It is always a disappointment to turn from forthright consideration of some subject - whether from the Left or the Right a poet or a plumber - to the Beltway version in which the only aspects of the issue that matter are the effects it will have on the fortunes of the two parties and the various men in power.
Surely if knowledge is valuable it can never be good policy in a country far wealthier than Tuscany to allow a genius like Mr. Dalton's to be employed in the drudgery of elementary instruction.