For educators' summer reading enjoyment, "Kappan" editors recommend three books on nature (Robert Richardson's biography "Emerson: The Mind on Fire, William Cronin's edited book "Uncommon Ground: Rethinking the Human Place in Nature," and Gary Snyder's poetry volume "Mountain and Rivers Without End"). Also…

M. de Montaigne's essay "On the Education of Children" (1580) demonstrates the importance of examining classical authors to test understanding and develop judgment. Montaigne's method provides a way to study cultural heritage and to use the past to examine current issues. Implications for teaching today are discussed. (SLD)

Reviews Dover Publications' new series of literary classics published as inexpensive paperback editions. Finds the books able to withstand physical abuse. Recommends selecting the volumes that comfortably fit the curriculum and enlarge the choices within the department. (RS)

Reviews nine novels for young adults written before 1967 which are now considered to be "classics" by many English teachers. (PRA)

Reviews the method and practice taught in Cicero's "De Oratore," which is explicitly designed to allow for the comparative estimate of competing positions and represents an effort to find the possible basis for cooperative action in any controversy. Implications are drawn for contemporary teaching. (Author/SLD)

The "Confessions" of St. Augustine is important as a record of the process and results of the struggle between cultures of Athens and Jerusalem as a confrontation between classical and biblical learning. As such, it models an approach to the multicultural tensions of today. An example is given in cultural conflicts between Islam and Christianity.…