"For the Common Defense"

This week 8,000,000 U. S. citizens dutifully visited their schools to reaffirm their faith in education as the bread and meat of U. S. democracy. It was American Education Week, and its slogan this year was "Education for the Common Defense." Visitors saw much flag-saluting, heard much anthem-singing. But beyond that, they found educators confused, uncertain what had to be done. Disquieting to progressives was a Spartan trend toward calisthenics instead of games, military drill for boys, more homework, less music and art.

Last week the Progressive Education Association distributed to the nation's schools an ambitious program to save democracy. Its author was P. E. A.'s brash young Executive Secretary Frederick Lovatt Redefer (TIME, Oct. 31, 1938). He proposed as the schools' No. 1 job a crusade to make the nation's children appreciate their land by seeing it firsthand. His plan: let pupils get part of their education in work camps (like CCC) instead of classrooms, let them visit and labor in fields and factories. Said Mr. Redefer:

"What if schools and colleges took seriously the task of putting emotional feeling into the sight of a freshly and correctly plowed field, a plain of spring wheat, a harbor of boats, or the smoke of chimneys of factories at work, the rolling hills of Ohio, the irrigated valleys of Colorado and California? ... If American schools would give children and youth some understanding of the American Dream, they must send them out to search the hearts of the American people and to live on its soil."

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