A dispassionate observer assessing the current state of America would be obliged to conclude that George Santayana, the Spanish-born philosopher and man of letters, was dead on the money when he said: ‘Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.’
Evidence that we have forgotten the past is legion in almost every sphere of American life. Enterprises, endeavours, and activities in which we were once the envy of the world—education, health care, culture, jurisprudence, commerce, the military, foreign affairs, and our bodies politic (federal, state, and local)—are in varying states of disarray and dysfunction.
We are so enmeshed in bureaucratic red tape that the great civil engineering projects of our past—the railroads, the interstate highway system, the electric power grid, for example—could never be undertaken today. They would be overwhelmed in the planning stage by a morass of government regulation.
Small business formation, the nation’s economic backbone, is at a nadir. Our great corporations reply on creative accounting and their legal departments to defend them against a rapacious government, predatory competitors, and dishonest customers. Health care institutions are obliged to conduct batteries of superfluous tests to defend themselves and their staff against frequently frivolous malpractice suits.
Our military contorts itself to accommodate the fads and fancies of the politically correct in ways that by any sensible standard would be recognised as adversely affecting readiness and fighting efficiency
Our justice system is sclerotic. The civil courts are clogged with tort actions and class actions that are more often than not fatuous, if not downright deceitful. The criminal courts are similarly overwhelmed. Our jails are bulging with non-violent offenders, while too many violent offenders go virtually unpunished.
This worrisome situation pertains despite the fact that more than two thirds of all the lawyers in the world live and practice in the United States … or maybe because of it.
But nowhere are the baleful consequences of Santayana’s maxim more evident than in the realm of education. Large numbers of young people mainly, but by no means exclusively, from our inner cities and impoverished rural communities, leave school functionally illiterate in both in reading and math.
Even in our wealthier neighbourhoods, youngsters are woefully deficient in the knowledge of history, geography, ‘the classics’, American culture, and what used to be called ‘civics’.
In short, upon graduating high school at an age when most of them are able to vote, they are utterly ill–equipped to make informed judgments about the candidates and parties seeking their votes.
Yet 70 years ago the vast majority children left school able to read, write, and figure—even those who dropped out in the 7th and 8th grades, because they needed to work to help support their families. What’s more, most of them had a good working knowledge of the world’s continents and could name the capitals of the most important countries.
American history was a vital part of the curriculum, so the vast majority of children were familiar with the events surrounding the founding of the republic and the principles that animated the men who framed the Constitution and Bill of Rights.
And all this was achieved by a cadre of people, the vast majority of whom did not possess a university degree. Back then most had earned diplomas from teachers’ colleges, while many simply had nothing more than a high school education.
What’s more, they all proudly called themselves ‘teachers’ and they would have awarded D-minuses for pomposity to any pupil who had the temerity to style them ‘educators’.
Relatively few youngsters in those days went to college. University was the province of the wealthy or the academically inclined. Standards were rigourous. A bachelor’s degree was worth at least that of a modern master’s, and certainly the equal of many of the doctorates awarded today.
Young people aspiring to enter a profession—the law, engineering, architecture, accountancy, and the like—learned the business from working as ‘articled clerks’ for people already well established in their chosen field.
The time spent ‘in articles’ could last anything from five to seven years, with examinations being administered periodically to assess progress. Sometimes they were paid a modest salary; sometimes they actually paid a fee—usually relatively small—to the firm for the privilege of being taught the business.
Their lack of a college education in no way inhibited their success. Thomas Edison, the prolific inventor, never darkened the door of a college. Abraham Lincoln took articles to become a highly successful lawyer. The same is true for many of our legal luminaries, including Senator Sam Ervin, who shrewdly chaired the Senate Watergate Committee.
Young folk who wanted to learn a trade—carpentry, bricklaying, black-smithing, motor mechanics, mining, watchmaking, dress-making and, odd though it might seem, scientific research—took up apprenticeships for five years or more and learned their trades from master craftsmen.
Occupations that are styled as ‘professions’ these days were merely trades back then. There were, for instance, no such things as journalism schools. Youngsters entering journalists in those days were, formally or informally, regarded as apprentices and learned their trade while practicing under experienced editors.
Peruse the microfilms at the local library and you’ll discover that newspapers and periodicals were much better because of it. In those days they genuinely ‘covered’ the cities, towns, villages, and neighbourhoods in which they circulated.
By contrast with the ponderous, self-indulgent offerings on the newsstands today, the press of 70 years ago was lively, well–written, and interested in all areas of life, not merely the doing of the political, commercial, and social elites.
The ironic thing about all this is that the ‘educators’ and ‘social scientists’ that administer I.Q. tests to our children and young adults claim that the I.Q. of the average citizen has been increasing by a full 3 percent every decade since the early years of the 20th Century.
In view of the entire aforesaid, one wonders how this could conceivably be so. Indeed, one might be led to conclude that the folks administering the tests are either grossly deluded or are blatantly cooking the books. GPH✠
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