In an address at the dedication of an educational building at Albany a few days ago, Governor Hughes said: “I want to refer to the importance in this day of giving our teachers and of having them communicate to their pupils the proper sense of the responsibility of citizenship in this country. It is not enough to have patriotic songs sung. It is a fine thing to have the flag flying and to have it continuously before the youthful mind as a symbol of this great independent nation, of the land of the free and the home of the brave. But as a distinguished man once said, it is a very doubtful advantage to generate emotion which has no practical use, and the emotions of patriotism ought to be stimulated with regard to certain important and practical ends. Study of civics, the knowledge of the actual operation of our government is most important.” In this statement the governor puts the case admirably. Civics should be taught in the schools, and it should be taught in a practical way. When your committee made its investigations some half dozen years ago into the matter of instruction in municipal government in elementary and high schools, it discovered two things: First, a lamentable lack of proper instruction in the subject in the schools of the country, and second, an earnest desire on the part of those in authority to remedy this lack. Advice and assistance were asked for by many who replied to our questionnaire. We were impressed with the importance of presenting something definite and concrete in the way of recommendations. It was easy enough of course to say that the subject should be taught in both elementary and high schools, that it should be so placed in the curriculum, as to reach all the pupils, and that it should be, as Governor Hughes puts it, a study of the actual operations of our government. But the schools wanted something more directly helpful than this. Few, if any, text-books suitable for the purpose were available. Practically all of them were written along the conventional lines of a scientific treatment of the framework of government with but slight and ineffective attempts to make the study other than one of broad generalizations of little direct and concrete meaning to the youthful student. Happily there has been some endeavor since the committee’s first report to make texts which really meet the need, and there are now on the market a few books which are genuinely helpful. There is every reason to believe that the production of this class of books is greatly to increase. However the committee believes that suitable texts can only help to solve the problem.