Across the Border

Anonymous good-willers in Manitoba and Minnesota put up $1,000 as a prize for an "impartial" U.S.-Canadian history textbook. Object: to teach elementary and high-school students on both sides of the border the same versions of the same events, thus promote Canadian-U.S. understanding.

The baldest differences in current U.S. and Canadian textbooks are in accounts of the War of 1812:

> To U.S. children, one of the high spots of that war is the burning of Washington. U.S. texts cry "vandalism," tell how British troops "deliberately set fire to the White House, the Capitol and other Government buildings." But they either ignore, or footnote, a fact which is always emphasized in Canadian versions of the same event: the "vandalism" was really "revenge." U.S. troops a year earlier had just as wantonly burned York (now Toronto), capital of what was then Upper Canada.

> The Battle of Lundy's Lane in Canada, within earshot of Niagara Falls, was one of the war's crucial fights. A Canadian version (close to the truth): "The hand-to-hand struggle lasted far into the night [until] the Americans withdrew." A U.S. version: "American troops won brilliant little victories at ... Lundy's Lane." ^ U.S. textbooks forgivably make much of David-&-Goliath triumphs over British vessels on Lake Erie ("Don't give up the ship"; "We have met the enemy and they are ours"). Most Canadian textbooks, ostrichlike, do not mention the naval battles at all.

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