By introducing new child-rearing techniques that contradicted those practiced for hundreds of years, pediatrician Dr. Benjamin McLane Spock changed the way several generations of parents raised their children. Through his practice, his books, and his articles in numerous child-rearing magazines, he taught parents that their own common sense, their own instincts, their unique bond with their children, were to be trusted more than any theories. He told them to listen to their children and to respect their unique individual abilities. Dr. Spock gave parents flexible tools to use for child rearing, which he called "a long, hard job." Without being an idealogue or professing to be a guru, Dr. Spock and his liberal views on child rearing also opened or reinforced new directions in education. From the 1950s education moved away from the force-fed teaching of pre-digested materials toward a nurturing of...