MARK TWAIN ON HISTORICAL REMAINS
Mark Twain claims he received a manuscript from a teacher who shared her students answers of her questions. His account may be fictitious, but the results — whether from students or from Mark Twain’s own head — are amusing: Here are a few: We come now to historical matters, historical remains, one might say. As one turns the pages, he is impressed with the depth to which one date has been driven into the American child’s head – 1492. The date is there, and it is there to stay. And it is always at hand, always deliverable at a moment’s notice. But the FACT that belongs with it? That is quite another matter. Only the date itself is familiar and sure: its vast FACT has failed of lodgment. It would appear that whenever you ask a public-school pupil when a thing – anything, no matter what – happened, and he is in doubt, he always rips out his 1492.…
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