The Reconstructed School | Page 2

goal of democracy, there would ensue a closer sympathy among them, and, in time, modifications of their forms of government would come about as a natural result of their unity of thinking. Again, if all nations of the world should set up the quality of courage as one of the objectives of their thinking they would be drawn closer together in their feelings and in their conduct. If the parents and teachers of all these nations should strive to exorcise fear in the training of children, this purpose would constitute a bond of sympathy among them and they would be encouraged by the reflection that this high purpose was animating parents and teachers the world around. Courage, of course, is of the spirit and typifies many spiritual qualities that characterize civilization of high grade. It is quite conceivable that these qualities of the spirit may become the goals of thinking in all lands. Thus the nations would be brought into a relation of closer harmony. Had a score of boys shared the experience of the lad who grew into the likeness of the Great Stone Face, their differences and disparities would have disappeared in the zeal of a common purpose and they would have become a unified organization in thinking toward the same goal.
We cannot hope to achieve the brotherhood of man until the nations of the world have directed their thinking toward the same goals. What these goals shall be must be determined by competent leadership through the process of education. When we think in unison we are taken out of ourselves and become merged in the spirit of the goal toward which we are thinking. If we were to agree upon courage as one of the spiritual qualities that should characterize all nations and organize all educational forces for the development of this quality, we should find the nations coming closer to one another with this quality as a common possession. Courage gives freedom, and in this freedom the nations would touch spiritual elbows and would thus become spiritual confederates and comrades. By generating and developing this and other spiritual qualities the nations would become merged and unity of feeling and actions would surely ensue. Since love is the greatest thing in the world, this quality may well be made the major goal toward which the thinking of all nations shall be directed. When all peoples come to think and yearn toward this goal, hatred and strife will be banished and peace and righteousness will be enthroned in the hearts of men. When there has been developed in all the nations of the earth an ardent love for the true, the beautiful, and the good, civilization will step up to a higher level and we shall see the dawn of unity.
We who are indulging in dreams of the brotherhood of man must enlarge our concept of society before we can hope to have our dreams come true. It is a far cry from society as a strictly American affair to society as a world affair. The teaching of our schools has had a distinct tendency to restrict our notion of society to that within our own national boundaries. In this we convict ourselves of provincialism. Society is far larger than America, or China, or Russia, or all the islands of the sea in combination. It may entail some straining at the mental leash to win this concept of society, but it must be won as a condition precedent to a fair and just estimate of what the function of education really is and what it is of which the schoolhouse must be an exponent. Society must be thought of as including all nations, tribes, and tongues. In our thinking, the word "society" must suggest the hut that nestles on the mountain-side as well as the palace that fronts the stately boulevard. It must suggest the cape that indents the sea as well as the vast plain that stretches out from river to river. And it must suggest the toiler at his task, the employer at his desk, the man of leisure in his home, the voyager on the ocean, the soldier in the ranks, the child at his lessons, and the mother crooning her baby to sleep.
We descant volubly upon the subjects of citizenship and civilization but, as yet, have achieved no adequate definition of either of the terms upon which we expatiate so fluently. Our books teem with admonitions to train for citizenship in order that we may attain civilization of better quality. But, in all this, we imply American citizenship and American civilization, and here, again, we show forth our provincialism. But even in this restricted field we arrive at our hazy concept of a good citizen by the process of elimination. We aver that a