Students are graduating in ignorance of our history

The wooden teeth. The cherry tree. The white hair.

Our contemporary–and largely incorrect–picture of George Washington is limited indeed. Americans know he was the first president, but what else?

A study of college graduates found less than half could identify Washington as the American general at the Battle of Yorktown. Worse, the question was multiple choice. And worse still, the other three choices weren’t even from the Revolutionary War period.

Historical and civic amnesia is a growing epidemic among Americans–and too many people are infected.

The cause can be traced to our educational system. Students graduate from high school without a basic knowledge of history, and the trend continues in college. “What Will They Learn?,” a nationwide study of more than 1,000 colleges and universities, found 80 percent of colleges don’t require students to take even a single foundational course in American history.

Too many of today’s graduates are far more likely to be familiar with Gangnam Style than the Salem Witch Trials, with Lady Gaga than Lady Macbeth.

Washington himself once wrote that “the best means of forming a manly, virtuous and happy people, will be found in the right education of youth. Without this foundation, every other means, in my opinion, must fail.”

What we have today is, quite clearly, not the right education of youth. To graduate from college without a basic grasp of our history leaves us poorly prepared to face America’s many challenges, not to mention the fact that it is a tragic slap in the face of the men and women who formed America, and defended her since.

Quite some time after Washington’s war days, 16 million Americans served in World War II. Of them, more than 400,000 didn’t come home. Most of us have relatives who served, and about 1.2 million veterans are still alive today.

Among my family who served was my great-grandfather, who fought in the Battle of the Bulge.

The battle–Hitler’s final lunge for victory–left the German forces heavily depleted and ushered in the end of the war. With 19,000 casualties, the battle was also among the bloodiest in U.S. history.

As Americans, we’re proud of our relatives who sacrificed here and around the world. But the significance of that sacrifice is fading: When given a multiple choice question to identify in which war the Battle of the Bulge occurred, barely two in five college graduates answered World War II.

History–even relatively recent history–is slipping away. It is estimated that World War II veterans are dying at a staggering rate of 600 a day.

Will we remember them?