"To promote the general diffusion of knowledge" a national committee on patriotic education exists. This committee is broad in scope; it deals with the incoming immigrant and with the native mountaineer; it teaches by lecture and by literature; it encourages scholarships; it presents flags (through the flag teaching the nation's history in one glorious demonstration). Connected with the committees on patriotic education is the "interchangeable Bureau" for the lectures, with slides illustrating the subject-matter. Frequently these lectures are delivered in various languages to meet the need of the lately landed immigrant. There is an interchange of these lectures from the chairman as fountain-head, throughout all the states. Besides such work, scholarships in perpetuity have been established in certain colleges for women. These scholarships insure a living monument to patriotic educational attainment. One student after another shall reap the benefit, so long as the college endures, and specializing in American history, as the student does, sends out into the world a force of wider and yet wider dominance, through which knowledge is distributed and the ideals of our formative period preserved, while practical results are obtained for the student, who is thus fitted to teach and become self-supporting. From Continental Hall, too, will emanate the true spirit of the "diffusion of knowledge" for lectures on American History will be delivered in its auditorium to the general public. "The acquisition and protection of historical spots" has not been neglected by the society. In many localities throughout the country are valuable properties, replete with revolutionary and historic associations, owned or cared for by the Daughters of the American Revolution. Sites of battles are marked by boulders and by monuments ; historic events are recorded by tablets on the walls of churches, courthouses and other buildings; libraries are provided for, the army and navy, and Red Cross nurses have
Page:The part taken by women in American history.djvu/461
424
Part Taken by Women in American History