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.