In late September, the Intercollegiate Studies Institute released a study showing that colleges are not effectively teaching history to students. In a study involving 50 colleges and over 14,000 students, the average score on a civic literacy exam was 53.2 percent. The average senior score was only 1.5 percent higher than the average freshman score, and in many colleges, seniors knew even less about history than freshmen. That suggests students are actually graduating with less knowledge than they had coming in!

The Wall Street Journaldescribed these results of the study: “Among college seniors, less than half—47.9 percent—correctly concluded that ‘We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal’ was from the Declaration of Independence. More than half did not know that the Bill of Rights prohibits the governmental establishment of an official religion, and ’55.4 percent could not recognize Yorktown as the battle that brought the American Revolution to an end’ (more than one quarter believing that it was the Civil War battle of Gettysburg that had ended the Revolution).”

Perhaps even more surprising, many of the schools with the worst results were among the most prestigious in the United States. The survey report stated, “An Ivy League education contributes nothing to a student’s overall knowledge of America’s history and institutions. America’s most prestigious schools, including Yale, Georgetown and Brown, improved their students’ civic knowledge far less than schools such as Rhodes, Calvin and Grove City.” Yale ranked in the bottom fifth of colleges nationwide—quite a contrast to its third-place position in the U.S.News & World Report 2006 ranking. And lest we get overly excited about the top schools, consider: The highest average score was still below 70 percent.

As those who conducted the study rightly observed, “Students don’t learn what colleges don’t teach.”

The view that learning history is of little or no value is extremely dangerous. Its prevalence in universities may be too entrenched ever to correct.

Winston Churchill considered history one of his greatest teachers. His love of history and determination to learn its lessons did much to help him fulfill his most trying responsibilities in World War ii.

Henry Steele Commager wrote an introduction to Winston Churchill’s biography of his ancestor, Marlborough. In it Mr. Commager said, “… Churchill’s reading of history reinforced his early education to exalt the heroic virtues. He was Roman rather than Greek, and as he admired Roman accomplishments in law, government, empire, so he rejoiced in Roman virtues of order, justice, fortitude, resoluteness, magnanimity. These were British virtues too, and, because he was the very symbol of John Bull, Churchillian. He cherished, as a law of history, the principle that a people who flout these virtues is doomed to decay and dissolution, and that a people who respect them will prosper and survive.”

Learning lessons from great leaders of the past is critical to our national well-being. If we flout those heroic virtues of history, our nations are “doomed to decay and dissolution.” But if we respect and emulate them, we will “prosper and survive.”

That is a law of history. Our national survival is at stake!

How often have we heard that history repeats itself? It does—time and time again. If we live the same lifestyles our forefathers did, we will attain virtually the same result—good or bad. History becomes prophecy. History prophesies the fate of nations, whether they will thrive or collapse!

This is “a law of history.” It is not about luck or happenstance. It is a law of history. If we break that law, the law breaks us!

Our nations live today because great leaders of the past learned and practiced heroic virtues.

Another survey, conducted several years ago, revealed that British school children have a disgraceful ignorance of history before they go to college. Many of them believe Hitler was the prime minister who led Britain to victory in World War ii! These children are dangerously ignorant of even fairly recent events. Our nations came close to losing World War ii because we rejected Churchill’s warnings too long!

How vital is it to learn that history?

Mr. Churchill warned for almost a full decade about Adolf Hitler, and the British and American people refused to listen. Civilization was almost beyond saving when the jarring gong of reality struck! If we don’t learn from Churchill’s warnings of the 1930s, we will respond too late to prevent a nuclear war!

This is the historical perspective we must have. God prepared Winston Churchill to save Western civilization in World War ii. No such man is being prepared to save us from World War iii. But God is sending a warning of how we can be saved from a nuclear catastrophe! Our warning message is from the great God, and you can prove it. Will you?

Most people in the 1930s were almost totally unaware of Adolf Hitler’s grand design. That is because they were ignorant of Hitler’s own history. He had laid out his master plan in his book, Mein Kampf.

Around 50 million people were killed in World War ii. How many lives could have been saved if we had read and heeded Mein Kampf and then used our power to stop Hitler before he could do so much damage?

The Russians made a pact with Hitler at the beginning of World War ii. The Russians were delighted, though they should not have been. Hitler had written in Mein Kampf that he must conquer the Soviet Union. They were either ignorant of Hitler’s history or didn’t believe what he said and wrote.

As most people know, Hitler later marched into the Soviet Union. The world finally believed Hitler when Mein Kampf became a terrifying reality!

Similarly, Osama bin Laden wrote and spoke about how he was going to attack and terrorize America. Most of our people ignored his declaration of war.

Even when he bombed the World Trade Center in 1993, we still didn’t believe his threats, even though that was the first time America had ever been attacked by terrorism inside its borders. It wasn’t until the Sept. 11, 2001, attack that we finally believed bin Laden’s speeches and writings.

The great tragedy is that we have learned little, if anything, from the twisted history of Hitler and bin Laden.

Manfred Weidhorn, in his book Sword and Pen, said this about Winston Churchill: “In attempting to assess the ultimate significance of events, Churchill grapples with the problem of historical perspective. Incidents have one meaning at the time of their occurrence and another when they have become part of history.”

Many people have called Mr. Churchill a prophet. Here is the main reason: He tried “to assess the ultimate significance of events” in a historical perspective. All human beings are weak in this area, but we must strive to see not just the present, but also the past and the future.

Mr. Churchill also said that the further you see into the past, the further you can see into the future.

What we really need is God’s perspective. We should avoid human reasoning (2 Corinthians 10:5) and instead reason with God (Isaiah 1:18). “Now all these things happened unto them for ensamples: and they are written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the world are come” (1 Corinthians 10:11). God left us examples in our history. They were recorded in the Old and New Testaments to educate us. But few people heed God’s warnings. We are going to pay the ultimate price if we don’t learn these God-inspired lessons.

The solution to all this is not in being a liberal or a conservative. Liberals believe in individualism, which often means they trust in their own human reasoning. Conservatives believe that people should learn from history, but God is often left out of the picture. Neither liberals nor conservatives rely on God as they should. Too many of their views are anti-God, and that is the worst plague of all. Generally they learn dangerously little from secular or biblical history.

However, the law of history is still there. Life will be extremely hard unless we learn this immutable law of history.