Tuesday, December 17, 2013

On The Irrelevance Of Robert Fulton

Pondering yesterday's visit to my daughter's school where the teachers were focused on the racial aspects of their topic areas and whose classrooms were festooned with racial posters, I wonder what has come of learning about the lives of people like Robert Fulton.

Fulton is best known for his work on steamboats, but he was also a pioneer in submarines as well. He was quite the entrepreneur, seeking funding from anyone who happened to be nearby, swearing allegiance to them if he thought it would bring him financial backing. He studied as an artist and then an engineer and his accomplishments were considerable.

Unfortunately for the children of my daughter's generation, it's doubtful she will hear much more about him than to associate his name, in a dim and distant way, with steamboats. Her classes are so full of tales of bigotry and how people suffered under racial discrimination that there's not much room left for businessmen, inventors or explorers.


In this video, Robert Fulton gets his groove on.

2 comments:

pathickey said...

Well argued my friend! Kat teaching is a rarity. Thank God and the hair-pullers for Catholic schools.

Our guys know Fulton -Steamboat and Bishop.

tim eisele said...

"it's doubtful she will hear much more about him than to associate his name, in a dim and distant way, with steamboats"

I kind of suspect that if you were to ask the average person over 50 about Fulton, the typical response would be to associate him in a dim and distant way with steamboats. I don't see where much has changed in that respect.