The book merits careful reading as a whole but some brief sketching of its lines of argument can be helpful. Maritain joins the philosopher Hannah Arendt and the historian Christopher Dawson in identifying a cultural crisis in education. For Maritain, education is the process which makes the person fully alive. Wisdom is the key to good life and, for Maritain, there is danger in reducing education to the teaching of sets of skills without a clear focus on the moral and human development of the human person. Maritain’s curriculum for a liberal education (Chapter III) is hence a plan for a study of the ‘great achievements of the human mind’: philosophy, theology, classical literature and poetry are all there - although he courts controversy by not including Latin, Greek and Hebrew in his proposals.
In modern times, Pope Benedict XVI has drawn on similar ideas to diagnose an ‘educational emergency’ in the west. For all of these profound thinkers, an education system which is not rooted in the fertile stream of tradition is one which lacks the vital resources needed in order to nourish the young generation. Education which does not look beyond the teaching of skills and aptitudes is no longer education but training.
A final thought: the authentic educator should be an agent of both conservation and change in education; the authentic educator does not simply ‘deliver’ a curriculum designed to meet the perceived needs of an economic system; the authentic educator simply educates.
What can we do to steer our education systems back on to the firm rock of tradition?
