Dear Editor:

I happened to be substitute teaching in an elementary school in New Hampshire on St. Patrick’s Day. The hallways were decorated with pictures of luck four-leaf clovers, leprechauns with rainbows and pots of gold at the ends. It was cute and colorful and very Irish but I thought my students should know something about the history.

I gave one of them what I thought was an easy assignment: go to the library’s encyclopedias and look up St. Patrick. She returned, saying she could not find him. I went and looked and she was right. Then I realized that St. Patrick had become a victim of “political correctness.”

I grew up in an era where Bible reading every morning in school was received. I’m not saying that separation of church and state is bad. It’s the distortion of history that bothers me. There was a St. Patrick, probably Christian and a Roman citizen who was taken by Irish raiders to that country and made a slave. He later brought his message of Christianity to his former captors.

Whether the story of comparing the three-leaf clover to the person of the trinity is true or legend, who knows. I suppose explaining all this by a grade school teacher to a class of students of various religions might be a problem. I suppose it’s easier to make the whole thing about leprechauns, luck clover and pots of gold at the end of rainbows is easier. However, the information about St. Patrick should be available to students who want to research this for themselves,.

I hope that this reasoning, or lack of, has not carried over into other areas of education. For example, all early American literature was religious and in the beginning, all colleges and universities were theological. I wonder how American literature is taught now. Those of us with firm convictions know it is counter-productive to try to force them on others. It’s better to lead by example and let truth speak for itself.

In the meantime, I hope all enjoyed St. Patrick’s Day for what it is – a celebration of Irish heritage — with some green beer and leprechauns.

Frances Bredeau

Boothbay Harbor