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Show A School Program! For Americanism , i By George Feel-In Feel-In last week's article .we sounded sound-ed a word of praise for John E. Cox, State Superintendent of Education Ed-ucation of Louisana and quoted him on the obligation of our pub- j lie schools to teach pupils the principles of democracy and Americanism. Am-ericanism. Mr. Cox didn't stop there. He has some definite ideas as to how this can be accomplished. He believes that in the lower three school grades, a few min-, min-, utes should be devoted each day to teaching patriotism and that ! beginning with the fourth grade , and running through the eleventh, elev-enth, good-citizenship clubs should j be formed and regular meetings I held for at least thirty minutes once each week. He suggests that I each room or o-ganization have a President, a Vice-President and a Secretary, and that the necessary neces-sary committees be appointed to 1 make the organization and pro- gram function smoothly and ef-, ef-, ficiently. As to what should be taught, he offers the following objectives as a guide for the program: j (1) Ability to understand and ! appreciate the meaning of the flag. (2) Ability to sing the National Anthem and other patriotic songs. (3) Ability to understand what : out national heroes stood for from the time our government was founded. (4) Ability to understand where-a where-a State ruled by a dictator. (5) Ability to understand how in our government is superior to our civil liberties are safeguarded. safeguard-ed. (6) Ability to understand the long and costly struggle of mankind man-kind to establish the basic freedom free-dom guaranteed by the Constitution Constitu-tion of the United States. (7) Ability to understand how democracy is or can be made the best form of government and the best way of living together. (8) Ability to condemn dishonesty, dishon-esty, corruption, graft and inefficiency inef-ficiency in government. (9) Ability to keep the body in good health and physically fit. (10) Through the pupils to strengthen the parents against insidious propaganda. (11) To bring about a close relationship re-lationship between school and community for the purpose of studying Americanism. We strongly recommend this program or one similar to it, for every state in the union. If such a plan of teaching Americanism is not in effect in your state, slip this article and mail it to your State Superintendent of Education. |