it is a 42-foot wide mural that dominates shepard hall city university, and it was done by ed wim slash field in 1904. it's called the graduate. and you can get the image of the idealism that expired particularly new york state at the turn of the century and how successful it was then. some of the themes of this new book, the making americans are new to my riding and i will connect some of them with the more familiar ones of low student achievement, and equality of result, disturbingly low level of civic commitment. now the historical context for what i'm going to say is a less beautiful picture. it's that one of this is the pattern of favorable sat scores from the late 1960's to the present. i would like you to remember it. i'm going to leave it up for quite awhile. the s.a.t. goes back further. it was started in the 1970's. the s.a.t. is more than a college entrance exam. it's also a kind of referendum or final report card on what our schools have been doing. and before i outline why the fall of s.a.t. verbal scores is so urgently important i want to