Abstract
The two volumes under review make strange companions in many ways, but they share a concern for this perennial student who thinks of “course simply as credit.” They both deplore the mercenary and the expedient in higher education, particularly in writing instruction. They both are for learning, foremost and last. But their remedies to the credit syndrome are quite different, even antithetical. In part this is because their frames of reference are so different, the one never looking beyond course itself, the other holding to a longer view. This difference in frame of reference deserves some thought.