How can a country spend as much time and money on education as ours does and produce declining literacy and numeracy? Blame partly the theorists, who replaced phonics with the look-say method of teaching reading and who tried, as Mr. Saxon puts it, to "teach a child algebra by teaching him advanced algebraic concepts that had best be reserved for the junior year in college, when he has mastered the fundamentals." Blame also the social engineers, who, as; Mr. Down puts it, have made the schools into "psycho-social devices for solving the problems of our society." A discussion at once gloomy and heartening, with two men who are actively doing something to help--Mr. Saxon, by writing an algebra textbook; Mr. Down, through his own writing and the work of his Council.