In the years immediately following World War II, national attention was directed to the problems of education in the United States. As was the case with other aspects of American life, the exigencies of war had required that normal growth and development of the educational system be deferred until the cessation of hostilities.

………nunc adhibe puro
Pectore verba, puer, nunc te melioribus offer
Quo semel imbuta recens servabit odorem
Testa diu.
Hor. Ep. 2 Lib. I

Young man, accept this advice with joy.
Open your heart to these sweet lessons.
Thy cup remains long redolent with the fragrance
of its first liquid.

To the noble and generous Lord John, Count Nassau, Catzenelnbogen, Vianden and Diest,

His respectful and devoted Philip Marnix of Sainte-Aldegonde.

Greetings in Jesus-Christ.

After conferring repeatedly with me, noble and generous sir, on the education of youth, you have deemed it opportune, or rather, in view of the authority you have over me and of my duty toward your Lordship, enjoined me to state and write an outline of my theories on the education of young noblemen, starting with their earliest childhood. As soon as I received your command, I applied myself to this task, hastily, I confess, and without a clear design, but nevertheless with the utmost care possible, within the bounds of my small talents and limited experience.

It is a commonplace that the history of education is part of the general social and intellectual history of a period. Yet when we come to recommend to our students good educational histories which embody this precept we find a remarkable dearth of suitable works. All too often what passes for the history of education, or even the social history of education, is a chronological description of institutions with a few references to contemporary social events thrown in. No attempt is made to examine the causal factors affecting the evolution of education, nor to relate the history of education to recent interpretations of a period by other historians. There are of course some very honorable exceptions to this; but by and large the generalization holds true. The combination of qualities and interests required is rare; for most educationists are not trained historians, and most historians know little about education. Consequently the history of education is still at a relatively unsophisticated stage: statistical data is scarce and uneven; many printed sources are rare and difficult to use; and conceptual tools are rudimentary.

Professor Astrik Gabriel perhaps comes nearest to being the present-day successor to Charles Homer Haskins. Not that they could for a moment be confused. For one thing Professor Gabriel's main focus of activity is the high and later middle ages, whereas for Haskins it centered on the twelfth century: a difference in the intellectual history of the period between maturity verging on old age and youth. Again Haskins touched lightly on the borderland of intellectual and social history, throwing out a stream of elegant and seminal suggestions and sketches, while Professor Gabriel has mainly concentrated on the social and institutional facets of university life, above all in the colleges. Yet, although their styles of presentation are also very different, both take one into the heart of university life as it was lived with a zest and sympathy which is distinctive.