Don't Know Much

Who Said It? (Annual Address Edition)

There is nothing which can better deserve your patronage than the promotion of science and literature.

George Washington, First Annual Address to Congress (January 8, 1790)

Nor am I less persuaded that you will agree with me in opinion that there is nothing which can better deserve your patronage than the promotion of science and literature. Knowledge is in every country the surest basis of public happiness. In one in which the measures of government receive their impressions so immediately from the sense of the community as in ours it is proportionably essential.

Complete Text and Source: The American Presidency Project, UC Santa Barbara

Under the terms of the Constitution, Washington delivered this message to Congress in person. It would later be called the State of the Union address.

Read more from Washington’s Mount Vernon Plantation.

Don’t Know Much About® History: Anniversary Edition

Posted on February 15, 2020

The Latest From My Blog

Juneteenth: The “Other” Independence Day

June 19 is a day to mark “Juneteenth” –a holiday celebrating emancipation at the end of the Civil War.

Read More

The Divisive & Partisan History of “Memorial Day”

America’s most solemn holiday should be free of rancor. But it never has been.

Read More