Discussion. 1. Why do you think boys and girls take "base-ball or crêpe de Chine" more seriously than the "gorgeous experiment" of democracy? Read what Webster says about this experiment, p. 371, lines 7 to 19. 2. What practical training in taking active part in a democracy does your school offer? 3. How do boys and girls respond when responsibility for order in the halls or care of equipment, for instance, is placed upon them? 4. In your opinion, what does America stand for? 5. Which of the shortcomings listed by the author have you noticed in your community? 6. What effort are you or your school making to remedy some of these things? You may find suggestions for community improvements in The Delineator for March, 1920. 7. Mr. Hagedorn seems hard on the "elders"; what purpose may he have in his remarks? 8. What are the standards of success in your school and community? 9. What characters in history or in your circle of acquaintances do you know who have had other aspirations than dollars? 10. What is the new standard of success? 11. How can boys and girls put into practice in school these high ideals-"greatly to dream, to build, to battle, to kindle, to serve"? 12. What can you do, because you love American democracy, to make these ideals the standards by which the popularity of boys and girls in your school is judged? 13. Library reading: other chapters of You Are the Hope of the World; "Scum of the Earth," Schauffler (in New Voices). 14. Find in the Glossary the meaning of: materialistic; sordid; corruption; stodgy; mandate. 15. Pronounce: abhor; exaltation; individualistic. world kings, 382, 3 standard of values, 384, 6 Phrases golden quest, 384, 21 Suggestions for Theme Topics 1. A school experiment in self-government. 2. Things in my school that tend to make pupils social, that is, to develop in them a spirit of coöperation (team work) and service (helpfulness to others). 3. How a school by its organization and discipline may help to realize a true democracy. 4. A report on the George Junior Republic (The Junior Republic, George). 5. How a school composed of many nationalities mirrors our republic. 6. How the presence of different nationalities in a school helps the students to become more intelligent, more sympathetic, more tolerant, and more democratic. 7. Book reviews of The Promised Land, Antin; How the Other Half Lives, Riis; From Alien to Citizen, Steiner. THE HERITAGE OF NOBLE LIVES THEODORE ROOSEVELT The Americans who stand highest on the list of the world's worthies are Washington, who fought to found the country which he afterwards governed, and Lincoln, who saved it through the blood of the best and bravest in the land; Washington, the soldier 5 and statesman, the man of cool head, dauntless heart, and iron will, the greatest of good men and the best of great men; and Lincoln, sad, patient, kindly Lincoln, who for four years toiled and suffered for the people, and when his work was done, laid down his life that the flag which had been rent in sunder might 10 once more be made whole and without a seam. It would be difficult to exaggerate the material effects of the careers of Washington and of Lincoln upon the United States. Without Washington we should probably never have won our independence of the British crown, and we should almost cer15 tainly have failed to become a great nation, remaining instead a cluster of jangling little communities, drifting toward the type of government prevalent in Spanish America. Without Lincoln we might perhaps have failed to keep the political unity we had won; and even if, as is possible, we had kept it, both the struggle by 20 which it was kept and the results of this struggle would have been so different that the effect upon our national history could not have failed to be profound. Yet the nation's debt to these men is not confined to what it owes them for its material well-being, incalculable though this 25 debt is. Beyond the fact that we are an independent and united people, with half a continent as our heritage, lies the fact that every American is richer by the heritage of the noble deeds and noble words of Washington and of Lincoln. Each of us who reads the Gettysburg speech or the second inaugural address of 30 the greatest American of the nineteenth century, or who studies the long campaigns and lofty statesmanship of that other American who was even greater, cannot but feel within him that lift toward things higher and nobler which can never be bestowed by the enjoyment of mere material prosperity. It is not only the country which these men helped to make and helped to save that is ours by inheritance; we inherit also all that is best and highest in their characters and in their lives. We inherit from Lincoln and from the might of Lincoln's generastion not merely the freedom of those who once were slaves; for we inherit also the fact of the freeing of them, we inherit the glory and the honor and the wonder of the deed that was done, no less than the actual result of the deed when done. The bells that rang at the passage of the Emancipation Proclamation still ring in 10 Whittier's ode; and as men think over the real nature of the triumph then scored for humankind their hearts shall ever throb as they cannot over the greatest industrial success or over any victory won at a less cost than ours. In the same way that we are the better for the deeds of our 15 mighty men who have served the nation well, so we are the worse for the deeds and the words of those who have striven to bring evil on the land. We have examples enough and to spare that tend to evil; nevertheless, for our good fortune, the men who have most impressed themselves upon the thought of the nation have 20 left behind them careers the influence of which must tell for good. The unscrupulous speculator who rises to enormous wealth by swindling his neighbor; the capitalist who oppresses the workingman; the agitator who wrongs the workingman yet more deeply by trying to teach him to rely, not upon himself, but partly upon the charity of individuals or of the state and partly upon mob violence; the man in public life who is a demagogue or corrupt, and the newspaper writer who fails to attack him because of his corruption, or who slanderously assails him when he is honest; the political leader who, cursed by some obliquity of moral or mental vision, seeks to produce sectional or social strife-all these, though important in their day, have hitherto failed to leave any lasting impress upon the life of the nation. The men who have profoundly influenced the growth of our national character have been in most cases precisely those men 88 whose influence was for the best and was strongly felt as antagonistic to the worst tendency of the age. The great writers, who have written in prose or verse, have done much for us. The great orators whose burning words on behalf of liberty, of union, of honest government, have rung through our legislative halls, have done even more. Most of all has been done by the men who have spoken to us through deeds and not words, or whose words have gathered their especial charm and significance because they came from men who did speak in deeds. A nation's greatness lies in its possibility of achievement in the present, and nothing helps it more than the consciousness of achievement in the past. NOTES AND QUESTIONS Biography. Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919), twenty-sixth President of the United States, was born in New York City. As a boy he was of frail physique, but overcame this handicap by systematic exercise and outdoor life. Roosevelt was graduated from Harvard University in 1880, was elected to the Legislature of New York the same year, and served three terms In 1884 ill-health led him to go to the far West, where for two years he lived the life of a cowboy. Returning to New York in 1886, Roosevelt wrote in four volumes the history of the development of the great West, The Winning of the West. In 1897 President McKinley appointed him Assistant Secretary of the Navy; this position he gave up to enter the SpanishAmerican war. He raised a regiment of volunteer cavalry in the West, called "Rough Riders," of which he was made Lieutenant-Colonel. In 1898 he was elected Governor of New York, and in 1900 Vice-President of the United States. Upon the death of McKinley a few months later, Roosevelt became President, and in 1904 he was elected to the Presidency. He was always a vigorous American, basing his theory of politics on honesty, courage, hard work, and fair play. This selection is taken from his book, America: Ideals and Other Essays. Discussion. 1. Give the topic of each paragraph. 2. Arrange these topics in the form of an outline, and listen while six pupils give the substance of the selection, each giving the thought of one paragraph in his own words. 3. Give another title to the selection. 4. Why is the influence of men who speak in deeds greater than that of those who speak only in words? 5. In what ways have the lives of Washington and Lincoln influenced the nation? 6. Listen while a good reader reads Whittier's "Laus Deo." 7 Library reading: The Boys' Life of Theodore Roosevelt, Hagedorn. 8. Find in the Glossary the meaning of: worthies; sunder; jangling; prevalent; unscrupu lous demagogue; consciousness. 9. Pronounce dauntless; incalculable. obliqui THE MAN WITHOUT A COUNTRY EDWARD EVERETT HALE I suppose very few casual readers of the New York Herald of August 13, 1863, observed, in an obscure corner, among the "Deaths," the announcement— "NOLAN. Died on board U. S. corvette Levant, Lat. 2° 11' 3 S., Leng. 131° W., on the 11th of May, PHILIP NOLAN." I happened to observe it, because I was stranded at the old Mission House in Mackinac, waiting for a Lake Superior steamer which did not choose to come, and I was devouring to the very stubble all the current literature I could get hold of, even down. 10 to the deaths and marriages in the Herald. My memory for names and people is good, and the reader will see, as he goes on, that I had reason enough to remember Philip Nolan. There are hundreds of readers who would have paused at that announcement, if the officer of the Levant who reported it had chosen to make it thus: "Died, May 11th, THE MAN WITHOUT A COUNTRY." For it was as "The Man Without a Country" that poor Philip Nolan had generally been known by the officers who had him in charge during some fifty years, as, indeed, by all the men who sailed under them. I dare say there is many a man who 20 has taken wine with him once a fortnight, in a three years' cruise, who never knew that his name was "Nolan," or whether the poor wretch had any name at all. There can now be no possible harm in telling this poor creature's story. Reason enough there has been till now, ever since Madison's administration went out in 1817, for very strict secrecy, the secrecy of honor itself, among the gentlemen of the navy who have had Nolan in successive charge. And certainly it speaks well for the esprit de corps of the profession, and the personal honor of its members, that to the press this man's story 30 has been wholly unknown-and, I think, to the country at large also. I have reason to think, from some investigations I made in the Naval Archives when I was attached to the Bureau of Con |