"Learning about history is an antidote to the hubris of the present"

Read this interesting, albeit distressing, piece by David McCullough on the history illiteracy of U.S. young people. He mentions how one class could not identify the significance of Gen. George C. Marshall and compares the hugely expensive (and ultimately fatal) Boston Big Dig to the under-budget, still working, ninety-four-year-old Panama Canal. My civil engineer father, who helped build part of New Jersey's highway system, wished most of all that he could have participated in the canal's construction. He considered it the ultimate engineering marvel.