I'm off on a road trip today, in search of information about the Braun School of Music, whose diploma you see at left. My mother earned this "Post-Graduate in Violin" certification in 1934. She was 23 years old then, working as a secretary in a shirt factory in Mahanoy City, Pennsylvania, journeying by bus to the Braun School in Pottsville, Pennsylvania, a larger town about twenty miles away.

Education was important to my parents. My mother's grandparents had come from Ireland in the 1850's, and though they were more prosperous here, educational opportunities still eluded their children. My grandfather left school at 12 to work in the coal mines, my grandmother at 14 to work as a seamstress until her marriage ten years later. My father's parents came from eastern Europe to work in the textile factories outside Philadelphia. They knew that a sound education grounded in American culture was the key to their children's prosperity, and they were prepared to do whatever it took to provide that.

My mother graduated from Mahanoy City High School in 1927. She was just a few months past sixteen, having been skipped ahead two grades in elementary school -- that era's version of a program for the gifted. She entered Temple University that fall, but homesickness sent her back to her parents in less than a month. Five years later she began her studies at the Braun School, and later lived in Philadelphia for a short time to attend the Zeckwer-Hahn Academy of Music.

During the Depression my paternal Aunt Florence, a young teenager herself, supported the family on $14 a week so her younger brothers could stay in school. My father  graduated from Upper Darby High School in 1934, attended the Curtis Institute of Music in downtown Philadelphia, and then entered the University of Pennsylvania. Classmate to young men whose fathers and grandfathers also had ivy educations, he lived at home and earned his tuition money as a strolling violinist in the city's elegant restaurants.

What strikes me about the certificates that attest to my parents' educational milestones is how large and beautifully rendered they are. My father's "certificate of attainment" from the Clifton Heights grammar school measures 17 by 22 inches and is wrought in a lovely Spencerian script. It's larger and more ornate than his high school diploma. By contrast, his University of Pennsylvania sheepskins are a standard 8 and 1/2 by 11. You could pop them into a frame from Wal-Mart (indeed, that's what I pried them out of).

For many in my parents' generation, eighth grade was the end of the educational line. My mother's high school yearbook is dedicated "To our parents -- who have struggled and sacrificed that we might be able to obtain an education . . ."

I won't be sacrificing anything, except maybe some time in a car pool, to send my daughter to high school. College looms ahead, of course, and costs keep rising. Chances are my next car will be another top-of-the-line Corolla instead of a Lexus, and we'll probably have to forego building a vacation home -- things I neither need nor really want.

And I must never forget that the modest affluence that puts me in this position was built on my parents' sacrifices and hard work. My hope is that I will be able to pass on these values to my daughter as well as the means to obtain her own collection of certificates.