Education: Looking Backward, Sourly

At its most caustic, social satire is brewed from sweet reasonableness, and nothing could be more reasonable than the modest educational proposal that is the basis of a spoofing report from the 21st century by British Sociologist Michael Young. First premise of The Rise of the Meritocracy, 1870-2033, published in London, is merely this: every bright child, regardless of his parents' wealth or lack of it, should get the best education he is capable of absorbing. The proposition is hardly alarming, but by the book's end it has left a trail like...

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