The university twelve miles from my home in South Carolina and about sixty miles from the site of the first secession meeting here in the “Cradle of the Confederacy” is turning out graduates who major in history and cannot name the only president of the CSA! This I know from conversations with some of them. They do not recognize the Battle of Hastings, have never heard of the Magna Charta, cannot name the YEAR the American civil war began and have trouble naming the century, cannot tell you anything worth knowing about WWI, WWII, the Korean war and on and on. They literally would have no hope of passing my eighth grade, public school history final to ENTER public high school in the fifties but they have a bachelor degree in history!
The worst part to me is that most of what they don’t know could be picked up by just paying a little attention and showing some interest to what is shown on television. Apparently they have a degree in history but absolutely no real interest in the subject. One even told me that he studied history because he thought he needed to have a degree of some kind and history was the easiest subject. Judging from his ignorance of history it surely must have been. Twenty years ago I was told that the only reason to have a history degree is if you intended to TEACH history. How can you teach it when you don’t even have what used to be an eighth grade knowledge level of the subject? I suppose the answer is that you teach the politically correct version and ignore reality.
I would be curious as to what they do know. Historical patterns would be fun. Like one major question I have is how every civilization that practiced human sacrifice came to an end. (should that be a question? sleep deprived)
Love the Library of Congress, by the way. If I wasn’t online so much for these rampant current events i would be reading all the works of George Washington, John Adams, etc. Sigh.