A national memorials scholar says legislation to add an educational structure near the Vietnam Veterans Memorial seems ill considered.

Carole Blair, professor of American studies at UC Davis and director of the UC Davis Washington Program says, "No one would argue with either the desire to commemorate Vietnam veterans or to educate the public about U.S. participation in the Vietnam conflict. The memorial accomplishes the commemoration function eloquently."

"But there is a difference, albeit a complicated and sometimes subtle difference, between commemoration and education. An education center somewhere in Washington may be appropriate but not at the memorial site."

Currently legislation is proceeding through Congress to add a structure nearby to educate visitors about the public artwork designed by Maya Lin.

Blair says it has been difficult from the beginning to keep interpretation of the memorial from lapsing into interpretation of the Vietnam conflict.

"The virtue of allowing people to draw their own meanings from the memorial is that a particular interpretation is not allowed to dominate," she says. "One of the real contributions of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial has been its capacity to appeal to very different values and ideologies."

For the past 12 years, she has conducted research at this and other national memorials and has written about the ways in which the American public interprets such public artworks. She is currently at work on a book about on the Civil Rights Memorial in Montgomery, Ala., which was Lin's second memorial.