How much better and wiser for the whole world if all the boys and girls in all the schools everywhere were henceforth to be started in life with a just and true notion of all flags and the peoples over whom they fly! The League of Nations might not then rest upon the quicksand of distrust and antagonism which it rests upon today.

But it is our own school histories that are my present concern, and I repeat my opinion--or rather my conviction--that the way in which they have concealed the truth from us is worse than silly, it is harmful.

I am not going to take up the whole list of their misrepresentations, I will put but one or two questions to you.
When you finished school, what idea had you about the War of 1812?
I will tell you what mine was.

I thought we had gone to war because England was stopping American ships and taking American sailors out of them for her own service.

I could refer to Perry's victory on Lake Erie and Jackson's smashing of the British at New Orleans; the name of the frigate Constitution sent thrills through me.