keeper. They are drawn
together in closer sympathy and good-will; artificial barriers disappear;
and they all become interested in the common good. Their interests,
purposes, and activities become unified, and life becomes better and
richer. Actuated by a common impulse, they exemplify what Kipling says in
his _Sons of Martha_:

Lift ye the stone or cleave the wood to make a path more fair or flat,
Lo, it is black already with blood some Son of Martha spilled for that,
Not as a ladder from Earth to Heaven, not as an altar to any creed,
But simple Service, simply given, to their own kind, in their common need.

As Dr. Henry van Dyke well says, "It is the silent ideal in the hearts of
the people which molds character and guides action."

It will be admitted without qualification that the school, when well
administered, constitutes a force that a altogether favorable to the
development of the spirit of democracy, and no one will deny that
democracy is a worthy goal toward which the activities of the school
should be directed. It is easy to see just how geography, for instance,
may be made a means to this end. The members of the class represent many
conditions of society, but in the study of geography they unite in a
common enterprise and have interests in common. Thus their spirits merge
and, for the time, they become unified in a common quest. They become
coordinates and confederates in this quest of geography, and the spirit of
democracy expands in an atmosphere so favorable to growth. These pupils
may differ in race, in creed, or in color, but these differences are
submerged in the zeal of a common purpose. Lines of demarcation are
obliterated and they are drawn together because of their thinking and
feeling in unison. The caste system does not thrive in the geography class
and snobbery languishes. The pupils have the same books, the same
assignments, the same teacher, and share alike in all the privileges and
pleasures which the class provides. Their grades are given on merit, with
no semblance of discrimination. In short, they achieve the democratic
attitude of spirit by means of the study of geography.

If the teacher holds democracy in mind, all the while, as the goal of
endeavor, she will find abundant opportunities to inculcate and develop
the democratic ideal. By tactful suggestion she directs the activities of
the children into channels that lead to unity of purpose. Where help is
needed, she arranges