placent as Abd-ul-Hamid to the predatory Kurds. They refused to allow the Armenian peasants to return unless they could produce title deeds to their lands (a condition which the circumstances of their flight from the Turks made it impossible for them to fulfil); and in the Plain of Alashkert they settled four Russian "labor battalions" of a thousand men each, from which natives of the Caucasus were excluded. These settlers were allowed to send for their families, and the intention was to split Armenia (more effectually than by the old Russo-Turkish frontier) by a new Cossack line, like the lines which had secured previous extensions of Russian territory north of the Caucasus and across Siberia. This policy was terminated abruptly by the Revolution.

The Revolution is the third factor which has removed the centre of gravity of the Armenian problem from Turkey to Russia. The Revolution made a clean sweep of the Tsarist system and the Tsarist personnel, both in the Caucasus and in the Occupied Territory. The Southern Caucasus is now governed by a Commission of the Provisional Government, consisting of six Duma deputies for the Trans-Caucasian Provinces; the Occupied Territory is governed by a civil commissioner administering the provisions of the Hague Convention; and in both regions local administrative organizations are being built up-in the Caucasus, naturally, for the moment on more democratic lines. The survivors of the Turkish deportations are

still languishing in Mesopotamia, and the loss of those who perished has struck the Armenian nation a heavy blow, but it is broadly true that the soil of Armenia is now free from both the oppressions which have lain upon it for the last forty years. Behind the front which is being held by the Russian Revolutionary Army, Tsardom and Turkdom have disappeared alike, leaving the indigenous nationalities face to face. The problem of this zone of nationalities, lying between the Russian and Ukrainian areas on the north, and the Arab area on the south, has been added by the Russian Revolution to the nationality problems of Eastern and South-Eastern Europe, and will call for solution at the general settlement. The Armenian problem, in its present phase, is inseparable from this wider question.

Among the many tribes and tongues of the Caucasian region, two nationalities besides the Armenians have come to the front-the Georgians and the Tatars.

The problem of the Georgians is comparatively simple. They are a compact nationality, of one language and one religion (the Orthodox Greek Church). They are a small nationality-about two millions-with no kinsmen, so that they can hardly stand alone. They all live within the present frontiers of Russia, so that the question of Georgian autonomy within a larger whole can be settled between Georgia and Russia with no third party; and in bargaining with Russia they can appeal, like the Ukrainians, Finns and Poles of the

titute, like the Tatars, of valid historical rights, for there has been no United Armenia since A. D. 387, and no independent Armenian State since 1375. On the Russian side of the frontier their claims rest simply on the inherent rights of nationality; on the Turkish side, on the contrary, they are not merely documentary but international, for they rest on the Berlin Treaty of 1878, which was signed by the European Powers.

The claim of Armenia to national independence is threefold-the sanction of the Berlin Treaty, the wrongs Armenia has endured, and the capacity of her people to hold their own

in the world, which they have proved by their miraculous survival. The cause of Armenia may be compared with the cause of Poland. In Armenia, as in Poland, no one disputes that frontiers are hard to delimit and mixed populations hard to provide for; but everyone agrees that an independent Armenia must arise as a result of the war. The Allied Governments proclaim it in their public pronouncements; the Germans still mutter the formula of the integrity of the Ottoman Empire, but dare not demand in terms the restoration of Armenia to the Turks since the world has learned what happened in 1915.

ORE and more are we coming

M°

center.

to think of the school as the community or neighborhood

And more and more are we in the schools coming, I think, to regard our work as a volunteer service to the State rather than a means of livelihood. But now our schools become suddenly recognized, under the messages of our Schoolmaster President and under the appeals of our nation's immediate needs, both to teachers and pupils, as national centers centers through which these national needs may come to the knowledge of all the people, centers from and through which patriotic

sentiment will express itself and patriotic service will give itself. It is with the desire of helping every country school, no matter how small, to see its national horizon, and helping every city school, no matter how demanding the calls of its immediate neighborhood, to make response to the wider needs, that I am moved to say this word out of my own busy days to superintendents, principals, teachers and trustees, and even children, and young men and women, who find their days already too short for what they would do. What I say to you is only what I say to myself, that there is now no minute for a use

that will not be helpful to the cause upon which our free institutions depend.

1. The School is first of all a center for that mental and moral training which is essential to the maintenance of a democracy. In New York State we have more than ten thousand of these centers and

every one of them has its obligation to see that every boy and every girl within its allotted range has not only his or her opportunity, but that every one shall take advantage of it. It is universal conscription for the future State as clearly as our draft law makes conscription for the defense of the present.

2. The School is (in New York State) now a center for physical training and health education for every boy and girl of compulsory school age, eight years old or over, and for every boy and girl who remains in elementary or high school after the compulsory school. This is a provision that should make for the happiness and health of millions in the years to come, and against such unfavorable physical and health conditions as those reported as the

result of the draft examination.

3. The School is the center for such Red Cross activities as girls and boys are able to give under a plan which grew largely out of what the New York Schools did last year -a plan which was approved by President Wilson in his message to the schools.

4. The School is a center for food production activities, and for

food conservation in ways suggested by the federal, state and municipal administration.

5. The School is a center for accurate information about the war, information about government needs, information about opportunities and duties for personal patriotic service. No teacher or pupil can claim exemption from the obligation entailed on each partner of the nation in this war of civilization. The need of the moment is a realization of the financial needs of the war. And so it is that in this State every school has been asked to help in the Liberty Loan campaign by "teaching bonds."

This is an adult's war, but the

schoolhouse doors cannot shut its sounds away from the ears of our children. We must tell them what it means and guide their interest through tangible form of service in the high cause to which we are committed as a nation. mitted as a nation. I have opposed giving the gun end of preparation and service to the youth as the only form of valor training, but I have for years been advocating a conscription beyond that of the bare elementary training-a conscription that would lead every youth to realize his obligation to the community, the State, the nation, which, together with the family, make his free development possible.

For all this the school is the most available center that the nation has, and we must make it a potent one. The nation looks to the State for this particular service.

UNI

NLESS the great conflict which now afflicts the world brings forth a truer and juster sense of the claims of nationality, the war has been a failure. Unless the nations through bitter experience learn to surrender some of the claims of nationality to the larger conception of international unity, there is little hope for the future of mankind.

Love of country is a worthy sentiment and with it goes true patriotism. In the struggle upward of racial groups the sense of national and human kinship has been powerful force. Often when nations. have been overcome by their enemies, their rulers exiled, their land despoiled and the surviving population made to feel the iron heel of the oppressor, the national spirit has persisted and the nation has risen again to a new life.

It would be difficult to imagine a nation more cruelly torn asunder and bereft than is Serbia to-day. Three successive wars have decimated her population, devastated her cities and towns and brought almost economic ruin. The last struggle has seen her territory occupied by an implacable foe, her homes and commercial houses looted and destroyed and a considerable

portion of her population compelled, in the dead of winter, to flee across the Albanian mountains, leaving a wide trail of suffering, disease and death. But Serbia is not dead. The national spirit of her people was never more ardent and her army reorganized was never more ready to fight. Every survivor of the awful tragedy is consecrated to the task of rehabilitating the nation and their faith is justified, for the grand alliance of powers now fighting for the world's freedom has decreed that Serbia shall live again. This instance of fidelity to a national ideal is typical. History has recorded many such. Peoples have been held in subjection for centuries and when everything possible has been done to extinguish the fire of national enthusiasm they cling to the memories and inspirations of past achievement.

What is the nature of this national and racial fervor which thus survives every catastrophe? How much of it is a survival, a reverberation from ancient conditions when clan was arrayed against clan, when hatreds were a part of one's birthright and feuds were as eternal as the hills? And to what extent is it a healthy and inspiring sentiment calling forth the best that people have to give for home and fatherland?