Magna Carta turned 800 this June. How well has the centuries­-old document aged? On the one hand, millions of schoolchildren are taught that the medieval text laid the foundation for parliamentary and constitutional government and helped enshrine our civil liberties. In fact, the year 1215 is seared in many of our memories as one of the great dates in history. On the other hand, if you actually read the clauses of Magna Carta, it can seem anachronistic at best with its talk of fish weirs and debt to Jewish moneylenders.

In this Text to Text lesson, we present two sides of a debate about Magna Carta’s significance. Students read an Op­-Ed essay in The Times and an essay in The Wall Street Journal, and decide what they think: Is the document worthy of celebrating 800 years later? Or is its importance just a myth?

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In his New York Times Op-­Ed essay “Stop Revering Magna Carta,” Tom Ginsburg, a professor of international law and political science at the University of Chicago, makes the case that Magna Carta is more a myth than a reality, certainly not deserving of our veneration. In contrast, Daniel Hannan, a British member of the European Parliament for the Conservative Party, argues in his Wall Street Journal essay “Magna Carta: Eight Centuries of Liberty” that the 800­-year-­old text indeed established “the rule of law” in the English­speaking world and planted the seed for our enshrined liberties.

Read more at The New York Times