Do you remember learning how the monasteries saved Western civilization by preserving the wisdom of Greece and Rome as the barbarians took over Europe?

Well, to Jay Schalin, the monasteries are here again, ready to “save academia from itself.” In his new report, “Renewal in the University: How Academic Centers Restore the Spirit of Inquiry,” Schalin discusses the appearance of privately funded institutes that preserve the traditional perspectives that were once common in academia—in fact, they were once what universities were all about.

Here are a few of them: the Ashbrook Center at Ashland University, the James Madison Program at Princeton, the Alexander Hamilton Institute (near but not on the campus of Hamilton College), Clemson University’s Center for the Study of Capitalism, the Tocqueville Center at Furman University–and on and on! It’s very good news (which is rare in higher education today).

Schalin discusses the report on the Pope Center site today and will be a panelist in a public forum on the subject jointly sponsored by the Cato Institute and the Pope Center on February 5 in Washington, D.C.