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Show PUBLIC SCHOOLS SHOULD EMPHASIZE CITIZENSHIP. "Our public schools should give an increasing emphasis to training in matters of citizenship in practical matters," writes James M. Ogden, Attorney General, State of Indiana, in the Uinted States Daily. He continued con-tinued in part: "Our high schools should instruct in the meaning and purpose of political poli-tical parties; that they are not machines ma-chines to be manipulated for gaining office and influence, but are the agents to be used in voting for and putting into effect priciples of government gov-ernment and that voters operate through parties in selecting their public servants. "There should be a course in poli-1 tics in every college for at least one, hour a week and it should be one of the studies that each student in college col-lege should be required to take. "Every one is or should expect to be a voter. To be an intelligent voter, the voter must understand politics from both a theoretical and a practical prac-tical standpoint. . . . "It should be indelibly impressed upon every student that he owes a duty to devote a reasonable amount of his time to the political life of the community in which he lives, and if he neglects this, that it unfits him to life in a free community. He should be taught that the American citizen should work in politics in a practical manner and should follow the highest principles of honor and justice. "The student should understand that there is the high and honorable profession of politics or public ser-' ser-' vice, and that it is a profession with intellectual qualifications and ethical standards. ... "Then there should be an increasingly increas-ingly large number to make this study who do not necessarily have in mind the holding of an office. The course of study should include a careful and fair-minded investigation of questions ques-tions which arise in political life, but pn which both voters and office holders hold-ers are now compelled to guess what is right or follow their prejudice on the matter because nobody really knows the facts or what the effect of a certain policy would be. "Such a course of study should fit men to enter political life with high ideals and purposes, yet with capacity to serve humanity not under ideal or theoretical conditions, but under conditions con-ditions as they actually exist today and which must be met as they do exist. Such a course cannot do its service ser-vice if it is a sort of training school of political expediency. . . . "Let our citizenry learn that offices offi-ces do not exist that they may be filled, but that they exist as branches branch-es of departments of government. Let them look upon the service as county commissioner, mayor, or member of some board as a patriotic service." |