[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 22 (Thursday, March 3, 1994)]
[Senate]
[Page S]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: March 3, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
                     THE STATE OF HISTORY EDUCATION

  Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, the Woodrow Wilson International Center for 
Scholars, which operates out of the Smithsonian Institution, recently 
reported a revival of the study of classical history and philosophy in 
the Soviet Union. Private educational institutions are being 
established there to study the humanities--although Soviet authorities 
have not yet permitted these schools to award degrees. The Wilson 
Center suggests that ``the popularity of such `non-utilitarian matters' 
as Greek and Roman classical works represents a clear breakdown of the 
ideological control Soviet authorities once exercised over education.'' 
This is welcome news, and yet how ironic it is that the study of 
Western civilization seems to be bursting forth in the Soviet Union at 
the very time it has been declining in the United States.
  The distinguished former Chairman of the National Endowment for the 
Humanities, Mrs. Lynne V. Cheney, had written about how tragic it is 
that Americans as a society no longer emphasize the study of history 
and literature in our schools. She pointed out that the study of 
history--which was part of every year's curriculum when my generation 
attended high school--has generally now been reduced to a single year. 
And even within that single year, many State education systems have de-
emphasized the chronological study of history in order to focus on more 
topical, social studies issues.
  A provocative book, ``What Do Our 17-Year-Olds Know?'' by Diane 
Ravitch and Chester Finn, Jr., argues that in our national concern over 
science and mathematics education, following the sputnik scare of the 
1950's, we turned our attention away from the humanities to the 
sciences and reduced history to just one of the ``social studies.'' 
They lament that as a nation we have lost any consensus about what 
authors should be read, what subjects should be studied. Standardized 
testing subsequently concentrated on verbal skills over literary 
knowledge and appreciation, and on mathematical equations rather than a 
sense of history. As a result, we have produced a generation of young 
citizens who have graduated from high school without having read 
Charles Dickens or Mark Twain, and who have not the slightest clue who 
Herodotus or Thucydides were. Many young people cannot tell when World 
War II was fought, cannot identify the Magna Carta; and cannot explain 
why President Washington was also called ``General Washington.'' And 
the only information they have about Abraham Lincoln is that--as I 
heard one young lady say--``he was shot.'' We may well have produced a 
generation of voters who cannot understand what they read in the 
newspapers or hear on the media because they lack any historical 
reference points.
  One newspaper columnist has written ``In Praise of the Non-Voter.'' 
Rather than being depressed that only half the eligible voters showed 
up to cast ballots on election day, columnist Doug Bandow took 
satisfaction on the grounds that people who do not know enough about 
the issues should not be encouraged to vote. ``High school graduates 
these days have no idea where most foreign countries are.'' He noted, 
``they have no sense of history and don't understand economics.'' I can 
agree with his assessment of the current state of history education, 
but I cannot subscribe to a cure that discourages voters. I would 
rather ensure that all citizens are educated sufficiently to carry out 
their responsibilities and preserve our democratic form of government. 
Every citizen must have some sense of history in order to make choices 
about today's social, economic, and political issues.
  Along these same lines, University of Virginia Professor E.D. Hirsch, 
Jr., has called for improvement of America's ``cultural literacy.'' 
Professor Hirsch writes: ``To be culturally literate is to possess the 
basic information needed to thrive in the modern world.'' He argues 
that the cultural ``illiteracy'' of so many citizens is a result of the 
failure of our schools, which offer ``a fragmented curriculum based on 
faulty educational theories.'' Professor Hirsch not only believes that 
there is a national culture, but that it can and must be studied and 
mastered. ``To teach the ways of one's own community has always been 
and still remains the essence of the education of our children,'' he 
writes. He objects to ``cafeteria-style education'' and ``the shopping 
real high school,'' in which students randomly and arbitrarily choose 
what they will study amid myriad classes, many drawn not with the core 
curriculum but from passing fads and fancies. He believes that teaching 
children the ``national mainstream culture'' will help them to 
understand those values, but not force them to accept those values 
uncritically. Cultural literacy will place ``a higher value on national 
rather than on local information,'' and give students a greater breadth 
of view.

  Professor Hirsch then offers a 63-page list of names, dates, places, 
events, and concepts that literate Americans ought to know. This list 
is probably what made his book a best seller, as readers who studied 
the list could then pride themselves on their literacy. Others have 
objected to such reductionist approaches to knowledge and literacy. 
Professor Fred Newmann, director of the National Center on Effective 
Secondary Schools, spoke for those who felt we should ``go for depth'' 
of learning rather than limit ourselves to Professor Hirsch's lists of 
specific background information. In response, Professor Hirsch admitted 
that he did not ``love a list,'' but was impelled to create one by the 
logical and practical constraints of trying to identify the core 
knowledge that all educated citizens should possess. His list, he 
hoped, would open debate about what that core knowledge should be.
  Open--or at least contribute mightily to a debate he surely did. In 
the last few years both popular and scholarly journals have produced a 
literary avalanche of articles on what has gone wrong with our study of 
the humanities. The Bradley Commission on History in the Schools, 
designed to help States perform their history education, has proclaimed 
that the study of history fosters better ``habits of the mind,'' among 
them ``critical thinking, acceptance of uncertainty, [and] appreciation 
of causation.'' Professor Paul Gagnon, staff director of the Bradley 
Commission, testified that such books as ``What Do Our 17-Year-Olds 
Know?'' and ``Cultural Literacy'' have stimulated a much-needed review 
of history education, and also considerable opposition from those who 
fear that they will bring about a return to rote learning of facts and 
jettison ``relevance'' from the curriculum.
  Professor Gagnon added his own prescriptions in an important cover-
story in the Atlantic Monthly, ``Why Study History?'' ``When Students, 
and School Boards Ask, `Why History? What Are We Supposed To Be Getting 
Out of This?''' He wrote, ``the best answer is still that one word: 
Judgment.'' Citizens need to possess a judgment guided and enlightened 
by history. Judgment requires more than simply a civics lesson on the 
tools of government, it requires wisdom, a sense of tragedy, comedy, 
irony, and paradox--and history, biography, and literature, ``if they 
are well taught, cannot help but convey them.'' Gagnon tells us that 
history helps students develop a sense of ``shared humanity.'' History 
helps students to understand themselves and others, by showing their 
resemblances to people of different times and places. History helps 
students to question stereotypes. History helps students to distrust 
simple answers and to confront complexity in human action and 
motivation. History even helps students to recognize the abuse of 
historical ``lessons'' and other forms of misinterpretation and 
distortion of the past.
  History is at its best when it pursues broad themes, but Professor 
Gagnon particularly faults American history textbooks for a lack of 
imagination in presenting these themes and the broad sweep of history. 
In recent years textbooks seem to be stripped of style, and devoid of 
any point of view. Trying to appeal to everyone and to offend no one, 
they may well have appealed to no one and offended everyone by their 
blandness. What a shame that is, because I still remember the vivid 
prose and sweep of the textbook that I read in high school, as a matter 
of fact, in Elkton in the elementary school, by David S. Muzzey, 
``History of the American People.'' Since Muzzey, history textbooks 
have apparently lost their world view and make few comparisons with 
events happening outside of North America. In their rush to include the 
lives of ``ordinary people,'' they have diminished the stature of the 
leaders and heroes who once made history thrilling and inspired young 
leaders. Trying to become more democratic, they have lost much of their 
power to serve as educators of democracy.
  These themes are repeated in various forms in such studies as Harriet 
Tyson-Bernstein's ``A Conspiracy of Good Intentions: America's Textbook 
Fiasco,'' Gilbert T. Sewall's ``American History Textbooks: An 
Assessment of Quality,'' and the People for the American Way's 
``Looking at History: A Review of Major U.S. History Textbooks,'' as 
well as Professor Gagnon's pamphlet, ``Democracy's Half-Told Story: 
What American History Textbooks Should Add.''
  Now, it is worthwhile to mention that while these studies are 
uniformly critical of American history textbooks, especially on the 
high school level, they each have favorite books that they cite as 
better than the rest, and they do not at all agree on which books are 
the best. In other words, the situation is bad but not hopeless, and 
there are some good products available on the market.
  Pick up any high school textbook today and you will notice 
immediately that it looks different from the books we read. Those of us 
who have lived a long time and others who have not lived so long will 
notice immediately that the history textbook of today looks different 
from the book that you read. For one, there are color illustrations on 
practically every page. In Muzzey there were none. There is nothing 
wrong with color pictures, particularly if they catch a student's 
attention and imagination. I am very pleased with the handsome 
appearance of the color pictures in my own recently published ``History 
of the United States Senate.'' But I must admit a preference for 
colorful writing over colorful pictures. The real test of a textbook is 
in the words, the story, and the flow of the narrative. Thankfully, 
some books still tell a good story, but others read as if they were 
written by a committee--and most likely they probably were!
  How did textbooks get this way? Part of the problem lies in the 
fragmented nature of our National Education System.
  The United States has developed 50 approaches to education, and an 
even greater number when one considers the individual towns and 
counties and local school districts that direct education in their 
schools. When it comes to adopting textbooks, about half the States 
have some form of State-wide adoption. Under these systems, the 
individual State reviews the various textbooks that publishers offer 
and selects a limited number from which the various schools in that 
State can choose. If a book is not adopted, it cannot be purchased by 
the public schools in that State. Naturally, larger States like 
California and Texas, with their larger sales potentials, will 
influence the market far more than smaller States. Some large States, 
like New York, have a system of local option, leaving decisions to 
local school boards. Regardless of the merits of these State and local 
approaches, they have tended to fragment educational policies and leave 
textbook publishers in something of a quandary over how they can 
possibly appeal to so many different demands.

  For many years, for instance, some southern States would not purchase 
books that employed the term ``Civil War,'' preferring, instead the 
euphemistic ``War Between the States.'' Textbook publishers complied by 
producing two different versions of their books with the appropriate 
nomenclature for each region. But issues of interpretation are much 
harder to resolve. How should these textbooks deal with the issue of 
slavery and reconstruction, when the north and south still, a century 
and a quarter after the Civil War, hold different interpretations? 
Other States have mandated that textbooks adopt a multicultural 
approach to history, or emphasize the development of the free-
enterprise system, or include references to a particular hero of that 
State. Moreover, the increased academic interest in social history has 
reduced the space available in textbooks for more traditional political 
and diplomatic history. More history is also devoted to women, African-
Americans, Hispanic-Americans, Asian- -Americans, and Indian-Americans, 
each of whom has sought strong voices of advocacy in the textbook-
adoption process. Taken on their own, these may all be valid requests, 
but put together, they certainly make it difficult for publishers to 
satisfy everyone and still retain their individual character and style. 
I wonder how Muzzey would have fared against such odds.
  Mr. President, my ancestors came from England and so I suppose I 
would call myself an Anglo-American. But I think there are too many 
hyphenated Americans. Afro-Americans to me are Americans, and so are 
all of the other hyphenated Americans, if they are born in this 
country. I can be just as proud of my Anglo-American heritage as anyone 
else can be of theirs. But I am not a hyphenated American. I am not an 
Anglo-American. I am an American.
  So that is the way I look at it.
  Now, what is the answer? As a nation, Americans recognize that we 
have drawn our heritage from the contributions of men and women from 
all continents. Over the past decades, the lives and writings of 
individuals from all of these hyphenated-groups have been incorporated 
into our traditional fields of study--and rightly so. But, I would 
agree with Ravitch and Finn that:

       It is possible to define American history, with all its 
     complexity, controversy, and variety, as the story of a 
     people forged from many different pasts but joined together 
     under a common political system. There is, in short, an 
     American people--we ought to be proud of that--not just a 
     mosaic of unrelated groups, each with its own story, 
     disconnected from the whole.

  Mr. President, from what I have been saying, I think it is obvious 
that I find history worth studying. History is exciting. It is flesh 
and blood. It is drama. It is enormously instructive. I can also attest 
that history is exacting. It requires research. It requires accuracy 
and precision. It requires analysis. It requires understanding and even 
empathy for those who went before us, and whose lives and deeds have so 
much to teach us.
  A taste for history can become unquenchable. My own studies began 
with the institution of the Senate, and then led me back to our pre-
history in the British Parliament.
  Of course, as I already indicated, they began with Muzzey, but more 
recently my studies began with the institution of the Senate and then 
led me back to our present-history in the British Parliament. From 
there I found myself reading about the Roman Senate and further back to 
the Greek democratic city-states. As a result, I have come to believe 
that Americans need more than a knowledge of their own history. Mainly, 
we should know American history. One needs a knowledge and appreciation 
of world history. Therefore, with regard to the debate over ``Euro-
centric'' history and ``Afro-centric'' history, I would endorse 
``global-centric'' history. We need to broaden our focus, not shut our 
eyes to the achievements and lessons from all parts of the world.
  I find it strange, for instance, to identify ancient Greece as part 
of a ``Euro-centric'' curriculum, when the ancient Greeks had far more 
contact with the Middle East and Africa than with Europe. Moreover, 
many of the writings and lessons of the Greeks were preserved not by 
Europeans but by Arab scholars, from whom the Europeans eventually 
received back that lost heritage.

  Why should American students study the Ancient Greeks? It was from 
the Greeks that we inherited our concept of democracy, and from whom we 
learned the wisdom of dividing government into different branches. In 
the Fourth Century B.C., Aristotle divided government into ``three 
elements.'' The first was ``the deliberative element,'' or the 
legislative branch, along with an executive branch and a judicial 
branch. Aristotle found it in the interest of a democracy that ``the 
parts of the state should be represented in the deliberative body by an 
equal number of members,'' the formula that the Constitutional 
Convention adopted for the U.S. Senate. He recommended that the 
legislature be sovereign in such matters as war and peace and the 
making and breaking of alliances, in the enactment of all laws, and in 
the appointment of all magistrates.
  Polybius, who lived from 205 B.C. to 125 B.C., spoke about a 
government with separation of powers.
  He talked about the the Romans, and their checks and balances.
  Our Founding Fathers had the benefit of a classical education, and 
were well aware of such theories at the time they drafted our 
Constitution. To understand our Government today we, therefore, need to 
understand Aristotle, Lycurgus, Polybius, the Greeks, and the Romans.
  The very concept of a historian comes from the Greek historein, 
meaning ``to inquire,'' and a sustained inquiry was a historia. 
Herodotus was the first historian. He lived from circa 480 to circa 
420, B.C.
  Thucydides lived from circa 460 to circa 400, B.C. Herodotus lived 
during, the Fifth Century B.C., and his account of the Greek war with 
the Persians is considered the first work of Greek history.
  Herodotus tells us about the Persian Kings, about how Darius, of 
Hystaspes, was made king by the neigh of a horse. Thucydides followed 
shortly after Herodotus and appears to have been much influenced by 
him. Indeed, his story began where Herodotus's ended; and Xenophon's 
story picked up where Thucydides left off.
  Xenophon wrote about the Anabasis, the going in to Persia by Cyrus 
the Younger, the brother of Artaxerxes II, and about the death of Cyrus 
at the battle of Cunaxa.
  Thucydides tells us that his history is not easy to read ``because of 
the absence in it of a romantic element.'' He was not writing in the 
style of Homer, with heroes and gods and monsters and daringly 
impossible feats. Instead, he wanted to write factual story of real 
people and nations engaged in a long war. He did not believe in 
knowledge for its own sake, but something that could be used. Thus, he 
wrote:

       It will be enough for me, however, if these words of mine 
     are judged useful by those who want to understand clearly the 
     events which happened in the past and which (human nature 
     being what it is) will, at some time or other and in much the 
     same ways, be repeated in the future. My work is not a piece 
     of writing designed to meet the needs of an immediate public, 
     but was done to last forever.

  Thucydides distinguished his own form of factual history from the 
``prose chroniclers'' of his time, who he informs us, ``are less 
interested in telling the truth than in catching the attention of their 
public,'' and ``whose authorities cannot be checked.'' He might very 
well be describing the many ``prose chroniclers'' of our own day, who 
pass off rumors and gossip and unattributed ``deep-background'' quotes 
as gospel truth and offer no possibility of verification.
  His history of the Peloponnesian War is the story of alliances, of 
mistrust, of military action, victory, retreat, and defeat, of 
fortifications and land and naval battles, of diplomacy oratory, and 
politics, of how small allies can trigger warfare between large powers, 
of how people can miscalculate their strength, miscalculate their 
enemies. He wrote of the love of power, of individual and communal 
greed and treachery, of violent fanaticism, even of politicians who 
tried to deny bad news by attacking the medium that brought the news. 
In short, although writing about the distant past, he was cataloging 
and analyzing human nature, which is timeless and universal.
  Napoleon said, ``Let my son often read and reflect on history; this 
is the only true philosophy.''
  Thucydides tells us that ``war is a stern teacher.'' Centuries before 
George Orwell, Thucydides understood the politics of words:

       To fit in with the change of events, words, too, had to 
     change their usual meanings. What used to be described as a 
     thoughtful act of aggression was now regarded as the courage 
     one would expect to find in a party member; to think of the 
     future and wait was merely another way of saying one was a 
     coward; any ideas of moderation were just an attempt to 
     disguise one's unmanly character; ability to understand a 
     question from all sides meant that one was totally unfitted 
     for action. Fanatic enthusiasm was the mark of a real man.

  How modern that sounds!
  Mr. President, our students should be reading Herodotus and 
Thucydides and Polybius and Livius and Gaius Sallustius, Crispus, and 
Tacitus, and Zosimus, and Suetonius, and Gibbon, and others.
  They should be studying particularly America's history and 
literature, and English literature and English history--the history of 
the British, the history of the people of the British Isles, which are 
today known to us as Scotland, Ireland, Wales, and England. And what 
history is more fascinating than the history of the Romans?
  They should have enough time in their curricula to study all of those 
fields comprehensively and in depth.
  Prof. Peter Stearns of Carnegie-Mellon University has urged that 
American history be taught as part of the ``much broader historical 
panorama'' of the world. More comparative history, more interaction 
between world and American history, more global perspectives, he 
reasons ``will help students intelligently assess any claim to American 
uniqueness or to understand why foreign views of the United States--and 
its history--may well differ from their own.''
  I, for one, welcome the debate over our history education, and trust 
that its effects will be felt in classrooms all over this Nation. We 
must do all that we can to stimulate and support our educational system 
if we hope to produce new generations who are capable of carrying out 
their responsibilities as citizens with an appropriate sense of 
history.
  I close with Cicero's words:

       One should be acquainted with the history of past events. 
     To be ignorant of what occurred before you were born is to 
     remain always a child.

  (Mrs. BOXER assumed the chair.)

                          ____________________