"Be Strong or Perish"

When U. S. schools open their doors next month, it will be clear that the U. S., in the space of a schoolboy's vacation, has plunged into the full throes of arming for self-defense. Prime question facing the schools: How can they help? Last week the Educational Policies Commission told them how.

The four and a half year old Commission, created by the National Education Association to chart national policies, is a kind of spiritual adviser to the schools. It includes such bigwig pedagogues as Philadelphia's Superintendent Alexander J. Stoddard, Cornell's President Edmund E. Day, U. S. Commissioner John W. Studebaker. To big-city school superintendents and crossroads schoolhouses, the Commission last week sent a fervent orange-covered booklet--Education and the Defense of American Democracy.

Said the Commission: "The American people must not repeat the mistakes of the European democracies. Without becoming victims of hysteria, they should resolutely refuse to nourish pleasing illusions and should proceed in all haste to prepare for the worst . . . gird themselves to face the darkest period of their history. . . . In this world a people must be strong or perish." Main job facing the schools, said the Commission, is mobilization for moral defense. Its proposals: American Dream: "The American people . . . have taken their blessings for granted . . . lack a clear perception of what is at stake. . . . Education can help to clarify the nature and goals of democracy. It can portray the American dream of a nation with liberty, justice and opportunity for all . . . develop in all citizens deep and abiding loyalties to the central values of democracy. . . ." Authority: "Must the American people, for the period of the emergency, place the authority to decide issues of national policy in the hands of a few persons? . . .

Facing this supreme question of policy, the Commission records its sincere conviction that the democratic processes of government can meet the tremendous demands now placed upon them. . . . This is not to say that after full and free discussion they should not decide to surrender certain rights and privileges for a period. . . ." Youth: "Perhaps the supreme tragedy of the present epoch is the fact that the friends of democracy in many lands . . . have failed to present to their children a great and ennobling goal. . . . The apparent enthusiasm and loyalty of youth in totalitarian states are not simply the products of regimentation and propaganda. Their deeper source is found in the fact that these systems have given youth work to do. . . .

"If the adult generation will . . . summon youth to the building of a finer America and will show that it means business by indicating at least the outlines of a definite, workable plan, the youth of America will respond with unbounded enthusiasm."

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