The Crisis of Western Education (The Works of Christopher Dawson)

Introduction

vii Introduction Glenn W. olsen Christopher dawson (1889–1970) was of such reputation that when harvard university established the Chauncey stillman Chair of roman Catholic studies, he was chosen as its first occupant (1958–62). Before teaching at harvard, dawson, an english convert to Catholicism, had not previously visited the united states. a mature scholar in his sixties, by this time he had published many books and articles on a wide range of topics, but he was best known for a series of books on the role of religion in world history. While at harvard he was sometimes asked for his opinion of american education and its prospects, especially of american Catholic education. one result was the present book, published first in 1961 and periodically republished since that time. This book was addressed to all who were interested in the reform of education and was praised by many non-Catholics. on the one hand, dawson thought the prospects for educational reform particularly promising in the united states; on the other he saw serious problems that would have to be overcome. dawson’s analysis began with an overview of the history of education . he immediately advances one of his basic themes, “enculturation .” The idea that culture is embodied religion runs through dawson ’s writings. according to this view, every culture in its origins has religion at its center, and we may speak of culture as a kind of enfleshment of religion over time. Culture is the sum of the ways in which some religion becomes embodied in material forms and patterns of life. education then is the means by which this social inheritance is communicated to the young, enculturating them in it. it is both “high” and “low,” both idea and folkway. from the ancient world through the enlightenment, formal educa- tion was a privilege of the few, but all were in some sense educated, that is, enculturated, typically through tradition, some form of apprenticeship , religion, or art. More specialized education usually depends on literacy, and in the ancient world literate minorities appeared, engaged in the preservation and advance of their cultures. in Greece education took the form of “liberal education,” the education suited to a free citizen , which prepares him for participation in civic life. This centered on the arts of speech and persuasion. The full union of Greek philosophic culture and an emerging Christian body of thought only was to be found in Byzantium in the early Middle ages, but in the West, exemplified by King alfred of Wessex (the Great, 849–99) there appeared the ideal of a vernacular lay education for all men. Though for centuries education remained largely clerical, from deep in the Middle ages dawson offered in alfred an example of a body of Christian writings, going beyond the Bible, which could stand at the core of a Christian program of study. dawson ’s larger view was that the basic subject of historical study should be “culture,” and that the task of the historian is to show how cultures form, develop a comprehensive world view or form, are carried over time and space to others, and then decline or retreat before some new rising culture.1 dawson, much influenced by anthropology and sociology , thought too much labor had been expended on historical narratives that centered on great figures and events at the expense of the usually slow development of culture. in the case of Christianity, there had been surprisingly little awareness that Christian culture, a new form of culture, had succeeded the various cultures before it, Jewish, Greek, roman, German, and others. in essence, what already alfred in the ninth century saw was that this new Christian culture should be taught to the young, just as Greeks had had to be taught their culture in order to form an identity and pass their culture on to others. alfred’s list of “Christian classics” leaned to the historical and what later would be called “natural theology,” and this in itself was remarkable, presenting as it did an alternative to the inherited antique curriculum centered on grammar and rhetoric. 1. on the idea of cultural form, see my “Why We need Christopher dawson,” Communio : International Catholic Review 35 (2008): 115–44. viii The Crisis of Western Education dawson knew that alfred’s program of studies was an isolated proposal that had had little influence. in alfred’s day the immediate future lay still with monastic...