IBD-Editorials 12/11/08

How about a few civics questions? Name the three branches of government. If you answered the executive, legislative and judicial, you are more informed than 50% of Americans.

The Delaware-based Intercollegiate Studies Institute (ISI) recently released the results of its national survey titled "Our Fading Heritage: Americans Fail a Basic Test on Their History and Institutions."

Only 21% of survey respondents knew that the phrase "government of the people, by the people, for the people." comes from President Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address. Almost 40% incorrectly believe the Constitution gives the president the power to declare war.

Only 27% know the Bill of Rights expressly prohibits establishing an official religion for the United States. Remarkably, close to 25% of Americans believe that Congress shares its foreign policy powers with the United Nations.

"Who is the commander in chief of the U.S. military?" "Name two countries that were our enemies during World War II." "Under our Constitution, some powers belong to the federal government. What is one power of the federal government?"

Of the nationwide sample of 2,508 Americans taking ISI's test, 71% failed; the average score on the test was 49%.

ISI findings about cultural illiteracy and academic incompetence are nothing new. A 1990 Gallup survey for the National Endowment of the Humanities, given to a representative sample of 700 college seniors, found that 25% did not know that Columbus landed in the Western Hemisphere before the year 1500; 42% could not place the Civil War in the correct half-century; and 31% thought Reconstruction came after World War II.

In 1993, an Education Department survey found that among college graduates 50% of whites and more than 80% of blacks couldn't state in writing the argument made in a newspaper column; 56% could not calculate the right tip; 57% could not figure out how much change they should get back after putting down $3.00 to pay for a 60-cent bowl of soup and a $1.95 sandwich, and over 90% could not use a calculator to find the cost of carpeting a room.

But not to worry. A 1999 survey taken by the American Council of Trustees and Alumni of seniors at the nation's top 55 liberal-arts colleges and universities found that 98% could identify rap artist Snoop Dogg and Beavis and Butt-Head, but only 34% knew George Washington was the general at the battle of Yorktown.

With limited thinking abilities and knowledge of our heritage, we Americans set ourselves up as easy prey for charlatans, hustlers and quacks. If we don't know the constitutional limits placed on Congress and the White House, politicians can do just about anything they wish to control our lives, from deciding what kind of light bulbs we can use to whether the government can take over our health care system or bail out failing businesses. We just think Congress can do anything upon which they can get a majority vote.

The Intercollegiate Studies Institute has one finding that I find both a bit perplexing and encouraging. Roughly 70% of Americans, even those who failed the test, agreed that our history, culture and institutions are important and should be taught to our college students.

They might even agree with Thomas Jefferson, who warned, "If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be."

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Proverbs 29:27 - “An unjust man is an abomination to the just: and he
that is upright in the way is abomination to the wicked.”

“The true hypocrite is the one who ceases to perceive his deception;
the one who lies with sincerity.”