Get the Ricochet app
Ricochet will work fine in a browser on your mobile devices, but for the best experience please download our app.
I remember only one school assignment from fifth grade, 63 years ago. Everyone in the class was required to memorize and recite the Gettysburg Address. It was then that I learned that the word “score” meant 20 and that, upon Lincoln's delivery in 1863, four score and seven years ago meant 1776.
As we approach our 250th birthday, I recommend that all school children memorize and recite multiple historical documents. Some may have to be abridged, but at least one per month should be assigned January through June. The Declaration itself and Gettysburg are among the obvious choices.
In this post, I would like to nominate a third. On our 150th birthday, President Calvin Coolidge gave a speech in Philadelphia. Silent Cal was actually quite verbose that day. His speech exceeded 4,000 words. What follows has been edited down to a tad over 600. To say that it is still timely is an understatement.
G-Pub
July 05, 1926
Fellow Countrymen:
We meet to celebrate the birthday of America. [We meet] to pay our tribute of reverence and respect to those who participated in such a mighty event that we annually observe the 4th day of July. At the end of 150 years the four corners of the earth unite in coming to Philadelphia as to a holy shrine in grateful acknowledgment of a service so great, which a few inspired men here rendered to humanity, that it is still the preeminent support of free government throughout the world.
There is something beyond the establishment of a new nation, great as that event would be, in the Declaration of Independence which has ever since caused it to be regarded as one of the great charters that not only was to liberate America but was everywhere to ennoble humanity.
It was not because it was proposed to establish a new nation, but because it was proposed to establish a nation on new principles, that July 4, 1776, has come to be regarded as one of the greatest days in history.
Three very definite propositions were set out in its preamble regarding the nature of mankind and therefore of government. These were the doctrine that all men are created equal, that they are endowed with certain inalienable rights, and that therefore the source of the just powers of government must be derived from the consent of the governed.
About the Declaration there is a finality that is exceedingly restful. It is often asserted that the world has made a great deal of progress since 1776, that we have had new thoughts and new experiences which have given us a great advance over the people of that day, and that we may therefore very well discard their conclusions for something more modern. But that reasoning can not be applied to this great charter. If all men are created equal, that is final. If they are endowed with inalienable rights, that is final. If governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed, that is final. No advance, no progress can be made beyond these propositions. If anyone wishes to deny their truth or their soundness, the only direction in which he can proceed historically is not forward, but backward toward the time when there was no equality, no rights of the individual, no rule of the people. Those who wish to proceed in that direction can not lay claim to progress. They are reactionary. Their ideas are not more modern, but more ancient, than those of the Revolutionary fathers.
[Our founders] were a people who came under the influence of a great spiritual development and acquired a great moral power.
No other theory is adequate to explain or comprehend the Declaration of Independence. It is the product of the spiritual insight of the people. We live in an age of science and of abounding accumulation of material things. These did not create our Declaration. Our Declaration created them. The things of the spirit come first. Unless we cling to that, all our material prosperity, overwhelming though it may appear, will turn to a barren scepter in our grasp. If we are to maintain the great heritage which has been bequeathed to us, we must be like-minded as the fathers who created it. We must not sink into a pagan materialism. We must cultivate the reverence which they had for the things that are holy. We must follow the spiritual and moral leadership which they showed. We must keep replenished, that they may glow with a more compelling flame, the altar fires before which they worshiped.
Discussion (9)
To read this bio, please join Ricochet.
Another nomination. JFK’s Inaugural address.
To read this bio, please join Ricochet.
This is a truly fine recommendation--memorizing once per month. It would help us bring our kids back to our founding through these helpful and passionate writings.
To read this bio, please join Ricochet.
Another nomination: Patrick Henry’s Give me Liberty or Give me Death speech
To read this bio, please join Ricochet.
Maybe something by Alexander Hamilton (although his speeches tended to be very long).
CHARTER MEMBER
To read this bio, please join Ricochet.
Memorization (or as some might say--sneeringly--"rote learning," has been given a very bad rap over the past fifty or sixty years. So I'd support this idea enthusiastically.
I'd extend it into some other areas, though, starting with literature, especially verse. This English boarding school student was required, at the age of about eleven--in England--to memorize several stanzas of H.W. Longfellow's Paul Revere's Ride. IIRC, there were three of us, each of whom had to memorize four or five stanzas, so that we could then recite the whole. There are plenty of others whose writing exemplify the best and worst of events in American history, and excerpts from which could be incorporated.
You're seeing five of nine comments. Sign in, or join for just $5 per month, to read them all and add your own.