<P> I pledge allegiance to my Flag and the Republic for which it stands, one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all . </P> <P> The Pledge was supposed to be quick and to the point . Bellamy designed it to be recited in 15 seconds . As a socialist, he had initially also considered using the words equality and fraternity but decided against it, knowing that the state superintendents of education on his committee were against equality for women and African Americans . </P> <P> Francis Bellamy and Upham had lined up the National Education Association to support the Youth's Companion as a sponsor of the Columbus Day observance and the use in that observance of the American flag . By June 29, 1892, Bellamy and Upham had arranged for Congress and President Benjamin Harrison to announce a proclamation making the public school flag ceremony the center of the Columbus Day celebrations . This arrangement was formalized when Harrison issued Presidential Proclamation 335 . Subsequently, the Pledge was first used in public schools on October 12, 1892, during Columbus Day observances organized to coincide with the opening of the World's Columbian Exposition (the Chicago World's Fair), Illinois . </P> <P> In his recollection of the creation of the Pledge, Francis Bellamy said, "At the beginning of the nineties patriotism and national feeling was (sic) at a low ebb . The patriotic ardor of the Civil War was an old story...The time was ripe for a reawakening of simple Americanism and the leaders in the new movement rightly felt that patriotic education should begin in the public schools ." James Upham "felt that a flag should be on every schoolhouse," so his publication "fostered a plan of selling flags to schools through the children themselves at cost, which was so successful that 25,000 schools acquired flags in the first year (1892 - 93). </P>

When did schools start reciting the pledge of allegiance