Readings for Citizens at War [antikvár]

PREFACEColleges up and down the land are teaching, or soon will be teaching, students in uniformprospective officers of the armed forces. The Army and the Navy both require, in their basic pro-grams, the study of American history and American institutions in the context of world history and of the world war. They require alsó training in written and spoken expression, in thinking and in reading. Reading is of the essence of the problem. With-out texts for analysis and discussion, how can the teacher attempt to train his students in expression, in the interpretation of language, in whatever can be meant by "communication," in logic and orderly thought? But how and what shall students in uniform be asked to read? How much and at what level of difficulty can they be expected to absorb? And as a practical problem, how shall the appropriate reading be placed in their hands and worked into the heavy technical training prescribed for them?Both the Army and the Navy have indicated generál kinds of reading to be pursued in relation to certain generál purposes. These purposes are determined by the qualifications which officers ultimately should possess. The Army has suggested a particular list of works and writers, with the recommendation that selec-tions be drawn from them. But the Army and Navy evidently take a comprehensive view of the reading useful for a prospective officer. This view extends from reading to stimulate precise ob-servation and orderly analysisexpositions and reports on technical or scientific topicsto reading for imagination, for acquaintance with important problems of the past and future, reading the virtue of which would be to make a well-informed aftd thoughtful citizen of America in the world Americans will face during and after the war.The editors of this volume believe that a new book of readings is clearly requisite to meet the needs of the announced Army