Woodrow Wilson to Charles Coleman Thach
Title
Woodrow Wilson to Charles Coleman Thach
Creator
Wilson, Woodrow, 1856-1924
Identifier
WWP19130
Date
1917 August 8
Description
Woodrow Wilson writes to Charles C. Thach about his directions to Herbert Hoover and Commissioner Claxton to prepare and distribute lessons for students regarding the war effort.
Source
Hoover-Wilson Correspondence, Hoover Institution, Hoover Institution Archives, Stanford, California
Publisher
Woodrow Wilson Presidential Library & Museum
Subject
Wilson, Woodrow, 1856-1924--Correspondence
Language
English
Text
President CC Thach
Alabama Polytechnic Institute,
Auburn, Alabama.
My dear President Thach:
The war is bringing to the minds of our people a new appreciation of the problems of national life and a deeper understanding of the meaning and aims of democracy. Matters which heretofore have seemed commonplace and trivial are seen in a truer light. The urgent demand for the production and proper distribution of food and other national resources has made us aware of the close dependence of individual on individual and nation on nation. The effort to keep up social and industrial organizations in spite of the withdrawal of men for the army has revealed the extent to which modern life has become complex and specialized.
These and other lessons of the war must be learned quickly if we are intelligently and successfully to defend our institutions. When the war is over we must apply the wisdom which we have acquired in purging and ennobling the life of the world.
In these vital tasks of acquiring a broader view of human possibilities the common school must have a large part. I urge that teachers and pther school officers increase materially the time and attention devoted to instruction bearing directly on the problems of community and national life.
Such a plea is in no way foreign to the spirit of American public education or of existing practices. Nor is it a plea for a temporary enlargement of the school program appropriate merely to the period of the war. It is a plea for realization in public education of the new emphasis which the war has given to the ideals of democracy and to the broader conceptions of national life.
In order that there may be definite material at hand with which the schools may at once expand their teaching I have asked Mr. Hoover and Commissioner Claxton to organize the proper agencies for the preparation and distribution of suitable lessons for the elementary grades and for the high school classes. Lessons thus suggested will serve the double purpose of illustrating in a concrete way what can be undertaken in the schools and of stimulating teachers in all parts of the country to formulate new and appropriate materials drawn directly from the communities in which they live.
(Signed) Woodrow Wilson.
Alabama Polytechnic Institute,
Auburn, Alabama.
My dear President Thach:
The war is bringing to the minds of our people a new appreciation of the problems of national life and a deeper understanding of the meaning and aims of democracy. Matters which heretofore have seemed commonplace and trivial are seen in a truer light. The urgent demand for the production and proper distribution of food and other national resources has made us aware of the close dependence of individual on individual and nation on nation. The effort to keep up social and industrial organizations in spite of the withdrawal of men for the army has revealed the extent to which modern life has become complex and specialized.
These and other lessons of the war must be learned quickly if we are intelligently and successfully to defend our institutions. When the war is over we must apply the wisdom which we have acquired in purging and ennobling the life of the world.
In these vital tasks of acquiring a broader view of human possibilities the common school must have a large part. I urge that teachers and pther school officers increase materially the time and attention devoted to instruction bearing directly on the problems of community and national life.
Such a plea is in no way foreign to the spirit of American public education or of existing practices. Nor is it a plea for a temporary enlargement of the school program appropriate merely to the period of the war. It is a plea for realization in public education of the new emphasis which the war has given to the ideals of democracy and to the broader conceptions of national life.
In order that there may be definite material at hand with which the schools may at once expand their teaching I have asked Mr. Hoover and Commissioner Claxton to organize the proper agencies for the preparation and distribution of suitable lessons for the elementary grades and for the high school classes. Lessons thus suggested will serve the double purpose of illustrating in a concrete way what can be undertaken in the schools and of stimulating teachers in all parts of the country to formulate new and appropriate materials drawn directly from the communities in which they live.
(Signed) Woodrow Wilson.
Original Format
Letter
To
Thach, Charles Coleman, 1860-1921
Files
Citation
Wilson, Woodrow, 1856-1924, “Woodrow Wilson to Charles Coleman Thach,” 1917 August 8, WWP19130, Hoover Institute at Stanford University Collection, Woodrow Wilson Presidential Library & Museum, Staunton, Virginia.