Thank you very much for your insightful comments. Engler’s example from Michigan shows the need for creative minorities. Immitation is the highest form of flattery. Policies that work in one state, city, or town deserve a look elsewhere. What is Engler up to these days, anyway? Coleman, maybe Engler and I can run for office together. Professor Hylton, perhaps the only reason why my review appears more interesting than Murray’s book is because when you were my law professor I learned how to write everything I knew about a subject in less than 1000 words. If I had to compete at Murray’s length, it’d be another story. One of the statistics that suprised me is that no more than thirty-five percent of 25 year-olds currently have a college degree. Many start and do not graduate. I wonder how kids who go to college because their parents wanted them feel if they do not finish. Jennifer, you ask excellent questions. My college transcript states that I took six months of calculus. That is, far as I know, the only evidence that I had any encounter with the subject. I have not thought about the Chain Rule since I left the room of the final exam. Gracias a Senor Lechero for recognizing, the sacrifices of our servicemembers in uniform. Coleman, if I run for office, I should find out where you live. Please tell me it is somewhere warm. Please check out my next post, which should be online by the middle of the week. Very respectfully, MCT

The real problem, as I see it, is that the middle class insists on its off-spring going to college whether they want to or not. My oldest daughter is at Columbia as a freshman this year and we saw this with her friends at Charlottesville (Va) High School last year. (CHS is an extraordinarily diverse high school, both racially and economically.) Once a family reaches a certain level of success, not going to college (or at least art school) at all ceases to be an option.

Lower middle class and lower class families handle the situation much more rationally. My high school, in rural southwest Virginia, still sends only about a quarter of its graduates to 4-year colleges. The rest go to community colleges or right into the workforce.

I do agree that the military appears to do an extremely good job of sorting out its ranks by aptitude and ability. This seems to happen even in wartime.

During WWII my father was transferred from his paratrooper division to a unit supporting observation planes once someone recognized that he had unusual mechanical ability and could be quickly turned into an airplane mechanic. As it turned out, this was fortunate for my father as only 8 of the 80-some members of his paratrooper battalion survived D-Day.

Gordon Hylton
Marquette University