At the time of the great expansion of American commercial, financial and political influence in Europe, and especially just now, when efforts are being made to induce trading in American securities on the Paris Bourse and to influence French investment in America, this phase of educational reciprocity, conducing to a better understanding of our institutions, promotes the welfare of the world, and particularly our own special interests abroad. [Illustration] INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH II COLLEGE OF INDUSTRIAL ARTS, DENTON, TEXAS By Lillian Kendrick Byrn [Illustration: SPECIMENS IN DRAWING AND DESIGN] The history of a nation is determined by the home life of its people. Just as the prosperity of the individual home depends upon the efficiency and care of the partners in its making, so does the welfare of a nation hang on the ability and earnestness of the individual citizens. The rise of our own nation is due to the determination of our forefathers to found a government which, from the national down through the state, county and city forms, should be based upon the simple principles of upright family life. Our ideas of social life and social equality could not have been conceived under the influence of European institutions. Here, where those in the humblest walks of life may be the nobility, and where honor is conferred for merit alone, we have developed social customs to correspond with our American spirit, and, proceeding on independent and original lines, we have made our industrial and commercial system to control the busiest marts, to break the records of history, to fairly alarm the world. The chief element of the American spirit is the appreciation of high ideals, not only in the national life, but in the education, the culture and the industrial life of the individual. When we see new openings on already established lines, it is characteristic of us as a people to pursue these openings, even though they lead in directions directly opposed to those which we have hitherto followed. Thoroughness and earnestness are the keynotes of American progress, and these are the characteristics which to-day give us our commanding position among the nations. Is it not fitting and necessary that a nation of such religious, social, political and commercial originality and progress should develop co-ordinate with these a system of education? The free public school system is among the purest and most effectual of our democratic institutions. It has fostered the American spirit, it has laid the foundation for an American culture; it has, in large part, made possible the present success in American industrial life.