Actually, National Geographic did essentially the same survey, and reported the same result, with about the same response from at least some who heard the result - in 1954 when I was about to get out of Junior High School. They have done a smaller survey about once per year, every year since, with results that I've seen reported on a national basis. They've done "international comparisions" every two or three years.

Can anyone think of a reason why a magazine called National Geographic might have a vested interest in this information?

My 6th grade class, in 1951, had a class project in which each kid made flags, crayon on cloth, accompanied by a "report" on each country. Our class of about 18 kids made a flag and report for every one of the member nations in the United Nations. One of the parents (my mother) thought the flags should all look alike, so she cut and hemmed "blanks" for the kids to color. Another parent (my dad) made a "stand" for the 60(?) flags, with flagpoles all cut alike from wood dowel stock. One of the kids (me) may have gotten minor extra credit for stapling all the flags on the flag poles.

Note: It is unlikely that most of the kids involved even remember doing this project. Several said so when I showed the newspaper picture at a 30th High School reunion some years later.

The main thing I remember¹ about the project is that it's a b***ch getting "paper" staples to drive straight into hard maple dowels.

¹ I also remember that "P," the classmate who provided the most extra help, picking up slack for those who couldn't complete their quota of flags, was incredibly "hot" (at a 6th grade level) but rejected all my 6th grade (and later) advances. She said she liked "tall guys," but ended up married to a little shrimp who was only 5' 29" tall.

John