An Account of What is Past

In the March 28th issue of World magazine, Janie B. Cheaney has a great piece entitled Boastful Dunces: Post-literate college students reveal a 'resentful incapacity'. She brings attention to the challenge of Thomas Bertonneau, literature professor at SUNY-Oswego, to education modern college students through his Western Heritage course. His goal is to introduce the students to the importance of knowing the "foundations of their civilization."

"In spite of his repeated lecture points and cheat sheets, they confuse historical events...Their test-taking training in high school taught them to take note of dates but not to make sense of how they use them. Though saturated with movies and TV, they lack a basic notion of cause-and-effect and logical consequence basic to stories."

This is taken from the introduction in Streams of Civilizations by Mary Stanton and Albert Hyman, a history textbook published by Christian Liberty Press...

"Every student at some time has asked the question: 'Why is it important to study history? What difference can it make to me what a lot of people did thousands of years ago?'

History is important because it is the story of people, how they came into existence and what they did. People have always faced the same problems of food, shelter, social organization, political structure, and religious expression. By exploring the streams of civilization throughout time, we will have a better understanding of how the world came to be the way it is today. It will also help us to understand better the events that are happening today and the decisions being made that will change the future."

Through reading these great works in literature like Homer's Odyssey, Virgil's Aeneid, and Dicken's Tale of Two Cities, it is as though we are given windows framing respective chapters in history. Through these windows we can get a clearer picture of what we are looking at and of what we are ultimately a part of even today--HIS Story.

"To everything there is a season,

a time for every purpose

under heaven:

A time to be born, and a time to die;

A time to plant, and a time to pluck what is planted;

A time to kill, and a time to heal;

A time to break down, and a time to build up;

A time to weep, and a time to laugh;

A time to mourn, and a time to dance;

A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones;

A time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;

A time to gain, and a time to lose;

A time to keep, and a time to throw away;

A time to tear, and a time to sew;

A time to keep silence, and a time to speak;

A time to love, and a time to hate;

A time of war, and a time of peace...

What profit has the worker from that in which he labors? I have seen the God-given task with which the sons of men are to be occupied.

He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also, He has put eternity in their hearts, except that no one can find out the work that God does from beginning to end. I know that nothing is better for them than to rejoice, and to do good in their lives, and also that evey man should eat and drink and enjoy the good of all his labor--it is a gift of God.

I know that whatever God does, it shall be forever. Nothing can be taken from it. God does it, that men should fear before Him. That which is has already been; and God requires an account of what is past." Ecclesiastes 3:1-15