Peter Webster believes that a study of the history of music teaching and learning in North America will likely reveal very few examples of extended and well-argued professional discourse. By "discourse" he means a continuous expression or exchange of ideas designed to present contrasting views on important issues in the music teaching profession. Webster says that often annual teaching conventions are filled with presentations that address a single perspective in research, pedagogy, or theory. "Special theme" issues of magazines are rarely devoted to contrasting points of view about music teaching and learning. Conferences are organized to promote single views on a subject, often speaking to a partisan audience that expects to be neither challenged to think in a contrary way nor encouraged to develop alternative perspectives. Webster believes that, in his paper, Paul Woodford, makes this point forcefully and effectively as he challenges educators to consider just how few examples there are of real discourse in the profession. Webster, says that he enjoyed enormously the case made in Woodford's paper for liberal education as not defined by the teaching of a canon of great books or art works as an end, but as a thoughtful discussion of ideas in light of contemporary circumstance. Webster responds to that idea by saying that the paper reminds educators that the idea of criticism in the field of education need not be a negative concept in this current age of post-modern thought, but rather, a positive mark of a maturing profession. (Contains 4 footnotes.)