Textbooks and Freedom

OF the many lamentations which echo from my wailing wall in the backwoods of Michigan, two cries are most frequently heard. How can I find out whether my children’s textbooks are good or bad? And, How do I get information about what’s happening to independent schools? Below I touch upon both subjects.

School and college textbooks stand in need of sensible criticism. Some textbooks are reviewed in “professional” journals of the academy or in teachers’ magazines, but not many such manuals are reviewed even there; and of course the general public does not ordinarily encounter those publications. But there are sources from which judgments about textbooks can be obtained.

RK

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Russell Kirk

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OF the many lamentations which echo from my wailing wall in the backwoods of Michigan, two cries are most frequently heard. How can I find out whether my children’s textbooks are good or bad? And, How do I get information about what’s happening to independent schools? Below I touch upon both subjects.

School and college textbooks stand in need of sensible criticism. Some textbooks are reviewed in “professional” journals of the academy or in teachers’ magazines, but not many such manuals are reviewed even there; and of course the general public does not ordinarily encounter those publications. But there are sources from which judgments about textbooks can be obtained.