Among the uncounted victims of the cuhural purges ofnthe 1960’s were a pair of likable tots so familiar to mostnAmericans that they seemed almost part of the family: Dicknand Jane. For nearly four decades the principal charactersnin the popular grade-school readers published by Scott Foresman.nDick and Jane were hustled off to a literary re-educationncamp shortly after their last edition appeared in 1962.nTheir political crimes were legion. They were suburban.nThey were middle class. They were part of an intact family,nwith an upwardly mobile father and a loving, supportive,nstay-at-home mother. They were unredeemably sexist, withnDick doing boy-things and Jane doing girl-things. They werenfair-haired and rosy-cheeked. In a prepubescent way, theynwere highly moral. And they were happy.nTh . he New Age “thought police” who uncovered thisninfamy inhabited America’s great universities and the nation’sncenters of high liberal culture. Social psychologistnOtto Klineberg issued the first statement of charges in an1963 article for Saturday Review. Assessing fifteen Americannreading primers, including Fun With Our Family featuringnDick and Jane, he discovered that the books portrayednAmericans as predominantly white and relatively well-todo—“notnexactly wealthy, perhaps, but certainly quite comfortable”—withngood furniture, clean, attractive clothes,nand “a pretty white house.” Characters in these readersncontinually met friendly, smiling people, “including gentlenand understanding parents, doting grandparents, generousnand cooperative neighbors, even warmhearted strangers.”nKlineberg argued that a more balanced portrayal of Americannlife—complete with crowded tenements, frustration, meannessnand poverty—was necessary, and he advised a study ofnthe readers used in France, the Soviet Union. Brazil andnSweden, to discover the levels of realism which small childrenncould absorb.nAs eyes opened to the deceptive prettiness and literaryntyrarmy of the bourgeoisie, the confessions began in earnest.n”My series suffers like the others in not having much appealnfor the culturally disadvantaged,” admitted the author ofnone primary reader in the mid-1960’s. “It is middle class,nwhite, and sometimes I am a little ashamed.” In shabby selfdefense,nhe went on to note that 60 percent of Americannchildren actually did live in suburban homes. But numbersnor majorities or enduring values were meaningless beforenthe demands of social justice. “White” and “middle class”nrolled together off the tongue with such ease that the wordsnseemed eternally tied in a racist linguistic knot. Even thosenmoral attitudes found in children’s readers which Klinebergnhad the temerity to bless—family solidarity, work, thrift,nindependence, courage—were quickly exposed as “white,nmiddle class” in origin and therefore legitimate objects ofnscorn.nChronicles of Culturen. BOOKS AND THE YOUTHFUL MIND •nCOMMENTnnnThe machinery of revolutionary justice moved quickly.nBy the mid-1970’s. such middle-class stereoti’oes had beenneliminated from the new editions of primar- readers, to benreplaced by what one educational theorist called “ethnicnand environmental pluralism.” Banished at the same timenwas the one-family cast of characters inhabiting most readers,noften superseded by anthropomorphic animals.nL Lt should be acknowledged that the champions of the newnorder were correct in singling out winsome tykes like Dicknand Jane as dangerous. These fictional moppets did representnmore than one-dimensional characters inhabiting an unimportantnset of children’s story’Dooks. For just as primar;nreaders reduced language and story line to their most rudimentarynlevels, so did they reveal their cultural content innequally basic manner.nMoreover, the authors of gradeschool readers understoodntheir roles as carriers of culture and shapers of the youthfulnmind. Unaware of the shifting cultural tides, one stated:nOur stories are frankly selected for their reflection of thenAmerican way of life. It is an idealistic representation. Wenknow that children in deprived areas do not experience thensame things, but why should they be surrounded by uglinessnand ugly language.’ … Children’s first impressions are strongn… We want to relax children’s fears and tensions and createna desire for correct living. . . Our readers are for all the childrennwho live in the slums, too. If we don’t show them somethingnbetter, how will they learn about it? … The philosophyn