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Appreciating Casey's Work
Dear Editor
If we viewed education as a means to enhance and protect our way of life, we would have children instructed in the evolution and values of Western Civilization. Instruction would include its prime movers, that it evolved unlike any other civilization, that is has been paid for in blood over thousands of years, and how this civilization can survive and improve. If not, then someday the argument over a national holiday, Christmas, while distasteful may seem like child's play.
If we're truly a nation of reason, we can thank the ancient Greeks. If we're a nation of God's law, we can thank the Jews. If we're a nation of civil government we can thank the Romans (from Pershing to Persia) and if we're a nation of institutional compassion, freewill and forgiveness, we can thank the Christians. Remote ideals joined together have braced the bulk-work of western civilization.
While civilization has begged, borrowed and stolen from many cultures, academics often cite these four influences as foundations of the west. Children must learn this to later resist the forces that are unkind to our ideals.
Public schools haven't prepared its pupils (nor their parents when we went to school), with a clear understanding of the evolution of western civ. Often blamed for human excesses it is rarely credited with high achievement or for its support of life, liberty, etc.
Schooled with the evolved values of western civ., American youngsters would recognize the reason for permitting others to celebrate their holiday in the public square or school. They would intuitively know they are a part of the whole fabric that defends our freedoms. They would know that these freedoms have not been bestowed but won, at times violently, over thousands of years. That much hasn't stopped.
A great place to teach young Americans about western civ. is through the Library of Congress. The massive room is surrounded with statues of the ancient thinkers who contributed to civilization's highest ideals in math, science, engineering, philosophy, poetry and the arts. Throughout, its walls are adorned with period art speaking of timeless values critical to a child's understanding of who we are as a civilization, and from it a nation. These values came from our historical predecessors thousands of years in the making. The Library once conceived by Thomas Jefferson, was never built out by him.
Surprisingly to some, the Library was brought to completion by General Thomas Casey a former Civil War general, Chief of the Army Corp. of Engineers and a West Point graduate (first in his class of 1852). It was Casey and his team who developed the Library as a centerpiece and tribute to the values of western civilization.
As a player in our nation's least popular and bloodiest war, perhaps Casey the warrior had a better appreciation for the values of civilization. We should encourage our schools to teach about and to understand Casey's work.
Tim Donovan
Garrison
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