Are we on path to ultimately lose the American experiment?

George Orwell wrote in his classic novel, 1984: “Who controls the past, controls the future: who controls the present controls the past.”

So, there’s a battle over history. That battle continues in our day.

A June 2024 survey of 3,000 college students dealt with basic knowledge of American history and government. Unfortunately, they found a lot of ignorance among university students.

The group responsible for the survey is ACTA the American Council of Trustees and Alumni.

ACTA reports on the results of their recent survey: “We found that significant numbers of college students graduate without even a rudimentary grasp of America’s history and political system.”

For example, some of the findings were:

• “Almost one-third of students think senators serve a four-year term.”

• “One-third of students are not sure who the chief justice of the Supreme Court is.”
• “Almost half of students incorrectly identify Thomas Jefferson as the Father of the Constitution.” Drilling down, they found, “Less than one-third (31%) of students correctly identify James Madison as the Father of the Constitution.”
• “Less than one-third of students know that the legislative branch has the power to declare war.” In fact, “Almost half (48%) of students believe the executive branch has the power to declare war.”
• “Almost three-quarters of students believe threats of violence should be censored by the government.”

And on it goes.

The results of this and similar surveys remind me of the old song that notes: “Don’t know much about history.”

The pollsters also found a big divide, along ideological and sexual lines, between those willing to defend the country versus those who would leave America if attacked. They write: “More than half of students would flee the country if the United States were invaded.

• “Males (60%) are significantly more likely than females (34%) to say they will stay and fight if the United States were invaded.
• “Strong Republicans (72%) are significantly more likely than strong Democrats (29%) to say they will stay and fight if the United States were invaded.”

I’m not a fan of our 28th president, Woodrow Wilson, because he set in motion many of the progressive policies that have helped bring us to this place of ignorance of American history and basic civics. Nonetheless, even a broken clock is correct twice a day.

Here is what Wilson said in a rally speech in 1911, before his election, about the importance of history: “A nation which does not remember what it was yesterday, does not know what it is today, nor what it is trying to do. We are trying to do a futile thing if we do not know where we came from or what we have been about.” He went on to speak of our spiritual heritage.

In my opinion, political correctness lies at the root of the problem. Too often schools are more concerned about children’s self-esteem than they are about how much they learn.

They are taught, by and large, a multicultural approach to the world, in which all cultures are considered equally valid and virtuous. The idea, for example, of America being exceptional is so anathema that it would be unthinkable to teach today.

At one time, America was very well educated — primarily so that people could read the Bible for themselves. In New England, after generations of Puritan influence, John Adams remarked that finding an illiterate man in New England was as rare as a comet.

In our recent Providence Forum documentary, “The Beginning of Wisdom,” on how the Bible shaped American education, we open the program with this remark and quote: “At one time, America was among the best educated nations in the world. James Madison of Virginia, a key architect of the Constitution, said, ‘A well-instructed people alone can be permanently a free people.’” 

We close this program with the observation of founding father Thomas Jefferson, “If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be. Where the press is free and every man able to read, all is safe.”

Also, on the ACTA website is an article called, “Ten Things Everyone Should Know About American History.” This is by Princeton professor and author Allen Guelzo.

Dr. Guelzo notes that Abraham Lincoln was concerned, even as a young man, about “the loss of memory — not his own, but the nation’s memory of its Revolutionary founders.” The future 16th president’s concern was that maybe another “Alexander [the Great], a Caesar, or a Napoleon” would someday arise and seize power because we had forgotten the past.

Guelzo adds, “Lincoln was right to be worried in 1838: To lose our history is to lose ourselves.”

If we continue much further down the path of ignorance of American history and civics, we could ultimately lose the American experiment of self-rule under God.