The National Endowment Secondary Seminars, or the Best Thing I Ever Bought with My Taxes.

Last fall when the brochure describing the first summer seminars for secondary school teachers appeared in my mailbox, that repository of all things new or difficult to categorize, I dutifully routed it to the sixteen members of the English Department and shared it with the Social Studies Department. I found the subject matter exciting and the scholars conducting the seminars impressive. A month passed. I set about actively recruiting highly qualified teachers to send for the application materials. I read aloud the list of seminars in