Education: The Fire Setter

For the young recruits maneuvering about Fairmount Park in Philadelphia one day during World War I, the drill seemed strictly routine. But suddenly their first lieutenant began giving some very non-routine orders. Before they knew what was up, he had marched them across the green and straight into the art museum. There he proceeded to give them a learned lecture on the museum's paintings. "I thought it would do them good," the lieutenant explained latef. "And besides, they were my first captive audience."

In time Theodore Sizer, professor at Yale of the history of art, was to lecture to thousands of audiences—but...

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