Our Schools in War Time—and After

The Project Gutenberg eBook, Our Schools in War Time—and After, by Arthur Davis Dean
PROFESSOR OF VOCATIONAL EDUCATION, TEACHERS COLLEGE COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY, AND SUPERVISING OFFICER BUREAU OF VOCATIONAL TRAINING, NEW YORK STATE MILITARY TRAINING COMMISSION
GINN AND COMPANY BOSTON · NEW YORK · CHICAGO · LONDON ATLANTA · DALLAS · COLUMBUS · SAN FRANCISCO
COPYRIGHT, 1918 BY ARTHUR D. DEAN ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 518.6
The Athenæum Press GINN AND COMPANY · PROPRIETORS · BOSTON · U.S.A.
It is not an army that we must shape and train for war; it is a nation.... The whole nation must be a team in which each man shall play the part for which he is best fitted.... Each man shall be classified for service in the place to which it shall best serve the general good to call him.... The significance of this cannot be overstated. It is a new thing in our history and a landmark in our progress. It is a new manner of accepting and vitalizing our duty to give ourselves with thoughtful devotion to the common purpose of us all.—Woodrow Wilson, Proclamation, May 18, 1917
OUR SCHOOLS IN WAR TIME—AND AFTER
The summer of 1917 found America realizing that the war which it had entered was not going to be won by the mobilization of an army and a navy, however strong and efficient they might be. In the proclamation of Woodrow Wilson the whole nation was called upon to mobilize with a clear, succinct purpose of organizing those forces of industry, of education, of woman power, which are back of every successful struggle of a nation in peace or in war. The ready acceptance of the slogan Win the War in the Air, with the public clamor for aviation, was but an indication of the general awakening of the public to the truth that the war must be won by the use of forces as yet undeveloped, or undirected towards national ends.
The mobilization which teaches the saving of our national resources, which directs the thoughtful distribution and wise use of our products, which cultivates the patriotic spirit of service in the boy and girl power of the nation, properly belongs to the field of education, not only in war but in peace. To the schools of America, therefore, the war has come as an opportunity for developing a closer relation between education and life, between life and service.