107 Teachers and school officers can perform no higher duty, can render no greater service to America, than to encourage the use of school buildings for public gatherings. They should be real community centers. In the city of Minneapolis, the Superintendent of Schools has recently reported that for the year ending July 1st, 1920, there were 5070 meetings held in the public school buildings, with a total attendance of 325,734 persons. There were 1434 cultural meetings, 751 civic sessions, 2501 recreative gatherings, and 334 social festivals. Rural consolidated school buildings ought always be planned for civic centers as well as school-houses. They ought to provide a large assembly hall where community gatherings may be held. They ought to provide a large and well equipped gymnasium where both children and adults may enjoy athletic contests and indoor games. These buildings ought to be open to the people every evening during the week if the attendance warrants. 108 One mark of good citizenship is the respect shown to emblems of authority. All good citizens rise to their feet and remain standing during the playing or singing of the National anthem. We ought to cultivate such habits until they become reflex: i. e. until we do them as a matter of course without being told by the teacher in school or by the leader of the choir or some other person. Every school boy and girl ought to commit to memory the words of the Star Spangled Banner and of America. The teacher can make the singing of patriotic songs and the learning of patriotic poems and speeches a part of the opening exercises of the school. Poems and speeches learned in childhood will generally remain with us throughout life.