Page:Frank David Ely -Why defend the nation? Sound Americanism... (1924).pdf/57



S EDUCATION is the lifeblood of the Republic, so it is the armor. Education in citizenship—basic and fundamental education—is an absolute necessity if the Republic is to endure. Our ability to meet and solve the great questions which have been vital in our development as a free nation has rested squarely on the sound basic training of the entire body politic. Under the conditions of the past the “little red schoolhouse” sufficed; but it suffices no longer. Our schools are overcrowded, the instruction given is often inefficient, and there is no compelling demand that the needs of our educational system be satisfied.

The weakest point, and the most dangerous, in our education of today, lies in the loss to daily view of those high ideals and traditions which gave the Nation birth. The ill effects from this loss, already marked, will soon grow alarming unless effective measures be taken to stop it. But what is everyone’s business is no one’s business, and the existing dangerous conditions mentioned are no exception to the rule.

Our educational means lie in three great agencies—the teachers, the preachers, and the press, and in their offshoots. No one of these factors devotes itself with sufficiently sustained seriousness and energy to the subject of good Americanism. Yet nothing so needs to be taught—nothing is so vital to the life of the Republic. Let him who doubts take heed of the communistic (socialistic) effort everywhere around us. Our very agencies of education, above enumerated, are themselves vitiated. To bridge the gap and teach and build Americanism demands the creation and sustained effort of some other suitable agency which shall, by its form of organization, be itself protected from the inroads and encroachments of radicalism. Neither our political system nor our school system can be so protected; both are open and exposed.