This method of championing causes is so common that it is almost impossible to get at the truth about any public question. I have very little interest in what is happening in Russia. If I had, I should not know what to believe. Spokesmen for both the Bolshevists and their enemies seem to be about equally unable to tell the truth. The pursuit of knowledge is the pursuit of the truth about something, and since propaganda is not the pursuit of truth, its influence upon educational institutions is illustrated by many of the text books on American History in common use in the Public Schools. When attempts were made to write the account of the American Revolution with fairness to both sides and, in the light of established fact, certain over-patriotic propagandists became much excited and thought they had discovered a pro-British conspiracy to deliver this republic again into the clutches of the British monarchy. Subject matter which is even remotely associated with popular dogmas of religion, morals, patriotism, is likely to be modified so as to appear to be in harmony with such dogmas when presented to students. Each religious sect has its own version of Church history. Radicals who wish to hold the environment--hence the present social system--responsible for human failure, are always inclined to accept uncritically the biological doctrine of the inheritance of acquired characters. Patriotism makes it almost impossible for students anywhere to gain a correct knowledge of the history of their own country. The moral interest inevitably influences the study of literature. We have already discussed the teaching of the classics. Their educational value consists chiefly in opening windows upon a way of life very different from our own. It broadens our sympathy with all that is human to gain an understanding of men who were inspired by ideals often the contrary of those held sacred in our own parish. Yet it is just this educational value which is commonly lost in the teaching of the classics, especially in Puritanical communities. The least significant books of antiquity, writings like Caesar’s Commentaries and Cicero’s political orations, are often selected as required studies. It is not an accident that the works most commonly studied are those least shocking to conventionally minded people, not those which give the student the best account of ancient civilization. Likewise in the teaching of modern literature, there is so much expurgation, censorship, evasion, that most students get the impression that literature is produced by Sunday School teachers for the edification of very nice people. If, as many believe, it is best to protect younger students in this manner, I think they should at least be led to understand what is happening. Otherwise they are likely to leave school convinced that their own one-sided and somewhat infantile view of life and letters is the correct and only possible view and so influence the public authorities