Given, J. L., THE MAKING OF A NEWSPAPER (Henry Holt & Co.).
Annual Reports of the Postmaster General of the United States.
Report of the Secretary of the Interior, 1918, pp. 13-24, 29-31, for a discussion of the necessity of eliminating illiteracy and teaching English to foreigners.
There is much magazine literature on this subject.
AMERICANIZATION, a publication issued regularly by the United
States Bureau of Education, is useful in this connection.
CHAPTER XIX
EDUCATION
DEMOCRACY DEPENDS UPON EDUCATION
Both the efficiency and the democracy of a community depend upon the extent and the kind of education it affords to its people. Autocratic Germany had a most thorough-going system of education, but a system that made autocracy possible. The common people were trained to be efficient workers, and thus to contribute to the national strength; but they were trained TO SUBMIT to authority, and not to exercise control over it. The kind of education that develops leaders was given only to the few. The leaders of the German people were imposed upon them from above; in the United States we are supposed to CHOOSE our leaders. In a nation whose aim is to afford to every citizen an equal opportunity to make the most of himself and whose people are self-governing, education must be widespread, it must develop the power of self-direction, it must train leaders, and it must enable the people to choose their leaders intelligently. When Governor Berkeley of Virginia reported to the king of England in 1671, "I thank God there are no free schools nor printing; and I hope we shall not have these hundred years," he spoke for the autocratic form of government which a hundred years later led the colonies to revolt, and which in 1917 forced the United Stares into a world war.
GOVERNMENT BY MEANS OF EDUCATION
In a democracy government must be carried on largely BY MEANS OF education. There must be trained leadership. And since the aim of democratic government is to secure team work in public affairs, the people must have the tools of team work, such as a common language and other knowledge that makes living and working together possible; they must have training that will enable them to contribute effectively to the community's work, and an intelligent understanding of the community's aims and ideals. And since government is controlled largely by public opinion, the people must have an intelligent understanding of the community's problems. We had abundant illustration during the recent war of the extent to which our government not only depended upon highly educated men and women for leadership, but also used educational methods to secure its ends.