Volume 11, Number 9 · November 21, 1968
Sentimental Education
By Edgar Z. Friedenberg
The Disadvantaged
by Mario D. Fantini, by Gerald Weinstein
Harper & Row, 455 pp., $8.95
Education and Ecstasy
by George B. Leonard
Delacorte Press, 239 pp., $5.95
Who Can Be Educated?
by Milton Schwebel
Grove, 277 pp., $6.50
These books, taken together, are as depressing in their implications for American education as any set of documents could be. This is not because their authors are pessimistic. They are sturdily optimistic; Leonard is even joyful. What is unpleasant about them is not primarily their tone but their relationship to the reality they discuss. All are by influential people. Mario Fantini (Ed.D. Harvard University) is Program Officer of Public Education for the Ford Foundation, in which capacity he serves, in his own words, as a 'Change Agent' and a 'power source.' George Leonard is Senior Editor and West Coast Editorial Manager for Look, which heralded Education and Ecstasy in a cover story. Milton Schwebel is Dean of the Graduate School of Education at Rutgers University. While it cannot be said that what these men urge will come to pass—for Leonard's vision of the future differs markedly from that of his fellow authors—it will certainly command attention.
Review, 4132 words
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