Progressive education reform has accomplished many things. It has made school a lot more pleasant, and a lot more interesting. But it’s also brought with it costs for us as individuals and as citizens. Memory is how we transmit virtues and values, and partake of a shared culture.

With some beautiful insights, Holt said what many already knew instinctively about school, merely by having passed through it themselves. His method was to reflect upon his own experience of teaching in his Boston classroom, by giving vignettes—diary entries of his work with children. He mused on the things children said and did in response to his