Abstract

In The Peasant of the Garonne, Maritain criticizes the substitution of the simple word “common” for the pretentious word “communitarian,” remarking that “common is the right word; ‘communitarian’ is, in the present instance, a bastard word in which one find only [sic] because it sounds social-minded.” This example of the trend imperium that is modern education, using words to lead away from truth and toward desire, away from the common things of man and toward the private fancies of men, is the pernicious path that Western education has been negotiating since Maritain’s time, when he first mapped out its crossroads. The inspiration for and thematic center of this collection of essays is the Yale University Terry Lectures of Jacques Maritain published in 1943 as Education at the Crossroads. Since this time higher education has traveled much farther down the dark path of sophistry, specialization, naturalism, and pragmatism. To turn us back to the crossroads is the intention of these writers, using St. Thomas and Jacques Maritain as guides.