Getting it Wrong from the Beginning: Our Progressivist Inheritance from Herbert Spencer, John Dewey, and Jean Piaget Book

Not as grand or sweeping as "The Educated Mind," but also a somewhat quicker read.

Egan is here at his most convincing when dunking on Spencer and the educational literature. He stumbles when he tries to make a positive case for a model for education.

In particular, having wasted four years studying Latin, his case for learning it felt particularly weak. Everyone knows learning Latin will let you read Horace; the rational bar is a reason to read Horace instead of Gabriel García Márquez.

Egan accepts a priori certain aspects of curriculum that have a standardizing effect on the minds of their subjects, and the notion that education should tend towards a single model, rather than having a divergentizing effect. As a result, the brief remarks around deschooling only address the most Spencerian elements, and leave unaddressed many of the more interesting aspects.