Professor Tamura, in her paper "Narrative History and Theory," poses an issue with which the author has lately wrestled. She reviews some of the challenges to the tradition of narrative history presented by "social-scientifically oriented historians" like Fernand Braudel and "analytic philosophers" like Hayden White in the 1960s and 1970s, and then goes on to note that more recently, a turn to narrative among social scientists and a use of theory by historians suggests the possibility of combining narrative and theory in historical work. Overall, Professor Tamura expresses a sanguine view of the prospects for such integration. While narrative "provides a causal account and allows one to relive events," theory "allows one to analyze more effectively the forces that are beneath the surface." In her efforts to write a history of education in the early Republican era that moves back and forth between telling the stories of ordinary people and using social capital theory to analyze the place of schooling in larger patterns of social, economic, and political change, the author intends to share Professor Tamura's interest in the possibilities, and at the same time to identify some of the challenges, of such work. Like Professor Tamura, the author is drawn to the power of narrative to illuminate the significance or meaning of events from inside history. (Contains 9 footnotes.)