Has there ever been an age in which middle-aged or elderly men have rejoiced at the rising standard of education among the young? The very idea seems absurd, almost against the nature of things. But just because a lament is an old one (that the standard of education is falling) it does not mean that it is untrue. Not every catastrophe happens that is predicted, but predicted catastrophes do sometimes happen.

The author of this book takes it for granted that American educational standards are low and getting lower. But low by comparison with what? With what they once were? With what they should be? With those of America’s competitors, now mainly Asian? Certainly, his pessimistic assumptions are to be heard in all Western European countries: I have, for example, a whole shelf of books about the decline of the once-vaunted French educational system.

Professor Weissberg is a slaughterer of sacred cows, many of which deserve to be put down forthwith, but his own outlook is not entirely clear or consistent. He establishes well enough the folly of much that has been done supposedly to ameliorate the situation, which in all honesty is not very difficult to do because the folly of educationists passeth human understanding. But by the end of his book, one is not quite sure whether he believes that the American educational situation is catastrophic, normal, nothing much to worry about, or even very good: or perhaps, like the general condition of Habsburg Austria,