Tutored tots.

Back in 1940, people didn't worry about getting their kids into the right kindergarten. Today, there is a whole industry devoted to preparing children for kindergarten. An example of what they do comes from The Wall Street Journal's June Kronholz:

"On a bright summer day, Hank Barnes settles in the chair across from his tutor, a pile of work between them and an hour's lesson ahead.

"Hank is four years old, and among the worries that prompted his mother to enroll him at the Sylvan Learning Center here is this: Hank was behind on his scissor skills."

Incidentally, Sylvan's main competition is Kaplan, which is part of The Washington Post corporate empire. Indeed, Kaplan is the company's biggest profit-maker. Since its success depends on exacerbating the anxieties of the meritocracy, the Post, however distinguished its reporting maybe, is in the dubious moral position of encouraging social tendencies that are less than desirable, the most conspicuous of which is an obsession with getting the highest test score and obtaining admission to the most prestigious school--as distinguished from emphasizing wisdom, character, humor, and the actual ability to do a job. It reminds me of The New Yorker and its advertising. No matter how great the editorial content produced by its writers, the fact remains that the magazine's advertising encourages a kind of consumer snobbery heavily related to the prices of the objects being peddled.