History may soon become extinct in our secondary schools, less missed and less lamented than either. A major new study by the Historical Association and teacher training experts found that three out of 10 comprehensives no longer bother to teach the subject, which isn’t part of the core curriculum after the age of 13. Only 30 per cent do GCSE history.

　　The researchers interviewed 700 history teachers from almost as many schools. Most British kids can name every contestant appearing in The X Factor, but as we have seen from other research, a substantial number don’t know about the Battle of Trafalgar, 20 per cent believe the Germans, Spanish or Americans once occupied Britain and some think Winston Churchill was the first man to walk on the moon.

　　And who were the dunces who decided to make this subject optional? Why the Tories when last they ruled over us.

　　从整体上看，前三段属于一个大的叙述结构。用了数字，引文等方式证明论点：history may soon become extinct in our secondary schools. 对英国的中学历史教育提出批评。

　　That was then. Today’s Tories are ardent History Boys, eager to return to the days when the past was hammered into the heads of the young, mostly in the form of dreary facts – dates, kings, wars and treaties– or embellished tales of glory to give indigenous British children an inheritance of innate superiority.

　　第四段稍作转折，讲述英国保守党试图将中学历史教育提起重视，但是仅仅是in the form of dreary facts。仍然是批评的口吻。

　　There is another disconcerting trend. Britain is deeply conservative and these days looks back longingly to the Tudors, Georgians, Victorians, Edwardians, wartime Britons, and now the Sixties. Historical novels, costume dramas, showman historians, genealogy programmes provide our public with an entertaining and comforting view of what has gone before. Audiences are never really forced to question things or feel troubled. Such canapé trays of past times fill people up with scraps of knowledge, no more than that.

　　本段讲述另外一个方面。Audiences are never really forced to question things or feel troubled. Such canapé trays of past times fill people up with scraps of knowledge, no more than that. 公众对于历史的了解仅限于娱乐的、商业的戏剧和电视节目，没有严肃批评也有反思。

　　If we are to reinstate history as a key subject in secondary schools, we must do so with a better understanding of its impact, and design the syllabus to tell as full a story as possible of this complicated nation and its connections to the world. MP Frank Field recently called for all students to be offered "a collective memory of the highs and lows, failures as well as the triumphs of Britain".

　　针对以上问题，作者提出一个solution: we must do so with a better understanding of its impact, and design the syllabus to tell as full a story as possible of this complicated nation and its connections to the world.

　　Ending: The long neglected positive aspects of our history also need to be exhumed. As left-wing historians often point out, the hard-won democratic rights we enjoy were not bestowed by kings and the landed gentry, but were wrested by oppressed peasants, industrial working classes and the abject poor. Most black, Asian and Arab British children do not know about the many white anti-Imperialist MPs who backed Gandhi, Nkrumah, Kenyatta and Nehru and an alarming number are woefully ignorant of the erudite Arabists who loved the Middle East and its many cultures.

　　历史教育同样也要引入被长期漠视的民权斗争，工业发展和多民族融合等积极的方面。

　　If we had known better the history of Iraq and Afghanistan, our government might have avoided the foolhardy and disastrous interventions that have left us with no credit. I write here as one of the ignoramuses. I was not taught anything about Afghanistan and have only now started to understand a little more about the people and the places.

　　Oscar Wilde wrote: "The one duty we owe to history is to rewrite it". And having rewritten it as honestly as possible, to teach it to those who will inherit our land.

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