ΤΗ

IRLS and boys of America, you are the hope of the world!

G

That isn't an empty phrase. What remains of the youth of Europe after the war will be crippled and scarred in body or spirit; and those who are children to-day will have to give all their energies to the mere physical mere physical rebuilding of shattered cities and the more difficult and delicate reconstruction of shattered social systems. Schools will have to be thoroughly overhauled, histories will have to be rewritten. There will be no time for men to struggle long, patiently in art, or science, or literature. There will be too much common drudgery that will have to be done, day by day. And the men of vision will be few.

Girls and boys of America, you are the hope of the world! We have a rich country. We have not been touched by war. Not really touched by it. Not touched as Belgium and France and England have been touched, clutched, throttled, flung down by it! You who are ten, twelve, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen or seventeen now will, probably, not be closely touched by it at all. Your brothers may go, to fight for freedom on the sea or in France; but you, Bill and Jack and George and Mary and Susan and Jane will stay home, and dowhat?

That's the great question. At bottom, it's the greatest question confronting this dear country of ours. At bottom, it's greater than any question of guns or money or potatoes or submarines or party politics-the question, in the nation's crisis is: What are you girls and boys of America going to do?

You are the hope of the world! That isn't empty rhetoric. That is hard fact. But, you say, there are girls and boys in other countries scarcely touched by the War; in India, for instance, in Japan, in China, millions

of them; there are girls and boys in Norway and Sweden and Spain and Holland and South America. Why, you say, are we the world's hope? Why must we carry that responsibility? We'd rather not, you say.

You can't evade it, Young America. The stars have conspired against you. Destiny, which made your country rich and gave her great leaders in time of need, and helped her to build a magnificent republic out of many races and many creeds; Destiny that brought you to the light under the Eagle and the Stars and Stripes; Destiny, that chose America to be the greatest laboratory, the greatest testing-ground of democracy in the world; Destiny, Fortune, God, whatever you want to call it, laid on you the privilege and the responsibility of being the hope of a world in tears. You can carry this responsibility and be glorious. You can throw it off, and be damned; but you cannot ignore it.

You are the hope of the world! And are you, while your country strips for battle and your brothers prepare themselves to fight "for what America has always fought for-Liberty" are you going on dancing and spinning on your ear and going to the movies and the music shows and loafing at street corners and reading the sporting page and dolling up your figure and your face? Or are you going to wake up suddenly to the emptiness and the ugliness of all this, and throw it aside, crying, "By crickets, there are big things in this world, and, by all that's clean in me and true in me and brave in me and American in me, I'm going out to find them and give my heart and soul to them and make myself a part of them; so that, as far as I am concerned, the hope of the world shall be fulfilled!"

YOUNG AMERICA, WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO?

R

ELYING on the magnetic appeal of the Red Cross to the American people, the Junior Membership Department has undertaken

to

enroll every school in the country as a "Red Cross Auxiliary and a Centre for Patriotic Service." The Red Cross insists that the emphasis of the movement is primarily on education; secondarily on production, and finally on financial support. The slight shift of emphasis from that of the general purpose of the Red Cross does not mean that the Juniors are not as complete and as valuable members as any whom the Red Cross enrolls. But they are strictly occupied with the two proper businesses of their lives-play and school. The Red Cross can ask that a business man or woman give up private enterprises and devote energy and income to war service, but it can not take a child from play or school work without full recompense in recreational or educational values-not only for the sake of the child but also for the future of the Red Cross and of the nation.

Wondering whether the Red Cross realized this fact, and perhaps half fearing that the schools were to be exploited in the great need for supplies, educational authorities waited to

be sure of the purposes of the Junior Red Cross before endorsing it. When the plan of organization and the emphasis of the appeal had been made clear to the National Commissioner of Education, he gave the Director of Junior Membership his blessing and sent him forth to the work with his hearty commendation. The Commissioner recognized in the Junior Red Cross the agency which might serve to coördinate all the civic and patriotic enterprises that claim the attention of the schools, and that might stand guardian against unworthy demands upon the time and enthusiasm of the teachers and children.

Early in January an Advisory Conference was held at the National Headquarters in Washington to discuss the department of Junior Membership and School Activities. Educators, officials of the Red Cross, and representatives of Government Departments came with suggestions about the scope of the work, the methods to be used and the spirit of the undertaking. Delegates from both coasts. of our wide country and from many intermediate states reported their experiences and discoveries. Nine State Superintendents of Education were present and took part in the

discussions. Directors of Junior Membership who had been working with well-organized Auxiliaries offered numerous practical suggestions. The two days of the Conference enlarged and clarified everyone's conception of the opportunity before the Junior Red Cross. The spirit of the Red Cross, if rightly interpreted, can stimulate all the present school work and add to it possibilities of service. Those schools that feel it impossible or impracticable to modify their curricula are by no means cut off from membership, for all unselfish service or preparation for service is legitimately Red Cross work. If history is so taught and so studied that the age-long struggle toward liberty and democracy is vital to the students and they are impressed with their potential part in it, both students and teachers are doing the highest kind of Red Cross work. The Red Cross can make geography alive maps plastic, and boundary lines things to be blotted out. The quaintness of foreign countries, their strange customs and dress, all their differences from us, are well emphasized, and properly so, in our school lessons. But the Red Cross would train our young people to be better citizens of the world than we have been. The way to begin is to teach them the true oneness of the nations. In teaching this geography of patriotism use can be made of the School Letter, the official Junior Red Cross organ, which bears to all members messages by and about children all over the United States and the countries helped by the Red Cross.

PUTTING PRINCIPLES INTO PRACTICE

As the newer ways of teaching English through pageants acted by the students develop, the great Red Cross ideal of community spirit and work will be put into visible forms. Indeed, putting the principles learned at school into practice, is one of the chief advantages that the Red Cross offers its Junior members. It aims to carry the lesson in civics and politics onward from books into actual city or country life. The student is to The student is to learn of public health not only through lectures but through keeping the school building and yard and the vacant lot on the corner clean. Many schools already have their efficient Civic and Vocational Leagues, or clubs with similar titles and other objects. The Junior Red Cross has no desire to supersede these; it works in unison with them and carries the

benefits of their experience to less fortunate schools.

Where schools have extensive vocational courses the Junior Red Cross can make, perhaps, the most immediate and practical suggestions.

We are familiar with the cry of some teachers of manual training that the making of coat hangers and book racks does not satisfy the boy because he sees no necessity for his making them. The Red Cross comes to these teachers with a need for articles requiring no less technical instruction and skill, and of immediate importance to a great national work. In one large city, the classes in manual training equip Red Cross workrooms according to the directions of the local Red Cross Supply Service and under the guidance of the regular teachers. Classes in domestic art and science have also a boundless opportunity for Red Cross service. If the war is not finally "to be won in the kitchen" nevertheless the cooks of the nation have it within their power to aid powerfully and perhaps to shorten the war. The Red Cross aims to help the teachers of cookery to get the situation before the girls of the country, and to furnish the future housekeepers with the most practical ways of saving efficiently. No part of the present science of cooking is to be slighted but the schools are urged to incorporate in this and all departments the teachings forced upon us by war necessities. It is natural to expect that many of the supplies contributed to the Red Cross Chapters will come from the vocational classes, particularly those in manual training and sewing. It is not, however, these supplies, valuable as they are to the Chapters, that the Red Cross stresses for school children. It is education, for education is the business of children in school and education is the great safeguard for the future of the nation.

IN UNION THERE IS STRENGTH

Now, more forcefully than ever, people are realizing the need of working easily in groups. Even such a large unit as a nation finds itself threatened and weakened if it tries to stand alone. The school children are growing up into a world of group forces, becoming more highly organized and including more and more the peoples and territories of all the world. Upon the ability of the future citizens to use these groups and to grasp their significance,