Presidential addresses in our profession are usually occasions for senior historians to pass on wisdom gained from a lifetime of scholarly research and writing. I honor that tradition and its effect of broadening our discipline and countering tendency toward overspecialization. On this occasion, however, in this year, I depart somewhat to address a major question of social responsibility of historical profession. There is a problem we must deal with if study of past is to have much of a future. There is an opportunity we must seize now before it passes. There is an obligation we owe to society that has given us scholars leisure and freedom we cherish to pursue our scholarly studies. A nationwide effort is now under way to reform education from kindergarten through high school. It has support of high officials, including President George Bush and a number of state governors, and behind it also is a widespread public mood of deep disappointment at low level of performance and information of our high school students, a low level that threatens to reduce our national leadership and our competitiveness in global marketplace. Though this reform movement is nationwide, it is so far only an inch deep. It offers little hope of redressing inequality of learning opportunities between black and white or between wealthy and poor districts. On other hand, it does set high-quality educational performance as its goal, a goal we can all believe in. President Bush's contribution so far consists largely of expressing hope during his 1988 campaign that he would be remembered as the education president and calling a national educational conference during his first year, to which no educators were invited. So far, he has given educational reform only lip service, and if we could read his lips they would probably be saying, No new dollars. While general movement for educational reform is getting a slow start, there is a parallel, more specific reform under way, with more momentum, to reform social studies by increasing its history content and to revitalize quality of history teaching in schools. As professional historians we obviously have our biggest stake in this aspect of reform. I propose that we wish general reform of school system well, as whole country has much to gain