To the editor:

Last week the nation watched as several legal scholars addressed the founders’ thinking on the pressing topic of impeachment. They raised such questions as the meaning of “high crimes and misdemeanors” and whether the president is above the law.

Viewers with a good high-school or college education will have some memory of these matters even if only because they were required to study them. Many KU graduates may recall them because they were central to the two-semester required course Western Civilization. The disappearance of a Western Civ requirement, or of some such courses in government and history, is the kind of core failure cited in the Journal-World several times in recent weeks. Western Civ touched on the nature and long, arduous history of democratic government, giving some idea of, say, the origins of political thought, the Roman Republic, the tensions leading to political liberty, and the growth of the modern state.

A college graduate, although technologically astute, facing the recent disorder, can easily throw up her or his hands and sink into depression or apathy. A historical education brings a measure of understanding not otherwise available, but forget history and you get to relive it.

Richard Hardin,

Lawrence