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19th Century Miracle, Age of Reason, Billerica, Billerica Blog, Core Curricula, History Courses, Massachusetts History, melting pot, Middle Ages, multiculturalism, Politics, Public Schools
In a recent article written for the Boston Herald dot Com publication, columnist Jennifer C. Baraceras expressed her outrage over the little attention given to “the shot heard ’round the world”, by Concord, MA public schools as an integral part of the history programs at various grade levels. She also bemoans the fact that “enlightened” (code name, liberal) towns throughout the Commonwealth have followed suit in generally ignoring Massachusetts history and social science curricula.
If parents were ever to take the time to investigate what the curricula were for each of their children’s courses, they would see that Massachusetts standards state that all students should be able to: “explain the political, economic, and military developments leading to and during the American Revolution, including the Boston Tea Party, the battles of Lexington and Concord and the battle at Bunker Hill.”
Ms. Baraceras also correctly points out that 3rd graders are supposed to study the lives of Massachusetts patriots, but indicates that the schools have failed in this area as well.
She states that, in her view, too many teachers and school administrators see the revolution as passé’, and having too much emphasis on “dead white guys” and the political incorrectness that existed during that era. (But that political incorrectness exists only if one compares the actions and attitudes of that period to those of modern society). Ms. Baraceras is, of course, correct on these points and many others and I urge everyone to read her entire article.
What these so-called educators call politically incorrect today, were called miracles in the 19th century:
Did anyone appreciate it? Does anyone appreciate it now? Has anyone identified the causes of that historical miracle?
They did not and have not. What blinded them? The morality of altruism [did].
Let me explain this. There are, fundamentally, only two causes of the progress of the nineteenth century – the same two causes which you will find at the root of any happy, benevolent, progressive era in human history. One cause is psychological, the other is existential – or one pertains to man’s consciousness, the other to the physical conditions of his existence. The first is reason, the second is freedom. And when I say “freedom,” I do not mean poetic sloppiness, such as “freedom from want” or “freedom from fear” or “freedom from the necessity of earning a living”. I mean “freedom from compulsion – freedom from rule by physical force.” Which means political freedom. ~ Ayn Rand, “Philosophy: Who Needs it”
It becomes increasingly difficult to reconcile the political miracle of the 19th century with the unconscionable abuses and treachery common in today’s political society without causing those capable of critical thinking to raise an eyebrow in distress. We colonists fought for personal freedom and to make ourselves independent of King George III’s taxes and wealth redistribution policy goals for England. Now, instead of fighting against government force, we accept repressive taxation for redistribution by our own government for those who cannot or will not work to serve their own rational self-interests. Why get up and work if the government will pay you to stay home? Why strive for business success if the government will assure that you will be sufficiently paid to survive without any contributive effort on your own part? Why worry about price increases if the government will impose price restrictions of products or selective industries?
What did our ancestors, you know…all of those “dead white guys” sacrifice their livelihoods, their reputations, their fortunes and their very lives for again? Which century was/is truly politically incorrect in terms of limiting personal liberty and the chance for prosperity through hard work and a dedicated effort to one’s pursuits and dreams? Is the morality of altruism worth the necessity to hide its immoral and ugly truths from your own children? Would you offer up your children to a volcano god for the good of your local community? Would you throw yourself into a magma pit with the hope, that in so doing, the volcano would pull back its lava flows and spare your neighbors? If so, would such an act on your part arise voluntarily, or would such a decision arise as part of a guilt complex that dictates someone must act and since no one else is, that someone must be you? Is altruism worth sacrificing your children, your own life and dreams and the only nation on the planet that has functioned to advance the health, comfort and political freedom of civilization? America has stumbled in her attempts to spread democracy and enlightenment throughout the planet. Is that reason enough to throw her into the fires of hell and subordinate her influence to that of Iran, Yemen, Syria, Russian or China?
We, as a nation, have made many mistakes, some severe, and occasionally, the actions of our government has caused unnecessary injury to people by not following our own rules regarding an equality in status, in opportunity and in respecting private property rights when it comes to other nations and in our dealings with dictators. However, I think a stronger, righteous argument can be made that the world is much the better for the American experience our ancestors passed on to us; that the harm we’ve done is far less than that of any other nation in its relationships with those outside their adjacent border. We have proven ourselves a friend to those who seek liberty and a foe to those who seek to constrain man from exercising his natural rights.
Many times over the United States has been an advocate for peace, for liberty and for equality by discouraging multiculturalism, and advocating, instead, for a melting pot of ideas, goals and achievements in a common cause. Many times the United States has spent blood and treasure in the name of freedom and the protection of democratic ideals. In all of history, only America has worked to end “separate but equal” governmental policies toward disparate groups in favor of a national identity for all. This effort is still a work in progress, but it is far ahead of other nations as they deal with group segregation and subjugation such as those seen in relationships between Shi’ite vs. Sunni in the Moslem world or Protestant vs. Catholic in the United Kingdom, specifically, but everywhere else in the world as well. In these cases, there isn’t even a pretense of equality – those in power are more equal than those outside of power and those not in power will suffer the force and the full weight of government intrusions on their backs for generations.
Instead of trying to run away from those “dead white guys” and the legacy of liberty they passed on to us, we may be better served by returning to those founding values – only this time, everyone should be given the same opportunity and the freedom to run their personal existential races as they choose – striving either for their own good or rushing headlong toward their own detriment.
THE SHOT HEARD ‘ROUND THE WORLD
The event that started the Revolutionary War has been imortalized in the poetry of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and Ralph Waldo Emerson. Paul Revere, a Boston silversmith, was one of the men who warned the militia of the British sortie from Boston. Fighting in the American Revolution began with the famous “Shot heard ’round the world” at Lexington, Massachusetts, on April 19th, 1775. The fighting continued that day with the British defeat at the bridge at Concord and their retreat to Boston. His ride and the subsequent fighting were immortalized in the following poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. Longfellow wrote the poem in 1861, many years after the event. He did not seek historical accuracy in attempting to arouse patriotic feelings.
Listen my children and you shall hear
Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere,
On the eighteenth of April, in Seventy-five;
Hardly a man is now alive
Who remembers that famous day and year.
He said to his friend, “If the British march
By land or sea from the town to-night,
Hang a lantern aloft in the belfry arch
Of the North Church tower as a signal light,–
One if by land, and two if by sea;
And I on the opposite shore will be,
Ready to ride and spread the alarm
Through every Middlesex village and farm,
For the country folk to be up and to arm.”
Then he said “Good-night!” and with muffled oar
Silently rowed to the Charlestown shore,
Just as the moon rose over the bay,
Where swinging wide at her moorings lay
The Somerset, British man-of-war;
A phantom ship, with each mast and spar
Across the moon like a prison bar,
And a huge black hulk, that was magnified
By its own reflection in the tide.
Meanwhile, his friend through alley and street
Wanders and watches, with eager ears,
Till in the silence around him he hears
The muster of men at the barrack door,
The sound of arms, and the tramp of feet,
And the measured tread of the grenadiers,
Marching down to their boats on the shore.
Then he climbed the tower of the Old North Church,
By the wooden stairs, with stealthy tread,
To the belfry chamber overhead,
And startled the pigeons from their perch
On the sombre rafters, that round him made
Masses and moving shapes of shade,–
By the trembling ladder, steep and tall,
To the highest window in the wall,
Where he paused to listen and look down
A moment on the roofs of the town
And the moonlight flowing over all.
Beneath, in the churchyard, lay the dead,
In their night encampment on the hill,
Wrapped in silence so deep and still
That he could hear, like a sentinel’s tread,
The watchful night-wind, as it went
Creeping along from tent to tent,
And seeming to whisper, “All is well!”
A moment only he feels the spell
Of the place and the hour, and the secret dread
Of the lonely belfry and the dead;
For suddenly all his thoughts are bent
On a shadowy something far away,
Where the river widens to meet the bay,–
A line of black that bends and floats
On the rising tide like a bridge of boats.
Meanwhile, impatient to mount and ride,
Booted and spurred, with a heavy stride
On the opposite shore walked Paul Revere.
Now he patted his horse’s side,
Now he gazed at the landscape far and near,
Then, impetuous, stamped the earth,
And turned and tightened his saddle girth;
But mostly he watched with eager search
The belfry tower of the Old North Church,
As it rose above the graves on the hill,
Lonely and spectral and sombre and still.
And lo! as he looks, on the belfry’s height
A glimmer, and then a gleam of light!
He springs to the saddle, the bridle he turns,
But lingers and gazes, till full on his sight
A second lamp in the belfry burns.
A hurry of hoofs in a village street,
A shape in the moonlight, a bulk in the dark,
And beneath, from the pebbles, in passing, a spark
Struck out by a steed flying fearless and fleet;
That was all! And yet, through the gloom and the light,
The fate of a nation was riding that night;
And the spark struck out by that steed, in his flight,
Kindled the land into flame with its heat.
He has left the village and mounted the steep,
And beneath him, tranquil and broad and deep,
Is the Mystic, meeting the ocean tides;
And under the alders that skirt its edge,
Now soft on the sand, now loud on the ledge,
Is heard the tramp of his steed as he rides.
It was twelve by the village clock
When he crossed the bridge into Medford town.
He heard the crowing of the cock,
And the barking of the farmer’s dog,
And felt the damp of the river fog,
That rises after the sun goes down.
It was one by the village clock,
When he galloped into Lexington.
He saw the gilded weathercock
Swim in the moonlight as he passed,
And the meeting-house windows, black and bare,
Gaze at him with a spectral glare,
As if they already stood aghast
At the bloody work they would look upon.
It was two by the village clock,
When he came to the bridge in Concord town.
He heard the bleating of the flock,
And the twitter of birds among the trees,
And felt the breath of the morning breeze
Blowing over the meadow brown.
And one was safe and asleep in his bed
Who at the bridge would be first to fall,
Who that day would be lying dead,
Pierced by a British musket ball.
You know the rest. In the books you have read
How the British Regulars fired and fled,—
How the farmers gave them ball for ball,
>From behind each fence and farmyard wall,
Chasing the redcoats down the lane,
Then crossing the fields to emerge again
Under the trees at the turn of the road,
And only pausing to fire and load.
So through the night rode Paul Revere;
And so through the night went his cry of alarm
To every Middlesex village and farm,—
A cry of defiance, and not of fear,
A voice in the darkness, a knock at the door,
And a word that shall echo for evermore!
For, borne on the night-wind of the Past,
Through all our history, to the last,
In the hour of darkness and peril and need,
The people will waken and listen to hear
The hurrying hoof-beats of that steed,
And the midnight message of Paul Revere.
