Los Angeles herald. [microfilm reel] (Los Angeles [Calif.]) 1900-1911, 1908-02-27
PRESIDENT
REITERATES
HIS POLICY
WASTE OF TIME HE SAYS TO
TEACHERS
DECLARES HIS OPPONENTS WILL
NEVER OVERCOME HIM
Nations Chief Executive Pleads for
Better Education Of Young That
They May Fight Present
Day Evils
BY Associated Press.

By Associated Press
WASHINGTON. Feb. 26.-That there
will be no let-up in President Roose-s
velt's policy of warning against rot
tenness and corruption" was emphat-
ically declared by the president today,
in an address to the delegation to the
department of superintendents Of the
National Educational association dur
ing their reception at the White House.
President Roosevelt in his address
to the convention spoke in part as fol-
VS.:
"Of all the bodies of citizens that l
have received here at the White House
there is none that occupies a more i'm
portant relation than yours. 1 am
tempted to say none has come that has
occupied as important a relation to the
nation, because you men and women
who deal with education, who repre-.
sent the great American policy of edu-
cation for all children, occupy a
relation to the family, a relation to the
future of our whole people, such as no
other like number of individuals can
bear. 1 own six of the children that
you educate and l am prepared to ex
tend cordial sympathy to some OF you.
NO despair OF futurc
Seriously, friends, it is idle for any
man to talk of despairing of the .uture
of this country or feeling unduIy
alarmed about 1t if he will come in
contact with you here and with the
forceS that you represent. Fundamen-
tally this country is sound; morally
no less than physically. Fundamen-
tally in its family life and in the out
side activities of its individuals the
country is better and not worse than
it formerly was. This does not mean
tnaI we are TO be excused II we rail
to war against rottenness and corrup-
ton. If We fail to contend effectively
with the forces of evil; and they waste
their time who ask me to withhold my
hand from dealing Herewith.
But 1T Is worth while to smite the
wrong for the very reason that we are
confident that the right will ultimately
prevail You who are training the
next generation are training this coun-
try as it is to be a decade or two
hence; and while your work in train
ing the intellect is great IL is not as
great as your work in training char
aeter. More than anything else, l
want to see the public school turn out
the boy and girl who, when man and
woman, will add to the sum of good
citizenship of the nation.
Plea for Schools
people will see to it that the schools
d train more toward and not away from
the farm and workshop. We have
spoken great deal about the dignity
of labor of this country. but we have
not acted up to our spoken words;
for in our education we have tended
to proceed upon the assumption that
the educated man was to be educated
away from and not toward labor. The
great nations of medieval times who
of
lecture and art behind them were able
to do so because they educated alike
the brain and the hand of the crafts
| man.
I'VE, too, in our turn, must show
that we understand the law which
DEGREES that a people which loses phys
ical address invariably deteriorates; SO
that people shall understand that the
good carpenter, the good blacksmith,
the good mechanic, the good farmer
really do fill the most important po-
sitions in our land and that it Is an
evil thing for them and the nation to
have their sons and daughters forsake
the work which, If well and efficiently
performed, means more than any other
work for our people as whole.
"One thing that / would have you
teach your pupils is that whether you
call the money gained salary or wages
does not make any real difference, and
that If by working hard by your hands
you get more than If you work with
your head only it does not atone for 1t
to call the smaller amount salary The
term dignity of labor implies that
manual labor is as dignified as mental
labor; as, of course, it is. Indeed
the highest kind of labor is that
which makes demands upon the quali-
ties of both head and hand, of heart,
brain and body.
EuIogizes Workers
Physical prowess, physical address,
are necessaries; they stand on level
with intellect and only below charac-
ter. Let us show that we regard the
position of the man who works with
his hands as being ordinarily as Inn
portant and dignif1ed, and as worthy of
| consideration as that of the business
man or professional man. We need to
have certain readjustment of values
in this country which must primarily
come through the efforts of just you
men and women here, and the men and
! women like you throughout this land.
II would not have you preach an i'm
possible ideal; for IL you preach an
ideal that is impossible you tend to
make your pupils believe that no ideals
are possible and therefore you tend to
do them that worst of wrongs--to teach
! them to divorce preaching from prac-
tice, to divorce the ideal that they IN
| the abstract admire and for the prin-
cipal good of which they strive. Teach
| them that they should earn their own
| livelihood. Teach the boy that he is to
| be the homemaker; the girl that she
must ultimately be the homekeeper:
| that the work of the father is to be the
bread winner and that the mother is to
| be the housekeeper that their work is
| by far the most important In the land;
that the work of the statesman. the
writer, the captain of industry and all
| the rest is conditioned. first upon work