Answers to Great Documents Quiz

July 5, 2013 by · Leave a Comment

Brass bookends

I hope you had a great Fourth of July. Here are the answers to the great documents quiz I posted earlier this week. The answers appear in parentheses after each quote. How did you do?

1. “Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take, but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!” (Patrick Henry speech)

2. “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech or of the press, or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.” (Bill of Rights)

3. “Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.” (Gettysburg Address)

4. “When in the course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them…” (The Declaration of Independence)

5. “We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more Perfect Union…” (Preamble of the Constitution)

6. “…with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.” (The Declaration of Independence)

7. “…that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom–and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.” (Gettysburg Address)

8. “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.” (The Declaration of Independence)

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How Familiar Are You With America’s Great Documents?

July 3, 2013 by · 1 Comment

Brass bookends

The following lines, penned generations ago, are familiar to most of us, but can you remember which documents they are found in? Take this quiz to see how you do. Match up the numbered quotes with the letters corresponding to the documents they come from. Some documents are used more than once. The answers will appear here on Friday.

1. “Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take, but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!”

2. “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech or of the press, or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

3. “Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.”

4. “When in the course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them…”

5. “We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more Perfect Union…”

6. “…with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.”

7. “…that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom–and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”

8. “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.”

A. The Declaration of Independence (1776)

B. Preamble to the Constitution (1787)

C. Bill of Rights (1787)

D. Gettysburg Address (1863)

E. Patrick Henry’s speech (1775)

 

 

 

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A Historic Meeting of Great Minds

July 1, 2013 by · Leave a Comment

Eagle eye

Welcome to July 4th week on the Eagle’s Quill. This is my other favorite holiday (the other being jingle bells and all that), and it is a time for me to reflect on the amazing history of our country. In our homeschool, we talk a lot about the “world stage”, using our historical timelines to see when certain important figures entered the stage (were born) and exited the stage (died) in the grand live performance of world history. For us, this points out God’s hand in history in bringing certain discoveries, explorations, inventions, and accomplishments to the earth with carefully calculated precision.

Nowhere is this more evident to me than in the miraculous placement of the American Founding Fathers during the beginnings of our country. Benjamin Franklin was one of the first to enter the stage, being born in 1706, followed by George Wythe in 1726. Wythe was not only a signer of the Declaration of Independence and a member of the Constitutional Convention, but served as a teacher and mentor for many other leaders, including Thomas Jefferson. George Washington, John Adams, and Patrick Henry were born in 1732, 1735, and 1736 respectively. In 1743 Thomas Jefferson took his place on the stage, with James Madison following in 1751 and Alexander Hamilton in 1755. These are just a few of the many who worked hard to form a new nation.

It’s no mistake that these infants were born at the time and in the place they were, or that they were brought together at the appropriate time to fulfill their destiny. Having accomplished their noble task, they began exiting the stage in the late 1700s. And here’s a bit of remarkable trivia for you. John Adams and Thomas Jefferson both passed away on the same day–July 4, 1826, the 50th birthday of the United States of America. Shakespeare could not have written a better play.

Said John Adams in a letter to his wife Abigail, May 12, 1780, “I must study politics and war, that our sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy. Our sons ought to study mathematics and philosophy, geography, natural history, and naval architecture, navigation, commerce and agriculture in order to give their children a right to study painting, poetry, music, architecture, statuary, tapestry and porcelain.”

They certainly knew and played well their parts on the world stage.

 

 

 

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Why Homeschool Series: Reason #2

January 23, 2013 by · 2 Comments

The second reason our family likes to homeschool is what I will call patriotic reasons. I reiterate that these reasons are particular to our family. I respect those who have different beliefs about government and education and ask for their respect for us in return.

There are those who believe that children should not be indoctrinated by the values of their parents, yet they don’t realize that the indoctrination train runs both ways. Children are going to learn values of some sort, whether we teach them ours or not. We do not shelter our children to keep them out of the world for as long as possible. We fortify them so that when they do face the world, they are well-prepared with tools that will help them with decision-making. I daresay this is the position of many homeschool parents as statistics show that homeschooled children tend to become more community-involved adults, i.e., participate more in voting, stand up for certain issues, write letters to the editor, etc., because they understand well about their civic responsibility and how important their voice is.

Some also believe that parents are not qualified to oversee the education of their children and want the government to be the entity that fashions their impressionable minds.  Interesting concept because, if parents aren’t qualified to oversee the education of their children, after most parents have been educated in public schools themselves, what does that say about public schools? I believe that the adversary’s desire is to get children away from the influence of their parents as soon as possible, as seen by the growing trend towards full-time preschool, which some states have discussed as making mandatory. I believe it is not the government’s responsibility to dictate the education of children. Rather, it is the parents who grant permission to government to teach their children, and with the full knowledge and supervision of the parents.

Public schools tend to be liberal-leaning institutions, and homeschool gives us the chance to teach about conservative values and government as we believe the Founding Fathers intended it to be. As stated in this post, the framers of the Constitution believed that an educated populace was necessary to care adequately for the republic they gave us. We are not perfect, but we try to live up to their expectations as best we can.

~to be continued~

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