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May 28, 2002, 8:45 a.m. Old-School Civics Wish we knew what they knew then. By Albert Keith Whitaker

n a bookshelf near my desk stands a copy of a diary my great-grandfather Winfield kept in 1897, when he was around 16 years old. Though the copy quality makes it a bit hard to read, there is a fetching liveliness to Winfield's daily record. He devotes much space to keeping track of the growth of his "spawn," a school of minnows he hatched in a converted hen trough. He notes his grades on exams, which rarely rise above the mediocre, and family comings and goings, which are numerous. Once he begins studying French, he takes pleasure in tossing in the occasional cependant or c'est a dire. There is a somber subplot — the daily update on an uncle, dying of an undisclosed ailment — but for the most part he writes with the freshness (in every sense of that word) of a teenage boy, often punctuating his observations, with "Well! Well!" "By God!" or, at the appropriate times, "War!"

For, I must add, most of Winfield's diary concerns politics. He followed closely the Greco-Turkish war over Crete (he was for the Greeks) and the Cuban revolt against Spain ("Cuba Libre!"). But his real passion was die kleine Politik. For example, January's entries flutter with excitement over the attempt of a certain state senator, Lomasney, to keep another local eminence, Mitchell Galvin, from being elected city clerk by the Boston Board of Alderman — the plot fails. By January 27, he proudly notes, he has visited the state house of representatives twice. At the end of the diary, he lists the entire "Boston City Government, 1897," mayor, alderman, and common council — all 25 wards — taking note of the party affiliation of each official. In contrast, things that would appear of transcendent importance to a teenager today he barely mentions. For example, in half a line at the bottom of the entry for January 7 he jots, "I am going to Harvard."

In today's lingo, Winfield possessed "advanced civics knowledge," which would set him apart from about 98 percent of present 16-year-olds. Moaning over youth's political ignorance and apathy is as old as politics, but according to a recent Washington Post story on civic education, the present situation may be particulary bad. The most recent NAEP Civics Report Card (1998) showed that 75 percent of 4th, 8th, and 12th graders lack proficiency in civics. (The figure is closer to 90 percent for black, hispanic, and American-Indian students.) In response, the Bush administration plans to use some of the moral and political capital of September 11 to beef up civics education. How they will do so is the subject of a White House "working group," but, according to the Post, the approach will likely include a mix of "federal incentives for states to adopt civics education classes and standards in public schools, expansion of 'service learning' classes that give credit for community volunteer work, drafting of a broadly accepted civics curriculum and use of the presidential bully pulpit."

It's hard to argue against making civics a prominent part of young people's education. The most serious thinkers — from Plato and Aristotle through the American Founders and beyond — agree in this case with common sense that no one is born a citizen; education, of some sort, must do the job. But learning to be a citizen is like learning a language: You have to do it. That is, the principles of citizenship, unlike say the principles of mathematics, cannot be learned from a book; they come to one through practice.

Refusal to appreciate this point has led many contemporary theorists astray, and may do the same to the Bush administration. The NAEP's widely accepted 1996 Civics Framework, for example, argues that civics includes certain knowledge about the United States, intellectual and participatory skills, and "civic dispositions." Very well, but how does one transform these abstractions into a citizen? The general solution, voiced also in the Post article, is through a combination of coursework and community service. Coursework can't hurt, but it can only do so much; after all, the Iraqi intelligence agency surely contains agents who have closely studied American government. It's also hard to see that required or even extra-curricular community service will teach the principles of specifically American citizenship. Volunteers in a charitable organization usually enjoy shared, narrowly tailored, unobjectionable goals — the very things lacking in the political arena. Likewise, unless they're fulfilling some "academic" requirement, they usually act out of a sense of charity or compassion. No one doubts young people should learn to share and help others, but no amount of charity or compassion leads citizens to sacrifice great goods — such as their lives or freedom — for their fellow countrymen. Finally, it's precisely by doing concrete, helpful things, rather than advocating or debating, that most community service organizations achieve success. But while serving food, planting trees, or painting over graffitti might give young people some reason for pride, it will give them little practice in ruling themselves or others within the difficult demands of Right.

My great grandfather never took a civics course, and I don't know what kind of citizen he became. Certainly there is a difference between collecting political gossip and citizenship. Still, he enjoyed avenues to and incentives for civic learning that have grown scarcer over the last century. In his classes he learned about great citizens of the past, not only Americans but also such men as Cicero and Demosthenes, people who risked or even gave their lives to keep their nations free. Also, in his day, the actions of such bodies as the Massachusetts General Court or the Boston Common Council possessed primary political importance, and had not yet been circumscribed by an overactive Congress or judiciary. Finally, Winfield's diary reveals that he possessed a concrete sense of the individual goods that his natural rights and the American Constitution intended to secure, a sense not blunted by technological comforts or luxury, and impossible to replicate by any amount of "service learning." Every few days he dutifully recorded that he had filled the woodbox. I like to imagine that it was a big chore, one deserving such notice, and that part of his seriousness about political life derived from a lively sense of the difficulty and the importance of keeping your own family warm.

— Albert Keith Whitaker is a professor of philosophy at Boston College.