KINDER'S COMMENTARY: SCHOOLS SHOULD TEACH THAT AMERICA IS AN EMPIRE OF THE MIND

Three years ago this summer, it was my great honor to address the state convention of the American Legion. In the course of those remarks I told the following true story to my disbelieving audience:

An acquaintance of mine, a newspaper publisher of Democratic persuasion in a distant part of Missouri, found himself selected for his congressman's screening panel to review candidates for admission to our military academies. This publisher sought to compose questions that would show which of the candidates knew something of Missouri and American history, especially military history. He decided to ask the aspiring leaders of America's military forces whether they could name a famous general native to or connected with Missouri.

None could offer a name. None could name our two generals of the Army, neither John "Black Jack" Pershing, nor Omar Bradley, nor any other famous commander.

Dismayed, my publisher friend soldiered on. He decided to ask all the candidates to name the sides of the combatant forces in World War II. Did America fight on the side of the Allies or the Axis powers? Which countries were our allies, and which our enemies?

This too stumped the candidates. (At this point my audience of veterans, containing many World War II vets, emitted a collective, disbelieving gasp, which strikes me, then as now, as about right.)

Not one could name with any confidence the fact that we fought alongside the French and the British, together with Soviet Russia, against the Axis powers of Germany, Japan and Italy during that time of maximum peril for freedom. One among more than a dozen candidates knew that we had fought the Japanese empire, after being attacked, but also thought we had fought alongside the Germans! (Keep in mind that for any candidate to have reached this point in the competitive selection process, he or she must have grades near the top of the class as well as some combination of sports and other extracurriculars.)

About this depressing tale, several observations. First, it is evidence not only of the dumbing down of our schools and culture, but of the largely untold story of how much even many at the top levels, among our best students, are being dumbed down. This writer has taken considerable guff for decrying our public schools' being hijacked by an arrogant elite who disdain this kind of traditional learning, the lack of which now stares us full in the face. What are we to say of a public school system that doesn't impart such basic knowledge, even to the best students, while it hands out condoms, preaches ludicrous psycho-babble and hops down any multicultural bunny trail, no matter how ridiculous?

Second, and even more important, I reminded my audience that America, and what it means to be an American, is far less an empire of territory than it is an empire of the mind. What can we say of parents who shower their children with material benefits, who will turn them loose at the mall hour after hour, making so few demands that they remain ignorant of what it means to be an American?

Freedom. Independence. Security. All won at a terrible price, during dark days and nights when the issue was very much in doubt, a price that has had to be paid again and again. Fail to learn and again to appreciate these basics of American history, and you have consigned yourself to an impoverished life, an ignorant life, a sad life.

The signers of the Declaration 223 years ago today -- whose story appears in brief on the page opposite this -- deserve so much better.

~Peter Kinder is assistant to the president of Rust Communications and a state senator from Cape Girardeau.