Education at the Crossroads

Jacques Maritain

Yale University Press, Jan 1, 1943 - Education - 120 pages

"A document of first-rate importance. . . . Sheer informed common sense. . . . This volume should be compulsory reading for all, whatever their religious beliefs or disbeliefs, who want light on the nature and place of education in our democratic society."--The Yale Review

One of the most eminent Catholic philosophers of our time explores the American system of education. Jacques Maritain believes that education must be based on the Christian idea of the individual being "more a whole than a part, and more independent than servile." In his view education is concerned with "making a man"--a person with "deep-rooted independence with regard to common opinion." This book is devoted to discovering how that can come about.

Contents

• PREFACE: 1
• The Paradoxes of Education: 22
• THE DYNAMICS OF EDUCATION: 29

About the author

T. S. Eliot once called Jacques Maritain "the most conspicuous figure and probably the most powerful force in contemporary philosophy." His wife and devoted intellectual companion, Raissa Maritain, was of Jewish descent but joined the Catholic church with him in 1906. Maritain studied under Henri Bergson but was dissatisfied with his teacher's philosophy, eventually finding certainty in the system of St. Thomas Aquinas. He lectured widely in Europe and in North and South America, and lived and taught in New York during World War II. Appointed French ambassador to the Vatican in 1945, he resigned in 1948 to teach philosophy at Princeton University, where he remained until his retirement in 1953. He was prominent in the Catholic intellectual resurgence, with a keen perception of modern French literature. Although Maritain regarded metaphysics as central to civilization and metaphysically his position was Thomism, he took full measure of the intellectual currents of his time and articulated a resilient and vital Thomism, applying the principles of scholasticism to contemporary issues. In 1963, Maritain was honored by the French literary world with the national Grand Prize for letters. He learned of the award at his retreat in a small monastery near Toulouse where he had been living in ascetic retirement for some years. In 1967, the publication of "The Peasant of the Garonne" disturbed the French Roman Catholic world. In it, Maritain attacked the "neo-modernism" that he had seen developing in the church in recent decades, especially since the Second Vatican Council. According to Jaroslav Pelikan, writing in the Saturday Review of Literature, "He laments that in avant-garde Roman Catholic theology today he can 'read nothing about the redeeming sacrifice or the merits of the Passion.' In his interpretation, the whole of the Christian tradition has identified redemption with the sacrifice of the cross. But now, all of that is being discarded, along with the idea of hell, the doctrine of creation out of nothing, the infancy narratives of the Gospels, and belief in the immortality of the human soul." Maritain's wife, Raissa, also distinguished herself as a philosophical author and poet. The project of publishing Oeuvres Completes of Jacques and Raissa Maritain has been in progress since 1982, with seven volumes now in print.

Bibliographic information

• Title: Education at the Crossroads; The Terry Lectures Series
• Author: Jacques Maritain
• Edition: unabridged
• Publisher: Yale University Press, 1943
• ISBN: 0300001630, 9780300001631
• Length: 120 pages
• Subjects: Education / General