In the great Ordinance of 1787 for the Northwest Territory. out of which a part of my own State of Minnesota was carved. the fathers said: "Religion. morality. and knowledge being necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind. schools and the means of education shall forever be encouraged." We have tried to follow that sound advice of the founders. but we have not fully measured up to our responsibilities in the matter of furnishing an adequate system of publicschool education to the youth of our land. The disclosures made by draft records shock our national pride. They have aroused. I hope. our conscience. They showed that in this land of promise we have an amazingly large number of illiterates. native as well as foreign born. They revealed the humiliating fact that our percentage of illiteracy is much higher than that of the snmall and poor countries of Europe. We must remove that disgrace from our national escutcheon.
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foreign born