I should not begin my response without first thanking Professors Mulkey, Persell, Shelton, and Stoddart for writing about their reactions to my essay. In each case, I can see that they gave my arguments a careful and considered reading, and in return they provided criticism that is in the best tradition of collegial exchange. As if that were not reason enough to be grateful, in several instances the critics have identified problematic aspects of Peter Berger's Invitation to Sociology (1963) that I overlooked or omitted from my commentary. Shelton, for one, detects functionalism implicit beneath Berger's exposition. I understand her complaint; to be sure, there is something of functionalism's distinct aroma wafting throughoutInvitation. Yet I do not believe that Berger is alone in this approach among authors of introductions to sociology, nor can I report that the presence of functionalism in the theoretical air causes me much distress. More immediately, Shelton and Persell both note that Berger's use of gender-exclusive language diminishes the contemporary value of his book for them, and for students as well. They also take exception to a series of verbal illustrations that, were they to be placed against the cultural backdrop of the 1990s, would strike many readers as flagrantly sexist. I agree on both counts; yet it is difficult to know what a teacher ought to do about these problems. Frankly, I find some of the examples that are offered in the text offensive, but I am inclined to discount their significance somewhat. The examples represent an unfortunately common habit of expression in the decade when Invitation to Sociology was written, if not today. Furthermore, they are part and parcel of the arch voice that is affected by the author-a detached and ironic tone that may be found widely, for example, in the pages of sophisticated men's magazines of mid-century (cf. Peer 1990). However unsuitable such illustrations may be, I submit that one probably has to take (or leave) this stuff as a package. I would not presume to guess what Berger would attempt if he were to rewrite Invitation for a new genera ion of students in introductory sociology. The fact remains, however, that no revised edition has ever been published. Thus, if instructors wish to adopt Invitation to Sociology for th i classes, they must take Berger's book as is, and deal with the obstacles to effective teaching that an outmoded depiction of gender roles interposes. Still, cleansing Invitation to Sociology of offputting content will not necessarily redeem it as a reading assignment. Like many of the instructors to whom Persell refers, I discovered Invitation relatively late in my sociological education. Indeed, I remember reading Berger's book during my final year in graduate school (more precisely, during a dry spell in the writing of my dissertation). Under these circumstances, there never was a reader better primed for Berger's dyspeptic assessment of the profession. Like Persell, I encountered in his excursion an eloquent and appealing message. In short, I found the book to be lively, witty, and wholly absorbing. As Persell and I have since learned, however, undergraduates often do not share our initial enthusiasm. While the conditions of my life at that time rendered me receptive to the debunking spirit that runs through Berger's work, beginning students are usually tutored too little in the orthodoxies of the discipline to elect its equivalent of agnosticism meaningfully. My paramount objection to Berger's tone, then, is not so much that it is not edifying, or (as Stoddart points out) that it is unsettling. Rather, I am not convinced that his tone is actually intelligible to a great number of students (some of whom eventually concoct a brand of cynicism all their own). This point notwithstanding, I believe that, of the four respondents, Stoddart has apprehended best the essential purpose of my article. Let me confess it explicitly here: a few pages back, without acknowledging it as such, I was talking morality. It was unavoidable. A summoning of students to social sensitivity, the stimulation of their curiosity, the communication of knowledge and the transmission of the intellectual heritage that is its context: all of these, to me, are inherently activities with