Let’s all take a moment to remember and reflect on this 75-year-old essay.
Not all high school essays have to be boring. This 75-year-old woman’s essay is proof of that! It’s so good that it will definitely blow you away!
I found this 350-word essay by a girl from an Erie County Public High School while I was looking for something else. Most likely, it’s from the late 1940s or early 1950s. It touched me so much that I sat and read in awe of the young woman’s words. And then I realized that I had no idea how my mother came to have it amongst her belongings.
This high school student’s eloquent words pack a powerful punch, much like Mohammad Ali’s famous right hook. But unlike Ali’s punch, this student’s message delivers a painful reminder of how far we have strayed from the cherished principles that once guided our nation.
Listen up, America…this is a lesson you would do well to learn.
So, without further delay, I bring you the second, unknown, Dolly Madison; and I quote:
What Can We Do to Protect Our American Heritage?
by Dolly Madison
As surely as there is a bond of faith among the living, there exists a bond of faith among past, present, and future– Americanism unseen, but vitally alive. The past is a staff which enables us to surmount the obstacles of the present.
How better can we reflect the glory of by-gone eras and gain an understanding of our heritage than by recalling a lone, inspiring figure who gathered his people to his heart because his heart was with his people? With parental tenderness and boundless endurance Abraham Lincoln guided his infant charge along the furrows of faith and tolerance. America has prospered under the auspices of such humble men of high ideals and simple beliefs.
Selfish gain motivates much of the machinery of progress, while people’s longing for a universal peace is cast aside. Life is a shallow mockery if the spirit of brotherhood is stifled.
We must strengthen our hold on democracy, else the peoples of the earth will stagger blindly into a cunning snare contrived by the relentless forces which threaten our destruction.
We, of America, cannot expect the starving, whimpering nation to resist, but we can and must burn from its mind the filth of prejudice and bigotry.
We must learn that democracy is not easily won, that it is as evasive as the wild deer; yet, yielding as the rich, black earth, it brings forth the fruits of equality and righteousness. Is it not worth fighting for and believing in?
Ignorance breeds vice. To rid our vast country of graft and political corruption, the American people must keep informed. Truth only can rout out these cancers which distort the ideals, rot the foundations of today’s bulwark of free spirit.
Our voice[s] must be raised in defense of man’s rights, must be heard world-wide, if only to urge the moral sanctity we [should] live by.
The future is ours to navigate. The bond of living and dead steers our course. Preserve those unalienable rights which secure “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,” and we eventually assure peace and security among men and for ages. (Madison, year unknown)
When I think about the profound wisdom of this young lady, it makes me wonder where all the critical thinkers have gone. There is a big gap between the past and present when it comes to thinking skills.
The system we live in is designed to prevent the skills necessary to unite this nation and free it from the tyrannical grip of the ruling elite.
This girl was a real activist…an activist of heart and mind. The kind of heart and mind this world needs to see again if it is ever to experience unity in its reach for “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”
Thank you, Dolly Madison, wherever you are, for being well ahead of your years, and for coming back from the past to deliver this precious gift of a message, to a world that needs it now, more than ever.
Let’s all take a moment to remember and reflect on this 75-year-old essay.
