The five highest

The reviews

The score, the write-up, and what to do with the evening. Keep going down the page.

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01 · Book · Kindle · 1611

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The Holy Bible, King James Version

100Living historically.

The standard itself. Read it. The meter does not improve it.

The review

This is the King James Version. A Kindle copy may wear a later date. The text is the one finished in 1611 and read in houses ever since. The desk does not grade it against the evening's shows. The shows are graded against it.

Read it aloud. A score of 100 is not praise invented for a page. It is the only honest number. If a house keeps one book, it is this one.

Journal

Keep The Holy Bible, King James Version in the record.

No house has filed a sentence for this yet.

Live Historic number 100. Yours can differ.

The glance

Industry is the thin one.

Does anyone here do a real job, and does that job matter?

This phone is set for a grown person, just me. Change the ages.

The eight

10
Industry
It is work: a chapter, a household, a life. Nothing here is a shortcut.
10
Household
Marriage, children, and a people are the story, not the backdrop.
10
Piety
This is the measure the other seven are measured by.
10
Courage
The cost is named, and people pay it without taking it back.
10
Republic
A law above the king. A neighbor is not a prop.
10
Temperance
Appetite is told the truth about itself.
10
Truth
It does not flatter the reader. The hard parts stay in.
10
Stewardship
Copied, kept, and handed on. That is what stewardship means.

Where to read

Finding the page.

Live Historic · The Holy Bible, King James Version · 100IMDb

Live HistoricSee what matters.

02 · Broadside · A 1776 town · 1776

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The Declaration of Independence

93Living historically.

A people stating why they are leaving a king. The sheet was heard in a yard, not kept as a private letter.

The review

John Dunlap printed it overnight. Congress ordered the sheets sent to the assemblies and the army. John Nixon read it in the State House yard on July 8. The army heard it in New York on July 9. Few houses owned a copy. A town could hear it.

The score holds two things at once. The claim that rights are not a king's to give is the high part. The men who adopted it struck out a condemnation of the slave trade, and slavery continued. Do not quote the promise and skip the bill.

Journal

Keep The Declaration of Independence in the record.

No house has filed a sentence for this yet.

Live Historic number 93. Yours can differ.

The glance

Industry is the thin one.

Does anyone here do a real job, and does that job matter?

This phone is set for a grown person, just me. Change the ages.

The eight

9
Industry
A committee did the labor, and the bill of grievances is specific work.
9
Household
Posterity is named. It is not a story about one house.
9
Piety
Nature's God and the Creator are in the sentence. A soul is allowed. A church is not established.
10
Courage
To sign it, if they lost, was a hanging offense.
10
Republic
The document is the republic question said in public.
9
Temperance
The tone is an indictment, controlled. It does not gloat.
9
Truth
The rights are stated plainly. Congress cut the passage on the slave trade, and the country went on holding people as property. That omission is part of the score.
9
Stewardship
It was handed to a people, and it did not free the people already in chains. Later generations used the promise against that fact.

Where to watch

Finding the page.

Live Historic · The Declaration of Independence · 93IMDb

Live HistoricSee what matters.

03 · Pamphlet · A 1776 town · 1776

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Common Sense

91Living historically.

Plain words, written to be read aloud. The name stayed off the first printing because the charge was treason.

The review

Paine wrote it so a kitchen could hear it. That is the measure. A king, he says, is not a parent, and a continent does not need one across an ocean.

How many copies were printed is not known. The score is not a circulation number. It is the eight questions. Read it aloud once, the way a tavern did, and then ask who in the room is allowed to answer.

Journal

Keep Common Sense in the record.

No house has filed a sentence for this yet.

Live Historic number 91. Yours can differ.

The glance

Industry is the thin one.

Does anyone here do a real job, and does that job matter?

This phone is set for a grown person, just me. Change the ages.

The eight

9
Industry
A short argument, built to be used, not admired on a shelf.
9
Household
The king's claim to be a father is the thing he takes apart.
9
Piety
He appeals to reason and to nature. A creed is not the engine.
9
Courage
He says the unsayable, and he does not sign it, because signing could hang him.
10
Republic
The whole pamphlet is the question of who a people may answer to.
9
Temperance
The anger is aimed. It is not a binge.
9
Truth
He writes so a crowd can follow him. Some of the heat is hotter than the proof.
9
Stewardship
It was made to be passed from hand to hand and read to people who could not buy it.

Where to watch

Finding the page.

Live Historic · Common Sense · 91IMDb

Live HistoricSee what matters.

04 · Series · Netflix · 1974

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Little House on the Prairie

91Living historically.

The standard, filmed. Work, a house, prayer, a town, and something left in the ground for the people after them.

The review

This is the nearest thing on the modern shelf to the household the meter is measuring. Charles works. Caroline keeps the inside of the world in order. The girls are taught, corrected, and loved without being asked to raise their parents. The town is small enough that a cruelty is everybody's business. Some later episodes chase a disaster because television gets hungry. The early years do not need the disaster. A crop, a schoolhouse, and a Sunday will do.

Put it on. Start at the beginning. Let the youngest stay for the ones about a harvest and a hymn, and be in the room when an episode turns hard. Then go outside and do one chore the house will still be using in the morning.

Journal

Keep Little House on the Prairie in the record.

No house has filed a sentence for this yet.

Live Historic number 91. Yours can differ.

The glance

Republic is the thin one.

Does anyone owe a neighbor, a law, or a town — or is every person out for themselves?

This phone is set for a grown person, just me. Change the ages.

The eight

10
Industry
Plowing, hunting, teaching, milling. The day is made of jobs a house can eat.
10
Household
The Ingalls table is the government of the story. Children are the point of the labor, not the audience for it.
9
Piety
Grace at the table, church, and a conscience that can overrule a mood. It is the family's air.
9
Courage
Charles walks into weather, debt, and other people's trouble because the alternative is not being a man.
8
Republic
Walnut Grove argues, votes, fails, and still has to live together the next morning.
9
Temperance
Want is real. Waste is a sin they can feel. Feasts are rare and therefore serious.
8
Truth
The hardest episodes are about a lie or a pride that has to be walked back in public.
10
Stewardship
A claim, a school, a name. They are planting what they will not all live to sit under.

Where to watch

Finding the page.

Live Historic · Little House on the Prairie · 91IMDb

Live HistoricSee what matters.

05 · Almanac · A 1776 town · 1732

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Poor Richard's Almanack

91Living historically.

Weather, planting, and a proverb. A tool kept the whole year.

The review

Franklin had stopped writing Poor Richard long before the war. The name stayed, because a house needed a book that was not the Bible and was still kept all year. Planting, money, a joke, a rule for work.

The score is for that use. It is not a claim that Franklin was still the author in 1776.

Journal

Keep Poor Richard's Almanack in the record.

No house has filed a sentence for this yet.

Live Historic number 91. Yours can differ.

The glance

Household is the thin one.

Is a marriage, a parent, or a child a real life here, or just a prop?

This phone is set for a grown person, just me. Change the ages.

The eight

10
Industry
Work, thrift, and the day are the whole doctrine.
9
Household
A house runs on the calendar. Early to bed is a household rule.
9
Piety
Usefulness stands where a creed might. Some of the piety is a proverb.
9
Courage
No battle. The courage is doing the small thing on time.
9
Republic
A shared calendar is how a town farms and how it meets.
9
Temperance
Appetite is the enemy of the maxim. Spend less. Drink less. Rise.
9
Truth
The maxims are often true, and some of them are a salesman talking.
9
Stewardship
Hung on a nail and used until the year was over. Then the next one.

Where to watch

Finding the page.

Live Historic · Poor Richard's Almanack · 91IMDb