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by Charles Rufus Skinner (Author)
2024 Reprint of the 1900 Edition. Full facsimile of the original edition and not reproduced with Optical Recognition Software. According to Peggy Noonan, award winning journalist from the Wall Street Journal, "The Manual of Patriotism: For Use in the Public Schools of the State of New York runs 461 pages of text and was published in 1900. The flag that illustrates this column is from its frontispiece. The manual was written after the Legislature passed an 1898 law requiring public schools to display the American flag and "encourage patriotic exercises." Organized veterans of the Civil War and of the Women's Relief Corps, who were nurses on the battlefield, pushed for it to "awaken in the minds and hearts of the young" an "appreciation" for "the great deeds" of their nation. Memorial Day meant a lot to those old veterans, but more was needed. Their generation was passing; they'd given everything to hold the nation together; they wanted the young to understand why.Unsaid but between the lines: America at the turn of the 20th century was being engulfed by waves of immigrants; they too needed to understand what America is and means to be, so they would love it too. What a book the manual is, what a flag-waving old classic. How do you encourage love of country among schoolchildren? You let them have fun. You hold pageants and parades, have them read poems and learn songs. Let them dress up as figures in history and enact great events. This need not be costly: "An old-time coat or dress found in a garrett or unused drawer at home may serve all needful purposes." Tell the story of the American flag. The Continental Congress in 1777 said we need a national banner. Here enters the heroic Mrs. Elizabeth Ross of Philadelphia, known as Betsy, who, on the personal request of General Washington, started sewing. The stars and stripes from her hand, "were unfurled at the battle of Brandywine, in 1777. . . . They sang their song of triumph over defeated Burgoyne at Saratoga. . . . They saw the surrender of the enemy at Yorktown; they fluttered their 'Goodbye' to the British evacuating New York."
Noonan recommends that we reread this all manual with a view to understanding the problems we face today
