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Out ^Democracy J^eeds Protecting
During the next few years our American way of life will face hard foes here at home. Clever and able theorists will take full advantage of post-war confusion to widen their plantings of doctrines and ideals alien to our code of freedom. Naturally, they will seek the soil most fertile for such plantings — young iiniuls.
^ ou teachers are chosen guides for these young minds; yours the right and privilege to lead them to a clear understanding of the human values of our democracy; and to awaken in them appreciation of its benefits, which “are not given free, but must be earned through work and service,” according to Dr. Francis B. Haas, State Superintendent of Public Instruction, of the State of Pennsylvania.
“A good school is a community organized for learning,” he adds, in a recent Statement. “As such, it should match as nearly as possible, the purposes and procedures of a community organized for living. It IS for lu'uig that we should tram youth, and to do this at all adequately we must adapt the course of studies to the needs and responsibilities of citizenship in a community.
‘‘One of the major needs is a means for circulating knowledge of what is being thought and done, not only in the immediate community, but throughout the nation and the world. This function is performed by newspapers and magazines, and
the latter are of special importance, since it is their major function to sift and correlate facts. For use in schools, a magazine such as the Rwiifr’s Digest, which offers accurate and interesting summaries of significant events and achievements in the social, scientific and economic fields, is of high value. Its worth is increased by its well-edited presentations.
‘‘Democracy offers as its political ideal development of opportunity for the individual. Its benefits are not given free, but must be earned through work and service. Here, again, good magazines aid in the development and use of opportunity by spurring the imagination.”
Pennsylvania, the birth-state of our freedom, was the second state to establish, in 1834, a tax-supported public school system. There, as elsewhere in the nation, public schools have become our first line of defense against the foes of democracy. They have proved their protective power, and so long as they stand for free access to the facts on which knowledge is based, and to all sides of controversial issues, they will continue to bulwark the brand of freedom we want and need.