Americans will celebrate Independence Day in all manner of ways this holiday weekend. There will be parades, trips to the beach, baseball games, family gatherings and cookouts, flag waving and, of course, fireworks.

But when the celebrations end, many Americans would do well to study up a bit more on their nation’s history and the nature of our government.

As Benjamin Franklin, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, reportedly observed upon the close of the Constitutional Convention of 1787, when asked what sort of government the convention had given birth to, “A Republic, if you can keep it.”

Keeping it involves some work on behalf of the governed, some effort to be informed. But in an age of unlimited entertainment distractions, when the trivial so dominates our collective attention and the stuff of policy and political ideology can seem, well, boring and difficult by comparison, one has to wonder if we can “keep it.”

A Marist Poll found 20 percent of Americans did not know from which country the United States won its independence. The younger the responder, the less chance of getting the correct answer — Great Britain. Only 60 percent of adults under age 30 could supply the right answer, compared to 79 percent of those ages 45 to 59, for example.

A 2014 poll by the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania found a fundamental misunderstanding among a majority of citizens about the three branches of federal government — executive, legislative and judicial — and the checks and balances they provide to avoid a concentration of power.

The survey of 1,416 adults found only 36 percent could name all three branches of the U.S. government, and 35 percent could not name one.

Just 27 percent of Americans, the survey found, know it takes a two-thirds vote of the House and Senate to override a presidential veto. And, bizarrely, one in five Americans incorrectly agreed that a 5-4 Supreme Court decision must be sent back to Congress for reconsideration.

A survey last year by the American Council of Trustees and Alumni, a nonprofit organization committed to academic freedom, excellence, and accountability at America's colleges and universities, sought to compare the knowledge of college graduates as compared to the general public. Certainly Americans with a college degree should have a working knowledge of the Constitution and their government.

Yet less than half of graduates, 48.7 percent, responded with the right answer— in a multiple choice question — that the U.S. Senate conducts the trial of impeachment of a president. That was better than the 38.5 percent number for the general public, but hardly impressive.

When given four choices, about 67 percent of graduates could identify the Bill of Rights, and nearly one-quarter answered wrongly that it is a “petition upon which the U.S. Constitution was based.”

Again given four choices, about 10 percent of college graduate respondents identified Judith Sheindlin — Judge Judy — as a member of the U.S. Supreme Court. The right answer, selected by 62 percent of the graduates and 44 percent of general public responders, was Elena Kagan.

These embarrassing responses provide dramatic evidence of the need for more and better civics education in our public schools and at the university level.

When it comes to maintaining a republic, ignorance is not bliss, it is dangerous.