Tuesday, November 6, 2018

To Make World Safe for Democracy We Need Educated Citizens, Nov. 6, 1918

From The University of North Carolina News Letter, Chapel Hill, November 6, 1918

Our Manifest Duty by Dr. J.Y. Joyner, State Superintendent of Public Instruction

To make the world safe for democracy, in the fine phrase of our matchless President, our boys on the Western Front are fighting and suffering and dying every day. Millions more of them in the cantonments and in our homes are ready and eager to flight, and, if need be, to die.

But the victory, that they and their noble allies shall win, will be largely temporary and fruitless, and the world will not be safe for democracy, nor will democracy be safe for the world, unless the masses of the people of the world be adequately prepared for the larger duties, the graver responsibilities, the greater privileges, the harder tasks of democracy, and for the appreciation, preservation, and transmission of it.

Such preparation can be provided only through the education of all the children of all the people of each generation in every democratic land. Only by providing opportunities for all the children of all the people of North Carolina, can we make North Carolina as safe for democracy and democracy as safe for North Carolina as any other part of the democratized world after this war is over.

Six Months Schools

The manifest duty of those of us who remain at home is to vote and work for the adoption of the constitutional amendment for a minimum school term of six months. It is an immediate and practical means for largely increasing the efficiency of our schools for the better education and, therefore, the better preparation of all the children of all the people for all that will certainly follow allied victory in this world-wide war.

For the good of the children and the honor of the State, make the vote for it unanimous on the 5th of November. If you can not vote for it, for the sake of the children and their mothers, who can not vote, do not vote against it.


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