History repeats itself the moment numbers of new-born overwhelm those of old-born.
Over the millennia, laborious efforts have been made by the old to transfer what they have learned by experience to the newborn. First tales and legends, then writing and printing pushed what had been learned through intimacy with events forward into the wall of inexperience and innocence.
In the ancient world what knowledge could squeeze forward was reserved for boys from wealthy families (think Plato, Aristotle and Socrates). But in our modern era of people’s government, knowledge amongst the self-governing masses became compulsory.
Public education, first given legs by Thomas Mann in the early 1800s, took off in every state eventually requiring subjects like science, history and the classics.
Once, long ago, so important became the need of an educated self-governing people’s awareness of the past, that attendance in public education became a requirement. Heavy fines, confiscation of welfare benefits, even removal of a child from parents became standard penalties for truancy in virgining democracies.
Today the decline in math and reading skills over the past decade has been well documented. Less understood is the effect of the over half century decline and now total loss in public civics education. What was once seen as the purpose of public education, building responsible citizens, is no longer a part of public education.
What that means is that our newborns have been rendered impudent, unfamiliar with such basics as our American Revolution or the Civil War. The fundamental operations of our government like the separation of powers, the Bill of Rights, World War II and the reasons our elders built them and fought for them now live only in the twilight that remains from those aging and once exposed to history.
What is now known by tens of millions of new Americans is only what they have experienced, what is their normal and today’s normal has no relationship to the lessons from our past.
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