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Show Volume XXVIII Issue XI The Ogden Valley News Page 3 July 1, 2021 The Criticality of Historical Literacy Compiled by Shanna Francis This Fourth of July, let us commit or recommit to educating or reeducating ourselves and our children about a most critical matter—our nation’s history and our historical legacy. As David McCullough points out in his great book The American Spirit: Who we are and what we stand for, we are raising a generation of young Americans who are by and large “historically illiterate.” McCullough points out, “We have to do several things. First of all we have to get across the idea that we have to know who we were if we’re to know who we are and where we’re headed. This is essential. We have to value what our forebears—and not just in the eighteenth century, but our own parents and grandparents—did for us, or we’re not going to take it very seriously, and it can slip away. If you don’t care about it—if you’ve inherited some great work of art that is worth a fortune and you don’t know that it’s worth a fortune, you don’t even know that it’s a great work of art and you’re not interest in it—you’re going to lose it.” And why should we know who we are and where we are headed? McCullough points out that it is because we, and the lives we live, are all shaped by the past. While those who think they are successful may take credit for their successes, in reality, all of us have those who have gone before to thank, in part, for who we are and what we achieve. “Everyone who’s ever lived has been affected, changed, shaped, helped, or hindered by others. We all know, in our own lives, who those people are who’ve opened a window, given us an idea, given us encouragement, given us a sense of direction, self-approval, self-worth, or who have straightened us out when we were on the wrong path…. “And so, too, have people we’ve never met, never known, because they lived long before us. They, too, have shaped us—they who composed the music that moves us, the painters, the poets, those who have written the great literature in our language. We walk around every day, everyone one of us, quoting Shakespeare, Cervantes, Pope. We don’t know it, but we are, all the time. We think this is our way of speaking. It isn’t our way of speaking—it’s what we have been given. “The laws we live by, the freedoms we enjoy, the institutions that we take for granted— and we should never take for granted—are all the work of others who went before us. And to be indifferent to that isn’t just to be ignorant, it’s to be rude. And ingratitude is a shabby failing. “How can we not want to know about the people who have made it possible for us to live as we live, to have the freedoms we have, to be citizens of this greatest of countries? It’s not just a birthright, it is something that others struggled and strived for, often suffered for, often were defeated for and died for, for the next generation, for us.” I think of the demise of many modern and historic civilizations. Even those that rose to great heights. All were brought down by the erasure and expurgation of their culture and history through the rewriting of history, the destruction of cultural and administrative institutions and symbols of this history, including books, monuments, statues, language, and the family and religion and other social institutions that perpetuate cultural and civil norms. Have you stopped and really thought about why such an effort has been recently undertaken to destroy and reshape all of these in recent months with such velocity and relentless vigor? Who and what is behind these efforts to wipe out and rewrite the history and narrative of one of the most successful civilizations in all history, providing one of the freest, wealthiest, and most open societies that has ever existed? What has been the impetus behind one of strongest, most vehement propaganda campaigns in history to deface and defame this great nation and its founders, and why? It is only through a rich and deep knowledge or our nation’s history, its symbolism and language, and a healthy appreciation and respect for it, can we defend ourselves, as a nation, against such insidious efforts and attacks. McCullough adds, “We need not leave the whole job of teaching history to the teachers. If I could have you come away from what I have to say tonight remembering one thing, it would be this: The teaching of history, the emphasis on the importance of history, the enjoyment of history, should begin at home. “We who are parents or grandparents should be taking our children to historic sites. We should be talking about those books in biography or history that we have particularly enjoyed, or those characters in history who have meant something to us. We should be talking about what it was like when we were growing up in the olden day.” Please note that this presupposes that we have been, as parents, working on our own deliberate education. “There’s no great secret to teaching history or to making history interesting…. We ought to be growing, encouraging, developing historians who have heart and empathy enough to put students in the time and circumstances of those before us who were just as human and real as we are. “We’ve got to teach history and nurture history and encourage history because it’s an antidote to the hubris of the present—the idea that everything we have and everything we do and everything we think is the ultimate, the best. “We should never look down on those of the past and say they should have known better. What do you think they will be saying about us in the future? They’re going to be saying we should have known better. Why in the world did we do that? What could we have been thinking? “Samuel Eliot Morison said we ought to read history because it will help us to behave better. It does. And we ought to read history because it helps to break down the dividers between the disciplines of science, medicine, philosophy, art, music. It’s all part of the human story and ought to be seen as such. You can’t understand it unless you see it that way… “There’s a line in one of the letters written by John Adams where he’s telling his wife, Abigail, at home, ‘We can’t guarantee success [in the war] but we can do something better. We can deserve it.’ Think how different that is from the attitude today when all that matters for far too many is success, being number one, getting ahead, getting to the top. However you betray or claw or cheat is immaterial if you get to the top. “That line in the Adams letter is saying that how the War for Independence turns out is in the hands of God. We can’t control that, but we can control how we behave. We can deserve success. When I read that line while doing research for my book on John Adams, it practically lifted me out of my chair. Then about three weeks later I was reading some correspondence written by George Washington and there was the very same line. I thought, wait a minute, what’s going on? They must be quoting something. So, I got down Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations, and started going through the entries from the eighteenth century and there it was! The line is from the play Cato by Joseph Addison. They were quoting something from the literature of the time, scripture of a kind, a kind of secular creed if you will. And we can’t fully understand why they behaved as they LITERACY cont. on page 8 PADDLE BOARDS - KAYAKS - CANOES SNACKS - SHAVE ICE ----- Public Notice of Intent to ----Annex into Huntsville Town On May 6th, 2021, the Town of Huntsville received an annexation petition from CW Lands to annex parcel numbers: #240190001, #240190011, #240190023, #240190012, #240190013, #210260041, # 210260040. The parcels are located directly east of Highway 39 between 100 South and 500 South. It is Huntsville Town’s intent to not create unincorporated islands or unincorporated peninsulas according to Utah State Code 10-2402(1). Therefore, Huntsville Town will extend annexation to the following parcels, including Weber Fire District, Fire Station 65, parcel #211070001, located at 7925 East and 500 South. The additional parcel numbers are, #240190027, #240190007, #240190009 and are located directly west of Highway 39 between 300 South and 500 South. On June 3rd, 2021, the Huntsville Town Council adopted Resolution 2021-6-3-C: A Resolution of Huntsville Town, Utah, accepting a Petition for Annexation of Certain Real Property under the Provisions of Sections 10-2-405, Utah Code Annotated, 1953, as amended. The plat map was reviewed and accepted by Weber County on June 4th, 2021. The Annexation Petition was certified by the Huntsville Town Clerk and received by the Huntsville Town Council on June 17th, 2021. The Annexation Map has been included for your review. All annexation paperwork is available for inspection and copying at the Huntsville Town Hall, located at 7309 East 200 South, Huntsville, Utah 84317. Huntsville may annex the areas described in the Resolution and plat map unless, within 30 days a written protest to the Resolution is filed with the Weber County Boundary Commission at 2380 Washington Boulevard, Ogden, UT, 84401. A copy of the protest must be delivered to the Huntsville Town Clerk, P.O. Box 267, Huntsville, UT 84317. The last date for filing a protest is July 18, 2021 at 5:00 p.m. The area will automatically be annexed to a local district providing fire protection, paramedic and emergency services or law enforcement services if: (1) the annexing municipality (Huntsville Town) is entirely within a local district’s boundaries that provides those services, and an election was not required to form the district; and (2) the area to be annexed does not already lie within the boundaries of the local district. This message will be posted at www.pmn. utah.gov, www.huntsvilletown.com, Huntsville Town Hall, and Huntsville Town Post Office for three (3) consecutive weeks: June 18th, 2021, June 25th, 2021 and July 2nd, 2021. __________________________________ Beckki Endicott Clerk, Huntsville Town The Community Foundation of Ogden Valley hosted a dyer’s woad round up Saturday, June 5. Thank you to all who joined CFOV board members at the North Arm Trailhead in Eden to help eradicate this noxious weed. |