Humanism and Education

In “Humanism and Education” (Chalcedon Report No. 54), Rushdoony argues that modern vandalism, campus unrest, and the collapse of public education are not random social failures but the visible signs of a dying religion—humanism—which once enthroned man as god and the state school as his church. He traces this faith to Horace Mann’s belief that public education could save society and usher in a utopia, a promise disproven by rising crime, cultural decay, and deep hatred toward schools and educators, now attacked by humanism’s own children. As humanism fails to deliver peace, moral order, or meaning, its institutions—schools, universities, churches, economies, and even paper money—enter crisis and disintegration. In contrast, Rushdoony presents Christian education as evidence of new growth amid destruction: men of living faith build rather than burn. He warns against trying to restore dying orders, as Stilicho and Theoderic did with Rome, and calls Christians instead to reconstruction under Christ’s lordship, declaring that the future belongs not to man-centered systems but to the sovereign and living God, whose authority alone can give meaning, stability, and renewal to history.