moral fiber and integrity, men of sacrifice and of unfaltering determination in the arduous paths of service. The youth of America should be made to realize that here at once is their rich heritage and their unexampled opportunity. Not with one speck of pride or of superiority should they look upon this situation, but as a privilege to serve unequaled in the history of man. Out of this vision and this great opportunity is to come a new patriotism that has no bounds less than the planet itself.

We must become more familiar with our country's most cherished ideals. We must see to it that our youth are intelligently imbued with those ideals. Only by so doing are we to vitalize our teaching and our training for citizenship in our schools. The principles of democracy are at stake in the world today; and if the major portion of the student's education in these trying times is not the gaining and putting into practice of these principles of patriotism and SERVICE, his education, costly as it is, is a failure. To the extent that his science, his art and his philosophy of history and of life fail to serve these ideals, just to that extent our educational system is serving the same base end as has Germany's in the past generation. Many of our students and teachers do not need this warning; yet there are many others that do, for to be asleep to the real needs and vital test of democracy in this time, is to be playing with our destiny as a free people. The supreme test of mankind today is a test of ideals, of moral and spiritual principles and standards of conduct; and everything material on earth must serve one or the other of these two opposing ideals. The one we hope America will be as ready to stand for as her patriots have always professed for her; the other we know autocratic powers have always stood for, and have made the lovers of freedom pay the price in suffering and blood. The clearer these principles are held before the younger generation, the safer are American democracy and world liberty to be.

The provincialism in many circles, and the still prevalent ignorance of the present world conflict afford most convincing evidence of the universal need of enlightenment. And we know whence that training, to be effective, must come it must come through the education of the youth of our land. We should never forget that it was from the enlightened walls of schools throughout the nations that liberty was born-both religious and political freedom-and this fact answers the question why the schools of the nations have furnished the first martyrs in every great struggle for liberty.

It is truthfully said, that in a democracy, where the people themselves rule, they should always know, before they embark on any great project, why they are going into it. Yet, even today, after the United States has witnessed this titanic world struggle for four and one-half years, not one boy in one hundred can give the essential causes of the war. This is not the student's fault, but the fault of aimless and indefinite teaching and training, for which we are all to blame even the government of the United States (for it simply reflected the general disinterestedness of the masses of the people) which should have kept us better informed of the facts, from the beginning of the war.

What are these American ideals, for which we now stand and stake our all? What is this liberty and democracy of which we rather flippantly speak in this generation, the selfish side of which we have appropriated so well, but which, nevertheless, is the message of our great republic to the world? The answer has come over and over again in the lives of our great American patriots, in their fervent speeches and their earnest devotion and invaluable service to their country. Their conduct is our creed, and we should therefore study their lives with a new purpose. The answer must likewise come in the present crisis. The war has brought out what sacrifice there is in the great heart of France. It has enabled England to find her soul, and with

it a truly new England is born. Likewise must Columbia find her heart and her soul if she would realize her high mission in the world. As never before our citizens must be filled with the conviction that America's lesson is an abiding faith in humanity, and in the growing principles, the institutions and the final triumph of democracy among men; that here we worship principles, not personages, but have, the highest regard and greatest reverence for our statesmen who have so nobly embodied those principles-a Washington and a Lincoln, not "sacred majesties” to be bowed down unto, but citizens enshrined in the hearts of their countrymen because of the service they have rendered free government in the hours of its utmost need. Let our boys and girls feel a new thrill of pride in our magnificent Stars and Stripes, because in them they see a new meaning, whether floating in home breezes o'er the peaceful institutions of a free-born people, on the great marts of trade, or on the blood-stained and treacherous field of battle, unfolding to the oppressed peoples of the earth the foundation tenets of American freedom, and giving to all the assurance that true representative democracy, by the grace of God, shall no longer be an experiment, but a triumphant realization, destined to preserve to the nations government by the initiative and consent of the governed.

How much in this day do we really appreciate the country in which we live? How much thought do we give to the blessings she affords us? Does it often come to our minds, that for every pleasure that is ours today, some one in the past has dared to sacrifice comfort and life to give us that pleasure? For centuries our forefathers have been fighting the battles of liberty and pouring out their life-blood that we might be secure in that liberty. They did it, as one has said, that these priceless heritages "might not perish in the graves of the fathers."

How much we owe our ancestors for all that, and how much we are in debt to our country! God pity the boy or

girl who, when knowing this, would give nothing in return. It is no idle dream that Uncle Sam is urging us to do our part. Would we curse the generations yet to come by failing to uphold liberty in this crisis? The words of Patrick Henry are still as applicable as they are eloquent, "Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery?" From all over the world comes the statement that never did America fight in a juster cause than she has just been fighting. And that cause she must still uphold. In failing to do our part now, we should be recreant Americans. Rather let us pause in our mad rush for the perishing things of life, to appreciate the compliment the world is today paying to American citizenship.

But our schools must hasten to give to this citizenship a vision which comprehends not only its own state and nation, but is world-wide. Indeed, Columbia's highest resolve must be to be true to the principles that gave her birth, and gave to the world the inspiration of liberty. For it is her privilege, in this "age of ages telling" to move under the impelling conviction that this world cannot remain permanently half free and half enslaved by privileged autocracy; and that the God of human destiny has decreed that it shall become free that the faith in which American citizenship was born and has been nurtured, the faith in which other peoples have come to believe, and which is now the only hope of the race, shall be realized in fact-and that "government of the people, by the people, for the people," cannot "perish from the earth.”

Citizens of America: it is your duty to know the justice of your country's cause. And, you who have not gone to war, it is your privilege and opportunity to serve your country in the highest sense. All this and more, you have the opportunity to stand for those principles that have made America what she is, and so honored throughout the world. Yours is the leadership in these great movements whose watchword is service and whose task is to keep our people

at home and at the front true American patriots and citizens, through all the grime and mud and fire and terror of war, and until they all come home.

Only when she realizes that it was in a righteous cause, can a mother be comforted for the loss of her son in France. Only when a father sees that the liberty he holds so dear was at stake, and might have been lost for generations to

come, if the enemy had won, can he be reconciled to have

sacrificed his valiant son on the altar of war. It is because of these things that the writer, though late as it now is to learn, is attempting to give you the causes of this mighty conflict.