A Better Future Through A Renewed Interest in History

One of the exciting movements of the past few years has been a return to the study of history. For a number of years our schools dumped history and civics, along with a bunch of other subjects, in a grouping they called "social studies." History was not only minimized, it was also rewritten. For 200 years we did a pretty good job recording our American history, chronicling - for instance - our values in family, government, religion. Then we began to insist that family should include much more than a man and a woman and their children; we openly stated that the socialist welfare state should be considered alongside democracy and liberty; and we took religion (especially Christianity) out of all public and government organizations.

But lately we have been saying, right out in the open, that we don't know much about our national, state and local history and it is important that we bring it back. Important to us personally; important to us nationally.

So, I am delighted to see the Gainesville Middle School has a program aimed at researching and preserving local history; that other of our North Georgia schools are continuing Foxfire, a program founded in our area which gained national acclaim; that several local history books have been written recently; that Flowery Branch is bringing "old timers" together to talk about another time, and they are recording it; that the Beulah Rucker story is being preserved; that a lot of other things are happening; and especially that ground has been broken for a new $4-million Northeast Georgia History Center on the Brenau campus.

America is a great nation because something made it so, and our history is a record of what that "something" is. Hopefully, we will be able to use these lessons of history to become an even greater nation in the future.

This is Gordon Sawyer, from a window on historic Green Street.

http://accesswdun.com/article/2002/9/189734