What proof can you give of a “national spirit” in your locality during the war?

What evidence can you give to show that this national spirit is or is not as strong since the war closed?

What was the “National Army”? the “National Guard”?  Which of these organizations was most likely to develop a “national spirit”?  Why?  What good reasons can you give for the action of the government in consolidating the Regular Army, the National Army, and the National Guard into a “United States Army”?

What arguments can you give in favor of requiring all instruction in the public schools to be given in the English language?

What arguments can you give in favor of teaching lessons in citizenship in foreign-language newspapers?

What foreign nationalities are represented in your locality?

Make a blackboard table showing the nationality of the parents and grandparents of each member of your class.

Give illustrations to show that “winning the war” was the controlling purpose in your community during the war.

In what way has the war made you think about the right-to-life and the need for physical well-being? about security in property? about freedom of thought? about the desirability of an education? about the right of people to pleasant surroundings? about self-government?

Show how the Spanish-American war was fought for the same purpose as that mentioned in the paragraph above.

Write a brief theme on “What the Flag Means to Me.”

NATIONAL INTERDEPENDENCE

The attempt to work together in the war made it very apparent how dependent the nation is upon all its parts, and how dependent each part is upon all the others.  It was often said that “the farmers would win the war.”  At other times it was said to be ships, or fuel, or airplanes, or railroad transportation, or trained scientists and technical workers.  The truth is, of course, that all these things and many more were absolutely necessary, and that no one of them would have been of much value without all the others.

It is true that the winning of the war depended upon the farmers, because they are the producers of the food and of the raw materials for textiles without which the nation and every group and person in it would have been helpless.  But the farmer could not supply food to the nation without machinery for its production, and without city markets and railroads and ships for its distribution.  Machinery could not be made, nor ships and locomotives built, without steel.  For the manufacture of steel there must be iron and fuel and tungsten and other materials.  And for all these things there must be inventors and skilled mechanics, and to produce these there must be schools.  And so we could go on indefinitely to show how the war made us feel our interdependence.  What we need to understand, however, is that this interdependence is characteristic of our national life at all times; the war only made us feel it more keenly.