="Melting pot."=—­Their primary trouble arose from the fact that they had not yet achieved democracy, but had only a hazy theoretical conception of its true meaning.  Nor did the conductor give them any assistance.  On the contrary he pushed them farther away into the realm of theory, and rendered them less susceptible to the influence of the feeling for democracy.  Before these foreigners can become thoroughly assimilated they must know this feeling by experience; and until this experience is theirs they cannot live comfortably or harmoniously in our democracy.  To do this effectively is one of the large tasks that confront the American school and society as a whole.  If we fail here, the glory of democracy will be dimmed.  All Americans share equally in the responsibility of this task.  The school, of course, must assume its full share of this responsibility if it would fully deserve the name of melting pot.

=Learning democracy.=—­Meeting this responsibility worthily is not the simple thing that many seem to conceive it to be.  If it were, then any discussion appertaining to the teaching of democracy would be superfluous.  This subject of democracy is, in fact, the most difficult subject with which the school has to do, and by far the most important.  Its supreme importance is due to the fact that all the pupils expect to live in a democracy, and, unless they learn democracy, life cannot attain to its maximum of agreeableness for them nor can they make the largest possible contributions to the well-being of society.  It has been said that the seventeenth century saw Versailles; the eighteenth century saw the Earth; and the nineteenth century saw Humanity.  Then the very pertinent question is asked, “Which century will see Life?” We who love our country and our form of government fondly hope that we may be the first to see Life, and, if this privilege falls to our lot, we must come to see life through the medium of democracy.

=The vitalized school a democracy.=—­Life seems to be an abstract something to many people, but it must become concrete before they can really see it as it is.  Democracy is a means, therefore, of transforming abstract life into concrete life, and so we are to come into a fuller comprehension of life through the gateway of democracy.  The vitalized school is a laboratory of life and, at the same time, it is the most nearly perfect exemplification of democracy.  The nearer its approach to perfection in exemplifying the spirit and workings of a democracy, the larger service it renders society.  If the outflow from the school into society is a high quality of democracy, the general tone of society will be improved.  If society deteriorates, the school may not be wholly at fault, but it evidently is unable to supply to society reenforcement in such quantity and of such quality as will keep the level up to normal.