THE LESSON—That loyalty to the flag means the fulfillment of duty to God and to our fellowmen.
"Flag Day" suggests a patriotic demonstration, and this talk will harmonize well with your decorations and the other features of your program. The talk calls for the drawing of four flags. It is suggested that you prepare in advance of the talk all four flags of [Fig. 102], as the drawing may require more time than you can spare during the talk.
The Talk.
"We have about us today some of the flags of the United States of the present time. I believe you will be interested, though, in seeing some of the flags of our country of earlier days. I will present them to you.
"Before the Revolutionary war was begun, and at the time of the beginning of the trouble, some of the colonies had flags of their own, and some of them were very curious indeed. However, when General George Washington took command of the troops at the beginning of the war it was decided to adopt one flag for all the united colonies, and so a committee was chosen and a flag like this was designed: [Indicate flag "a.">[ These two crosses represented the crosses of St. George and St. Andrew, and the thirteen stripes represented the thirteen colonies. You see, they patterned the crosses after the British flag, because there was no certainty at that time that the colonists would break away from England. This is the flag that was raised over the camp of Washington at Cambridge, January 2, 1776.
(Complete Fig. 102 in chalk, in advance of beginning the talk.)