College Seniors Flunk U.S. History 101, Recent Study Shows

When did the Civil War happen?

Only 60 percent of college seniors at 55 leading universities were able to answer "1850 to 1900," according to a recent survey sponsored by the American Council of Trustees and Alumni.

Another question--which asked who the president of the United States was at the beginning of the Korean War--stumped 65 percent of the 556 students polled.

Members of the Harvard history department said the results were not particularly shocking nor should they cause alarm.

"I was probably not terribly surprised and I don't mean that I think they are stupid," said Brett Flehinger, a senior history lecturer. "I don't throw my hands up at it. [Students] don't think about it on a daily basis."

The average score for the 34-question, high school-level test was 53 percent--a failing grade at most schools. The group polled included students from 55 universities, including Harvard, Brown and Princeton.

Yet while some members of Congress have expressed discontent at the results, Harvard is not planning to make American history a graduation requirement.

"It is partly a result of [American history] not being required or not being taught well," Warren Professor of American History Ernest R. May said. "But most of these people had been exposed to this information and it didn't stick."

May said people tend to remember things that they think will be useful to them. "It is more troublesome that people find this useless info that they discard," he said.

Former Dean of Undergraduate Education William M. Todd III pointed out that it is better to learn history from a critical standpoint than by memorizing facts. In some cases, he said, the facts are debatable anyway.

"Required university history courses do not guarantee that students will share a common set of facts," he said. "Quite the contrary, I would imagine."

Not all professors share this viewpoint, however. Professor of History William E. Gienapp said that while he is not surprised by the results of the study, he thinks Harvard should act on them.

"I don't think any student should graduate from college without taking the U.S. survey (not some course covering 10 years of U.S. history, but the broad sweep of their country's history)," he wrote in an e-mail message.

But Dean of Faculty Jeremy R. Knowles made light of the small poll, saying he is surprised by the "average levels of knowledge in almost any field."

"Did you know that 60 percent of adults in France do not know who painted the Mona Lisa?" Knowles wrote in an e-mail message. "Or that in this country, 27 percent of adults think that the sun goes round the earth, and 36 percent believe that radioactivity is made safe by boiling it?"