We know that, on average, a college degree adds more than $20,000 per year to earning potential, and that improved health and longevity are also associated with the degree. But if I had to capture the essence of what I learned in college, I could do it in five pages — written by E.B. White. “Once More to the Lake,” an essay White wrote in 1941, encapsulates everything I know. In it, he recounts a return to his childhood vacation spot with his son as he relives his own experience through the next generation.

I think of it each year when I attend the Advanced Placement Literature and Composition reading to help score the hundreds of thousands of essay tests taken by high school students hoping for college credit. The AP reading may not be a childhood vacation spot, but it is the place I return to year after year. It is where White’s revelations about the passage of time have become my own.