In 1960, a University of Kentucky history professor named Thomas Clark penned an essay titled One Man's View of Kentucky's Educational Background and Problems. The essay detailed how Kentucky's frontier past had hobbled much education progress, and the clear needs of school systems in a more modern age.

That much of Clark's essay could be written today illustrates his prescience and knowledge of Kentucky, the state where he was later named historian laureate.

"We as a people have more often thought in terms of bare minimums rather than of the larger challenges which education might offer," he wrote in the essay, found in the Anne and Harry M. Caudill Collection at UK's Special Collections Library....