Catholic Exchange

One month ago, Dr. Richard Ferrier, president of the Declaration Foundation, alerted Catholic Exchange readers to a new action along the New Jersey front of the education wars. [See "PC in NJ."] The New Jersey Board of Education had proposed new history guidelines that deleted the names of Washington, Jefferson and Franklin, Americans who devoted their lives to securing the blessings of liberty for us, their posterity. This attack on the collective memory of the citizens of the state of New Jersey extended to other great Americans such as the Pilgrims and Abraham Lincoln.

Thank God defenders of American tradition were not asleep. Alerted by the original story appearing in the Washington Times, State Sen. Gerald Cardinale and Assemblyman Joseph Pennacchio quickly introduced counter legislation that led new State Board Commissioner William L. Librera to amend the standards. Cardinale, a veteran of the wars who has tried for 13 years to have New Jersey children memorize the central paragraph of the Declaration of Independence, knows that his job is not finished. The Washington Times quoted Mr. Cardinale as saying, "If we maintain our vigilance, then I don't think they have the nerve to defy the new revisions....But if we go to sleep, God knows what will happen. It's unconscionable that some politically correct bureaucrats in the state Education Department are trying to hijack the history of the United States of America."

We should indeed thank God for Cardinale and Pennachio. For the stakes in the American History front are far more than just the duty, tremendous though it is, of grateful sons to honor the memories of men without whom we would not enjoy the freedom we have today. They are even more than the preservation of our natural cultural identity through a common love of our ancestors. For, unlike any other nation on earth, America was founded on, continues to live by, and will only last as long as, the dedication of her citizens to certain ideals, to the ideals of the Revolution, to the equality of all men created by the one God. As our Holy Father has said, "The United States possesses a safeguard, a great bulwark...I speak of your founding documents: the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, the Bill of Rights. These documents are grounded in and embody unchanging principles of the natural law whose permanent truth and validity can be known by reason, for it is the law written by God in human hearts." Men like Washington, Jefferson, Franklin, and Lincoln embodied devotion to these ideals; they are our models, our points of light, our heroes, in the struggle and joy of living a life of political freedom.

We should also thank God that Cardinale and Pennachio are not alone. Their compatriots have been at work improving history standards in states like Texas, Florida, Ohio and California. But, of course, this effort is only the beginning. For we stand in this theater like the Allies in 1943 -- the tide is turning, counter assaults are succeeding, but the enemy has long been in control. In its story on the New Jersey victory, Fox News reported that "during the 1960s, history textbooks in Virginia had 10 times more coverage of George Washington than today's texts, according to James Rees, executive director of Mount Vernon." And far too often these texts warp and distort Washington, the whole founding generation, the very founding ideals themselves, and almost every American hero who has given his life to defend them. My own experience with primarily Catholic college students is no doubt shared by many other teachers: today's young Americans are trained to condemn the founding as an economically-driven power grab by an elitist clique of white males.

Our war effort demands new materials, new textbooks. We can order our schools to teach students about the founding, but the current materials are doing more harm than good. Dr. Richard Ferrier and the Declaration Foundation are at the forefront of this part of the war. DF has been involved in the efforts to improve the standards; now it is publishing a high school curriculum to make those standards effective. Co-authored by Dr. Ferrier and myself, America's Declaration Principles in Thought and Action is a semester course on the American founding. The course leads the student through an in-depth study of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, followed by the story of the ultimate triumph of American ideals over the crime of slavery and racial injustice. The course aims, not just to teach history, but to develop in students a true love for and understanding of the lifeblood of our land.