Most Americans no longer even understand that President’s Day was once just the birthday of our first president and Founding Father, George Washington. Even less understand the significance of his refusal to serve more than two terms, or even that he started that tradition.
Today, we call the holiday President’s Day and often see Washington depicted with our 16th President of the United States, Abraham Lincoln. Unfortunately, much of those depictions are attempting to sell us something from a department store somewhere.
However, we should not ignore that a recent survey of eight-graders found just a fifth understood that Washington was the heart of the holiday, or even that the first 10 amendments to the Constitution are referred to as the Bill of Rights.
President James Madison, known to those who know as the father of our Constitution, once said that “those who mean to Govern themselves must arm themselves with the power which knowledge brings.”
We can begin to honor that tradition and self-evident truth by celebrating President’s Day with a video “Great Moments In Presidential History.” From there, there is so much more to do.
We can begin, policy-wise, by retaking the public school system, who — even if they wanted to teach our children correct history — likely do not even know it themselves. None of our Founding Fathers ever expected the experiment that was America to last without educating the whole of society on Natural Law, or the nature of men and government. The eighteenth century mind was wholly convince that a popularly based government could not exist without 1) education among the masses; and, 2) virtue among the citizenry.
As of now, we have a majority of neither. How long do we expect it to last when this is the case? That is, so long as we have not diluted and fooled ourselves into thinking we are smarter than our Founding Fathers.
