Rita Kramer is a star in my book. Matter of fact, she actually is in my book. In my chapter on education I have quotes from Rita’s 1991 classic Ed School Follies **.

Well, here she is lamenting the loss of childhood, while wondering whether perhaps laments over the loss of childhood may not be a historical constant:

There has long existed in American culture a voice arguing for greater freedom for children. Huck Finn is the iconic youth at home with nature. Around the same time that Mark Twain was spinning his tale of the good-hearted youngster untrammeled by scholastic or moralistic strictures, Wordsworth was lamenting how “shades of the prison-house begin to close upon the growing boy.”

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** Earlier this year I happened to meet Ms. Kramer at a lunch in New York City. I complimented her on her book, and asked whether things at the teacher-training institutions had improved any in the 18 years since she wrote it. She: “Improved? They’re far worse! ”