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THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE 



to be shown the better way. And with 

 even as little as a hundred thousand dol- 

 lars a year for two or three years we 

 could, I believe, conduct a campaign for 

 a new kind of rural school that would 

 work little less than a revolution in rural 

 life. 



Our aim would be to identify the 

 school with the farm and the village and 

 develop a new respect in fathers and 

 mothers for the school as a practical and 

 not a mere scholastic institution. The 

 problem is only one of popularization. 

 The experimental work has been done. 

 We know where the best seed is. The 

 need is immediate, and surely it would be 

 a shame to let a generation waste itself 

 while the idea slowly creeps on all fours 

 through a country that has invented wire- 

 less telephony. 



THE TEST OE A DEMOCRACY 



There is an evolution in a new nation's 

 life quite as interesting as that in the life 

 of a man. We pass through stages of 

 development from the simple and earlier 

 period, when food is the one thing de- 

 sired, into the more elaborated and com- 

 plex stages, where first we begin to deal 

 with the easily handled things and later 

 reach the point where mind has a con- 

 trolling part in all that is done. 



The pioneer builds his cabin and turns 

 his cattle to graze upon the unfenced 

 wilderness. He takes his water from the 

 stream and makes his gun serve him with 

 food and give him protection. It is not 

 many years, however, before he has 

 passed from herdsman to farmer, when 

 soil must be plowed and seed sown. At 

 first the one-horse plow will do and any 

 seed. But life grows more intense — so- 

 ciety has gathered around, new demands 

 are created — machinery must be used, 

 seed must be selected, soil fertilized, 

 credit obtained, markets sought, and the 

 life of the simple herdsman has become 

 complicated and broad. The gay reck- 

 lessness of other days gives way to con- 

 stant thought. 



So has it been with this country. For 

 a long time we lived off the country's ob- 

 vious supplies. Later we were producers 

 of raw materials — grains and minerals, 

 lumber and cotton. When manufactur- 

 ing began it was of the larger, coarser 



things, which perhaps in their turn went 

 abroad for higher fabricating. Now, 

 however, we have come into the full tide 

 of modern life, when we seek for greater 

 and more varied industries, wider mar- 

 kets, more economical methods of pro- 

 duction and exchange. And in such a 

 new time direction is needed, mutual and 

 coordinated effort must be set up, and 

 the more elaborate machinery of organi- 

 zation put into service. Thought be- 

 comes_ the basis of the new life — hard, 

 close, insistent, constructive thought, illu- 

 minated by knowledge and made prac- 

 tical by imagination. 



COORDINATION NEEDED 



I have reviewed some of the activities 

 of this department that they may suggest 

 how adequate to the task of efficient na- 

 tional development a democracy, even 

 one so young, may be made to be. . It has 

 a foundation in the spirit and self-confi- 

 dence of its people which no other gov- 

 ernment can have. There is needed but 

 the crystallizing touch of coordinated 

 action to make its success complete. To 

 develop methods by which the energies 

 of many individuals shall be brought to 

 work together is the need; and as the 

 method of doing this politically has been 

 found in this Republic, so we may feel 

 assured that economically and socially we 

 shall not fail. 



An intense nationalization has been the 

 marking note of the past year. Each 

 American has realized with keener con- 

 sciousness the meaning of this land to 

 him, and has sought for a larger view of 

 it in its many aspects and, if possible, to 

 gain a glimpse at its future. To each 

 has come his dream. We know now that 

 there is more to national feeling than 

 pride in the possession of a land that is 

 rare and valuable or the splendid memory 

 of a history of struggle for those things 

 of the spirit which men call principles. 

 The highest sense of nationality comes 

 with a sense of purpose — a sense of com- 

 mon purpose — for the United States is 

 not yet ours in the proudest sense, and 

 cannot be until we are doing all that can 

 be done to give to all its people and to 

 the world the full expression of its high- 

 est intelligence applied alike to its re- 

 sources and to the life of the people. 



