y must not on the other
hand encourage a spirit which is in any way over-critical and cynical
or supercilious. There must be political wisdom on the part of the
people but not a sophisticated state of mind. These teachers must
inspire a wholesome pride, without creating an inflamed sense of honor
such as has caused so many wars. They must make clear the virtue and
the individuality of our own national life, but in doing this they
must not disparage the foreign and give rise to prejudice and
antagonism. How to establish us still more firmly in our own essential
traits and philosophy of life without making us conceited and closed
to good influences from without; how to give us a strong sense of
solidarity without the attendant sense of opposition to everything
outside the group is a part of our educational work which, in a broad
sense, falls to the teacher of history.

The central problem of the education of national consciousness, in our
view, is to make desires more conscious and to subject them to
discipline and the influence of the best ideals of American life.
MacCurdy says that by making instincts conscious we take a great step
in advance. That we should say is true, if we make them conscious in
the right way, and do not try to substitute rational principles for
them. But we need to go further; we must not only understand and
control the impulses of aggression, jealousy, fear and the like that
have played such a sinister part in history, but we must know more
about those complex and subtile things we call moods, which are really
the main forces in modern life. These moods are accumulations and
repositories of interests and desires, and they must be appreciated by
all who as educators, undertake to direct the forces in our national
life. These desires must be made more definitely conscious everywhere,
and be subjected to influence and education. It is not simply
institutions, organizations and factions that must be watched and
controlled, just because these are the more obvious and most easily
affected expressions of tendencies and desires, but all the subtile
feelings or moods which are the raw materials, so to speak, of future
conduct, ideals, and institutions.

Here comes to view, of course, our whole problem of assimilation of
heterogeneous elements. Favored by our geographical position, and by
the fortunate success and the great suggestive power of the ideal of
liberty with which our history began, America has