The Operations of the American people during the war with Germany, in trying to recruit and train quickly a large Army and Navy, and keep them fit to fight as well as any other national army or navy better than any, brought to light many defects in the education, and the health and vigor of the population, especially, of course, among young men. The draft also revealed an amount of illiteracy and bodily incapacity among young men between twenty-one and thirty-one which surprised and mortified everybody. These bodily and mental defects were bad enough in time of war; but most persons now see that they are even worse in time of peace, through their effect on the productive industries of the country, and hence on the comfort and happiness of the entire people.

Everybody sees now that to cure and to prevent illiteracy are national interests of the liveliest sort, which ought not to be left to states or municipalities alone; so that effective steps will probably be taken to prevent illiteracy in the future by cooperative action in the National Congress, Legislatures, and Board s of Education for states, counties, and cities or towns. Even in the Southern States, which had high percentages of illiteracy because of the scanty appropriation s of public money for negro schools, improvements in the application of educational appropriations and in their amount are already discernible; and it cannot be doubted that there will ensue all over the country a greater liberality of expenditure on the free elementary and secondary schools.

If we should be forced into another war, we must not find in our Army or Navy thousand s of men who cannot understand orders or communicate with their comrades. Neither do we wish to find again that a quarter part of the millions of young men drafted for the Army or Navy have bodily defects which disqualify them for service as soldiers or sailors. Furthermore, we realize that such bodily defectives are not the men needed in the industrial armies.

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• Publication Date: March 4, 2018
• Text-to-Speech: Enabled
• Lending: Disabled
• Print Length: 9 Pages
• File Size: 2,092 KB