The Alaska daily empire., 1918-07-27
EASTERN PAPER
 PRAISES ALASKA
 SCHOOL WORK
American School Magazine Sees Ginger and Enter prise in Alaska EduCa-
 tlonaI Work.

That Alaska schools, and particu- larly the Territorial Department of Education under the direction of Com missioner of Education l.. D. Hen derson, is attracting attention out side of Alaska, is evidenced from a leading editorial which appeared in the June number of the American School, one of the leading journals of education in the country, publish, ed at Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
 The editorial follows:
 THE ALASKA TRAIL
 "In 1867 Secretary Seward paid to Russia $7,200,000 for tract of land to the northwest corner of the continent, and with this sale and purchase, Russia slipped out of the new world as an important factor. The country that Secretary Seward had bought was so little though of ards Folly There was much ridi- cule that he had paid more than seven million good American dollars for an icy waste.
 "The nation for which Secretary Seward acted has been repa!d many times in revenues derived from the supposedly barren land which he bought. Furs and gold and copper already have returned to the Ma tiOnal Treasury all the nation $ expenditures, many fold. And we have not yet begun to touch all the resources in this empire. Coal meas ures and quarries and mines of oth- CT metals which still wait to be has so far been taken out The forests that cover the thousand hills of Alaska; have in them reserve of lumber which the country will sorely need before the devastated and wasted forests of the United States, proper, can be gotten again into producing condition. The sal mon that still wait to be taken from her tumbling rivers, have so far been represented only by an advance guard which has already come to our ta- bles.
 Now, however, Alaska is devel- oping in a new direction. The agri- cultural resources of the country are beginning to be developed. Al. ready the North has great rein deer herd, the founders of which were naturalized from -Lapland; and now its warmer and more fertile valleys are feeling the stirring of the blow, and are responding with abundant crops of those products suited to the climate
 "To keep pace with their elders. the boys and girls of the districts which may be made agricultural, are joining in the great school garden movement that is sweeping over the United States and it's possessions. from Porto Rico through the United States to Alaska, and from the hills of New England and the sand dunes of Jersey to Hawaii and the Philip pines. The children in all the pub lie schools are organizing into school garden army; in the Fall we shall get the report of their Sum- mer's work
 The Territorial Department of Education. with headquarters at Jul neau sends out monthly Educa- tional Bulletin of which Number ,, Volume l. the issue for May 1918, is just at hand In this number is record of war work activities of the public schools of Fairbanks.
 Tn this little town 100 per cent. of the pupils in the public schools are members of the Junior Red Cross. During the two weeks before Christmas, the fifth and sixth grades saved sl0.50 from candy and picture show money; they devoted this say