Francis Keppel and the Harvard School of Education

Goodman had been in Cambridge and apparently went to see Keppel on his own to put my name forward for a new position as instructor in education. It was the summer of 1952, just after I had received my Ph.D. at Pennsylvania, and I had virtually no other prospects for an academic career. One evening in early July, I received a phone call at my apartment in New Jersey; it was Goodman, who told me to show up the day after next for an interview with Dean Keppel at the Harvard Graduate School of Education for an opening as instructor in education, with special reference to philosophy of education. I was flabbergasted, not having had any inkling of such an opening nor any hope of success at Harvard after the one live interview I had had early in the month, for a philosophy instructorship at Yale, an interview that had turned out an unmitigated disaster.