In Honor of Davidson College Students WHO IN CHEERFUL WILLINGNESS TO GIVE SUPREME DEVOTION JOINED THE NATIONAL FORCES BANDED TO UPHOLD LIBERTY, PEACE, AND JUSTICE THROUGHOUT THE WORLD PREFACE In this book my purpose has been to bring together a number of significant essays, addresses, and state papers which should be helpful in showing students what others, chiefly their fellowAmericans, have thought or now think about their countryits people, its ideals, and its significance both at home and abroad. The time is opportune for seeking a more intelligent acquaintance with our national ideals and problems. The war thrusts upon the nation the need of burnishing ideals as well as weapons. We should use this war to clarify our vision and intensify our national purposes, and we must, in our schools and colleges, make it a means for developing catholicity of spirit, human sympathy, sacrificial devotion to convictions, and passion for truth and justice. Realizing the danger of doing violence in the stress of conflict to the very ideals we seek to defend and exalt, President Wilson early addressed a plea to the teachers in all grades of schools urging the conservation of our ideals. Said he, "The war is bringing to the minds of our people a new appreciation of the problems of national life and a deeper understanding of the meaning and aims of democracy. Matters which we have heretofore deemed commonplace and trivial are seen in a truer light. . . . When the war is over we must apply the wisdom we have acquired in purging and ennobling the life of the world.” An intelligent understanding of American democracy is not merely a matter of interest; it is a patriotic duty for making both better Americans and better citizens of the world. Democracy is a body of ideals. Armies and navies alone cannot make the world safe for democracy. The world must be wrought to sympathy with democratic ideals, and, in accomplishing this, the schools-institutions devoted to the conserving of ideals and agencies able to reach the next generation-must undertake to inculcate these principles for which we are fighting. For what shall it profit us if we gain the whole world for democracy and thereby lose the soul of democracy? In this work the teacher of English has a large part. Those who teach history or political science may give the facts, but those who handle the nation's literature impart the spirit of the nation. Since American literature affords the best possible interpretation of American ideals, the English teacher should have his students give attention more largely than heretofore to the history and progress of American thought as recorded in American literature. The selections in this volume do not, of course, belong under the classification "literature" in the narrower sense of the term. Nevertheless they are discussions of value in reaching conclusions regarding the American spirit and ideals, and as such may be appropriately brought into the literary vista of the student. Such study of American life and institutions as this book contemplates may be made in connection with the course in American literature. But this book would seem to have its most useful place in the so-called "thought-courses" in composition. This type of course has become so widely popular in recent years that it needs no defense or explanation. Its fundamental principle of accompanying the reading of thought-provoking selections with discussion, oral or written, upon questions and topics suggested by the reading is a most stimulating way to come to an understanding of national ideals. Furthermore, this method is a replica of the way in which definite national ideals must be reached. Each person must reach his own independent conclusions and then compound them by intelligent discussion in public and in private. Under this natural method, the student is brought to his own conclusions and to correcting or modifying them in the light of those formed by his classmates. The selections have been arranged into a rough sequence and grouped under certain headings. Despite the fact that in some cases positions may seem arbitrarily assigned, the arrangement will be found of practical value in emphasizing the larger aspects |