We need a conception of citizenship that is active, engaged and adequate to the challenges of our complicated world. Citizens develop, they do not emerge full blown; and their capacities are cultivated only through tough, challenging, serious practical and theoretical education in what Benjamin Barber has well termed the democratic arts. Barber and I agree on the importance of a strong conception of citizenship; on the centrality of civic education to any honest rendering of education in a purported democracy; and on the significant challenge such a view of civic education presents to customary ways of conceiving citizenship, education, and service. Moreover, I greatly appreciate the leadership that Benjamin Barber and Rutgers University have provided in renewing collegiate interest in civic education
