From the Academy

In the professional journals of education nowadays, some sober writers suggest that the concept and the reality of an allembracing system of state primary and secondary schools may be in its sere and yellow leaf. Tom by disputes over racial integration, controversies about religious instruction, demands for local and ethnic autonomy, ideological passions, and the violent rebellion of many pupils, the public school systems have become almost impossible to administer. John Dewey’s march toward the “democratic humanist” Zion has been mired in the blackboard jungle.

At the same time, however, private and parochial schools have their backs to the wall, what with diminishing sources of income, rising costs and (in Catholic schools) the dwindling of teaching orders. Many such schools have ceased to exist during the past three years.

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Russell Kirk

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In the professional journals of education nowadays, some sober writers suggest that the concept and the reality of an allembracing system of state primary and secondary schools may be in its sere and yellow leaf. Tom by disputes over racial integration, controversies about religious instruction, demands for local and ethnic autonomy, ideological passions, and the violent rebellion of many pupils, the public school systems have become almost impossible to administer. John Dewey’s march toward the “democratic humanist” Zion has been mired in the blackboard jungle.

At the same time, however, private and parochial schools have their backs to the wall, what with diminishing sources of income, rising costs and (in Catholic schools) the dwindling of teaching orders. Many such schools have ceased to exist during the past three years.