Escape from Scepticism: Liberal Education as If Truth Mattered

by Christopher Derrick

The brilliant English writer Christopher Derrick presents a disturbing indictment of today's colleges and universities and the troubled condition of liberal education. The occasion for his writing this book was a visit to Thomas Aquinas College in California which deeply impressed Derrick with its true liberal and Catholic education. This small independent college convinced him of the need for reform in Catholic higher education today, and he uses the example of this college as the way this reform should be carried out.

Genres: Education

140 pages, Kindle Edition

First published June 1, 1977

Reviews

[Lira A. Adauy · Rating 2 out of 5]

Kind of pretentious, biased and snobbish. Doesn’t have much sense to read it unless you’re a catholic, for the main thesis hovers around faith. It makes some interesting points at the beginning, but they are dragged for too long. Around the second half it starts talking about how God is the pillar of liberal education, and doesn’t state much more.

[Erik]

Recommended by James Schall in Another Sort of Learning, Intro to Part Three, as one of Schall's Unlikely List of Books to Keep Sane By---Selected for Those to Whom Making Sense Is a Prior Consideration, but a Minority Opinion.

Recommended by James Schall in Another Sort of Learning, Chapter 20, as one of Ten Books on the Humanities.

[Sheryl · Rating 4 out of 5]

The subtitle sums up what he's trying to do. I'm not a Catholic; Derrick is, so we have some major points of disagreement, although mostly in the last couple chapters, which I see as less important than Derrick probably would.

A terrific, conversational book on what education is and should be, and how the ideal college education should be constructed.