Address by Commissioner of Education Earl McGrath, Educational Leadership: Some Thoughts for Tomorrow

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EDUCATIONAL LEADERSHIP: SOME THOUGHTS FOR TOMORROW* The challenging theme of this convention of Democracy," points up the vital stake school administrators have in the full and continued development of the minds, bodies and spirits of America's young people. It is also a phrase which stands as a guidepost to the futuro for the U. S. office of Education. I should like to discuss with you very briefly, these two important and related aspects of our convention theme. Our stake in the American educational system is two-fold, for we are concerned both as educators and as citizons. Under a democratio ayatem, the individual citizen is the well- spring of power, with each of us sharing the responsibility for making critical decisions on matters of public policy. In order to make that system work, to give it motion and purpose, and to insure the validity of those decisions, it is essential that we mintain a high lovol of intelligence among all of our people. The primary means for achieving this goal is education, for it is in the Nation's schools that the citizen of tomorrow can be equipped with the knowledge, habits, skills and attitudes so fundamental to the strengthening and perpetuation of democratic ideals. Paramount among our responsibilities in this regard, it seems to me, is the obligation which we, as edusators, owe our follow citisons by virtue of the position we hold in the community. The school ad- VAddress by Earl James MoGrath, U. S. Commissioner of Education, Federal Security Agency, Washington 25, D. C., delivered at the 6th General Session of the Annual Meeting, American Association of $chool Administrators, Atlantic City, New Jersey, 8:30 p.m., February 28, 1950.