We “conservative” higher-education reformers who attempt to convince contemporary society of the imperative to pass on the truth and beauty from the past to subsequent generations might find it invigorating this summer to read a new edition of Josef Pieper’s Tradition: Concept and Claim. The philosopher examines tradition as a concept and dynamic reality in the lives of ordinary human beings. The book’s publisher, the Intercollegiate Studies Institute, has this to say about it:

In the modern world of constant, unrelenting change, tradition, says Pieper, is that which must be preserved unchanged. Drawing on thinkers from Plato to Pascal, Pieper describes the key elements and figures in the act of tradition and what is distinctive about it.
Pieper argues that the handing down of tradition … means accepting something as true and valid with the intent of handing it down again, unmixed with alien intrusions and yet kept alive for each new generation via imaginative reformulations. In the beginning, there is sacred tradition, founded on a revelation of God to man, yet secular tradition is important, too. Tradition offers liberation from the prison of the present … At the same time, it links us to the past and is essential for a meaningful future.