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Works of Christopher Dawson
The Crisis of Western Education
A new edition of Christopher Dawson's classic work on Christian higher education. The Crisis of Western Education, originally published in 1961, served as a capstone of Christopher Dawson's thought on the Western educational system. Long out of print, the book has now been updated with a new introduction by Glenn W. Olsen and is included in the ongoing Works of Christopher Dawson series. In all of his writings, Dawson masterfully brings various disciplinary perspectives and historical sources into a complex unity of expression and applies them to concrete conditions of modern society.
Dawson argued that Western culture had become increasingly defined by a set of economic and political preoccupations ultimately hostile to its larger spiritual end. Inevitably, its educational systems also became increasingly technological and pragmatic, undermining the long standing emphasis on liberal learning and spiritual reflection which were hallmarks of the Christian humanism that created it.
In this important work on the Western educational system, Dawson traces the history of these developments and argues that Western civilization can only be saved by redirecting its entire educational system from its increasing vocationalism and specialization. He insists that the Christian college must be the cornerstone of such an educational reform. However, he argued that this redirection would require a much more organic and comprehensive study of the living Christian tradition than had been attempted in the past.
Dawson had reservations about educational initiatives that had been developed in response to this crisis of education. Among them, he expressed doubts about newly emerging great books programs fearing that they would reduce the great tradition of a living culture to a set of central texts or great ideas. In contrast, he insisted that a Christian education had to be concerned with "how spiritual forces are transmitted and how they change culture, often in unexpected ways." This would require an understanding of the living and vital character of culture. As Dawson saw it, "culture is essentially a network of relations, and it is only by studying a number of personalities that you can trace this network." Dawson offers a diagnosis of modern education and proposes the retrieval of an organic and living culture which alone has the power to renew Western culture.
Dawson argued that Western culture had become increasingly defined by a set of economic and political preoccupations ultimately hostile to its larger spiritual end. Inevitably, its educational systems also became increasingly technological and pragmatic, undermining the long standing emphasis on liberal learning and spiritual reflection which were hallmarks of the Christian humanism that created it.
In this important work on the Western educational system, Dawson traces the history of these developments and argues that Western civilization can only be saved by redirecting its entire educational system from its increasing vocationalism and specialization. He insists that the Christian college must be the cornerstone of such an educational reform. However, he argued that this redirection would require a much more organic and comprehensive study of the living Christian tradition than had been attempted in the past.
Dawson had reservations about educational initiatives that had been developed in response to this crisis of education. Among them, he expressed doubts about newly emerging great books programs fearing that they would reduce the great tradition of a living culture to a set of central texts or great ideas. In contrast, he insisted that a Christian education had to be concerned with "how spiritual forces are transmitted and how they change culture, often in unexpected ways." This would require an understanding of the living and vital character of culture. As Dawson saw it, "culture is essentially a network of relations, and it is only by studying a number of personalities that you can trace this network." Dawson offers a diagnosis of modern education and proposes the retrieval of an organic and living culture which alone has the power to renew Western culture.
204 pages, Hardcover
First published December 1, 1989
9 people are currently reading
447 people want to read
About the author
Christopher Henry Dawson
152 books155 followersChristopher Henry Dawson (12 October 1889, Hay Castle – 25 May 1970, Budleigh Salterton) was a British independent scholar, who wrote many books on cultural history and Christendom. Christopher H. Dawson has been called "the greatest English-speaking Catholic historian of the twentieth century".
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Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews
August 10, 2021
A civilization and, by extension, education is rooted in what society believes to be true. Education is, at its core, truth passed down. Education could be used to increase hireablity, but its telos is to pass on knowledge, culture, everything. Education is based on building on top of the past; without it, we have nothing. We all stand on the shoulders of giants. If that's what we know "education" to be, the title of this book should terrify us.
A civilization needs to be founded on something real and true. America is a great example of this. It is very popular to say that America in not a Christian nation- that all the fathers were diest and not Christian. Besides the fact that there is no truth in that statement, it is obvious that America was founded on Judeo-Christian values. The fathers of America didn't build a just nation from scratch. Even in the ways it isn't just, we can thank the people that came before us to build a system that allows for reformation.
Unfortunately, it is a modern sentiment to tear down. The crisis of western education comes from a rise in new worldveiws that value the destruction old traditions. For example, the Marxist worldveiw is ingrained in every mind. I know I am not alone when I subconsciously look for oppressor/oppressed dichotomies in every movie or book. While is isn't wrong to identify who is in power in media, literature, or real life, that worldview, the Marxist worldview discredits many crucial voices of the past because of their power. People like Shakespeare, Jane Austen, and Jonathon Edwards are counted as oppressors and have lost their value in public schools. This is the crisis of western education: the destruction of the past.
A civilization needs to be founded on something real and true. America is a great example of this. It is very popular to say that America in not a Christian nation- that all the fathers were diest and not Christian. Besides the fact that there is no truth in that statement, it is obvious that America was founded on Judeo-Christian values. The fathers of America didn't build a just nation from scratch. Even in the ways it isn't just, we can thank the people that came before us to build a system that allows for reformation.
Unfortunately, it is a modern sentiment to tear down. The crisis of western education comes from a rise in new worldveiws that value the destruction old traditions. For example, the Marxist worldveiw is ingrained in every mind. I know I am not alone when I subconsciously look for oppressor/oppressed dichotomies in every movie or book. While is isn't wrong to identify who is in power in media, literature, or real life, that worldview, the Marxist worldview discredits many crucial voices of the past because of their power. People like Shakespeare, Jane Austen, and Jonathon Edwards are counted as oppressors and have lost their value in public schools. This is the crisis of western education: the destruction of the past.
December 28, 2024
good summary of the history of the liberal arts, since Ancient Rome
Want to read
September 4, 2020Mentioned in Gamble's The Great Tradition as a reference for further reading.
June 8, 2020
O renomado historiador Dawson publicou essa obra em 1961. É dividida em três partes. A primeira trata da história da educação liberal no ocidente. A segunda é sobre a educação cristã no mundo moderno. E a terceira trata do homem ocidental na era tecnológica.
Na primeira parte, Dawson começa destacando que a educação formal é apenas um aspecto da “enculturação”, isto é, da transmissão da cultura. Na antiguidade grega, a educação formal era restrita à classe dominante, mas as pessoas comuns tinham cultura oral e prática. Não eram primitivos sem conhecimento. A essa época, difundiu-se uma educação liberal (gramática, lógica e retórica). Com o cristianismo, os estudos liberais ganharam um conteúdo teológico que, já na Idade Média, concentraram-se nos mosteiros.
Essa educação que era clerical e concentrada em mosteiros passou a introduzir o estudo em filosofia e ciência gregas, especialmente, com os estudos escolásticos em Aristóteles. Os studium generale (universidades) passaram a formar a elite intelectual. Com o tempo, esses locais de estudo afastaram-se do homem comum e da igreja, iniciando-se o período de Renascimento. Mas este Renascimento ainda tinha forte conteúdo cristão.
Ocorre que com o Renascimento italiano, a educação passou a ser vista como um todo científico, moral, e estético, perdendo paulatinamente seu conteúdo cristão. Com a Reforma Protestante, houve uma forte ruptura de Lutero com o humanismo. Ainda assim, os humanistas católicos e protestantes (inclusive o próprio Calvino) continuaram a concordar sobre a educação como formadora do homem. As classes baixas passaram a ser educadas.
A essa época, novas descobertas e tecnologias possibilitaram o surgimento de um Renascimento racionalista italiano. Francis Bacon e Descartes uniram ciência e razão em prol do progresso humano à parte do cristianismo. Com o tempo, o empirismo inglês, o racionalismo francês e a física de Newton possibilitaram o movimento iluminista e a Revolução Francesa. Esta destruiu o sistema educacional francês, abrindo um vácuo até a chegada de Bonaparte ao poder. Este, por sua vez, centralizou no Estado o sistema educacional.
Enquanto isso, no século XVIII, influenciados por Rousseau, o movimento nacionalista alemão promoveu uma educação do Estado que fosse universal e moral. Apesar de Humboldt ter pensado uma educação humanista liberal, prevaleceu o ideal de Fichte de concentrar a educação e a ciência no Estado. A educação se tornou instrumento para fins nacionalistas. Com o tempo, essa estatização influenciou a Inglaterra.
Dawson, já no sétimo capítulo, divide a história educacional dos EUA em quatro períodos. Destaca-se que a partir da metade do século XIX, o Estado americano se expandiu sobre o ensino superior, tornando a educação mais técnica e especializada. No século XX, essa educação foi universalizada e influenciou o restante do mundo em tornar sua educação mais técnica.
Para o autor, o processo de secularização mitigou o cristianismo da educação. O laicismo democrático se tornou uma religião imposta pelo Estado, privatizando a igreja.
Dessa constatação, Dawson, na segunda parte, propõe que é preciso que a educação ocidental descubra suas fontes morais e intelectuais no cristianismo, começando suas investigações pela cultura cristã.
Para ele, a educação moderna é desintegradora: utilitarista e especialista. A cultura cristã deve ser estudada como um todo integrado para a compreensão do conhecimento de modo holístico. O sistema superior precisa ser realinhado com o conhecimento de suas origens cristãs. E esta, por sua vez, deve resgatar os fundamentos do valor comunitário e sua estrutura explicativa da história.
Na última parte, Dawson sugere que a cosmovisão cristã deve mudar o ambiente cultural, mostrando a importância da fé cristã para além da ética e da moral. Frente ao laicismo, os cristãos devem oferecer uma cultura cristã, posto que a era tecnológica precisa de fundamentos espiritual e moral sólidos.
Essa é não é uma obra propriamente de história, com detalhes de fatos e datas. É mais uma obra de história da filosofia da educação. A erudição de Dawson é uma grande contribuição para o estudo brasileiro sobre as raízes da educação moderna.
Na primeira parte, Dawson começa destacando que a educação formal é apenas um aspecto da “enculturação”, isto é, da transmissão da cultura. Na antiguidade grega, a educação formal era restrita à classe dominante, mas as pessoas comuns tinham cultura oral e prática. Não eram primitivos sem conhecimento. A essa época, difundiu-se uma educação liberal (gramática, lógica e retórica). Com o cristianismo, os estudos liberais ganharam um conteúdo teológico que, já na Idade Média, concentraram-se nos mosteiros.
Essa educação que era clerical e concentrada em mosteiros passou a introduzir o estudo em filosofia e ciência gregas, especialmente, com os estudos escolásticos em Aristóteles. Os studium generale (universidades) passaram a formar a elite intelectual. Com o tempo, esses locais de estudo afastaram-se do homem comum e da igreja, iniciando-se o período de Renascimento. Mas este Renascimento ainda tinha forte conteúdo cristão.
Ocorre que com o Renascimento italiano, a educação passou a ser vista como um todo científico, moral, e estético, perdendo paulatinamente seu conteúdo cristão. Com a Reforma Protestante, houve uma forte ruptura de Lutero com o humanismo. Ainda assim, os humanistas católicos e protestantes (inclusive o próprio Calvino) continuaram a concordar sobre a educação como formadora do homem. As classes baixas passaram a ser educadas.
A essa época, novas descobertas e tecnologias possibilitaram o surgimento de um Renascimento racionalista italiano. Francis Bacon e Descartes uniram ciência e razão em prol do progresso humano à parte do cristianismo. Com o tempo, o empirismo inglês, o racionalismo francês e a física de Newton possibilitaram o movimento iluminista e a Revolução Francesa. Esta destruiu o sistema educacional francês, abrindo um vácuo até a chegada de Bonaparte ao poder. Este, por sua vez, centralizou no Estado o sistema educacional.
Enquanto isso, no século XVIII, influenciados por Rousseau, o movimento nacionalista alemão promoveu uma educação do Estado que fosse universal e moral. Apesar de Humboldt ter pensado uma educação humanista liberal, prevaleceu o ideal de Fichte de concentrar a educação e a ciência no Estado. A educação se tornou instrumento para fins nacionalistas. Com o tempo, essa estatização influenciou a Inglaterra.
Dawson, já no sétimo capítulo, divide a história educacional dos EUA em quatro períodos. Destaca-se que a partir da metade do século XIX, o Estado americano se expandiu sobre o ensino superior, tornando a educação mais técnica e especializada. No século XX, essa educação foi universalizada e influenciou o restante do mundo em tornar sua educação mais técnica.
Para o autor, o processo de secularização mitigou o cristianismo da educação. O laicismo democrático se tornou uma religião imposta pelo Estado, privatizando a igreja.
Dessa constatação, Dawson, na segunda parte, propõe que é preciso que a educação ocidental descubra suas fontes morais e intelectuais no cristianismo, começando suas investigações pela cultura cristã.
Para ele, a educação moderna é desintegradora: utilitarista e especialista. A cultura cristã deve ser estudada como um todo integrado para a compreensão do conhecimento de modo holístico. O sistema superior precisa ser realinhado com o conhecimento de suas origens cristãs. E esta, por sua vez, deve resgatar os fundamentos do valor comunitário e sua estrutura explicativa da história.
Na última parte, Dawson sugere que a cosmovisão cristã deve mudar o ambiente cultural, mostrando a importância da fé cristã para além da ética e da moral. Frente ao laicismo, os cristãos devem oferecer uma cultura cristã, posto que a era tecnológica precisa de fundamentos espiritual e moral sólidos.
Essa é não é uma obra propriamente de história, com detalhes de fatos e datas. É mais uma obra de história da filosofia da educação. A erudição de Dawson é uma grande contribuição para o estudo brasileiro sobre as raízes da educação moderna.
March 7, 2018
This is a very good book on the need for Western civilization to reconnect with its Christian roots. Every country needs a moral and spiritual vision. Without it, the West is doomed to adopt a dangerous ideology of class struggle or ultranationalism. Only Christianity can provide a true moral vision for the West.
The book also concerns the problem with Christianity retreating into the ghetto, as it were, than confront modern society in order to preach the gospel. Dawson makes the interesting proposal that Christian culture needs to be made a field of study in state schools. The reason is so that people understand the origins of their civilization and Christianity retains a link with secular culture and education. I highly recommend this book for the accuracy of the author’s perception and the wealth of his ideas.
The book also concerns the problem with Christianity retreating into the ghetto, as it were, than confront modern society in order to preach the gospel. Dawson makes the interesting proposal that Christian culture needs to be made a field of study in state schools. The reason is so that people understand the origins of their civilization and Christianity retains a link with secular culture and education. I highly recommend this book for the accuracy of the author’s perception and the wealth of his ideas.
January 16, 2024
Let's cut to the chase. What is the crisis?
Simply put, secular society is no longer conscious of (or willing to accept) the existence of religious truth. By extension, secular education is ordered only to material or political ends, not man's ultimate spiritual end.
So what's the solution? Blind love of and studying Christian classics and literature? Nope, too narrow. Having great spiritual revivals and awakenings? Nope, too sentimental and fleeting.
Dawson argues that the solution is an integrated study of Christian culture - a tracing of the organic historical growth of Christianity and its organic relationship to philosophy, literature, history, theology. This study would take place in Catholic higher education, the only remaining space to bridge the gap between faith and reason.
Dawson describes culture as the enfleshment of religion. (Christian culture is the enfleshment of the Incarnation.) In this sense, culture is akin to a body (my interpretation) and religion a soul. Education (or enculturation) is the handing on of culture to the next generation, which maintains the continuity of civilization and preserves a common memory and past. Education done properly is like a rebirth or remembering of what is True, Good, and Beautiful (my words) in a new mind.
Here’s a brief lineage of western education. Athens, Latin rhetoricians, monks in the Middle Ages, Renaissance humanists, modern universities. Education in Greece was a “liberal” education since it trained man to exercise freedom via the art of speech and persuasion. The end was to become a good citizen. Plato, however, introduced a spiritual dimension to education, which was never fully realized until the birth of Christianity. Greek and Roman religion couldn’t provide adequate answers to life’s questions about man’s proper spiritual end.
Christian culture had two foundations: classical antiquity (Greek wisdom, Roman law) and Hebrew text. Greek thought and Plato influenced the East and were the roots of Byzantine culture. The Latin West used the ecclesiastical structure of Rome and monasteries to pass along learning. Due to barbarian incursions in the West, there was greater need to instruct in moral education and re-educate new peoples. Latin was used for utilitarian purposes. The western medieval university as a kind of synthesis of Aristotelian (scientific) thought and the creativity unleashed by new religious orders, gothic cathedrals, and poetry.
Christian education holds that faith and reason do touch. The Enlightenment divorced the two, moving towards a prioritization of science to obtain power over the world. Education accordingly shifted, serving to make man free from superstition and more reasonable and enlightened. Napoleon’s legacy intensified nationalism across Europe and the eventual control of education by the state.
In America, Dewey’s view of education was to socialize citizens into democracy. Democracy is essentially a secular religion but one that privatizes religion altogether and edges it out of public discourse. The values of the democratic society become the moral truths, which are unhooked from an ultimate and transcendent reality and defined by the majority. Education becomes social conformity.
Education reform is about recovering and reintegrating the spiritual and scientific. Divided, a technological order reigns supreme, devoid of moral values and concerned about power and profits. Dawson contends that Christian education is civilization’s best hope against collapse. All great religions and civilizations recognized a higher spiritual principle. Christianity is different from all the rest because of the Incarnation (God actually entered into human history). Studying the centrifugal force of that event (and the currents of thought leading up to it) will not only save man’s soul but the soul of civilization.
Other books to read with The Crisis of Western Education:
• Socrates’ Children (Kreeft)
• How the Catholic Church Built Western Civilization (Woods)
• Know Thyself: Catholic Classical Education and the Discovery of Self (Youngblood)
Simply put, secular society is no longer conscious of (or willing to accept) the existence of religious truth. By extension, secular education is ordered only to material or political ends, not man's ultimate spiritual end.
So what's the solution? Blind love of and studying Christian classics and literature? Nope, too narrow. Having great spiritual revivals and awakenings? Nope, too sentimental and fleeting.
Dawson argues that the solution is an integrated study of Christian culture - a tracing of the organic historical growth of Christianity and its organic relationship to philosophy, literature, history, theology. This study would take place in Catholic higher education, the only remaining space to bridge the gap between faith and reason.
Dawson describes culture as the enfleshment of religion. (Christian culture is the enfleshment of the Incarnation.) In this sense, culture is akin to a body (my interpretation) and religion a soul. Education (or enculturation) is the handing on of culture to the next generation, which maintains the continuity of civilization and preserves a common memory and past. Education done properly is like a rebirth or remembering of what is True, Good, and Beautiful (my words) in a new mind.
Here’s a brief lineage of western education. Athens, Latin rhetoricians, monks in the Middle Ages, Renaissance humanists, modern universities. Education in Greece was a “liberal” education since it trained man to exercise freedom via the art of speech and persuasion. The end was to become a good citizen. Plato, however, introduced a spiritual dimension to education, which was never fully realized until the birth of Christianity. Greek and Roman religion couldn’t provide adequate answers to life’s questions about man’s proper spiritual end.
Christian culture had two foundations: classical antiquity (Greek wisdom, Roman law) and Hebrew text. Greek thought and Plato influenced the East and were the roots of Byzantine culture. The Latin West used the ecclesiastical structure of Rome and monasteries to pass along learning. Due to barbarian incursions in the West, there was greater need to instruct in moral education and re-educate new peoples. Latin was used for utilitarian purposes. The western medieval university as a kind of synthesis of Aristotelian (scientific) thought and the creativity unleashed by new religious orders, gothic cathedrals, and poetry.
Christian education holds that faith and reason do touch. The Enlightenment divorced the two, moving towards a prioritization of science to obtain power over the world. Education accordingly shifted, serving to make man free from superstition and more reasonable and enlightened. Napoleon’s legacy intensified nationalism across Europe and the eventual control of education by the state.
In America, Dewey’s view of education was to socialize citizens into democracy. Democracy is essentially a secular religion but one that privatizes religion altogether and edges it out of public discourse. The values of the democratic society become the moral truths, which are unhooked from an ultimate and transcendent reality and defined by the majority. Education becomes social conformity.
Education reform is about recovering and reintegrating the spiritual and scientific. Divided, a technological order reigns supreme, devoid of moral values and concerned about power and profits. Dawson contends that Christian education is civilization’s best hope against collapse. All great religions and civilizations recognized a higher spiritual principle. Christianity is different from all the rest because of the Incarnation (God actually entered into human history). Studying the centrifugal force of that event (and the currents of thought leading up to it) will not only save man’s soul but the soul of civilization.
Other books to read with The Crisis of Western Education:
• Socrates’ Children (Kreeft)
• How the Catholic Church Built Western Civilization (Woods)
• Know Thyself: Catholic Classical Education and the Discovery of Self (Youngblood)
September 26, 2021
Western Civilization has abandoned its roots (classical and Christian) and is doomed to be a technological and totalitarian society without a return to those roots.
“…the survival of a civilization is dependent on the continuity of its educational tradition.”
What is the purpose of education?
To serve the state, train students in their specialized vocational studies???
To create a common mind???
Spread the universal science so we can conquer nature???
Pursuit of knowledge and development of culture???
classical studies
Ancient Athens—Greek sophists—Latin rhetoricians and grammarians—monks and clerks of the Middle Ages—humanists of the Renaissance—schools and universities of modern Europe and America
liberal education/liberal arts
Essential for the exercise of the free man’s proper function—art of speech and persuasion, value of words, laws of thought, rules of logic.
Christian culture is ingrained in Western culture
“…the study of Christian culture is the missing link which it is essential to supply if the tradition of Western education and Western culture is to survive, for it is only through this study that we can understand how Western culture came to exist and what are the essential values for which it stands.”
“For more than a thousand years from the conversion of the Roman Empire down to the Reformation the peoples of Europe were fully conscious of their membership in the great Christian society and accepted the Christian faith and the Christian moral law as the ultimate bond of social unity and the spiritual basis of their way of life.”
Part One: The History of Liberal Education in the West
I. The Origins of the Western Tradition in Education
II. The Age of the Universities and the Rise of Vernacular Culture
III. The Age of Humanism
IV. The Influence of Science and Technology
V. Nationalism and the Education of the People
VI. The Development of the American Educational Tradition
VII. Catholic Education and Culture in America
VIII. Education and the State
Part Two: The Situation of Christian Education in the Modern World
IX. The Study of Western Culture
X. The Case for the Study of Christian Culture
XI. The Study of Christian Culture in the Catholic College
XII. The Theological Foundations of Christian Culture
Part Three: Western Man and the Technological Order
XIII. The Religious Vacuum in Modern Culture
XIV. American Culture and the Liberal Ideology
XV. Western Man and the Technological Order
“…the survival of a civilization is dependent on the continuity of its educational tradition.”
What is the purpose of education?
To serve the state, train students in their specialized vocational studies???
To create a common mind???
Spread the universal science so we can conquer nature???
Pursuit of knowledge and development of culture???
classical studies
Ancient Athens—Greek sophists—Latin rhetoricians and grammarians—monks and clerks of the Middle Ages—humanists of the Renaissance—schools and universities of modern Europe and America
liberal education/liberal arts
Essential for the exercise of the free man’s proper function—art of speech and persuasion, value of words, laws of thought, rules of logic.
Christian culture is ingrained in Western culture
“…the study of Christian culture is the missing link which it is essential to supply if the tradition of Western education and Western culture is to survive, for it is only through this study that we can understand how Western culture came to exist and what are the essential values for which it stands.”
“For more than a thousand years from the conversion of the Roman Empire down to the Reformation the peoples of Europe were fully conscious of their membership in the great Christian society and accepted the Christian faith and the Christian moral law as the ultimate bond of social unity and the spiritual basis of their way of life.”
Part One: The History of Liberal Education in the West
I. The Origins of the Western Tradition in Education
II. The Age of the Universities and the Rise of Vernacular Culture
III. The Age of Humanism
IV. The Influence of Science and Technology
V. Nationalism and the Education of the People
VI. The Development of the American Educational Tradition
VII. Catholic Education and Culture in America
VIII. Education and the State
Part Two: The Situation of Christian Education in the Modern World
IX. The Study of Western Culture
X. The Case for the Study of Christian Culture
XI. The Study of Christian Culture in the Catholic College
XII. The Theological Foundations of Christian Culture
Part Three: Western Man and the Technological Order
XIII. The Religious Vacuum in Modern Culture
XIV. American Culture and the Liberal Ideology
XV. Western Man and the Technological Order
October 4, 2024
Really good stuff, will be reading more Dawson. A Catholic who disapproves of the “arid soil of Puritanism” but still nails the inevitable impact of Christianity on culture and the need for Christian institutions of higher education in order to enculturate our children.
Also the intro by Glenn Olsen was a fantastic 30,000ft overview of the history of education. Where did state-sponsored education first really start? France, thanks to Napoleon. Trust the French to mess up the world.
Some good lines:
The contribution of Christianity to culture is not merely the addition of a new religious element; it is the process of recreation which transforms the whole character of the social organism.
A system of education like that of the modern secular state which almost totally ignores the spiritual component in human culture and in the human psyche is a blunder so enormous that no advance in scientific method or educational technique is sufficient to compensate for it.
Modern society, like all societies, needs some higher spiritual principle of co-ordination to overcome the conflicts between power and morality; between reason and appetite, between technology and humanity and between self-interest and the common good.
Western civilization is inseparable from Christian civilization, and the latter is the more fundamental and intelligible unit.
We have shown in the earlier chapters of this book how the essential function of education is "enculturation," or the transmission of the tradition of culture, and therefore it seems clear that the Christian college must be the cornerstone of any attempt to rebuild the order of Western civilization.
Also the intro by Glenn Olsen was a fantastic 30,000ft overview of the history of education. Where did state-sponsored education first really start? France, thanks to Napoleon. Trust the French to mess up the world.
Some good lines:
The contribution of Christianity to culture is not merely the addition of a new religious element; it is the process of recreation which transforms the whole character of the social organism.
A system of education like that of the modern secular state which almost totally ignores the spiritual component in human culture and in the human psyche is a blunder so enormous that no advance in scientific method or educational technique is sufficient to compensate for it.
Modern society, like all societies, needs some higher spiritual principle of co-ordination to overcome the conflicts between power and morality; between reason and appetite, between technology and humanity and between self-interest and the common good.
Western civilization is inseparable from Christian civilization, and the latter is the more fundamental and intelligible unit.
We have shown in the earlier chapters of this book how the essential function of education is "enculturation," or the transmission of the tradition of culture, and therefore it seems clear that the Christian college must be the cornerstone of any attempt to rebuild the order of Western civilization.
October 9, 2024
Found much of it helpful. Whenever he brought up the modern day Catholic church and its college programs, he sounded weak. He rallies against national public education but then asks Catholics to work within it. And set up a Christian culture curriculum in the existing secular university.. Good book for descriptives not so for prescriptives. Helpfully lays modern situation as technological order with no moral compass. Most helpful part was his tracing of Christian education through the centuries. Last part is somewhat repetitive.
February 12, 2014
Provides and excellent historical survey of the traditions and institutions of education in Western Europe cumulating with State's assumption of universal educative responsibilities in recent times (first established under Napoleon). Dawson pays special attention to the role of education in the Anglo-saxon, and specifically American, tradition in which religious traditions, in particular Catholicism, have largely been able to resist the universalist tendencies of the State in the sphere of education.
Dawson proceeds from his historical survey to analysis of the contemporary (1961) educational systems of the United States and their impact on the national culture. Of particular concern for Dawson is the secularising effect of the universalist, secular education which does not acknowledge the religious beliefs, or even the religious impulses, of its students. Dawson's understanding is that this secular education is not in anyways neutral but a contributing factor in the construction of a culture in which religion is not so much actively rejected as poorly understood and treated with indifference. Furthermore such an education is essentially incomplete or, in Dawson's own words subhuman, as by largely ignoring religion it ignores a fundamental part of the human past and psyche.
Dawson's solution is to advocate the study of Christian culture from a historical perspective. Such a study, in Dawson's opinion, is of fundamental importance both to non-Christians, as its explanation of Christian culture as an objective, historical fact allows a proper comprehension of the civilisation which gave rise to modernity, and to Christians who must necessarily be concerned with the transmission of Christian Culture. Dawson furthermore couples this call for a general program with a stirring call to action for the individual christian to embrace an "apostate of study" to complement the apostates of action and prayer so that they may act as an interpreter of Christian Culture to society at large.
Dawson proceeds from his historical survey to analysis of the contemporary (1961) educational systems of the United States and their impact on the national culture. Of particular concern for Dawson is the secularising effect of the universalist, secular education which does not acknowledge the religious beliefs, or even the religious impulses, of its students. Dawson's understanding is that this secular education is not in anyways neutral but a contributing factor in the construction of a culture in which religion is not so much actively rejected as poorly understood and treated with indifference. Furthermore such an education is essentially incomplete or, in Dawson's own words subhuman, as by largely ignoring religion it ignores a fundamental part of the human past and psyche.
Dawson's solution is to advocate the study of Christian culture from a historical perspective. Such a study, in Dawson's opinion, is of fundamental importance both to non-Christians, as its explanation of Christian culture as an objective, historical fact allows a proper comprehension of the civilisation which gave rise to modernity, and to Christians who must necessarily be concerned with the transmission of Christian Culture. Dawson furthermore couples this call for a general program with a stirring call to action for the individual christian to embrace an "apostate of study" to complement the apostates of action and prayer so that they may act as an interpreter of Christian Culture to society at large.
December 11, 2022
Chritopher Dawson vo svojej knihe ponúka komplexný pohľad na dejiny vzdelávania Západu. Od antického Grécka, Platónovej akadémie, cez stredoveké katedrálne, kláštorné školy, až po univerzity a štátne školstvo, ovplyvnené utilitarizmom a sekularizmom. Práve 19. storočie znamenalo zlom vo vzdelávaní, pretože došlo k prerušeniu tradície vzdelávania a v podstate sa prišlo s novým konceptom, ktorý ignoruje duchovnú podstatu človeka. Pre Dawsona je vízia jednotného duchovné dedičstva našej kultúry kľúčová pre zachovanie Západnej civilizácie. Vo svojej knihe preto ponúka 6-bodový program vzdelávania v kresťanskej kultúre, ktorý je podľa neho pre Západ esenciálny, pričom nehovorí, že by ľudia mali vyznávať kresťanskú vieru, ale len poznať svoje kresťanské korene a kultúru.
Pretože Dawson považuje štúdium kresťanskej kultúry za chýbajúci prvok, esenciálny pre podporu Západného vzdelania a hlavne prvok potrebný na prežitie Západnej civilizácie, pretože len skrze štúdium sme schopní pochopiť, ako niečo také ako západná civilizácia mohlo vzniknúť a čo sú jej základné hodnoty, na ktorých stojí.
Dawson už v roku 1961 hovorí, že myseľ študenta je preťažená a omráčená množstvom nového poznania, ktoré sa zhromažďuje prácou špecialistov, zatiaľ čo potreba využitia vzdelania ako prvý krok k dobrej kariére mu zas nenecháva žiaden čas na zastavenie a premýšľanie. Rovnako sú na tom aj učitelia, ktorí sa stali štátnymi pracovníkmi, spútaní rutinou, nad ktorou nemajú takmer žiadnu kontrolu. Nie je vari toto problém dnešného školstva aj u nás? Dawson o tom písal už pred 60 rokmi. Najväčším nebezpečenstvom pre západne vzdelanie je podľa Dawsona štátom riadené a ovládané školstvo.
Pretože Dawson považuje štúdium kresťanskej kultúry za chýbajúci prvok, esenciálny pre podporu Západného vzdelania a hlavne prvok potrebný na prežitie Západnej civilizácie, pretože len skrze štúdium sme schopní pochopiť, ako niečo také ako západná civilizácia mohlo vzniknúť a čo sú jej základné hodnoty, na ktorých stojí.
Dawson už v roku 1961 hovorí, že myseľ študenta je preťažená a omráčená množstvom nového poznania, ktoré sa zhromažďuje prácou špecialistov, zatiaľ čo potreba využitia vzdelania ako prvý krok k dobrej kariére mu zas nenecháva žiaden čas na zastavenie a premýšľanie. Rovnako sú na tom aj učitelia, ktorí sa stali štátnymi pracovníkmi, spútaní rutinou, nad ktorou nemajú takmer žiadnu kontrolu. Nie je vari toto problém dnešného školstva aj u nás? Dawson o tom písal už pred 60 rokmi. Najväčším nebezpečenstvom pre západne vzdelanie je podľa Dawsona štátom riadené a ovládané školstvo.
April 7, 2011
Dawson does a good, if introductory, job of dealing with the problem in modern western education. He traces this problem, crisis and decline to the abandonment of the great works and the Western Canon. The book isn't so much a lament of this problem, or of whining that his favorite books don't get taught anymore. Its really more of a calm, reasoned explanation about what these Great Works actually do to a person's character, and to their culture. As a Catholic, Dawson also views this educational decline as partly the result of gradually shifting away from a Christian culture. Good stuff.
Want to read
December 14, 2009Recommended by James Schall in Another Sort of Learning, Chapter 5, as one of Three Books on Education.
Recommended by James Schall in Another Sort of Learning, Chapter 20, as one of Ten Books on the Humanities.
Recommended by James Schall in Another Sort of Learning, Chapter 20, as one of Ten Books on the Humanities.
November 15, 2016
DAWSON is always very worthwhile. In modern terms, he holds all the wrong views. A great defender of Christian culture and education.
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December 25, 2013Clear, interesting, illuminating. If I am ever a teacher, this is one to re-read and master.
February 28, 2014
Prophetic and enlightening. A must read for anyone in the educational field.
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