Statement on Education.

To the patrons, students, and teachers of American schools:

Let us take note, as we again observe American Education Week throughout our Nation, that education in our democracy teaches the practice of reason in human affairs.

I refer not only to education that may come from books. I include education in fair play on the athletic field and on the debating platform; I include education for tolerance through participation in full, free discussion in the classroom. Practice in the scientific method by our young people may be more important than learning the facts of science. From kindergarten through college our schools train us to use the machinery of reason; parliamentary practice; the techniques of cooperation; how to accept with good grace the will of a majority; how to defend by logic and facts our deep convictions. This is education for the American way of life.

Our schools also bring us face to face with men and women with whom we shall share life's struggles. In their lives and ours, struggle will never be absent; the struggle of every individual against the stream of life; the struggle and competition among individuals, groups, institutions, States, and Nations. To the resolution of conflicts and struggles of life, democracy supplies no easy answer. The easy answer, the quick but incomplete answer, is force; tanks and torpedoes, guns and bombs. Democracy calls instead for the application of the rule of reason to solve conflicts. It calls for fair play in canvassing facts, for discussion, and for calm and orderly handling of difficult problems. These vital skills we Americans must acquire in our schools.

In our schools our coming generations must learn the most difficult art in the world—the successful management of democracy. Let us think of our schools during this American Education Week not only as buildings of stone and wood and steel; not only as places to learn how to use hand and brain; but as training centers in the use and application of the rule of reason. in the affairs of men. And let us hope that out of our schools may come a generation which can persuade a bleeding world to supplant force with reason.