Слике страница
PDF
ePub
[graphic][subsumed][merged small][merged small]

WAR ADDRESSES OF

WOODROW WILSON

WITH AN INTRODUCTION AND NOTES

BY

ARTHUR ROY LEONARD, M.A.

HEAD OF DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY AND ECONOMICS
HIGH SCHOOL OF COMMERCE, COLUMBUS, OHIO

GINN AND COMPANY

BOSTON

[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]

LONDON

NEW YORK • CHICAGO
ATLANTA DALLAS · COLUMBUS SAN FRANCISCO

COPYRIGHT, 1918, BY ARTHUR ROY LEONARD

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

A 218.10

D
619
.A43
cop. 2

The Athenæum Press
GINN AND COMPANY. PRO-
PRIETORS BOSTON U.S.A.

2-23-18 ED

PREFACE

There are three reasons why the study of President Wilson's war addresses may wisely be included in the course of study of every secondary school in America. The first is their intrinsic literary merit. President Wilson has a happy faculty for expressing his thoughts in remarkably clear and forceful English. His feelings, however provocative the occasion, never obscure his thought. His terse, clear-cut, cool-headed manner of stating facts is worthy of careful study by America's young people, whose thinking, as a rule, is not characterized by these qualities.

A second reason for the study of President Wilson's addresses is their timeliness. Fortunately the day is passed when America's teachers were afraid to introduce the writings of living Americans into the curriculum as literature. Because young people will be more interested in the addresses of President Wilson than in Burke's "Speech on Conciliation," for example, is certainly not a reason for refusing to study them.

The third reason may best be indicated by a quotation from the President's letter of August 23, 1917, to school officers:

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

[blocks in formation]
« ПретходнаНастави »