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Show Maryland U. Sets the Pace By GEORGE PECK Why have the educational institutions in-stitutions of this country, with rare exceptions, been so remiss in teaching American history? It cannot be because there is anything any-thing in that history of which- to be ashamed. On the contrary, the story of the men. and women : who took a wilderness and in j three centuries developed it into j the greatest civilization the world has ever known, is the most gripping grip-ping and inspiring study the ' , youth of this country can under- j take. It was most pleasing to read recently an announcement by Dr. H. C. Byrd, President of the Un-iversary Un-iversary of Maryland, that henceforth hence-forth that institution will include in its curriculum, required courses of study in America's history, government and literature. In do-I do-I ing this he stated that "It be. I hooves to develop men and women I in this country who can interpret America to other nations." One would have thought that in projecting the teaching of American Am-erican history-' at the -University of Maryland, Dr. Byrd would have had the encouragement of every educator in America. Such however, how-ever, was not the case, as indicated indicat-ed in the following quotation from a letter I recieved from him: "It may interest you to know that some people in the educational educa-tional world thought I was taking tak-ing long chance in undertaking a project in American Civilization studies. They seemed to think that I would be subject to tremendous criticism. Apparently though, they misjudged, because naturally, we have evidently struck a very res- ponsive chord. Big newspapers all over the country have printed edi- torials and very favorable ones at that." One of these newspapers, the Baltimore News-Post interviewed Dr. Byrd, editorially endorsed the University of Maryland's plan, and quoted him in part as follows: "What we Americans need, above all things at this moment, is to develop a fuller understanding understand-ing of our own backgrounds, of ourselves as a people and of our Govenment. We need to know more of whence we came, where j we are, what we have, and where we are going. Only by greater knowledge of this kind shall our way of life survive. "Other nations are propagandizing, propagand-izing, by devious ways, their philosophies and their cultures in this country. Their propaganda is effective, too, because some of our people are beginning to accept, at least, a measure of these. Perhaps foreign philosophies and cultures represent a better way of life than ours, but, in re name of high heaven, let us at least give ourv people a full understanding of what we have- so that, if we do"' discard our present way of life',1 we ' shall at least have been in aa 'position to make intelligent comparisons. '.' "Foreign philosophies and propaganda pro-paganda sometimes find a fertile field in American minds only be. cause American rninds do not have sufficient knowledge even to challenge the glittering claims. America must learn to recognize precious stones, so that it will not toss a diamond away to pick up a piece of quartz." It is to be hoped that what the University of Maryland is inaugurating, inaugur-ating, will arouse educators in every ev-ery State of the Union similarly to bestir themselves. Surely there is nothing more vital in the field of education than giving the youth of this nation the facts regarding their glorious heritage. |