University of Mary Washington - Index

University of Mary Washington - summer08 - Index

Closing Column
88
FOUNDERS DAY
REFLECTIONS
To Pulitzer Prize-winning American
historian David Gaub McCullough, the
past is paramount. How fitting, then,
for this bestselling author to help celebrate the
University of Mary Washington’s rich 100-year
history. McCullough, who has penned such
acclaimed novels as 1776 and John Adams,
delivered a moving and provocative keynote address at
the Centennial Founders Day Convocation on March
14, 2008. Here are excerpts:
To be here on Marye’s Hill in Virginia on a beautiful
day such as this to commemorate such good work over 100
years is an honor I will never forget, a pleasure beyond my
expression, and my gratitude could not be greater.
Teachers, listen to this: “History cultivates every faculty
of the mind, enlarges sympathies, liberalizes thought and
feeling, furnishes and improves the highest standards of
character.” That was written by a high school teacher in a
little town in the Midwest. Her name was Margaret Phelps,
and she was Harry Truman’s favorite teacher. And Harry
Truman did his best in history because she was his favorite
teacher, which is part of my theme, if you will, today.
We’re raising generations of young Americans who are,
by and large, historically illiterate. I have had students in
some of the best colleges in the country tell me they had no
idea that the original 13 colonies were on the East Coast. A
study showed the average college senior today knows about
the same amount of history that a sophomore in high school
knew 25 years ago.
The teacher who doesn’t know history can’t love history,
and we all know from our own experience, that those
teachers who are the most effective are the teachers who
loved what they were teaching: “Come over here and look
in this microscope; you’re going to get a kick out of this.” Or,
“Here’s Edith Wharton’s Ethan Frome. Take this home.
It’s not on the reading list, but I think you’ll like it.” That
kind of teacher truly can change your life.
Show them what you love, that’s the trick, that’s the
essence of it.
We have to show our children and grandchildren that
the story of our country matters. We should take them to
historic sites, and of course, here we are in this fabulous
treasure trove of history in the great Commonwealth of
Virginia, and there’s no excuse.
UNIVERSITY OF MARY WASHINGTON MAGAZINE����������������
Renowned historian and award-winning author David
McCullough stressed the importance of a solid education
during his keynote address at UMW’s Centennial Founders
Day Convocation in March.
Show them what you love. A little imagination, a little
enthusiasm, some love, and it works.
I was giving a talk at a California campus not long ago
and explained that we have no photographs of John Adams
or Abigail. What we do have are their letters, their wonderful
letters. And we have his diaries. But it isn’t sufficient to just
read what they wrote, it’s essential to read what they read.
You then begin to understand not just their vocabulary, but
how they thought.
One of our greatest blessings, the greatest among all that
we have inherited, is the English language and its power to
express things. Keep in mind, too, please, that information, as
much as we love to brag about it, isn’t learning. If information
were learning, you could become educated by memorizing
the world almanac. If you memorized the world almanac,
you wouldn’t be educated, you’d be weird.
So, we must not let anybody cut the budgets in our
public schools for art, music, and the theater. Take a look
sometime at what we spend in this country a year on potato
chips or lawn care or cosmetic surgery. Of course we can
afford it.
I’ve been asked often if I had a choice of attending any
of the many scenes that I have written about, what would
it be. It was the day in 1825 when the old John Adams
received as a visitor young Ralph Waldo Emerson. There
we had two of the most remarkable figures in American
history, and at one point, John Adams said, “I would to
God that there were more ambition in the country,” and
then he paused and he said, “By that I mean ambition of
the laudable kind—to excel.”
Let’s do everything we can to return to that objective,
that mission—to teach them to have ambition to excel.
On you go. d
Reza A. Marvashti