Thank you for running that excellent editorial (Herald, Sept. 11) about Bill Gates and the Big History Project. Gates, co-founder of Microsoft, is like many highly successful men and women who have made fortunes in technology and now believe that understanding history is essential to personal, professional and national success. The buzz on college campuses these days is about STEM, or science, technology, engineering and math. Yet as the alumni office at the Colorado School of Mines came to realize, their graduates plateaued in their careers after only a decade as technical innovations make their education obsolete. So Mines added more history and humanities to their curriculum, so that their engineers will have longer careers and a brighter future. Gates’ commitment to funding history in U.S. schools follows the same logic. If an education is about preparation for life and learning to adapt to changing circumstances, knowing history is vital.
Andrew Gulliford
Durango
