On the Shelf


	In his 23 years as president of Bard College in Annandale-on-Hudson, NY, Leon Botstein, AB’67, has transformed a little-known performing arts school into a respected liberal- arts college that boasts independent research institutes, graduate programs, and an annual music festival (in which Botstein, a music scholar and performer, conducts the American Symphony Orchestra). Bard’s transformation manifests Botstein’s vision of what education might be and do in America.


	With his first book, Jefferson’s Children: Education and the Promise of American Culture (Doubleday), Botstein captures that vision in writing. America’s “culture of pessimism,” says the college president, encourages people to romanticize the past and neglect the future’s potential, breeding apathy among educators and students. He advocates that we rise up from that apathy and revamp our “obsolete” system of secondary education, “stepping away from our star-obsessed scale of judgment” and “rethinking what adolescents are capable of.” Botstein goes on to suggest ways of helping students realize “how valuable and enjoyable learning can be.”—E.C.