Educational philosophy asks four distinct but related questions: What is the purpose of education? What is the nature of the child? What is the role of the teacher? And, finally, where does authority about these matters rest? Charles L. Glenn’s book focuses on the fourth question, that of the political philosophies that underwrite distinctive educational systems. Hovering in the background of Glenn’s work, of course, are the first three questions—those that concern the nature of the child, the aims of education, and the teachers’ authority—for it is disagreement about these things that necessitates the political arguments in the first place.