On Nineteenth Century Christian Education Innovators
Yesterday the latest episode of Acton Line was released: ‘Education for a Free Society’. In it my colleague Dylan Pahman and I unpack what it means to educate for a free and virtuous society. We examine nineteenth century efforts by St. John Henry Newman, F.D. Maurice, and Abraham Kuyper to build new educational institutions in a distinctly Christian way.
These were fascinating experiments during the period of history when the contemporary university system begins to take shape.
One thing that is mentioned, suggested, and alluded to throughout the podcast in explicit, implicit, and oblique ways is that while the institutions Newman, Maurice, and Kuyper founded have survived in some form these are very different kinds of institutions today.
They are much less distinct from other universities today than they were during their founding. There are books yet to be written on these transitions.
The model that they each embraced by this—our twenty-first century—is in crisis.
Each original founding vision contains the potential seeds for renewal and are worth reexamining with new eyes, or at least hear about with new ears.
Enjoy!