MAKING THE MOST OF SUMMER

By SUSAN AGREST

What's happened to summer? The long, mellow growing season of our farming forebears is now a time of intense activity for the family, with a cornucopia of options to keep the out-of-school child busy, learning, healthy and happy. TIME FOR FAMILIES has crisscrossed the nation to look at moderately priced programs that afford the perfect mix of pleasure and instruction. While a few of the featured programs are booked up for 1997, all promise to inspire. (The subscribed programs' sponsors may have other offerings, and there's always next summer.) We've invited a variety of notables to share their memories of seminal childhood summers--and asked education analyst John E. Chubb to reconsider the Jeffersonian belief in "the inestimable value of the intellectual pleasures," meaning more school time for kids in summer. Happy vacation!