The gap that for many seems to separate modern knowledge from human values has become by now a rather well-worn topic. Let us leave aside, for the moment, the question to what extent this is an actual or only a seeming gap. The more immediate question is whether there remains anything of worth to be said about the subject, which has not already been said and scrutinized in myriad form by countless observers. And what might the historian of education in particular stand to gain by staring once more into this yawning abyss? My contention in this talk will be that as educators, and as historians of education, we have yet to engage fully some of the major issues in the relation between knowledge and values, and that to do so holds promise for us, whether our interest is that of the historian only, or of the historian also concerned with present educational understanding and endeavor.