WASHINGTON'S BIRTHDAY
HENRY W. FOSTER, SUPERVISING PRINCIPAL, SOUTH ORANGE
February is the greatest month for the teaching of patriotism. The national heroes, Washington and Lincoln, whose birthdays we celebrate, give distinction to two of its days. The time falls happily in midyear, when pupils and teachers alike need inspiration for a new period of sustained effort requiring determination and vigor.
It has been shown very clearly that through its schools a nation can be trained in ideals which will govern national life and conduct. Neither Washington nor Lincoln, however, owed his heroic quality to schools; but they did owe it to the very same ideals for which our schools stand. Indeed, their greatest service to mankind is the fact that they incarnated those ideals.
It is not so easy to venerate abstract principles and to submit one's life to them as it is to imitate great personalities whose deeds have embodied those principles.
Because we love our national heroes and venerate them personally, they still live and work through us. The principles of democracy are established eternally in their deeds and in ours.
The child who writes an appreciation of Washington, or recites from his addresses, or renders a poem commemorating him, or dramatizes something from his life, enters into his spirit, and in the child Washington lives again.
The Declaration of Independence asserts the lofty principle of equality in liberty. All men are created free, and equal in the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. It is a declaration of rights, not of duties. Each person has a right to his life, his liberty, the pursuit of his happiness. The deeds of Washington embodied not only these principles, but emphasized the duty of service. In our time our country has fully justified a new statement of political faith, which Washington lived. All men are born equal in the right to opportunity—each to make the best of himself—so that he may render the best service.
Think not of the reward! On the whole, service is requited according to its worth. Too many want to do what they can't do, and won't do what they can do! It may be pride, or it may be looking for an undeserved reward. The school should train for service, and teach self-respect in doing the best that one can in the thing for which he is best fitted. Washington sought no reward; but he commands the undying veneration, not only of his countrymen, but of all mankind. Speaking of the retirement of Washington, at a time when party spirit against the policy of the great founder and preserver of the Republic was calculated to arouse bitterness in a less noble man, Knight, in his "History of England," says: "Had his nature been different, had his ambition been less under the control of his virtue, he might have taken up his sword and, sweeping away his enemy, have raised himself to supreme power upon the ruins of his country's liberty. He retired to his estate at Mount Vernon to pass the rest of his days as a private citizen.... Washington's scheme of glory was realized. He had been a ruler of free men, ruling by the power of law. He laid down his authority when he had done the work to which he was called, most happy in this, that ambitions of a selfish order could never be justified by his example."
Washington's point of view as a ruler of men was unique at that period in the world's history.