Education: A Pleasure Lost

What is the difference between the superior U.S. university student and his counterpart in Britain? After years of teaching on both sides of the Atlantic, British Critic David Daiches has come to his own conclusion: though not nearly so well prepared in secondary school, the American has usually more than caught up by the time he graduates from college. But in all the rush, he loses something invaluable along the way.

"In such fields as literature, philosophy, and history, at least," says Daiches in Commentary, "the bright British student will most appreciate the...