MAKING THE MOST OF SUMMER

What’s happened to summer? The long, mellow growing season of our farming forebears is now a time of intense activity for the family, with a cornucopia of options to keep the out-of-school child busy, learning, healthy and happy. TIME FOR FAMILIES has crisscrossed the nation to look at moderately priced programs that afford the perfect mix of pleasure and instruction. While a few of the featured programs are booked up for 1997, all promise to inspire. (The subscribed programs’ sponsors may have other offerings, and there’s always next summer.) We’ve invited a variety of notables to share their memories of seminal childhood summers–and asked education analyst John E. Chubb to reconsider the Jeffersonian belief in “the inestimable value of the intellectual pleasures,” meaning more school time for kids in summer. Happy vacation!