Abstract
In the magical late 1960s, an amazing young scholar came, armed with a Harvard doctorate, to his first tenure-stream job at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE), then in its second year as a new independent research and teaching centre affiliated with the University of Toronto. Our paths crossed; fortuitously, it was the summer of 1967, which coincided with the beginning of my Ph.D in U of T's history department. In one of those accidents that determine one's fate, my advisor Maurice Careless suggested that, since the focus of my research was to be the history of education, I should wander up to “that new place on Bloor Street” (OISE) to see about a course on the subject. There, the chair of the History & Philosophy of Education Department (H & P) steered me to Michael's new offering on the history of American education. Participation in this brilliant seminar was life changing. Embedded in intellectual, religious, cultural and social frameworks, and interpreting educational history to be more than the history of schools, his course led students to more questions than answers. I found both the course meetings and the readings riveting.