In this volume, the culmination of a lifetime's work as an educator, Marshall Gregory lays out a pedagogical theory and ethical vision for teaching. He argues that teachers across the arts and sciences can reach for teaching excellence by relying on more than good will, good intentions, sincerity, enthusiasm, and trial and error. They can think, individually and collectively, about the educable capacities of the students they teach and about the ultimate aim of their teaching: not to merely impart information or train their students in a discipline, but to develop their students' abilities for thought, reflection, questioning, and engagement to their fullest extent. Drawing on over forty-five years of teaching and thirty-five years of training teachers to think about pedagogy, Gregory speaks to any teacher wanting to more fully ground the what of teaching in the how and why.

Marshall Gregory argues that teachers at the university and high school levels can achieve teaching excellence by grounding their teaching in pedagogical theory that takes into account students' abilities and the ultimate goals of teaching: to develop students' capacities for thought, reflection, questioning, and engagement to their fullest extent.

The last of the "Christmas Numbers" compiled by Charles Dickens, this is a charming and highly entertaining series of stories from one of England's best-known and most widely read novelists. Named after the man who delivered him as a baby, Doctor Marigold is a poor hawker who, after a dreadful turn of events, finds happiness with his adopted daughter Sophy. She is a deaf mute, and to help her learn to read and communicate, Doctor Marigold "prescribes" her various stories, which he collects into a book while she is at school. These prescriptions, written by Dickens and five other distinguished Victorian writers, are tales of adventure and romance, featuring thieves, kidnappings, and witchcraft. Together they form a wonderful selection of tales that are told with the clever wit and brilliant description that characterize Dickens' writing.