"A book that the reader devours quickly ponders slowly and forgets not at all"

He shamed them, wrestled with them, enlightened them, and - ultimately learned to love them. Mr. Braithwaite, the new teacher, had first to fight the class bully. Them he tought defiant, hardbitten delinquents to call him "Sir," and to address the girls who had grown up beside them in the gutter as "Miss." He taught them to wash their faces and a read Shakespeare. When he took all forty - six to museums and to the opero, riots were predicted. But instead of catastrophe, a miracle happened. A dedicated teacher had turned hate into love, teenage rebelliousness into self-respect contempt into consideration for others. A man's own integrity -his concern and love for others-had won through.