Throughout the nation there are thousands of high schools, large and small, in city and country, still following tradition. In these schools, faithful teachers are increasingly aware that their boys and girls are facing urgent problems of living with little help from any source. These teachers are beginning to see that much of the help which youth seeks must come from the high schools; this means that education must take on new responsibilities.
To fulfill these wider obligations schools must have a considerable measure of the freedom that the Thirty Schools have had during these eight years. This freedom was a challenge to the best that was in them. Who can doubt that other schools would respond equally well to the same challenge? As hundreds of teachers in the participating schools discovered in themselves unknown creative powers, so would thousands of others develop new vitality and strength in their attempts to perform new duties. Surely the freedom which produces such results will not long be denied.
The ten million boys and girls now in our high schools cannot carry the nation's burden in this hour of world conflict. That burden is ours. We are determined that the earth they inherit shall not be in chains. Theirs will be the task that only free men can perform in a world of freedom. It will be an even greater task than ours. To prepare them for it is the supreme opportunity of the schools of our democracy.
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8 Year Web Project
Introduction
VI We Learned
Lead-to-college
