y of a covenanted peace.

ROBERT LANSING,

Secretary of State of the United States of America.

XIII

A MESSAGE TO TEACHERS AND SCHOOL OFFICERS

(_September 30, 1917_)

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 heretofore have seemed
commonplace and trivial are seen in a truer light. The urgent demand
for the production and proper distribution of food and other national
resources has made us aware of the close dependence of individual on
individual and nation on nation. The effort to keep up social and
industrial organizations, in spite of the withdrawal of men for the
army, has revealed the extent to which modern life has become complex
and specialized.

These and other lessons of the war must be learned quickly if we are
intelligently and successfully to defend our institutions. When the
war is over we must apply the wisdom which we have acquired in
purging and ennobling the life of the world.

THE COMMON SCHOOL HAS A PART TO PLAY

In these vital tasks of acquiring a broader view of human
possibilities the common school must have large part. I urge that
teachers and other school officers increase materially the time and
attention devoted to instruction bearing directly on the problems of
community and national life.

Such a plea is in no way foreign to the spirit of American public
education or of existing practices. Nor is it a plea for a temporary
enlargement of the school program appropriate merely to the period of
the war. It is a plea for a realization in public education of the
new emphasis which the war has given to the ideals of democracy and
to the broader conceptions of national life.

In order that there may be definite material at hand with which the
schools may at once expand their teachings, I have asked Mr. Hoover
and Commissioner Claxton to organize the proper agencies for the
preparation and distribution of suitable lessons for the elementary
grades and for the high-school classes. Lessons thus suggested will
serve the double purpose of illustrating in a concrete way what can
be undertaken in the schools and of stimulating teachers in all parts
of the country to formulate new and appropriate materials drawn
directly from the communities in which they live.

WOODROW WILSON.

XIV

WOMAN SUFFRAGE MUST COME NOW

(_October 25, 1917