Little Note Nor Long Remember

Okay, this is really dumb . . ..

The National Park Service has opened a new museum devoted to Abraham Lincoln across the street from Ford's Theatre in Washington, D.C., where he was assassinated in 1865. The museum is called the Ford’s Theatre Center for Education and Leadership. The museum's mission statement is to educate people on Lincoln's presidency and impact on popular culture. Visitors, the new museum's Web site explains, can "explore the lasting effect Abraham Lincoln’s presidency — and its untimely end — have had on our country." Umm, we already have something that does that. It's called the school system.

Any and all indications that this is going to be seen as Epcot at Northwest Tenth Street are likely to be confirmed when you walk in the building. The museum contains a replica railroad car with artifacts from Lincoln's funeral, as well as a theatrical model of the tobacco barn where John Wilkes Booth was cornered and shot to death by Union soldiers. Also on display are mannequin statues of Presidents who took inspiration from Lincoln, such as Franklin D. Roosevelt and Dwight D. Eisenhower, along with pictures of Lincoln, quotes from Lincoln, videos of portrayals of Lincoln, an interactive display of Lincoln on the five-dollar bill, Lincoln Logs . . . everything but a Lincoln Town Car.

This proves once again that Americans can't be taught history unless you jazz it up with all sorts of hands-on displays and irrelevant stimuli to entertain their short attention spans. Not too long ago, the site of the wonderfully preserved Ford's Theatre and the small, inconspicuous display of artifacts in its basement told the story of Lincoln and his assassination sufficiently and people could walk into the building - and the Petersen House across the street, where Lincoln died - and feel all the emotion and gravity of what transpired that Good Friday and Holy Saturday in 1865. Now you need all sorts of Disneyfied displays to bring history to life. But, as walking into Independence Hall in Philadelphia, one of the few buildings in Independence National Historical Park that hasn't been retrofitted with drywall and Plexiglas partitions and with dropped ceilings with track lighting to tell the story of the American Revolution in a "contemporary" style, proves, none of that is necessary. You don't need rooms walled off and kept under glass to make what happened in them seem more special, nor do you need mannequin statues or video displays to make a visit to an historic site more compelling. Standing in that room in the old Pennsylvania State House (what Independence Hall used to be called) and pondering what was achieved there should be enough. But maybe we Americans don't have enough historical imagination to contemplate the solemnity of a vacant room anymore. We need an interactive display to explain history to us. Hence the National Constitution Center near Independence Hall, and now . . . the Ford’s Theatre Center for Education and Leadership.

The focal point of the new Lincoln museum is a 34-foot-tall tower of books about Lincoln in the building's central atrium - seven thousand titles - to demonstrate just how important Lincoln still is. You know, in order to divine Lincoln's importance, maybe it would be better if we Americans actually read these books instead of stacking them.

In fact, I'll take one right now. Heads up!