President's Day reading

Betsy's Page had a link yesterday to an article about a poll of presidents.

Asked who was the greatest president, 20 percent of those polled chose Lincoln. Reagan was picked by 15 percent, Franklin D. Roosevelt by 12 percent, John F. Kennedy by 11 percent, Bill Clinton by 10 percent and George W. Bush by 8 percent. Washington was picked by 6 percent.

Obviously, this result is more indicative of name recognition than anything else. Foolish to include the current president in the survey at all. But beyond that it is an indictment of our education system. Reasonable people can disagree about their top five presidents, but no serious list has Washington number seven. I believe most people polled probably haven't read any historical books (biographies, etc) since leaving high school. Today, Betsy has a link to a list of recommended presidential biographies. Did I mention that Betsy is a school teacher?

I've recently started reading "His Excellency" by Joseph Ellis and would recommend it to anyone wanting to expand their knowledge of both our first president and colonial life.