Excerpt from Economics for Upper Grades
The war has stirred mightily the hearts of men. Exaltation, sacrifice, and service have suffered their inevitable reaction. The development of industry has brought new alignments, and though these would have confronted us in any case, yet now, in the reaction from a great emotion, the world that meets them is a troubled, a hesitant, a disappointed world. Old conceptions, some of them as old as the nation, which were once accepted as we accept the sunrise or the rule of three, are called upon to prove their own validity. Democracy is no longer a question of a constitution or a code of laws; it is enmeshed in problems of wages and costs and distribution. We cannot understand our politics unless we study our economics. Perhaps it is as well that Americans are being compelled to analyze the truth of principles they so long have taken for granted, if for no other reason than that they have accepted them too casually, and too indolently. The political heritage of a people will not endure neglect. Such things as representative government, the rule of the majority, the liberty of opinion, obedience to law, were gained by painful effort, and only painful effort will retain them.
These ideas and others akin to them are the sacred things of the Republic. In the Egypt of the ancients, it was the duty of a priesthood to preserve the traditions of the people. Education and those engaged in education are the priesthood of the modern time.
They it is who must keep the torch alight and through the children pass it to succeeding generations.
Economics for Upper Grades
