Ken Burns: challenges whole nation to memorize Gettysburg Address..."Govt of,by and for the people"
Ken said in a TV interview this morning that 80% of college grads dont know where the words.." government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth." came from. SO he's cahllenging the whole nation to learn the Gettysburg Address.
Ken Burns: Learn Lincoln's words by heart
By Ken Burns, Special to CNN
Editor's note: Ken Burns has been making films for more than 30 years. His latest documentary, "The Address," premieres on PBS on April 15. Burns will be on CNN's "Piers Morgan Live" 9 p.m. ET Tuesday to talk about his latest project.
(CNN) -- In one week, our nation will celebrate the 150th anniversary of the Gettysburg Address. President Abraham Lincoln spoke for only two minutes. He started off by reminding his audience that it had been only 87 years since the country's founding, and then went on to embolden the Union cause with some of the most stirring words ever spoken.
He hoped that despite the terrible battle that had taken place at Gettysburg, his country might still have, as he put it, "a new birth of freedom."
Within his famous address, he stated, "The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here." Yet a century and a half later, we still honor those sacred words he spoke on the battlefield in Pennsylvania as some of the most important words ever spoken.
It is my hope that Americans across our great nation will take this occasion to look deeper into the history and legacy of the Gettysburg Address and the great sacrifices for freedom Lincoln honored in the midst of the Civil War.
A great way to start is by simply picking up the brief speech and reading it aloud. Read it to your children, your parents and your friends. As you read this timeless piece of oratory, engage in a discussion with those around you on what these words mean to us today.
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THE GETTYSBURG ADDRESS:
Four score and seven years ago, our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
Now we are engaged in a great Civil War, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.
But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate -- we can not consecrate -- we can not hallow -- this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced.
It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us -- that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain -- that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.
http://www.cnn.com/2013/11/12/opinion/burns-gettysburg-address/
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