No, we can't.(THE STRAGGLER)

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I KNOW, I know, we are the land of opportunity. Log cabin to White House! Anyone can be anything! Up by the bootstraps! TV talking heads, motivational speakers, pastors and pedagogues, all want to tell us--and especially our children--that we are each a hissing, throbbing little pressure cooker of potential. If we will only hitch our wagon to a star, we can be all we want to be. Yes, we can!

Here is New York Times reporter Deborah Solomon interviewing sociologist Charles Murray, following publication of Murray's latest book, Real Education.

DS: Europeans have historically defined themselves through inherited traits and titles, but isn't America a country where we are supposed to define ourselves through acts of will?

CM: I wonder if there is a single, solitary, real-live public-school teacher who agrees with the proposition that it's all a matter of will. To me, the fact that ability varies--and varies in ways that are impossible to change--is a fact that we learn in first grade.

DS: I believe that given the opportunity, most people could do most anything. CM: You're out of touch with reality in that regard.

That little exchange, and some remarks by one of the presidential candidates about special-needs children, stirred some memories. Forty years ago, not long out of college, with a bachelor's degree and a teacher's qualification to my name, I spent a year teaching special-needs children.