When I was in grade school, after every story we read or the teacher read, we were asked, " what is the moral of this story?" We memorized poetry, were exposed to in depth study of the works of Shakespeare. Herman Melville, George Elliott. We had weekly book reports with teachers who had read most of the books in the library. We were exposed to plays, performances from the Lyseum program and twice yearly symphony concerts. We were told this was to make us into a well rounded adult.

I received a pretty good, classical education from country schools.