_WorldNetDaily.com

Patrice Lewis

It started as a challenge and ended as a triumph.

This week marked the culmination of a project our homeschooled girls have been working on for three months: memorizing, start to finish, the entire Declaration of Independence.

Remember your Laura Ingalls Wilder books? While attending an Independence Day celebration in 1881 when Laura was 15 and her sister Carrie was 12, they listened to a townsman read the Declaration out loud to the crowd. The book says, "Laura and Carrie knew the Declaration by heart, of course, but it gave them a solemn, glorious feeling to hear the words."

It was the casual "of course" in that line that always caught my attention. Of course these kids knew the Declaration by heart. It was just taken for granted. No big deal. Everyone had it memorized. It was just an ordinary part of one's education. No one was ignorant of their rights.

How many people have this document memorized today? Not only is the number likely to be in the mere hundreds (if not mere dozens), but thanks to the liberal de-emphasis of our unique history in public schools, a vast majority of people in this nation haven't even read it … and that probably includes most of our politicians.

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