“Why History?”
This article is loosely based on a 1995 speech delivered by David McCullough on the importance of history.
We, in our time, are raising a new generation of Americans who, to an alarming
degree, are historically illiterate.
Illiterate: Unable to read or
write.
The situation is serious and sad. And it is quite real, let there be no mistake. It has been coming on for a long time, like a
creeping disease, eating away at the national memory. While the clamorous popular culture races on, the American past
is slipping away, out of site and out of mind. We are losing our story, forgetting
who we are and what it's taken to come this far.
Warning signals, in special studies and reports, have been sounded for years,
and most emphatically by the Bradley Report of 1988. Now, we have the blunt
conclusions of a new survey by the Education Department: The decided
majority, some 60 percent, of the nation's high school seniors haven't even the
most basic understanding of American history. The statistical breakdowns on
specific examples are appalling.
Clamorous: Loud or
confusing noise.
Emphatically: Clear, forceful,
insistent
But I speak also from experience. On a winter morning on the campus of one of our finest colleges, in a lively Ivy League
setting with the snow falling outside the window, I sat with a seminar of some twenty-five students, all seniors majoring
in history, all honors students - the cream of the crop. "How many of you know who George Marshall was?" I asked.
None. Not one.
At a large university in the Midwest, a young woman told me how glad she was to have attended my lecture, because
until then, she explained, she had never realized that the original thirteen colonies were all on the eastern seaboard.
Who's to blame? We are. All Americans. Everywhere.
And something must be done.
Are we ready to accept the reality that in a government of the people, it is not some longed-for leader who will save the
day? If we're looking for leadership, the place to look is in the mirror.
Too many teachers have little if any real understanding of how to make history interesting, let alone that vitality and
passion for the subject that makes a great teacher so effective. If you think back to your own time in school, the courses
you liked best and did best in were almost certainly the courses taught by the teachers you liked best. And the teachers
you liked best were almost certainly those who were excited about the material and conveyed that excitement to you.
We have to start training teachers to teach history as a story. We have to begin early with children. The earlier the
better. We have to get back to basics of what history is: the story of us. And let's not be quite so bedazzled by the
information revolution, by all the glittering promise of information highways and the internet. Information isn't
learning. Information isn't education. Information is worthless without passion and a deep understanding of that
information. We have to have better teachers. We have to have better books. And we have to have parents, students,
and a community that truly understand the importance of history. Otherwise, a true change will never occur.
So why bother? "That's history," is the expression now. That's done with, junk for the trash heap. Why history?
History shows us how to behave. History teaches, reinforces what we believe in, what we stand for, and what we ought
to be willing to stand up for. History is - or should be - the bedrock of patriotism, not the chest -pounding kind of
patriotism but the real thing: love of country.
At their core, the lessons of history are largely lessons in appreciation. Everything we have, all our great institutions,
hospitals, universities, libraries, this city, our laws, our music, art, poetry, our freedoms, everything is because somebody
went before us and did the hard work, provided the creative energy, provided the money, provided the belief. Should
we ignore all of that?
Indifference to history isn't just ignorant, it's rude. It's a form of
ingratitude.
I'm convinced that history encourages, as nothing else does, a sense of
proportion about life, gives us a sense of the relative scale of our own
brief time on earth and how valuable that is.
Indifference: Lack of caring or
interest.
Ingratitude: The state of being
ungrateful or lacking thankfulness
What history teaches is it teaches mainly by example. It inspires courage and tolerance. It encourages a sense of humor.
It is an aid to navigation in perilous times. We are living now in an era of momentous change, of huge transitions in all
aspects of life - here, nationwide, worldwide - and this creates great pressures and tensions. But history shows that
times of change are the times when we are most likely to learn. This nation was founded on change. We should embrace
the possibilities in these exciting times and hold to a steady course,
Momentous: Of great or farbecause we have a sense of navigation, a sense of what we've been
reaching
importance or consequence.
through in times past and who we are. And all of that stems from our
history.
Think how tough our ancestors were. Think what they had been through. There's no one in this room who hasn't an
ancestor who went through some form of hell. Churchill in his great speech in the darkest hours of the Second World
War, when he crossed the Atlantic, reminded us, "We haven't journeyed this far because we are made of sugar candy."
Now history isn't just good for you in a civic way. It isn't just something you take to be a better citizen. It does do that,
and that in itself would be reason enough to stress its importance. "Any nation that expects to be ignorant and free,"
Thomas Jefferson once said, "expects what never was and never will be." And if the gap between the educated and the
uneducated in America continues to grow as it is in our time, as fast as or faster than the gap between the rich and the
poor, the gap between the educated and the uneducated is going to be of greater consequence and the more serious
threat to our way of life. We must not, by any means, misunderstand that.
But, I think, what it really comes down to is that history is an extension of life. It both enlarges and intensifies the
experience of being alive. It's like poetry and art. Or music. And it's ours, to enjoy. If we, as teachers, parents, or
community members choose to deny our children that enjoyment, that adventure in the larger time among the greater
part of the human experience, we're cheating them out of a full life.
There's no secret to making history come alive. Barbara Tuchman said it perfectly: "Tell stories." The pull, the appeal is
irresistible, because history is about two of the greatest of all mysteries - time and human nature.
Name: ________________________________________________________
Instructions: Respond to each question using complete thoughts and complete sentences.
Period: ____________
1. McCullough claims “we, in our time, are raising a new generation of Americans who, to an alarming degree, are
historically illiterate.” What do you think he is trying to state through this quote?
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2. McCullough goes on to argue that “history is an extension of life” which clearly disagrees with the common belief
that history is the study of dead people who lived a long time ago. What do you think McCullough is trying to say about
why we should care about history?
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3. Write a short paragraph in response to the following questions: Is history important? Why? Is history interesting?
What could historians or teachers do to make it more interesting? How does history affect your life today? These are
open-ended questions with no correct or incorrect response.
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