The proper study of man is mankind, wrote Alexander Pope. But human beings are complicated. So, we group them, like elitists and commoners.

Before the Pilgrims landed on Cape Cod, the elitists controlled tribes, armies, lands, countries. Commoners served the elite. The Pilgrims were commoners desperately trying to survive. They invented people rule, establishing The Mayflower Compact that created a civil form of self-governing. They grew into a nation that continued these ideals.

Mankind will always have elite and commoners, but the pilgrims turned the old elite power upside down. People rule changed the world drastically. The Greeks called it democracy.

When elitists rule, the number of acceptable ideas is limited to the interests of a rich minority. America broadened the number of people who had ideas of practical importance; and ideas grew with population. America reorganized the differences between elites and commoners, it enlarged greatly the number of new ideas, and permitted new rich to move up into the elite!

So, what has America concluded today from this magnificent achievement? The proper study of mankind is skin color, to which it should devote its curriculums.

Howard Flora

Ledyard