This fascinating historical account sheds much-needed light on the ideas and assumptions of the current standards and accountability movement by focusing on essential questions in education: Who is to be educated? What knowledge is of most worth? How shall we teach and how do students learn? And education toward what ends? The author then compares and contrasts how present reformers have answered these questions and how educational thinkers, including Emerson, Du Bois, and Dewey, have addressed them. By placing today's reforms in historical perspective, educators will be better able to...