Some years earlier Mr. Adler had taken time out from whichever book he was writing to focus on modern American education. The resulting Paideia Proposals were received enthusiastically by serious people, but with justified skepticism about their making it through the education bureaucracy. In brief, the proposals assert that "teaching is a cooperative art"; thus seminars should be an integral tool from kindergarten on. Mr. Buckley quotes the commonest criticism-"that we do not have a teaching class equipped to administer [this] program"-and we're off and running: "In every case where there is some degree of the Paideia Proposals being put into practice,... once that happens, that one thing [the introduction of seminars], it changes the character of the school, changes the character of teachers ... their own minds become refreshed.... In one of the worst black ghettos in Chicago, they've introduced seminars.... The children were so excited by the fact they were reading books and discussing them, they brought their parents to school and it changed the character of that community."