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Gives thanks to a teacher

Recently, fourth graders from Florence Rideout Elementary School in Wilton spent a day touring historic sites in Wilton and Lyndeborough as part of their study of local history, and they even went to visit our State House.

We don’t know who came up with this idea — it’s only been going on for two years — but whoever it was should take a bow. This is a terrific way to introduce kids to history — a subject that seems to be almost universally dismissed in this country — with the hope that one of them will become the next Michael Bechloss or Doris Kearns Goodwin.

And by getting kids interested in history on a local level, the hope is that they’ll want to learn more about their nation and then learn more about their government and how it works. And perhaps some of them will become politicially active and maybe even run for public office.

It all has to start somewhere and the best place to start is in schools at the local level. Seeing the Lyndeborough Center town pound that was built in 1774 to house stray or impounded animals and learning about the Lafayette Artillery and its 1844 cannon is hands-on history.

The probability is that we can thank a teacher, or teachers, for this idea and with the level of disrespect teachers face, particularly in Milford, we should thank them loudly and publicly.

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