Part one of this book of essays concerns the need to bring thinking to life and the need for a spiritual concept of man. It argues that both traditional and progressive educators fail children in by not giving them a full sense of their humanity. It denies a conception of the universe divorced from idealism and founded only in scientific inquiry. Part two describes the teaching methods at the Waldorf School in Garden City, New York. Part three treats problems of special interest to parents and citizens. "Authority, Discipline, and Freedom" attempts to clarify the way in which full-fledged freedom emerges for the maturing human being from his/her childish imitation of example, and his/her youthful trust in an obedience to authority. "Genius as the Goal of Education" shows that every child is close to genius, and that the primary goal of education should be to preserve and further enlist this genius. "The Next Step" addresses itself to the idea of cultural pluralism in a political democracy, its thesis being that if Western civilization is to begin resolving rather than compounding its difficulties, the present state school systems must make way for arrangements that will give much more freedom and responsibility to individual schools, providing parents at the same time with a correspondingly greater freedom of choice among schools. The epilogue considers the implications of the foregoing arguments for America's leadership among nations. (Author/CD)