physical exercise is so essential that the gymnasium has come to be a part of every well-equipt school, and the teacher is expected to share in the enthusiasm which athletics excite.

Just now an effort is being made to substitute military training for the games of the playground. I hope that the teachers in our public schools will not yield to the clamor of militarism. Peace and not war is the normal state of man, and the teacher may well insist upon the postponement of any proposed changes in school method until such changes can be considered with calmness and deliberation.

If it is thought wise to give more attention to the physical development of our youth, the means can be found in a closer imitation of the Greeks, who by their national games provided contests which contributed to physical development. This Association might with propriety consider the wisdom of encouraging such a system. State and national prizes would stimulate an honorable rivalry which would be immensely valuable to our boys and girls, as measured by progress toward physical perfection. Ten million students contending for the honors awarded for skill and endurance in athletics would materially raise the average of health and strength.

As the teacher deals not only with students but with embryo voters-a term which will soon be applied to women as well as to men-it is in keeping with this day that I submit for your consideration a few fundamental propositions in connection with our government. I am led to do so by the conviction that we delay too long the teaching of the science of government. A majority of our voters do not go beyond the eighth grade of the common school, and therefore assume the responsibilities of citizenship without a clear and comprehensive understanding of the principles and methods of the government under which they live. I am sure I voice your sentiments when I plead for greater simplicity in the treatment of this subject, that it may be brought to the attention of the students at an earlier period in their school life.

I venture to present ten propositions:

1. The social ideal toward which the world is moving requires that human institutions shall approximate toward the divine measure of rewards, and this can only be realized when each individual is able to draw from society a reward proportionate to his contribution to society.

2. The form of government which gives the best assurance of attaining this ideal is the form in which the people rule-a government deriving its just powers from the consent of the governed-the form described by Lincoln as "a government of the people, by the people, and for the people."

This being the people's government, it is their duty to live for it in time of peace, and to die for it, if necessary, in time of war.

3. The chief duty of governments, in so far as they are coercive, is to restrain those who would interfere with the inalienable rights of the individual, among which are the right to life, the right to liberty, the right to the pursuit of happiness, and the right to worship God according to the dictates of conscience.

4. In so far as governments are cooperative, they approach perfection in proportion as they adjust with justice the joint burdens which it is necessary to impose, and distribute with equity the incidental benefits which come from the disbursement of the money raised by taxation.

5. Competition is so necessary a force in business that public ownership is imperative wherever competition is impossible. A private monopoly is indefensible and intolerable.

6. "Absolute acquiescence in the decision of the majority" is, as Jefferson declares, "the vital principle of republics, from which is no appeal but to force, the vital principle and immediate parent of despotism."

7. As acquiescence in the permanent existence of a wrong is not to be expected, it is the duty of every citizen to assist in securing a free expression of the will of the people, to the end that all abuses may be remedied as soon as possible. No one can claim to be a good citizen who is indifferent. Civic duty requires attendance at primaries and conventions as at the polls.

8. The government being the people's business, it necessarily follows that its operations should be at all times open to the public view. Freedom of speech is essential to representative government, and publicity is essential to honest administration. "Equal rights to all and special privileges to none" is the maxim which should control in all departments of government.

9. Each individual finds his greatest security in the intelligence and happiness of his fellows, the welfare of each being the concern of all, and he should therefore exert himself to the utmost to improve conditions for all and to elevate the level upon which all stand.

10. While scrupulously careful to live up to his civic responsibilities, the citizen should never forget that the larger part of every human life is lived outside of the domain of government, and that he renders the largest service to others when he brings himself into harmony with the law of God, who has made service the measure of greatness.

PREPARATION THRU EDUCATION FOR A DEMOCRACY

JAMES Y. JOYNER, STATE SUPERINTENDENT OF PUBLIC INSTRUCTION,

RALEIGH, N.C.

The tersest, truest definition of democracy yet formulated by an American was that which burst from the breaking heart of Abraham Lincoln on the battlefield of Gettysburg: "Government of the people, by the

people, for the people." Beginning with this inspired definition of the most difficult and beneficent form of human government, let us consider together this highest and hardest responsibility and duty of the American teacher, "Preparation thru Education for a Democracy."

The most important task and duty of the American school and the American teacher is preparation of the American children of each generation, who are to become the American people of the next, for government by the people and for the people. Upon the wise performance of this task and duty depend the strength and perpetuity of our American democracy, and, in the light of world-conditions today, upon it may depend the preservation and perpetuation of democracy in all the earth. The trinity of agencies for the performance of this high task are the home, the church, and the school. From the very constitution of our civilization, the heaviest part of this task in America must fall upon the public school.

From the very nature of a democracy, all authority must be derived from the consent of the governed and must be exercised for the benefit of the governed. Democracy, therefore, lays a heavier burden upon the individual than any other form of government, and its perpetuity, success, and strength are more dependent upon the intelligence and character of the individual citizen. Liberty, fraternity, equality are cherisht and distinctive principles of democracy. Government of the people and for the people is more dependent than any other form of government upon the cooperation of the people, upon a recognition of the brotherhood of man, and upon a correlative consideration for the rights, duties, and obligations, moral, civic, and political, each for each, each for all, and all for each.

Education that provides preparation for democracy must lay special emphasis upon the distinctive principles and the distinctive virtues demanded for efficient democratic government.

Vocational education for the preparation of the great industrial masses, constituting 90 per cent of the total population of the United States, for more efficient and profitable work is not only an economic necessity in a democracy, but also a democratic right and obligation. Without it this vast majority cannot have equality of opportunity to work and to live, to get the most for themselves, and to contribute the most to others. But vocational education will prove in no high sense a preparation for democracy unless there be developt with it a sense of obligation and a desire and determination to use increast efficiency to give more as well as to get more.

The dominant aim of education in a democracy should be preparation for the patriotic performance of the duties and the obligations of citizenship therein thru the acquisition of the knowledge and the cultivation of the virtues demanded therefor. Education is a process of growth, not of manufacture. The teacher's relation to it is one of guidance, stimulation, and cultivation. Every public school in America, therefore, should be a place for the inculcation of democratic principles and for the

cultivation of democratic virtues. These flourish most and grow best in an atmosphere of democracy. First of all, therefore, the school must itself be a democracy, and the teacher, a democratic governor, not a despot-a wise guide, not a dogmatic dictator. Virtues grow from the practicing of them, not from the preaching of them. The school that is to prepare for citizenship in a democracy must offer the widest opportunities and the strongest stimulation for the constant exercise of the virtues most needed for it.

Self-reliance, self-determination, self-direction, self-restraint, selfgovernment are individual virtues most essential to the successful exercise of the privileges of political self-government and for the proper restraint of the freedom of democracy. Cooperation, teamwork for the common good, consideration for the rights of others, tolerance of the views of others, freedom and independence of thought, and prompt obedience to properly constituted authority are other virtues the cultivation of which is an essential part of preparation for citizenship in a democracy.

The wise teacher whose dominant aim is preparation thru education for a democracy will find innumerable opportunities in the schoolroom and on the playground for the stimulation and cultivation of these virtues. He should make his schoolroom and his playground a little republic where lessons in good citizenship in a democracy are taught every day by precept and example, where the characteristic virtues of democracy are constantly called into practice, and where its highest ideals are constantly held before the children. Here are to be found the same human types and classes-rich and poor, strong and weak, selfish and unselfish, gentle and rude, modest and brazen―the same human relations and obligations, tasks and burdens, joys and sorrows; the same human passions, ambitions, and temptations, as are to be found in the larger schoolroom and playground of the republic, but all in a formative and directable state.

Here, then, is the task and the opportunity of the teacher as a citizentrainer: wisely to direct and stimulate and help to regulate the work and conduct of each child, to aid in the creation of the right atmosphere and of the right public opinion, to make everything count most toward the formation of the character, the ideals, and the habits of good citizenship in a democracy.

It is a belittling of this great work to postpone special attention to it in the school till the last year or two in the high school, and imagine that we have discharged our duty in this respect when we have given the children a few hours' instruction a week, for a year or less, in some textbook on civics. However valuable such instruction may be in its proper time and place, it is but a minor part of this larger and longer work.

Training for citizenship for the child begins consciously or unconsciously with his first day in school and continues to his last. With him school is life, and everything that he thinks and feels and hopes and suffers and learns and does and hears and sees there has its part in his training for

citizenship. He is daily living the life, forming the character, fixing the habits of good or bad citizenship in a democracy, by the way he does his work, regulates his conduct, performs his duties, and discharges his obligations growing out of his various relations to schoolmates and teachers in schoolroom and on playground. There is scarcely a school task, duty, or play that cannot be made to contribute to this end.

Far more important as a preparation for a democracy than the knowledge acquired during these school days are the habits formed, the desires kindled, the ambitions awakened under the wise and sympathetic guidance of a teacher with soul and consecration and dynamic personality.

Above all, the child should come out of the public school of this republic filled with a spirit of democracy, fired with a love of democracy, aflame with a zeal for democracy, grateful for the blood-bought blessing of democracy, determined to live for it, and, if need be, to die for it. Feeling, desire, motive these are the steps to action. Constant appeal must be made to these thru history, biography, literature, thru the celebration of patriotic days, thru the dramatization of patriotic events, and thru the utilization of patriotic emblems.

The crowning gift of God to man is democracy builded upon Christian citizenship. Every public schoolhouse in this republic should be a holy temple of democracy, every public-school teacher a high priest daily ministering at its altar. The direst calamity that could befall humanity would be "for government of the people, by the people, for the people to perish from the earth." Preparation thru education for its duties and obligations is the ordained means for its preservation.

Centuries ago in England, because of his influence in making two kings, the Earl of Warwick won the title of "king-maker." In America today, every teacher in every public school is, in a truer sense, a king-maker; for, if he be true to his high calling, he is a maker of many good American citizens, every one of whom is a ruler and a king.

THE COMMON SCHOOL AS AN INSTRUMENT OF DEMOCRACY

CARROLL G. PEARSE, PRESIDENT, STATE NORMAL SCHOOL,
MILWAUKEE, WIS.

For two and a half centuries, the American common school has stood as the most notable instrumentality for advancing and strengthening and perpetuating the sentiments of democracy among the people of this nation, and the most powerful agency for giving American hearts to the children of immigrants from foreign lands, which any nation has ever known.

The founders of the Republic lookt upon a national system of public schools as an institution primarily of social and political nature and expediency. It seemed to them not a means of producing elegant and cultured