The 2013 readings are taken from What So Proudly We Hail.
January – National Identity: Why Should It Matter?
- Edward Everett Hale, “The Man without a Country”
- Mary Antin, from The Promised Land
- Ralph Ellison, “In a Strange Country”
February – Selections from The American Creed & The American Character
- Declaration of Independence
- Abraham Lincoln, Gettysburg Address
- Publius, Federalist No. 10
- Mayflower Compact
- Jack London, “To Build a Fire”
The Virtues of Civic Life
March – Self-Command and Self-Respect
- Benjamin Franklin, “Project for Moral Perfection,” from The Autobiography
- Bayard Rustin, “Twenty-Two Days on a Chain Gang”
- Frederick Douglass, “The Last Flogging,” from My Bondage and My Freedom
April – Law-Abidingness and Justice: Toward Public Order
- Abraham Lincoln, “The Perpetuation of Our Political Institutions”
- Martin Luther King Jr., Letter from Birmingham Jail
- Susan Glaspell, “A Jury of Her Peers”
May – Courage and Self-Sacrifice: Toward Country and Its Ideals
- John McCain (with Mark Salter), “On Roy Benavidez”
- Sullivan Ballou, Letter to Sarah
- Michael Shaara, “Chamberlain,” from The Killer Angels
- George S. Patton Jr., Speech to the Third Army
- Stephen Crane, “The Veteran”
- Stephen Vincent Benet, “The Devil and Daniel Webster”
June – Civility, Tolerance, Compassion: Toward Neighbors
- Ring Lardner, “Contract”
- Stephen Crane, “The Blue Hotel”
- Wallace Stegner, “The Traveler”
- Herman Melville, “Bartleby, the Scrivener: A Story of Wall-Street”
July – Break—No Meeting
August – Public-Spiritedness, Charity, Reverence: Toward the Public Goods
- Stephen Crane, “The Open Boat”
- John F. Kelly, Veterans Day Speech to the Semper Fi Society of St. Louis
- Abraham Lincoln, Second Inaugural Address
- John Updike, “The Deacon”
- Flannery O’Connor, “The Artificial Nigger”
- Homer Hickam, “Dosie, of Killakeet Island”
The Goals of Civic Life
September – Lifting the Floor
- Ursula Le Guin, “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas”
- Thomas Jefferson, Writings on Education
- Frederick Douglass, “Why Should a Colored Man Enlist?”
- Booker T. Washington, “Democracy and Education”
- W.E.B. DuBois, “The Talented Tenth”
- Wallace Stegner, “He Who Spits at the Sky”
- Willa Cather, “The Best Years”
October – Elevating the Ceiling
- Nathaniel Hawthorne, “The Artist of the Beautiful”
- Ralph Ellison, “The Little Man at Chehaw Station: The American Artist and His Audience”
- John Updike, “Hub Fans Bid Kid Adieu”
- Herman Melville, “Lee in the Capitol”
- John F. Kennedy, Address at Rice University on the Nation’s Space Effort
November – Preservation and Perpetuation
- Ring Lardner, “Old Folks’ Christmas”
- Alice Walker, “Everyday Use”
- George Washington, Farewell Address
- Theodore Roosevelt, “Manhood and Statehood”
- Calvin Coolidge, Speech on the Occasion of the 150th Anniversary of the Declaration of Independence
- Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., “In Our Youth Our Hearts Were Touched with Fire”
- George Washington, Thanksgiving Proclamation
- O. Henry, “Two Thanksgiving Day Gentlemen”
December – Break—No Meeting
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