94 Civic Helpfulness 



the children of the very poor of foreign birth would 

 be handicapped almost as much as their parents, 

 were it not for the public schools and the start thus 

 given them. Loyalty to the flag is taught by pre 

 cept and practice in all these public schools, and loy 

 alty to the principles of good citizenship is also 

 taught in no merely perfunctory manner. 



Here I hardly touch upon the "little red school- 

 house" out in the country districts simply because 

 in the country districts all of our children go to 

 the same schools, and thereby get an inestimable 

 knowledge of the solidarity of our American 

 life. I have touched on this in a former article, and 

 I can here only say that it would be impossible to 

 overestimate the good done by the association this 

 engenders, and the excellent educational work of the 

 teachers. We always feel that we have given our 

 children no small advantage by the mere fact of 

 allowing them to go to these little district schools, 

 where they all have the same treatment and are all 

 tried by the same standard. But with us in the 

 country the district school is only philanthropic in 

 that excellent sense in which all joint effort for the 

 common good is philanthropic. 



A very wholesome effect has been produced in 

 great cities by the university settlements, college set 

 tlements, and similar efforts to do practical good by 

 bringing closer together the more and the less for- 



