A Brief Reminder

Many years ago, when my children were all still little, I was astonished to hear that Congress (in its infinite wisdom) had abolished Lincoln's Birthday (12 Feb) and Washington's (22 Feb) and combined them into one day called "President's Day." Even as this was being done, I was studying History at Ricks and then U of I in Moscow. I went back to Moscow for an extra year after four years of teaching.

An extra holiday was added in January, to commemorate Dr. King's birthday. I didn't mind that in the least. He was a magnificent public speaker, and that's about all the accomplishment a person needs to make to impress me.

I was bothered, though, by the government's public service announcements on both radio and TV which claimed that Congress had given us more holidays to spend with our families touring the nation and getting to know it and its history better.

Practically no one has done that, of course. Instead, the three day week-end has been invented. People don't think for a minute what the holiday is about. All they care is that it falls on a Monday and is comfortably contiguous with a weekend. Virtually no one who has graduated high school since the end of the eighties could tell you which great man was born on which day - including Dr. King.

Now, I started teaching in the mid eighties and it took them nearly 20 years of get rid of me. I might not have forced anybody to memorize the fact that Mr. Lincoln was ushered into this chilly world on 12 February 1809, but I didn't let anyone get out of my classroom alive without knowing the agony it was to BE Mr. Lincoln. I would read the bulk of Dr. King's "Dream" speech to my kids and demonstrate every gesture and vocal emphasis with which he gave it. After all, I'd SEEN it. I'd heard it when it was first spoken. I didn't know whether I liked him, but I did love the way he spoke.

I did the same thing with both the 1765 and the 1775 speeches by Patrick Henry. I quoted General Washington a lot and described in as much detail as I possibly could what he did for us, beginning as a British Colonial Major in the last of the four Colonial wars. I told them many stories about many great people, not so they'd do well on exams (that was just a pleasant side-effect) but because I wanted them all to love these people as I had come to do. I told them about Maj. Patrick Ferguson who was moved upon (I didn't SAY "by the Holy Ghost" but everyone knew what I meant) to lower the barrel of his famous breech-loading rifle when he had a perfect and easy shot at the tired General sitting his horse at the battle's edge.

This nation no longer remembers who did what, why they did it, or how their sacrifices and efforts blessed us. And most Americans simply don't care. I maintain that a nation which has stopped remembering its own History will soon cease to be unless saved by a Godly hand.