The state of history lessons in England
Downright sad.
From the
Daily Mail:
Challenge Churchill! One in four think Winnie didn't exist (but Sherlock Holmes did)
Never, in the field of human ignorance, have so many known so little about famous Britons.
A quarter of the population think that Winston Churchill never actually existed, a survey suggests.
While a poll recently named him the greatest Briton of all time, the wartime prime minister is seen by many as a mythical figure along with the likes of Florence Nightingale and Sir Walter Raleigh.
This could well have something to do with the TV insurance adverts inviting viewers to "challenge Churchill" and featuring a lugubrious talking dog.
According to the survey of 3,000 respondents, many believe the inspirational Indian leader Mahatma Gandhi, Cleopatra and the Duke of Wellington are also characters dreamed up for films and books.
Some think Charles Dickens was himself a character in fiction rather than the creator of David Copperfield, Oliver Twist and Martin Chuzzlewit.
And it gets worse. The article closes with these words:
Historian Correlli Barnett said: "This suggests a complete lack of common sense and respect for our greatest heroes of the past."
"Churchill and Wellington were great men, but this suggests we no longer value people of great achievement.
"It's all about celebrities and popular culture. What it also tells us is what is going wrong in our school curriculums.
"Something must be completely lacking in our national education that people could be so ignorant as to think these people never actually existed.
"No doubt these other ones like Robin Hood, people mistake as being real because they have recently been featured on the TV."
I forget who said it but there was a discussion recently about "political geniuses" and how that term has been so horribly overused. The quote was something like: "We have had only two political geniuses in recent times. They were Adolph Hitler and Winston Churchill -- thank God they happened at the same time"
Posted by DaveH at February 3, 2008 5:43 PM